Twisted Tongues

He's a merengue?

2009-10-31T10:57:00.002-04:00

Definitions for merengue that I already knew:

1. noun: dance
2. noun: meringue (as in dessert)

New definitions:

3. adjective: related to Real Madrid
4. adjective: Real Madrid supporter
5. noun: weakling

Given the context, it was referring to a RM fan rather than dessert, dance or weakling.

Cheering players on

2009-08-09T20:36:00.003-04:00

So, yesterday at the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, there were a LOT of Chilean fans in the stands. Flags waving, chanting Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le etc.

More specifically, they were cheering for Fernando González. Every so often, someone would yell out what sounded like, Vamos, Fenya. I couldn't figure out it at first. Were they saying, Vamos, Fe[r]n, ya? Turns out I was trying too hard. It's a nickname: Feña.

And today there was a fellow wearing cap and soccer jersey in Argentina's colors, cheering for Juan Martín del Potro (called del Porto at least twice by the umpire, I'd swear). His favorite cheer? Vamos, carajo! Uh, okay. My experience of this word is mostly via friends of Mexican descent, who use carajo as a curse word or epithet, not to cheer a favored player. Different usage in Argentina, perhaps?

The crowd in the stands could have been a virtual UN. Heard French, Italian, German, Russian, varieties of Spanish and English spoken.

Catalan?

2009-06-04T21:12:00.004-04:00

Check out this interview of Rafael and Toni Nadal. I'm not sure if they are speaking Catalan or Mallorquí, the local dialect. It is interesting to listen to, either way: the words sound enough like Castilian Spanish that I could understand without the subtitles, but also different enough that I had to concentrate in order to understand.

A lot of the interviews done for the Barcelona were also in Catalan, and are available on Youtube if you're interested.

Carmen

2009-04-06T19:34:00.003-04:00

I re-watched the Carlos Saura/Antonio Gades version of Carmen over the weekend. In some ways, it is very dated, visually-speaking. But still universal. I love the "While Her Child Sleeps" scene, in which the women dance and the camera is focused on their feet. The rhythm is...hypnotic.

And I love this bit of dialogue, which is actually a voice over from the narrator:

Levante los ojos y la vi. Era un viernes y no lo olvidare jamas. Al principio no me gusto y volvi a mi trabajo. Pero ella, siguiendo la costumbre de las mujeres y de los gatos, quienes no vienen cuando se les llama y vienen cuando no les llama, se detuvo ante mi, y me dirigio las palabras "buenas noches".

What if?

2009-04-03T20:43:00.003-04:00

What if the Americas hadn't been "discovered" by Columbus? Obviously, the world would be a different place today. And the distribution and populations speaking certain languages would be quite different as well. According to this article (in Spanish), Spanish would be just another European language, 27th on the list, between Polish and Ukrainian, instead of being spoken by ~10% of the world's population, if Isabella and Ferdinand hadn't sponsored his attempt to find an Atlantic/eastern route to the Far East.

Travelogue - Madrid, 2009

2009-03-29T19:29:00.017-04:00

DRAFT: need to edit for accents, links, etc.

Moleskin makes pocket-sized travel diaries. Who knew? I found one at B&N and had to have it – how convenient, with a Madrid Metro map inside and a city map in sections. It ended up being the best prep/planning I did before my trip – went with me everywhere, so I could take notes and jot things down (gift ideas, random thoughts, observations that tickled me) as I went. Most of my notes were written in Spanish, but I won’t inflict that on anyone, since it was repetitive and not always grammatical.

Friday: arrived a little later than scheduled due to some miscellaneous problem at take off from Philadelphia. Wind, maybe? Flight landed at Barajas T1. Apparently I looked helpful or knowledgeable, because two people asked me where to go while we were in the customs line. Sadly, they were disappointed, because I had no idea 1) where the taxi stand was or 2) if they had to go through customs if they were going to be taking another flight. (In retrospect, the answer to the second question was probably yes, since that was the first European leg of her trip.)

Took the Metro downtown: start out on the pink line, change to the dark blue, then again to the light blue, which dropped me at Tirso de Molina. The apartment is right on the plaza. Met Carlos, co-owner of the apartment and Letango tours. Gave me a nice sketch of the neighborhood, some recommendations and advice.

After freshening up, I went for a walk around the neighborhood to orient myself. After getting lost and then finding my way back to the plaza, I went grocery shopping. After unpacking, I went for another walk, getting lost again (I have a VERY poor sense of direction and rely heavily on maps), then finding my way to a neighborhood bar, where I had a merienda. By then, my internal clock was all screwed up, so I found my way back to the apartment, where I fell into bed for >10 hours.

Saturday: Off to Atocha train station, where I bought a ticket for a cercania to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. In retrospect, taking a bus would’ve been faster. Oh, well. While waiting, a group of high-school aged girls asked me if the train would stop at Cercedilla. Uh, the sign said so. (Again, I must’ve looked safe and approachable?) The cercania was slow, but finally arrived at El Escorial. Took the bus up to the old town, then walked around and headed toward the monastery.

The landscape on the train ride changed so gradually (from urban to suburban) that I didn’t realize how close and beautiful the mountains were. The weather was relatively warm; standing in the plaza of the monastery, waiting for entrance, was comfortable, even in a brisk wind, until the shadow of the monastery moved and cast us all in the shade and left us shivering. The sheer scale of the building dwarfs humanity; the patio outside; the gardens; even the interior patio. The museum in the basement that is dedicated to the building and the architecture was interesting, as was the mausoleum. The art collection is beautiful, of course. The room that fascinated me, though, was the gallery of maps, sixteenth century maps. The details of Mexico and Central America are surprisingly accurate, while the rest of North America, especially the west coast, is amorphous and not-quite-right. The library upstairs, with its 40,000 volumes, some dating back to the 16th century, is enough to make a bibliophile weep. The ceiling of the war gallery appealed to me, with the grotesquery art, much more than the panels of the king’s victorious battles.

Wandered back through the old town, stopping for a chicken empanada, and caught the bus back to the train station. While waiting for the bus, I chatted with a lovely couple from Iowa, who were on a tour of Portugal and Spain – Saturday was one of their “free” days, and they were on their own.

Was this the first night of Carnaval? There were people out and about in costumes, enjoying themselves.

Sunday: The day of the flea market, El Rastro. Located on Calle de la Ribera de Curtidores, the Rastro goes for several blocks, down the street and onto side streets. Up one side street, frames, oil paintings and sketches abounded. Down another were a bunch of tech related stalls – batteries, discs, gadgets. Off another side street and into a plaza was a plethora of book, magazine and comic stalls. Everything from junk to beautiful leatherwork could be found. Need a Metallica t-shirt? Find in there. Need a homemade rucksack? Also can be found there. I arrived earlier and walked down down down the street, stopping and doubling back to check out the side streets. By the time I reached the bottom and looked back, there was a sea of people up the street.

Wandering back toward the Big Three Museums, which are open and free on Sundays, I ended up hitting the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. The new part of the building is very modern, which matches the collection. The temporary exhibit was of Paul Thek, whose work . . . didn’t really speak to me. Modern art just doesn’t do it for me, really. I can analyze it, but it often doesn’t interest me, and I wouldn’t want it in my home, really. The most intriguing part of this exhibit (for me) was how Thek was inspired by the mummies of Palermo, which I’d just read about in NG. In the old building, there is a beautiful patio, with benches and a fountain, where I examined the map of the building and decided where to go next. Lots of Picasso, of course. Is it sacrilege to admit that I don’t really care for his work? Whenever I see the oddly-featured people and geometric shapes, I wonder how much drugs he took. Or maybe I’m just too pedestrian to understand his inspiration and vision. /shrug/ Still, stopping to see Guernica is obligatory. I always forget the size of the work, and am surprised when I see it again. The piece that I enjoyed most was on the uppermost floor – a carving of a huge, huge bookshelf by Miguel Vasquez, titled Libros IV, of course. It was all wood, but if you squinted, it looked like books and tchotchkes and stuff, crammed onto towering shelves. Only sour note: got stuck in an elevator with about a dozen other people – a glass elevator in the new wing – we were stuck for about 15 minutes, then the elevator went back to the basement; it unnerved me enough that I walked up the four flights to get to the exhibits I was interested in, rather than try any of the other elevators in the building.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and it seemed like every Madrileno was out to enjoy it. Had lunch at Las barandales off the Ibiza metro stop, which seemed like a residential neighborhood that I probably wouldn’t have discovered if I hadn’t found a recommendation for the restaurant online. After lunch, I wandered around the neighborhood, then back through the Parque de Buen Retiro. People were out on the pond rowing, and playing soccer/football, tossing Frisbees, rollerblading, biking, lounging in the sun. What a beautiful day.

Monday – Meant to get up early, but that didn’t happen. Got a late start, walking to the Palacio Real. On the way to the Royal Palace, I walked by the Almudena Cathedral; as I walked by, I realized that although I’ve visited a variety of cathedrals and churches in Spain (as monuments, not places for personal worship), I’d never visited a church in Madrid. Although the city is younger than many others, that youth is relative, so I had to wonder why I hadn’t been to the Almudena on any of my visits. (Still haven’t – it was pretty from the outside, but I didn’t go in.) Although the cathedral is near the palace, it didn’t seem as central to the city for some reason. I’m sure if I did some research, I’d learn more about the religious history of the city. Maybe next time. Anyway, the palace. Photos are not permitted. But official photos abound. My favorite rooms: the Gasparini Room, the Porcelain Room, and the Royal Pharmacy. The sheer number of clocks was a bit perplexing – they were everywhere – until the guide mentioned that one king was fascinated by them, and had acquired a very large collection. Particularly enjoyed the four portraits by Goya.

In the Royal Armory, the swords of Fernando el Catolico and El Cid were points of interest, as was Boabdil’s dagger and the display about Juan de Austria. Swords blessed by the Pope on Christmas Eve abounded; apparently they were both political tools (binding the king and church) and useful weapons.

Tuesday – Took the bus to Avila. The 8:30 bus is apparently rather late, so it wasn’t full, with fewer than a dozen people aboard. Two of them were nuns, and they were determined to see all of the important churches in the town. It took a long time to get out of Madrid proper, then suddenly we were in the country. I could see El Escorial off in the distance, and later El Valle de los Caidos, which is a bit odd and unnerving, just a huge cross among the mountains. As we approached Avila and got off the highway, there were windmills, modern ones, dotting the tops of the hills. Oh, Don Quijote, where are you? Runty trees pop out of rock-strewn ground, as if it took all of their energy just to grow at all, forget about growing tall. Cows and bulls graze among them. From a distance, the trees look like broccoli-tops and the rocks look like a toddler’s discarded building blocks.

There seemed to be more churches per square kilometer there than I’d ever imagined possible – but that makes sense, since the town was a religious center of sorts, known as the birthplace of Santa Teresa (mystical poet) and home of San Juan de la Cruz. Although I went to the cathedral, my interest was in the wall of the city – it fascinates me, dating back hundreds of years and determining the life and growth of the city. The growth going on now – all outside the wall, outside the old part of the city. Building seems to be going at a frantic pace there, but not so much in the old part of the town. The wall itself can be walked – there are four puertas where you can get access, although they are not all connected. At the Puerta del Alcazar, the steps are old, narrow and steep. A previously unknown fear of falling assailed me as I crept up the stairs. Once up I was fine, but the idea of meeting another tourist on the stairs made me nervous – too narrow, too uneven, it seemed like an invitation to disaster. Fortunately for me, it never happened.

The cathedral in Avila . . . well, on one hand, it’s just another church. But still striking. It was surprisingly cold inside, given the temperature outside. Ancient, dark, beautiful. I was struck by the incredible amount of art work and sculpture in the building, and the immense amount of work that went into not just the basic building (erecting such a huge edifice without bulldozers, etc.), but into the detailed carving. It would have been a stonemason’s life’s work, just to complete a portion of the cathedral. The vast wealth that it must have taken, in terms of labor and materials, fairly boggles my mind. The older art appealed to me – it seemed less three dimensional than the relatively newer art. And on the exterior, intrigued by the different materials used for different parts of the building. Some parts looked red and yellow and very old, while other stone looked grey. Sandstone and granite?

Also though provoking to me was the fact that catty-corner to the cathedral, across the square, was a chemist/pharmacy. And on the exterior of the building is a condom dispenser. The co-existence (seemingly peaceful) of the old church with its conservative policies and the open availability of birth control and all the sexuality inherent . . . it impressed me. Obviously, because I’m still thinking about it and the message it sends.

Outside the wall is the Basilica of San Vicente, which was remarkable to me mostly because of the figures carved on the exterior. Were they gargoyles of some sort? They were all different, and looked a little grotesque from below.

While in Avila, I bought a tin of tartas de San Juan – little butter cookies with pine nuts, marcona almonds, and walnuts – and a box of yemas. The tartas were a hit at the office; the yemas not so much – very rich but with an odd texture.

