Saturday, July 30, 2011

I'll take the pool .....



Saturday. The boys are walked. Steve is running a shooting tournament. I've vacuumed and laundry almost done. The August issue is now at a point of plugging in missing excerpts and finalization.

It's supposed to be a scorcher today and tomorrow. Not sure what to do about dinner but hoping to not have to cook. I know Steve wants to see Captain America but may be too tired from the day to go. He has to do the tournament again tomorrow.

I'll have a bite for lunch and then head back to the newsletter I think. Not sure what to read next; I have many options so hopefully I can get to something soon I but should also do some research.

Have a lovely day....

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Yup, it's the heat....



Best laid plans and all that. Didn't get a chance to work on the newsletter last night. The dogs wouldn't leave me be. Going to make another stab at it tonight with Steve here to run interference.


Must be quick. Dinner in the oven and about to be done. Took the boys for a quick as I had to find one of my tennis shoes. It was in the back yard. Uff da. Almost done with the Clements book.

Yay, tomorrow is Friday!


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Tuesday



Ah, taking calls from people who are not happy with their medical bills. It is such a joy. I find much fulfillment in serving the needs of those who are seeking answers....


Steve is walking the boys tonight, as I was pulling up the house he was heading out. What rapture. No, he said I'll walk them if you go to Walmart. Boo.

We have the season finale of Deadliest Catch to watch tonight. I need to keep working on my newsletter but won't get much done I think so I'll put in good time tomorrow.

I am pleased with PRINCE by Rory Clements. This one is dealing in part with the death of Marlowe. Excellent.

Gotta go, boys are home.


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Monday, July 25, 2011

No, they do slip through unfortunately




I'm currently reading PRINCE by Rory Clements. This is 3rd of 3 in series featuring John Shakespeare, an investigator and older brother of Will, in Elizabethan England. Here is a summary:







Spring 1593. England is a powder keg of rumour and fear. Plague rages, famine is rife, the ageing Queen's couriers scheme: Elizabeth's Golden Age is truly tarnished. Meanwhile Spain watches and waits - and plots.Into this turmoil a small cart clatters through the streets of London, carrying a deadly load. It is the first in a wave of horrific bombing attacks on the Dutch immigrant community that will change John Shakespeare's life for ever.Driven on by cold rage, Shakespeare's investigations will take him from magnificent royal horseraces to the opulent chambers of Black Luce's brothel, from the theatrical underworld of Marlowe and Kyd to the pain-wracked torture cells of priest-hunter Richard Topcliffe, and from the elegant offices of master tactician Robert Cecil to the splintering timbers of an explosive encounter at sea. As Shakespeare delves ever deeper, he uncovers intricate layers of mystery and deception that threaten the heart not only of the realm, but of all that he holds dear.



It was published in May 2011 in the UK and has 432 pages.


And here is an excerpt:





FOUR MEN STARED DOWN at the body of Christopher Marlowe. A last trickle of bright gore oozed from the deep wound over his right eye. His face and hair and upper torso were all thick with blood. One of the four men, Ingram Frizer, held the dripping dagger in his hand.
Frizer looked across at Robert Poley and grinned foolishly. ‘He came at me.’‘Boar’s balls, Mr Frizer, give me the dagger,’ Poley said angrily.Frizer held out the dagger. All the living eyes in the room followed the tentative movement of the blood-red blade. A sliver of brain hung like a grey-pink rat’s tail from its tip. Poley took the weapon and wiped it on the dead poet’s white hose. Suddenly, he struck out with the hilt and caught Frizer a hard blow on the side of his head. Frizer lurched backwards. Poley pushed him to the floor and jumped on him, knees on chest, hitting his head again, harder, pounding him until Nick Skeres tried to pull him away.
Poley stood back, shook off Skeres’s hands and brushed down his doublet with sharp irritation. He was not a tall man, but he was strongly-built and the veins in his muscled forearms and temples bulged out and pulsed. He kicked Frizer in the ribs. ‘You were only supposed to gag him and apply the fingerscrew, you dung-witted dawcock. Not kill him.’
The afternoon sunlight of late May slanted in through the single, west-facing window. The presence of the men and the body made the room feel smaller than it really was. It was cleanly furnished; a well-turned settle made of fine-grained elm, a day-bed where the body now lay, a table of polished walnut with benches either side and half-drunk jugs of ale atop it. The floorboards were scuffed from the dust off the men’s shoes; there was, too, a lot of blood and a few splashes of ale on the wood between the table and the day-bed.
‘And you…’ Poley turned to Skeres. ‘You were supposed to hold him. He was out of his mind with drink and you couldn’t keep a grip.’ Ingram Frizer pulled himself painfully to his feet. He was doubled over, clutching his side where Poley’s boot had connected.
Poley handed him the dagger. ‘Here, take it. And listen well: it was his dagger – Marlowe’s dagger. He came at you, pummelled your head with it. You fought back. In the struggle, the blade pierced his eye. You were defending yourself – it was an accident.’





