Open Book

The young Canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long.

1. Today's first line title is from John Irving's latest, Last Night in Twisted River. Irving is (she claimed without hesitation) one of a handful of authors I feel I was born to read, and the wait for each new book he puts out is deliciously agonizing to endure.

2. I cannot locate an available flu shot within a fifty mile radius of home. You know what this means, right? I am doomed. The only time I missed getting a flu shot in the past 11 years, I came down with the world's worst case of it - just in time for Christmas.

3. Any Adam Lambert fans out there? Have I got a treat for YOU.

4. Spent part of this past Sunday afternoon moving my sweaters down to their seasonal front-and-center position in my closet. Related: the weather here has gone from 50 degrees to 75 degrees over the course of this week. It's kinda like the whole washing your car brings certain rain showers deal-io for me. Never fails.

5. There is a solo road trip in my future. Tomorrow, to be exact. I'm heading to Kentucky to visit my folks. But only after I stop at our farmer's market to procure six York apples to hand deliver to my mother. I may not be allowed in the house without them!

6. I saw 'Where the Wild Things Are' and have nothing but love to express for the film, in every respect. Well, except one, perhaps. Parents taking their four year olds to this movie in hopes of seeing a Disney-fied re-telling of a beloved classic are in for a rude awakening. The movie is more artistically ambitious than that, and if you care to, you can read for yourself about the novelization of the children's tale and its relativity to the grown up audience. Suffice to say: it was beautiful, and I cried. More than once.

7. During a meeting at #1 job on Tuesday, there was a somewhat disturbing point raised about the continuation of my contract situation. I believe all will be well and the status quo will carry on, but there is a slight - say 3% - possibility that worst case scenarios could play out and the wonderfulness of my current arrangement could alter radically.

8. Granted - this worst case scenario is not completely terrible. But it would mean drastic change in the daily routine (i.e. lack thereof) I have become accustomed to - and grateful for!

9. And in #2 job news, I've become a book buyer. Can you say FANTASY LAND?! Seriously. Too bad #1 job pays about 8 times more on an hourly basis than does #2 job. But so it goes.

10. Any of you familiar with The Greenbrier? Well...its new owner did a wonderful thing this week in offering a 'Tribute to the Virginias' package. Residents of West Virginia and Virginia were offered rooms for $59 a night over four weekends between now and February. It's an unprecedented and amazingly generous offer - one truly too good to pass up when you consider that normal rates for these dates can run as high as ten times that amount or more.

11. Guess where my honey and I are going for a weekend in January?! (see #10)

12. We're having a 'homemade' Christmas this year on my side of the family in an effort to stem the tide of ridiculous spending and overindulging on gifts. It's grown to absurd proportions and is threatening to turn a joyful family-centric holiday into a stressful outdo the other person competition. So...homemade it is and I've got several ideas brewing. I think the whole idea is fabulous.

13. One more list of thirteen to mark another Thursday gone by. And one more wistful glance at this space I love, but take too much for granted. It might not always be here, you know, and *then* where will the words go?

Chills and Thrills

It's just my opinion, but if one must be under the weather, the cold, rainy autumn sort is the best weather to be under. Nothing feels quite so splendidly self-medicating and comforting as snuggling under a cozy down blanket on the sofa with a DVR full of recorded goodness to occupy an illness addled mind. And I should know, having spent the past couple of days in such repose, recovering from some unnamed disease that has left me lethargic, quiet and blissfully blind to the needs/wants of anyone or anything but my shivering flesh and aching bones. 

Not to portray being sick as a romantic vocation, but when you're a "look on the bright side" kind of girl, you tend to have vast capacity for finding the good in all things. Even bad things.

Yeah, I dunno. What can I say? It's my brain. It's got a mind of its own.

__________________

The dream trip to Vermont last week seems like exactly that: a dream. It's as if it happened in an eon of yore, when in fact, we were there only a week ago today. I'm not sure how that happens. How the time leading up to an adventure builds so slowly, anticipation boiling over into adrenaline fueled excitement for days and days and days, when the post-trip re-assimilation into reality's clutches happens in the blink of an eye.

