Pretty in Plaid by Jen Lancaster

Pretty in Plaid is Jen Lancaster’s memoir of family, frivolity, and fraternity little sisters in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. She shares her early girlhood, high school years, way too much college information, and early career.

Pretty in Plaid indeed. I wanted to love this and I did for quite a ways until the huge chunk on college/sorority life. If you are a sorority girl, good for you. I never saw the attraction and this book made me retrospectively sad that I didn’t do more to make fun of the few friends I had in college who chose a similar path for themselves.

I loved the smart ass little girl and young adult, laughed at the clueless early 20’s Jen, and cringed with Jen during her 30’s. She seems like someone I could hang out with as long as she doesn’t ask me which house I pledged. I will definitely pick up her other books: Bitter Is the New Black; Bright Lights, Big Ass; and Such a Pretty Fat. You’ll laugh, you’ll groan, you might even sniffle a time or two.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

The World Without Us is apparently going to be a wild and crazy place. Seriously, I’m not on a fatalistic streak or anything (since I don’t consider this type of book to be fatalistic anyway) but the genre book group I lead at work discussed dystopian fiction last month and I thought this would be a great companion piece. I was right!

Things I took away from this book:

New York City is apparently only a few broken pumps with no repairs in sight and 30 minutes from beginning to sink back into the swamp it arose from. Keep working guys!

Our pets won’t last much longer than we do, except for the cats, which are in turn wiping out the songbird population. (Binky doesn’t count as she is an indoor kitty.)

Chernobyl is home to wildlife again.

Empty swimming pools can really stink.

The world’s oceans are full of tiny specks of plastic. FULL.

There is a group advocating for voluntary human extinction, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

So, if you don’t want to hear about waste disposal, global warming, climatic cycles, food shortages, forest/wildlife habitat destruction, general woe, don’t bother with the book. If you do, don’t complain to me. I like to read and be aware of all possibilities. So should we all.

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life As We Knew It is written in diary form by 15 year old Miranda. Her life seems average with friends, sports, class frustrations, and college worries. She briefly mentions a news report about an asteroid hitting the moon, but it’s nothing serious. In fact, there are viewing parties planned and her teachers have taken ALL the fun out of it with tons of moon-themed assignments. The night arrives and it’s actually kind of exciting until the screaming starts. It turns out that the astronomers vastly underestimated the density of the asteroid and after impact the moon begins to grow larger in the sky until collision seems a distinct possibility. Almost immediately the consequences of the moon’s nearness begin to manifest themselves and Miranda rightly fears that her life will never be the same.

I love dystopian fiction. There, I’ve said it. Even though Miranda’s near constant mantra of “How can things get any worse?” got on my nerves a bit (Really. I thought everyone knows never to ask that question…) I have to imagine that many in her position would say the same. The dialog was great and I thought the sequence of events flowed naturally and realistically. This is the first in a trilogy and I’m eagerly looking forward to the second, The Dead and the Gone, when I finish this crazy month of July!

I am a Big Loser!

yay! I won the 12-week contest, losing 10% of my body weight! As if that were not enough, I also got $75 :-)

Now to just keep going! I saw my doctor for the first time in about 18 months and to say he was pleased is a vast understatement. I believe I could very nearly have seen a cheer routine with only a little encouragement but I chose to let him keep his dignity intact :-) I weigh over 60 pounds less than the last time I saw him and my blood pressure was 123/80. I am a calm individual :-)

Independence Day!

In short order I will be liberating myself from the library for 3 whole days! I have lots of plans with lots of friends and I hope you do too! Have fun, be safe, and if you can't be good, be good at it!

Summerama

The summer is gearing up now that work is (as much as it ever does) settling down. The 4 of us that are going to the American Library Association national conference in Chicago are getting ExCiTeD! We have so much planned! We fly out July 9th and return July 14th, then KT and I are headed to the beach July 18th for a solid week! We'll have my honorary nieces and KT's mom and sister and it will be fabulous. We are planning meals and deciding on what movies to take with us.

As for Chicago, ALA has the event planner up and I have been adding things like mad with some time slots having 8 or 9 programs. As I obviously cannot be 8 or 9 places at once, a slice-n-dice cull will have to take place. The problem is that they always add programs at the last minute and then I'll be conflicted by something I've planned on attending vs. something I desparately need to see/hear. Never fails. We are attending the Newbery Breakfast to hear Neil Gaiman speak and there are several other authors whose programs I plan to attend.

You never can tell who will be the best speaker. KT and I signed up for an author luncheon in Minneapolis last year and I kind of groaned to hear that Arthur and Pauline Frommer (just try to find a travel guide that isn't Frommer's) were the keynote speakers and it ended up being the best session I heard all conference. We have signed up for a breakfast, lunch, or dinner nearly everyday. One day we have all three provided so I consider our efforts golden as stewards of taxpayer money. Let the vendors pick up the tab.

Are all business conferences similar? Can you get the vendors to pay for nearly everything? I'm looking around for more meals I can sign up for so that I don't have to be reimbursed by the library. I get the student rate membership in ALA since I signed up while in grad school and I get that rate for 10 years! Well, six more now. :-) Travel expenses are going to be pared down to the absolute minimum next year so I want to show that I can be a conservative travel so that I can continue to attend my profession's conferences.

As for the beach, oh I can hardly wait. I'm going to take a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, some flipflops, a bathing suit, some sunscreen, a toothbrush, and a giant bag of books. Little else. My first vacation of the year and I am so looking forward to it!

on another note

According to our scorekeeper, the weekly weighins have been figured cumulatively instead of by the week like we first thought so even though I gained a bit at this week's weighin I'm still ahead of the pack in terms of percentage of body weight lost. However, I don't feel like I earned the spot this week since I gained so I'm not parking there.

I bequeath dumpster parking to Erica (if I can only get her on the phone!!!!) for the week

my fav recommendation for summer

I blogged about it previously when I read it as part of my 100+ Reading Challenge, but I am SO excited about Margot Berwin and Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire BECAUSE................................

I just found out that she is going to be at a debut author conference session that I had already planned to attend at the American Library Association in a couple of weeks! She will be on a panel of other first time authors with a book signing to follow. This is one of my favorite sessions during the national and public library conferences because I love debut novels!

For you edification and entertainment:

snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

I don't have official word yet, but I don't see how I could avoid losing my 5 week title of Biggest Library Loser...I gained this week! I'm not surprised as I fell off the wagon so to speak several times last week and this past weekend and that is what happens when I don't mind my p's and q's.

So, I'm a bit sad but not too much since I'm still at a 9% loss for the past 10 weeks!

spellcheck fail

So, several weeks back (yes, I procrastinate) I went to the zoo with KT and the girlies where we were drowned in several downpours. You have absolutely never enjoyed a zoo in its full supremacy until you've been when it is hot and wet. The scents practically walk around with you. Very fascinating. Anyway, here we get to an exhibit of a rodent about the size of a beagle and I notice the sign. Then I notice the sign again. Come on Birmingham Zoo, I know you have spell check.

And in case you are curious, here's the poor animal whose exhibit features the abysmal spelling...