The bus ride home was a local one (servicio general or al pueblo) rather than an express (directo) -- I didn't see the sign up front until after we'd left the bus station, but it was all good in the end. Unlike the ride from Madrid in the morning,the return bus was FULL -- a family was going on a trip and a group of Italian tourists were aboard. The two nuns from the early bus were aboard, as was another woman from that bus – we sat together. She’d been to Avila to visit a friend who was in hospital with cancer that had spread to her bones. We chatted for a bit, and she recommended that I visit Toledo. The bus took longer going back to Madrid, since it was a local. The first stop was a tiny, tiny town (Villacastin), and the street was so narrow that I could’ve reached out the window and touched the houses and buildings outside, but the bus driver never stopped or hesitated. We passed a small plaza mayor, where there seemed to be a festival of some sort going on. The other stops (Coto de San Isidro, El Espinar, San Rafael) were unremarkable, really, other than for the amazing maneuvers of the bus driver (three point turns! Narrow streets!) and the opportunity to view the gorgeous sunset over the mountains as we headed back to Madrid.

Wednesday – the goal for Wednesday day was to visit the Museo de America and the Museo del Metro. I got a late start and then got lost, so I ended up making in only to the Museo de America. It is located a little outside the main tourist area, near the Moncloa metro and the bus intercambio, up on the Calle de los Reyes Catolicos, past the Arco de la Victoria. (Side note: I couldn’t figure out how to get to the arco as a pedestrian – there must be a walk way to it, but I couldn’t figure it out, and it is surrounded by a traffic circle of express lanes.) The Museo de America is organized by anthropological ideas, beginning with writings of the “discovery” of the Americas, and then going through social organization, religion and communication. There were video displays, maps, artefacts, tents and cabins from various indigenous American cultures, etc. I found the last section most interesting, especially the video about languages and their loss/mix in the Americas.

Liverpool was in Madrid to play Real Madrid on Wednesday. I’d noticed the herds of boys and men walking around in red shirts, but hadn’t paid much attention. In fact, one group walked by on the sidewalk and I didn’t realize they were speaking English until they were almost a block past, because the accent was so thick. Walking to the Plaza Mayor, I noticed a significant police presence, and once in the square, I understood why. The crowd was quite rowdy and the beer (and testosterone) had clearly been flowing freely. Despite having tailgated at American football games for years, I found the crowd disconcerting – maybe because it was nowhere near the stadium? And it seemed a lot more aggressive? I’m not sure. But as I walked through the plaza, I suddenly understood the phrase “football hooligan”.

Was asked for directions to the Plaza de Espana by a couple of handsome young Italian men. Probably I got them more lost than they already were. Again, I must've looked approachable? Must've had "another tourist" stamped on my forehead ;)

Thursday: Off to Toledo, via the bus intercambiador at Plaza Eliptica. Took the express, but the local probably would’ve been a more interesting trip – it was all industrial-looking neighborhoods and farms along with highway. The Museo de Santa Cruz, off the Arco de Sangre, near the Plaza Zocodover, has an excellent exhibition about Spain from 1806-1814, which was when Jose Bonaparte was the emperor of Spain, courtesy of his brother Napoleon. Art, clothing, jewelry, weapons, all little bits of history of the age. There were performers dressed up as Fernando VII, and as campesinos and soldiers. The ladies clothing fascinated, in part because it was tiny, down to the itty bitty shoes -- how did they walk on those slippers? In the patio, there was a collection of azulejos that dated back centuries, along with Roman sarcophagi and Arabic memorial stones; Toledo is a very old city, dating back to Roman times, and was an important city for the Arab Caliphate, and later the capital of Spain until Felipe II decided to move his government to the relative backwater of Madrid.

The casco viejo is a rabbit warren, and I read somewhere that the inner city is dying because it is not very negotiable for vehicles. On the surface, I would not have guessed that, based on the amount of renovation going on, but it kind of makes sense. A couple of times, I had to step up into a building's doorway as a car went by, and at one intersection, pedestrians had to help a car make a very tight turn -- another car was parked in the street, making the turn very, very tight. I could see the driver cutting the wheel hard, edging the car back and forth in minute degrees to make the turn without hitting either the wall or the car illegally parked. The streets are narrow and the buildings tall; without being able to see the spires of the cathedral, it was hard to orient myself and easy to get lost – the streets are not as well marked as those in Madrid, IMO. At one point, I was lost and ran into an older Spanish couple who were also lost – we both had maps, but couldn’t get ourselves oriented. Eventually, I made it back to the Zoco, and on the way I stopped at the Real Monasterio de Santa Ursula to buy some mazapanes made by the Agustin nuns.

I stopped in a ceramic shop and chatted with the potter/owner. Ended up buying two very different pieces to give as gifts, and received a lesson in the schools of pottery that were popular in Toledo, one being the older, Arab-influenced style, and another being the Talavera school. There's a third, which I didn't care for much and have forgotten the name of. Nice fellow, with a lot of gorgeous work in his collection -- he let me check out all the stuff downstairs, away from the store front, and I had a hard time just selecting two smallish pieces that I could carry home. And he kept a pet rabbit behind the counter, which was certainly different.

Friday: I spent the entire day in the Museo del Prado. In retrospect, I wish I’d visited the Thyssen-Bournesmizsa on Sunday instead of the Reina Sofia, because I like its collection better. Too late. On Friday, I had to choose between the Thyssen and the Prado, and the Prado won. No contest, really. There was a temporary exhibit of Francis Bacon. Again, more modern art. Bacon interests me mostly only because of his studies based on Velaquez’s portrait of Pius X. At a certain point, the works of the masters all seem to run together. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that, really, because objectively they are extremely different works…but after five or six hours, it’s just another painting of christ on the cross or of angels or whatever. But some works always stand out: the galleries of Velazquez and Goya, among others. There was also a small exhibit of Victorian painting titled La bella durmiente, featuring one of my favorite paintings, Sir Henry Leighton’s Flaming June.

Saturday: It was rainy and overcast for the first time, which made leaving a bit easier. I bought a few souvenirs, then headed to the airport and home.

Random observations:

Loved staying in an apartment rather than a hotel; will do so for my next trip.
Madrid is cleaner than I remember, with municipal employees everywhere in their green suits, armed with brooms and dustpans.

Building and renovation seemed to be going on everywhere; cranes and scaffolding were all over.

Street performers abounded – in Sol, in the Plaza Mayor – performance artists, musicians, dancers.

La Mallorquina – oh, the tronquita (or tronchita? I can’t remember) de nata, yum.

La Txakoli (I think? specializing in Basque wines and tapas) – a bar on Calle de la Cava Baja (or Alta?) – good wine and pinxos

The Metro has grown immensely, and the entire system of metro, light rail, buses, and cercanias/trains is incredibly impressive. Clean and affordable and wide-spread. I understand the differences in geography, finances, and social orientation (park my car? /gasp/) that make the same degree of public transportation impossible in most of America, but still. Frankly, it puts the public transport of metropolitan areas like NYC and DC and Chicago to shame.

On the shuttle from Philadelphia, we never got a lot of altitude – I could see the Conowingo dam and the Susquehanna River as we flew over, which was kind of cool.

Why?

2009-02-28T21:33:00.004-05:00

Why is it the Palacio Real, but the Real Armeria and the Real Farmacia? (I know, I'm missing accents in there, I'll come back and put them in later.)

Also, two new phrases that I learned: venta al mayor (wholesale) and enhorabuena (expecting). The first was written on signs in many of the businesses around Tirso de Molina, where I stayed in Madrid. Wholesale fashion storefronts abounded. The second I read in a gossipy magazine insert in the Saturday edition of ABC. Which also happened to feature blurbs about two of the few non-royal, non-mainstream sporting Spaniards whose names I recognize: Fran and Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez. Er, not that the enhorabuena came up in the context of those two, but for someone else whose name I did not recognize.

Book to look for: Ghosts of Spain by Giles Someone.

Huh?

2009-02-09T19:15:00.003-05:00

What is a gatito parvulo? The words are spoken by a character in Josh Lanyon and Laura Bambach's Mexican Heat. The speaker is Spanish, but is undercover as a Mexican drug lord. [Which begs the question -- did they think about the fact that the two are not interchangeable?] Anyway, the only definition I could find of 'parvulo' was 'nursery school'. Does it have some other colloquial meaning that I'm missing? Because that really doesn't make sense as a nickname (to me). Of course, some of the other Spanish used didn't make much sense either. Ex: mi amigo grande del amor (my big friend of love?) and 'comprender', when asking "understood", which probably ought to be 'comprendes'.

Another question: are madre dios and madre mios colloquialisms or exceptions to the gender/number rule? I would think madre mia, and madre de dios would be grammatically correct. No?

ETA: okay, I found two other definitions: 1) de corta edad; or 2) inocente o ignorante. Well, the last isn't flattering and wouldn't work so much as an endearment, but since the speaker was referring to a younger man, the first definition could apply. It still doesn't work for me -- in part because, hello, accent needed over the a, and also because the spelling makes me think of parvo, a viral disease that can kill dogs.

I cannot multitask in two languages

2009-01-20T20:28:00.002-05:00

I cannot read books or articles written in Spanish while I listen (and sing along) to music sung in English. I end up having comprehended nothing, and must begin again.

SBD: yay for Carla Kelly!

2008-12-29T20:14:00.007-05:00

Live Journal is not cooperating with me, so I'm posting my SBD here.

Althought I read it in 2008, Marrying the Captain by Carla Kelly is actually my first keeper for 2009.

The title of the book is rather pedestrian. While the hero is a captain and the heroine marries him, there's so much else going on. But I suppose it is a standard Hqn title.

The cover art:

Eh. The hair is wrong for the heroine -- wrong color, wrong length. Nana's hair is brown and red and short, because she sold it to a wig maker; this is significant to the story, and it's unfortunate that the art department didn't pay attention to that. The man in uniform was okay, although the model seemed a little too young for Captain Worthy.

The tag line on the cover, How could he keep her safe?, actually makes sense, because Oliver worried about Nana's vulnerability, financial and social.

Carla Kelly's name is in larger font than the title. Normally, I would take that to mean that the author was fairly well-known and popular, that readers would buy the book because of who wrote it instead of being captured by the title. But perusing Harlequin Historical covers, their fonts seem all over the place, so I'm not sure that is the case here. I would be interested in knowing what kind of sell through Kelly has; her backlist is relatively scarce and expensive, and her readership, though not blockbuster-sized, is loyal.

Here's the back blurb:

The Captain and the Commoner

Ever since her father tried to sell her as a mistress to the highest bidder, Eleanor Massie has chosen to live in poverty. Her world changes overnight when Captain Oliver Worthy shows up at her struggling inn. Despite herself, Nana is drawn to her handsome guest . . .

Oliver planned to stay in Plymouth only long enough to report back to Lord Ratliffe—about Nana. But he soon senses that Lord Ratliffe is up to something, and Oliver will do anything to keep this courageous, beautiful woman safe—even marry her!

First, the blurb contains a serious spoiler.

Second, Oliver Worthy is handsome only in the eyes of Nana. Otherwise, he's thin lipped, prematurely aged by sun, sea, and stress. And I think they are both commoners.

Third, Oliver is in Plymouth drydock while his ship, the Tireless, is being repaired. He stays at Gran Massie's inn because of Lord Ratliff, but has a reason other than Nana to be in town.

Fourth, Oliver did NOT marry Nana in order to keep her safe, as he had already arranged things to keep her safe financially. He married her because he wanted to.

Okay, now that I've gotten those things off my chest, to the important stuff. I must admit to having a soft spot for naval heroes due to Captain Wentworth. Oliver Worthy lives up to that high standard.

There's a line in Bujold's Shards of Honor that I love; suspicious of espionage, one character derides the unlikeliness of a middle aged captain as a romantic hero. Many of Carla Kelly's heroes are the unlikely sort, and Oliver Worthy is one of them. He is only thirty, but that is middle aged for a man of his profession. Oliver is an even more unlikely hero when you consider that he had determined to never marry as a midshipman, not because he had a lady in every port but because of the risk of leaving a widow.

The book opens with Nana trying to scrounge business for her Gran's inn, which is located off the beaten path in Plymouth. Times are hard, and they are on the verge of starvation. Captain Worthy pilots his damaged frigate into Plymouth harbor in order to put her in drydock and have serious repairs done. Upon reporting to the Lords of the Admiralty, he is charged with checking on Nana Massie. The illegitimate child of Lord Ratliff, she rejected his efforts on her behalf and he is worried about her...or so he tells Captain Worthy. So Captain Worthy returns to Plymouth to oversee repairs to his ship, and stays at the Massies' inn, which is rather run down and empty. As Nana and Oliver interact during his stay, they fall in love. Nana, the bastard of a sailor, knows that naval men are not to be trusted; Oliver, an honorable man, knows that there is no future for Nana with him. And sooner rather than later, the Tireless is repaired and Oliver returns to the sea.

There is much more to the plot than that, of course, but I don't want to spoil the story. Suffice it to say that there is adventure, including a spy, a press gang, and a hostage taking in Spain. Everything ends well for Nana and her captain, though. (Ends well to the extent that the reader sees their HEA; what may befall them in the future is left open -- Oliver is a naval captain in the Napoleonic Wars, after all.)

The characters in Marrying the Hero feel very realistic, much more so than the characters often found in traditional regencies or european historicals. The vulnerability of an illegitimate child is seldom touched upon in romance novels; not so here. The same with poverty. The long travel times, so miraculously abbreviated in most novels, are not abrogated here. The very real risks of naval life, along with the horrendous food, lack of clean water, and cleanliness, all part and parcel of the story; more rareties in genre romance.

