7 Stages of Falling in Love with an Author

This weekend I got hooked on Kelley Armstrong's "Women of the Otherworld" series. I've read the first four books in the last three days. If you like Laurell K. Hamilton and/or Kim Harrison you'll like Kelley Armstrong.

All things considered, it's quite brilliant that I received the following cartoon in my inbox yesterday morning:
























And now I must go read the last book (so far) in the series. Very slowly.

I think I gained 6 pounds...

It's Restaurant Week again in Philly, and last night a group of us went to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant. Oh my goodness, that was a lot of food! Delicious, delicious food. I felt like a big marshmallow trying to get my jeans done up this morning, but it was so worth it. If you ever go I recommend the Flaming Turtle chocolate fondue - pretty much a pot of melted Turtle chocolates flambeed tableside. We all got spoons when we ran out of things to dip so we wouldn't waste a drop of the chocolate (Oh yeah, we had pure dark chocolate fondue as well, but I'm more of a milk chocolate fan).

In honour of my eating my body weight in cheese and chocolate and meat and such over three hours last night, I give you this video. I remember seeing it last year some time, but it makes me laugh especially hard right now. Enjoy!

Reasons to learn a new language

I've been debating whether I want to take French again, and I have just discovered a good reason to learn a new language:



Maybe I'll take up German... Just in case...

Gold star for me!

Two fun Library patrons this afternoon:

I had a patron on the phone who, after a fairly long refernce question where we both ended up laughing, asked where I was from. When I said Canada, she started going on about how we had a commercial that made her cry. Evidently Canada used to (or still does, who knows) do tourism advertising on TV here. This lady then proceeded to sing me the commercial jingle, which she remembered after umpteen years, because she thought it was so beautiful. This is my first serenade while on the desk. I quite enjoyed it (plus, it made me laugh)!

Right after that I had a lady who wanted to read a book series by an author she didn't remember, featuring a character she didn't know the name of, whith titles she didn't know. I pulled out my super-librarian sleuthing skills and with the only clues being the character lived in Maine, solved myteries, and fixed houses, I found it in 3 seconds flat! Literally! Sarah Graves' "Home Repair is Homicide" series. The lady was thrilled and gave me a gold star (well, she said, "Gold Star for you!!" which I will accept as an acceptable stand-in for a real gold star). I'd like to thank Google, for making my ability to answer reference questions appear even more magical to the patrons.

All hail my mad research skillz!

The Illness

Argh - this month has been crap for getting sick. Everyone I know has been or is ill in some form or another. Last night was my turn (again, for the third time this year). I think I have the flu, or food poisoning, or something. It's 2:30 in the afternoon and I've finally made it out of bed into the living room. I'm now okay sitting or lying still (a big improvement from midnight to 7 am this morning). I'm still queasy, but it's not as awful anymore. I hate being sick! Hopefully I'll be okay tomorrow as I have a ton of stuff I really want to do this week at work. Plus, tomorrow is Girl's Night - What's a Thursday without gathering to heckle Project Runway?

But it's not all sickness, self-pity, and boredom. Check out the movie trailer below! I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet but oh my, is this funny!

Book suggestions from the Great White North

I had two books recommended to me from some of the Edmonton folks in the past month or so. I finally managed to get my hands on both of them.




First we have The Game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists by Neil Strauss. This was recommended to me by Susan, who thought it was brilliant. Me, not so much. I got 98 pages into it before putting it down for good. I figure if I'm going to read about some guy learning how to pick up women for quick one night stands, I at least want him to be funny, sympathetic, and/or sincere. This guy is none of the above. I didn't care about him, any of the other people in the book, or what they were doing. I guess Susan might have liked it because it was all about salesmanship, but I just felt vaguely icked out and bored. I suppose the one good thing about the book is that looks exactly like a bible. Faux black leather cover, gold trimmed pages, red ribbon bookmark. I felt very religious reading it. Ironic, really.




