Well. So I've been a pretty thin presence on LJ lately - and on my other blog too, actually. Um, exhaustion, lack of time, general stress - I blame it all ;) Frankly I suck at keeping up with one blog, let alone two! I haven't been reading all that much lately either - been having trouble sticking with a book. I can't even count how many have bookmarks sticking out of them - it's embarrassing. And I haven't reviewed a single book I read in November yet. That list will have to wait.

So, what have I been up to? Nothing exciting. Well, I do have news but it has to wait. We went to see Sarah Harmer in concert at Massey Hall - Adam really likes her and I don't mind some of her songs, but I find them to be a bit same-y. But the cover band!! They were so awesome!! I absolutely loved them, it was well worth it just to be introduced to them - it's a band called Hey Rosetta! from Newfoundland; they did an acoustic set and it had me spellbound. Click here to see/listen to an acoustic version of one of their songs, "Red Song", which is particularly lovely, though it also seems a little sad to me. When they did it at the concert it was very intense and moving. Another that I love is "I've Been Asleep a Long Long Time".

I did turn 31 recently - thank you for all the good wishes here and on Facebook! It was so lovely! I didn't do anything fancy, just took the day off, my MIL and Adam's grandmother popped over for a visit and a cuppa, and in the evening I had dinner with Adam at one of our favourite Indian restaurants (then gelato in Little Italy - well, Adam had gelato, I was full!). Adam got me the Hey Rosetta! album I wanted, and I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop ever since!

So! Less than two months till the wedding! I haven't been getting excited about it, to be honest, because I've been so anxious about my job. It finally became a permanent position, y'see, which means it's up for competition. Which means I had to apply for it, and now I sit biting my nails (not literally - I'm not a nail-biter!), waiting for an interview, and if I don't get the job I'll have no one to blame but me! Plus I'll be unemployed with no job to come back to after the wedding. I have a great shot at getting the job, I really do - interviews just make me extremely nervous and tie me up in knots. I learnt today though that they're not doing interviews for it until January, so I've decided to try and relax and take the time up to Christmas to de-stress. What else can I do?!

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Last Sunday Adam took me Tommy Thompson Park, a place he loves to photograph. It was bloody freezing and a bit of a snowstorm whipped up at one point - and my face felt like it was burnt it was so cold! - but you wouldn't know it to see the photos! The park is a fascinating place, a man-made peninsular that trails out into the lake, beyond the islands, made up of clean-fill and rubble from when they dig out subway tunnels or demolish a concrete building.




I'm loading more on my Flickr page, which you're welcome to come see. :)

I'll be back, I promise! It's after 9pm now, and I want to snuggle on the couch ;)

Okay so the citizenship test was a bit of a laugh - seriously, the questions (multiple choice!!!!!) nearly made me crack up; I think whoever wrote them was a) bored and b) had a sense of humour, not that many of the immigrants would have picked up on it. Being a native English speaker from a country very similar to Canada (and being involved in education, volunteering and work for five years) was definitely an advantage. If I had to take such a test in Brazil or China I'd never pass.

Anyway, I was there for two hours even though the test took me two minutes to finish (20 multiple choice questions!!!), because for the first 1 3/4 hours they had to go through everyone's paperwork one by one, and that was slow going. There was a woman who sat next to me in the front row who was friendly and chatty, but it soon became apparent that she was also a bit odd - she eagerly told me her story, how she'd been living in Canada all her life (since she was 2 months or 2 years, I forget which) and had a life, a family (four kids) here but had never taken the citizenship test, she just kept getting her permanent residency renewed (which I didn't even know you could do, but then I hadn't thought about it). She was born in America, and she kept saying, "but I'm Canadian!" like I was going to tell her she couldn't be Canadian if she wasn't born here or something. She was grinning madly away but seemed to take it all very seriously. I said pleasantly, "Of course, it's up to you which country you identify with." As the first sign of many that she doesn't listen very well, she replies, "No, well I'm Canadian!" To which, I'm sorry, but I couldn't help thinking "Are you sure? Cause you sound really American!"

