A Menagerie of Medical Mayhem: And more...

What I'm Reading - and a very subjective measure of how I liked it, from ! to !!!!!

Spider Bones - Kathy Reichs !!!!
The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry - Jon Ronson !!!!
A Stolen Life - Jaycee Dugard (NF) This book isn't ratable. You can't put an arbitrary rating on this woman's pain. It is compelling reading, on a number of levels. You watch a stolen little girl reluctantly growing into a woman, and into a very thoroughly Stockholm-syndromed captive while at the same time never, ever giving up hope to see her mother again and retaining an amazing amount of independence unknown to her captors. It is frankly amazing that Jaycee and her two daughters - who were at times told to refer to Jaycee as their sister, and others as their mother - have the strength, humor and resiliency that they do. One example that struck me was that the youngest daughter, G, after being "found," and put up in a hotel room, was worried to death over nothing so much as her hermit crabs. She sweet-talked a couple of nice young police officers into going back to the house, collecting the crabs and crab supplies, and marching right into the lobby of the Hilton with a 10- gallon tank covered in towels strapped to a luggage rack. With everything else that was going on, police, fire, paramedics, FBI, Reunification specialists, Child Protective Services, who knows who else, two local cops took the time to make a little girls' one worry to rest, and hermit crabs Kevin, Devin and Cheese spend the night in the Hilton. The fact that the kid named her hermit crab *Cheese* tells me that she's got an intact sense of humor, and that (consider the situation) is pretty goddamned impressive. I credit her mother, Jaycee, for keeping her girls as much in the real world as she could. She is one hell of an impressive woman. I think that is my final takeaway from the book - Jaycee Dugard is one hell of a strong, impressive woman. Read the book.
Horns - Joe Hill (F) !!!!! And I'm nowhere near done!!! This book is sizzling from page one.
State of Wonder - Ann Patchett (F) !!!- maximum. The author fizzled out like a wet blanket thrown on fireworks that always seemed about to happen, and threw away the one bit of magic that she had, like it was nothing. I was incredibly frustrated and unhappy.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs (YA-F) !!!!
Getting Stoned with Savages - J. Maarten Troost (NF) !!!!
Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost (NF) !!!!!
Bossypants - Tina Fey (NF) !!!!
Pink Boots and a Machete: From NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer - Mireya Mayor (NF) !!!!
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland - Patton Oswalt (NF) !!!!
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris (NF) !!!!!
Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King (F) !!!!!
My Booky Wook: A Memoir - Russell Brand (NF) !!!!
Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live - Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller (NF) !!!!!
The Pain Chronicles - Melanie Thernstrom (NF) !!!!
Heart Shaped Box - Joe Hill (née Joe KING, if you get the hint) (F) !!!! *so far* If young Mr. Hill-King keeps writing like this, he might just outshine his Daddy someday. I'm only about halfway or more through his debut & I'm already this impressed, so I look forward to what the next book has in store for us.
A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness (F) !!!!!+
I Was Told There'd Be Cake - Sloane Crosley (NF/humor/essays) !!!!
Mortuary Confiidential - Todd Harra & KenMcKenzie (NF/collected stories) !!
I'll Mature When I'm Dead - Dave Barry (NF/Humor) !!!!
Dead Hunt/Dead Secret - Beverly Conner (F) !!!!
Dave Barry is From Mars and Venus - Dave Barry (NF/Humor) !!!!!
206 Bones - Kathy Reichs (F) !!!
Ape House - Sarah Gruen (F) !!!
In the President's Secret Service - Ronald Kessler (memoir) !!!
Boneyard - Michelle Gagnon (F) !!
Book of the Dead - Patricia Cornwell (F) !!
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress - Rhoda Janzen (memoir) !!!!!
Scarpetta/ The Scarpetta Factor - Patricia Cornwell (F) !!
My Horizontal Life/ Are You There Vodka?/Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang - Chelsea Handler (memoir/humor) !!!-!!!!
The Passage - Justin Cronin (F) !!
Scent of the Missing: Love & Partnership with a Search-and-Rescue Dog - Susannah Charleson (NF) !!!!
Star Island - Carl Hiaasen (F) !!!
Whatever You Do, Don't Run/Don't Look Behind You!: A Safari Guide's Encounters... - Peter Allison (NF, memoir/natural history) !!!!
Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives (NF - animals/natural history) !!!!
Beyond the Body Farm - Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson (NF- forensic anthropology) !!!!
Shit My Dad Says - Justin Halpern (memoir) !!!
The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy - Bill Carter (NF) !!!!!
Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin - Kathy Griffin (memoir) !!!!
The Bedwetter: Tales of Courage, Redemption and Pee - Sarah Silverman (memoir) !!!!

A Veritable Font of Useless Information

Elephant urine is corrosive enough to eat through metal.
Harvest of palm oil, used in lots of our processed foods, is one reason why orangutan habitats in Borneo are disappearing. We can help by not buying items with palm oil in them...but it's *everywhere!*
The people of Monaco (who are known as Monegasques) are not allowed to enter, much less gamble at, the famed Casino de Monte Carlo.
Man, I live in an uptight area...in the city of Chico, it is illegal to own a green or smelly animal hide. It's also illegal to bowl on the sidewalk.
Then again, other parts of the state are worse. In Fresno, it's against the law to annoy a lizard in a city park. I guess if they're outside the park, it's every lizard for himself. In Glendale, one may not take his or her dog on an elevator with oneself. Drat.
You aren't *supposed* to take more than $10k in cash with you on an airplane without notifying the authorities. Don't ask me which authorities.
Cure for a wet cell phone? A bowl of dry white rice. It supposedly works!
A friend on vacation in Provence, France bought a bag of "natural alternative" to charcoal for grilling out - turned out to be corn cobs, which he reports worked surprisingly well.
And this just in! A car dealer in Missouri is offering a free AK-47 with the purchase of any truck. Saw it on CNN... http://tinyurl.com/meukxj
Bobby Kennedy & Jackie O had a torrid affair after JFK died. WTF?!!! New book released this month as non-fiction swears it's true; that Bobby's wife knew all about it, and that Jackie was the one to order them to pull the plug when RFK was shot. Wild!

Things (your mother would approve of) To Do In Bed

SLEEP! (This is rapidly becoming my favorite)
Knit (duh)
Plot world domination
Write a cookbook
Needlepoint
Color (Where IS my twiddlebug coloring book, anyway?)
Plan out your spring vegetable garden
Needle felting
Cross-stitch
Ravelry...it's endless...
Go Christmas shopping on Etsy
Make your Christmas list
Text all your friends while they're at work
Crossword puzzles
Learn to speak Spanish
Or French
Write the great American novel
Blog
Become a master poker shark
Talk on the phone
Watch movies
Read

A Menagerie of Medical Mayhem

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

And more...

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