Secondly, my friend Dave's wife's brother bought a copy of Spin by Robert Charles Wilson for his father for Christmas. He showed it to me when I visited baby Zaara (and Dave and Gaia, of course). This science fiction novel begins when all of a sudden all the stars in the sky disappear. The flyleaf description sounded fascinating, and I made a note to pick it up from the library. I finally got it and read it this week. This is one of those books that you want to just keep reading. I resented anything that took me away from my book - work, going out, sleep. And to make the already interesting book even more fun, it had a subplot about fundamentaist Christians trying to breed a red heifer. A couple of months ago Mark explained the religious thought behind the whole red heifer thing, and we've been joking about it ever since. I really liked this book, which had interesting science, big ideas, and great character development. Thanks, Dave's wife's brother (whose name I'm blanking on, but for some reason I think it might start with an N)!

This one's for Liz

Mu friend Liz is what you might call a coffee fiend. This woman does not play well with others uncaffienated. She also loves chocolate (who doesn't?)

In her honour, I present to you -- CHOCOLATE JOLT (no, not the pop)

This seems to be the quick antidote to food coma if you like chocolate and coffee (and the associated massive influxes of sugar and caffeine). I wouldn't recommend taking this before you go to bed.

Mmmm... new bus smell

I never thought that a bus could have new bus smell, but the number 12 on my way home from work tonight had just that. Moreso, the seats were vibrant blue, the pull cord was shiny yellow, and the floor was relatively clean. It was lovely, and smelled like a showroom car. I give it about a day before the new bus smell wears off. I feel privileged to have experienced it.

And on the cat theme...

I'm Widget-sitting for the wekend, and today I (and my laundry) have been having a lovely time at Sally's. I get to play with the cutest kitten in the world, and I get to avoid the laundromat - how wonderful is my day?

Also, Widget seems to have acquired a new skill - impersonating a gopher.

R.I.P. Snoopy

I can top this one...

Snicker. But I can relate to poor Dewey here:



I can beat him, though. A few years ago I hurt my back by sleeping. I swear - I was fine one day, the next day I could hardly walk. Months of drugs and physical therapy later, and I am down to just twinges in my back. But seriously - sleeping broke me!

TV, and S'mores - does life get any better?

Thursday nights are the best! Today Liz and Jen and Sally and I got together to watch last night's Project Runway. We discovered over the past few weeks that it is a lot more fun to heckle the tv in a group than by yourself. From now Thursday night is TV Night at Dena's. Gotta love the Tivo!

Tonight we also got to try my new S'mores maker (thanks Marianne!!!) - it's a blast, and we had quite a good time lighting marshmallows on fire, as demonstrated here by Jen and Liz. My poor hanging light possible got a bit singed, though. Next time I move the table a bit.


And for tv dessert, we watched the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars - yet again a fabulous show to watch in a group and heckle. We can't wait for Skating with Celebrities, which we hope will be an even more hilarious train wreck. 

Books I have read (yesterday)

I read two books yesterday (well, I finished one and read the other entirely).

My Fifteen Minutes by Sarah Faith Alterman

Cute, and nice to have a book about a woman in LA who has no interest in being famous or a movie star (even though there is a movie star in it)


The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab by Gideon DeFoe

Cute, but shallow and very silly. Took me about an hour to read, maybe a bit less.

I have moved on to Diana Lively is Falling Down, which is promising to be cute, but not too shallow. It's also a slower read than the other two.

New Year's Fun!

What a good New Year's it was this year! New Year's Eve day began with a lovely breakfast at Honey's with Carl, Micaela, Mark, Dawn, and Liz. After that Liz and I went up to Mark and Dawn's to have the first Philadelphia Corner Gasathon, where we watched 17 episodes of the second season of Corner Gas, a Canadian tv sitcom that I have addicted quite a few Philadelphians to. I fell asleep during the curling episode, but I've seen it before, so that's okay. We still have to watch the last episode, as we ran out of time.
After the marathon, Liz and I headed out to Jen and Kim's place to have a grand holiday dinner (yummy turkey and stuffing!), play trivial pursuit, and ring in the new year while sitting in the slightly broken hot tub with glasses of champagne.
It was the perfect New Year's Eve day!

Jewish Christmas

I flew back to Philadelphia on Sunday, and Carl and Micaela were really sweet to pick me up from the airport. We dropped my bags (plural - I had to buy new luggage to hold all my stuff. Typical.) at my place and then headed directly into Chinatown for dinner.

