Happily Ever After

Disclaimer: This post is not my Twhylight review. Sorry to disappoint. It's just a tender little story about a boy, who I happened to give birth to, and his library card.

Before I dragged my hub to St. George on Saturday, I took my youngest son (one minute younger than my other youngest son) to the public library. But I didn't have to drag him. He had to drag me.

Actually that's a lie. I was in the car wiping my sweaty eyeballs with a Kleenex before he even finished telling me he wanted his own library card.

Oh my goodness, can I just say publicly that it was the happiest day of my life. How can I describe the straight, pure joy of spending the afternoon at the public library with my boy--special emphasis on BOY.

I've tried and tried to get my boys hooked on phonics, but to no avail. They've all limped along reluctantly when it comes to reading. And this particular boy tested low on his GATES test so many times that one of his reading teachers actually told me he was driving her crazy. Of course I had to poke her eyes out after that. And then I had to poke my own eyes out.

Alls I wanted was boys who lubbed books. Was that too much to ask for? But they lubbed balls. And pogs. And chickens.

I read to them every night because that's what the experts said. Read to your child on a regular basis and he will grow up to lub books. I read and read and read--Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and Franny K. Stein and Hatchet and all those yawner Magic Tree House books and The Baseball Card Adventure books.

I read every Shel Silverstein book on the planet because that's what the experts said to do. Read rhymes to your child and they will learn to read more rapidly, so nursery rhymes and the Stinky Cheese books and Dr. Seuss lined our shelves.

I made them read the Book of Mormon each day because isn't it documented fact that kids who read the BOM learn to read faster than kids who don't? (That's what my mom says.)

I paid them to read. I bribed them to read. I SCREAMED them to read. And still they didn't read.

And then Percy Jackson came along. My youngest boy (by a minute) only has two chapters left of the fourth book. He keeps a flashlight hidden under his pillow and at night, after I turn out the lights, I peek in and see a little light on under his covers.

I'm verklempt just thinking about it.

And I'm verklempt just thinking about his face when we pulled into the library parking lot on Saturday.

"Wow! This is the library?" he said.

Once inside I didn't hover or make suggestions, I just let him roam free.

Oh, he was such a cutie patootie. Especially when he pulled a book off the shelf and said, "Is there a place here where I can just sit down and read?" And so he found a little table and he sat down and he read. My heart was grinning from ear to ear as I slipped off to the adult section to look for all the books on my own list. The only one checked in was The Wednesday Letters, but I found some Paulo Coelho and some Anne Tyler to keep me from getting bored of my hub in St. George.

When I returned, my cutie patootie was sitting at the computer typing in Stormbreaker. He went and found it on the shelf, then he was back at the computer again, this time typing in Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites.

"My friend says I'll like this book," he told me.

Sigh!

He checked out three books and on our way out of the library he hit me with a snowball, then climbed in the car and asked, "Can I walk here?"

Then he opened Stormbreaker and read it all the way home.

And then he lived happily ever after.

The End

Touche!

You know what? March ain't that bad after all.  

Fo' reals.

My MIL was brilliant to force me at gunpoint to tie the knot in March.  I clearly see her wisdom now, especially this year, as it gave me the perfect excuse to badger my hub to death about taking me away for the weekend. 

That's right, I just returned from my TWENTY FIRST wedding anniversary get-a-way celebration extravaganza weekend.  

It was a totally spontaneous, last minute, snap decision which took me 3 weeks to orchestrate. 

We slipped away late Saturday night and drove through rain and sleet and snow to get to our secret destination, which was St. George.  We chose St. George because we spent our honeymoon there at the Four Seasons on Main Street. 

And also because my in-laws have a condo there so it was free. 

Plus it's our favorite place to break the Sabbath. 

Last time we broke the sabbath we were also in St. George, at Chuck-A-Rama. It was Valentines Day. Guess who else breaks the Sabbath in St. George on Valentines Day?  The Polygamists. Can you believe it???? Those Polygamist guys take all their wives to Chuck-A-Rama for Valentines Day!!  How weird is that? 

