I read youth fiction because I find it much more intelligent than the general "women's mystery". I'm always on the lookout for a good story in this genre. On one of my trips to Barnes and Noble I picked up a copy of the first book in the Twilight series. I was told the author was a "local" so I was excited to support a local author and I'd heard many people say how much they loved the series. That is all I knew about the book when I picked it up.
I read. I waited for something to happen. I read more. Praying for something to happen. I read further telling myself that someone or something was going to hit "Bella" in the head and knock some sense into her. No such luck. I got to the end of the book and something finally did happen. Some other vampire tracked our heroine to a dance studio and, to my ever lasting chagrin, did not manage to rip her into so many pieces that the story could no longer continue.
As I've mentioned before I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter novels. I thought for sure that the character of Hermione Granger had forever put an end to tepid, goody-goody, nonsense driven, female characters, at least in youth fiction (nothing, of course, will put an end to them in adult women's fiction). Hermione has every wondrous feminine emotion, yet she does not allow herself to be a slave to those emotions. She has spunk. She has common sense. She is intelligent. She does not spend 7 books swooning over Ron Weasley. We saw how stupid that looked when Lavender Brown spent most of her lines crooning sappily to "Won Won" and giggling like someone who might well be 3 or 4 bricks shy of a full load. Well, on second thought, let me rephrase that. The relationship between Lavender and Ron clearly showed how silly that kind of empty headed adoration looks. With the popularity of "Twilight" it's obvious that a lot of Potter fans didn't learn from that lesson.
Hermione, often quite literally, pulled both Harry and Ron out of more tight binds than I can count. She did not sit still waiting for "Won Won" or handsome and famous Harry to rescue her. Hermione is a heroine who stands on her own small feet and often saves the day. She doesn't wait for someone to tell her when to act or how to act or what to believe. Hermione LOOKS STUFF UP and researches the answers to all the problems and mysteries that plague them. Hermione was a giant leap forward in the world of fictional female heroines.
Back to "Bella", the heroine of the Twilight series, or should I say back up 50 years to the world of the feckless, wimpy, damsel-in-distress, who likens a sparkling dead guy to a "god" and spends an entire book sighing wistfully. Okay, she doesn't sigh through the entire book. She bounces back and forth between sighing and wondering if "Edward" likes her or doesn't like her and why he doesn't like her and then sighing and shivering and getting all goose pimply. I swear to you that by the end of the book, if I could have crawled into the pages I'd have killed the little dimwit off myself.
Years ago, back in the dark ages of the Reagan years, a talking Barbie caused a big stir because one of her pre-recorded lines was "Math is SOOO hard". 20 some odd years later we have "Bella", the village idiot, inspiring our young women to do nothing more than dream about, sigh over, and rely upon young men who look like gods. Back in the Reagan years we stood up to the brainless role models like Barbie. We, and Murphy Brown, battled Mr. Dan "Potatoe"-head Quayle as he waged his war against single, working mothers. Why are we, and our girls, now swooning over this "Twilight" tripe??
When faced with the dilemma of "Twilight" and "Half-Blood Prince" competing against each other this winter, Warner Bros. decided to move one of the movies clear out to next summer. In spite of all the hype, the trailers, the toys and games all set to be released in conjunction, it was "Half-blood Prince" that got knocked out of the line up. The bimbo movie for young teens won out over the story and characters of substance. What does that say about the U.S. entertainment industry? Well... it IS the industry that made Paris Hilton a star afterall.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
In Memory of Poopie kitty and Oberon
On my old AOHell website, I had a section for pet stories because our pets are a large portion of our lives. I found these pet stories were still online for some reason, even though I no longer have that account.
We lost our eldest kitty just a few months after we moved into our new house. I think Oberon was simply waiting until she knew we were settled before she moved on. She was about 18 years old.
Yesterday evening we lost our Poopie kitty who was about 17. Thus, this morning I decided to move some of our old pet stories here to the blog.
All the critters here get treats from Pupperoni to Tender Vittles, but as wild as Elmo gets for his junk food, the cats make him look positively sedate when we offer them Catnip. The best is the fresh herb you can buy at almost any local nursery. We have tried twice to keep these catnip plants alive. The first time we tried keeping one in a pot in various window sills but it failed to survive after numerous "accidents", when it was knocked onto the floor. Perhaps in a closet under a grow light would have worked better. The second time we decided to hide it in our herb garden amid other odiferous herbs such as spearmint, garlic chives and rosemary.
As we were puttering in the front flower/herb bed, the cats came by to offer advice but took no real note of what we were planting, we thought. We already had a good crop of spearmint going and we planted several bunches of garlic chives, a couple of basil plants and a few marigolds for color. Centered in the mint and new herbs we planted one small Catnip plant, watered the area down well and went inside to congratulate ourselves on being able to hide the nip. We kept watch on the garden all that day, but no cats bothered to investigate further and we fell asleep that night secure that at last we'd found a safe place to cultivate kitty treats.
