Cloud pictures, Part 2

Much ado about titles

As an extensive reader, I often analyze certain aspects of literature, trying to find out what I like, what I don’t like, what works, what doesn’t. Just recently, a book that I had never heard of before and knew nothing about, made me want to read it. Why? Because the title was catchy. Suddenly I had an interest in the titles of books.

Titles are the first thing you notice about a book, even before you see its cover. When we were at a booksale recently, Purring Piggy was initially put off by a book called “Murder, Murder, Murder” (it was a collection of Mr. and Mrs. North mysteries). Not because she knew anything about its content, but because the title implied its content.

A bad title will put off a reader, and a good title will attract readers. It does not necessarily matter how good the book is; there are books with very interesting titles that are very boring inside. Titles do not even have to reflect the content of the book, though they should, to be good. As long as the reader is attracted enough to pick up the book, what follows matters less. What good will it do if a book is the best ever written, but has a title that sounds dreadfully boring so that no one will actually read it?

There are three basic forms for titles of books: Names, Abstract, and Statement.

The first form, Names, is the most uninspiring. There are names of People, like Robinson Crusoe, Jane Eyre, and Eragon. It is hard, though, to be attracted to a name that means nothing to you. Even harder is to become attracted to a place, like Cranford, Watership Down, Wuthering Heights, or Bleak House. Of course, if you already have some attraction to the name, using it in a title will make the book’s title twice as interesting. Suspense and Sensibility is a deliberate play on the title of Sense and Sensibility, and is a catching title. George Eliot Murders is another interesting title, more so because the title takes a familiar name and pairs it with a word that is elsewhere unconnected. George Eliot murders? Surely not! The Eyre Affair and Jane and the Unpleasantness of Scargrave Manor: Being the First Jane Austen Mystery also use this trick.

The second form, Abstract, is much more common, but often only slightly less dull. Abstract titles can be one word, like Persuasion, Cotillion, and The Chosen; or more detailed, like North and South, Gone With the Wind, Great Expectations, The Way We Live Now. These titles ask questions: Who was persuaded? How does North relate to South? What went with the wind? But sometimes the question is not urgent enough. How could the way we live now make an interesting fiction story? Do we really care who was chosen?

The third form is Statement or Phrase titles. Over Sea Under Stone, The Once and Future King, Wild Animals I Have Known, are all good examples, also any title that starts with The Legend of... or The Adventures of... or The Tale of... or any other such useful formula.

Now we come to the examples of good titles. Much Ado About Nothing, were it not so famous, would be a good title. It promises plot twists and probably humor, and, most importantly, does not sound boring. 8 Men and a Duck is also good, because it uses “and” to connect two seemingly separate things, making the combination interesting. A Wrinkle in Time is an abstract title that is interesting because, after all, what is a wrinkle in time? Villains by Necessity and Amusing Ourselves to Death are interesting because of their oxymoronic value.

Doctor Dogbody is just another uninteresting name title, but Doctor Dogbody’s Leg throws the whole picture into a new light. A tarantula may not be interesting by itself, but The Tarantula in My Purse certainly is! Eats Shoots and Leaves sounds like a murder mystery, and not necessarily an interesting one, but when you find out that it’s a grammar book? Well then, it’s suddenly interesting.

The Man Who Was Thursday and Castaways of the Flying Dutchman have just enough weirdness to make them good. As for titles that make you ask questions, there are The Man Who Knew Too Much, He Knew He Was Right, We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, Why Shoot a Butler, and last and probably best When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth. (Good heavens, when did they?)

Some titles are good because of their rhythm or alliterative quality. The Tale of Two Cities has a nice sound to it, as do Swallows and Amazons and The Red Badge of Courage. Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Do Butlers Burgle Banks, and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, use alliteration well.

Jean Fritz deserves an award all to herself for having interesting titles for children’s history books. King George and the American Revolution is not particularly grabbing, so though it could be an alternate title for one of her books, she picked a better one: Can’t You Make Them Behave, King George? There are more, and all of them grab your attention:
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?
Shh! We’re Writing the Constitution
Why Don’t You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?
Why Not, Lafayette?
What’s the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?
Will You Sign Here, John Hancock?

Of course, just about any title can be revved up by the addition of a buzz word, such as “Mutiny”, “Escape”, “Death”, “Miracle”, “Phantom/Ghost”, “Revenge”, “Pirate”, “Quest”, “Danger”, etc. Much Ado on the Bounty is not nearly as sensational as Mutiny on the Bounty.

