Dim Sum Diaries
  • The Book Design Review Blog's picks for the best book design covers of the year.

  • Best Literature Blog Competition via 2007 Weblogs Award. Interesting to peruse the links, such as Neil Gaiman's blog and Pepys' Diary! First heard about Pepys reading Helene Hanff's books as something to look into in my spare time. Apparently the totality of Pepys' diaries fill volumes and volumes and can fill an entire library, rather like buying a whole set of encyclopedias. Well Pepys' lived in the 1600's and he is dead, how can he blog you ask? Well someone is awesome enough to repost each diary entry per day. I'll have to check out the rest of the blogs when I get a chance.

  • I'm so buying this for Hubby for Christmas.
Thanksgiving Day is approaching, to me, at the speed of light. Bloody hell...next week already! This year I am taking it easy and having it catered. All I have to do is pick it up the night before from Mimi's Cafe and heat it up. So yay for that!

So first I want to say that November 11, 2007 was Hubby and my 12th year wedding anniversary. I love you very much and I can't believe we've put up with each other for so long! We did celebrate the anniversary by going on vacation to Vermont last month, so the actual celebration day was pretty low key. We went to Panera w/ the kids for lunch. Luckily (for who you can guess) there was a Lowe's Hardware store conveniently located next door. I zipped in and did my "ohhoneyweneedtoredothekidsbathroomletsjustpickupsomestuff" spiel, and we picked out new tile, paint and such. Hubby was "persuaded" to redo the kids bathroom this week, ripping out the old carpeting and lino and retiling and repainting the whole shebang a cool sea blue.

And completely off the subject, but makes for interesting reading, "Is Raising Kids a Fool's Game?" "Child rearing is fast becoming a sucker's game. Though the psychic rewards remain, the economic returns to individual parents have largely disappeared, while the cost of parenthood is soaring."

Switching subjects again, here's an interesting confession: I started reading romances back in high school and have been a devoted fan ever since. I think it greatly influenced my view of relationships. The man of my dreams would be a strong hero with a sensitive side, to be there and we would have be the perfect couple. Of course every guy I had a crush on was the perfect guy, noble, ideal, could do no wrong, but when it turned out they weren't, I was like...I don't get it...and then later...oh you mean sex can be done in other ways besides the missionary position described in my beloved romances? But I digress. Suffice to say that after 20 some odd years of reading romances, I AM NOW READY TO MOVE ONTO THE MYSTERY SECTION OF THE BOOKSTORE. This seriously is huge for me. So I did it. I found a book of the mystery genre and I BOUGHT IT AND AM READING IT. AND HERE IT IS:
In The Woods has gotten good reviews and Tana French is an Irish writer (another thing in its favor for me). Publisher's Weekly notes: "Irish author French expertly walks the line between police procedural and psychological thriller in her debut. When Katy Devlin, a 12-year-old girl from Knocknaree, a Dublin suburb, is found murdered at a local archeological dig, Det. Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, must probe deep into the victim's troubled family history. There are chilling similarities between the Devlin murder and the disappearance 20 years before of two children from the same neighborhood who were Ryan's best friends. Only Maddox knows Ryan was involved in the 1984 case. The plot climaxes with a taut interrogation by Maddox of a potential suspect, and the reader is floored by the eventual identity and motives of the killer. A distracting political subplot involves a pending motorway in Knocknaree, but Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma."

Here is an excerpt:

Picture a summer stolen whole from some coming-of-age film set in small-town 1950s. This is non of Ireland's subtle seasons mixed for a connoisseu's palate, watercolor nuances within a pinch-sized range of cloud and soft rain; this is ummer full-throated and extravagant in a hot pure silkscreen blue. This summer explodes on your tongue tasting of chewed blades of long grass, your own clean sweat, Marie biscuits with butter squirting through the holes and shaken bottles of red lemonade picknicked in tree houses. It tingles on your skin with BMX wind in your face, ladybug feet up your arm; it packs every breath full of mown grass and billlowing wash lines; it chimes and fountains with birdcalls, bees, leaves and football-bounces and skipping chants, One! two! three! This summer will never end. It starts every day with a shower of Mr. Whippy notes and your best friend's knock at the door, finishes it with long slow twilight and mothers silhouetted in doorways calling you to come in, through the bats shrilling among the black lace trees. This is Everysummer decked in all its best glory...

Move closer, follow the three children scrambling over the thin membrane of brick and mortar that holds the wood back from the semi-ds...

...These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer. this August will not ask them to find hidden reserves of strength and courage as the confront the complexity of the adult world and come away sadder and wiser and bonded for life. This summer has other requirements for them.


Chilling!
Just found a new humor blog that I really enjoy, in particular this post (JCPennys Fashion from 1977).
Holy crap it's November!

The upcoming onslaught of holiday frenzy makes me type faster. Way faster. And work more to pay the bills. Try to spend more time with son reading to him, working with him on his piano. Remember to reserve free-range organic turkey early and also the Honey-Baked ham for Turkey Day. Make sure I'm spending enough time with daughter. Worry that I'm not neglecting my parents. Maybe I should visit them this weekend, but then my car tire is flatish and Hubby needs to get tire sealant to fix it otherwise if I take the damn car to Costco I to get a new tire I bet they insist I buy 4 tires to "ensure even wear" or some such crap. And I bought some tickets at the Ahmanson in LA to see some shows but I'm pretty sure I missed one already because I've been so distracted. I forgot to give Mother-in-Law her maple syrup and hanging VT spoon. I gotta balance the checkbook too.......

Yeah that's what I'm thinking about at any given moment. Craziness!

Things of Interest Today:

--Joel Turnipseed, the author of Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir has his own blog. It was a book I thoroughly enjoyed and you always wonder what happens to authors who write a book about themselves (it does well) and then what? Well he got himself a blog and he's also guest blogging on Kottke this week. So that's pretty cool.

--I got this from Defective Yeti...remember this video from A-Ha? I've always loved it and 20 years later it's still brilliant:



More later!