Flying News and Easter

Good news, I got an email from my old flight instructor who said she would be working on keeping her IFR training updated soon and would need a safety pilot. That would be me, which would be awesome, cause then I’d get some hours in and also have some better blog stories. IFR flying, as most of you know, is flying around when the weather is below minimum. Like maybe there are a lot of clouds, for example. It would obviously take forever to get your IFR training done if you were always waiting on some bad weather to drift your way, so you can practice wearing foggles (giant glasses that have the top half all fogged up so you can’t see outside the plane), etc. to simulate an inability to see much outside of your plane. From what I gather, a safety pilot sits in the co-pilot seat and makes sure the pilot doesn’t do anything too stupid while practicing. They don’t wear the foggles, they get to hang on for the ride and let the pilot know they’re tilted at a funny angle. I don’t anticipate any problems with my past instructor, she’s a great pilot, so it should be educational and fun. So yay flying news! The weather is verrrrry slowly trying to get better which is a plus too, there might just be some flying in my future!

Aside from that, I’m keeping busy. Easter was a festive occasion. Friday night I dyed Easter Eggs and had an Easter dinner at my Mom’s house. We watched a CSI marathon along with that, very Eastery I know. Saturday I went to this local dance show that is run by a very chipper woman. She teaches dance to people between the ages of 3 and *insert age here* — her oldest this year was 88. The first half is all the little 3-12 year olds running around in tutus. It’s insanely cute. You have to love the 3 year olds who can’t quite remember what they’re suppose to be doing so they’re rolling around on the floor. The second half are the older generations, the 17+ — the music is very eclectic, from classical to modern, from all over the world. It was extremely entertaining. Sunday of course was Easter, for anybody who celebrates it, and I spent the morning with my great grandmother and my Mom and then the rest of the day with my Dad and co. at his house having Easter dinner. Always fun to have lots of people around during holidays. We played lots of games and there was so much food- luckily we had a garbage disposal in the form of a Great Dane, so it didn’t go to waste.

That about sums up my weekend. I am just this side of done with The Historian. It doesn’t usually take me a zillion years to read a book, I just have been super busy and I have this tendency to pick up other books at the same time. Right now I’m also reading Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris, the woman who wrote the Sookie Stackhouse vampire mysteries I mentioned a few times in earlier posts. It’s about a woman who can sense dead bodies. She can find the dead body and then see the last few seconds of their death. So she goes from town to town assisting the police in finding “missing” persons. Of course, she gets dragged into a mystery because of it. It’s one of those books where I can’t decide if I like it or not, and the ending may determine it for me. The tone is really weird, almost uncomfortable for some reason, even though the plot doesn’t make me so. I’m intrigued enough to read the few others in the series though because I’m curious if they’re just as odd. Do you ever associate colors with books or situations? I do that a lot, and Grave Sight for me is a gray book. Like a stone gray, nice and gray and sort of washed out. We shall see how it goes I guess.

I’m Alive, I Swear…

I realize it’s been eons since my last post but this week has been crazy-hectic and I wasn’t even around internet the last 2 days so you guys can’t blame me… much.  As soon as I can figure out how to get the pictures from my phone to my computer, I will show y’all where I was. But basically, to describe, it’s this lake about 45 minutes up the hill from me that is completely frozen over and there is about 1-3 feet of snow on the ground depending on where you are. Drifts up to about 6 feet.  My step brother’s grandparents… or something, own this cabin up there, so my family was celebrating my Dad’s birthday in style.

I took a few pictures of us standing on the lake (where we took several walks) and also putting this Puzzle From The Underworld together. It was this little bridge and about 6 billion trees during fall. Can you imagine trying to put 1,000 pieces together of just tree leaves? Yeah, it was a blast. We also played games – Monopoly, dice, etc. and watched some movies. We ate steak, crab, garlic bread, baked potatos and salad for dinner last night (amazing I know) and cinnamon buns for breakfast, yum. But now I’m back, and in the valley it’s 75 degrees outside. Wait, let me repeat that SEVENTY FIVE degrees. I was driving out of town and there were 3 foot snowbanks alongside my car as I drove and I heard the radio announcer say “and it looks like it’s going to even out at about 75 degrees today… and tomorrow, and actually… pretty much all week. Enjoy it!” and here I am driving to a cabin that hsa 6 foot long icicles on it. I don’t even know.

So that’s what I was up to. Everybody will be happy to know that I didn’t give up on The Historian. I realize it’s past the end of the month but I’m going to finish it if it’s the last thing I do (which hopefully it isn’t). I’m actually almost done with it, I just didn’t have time this weekend to read it, so I’ll work on this. I finished a few of my ongoing projects up this week so I should be able to squeeze in an hour or two to finish up and post on it, since I know you all were waiting breathlessly for my commentary.