Later there were a few other instances that made me want to wince, but anyway. The room was hot, I was dehydrated and getting a headache and you weren't allowed to drink any water. As I said, the questions were, for me, easy, being general questions on geology, history, rights and responsibilities, and politics. I was glad I had read the study guide the previous Saturday or I wouldn't have known which province was known for its hydroelectricity and paper pulp mills (Quebec) or what the three branches of government are. But you didn't need to memorise names of you elected representatives or anything.

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Then yesterday I had my audition at CNIB. It went pretty well I think. You couldn't stop during the reading whereas you can when you're doing it for real, so my mouth dried up and a mix of nerves and whatever made it hard for me to breathe. I should find out in a week whether I passed.

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Adam's parents have just been and gone. They dropped off a mammoth new telly - 107cm flat-screen monster. Well, it's definitely a bigger screen than our old telly, but it weighs a lot less! It was quite the surprise gift and I hope we didn't sound ungracious or anything, because it was really nice of them and we certainly had no plans to upgrade ever, but we don't do so well with this kind of thing and while I appreciate having a larger screen so I can actually see, Adam gets a bit annoyed at what he sees as a waste of money. I think I must be more materialistic than he is.

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They've finally started rebuilding our balcony. A couple of uni students are doing it. Don't know what they're studying, and I'm not entirely sure they're doing a good job or not - I'm very much my father's daughter and I like things to be built so well a bulldozer would have a challenge bringing it down! I don't know much about building wooden balconies off the front of a brick house supported on two brick pillars (these are old), but we're wondering if nailing the 2-by-4 cross-beams flush to a long 2-by-4 that's nailed to the bricks - surely that's not a very strong way to attach them?

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So it took me nearly a month to catch up on reviews from September, and I've only just started on reviewing the books I've read this month! I really need to dig myself out of this cycle!

Books Read in September

Books Read in September: 12
Books Read To Date: 111 (by end of September)
Most Enjoyed: Room and Leviathan (I highly recommend both of these!)
Least Enjoyed: The Thin Man, Mockingjay
Read for Book Club: The book for September was Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway; I didn't want to read it though so I didn't participate.
Read for Challenges: Cat's Eye, Room and Blue Covenant for Canadian Lit Challenge; three Roald Dahl books for Roald Dahl month.


Westerfeld, Scott: Leviathan
Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay
Dahl, Roald: The BFG
Donoghue, Emma: Room
Dahl, Roald: Danny The Champion of the World
Hammett, Dashiell: The Thin Man
Barlow, Maude: Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Dahl, Roald: The Twits
Anonymous: The Way of a Man With a Maid
Atwood, Margaret: Cat’s Eye
Cole, Kresley: If You Dare
Thomson, Sarah L: Imagine a Day

I ended up staying home this weekend - Adam went north to the cottage on his own, and is coming back with his dad this evening - and I'll tell you why. I needed to study!

I realised I was running out of time, and I have two tests this week. Want to know what they are? Oh okay, you twisted my arm! ;)

On Wednesday arvo I'm taking my Canadian Citizenship Test!! I've been reading the study guide they sent me, and I have to look up who "my" political representatives are and what riding I'm in (I tend to be of the opinion that when you're not allowed to vote, they're not really your representatives...). It's really boring. I think I'm mostly going to wing it. Considering the low English abilities of many immigrants (not trying to be rude; it's true!), the test can't be that hard.

And on Saturday I'm doing an audition for CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind) - if I pass, I get to record audiobooks! I'm actually pretty worried about this one. I only just passed the pronunciation test - you could make 12 mistakes (out of about 30, 35 words) and apparently I made 11! I know three I definitely got wrong ("cacophony", "vis-à-vis" and ... forget the other) but I think the others are mostly accent differences, which is hardly fair. Well anyway, I passed, and now my audition is coming up. There are three text pieces to read, two of them I have to practice with, and a recording studio test to hand in (it's easy).

I'm worried about a few things regarding the audition: my breathing - I definitely have mild asthma, and I've never been good at reading for long periods aloud because I struggle to regulate my breathing, get enough air and soon enough start struggling to fill my lungs properly which just makes it all worse; sibilant "s" sounds - I don't think I have a very sibilant voice in general but when you slow down your pace and start enunciating words clearly, not swallowing endings etc., I notice how much stronger my "s"s sound; and voices - how do you do different voices so listeners can differentiate them? I'm no actor, never have been, and I suck at imitating voices, doing accents, all of that. The most I can manage is changing my pitch or tone, but it's really hard to remember how you did a person's voice and to replicate it. I'm not sure I'll do well at these things in the audition, so don't be surprised if I don't pass!