Kelly has a knack for showing her characters' physical attraction to one another and their sexuality without being graphic or vulgar. Her love scenes are tender, earthy and hot, but also brief and modest.

My only quibble about the book, if any, is the uber evil and cowardice of the Bad Guy. He just seems...too sleazy and oily, in a way that makes me (as a reader) wonder why none of the other characters noticed his sleaze sooner.

Still, the book is a keeper. My first keeper for 2009.

Available as an ebook and in paper format from eHarlequin.com. An excerpt can be accessed here.

Afterthought: Kelly books usually contain easter eggs, glimpses of characters from earlier books. Very small glimpses, such as the hero of One Good Turn buying seeds from the Waterloo Seed Company (owned by the hero and heroine of The Lady's Companion. I didn't catch any in MTC...unless I missed a captain? Kelly has written a couple of other naval heroes (Captain Sir Daniel Spark of Miss Whittier Makes a List and Captain William Summers of Mrs. McVinnie's London Season).

pokes at blog

2008-12-26T10:01:00.003-05:00

I feel vaguely guilty about my lack of posts. The language stuff has been...pretty dead lately, because I have been busy with other things. However. I've just booked a trip to Madrid, so it is time to use the Spanish more regularly. My goal is to post once a week in Spanish here in an effort to brush up and be at least comprehensible on vacation.

Helloooo?

2008-10-13T10:27:00.002-04:00

It's been awhile, I know. And I have the ideas for a couple of posts brewing or bookmarked (cocer vs. cocinar, narigon, etc.). But I haven't felt compelled to post lately. Must get myself organized and motivated.

Mì querida

2008-08-05T21:29:00.003-04:00

Mì querida

Q: Can anyone tell me what’s wrong with this phrase?

A: Mí is a direct object pronoun. The possessive pronoun used above should be written as the accentless “mi”. And there is no “mì” -- Spanish uses acute accents as a rule; this mì has a grave accent, which is not used.

It’s a little copy editing thing, but it threw me right out of the narrative of a book I was reading the other day.

Unrelated: overheard on the train tonight: "She's a beringer of bad news." A bearer of bad news? A harbinger of doom? A Napa Valley vineyard of bad news?

Welsh in Wales

2008-08-04T14:35:00.002-04:00

Check out this bit in The Economist on the Welsh language in Wales. The first comment is lovely, I think.

I shouldn't listen

2008-06-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

I am a bad woman. Last night at dinner, two young men came in to the restaurant and asked for job applications. While they were filling them out a few seats over, one of the waitresses came up and chatted with them...in Russian. I could catch phrases and pieces of their conversation. My Russian is nearly gone, but I could still figure out some of it, basic stuff about where they were living and how long they'd been here and where they'd worked.

More crossword vocabulary

2008-06-24T08:09:00.003-04:00

The smallest unit of DNA was the clue. I ended up backing into the word. The dictionary definition includes a little more information, though.

muton: n. The smallest unit of DNA at which a mutation can occur; a nucleotide.

An ostrich-like bird? It ended up as "maa". The definitions I found were not quite consistent with the clue, though. An abbreviation for Master-At-Arms; an ethnolinguistic group in Vietnam; macroaggregated albumin (???); and a common European gull. Unless European gulls are significantly larger than their American cousins, the "ostrich" clue seems a bit off.

Pali's clue was a Sanskrit dialect. More specifically,

a dialect descended from Sanskrit, and like that, a dead language, except when used as the sacred language of the Buddhist religion in Farther India, etc.

Who knew that an echidna was an egg-laying mammal? Not I. Here's a more precise definition:

Either of two nocturnal, burrowing, egg-laying mammals of the genera Tachyglossus and Zaglossus of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, having a spiny coat, slender snout, and an extensible sticky tongue used for catching insects. Also called spiny anteater.

the penny drops

2008-06-09T09:37:00.004-04:00

I forgot that padre has more than one meaning until the Word of the Day reminded me.

padre, adjective: tremendous; terrible

Apart from referring to fathers, you may hear padre used in informal language to emphasize a noun.

Okay, this makes a snippet I heard on the bus the other day make a little more sense to me. The woman sitting in front of me was telling her companion about una pelea padre. At first I thought she was talking about a fight with her parents, but that didn't make sense.

Yes, I know, eavesdropping is bad. But conversations on public transportation are hard to keep private.

Muger?

2008-05-27T11:53:00.002-04:00

I just read Georgette Heyer's The Spanish Bride, which worked well enough as a military narrative. Heyer's use of Spanish bothered me, mostly because it seemed inconsistent with what she told me (as a reader) about Juana and Harry Smith's daily life. This is one of my pet peeves in books and in movies. If the audience is made aware of the other language but the text remains in English, please be thoughtful about how that other language is conveyed. Scattering Spanish phrases in with English dialogue when you've told me already that they are always speaking Spanish feels fake, forced and awkward to me.

Orthographically speaking, how long has mujer been mujer? Was it muger in the 19th century? Heyer spelled it that way several times in the book, and now I must go find out the history of the spelling and pronunciation of the word.

Expanding my English

2008-04-30T08:30:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I despair of being truly fluent in any language, including my native tongue. There are always words, phrases, colloquialisms that are new or old or just different.

Recently discovered words:

kapok, meaning the silky down that invests the seeds of a silk-cotton tree (kapok tree), Ceiba pentandra, of the East Indies, Africa, and tropical America: used for stuffing pillows, life jackets, etc., and for acoustical insulation.

Discovered via the crossword puzzle -- it was spelled by default when I filled in the surrounding words, and I had to look it up to see if it was real.

hustings: (before 1872) the temporary platform on which candidates for the British Parliament stood when nominated and from which they addressed the electors

A character in a novel was standing near the hustings, and I couldn't set the scene in my mind until I learned what that mean.

sador: a stringed Indian instrument.

Another crossword discovery. I wanted to wedge "sitar" in that spot, but the surrounding words didn't make sense if I did so.

Dar gato por liebre

2008-04-28T10:58:00.002-04:00

Friday's word of the day was gato, and several colloquial examples of its use were given, including dar gato por liebre, meaning "to swindle or to con". Literally it means "to give cat for hare", and the etymology is one I'll leave alone.

For some reason, the phrase reminded me of an early Spanish lesson, in which the instructor was trying to tell the class something and one fellow kept saying, "No, you're pulling my leg." The instructor insisted on all Spanish in class, so he asked for a translation...and was perplexed by what he got (tomando el pelo), since it didn't translate directly. Hair =/= leg, so it did not compute in his mind.

Language as culture

2008-03-31T14:54:00.000-04:00

Check out this article in The Economist on language as part of culture. I found the example of kitaab vs. sefer (book in Arabic and Hebrew) fascinating, especially with respect to the author's speculation on the divergence of the nouns, given the closeness of the verb "to write" in the two languages (katab/katav).

(originally posted over at LJ)

New verb for me

2008-03-20T12:19:00.003-04:00

I've been trying to figure out the verb used in the little patter that Gabe Saporta does at the beginning of "Smile for the Paparazzi". The rest of it was simple enough, but I'd never before encountered the noun boludo or the verb boludear. Urbandictionary.com gave me a colloquial definition for the noun, then the Word Reference message boards gave me the definition of the verb...both of which appear to be Argentine or Uruguayan in origin/usage. Makes sense, I guess, since Saporta is from Uruguay originally (according to the Biochemist).

Coming soon?

2008-03-17T09:00:00.002-04:00

Saw a preview for "The Visitor", in which Hiam Abbas has a role. She played Amal in "The Syrian Bride", and did an excellent job, so I'm thinking that I'll probably check it out if it comes to the new Landmark Theatre that opened on the east side of the harbor.

The Syrian Bride

2008-03-13T08:42:00.002-04:00

I watched a very good movie last night, The Syrian Bride. Set in the Golan Heights, it follows the fictional wedding day of a Druze woman who is marrying by arrangement a Syrian cousin. Once she crosses into Syria, though, she will never be permitted to return.

The small scale dramas are all about her family: her sister Amal, who is trapped in an unhappy arranged marriage; her brother Marwan, a very slick guy engaged in "business" (I assume smuggling or something black/grey market); her brother Hattem, who married a Russian woman and was disowned; and her father Hammed, a political dissent recently released from prison, who is caught between the political/religious elders, Israeli security, and his family.

The larger issues are political, of course. Israeli bureaucrats create a special stamp just for Mona's passport, which the Syrian border guards cannot by law accept because of the dispute about the ownership/nationality of the Golan. The UN person is utterly frustrated by the attempt to be an intermediary between the two, ultimately abandoning the situation in order to catch her flight home to France. So Mona is left sitting in no man's land, not permitted to go back home (her passport had been stamped with the exit stamp already, you see) but not allowed to enter Syria.

The dialogue varied between Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, English and French. Sadly, I grasped much more of the scant Russian dialogue with my defunct Russian than I did of the Arabic. Most of the Arabic I caught was numbers, greetings, nouns and verbs; just words, random shards of dialogue.

Pathetic foreign language education

2008-03-03T11:45:00.003-05:00

Check out this article from today's WaPo about the pathetic foreign language education available in the DC school district.

I blame NCLB.

Within the article there's a link to a table of all of the foreign language requirements for each state. It indicates that Maryland requires two credits of foreign language or ASL, but that there is no differentiated diploma system. Huh? There were several different "certificates" or tracks when I was in high school -- geared toward college, vocational, and technical education. Everyone had to have some foreign language education (the two year minimum) but for the academic track, three years were required and four years were strongly recommended. Has this program been abolished?

Word of the day -- cabal

2008-02-26T15:58:00.002-05:00

Friday's word of the day was cabal, meaning upright and fine or full and clear. The first meaning (applying to people) makes sense to me if I think of cabal as being the root of caballero. The second meaning (applying to an idea or picture of something) doesn't seem as intuitive to me.

Now I'm wondering about the etymology of the English word "cabal" -- a small group of plotters does not seem very upright or fine to me.

Who knew?

2008-02-14T09:20:00.001-05:00

Blogger is now available in Arabic. Who knew? I'm not ready for that, though, since I'm still pretty much stalled at simple sentences.

So far behind

2008-01-31T10:59:00.000-05:00

It's been too long between classes and my laziness has caught up with me. I'm so far behind and floundering in this next class that I probably would've been better to repeat the last one before moving on. Ouch.

Random information: watched The Kingdom last week. Not really impressed with the movie as a whole. Could catch numbers and a few words in Arabic -- greetings, thanks, etc. Was very impressed by Ashraf Barhoum.

Menu items

2008-01-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

Had dinner at Zaytinya last night. Review at my regular LJ. Cool thing? On the regular menu, the items are listed in English and in Arabic script. Enjoyed sounding the words out.

Is there a theme?

2008-01-04T14:23:00.000-05:00

The Spanish Word of the Day emails seem to get caught in my spam filter, so I'll go without then get a week's worth all at once. Must've been a theme, because I got the following in quick succession this morning:

quechua -- the most widely spoken indigenous language of South America; in school I was forever confusing quechua with Mayan quiché (k'iche'). Hmm, I did not know that one of the words it bestowed upon Spanish and English was la cocaína.
euskera -- Basque language
catalán -- didn't realize this was spoken in Sardinia, must learn more.

I didn't see emails for galego, aranés, or asturianu, though.

Arabic IV starts next week. I'm feeling quite unprepared since I was a total slacker all fall. Must dust off the books.

Chile

2007-12-20T08:35:00.000-05:00

I'd never spent much time considering the origin of the country name of Chile. To the extent that I'd ever thought about it, I assumed it had something to do with the geography and borders -- on a map, it looks (to me) like a long, skinny chili pepper. But no, that's not the source of the name. From Dictionary.com:

Despite appearances, the name of the country has nothing to do with chili peppers. In fact it gets its name from the araucano language (also known as mapuche), which is today spoken by over 300,000 people in Chile and Argentina. Many words of Araucanian origin are used in Chilean Spanish. The name Chile is Araucanian for "Land's End". So where does the araucano language come from? Chile was originally the home of the araucanos from the southeast of Latin America, a people known for their independence and indomitable spirit.

Absentee blogger

2007-10-11T08:09:00.000-04:00

I haven't had much to say on the language front lately. My section of Arabic IV was cancelled due to lack of enrollment...but when I tried to register for the other section, it was full. Apparently, even though one section was full, they wouldn't keep a second section because there weren't enough students to fill that one as well. Okay. So I'm studying on my own, which I find to be not very good. I can read the book and learn the vocabulary and listen to the discs, but it isn't the same as interacting with an instructor and classmates and native speakers. Must figure out some alternative.

Oh no!

2007-09-17T14:48:00.000-04:00

I was excited to pack my dictionary and text book this morning (despite the fact that they weigh many pounds and must be lugged around all day). Arabic class was to start tonight! :does dorky happy dance: But I arrived in the office to find a notice that the section has been cancelled due to low enrollment. I can try to enroll in the Thursday night class if I so desire, though. No, thank you, I'd rather the Monday class with Dr. M., whose teaching style I've adjusted to after 2 quarters.

Must see if she'll be teaching next quarter -- if so, I may wait for her and just study on my own.