Here are Carl and Micaela enjoying their first ever Jewish Christmas at Lee How Fook, entirely surrounded by a restaurant full of Jews celebrating Christmas the way we know best-dinner at one of the only places open on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Winter in Edmonton

I've been away for a while - actually I'm still away. I flew up to Edmonton for my mom's surprise birthday party last week and have been here ever since. I couldn't talk about it because mom actually reads my blog (at least, she'd better), and it would ruin the surprise that my sister and dad and I had been keeping secret for three months. Well, no need to worry about that - dad spilled all the beans the day before the party (just because mom ended up in Emergency on Saturday, humph). So the party wasn't a huge surprise, but it was fun. Happy birthday, mom!

I've been crazy busy running around the city meeting up with friends this week. I did go to West Edmonton Mall today for the sole purpose of watching all the frantic Christmas shoppers and laughing at them, but I was disappointed that the mall was relatively empty. I guess people were well prepared for gift-giving this year. Darn.

And the wonderful thing is that it has been freakishly warm in Edmonton this week. It's been above freezing for the whole week and I did not need to break out the long underwear once. Nor did I have to do up my coat to go outside for most of the week.

I fly home bright and early tomorrow morning and land in time to go to Chinatown with Carl and Micaela for Jewish Christmas (dinner at Lee How Fook). What are the odds that the Tim Hortons in the airport will be open at 6 am tomorrow morning so I can get a box of Timbits to bring home with me?

Roomba pet!

You know how I have a Roomba? And how all my friends think it's really cool and tease me about it being my pet substitute? Well, now I can get even closer to anthropomorphism with Roombud, which sells cute little costumes for the Roomba



And, I just found out that there is also a Scooba, which is a floor-washing robot to go along with my vacuuming robot.

Dance like you've never danced before!

I really don't like dancing. I'm very self-conscious about the fact that I look pretty stupid on the dance floor. Give me choreography and I can fake it pretty well, but club dancing is right out.

But now I can learn how to dance properly. This might all the difference. Well, not really, but it's hilarious to watch. Check it out.

Luna Bar Maggot update

As I wrote last week, I found a live maggot in my daily Luna Bar last week. I sat down and emailed what happened to the Luna Bar people:

I took a Luna bar to work today for breakfast (as I do every day). Today, however, I had a bit of a shock. I opened the bar and started eating it. I looked down at the bar after about two bites, and notices a crumb (I thought) moving. Turns out it was a small maggot or something- quite alive and happily living in the bar. It looked like the bar was sealed before I opened it, so I have no idea where it came from. Needless to say it was a pretty unpleasant experience.

I received a response from one of their customer service guys today:

Hi Dena,

Thanks for taking the time to contact us about your unpleasant experience with finding bugs in your Lemon Zest Luna Bar. I am so sorry that this happened to you and apologize for your discomfort. There is a simple explanation for what has occurred with your Luna Bar. What you discovered is an Indian Meal Moth. I assure you that while Indian Meal Moths are definitely unappetizing, they are not harmful to ingest, and do not become parasites.

These moths are pantry pests that are attracted to grains, dried fruits, chocolate, nuts, cardboard, birdseed and other preservative-free foods. The moths seek out food sources when they are ready to lay their eggs and the larvae are so tiny they can enter sealed packaging though microscopic pores and weaknesses. This can occur at any point in the distribution chain.

We do not know where the infestation occurred, but we are confident that the Indian Meal Moths you encountered did not originate in our warehouse or bakery. Our warehouse and bakery are kept scrupulously clean, and both are equipped with pheromone traps, which are checked on a daily basis. Additionally, after the Luna Bars are baked, each bar is sealed in a Mylar wrapper.

Unfortunately, as you found, the moth larvae can occasionally find their way through the packaging. Of the millions of Luna Bars we’ve sold in the past year, moths affect a very small percentage. While this doesn’t make finding them in your bar any less unsettling, I wanted to assure you that it is not a common experience.

I hope that this information will help to ease your concern. I would like to send you a box of fresh-from-the-bakery Lemon Zest Luna Bars as our sincere apology for this incident.

If you have any other problems or questions in the future, please do not hesitate to contact me at jhantman@clifbar.com or at (800) 884-5254, ext. 105. Thank you for your understanding; we appreciate your business.

Take care,
Jeff - Consumer Service
www.clifbar.com

Book of the Day

I started a new book yesterday: Irma: Memoirs of a Vampire Gone Dry, by Laine Jacob.



I'm quite enjoying it so far. I thought it would be chick-litty, but it's really more "literary" than I expected.