I better get back to it, though this is a bad-breathing day for me and I have a headache, mostly from going to bed at midnight and then not being able to sleep for a couple more hours; it's hard without Adam there, y'know - you get used to it but more than that, it was lonely and he's very snuggly! (I don't mean he's fat - in fact he's very lean - but he likes snuggling!) Staying up late and not getting enough sleep gives me a dehydrated, hangover feeling the next day, thus the headache.

That's it for me. How's everyone else doing?

I don't know why, but I feel really sad today. It's Monday and a public holiday - Thanksgiving - and I've had a great weekend so far, so you'd think I'd be in better spirits. But for some reason my head feels achy and I feel like I'm going to cry.

It seems hard for men to understand this, this crying-for-no-reason thing. They need a dragon to slay, and when you can't give them one they get very frustrated. I think Adam's getting the hang of it, but he still asks and still probes for a reason. What is it really? An accumulation of little things, a general feeling, it's weird. Today I just woke up like this.

It doesn't help that I have to start applying for jobs today. Maybe that's why I woke up feeling crappy: 'cause I'd designated today as the day I'd work on my cover letter and resume. My position in the Ministry of Ed is being put up for competition - which is good news, really, because it'll be a permanent position and if I can get it (and really the odds are high in my favour; it'll be completely my own fault if I make it to the interview and don't get it - great more pressure!) I won't have to worry about being out of work again; but first it has to go through a process where if there is another Admin Assistant, someone permanent in the OPS, who doesn't have a job (as in, their position was scrapped), they'll be given mine. And there's nothing my managers can do about it.

So first we have to get past that hurdle and hope that there aren't any admins in the city without an actual job; then I have to make it to the interview and pass the interview... It's no surprise that I'm one of those people who get incredibly wound up and nervous and anxious about job interviews. Give me a university exam any day!! So that'd be why I feel a little ill just working on my application (I need to apply to other jobs as well, for practice if nothing else - don't want my first version of my current resume to go to the job I actually want!). Doesn't account for the feeling of sadness though.

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Speaking of sad, I saw Never Let Me Go at TIFF - did I mention that already? Powerful story, truly scary, I recommend it though it is also very heavy. Adam didn't like it, because it was so heavy and a real "downer" as he put it, but he also couldn't stop talking about it. If you've read the book, the movie is very close to it and visually gorgeous. I cried at the end. At several spots at the end. Am I weird to love stories that make me cry?

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Adam's parents sold the cottage/island. I am very sad about this, though I can understand why. It was getting to be too much work for them, and they had to spend a lot of money on it every year - the fun was going out of it for them.

It's like the end of an era. Worse will be going up for the very last time next Friday, to help "close" it for good - for us anyway. It'll be like visiting the dead. Wow I'm morbid today! But do you know what I mean? I almost wish I could just keep the memories of being up there for a week in September, as the last memories, rather than having to actually say goodbye to the place.

It really was an idyllic haven. Don't know what we'll do next year without a place to escape to. But I think things will be different for us next year anyway.


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Wedding plans are coming along. We picked up our invitations from the printer on Friday evening - they look fantastic, just how I had pictured it in my head! Well I mean I knew they would - we designed them ourselves, the printer just had to print and cut them. Which actually was an involved process because the first couple of times I went to them, I kept having to come home and say "we have to do more work on them before they can print them." It was far more complicated than I expected, but thankfully between Adam's good maths skills and his Photoshop abilities, we got it sorted. I have to print address labels - and round up a couple more addresses - and there's someone we forgot to do an invite for, but looks like we'll soon be able to stop worrying about this part of the process! Can't believe the wedding is only four months away...

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I know I haven't shared an update on September books yet, but I'm so far behind on writing reviews it's embarrassing. So expect to wait another week or more yet! In the meantime, how about I distract you with cute photos of my very cute niece and nephew?

