Category: gifts

I am sooo, like, you know, literate!

For my recently celebrated birthday, The Good Man scored me a most awesome present.

I gots me a Kindle!

Oh my stars and bars, how I love that Kindle.

We’d had a lot of philosophical talks over Sunday morning breakfast about iPad vs Kindle and what did we *really* want from such a device.

I thought it was all idle chatter until a Kindle showed up under all that wrapping paper.

Fabulous!

So, being the cheapy cheaperson that I am, I immediately went to the free section of the Kindle store on Amazon, and began downloading my bootie off.

I did pay for a couple books that’d I’d wanted, like the new Jeannette Walls book, “Half Broke Horses” (a five star recommend from me! This and her first book “The Glass Castle“), but mostly I downloaded the free stuff.

There are a few for free trashy romance novels in there. I downloaded a couple but I doubt I’ll get to them.

The biggest portion included in the free section are books that are in the public domain, meaning their copyright has expired.

I guess anything published prior to 1930 is now public domain. There are quite a few of the classics in the free collection.

Let’s be honest here, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of the classics during the course of my education. Ok, some of the basics. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was on the list. “Grapes of Wrath” (haaate it!) was a forced read. And there was also a lot of bits and bites, but not full books. No “Scarlet Letter” or “Moby Dick” made it across my transom.

On the other hand, The Good Man has read almost all of the classics, many more than once, and it’s no wonder he’s so much more well spoken and intelligent than me.

But! The Kindle may just even out the game.

I have things like “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “The Jungle Book” and “The Last of the Mohicans” and “Pride and Prejudice” to name just a few that are loaded up and ready for me to get into.

I also have beautiful classic books that I have already read like “Red Badge of Courage” and “The Secret Garden” and “The Velveteen Rabbit” on the Kindle. They are like old friends, lost to the sands of time, who have returned to me.

My only issue is that sometimes I have a hard time reading the classics. The language or style can be tough.

I do love the Kindle’s in line dictionary that makes looking up tough words a snap.

But all the Oxford English Dictionaries in the world can’t help me get around some of the archaic language.

Right now, The Good Man and I are taking on our latest book club title. It is just us in our book club. We read together and then discuss.

Currently we are reading “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. The Good Man is a confirmed Wilde fan. Until I got the Kindle last month, I’d read zero Wilde. I started with the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” and really enjoyed it.

But I’m finding ol’ Dorian Gray to be a bit of a slog. All the reasons that The Good Man likes it, the deep thought and philosophizing…well, that just makes me ape sh*t. I want some story to move the thing along!

I’m doin’ it. I’m chugging though the pages. Currently about halfway done. The story part of the story is really fascinating. Well drawn characters and quotable pithy sayings.

But the expository pieces that run for pages and pages are about to make me insane. I *know* that’s why people love Wilde and I *get* that he was a great thinker and artist of his time.

But damnit! I’m just a girl who likes a little Louis L’Amour sprinkled in her day. There is a cowboy, he fights another cowboy over stolen cattle or water rights, and then gets the girl. The end.

I know, I know. This high-minded literature stuff is good for me.

And I really am enjoying it.

Tell me, what do YOU make of: “But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which there are no stars and the moon is in travail.”

I spent a while working on just that one sentence. I get it now, but my brain is tired.

Maybe wearing out the ol’ brain on classic literature will help stave off dementia. It’s a nice thought, anyway.

New Mexifail!

Whoooo! Some homestate love once more on the Failblog!

Oh Fair New Mexico!!!

Wait. That’s not the shape of New Mexico.

Uh…..

I know, I know…the *name* of the company is New Mexico Soap. But…it’s still confusing.

Maybe the label could be…”State Shaped Soap, brought to you by New Mexico Soap” or something similar to avoid the perils of the Failblog?

For the record, the people at New Mexico Soap also carry this little product:

There ya go! That’s the right shape! They left off that little jut up near Oklahoma, but that’s ok.

I’m sure the people who live up in the jut (uh, that would be round about Clayton, NM) don’t mind being left off the soap. Much.

By the by, this is not the only New Mexico fail on the failblog. Here’s the one I posted back in October.

Are you there, baklava? It’s me, Karen

You know, I’m really very spoiled. Terribly so, and I must work to not let it all go to my head.

