Live and Let Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 78)

Thirteen Things That Are In My Purse Right Now

I've often said that I would be perfect for the audience on that show where they say, "Does anyone have a hard-boiled egg?" or whatever because I always have too much stuff in my purse. I periodically dig through it and am incredulous at what I find.

1. Dental Floss - my friend and hygienist, Barb, would be so proud!

2. Eyeliner - I don't wear make-up near as much as I should, but there is always an eyeliner pencil floating around just in case I get inspired.

3. Golf Tees - I don't usually have much need for them off the golf course, but they somehow make their way into my purse.

4. Several receipts - I don't save receipts but they still find their way into the bottom of my purse. If there is a receipt that I need for some reason, it will NOT be in my purse.

5. One or two linty Rolaids - for someone who suffers from heartburn as much as I do, you would think I would have a little container keeping my Rolaids safe for emergencies...but it's usually just the two left in the roll with half the paper torn off.

6. Dental Floss - I know I already said this, but I'm looking in my purse and there's a (eeeeuuuuwww!) used piece in there!

7. A Yellow Highlighter - why? Do I think that I will feel compelled to highlight while I'm driving?

8. An oval-shaped silver compact mirror with "Still Perfect" engraved on the top

9. A business card holder with business cards in it - I don't work. But I have business cards.

10. 7 free peppermint candies from the last time we went out to dinner - I'm not a hoarder. The kids slipped them into my purse.

11. Two double A batteries - I know not why. I know not if they are any good.

12. A piece of notepaper on which is written "1:56," "12:52," Bloomsbury and 1st right. I have no idea what any of that means.

13. A pen - OMG! Will wonders never cease!!! It will definitely no longer be there when I actually need a pen.

Di

Guess who e-mailed me today?

Mischa Berlinski! He is the author of the incredible Fieldwork which I recently reviewed. (And if you click the link, you can enter my contest to win a copy of Fieldwork.)

I love when authors visit my site and take a moment to comment as Mr. Berlinski did. Just another reason to love him!

Di

We have our winners!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER THIS WEEK'S CONTEST...WIN A COPY OF FIELDWORK!!!

Congratulations to Shay from Uniquely Yours who won a copy of Eat, Pray, Love.

Congratulations to Rachel from Books I Done Read who won a copy of Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading.

It's almost as fun giving away books as reading them. Almost.

Di

Fieldwork

CONTEST ALERT! READ TO THE BOTTOM AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF FIELDWORK!

It has taken me some time to get around to reviewing Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski because it was brilliant on so many levels that I needed time to sort out my feelings about it well enough to write about it. Stephen King's blurb on the front of the book says simply, "A remarkable novel." That sums it up plainly and simply, but I won't leave you just with that.

In April, 2007, in The King of Pop, his monthly column in Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King posited Fieldwork as an example of "How to Bury a Book." Stephen King is probably the most prolific writer in my sphere (I don't read Harlequin or other romance-y stuff that is often churned out monthly by certain writers.) Apparently he is also a voracious reader, which begs the questions, "Where the hell does he find the time????" King came across Fieldwork when it bore this cover:

There is nothing about this cover that calls to the reader, begging him to look at the book jacket much less buy it. Nonetheless, Stephen King purchases the book, reads 15 pages and is hooked. I felt the same way. As my BF Amy said, "It's the kind of book that you never want to end. You can't stop reading it, but you do because you want to make it last longer." Stephen King described it perfectly as a "Russian doll of a novel." Amy might have described it as "onion-like," having many layers and revealing something new as each layer is removed.

The fictional Mischa Berlinski is semi-working in Thailand, when a friend tells him about an American anthropologist, imprisoned in a Thai jail for killing a Christian missionary. Berlinski gets sucked into the story and can't help but find out more. There end up being several stories running concurrently, but instead of the confusion that would result in less capable hands, there are frequent beautiful confluences of time, place and plot that reward the reader for his attention.

In my truly humble opinion, Berlinski tells these stories without judgment. One learns about anthropology, about Thailand and about missionaries without the author popping you over the head with cliche judgments of the characters or their motivations. Fieldwork raises questions of religion and science without requiring a winner in that ongoing struggle.

Oh...one of my favorite aspects of the book is the use of the occasional footnote. The footnotes had me reaching for my MacBook Pro to find out if they contained truth or fiction. (The Dogs May Bark, But the Caravan Never Ends is really a book, but www.mymagicneverends.com is not a real web site...at least not now.)

