A Bride In the Bargain by Deeanne Gist

Joe Denton settled in the Seattle territory because they were giving away 640 acres to married men. Unfortunately, his wife died before she could travel out to the beautiful house he’d built for her as he also built a thriving lumber business. Now, ten years later his livelihood is threatened because he has no wife and can’t find a copy of her death certificate. If he doesn’t get married, and SOON, he will lose half of his land. Local businessman Asa Mercer to the rescue! For a cutthroat nominal fee, he will travel East to secure young brides for the lonely men. Joe asks for a woman who can cook and signs on the dotted line.

Anna Ivey is a Civil War orphan. She has a pretty good job as a cook, but her boss is a sleazebag (my words, not hers obviously). After he corners her one too many times, Anna decides to answer an ad in the paper which asks for cooks and nannies for families in the Seattle territory. Replies should be made to Asa Mercer. Anna has to finance her journey but she signs on the dotted line.

So, Joe thinks he’s getting a bride and Anna thinks she’s getting a job. Won’t they be surprised? J

I came across A Bride in the Bargain while looking through book review magazines and thought it sounded pretty good. A young Civil War widow heads to the Pacific Northwest to marry a lumberjack. So, I put in a reserve for it then it sort of slipped from my mind until the book came in for me. The cover was cute, featuring a young lady in a terribly formal dress leaning on an ax. But then I noticed the Bethany House label and realized I would be getting no hot lumberjack action as this is a Christian historical romance. I read it anyway and was pleasantly surprised. There were a few cheesy moments and only occasionally did the religious discussion become kind of cloying. I enjoyed it for its funny moments AND for Mrs. Gist’s truly sexy descriptions of a handsome, shirtless, sweating, nice-guy lumberjack (as they all are in my imagination). All in all, a fun and quick read. I wouldn’t hesitate to try another of her works.

best laid plans

I had all sorts of plans for the day but so far all I've done is exercise and farm on Facebook :-) It's my late night so I have to work 5 to 9 tonight and the rest of the day is mine...IF I can get up off my lazy tush and do something. I'm just not terribly motivated. I got up yesterday in a ferocious mood combined with a severe case of the blahs.

It's hard to be grumpy with no energy, though it was probably a blessing for John Q. Public. Usually I'm frenetically in a bad mood and then the bad sh!t happens. I was just too tired to take it out on anyone. Not that I didn't have ample opportunity. My first 3 or 4 patrons of the day were in worse shape than me and fully willing and able to show it but I gave them the standard cheerful grin and ignored the waves of antagonism rolling off. Really people, 9am on a Monday is far too early to chew anybody's @$$, much less mine.

From a work point of view, we are kicking @$$ and taking names at work. The adult summer reading program was another rousing success this year and the fall lineup of programs ROCKS! We have several day trips planned to area museums and attractions in conjunction with the Birmingham Museum of Art exhibit Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery as well as the library's annual wine and food festival AND we've booked Mary Kay Andrews in October!

Life-wise, I really shouldn't be able to find anything to complain about, but rest assured that I do. Maybe it's the lack of outside stimuli. I don't subscribe to periodicals and I don't have cable, satellite, or a converter box so no tv stations, just an active Netflix account. I do read the front page of the newspapers when I put them out at work and I listen to NPR and I have steady access to the internet so I'm not completely under a rock but I am sheltered from the nanosecond news cycle that everyone else is constantly exposed to. Should I be ashamed that this makes me happy? Oh well, it is what it is.

By the way, a philosophy for which I was criticized by a patron last week for having. Whatever. He probably wouldn't be too happy about the "whatever" either. I am not an activist. Maybe I'll be led to such activity at some point in my life, but I'm not right now though I have made what I consider to be very positive changes in my life.

I stopped gratuitously using paper products. I eat WAY less meat than I ever have in my entire life, though that's a financial point rather than an ethical one. I drive a high MPG, subcompact car and I drive that car slowly. I unplug all the electronics that I don't use daily. I leave my thermostat on 80 unless I just am about to have a comeapart. I read books/articles/websites on environmentalism and sustainability and implement ideas where I have time and resources.

Do we all have to be warriors? Do we all have to give orders and come up with plans? Are not the steady workerbees just as important to the hive? Is a grass roots effort made up only of the militantly faithful? Am I a bad person because I am not fervent about much at all, with the possible exception of high fructose corn syrup avoidance? I want to live, be the best human being I can manage to be, and be hopeful of the possibility of helping a few people along the way. That is all. It is wealth to me.

Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

Oh, what exactly to say about Beat the Reaper...

1. I listened to this in the car (great audio!) and I put the first CD right back in when I finished the last one because I wanted that visceral experience again immediately.

2. There is a bunch/wealth/plethora/no shortage/heaping serving of crude language and imagery as well as gratuitous and brutal violence. Just so you know ahead of time.