But, I must also say…I deserve a little spoiling now and again…

Like, say, around the celebrations of my birth? Yes. Always a good time to spoil me rotten, and my wonderful mom-in-law held nothing back.

In fact, Sunday was a darn good day in my life.

The day started with the opening of Localvision 2010, a photography exhibition. I was invited to add a photo to the event, and was totally geeked out by the first real gallery showing of my photography.

The Good Man and his mom went along with me to be my entourage for the fun.

It was really heady to see my framed print on the wall and to see people looking at it and talking about their impressions of the image. It pretty much made we want to go hide in the bathroom for the duration. But I held strong.

After the gallery opening, we went to my mom-in-law’s place for dinner.

And oh what a dinner.

For appetizers, there was guacamole (yum!) and Italian salami, and olive and feta cheese and oh my!

I was already starting to fill up.

But then, oh then…….

That amazing cook made me chopped chicken livers. Fresh! From scratch! I saw the actual raw livers before the magic began!

Oh my heavenly days! My love of da liver is well documented.

A whole bowl of homemade liver-y delight! All for me me me me!

Whooooo! I get dizzy just thinking about it. It was the best chopped liver ever in my history.

I almost wept. I really did. It was a brown lump of heaven on a cracker.

If loving cooked chopped organ meat is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

As I surrounded the bowl, my husband had to remind me that I could take some home, I wasn’t required to eat it all there. Seriously, I was afraid someone would take it away from me!

But there was more!

Succulent chicken for dinner with the most delicate and tasty potatoes on the side.

And then….

Oh then….

Homemade baklava for dessert.

For me! Me me me me me!

Ok, I shared the baklava with The Good Man since he’ll eat it (and not liver).

But damn!

I loved my multicultural dinner (Mexican, Greek, Italian, Jewish, etc). I felt so incredibly spoiled and it was one of the best birthday presents EVER!

Whoo.

Today I might need to take a walk and burn a calorie or two. I may have overindulged just a skosh.

And that baklava in my ‘fridge. It calls to me. Sings to me. Beckons me to come and sample of the tasty goodness inside.

I. Can’t. Resist.

The chicken liver is already gone. I couldn’t resist it so much I had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and every snack in between.

*burp*

Feliz Cumpleaños para me!

Ho Ho Ho-ly Crap!

Fer Chrissake! It’s Christmas Eve!

Well I’ll be darned.

It’s a bright, beautiful, sunny day outside and I’m ready to face the day.

After confessing my depression yesterday, it seemed to lift and now I’m back to my old rasty self.

Lookout Santa! I’m comin’ after ya!

Very Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Even though I got no snow, I thought this was cute anyway….

On Dasher!

Image source.

Such a Suggestible Girl

Sometimes it really worries me that the things I can most easily remember, can get to most quickly in the old brain bucket, are commercials.

Especially those commercials from the formative years.

I can whip out a jingle or a tagline from commercials dating way back, and repeat ’em like Rainman in a phone booth (yikes, no more phone booths!).

What makes these commercials so sticky in the brain? I don’t know, but obviously this is the intended effect, eh?

So here in this Christmas season, I’ve been thinking about all of those old Ronco commercials. No, not the new Ron Popeil ads. Those are lame.

The old Ronco ads. Let’s talk 1970’s.

Remember when Ronco ads used to repeat, ad nauseum, at every commercial break?

Here’s a few I was able to find on the web:

Smokeless Ashtray

Boogie Nights Record Album (Click to play)

Ice Cream Machine(Click to play)

Look at this!! The early Bedazzler!!

Rhinestone and stud setter(Click to play)

Oh yes. Good times.

There are a few of my faves I wasn’t able to find. For example, the Egg Scrambler. A funny little machine that with a pinprick to the egg and the revs of a small motor would scramble it up inside the shell.

Or the Record Vacuum. I found a couple of those ads, but not the one I remember. In the one I recall, they ran the vinyl through the vacuum then tossed a handful of confetti at it (to prove the static was gone, I think?).

Ah yes.

But then, there will always be the gold standard of Ronco commercials.

Found on the web and brought to you.

“Hey good looking! I’ll be back to pick you up later!”

Enjoy

Mr. Microphone! (Click to play)