Worth a million

An old friend of ours has a term for any item that is broken in to the state of perfection. A million dollar sweatshirt, for example, is that old, faded soft one which has torn, ratty cuffs and a pink paint stain on the sleeve from when you redecorated the 4-year-old's bedroom, but you wear it all the time anyway because it is your favorite one; it fits and feels just right.

This sweater is a million dollar sweater right out of the package.

Woolrich Women's Sun Creek Lambswool Crew

It is lightweight but really warm, 100% lambswool. The yarn is ever-so-slightly rough but that will be remedied in the first washing. The colors are those of a friendly old pair of blue jeans - which is what I am wearing with it right now.

Only negative thing I can say about this sweater is that it doesn't come in any other colors or patterns. If it did, I'd buy a drawerful.

Do you have a million dollar sweater?

This blows

We have been shoveling snow since, what? Sunday? Yes. Sunday. Lots of shoveling and snow blowing and spreading of de-icer pellets, mostly in the midst of strong winds swirling the snow through the air like the debirs in the opening sequence of The Wizard of Oz. This morning there was a good twelve feet of snow on the road between the curb and the lane which had been ostensibly plowed yesterday. Number Guy and I have moved metric tons of frozen water off the sidewalks and driveway these past few days. Have I ever mentioned that we have 100' of frontage and 150' of extra-wide driveway? Multiply that times the 2-2½ vertical feet of snow which fell from the sky...

The snow is very dry and it packed itself down firmly. If one were to strap some thin strips of wood to one's feet, one could indulge in many hours of entertainment of the cross-country variety.

One could, that is, if one didn't have homeowner and civic responsibilities which require the clearing of snow and ice from places where people park their cars and walk their dogs...

The next door neighbor and I happened to go out to clear the ends of the drives at about the same time this afternoon. We both use grain shovelsinstead of snow shovels (neighbors bought theirs after seeing ours last year). They are much more sturdy than snow shovels but they do not have a metal blade. This means that while they are very useful for moving a lot of snow in a short space of time, they aren't so good for cutting through frozen slabs of icy build-up. 'Round about the time I realized that I needed a different tool, I noticed that the neighbor was also futilely attempting to drive his grain shovel through the ice. I shoved my shovel into a handy snow bank and minced up the icy drive to the garage where the coal shovel was located.

The coal shovel is an ancient short-handled, heavy, square bladed shovel, perfect for cutting into the packed ice and snow. Armed with the proper weapon tool, I returned to the battle street where the neighbor and I collaborated on snow removal. I chipped the ice and he scooped and tossed the crud I dislodged. It was a good system. We cleared three drives in record time and then I went inside to provide nourishment to my peeps.

The freaking plow came while I was making gravy for the pot roast. Naturally.

I left Number Guy to the after dinner cleanup, bundled myself up, and ventured forth to free the end of the drive of the offending dirty grey chunks of packed snow. It took me most of an hour of hard scooping and tossing to clear the end of the driveway. After that, clearing the sidewalk with the snow blower was a walk in the proverbial park. With the machine safely parked in the garage, I returned myself to the warmth of the house.

Barely half an hour later, a trio of snow plows lumbered down the street in a staggered pattern.

The only good thing about being plowed in is that we hadn't taken the car out in the interim. Only thing worse than getting plowed in is getting plowed out.

I'm just not going out there again tonight.

In which trek reviews Iditarod

Alaska -- Where men are men and women win the Iditarod.
-- Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race saying

André Jute put out a call for reviewers on Amazon.com earlier this month. He was putting the finishing touches on a 20th anniversary edition of IDITAROD a novel of The Greatest Race on Earth,especially for Kindle. I am glad I agreed to review André's work, though it is not the sort of book I often read. On the other hand, when I was visiting my in-laws years ago and finished the only book I'd brought with me, I borrowed mom's copy of The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Seaand really enjoyed it. Reading Iditarod reminded me of that book and that trip (thanks, dude!).

This book is well-researched, well-written, and well-edited. The fact that this book was undergoing a complete editing overhaul prior to its release for Kindle was particularly satisfying: so many books are carelessly rushed through the ebook conversion process.

To illustrate how much attention was paid to detail on this anniversary edition, I took a photograph of the map on my Kindle screen.