There are titles that no one has tried yet, like The Incredibly Depressing Story of [insert name here] (reverse psychology) or The Kung Fu Dragons of France (odd juxtaposition) or The Ship that Shouldn’t Sail (asking questions). Perhaps they would not be interesting stories, but their titles are.

However, after examining many, many different titles, I still think that the best title is the one that got me started on this study. This title, of a cookbook, is:

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

Now if that doesn’t get you wanting to read a cookbook, I don’t know what title would.

Vacation pictures: the Cloud edition Part 1

Music meme

I think that music is the thing I love most after books...I even listen to it while reading books. So this meme was my cup of tea (speaking of which, since fall has begun, I've restarted my tea-drinking habit...three cups a day. *sighs* I am a hopeless addict).

It's the Theme Song Meme!

1. If you could pick your own theme song, what would it be?

I have to admit that I mentally assign theme songs to all the people I know, but I have never pondered one for myself. Jupiter by Holst, Opening Titles from Dear Frankie, the Second Movement of the Seventh Symphony by Beethoven, Be Thou My Vision or Holy God We Praise Thy Name by Michael Card, Swan Lake by Tchakovsky, Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, Grey Havens and Riders of Rohan by Howard Shore, Hallelujah by Michael Card, Learn to be Lonely by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Watermark and To Go Beyond by Enya, The Gravel Road by James Newton Howard, the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven...all of these seem to fit me in my mind.

2. Now be honest…if others had to pick a song that described you, what would they choose?

How would I know? What do you think should be my theme song?
3. What song you would like played at your wedding?

Only one? Lulluby by Bond

4. What song gets stuck in your head most often?

The Greatest Commands.

5. What song would you want played at your funeral?

The New Jerusalem by Michael Card...or Short Mourning by Keith Lancaster

6. What song(s) changed your life?

When I was first thinking about becoming a Christian, one of the factors was that I wanted to be able to sing When We All Get To Heaven and know that I was part of "we all".

7. If you could have dinner with three dead musicians which three would you choose and why?

Beethoven, Haydn, and Handel. Beethoven, because I've always been fascinated by him; Haydn, because I love his personality as well as his music; and Handel because he wrote the best religious music ever.

8. You are stranded on a deserted island. You are allowed the complete musical works of one band and its members. Which band or musician would you choose?

Michael Card.

9. Does music play in your head? If so, what is playing right now?

The Dear Frankie theme.

10. Can music truly soothe the savage beast? If so, what music soothes your beast?

Beethoven, no matter what piece, has always had a magically soothing effect on me. And in absence of him, most piano music. Currently my favorite piano piece is Piano Duet from The Corpse Bride.

A convert to Dickensianism...

...for a while, at least.

With a title like Bleak House, I expected the latest BBC adaptation of Dickens to be just as dark and tragic as the others I had seen. What a pleasant surprise! No one was beaten up, only a couple people died, and the main character did not have to suffer throughout the whole movie. Esther Summerson was wonderfully filled with sense, Allan Woodcourt was lovely even though his scenes were few, Mr. Jarndyce was perfectly nice without being caricature, and I even cried for Sir Leicester in the end. The characters of Ada and Richard were well handled, without sensibility, as was the character of Mr. Guppy. There was a predictability to it, which I seem to find in every Dickens novel or movie, but the lack of creepy/odd minor characters cancelled that out. Another charm of this movie was that, though 7 1/2 hours long (:-o), I never felt bored or wished to stop watching it. It is definitely a movie that I would want to show to my friend and family, but may not because of its extreme length.

Even More Vacation Pictures

More Vacation pictures

Book sale finds

We went to our favorite booksale on Friday evening, the one which is twice a year, opening on Saturday usually, but opening Friday evening for Friends of the Library (though you can only get 25 books per person). It has a lovely selection of ex-library copies, as well as privately owned and donated copies of books, and we always find around 100 books that we need. Here are the top finds:

A Blunt Instrument and The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer

Treason's Harbour by Patrick O'Brian

The First Rumpole Omnibus and The Second Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer

The first five books in the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter

A Portrait of Jane Austen by David Cecil

The Wimsey Family by Dorothy Sayers

Do Butlers Burgle Banks and Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse

The Captain From Connecticut by C. S. Forester

Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough

The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Barnaby Rudge, Christmas Stories, and Sketches by Boz by Charles Dickens

The Adventures of Gluckel of Hamelin by Bea Stadler

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

The first six Mrs. Pollifax books by Dorothy Gilman

John Adams and the American Revolution by Catherine Drinker Bowen

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Really nice hunter green hardback with embossed runes, and with Tolkien's illustrations!)