How corny

2007-08-25T16:33:00.000-04:00

Today's Spanish word of the day was choclo, meaning sweet corn, coming from the Quechua version, choccllo or chocclo. Maize, a more commonly used word in English, comes from maiz, a Taino word. This little blurb on language reminded me of a passage in The Omnivore's Dilemma in which Pollan writes about the use and waste of corn in America's Corn Belt, and the feelings of an academic from Latin America who was appalled to see the disrespect and waste. There was a note, also, about the number of words used to mean or describe corn in Latin American Spanish, many of which were rooted in indigenous languages. Which makes sense since corn was (and is still?) a staple food. Rather like the many different words for tuna in Japanese.

Off to learn more.

What's a rebeca?

2007-07-03T20:17:00.000-04:00

If anyone had asked me this morning what the Spanish word for cardigan was, I would've professed ignorance and suggested the closest word I could think of: suéter. However... according to the automated email Spanish word of the day, the translation is rebeca, coming from Daphne Du Maurier’s famous book, Rebecca, whose young heroine was particularly fond of wearing a cardigan. The email also noted that the phrase used by Latin American Spanish speakers is different: la chaqueta de punto (literally, knitted jacket). ETA: as Rosario points out, there really is no such thing as a universal Spanish or even a Latin American version of Spanish; that may be what some Spanish speakers use for cardigan, but it's not what everyone uses.

On the Arabic front, class started last week only to break for the holiday. Okay. I managed to get myself organized and read the written passage, translating and transliterating before class. Three pages of text in the text book reduce to considerably less when I handwrite or type...but still created ~3 hours of work. Still, it's getting a little better. The latest lesson is all about schedules and school, introducing some (a lot of) new vocabulary.

Hudson News

2007-06-26T07:41:00.000-04:00

I seldom go into the Hudson News stand at the train station, but my train was delayed the other day so I went in to see what periodicals they carry. And learned that they carry Al-Hayyat and An-Nahar. I'm not up to reading newspapers yet, so I didn't buy a copy of either, but it was cool to be able to read the titles. And now I know where I can get an Arabic language newspaper if my reading comprehension ever improves.

To study this summer

2007-06-15T14:34:00.000-04:00

Or not to study? 'Tis the question. Do I want to take a break from the Arabic for the summer? Or will everything I've learned (precious little, really) leak out of my head like helium from a balloon if I don't use it, leaving nothing behind for the fall term?

Last night was the final. Meh. I hate being given a handful of words and being told to put them in order. Translate? Fine. Write a passage? Okay. But whenever I get a set of words to put in order, I end up with one too many or one too few.

Book recommendation

2007-06-11T12:40:00.001-04:00

Through conversation with one of my classmates, I learned that our instructor is a cousin of the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, who wrote a well-received book on the Crusades from the Arab perspective. My local library didn't have a copy of that on the shelf, but it did have In the Name of Indentity, an interesting book dissecting how identity today is often reduced to a single facet, then used as an excuse for atrocities. I haven't read far yet, but it is quite interesting.

Spanish shirts vs. Arabic shirts

2007-05-31T13:46:00.000-04:00

In Spanish -- camisa. In Arabic -- قَميس, pronounced qamees. Coincidence? The reference that I can find is to "chemise" but I'm wondering which is the root and which is the corruption. Anybody know?

Trabalenguas

2007-05-25T13:33:00.000-04:00

Today’s Spanish word of the day: trabalenguas. Meaning tongue-twister. That may join my list of favorite Spanish words, which includes paraguas.

And here’s the example given:

Pablito clavó un clavito en la calva de un calvito. En la calva de un calvito, un clavito clavó Pablito.

Pablito nailed a little nail Into a little bald man’s bald patch. Into a little bald man’s bald patch Pablito nailed a little nail.

Sounds gross, doesn’t it? But the word itself, trabalenguas, I like it. It rolls off the tongue ;)

The wasla

2007-05-18T20:33:00.000-04:00

The wasla? What's the wasla? I had no idea, until Wendy used this word in class, that there was a specific name for the slurring of the wa (and) into the following word. Okay, so wasla makes sense.

And the dammatein, fathatein, kasratein, all the specific use of the short vowels in the tanwin to create cases in the indefinite. -An, -on-, -in.

Today's word of the day

2007-05-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Today's word of the day in Arabic is lu-lu-ah, which means pearl. ~~My ability to put Arabic script disappeared in the last upgrade, so I can't post what it ought to look like.~~

لُٶْلُٶَة

Lu-lu-ah. Not luluah, though, there are hard glottal stops/swallows between syllables.

Koko Market on Eastern

2007-05-13T20:00:00.000-04:00

I've driven by Koko Market on Eastern Avenue a hundred times at least, but never paid attention. Stopped at the light today, I realized that the Arabic spelling is a direct transliteration of the words "Koko Market" rather than a translation. I was on the wrong side of the light, so I couldn't read any of the products that were written in Arabic, but when the light changed and I accelerated, I caught the first word, which I believe was "lehem" meaning meat. Beef or lamb, not chicken.

Must check the hours of operation next time I go by. I'm not sure if it is a market that specializes in Middle Eastern products or what, although I assume that's likely. I'm kind of surprised by its location, though, because I hadn't realized there was a significant Arabic population in Dundalk. If asked, I would assume that neighborhood was mostly native Baltimoron (mix of race and ethnicity) with some Latino immigrants.

Avos & chocolate chips

2007-05-13T19:48:00.000-04:00

I have such mixed feelings about Whole Foods. On one hand, it is the closest upscale grocery near my home; on the other, passages from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma echo in my mind as I shop there -- how healthy and organic is what I'm buying? Would I be better off finding a local farm that is committed to sustainable agriculture? Probably, but when I searched online, the closest one was 20+ miles away and limited hours for the public to peruse and purchase their produce.

This morning I decided I wanted an avocado and one of the Belgian waffles from the bakery department, and a Brown Cow cream top yoghurt. Yep, lots of fat in that breakfast. And I forgot the cardinal rule: don't grocery shop when hungry. I returned home with an odd mix of purchases, including a minicake that I didn't need; cherries; fruit salad; sweet potato chips; and more. But the tastiest purchase: chocolate tortilla chips. The ingredients are natural -- no chemical names I can't pronounce. And they have a dark chocolate taste. Went well with the avo and banana for breakfast.

On the avo note, I ate a sandwich last week that was average but transformed to excellent by the combination of avo and bacon. Not a combo I've tried before. The salt and crisp of the bacon plus the buttery fruit-vegetable along with crisp romaine and sliced turkey breast? Delicious.

Speak less Russian?

2007-05-12T13:57:00.000-04:00

Well, the idea seems to be not about speaking less Russian, but about speaking more of the indigenous language that was suppressed by the official use of Russian during the Soviet-era. Estonia is promoting the speaking and learning of Estonian, as are other former satellites.

Lots of things going on

2007-05-01T11:28:00.000-04:00

I received an email from one of my college Russian profs -- my favorite instructor, Alla Aleksandrovna Bluykher -- is retiring, and I'm invited to her retirement celebration. Alla specifically asked for me, which is flattering (it's been 10 years!) and a bit guilt-inducing (since I've let my Russian lapse so badly). But I'm off to Red Square at the Belvedere one evening this week to celebrate her 25 years of teaching Russian to bumbling English speakers.

The Jerusalem Fund is offering a workshop on the art of Arabic calligraphy later this month. I just signed up, along with a couple of my classmates.

And I'm back from Cleveland, where I went to attend "trAnsfoRmaTionS," a conference on Arts Education. According to Drew Carey, Cleveland Rocks! I'm not sure I would go that far, but the conference was excellent.

Food note: had most excellent meat loaf at Pickwick & Frolic's, a restaurant near the hotel that seems to have a history as some sort of burlesque venue. The meat load was angus beef mixed with chorizo. Mmmm. Accompanied by garlic mashed and a glorious corn pudding.

An excellent sammich

2007-04-23T20:44:00.000-04:00

I had an excellent, excellent sammich the other day. Had tickets to a taping of The Colbert Report, so we went to New York for a couple of days. Wandered around Midtown and Central Park. Found this little soup and sandwich place on either 54th or 53rd just at the right time -- we were starving after wandering around all day. The Biochemist had a bowl of the Thai coconut curry, which was good, and a half a smoked Irish salmon sammich. Sounds like a gross combo, but it was consumed with great relish. I had chicken and rice curry, which was good enough, and an amazing sammich -- avocado, cheddar, whole grain bread and some kind of herbed mayo. Yum.

Nothing to report on the Arabic front, because I missed class. And I'm kind of feeling lazy and not doing my homework.

Brain freeze

2007-04-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

I suffered a moment of brain freeze the other night in class. While reading a dialogue, I hit a word that I couldn't get past. Which would've been normal if it had been a new word, but no, it was a word that I know in masculine, feminine, singular, dual and plural forms. What stopped me? The diacritical marks were missing. Which is the thing (a thing) about Arabic that is giving me trouble. I'm used to Spanish, where accents and tildas are always included, otherwise the meanings can change. Si and sí are not the same thing.

The other thing I'm having a hard time with is the relaxed use of cases. In Russian, if genetive or accusative is appropriate grammatically, you always use it; there was no relaxation of that rule. But in Arabic, you scatter the use. Parts of speech may properly be in the accusative case, but once you've established that you understand the grammar rule, you don't actually use it uniformly. Which is killing me. Once I learn the rule, I want to apply it uniformly.

Weather note: it's raining. Flood warning. Drove around the harbor this morning -- I've never seen it so high. The northeast corner of Fleet Street as it turns on the President Street is awash. Only the far left lane isn't covered by standing water.

Other note: the Broadway Diner on Eastern Avenue, my habitual Sunday morning breakfast place, has recently installed a flat screen TV. Which is always tuned to Fox & Friends, blech. After watching once or twice while eating, I've learned to sit with my back to it. Otherwise it causes me to have indigestion.

Today's language tidbit

2007-04-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

This week's unit was on food. And the language factoid: the Arabic translation or root of Bethlehem is "house of meat". According to my instructor because seasonally herds would end up there for butchering and sale. I haven't been able to find anything to corroborate that specifically, other than Wikipedia's and Britannica's intro notes. Interestingly, most American dictionaries that I can find online refer only to the Hebrew translation, house of bread. I wonder if there the Hebrew translation/version is a more accepted one? Or if the selection of one and ignoring of the other are examples of publisher/cultural bias?

After class, I went to Al-Hikma. It's a good think Claire told me it was in a building with dentists' and doctors' offices, otherwise, I'd've driven past and gotten lost in the wilds of Falls Church. I was tempted by a condensed translation of Jane Eyre with English on one page and Arabic on the opposite page, but managed to put it down -- to advanced for me right now. If there'd been a copy of Persuasion or Anne of Green Gables, I wouldn't have been able to resist. The owner was very helpful and gave me a mini lesson, based on his name, Dhiya, which means light. I thought noor meant light, and it does, but they have different connotations. Who knew?

Al-Hikma

2007-04-04T08:57:00.000-04:00

One of my classmates told me that there's an excellent Arabic bookstore, Al-Hikma, in Falls Church on Columbia Pike. She found several helpful workbooks and some childrens books written with the English and Arabic on opposite pages. Will have to check it out on my next day off.

Happy news -- a second section of the third level has been opened, with the same instructor that I have now. The school only scheduled one, even though there were three full sections of level two. Were they expecting a huge attrition rate? In any case, I've registered. Level two ends on Saturday and level three starts on Thursday. I much prefer this to the long holiday between levels one and two. I'd forgotten pretty much everything in the two months off.

Usted ustath?

2007-03-24T17:40:00.000-04:00

Another lightbulb moment: in Arabic, ustath means teacher or instructor and is used an a generic honorific. In Spanish, Usted is the formal address for you, as opposed to the familiar tu. Ustath --> Usted? Seems possible. Especially when you consider that in some regional pronunciations of Castilian, the "d" sounds like a "th."

I need to find a good source or text for the etymology of Spanish words. Is there a Castilian equivalent of the OED? There must be, I'm sure, maybe published by the Real Academia Espanola. *off to check*

ETA: according to everything I find online, usted is a contraction of the phrase "vuestra merced"...so I'm thinking the sound similarity and usage are coincidental.

And the etymological dictionaries of Spanish that I can find online? Range from $51 used to $1,895. The one that I would love to have is $375. Not in my budget right now.

Never mind.

Roots of words

2007-03-19T17:26:00.000-04:00

Taliban and mujahedeen. I knew what they meant, of course, in the modern western usage. Mujahideen -- guerrilla fighters of Afghanistan against the Soviets, armed by America; used for other fighters, but they are less well known in the west. Literally translated, though, it is the genitive indefinite of "fighters" only. All of the other freight came later. Taliban -- strict Sunni movement that ruled Afghanistan and is struggling to regain it. Literally, it is the Pashto variation on the Arabic toolab, plural for students. So now I know the roots of each word, and the etymology and grammar of them. It's fascinating to read how history and politics influence language.

Midterms back, did very well. Of course, even the instructor admits it was an easy exam. I feel a little guilty, because I procrastinated and did it the morning before class and spent very little time on it, while I know other students spent a huge amount of time laboring over it.

Olives, olives everywhere

2007-03-10T16:08:00.000-05:00

I read somewhere that as many as 4,000 words in the Spanish vocabulary are of Arabic origin. All the words starting "al-" are, I believe, like alcazar (castle) and algodón (cotton), and some others, like azúcar. And today in my Arabic class, I learned another: olive. In Spanish, aceituna; in Arabic, zaituna.