Aside from all that, I’ve been keeping busy. Anything fun happen to you guys this week?

Even Vampires Get the Blues

(Mom don’t read this review because the book is on its way to you)

Even Vampires Get the Blues by Katie MacAlister

So sue me, I know this isn’t exactly high fiction, but I absolutely refuse to apologize for my love of the paranormal. If I didn’t think it was cheating I would have written every Women’s History Month entry on the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries (Southern Vampires) which I read this month, and then where would you be? Besides, I like to think of it as having a varied interest in all genres.  Anyway, on with the show, since nobody comes here to listen to me assume you’re all judging me.

Even Vampires Get the Blues is set around the idea that Samantha, half-elf/half-human, has just begun her career as a Private Detective.  Meanwhile,  Paen (pronounced Pain), Scottish vampire extraordinaire, is wallowing in thinly disguised self pity since he doesn’t have a soul. It seems that in this vampire lore, in order to produce souled vampires the parents must have been “Joined” (mystically) before they pop out the little ones and sadly for Paen, they were not. So he’s a soulless vampire, forced to … well, be soulless. There isn’t a lot of description about what it’s like to be soulless until the last few chapters and so we just have to go with the idea that it’s bad and undesirable.  Luckily, there’s a way to get his soul back! He has to find the one woman who “completes” him a la Jerry Maguire. Termed in vampire lingo as his “Beloved.” After completing the 7 steps to Beloved-ness, Paen will get his soul and the girl gets immortality (assuming she isn’t already immortal).

After establishing all this, Paen is approached by a messenger demon calling on an ancient agreement between Paen’s father and the Head Honcho Demon to finally be fulfilled. What the Head Honcho Demon wants: a little monkey statue that was lost. What he gets if the agreement isn’t fulfilled: Paen’s mother’s soul.  Unfair, I know. Now unfortunately, Paen’s parents are trapped in some jungle on some kind of vague safari mission and completely unreachable, so to save his mother, Paen must locate the statue on his own. This is of course where Samantha (Sam) comes into play.

Now, there’s a lot to be said for this book. I’ve heard that usually this author is pretty good, and based on this book I’d be willing to give her one other shot… but only one.  The book is charming, upbeat and funny. I smiled or giggled a few times and there was one laugh-out-loud moment that for whatever reason is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read in a book, but that might just be me. There’s nothing wrong with this book really.  I didn’t want my 2 hours back after reading it, but it’s kind of hectic.  There was constant movement, constant action, and while that’s not always bad, I didn’t really care about the characters enough to feel like I wanted to know if they were going to die in the next action sequence or not.

The book did several things badly.

First, as mentioned earlier, it gave you no idea why you should care if Paen had a soul or not. You got the idea that it was a negative occurrence, but not what he was going through. He was just a grumpy mildly emotionless vampire. Since half the plot was based on souls, it was kind of important to know upfront what it was like for him, not 60 pages from the end.

Second, they established the love story almost immediately. I don’t mean like “longing glances, oh i like him/her” immediately. But like full-on “hey, let’s do it” immediately. There was a vague plotline about Sam trying to prove to Paen that sex with love is better than sex without love. But it wasn’t actually truly established which one was better so the entire point of that plot line was wasted.  Everybody knows that you can’t establish the love story immediately because then there’s very little reason to keep reading when your book has “Romance” in the genre title.  I think MacAlister was trying to keep us interested by having a “will they stay together in the end or not?” ploy, but frankly, nobody overly cared. By the way, the whole book isn’t filled with sex scenes, regardless of that being a plot point. It’s like 70% plot and 20% sex and 10% almost sex, so completely readable. Oh, and is Sam Paen’s Beloved? You’ll never guess!

Third, like I said, so fast paced. The wording even was just chaotic. You never felt like there was time to slow down and understand the characters. The author was trying to be too funny, all the time.  Sometimes you just wanted Sam to shut up so you could enjoy some writing without dialogue.

And did I mention it’s kind of predictable. I’m bad at predicting novels because I don’t usually think much beyond a chapter ahead. I like being surprised so I just don’t wonder what’s going to happen. So if I guessed it less than halfway through the novel… I don’t know. That’s not a bad point necessarily, just a comment.

But all that aside, it’s a good beach book. Not like the kind of beach book you end up keeping and putting on your shelf when you get home because “wow, this was more than just a beach book,” but really just a beach book. The kind you leave in the library of the hotel or on a chair by the pool when you’re done.  I enjoyed it, I would recommend it if that’s your kind of thing and you’re just looking for a couple hours of fun, but it’s not on my Top 100 Supernatural books.

