The Mother's Day edition and a letter to my grandma

I have been delving deeper and deeper into the literary abyss that is Vanity Fair.  I am now down to the last 200something pages and it's getting more interesting (and sad) by each page.  The more I read, the more I am disgusted with Becky Sharp's behavior.  I won't reveal too much for those who haven't read the novel.

Anyhoo, Mother's Day went well for my mom.  She was treated to a $40 per person buffet at the Bahia Hotel in Mission Beach by my dad.  They went there previously for Easter and although Dad didn't think it was worth the money, he took Mom there anyway and both of them had prime rib for breakfast (I would totally eat prime rib for breakfast any day of the week).  After work, I came home and presented my mom with a cookie I got from work but forgot to give her earlier, a glazed clay coaster, two rolls of Necco Wafers, and a pair of Carnelian disk earrings.  Although I'm not as close to my mom as I am with my dad, I love her to death.  She is my friend, my guardian, and everything in between.  She carried me for nine long, grueling months before giving birth to me on August 31st, 1981.  To quote the comment I put on Facebook a few hours ago: "Any woman can give birth but it takes a special woman to devote her time and energy to raise children in love and faith."  I feel that my mom matches that statement.  To me, she was Supermom.  The woman who kissed my boo boos, stayed home with me when I was sick, encouraged me in any future endeavors, put a card in my backpack on my first day of junior college and on my first day at the university, comforted me when I was laid off, and praised me for rebounding with another job.  Mom, I love you.

Also, I want to write a letter in this blog and dedicate it to my late grandma, Ruth.  My grandma was very special.  Although she wanted me to be more feminine and play with Barbies instead of  ninja turtles as I did, she was truly a good person.  She died the day after Christmas in 1995 of non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.  I was 14 years old at the time and I didn't think my grandma would die at her age (62).  Although I never cried when she died, I still miss her and I dedicate this Mother's Day blog entry to her and my mom.  Here is my letter to my grandma.

Dear Grandma,

It's been 15 and a half years since you have passed on.  Although you lived to see me graduate from the eighth grade, you never saw me graduate high school or college.  You weren't at my 16th birthday party.  But I know you are with God and that's all that matters.  You helped me with my math homework, kissed my boo boos, and gave me advice on boys when I was in junior high.  Although I may have frustrated you at times, you still loved me and doted on your favorite (and only granddaughter). 

I'm almost 30 years old now and you are definitely on my mind, especially today.  You would've been beaming with pride as you saw me graduating from high school with honors.  You would've bear-hugged me as I turned my tassel from right to left when I received my college degree.  Had I been married with children at this point, you would be the doting great-grandma like my mom's mom.  However, even though you aren't here physically, I know you're looking down from Heaven, watching everything I do - all the mistakes and the successes that I've made so far.  You would be and still are proud of me. 

You were the Supermom to my dad and my aunt and you were definitely Supergrandma to me and my cousin Tony.  I miss those days hanging out with you, Tony, Aunt Carol, and Grandpa on the weekends.  Tony and I would ride up and down the street on our bikes with the neighborhood kids and sometimes you would come out and make sure that we were within your eyesight.  You made the best macaroni and cheese.  You were a terrific seamstress.  If only you could've taught me how to play the old, 100something year old piano that was sitting in the living room behind your recliner.  You cringed when Tony and I would play on Grandpa's old rusted truck or in the thorn-infested space between the next door neighbor.  And while I do admit that making me wear that hideous black and white kitty cat dress you bought for me was a dumb idea, I still love you anyway. 

Love,

Shannon

Writing this letter is totally pulling on my heartstrings; I feel like crying but I can't cry (I think most of you know that feeling).  The picture above is my grandma with me as a baby.  I'm going to take a guess that I was a newborn in that picture. 



That's all for now.  Fin.

This video goes out to all you moms out there.

Seriously, this has got to stop!

I hate it when I buy pants and they have about 45 different stickers and tags all over the stinkin' place.  Case in point: yesterday, I bought a new pair of black, boot cut jeans at Macy's (on sale, 25% off) and, in order for me to take them to the dry cleaners to have them tailored, I have to remove at least THREE stickers, one tag, and one stapled-on label that reads "tummy slimmer" or something to that effect.  Can't clothing companies have one label that says the size, type, and whether or not it's a "tummy slimmer?"  Reminds me of all the times that I got new clothes and each article of clothing had a sticker that said "inspected by #27" or something like that.  Seriously, this has got to stop. 

On an unrelated note, I personally believe that parody vocalist Jonathan Coulton (a.k.a "JoCo") should do a duet with Sir Mix-a-Lot with the latter's song Baby Got Back (JoCo did a parody cover of the same song as a love ballad rather than a rap song)  Kinda like the collaboration with B.o.B and Bruno Mars in Nothin' On You except with more nerdiness. 

On another unrelated note, I saw the film version of Water for Elephants yesterday.  While I liked the performances of Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz, Reese Witherspoon seems miscast as the abused wife of Waltz's character.  She looked a bit stiff and unemotional.  Actresses like Natalie Portman or Anne Hathaway would've been a better choice.  The movie was pretty much true to the book with some minor omissions. 

I am desparately trying to finish up Vanity Fair before the library due date (May 1st) and I don't know how many renewals I have left or if I have any left.  I'm not even halfway into the book, but the details are getting juicer and juicer.

Just recently, I've discovered the music of Mumford and Sons, a British folk band.  While I wasn't fond of their top song (on Amazon) Little Lion Man, I did like The Cave and it's been stuck on my head on repeat all day, despite my attempts at getting it out of my head.  Don't get me wrong, it's a great tune but not the kind I want stuck in my head.  I tried listening to Maroon 5's She Will Be Loved, Billy Joel's Piano Man and We Didn't Start the Fire, and Jack Johnson's Banana Pancakes but to no avail. 