Poor plural wives. 

This time we broke the Sabbath soaking all-you-can-eat breadsticks into all-you-can-eat Zuppa Toscana soup at The Olive Garden.  Then we bought a bunch of Zeppolis and cruised down Bluff Street singing Paul McCartney's Silly Love Songs at the top of our lungs while doing nani nani boo boo at all the church going folks.  

That's as much romance as I get, peeps. 

Although I did try to spice things up a bit this year since I'm reading Twhylight for the very first time. You should have seen my hub's face when I pulled out the glitter and the fake fangs. 

Priceless. 

But seriously, speaking of fake fangs, I'm on page 300 now in Twhylight. I could have been further, but I read The Wednesday Letters in between page 98-99.  Two thumbs up for The Wednesday Letters, btw.

I couldn't put it down.   

But as soon as I finished reading it (and eating my adobado tacos from Albertos, and my mint Milanos from Flying J in Beaver, and walking around the Spanish Villas in Green Valley, and vacuuming up all the glitter, and watching the Academy Awards) I got right back to Twhylight. 

MUCH to say, but my lips are sealed until I turn the last page.  

My favorite part of my anniversary celebration extravaganza get-a-way weekend, besides lying in bed until 10:00 a.m. and treading water until noon, was coming home and hearing my daughter rattle on and on about how hard it is to be a mom and how she had to wash the dishes like threes times and how it took her an hour to get the boys to stop arguing and pick their clothes up off the floor. 

TOUCHE, my darling daughter!  Touche!

Auntie Aloha (and Uncle Edward)

Okay, so this is what my world looked like yesterday:

And this is what it looked like today: 

Is that all you got, you silly goose ides of March???  You really think a little snow is going to break my stride? 

Like I always say, when life hands you snow . . . make a snowman.

Meet Auntie Aloha.

I think it bugged the ides that we were feeling the aloha spirit because I swear I heard them say "Oh, yea? well take this!" just before that lofty ole' sun came out to put us in our place.

Ha!  Ever hear of reverse psychology, Mr. Ides?

P.S. Anyone want a Twhylight report? 

Last night I was prepared to stay up all night with the sparkly vampires, because that's just what we love starved girls do, right?  

I made it all the way to page 50 before I started doing Sudoku and playing Solitaire.  But I fully intend to press forward, even though it's not very realistic.  I mean, the dazzling, spectacularly bee-U-tiful and sensitive vampire with the perfect smile part is realistic, but honest to Pete, there's no way Bella would have so rudely snubbed a snowball fight on her very first snow. That's messed up!  

I was a little disappointed that they left so much out of the movie.  They never even showed Bella taking her Wuthering Heights pop quiz.  Anyone who's read Wuthering Heights knows Stephanie Meyers threw that in there as an allusion to obsessive compulsive love.  Am I right? Or am I right?  Except Heathcliff was way scarier than Edward.  Probably because he had never read the family proclamation.  

And did anyone notice the allusion to Bruce Banner (AKA The Incredible Hulk) via the biology teacher, Mr. Banner?  Tell me I'm not the only one who got that subtle symbolism!  Yett the movie didn't even go there. 

No wonder everyone was so disappointed in the movie.  

Bald lovers and smokin' hot vampires

As previously aforementioned, I finally found the public library in my new home town.  

It's about time, I know.  My brain is absolutely starving.  And now I'm headed to the Twilight Zone to feed it.  Which, quite frankly, scares me spitless. What if I'm just like all those other silly gooses who obsess about sparkly vampires who are attracted to clumsy girls?  

Am I ready to know that about myself? 

On the other hand, what if I'm not like all the others and I hate sparkly vampires and clumsy girls?  

What's WRONG with ME? 

Why can't I ever fit in? 

You see my dilemma?

My daughter is scared spitless too. In rude and obnoxious ways. The other night my niece and I were having a conversation about how Stephanie Meyer had a dream that then inspired her to write Twilight.  

My daughter flipped her lid.  "Well I had a dream that I had DANDRUFF!  Should I write a book about that????"  