Here's a photo of my sister Tara's baby, Felix (who always looks thoughtful or puzzled or just a little bit worried - clearly a baby who's busy trying to understand the world!):




And one of Fer's baby, Tamsyn, at their oyster farm on Bruny Island:

Thank you everyone for your lovely - and rousing! - words of encouragement and support in regards to my recent silly blogging woes, I really appreciate it, you really enabled me to shrug it off. :D


Leon has a nasty-looking ulcer on his bottom lip that's bleeding - not noticeably bleeding, but he's smeared blood on his front leg while washing himself. What a cat! His skin is always bleeding. His bottom lip is often a bit swollen and angry-looking, but this is the first time it's developed into a sore and wept. Poor boy.

I went to the Word on the Street Festival yesterday and got some new books - I've posted about it (with photos) on Giraffe Days, if you want to see (I'm too lazy to post about it again!)

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Well, I know it's nearly October but I never posted my August reads did I? I should do that now before September ends - though, shamefully, I'm so far behind in reviewing books I'm getting worried I won't be able to give them fair reviews when I finally do!

AUGUST BOOKS

Total # of books read in August: 12
Total # of books read by end of August: 99
Most Enjoyed: A Countess Below Stairs; Three Cups of Tea; Forget You; Demon From the Dark
Least Enjoyed: Immortal
Classics Book Club Read for August: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Classics Book Club Read for September (upcoming): Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway - I'm skipping this one; just not in the mood for Hemingway!
Books Read for Challenges: Captain Corelli's Mandolin - 2010 TBR Challenge; Hotel Iris - Japanese Lit Challenge


Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (Historical Fiction)
Bound to Shadows by Keri Arthur (Urban Fantasy)
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa (Fiction)
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (Classics)
Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles (YA Romance)
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin (Non-Fiction; Memoir)
Immortal by Gillian Shields (YA Paranormal Romance)
Forget You by Jennifer Echols (YA Romance)
Sweet Temptation by Maya Banks (Erotic Romance)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Classics; Children's)
A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson (YA Historical Fiction)
Demon From the Dark by Kresley Cole (Paranormal Romance)

Cesar Millan makes me want a dog. I’m not a dog person, but he makes me think I could do it. Damn you Cesar Millan! I do love watching his show, though. He’s much better than the other guy, the one who seems really angry and aggressive all the time.



It’s been busy around here lately. My poor livejournal is really suffering for it. So, what’s been happening? Hm. Well, last week – no, wait, the week before, the week of August 23rd. We had a wedding to go to on Friday 27th, Adam’s cousin Keri, out in London (London is a small city in Ontario – there are lots of places here named after bigger and more famous cities, like Delhi and Paris and so on!). I thought, hell, I never have anything nice to wear, and I’m sick of looking frumpy all the time! So I splurged a little. I got myself a slinky grey knee-length fake-silk-satin-looking dress, a bit of jewellery, and then a pair of high heels.

Anyone who knows me AT ALL knows I never wear high heels. I don’t even wear fancy shoes of any kind. I hate shoe shopping. My feet are big, wide, and high. I’m considering doing my outdoor garden wedding in bare feet. Now I’m not so sure. See, I went to a shop called Aldo’s and saw a lovely pair of high heels, only they didn’t come big enough for me, so then I tried my second choice, also lovely, very high, and they looked so great I thought, what the hell! You’re living aren’t you? Go for it!

The toes were pretty tight, even after they stretched the leather in the shop, so I spent the week at work wearing them around the office. It was quite the talking point! I was suddenly tall enough to see over partitions! One of my colleagues got out a ruler and measured the heel. I was rather shocked at the result: four inches! I think if I’d known that I might have balked at buying them – well I guess I did know at some level, but I blithely ignored it.

I was having a pretty fun week actually, until the Tuesday. I somehow hurt my eye on Monday night, probably when removing my lenses, and on Tuesday people kept commenting on my eye – the right one this was. I finally went and looked in the bathroom mirror and found that one whole side of it was filled with blood. It did not look pretty, and it was also hurting – not in the usual way of eyes, but tender and sore like the whole area was bruised. A co-worker suggested a walk-in clinic and I thought, yes, that’s a good idea, I’ll just pop in to the Women’s College Hospital walk-in clinic, won’t take a moment, it’s just down the road.