Also, for those of you in a friendly mood, I would like to share a playlist I created called "Songs About Friendship."  If you have any songs that relate to friendship one way or another, feel free to add it and I might add it to my own playlist.  Bear in mind that my playlist is kinda short:

* Why Can't We Be Friends - War
* We Need Each Other - Sanctus Real
* You're My Best Friend - Queen
* How to Save a Life - The Fray (I kinda see this as a song about friendship because it's about helping out a friend)
* We're Going to Be Friends - The White Stripes

Before I end this blog entry, here's a funny "music video" featuring Jerry Reed's song Amos Moses using the game, World of Warcraft.  Enjoy.

Fin.

It just keeps getting weirder and weirder...and other misc.

I'm still at the beginning of William M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair and it is not your average Regency novel; it just keeps getting weirder and weirder....and funny, too, especially the part where Becky Sharp is forced to share a bed with one of Sir Pitt Crawley's female servants; the same bed where Crawley's wife had passed away.  Lt. George Osborne is another story altogether.  I also seem to notice a trend in Regency and Victorian literature; most men are named John, James, Thomas, Henry, George, Charles, Edward, Edmund, Robert, Roger, or William.  For women, it's Jane, Emma, Emily, Anne, Elizabeth, Mary, Molly, Louisa, Julia, Susan, Charlotte, Catherine, Isabella, etc.

On an unrelated note, I was reminded this evening about a particular song in Sunday School that I had to sing.  It was this song in particular:

If I listened to this song/video as a kid right now, it would've driven me insane (as an adult, I could only tolerate about 30 seconds of it).  As we did the Father Abraham "dance," I had but one thought in my little elementary school age mind: since when was Abraham Lincoln in the Bible?  For those reading this blog entry and grew up in Sunday School singing the "Father Abraham" song, what were your first impressions of it?  Did you get the Biblical Abraham confused with our 16th president like I did?  In a way, Father Abraham is the Christian version of the Hokey Pokey dance: right arm, left arm, chin up, spin around, shake it all about, turn yourself about, etc.  Also, there was one song titled Fishers of Men and as a kid, I had no idea what being a "fisher of men" was.

I would love to continue the blog but I've got to be up early tomorrow for work.  Fin.

Writer's block, historical fiction, classic literature, and separation anxiety

I can't find much to write in this blog entry; maybe something will come to me while I'm writing it.  Meanwhile, I have finished Jane and the Ghosts of Netley by Stephanie Barron and have moved on to William Makepeace Thackeray's novel, Vanity Fair.  I never thought Victorian literature was this interesting and fun to read.  I'm in the beginning of the novel, up to the point where Becky Sharp is sent to be a governess to Sir Pitt Crawley's daughters.  Joseph Sedley's drunken antics at Vauxhall seem sad and funny at the same time and I truly feel sorry for him. 

My stomach is grumbling at the moment but I really don't feel like eating anything.  I might snack on some strawberries later on. 

Okay, I'm going to share a memory or two of my childhood, which helps to break the writer's block.  One of them was when I was four years old.  My grandma took me and my pregnant aunt to Toys R Us because my aunt needed some baby stuff.  I remember the three of us being in one aisle and I seemed to continue to linger in that aisle for a moment or two until I had discovered that my grandma and aunt were no longer in that same aisle.  Panicking, I remember running from aisle to aisle with tears in my eyes, looking for my aunt and my grandma, only to find them in a few aisles down from where I was.  I also got lost twice in a hardware store at that same age.  I was with my dad and I remember him yelling at me to stop crying because I had separated from him.  These pivotal moments had given me a form of separation anxiety that stuck with me for years as a kid.  Not only does blogging this stuff clear my mind but I guess it serves as a form of therapy.

I keep imagining my novel in my head over and over again like if it was a hallucination.  The plot and its characters seem to never change.  Once I thought I had the story all figured out, I noticed a plot hole near the end and I want to fix it but that would mean eliminating one of my characters from the story.  I am trying to figure out how to fix this problem.

I also had previously bought two books that I had intended to read for the purpose of getting used to the Regency/Victorian mindset of my Victorian-era book that I'd like to write sometime.  One of them was God is an Englishman by R.F. Delderfield and the other one was The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman.  I have read the beginning of both books and just couldn't get into them.  God is an Englishman seems too long and dreary and lost interest after about 134 pages.  The Dress Lodger seemed hopeful as some of the critics described the novel as Dickensonian in nature.  I got into the first few chapters and was surprised at the crudeness of language used in it.  The book itself has adult themes which I read from the back cover of it but I didn't expect the author to use vulgarities to describe what goes on, something I never saw in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Sadly, I don't think I will continue to read these books.  A book I had bought several months back titled Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster, which detailed the life of poet Elizabeth Barrett and her maid, has some valuable insight into Victorian domestic life but I still cannot get myself to read through it because it seems so horribly paced.  I need to find Victorian era literature that's not necessarily easy to read but quickly paced, if you will.  I previously read The Silent Governess by Christian author Julie Klassen, which was set during the Regency period but it was actually a quick and good read.  I am going to make my novel easy to read and between 250-300 pages.  Honest to goodness, I don't have a tolerance for reading literature longer than 450 pages.  Some people have patience for that but I don't; I'm the type that itches for it to all end on page 350.  Vanity Fair is a challenge for me but I promised myself I'd get through it.

I guess I had something to say after all.  So much for writer's block.  Fin.