All Over the World

A hush has settled on this house by four in the morning. 8-ball sleeps at my feet, paws folded, making an occasional delicate grunt of happiness if I reach down to pet him. Magic spills a glossy diagonal across my side of the bed. I know if I touch him he will awake, purring, to nuzzle me, walk on my hair, drool lovingly on my pillow, and intermittently poke my face with a velvet-padded paw. (Magic is 100% a Mama’s boy and also just a teensy bit thick, as they say.) Across the hall, a single orange paw and rumpled tail show where Amber has bedded down for the night in the cat condo.

My husband breaths quietly beside me, and the only other sound is the quiet suserration of an ocean sounds CD by my husband’s pillow. Outside, a glimpse of Christmas Town beckons from across the cul-de-sac, where our neighbors, both Wal-Mart employees, have installed every purchasable holiday fantasia in an ongoing spirit of keeping American consumerism and the feng shui of Snoopy’s doghouse alive. And yet, at this hour and across this distance, the 8-foot blow-up snowmen and tinsel-bedecked caravan of shimmering packages look both fantastical and somehow even lovely amid their twinkle of festive lights.

In spite of the unlikeliness of the hour, my brain has decided I’m done sleeping for the night. Might as well get up and read in the pre-dawn stillness. Today, I am finishing About a Boy, in order to fulfill a request for holiday theme reviews and secure my rights, per Hannah's DVD blog, to the Good Ol' Virginia Killer Egg Nog recipe. Thanks to Hannah’s eloquence, I am sure THE recipe will change my life, or at least significantly alter a worthwhile percentage of holiday evenings, so here goes.

Professional rebound-guy and incurable fantasist Will Freeman has made a career of avoiding committed relationships. (“We always thought you had hidden depths,” his friends say. “No,” says Will. “I really am this shallow.”) To facilitate his quest to meet attractive but lonely ladies, Will invents a two-year-old son and joins a group called SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together). “Children democratize beautiful single women,” Will theorizes, thereby making them more likely to date do-nothings like himself. But instead of the blissful series of brief but uplifting encounters he imagines springing from his new parental persona—curiously, Will sees his half-truths and fantasies as a harmless way to meet and provide interim solace to jaded women on their way to their next real relationship—Will finds himself making an unlikely friend of 12-year-old uber-geek Marcus. As the consequences of Will’s fictionalized fatherhood begins to catch up with him (note, concepts like cause-and-effect and speculation beyond tomorrow’s lunch do not appear among Will’s strengths), Will finds he has as much to learn from Marcus about family, honesty, and caring as Marcus has to learn from him about being cool.

Iffy and potentially clichéd as the above scenario may sound, About a Boy has a certain charm. Yes, Will embodies an extreme version of the oft-cited male capacity for avoiding any discussion around or expression of ucky relationship stuff. Still, as in his earlier novel High Fidelity, author Nick Hornby has a knack for capturing the quirks and foibles of modern mid-‘90s relationships, both those that are a product of, in ‘90s lingo, the Mars/Venus rift, and those arising from a second generation of “hippie” idealists at odds with a self-avowed Me generation, and making them feel deeply personal. (The scenes, for example, where Will begins to feel at home at Marcus’ family’s geeky Christmas gathering are priceless.*) In spite of—perhaps because of— flaws, his characters are understandable, even unlikable: even when they mess up royally, we can’t help but root for them.

On the other side of the afore-mentioned Mars/Venus rift, Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’s Diary spans a single year, from Christmas to Christmas, in the life of 30-something “singleton” Bridget Jones on her permanent quest to both form a functional f***wittage-free relationship and lose 20 pounds. As good a revisionist version of Jane Austen as I’ve seen, Bridget Jones is uninhibited, laugh-out-loud funny, and a rockin’ good retelling of Pride and Prejudice with modern twists throughout. The generation of women who love the BBC Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth will find much to relate to in this feel-good holiday read, including (you guessed it) a hero named Darcy, a silly, flighty mum in the spirit of Mrs. Bennett and Lydia rolled into one, plenty of social satire, and a healthy post-modern touch of self-reflexive humor, since Bridget herself is a fan of the BBC’s Firth-fest. “It struck me as being pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party,” Jones muses on meeting her Mr. Darcy. “It’s like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden shouting ‘Cathy’ and banging your head on a tree.”

