Living With the Dead (Kelley Armstrong)

I have found lately that I have been "breaking up" with more and more book series as they can't seem to hold my attention after the initial few books.  Perhaps they should have just been trilogies or the author is just trying to milk something that is past its expiration date.  Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series is one that I have been really happy to keep up with though.  Living with the Dead is the 9th book in this series and I am pleased to report that Armstrong has succeeded where other authors have failed.  She has managed to create a base group of characters that continue to interact with each other and new characters to keep the series fresh.  But the development of the characters is rich enough that you still feel like you are catching up with old friends when you read about them and recognize them from other books.  That is how I always feel about my favorite characters anyway.  I think an excellent book should leave you satisfied but slightly bereft when you finish it.  I definitely felt that way as I finished it this morning and immediately went on Paperback Swap (http://www.paperbackswap.com/) to make sure that I had put the next books on my wish list. 

For those interested the series is as follows:

Book 1: Bitten















Book 2: Stolen















Book 3: Dime Store Magic















Book 4: Industrial Magic















Book 5: Haunted















Book 6: Broken















Book 7: No Humans Involved















Book 8: Personal Demon















If for no other reason than to save yourself a lot of time and headache, you should join Paperback Swap to be able to quickly find out series titles, orders, and names.  If I get into a series by reading one of the books in the middle, I have to go back and read from the start.  My mom doesn't mind skipping around but it drives me crazy. 

Back to Knoxville!

I just recently moved back to Knoxville because significant other, John, got a good job here and I am finding many good things in its favor.  Because I was born and raised here, and went to undergraduate school here (Go Volllllsss-uh!) I think I took the city for granted.  After being away for 3 years, I am definitely finding Knoxville wins out in a lot of ways when I compare it to my former home:

• Recycling available: I could only recycle numbers 1 and 2 plastics in Las Vegas while here, it is any plastic with a number and some without (like the lids!?) All my friends and colleagues had tried in vain to find any place in Vegas that took glass recyclables.  Just think about the vast amount of bottles of wine and beer and liquor consumed in that city of sinning and nowhere to take them to get ground up for new bottles? 

• Hardwood floors: unheard of in the desert.  (No trees to speak of= no one thinks of building with them.)  So I had ceramic tile (which I love, but face it... if you drop it on tile, it's broken) and grubby tan carpet in my apartment in Vegas.  I am not a fan of carpet, be it grubby tan or expensive deep-pile exotic wool.  It is hard to clean, hard to keep clean, and if you have ever pulled any up, you know it is never really clean.  Las Vegas has this fine particulate dust that gets everywhere.  Combine that with the cat fur that was also omnipresent in my domicile, and I had an apartment that became a battle zone of dirt and dander.  Pearl cat is allergic to dust mites and significant other, John, is mildly allergic to cat dander.  Go figure.  My new apartment= all hardwood floors except for the bathroom, yea!  (I'll probably have to expound on the joys of my new place in a whole other post...)  By far the best thing about non-carpet is the ease with which cat vomitus is cleaned up. One swipe with a paper towel and you’re done! Back with my grubby carpet it was a multi-step process. First you had to assess the consistency of the throw-up… Would you make a bigger mess by trying to clean it up immediately? Or was it vital that it wait a few minutes to congeal to make picking up easier? Either way you are left with a spot on the carpet that has to be later dealt with. (I found the Bissell Spot Bot was the best.)

• Bike friendliness: I thought moving to Las Vegas with its flat, straight roads would mean commuting by bike would be easy.  Not so much.  In the first month of living there one of my graduate school colleagues was hit on his bike.  Then he was given a ticket for biking on the sidewalk.  (Even though the cop admitted to him that he thought it was too dangerous to ride on the roads.)  I knew of two others over the course of my three years that got hit by drivers as well.  And these are just people I knew personally.  I have been impressed since returning to Knoxville with both the amount of people I have seen riding bikes, and the amount of designated bike lanes.  I'm looking forward to my dad changing the seat on his old bike to a "lady seat" (his terminology), so I can join the ranks of self-propelled non-motorists. 