...and 88 others, which I have not time to post

For those unfamiliar with Demotivators...

Say hello to Mr. Slope

No, not the slimy character whom we love to hate (because he's played by Alan Rickman) from The Barchester Chronicles, or for the more literary minded, from Barchester Towers. No, Obadiah Slope is our new pet:



He's also a demonstration of one of the benefits of homeschooling. When you are at the grocery store, and you see a Venus Fly-trap for sale, your mother will buy it for you because it is "a science experiment".

Humor, from our house and elsewhere

Emma Darcy has, unfortuntately, discovered the world of knock-knock jokes:
ED: Knock knock!
PP: Who's there?
ED: Cats!
PP: Cats who?
ED: MOO! (laughs hysterically)

I was reading through one of my diaries (from 2003), and found this anecdote:
We were at an art museum, at an exhibit on Seurat. Purring Piggy stood back from one of his pictures and said: "If you stand far enough back, you can't see the dots." Martin the Warrior, who was standing next to her, said candidly: "That's because you're old, Mom. I can see the dots."

And finally, from the often profound Austenblog, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that the only thing Pride and Prejudice needs to be completely charming is…pirates."

Vacation pictures

Yellowstone Bible Camp after sundown.

The creek at YBC.

A rather ugly, rather interesting, hot spring in Yellowstone national park.

Argh, matey, Pirates of the Caribbean party!

Martin the Warrior had his ninth birthday a couple weeks ago, and he chose as his theme Pirates of the Caribbean. We had a lot of interesting activities, like finding treasure chests (with real maps, though we couldn't round up a compass in time), relay races (which included running like Jack Sparrow away from angry natives, and running a sail up a mast), and other interesting activities.

This is my costume, based off of Elizabeth Swann's red dress in POTC1.


And this is Aragorn as the Dread Pirate Roberts (yes, he knows it's not from POTC...but does he look dashing or what!)



The hero of the party, Martin the Warrior, as the remarkable Captain Jack Sparrow (thank you to Johnny Depp for letting us use his eyes ;-)


Here are we, firing cannonballs at the Black Pearl (left), and the Interceptor (right). You can tell them apart because the Interceptor has a Union Jack instead of a Jolly Roger. ;-)

Pintel and Ragetti (er, Aragorn and a pirate friend) running off with Davy Jones' heart (which has magically grown).

And though this didn't happen at the same time, but a week before, it's related. We were able to take a tour of the brig the Lady Washington, which is mainly a replica of a historical ship, but it is also the ship that played the part of the Interceptor in Pirates of the Caribbean.

It's rope! Some of the six miles of it that are on the Lady Washington.

Who says that they have to be totally authentic?

Travel Diaries, Part 3

We had left YBC, and I actually felt like going home then, but the vacation was by no means over. For the next three days, we were caravaning with two of the other Pacific Northwest families throughout Yellowstone. Because of the nature of a caravan, we had to keep in touch, we used walkie-talkies. The dads decided that it would make it more fun to use the radios if we had call-signs. And so we had. Sometimes we were in two vehicles, and sometimes in three, but we always had call-signs. Here are most of them:
Raptor, Pegasus, and Behemoth (or Mongo)
Dory, Nemo, and Bruce
Wallace and Grommit
Obi-Wan and Darth Vader
Beethoven and Mozart
The Dread Pirate Roberts and Prince Humperdinck

The next landmark was the Old Faithful geyser area. Mostly we were going to see Old Faithful, but while we were there, we saw an even more wondrous sight. Beehive Geyser erupts 200 feet (taller than Old Faithful) only approximately every 48 hours, so last time we had not waited around for it. But God was with us on the trip, and we found out that we had stopped by the place at just the right time. Of all the days, of all the hours, for us to be there, we only had to wait 20 minutes to see one of the coolest sights in Yellowstone.