3. It was so f&%king funny I could barely stand it...when it was crude and/or violent, it was often funny then too.

4. I am SO buying this for my personal collection. The Bearclaw will cheer me up when I'm feeling blue.

So, Dr. Peter Brown's day has started with a bang. He witnesses a bloody altercation between a rat and a pigeon, then someone tries to mug him. Poor, poor mugger. You'll learn more about elbow tendons and tracheal rings than you'd think possible in a few paragraphs. When he finally makes it to work, nothing really improves. Peter is a first year intern in the city's worst hospital and it is a battleground. As he makes his rounds, the impossible happens and one unexpected patient identifies him as Pietro "Bearclaw" Brnwa, former mafia hitman turned witness. Chaos of varying bloody and disgusting types insue. Layered with this turn of events is the life story that has changed Pietro Brnwa to Peter Brown.

It's funny. It's gross. It's rude, crude, and undeniably socially unacceptable. I love it so.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

GwaPE was a re-read for me but I consider this to be the book that started my love affair with biographical fiction. It doesn't take much to describe the plot. Chevalier takes a somewhat mysterious historical figure, Johannes Vermeer, and one of his most famous paintings and imagines what led to its creation. What I love about his story takes much longer to describe.

Vivid imagery, characters I could love and quite a few I dislike (I would have slapped Cornelia constantly), ambiguous moral questions, period detail that you can practically touch...a wonderful story all in all! If you haven't yet gotten around to this book, I highly recommend it!

I also Netflixed the movie and it is good, though it's choppy and a lot was sacrificed for forward momentum. Scarlet Johanssen is magnificent as Griet and the little girl playing Cornelia has exactly the nasty attitude and facial expression that is described in the book.

non sequitur

I can't make this sh!t up...

Me: Hi there! May I help you?

Patron: I'm terribly sorry but I've just got my hair cut and it's still wet. Can you get this book for me?

Me: Let me just get that for you.

that is all.

*gasp*!!

I found a burgeoning hornet's nest in the barn! It was only about the size of a golf ball and I'm not 100% sure it was a hornet's nest but that it the only buggy structure I've ever seen that it resembled though it was only about the size of a lemon. It got hosed down with roach spray anyway as I don't want those creatures that nearby. Of course, then I had to go through the other parts of the barn to see if I could find evidence of anymore. I did not see anything else but it was by no means a thorough search as the barn gives me the fantods, even in broad daylight.

I think of my barn as I think of the ocean...kind of distant, I can't see the bottom, and stuff lives out there that I'm pretty sure is not afraid of me and could be quite harmful there for I don't go in too far. I would love to post a sign on it: Rummage Sale, For Real! As in, you stop by and rummage through (after signing a release waiver for harm, allergies, stitches, rabies, tetanus, mold, mice, rats, hornets, feral cats, opposums, armadillos, bunnies, etc) and I'll charge you $1 for every item you find and want to take home with you. Do you think anyone would be interested in dusty, buggy crap for $1?

! ! ! this just in ! ! !

Young Patron: I'm looking for the second Harry Potter book, the lady downstairs said you had one up here.

M: Well, I just looked over there for one of the other books for someone else and it was the last one. Let me check the catalog.

CHECKING

M: Yes, Chamber of Secrets just checked in so go down to the front desk and give them the name of the book and that it was recently returned.

YP: *squirming and making noncommital noises and the corresponding facial expression* Well, I really wanted it today. We're going to the beach.

M: um..well, downstairs is IN the building so you'd have it today. Just go to the desk and tell them it was recently returned.

YP: Well, I'll just find something else.

M: Let me just go get that for you.

that is all.

cook-a-thon!

If you'll remember (and if not, this the reminder), my last big grocery trip was around the first of May. I spent $152 and got 91 meals out of it, the last of which I finished this past week. May to August on one grocery run is not too bad. I did have to go back intermittantly (sp?) for milk and fresh produce of course, but not for entree-type items. For whatever reason, my yield was not as successful this time around but I got a solid 80 meals out of a $180 trip.

I tried some new recipes because I was tired of the other food except for lasagna and chicken & dumplings so I added the curried rice & chicken, white bean chili, mexican goulash, and a pot roast with potatoes. It's a nice mix of flavor, color, and texture and should last me. I also had some turkey sliced at the deli as I can not abide the processed lunch meats anymore. I got some Hebrew National hotdogs as they are the best things evah! I had some leftover rice from the curry recipe so I added the roasted onions/garlic and leftover stock from roasting the chicken and I figure that can be some additional meals all on its own.

My freezer is full to bursting. I have a veggie drawer full of fruits and veggies. I have a block of horseradish cheddar from the Amish Country (Thanks again Kathy!!!). Life is good.

Today Mom and I are going to see what kind of trouble we can get into. I think we are going to see The Ugly Truth. Gerard Butler, purrrrrrrrr.

moment of Facebook shame

So, what to do when a high school classmate brings up a painful, humiliating moment from your own educational career with the addition of a "hahahahaha"?

It's really not a question (since there is nothing to be done and I really shouldn't be so sensitive) so much as a venting since I would have liked to think that my classmates thought more of me than that..oh well.

Dont Know Much About Literature

It's truly embarrassing how badly I did on this quiz! Alas, I am only a page (a job title I actually held for about 5 or 6 years).