One word of advice on Bridget Jones, though. Don’t read this book if you are on a serious diet. Not only will Bridget’s occasional (justified, of course) 4,000 calorie binge days make you feel okay about breaking your diet, you will find yourself possessed of an undeniable soul-searching emptiness that can only be filled by chocolate croissants.

So, Hannah, what do you say? Enough to make you hand over the recipe? It’s nearly the New Year, and there’s partying to be had! Just don't forget you are always invited.

**Watching the film version of About a Boy, my husband—NOT, I should point out, a geek—was particularly struck by the holiday party scenes with Marcus' geek family. "I can relate," he remarked drily... but also fondly. We geeks are a pleasant lot, after all.

8-Ball's Cabin Fever

What’s on your pet's reading list this Christmas? Let me know your feline and canine fictional favorites.

Just as I was beginning to really groove on the idea of having a moat around the ol’ castle, the waters receded and we are once again able to venture out into the yard—that is, if we don’t mind sinking an inch or six. With this newfound freedom after five long days of being first snow- and then monsoon-bound, 8-ball—whom you may remember from my previous post as our resident Boston Terrier-in-cat’s-clothing—immediately ventured forth in spite of a lifelong fear of alligators, bog critters, unfamiliar noises, and people he doesn’t know, only to return posthaste to leave muddy cat-prints all over the hall, dining room, bedroom, kitchen, and foyer. Ah, the joys of pet "ownership."

8-ball’s speedy retreat to the comforts of hearth and home belies a tortuous five days of feline cabin fever, spent first gazing in rapt fascination at snowflakes the size of golf balls, later shifting his stare accusingly from the sheeting rain to the ineffectual human denizens of the household who proved inexplicably errant in halting the deluge, and finally scampering hurriedly to the nearest lap at the first sound of knees creaking into a seated posture. During this time, 8-ball ventured out only once, and then only to determine once and for all that snow is (a) wet, (b) cold, and (c) kinda scary.

The bulk of his weather-bound captivity (when not staring pointedly at the catnip box, jumping on the kitchen counter for attention, or biting his brother Magic's neck—also for attention—and hanging on like a very determined rat terrier with a really juicy rat*) was spent rolling playfully, all four legs akimbo, on whatever either my husband or I happened to be reading/doing at the time. (It should be noted that in spite of a considerable amount of time spent strolling across computer keyboards, 8-ball has proven completely incapable of randomly producing Hamlet.) With so much time spent around books, newspapers, and computers, though, it’s only natural that 8-ball picked up a few favorites:

Three Stories to Read to Your Cat and Three Stories to Read to Your Dog. The beauty of these wonderful little volumes by Sara Swan Miller is their inherent cattiness and dogginess. If cats and dogs could write stories, this is what they’d write. (8-ball’s rating: 5 stars for subject matter that appeals to cats.)

Walter, the Farting Dog. OK, it’s not exactly Finnegan’s Wake, but James Joyce might well approve of William Kotzwinkle’s tale of a gas-plagued pooch (not to mention its numerous scatological sequels) with surreal illustrations by Audrey Coleman, focusing largely on the gust of wind from Walter’s backside. Rest assured anyone under the age of five will be laughing out loud. (8-ball’s rating: 5 stars for accurate depiction of people’s extreme over-reaction to dropping a harmless biscuit or two. Constance's rating: Er...)

Magic Thinks Big, by Elisha Cooper. A testament to the power of imagination, solid and contemplative tabby Magic debates whether to go outside or stay indoors in this charmingly illustrated tale of the meditative power of cats. (8-ball’s rating: 4 stars for providing a potentially viable wishlist of “42 Things [8-ball] Might Want to Do This Year.” Minus 1 star for naming the cat Magic, instead of 8-ball. See earlier comments on Magic.)

Desser, the Best Ever Cat, by Maggie Smith. OK, maybe it’s not 8-ball’s favorite, but it is mine. An invitingly-illustrated tribute to the lifelong friendships between people and pets, Smith’s tale recounts the joy of growing up with a beloved pet. On a more solemn note, it also provides a thoughtful handling of the grief that accompanies that pet’s loss in old age. A thoughtful and reassuring story for children (or adults) coping with grief, Desser serves as a wonderful reminder of the unconditional love and companionship pets bring us throughout our lives. (8-ball’s rating: 5 stars because Desser looks like 8-ball and is the center of attention, which is as it should be. Constance’s rating: Desser, the Best EVER Cat Book.) .