(PP thought I should add this anecdote) On that hike around the geyser basin, I had decided to carry Emma Darcy in a sling. I did not quite think about the fact that she was no longer a little baby, but a large-for-her-age three year old. By the time we were near the end of the hike, I could barely feel my shoulder. Purring Piggy suggested that I let her walk the rest of the hike, but I remembered my martial arts teacher, and how he always wanted us to push ourselves and have “warrior spirit”. So I decided to finish the hike with Emma Darcy and “practice my warrior spirit”.






That night, I was very happy to unpack at the hotel, starting to feel even more ill. We caught the second half of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" on TV, and then went to bed. The next day I had an awful head cold, and we had to go to church. It was amazing, but even in Montana, the Church of Christ did things almost exactly like we did at home. There was more touring in Yellowstone that day, and then we went to another hotel, one that was on the way home.

The next day, the highlight of the trip would be a stop at Montana Valley Bookstore, a bookstore that supposedly had 100,000 used books. I was still feeling terribly sick, that day, but it was enough to brighten my spirits. I was expecting to have to limit myself, but even with 100,000 books, I didn’t find more than we could afford. A selection of what we picked up is: the rest of the Pendragon series, another Peter Wimsey book, and a couple books that we had never heard of but sounded very interesting.

That day we had cans of soda in the van, and Emma Darcy and The Queen had to share. The Queen had had it for a while when Purring Piggy said she should share with Emma Darcy. As soon as Emma Darcy had had it for more than five seconds, The Queen started to whine: “She’ll drink all of it!” We told her to be patient, and so she was. But when she finally got it, she had not had it for more than five seconds before Emma Darcy whined (without trying to be funny): “She’s drinking all of it!”

At another point in the drive, Purring Piggy, who was driving, took her hands from the wheel and Martin the Warrior said: “Mom! You’re going to make us crash!” CK responded: “No, it’s ok. She can drive with her mere presence.” “She’s driving with the Force!” said Adaon.

The stop that night was near Grand Coulee Dam, where we caught the first half of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on TV, so we got to watch it all on our trip. Grand Coulee Dam has the largest laser show in the world, and that was a great experience, even though largest does not mean best. But what was the greatest was that: WE WERE GOING HOME THE NEXT DAY!!!

(On our way home we passed through an area where the sun was blood red, and it turned out that there was a wildfire nearby. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was a nice picture nonetheless)



(This picture is of one of the many "Scenic Points" we stopped at)

The next day, we woke up, packed up one last time, got in the car, and drove all the way home.

When I got home I felt so much like jumping out and kissing the Pacific Northwest ground that I had missed...but I didn’t, because while my mind was above earthly things at that moment, my physical side told me that I needed warm soup, a throat lozenge, a box of tissues, and about 72 hours of restful sleep. But it was a wonderful feeling, coming home again. I wanted to hug my garden (which had miraculously survived two weeks of neglect), my Margaret Hale computer icon, my wacky desktop that changed picture exactly every minute, my school schedule, my ramen noodles that I had so missed, the library books that I was in the middle of reading before I left and couldn’t be taken on vacation with me, and the very idea that I was home. I no longer had to rely on what we had packed. I no longer had to sit for hours on end in a van stuffed full of luggage. I could sleep on my own soft bed, and if I felt hungry in the night, I could get up and make any variety of food. If I felt sick, I could lie down in comfort in bed, and not try to make do with pillows in a van. I felt so much like Bilbo on my trip, wondering why on earth I had left my warm comfortable hobbit-hole, and, like a hobbit, looking back on the long journey with the rosiness of hindsight, but settling down most happily to the comfortable and familiarity of home.

Travel diaries, Part 2

Since I was supposed to be outgoing, I only brought one book along to camp, for reading before bed and if I woke up early. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I brought, of all books, Master and Commander. It was a very surreal experience to go back to the cabin late at night. leaving a world of trees and hot chocolate and Speed Scrabble, and crack open my book to enter a world of sea water and rum and whist. I did not at all expect to finish the 450 page book on the trip, but after a sleepless night and an afternoon of watching Emma Darcy while she napped, I had finished it and there was another week of vacation to go! Well, I grew much more tired the longer we were on vacation, therefore going right to sleep at night instead of reading first, and we always had something to listen to in the van, so I ended up not being bored. But the next time, no matter how little time I expect to read, I shall bring a book of at least 600 pages, or two shorter ones.