• General friendliness: I know it is a cliche that people are nice in the South (at least to your face), but I think it's really true.  I probably won't notice it once I have been back six months or so, but for right now it seems pretty apparent.  It is the little things that stick out to me.  Like the smiles and "thank you"s you get for holding the door for someone.  Or if I apologize for some minor infraction (say, bumping into someone in a crowded bar) I actually get a smile and a "no problem" in return instead of a dirty look.  People actually give you a wave when you let them over in front of you while driving.  I think these little kindnesses build up in a cumulative way that really make you feel warm and fuzzy. 

I guess I just wanted to say I was proud of how our "little city that could" stacks up against a big one.  Keep it up, Knoxville. 

I have given up my desire for an e-reader.

I think it was just a phase.  I still want a digital crockpot though.  Preferably this one:

Romance Writers Alliance

I propose a Romance Writer's Alliance.  This alliance would have one dictum.  That would be that no one ever names a male character "Rafe" again. 

Iron Man 2 Review

No matter the theater conditions, I really enjoyed Iron Man 2.  I think I liked the first one better, but it is really a challenge to make a sequel live up to the reputation of its predecessor.  


Can I say how happy I am that Robert Downey Junior got his stuff together?  He is such a good actor and so perfect for this role; cock-sure and full of beans.  


Overall, I think the movie is really operating as a set up for the continued franchise of the Avengers.  You know when you get the feeling that what you're watching is just a way station, and you aren't getting the whole story?  Well, I sort of got that sense when I was watching Iron Man 2.  Like who the hell are Sam Jackson and ScarJo's characters?  They are just randomly plopped into the plot.  Since significant other, John, gets nerd updates he knew what was up and explained it to me after the fact.  


Speaking of ScarJo: that chick has been disappointing me ever since Lost in Translation, which I liked quite a bit.  They say the best actor/actresses are empty vessels.  Well, this girl is about as dull as it gets and is so empty as to be a vacuum.  I don't think that makes her so great for this role... or maybe the role isn't a good one at all.  John says that all her fighting moves involved her crotch somehow.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't do her own martial arts stunts, but at any rate, I found myself thinking: "Why are we watching her do these elaborately choreographed moves when she could just shoot the bad people and it would be a lot simpler?" 

Mother's Day at the Movies (Worst Idea Ever)

John proposed that we go see a movie this past weekend... his options= Iron Man 2 or something at the Dollar Theater (Tropicana Cinemas).  When I texted him back to see what was at the Dolla Dolla Bill Y'All Cinema he replied Shutter Island.  Blech.  I'll see it when it comes via Netflix, but my rationale is that is seems like it'll be way less costly than the admission for two to the dollar cinema (which is actually $1.50) plus the cost of two 20 oz. cokes and candy from the Terrible's gas station that is right next to the theaters.  (I would then sneak all the aforementioned in PS - that is "Pierce Senior"). 

A digression: All my purses are named "Pierce."  Like, Pierce Brosnan, but not after Pierce Brosnan, that would just be weird.  And yes, they are male.  My sister understands this perfectly, but to significant other, John, my purses should be female.  Pierce Senior is my huge Mamaw purse that can double as an extra carry-on piece of luggage.  (A sub-digression: Mamaw=grandmother.  It can also refer to something old-fashioned, like a type of purse or clothing, and has interchangeable good or bad connotations.)  PS goes with us to the movies because it can actually hold my regular sized purse inside along with the aforementioned 2 20 oz cokes and candy of our selection.  Regular sized purse has the moniker of PJ, or Pierce Junior.  


