The Traveler by Daren Simkin and Daniel Simkin

An offbeat fable about a boy named Charlie who sets off on a lifelong journey to find something perfect to spend his time on. It is a very quick read with an important message for anyone who questions whether or not their life is time well spent.

Books I Read In 2009

 

Ford County: Stories by John Grisham

 

The Tinnitus Handbook: A Self Help Guide by Bill Habets

 

   Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (audio book)

 

The Well of Lost Plots (Thursday Next Series) by Jasper Fforde

 

Sanctuary Hill (A Bay Tanner Mystery) by Kathryn R Wall

 

Spring Into Digital Photography by Joseph T. Jaynes and Rip Noël

 

A Calculated Demise (Bonnie Pinkwater series) by Robert Spiller

 

The Next Step in Evolution: a Personal Guide (New Edition) by Vincent Cole

 

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne and Ernest H. Shepard

 

When Science Goes Wrong by Simon Levay

 

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

 

Lost in a Good Book (A Thursday Next Novel) by Jasper Fforde

 

Infected: A Novel by Scott Sigler

 

A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted by Will Bowen

 

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

 

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

 

Sworn to Silence (Kate Burkholder Mysteries) by Linda Castillo

 

Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir by Lisa Dale Norton

 

 Something Rotten (Thursday Next Novels) by Jasper Fforde

 

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

 

Matchless: A Christmas Story by Gregory Maguire

 

The Pursuit of Other Interests: A Novel by Jim Kokoris

 

The Traveler by Daren Simkin and Daniel Simkin

The Pursuit of Other Interests by Jim Kokoris

Charlie Baker was living the American dream. CEO of an advertising firm with an office overlooking Lake Michigan, a wife and son, a beautiful home in an exclusive neighborhood. Life was great and who could ask for more?

Then Charlie is fired without notice and finds himself stuck in a cubicle at an outplacement firm looking for employment. He soon realizes that he has no friends, his former employees hate him, he doesn’t know his son anymore and his marriage is in shambles.

Relevant to today’s economic times and delivered with just enough humor to keep you from becoming depressed, Jim Kokoris has written a modern tale of one man’s perseverance to rediscover and redefine himself after his life bottoms out.

Overall, this book was a very entertaining and fun read.

Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo

This book grabs you by the collar in the first chapter and doesn't let go. It has enough twists to keep you guessing. While some of the supporting characters can be deemed as stereotypical crime novel characters, the main characters are unique enough to drag you into the story. Just when you think the author is taking you towards a clichéd storyline she yanks you back in a totally unexpected direction. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a really good crime thriller.

Ghosts, Goblins and Ghouls. Oh My!

While sitting at my local Dutch Brothers Coffee hut the other day waiting for my large hazelnut latte (it’s one of my few vices), the barista asked an interesting question. When did Halloween become about displays of serial killers in the act of dismembering their victims or depictions of execution by electrocution?

This took me back to the Halloweens of my childhood. I can remember my cousins, my brother Ronnie and myself dressing up in homemade costumes and going out with pillow cases or paper bags to collect candy. One particular year I remember Ronnie dressed as Dracula, my cousin Greg wore his mother’s pearls, a blue dress and a matching purse and either my cousin Tim or myself dressed as an old man. I’m a little unclear which of us was the old man but I know there is a picture of us somewhere. Once or twice our moms might have bought us a plastic mask but overall store bought costumes were not an option and we really didn’t care. The challenge was to come up with the best costume possible with what we had so we could score the most candy on the block. Tim and Greg lived one street up from us so that gave us a block or two radius that we were allowed to roam. We operated on the “buddy” system. Our parents didn’t go with us and didn’t worry about our safety because our neighborhood had a really good parenting network where every parent looked out for their neighbors’ kids just like they looked out for their own. This same network kept us in line and prevented us from acting up. The last thing we wanted was for our mothers to find out that we had soaped someone’s car windows or toilet papered a house.

Even then there were the stories of kids getting apples with razorblades in them or poisoned candy but we were under strict orders to not eat anything until after our parents had inspected it. And believe me, we didn’t.