So.... working away on the newsletter some more until my computer decided to tank. I took that a sign to stop for the night.




Still ungodly hot. Moby's temp said 102 on the drive home. Bank temp signs were saying 100 and 101. Blech blech blech.


Today's fun call: she wasn't going to give any more "f***ing money" and hung up. Start saying hello to the collection agency, honey. I need to come up with a game for each time I'm called "you people". Sadly, it can't be a drinking game.


Much love,


PK the Bookeemonster

Sunday, July 24, 2011



Experiencing frustration. Trying to get a lot done and it goes slower than I'd like.

Taking a break to make lunch. The dogs had a good run this morning. I'll be starting clothes laundry soon.

Back to the newsletter.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Saturday, July 23, 2011

The "before" picture



That photo is the "before" photo, you know, when everything is fresh and pretty, the morning is young and filled with so much promise of accomplishing a lot. That's me right now. It's 8:00. I will get so much done ....


Reality will probably be different but hopefully not for a lack of trying. Pretty quick here I'll get the boys walked before it gets too hot. Start the towels washing. Then plunk in my office chair and work work work. I will.not.take.a.nap. It will waste too much time.

Steve is still sleeping. The boys are pacing out on the deck, getting restless for their outing.

I splurged and have some books coming in the mail but in the meantime I think I'm sticking with JT Ellison's JUDAS KISS. She recently won a Thriller Award for best novel. She is one of the hardest working, most earnest at her job author's I've ever encountered. She deserves awards. The books, I've only read her debut, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS. I picked that up immediately after seeing her on a panel at LCC Denver a few years ago. She is a smart young lady. (I can say that because I'm older than her though I believe she's in her 30s). Her books are a contemporary cop/thriller series.

Ok, the natives are getting restless-er.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Friday, July 22, 2011

Artistic reference and mind bending... love it



Yesterday was just a bad day; didn't have time and wasn't in a good enough mood to post. Got groceries after work yesterday, asked Steve to walk the dogs but that didn't happen because he worked late, I had to put away groceries, walk the dogs, then fix dinner and clean up and I was just tired and in a rotten state. And was fighting a cold that wants to come on.

Today.... better but a horrible call in the late morning put a funk on the day. I got the dogs walked and gave them both a big chewy thing to keep them occupied.


I have got to work like mad on my newsletter this weekend. Soooo far behind. I don't know if Steve will want to go to a movie; Captain America is one he wants to see and it opened today. Playing it by ear.


Gotta go put dog food away now and figure out what to make for dinner. Perhaps going to watch Say Yes to the Dress.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Too hot to do anything



Hot. Hot Hot hot hot hot hot. Hoooooooooooooooooooottttttt.

And I don't like it.

But Ryker laid down in his wading pool for a minute after our walk. Maybe he'll do it more when I'm not around. Coda will only walk in it for now. It's still really just a big water dish for them both.

Finished THE ICE CRADLE. Gotta find something else again.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Monday, July 18, 2011

...it's 60 degrees...there's a slight breeze...



I need to become the opposite of a snow bird. I just can't stand the heat. Almost 100 degrees today. I've asked Steve to get the swamp AC going in the bedroom for tonight because the fans are just not cutting it.