Iditarod follows the race within the race: the competition between two rookies, Rhodes Delaney and James Whitbury. Rhodes and James' relationship got off on the wrong foot entirely when Rhodes' lead dog, Toots, bit James' wrist. To be entirely fair to Toots, James, on skis, had just crashed into Rhodes while she was sledding. Loyal Toots was simply defending her mistress from a perceived attacker. Later that same evening, James and Rhodes met one another again; it was during this encounter that the musher's mitt was tossed on the table. Rhodes never expected James to accept the challenge. She thought that he, and the other people at the table, would realize that the conversation had entered the realm of the ridiculous. Instead, James scooped up the gauntlet and the game was on, first one to Nome wins.

André's description of Rhodes and James' time on the Iditarod Trail was daunting. As dangerous as the arctic weather can be, it isn't the only hazard Iditarod mushers must face. Hungry bears and renegade wolves still live in the Alaskan wilderness as do rutting bull moose.

Reading this book in December in 27° weather provided an interesting addition to the story: as someone who is "always cold", I can't even begin to imagine being outside in sub-zero weather for a whole day, let alone days on end. André's attention to detail immerses the reader in the action so well that I began to appreciate that bone-numbing cold as well as the isolation and dependence on the musher's team of sled dogs.

If you enjoyed Jack London's White Fangand The Call of the Wild,give Iditaroda try. You'll be glad you did. I was.

PS - The 2011 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race begins March 5th!

Puzzling

The week before Christmas, Neatnik and I needed to pick up a few things at the big warehouse membership club store. One of the things which we did not need to pick up, but decided to buy anyway was a small carton which contained seven jigsaw puzzles. There is one 300 piece puzzle, four 500 piece puzzles, two 750 piece puzzles, and one 1000 piece puzzle.

Jigsaw puzzles can be a fun family entertainment. We have finished the 300 piece puzzle and all four of the 500 piece ones, too. We are currently fitting together the picture of the Albuquerque Balloon Festival, which seems somehow masochistic given the whiteout conditions outside our windows. Our white Christmas was slightly delayed...

While all of the puzzles have been enjoyable, the fourth of the 500 piece puzzles was, well, a bit puzzling.

Like most people, we pull out all of the corners and edges first. Once we have the frame completed, we start sorting the pieces by color and builing chunks of the interior. The Keukenhof Gardens puzzle has wide swathes of colors. We did the sea of yellow flowers first and the ocean of red blossoms second. That's when we noticed that one of the red pieces seemed to be missing.

Number Guy and I crawled around under the table looking for the missing piece. Not locating it after several trips around the dining room, we decided to ignore that little hole until all the rest of the puzzle was finished. When all of the other holes in the puzzle were filled with jigsaw puzzle pieces, we had a piece without a home.

Not quite what we had in mind.

We searched the puzzle carefully and I removed one piece from it. Do you notice anything at all odd about the piece I removed and the leftover piece?

Do you see what we saw?

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you. We have two identical pieces,

both of which fit here,

but

neither of which fits here.

Are you?

The question we all hate to hear this time of year? Yes, of course you know exactly what it is:

"Are you done with your Christmas shopping yet?"

Only two types of people ask this question: those who finished on or before the Black Friday sales expired and those who are still desperately scrambling on Christmas Eve.

The former group of people look all smug when they ask the fatal question. Usually, when two people from this group meet, you are in for a friendly game of one-ups-manship as each tries to outdo the other by having finished their shopping the soonest. There might even be a bit of wrangling over relative definitions of done. Are you done when the final purchase is made? When you bring it home? When you wrap the last present? When UPS picks up your last outgoing parcel?

No matter how you define done, this crowd isn't likely to get violent over it. They have nothing over which to become angry, you see: they are already done.

During Christmas week, folks in the latter group grow more and more agitated and stressed out. They are simultaneously shopping for Christmas dinner groceries and Christmas presents. They begin to develop a manic glint in their eyes, which may or may not be accompanied by a developing tic in the lower left eyelid. Presence or absence of the tic can be scientifically correlated; statistically likelihood of the tic's presence is inversely proportional to the time remaining until Midnight Mass.

