It's Almost Alice Cooper Time

The countdown to the end of school is in full swing and we are all singing our favorite song: School's Out. Last year Luke was a precious first grader, who loved his teacher, so he was very unhappy about blowing the school to pieces, and teacher's dirty looks. Unfortunately, it's such a catchy tune, that it's really hard not to sing the refrain all morning before the last day of school. We tried to modify it a bit, but I can't remember what we came up with and I am too lazy/multi-taskery to look and see if I blogged about this last year.

But now that Luke is a too cool for school second grader, going on third grader in 5 days, he started the whole thing with a little Alice Cooper sing along before bed. Or maybe I started it. Regardless, I was very interested to hear what he had to say after, "I'll modify this song so it's more appropriate for me."

School's out for summer.
School's out for evah!
School's been blown to pieces.
No more pencils
Lots more books

Sigh. I just love my little bookworm.

On that note, did I mention that I updated the list of books read? (See above re: too lazy to look at yesterday's post.) Hopefully Luke and I will spend the whole summer reading, if I survive this weekend.

It's All Greek To Me

Recently, Luke read a book that sparked an obsession with reading. It is called Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief. I have very vivid memories about the first book I read that turned the switch for me from someone who knew how to read into someone who loved to read. I was in fourth grade when I read A Wrinkle in Time, and I can remember where I set it down on the book shelf in the living room when I needed to stop reading and eat dinner. And I remember being in the backyard thinking about the characters, and imagining the book in my head. So it has been very fun for me to watch Luke have a similar experience with his first book obsession. When I read the Amazon reviews of the first book, it seemed targeted at older kids, so I read it too, because I am a good parent. I liked it! There is a lot of adventure, and Greek Mythology, and it's exciting, and funny. I love that Luke is learning so much about Greek Mythology. I used to have a book called, It's Greek to Me, because I always thought I would be a better person if I knew about Greek Mythology. But I don't recall reading it, just sort of occasionally noticing it on my shelf. I told Luke about it and he was quite annoyed that I don't still have the book. Although now that I am reading the description, I think I probably got it to study up on my greek roots as SAT prep. (Lame!) But I know more about Greek Mythology now, from reading just one Percy Jackson book, and discussing the rest with Luke every day, than I ever did. And that is very cool.

The funny thing is that I kept saying Luke was too young for Harry Potter. But one of the reviews I read on Amazon described Percy Jackson as something like a less earnest Harry Potter. I found that to be funny. I let the whole Harry Potter phenomenon pass me by, so I think it will be fun to read the books with Luke when he finishes this series. He had the last book checked out from the school library, and he was forced to return it because I guess the library starts to close down a month before school ends. He was devastated and convinced that when he gets another copy (friends have promised to loan it) it will take his entire independent reading time to find the page he was on. We might have to head to the regular library (or Main Branch as Jack says) to get the last book and get a head start on figuring out where he left off.

Origami Yoda

A month or so ago, Luke spent an afternoon writing to authors of the books he was reading. One was to Tom Angleberger, the author of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda. The letter was something like,

Dear Mr. Angleberger,

I really like The Strange Case of Origami Yoda because of all the details.

Sincerely,
Luke

I said, "Do you care to elaborate on that?"
Luke said, "Nope."
I said, "Because, if you really like details...."
Luke, "Please hand me an envelope."

This week, a letter arrived for Luke. I said, "Luke, you got some mail." Luke said, "Who is it from?" while barely turning his head away from his wii game. I sighed, because that sort of question makes me feel a tiny bit like Luke's secretary, but I said, "I don't know, the return address looks like a puzzle piece."

He was across the room, shouting, "Remember when I wrote to the author of Origami Yoda!" and ripping open the envelope. It was pretty darn exciting.

We took a bunch of pictures of Luke with Origami Yoda on his finger, including this one, with my new photobooth app.

Books 2010

I updated my list of Books for 2010, and there are a total of 26, which was my goal for the year. It seems funny now because instead of finishing 2 books a month, I probably finished 26 books over several 3 day periods.

Unfinished books for the year include: The Infinities (awful) and The Inheritance of Loss (boring). I should admit that I haven't actually finished The Long Song, because Miss Beth got me Freedom for Christmas and I have been reading that instead - but I think I can finish it before the end of 2010.

I included a screen shot of my list for those that only read posts via email, but if you are on my blog, you can click the link for any book and it should bring you to the Boulder Book Store for your viewing or purchasing pleasure. I did accidentally link to the study guide for The Remains of the Day, but that is fixed now!

And, I Am Back

As Dave says, you know you aren't ready for your vacation to end when you are taking 30 mile side trips (to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison) on your way home. Sigh. I've been back at work for 2 days and I am still not ready for it to end.

But here is what you can look forward to reading as I force myself to get back into the swing of things:

1.) The Commenter Contest Winner
2.) Embarrassing things that I have said at work
3.) Something asinine about my job
4.) Vacation Jackisms
5.) Family photos gone wrong
6.) Vacation round up
7.) Dave's bike ride
8.) Mouse's chocolates
9.) Update on books read
10.) Peaches

Ok, ok, I'll let you know that commenter Laura won the commenting contest. Yea! Laura! Thanks to all July commenters. Commenters appears to not be a word. Commentators? People who left comments?

