Smatterings

Once again, I haven't enough brain to make a lovely full-length LP of a post, so you'll have to do with this selection of 45s until I can get my brain to work again. It's fallen into a lovely summer torpor from which it is loathe to rise.

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At dinner tonight, our server was wearing both a stud through his lower lip and a retainer. Dude. The two appliances counteract one another, leaving you with negative cool points. Kind of like an eyebrow ring with bifocals. Just. Not. Cool.

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Yesterday, I went and had my pedicure re-done, after a tragic accident which left the enamel on the tip of my right big toenail on the bottom of my brother-in-law's pool. I am a fiend for pedicure maintenance during sandal season. It's a holdover from the Days of Obesity when all I could really maintain with any success were my nails and hair.

Anyhoo, I had Tammy the Pedicure Dominatrix working on my tootsies. In reality, her name is probably something relatively unpronounceable in Vietnamese, but she chose Tammy as her nom de nailfile. Tammy was ruthless toward any idea of a hangnail, and a ragged cuticle stood no chance with her. She snipped, scraped, and nipped her way through the basic maintenance and then moved on to the razor and pumice stone portion of my punishment.

First, it should be noted that I am pretty ticklish in the center of my foot. My heel? Not so much. Tammy pretty much went for the ticklish spot with the razor, shaving off a quarter inch of my height, I'm sure. Then, out came the pumice stone. Oh. My. God. As an aside, my late Mother-in-Law was very fond of the saying "Just put a little Elbow Grease into it!" She'd have been very impressed with Tammy. So Tammy sanded my feet with the vigor of ten men. Ten big burly men. Who demolish things for a living. Well, at least it didn't tickle. That's all I can say about it.

My feet now look fabulous again, and are as soft as a baby's bottom. I think Tammy and I are going to have to start seeing other people, though.

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Miss Peanut has started going to Summer Day Camp. Having spent the last summer entertaining her, I kind of figured I didn't want to do it again, especially given the sheer amount of work I have to do in order to feel comfortable teaching the upper levels next year. So, I enrolled Peanut in camp.

I attended summer camp from the age of 7 until I was old enough to work there myself. I worked at two different summer camps. The first was a YWCA camp - the same one where I had been a camper. The second was a YMCA camp, which was more structured and better organized - and also paid minimum wage! It is that second camp where Miss Peanut is currently a camper. It's funny how life turns in circles sometimes, isn't it?

I last worked there 19 years ago - or half a lifetime ago, in my case. There have been some real positive changes, like the new pool equipment and new basketball courts. It's nice to see, though, that some things don't change - they're still singing the same camp songs that I sang as a girl, and Miss Peanut is bringing home the same goofy crafts. I can't wait for her first Ojo de Dios. I don't think a summer ever went by without making an Ojo de Dios. Yarn and popsicle sticks, man. Good times.

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Books are taking up a lot of my time these days. I've gone through piles of them, and still have a huge book basket to go. I've also bought a few books and jumped them to the top of the pile, too. These days, my tastes run to the paranormal romance, so here are a few recommendations:

Kim Harrison's new one, The Outlaw Demon Wails is completely worth paying the hardback price. This is the sixth book in the Rachel Morgan series, and it really delivers. It's full of adventure, vampire politics, and witchcraft, low on romance, but ends in a very satisfying twist.

Vicki Pettersson's The Touch of Twilight is a paperback, and the third installment in the Zodiac series. It was satisfying, but you definitely get the sense that it's an installment book, just kind of bridging the way to the next one. A good read, but you definitely get the same sensation as watching The Two Towers. Fun, but a tad unsatisfying. (Yes, I did just display my geekdom to you with the Tolkien reference)

For sheer unadulterated sensuality, Gena Showalter's Darkest Series (the Darkest Night, the Darkest Kiss, the Darkest Pleasure) is a must-read. An added bonus is the Greek mythology added into the plot. The sex is HOT. Just sayin'.

Also hot? Lara Adrian's Midnight Series. Whoo! Don't read this without a seriously bone-jumpable man around, 'cause jumpin' will occur shortly upon finishing each book, lemme tell ya! And the vampire angle is well done, too.

Um, bone-jumpable vampires abound in JR Ward's Lover series. Yikes. Take the same precautions as above and make sure you remove all flammable substances from your bedroom, because these books will send you up in flames.

Now, not all of the books I've read this summer are this great. I've plowed my way through a few that were a bit tedious. Some were just plain boring, others were really rife with inconsistencies, or what a friend of mine calls "WTF moments."

Then there are others I read out of duty, which include Laurell K. Hamilton's The Harlequin. I think it was Anne of Elastic Waist that said it best. I'll quote her here for you:

I tore through the series, and started to look for others. The concept hadn't quite caught on yet, so I kept buying the Anita Blake books, even as they started to go...horribly awry, is the only way really to put it. Suddenly, Anita Blake was not just a federal- marshal-slash-vampire-executioner. Suddenly she was a psycho hose-beast who was doing it in the butt with 83 werewolves and a goat and adding superpowers to her brand-new superpower arsenal at an alarming and improbable rate (...more improbable, I mean. You know what I mean!) and every single male in her books was madly in love with her even though she was really nothing more than a horrible, wretched, unpleasant, whining, shrieking harpy asshole. And I kept reading them because--I don't know why, exactly!

And that pretty much sums up my experience with Ms. Hamilton. On the upside, A Lick of Frost, the 6th of her Merry Gentry series wasn't horrible. And Anne and I have the same taste in reading material.

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I won second place in a bathing suit competition this summer. Of course, the contest was on a website for people who've had Weight Loss Surgery, but still. That's progress, I think. Also of note on the bathing suit front: I've spent enough time in bathing suits this summer, exposing my delicate white flesh to the sun, to actually have a suntan! Compared to some, I'm still ghoulishly white. However, if you are privileged enough to view my tan lines, you'll note a slender pink crescent on each buttock where virgin skin was gently spanked by Apollo. My back is currently rubicund, and my chest and shoulders are also attractively flushed. I'm tickled about it. Tickled pink, if you'll pardon the pun.

And that is all I have for you today. Upon reflection, it was quite a lot, wasn't it?