John and I have been excited about seeing Iron Man 2 ever since we heard that they were making it.  John suggested that we might want to go early in the day because it was opening weekend and Saturday is always packed because it's date night.  We were pretty pooped Saturday evening after the Parking Lot/Yard Sale, so we opted for Sunday.  Sunday also happened to be Mother's Day.  My idea, (which was proven horribly, disastrously wrong) was that most people would be spending time with their moms and not be going to see Iron Man 2.  We opted for the 5:30 because it was matinee prices and figured all the Mother's Day celebrators should be having dinner then.  Obviously, I didn't take into account a few factors: 

• The dads that would give mom some much needed rest and load the kids up to get them out of her hair.  (And go see Iron Man 2)
• The families that had moms that would enjoy going to see a movie together.  (That movie... Iron Man 2)
• The families with new mothers that had infants that would need to be toted along for the Mother's Day celebration.  (Which consisted of going to see Iron Man 2)

Needless to say, the theater was packed.  It was packed full of as many kids as if it had been a Disney movie.  I felt like I was at a day care.  John and I had screaming, crying infants in stereo.  It couldn't have been louder if they were miked and piped through the THX.  

We always try to arrive early to movies to scout out good seats.  We had made our preliminary selections and kept an eye on the rapidly filling theater for possible escape routes and secondary seating options should we feel the need to flee.  I felt pretty confident as we made it through the trailers and the opening credits started up.  Sure there were infants already antsy and whining, but none were right in our ears and none of the families directly surrounding us appeared to be talkers.  Then a dad with about 5 children under the age of 8 came noisily into the theater and despite all my telepathic efforts to disguise the empty seats directly behind us, he managed to spot them and direct (clearly, loudly, and very vocally) his brood in that direction.  Sure enough, John and I missed the dialogue that was happening during the opening credits.  The family had taken their seats but appeared to still have much to discuss.  

John and I had already identified the very front two rows as our only alternative for secondary seating.  We have sat and stewed in our own irritated juices through too many movies spent with loud or annoying theater mates.  So we devised a 3 strikes system.  If the annoyance continues after 3 infractions, we agree to soundlessly get up and move to our previously identified and acknowledged secondary seating selection. I don't think we even had to 3-count it for this family of chattertons.  We just fled.  

I used to see this as a sign of weakness.  I held my ground and dispensed dirty looks and "shush!" or "get off your phone" and proceeded to get madder and madder, all the while missing the movie and getting irritated at John for not doing anything.  (I have since learned that John's hearing not being that great means that usually what I hear and get pissed off at, he is blissfully unaware of.)  

We sat in the middle of the theater in the second row up front.  Nobody was in the front row (imagine that!) so we were able to put our feet up on the backs of the seat in front of us and recline as if we were waiting for a gynecological exam.   The speakers were loud enough up front that during the action parts of the movie, the baby noises faded into a dull roar, so it was just during quiet dialogue or suspenseful silences (you know, when you really want to concentrate on the movie?) that the crying took center stage.  Just to mix things up a bit, one child had apparently just learned to make a "Bah!" sound and thought it might be fun to chant it through the entire movie.  

John and I allowed that if we had brought the cats to the movie theater in celebration of my motherhood to them, that they would have been perfect angels and remained quietly seated through the film.  

Corporate Stupidity in Action

The following was sent to yours truly from an anonymous employee of a nationwide furniture store: 


"Your inventory reads correct make sure to explain to sales how to sale these pictures there is a A and B picture we are starting to get lots of errors also to give you the tags to attach to sales orders so if there is a problem we know what happen."

Worst run-on sentence ever!  Not to mention the numerous other grammatical errors.  You would need the corporate translator set to "stoopid" to be able to decipher this.  I won't pretend that I don't make grammar errors myself.  I prefer to write in a more informal, conversational style that probably lends itself to some intentional errors.  But really?  This is awful.  

I am reminded of this thing we had in 5th grade called "Grammar Corner."  It wasn't in a corner, so I don't know why it was called that.  In fact, it was on an overhead projector, so projecting into a corner would have been a little trippy.  But at the beginning of English class, the teacher would project a sentence with deliberate errors and you were supposed to correct them and label the corrections with their appropriate designations like, "subject verb agreement" or some other crap.  I could always correct them, but usually my reason was, "It doesn't sound right."  

This would be the Grammar Corner from Hell.  It would take the entire class to document all the ways this is retarded.