The displays in our neighbors’ yards were made up of homemade scarecrows, sheet ghosts hanging from the trees, carved jack-o-lanterns and the occasional gravestone. Some neighbors even had haunted houses set up in their garages but nothing too scary. Nothing like the fake blood soaked, decapitated corpses, and chainsaw wielding psychos in commercialized horror houses of today.

This brings me back to the barista’s question: When did Halloween change? Many people will tell you it started with the movie “Night of the Living Dead” and the string of slasher films it spawned that desensitized the last couple of generations. I don’t disagree with this theory but I also don’t think you can lay the blame on just the film industry. Technological advances in communication and entertainment over the last few decades have removed a lot of the isolation and buffer that communities and children once had. With the expansion of networks, cable, satellite and the internet has come not only a wealth of instant news and knowledge but also instant scenes of the horrors of war and disaster.

My cousins, brother and I were on the tail end of the Frankenstein/Dracula/Vincent Price generation. These movies scared the bejeezus out of us as kids but we knew it was make believe. Later, as movies became more graphic in their depiction of violence, they began to match the images we were seeing on the evening news. Today, you can watch an episode of a primetime crime drama and see more graphically violent and bloody scenes than I could of seen in an R-rated movie of my childhood, had I actually been able to go to one.

Sure, the expansion of all types of media have helped desensitize us to the harsh things in life but I feel that just the process of growing older makes us less sensitive as well. Sort of a thickening of our skins as a protection against bad things.

Don’t believe me? Well, think about the kids who rang your doorbell this year and yelled “Trick or Treat”. I didn’t have a single axe wielding killer at my door. Just a dozen or so innocent children dressed as witches, princesses, fairies, vampires, and star troopers whose goal was only to collect as much candy as possible. I smiled and laughed at every one of them because they all made me remember my childhood and gave me hope that childhood traditions will live on and kids will be kids.

Happy Halloween!

 

Currently Playing: "Jam Man" from "Almost Alone" by Chet Atkins

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Books I Read In 2008

A Good and Happy Child: A Novel by Justin Evans

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

24/7 by Jim Brown

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy by Gregory Maguire

Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun by Erik Larson

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Vintage International) by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen

Diary: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk

The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde

Bitsy's Bait & BBQ by Pamela Morsi

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol by Nikolai Gogol, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky

Walter, the Farting Dog by William/ Murray, Glenn/ Colman, Audrey (ILT) Kotzwinkle

Ask the Fruitcake Lady: Everything You Would Already Know If You Had Any Sense by Marie Rudisill

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

Fog Heart by Thomas Tessier

A Friend of the Earth by T.C. Boyle

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett

The Good Guy by Dean Koontz

Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz

Saints They Ain’t

 

As I posted yesterday, we were supposed to be cat free by last night but we had some difficulty in dealing with SAINT Animal Rescue. When Evelyn spoke with Jerry at SAINT he told us that he would have to go by Petco which is where we picked up Roxie to see if they had room in their kennel. If they did we could return her to Petco. He said he would do this on Monday and give us a call to let us know what to do. Now I was curious as to why an animal rescue would need to make sure there was room at a pet store instead of just taking the animal back to their shelter but I decided to let it slide.

Well, Monday came and we waited for Jerry’s call and we waited and we waited. Finally about 4:30pm Evelyn called him to see what was going on. He said that there was no room at Petco and that we would need to keep Roxie for a few days until  a slot opened up. WHAT!!?? What kind of animal rescue refuses to take an animal?

Well, Tuesday came and we heard nothing from SAINT so Evelyn decided to call Petco and ask what our options were if SAINT did not pickup Roxie or tell us when we could return her. Jason, the manager at Petco was unaware of SAINT’s return policy requiring open kennel space at Petco. He also told us that Jerry did not come by on Monday to check on the kennel space. Jason then told us that he would call Jerry and then call us back. When Jason called back he said Jerry told him that we were told we could return the cat on Saturday. WHAT!!?? The man never mentioned a time to return Roxie. He only said we would have to wait for room at Petco. It appeared that SAINT had gotten their $100 non-refundable adoption fee and could care less what happened with the animal after that. Jason told us this was not the 1st time he had this complaint about SAINT and then he told us we could bring Roxie in and sign her over to Petco and he would make sure that she was taken care of and adopted back out to a good home.

