PS, I LOVE YOU by Cecelia Ahern

I just finished reading PS I Love You by Cecelia Ahern and I’m torn. I liked the story and, while I didn’t always like the characters, they were well thought out and very realistic. But the writing was … the only description that comes to mind is immature. The book would have benefited from some judicious editing because, among other things, there were a lot of repetitions. Ahern described the girls’ favorite eatery several times, using almost identical language each time. Really, I don’t need it more than once. Sloppy writing frustrates me to no end.

I thought about trying another of Cecelia Ahern’s novels, to see if the writing had matured at all. As with many books, this volume included several chapters from one of her upcoming books. Again, the premise was interesting, but it took her five chapters to get to the point and I found myself mumbling “edit, edit, edit!” to myself.

I wonder, am I being too bitchy? Am I just in a foul mood and taking it out on the book I’m reading at the time? Or, more realistically, am I just too tired to appreciate it? And then I started reading this book

The Thirteenth Tale

and I can physically feel the words wrapping themselves around me as I fall in love with good writing all over again!

GRATUITOUS CAT PICTURE!

Several of the felines have pointed out to me that nowhere in the name of the blog does the word dog appear and that it might be a good idea to start showing some of them again, since they haven’t been featured for quite a while. So throughout the month of March, expect gratuitous shots of cats scattered through my posts.

Just in case you’ve forgotten who they are(hah!), the reigning quartet in our house are as follows:

Gentleman George

male, orange, knows just what buttons to push!

Gretel

the only female in a sea of males – the grey diva.

Andrew Eugene

truly one of the greatest cats that ever was!

And the baby of the bunch – Dudley

whom we worried would not make it through the night, let alone 1.5 years later. As you can see, he usually is where he doesn’t belong … but then he’s a cat.

I CAN’T WORK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS!

It is very difficult to get any work done with a cat that doesn’t know acknowledge the meaning of the word NO, and who has no boundaries what-so-ever!

Really, why are you trying to take pictures of anything other than this?

FACIAL SCARS – or lack thereof

There was a slight altercation last night. When I got back from walking the dogs, Gretel

was upstairs, where she did not belong, and Dickon

decided to let her know how he felt about that, which just made her more insistent on staying up.

When we’re at the beach, we try to lock the cats up in our suite overnight because someone,

and I’m not naming names (Andrew) has a tendency to go visiting during the wee hours and Dad just doesn’t understand when 17 pounds of cat lands on him at 3AM.

In trying to get Gretel down and into the room, she took offense and scratched my face in her attempt to launch herself from my arms. My first thought was not oh crap, the cat scratched me, or I hope she didn’t get my eye, but rather how am I going to explain this at BlogHer next weekend.

Since I had what started as a small scratch at the corner of my left eye, that then morphed into a red welt across the cheekbone, and ended in another small scratch on my lip, I thought I’d go with knife fight at the bar. Or maybe catfight – you should see the other bitch. Anything other than admit the truth – Yeah, I picked up my cat when she was in a hissy fit about the dog and she let me know her true feelings.

When I saw my face this morning, all that’s left are two tiny scratches by the eye and on the lip. Knife fight just isn’t going to work because I don’t think there’s anything that small that would explain the scratches – dueling penknives, anyone? Besides, the way it’s healing, I won’t have to explain anything at work on Monday, let alone next Friday. Damn my super healing powers!

THE BIRD WHISPERER

You might think she was sitting, waiting for her prince to come and save her from the hell we subject her to on a daily basis, but in reality she’s telling the morning doves “You take one more step on my lawn and I’m going to have to get medieval on your @$$!”

STRESSED? ME?

How relaxed a cat gets shows how secure they are in their surroundings. An insecure cat will never stretch out or get really comfortable because they are sure danger is always sneaking up on them. Obviously this is not a problem in our household. I think Gretel may be cat-atonic here!

I DON’T SHARE WELL…

Gretel

Oh yeah, and I finally managed to get a recipe posted at the Riverside Cafe in a timely manner! Go see what we had for dinner last night – it was yummy:)

Book Meme

I’m stealing this meme from Seeking Sanity because I was looking for ideas for a post and there it was, and besides, it has to do with books, so how can I pass it up?

This is the book meme -

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

I am in the middle of The Virgin’s Lover by Philippa Gregory – all about Queen Elizabeth I.

“A Dairy House at Kew,” he said.
“A London house for us?” she asked.
He could imagine Elizabeth’s response if he tried to install a wife in the pretty little bachelor’s nest in the garden of the royal palace.

The he is Lord Robert Dudley, Queen Elizabeth’s childhood friend and current lover. The she is his wife -not Queen Elizabeth:), who is desperate to be with him … almost as desperate as he is to be away from her (his wife). The Tudors were a randy lot – in and out of bed with just about everyone, regardless of spouses (theirs or their paramour’s), or the wishes of their subjects, who by this time, really wished the rulers would just get married, stay married, and pick a faith! “Now we’re Catholic (Henry VIII), now we’re Protestant (Henry again, because he wants to get divorced), now we’re Catholic again (Mary), and now back to Protestant!” It must have been one of the most confusing and dangerous times to be living in England!

And, in a perfect sequeway – here are pictures of our Lord Dudley, taken last night as he began exploring the chair. He is 4 weeks old today. Not too shabby for one we weren’t sure was going to make it a month! Of course it’s hard not to stick around when you have two people adoring you 24 hours a day, let alone a whole other group on the weekends:)

This last picture is of Gretel, who is NOT one of his adoring fans. As a matter of fact, she is quite disinterested in the whole Dudley extravaganza.

I appologize for the size of the photos but Blogger is not cooperating for me to load them the normal way. ** Updated – got the pictures fixed.