Carolyn Keene

Mystery Train: A Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys Super Mystery by Carolyn Keene

Okay, no Women’s History Month can be complete without a little talk about the world’s greatest girl detective: Nancy Drew.  There’s a lot to be said for and against Nancy Drew and as anybody who reads my blog knows, I have  a penchant towards The Hardy Boys, but you’ve got to love the daring young girl detective. Yes, she gets kidnapped in almost every book and somehow manages to get the bad guys to tell her all their secrets before escaping, and yes, she’s a little bossy and annoying, but she showed girls if they have a “can do” attitude they can do anything.

The Nancy Drew series actually started in mind of a man, but since it was genuinely written by women in the beginning, I figured it counted. Edward Stratemeyer was the man behind the curtain in this case. He was born in the 1860s and grew up to become the premier brainchild behind every book you’ve ever heard of. Not joking, we’re talking Tom Swift, the Bobbsey Twins, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, etc. etc.  He rose swiftly from a no account writer to the owner of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, an entry in Who’s Who in America, and the man behind over 100 series.  Now, he didn’t write all these, usually he hired people to write them for him. So, Nancy Drew was actually written by a woman, and the original woman was Mildred Wirt Benson (aka Carolyn Keene). Benson (pictured above) authored twenty-three of the Nancy Drew books before it was passed on to other women (who kept the name Carolyn Keene).  Benson wanted a character who wasn’t just your normal female, she wanted a role model– somebody daring, outgoing, and comfortable in a world of intrigue and drama, but still wholly female. By 1938, 8 years after its original release, Nancy Drew was selling double the amount of the Hardy Boys books.  Flash to today and you have a series that has been around for almost 80 years and is still going strong.

So, in honor of all the Carolyn Keene’s, I read Mystery Train which is actually a Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew mystery, but since it’s written by Carolyn Keene, it totally counts.  In this story, Nancy Drew is invited to ride a train from Chicago to San Francisco as it follows the journey of the infamous Comstock Diamond when it was stolen fifteen years before. The “best minds in the mystery field” are all invited to help solve the case for a grand prize of $25,000 as they ride … dum dum dum… The Mystery Train. Of course, as usual, things don’t go according to plan and it’s not just some fun group activity, there’s kidnap and sabotage onboard.

Frankly, you have to love a good Nancy Drew mystery. There’s murder and mayhem and with the introduction of the Hardy Boys you get to watch Nancy flirt with Frank even though they both have significant others. As usual, Nancy is pretty kick-butt and manages to save the day. She’s everything Benson wanted in her young heroine, not afraid to do anything and constantly getting into mischief, even to this day.  I don’t really think the story is the important part though in this case, I’ve read more Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books than I can count and they’re all pretty standard, it’s the idea that with the help of Nancy Drew, girls got to come into their own.  Benson managed to create a role model that’s lasted through the decades, the kind of girl that when you read about her you kind of wish you could be that cool.

Louisa May Alcott

I should have perhaps posted in the last week and a half to let people know that I was a complete sickie. I originally thought it was going for some form of walking pneumonia (thanks Mom) but it ended up just your ordinary cold which I so appreciated. But really, those first few days I was pretty convinced I was going to end up at a doctor which me and my insurance-less self avoid like the plague. And then this weekend, to further my offline plans, two of my really good friends from The College Years, came down to visit. So at least I had a fair excuse as to why I haven’t been posting in the last week and a half, especially when I was suppose to be doing this reading challenge. I’ve felt uber-guilty, so you can rest assured that I thought of you guys every day.

Oh! And you will never believe this week. We have had like 60+ degree days most of the week, or  really light clouds, or (wait for it) … snow. We had snow yesterday, it covered the pink cherry blossom trees in my front yard like grease on bacon.

My two friends from college

It was pretty special.  We heart our bipolar state.  Anyway, so the point is, aside from the snow, it was the best week to go flying, there were like 3 or 4 really gorgeous days and I was all stuffed up with fluid-filled ears. Anybody who has ever flown with stuffed up ears very well knows that you shouldn’t be up there, it’s like somebody is stabbing a giant stick into your eardrum, it’s that fun.  So I was relegated to hanging out on my patio with my papasan chair writing and reading, which admittedly isn’t a bad day way to spend a day, but I haven’t flown in weeks because of this crazy weather. Ah well, Spring has officially set in, so no doubt I can look forward to sun in the near future.