So off we went to Petco to return Roxie. Now believe me when I tell you that this was no easy task. We had become quite attached to Roxie over the last couple of days but there is a good ending to this story. Less than 30 minutes after we got back home from Petco, the phone rang. It was Jason telling us that one of his employees was enthralled with Roxie and was going to adopt her.

While I will not recommend SAINT Animal Rescue, I can and will recommend my local Petco store (http://www.petco.com/content/locator/Details.aspx?storeId=1408&Nav=2) to all animal lovers. You are guaranteed to get excellent customer service from a staff who truly care about your pets as well as the animals in their care.

 

 

Currently Playing: "Barceloneta Beach" from "Serenta" by Armik

Blogger Labels: cats,SAINT Animal Rescue,Animal,Petco,animals

Bye Bye Kitties, We’ll Miss You.

It’s a sad day at the Ford house. We will be catless by the end of the day. And your thinking cats… you had cats. Well yes, for the last 14 days. My mother-in-law, Doris, shared 2 cats with her sisters when she was living in New Jersey and we actually had a cat about 15 years or so ago. Doris had asked Evelyn, my wife, and I about the possibility of getting a cat when she moved in, so Evelyn and I had been mulling it over for a couple of months. Finally a couple of weeks ago we decided that a cat would be a good thing. Doris would have some company during the day while we worked and the house was a perfect setup since it was a bi-level with lots of ledges, etc. for the cats to play and hang out. That’s right I said “cats” since we wound up getting two.

It started out innocent enough, we went to the Humane Society on a Saturday to look around. Doris didn’t see any cats that she really connected with. Evelyn on the other hand had found Rocco, a male kitten who was about 2-3 months old. He was very cute and energetic and looked a lot like the cat we had about 15 years ago. We debated about it but decided against adopting him since we were there to get Doris a cat. Well, the weekend drug on and I couldn’t stop thinking about Rocco. Evelyn as well had been thinking about him so on Monday Doris and I went back to the shelter but Rocco was gone.

That should have been the sign that Evelyn and I didn't need a cat and we should just get one for Doris but I was hooked. Doris and I scoped out the shelter, Petsmart and Petco. We found 2 cats, Mimi (the agency called her Angie) and Roxie. Mimi was a 4 mo. old gray and white female and Roxie was a 3 mo old solid black female. They were as cute as could be and very loving. Now don’t get me wrong, we have had cats in the past and thought we were prepared for raising these two. What we hadn’t realized was that we had less patience now that we were older. These 2 cats were a huge tour de force of energy. They slept most of  the day and came alive in the afternoon. Climbing the curtains, chewing on the carpet, scratching everything in sight, eating the fake plants, and crawling into any nook and cranny that they could find. And the smells, I’m not talking about your normal cat box orders here. These cats smelled as bad as my father did after a huge dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It would instantly fill the house and gag you. Also we did not think about what to do with the cats if we went on vacation. The last thing I wanted to do was ask a friend to come over and clean out a litter box.

So after much debate and a long family discussion yesterday, all 3 of us decided we were not cut out to be good parents to the cats so we contacted their respective adoption agencies. Mimi’s adoption agency picked her up this morning and we are still waiting to hear from Roxie’s.

Below are the links to the 2 agencies. Contact them if you are interested in adopting animals and hopefully you will be better prepared than we were. Also I have posted photos of the 2 cuties just so you can see how hard a decision it was. 

Look What the Cat Brought In      http://lookwhatthecatbroughtin.org

SAINT Animal Rescue                    http://www.saintanimalrescue.org  (As of 08/25=09, I can no longer in good faith recommend SAINT Animal Rescue.)

 

 

Blogger Labels: Animal Rescue,animal adoption,Petsmart,Petco,animals,Animal,cats