Animal Tales...

My life is definitely strange.

There's no other way to put it. A lot of that strangeness is due to my four-footed kin.

Here's tonight's tale...

I'm working at the moment. I was working 45 minutes ago, too. Nothing strange about that.

Except...

While stopping at the local gas station to pick up something to drink, I got a call on my cell. Not good at 0215 in the morning. Most of my friends and family are sound asleep at this time and late night calls are not normally good news.

My caller ID tells me "home" is calling.

Okay...

I live alone.

With two cats and a dog.

"Home" should not be calling me.

So, I went home in something of a rush. Why, I don't know. It was just more than a little odd to be getting that call.

I found an overly excited dog...

And the mess she'd made in the bedroom. Made minutes before.

Obviously, she'd need to go out to poop and when she couldn't, she opted for my bedroom. Lovely of her, right?

But my question?

What the heck was up with the phone call... which I got about the time she would've been frantic about going out...

She's smart, I'll grant you.

But that smart? Naw. No way.

Right?

Time for a little blues therapy...

I'm suffering a huge case of the blues so please, forgive me while indulge in a little therapy...





Eric Clapton is a genius. Absolutely amazing...

Good Night, Sweet Song Bird

The world just got a bit more silent...

Happy Mother's Day

Once upon a memory

Someone wiped away a tear

Held me close and loved me,

Thank you, Mother dear.

Friday Fill-ins 60

Haven't done one in awhile but... here we go!

1. Salsa and chips, with a margarita sounds good.

2. Eat a hot dog at the ball park and you've even got mustard.

3. By the time I get home the dog wants to play and I want to go to bed!

4. Being done is what I look forward to most when grocery shopping.

5. And I was dreaming of doing the impossible.

6. Ernie Harwell's voice on the radio... was there anything else better?!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to beating my migraine, tomorrow my plans include cleaning and Sunday, I want to go on an outing with the dog!

Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrel
Dutton
406 Pages
Copyright 2010

From the book:

The Bard's witch-haunted play is famously cursed - its reputation for malevolence so strong that many actors refuse to quote or even name the play aloud. And as Kate Stanley begins rehearsals at the foot of Scotland's Dunsinnan Hill, it doesn't take long for the curse to stir. Strange references emerge to the boy actor who first played Lady MacBeth in Shakespeare's day and died in the role. A trench atop the hill is found filled with blood shortly after some of the actors go missing. And a mysterious tarot card leads Kate into the woods, where she finds a local woman dead in circumstances that suggest not just ritual murder, but ancient pagan sacrifice.

With Kate marked as both suspect and future victim, she and Ben Pearl, the man who saved her life as she chased Shakespeare's lost play, find themselves in a desperate race to discover a dangerous version of MacBeth said to contain actual rituals of witchcraft and forbidden knowledge. However much Kate would like to dismiss such rituals as superstition, someone else appears willing to kill for them - and for the cursed manuscript said to be Shakespeare's darkest secret.

I chose to go with the book summary because I don't think I can do it justice on my own. Carrel writes incredibly rich, incredibly intense, complex mysteries unlike any others I've ever read. Her first book,
Interred with Their Bones, dealt with the search for a missing Shakespeare play and what people would do for it. This one deals with what lies behind the Bard's play MacBeth and what people will do to uncover the secrets, and conversely, what others will do to make sure those secrets never see the light of day. Mix in the witchcraft, ghosts, murder, and betrayal and you've got one of the best stories I've read in a long time.

Carrel has the ability to make both her characters and places feel very real. Here's an example:

Beyond that, I looked up to see the ancient oak, unmistakable in its majesty. There was no sign of Lily, or of anyone else. I bent down panting, my hands on my knees, gazing at the tree, an aged emperor asleep in the watery morning sun, crutches propping up low branches thicker than most of the other trees in the wood. "It" was not a pronoun that came to mind. He was recognizably the same tree as the one pictured on Lily's tarot card. Around him, the air was golden and heavy and silent, thick not only with a strange heavy sleepiness, but with something old and anguished, even angry, despite the sweet haze of autumn.

