Friday, June 25, 2010

Please Help Me I'm Falling!!!





I am beginning to think that I should have had to take a test...before I actually started to blog.  Yes...a blogger's test...and before taking it you are given a blogger's study guide...with proper blog protocol in big black letters.  I remember actually moaning to some blogger friends that I was so envious of all the books that they received and told us all about every Monday.  The lovely Kathy...of BermudaOnion...actually sent me a lovely book because she felt sorry for me...I was woefully pathetic...I had no books...no one knew about me...my blog was unloved.  Oh...please don't misunderstand...I have tons of books...ones I  have Kindled and bought on my own... but I still had much book envy for everyone else's books...I wanted what all the other bloggers got...I had bloggerbookenvy.   I admit to it.  I might need rehab.  And...if reading about everyone's Monday treasures was not bad enough...then BEA happened.  I had no clue what it even was and I had been blindly blogging for a few months at that time.  I saw photos of everyone's books...they went to dinner...they talked to authors...I thought I might faint from it all...I am going next year no matter what...and I am barely an hour from NYC.  Now add to that memes and stickys and tags... not to mention blog tours...I really have no clue what to do with any of them.  So sad...anyway...now I am actually getting books in the mail...a book or two trickles in daily...and I have been stacking them neatly on an antique hutch in my dining room...sort of just looking at them and admiring them...some of them come in plain wrappers and I have no clue whom to even thank for them...thus the reason for this blogger's panic attack...I need help!!!

Some books just seem to come out of nowhere...magical arrivals...I think I was carried away with contests and offers...and I entered way too many and was far too lucky...so...

How do you organize the books that publishers send you?

Is there a time frame  for writing a review?

How do I know where to aim my thank you's?  

A YA Summer Reading List...

I really do love book lists...this one was on Good Morning, America yesterday.  Lots of YA books by authors we know and enjoy. 

Thursday, June 24, 2010

One More Summer Reading List...


  
 One of my newest guilty pleasures is watching Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford on the last hour of The Today Show.  The entire hour is pretty much a disaster but in a fun sort of way.  I don't intensely watch anything on television but I often have it on in the background.  I am an excellent multitasker and I can read or write or do anything with the tv on.  Today one of the segments was on summer reading and three authors were there to name their must read summer choices.  Paula Froelich chose chick lit, Justin Cronin chose more intense novels and Lisa Scottoline chose crime novels.  If you just click on the link above, you will find out what their favorite summer books are.  I found Justin Cronin's choices to be the most interesting. 

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I Am Loving Me Some Werewolves...


Hmmm...it might just be this extreme YA fantasy route that I am taking again...but...I am into this book and I love these werewolves.  Callum...but I think I might love anyone named Callum...is the ultimate Alpha wolf...and he takes care of Brynn...who is not a werewolf...in fact he actually saved her life and cares about her.  The book has a ton of fictional werewolf history that the author makes so matter of factly believable that I feel as though I am reading a nonfiction book.  And I am totally believing all of the stuff she is telling me about werewolves and how they shift back and forth and how they run and how they view humans.  In fact... in the book a human marries a werewolf and they have twins who are either babies or puppies depending on their mood!!!  They burst out of their Gap onesies every time they shift.  I am halfway through the book and something is brewing with the wolves...something eerie and frightening.   More to come...

Monday, June 21, 2010

Happy Father's Day...





My Dad…

My dad died almost a year ago to this day.  He died just after he turned 89.  No one, not even my dad… believed that he would live as long as he did.   Outwardly,  he was not always a smiley kind of a guy …little things bothered him…kids running on his lawn, taxes, any Republican president, my mom not listening to him, any of his kids not doing things the way he wanted them done. I think he would sit and ponder all of these grievances whether they were real or imagined.  He would mumble and sputter and grumble and then he would take himself up the stairs and go to bed…this was always before 5:00 pm…by 8:00 that same night he would be back downstairs again…drinking his glass of milk and munching on his baked goods...the day old ones from his favorite grocery store...where he  would spend an hour looking at each package to make sure he got the ones with the most white icing.   His grumpiness was gone and he was back in the conversation with the rest of us. 