The next morning I woke up, made a pot of coffee, opened the blinds and sat down with a cup to enjoy the morning. As I gazed out at the garden, my sleep fogged mind began to register something terribly amiss. I thought we'd planted more than that yesterday... I went outside for closer inspection. There, where our lovely herb garden had been the evening before was a large patch of damp earth, packed so smooth I could have laid down a cement patio addition. Our lovely herbs and marigolds were stamped into the earth and the entire area was covered with a thick layer of various colors and lengths of cat hair, some of which matched our cats, but much of which did not. In some areas there were puddles of, well there's no truly polite way to say this, DROOL.
Obviously at some point in the dark of night our cats had sniffed out the nip and then proceeded to invite all their friends from the neighborhood over for aparty at Poopie's pad. Since the drool was still apparent, I'm guessing the party didn't end until dawn when the last of the neighborhood felines staggered home and our little "angels" came inside, curled up and passed out in dark corners. Not a cat was to be seen in our neighborhood for the remainder of the day. Must have been SOME party!
We lost our eldest kitty just a few months after we moved into our new house. I think Oberon was simply waiting until she knew we were settled before she moved on. She was about 18 years old.
Yesterday evening we lost our Poopie kitty who was about 17. Thus, this morning I decided to move some of our old pet stories here to the blog.
Party at Poopie's Pad!
All the critters here get treats from Pupperoni to Tender Vittles, but as wild as Elmo gets for his junk food, the cats make him look positively sedate when we offer them Catnip. The best is the fresh herb you can buy at almost any local nursery. We have tried twice to keep these catnip plants alive. The first time we tried keeping one in a pot in various window sills but it failed to survive after numerous "accidents", when it was knocked onto the floor. Perhaps in a closet under a grow light would have worked better. The second time we decided to hide it in our herb garden amid other odiferous herbs such as spearmint, garlic chives and rosemary.
As we were puttering in the front flower/herb bed, the cats came by to offer advice but took no real note of what we were planting, we thought. We already had a good crop of spearmint going and we planted several bunches of garlic chives, a couple of basil plants and a few marigolds for color. Centered in the mint and new herbs we planted one small Catnip plant, watered the area down well and went inside to congratulate ourselves on being able to hide the nip. We kept watch on the garden all that day, but no cats bothered to investigate further and we fell asleep that night secure that at last we'd found a safe place to cultivate kitty treats.
The next morning I woke up, made a pot of coffee, opened the blinds and sat down with a cup to enjoy the morning. As I gazed out at the garden, my sleep fogged mind began to register something terribly amiss. I thought we'd planted more than that yesterday... I went outside for closer inspection. There, where our lovely herb garden had been the evening before was a large patch of damp earth, packed so smooth I could have laid down a cement patio addition. Our lovely herbs and marigolds were stamped into the earth and the entire area was covered with a thick layer of various colors and lengths of cat hair, some of which matched our cats, but much of which did not. In some areas there were puddles of, well there's no truly polite way to say this, DROOL.
Obviously at some point in the dark of night our cats had sniffed out the nip and then proceeded to invite all their friends from the neighborhood over for aparty at Poopie's pad. Since the drool was still apparent, I'm guessing the party didn't end until dawn when the last of the neighborhood felines staggered home and our little "angels" came inside, curled up and passed out in dark corners. Not a cat was to be seen in our neighborhood for the remainder of the day. Must have been SOME party!
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Meet Minerva
Due to an apparent catastrophic illness on the part of my little electric quad, aka the "Shrieking Eel", I decided I needed to move up a couple of rungs on the ladder of farm-mobiles. Meet my new, gently used 2006 Honda Recon 250. I have dubbed her Minerva, as she wears a green cloak and is somewhat shorter than Albus the white F-150.
Minerva has already proven to be a MUCH more comfortable ride than the Shrieking Eel, she doesn't have difficulty maneuvering the sand, gravel and eroded terrain in the dry wash, and she doesn't make any more noise than the supposedly "quiet" electric quad. Minerva's gentle contralto rumble is much more pleasing than the Eels uber-soprano shriek.
Minerva has already proven to be a MUCH more comfortable ride than the Shrieking Eel, she doesn't have difficulty maneuvering the sand, gravel and eroded terrain in the dry wash, and she doesn't make any more noise than the supposedly "quiet" electric quad. Minerva's gentle contralto rumble is much more pleasing than the Eels uber-soprano shriek.
As you can see in the photos, my crutches are already bungeed to the handy dandy crutch carrying rack. I had to sit on my crutches when riding the Eel. Not very comfy.
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