Someone once said - and I'm paraphrasing here - "No man requires a vacation so much as he who has just returned from one." There is so much truth to that, isn't there? 

But I digress, and am being horribly unfair to the memories of a getaway that was everything I'd hoped it would be, and then some.

Shame on me.

So. Vermont. In October. I have just one word: perfection.

But then, there are really no words that a picture or four can't say a thousand times better.

 

 

*sigh*

You know something? I already can't wait to go back.

Henry and I dug the hole seven feet deep.

1. Today's first line title comes from the award-winning, beautiful, haunting and heart-breaking debut novel Mudbound from author Hillary Jordan. This is near the top of my must-read-soon stack o' books.

2. And...wow...where does the time go? Helllloooo!!! *echo echo echo* This blog seems to be hell-bent on proving the old adage about good intentions. I have no idea how it came to pass that I managed to disappear from here yet again. Alas, disappear I did, it would seem. The good news is: unlike time, this space waits for all (wo)men. 

3.So, tonight is a big night in the young 2009 WVU Mountaineer football season. We play Colorado on national television. After the sloppy way we got beat by them last year on their turf and, more importantly, the sloppy way we let last week's game at Auburn slip out of our grasp, victory would be sweet indeed.

4. In the "perils of working two jobs" annals, my husband will be traveling to Morgantown to partake in tonight's Gold Rush festivities without me. This makes me very sad. But...a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do. Which is short for "being a grown up sucks sometimes."

5. I can't complain too awfully much (try as I might), seeing as, in case you haven't noticed, I FREAKIN' LOVE MY LIFE!

6. Did I mention we're going leaf peeping in Vermont? Leaving a week from yesterday? And that it's a life list sort of trip in my book? Did I? Did I? Because, guess what?! WE'RE GOING TO VERMONT! I'm just a wee little bit excited.

7. Last night, I went shopping at Coldwater Creek - a dangerous proposition for my checkbook under any circumstances. Their pants fit me like they were designed specifically to do so and nearly every pair I own - from jeans to dressy slacks - came from their inventory. During last night's shopping spree, I got a couple pairs of cords, a pair of the most awesome knit jeans I've ever tried on, and a fabulously supple, adequately enormous, perfectly lovely brown bag for the winter. Vermont wardrobe? Check, check and check.

8. Fall has arrived in West Virginia with inescapable certainty. Two days ago, we went from short sleeves to sweater weather, and there appears to be no looking back. I, for one, am perfectly fine with this state of affairs! The mornings are brisk and goose bump inducing, making the day's first cup of hot coffee a real eye-opening delight.

9. Speaking of coffee: Starbucks is now offering an "instant" teabag-like version of their brew. This whole concept is wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start.

10. I just placed the order for my 2010 Daytimer refills. Not for nothing, but the anticipation is killing me. One of my very favorite annual traditions is replenishing and refreshing my organizer. Is that a sickness? Probably. I hope they never find a cure. ;-)

11. Check it out! Did you know that "according to the Office for Intellectual Freedom, at least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century have been the target of ban attempts?" What a fascinating reading list this would make. How many of the banned/challenged books marked in bold on this list have *you* read?

12. I'm gonna do a whole other post on that list, but wanted to note that in honor of Banned Books Week (9/26 - 10/3), I'm re-reading 'Catcher in the Rye,' a seminal and formative book of my youth, without question.

13. While I'm penning this post, I am also making final arrangements for an event this weekend, finalizing production on a major proposal for Job #1, preparing to leave for my shift at Job #2, and plotting a lunch stop betwixt here and there. All on one cup of coffee. Let that sink in for a minute, because yeah...I am a totally kick-ass Super Hero, baby. In my own mind, anyway. And really, that's the only place that matters, am I right? ;-)