The essense of cat nature: Illustration page from Desser, the Best Ever Cat

*Magic, being larger, solider, and more lethargic, generally ignores such vampire-inspired tactics, preferring instead to wait with Gandhi-like patientce for someone to come pry 8-ball off. Many are the mornings I emerge from the shower to find 8-Ball and Magic locked in tableaux.

Welcome to the Bog

Yes, that's right, I said bog, not—as one might have expected given my usual inclination towards puerile punning at any price—blog.

As torrential rainfall has sent library staff and patrons home early and turned my usually pleasant backyard into a fascinatingly squelchy bogland from which I expect at any moment to see water moccasins and alligators rise, I simply haven't the heart to write about any subject more watery than a large blended and therefore water-(in the form of ice, that is)-filled margarita. Wish I had one, but I don't.

Hence, the lack of promised desert island books, and instead a brief exploration and exceptionally-limited bit of commentary on YouTube (which I must say rather let me down on good bog videos). In short, I am not a big fan of this particular time-sucking vaccuum, but more power to its users and viewers if they are indeed bringing about social and political change with a medium that barrages its fan base with dozens (hundreds?) of untalented, uninteresting, and frequently irrelevant video entries for every search. Yeesh, my attention span is too short for this! Maybe I am a product of the MTV generation, but I can't sit through even one minute of most of these five to eight minute pieces. I have better things to do.

That said, I fully acknowledge that YouTube has created some media stars, sometimes even because said individuals are talented or actually have something important to share with the world. Happily, many, many clips are short, to-the-point, and even dare-I-say funny, and therefore of some value that apparently-humorless individuals like myself don't truly understand or appreciate (seemingly at least, given my impassioned anti-tube rant of mere moments ago).

However, to prove my point on the laugh quotient and show that I do indeed have a sense of humor, I invite you to enjoy a brief YouTube video that embodies my husband's usual morning wake-up call using the all-natural feline alarm clock. I am happy to report this is not my regular wake-up experience, as I rise before the drama begins, and besides our cats know such guerrilla tactics don't work on someone who sleeps with a special pillow for putting over her head at moments like these.



More of a dog person? The following video has made me rethink my belief that my husband and I should get a Boston Terrier as an attractively well-matched companion for our cat 8-ball:



On a related side note, I am more than half convinced that 8-ball is a rather poorly disguised Boston Terrier. (For more pictures of 8-ball at work and play, check out my side bar.)

As final proof that I put some time into this assignment, I offer the following tidbits on Kitsap Regional Library's infamous salmon video by commending the creative use of Jaws music in the soundtrack and Rory's very fine preference of Classic over other forms of Coke.

LibraryThing! You Make My Heart Sing

As I set out on the next leg of my quest for library 2.0 literacy, it has occurred to me that our library’s leadership may have a lot to thank my husband for. For instance, he has been known, on those rare and special occasions when I am being particularly annoying or whiny at home, to encourage me to blog by gently suggesting I go do my “library thing.”

Yes, there it is, folks, that’s this week’s limpid segue into the realms of krl2pt0.

I am not going to sing the praises of the many beguiling applications unique to LibraryThing. I’ll let you discover whatever particular charms it may have for you through your own explorations. I will, however, because I am not a totally mean person, tell you of its potential and immediate lures for the likes of moi. If, like me, you are one of those people who checks out more library books than you actually have time to read, you may find a parallel allure in the world of LibraryThing.

LibraryThing strikes me as uniquely suited to making long lists of books and grouping them with simple (and easily edited) tags that alert you as to why you placed those particular books on your list in the first place. For me, this appeal is primarily in the realm of “books I’d like to read” which usually aggregate in randomly penned notes in betwixt calendar pages, on the backs of bookmarks, and scattered throughout the pages of my journal. If these hastily scrawled notes (or at least the books they represent) do not make it into my library holds (all of which subsequently—and annoyingly—arrive at the same time), the papers themselves are usually lost to the winds of time, sometimes with the precise authors and titles irretrievably and tantalizingly mired in the specially fossilizing information tarpits of my mind, never to be seen or clearly remembered again.