Also, and perhaps far more important for the time being, is that I’m like 23 days late for my Women’s History Month Challenge. I was suppose to be reading 5 books by women authors, and I did actually, but all were by Charlaine Harris and all were within the same series. So I was suppose to read 5 other books, and I haven’t gotten to 5 yet, but I did get a few in while being a sickie, so I will do one a day until I catch up. Again, I did feel really guilty about not updating but what was a girl to do. At least this week should provide some interesting reading. So without further ado…

The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott, for those not up on their literary prowess, was the woman renown for writing Little Women. I don’t know if you read Little Women at any point, but when I was about 10 I came to Oregon for the first time since I was a baby and I was addicted to that book. I read it like 4 or 5 times in 3 weeks and tried to convince everybody I knew that we needed to sit in the garden and have tea parties and wear fancy dresses and read aloud from books and play yard games.  Kind of like when I read The Secret Garden and I went around asking people if I could have a “bit o’ earth.”

In any case, The Inheritance had been on my shelf for years, perhaps a gift from my grandma.  It’s this slim novel and actually its history is way more intriguing than the actual novel.  The Inheritance was written when Alcott was 17 years old and is thought to be her first novel. It’s also discussed in the book Little Women — Jo, one of the main characters, writes this book and sends it out, and The Inheritance is that book.  It was never published however until the 1990’s when it was rediscovered amongst her papers. The manuscript had been passed around from museum to museum and just kind of hung out waiting for the right person to find it. It seemed that over the hundred+ years it had been occasionally noticed, nobody ever felt the need to actually type it out and publish it. Very weird. But in 1997, it was noticed by the right people and published as Alcott’s “very first novel written at seventeen.”

To preface, The Inheritance is your basic Austen-type romance, a kind of young girl makes good. But we kind of have to let it go since Alcott hadn’t exactly explored the depths of her writing soul yet. It follows the story of Edith Avelon who is an Italian orphan living with a well-to-do British family.  She has been raised a companion to one of the daughters in the family and she of course is quiet, well behaved, and just wants to be loved, which is difficult when the evil cousin comes and just doesn’t like her. Enter Lord Percy- love interest and good man. He falls for Edith but unfortunately, the cousin falls for him. Edith is unsure what to do, after all, she’s just a lowly Italian orphan and Lord Percy is a Lord.  Then cue all the dramatic tension of Edith being accused of stealing from the family and the cousin mwahahahaing  and you have yourself a novel. I won’t tell you how it ends up, but you can guess.

The novel is simple and sweet and vastly different from any of Alcott’s other novels. Like I said, it resembles something closer to Austen but without the depth of character usually found in her books. Did I enjoy it? Yeah. Did I care what happened to Edith? Not so much. But Alcott was 17, and going through an idealistic phase and it was totally worth a read if you’re interested at all in how she got her start towards literary greatness.  What I liked especially about it is how different it actually is from Little Women and subsequent books. She obviously could write, but her ability to define characters and make you care for them, and to describe a story plot hadn’t yet come into focus.  It’s worth a read just to remind your inside writer that even The Greats started out kind of small.

There is also this killer made-for-tv movie based on it that makes me laugh a lot.  I’d recommend it.

So that is my first foray into the Challenge.  Louisa May Alcott, I thought, was a pretty good choice for Women’s History Month. She came from extremely humble beginnings filled with poverty and had to work her butt off before being accepted into the writing world. She also was an avid abolitionist and feminist, so she’s worth a nod or two.  I am still reading The Historian but do intend to have it finished before the last of the month so the review tomorrow won’t be on that. You’ll just have to tune in tomorrow to see what other great books I managed to squeeze in during the last couple weeks.

Okay Creepy Guy Standing At My Door

For some reason people have this tendency to come to my door to ask questions better suited to be answered by a landlord, like about decorations on the property or if there is a room for rent. I don’t know why anybody in their right mind would come to my door and if you saw this place you would totally understand why. My apartment looks like a shed, it’s hidden behind some bushes and is almost unnoticeable from the sidewalk and there is a giant obviously primary residence house next door. Let’s recap: my place = tiny purple shed, landlord’s place= giant purple house.  I don’t know, I’d go to the house before going to the shed, but maybe that’s just me.  This comes up because I just had a guy scaring the pants off me by standing at my screen door in the dark asking me if there were any spaces to rent. There aren’t as far as I know since there are only like 3 rentable apartments on my landlord’s property, but I sent him to the main house anyway.

That small rant aside, I’d like to announce that I started The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova as the first book in the Women’s History Month Challenge. It  was suggested to me by Care (who I may want to stop mentioning every post as it looks a tad creepy) and had been sitting on my shelf for quite a while since my dad gave it to me. Actually, that’s only partway true because I began The Historian months ago, like back before I went flying in Michigan. I just never finished it, so my goal was to pick it up again and actually do so, because it really was a good book, I just got horrifyingly sidetracked.  I’m not actually going to review it until I’m done otherwise I feel a bit like I’m cheating, but it’s still as enjoyable as I remembered. I have about a quarter of it left before I can really say how impressed I am by the ridiculous amount of knowledge required to write a book like that but I will get around to it as promptly as I can.