Radio silence

2007-03-04T16:59:00.000-05:00

Busy two weeks. Back to the irregularly scheduled blogging.

First, my copy of Hans Wehr arrived. Not as impressed with it as I am with the Al-Mawrid. The print is tiny, go blind tiny. I need to invest in a reader's magnifying glass to use the dictionary.

Second -- the mid-term is a take home. ::sigh:: Take home mid-terms are about as much fun as open book tests are. Don't like them. Would rather have a set period of time to get the work done, without the possibility of agonizing or going back over it until I'm senseless.

Watched Babel last night. I could pick out a few words of the Moroccan Arabic every now and again...which was cool, since I'm learning MSA, not a colloquial version. Followed the Spanish without a problem. If only I spoke Japanese. Not. I can't handle anything more.

Véante mis ojos

2007-02-20T21:20:00.000-05:00

When I was in college, I read all kinds of poetry. Very little of it stuck with me. I'm just a prose kind of girl, I guess. Except I remember this villancico, almost just a poetry fragment. Santa Teresa of Ávila based one of her mystical poems on it, about the ecstacy it must be to see god (check it out here) but I prefer the original snippet:

Véante mis ojos
y muérame yo luego,
dulce amor mío
y lo que yo más quiero.

Not that I'd want to drop dead after seeing my beloved. But this just sticks in my mind as uber-romantic and over the top, while being very simple language.

I also remember one that begins ¿Qué faré, mama? that we studied to see language shift. Its narrator is a young girl whose lover has abandoned her, asking what now would she she do, which would eventually turn into ¿qué haré, mama? What will I do?

For more villancicos, check out this link.

I'm such a dork

2007-02-19T20:15:00.000-05:00

My copy of Al-Mawrid arrived on Friday.

Isn't it beautiful?

Online booksellers

2007-02-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

I <3 online booksellers. The instructor recommended two dictionaries: Al-Mawrid, which is alphabetical; and Hans Wehr, which is based on the 3 letter root of Arabic words. New, the dictionaries cost ~$75 and $45 each, but are worth investing in if I plan to continue with Arabic...and I do. So I checked out a couple of online booksellers and found copies for sale: instead of $120, I'm paying ~$70. Yay for my bank balance!

I'm perplexed about dual nouns. I shouldn't be -- Russian has a bunch of nouns that change based on number: one, two-four, then five +.

Verbs

2007-02-08T18:32:00.000-05:00

Well, we learned our first verbs on Saturday. Unlike other languages I've learned, the past tense is closer to the root word than the present tense, and seems much easier to master. The instructor created a "cheat sheet" using the verb "to write" (katab). Unfortunately, though, I have lost my cheat sheet. Took it to work and studied it during a boring, boring training seminar. I'm hoping it's just mixed in with the seminar handouts. That's what I get for trying to study when I should've been paying attention to something else.

On the Russian front: not good. I've more or less gotten the run-around from the level 3 instructor. Grrr. Not returning my calls or responding to emails.

Arabic II

2007-01-29T07:53:00.000-05:00

Well, the Saturday class was pretty cool. It was full, which was a surprise. I didn't think many people would be interested in a 9am-12pm class. Who knew?

I listened to the disks on the drive in, which was good, since pretty much everything I learned last semester had evaporated. By the end of the lesson, I was feeling back in the swing of things, although I need to spend some time this week reviewing, in addition to doing the homework and memorizing new vocabulary. This lesson -- the university setting, review of nisba structure (creation of adjectives), and idafa structure (creation of compound and possessive nouns).

On the Russian front, I haven't been able to get ahold of the Russian III instructor: I've emailed and left voicemail, but not heard back. Tonight is the second class of Russian II, which I suppose I'll prepare for, since I'm not sure what's going on with the III class.

Gah!

2007-01-24T18:25:00.000-05:00

I went to Russian III tonight, but couldn't attend the class. Why? Because it is in a secure building, and only people on the roster are cleared to enter. And I'm not on the roster yet, because I registered for Russian I, as instructed, while sitting in on each class for the first 3 levels. After deciding which is most appropriate, I'm supposed to transfer/change. Gah! I wasted my time schlepping over in the rush hour traffic, only to turn around and come back.

I'm supposed to call tomorrow and they'll give me the email address and phone number of the instructor, who'll judge whether or not I belong in the class. I'm thinking yes. Except I really liked the instructor for Russian II, even if the course content was remedial.

Anyhow, I've skimmed forward through most of the text book, and a lot of it (most of it) is nothing new, grammar-wise, although there is some new vocabulary.

Need to dust off the Arabic text and listen to the next lesson, reviewing grammar and vocab. That'll be Saturday's class.

Lesson One

2007-01-22T22:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the first class of my Russian adventure. When to the second level class. First level classes are on Thursday and third are on Wednesday. I'm going to them all, then selecting. Anyhow, the instructor thought maybe I should be in an intermediate class instead of this one. On one hand, I appreciate the review and the correction to pronunciation. On the other, I was bored senseless while listening to the other students stutter over reading a simple dialogue out of the text book.

The instructor himself was quite entertaining. Originally from Russia, educated in London, he speaks English with a British intonation and a lilting English-as-Second (fourth or fifth in his case)-Language. Clearly he is passionate about the language, but also bored by the sluggishness of his students. Exuberant.

More than half, almost three quarters of the students are studying Russian as a part of their education or career plan in International Relations.

Dilemma

2006-12-15T18:37:00.000-05:00

What to do, what to do. I want to take the next Arabic class...with the same instructor. Except she's not teaching in the same program next semester, although she is teaching elsewhere. Stay where I am and adjust to a new instructor (and maybe a Saturday class, which doesn't thrill me)? Or enroll elsewhere?

I tested into a Spanish level that I might be interested in. And was told to sit in on three different Russian classes if I was interested in that.

I do know that the most number of classes I can handle is two, so I have to make a decision. It may come down to eenie meenie miney moe.

Getting organized

2006-10-27T08:51:00.000-04:00

Since I procrastinated too long when it came to a conversational Spanish or Russian class for the fall semester, I decided to get organized early. The winter session starts in early January and registration begins in November. So I took the placement exam for Spanish online and placed into the 7th semester class (430/500). There is no Russian placement test online though, so I'll have to talk to the instructors about that. And then I'll have to decide which I want to brush up on first (maybe I'll alternate?). Because (assuming I get a passing grade), I want to continue with the Arabic, and I'm not sure I can deal with three night classes in three different languages.

Mea culpa

2006-10-22T19:18:00.000-04:00

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I've been posting to my regular blog, but not making an effort to write anything original in Spanish. So, nothing here.

Plus I've been busy with this class I'm taking -- Introductory Arabic I. It's harder to master than Spanish or Russian was, for a variety of reasons. First, it's a part time thing, unlike earlier languages that were studied full time while I was in college. Second, the right to left is utterly unfamiliar, along with an alphabet that doesn't equate to the Phoenician alphabet that the Indo-European languages use. Even with Russian, a lot of the Cyrillic was similar. Not so with the Arabic script...which is quite beautiful, I think.

My new resolution -- translate my other blog into Spanish. Even if it isn't original or the same as writing creatively in Spanish, the translation should give me practice.

El Dilema del Omnívoro (otra vez)

2006-08-17T09:04:00.000-04:00

Terminé El Dilema del Omnívoro y escribí mi opinión en un cuaderno (durante una reunion muy aburrida). Pero olvidé a traerlo a casa conmigo. Estoy perezosa y no quiero escribirla de nuevo. ::sigh::

Pondré la reseña aquí mañana.

Libros de Linda Howard

2006-08-14T20:38:00.000-04:00

Había una vez, yo estaba acostumbrada a comprar los libros de Linda Howard en el día de publicación. Me encantaba su estilo y sus caracteres y su humor. Después de comprar unos libros en forma de encuadernación dura (con precios muy caros) que no me gustaban (Tiempo de Caza y Se Muere Para Complacer), empecé a tomar sus libros de la biblioteca. Me gusta mucho Morirse de Ganas – pero es un libro de encuadernación de papel. Y es una comedia – me parece que la mayoria de libros recientes de Linda Howard no son comedias, son libros de suspense. Pero, en verdad, no me sentía que perdía nada por falta de tener su libros en mi biblioteca personal.

Tomé su libro más reciente – Bajo la Oscuridad de la Noche -- de la biblioteca hoy. Y sólo pude leer la primera cincuenta paginas. Hay mucha información que se necesita para establecer el fondo de la trama. Pero no se relata en una manera interesante. Lee como un descargo de información (se llama un infodump en ingles – suena major, yo creo). Me aburre. No tengo interés en Cate y Cal, la heroína y el héroe. Tengo otros libros en mi montaña TBR. No voy a pasar más tiempo con este libro.

Es possible que no voy a tomar sus libros de la biblioteca – no es cierto pero ¿porque continua leer libros que no me interesan? LH ha cambiado su género de libros: no son libros románticos, son libros de suspension y acción. Está bien – ella puede cambiar su género, es su decision, pero no voy a seguirle.

Jamón y chocolate

2006-08-10T22:31:00.000-04:00

Trabajo con un ladrón. ¿Quien es el ladron? No sé, pero alguien en mi oficina está robando la comida del refrigerador público. Hoy mi almuerzo (un bocadillo de jamón) desapareció desde el refrigerador. ¿Por qué? No era nada especial – un bocadillo de jamón, queso suizo y mostaza con pan integral.

Ésta fin de semana, voy con mis amigas a un balneario. El tema del balneario – chocolate. Todos los tratamientos incluyen de alguna manera el chocolate. Mi horario incluye un masaje con la manteca de cacao y haba de cacao. Después de volver a casa, describiré los tratamientos.

Tengo dos libros electrónicos para leer durante el viaje al balneario. Voy a leer mis libros nuevos y relajarme y divertirme con el chocolate (aunque no debo comerlo).

La El Dilema del Omnívoro

2006-08-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

Leo La El Dilema del Omnívoro como parte del ~~la contienda~~ desafío de AngieW. Para participar, se tiene que leer un libro de un género diferente (normalmente un sub-género de los romances). Se puede escoger cualquier libro, solo tiene que ser del tipo designado. Esta mes, estamos leyendo un libro que no es romántico – puede ser de tipo diferente (un libro misterio, fantasia, clasico, lo que sea) o puede ser non-ficción.

En DO, el autor sigue tres comidas de sus prinicipios a la mesa. Una comida empieza en una finca industrial; otra en una finca orgánica. La comida final no crece en una finca – el autor caza y cosecha todos los ingredientes para prepararlos y consumirlos. [¿Debe ser "preparala y consumirla" o "preparalos y consumirlos" -- la comida o los ingredientes?]

He leído la primera sección del libro, de la comida de McDonald’s que empieza en la finca industrial. Me fascina la historia de la finca y la agricultura en América, especialmente la historia del maíz y como la finca llegaba a ser indusrializada. Yo no sabía que se necesita tanto petróleo y maíz para preparar comidas simples, comidas que paracen “naturales.” El libro hace que yo piense más sobre lo que como y bebo cada día.

Abuelita

2006-08-06T08:54:00.000-04:00

Ayer fui a visitar a mi abuelita, la madre de mi madre. Su pasatiempo favorito es hacer las cifras. En la librería, encontré un libro pequeño de cifras – todas las cifras son citas famosas. Lo compré y se lo llevó ayer.

Todavía ella vive en la casa construida por mi abuelo como joven. Verdaderamente la construyó con sus manos: él puso el cimiento y los ladrillos, la fontanería, y el tejado. Creo que a veces ella se siente sola. (Entiendo porque la casa me parece vacia y callada.) Pero no quiere dejarla – ella ha pasado más de cincuenta años en la casa y todas sus memorias viven allí.

Hace calor

2006-08-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

Hace calor. Hace mucho calor. Es tan caluroso que nadie va afuera. Me quedo en casa o en la oficina. Salgo de la casa al coche. Desde el coche, voy al tren. El tren termina en la estación y mi oficina está allí, al lado de la estación. Siempre hay el aire acondicionado. (Estoy cansada del aire acondicionado y viciado.)

La novia del contrabandista

2006-08-01T23:46:00.000-04:00

He empezado leer libros electrónicos recientemente. Compré La novia del contrabandista, escrito por Darlene Marshall, después de leer una reseña en el sitio de Smart Bitches. Me interesa la descripción – un libro romántico situado en Florida durante el siglo diez y nueve. No hay mucho de ellos.

Localizado en el campo afuera de San Agustín, La novia del contrabandista es la historia de Rand Washburn y Julia Delerue-Sanders. Se conoce que Julia es la hija de los dueños de una empresa mercantil. Está trabajando en la posada de su “tio” Richard en secreto – finge ser cantinera. Está tratando de descubrir quien es el ladron que continua secuestrar y robar sus barcos.

Mientras Julia trabaja en la posada, está secuestrada. Los secuestradores le traen a Rand Washburn – él está enfermo y ellos creen que necesita una mujer para cuidarle. Rand es un hombre misterio. Vive en una casita en el campo pero no es un labriego. Caza un poquito y pesca un poquito, pero no trabaja. ¿Cómo vive sin trabajo?