LibraryThing offers an alternative that actually betters the Amazon wishlist by allowing you to tag your booklist with descriptors that you can easily change as books move from wishlist status to read, and then voila! You have that list of books you’ve read that we in the library world are so often encouraged to keep. Following that, you can post reviews, join discussion groups, peruse readers’ reviews, and even get suggestions based on what you’ve tagged and purportedly enjoyed. Not too different in some ways from Amazon (or from its movie equivalent Netflix), only without the sales impetus and the industry reviews, and with a more dynamic social networking aspect. No fear, though, the LibraryThing site links to the Library of Congress and to Amazon, so if you want to go to Amazon and dredge up industry reviews, you can.

On a final note, LibraryThing offers a great tool for library or readers advisory bloggers, the ubiquitous LibraryThing widget. The widget allows you to REALLY EASILY (praise the krl2pt0 powers-that-be for finally giving me an assignment I could actually, as opposed to theoretically, do in half an hour, not counting the blog time) add a link on your blog site to any grouping of books on your booklist, based on tags, random selection, or recent additions to your LibraryThing queue.


That said, slide your eyes up a notch and you will see two book jackets and one audiobook cover (all with a desert island theme) with links powered by LibraryThing widgetry. This particular selection is inspired by KRL media buyer John Fossett’s blog on that classic game of Desert Island Discs and serves as a lead in to my next blog entry, in which I will dish up my own literary take on the subject. Until then, I fully expect you to be thinking of what books you’d want to have along if you were stranded on a desert island. I mean it. I want to hear from you.

Literary Feasts: Words to be Thankful for

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. ~Harper Lee

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder

On the eve of this most American of holidays, I invite you to enjoy one of our most American of writers laureate, Louisa May Alcott, with her funny and festive holiday tale, An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, presented in its entirety at this link. An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving is story of the seven Bassett children's adventures, peccadillos, and final heart-warming "success" (the success may be a bit qualified in terms of actual flavor) in preparing the family's Thanksgiving meal, after Mom and Dad head out to nurse their ailing Grandmother. Whether shared before or after your holiday's more bountiful festivities, this engaging country story makes a perfect family read.

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.~ H. U. Westermayer

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments. ~Mark Twain

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving

The return of Megzilla

It's been a busy week, getting ready for Thanksgiving, and a long time since we've heard from Megzilla. Given that, I thought I'd share something that always makes me thankful: Megzilla and her adorable litter mates, Sigma, Rho, and Psi (the three "siameses"), and angelic tabby Delta Pi. You just don't get cuter than that. Enjoy the slideshow.

Please check out my updated November 9 blog entry, as well. There, you will find another slide show (a lot less cute, let me tell you now) and a picture of my husband with a goat. That's right. A goat. Come on, you know you'll have to look now.

Flickr... or Fade?

Why leave a legacy when you can share your photos today?

What do you think happens to archived blogs? Do they float out there in cyberspace forever--just waiting for future generations of archeologists and genealogists to crack them open and begin exploring the brightly colored contents of our forgotten lives like so many Easter eggs?

Something tells me that is not the case. Something tells me our blogs, all our carefully collected, scanned, tagged, labelled, and described photos and words could go at any time, like so many Web sites before them, whether by design or by accident. At a recent Interlibrary Loan conference, for example, a Web 2.0 speaker remarked that she had lost all her del.icio.us links at one point, through some internal del.icio.us error. "Be sure and have them backed up," she said. How? I wondered at the time. As bookmarks? Heaven forbid. That would be going backwards. OK. OK. Maybe I'm the Voice of Doom. Or, more accurately, the Snotty, Sarcastic Voice of Doom. Or maybe I just need a new screen identity, blogging persona, nom de blog, or user ID—for next week's assignment: GlassHalfEmptyGirl. Is that taken? Whatever. Read on. It gets more positive towards the end.