My dad had his flaws…but deep down inside he was the very best of men. He loved his family. He adored his mother and never truly left her side until she died. He adored his sisters…he would always visit my Aunt Annie and talk with her and my Uncle Joe for hours…my Aunt Jennie made him the cookies that he loved and that my mom did not have the patience to make.  He loved my mom and took care of her until the day she died. 

He loved his children. He was always the happiest when we were all around him. He loved to barbecue and grill and cook. He loved to grocery shop…even when he was in assisted living…and my sister took him grocery shopping…he would spend hours examining each fruit and vegetable. He had favorite stores and favorite days to buy things. He was his most happiest  when he was out in his world shopping…and he was forever excited by the stuff he brought home. He loved his animals…he always told me the story of his very first puppy…and how much he loved that dog…when his dog died and his dad buried it…my dad sneaked outside and put a wooden cross on his dog’s grave…he said my Polish grandma was so mad at him that he was spanked and told to remove the cross…but he wouldn’t do it. He loved to feed birds and squirrels and he loved to watch them…he and my mom would sit on the front porch for hours and just talk and talk about their “hood”…and then they would each eat big bowls of ice cream and that was their day.

He loved his garden. He planted everything you could imagine. He would carefully examine seed catalogs…and plant more than he and my mom could ever use…but he loved it…the garden gave him joy and pleasure…often I would find him sitting in his chair just staring at his garden…who knows what memories of his mom and dad and brothers and sisters ran through his head as he watched his towering tomato plants…walking through his garden was a feast of the senses…the rows were meticulous and neat. Everything grew straight and tall…he loved planting garlic and tomatoes and roly poly squash…he planted tiny cucumbers which he annoyingly insisted on calling pickles…but that was my dad.

I know his heart was broken when my mom died…he told me he talked to her every day…he didn’t understand her illness…he prayed and prayed for her to be herself again…I am quite sure he thought he could fix her…and it broke his heart that he could not…the last few weeks of his life were not what he would have wanted…perhaps if I am honest…he had not been truly happy the moment he realized he would not be going back to 542 Illinois Avenue for a long time…if not forever.


He loved his little house in his quaint little town…his chair….his newspapers…he loved the ordinariness of his life. He loved fishing…he made the best waxed paper wrapped fishing sandwiches…when he would come home with fish…we would empty his cooler and look for the leftover sandwiches…bologna on soft white bread, fried egg, whatever he made always tasted good to us. He always made sure he brought his kids treats…he would go to his favorite bar on Monday nights for a drink with his boys…and always come home with a huge bag of snacks for his kids…peanuts and pretzels and Cheetos and potato chips.

And now that I think of it…so many of my food memories during my childhood were connected overwhelmingly to my dad…ice cream cones from Isaly’s, big huge cinnamon rolls from somewhere in Youngstown…chip chopped ham ( which we called chippy choppy ham ) sandwiches on Sundays when everyone gathered at our house. Neopolitan  ice cream cones from Idora Park and playing for hours with him in the Penny Arcade. Foot long hot dogs from the Canfield Fair…I know more will come to me…both of my brothers adore ketchup in eggs and fried bologna…that was their breakfast of choice with my dad…waiting for what seemed like hours at a McDonald’s for a plain hamburger for my sister because she was the only person in the world who wouldn’t eat them the way they came.  And eating something that he made and that my dad called "slumgullion"...leftover Sunday roast beef and onions and ketchup and steak sauce...simmered in a pan on top of the stove...oh so good...


He worked hard all of his life…he made sure that each of his children went to college…he was so proud of his sons…the engineers…when his boys would call he would melt…he loved them dearly…he loved his daughters, too, of course…but I think he took us more for granted…expressing his love came late in my dad’s life…but he was able to tell all of us how dear we were to him and how much he loved us…

My dad could be prickly and mean and mad and stubborn but when he smiled and laughed…he was a sweetheart in his soul.

He lived his life exactly the way he wanted to…he didn’t care about pleasing people or promotions or even people’s feelings…but he was a good man and a good dad…

I will keep him in my heart for the rest of my life…I love you, Daddy…

Written by

Your first love…
and thank God you and mom didn’t name me Walterina…that is the story my mom always told me...my name was either going to be Patty or Walterina...Walter after my dad.


Your loving daughter...