I’ve heard it said many times that daughters grow up to “channel” their mothers, and, finding that a rather disconcerting thought, I pay attention to how I babysit. While at camp, I was taking Emma Darcy back to the cabin, and she was running in front of me. Since she is barely three years old, and does not have the best balance among toddlers, and the road was not at all smooth, I called out to her: “Don’t fall down!” Just as she responded, saying “I”m NOT going to fall down!”, I realized with horror that despite all my care to avoid it, I am channeling my mother. The very things that annoyed me when she did them, I am doing to my younger siblings. It was a sobering thought.

The last time we were at YBC, it had been sunny throughout the week. This week, however, we got our first foreshadowing of weather on Monday. Volleyball is, apparently, the official Church of Christ outdoor game, so on Monday we went out to play it. There were some clouds, but not many when we started, but we hadn’t gotten far before drops started coming down. The majority of players were from the Pacific Northwest, where rain is a normal part of life, and something that is more than likely ignored, so when a non-Pac-Nor player asked if we should call off the game for rain, one of the Pac-Nor players said: “For rain? When did water hurt anyone?” But Pac-Nor rain is in smaller drops than Montana rain, and once that started, and then added a lot of lightning (something the Pacific Northwest rarely gets), we all agreed that this was rain worthy enough to call off the volleyball for. And the rain and lightning accompanied most of the week, meaning that a lot of time was spent in the lodge talking and playing board games, rather than outside hiking or playing sports.

Emma Darcy is usually cheerful in the morning, which can be sometimes frightfully annoying to all us night-owls, but the later nights and long days of camping trips (not to mention sleeping in a foreign place) had taken enough toll on her by Tuesday morning, that when Purring Piggy came to wake her after the bell rang, she was not happy at all. She rolled over and responded with a long and agonized (but distinctly tired) “Noooooooo...”, as if Darth Vader had just announced that he was her father. And, of course, our laughing at her dramatics did nothing to improve her mood, but she didn’t repeat the performance through the rest of the week.

Emma Darcy is a constant source of humor to our family, though she rarely means to be, as shown by this small anecdote related to me by PP (who knew I was keeping a travel diary). Purring Piggy loves to talk to people, and she is also easily distracted, and Emma Darcy figured this out pretty quickly. One day, after she had promised to take Emma Darcy to the swings, Emma Darcy felt that she had to remind her: “Don’t talk to anyone!”

On Thursday, we went into Yellowstone National Park itself, and covered Mammoth Hot Springs and Norris Geyser Basin. The former we had seen before on our last time, and I was unable to conjure up much wonder again for a snowwhite mineral sculpture whose purpose seemed to be to bounce the bright sunlight into my eyes which were already squinting because I had forgotten my hat. That, and the unpleasant fact that touring Yellowstone involves hiking to almost everywhere, made the other factor of Yellowstone (the fact that you have to drive for hours to get anywhere) actually pleasant, comparatively.




I was thinking a good deal about Mansfield Park before we left, so Norris Geyser Basin tickled my fancy, especially the fact that it contains the most acidic geyser in the world. ;-) Irony worthy of Austen herself, I thought. On the way there, we stopped at a Ranger museum. The sun had been shining all day, without a cloud in the sky, so it was providential humor that put a thin little cloud over the sun seconds after someone’s complaint that it was too bright. The cloud was just thin enough to cause a little shade, but when I took a picture of it, I did not expect it to be even more fascinating on film.

Friday night was a talent show, which was memorable for our family because of Emma Darcy. She is very outgoing, but often shy in company for some odd reason, so we were very surprised when she ran up on stage just as the talent show was ending, and started singing "You Are My Sunshine". It was the sweetest thing in the world, even if we could barely tell what song she was singing because she was so quiet, and she probably got the loudest round of applause for her pluck.

By Saturday, the last day of camp, I was starting to feel ill, and was definitely ready to be home. But it was not to be. We had another four days of touring and traveling. Just before leaving camp, the strangest thing happened. A friend and I were sitting on a log when we saw a molehill move. I thought I was imagining it, but sure enough, little bursts of dirt were flying from the hole. I crept closer, and the mole itself came out and arranged its dirt with precision. It was too fast for me to get a picture, but my mom made me take a picture of the hole anyway, so we would remember it. I made a note to myself to label the picture as soon as we got home, or we would forget, and years later would puzzle over the shot of an odd hole in the ground among our camping pictures.