In between chapters I’m continuing on in my quest to finish The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Charlaine Harris) that I picked up a week or two ago. I’m on Book 5 now out of 9 I think. I actually finished book 4 last night and began book 5 at like 2:30 in the morning, which is why  I tend to get up at noon.  They are really pretty fun though. I found all of them at WalMart so I didn’t have to wait for them to come to my local library.  It’s a shame that I can read one of those books in a few hours and The Historian, which is really quite excellent, takes me months.

This was a perfect day to read too because it was in the high 60s and sunny, but instead I spent most of my day writing which I always need to do, and also picking up my car from the shop because it was vibrating a lot– something about differential mounts. Hey, don’t ask me, when it comes to cars I’m your stereotypical girl.  It seems to be fixed now though which is always a plus.  But since it was sunny I pulled my papasan chair out on the porch and sat in it for hours. I think it may have given me a headache which is the only downside to porch-sitting. I’m lily white and apparently have some issues with el sol.  Hopefully the Ibuprofen I just took will clear that up. Oh! speaking of porches my plants are still out there. Must fly before they freeze.

Women’s History Month Challenge

Hi all,

Thanks to Care I came across a challenge for Women’s History Month, which apparently is March.  Having been out of school for a while, I feel like I’m not told these things, so it was pure luck that I now happen to know. The challenge is brought to you by this blog:

http://regularrumination.wordpress.com/

The challenge is to read books written by women, you can pick how many from the list the blogger provides. I’m sorry, I don’t know a lot about this blog writer, so I’m sure they’re a lovely person but I can’t fill anybody in.  I was going to just write around that and sound knowledgable but let’s just called a spade a spade. Their blog is great though, so check it out.  I picked the challenge of reading 5 books and I of course will write about them when I finish one.  Um… I’m not sure which ones, but my plan is to pick books that I wouldn’t otherwise be reading right now since I have been meaning to get around to some classics. Right now I am actually reading a book by a woman, but I would be reading it anyway so I don’t think I’m going to count it. I know for sure that one of the books will be To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I started it several years ago while vacationing in Canada and I just never finished it because I left the place where it was located, but I’ve always wanted to read it.

Any other suggestions as to books I should read?

It’s a shame I’m not counting the books I’m reading now because  I will definitely finish 5 of them in the next month and they’re all written by the same woman.

I suppose I should mention that I’m kind of a fan of vampire novels. Not the insane kind that haunts Twilight message boards and posts about how they’re moving to Forks, Washington in hopes of finding their Edward Cullen, but the kind that will pick up a vampire novel if it looks interesting. I’ve read everything from Anne Rice, Jocelyn Drake, Stephen King, Tanya Huff, and Laurell K. Hamilton to what I’m reading now, which is Charlaine Harris’s  (Harris’ ?) Southern Vampire Mysteries.  Plus many others, just a sampling so you get the idea. I figure I read enough non-vampire fiction to make up for the fact that I like something that is now very commercialized.

Regardless, Charlaine Harris is a really interesting writer. I’m not sure I can exactly describe her style, but it lends itself more towards the “less is more” approach.  She describes things in few words, and her characters are really growing on me.  I was up till 5am this morning reading the third in the series, which so far is my favorite I think, and I really wanted to finish it but I have this thing about refusing to go to bed after dawn, so I had to call it a night before the sun peeped through my window.  The problem now though is that I can’t find the fourth book ANYWHERE. Every bookstore in town is out of it and I really want to read it. I could buy it online but it would take some time to ship and the library has like 4 people waiting on it and I’m way too impatient to wait with them. So… I’m not sure. I need to call Target and ask them and then I’m out of ideas until the used bookstore opens again tomorrow (they’re closed on Mondays- don’t ask)  and I can search in there. *SIGH*

In any case, as soon as I decide on a first book for the challenge I will let everybody know and you all can be regaled by my attempt to write commentary on it.  Check out the site and join the challenge, everybody should read a little more.

The List

I am really in to making lists. I start making lists in my head before I even realize I’m doing it. Any topic can start a list. I’m talking to a friend of mine and they say “God, Natalie Portman is totally on my list” and I say “what list?” and they’re like… “you know, the list… the one from Friends. The one you get to make where you have 5 people that you’re allowed to have sex with if the situation ever arises and your significant other can’t say a word about it ever.”  — and I say, “oh, that list” because as the super cool and hip young adult that I am, I have seen that episode of Friends.  And then I start to make my list, just in case. I don’t think Natalie Portman would have either of us, but I put her on my list anyway because I don’t care which way you swing, Natalie Portman is on everybody’s list.