When two people from this group encounter one another, the game of one-ups-manship which ensues is more along the lines of a mutual sympathy party. Each one bemoans the wee, short bit of time remaining. They compare notes on which presents might actually be purchased during the after Christmas sales. They rationalize that with the overload of shipping in progress, they can tell a little white lie to Aunt Ester who lives three time zones away; as long as they "forget" to put tracking on the package, who can prove that they shipped the day after Christmas, not the day before?

Here's where things can become a mite interesting: when a person from the I'm-already-done camp asks a person from the would-you-get-out-of-my-way-and-let-me-finish camp how the shopping progresses. The eye glint becomes murderous. If the shopper who is already done doesn't shut up about enjoying the peacefulness of the season and the caroling of the bells, he or she is liable to find themselves dripping in hot coffee: which the frantic shopper has been all but mainlining as a source of energy for the past three days and which they just flung onto the smug shopper's fancy coat.

I am an adjunct professor. Into which group do you suspect I fall these recent years.

Aren't you glad that I am not a coffee drinker?

PS - I found some very cool looking like Pentagoand Think Fun Math Diceover on Amazonthis morning while waiting for my last few students to finish their exams. The local toy emporium does not carry Qwirkle. Think Neatnik might take a rain check?

Advent-ture

I am in the dining room. Behind me on the right is our newly decorated Christmas tree (Note to self: Remove and discard all strands of lights before storing tree for next year. Second note to self: Buy replacement lightsbefore the end of the year so as not to forget); behind me on the left is the new hamster. We settled on a name but here on the blog, I'm calling him Magellan, because it really fits him.

Remember our previous hamster, Little Feet? Little Feet was something of an escape artist, having one interesting adventure after another.

Maybe it's something to do with being in the Advent season, but Magellan decided over the weekend that he, too, wanted to have an adventure.

We came home really late on Saturday night. You know how it is. You're out visiting friends and people are all chatty and forget the time and there you are. When we got home, Magellan was up and perky looking so Neatnik and I opened his door and waited for him to come out to play. He seemed a little reluctant so I sent her to change and brush teeth and I opened my email interface to check for panicked student messages. Somehow, we both forgot to close the cage door.

Sunday morning dawned and after breakfast, Neatnik noticed the open door. Old pros at hamster search and rescue missions, we didn't panic. Armed with flashlights, we searched the first floor. Then we searched the basement.

No hamster.

Hmmm. What to do? We'd already missed the last mass at our parish so we put out some food on a plastic bag - in the hope that if the hamster came out to investigate, we would hear the plastic rustling and then rustle him up and back to his house.

All day, nothing. The apples were untouched. The plastic bags made no noise.

Being Catholic, we knew who to enlist for assistance: Saints Francis and Anthony. The dudes (and Number Guy) came through for us!

It seems that Magellan had the notion that he was on a 24 hour furlough. Number Guy caught him last night and the hamster is currently making his squeaky little snores behind me.

What an advent-ture. I think maybe Magellan was reading Humphrey'sbooks...

It's in all the translation

Neatnik's school is big on reading. From first grade onward, each student is supposed to have a non-curriculum book in their desk every day. Yes, every day. When a classroom full of children takes a test or has written work to complete, it is a guarantee that some will finish quickly and some will not. The early finishers are expected to pull out their books and read quietly, so as not to disturb the students who are still working. Sometimes, like when there is a substitute teacher or when they class is ahead of schedule, the whole class might be given a free reading interval. Number Guy and I, we like this policy.

Neatnik's school, we discovered this year, is also big on building study skills. My primary and secondary school teachers never taught us study skills. You brought home books if you had a homework assignment or a test the next day and you did the homework or crammed for the test. Other than that, the textbooks stayed in your desk/locker. Not so in Neatnik's school. The teacher will assign as "homework" things like Social Studies: Study Chapter 4, Lesson 1, test next Friday. Number Guy and I have decided that we like this policy, too.

Sure, it means that some days, Neatnik gets off the school bus lugging her own body weight in school books - but that's why we bought her a wheelie backpack.

Bringing home their notes and textbooks to study a little bit every night helps them to learn. Instead of "studying" only the night before a test in a traditional "cram and dump" cycle, Neatnik and her schoolmates are being taught how to move the knowledge into long-term memory. I don't think this child will ever forget the different types of clouds, for example.

