Eeeeeeeeeee!

July 21, 2007!

TOADZILLA!

This just in from the CBC: "A toad the size of a small dog was captured in Australia."
"It's huge, to put it mildly," said Frogwatch co-ordinator Graeme Sawyer. "The biggest toads are usually females, but this one was a rampant male … I would hate to meet his big sister." I don't know what's cooler: a toad that's 40 cm long or the fact that they're calling it Toadzilla. I think it's the name.

Site of the Week: 12 Ways to Pimp Your Office

It occurred to me recently, as I pondered my office furniture one grey morning, that my one of my desks and one of my chairs are almost cool. Looking at them in a glass-half-full kind of way, I began to imagine that they're so old they've moved from outdated to old to ugly and then looped back around to "kind of retro-y hip." Of course, I should specify that this is institutional furniture that I'm talking about so we need to give "hip" a pretty wide margin. Perhaps I am being too generous. I will say that my computer desk has no hope of ever being considered remotely attractive. At least the iMac distracts one's eye from the icky yellow paint and fake wood grain. Amidst my ponderings of furnishings, I stumbled upon this site: 12 Ways to Pimp Your Office. I'm in love with the Milk desk with a built in aquarium.! And the bibliochaise is pretty nifty too with its five linear metres of book shelf space. Can you imagine a library filled with biblio-chaises? Hmmm....

PS: Hello Ken. How are you? This morning I listened to Gomez's "How We Operate" on my iPod. Perfect for a rainy Monday. Talk to you later. H

Poor Jane Austen

Poor Miss Austen. What a tough week she has had. Just the other day I reported about how free copies of Austen's and Dickens's novels were being politely declined by school libraries. And now this: "Jane too plain for publishers." According to a story in the Guardian, "Wordsworth editions has decided the only fully authenticated image of Austen is "off-putting" and have Photoshopped her into something more appealing." Sigh. This seems like a "Dove Campaign for Real Beauty" commercial that needs to be made. If you haven't seen these commericals, you really should. Here's one and here's another. It's tempting to send her an e-card. Every novelist deserves to feel good about herself.

"Schools refuse gifts of 'boring' classics"

Poor Charles Dickens: apparently you can't even give his books away these days. According to the Millennium Library Trust, "Around 50 schools have refused to stock literary works by the likes of Jane Austen, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens after admitting that youngsters also find them boring." Mr David Campbell, who raised £9million to pay for the books, noted "It never occurred to me that anyone would turn this offer down." Undoubtedly this story will be controversial and there will be much tut tutting about the Classics. But, at the end of the day, I think hurrah for Mr. Campbell for saying "I believe strongly that if just one pupil in each school each year for the next 50 years has his or her life changed by new worlds being opened from reading outside the syllabus, this project will have been worthwhile."

Orange Prize long list announced

If you're looking for great things to read, the Orange Prize list is always a great place to start. I've only read two of these (The Inheritance of Loss and Carry Me Down) and they are both fabulous. I know I'll be trying to work my way through this list in the next few months. Short list will be announced April 17 and the winner on June 6. Last year's list is also worth working through.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate)
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan (Bloomsbury)
Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk (Faber)
*The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton)
Peripheral Vision by Patricia Ferguson (Solidus)
Over by Margaret Forster (Chatto & Windus)
The Dissident by Nell Freudenberger (Picador)
When to Walk by Rebecca Gowers (Canongate)
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo (Chatto & Windus)
*The Observations by Jane Harris (Faber)
*Carry Me Down by MJ Hyland (Canongate)
The Girls by Lori Lansens (Virago)
*Alligator by Lisa Moore (Virago)
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn (Tindal Street Press)
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (Quercus)
Careless by Deborah Robertson (Sceptre)
Afterwards by Rachel Seiffert (Heinemann)
Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley (Faber)
Digging to America by Anne Tyler (Chatto & Windus)
The Housekeeper by Melanie Wallace (Harvill Secker)

Site of the Week AND Happy Birthday Curtis!

Happy Birthday to Curtis Granderson! This week's Site of the Week isn't Curtis's Blog but I suppose it could have been. Instead it's The Squirrel Place chock-full-o' fascinating squirrel information and curious little drawings of squirrels.

A Lovely Day: A Bridget Jones Inspired List

Degrees centigrade of today's weather high: 22
End rhymes in lyrics heard while listening to my iPod that made me think "did they just rhyme 'taxi' with 'attacked me'?": 1
Totally empty bus seats around me when smelly weird man got on bus: 14
Times said this week: "We're going to have to wash some forks": 8
Weeks waited for box to arrive from amazon.com: 8
Times opened the fridge between hours and 5 and 7 PM and wondered "do we have anything other than cheese and frozen peas?": 19
Lovely walks with nice library colleagues: 1
Times said this week: "Since when do we only own four forks?": 3
Times listened to first minute of the Kaiser Chiefs' "I Predict a Riot" on my iPod before confirming the nifty 'taxi/ attacked me' end rhyme: 3
Seats open right beside me when smelly weird man got on bus: 1
Times said: "Do you have 13 forks in your office at work?": 1
Photographs taken of my red fresias in the most amazing light: 12
Odds that a smelly weird man would sit right next to me when there are a dozen open seats to choose from: pretty slim one would think, wouldn't one?
Library patrons given erroneous information by me: 1 (that I know of)
Times in the past week that I have thought while rolling up my Tims rim; "now this is the winning rim!": 8
Guilt for giving library patron erroneous information: sigh. You really don't want to know.
Minutes taken to realize patron was given erroneous information and to correct it: 7
Centimeters my tulip bulbs have grown in the past 24 hours: 2