Today I started thinking about movies that aren’t suppose to be creepy, but kind of are.  Never Been Kissed is the first one I thought of. I mean, Mwe know she’s an of-age journalist doing a piece on the inner-workings of a modern highschool, but her teacher doesn’t. He thinks she’s a high school student. The movie tries really hard not to be creepy, they never kiss or do anything “untoward” until all is revealed (not to ruin the ending for you) but he does have feelings for what he supposes is a high school student. I don’t know, I’m on the fence about the relationship and I own the movie.

Movies That Try Not To Be Creepy, But Kind Of Are

1. Jerry Maguire
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great classic and it made Cuba Gooding Jr. a shining star, if only for a brief and odd moment. But it also has this weird “I guess I can settle for you” vibe. They end up with each other because they have nobody else? It’s hard to say in the end if Tom Cruise really loved Renee Zellweger, I know she “completed him” but is that really a reason to love her? It almost seemed more of a grateful love than a real love to last the ages.

2. Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
I love Roal Dahl as much as the next kid, but you have to admit that Wonka’s absolute nonchalance at all the children turning into blueberries, falling into incinerators, being stretched by taffy pullers and getting sucked into tubes full of chocolate is kind of horrifying.

3. Gigi
There’s something inherently sad about this story. Gigi has to give up part of herself to be with the man she loves and there’s that weird old guy running around. He reminds me of crotchety old men who look up girl’s skirts with their canes. Again, I own it, and it’s a fabulous, beautiful, and classic movie, but still… just a little odd, no?

4. Mansfield Park
I love Mansfield Park, the movie. This won’t garner me a lot of affection among the Jane Austen elitists of the world since it’s so different from the book, but I just enjoy watching Fanny and Edward figure out they love each other. However, there’s this weird side plot concerning slave trade and Edward’s father has a definite creepy overtone to his character, like he’s leering after young Fanny. Have you read a Jane Austen novel? They’re simple and sweet. It’s like the biggest scandal is an off-page romance between a married woman and a main character. Most of the plot is focused around women doing innocuous things like needlepoint and picking flowers while wondering when Mr. *insert character name here* will call upon them so they can banter artfully until securing marriage.

Annnnd… some other ones. I’m looking for at least a couple more to add to my list. I know they’re out there because I have had the experience many times of watching a movie, enjoying it but thinking that there’s something not quite right about it.  Do you guys have any ideas?

The Stupid, It Burns

Don’t even gripe about how I vaguely promised a post after my weekend and it’s now Thursday.  I am day-challenged and deserve a 3 day margin of error at all times. In truth though, it was one of those weeks where when I wasn’t busy, I was laaaaaazy, so I just felt like writing anything longer than a paragraph was much too much work. That said, I have some recollection of leaving you with hope for a fun-weekend update when I returned from my trek to the Portland area.

Portland, as some of you may know, is Oregon’s major Metropolis. We don’t have much in Oregon, but Portland we do have. It’s like any other city except cleaner, really intent on recycling and a hippie haven.  I like Portland a lot, I just don’t think I’d want to live there. Though this will win me very few friends, I have an aversion to public transportation, love driving my car, and am mildly convinced that the chance of you getting murdered and/or mugged greatly increases just by being within the general proximity of a Big City.  I’m a small town girl at heart. I like my limited choice of take-out and knowing the cashiers at the grocery store. Not that I go against the grain of whatever city I’m in. I used public transportation for months and months when I was studying abroad, I just got home and gave my car a huge hug and told her I would never leave her again.

All of that aside, my friend Heather and I drove up to Portland and stayed with a friend of mine from high school (Jaz). Friday night we planned a kind of reunion party with all our Portland friends. I have the unique experience of having a large group of friends who are all friends with each other wherever I go. I’m not entirely sure why I gather groups instead of just individuals, but that’s how it is. So all my high school friends now living in Portland got together Friday night and we went to McMenamins (which I had no idea how to spell- had to look it up) which is a West Coast restaurant if I remember correctly.  Well, some are restaurants with bars, some are bars, some are restaurants/bars/hotels… basically each one is entirely unique. My dad and step-mom stayed in one that was an old school house remodeled. In any case, the one we went to in Portland (they’re like Starbucks, they’re everywhere but way cooler than Starbucks, because while Starbucks has good frappucinos, they’re also taking over our souls with every sip, I’d like to think that McMenamins is not, or at least is doing it in a less obvious way) was kind of petite, but had a sort of underwater theme or something. I wasn’t paying that much attention.  In the bathroom though (please be advised: 12 year old humor coming) there was a baby changing table that was suppose to read “Sturdy Station” like that was the brand. And somebody had scraped away the ‘S’ at the beginning so it read “Turdy Station” — I admit it, I totally laughed and told people when I returned to my table.