Ha! Yeah you can tell I’ve never been to a walk-in clinic before. I thought it meant it was quick. Cause otherwise, y’know, you’d just go to your GP. I was there for over three hours, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. The longer I waited, the more stressed and anxious I got. I had left work in a rush, hadn’t brought a book to read, my water bottle, hadn’t finished up what I was working on (cause I thought I’d be back in an hour). I used the free phone in the lobby to leave messages on Adam’s phone, then remembered he had a doctor’s appointment and probably wouldn’t get them. I was just about to leave one on the home phone when I got called, just as Adam walks in!

I had to wait longer for an actual doctor (I’d been triaged already, after waiting about an hour), and he wasn’t very impressed with me. I should remember that I can LIE about not having a pair of glasses for back-up. It’s better to LIE and say “oh yes, they’re at home” than have someone look at me like that. Because it’s a long story, and it’s my fault that I couldn’t wear my glasses, but it doesn’t help any to look at me like I’m a complete idiot.

After escaping from the Urgent Care Centre, with a full-blown headache, I still had to go back to the office and finish the time-sensitive work I was doing for the next day, because even though there was no real damage to my eye, the doctor didn’t want me wearing my lenses and with no glasses in back-up I couldn’t see! So in the end we didn’t get home till close to 8 p.m.

I stayed home on Wednesday and called my optometrist – who was on holiday – and then several other optometrists until finally finding one who wasn’t on holiday and could see me – and I’m definitely switching ‘cause he was really great, had a wonderful sarcastic sense of humour and really knew his shit. Thankfully, it was just a tiny popped blood vessel in my eye, the blood was filling the membrane and had nowhere else to go, the bruised feeling was normal, and I COULD WEAR MY LENSES! It was very good news to hear, especially because they wouldn’t have new lenses for my glasses ready until the following Monday. But it took a couple of days for the headaches to go away.

So that was my drama of that week. The wedding went smoothly, my shoes looked great even though I couldn’t get them back on my feet by the time we left – oh and the food was bad. The main dish, anyway: cold, overcooked pasta with a tiny bit of gunky tomato sauce. That was it. Pretty much everyone left theirs only half-eaten. But they did serve a heavenly raspberry sorbet so I can almost forgive them.

Sorry, no photos.

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TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) starts this weekend. We’ve got a funeral to go to in London on Friday – Adam’s uncle Bill, who died of cancer last week – and we’ll either go up to the cottage afterwards or on Saturday morning. We’ve got all of next week off, which we’re spending most of at the cottage, and the following Saturday (18th) we’re going to see a film at the festival – I picked Never Let Me Go, a new film based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro. I absolutely loved the book, so when I saw the film was on I talked Adam into agreeing to see it. We wanted to see a Canadian film too but in the end decided to go with just one movie. There are so many good films on, but for the two of us to just see one film it cost $50. So it’s a treat.

I’m leaving work early this afternoon to go to an interview with CNIB – Canadian National Institute for the Blind. I’m hoping to do volunteer work there in their recording studio. Get this: they record their own audio books! I’m auditioning to read books for recording, which also involves helping in the recording studio. I hope they take me. It would be so cool! But who knows, maybe they won’t like my accent or the way I pronounce words… We’ll see.


I have a list of August books but it's not quite ready. Haven't finished writing reviews for them all!

Things are chugging along and we've got a few things done:

- We picked up our wedding rings on Friday after work; they're nice and comfy and we're pleased :)

- We saw Inception - Adam didn't like it, big surprise there, but I did. It's quite intense and sad at the end and has one of those open endings that made the entire audience exclaim with a big gasp and groan! It was quite funny how into it people had become.

- Adam picked up his kilt yesterday. It's gorgeous, and he looks fantastic in it! The challenge will be to stop him from wearing it before the wedding!

- I finished paying off my OSAP loan (student loan from when I did my teaching degree in 2008-2009), and got my official letter saying it was paid off - so nice!