Since Neatnik loves to read so much, she often brings books in the car when we are running errands. On Wednesday, we had a very busy afternoon so I suggested that Neatnik bring her religion textbook to read in the car between our various stops. The story of the week was Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9)

After listening to Neatnik read her highlighted notes, I started asking her about what she had read. Allow me to summarize for you

See, there was this dude Saul, he liked persecutin' da Christians (he's that guy what was down with Stephen gettin' all martyred like that) and he was on his way to this city called Damascus. On the way there, there was this huge lightning bolt and then Jesus said, "Dude, you're messing with my peeps. Don't like nobody messing with my peeps."

Saul got all blinded from the lightning and he fell off his ass. He got to that there Damascus place and pouted for a few days. In the meantime? Jesus, he said to his buddy Ananias, "Dude, go slap your hands on Saul's head so's he won't be blind any more."

Ananias asked Jesus, "Dude...seriously!?!?!"

So Jesus answered him, "Dude. Seriously. I got it covered. He's not gonna mess with my peeps no more."

Okay, so then Ananias went to find Saul and smacked him in the head and told him, "Dude, Jesus says no more messin' with da peeps. Seriously."

What can I say? I was inspired by those who came before me. Saint Jerome translated it from Greek to Latin and King James paid for the Latin to get translated into English so I figured it was okay to update the English into a kind of hybridized 21st-century urban. What? Haven't you read this?

In which trek reviews Deceit: A Novel

Linda Baxter disappeared six years ago. Her best friend, protagonist Joanne Weeks, thinks that Linda's husband, Baxter, is behind her disappearance - and not just because of the million-dollar life insurance policy the real estate mogul had taken out on his stay-at-home trophy wife. Joanne's suspicions that Baxter killed Linda and hid the body become conviction when he collects a second million-dollar life insurance payout upon the "accidental" death of his second wife, Cherisse. Were the contusions on Cherisse's head consistent with a fall down the stairs? Joanne is skeptical.

So it appears is the Hooded Man who waylays her one rainy night with a critical piece of data about Linda's disappearance. He claims that Linda and Baxter's foster daughter saw the murder and knows where Linda's body is. The anonymous stranger provides no additional information but he does warn her not to let Baxter know.

Joanne is a skip tracer: it's her job to locate missing people. She begins a search for Melissa Harkoff. The foster daughter had been removed from the Jackson household by social services the day that Linda's bloodied car was found and no one in Vonita, California has seen nor heard from her since.

I had read two of Brandilyn Collins' books in past (Coral Moonand Violet Dawn),so when I saw Deceitavailable on Kindlefor free, I snapped it right up. Deceit is an enjoyable read, easily categorized as both suspense novel and Christian fiction. Collins presents Christianity as a faith to be lived. She avoids attempting to use her book as a bludgeon to force a reader into conversion.

The retelling of the action is divided into two distinct "voices". Voice #1 is set in the present and is narrated by the protagonist. Voice #2, the flashback voice, is set around the time of Linda's disappearance and is told in the third person, looking over Melissa's shoulder. Changing voices in the transitioning between past and present works well here. The reader is not left to guess that a change in perspective has occurred: perspective changes only at the beginning of a new chapter and is signaled with the month and year just below the chapter number.

I enjoyed Deceit, and there are a few interesting little twists towards the end of the story, but I was left wondering "why?" several times. Since the protagonist made her living as a skip tracer, why didn't she think to question Melissa Harkoff right after Linda's disappearance? If Joanne was convinced that Baxter was dirty, why did she wait six years, until after another woman lost her life?

WMBP - ME

Posts lately have been all-book all the time lately, haven't they? Just for something a little different, today let's have a Wednesday Morning Bullet Post - Magical Edition...

• About a week ago, I saw a new newly released cookbook available for Kindle: The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook.



• If you paste the title and subtitle together, they are almost a book by themselves - The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook Presents: A Magical Christmas Menu: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory--More Than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards



• Very self-descriptive, don't you think?



• I scored it for free at about 7:30 this morning! Yep, it's on the limited time promotional list.Or at least it is as of this posting.



• Edited 15 December 2010, 1:44pm: This book is just a teaser, not the whole thing. Um, I think I know very well how to make mashed potatoes, roast turkey, and gravey to cover it all. Moving right along...