I'm currently reading THE ICE CRADLE by Mary Ann Winkowski. This is 2nd of 2 in series featuring Anza O'Malley, a ghost whisperer and book binder. Here is a summary:






February 1907, Block Island. Residents of this tiny Rhode Island community awaken to a scene of tragedy: During a midnight blizzard, a New York–bound steamer carrying 157 passengers has been destroyed at sea. Volunteers rush to the beach to organize a search-and-rescue effort—but for most of the passengers, hope is already lost. A century later, residents of the island are busy preparing for the summer season and debating the merits of a proposed wind farm near the beach. No one expects that those long-forgotten passengers may have something to say about the project, but the restless spirits are furious that their final resting place may be disturbed—and turn to Anza to help them protect it. If spirit-world preservationists aren’t enough, Anza also has to face the uncomfortable possibility that her five-year-old son, Henry, has inherited her gift. And then there’s that handsome fisherman whose charms are proving difficult to ignore.



It was published in 2010 and has 304 pages. This is on my Kindle.


We went to see the Harry Potter movie yesterday afternoon. Steve doesn't usually like matinees but I think the thought of an airconditioned movie theatre was the draw. I truly don't like 3D but that was the showing at the time and we were in the "Big D" theatre at Shiloh. The screen was very big. The movie was excellent. It is a big book to adapt to the screen so there were some moments that I felt didn't get their due but over all satisfying.


Next up in the movies is Captain America and then Cowboys & Aliens. There was a preview for the second Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downing Jr coming in December. Brilliant.


Hopefully a little reading before bed and hopefully some good sleep.


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Or it's the heat


We watched the DVD last night of Part 1 of the Harry Potter movie to get Steve back up to speed on what was going on. We had discussed going to the movie either tonight or Tuesday ... right now I'm pushing for Tuesday.

We didn't sleep well last night. It was just hot and we leave the windows/french door open so there were mosquitoes for some reason. Steve had to get up early for the gun match for Big Sky State Games. I took the boys for a walk and then a cold shower (ah, felt soooo good) and then went back to bed.

The day is shot. I'm thinking having a relaxing rest of the day and going to bed at a decent time will be best. And on Tuesdays they have price breaks on the popcorn and pop -- if they're still going to do that on this first week of Pottermania.


My only goal for the day is to work on the newsletter. I'm so behind on it.


So... stay cool, stay hydrated and see ya tomorrow.


Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster

Saturday, July 16, 2011

See, that's why I have dogs...



It's Saturday morning. I'm at the kitchen table reading emails and blogs and news and both dogs are sleeping at my feet. We need to walk in the next hour to hour and a half because it is supposed to get to 95 degrees today.


There are errands I could run but what I really need to do is put my butt in the office chair and work on the newsletter and not leave said chair until late afternoon. That's the plan anyway.


I finished FALLEN by Karin Slaughter last night. Very satisfying and perhaps one of the best in the series. I have many things to choose from to read next I just haven't figured out what that is yet. What mood I'm in.

We're discussing when to go see the new and last Harry Potter movie. I'd like to see it asap but the crowds will be crazy. Also, Steve mentioned he'd like to see Part 1 again to refresh his memory of what the storylines are. (he's never read the books). And we do have the DVD so we may watch that tonight. But for the movie, we may have to wait until next weekend.


No plans for dinner yet. I'm thinking though of bringing in something from out in order to not heat up the house with cooking. Tomorrow will be worse -- 98 degrees but I'm thinking of doing something in the crockpot.


This weekend in town is Big Sky State Games and Summerfair. I will be avoiding them though Steve will have to run a gun event tomorrow. I plan on staying cool and cranking on Premeditated.


That's it....have a good weekend!



Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Thursday, July 14, 2011

You'll never know and I'll never tell....



Between 5pm and 7pm tonight we've had some major severe thunderstorms. The dogs and their beds were soaking when I got home. We got a quick walk in between waves of storms. Ryker was not liking the big cracks of thunder as lightening was striking nearby. With his not liking big fireworks, I should have expected it. We've been cuddling on the kitchen floor. But it has passed for now and they got treats of Milo's chicken jerky. They love that.



Steve isn't home yet. Apparently working on a job late.


Lunch with Tami was excellent today. It's funny that we both wound up working at the hospitals after leaving UI. DIFFERENT and COMPETITIVE hospitals. :)

So now... I don't think I have anything on tv tonight so maybe I'll read before bed. I sometimes get a chance to read on breaks at work but the terrible thing is I want to keep reading because it's so good but I just can't. Duty calls. A paycheck beckons. And I'd get in trouble. Even a bookeemonster knows when she has to put the bookmark back.


I set up a payment plan today for a guy who owed $22.84.