Rand no puede llevar Julia a San Agustín. Viven juntos. Y están interesados uno a otro, pero los dos no tiene confianza uno a otro. Y ambos están mentiendo – o si no mentiendo, por los menos no están diciendo la verdad completa.

Después de casarse (un matrimonio forzado de conveniencia), los dos aprenden la verdad. Y ni la una ni el otro es tan alegre – cada se siente enojado, traicionado, y está ofendido al otro. El problema central es si puedan aprender cómo fiarse de uno a otro.

La autora incluye muchas detalles de la historia de Florida, la vida navál, y la vida cotidiana de los labriegos. También, el libro tiene información de la geografia, la política, y la economía colonial. Pero no hay un infodump – la información tiene relación a la trama.

Me gusta mucho el libro. He comprado dos libros más de Sra. Marshall.

B+.

Una foto

2006-07-30T21:35:00.000-04:00

El esposo de mi hermana tomó esta foto (creo que es "la" foto porque es "la fotografia") durante su luna de miel. Es una fortaleza vieja que se llama star fort, en Kinsale en el oeste de Irlandia.

Los deportes -- béisbol, favorito mio

2006-07-29T16:38:00.000-04:00

El béisbol es mi deporte favorito. Me gusta al equipo local, las Oropéndolas de Baltimore. Y vivo muy cerca al estadio – puedo caminar allí desde mi casa. Prefiero ir en los domingos; normalmente, no compro los billetes de antemano; camino al estadio y los recojo una hora antes del principio del juego. Me gusta sentarme en el sol, mirando a los jugadores.

Mi padrastro ama a los Yanquis de Nueva York. Cada año, le doy un par de billetes a un juego entre los Yanquis and las Oropéndolas. Cuando yo era mas joven, él siempre asistió con un amigo suyo. Pero ahora, nosotros siempre vamos juntos al juego. Mi madre odia a los deportes, y prefiere quedarse en casa y hacer algo mas interesante; mis hermanos viven tan lejos que no pueden venir. Esta bien, siempre nos divertimos. Hoy, fui a la taquilla and compré los billetes. Vamos a ir en la próxima fin de semana.

Estoy leyendo

2006-07-26T20:58:00.000-04:00

Estoy leyendo un libro que tiene título El hombre más joven. Quizás el título debe ser El jovencito – no estoy segura como traducirlo exactamente. RDI publica al libro, pero no es chick lit; es women’s fiction. Es la historia de una mujer quien tiene cuarenta años. Tiene su hija, su trabajo, su vida; ella quiere tener un hombre en su vida, un amante, pero no está cierta que quiere un hombre más joven (él tiene treinta años).

He leído la mitad del libro. Hasta aquí, el título me parece como un nombre impropio: la mayoría de la narrativa es de Hazel (la heroína) y sus amigas y su hija; relata la historia de su matrimonio fracasado. El jovencito no es un punto céntrico del libro; es un detalle. En mi opinion, el hombre (o el amor) no necesita ser el foco de la historia, pero el título y la descripción en la espalda del libro dan la impresión de que este libro es un romance. Y no es. Me molesta cuando el exterior no es igual al interior.

Una comunidad

2006-07-25T21:36:00.000-04:00

La comunidad de lectores quienes leen novelas romanticas es muy pequeña. Y a veces me parece que casi la mitad de ellos quieren ser escritores, no lectores. Y yo? No, no tengo ni una interés en ser novelista. Es para bien, porque no tengo la facultad -- puedo escribir contratas y acuerdos y cualquier cosa legal para el trabajo, y me gusta leer los romances, pero no tengo la imaginación que se necesita para crear un mundo ficticio.

También a causa de la talla de la comunidad, casi todos conocen unos a otros. Además se tiene amigos en común. Como una familia, la comunidad tiene disputas favoritas; pero en lugar de pelearse sobre quien es la niña favorita, los miembros de la comunidad pelean sobre la situación de las novelas romanticas en el mundo de publicación o sobre quienes son las personas mas calificadas de ser críticas (¿lectores o escritores?). Y otras cosas similares.

Al principio de mi participación en la comunidad, yo prestaba atención a las peleas – me interesaban. Ya no. No me interesan – estoy cansada de oír las mismas personas se quejan de una reseña desfavorable.

Lunes

2006-07-24T08:40:00.000-04:00

No quise despertarme esta manaña. Como todos los lunes. Eh. Estoy aquí, en la oficina. Quiero volver a casa y dormir. El fin de semana paso demasiado rápidamente.

Practice blog

2006-07-22T21:45:00.000-04:00

Voy a tomar una idea de Rosario y usarla. Ella escribió en un meme que empezó su blog porque quería practicar el inglés. Yo estudié el español por quatro años, pero no lo uso en mi vida diaria. Cuando vivía con una chica quien hablaba español, nosotros hablabamos mucho, pero ahora vivo sola. Solo hablo español con los hombres que trabajan en mi barrio; escucho al 99.1 FM, el radio latino (El Zol, siempre de fiesta), y leo libros escritos en espanol (muy lentamente) . . . pero no tengo la oportunidad de escribir. Estoy perdiendo la lengua. Pues, voy a practicar aquí. Si leas espanol, por favor, dime cuando hiciere errores -- creo que necesito el subjunctivo en la frase anterior, pero creo que no he escritola correctamente porque hiciere me parace extraña.

Blogger Account

2006-04-14T07:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I actually blog over at Live Journal, but needed to set up an account here to post. I'll probably fiddle around here a bit, but for the time being, my regular blog is here.

Cheers,
jmc

The Whitney Chronicles by Judy Baer

2006-01-06T07:47:00.000-05:00

The Whitney Chronicles was my first experience with inspirational chicklit. To be frank, I would not have picked the book up if I had realized that it was inspirational, because I have not had good experiences with the inspirational fiction I've tried in the past. Having said that, this was a fairly good read.Whitney Blake has just turned 30, and her best friend has given her a journal. She resolves to write in it daily and to improve herself. She wants to lose a little bit of weight, she's a little frustrated at work, and she feels a sudden strong urge to be settled...with a Christian man.Baer has a very comfortable writing style and the narrative flows well. Whitney is a very likeable character: she isn't a flighty fashionista at a deadend job, being abused by her boss and engaging in a string of bad relationships. She's a professional who is good at her job. She has a good circle of friends and family who are a part of the story. In fact, her friend Kim's struggle with breast cancer and depression are a large part of the story. The two men she dates in the book are nice guys, but each has issues: one is airplane obsessed and can disappear for days, which leads her to give him the lets be friends speech; the other is work-obsessed and also is not a Christian. (Well, there's more to it than that, but to say more would be a spoiler...although I saw what was coming way, way before Whitney did.) After being frustrated by those two, Whitney decides to leave her social life in god's hands. I thought the decision to leave her social life in god's hands wasn't really consistent with how she dealt with Kim's illness. In Kim's case, her family has a history of depression and of ignoring the depression, because it only means either that you have sinned or that you haven't given yourself properly to god. Whitney's argument is that god gives you all kinds of tools to solve your problems in life, and a tool to combat depression and other illnesses is medical treatment and/or medication. If actively seeking out help is okay for illness, why isn't it okay take an active role in searching for a companion? Join a club? Post a personal ad? Try speed dating? Whitney pooh-poohs all of these ideas and is irritated by a colleague who suggests them. (If god exists, I doubt she just hands the good stuff out to people who sat around and waited to be helped; gotta make an effort. *shrugs* But what do I know? Nothing, really.)Because the story is told via Whitney's journal entries, the POV is first person. While that gives good insight to what is going on in Whitney's head, it means that our perspectives of all of the other characters are filtered through Whitney, colored by her opinions and emotions. We never know much about the hero, all of the sudden she just loves him. Yes, he's a good looking doctor and he's a Christian and he loves kids, but that's all generic. What was it about him in particular that she loved?The book is set in Minneapolis, Minnesota. But for one mention of snow, it could have been set almost anywhere: there was no sense of place. That isn't really a plus or a minus for me, because the location isn't particularly important to the plot.Since this is an inspirational novel, the religion and biblical quotes are pervasive. Whitney does a great deal of praying. At one point, she and her friend Kim pray together, and they talk about prayer a lot. (Do Christians really do that?) The religion is not preachy, in the sense of "This is the only way to live, and unbelievers will be damned to eternal hellfire." In fact, Whitney acknowledges that the church alone isn't always enough to get one through things (which is a very different message from the other inspirationals I've tried). Whitney is a little bit judgmental about people who are not Christian. While I didn't see her desire to marry a Christian any different than a Jewish woman desiring to marry a Jewish man, the subtext to Whitney's preference for Christians is not that non-Christians are wrong for her, but that they are just wrong generally.I put The Whitney Chronicles down with very mixed feelings. On one hand, Whitney is very likeable and the story flowed well. On the other hand, some of the major points really bothered me. On another hand (three? am I an alien? Kali-like?), I am religion-intolerant in my fiction, so maybe I'm being a little hard on the book. My grade: C+.

Wrong headline for WV mine cave in

2006-01-05T13:20:00.000-05:00

Did anyone else see that the print version of USA Today (early version, I assume) led with the banner headline that 12 miners survived the cave in, only one miner died? I noticed the paper at the news stand in Union Station yesterday evening as I left the office. Ouch. When I got up at 5am, they already knew that the numbers had been reversed in initial reports. I'm guessing that USA Today's website included the proper information, but it kinda surprised me to see the wrong headline still hanging around in print at 7pm. I wonder what the timeline was for the correct information, as compared to the paper's printing schedule.

Lipton Green Tea

2006-01-05T07:56:00.000-05:00

I drank gallons of Lipton's Green Tea with Citrus when I was on vacation in Hawai'i. I'm addicted. It has supplanted Diet Coke as my soft drink of choice. I've checked vending machines, Target, the softdrink aisle at the grocery store, but I couldn't find it anywhere here on the east coast. Last week, when checking out the sale shelf at the grocery store (at the back, near the entrance to the meat room and the staff only area), I noticed a stack of cases of bottles of Green Tea sort of hidden by the stack of fake firelogs. Yay! Happy dance right there is the store. I've sucked down 202.8 ounces of the stuff (12 16.9 oz bottles) in the past week, and it's time to go get more.Now if only a few bottles of that Txakolina wine I liked could be found in the same manner...

First DNF for the year

2006-01-05T07:43:00.000-05:00

It's early, but I've encountered my first unfinishable book of the year: Wolf Tales by Kate Douglas. It is a heinous waste of paper and ink. I picked it up at the train station bookstore, because I was out of reading material and the author's name seemed vaguely familiar. I really wish I had seen Keishon's review before I bought it.The blurb on the back read like a hot paranormal book about werewolves. I made it through the first couple of chapters before discarding WT in disgust. The sex crossed the line from hot into skanky fairly early, there was no plot, no characterization, no point other than moving from skanky sex scene to skanky sex scene. I want my money back. Now, just because I didn't care for this book, doesn't mean someone else won't love it, different strokes and all that. If anyone checking out this entry wants this book, please let me know and I'll be happy to mail it just to get it out of my sight. Post a comment to this entry and I'll email you offline for shipping information.

Serenity

2006-01-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

Anyone who reads this journal will probably think that I'm a total Joss Whedon fan, because I've been so obsessed with Serenity in the past few weeks. But I'm really not. Firefly was my first happy encounter with Whedon's imagination; I didn't watch Buffy or Angel, and I have no plans to start. But I really enjoyed Serenity, enough that I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with Wonder Woman.Anyway, my last Serenity-related post: although the captain, Mal, was the hero, Jayne the screw-up had the best lines. My favorite: "Shiny. Let's be bad guys." And his manifesto about killing cracked me up: "How does a man get so wrong? Cutting on himself, raping, murdering. I'll kill a man in a fair fight...or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight...or if bothers me, or if there's a woman, or if I'm getting paid. Mostly only when I'm getting paid."

Death and the Sun

2006-01-03T13:56:00.000-05:00

I fell in love with Spain on a high school trip and have never fallen out of love. To assuage my longing for Spain between trips, I drink rioja and albariño, and I eat chorizo, manchego cheese, tortilla española and paella. After my last trip, during which I took a tour of the bullring in Sevilla, my mother asked if I would want to see a bullfight. When I said yes, she asked why I would be interested in seeing a bloodsport that was unsporting and gruesome. [This from a woman who doesn't have a problem with modern American hunting, with all of its tools for tracking and killing for a pair of antlers or a hide.] My answer was that it is something that is quintessentially Spanish. I still believe so, although I haven't been yet. Someday though, I will visit Spain during the feria season and see a running of the bulls.My first new book for 2006 was Death and the Sun: A Matador's Season in the Heart of Spain by Edward Lewine. Lewine accompanied Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, a famous torero during the bullfighting season of 2002, and chronicled it. He also attempted to explain what bullfighting is to outsiders, touching on the history, the social context and the reality of the corridas (frequent injury, relatively few truly successful matadors, being almost constantly on the road for 8 months of the year).I didn't particularly care for Lewine's writing style, which was fairly choppy in places, but I do think he did a good job describing Fran's season, and the forces that push and pull at the toreros and the bullfighting world. The narrative itself flowed well, even when Lewine interrupted the journaling of the season to write about the historical development of modern bullfighting, or the medical reasons for the death of Fran's father, the bullfighter Paquirri, after being gored by a bull named Avispado in Pozoblanco in 1984. In generally, Lewine's non-fiction account pleased me much more than anything Hemingway ever wrote. [I think Hemingway latched on to the corrida in a desperate attempt to be macho, and his writing is overrated.] Grade: B.