There is one problem with the story, however, but it is purely personal; there isn't enough Ben Pearl. He's here, but not nearly enough. I fell in love with both Ben and Kate in the first book so I missed his presence. That's a nice tribute to Carrel, by the way.

Recommendation: Anyone who can make me want to learn more about Shakespeare and to read his works is a genius. Pure and simple. Carrel manages to bring what is consider by far too many to be dull and boring to life in a way that's hard to ignore.

Book Review: Changes by Jim Butcher

Changes by Jim Butcher
ROC
438 Pages
Copyright 2010

In book 12 of The Dresdan Files series, Harry finds his life turned inside out by a phone call. The call is from Susan, the woman he lost and loved when she was attacked by the Red Court vampires because of Harry. In the process, Susan was left torn between her humanity and the cruel vampiric nature of the Red Court. In order to keep her humanity, Susan left everyone she loved behind and fled to South America where she could fight those who had attacked her and herself.

The phone call, coming out of the blue, reveals a long kept secret to Harry, one that Arianna Ortega, duchess of the Red Court, has learned and will use against Harry in the most horrific way possible.

Harry is a man who has always fought the dark side of his nature and now the stakes are unimaginable. Harry is left with little hope and the help of his stalwart friends, which may not be enough . . . but there is always the dark and there is always Mab, queen of the Winter Court of Sidhe but is there a lesser of two evils in what is left to him?

This series is one of my favorites. I picked it up after enjoying the ill-fated Dresden File series on Syfy. Harry is a strong character who as grown and changed throughout the series. So have his friends, who come and go in a realistic way. Changes is no different; in fact it takes a huge leap forward in character development on several levels. Relationships change in outright and subtle ways. Life will not be as it was, no matter the outcome of Harry's struggle with Arianne.

Some quotes:

Magic and emotions are tied up inextricably. I've been in battle before, and felt the terror and rage of that kind of place, where it's a fight just to think clearly through the simplest problems. I'd used my magic in those kinds of volatile circumstances - and a few times, I'd seen it run wild as a result. When most people lose control of their anger, someone gets hurt. Maybe someone even gets killed. When it happens to a wizard, insurance companies go broke and there's reconstruction afterward.

And:

We made it to the next block when light flashed and a giant the size of the Sears building hauled off and swatted us all with a pillow from his enormous bed. We were flung from our feet, Susan and Martin landed in a roll, tumbling several times. By contrast, I crashed into a garbage can.

It was, of course, full.

And finally:

Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others - even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.

That last one sums Harry up perfectly. He's a good man who does the right thing, regardless of what it might cost him.

One final comment: Jim Butcher, with the ending of this book, proves he can be evil. But, that's not a bad thing for a writer.

Recommendation: Think of Harry Dresdan as Harry Potter grown up. The stories will suck you in and hold on to you until the last page and then you'll be looking for more.

Good bye, sweet man

It sounds so dry.

Ernie Harwell, the long time voice of the Detroit Tigers has passed away. He was 92 and had been fighting cancer since September of last year.

Those facts, however, cannot come close to the man, his words, or the affect he had on the State of Michigan.

He was the calm, quiet voice of my youth and beyond.

He was the voice that lulled me to sleep on warm summer nights.

He was the voice that made me feel like, no matter what, things would be fine. Ernie was on the radio and all was right in my world.

He was the constant in a part of life that doesn't have constants any more. Players come and go. Managers come and go. Ernie stayed.

Ernie was always there from 1968 until 2002, telling me about the game and, in his own quiet way, telling me about the bigger game, the one called life. It's amazing how the good ones do that without your knowing it. How they teach while entertaining, how they live by example.

If you've ever listened to anything about baseball, you've probably heard Ernie. His gentle voice, with its soft, southern cadence was unmistakable. His trademark home run call "It's looooonnnnnnggg gone!" along with his "Two for the price of one" and "He stood there like a house by the side of the road and watched that one go by" are legendary.

They are, as I've said, the voices of my childhood, heard through a scratchy radio.

Indelible. Cherished. Perfect.

Ernie, you may be gone but you will never, ever be forgotten.

Thank you for each and every golden memory.