In King's column, he lamented that Fieldwork was hovering at #24,571 on the Amazon list of most popular books. At one point in November, 2007, Fieldwork rose to #3,992 thanks to Mr. King's endorsement which brought it out from the oblivion in which it sat since its original publication. I share Stephen King's hope that a measure of success with his debut novel has afforded Mischa Berlinski the time to write this second. I will be waiting.

Di

CONTEST:

Due to my own stupidity of misplacing Fieldwork for a time, I now possess two copies. My Aunt Mary wants to read one which she will eventually return, so I would like to give the other away. No gimmicks. No need to solve puzzles. No need to kiss up (although I do enjoy that so much.) Just leave a comment saying, in some regard, "I want Fieldwork!" The winner will be drawn on Sunday, April 26.

Ubermoms Gone Wild!

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is a comic master and is willing to do anything, including doing a scene clad only in a bra and pants and putting ice pops in her armpits. The "peri-menopause episode" was so funny that I saved it on our DVR and re-watched it with my husband last night.

But does anyone else just LOVE the mean Moms on The New Adventures of Old Christine and think they steal every show?

They are every parent's dream/nightmare. We WANT them to handle Cotillion, PTA, being the Room Mom, etc. But we don't want them to judge us slacker Moms for being, um, slackers!

Marly: Oh, yeah, my nanny just went through the change, too.
Lindsay: Wait, I thought your nanny had a heart attack.
Marly: Well, she was sweaty and missed two days of work—I don't know.

And the "peri-menopause episode" gave a sweaty, hormone-driven Christine the opportunity to tell these women off:

Christine: (to Marly and Lindsay) Listen, I have taken your crap for the last three years, and I'm gonna tell you something. If you ever make Ritchie feel unwelcome, or embarrass him, again, I would be thrilled for the opportunity to kick your sorry, tanned, bleach blond, Botox asses back to your tacky McMansions and your loveless marriages. You got that?

Christine and 30 Rock are the only two TV shows that have held my interest since the writers' strike.

Di

         

What's Di doing this weekend?

Playing golf, getting a touch of sunburn on my shoulders and hanging out with friends. It doesn't get any better.

Karen and Di - partners playing for the red team (natch!)

The thing about golf is that you get so caught up in the game that you don't even care if someone takes a picture when your hair is all visor-crazy.

Oh...I'm also blogging for the News & Observer. This weekend I wrote about something I haven't disclosed in this blog...The Other Woman.

Di

Mac-ommendations (Vol. 2)

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY CONTEST! IT'S EASY AND YOU CAN WIN A BOOK!!! CLICK HERE

This is such a cool feature and I only learned about it because I read iCreate, a magazine out of the UK that is devoted to all things Apple.

Let's say you are reading your e-mail. (OK, I know you are now saying out loud, "You are reading your e-mail." You are so immature!!!) Someone sends his phone number and address in the e-mail. So naturally you open your Mac address book to enter the information. No, no! Too much work. All you have to do is:

[Ed. note: Thanks go out to Karen at verbatim for pointing out that these shortcuts work only on Leopard]

Let your mouse hover over the number and a little white-on-grey arrow will appear to the right of the number. Click on that and a drop-down list will open up offering you the alternative of creating a new contact or adding the information to an existing contact. And check this out!!! It offers you the alternative of showing it in LARGE TYPE!!! So if you are going to try to dial the number from the e-mail and you don't have your reading glasses, just click Large Type. If you can see THAT without your reading glasses, that is.

The same holds true for addresses:

And dates can be added to iCal!

Just more little ways that Apple makes my life easier...and yours too, I hope!

Di

To visit my Mom2Mom post for the News & Observer this week, click here.

In an Instant

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY CONTEST! IT'S EASY AND YOU CAN WIN A BOOK!!! CLICK HERE

I received my copy of In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, from a publisher. It sat on my shelf for a while because I was afraid it would induce my gag reflex. Bob Woodruff had just been tapped for the coveted evening anchor position at ABC news after the death of Peter Jennings. His wife Lee had moved around the world, packing and unpacking boxes at multiple destinations. Suddenly one morning when Lee was at Disney with her children, she received a call that shatters her world in an instant. I figured it would be some sickeningly sweet story of the selfless wife (she's all blonde and pretty on the cover), the understanding and self sufficient children and the courageous husband.

What I found instead was a candid account of what a normal (well except for the whole being-a-network-anchorman part) family does when a crisis impales itself in the heart of their world. When Lee received the phone call that Bob had been seriously injured in Iraq, she didn't react logically. She didn't intuitively know what to do. She went for a walk and called her friend Melanie to figure out what to do next. This is what I would probably do, substituting drinking a bottle of wine for the walking and Amy for Melanie.

