It’s actually warm and sunny today, and I went out for a brief walk at lunch to buy some food and it was ENJOYABLE, people! Truly, truly a lovely day. Later though, thunderstorms are going to roll in and then it is going to rain all fucking weekend. Typical, that’s the way weekends often go, but this weekend I will have a house full of people – nice people, The Genealogist’s family, to be exact – and there will be no chance of having any of this shindig take place on our deck because it is going to rain the whole damn time. I don’t know, man. I can host dozens of people during the winter in my house with no problem but as soon as spring and summer come along, the idea of entertaining the same numbers of people without using the backyard seems impossible. And what is the difference? I have no idea. It’s almost as if my house goes through some sort of shift and refuses to hold the same number of people in June as it does in December. It makes no sense whatsoever, but there it is. So now, today, I’m in panic mode because “how are we going to fit everyone in and serve dinner and aaaaaaaah!” And I say to myself “the same damn way you do it every time, you raving idiot” but my self just doesn’t listen because my self is a raving idiot, as we discussed. So anyway, curse you Mother Nature and your rainy weekends of doom, blah blah blah. I’ll get over it.
Okay, and so what I really want to tell you about is the two excellent books I read recently and I might even be able to work in a movie or two because we have been kind of on a movie watching binge over the past few weeks. But I will start with the books.
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht was really wonderful storytelling, blending history and family legend with relationships and memories. Beautifully done, often devastatingly sad, and my pick to win the Orange Prize. Even though I’m still bitter that The Invisible Bridge was eliminated. If Obreht doesn’t win, it’s over between me and the Orange Prize.
I Think I Love You by Allison Pearson. Two Welsh girls in 1974 obsessed with David Cassidy, struggling to fit in at school and with their friends and attempting to navigate all the other things that plague 13-year old girls? And then a flash forward to the mid-90s to follow one of these girls, now women, as she continues to struggle with identity and self? Yes, please. Were you ever a teenage girl? You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cringe. Really. Great book.
Going to leave the movies for another time, friends. But I can’t leave you without a Friday afternoon dance party, so please enjoy this song that has been rattling around in my head for the past few days. You don’t have to thank me.
The Urban Info Girl 