Sleep well


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Resistance is futile .... you will find me adorable




I picked up the new George R R Martin book yesterday. This fantasy series ... I absolutely adored and then he got writer's block for like 10 years. Came out with a book five years ago. Not really great but it was a new book and I got but didn't read it because who knew when he would continue the series. And that book was 800 pages of what he said was half of the real book only visiting some of the characters . So this SECOND half comes out yesterday at over a 1000 pages. In the meantime, HBO created a miniseries of the first book, A GAME OF THRONES. Hugely successful. Would this spur on the author? No, probably not, I think his next book he's projecting is three years from now. He could die, like Robert Jordan, and not complete his series leaving readers hanging without completion. Sometimes I hate writers. So I bought it anyway at Walmart so at least it was reduced in price. Picture this scenario: what if JK Rowling stopped writing at book 3 and took a break for a few years. That's how big this series is in epic fantasy land. So now he has a gabillion more new fans from the HBO series ... a gabillion more fans to disappoint.





I'm really liking Karin Slaughter's FALLEN. I hope to read tonight but my darn allergies are messing with my eyes. I took a 12 hour Claritin this morning but still bothersome.





Tomorrow I'm having lunch with my friend Tami. Woot! Steve has shooting tonight but is hoping with the storm rolling through no one will show. Not really a good chance of that. They're hardy shooters (read: stupid). Many will be competing in the Big Sky State Games this weekend so it's their last chance before the match to practice. Bah humbug. I'm starting to consider Steve-the-Nonreader as a guy who sleeps here and who I feed dinner to once in a while.



Much love,


PK the Bookeemonster

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The boys need to take a lesson from this one....



Oh, the best laid plans....



I had to go to Walmart after work. I didn't get done putting away groceries until 7. Dinner and watching the last of Deadliest Catch and then clean up of course. I had hoped to start a project tonight but it is not happening now. Ah well.



I was disappointed in DOMINANCE by Will Lavender. It was melodramatic and over-wrought and not a great pay off at the end. I know some people love it but I'd give it a "meh". Actually what I told Steve was I wanted the time spent reading it back.



I'm currently reading FALLEN by Karin Slaughter. This is 9th of 9 in series featuring Dr. Sara Linton, a pediatrician and coroner in Grant County, Georgia, or the 4th of 4 in series featuring Will Trent, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, in Atlanta, Georgia (however you want to track it -- the two series merged at one point). Here is a summary:






There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother. . . . “You know what we’re here for. Hand it over, and we’ll let her go.” When the hostage situation turns deadly, Faith is left with too many questions, not enough answers. To find her mother, she’ll need the help of her partner, Will Trent, and they’ll both need the help of trauma doctor Sara Linton. But Faith isn’t just a cop anymore—she’s a witness. She’s also a suspect. The thin blue line hides police corruption, bribery, even murder. Faith will have to go up against the people she respects the most in order to find her mother and bring the truth to light—or bury it forever.



It was published last month and has 400 pages. This is a library book.


Steve walked the boys for me tonight and got waylaid by a buddy who asked him to come over after dinner to look at his garage door. It happens a lot. Yay business but boo he never gets much time away from it.


While I was inside Walmart, a monster storm hit. Big booms of thunder and pounding hail was heard. The parking lot was flooded in some areas with water almost up to bumpers. I got home and we had had not one speck of rain here. Weird.



All right, it's heading toward 9:00. I've got to read a couple emails then read a bit before closing my eyes. Have a lovely.


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Monday, July 11, 2011

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Saturday



The dogs were walked early, before it got too hot. Then I went to get my hair cut and picked up two small kids' pools for the dogs. They won't go near. But they will eventually, maybe.



Not much else going on. The usual Saturday chores. Don't know what to have for dinner though I have a tentative plan for hamburgers. Nothing on tv tonight. Maybe I'll get a chance to start DOMINANCE. I got too tired to do any reading last night.