• Gee, I guess I didn't get too far away from books today after all, did I?



• My programming students took their exam yesterday. Most of them ended up doing pretty well for the course.



• The computer literacy students have exams this Friday and next Wednesday.



• Tuesday is Thursday next week so Wednesday is Friday.



• Our deacon gave an interesting homily on Sunday about how people run around this time of year reminding others how many shopping days are left until Christmas.



• As if we were unaware and couldn't read the calendar or count.



• I am not reminding anyone how many shopping days are left.

I'm just saying that I have to go shopping today. Say a prayer and wish me luck, okay?

Failing that, could anyone send me a time turner?

In which trek reviews A Promise to Remember

I ordered A Promise to Rememberearlier this year, when it was available for free on the Kindle limited time promotional list.It finally percolated to the top of my TBR pile at the very end of October and here I am finally telling the blog about it. The only excuse I have for such a delay in posting my review is the insane amount of hand-holding some of my students have needed over the past month and a half.

Andie Phelps and Melanie Johnston seem to have nothing in common. Melanie struggles week to week to meet her financial obligations. Andie reaches out others through her generous donations and her charity work. Melanie is single. Andie is happily married.

In actuality, Andie and Melanie do have something in common: they are both trying to deal with grief. After Andie's son Chad causes the accident which claimed his life and that of Melanie's son, Jeff, Melanie is convinced by a lawyer that she should sue Chad's parents to send a message to other parents.

A Promise to Remember was an interesting read. The two mothers are pitted against one another, not merely because of Chad's irresponsible actions, but also because of the pressures from other people in their lives.

Andie's friends and neighbors boycott the store where Melanie works, forcing the company to transfer her to a store farther away. The executive board of the cancer research fundraiser, to which Andie has devoted many years, removes her from the leadership position, fearing that Andie's presence will generate negativity with potential donors.

The plot is a little thin at times but, as I read this book, I found myself thinking over and over again, "If they had just talked to one another, things would not have gotten so out of control." I liked A Promise to Remember because it was a reminder to me of how often people hurt and stew in silence simply because they are reluctant to talk to another person, to forgive another person.

It's a wrap

It's that time of the year again: time to wrap all of the stuff you've bought for all of the important people in your life.

While wrapping

Grandma's Kindle (Wi-Fi)

yesterday afternoon, I got to thinking about the various ways one can wrap decorative paper around a rectangular prism.

The second package I needed to wrap was this small boxfor Bobblehead. First step,

assemble your materials.

Wrapping requires the wrapper to answer some questions.

Do you buy the cheap wrap from the Dollar $tore, since the stuff's just going to be ripped to shreds on Christmas morning? Or do you invest in the really high quality stuff, which is going to get shredded just as readily and which may very well cost more than the gift which it encases?

Do you tape the box shut, thereby making it nearly impossible for the recipient to open their gift without recourse to the multi-toolon your key chain? Or do you simply hope that the flimsy box they gave you at the store will not spontaneously give way during the unwrapping phase, sending its expensive, fragile contents to the ceramic tile floor where they will shatter into atomic subparticles?

Do you tape one (or more) edges of the paper to the box in order to prevent the paper from slipping off the box while you are struggling with the tape dispenser? Or do you pray that this time the stupid dispenser will yield its sticky strip with grace and reliability, unlike every other time in the history of Scotch tape?

Once you have answered those questions, you are on your way. Cut the paper to the appropriate size. The next step is to decide how anal-retentive tidy you wish to be about your wrapping project. If you buy the cheap wrapping paper, like we do, you may experience jagged edges. I like very tidy edges on my packages, so

I "hem" the wrapping paper.

Once you have the wrapping paper situated, you need to decide what sort of "corners" your ends will have.

We have identified two distinct types of corners here: "dad corners" and "mom corners". Number Guy's dad always made corners this way...

Poke both sides inwards and crease then

fold down the triangles and secure.

Mom always made her corners this way...

Fold down the top edge and crease,
then poke the sides inward and finally

fold up the bottom and secure.

Number Guy is truly his mother's son: he makes his first corner on a package a mom corner since you use the table to support the operation and the mom corner comes out tidy.