Songs that I think everyone should listen to right now, no questions asked: 1 Patty Griffin's "Heavenly Day"
Emails I have sent purportedly written by "Dr. Benjamin Rush": 1
Smelly weird men sitting right next to me for the duration of my bus ride home: 1
People I know who would think getting an email from Dr. Benjamin Rush is very funny: 2
People I know (not including me) who would think getting an email from Dr. Benjamin Rush is very funny: 1
Friends who sent me photographs of themselves that were photoshopped to make them look like Nacho Libre: 1
Friends who were probably very nervous that the above link was a link to the above described photograph: 1
Friends who are probably wondering "who would have had a photograph of them photoshopped to make them look like Nacho Libre???": 2
Times in the past week that I have rolled my Tim's rim and won an opportunity to play again: 9
Times wondered "Am I a smelly weird man magnet?": 19
Email replies Dr. Benjamin Rush was delighted to receive: 1
Friends worried about: 2
Times wondered "what can I make with cheese and frozen peas?": 3
Times thought "today is just too beautiful to be true!": 118
Boxes from amazon waiting for me when I arrived home: 1
Nerdy purchases in amazon box: 4
Times thought to self: "Are the cats stealing our forks?": 1
IM conversations had with cool former library school pals: 1
Things I discovered you can make with cheese and frozen peas: 1 (cracked pepper pasta with lemon cream sauce topped with frozen peas and grated cheese).
Times thought to self: "Elves. I bet we have fork stealing elves": 2
Nerdiest purchase in amazon box: Baedeker's London and Its Environs 1900
Times thought to self: "What would our cats be doing with all those forks?": 1
Favourite literary line about a Baedeker: "And no, you are not, not, NOT to look at your Baedeker. Give it to me; I shan't let you carry it. We will simply drift." Miss Lavish to Lucy Honeychurch in EM Forster's A Room with a View.
People I almost sent this link to with the subject line "Isn't he adorable!?": 8
Years spent secretly wishing to own a Baedeker from the early 20th century: almost 20
Times I broke down and sent this link to people with a note saying "Isn't he adorable?": 3, no, make that 5. Well. Gee. Now all of you know too.
Lunches had with my swell pal Nina: 1
Times I have stared at the dishwasher wondering where the leak is coming from: 13
Times I imagine Dale thought to himself: "I bet she has 13 forks in her office": no comment
Times asked to help someone find "a blue book, I don't know what it's called": None!
Granola bars carefully placed on the counter so I wouldn't forget them because I knew I'd be eating lunch late and would be hungry at 11:30: 1
Pals named Nina I will miss having lunch with: 1
Times thought to self: "He must have forks in his office": no comment
Number of granola bars forgotten on the counter and sorely missed at 11:30: 1
Times thought to self: "What would elves want with our forks?": almost once
Times felt like as if I were negotiating this multiple choice question on an exam: "You've discovered that the small, seemingly spontaneous pools of water that appear in your basement are from your aging dishwasher leaking into the heat register beside it. You also realize that your dishwasher is full and you need to run it. Do you decide: A) I'm sure it's safe to run the leaky dishwasher. I'll just put some paper towels on the floor beside the leak and it will all be fine B) It's probably safest to take every dish out and wash and dry them by hand and call someone to come repair it C) By cracky, I just know those fork stealing elves will fix it overnight! D) Maybe I'll just write on my blog for a few hours and fire nervous glances in its general direction every few minutes and it will all be ok if I ignore it long enough: 7
Times I have answered D in the past three hours: 6
Times I have answered C; in the past three hours; 1
Times I imagine Dale thinking to himself: "I wonder if she'll ever figure out that I have 13 forks in my office. Maybe she'll think it's elves!": no comment
Times I have wondered if Dale imagines me thinking: "I wonder if he'll ever figure out that I have 13 forks in my office. Maybe he'll think it's the cats!": 3
Friends who could guess which of my friends would have had a photograph of them photoshopped to make them look like Nacho Libre: Well... how many of you can guess?

Another Frabjous Day; Or how I spent my lunch hour

For 27 games, this will be our view. Callooh! Callay!

O frabjous day: Curtis has a blog!

After a long day of writing, I staggered to the TV hoping for some intellectual numbness. One tiny buzz of the remote later I was transfixed: there were the Tigers playing the Yankees in a pre-season game under a sunny Florida sky. I won't admit to how excited I was so see my little Tiger friends again nor will I admit to having exclaimed "Callooh! Callay!" Let's just say I was pretty happy to be transported to summer if only for an hour. Now, as the murk of night sinks in and more cold and snow creep into town, baseball and sun seem light years away. But then, thanks to Dave, there's this link to Curtis's blog and I can almost imagine feeling sunshine again. I chortle in my joy.

My kind of town

This morning-- our last morning in Chicago-- I woke up with the sun pouring into our hotel room on the 26th floor. Our 3 day break had gone by too quickly and I realized that I finally understood Willa Cather's short story "Paul's Case." How does one go back to one's regular life after a few days of art and skyscrapers and amazing food (like pumpkin, sage and cream pizza!) and tasty wine and interesting theater? But thankfully, my affinity with Cather's Paul ended there. And here I am in my own house again and happy to see my cats, water my plants and return to all that daily stuff that is still pretty nice. Nevertheless, last night after we returned from a really interesting performance, we were sipping some wine, nibbling remarkable Spanish cheese and gazing out over the nighttime skyline. 'Does it get any better than this?' I wondered. And then, as if to tempt fate, I turned on the tv to check the weather and discovered the Westminster Kennel Club was being broadcast. I guess the answer is yes. More photos on Flickr.