Here is an excerpt from the book:




Just after dark they rolled in the television where the murderer would appear. It was placed at the front of the lecture hall, slightly off center so the students in back could see. Two men wearing maintenance uniforms checked the satellite feed and the microphones, then disappeared as silently as they had come. It was now five minutes before the class was to begin, and everything was ready.
This was the first class of its kind, and its novelty—or perhaps its mystery—made it the most talked-about ever offered at tiny Jasper College. As mandated by the school president, there were nine students in the classroom. They were the best of the best in the undergrad literature program at Jasper. Now, on the first night of the semester, they waited anxiously for their professor to emerge on the screen.
The class was LIT 424: Unraveling a Literary Mystery. It had been offered at night because this was the only viable time, the only hour when the warden would allow the murderer free to teach. He would teach, if you believed the rumors, from a padded cell. Others said he would be in front of a greenscreen, with special effects to replicate a lectern before him—an illusion of a classroom. The rest claimed he would simply be shackled to his chair in an orange jumpsuit because state law prohibited anything else. They had to remember what this man had done, these people said. They had to remember who he was.
The room was warm with the closeness of bodies. The chalkboard seemed to glisten, even though the Vermont night outside was bitterly cold. The quads were mostly silent, save for the protesters who stood the stipulated two hundred yards from Culver Hall, where the night class would be held. The class met in the basement of Culver for this reason: the powers-that-be at Jasper did not want the protesters to be able to see what was happening on that TV screen.
The few students who were out at that cold hour witnessed the nervous candlelight of the protest vigil from a distance, through the copse of beech and oak that dotted the woodsy campus. A light snow fell, flakes rushing upward in the January wind like motes of dust. Not far away, Lake Champlain purred in the wind. It was as if, one freshman said as he looked down at the scene from a high dormitory window, someone were about to be executed.
Just beyond the protesters, in a building that was dark save for a few bottom-floor lights, a pair of state policemen sat in a room the size of a broom closet, drinking coffee and watching their own blank feed on a tiny screen.
Unraveling a Literary Mystery—this too had been contested. The president of the college chose the title because it sounded to him fitting for what the professor had in mind. But in fact the president did not know exactly what the class would entail. He could not know; the murderer had only hinted at a "literary game" his students would play in the class. About his syllabus he had spoken to no one.
It was this inability to even guess at what was about to happen that silenced the classroom now. In the weeks before the semester had begun, when they went home to their families on Christmas break, the students who had registered for LIT 424 had time to think. To weigh their decision to take this strange course. They wondered if something could go wrong in that lecture hall, if their professor could somehow . . . it sounded crazy, yes. Most of them did not say it aloud, or if they did, they spoke only to their roommates or their closest friends. Slight whispers, torn away by the wind, carried off into nothingness.
If he could somehow get out.
This was what they were thinking in those final seconds. Some of them talked about their other classes that semester, flipped through textbooks and highlighted paragraphs in trembling arcs of yellow. But mostly they sat, saying nothing. They stared at the dead television screen. They wondered, and they waited.
Finally the television went to a deeper black, and everyone sat up straight. Then the box began to hum, an electrical, nodish oohing, a kind of flatline that moved left to right across the room. Their professor—the MacArthur-winning genius, once a shining star at nearby Dumant University and the closest thing to celebrity a professor of literature could possibly be, the same man who had viciously murdered two graduate students twelve years before—was ready to appear.
Then the blackness dissolved and the noise died away and the professor's face came to them on the screen. They had seen pictures of him, many of them preserved in yellowed newsprint. There were images of the man in a dark suit (at his trial), or with his wrists shackled and smiling wolfishly (moments after the verdict), or with his hair swept back, wearing a tweed jacket and a bow tie (his faculty photograph at Dumant in 1980).
Those photographs did not prepare the students for the man on the screen. This man's face was harder, its lines deeper. He was in fact wearing a simple orange jumpsuit, the number that identified him barely hidden beneath the bottom edge of the screen. The V of his collar dipped low to reveal the curved edge of a faded tattoo just over his heart. Although the students did not yet know this, the tattoo was of the thumb-shaped edge of a jigsaw puzzle piece.
The professor's eyes seemed to pulse. Sharp, flinty eyes that betrayed a kind of dangerous intelligence. The second the students saw him there was a feeling not of surprise, not of cold shock, but rather of This, then. This is who he is. One girl sitting toward the back whispered, "God, I didn't know he was so . . ." And then another girl, a friend sitting close by, finished, "Sexy." The two students laughed, but quietly. Quietly.
Now the professor sat forward. In the background the students could see his two prison guards, could make out everything but their faces—the legs of their dark slacks, the flash of their belt buckles, and the leathery batons they carried in holsters. One of them stood with legs spread wide and the other was more rigid, but otherwise they mirrored each other. The professor himself was not behind a pane of glass; the camera that was trained on him was not shielded in any way. He simply sat at a small table, his uncuffed hands before him, his breathing slow and natural. His face bore the slightest hint of a smile.
"Hello," he said softly. "My name is Richard Aldiss, and I will be your professor for Unraveling a Literary Mystery. Speak so I can hear you."
"Hello, Professor," someone said.
"We're here," said another.
Aldiss leaned toward a microphone that must have been just out of the camera's view. He nodded and said, "Very good. I can hear you and you can hear me. I can see you and you can see me. Now, let us begin."


Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Friday, July 8, 2011

Yup, smells like the weekend....



OMG, it is Friday at last. This was the longest short week ever. And people were just cranky and bitchy and rude. I'm SO glad it's over.

I got home from work and a storm had passed by and apparently knocked out our power. I couldn't get in the garage. Luckily, my key worked to get in the house. I took the dogs in Moby to go to the bank and then Quiznos because who knew how long the power would be out and then let them run in the park/field.

The power came back on about quarter to 7. Just in time for Say Yes to the Dress-Atlanta which I'm iffy about and the debut of Say Yes the Dress-Bridesmaids which was brilliant and bitchy and a it's about time. Bridesmaids -- I just don't understand the concept of having more than one. There was one on tonight who was having 15. Girl, that's not bridesmaids, that's your guests. And why do they have to be matchy-matchy and why do they have to be ugly? I liked the show a lot. :)

I finished Saylor's ARMS OF NEMESIS. It just hit my mood right. Now is a 14-day library book called DOMINANCE by Will Lavender. This a stand alone. Here is a summary:





Fifteen years earlier. Jasper College is buzzing with the news that famed literature professor Richard Aldiss will be teaching a special night class called Unraveling a Literary Mystery—from a video feed in his prison cell. In 1982, Aldiss was convicted of the murders of two female grad students; the women were killed with axe blows and their bodies decorated with the novels of notoriously reclusive author Paul Fallows. Even the most obsessive Fallows scholars have never seen him. He is like a ghost. Aldiss entreats the students of his night class to solve the Fallows riddle once and for all. The author’s two published novels, The Coil and The Golden Silence, are considered maps to finding Fallows’s true identity. And the only way in is to master them through a game called the Procedure. You may not know when the game has begun, but when you receive an invitation to play, it is an invitation to join the elite ranks of Fallows scholars. Failure, in these circles, is a fate worse than death. Soon, members of the night class will be invited to play along . . . Present day. Harvard professor Alex Shipley made her name as a member of Aldiss’s night class. She not only exposed the truth of Paul Fallows’s identity, but in the process uncovered information that acquitted Aldiss of the heinous 1982 crimes. But when one of her fellow night class alums is murdered— the body chopped up with an axe and surrounded by Fallows novels—can she use what she knows about Fallows and the Procedure to stop a killer before each of her former classmates is picked off, one by one?



It was published this month and has 368 pages.

This weekend Steve has to help clean/prep the rifle club for the Big Sky State Games next weekend. I'll be working like mad on the August issue since I pretty much goofed off last weekend.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Thursday, July 7, 2011

But my name is Nigel




Maybe it's the heat. The majority of the people on the phone today were cranky and co-workers were all complaining of it. Then after work, the Alive After Five Thursday event was in the bar next door so it was difficult to get out of the parking lot and out of downtown. Steve, however, is taking the boys for a walk. I offered that he take them in Moby to the field because it is in the 90s out there but he's taking them for a normal walk. Glutton for punishment. We're having taco salad for dinner. I need to finish the Saylor book because I picked up a 14-day book from the library today, DOMINANCE by Will Lavender. I was going to wait until tomorrow to get it but with such cranky people in the morning I needed to go to my happy place, the library, at lunchtime. Air conditioning and surrounded by books. Ahhhh.




Nothing on TV tonight as far as I can tell so maybe I can make headway on the book and then sleep well.




Stay cool, people.