Number Guy is truly his father's son: he makes his second corner a dad corner since once the first corner is done, he stands the package on the completed mom corner end and the dad corner is very quick to do.

I prefer dad corners. Dad corners have the beauty of symmetry. I am all about the symmetry

and the tidy.

Good present wrapping music.

James who?

Despite many requests to the publisher and a continuing frenzy of activity on Amazon's Kindlediscussion board,JK Rowling's Harry Potterseries remains unavailable in digital format. I am not going to rehash old arguments here. I am simply going to note that there is now an ebookity balm available for those jonesing for a digital dose of Potter.

G Norman Lippert has written three full-length James Sirius Potter novels and a trio of short stories, all set in Rowling's magical demesne. The tagline on Lippert's site reads

Your father's battle is over.
Yours begins.

Even though I've read only Harry's First Christmas so far, and thus can't say much about the overall quality yet, I thought I would toss these out here. After all, lots of you might be getting a Kindlefor Christmas.

Kindle formatted, DRM-free.

James Potter and The Hall Of Elders' Crossing
James Potter and The Curse Of The Gatekeeper
James Potter and The Vault Of Destinies
Harry's First Christmas
Petra's Getaway
Merlin's Gift

In which trek reviews Night of the Living Deed

I was very excited this summer when I saw a cozy mystery list plug for EJ Copperman's Night of the Living Deed. Copperman is the pseudonym under which Jeff Cohen is writing the Haunted Guesthouse mysteries.

Following her divorce, Alison Kerby realizes that the settlement money isn't going to last forever and that she needs a stable, sustainable source of income for herself and her 9-year-old daughter Melissa. Alison decides to return to her (fictional) hometown of Harbor Haven, New Jersey, where she purchases a vintage Victorian house with the intention of renovating it and running a guesthouse.

Enter the first trope
While working on the kitchen one day, Alison drops a tool. She descends the ladder to retrieve it, apparently jarring the bucket of joint compound which strikes her in the head. Now Alison can see the ghosts. Plural. Male and female she sees them.

Maxie is the ghost of the previous owner who hired a private investigator, Paul, the other ghost, to discover who had been sending her threatening emails, demanding that she leave the house. Now Paul and Maxie want Alison to investigate their deaths - deaths which the police had ruled a joint suicide.

Alison wants nothing to do with investigative work. She's got quite enough going on in her life, fixing up the old house to be ready in time for the summer tourist season. Maxie pressures Alison in the form of destructive pranks. Holes in the plaster and oddly painted cupboard doors do nothing to induce Alison to take on the role of amateur detective...nothing, that is, until she receives her own first threatening email.

Enter the second trope
Patching plaster and gumshoeing for ghosts isn't all Alison has on her social calendar. Melissa's fourth grade history teacher, Ned Barnes, shows a romantic interest in mom. Alison and Ned enjoy their first date in nearby Point Pleasant so as to escape the notice of the natives. In a town as small as Harbor Haven, pretty much everyone knows what everyone else is doing, after all.

Seeing the names of places you know in a book is really kind of cool - especially when you live a small town, not in a major city. Copperman mentions Bayonne, Red Bank, Freehold, and other familiar New Jersey towns. It's almost like running into an old high school classmate in a local coffeehouse and catching up with what has happened in their lives in the past twenty years - where they went to college, how many kids they have, and where they are living today.

There is a metric ton of paranormal fiction on the market today and it isn't all that easy to stand out in the crowd. Copperman manages to do so - and not simply by exploiting his local knowledge. His characters are engaging. Melissa is a typical fourth-grader: she can wheedle ice cream out of the babysitter in a minute flat and while she'll roll her eyes at her mother's restrictions, she's the first one to stand up for mom against Detective McElone's insinuations. Melissa also takes the ghosts in the house right in stride. Alison's own mother drives a Dodge Viper and thinks everything her daughter does is wonderful. Somehow, Copperman keeps his characters just this side of caricature and they remain enjoyable.

Think Pepper Martinmeets Jake Tiptreeand settle in for a riveting mystery served up with a with a side order of romance and a few laughs along the way.

Night of the Living Deed is available both in paperbackand in Kindle edition.(Also available for nook.) An Uninvited Ghost,the second in this series is due out in April 2011. Can't wait.