Check it out!

http://www.mcmenamins.com/

My group of friends from high school is reknown for not eating out. We eat together, but it’s always at each other’s houses. So pizza and junk food basically. This was the fourth time we had eaten out in 8 years. My senior prom, Taco Bell before bowling, Chinese food before a storm and last Friday. Beat that. After food (I had tatertots) we returned to my friend’s apartment and ran through our usual list of shenanigans before everybody headed home and the people staying behind went to bed.

Oh! I know what I forgot. On our way to the restaurant we were about halfway through this crosswalk when this policeman ran a RED LIGHT and literally came within a FOOT of hitting us. Not even joking. He slammed on his brakes and just looked at us like “oh, you can go, that’s fine.” And all of us looked at him like “ARE YOU NUTS?!!?!?!?!?!” Seriously, and he didn’t put on his lights or anything, he genuinely ran a red light and almost hit a group of people in the middle of an intersection. How insane is that? It was so scary. I respect and support the police, but sometimes I swear to God they are the worst drivers out there.

Moving on, Saturday Heather went to visit her other friend who was also in Portland and while she was out with him, Jaz and I went shopping at the Pioneer Square mall, ate lunch, wandered through one of the mini Powells bookstores that are lying around. Powells for those of you who don’t know is… um… amazing. The main bookstore occupies an ENTIRE city block. It’s like Book Heaven.

http://www.powells.com/info/places/burnsideinfo.html

After all the fun shopping we ended up getting back together again with our friends. We hung out and watched Steel Magnolias and Stargate. Great movies to be sure. We also played Life, where I came in second because while I finished in debt I apparently had done a lot of living and when it came time to reveal our Life cards I had secretly managed to win the Nobel Prize, win some kind of sports award, publish a Best-Selling Novel, discover a new flavor of icecream… etc. etc. I was basically hard-core awesome.

Sunday we ate bagels, watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Grease, and then I headed to Eugene where I went to college and had dinner with my group of college friends at Olive Garden. Because when you’re there… you’re family.

I got back into my small hamlet around 1 in the morning, give or take, after battling some serious fog on the drive home. Fog that always appeared right when I was passing a semi. Ah well, c’est la vie.  So, as you can see, life was pretty good to me this weekend so I hope you can forgive me for not enjoying some of the lovely weather to fly. Hopefully it clears up soon and I can take my Mom up and also get some pictures for y’all.

On a more blog-related note.  Care, who has a great blog that you should check out (which can be found here: http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com/) commented recently about a woman in New Hampshire that crashed an ultra-light.  (definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight) Ultralights are basically (kind of) small, tiny, petite, weightless airplanes that don’t require a license. Yes, they’re cool, but you can’t go as far or as high and you get more respect, as good ol’ Rodney Dangerfield would say, if you get your actual license for real, adult planes. Nothing against ultralights, I’ve heard they’re crazy fun. I just like to tease. In any case I did a little research because I hadn’t heard anything about this, and this woman apparently had little to no experience and decided to take it for a spin. I don’t know how I feel about that because I’m not sure, maybe she got some instruction, but obviously not enough.  As in, oh my god, she was dumb. Now, I don’t want to sound rude towards her,  I’m a nice person generally and I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, she is probably a great person, fun to be around, obviously likes a challenge. I bet she’s a great mother and just wanted to try something new. So putting that aside and examining just the situation, not her personally… seriously?

This woman, by one account, took off WITH the wind, like not into the wind like normal people, but with it… with it. You just don’t do that. If that’s true, and she did, oh.my.god. It’s basic flying 101, you just don’t land or take off with the wind.  That’s how you overshoot your landing, or flip the plane or um… crash into somebody’s house. Even when doing an emergency landing you’re suppose to keep in mind which direction the wind is blowing so you can land into it if possible. ANYWAY, the stupidity makes me hurt inside, so she finally takes off and then proceeds to stall various times, flip the ultralight around in circles and then spirals into a house. Let me repeat that, into a house. The woman inside thought her house was blowing up. She was fine by the way, the woman flying the ultralight. But my brain, it can’t handle the stupid. Now, I’m not advocating having to get a license or certificate for flying an ultralight (though many countries do) but I am saying to use some common sense. Get some dual-training, talk to people, don’t just randomly go out and do solo work. You’re IN THE AIR, people. If you get lost you can’t stop and ask for directions, you can’t pull over on the side of the road and calm down while you figure out what that weird noise is. COMMON SENSE… get some.