Anyway! Thanks! I need to devote an entire post to Laura's prize, and that is number 8 on the list.

One more thing - As you can see on my Books Read 2009, I have already read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Loved it. I also read 3 books on my vacation, which pretty much means my vacation was awesome.

Dear Internet

Dear Internet,

How's it going? Have I mentioned lately how much I love you? You are pretty cool, and I like a lot of the stuff you can do. Do you know what would be cooler though? If you could create a little widget that made it really easy for me to post a list of books I am reading or would like to read to my little blog called MetaMegan. Yeah, I know you already have lots of easy ways to do that, but what would be cooler, is if it was really easy for me to link this list of books to an independent book seller such as The Boulder Bookstore. Or maybe IndieBound.org, which links to lots of independant bookstores. See, the thing is, Amazon does it. And right now, the method I have of doing this sort of thing for myself is sort of clunky and annoying. Amazon makes it easy, and tempting. I really like to support independant bookstores, but I am also very lazy.

Please help.

Thanks!

Love,
MetaMegan

Must Be Bath Night Because Some Ears Need to be Cleaned Out!

Luke: I am rooting for The Netherlands.
Me: Don't be offended, but I think I am going to root for Spain.
Dave: Oooh - in house rivalry. Do you to want to place bets?
Luke: NO! I took a bath last night!

???

Me: Jack, can you finish your yogurt or is that now impossible?
Jack: I can't. It's a popsicle.

???

In other news, we went to The Library today, and because it only takes 100 times for me to learn my lesson, I took Jack into the bathroom as soon as we got there. No dice. He just slowly backed out, somberly shaking his head "no". It paid off though, because after dinner, I brought a big stack of reading material into the bathroom with Jack and... He POOPED on the POTTY! Big news. We now owe him a trip to Chuck E Cheese. Or Chuckie Cheese, as Luke would say.

Then, I heard Dave scheming with Luke and they planned a trip to Casa Bonita to celebrate a full week of pooping on the potty, when and if that ever happens. Not sure how I feel about it, because that place sounds like it could scare the poop out of anyone. Luke went there on a camp field trip, and in my research, I found this description, "it's like Disney had sex with Tijuana and left the goofy-looking bastard to fend for itself in a random strip mall on Colfax. "

In other poop related news, my new favorite line from a book is, "Mr. B is making it happen."

Book Review

Last month I read The Lacuna, and The Help. The Lacuna dragged and dragged and finally at the end I was like, "Ooooooooooooh. I get it. It's about how we thought we left McCarthyism behind, but between the media, and the Sarah Palins of the world we are reliving it."

As for The Help, I have heard a million people say that I need to read it, but I thought they meant, I need to read it like I need to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Like, I should do it, because it's the right thing to do. But maybe they were saying I should read it because the story is so good, you can't put it down. It took about a month and $2.40 in late charges to read The Lacuna, and I read The Help in about 27 hours.

Catching Up

Back again - this time from another medical near disaster: a corneal ulcer. The good news is that I will not be going blind in one eye at this time. The potentially bad news (for my looks) is that even though I have been told I can wear contacts again, I am considering a break. So I may be requesting help picking out my next pair of glasses. On the one hand, I fear that asking the glasses person at the doctor's office to take pictures of me in each and every style may be annoying. On the other hand, I have been in that office 5 days out of the last 7, and I'll be going back several more times in the next few weeks. I've already tried on every pair of glasses in the store, so I think they won't be surprised.

One of the doctors suggested that I figure out how to do a better job taking care of myself and managing stress. So I ordered a book about simplifying my life. And then I added some cake decorating tools to the order while I was at it. I may have a problem. Speaking of embarrassing problems, since I was shopping anyway, I added the last Twilight book to the order. My wonderful sister sent me the first one when I was convalescing a month ago. I bought the second one on my way to a doctors appointment for a complication, and I saw the third one (out of one eye) when I was picking up eye drops. 40% off! The pharmacy tech guy asked if I wanted a bag, and I said yes, to hide my book. Hopefully since I have already bought the book, I won't need some sort of new and terrible medical emergency to give me an excuse to find out what happens with the sparkly vampires.

I still have all my Yellowstone posts to do, and now you can all look forward reading about my adventures with the Twilight series, simplifying my life, and then decorating some fancy cakes.

In the meantime - here is Luke doing a little rock climbing at the best raft/climb/guide/kayak store in Cody, WY.

Not Reading

I haven't been able to add a lot to my list of Books Read for several reasons:

1.) Watching too much Deadwood
2.) Work
3.) Can't get through A New Earth Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
a.) I feel sort of bad about this, but according to an O I read in a waiting room, it sounds like your Life's Purpose is to not obsess about your weight. I already don't do that.
b.) So boring
4.) Can't get through Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill
a.) This book puts me right into a nightmarish sleep
b.) Last time I picked it up I thought, "Just tell me what to DO!" Then I turned to the "What you can do" chapter and fell asleep.
c.) Free Lunch has already cost me $0.30 in late fees from the library

Time to cut my losses and head back to the fiction section.