(Image key: #1, Yellowstone Bible Camp from above; #2, Sheepeater Cliff; #3, really cool cloud; #4, mole hill; #5, really interesting rock formations that apparently weren't considered worthy enough to name, but that we loved looking at)

Northanger Abbey pictures!

For all those who loved the book, the only movie available of Northanger Abbey is incredibly disappointing. Thankfully, Andrew Davies, who did the beloved 1995 Pride and Prejudice adaptation, is filming a new version right now. You can see the cast here (and I think they all look good!), but today, Austenblog (who has had lots of news on this, and the other new Austen adaptations coming up) had a link for pictures of the filming! You can see that here. There's also news on the new Mansfield Park on Austenblog, which now has a pretty large cast.

Books read in July and August

A Civil Contract (reread) by Georgette Heyer (Jul 3)

Anguished English by Richard Lederer (Jul 4)

The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators by William Bennet (Jul 12)

Predicting New Words by Allan Metcalf (Jul 13)
Very interesting, especially to a philologist.

Power of 10 by Adam Zickerman (Jul 15)
Excellent weight training book!

The Miracle of Language by Richard Lederer (Jul 16)

Reason and Romance by Debra White Smith (Jul 17)
A modern Christian adaptation of Sense and Sensibility...pretty good.

The School For Scandal by Richard Sheridan (Jul 17)
I think it would help to see this performed, as I’m not sure I understood all the twists and turns.

Peace Child by Don Richardson (Jul 18)

Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer (Jul 21)
Another one of Heyer’s laugh-out-loud mysteries.

The Unknown Ajax (reread) by Georgette Heyer (Jul 24)
One of Heyer’s best and funniest, though more subtle than some.

Washington: The Indispensible Man by James Flexner (Jul 24)

Adams vs. Jefferson by John Ferling (Jul 25)
Excellent history book about the first partisan election.

Letters to Alice by Fay Weldon (Aug 1)
Interesting, but very feministic.

Lady Catherine’s Necklace by Joan Aiken (Aug 2)
Joan Aiken writes some lovely frothy Austen sequels, and this is the latest.

The Scarlet Pimpernel (reread) by Baroness Orczy (Aug 5)

Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian (Aug 9)
Good, but not a Christian worldview.

Sixpence in her Shoe by Phyllis McGinley (Aug 17)
A great book about the joys of homemaking.

Lover’s Vows by Mrs. Inchbald (Aug 24)
This is the play that had Fanny Price up in arms in the book Mansfield Park...Shakespeare has more objectionable content than this.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (Aug 26)
My first Dickens book in years...a torturous read.

Jane Austen in Hollywood by Linda Troost (Aug 30)
A fascinating book about all the Austen adaptations up to 1996, exploring the translation from book to screen, and also the added feministic and romantic touches (which show up quite strongly in even the most outwardly conservative adaptations).

Back again...and Blogthings

The weeks since we returned from our vacation have been a succession of busy nothings, as if to make up for all the laziness of being on vacation. I had many posts planned, but last week Purring Piggy suddenly decided that we were going to do a Pirates of the Caribbean birthday party for Martin the Warrior and Ladybug's brother (who have birthdays one day apart). [Purring Piggy writes: Actually, the parents and birthday children discussed the party in July and decided to leave the details until after the Yellowstone vacation, so it really wasn't sudden to those in charge] You don't know, but in the Clan, birthday parties mean BIRTHDAY PARTIES! Costumes for everyone, elaborate activities and decorations (always themed), and of course, one of Purring Piggy's unique birthday cakes (this time a treasure map). So between helping Purring Piggy sew all seven costumes, and trying to get everything else done, too, I haven't had any time for blogging. But today I have returned to the blogging world, and I will try to finish my travel posts, the books I read in July and August, and the POTC party (with pictures of the incredible costumes we concocted in a week). But until then...

You Are a Soy Latte

At your best, you are: free spirited, down to earth, and relaxed At your worst, you are: dogmatic and picky You drink coffee when: you need a pick me up, and green tea isn't cutting it Your caffeine addiction level: medium

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

You Are a Learning Cook

You've got the makings of an excellent cook, and the desire to be one. But right now, you're just lacking the experience. You couldn't be a top chef yet, but you could be an apprentice.

Are You A Good Cook?