I don't know why she has such strong feelings about it because she read the whole thing in one sitting--all night long--and then declared in the morning that she hated it. Go figure! My theory is that she hasn't yet embraced her wounded inner clutz.

But anyways . . . at least I found the public library so I can read again for free. 

A LUB libraries with all my heart. They are my sanctuaries. A library to me is like an all-you-can-eat buffet to my in-laws. And I approach it that way. I wander around and around trying to decide which delicious books to consume first. Of course my eyes are always much bigger than my brain.

I read a lot like I eat too.  All at the same time. Why read just one book, when you can read a little of this and a little of that? Sometimes a book comes along like The Lovely Bones or Eat, Pray, Love that completely consumes me rather than the other way around, but I'm usually consuming 2-3 books at a time. 

Right now I'm reading a book called Cult Insanity about polygamy, and a David Sedaris book about being engulfed in flames. I go back and forth between the two depending on how much Prozac I have on hand (figure of speech, peeps. Just trying to fit in here).  

But fo' reals, polygamy's got that freak factor, you know? So then I switch to Sedaris, but he's SUCH a GOOOOOD writer that I always break the 10th commandment and have to start the repentance process. So then I switch back to polygamy and get FREAKED again. 

It's a vicious cycle.   

My problem is I jump ship too easily. My MIL blames it on my commitment issues. When she picks up a book, like it or not, she's 100% fully committed until the bitter end. I can't tell you how many times I've had to listen to her say "OH GAD! Honest to Pete! I just can't stand this book." But she's not a quitter.  No siree. 

Me, I don't judge a book by it's cover, but I neeeeeed the first paragraph to grab me and hold me fast, lest I get distracted and start doing Sudoku or playing Solitaire. 

But there are some books I know I must read no matter what the opening paragraph says.  For instance, on my last (well, technically, first) trip to the library I came across Life of Pi:

I checked it out because for years I've been dying to know what it would be like to float around on a life raft with a tiger, a zebra, and a hyena.   

I checked out books I'd never heard of too.  Like this one:


I don't know why it intrigued me. Maybe because both Amish people and covenants make me itchy. 

But listen to the first paragraph:

Gobbler's Knob had a way of shimmering in the dappled light of deep summer, along about mid-July when the noon-day sun--standing at lofty attention in a bold and blue sky--pierced through the canopy of dense woods, momentarily flingling light onto the forest floor in great golden shafts of luster and dust, causing racoons, moles, and an occasional woodchuck to pause and squint. 

I take issue with 66 word sentences about suns that are high and mighty, woods that are dumb, and woodchucks that are inconsistent.  But mostly I take issue with moles that pause and squint. Next thing you know they'll be wrinkling up their noses and wagging their fingers at all the other animals in the forest.

So I started The Painted Veil. 

The movie looked kinda sexy, but the book begins with a startled cry. 

A woman is terrified and she is quaking and her lips are trembling for a page and a half as she and her quote unquote lover watch the white china door knob turn slowly . . .

Who could it be? Could it be her hub about to find them tattooing a scarlet letter A onto their souls?

She asks her lover frantically, "where is your topee?" and he answers that he left it downstairs.

The problem with this opening is word choice. I accidentally read topee (which is a hat) as toupee. Therefore I imagined her quote unquote lover taking off his hair before they rush upstairs in a passionate embrace.

And then I imagined her hub coming home from work and finding some dude's hair on his kitchen table and thinking, "what the what?"

I was still imagining the bald lover as I read this paragraph:

He gave her a charming smile of which she had always found so irresistible. It was a slow smile which started in his clear blue eyes and traveled by perceptible degrees to his shapely mouth. He had small white even teeth. It was a very sensual smile and it made her heart melt in her body. 

At this point I'm thinking, who cares about his shapely mouth and white even teeth! His freakin' hair is downstairs on your kitchen table!

Then she leans a little towards him, her dark and shining eyes gazing passionately into his, her mouth a little open with desire. At which point she abandons herself with a sigh of ecstasy.

Ewww, lady! He left his HAIR on your TABLE!!!!

That's when I picked up Twilight!