Whatever the case, when I explore photo-sharing sites like Flickr, that is what I think about. Flickr, I would propose, is all about today, people, not yesterday, not tomorrow. Sites like these, I think, will come and go, occasionally losing stuff along the way, no doubt. Is that good or is it bad? Who knows? On the one hand, we have access to, and can share, many photos, places, and people we might not otherwise see. I submit, for example, the tale of Cornelius O'Shea's photo album. Cornelius O'Shea is my husband's grandfather, and he kept surprisingly meticulous and beautiful scrapbooks and photoalbums in the 1920s and 1930s, wonderland windows onto worlds with flappers, cross-dressing ladies, vintage ferryboats, family-style roadside diners of yesterday, and some of those honkin' big bad-ass Automobiles that could push upwards of 30 miles per hour. (Cornelius also kept every single speeding ticket he ever got--and there must be at least 50, including personal notes from the local police reminding him not to frighten the neighbors by roaring down the local roads at such breakneck velocities--proving definitively, once-and-for-all, that the need for speed must be genetically passed along the male line.) Anyway, Corny O'Shea's legacy lives in the possession of one person right now, and that person's not really sharing it much. With Flickr all those photos, pages, and even the speeding tickets I suppose could be scanned, posted, and shared with sons and daughters, cousins, sisters, and others who have never seen them or who would like to remember good old Corny, now that he is gone, through his photo collection. Wonderful.

On the flip side of that scenario, I've found Flickr to be rather time intensive. Am I going to have time for scrapbooking-for-posterity if I spend all my time scanning, downloading, titling, and describing my photos online, not to mention figuring out how to navigate Flickr and properly tag, create sets, and group my photos? Actually... the answer to that could be yes, although a firm and resounding way-cool would require a lot more investigation (that probably isn't going to happen) on my part. However, aside from the obvious stack of photos, files on your hard drive, and back-up disk (just wait, they'll probably replace the technology that gave you that disk, and then it'll be obsolete, too), Flickr appears to offer some interesting options for packaging your online photo albums into books, cards, and more. You may decide to explore it further, but whatever you decide to do, be sure and back up your materials, lest we all become ghosts in the machine.

P.S. In case you are wondering about the photo of the young man with the goat that heads up this blog entry, in the spirit of keeping alive the legacy at least of Cornelius O'Shea, that is my husband at about age 10 with his goat Sundance. As long as I was on the subject of photos—lost in the void of cyberspace or otherwise—I thought I would throw this one to the winds of posterity, and see what happened. No special reason. I just like this photo and have no other venue for sharing it. I should add that I always knew if I ever got married I would marry a man who loved animals. And I did. If you are really a sucker for romantic stories, ask me about me about that one some day. For now, I invite you to view photos of our wedding day on Flickr. Please be kind and bear in mind we went from work to wedding that day. No time to have my hair done and all that frilly stuff: Wedding of the century—NOT

Invasion of the Podcasters

For those of us who grew up with stories like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the word “podcast” has an ominous tone. I mean, think about it for a second. Roll the words slowly and majestically off your tongue. Podcast. Pod people. Now ask yourself who’s making all those podcasts out there. Kind of gives you a Twilight Zone feeling doesn’t it? And I’m just talking about the word. I haven’t even gotten to the content or purpose of podcasting yet. Scary, huh?

Heh, heh. Just kidding. That was kind of mean of me, wasn’t it?

In this day and age, with more and more adults returning to school or engaging in new training programs—whether to advance in their professions or just for the sense of purpose and accomplishment that learning gives—it’s important that educators find ways to accommodate the working adult’s busy schedule in the classroom environment. Podcasts strike me as one viable classroom or lecture alternative (probably best used in conjunction with other learning tools, such as asynchronous classroom forums and assignment blogs) in that they allow individuals to learn at home at the hours most convenient to their schedules—even, potentially, while doing other household chores. Podcasts also help engage different types of learners in an otherwise primarily visual online classroom environment.

Podcasts come in many forms, and—as with audiobooks, if I may say so—much depends on the narrator. Some podcasts, such as PLCMC's 7 1/2 habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners are essentially PowerPoints, with a narrator reading along with and occasionally embellishing on a series of slides. Personally, in the absence of a really engaging presenter, I find this type of podcast rather unappealing, as my tendency is to just read the slides, and then click next while the narrator is still limping placidly forward like a disinterested cow with no collie to herd it towards the barn.

Other podcasts are more like audiobooks or audiojournals, if you will, and these I find much more engaging, as I can cook dinner, clean house, and do dishes while listening. (Ah, multi-tasking is my friend.) Having been charged to find a podcast that interests me, I searched the internet until I found Escape Pod, “The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine” for readers and writers of science fiction. Who knew there was such a thing? Now I can listen to reviews, preview the writing of hot new authors, and even download “podiobooks” to enjoy on my afternoon walk. Will the wonders never cease?