Overdue reviews

2005-12-30T09:52:00.000-05:00

I meant to write reviews for several books over the holiday, but that didn't happen. Since the books are fading in my memory, I'll do a quick summary.The Cinderella Rules by Donna Kauffman. Darby (short for Darmilla Beatrice) lives in Montana, where she runs the ranch she inherited from her maternal grandfather. Her father and sister live in DC, running some sort of international big business and participating in the social whirl, respectively. Her sister needs her to take her place to squire a potential business colleague of their father. Since Darby is no social butterfly, she goes to charm school before taking her sister's place for a week. On her arrival, Darby meets Shane Morgan, a man who has runaway from the family business and lived life mostly moving from place to place doing random jobs. His grandmother has died, leaving him in charge of the family empire. His plan was to dismantle the empire, since he was indifferent to it. The two have instant chemistry (which was hot to read about) and they keep bumping into each other in the small DC high society scene. There's a bit of suspense subplot: Stefan Bjornsen (the business contact) turns out to be related to Shane's family business and some shadiness ensues. The sudden appearance of spies and threats and Shane's sudden caring for a family history that he more or less disavowed for all of his life and the first 85% of the book were a little off-putting. The HEA was okay, but I finished the book thinking that eventually Shane would get itchy feet and disappear from Darby's ranch in Montana. And Darby's sister's story was left open, so there will probably be a sequel sometime soon. Grade: B-.Her Sexiest Mistake by Jill Shalvis. Mia Appleby is an ad exec in LA, having escaped trailer life in Arkansas (I think). She meets Kevin McBride, teacher and mentor extraordinaire, a man who saves people, when he moves into her neighborhood. He's hot, but she only does one nighters, so after sex, she lies to him and to herself about how bad it was. Her niece, Hope, arrives on the run from trailer life herself. Most of the book is spent with Mia's life falling apart, professionally speaking, as she tries to adjust to having Hope around. Hope's visit keeps getting longer and longer, while Mia keeps hoping for a return to normalcy. Mia is a true control freak, which does not bother me, but she also seemed extremely shallow and not very likable. Kevin was more likable, but a bit of a doormat when it came to his brother, whom he was constantly bailing out of trouble. Probably would have graded this as a B-/C+, but the way Mia treated Kevin really bothered me. One night stands don't bother me, but the way she treated him after he told her she made him feel cheap did. This behavior bothers me in heroes (using heroines for sex only and ignoring what they say) and the role reversal didn't make it any more palatable. Grade: C.The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig . Reminded me of A.S. Byatt's Possession, in a superficial kind of way. Eloise Kelly is a doctoral student in England, working on her dissertation subject: masculinity and ego and spying in Napoleonic wars. Eloise is determined to learn the identity of The Pink Carnation, a British spy in the mold of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. After rejection by other descendants of the other two spies, Eloise is granted access to the personal papers of the Selwick family (Richard Selwick was the Purple Gentian); she hopes to find clues about TPC's identity among the papers. The story is told in third person, in the present and the past, with snippets of letters and other correspondence. Colin Selwick, who wrote one of the more scathing rejections to her request for information, appears as she is reviewing documents. The vast majority of the story is the historical, with only brief returns to the present once Eloise has begun going through the papers. The book ends with the revelation of the name of the spy, but the futures of Eloise and Simon, as well as questions about other spies, are left dangling. The Masque of the Black Tulip is the follow up to Pink Carnation. I haven't read it yet, but the cover blurb makes it clear that two characters who fairly screamed for a book of their own are getting it. Grade: B+.

Happy families

2005-12-30T08:05:00.000-05:00

Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina that happy families are all like, while each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Or something to that effect. My family is mostly happy, with a few sour/sore spots. A couple of things this holiday made me scratch my head and just wonder about them.Thing #1: late arriving birthday card from dad. He lives in Texas and is very much a fan of W. I, on the other hand, am happy to live in a blue state. We have very little in common, politically and socially speaking. My birthday card had a photograph of the Shrub and the Man Behind the Shrub getting ready to go to a party. WTF? There was no hidden joke and no subtext to generate a laugh. Why send me that? It'd be like me sending him a Christmas card with Michael Moore on the front. Thing #2: a woman I'm related to by marriage (her niece is married to my uncle) and whom I see only at holiday functions pestered me for an opinion on politics at a family party. I declined because it wasn't really an appropriate venue, but she kept bugging me, so I finally shared my opinion in as tactful a manner as I was able. It was completely consistent with my previously stated political stance, but she was shocked, stunned even, by it. Why ask for my opinion if you are either afraid of or unwilling to hear it?I wasn't offended by either of these occurrences, I was just perplexed. Why must people insist on bringing politics into family celebrations? The fact that we are family doesn't mean that we must think alike or have the same opinions, as far as I know.

Christmas-themed romance novels

2005-12-29T15:08:00.000-05:00

Christmas books -- whatever happened to them? I used to love to read the regency novellas and other holiday themed books, but I saw relatively few of them this year. Those that I saw were either contemporaries or authors that I don't recognize. In fact, at least one that I saw was a compilation of previously published novellas. The only holiday book that tempted me wasn't new, nor was it even romance -- it was Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror. And since it was in hardback (currently subject to a moratorium, due to budget constraints), it stayed on the shelf.The only holiday themed books I read this year were Carla Kelly's Marian's Christmas Wish and MaryJanice Davidson's Undead & Unreturnable. U&U is really only nominally a Christmas book: although set in December, most of the book focuses on vampire goings on, and vampires don't celebrate Christmas. Marian's Christmas Wish is an excellent, excellent Christmas book; Carla Kelly does excellent holidays. Truly, her novellas were the best parts of the old regency holiday anthologies that I've read.

Stuff to watch and stuff to eat

2005-12-28T10:04:00.000-05:00

Since I'm not a religious person, my personal Christmas-Solstice-End of Year celebration is mostly about seeing my family and eating a lot. Which I have definitely done. On Christmas Day, we were all pretty much comatose due to food consumption. Ate brunch then opened presents. As soon as there was any space in our stomachs, we filled them again with turkey, hame, pineapple stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and vegetables. Then we watched football, and again after digesting dinner a bit, we ate pecan pie and Nana's Chocolate Cake, which should be a food group all by itself. On Monday, I ran errands, then took my sister and brother in law to drink wine and eat cheese. Yesterday, we were couch potatoes -see the second half of this post- and then went to Petit Louis for dinner. The initial reason for the dinner was for the Champagne menu, a holiday special, but ultimately none of us ordered that. A cosmopolitan at the bar was followed by excellent bread in the dining room, then by butternut squash soup with duck confit; then cassoulet with a glass of some kind of Cote du Nuit; then a hazelnut tart topped with a scoop of cinnamon icecream. Oh. My. God. Between the alcohol and the amazing food, we were all feeling like sated gluttons.Now, the couch potato portion of the day was a marathon of Firefly episodes. My sister and b-i-l hadn't ever watched the show and I only caught a few episodes before it was cancelled. I bought the DVDs after seeing the movie Serenity. I think maybe I've converted them to fans and they'll have to see the movie now. We watched the first disc in the morning, before they went for a run. We watched (meaning he watched while we fell asleep on the couch, soaked in fine french food and wine) the second disc after dinner.In between the Firefly watching and the french food eating, we saw Syriana. Through out the movie, I kept thinking that it really reminded me of Traffic. Then I watched the credits - d'oh! The screen play was written by the same writer (Stephen Gaghan) as Traffic, and the director (Steven Soderbergh) was the same. It was an excellent movie and I liked it, but I think maybe I need to see a mindless, fluffy movie the next time I go to the cinema, or at least something with a semi-happy ending, like Mrs. Henderson Presents. Munich and Good Night, and Good Luck are still on my "To See" List, but I need something a little less dark first.

Open Season by C.J. Box

2005-12-26T10:58:00.000-05:00

Open Season is the first Joe Pickett novel by C.J. Box, and it may have been his debut.

'When a highpowered bullet hits living flesh, it makes a distinctive - pow-WHOP - sound that is unmistakable even at a tremendous distance.' And so it begins for Joe Pickett a Wyoming game warden who, with the shot of a rifle, is thrust into a race to not only save an endangered species, but to unravel a mystery that threatens the life and the family he loves.

Joe Pickett is not a new game warden, but he's new to his job in Saddlestring, Wyoming, and he's still getting to know the people. The pow-WHOP he hears introduces him to Ote Keeley, a mule deer poacher. His initial confrontation fades to the background, when sometime later Ote is found dead in Joe's yard. Why was he in Joe's yard? What was he carrying with him? Who killed him? At the outset, it seems clear that there was some sort of rusting or hijacking or some sort felonious behavior going on among a bunch of Ote's cohorts at a camp up in the mountains, and that Ote's death was a result of it. As time goes on, though, inconsistencies with that theory appear to Joe. But no one else really cares or wants to explore further, because that would create more questions. When Joe keeps asking questions, his job is threatened and his family is harmed. Between a high mountain trip that uncovers a killing field and a death bed confession, Joe figures out what is going on and rescues his family and himself.Open Season was a good mystery. I guessed one of the bad guys fairly early on, because he was typecast and because the background laid for him worked with the nefarious deeds that were being committed. The backdrop laid for the mystery itself was good, though. It wasn't until very close to the end that I understood why Ote Keeley was in Joe's yard when he died. Box does not include a great deal of description of places or people in his narrative. The language is pretty spare when it comes to adjectives. But the images of behavior are excellent. For example, at one point, Joe is out in the rain, and he has a mental chuckle at the Wyoming bewilderment when presented with rain. Apparently the townpeople are not at all afraid of feet of snow or scorching heat, but no one really knows what to do in the rain, because it is so rare. They are all intimidated by it, so they stay in out of it and don't use umbrellas or rain gear. Is that an accurate description? I don't know, but it painted an image that has stuck with me.My only real quibble with Open Season is the over the top evil of the bad guys. Yes, they are bad guys, and they killed people and they threatened a child. But the inappropriate touching of Joe's daughter and the nasty thoughts one villain had later were just unnecessary and kind of inconsistent with what little we know about this character based on the rest of the narrative. The other bad guy was a caricature of the good guy gone bad, who turned to the dark side after years of good civil-servitude because of the lure of filthy lucre from Evil Corporate America. The uber-villification of the bad guys dropped this book from a B read to a B-.I'm looking forward to the next Joe Pickett book in this series.

Movie update

2005-12-24T10:50:00.000-05:00

Well, the movie marathon isn't happening today, but I did go see Brokeback Mountain yesterday afternoon. I'm gonna gush like most movie critics: Heath Ledger gave an amazing performance of Ennis Delmar, closed off emotionally, but unhappy and frustrated with his life. Jake Gyllenhall (sp?) was excellent as Jack Twist as well. The scenery was gorgeous -- I'm not a mountain or western person, preferring the ocean and rolling hills, but the scenery and cinematography made me want to go to Montana. It even made me want to camp -- and I haven't camped since a disastrous outing as a chaperon for a Girl Scouts trip to Hershey Park while a junior in college. This film was so clearly a love story, but without a happy ending. I was sad when I left the theater, because all I could think was that we do terrible things to ourselves and the people we love when we try to force ourselves to be what the world tells us is "normal."

Books Read

2005-12-23T08:38:00.000-05:00

I've read a bunch of books, but the reviews are getting backed up, mostly because I've been busy doing other things.Books read:The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren WilligOpen Season, C.J. Boxtwo relatively recent Robyn Donald HPsThe Cinderella Rules, Donna KaufmannHer Sexiest Mistake, Jill ShalvisI'm hoping to post at least one review tomorrow and one Monday.Happy holidays!

Movie marathon?