- I have a new Top Ten list up: favourite YA novels, if you want to check it out. There's some old favourites on it and some new surprises - for me anyway ;)


Last week I also did First Aid/CPR training - my first time! It was excellent, I learnt so much - I would come home and tell Adam all these things I'd learnt and he'd grumble that he wished I hadn't done the training 'cause he didn't like me knowing more about something than him! He was joking, and yet not ;) You know how men are! Anyway, it was an excellent opportunity through my job in the government - I've been meaning to do it (it's scary how many teachers don't have first aid training!) and it was an added bonus not to have to take time off work (well, I wasn't at my desk but I still got paid!) or pay for it - thank you Ontario taxpayers!!

I learnt that you never thump someone who's choking on the back (and that the Heimlich family copyrighted their "manoeuvre" so you can't call it that anymore).

I learnt the difference between a stroke and a heartattack, and also that my father-in-law recently had what's called a "Transient Istemic Attack" (TIA), or mini-stroke - he may have blacked out for a quick second and lost sensation in his fingers, making him drop a can of coke. It won't show up on a catscan or damage the brain, but they've found over the decades that these attacks are warnings of a major stroke within about 2 months. Hopefully now he'll take himself to the doctor!

I learnt how to use an EPIPEN for anaphyllactic people, and how to cure low blood sugar in a diabetic before they go into a diabetic coma - a juice box. A little tetra-pack of oj with a straw. Brings 'em right back to life.

I learnt what to do if a baby starts choking and changes colour (which is exactly what they're doing in this picture).


I learnt that when doing CPR we don't check for pulse anymore. I takes too long. Spend 10 seconds checking if someone is breathing. CPR is now two regular breaths and 30 fast, deep compressions, because the most important thing is to keep the blood circulating - I learnt that while you have only a few minutes of not-breathing before your brain dies, you have up to 10 mins of oxygen in your blood, so compressions forces it to circulate and keep the brain going until EMS arrives with a defibulator (sp?).

I learnt that except in cases of choking or drowning, CPR is NOT meant to resuccitate people at all, only to keep the brain alive until the real help comes.

I learnt that you put chopped fingers or toes into a plastic bag and sit it in a bowl of coldish water (I was thinking milk, but that's for teeth).

I learnt that you should never induce vomiting if you've swallowed something poisonous, because it can do more damage coming up than it did going down. Instead, you call Poison Control and they'll tell you what to do.

Oh I learnt lots of things! Including how to use a defibulator, which I can't spell.

So, bummer, complete bummer, I found out I'm not enrolled to vote anymore and it's too late to enrol. I had to call the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission - did I get that right?) the other day because I tried searching for my enrolment on their website but got nothing - it's like being told you don't exist! I'm really annoyed with myself. Because I live overseas, I won't get fined if I don't vote (for those of you unfamiliar with our system, we have mandatory federal and state voting, which is something I'm 100% supportive of. It's not a real democracy if only 40% of eligible people vote!), but it's important to me to have my opinion counted.

I think if I did vote, I'd be inclined to vote for the Sex Party. I only just heard about them the other week, but they have great ... what's the word, ethics? Morals? Can't speak for their policies; I just heard they were for homosexual rights, women's rights, abortion, things like that. I usually vote Green though last federal election I voted Labour. Had to get f***ing Howard out right? ;)

So anyway, things have been trundling along. I keep forgetting to update my LJ, or struggling to find the time, but I'm not about to abandon it or anything. I just feel bad for not visiting my friends and seeing what's up with your lives. Sorry about that.

July was a very very hot and humid month, but a pretty good reading month - here's the run-down:

BOOKS READ IN JULY

Total # of books read in July: 16
Total # of books read by end of July: 87
Most Enjoyed: The City of Dreaming Books; Dance With Snakes; Baking Cakes in Kigali - and of course my favourite, Diary of a Wombat!
Least Enjoyed: 13 to Life
Classics Book Club Read for July: Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
Classics Book Club Read for August (upcoming): Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Books Read for Challenges: um, none. Although I did get Baking Cakes in Kigali for the World Party Reading Challenge, but the challenge has since been cancelled as far as I know. (I should check that, really.)