I naturally connected more with Lee's part of the story. But Bob's portion served as the anchor, no pun intended...well, maybe, of the story, providing the timeline and historical perspective to their lives. I saw so many similarities between Lee and Bob and me and my husband (except the whole evening-news-anchor-dining-with-presidents thing.) She picked up and moved according to the whims of his career. She didn't do it stoically and angelically...she sometimes got pissed off that Bob was at a 5-star hotel in Dubai while she was managing moving crews and trying to find the basic necessities in boxes.

He got to respond to the allure of the road, while she was in the trenches making lunches, chauffeuring four kids and trying to establish relationships in each new location.

At one point, when times are tough and Bob says, "We are a team!" I wanted to say, "Hey, that's our line!" It's the mantra we have used over and over again from our first year of marriage when my mother-in-law was dying of cancer to the births of our children to my two major depressive episodes.

Lee doesn't pull any punches...even when they might land on her. She doesn't hide her imperfections under a veil of justifications. She tells it like it was...even when it was less than flattering.

When I read that Lee was reading an unnamed book about a school shooting (which I surmised was We Need to Talk About Kevin), I wanted to rip it out of her hands and tell her, "That book is way too dark and deep for you right now. Read something by Anne Lamott. Laugh and be inspired. Don't read a book that is going to make you question everything you believe in as a mother!" As the book progressed, I felt more and more like Lee was a friend and that I should put a casserole in the oven to bring to her children. I wanted to help her and be there for her. And I wanted to thank her for sharing her incredibly painful journey...because who knows, someday my life might change in an instant.

Di

Power Thirst!!!

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY CONTEST! IT'S EASY AND YOU CAN WIN A BOOK!!! CLICK HERE

Tuesday night, at the Cantina, my friend's son Sean was enthusiastically showing us...and echoing every line of dialogue...this YouTube video for PowerThirst.

My experience with energy drinks began and ended the one time I drove with the kids from North Carolina to Florida without my designated driver husband. I find driving somewhat soporific so I decided to get an energy drink. With the help of my son, I selected three different drinks so I could have some taste choices. What I learned was that the way that energy drinks work is that every time you take a sip, you jolt upright in your seat, gag and shout out, "THIS TASTES DISGUSTING!!!"

It was this experience combined with Sean's intensity that made me love the PowerThirst video. But the part that stayed with me more than anything else was...THERE IS A TYPO IN THE VIDEO!!! I think this might be turning into an illness. Am I a typoholic?

Di

Thursday Thirteen (Vol. 77)

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY CONTEST! IT'S EASY AND YOU CAN WIN A BOOK!!! CLICK HERE

With so many Thursday Thirteen posts under my belt, I thought it would be a good time to do a "Best of" blog. So here are my:

Thirteen Favorite Thursday Thirteens

1. Thirteen Writers who are Unforgettable - How cute. It was early in my blogging career. My big formatting coup was putting my list in a box with a gray background. No header graphic. Here it is, almost two years later, and I still stand by my selections.

2. 13 Titles that I Have Considered and Subsequently Abandoned for a Blog Entry - There is one that I would rescind and it is, "13 Blogs that I can't live without Reading."

3. 13 Things I regularly Rant and Rave About - Nothing has changed there except that I don't live in Boca anymore.

4. Thirteen Songs I would have on my iPod if I was going to be stranded on a desert island with an inexplicably constantly charged iPod - I was really into long TT names back then. But I still think this is an interesting list to think about.

5.13 Memorable Pieces of Dialogue from TV - Classics still.

6. 13 Birthdays to Remember - Written in honor of my husband's birthday. Reminded me of some great moments.

7. 13 Great Country Drinking Songs - And just for a bonus, there's a picture of a much-younger, pregnant Di.

8. 13 THINGS MY FAMILY DOES/DOESN'T DO THAT MAKE ME CRAZY (AND I'M NOT EVEN INCLUDING BATHROOM-RELATED THINGS BECAUSE THIS ISN'T THE THURSDAY THIRTY-THREE!) - And they still do/don't do the same things that make me crazy!!!

9. Thirteen Thursday Thirteen Topics You Will Never See On My Blog - Still will never see them on my blog.

10. 13 Songs to Sing Along with at the Cantina - And we're still singing 'em!

11.  13 Childhood Memories Shared by Me and My Sister -  My parents were just here this past weekend, so these memories are fun to look back on.

12.13 Things that irritate me - They still do. I'm still irritable. Deal with it.

13. 13  Things I Love - Still do.

Di