I’m done now. But for your enjoyment I have a list of websites below that cover the crash. My personal favorite is the first one, it has a video of witnesses, and though the camera man and interviewer (possibly the same person) are a little, shall we say… novice? in their experience, we still enjoy the commentary:

http://www.eagletribune.com/punewsnh/local_story_049022925.html

http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_11789756

http://www.derrynews.com/chester/local_story_049160800.html

http://wbztv.com/local/newhampshire/nh.plane.crash.2.943885.html

Thanks Care for the story!

My Shiny, New, Real License

Hello! Couple of things I realized yesterday. One, I have a few pictures I never posted from back in the day. We’re talking checkride pictures. I don’t remember what day the checkride was (though I remember it vividly of course) but I do know that it was several months ago.  The thing is, these pictures came in my email and were taken by the airport manager’s wife. Hence why they didn’t get posted with the rest, I didn’t have them at the time. But the neat part is, for me anyway, is that they were taken as soon as Randy finished his checkride and also passed. So we were both enormously happy. Randy, you might remember, was the man that I had been studying/flying with for the last several weeks prior to my test. He had also been putting it off for years, so it was a big deal to both of us. The pictures show us in all our happy glory, and there’s a picture of the yummy cake we got to eat. There are also photos of Whitney Balentine, the instructor who came down from up North and passed us.

Me making a squinchy face and Whitney Balentine, RIGHT after the test. I literally had just found out I had passed for absolute positive, and I don’t even think Dick (who had taken this picture) knew whether or not I had passed yet. Imagine the embarassment of him taking a picture of me NOT passing. How would you like that forever immortalized?

Me being… well, me.

Me with my grandparents, also insanely happy. Though not nearly as happy as me, obviously.

Me, Randy, and Whitney. All posing for somebody else’s camera.

The crew. L to R: Courtney (looking way too excited), Randy, Me, Whitney

Our cake! that we were afraid was going to slide off the platter by holding it like that. I also loved that sweater and was sad to return it to my grandma after wearing it all winter

My second thing (I now realize there are more than a “couple”) is that I completely forgot to tell you all that my pilot’s license came in the mail. Like the real card that you carry around with you instead of my fakey fake paper that looks like you wrote it in Word and printed it off.  I was pretty excited because I had convinced myself that the FAA had screwed it all up and I would never receive it. I took a picture of myself being dorky with my card because obviously who doesn’t want to see my shining face next to a small piece of plastic.

yes, that is orville and wilbur.

oh nooos

My third piece of news is that since I received my license I had to fulfill my promise of calling Courtney to let him know that I had got it in the mail. Apparently he was feeling a little put-out because I hadn’t contacted him in two months. But seriously, I had no reason to since all I had said was that I was going to call when I got it. So I did. This is actually quite the feat because it’s three hours later there and he’s only home pre-7am, so you do the math. I ended up watching a BBC mini series until 5:30 the morning I called him, and the phone call only interrupted my viewing pleasure for about 7 minutes because Courtney’s idea of a phone conversation is 30 seconds or less, so that he even got past the 5 minute mark is more impressive than any of you realize.

We chatted about the usual state of affairs (“Danell, you need to get your ground school license. It’s not easy, don’t think it’s easy. But you can do it–.”  I had missed being called Danell, because clearly that is my name) and he was glad to hear I’d taken up at least one person and wanted to hear all about my instructor here and the airport and my thoughts on the 172. It was fun, I miss the Michigan airport crew, they were like a little family. It’s not really like that here quite as much– you know the people at the airport, but you don’t go drink at bars together afterwards and hang out at each other’s houses. Anyway, it was nice to hear what he’d been up to (i.e. he was in the local paper for finally reaching 10,000 hours- yes, 10,000- compared to my paltry 100+, not to give me a complex or anything) and very little flying since the weather had been Michigan weather ever since I left, I brought on the awesome apparently. He has great hopes that I’ll return for a while come summer and hopefully I have enough  money to do just that, I should perhaps start saving N.O.W.

So that is my all-flying-all-the-time, news.  I’m off to the big city of Portland with my Valentine Heather tomorrow, so no idea if there will be any posting this weekend. We are planning on driving so there should be no major flight tidbits. However, plenty of weekend excursion updates when I return.  Most of my friends from highschool live up there, so visiting gets 80% of my social circle in one go. We also are stopping in Eugene on the way back since we drive right through it and will visit my college friends. Have to love Oregon and its crazy one interstate, everything is on your way to somewhere. Hope your weekend is just as fun as mine should be!