2005-12-23T07:59:00.000-05:00

The number of movies I've seen this year is down dramatically from last year and the year before. I think this is so for two reasons: Netflix and my frustration with most theaters. I've spent most of the year avoiding the movie theater. Between the ticket price, which keeps escalating, the cost of concessions, and the rudeness of movie theater audiences (cell phones, talking, parents who let their kids talk, throw food, kick the seats in front of them, etc.), it's not that much fun to go to the movies anymore. I intended to see Flightplan, Crash, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Corpse Bride, Must Love Dogs, and A History of Violence, but missed them at the theater, so I'm waiting for them to make it to the top of my Netflix queue. The movies I've seen at the theater this year are: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (A)Walk the Line (A)The Constant Gardener (A+)Serenity (B+)The Brothers Grimm (C+)Batman Begins (B)Still, there are a few movies playing that I want to see:Good Night and Good LuckSyrianaBrokeback MountainTransamericaI'm even willing to brave the theater for them! Unfortunately, the only one playing near my home is Syriana. All of the others are playing in theaters in more arty or urban neighborhoods, so I'll be driving to DC over the holiday to see them. I'm thinking that maybe I'll do a movie marathon on either the 24th or the 26th. If I get off work early today, maybe I'll hop the Metro over to Dupont Circle, where BbM is playing on multiple screens. :)

Cynical observation

2005-12-22T09:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I read an article in the Washington Post Express (page 9) about the opposition to the proposed extension of a wall along the Mexican-American border as a mechanism for immigration control. Understandably, Mexicans are extremely unhappy with the plan. The article quoted two people as saying that Mexico will not "permit" the wall and should "make them stop it." A longer article is in today's Post here. My initial gut reaction to the comments is that America is a sovereign nation, and that the government can erect any structure it so desires on federal land, assuming that there is no enrvironmental, fiscal or logistical bar to said building. By what authority will the Mexican government prevent this? As a practical matter, I understand the diplomatic and political pressure that Mexico can and will bring to bear in order to prevent the extension. But on a theoretical level, the statements bothered me. It’s like me criticizing Mexican immigration and economic policy: I can complain and the federal government may use economic and diplomatic incentives to influence Mexican legislation and economic measures, but ultimately Mexico is a sovereign nation and will pursue whatever internal policies are most expedient and beneficial to itself. While I agree with the article that the Mexican displeasure over the proposal cannot be underestimated, I think Mexico is underestimating the average American's displeasure and current discontent. Displeasure at the lack of safety that four years of spending and security measures have not improved; displeasure at the seeming illegal-immigration-at-will that occurs over the America-Mexico border; displeasure because the economy has not been doing well; general displeasure and discontent with the performance of the current administration in many, many arenas. The weak border is an easy focus point; building a wall is a visible security measure that will make Americans feel better and safer. Politicians cannot fix the economy without fixing American fiscal policies, which they seem unwilling and unable to do, so they will give us something else to distract our attention and make us feel better.Obviously, I'm feeling pretty cynical about security and other government stuff right now. And I wonder, are the men quoted in the article practical for thinking that they can stop the wall? Naïve for thinking it will be easily done and for discounting the American electorate? I don't know. I guess I'll just have to see what happens when the proposal hits the Senate.

Green & Black's Mayan Dark Gold

2005-12-22T08:04:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, I hunted high and low for a bar of this chocolate, 70% dark chocolate with oranges and spice mixed in. Ended up contacting the American importer & distributor to learn who in my area might stock it. Went to the local Whole Foods and put in a request that they carry it. And now it's available at Target. The jump from being sold only by Whole Foods to being available in Target is huge in terms of distribution and exposure. I would be curious to see how the relationship arose between the two companies.And I kind of think that it's a little weird on one hand but completely in line with Target's branding on the other. A little weird because a $4 chocolate bar seems a little spendy, and not really consistent with the price range of the other snacks and candy available in the food/snack section of Target. [Keep in mind that a lot of gift candies are available right now at Target with varying prices, but this is literally just a plain chocolate bar, larger than a Hershey bar but smaller than the large Cadbury bar.] On the other hand, Target's marketing and branding has been as a step up from the Other Big Box Store, with better quality stuff. This chocolate really is some of the better quality stuff, too. I won't be really perplexed unless/until Target starts carrying Vosges chocolates.

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

2005-12-21T10:21:00.000-05:00

Charlaine Harris is the author of several series: the Lily Bard mysteries set in Shakespeare, Arkansas; the Aurora Teagarden mysteries set in Lawrenceville, Georgia; and the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire series, set in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Grave Sight is the first book in a new series; it seems that the series will be without a fixed location, although probably peopled by southerners for the most part. I hope that the appearance of a new series doesn't mean that an older series will be discontinued (the way the Lily Bard series was ended, without a satisfying conclusion).In this book, Harper Connelly sees dead people. Not like the kid in The Sixth Sense because they don't seek her out, but if she is close to the body, she can see their last minutes and tell how they died. The newer the body, the more she can tell. The ability is not as helpful as one might think, because it doesn't help her find missing people, nor does it tell her who the decedent's killer (if any) may be. And although people hire her for her ability, they often blame her for the information that she shares, shooting the messenger so to speak. Harper's stepbrother, Tolliver, is her companion, her manager and her body guard. In Grave Sight, Harper and Tolliver have been summoned to Sarne, Arkansas, to help figure out what happened to a disappeared teen. When Harper and Tolliver find the body, one mystery is solved, but others are created.Grave Sight was a very good start to this new series; I would give it a solid B. The main characters are very well drawn. Harper and Tolliver are clearly walking wounded. They live a peripatetic life that doesn't satisfy them in many ways, but they feel that they are too scarred and warped to try to settle down to a normal life. Their relationship is out of the ordinary, as a result of their terrible youths, the losses they suffered with the deaths of their parents, the disappearance of one sibling, and their isolation from their other siblings and family members. However unhealthy their relationship is, all they have is each other, really, and their common past. [How unhealthy? Well, some of the reviewers online indicate a sexual tension between the two that they ignore while engaging in sexual relationships with others. I didn't see it, but maybe I'm just dense. I'm not the most subtle of people.] Some of the secondary characters are a little less well-drawn, but I can forgive that since the most important ones are well done.Charlaine Harris is the queen of Southern small towns and their inhabitants. I don't know if it is her own background that makes her voice so clear, or if she's just that good a writer. She did a good job sketching in the characters that inhabit small towns, and the relationships and tensions that arise that outsiders can never truly understand.The who-dun-it portion of the plot is a bit elementary, almost with arrows pointing to the bad guy(s). While I love Harris' voice, I'm a little less enchanted by her style of writing, which seemed a little choppy in places. Also, I noticed the same language/writing habit that I have seen in Nora Roberts' JD Robb books: the dropping of words (like "if") so that the written words match spoken phrases. It bothers me to hear words dropped in spoken language; to see it in print bothers me even more. I know, language is a living thing and the dropping of words and changing of grammar is proof of life...but it still bothers me!All in all, I don't think Harper Connelly will become my favorite Harris heroine, but I'll be certain to read her next book.

Life on Laidback Mountain (aka my entry in the SB Spam-Cover contest)

2005-12-20T08:48:00.000-05:00

Lincoln MacHoman, owner and wilderness tour leader of the Lodge at Bare Crack Woods on Laidback Mountain, BFE, was a loner, a man of much money but few words. A lifetime ago, Linc had been a real estate mogul; during the real estate bust, he'd been burned by a gold-digging woman who'd lost interest in him when his net worth plummeted. He'd regained his fortune, but not his trust in women. Especially the kind of women who trailed out to the Lodge to looking for a cushy ride, now that he was solvent again. He took what they gave so “freely” and gave nothing in return.Blaze Nieves was a emotionally scarred woman who felt as ugly as her past. Born to the town pump, the women in town reviled her and the men assumed she was as easy as her mother. She'd spent years trying to avoid being noticed, a hard task since she had inherited her mother's lush beauty. All she wanted was to live in peace and quiet. After her mother's scandalous death, her life in her mother's shadow had finally ended. On her way to a new life on the coast, she broke down on Laidback Mountain. When their eyes met that night, over the hood of Blaze's dusty '95 Hyundai, their lives changed forever. Their passion was hot enough to melt the snow off of Laidback Mountain. But can the lusty mountaineer and the shy spinster find happiness together? Only the mountain knows.

Other books

2005-12-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

Finished The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and am contemplating my review. Liked it. Reminded me of Byatt's Possession in a very superficial way. Still thinking about The Typhoon Lover by Sujata Massey. I'm dissatisfied with the personal part of the book, in terms of Rei Shimura's life, rather than the mystery portion. I'm not sure what to write about that, though -- will I keep reading the series? Don't have to worry about that for awhile, since this book was just published. Beyond that, the author had a character who lived in Washington DC talk about taking the Metro to Dulles. But the Metro doesn't go to Dulles. Metrobus has a line going to Dulles from downtown, but no rail line. The author may have been using the word "Metro" to encompass all public transportation in DC, but no one here does that. When you say Metro, you mean the train/rail; if you are riding a Metrobus, you would say that you are riding the bus. That kind of inconsistency with local habits irritates me.

HEA? Really?

2005-12-19T13:05:00.000-05:00

Do you ever read books that have a purported happily ever after and just wonder? When I first started reading romance novels (at the tender age of 12, in secret, from my grandmom's stash of florid historicals), I never questioned the HEA. In fact, I questioned very little of what went on the books. Amazing orgasms for first time sex? Okay (seriously, what does a 12 year old know? Maybe more today, but no so much twenty years ago). Hero behavior that was abusive? Okay, but he loved her, so it was alright. Epilogue that says that they got married, had children and lived happily ever after? Of course, because that was the natural order of things.As got older, obviously I learned to question the stuff I was reading. No means no, even if the hero is sure the heroine means yes. First time sex is not necessarily orgasmic, and you may need a little more attention from The One or Mr. Right Now than the two seconds of foreplay that most novels offered for everyone to get their freak on. And the HEA epilogue doesn't thrill me so much. Marriage and 2.3 kids aren't necessarily a happy ending, not for me and not for many of the characters I read about. But beyond the whole idea of an HEA, sometimes I reach the end of a book and think, "Yeah, that'll never last." Sometimes my doubt is because either the hero or the heroine has given up something so huge that I think eventually they'll regret it. Like the professional woman who gives up the six figure salary to become a housekeeper/wife on a ranch. Not to denigrate housekeepers or wives, but is that really a transition that most women can happily make? I'm not sure, but I know that I couldn't. [Not that I have a six figure salary to give up, that is! *laughing hysterically at the though*] Another reason that I'm skeptical is because the character who "grew" and "changed" seemed only to do so on the surface; their transformation wasn't convincing, and I expect that six months down the road, the behavior that created the original conflict will resurface. For example, in Carmen Green's Kissed, in the very last chapter, the hero finally did what the heroine wanted, after spending the entire book being a self-centered a**hole. His abrupt conversion to sensitivity and sharing and sacrifice for his wife was NOT convincing.A third reason is plain old character incompatibility. Yes, while chemistry is bubbling and hormones are roiling, they are attracted to one another. But when they are stressed at work or having family problems or money problems and are not living in such a haze of lust, will they really have anything in common? Gone Too Far's Sam and Alyssa are prime examples of this. I liked them as secondary characters in Brockmann's early books in the Troubleshooter Series, but was not impressed with their HEA. They spent most of their book arguing with each other, chasing bad guys and having sex. All stuff that gets the adrenaline pumping, but I didn't get the feeling that they'd be all that happy together once the adrenaline rush wore off.I think that the disbelief in the HEA is a function of characterization. If the author has done a good job of building the characters, and building their relationship, then I can believe the HEA. But if the author used sex and chemistry as a short hand for the relationship, I have a harder time believing. I don't think you have to skimp on sex and/or chemistry in order to create a believable HEA, but an author cannot rely on it exclusively to establish that the hero and heroine belong together. Books that I absolutely believe in the HEA, because of the way the characters were written and the plot handled: Bad for Each Other by Kate Hathaway; When Venus Fell by Deborah Smith; Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie.Books that I'm not sure about: the Undead series by MaryJanice Davidson, because the series is ongoing and she's still building the relationship between Betsey and Eric. What does it take for you to believe in the HEA?

My lastest addiction

2005-12-17T12:36:00.000-05:00

Everyone in my office raves about the tv show Lost. There's no water cooler, per se, but whenever people gather together on Thursday morning, Lost is always the topic of conversation. I didn't watch the first season, because it was on at the same time as West Wing. I know, the writing has declined dramatically since the exit of Aaron Sorkin, but I really like CJ and Will, so I have hung around to see what happens next. With the move to Sunday night, WW's star is clearly on the wane...and now I can try to watch Lost on Wednesdays. When I watched the first episode this season, it was clear that this was not a show that I could just jump right into -- too much back story. So I put Lost in my Netflix queue. The first disc arrived on Wednesday. No one warned me that the show would be more addictive than Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies or Reese's Peanut Butter cups! I'm hooked! Like the aforesaid junkfood, I want to gulp down all the episodes of Lost, regardless of information overload. Love the broken timeline and the variety of characters. Usually I mix and mingle the discs of TV series in my Netflix queue, but I had to reorder the queue so I could watch all of these in order and have multiple discs on hand while doing so. I'm imagining a Lost marathon over my Christmas holiday. Christmas shopping update: I am finished! Done! *happy dance* The only thing I have to do is go to the post office for three books of stamps and to mail a package, then all of my holiday preparations will be complete. Another happy thing: my mom loves Gabriel Garcia Marquez's writing. I got her hooked on him and several other Latin American writers when I was in college (I started book pimping at an early age, what can I say?). She really, really wants to read the second installment of his memoirs...which hasn't been published yet, or even written yet, as far as I know. But I discovered that his most recent book, Memoria de mis putas tristes, has been translated into English and is available at my local bookstore. Woo hoo!Shopping gripe: I could not find a Slinky anywhere! I was looking for a Slinky or other Rubic's Cube-y kind of toy for my brother's stocking. Apparently you had to look for that kind of thing earlier in the shopping season. Beth (host of SBD) has posted a website that I really didn't need to know about: www.IdealCheese.com. I could spend way too much money there. Must resist the urge to check it again.

SB Spam and Cover Copy contest

2005-12-16T12:18:00.000-05:00

A pox upon SB Sarah, I say! Yesterday afternoon, SB Sarah posted a new contest: select one of the random spam titles on a list, then write a back cover blurb based on the words in the title. One of the titles jumped out at me, and I've had this melodramatic announcer voice in my head reading me a cover blurb ever since. So I have to write it out now, in the hope that once it is written down, I'll stop hearing the announcer-voice. Damn you, SB Sarah! Making me hear voices in my head!After I've gotten it written out, I'll post it here :)