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Moers, Walter: The City of Dreaming Books
Carriger, Gail: Changeless
Larsson, Stieg: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest
Hart, Megan: Deeper
Disch, Thomas M: Camp Concentration
Brennan, Sarah Rees: The Demon’s Lexicon
Moya, Horatio Castellanos: Dance With Snakes
Doctorow, Cory: Little Brother
French, Jackie: Diary of a Wombat
Parkin, Gaile: Baking Cakes in Kigali
Delany, Shannon: 13 to Life
Sacco, Joe: Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995
Fitzgerald, F Scott: Tender is the Night
Hubbard, Susan: The Year of Disappearances
Vaughn, Carrie: Discord’s Apple
Okorafor, Nnedi: Who Fears Death

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Have you read any of these? Did you read anything in July that you absolutely loved - or hated? My new-found love is Horacio Castellanos Moya, from El Salvador. I absolutely loved Dance With Snakes!

I've had an awful day at work and got to go home early - don't worry, it'll be okay, and I'm 100% supported, but I'm just one of those sensitive, emotional people who cry fairly easily (which sucks, by the way - anyone else like this who finds it just as inconvenient as I do?).

I'm not doing too well keeping up with the dual blogs am I? Sorry 'bout that. I haven't been on LJ in over a week. Will try to do better, really.

It's Adam's 30th birthday tomorrow (Wednesday). We're not Big Bash type people; we'll celebrate it better on the weekend I think.

My sister's new baby has been named Felix. I'm thrilled - I've always loved that name; I'm so glad we have a Felix in the family now! Anyone remember Felix the Cat?

The heat seems to have evened out; it's still hot but not as humid as a week or two ago, so we're sleeping better at night.

Adam's ordered his kilt - so exciting! We're supposed to be sending out invitations soon but I haven't yet made the time to visit printers to get quotes. Dear me.

Adam's uncle is dying of cancer. He's had bowel cancer for several years; I'm not sure if it's the same cancer or not, but it's throughout his entire body now and they're not expecting him to be alive for much longer. It's so horrible. I don't know him well - he's the second husband of Adam's aunt, his Dad's sister - but I really liked them both when I met them. They were both teachers, before their health got so bad (she has, ah, something to do with her lungs). They live in London (Ontario's London, that is), so it's not easy to visit them, but Adam went last weekend with his dad.

The Book Depository is very addictive! I must surely be their best customer by now!

We went and saw Eclipse a couple of Fridays ago. Adam and I both enjoyed it - I know some of you are cinema-sniggerers, and when cinema-sniggerers are my friends I don't want to spoil their fun - but honestly, it's so annoying! I meant to post about it here but I ended up doing it on GD instead ... have link somewhere ... there! Or rather, here!


Doctor Who

Okay, so I'm confused about Doctor Who. You remember I mentioned they are playing the "old" series Monday to Thursday (not the old old series but the new-old ones! AHH so confusing!). So we're up to the David Tennant series, and I'm lost. So, there was the big double-episode when the daleks and the cybermen came to Earth and started battling it out. People from another dimension turned up including Rose's dad, except he wasn't really her dad 'cause he was from another dimension - and Mickey was there, and I must have missed that episode but anyway. At the end, Rose and the Doctor get separated on two different dimension. I'm pretty sure Rose ended up on her original plane, and the Doctor on a different one? The one where there were blimps over London?

So, after a final farewell, suddenly Donna in a wedding dress turns up in the Tardis, and the episode ended on a big "What?!" Then, the next episode, he meets Martha and takes her on board. So what the hell happened in-between?! Donna's there one second, and suddenly not!

Also, Martha looks exactly like one of the minor characters in the big Rose finale who was killed by a cyberman - it is the same actress isn't it? I'm not going mad am I? So, the Doctor's now on a different plane of existence, yes? I'm so confused! I think I must be missing bits. Help!

I have a new nephew! My big sis Tara gave birth to a beautiful bouncing boy ... um, not sure of the date exactly because of the time difference, but it was Wednesday my time! Hm. Should find that out...




So cute! I want to kiss his little nosey-wosey! He's so new he doesn't even have a name yet! But he's already got some funky fashion sense going ;) Mum and tot are doing well and that's about all I know (it really sucks living an ocean away).

(I have realised - not for the first time - that almost all my icons are sarcastic. Nothing much for happy news! What does that say about me? *shudder*)