health and stuff

I got a little postcard back from my doctor visit with all kinds of happy news on it. I, dear readers, am a super healthy overweight person! Just the weight to work on now since all my percentages, pressures, and levels are above average on a scale of goodness. I even got a smiley face from the lab people, how often does that happen? It's a first for me!

So, yesterday morning I came back to my office and I had a voice mail from the alarm company. Someone broke into my house via the prominent front at 9:15 on a Wednesday morning not 20 feet from a main road. I had been at work for one hour. So, I turned around and made the trip back home. Nothing was missing so apparently they bailed immediately after crowbaring the door open when the alarm went off. Yay for alarms! Dad is coming over this afternoon with a semi-homemade device to deter any future crowbarers and by all accounts, it sounds good and industrial. If it is also photogenic, I'll share!

On a more pissy note, the sherriff asked me if it was possible that I had not secured my door properly that morning. "Yes, Officer. I always set the alarm and leave the front door open. It's so festive." He also asked me if the crowbar marks were on the door previously. Like you do. But, I do want them to respond if I need them in the future so I answered all of his questions very politely and thanked him for his time. What else can you do?

Gotta run, it's lunch time!

I am in an American Girl store, in the middle of a mildly Hannah Montana-ish atmosphere. Give me strength.

Lisa scottline ROCKS! Funny, sharp, aserbic (sp?), and spot on!

Okay KT, I admit it. Neil Gaiman IS kinda cute...and this banquet is kinda loooong...

Cool! I set up my phone to make blog posts! I will do my best to not turn this into a bastard version of Twitter ;-)
I'm off to Chicago in the morning!

Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster

Pretty in Plaid is Jen Lancaster’s memoir of family, frivolity, and fraternity little sisters in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. She shares her early girlhood, high school years, way too much college information, and early career.

Pretty in Plaid indeed. I wanted to love this and I did for quite a ways until the huge chunk on college/sorority life. If you are a sorority girl, good for you. I never saw the attraction and this book made me retrospectively sad that I didn’t do more to make fun of the few friends I had in college who chose a similar path for themselves.

I loved the smart ass little girl and young adult, laughed at the clueless early 20’s Jen, and cringed with Jen during her 30’s. She seems like someone I could hang out with as long as she doesn’t ask me which house I pledged. I will definitely pick up her other books: Bitter Is the New Black; Bright Lights, Big Ass; and Such a Pretty Fat. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, you might even sniffle a time or two.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

The World Without Us is apparently going to be a wild and crazy place. Seriously, I’m not on a fatalistic streak or anything (since I don’t consider this type of book to be fatalistic anyway) but the genre book group I lead at work discussed dystopian fiction last month and I thought this would be a great companion piece. I was right!

Things I took away from this book:

New York City is apparently only a few broken pumps with no repairs in sight and 30 minutes from beginning to sink back into the swamp it arose from. Keep working guys!

Our pets won’t last much longer than we do, except for the cats, which are in turn wiping out the songbird population. (Binky doesn’t count as she is an indoor kitty.)

Chernobyl is home to wildlife again.

Empty swimming pools can really stink.

The world’s oceans are full of tiny specks of plastic. FULL.

There is a group advocating for voluntary human extinction, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

So, if you don’t want to hear about waste disposal, global warming, climatic cycles, food shortages, forest/wildlife habitat destruction, general woe, don’t bother with the book. If you do, don’t complain to me. I like to read and be aware of all possibilities. So should we all.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It is written in diary form by 15 year old Miranda. Her life seems average with friends, sports, class frustrations, and college worries. She briefly mentions a news report about an asteroid hitting the moon, but it’s nothing serious. In fact, there are viewing parties planned and her teachers have taken ALL the fun out of it with tons of moon-themed assignments. The night arrives and it’s actually kind of exciting until the screaming starts. It turns out that the astronomers vastly underestimated the density of the asteroid and after impact the moon begins to grow larger in the sky until collision seems a distinct possibility. Almost immediately the consequences of the moon’s nearness begin to manifest themselves and Miranda rightly fears that her life will never be the same.

I love dystopian fiction. There, I’ve said it. Even though Miranda’s near constant mantra of “How can things get any worse?” got on my nerves a bit (Really. I thought everyone knows never to ask that question…) I have to imagine that many in her position would say the same. The dialog was great and I thought the sequence of events flowed naturally and realistically. This is the first in a trilogy and I’m eagerly looking forward to the second, The Dead and the Gone, when I finish this crazy month of July!

I am a Big Loser!

yay! I won the 12-week contest, losing 10% of my body weight! As if that were not enough, I also got $75 :-)

Now to just keep going! I saw my doctor for the first time in about 18 months and to say he was pleased is a vast understatement. I believe I could very nearly have seen a cheer routine with only a little encouragement but I chose to let him keep his dignity intact :-) I weigh over 60 pounds less than the last time I saw him and my blood pressure was 123/80. I am a calm individual :-)

Independence Day!

In short order I will be liberating myself from the library for 3 whole days! I have lots of plans with lots of friends and I hope you do too! Have fun, be safe, and if you can't be good, be good at it!