Much love,


PK the Bookeemonster

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Not passing the squint test



Summer is definitely here. It is hot. The dogs go for a shorter walk after work but it is more bang for the buck: we drive to the field and they run loose and are able to jump into ditches. Steve has shooting tonight. I hope to read a bit, per usual. I've found a lovely summer concoction: pear wine mixed with honey dew carbonated water. Fresh and cool.



I had my 30 day review today; things are going well.



Currently reading ARMS OF NEMESIS by Steven Saylor. This is 2nd of 12 featuring Gordianus the Finder, a private investigator in the 1st century BCE in Rome. Here is a summary:



The hideously disfigured body was found in the atrium. The only clues are a blood-soaked cloak,





and, carved into the stone at the corpse's feet, the word Sparta . . . The Overseer of Marcus Crassus's estate has been murdered, apparently by two slaves bent on joining Spartacus's revolt. The wealthy, powerful Crassus vows to honor an ancient law and have his ninety-nine remaining slaves slaughtered in three days. Gordianus the Finder is summoned from Rome by a mysterious client to find out the truth about the murder before the three days are up.




It was published in 1992 and has 336 pages. This is a library book.



Much love,


PK the Bookeemonster

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Always someone that won't let it go



So tonight one has a greater chance of falling asleep before midnight and without the booms of fireworks. One hopes. One is skeptical.



Last night Steve joined our next door neighbor and set off fireworks. I stayed in the basement with the boys with music playing on the tv to keep them calm. The drops helped but Ryker was still concerned and Coda barked.



Tonight Steve has a board meeting and I hope to read. I think I will avoid news tonight and the travesty that Casey Anthony got off on everything except lying to the police. Unbelievable.

I think I'm in the mood for a Roman mystery. I'll let you know tomorrow what the choice will be.



Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Monday, July 4, 2011

Independence Day, July 4



IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.




The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.




We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.




He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.



In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.



Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.



We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.




The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1Georgia: Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton
Column 2North Carolina: William Hooper Joseph Hewes John PennSouth Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
Column 3Massachusetts:John HancockMaryland:Samuel ChaseWilliam PacaThomas StoneCharles Carroll of CarrolltonVirginia:George WytheRichard Henry LeeThomas JeffersonBenjamin HarrisonThomas Nelson, Jr.Francis Lightfoot LeeCarter Braxton
Column 4Pennsylvania: Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George RossDelaware: Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean
Column 5New York: William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis MorrisNew Jersey: Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark
Column 6New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett William WhippleMassachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge GerryRhode Island: Stephen Hopkins William ElleryConnecticut: Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver WolcottNew Hampshire: Matthew Thornton







Saturday, July 2, 2011

Saturday




It's Saturday morning. I'm reading news and emails. Steve is sleeping. The boys are dozing, one at my feet the other a few feet away on the deck.





Today I have some errands to run. I finished the July issue last night and I emailed the PDFS but today I need to pick up the printed copies at Kinko's and mail them. I need to get groceries. There are the usual weekend chores. I need to gear up with the August issue. The boys need a walk before it gets too hot today.






Work was busy yesterday because we had several people gone so I was on the phone a lot. We started an incentive game, poker, in which you get a card with any credit card payments you take. I was pretty much playing by myself and got 11 cards -- two good hands. :) After work I stopped by the vet to pick up some drops to help Ryker stay calm with the fireworks. It's not sedation and we had thought to do nothing but really, there's no need for him to suffer anxiety when there is something to help. I put some in their water but I don't think Ryker had had enough of it to be effective yet when it started up last night; he went down to the basement and Steve and I were comforting him. Tonight I may put some drops on a piece of cheese so he gets a good dose. We don't have plans for the long weekend other than relaxing and keeping the boys easy.






Steve doesn't have plans for the weekend which good because he's always running somewhere it seems however he must.mow.the.lawn. He was working on a job in Colstrip Thursday that went long -- he didn't get home until 4am so he's kinda still recovering. It's supposed to be hot this weekend: 88 today and 98 tomorrow and in the 80s the rest of next week.


I'm still reading A KILLING FROST by Patricia Wynn. I'm about 3/4s in so I hope to finish it tonight or tomorrow. I haven't heard from the library about the Karin Slaughter release so I suppose after I finish this I'll be getting back into a series read. What I should do this weekend as well is get Steve to bring the new/old bookcase in and start reshuffling books. Aye, that's a good plan.


Have a good Saturday!


Much love,



PK the Bookeemonster