possum

I may currently be a fan of rock, but I was raised on country music. Until I was 13, the only music I listened to was what my parents had on the radio and it was always country: playing in the living room while they made a big breakfast on the weekends, in the car on the way to the store, in the garage with the door open on summer days. Country music was the soundtrack of my childhood and I still listen to it when I'm feeling nostalgic or need comforting.

On the way home from work today I couldn't figure out why the classic country station I listen to was playing only gospel songs. When I got home I found out that George Jones had died.

I had the pleasure of seeing him play 7 years ago when I was living in Waco. Even though he was in is late 70's then, the man still had it. His voice was clear and strong.

blooms

I can't get over how alive everything is in my yard right now.

Everywhere I look there are emerging buds and new tiny green leaves.

"But, Amy" you may say "It's spring. That's supposed to happen."

I know. But it still seems special.

It's nice to see the things that I planted last year not just surviving, but thriving.

Maybe this summer when everything is browning and shriveling under the Texas sun, I can look at these pictures and and reminisce about happy, green, and mild spring days.

And check out this nicely camouflaged fellow. I've been watching episodes of a nature documentary called Life in the Undergrowth the past few days. It's pretty interesting but it may only be making me more terrified on insects. However, there is now some fascination and respect mixed in with the terror.

Adventure Time tokens

I saw some Magic the Gathering/Adventure Time mash-up art while I was looking around the internet for some more birthday ideas for Perry. That got me thinking how it would be cool to make some Magic tokens using Adventure Time characters.

Apparently, so did this guy. His designs look way better than anything I could have come up with. There's even some flavor text in there. His website said to feel free to download and use the images (thank you, sir) so here is my attempt at making a few:

The hard part was already done for me, so all I had to do was copy/paste/size them in OpenOffice and print them off on photo paper. We've only seen the first season of Adventure Time (it's all Netflix has available), so I only printed off the tokens that I recognized. I used spray adhesive to attach the picture to card stock so there wouldn't be any weird bumps or bubbles. I like the card stock I found since it's got a little bit of texture to it, so it seems less like I glued a picture to construction paper, and more like an actual card. See:

Out of all things Perry received for his birthday, he really did seem the most enamored with these.

senior citizen

The shelter we adopted Reggie from said that he'd been there over six months. The first thing he did when we brought him home was locate the nearest couch and hop on.

 

He hasn't moved much since.  Before we adopted a dog, Perry and I never discussed if we'd allow pets on the furniture and with Reggie it was never a question. The couch was where he belonged. Nothing less would do for him.

I shouldn't say that his life is completely sedentary. Just mostly. He does enjoy his walks. He does the dog equivalent of primping: he perks up his tail and ears and takes high dainty steps.

Adopting a dog has worked out well for Perry and I. I feel like we hit the doggie jackpot with Reggie, but I'm still not going to proclaim "HEY GUYZ! ADOPT A DOG TODAY!!" I don't think dogs work for every one's situation. Actually, if Perry wasn't living with me, I don't think a dog would have worked out for me, despite the whole owning a house thing. My work schedule is just too weird, and dogs are such social animals that they need to be around people a majority of the time.

What I would like to proclaim is "Hey guys, think about adopting an older dog." Reggie is seven years old. He didn't break out of doggie prison to dig up the garden, tear apart cushions, and poop on shoes. That's puppy/adolescent stuff. He just wants to sleep on the couch, get some tummy rubs, and sunbathe in the yard.

...like clockwork

Yesterday was a let down kind of day. Perry had his first teaching job interview last week and found out he didn't get the position. My brother asked out a girl last week (for the first time in almost three years) and found out she had just gotten back together with her ex. In both cases, they got a very crappy consolation prize: Perry was told he came in second out of over thirty candidates (like he gets a ribbon or something) and my brother was told by the girl that even though she does have a boyfriend, she still likes him and wants to get to know him "better." I guess it's kind of like coming in second place. As a concerned citizen I did tell my brother to run away as fast as he can from this situation.

In completely unrelated but positive news, I found out that a new and terribly overdue Queens of the Stone Age album is going to be released this summer. !!!!

birthday bonanza

Well, it's April, which means my family's spring birthday marathon will be kicking off soon. All three of my sisters, my niece, and my boyfriend have a birthday in late April/early May. And Mother's day is thrown in there somewhere too. It's like a mini Christmas since I have to break up my shopping a bit to make sure I have it all done in time.

Perry's birthday is first up, so I've already started pressuring him for ideas, but I really should know better by now. After him giving me the usual "I'll think about it." for five days, I went ahead and did what I normally do for Perry gifts: I browsed the internet until I found something related to his current entertainment obsessions.

Perry has been playing Magic the Gathering for over two years now and we'll host some Magic playing parties at the house on occasion. I will play a few games just with Perry, but I'm not very good at it, and I don't play enough for me to consider it a hobby. However, I do really admire the amount of detail that goes into creating the stories for each cycle and I've even read a few of the books based on them. The art on the cards is also pretty amazing, so when I found out you can buy signed art prints, I figured it was something Perry would be interested in. Basandra the battle seraph will be hanging on the walls of our game room sometime soon.

And Perry loves bright shirts and the Coen brothers, so there's this too.

So, even if I don't get any ideas from Perry (which I won't) I feel like I'm covered so I can move on to the next Taurus on my shopping list.

Mother's day is already a done deal too. My mom asked me a few months ago if wanted to see the musical Wicked with her when it comes to town. I don't have a great love for musicals so I was waffling and wavering and hoping she would forget about it. But she kept asking me until I realized this is something she was really looking forward to and hey, there's a showing in May right around Mother's day so why not. Actually, I know why not, but if I feel pretty confident that if can sit through Les Miserables, I can make it through anything.

Am I doing book reviews now?

I liked the movie Gone With the Wind and I've heard that the book it is based upon is one of the great American novels, so I put it on my "to read" list a while ago. I finally got around to reading it last month.

I like that the author made the heroine unlikeable. In fact, I believe if Ms. O'Hara had a thorough psychoanalysis she would be diagnosed as a sociopath. I think it takes a lot of skill as an author to create a character that readers may not particularity identify with or like, yet they still care about what happens to said character. I also liked that since this book spans several cities and decades, there is a growing cast of characters over time. Some characters fell off permanently during the course of the book, some made a reappearance when you had all but forgotten about them and new ones were popping up all the time. It bothers me immensely when a book is supposed to happen over many years, but you basically end the book with the same cast that you started with, plus or minus one or two major characters. To me it always seemed unrealistic and lazy on the part of the author. Ms. Mitchell is not afraid to let her cast of characters wax and wane and they all feel fully realized, with distinct personalities and motivations.

Now let me tell you what I didn't like about this book: it is racist. Undeniably racist. And I don't mean that there is racism in the book or there are racist slurs. Of course there is/are.  This books takes place in the south during the Civil War. How could be this book be anywhere near historically accurate if there wasn't any?  However, I think there's a big difference between a book with racism in it and a racist book. For a book to be racist I believe the author must be racist and from Ms. Mitchell's glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, to her comparisons of slaves to children and animals, I very much believe her to be racist. The narration itself was racist, not just the characters. This lead me to wonder how in the world this book ended up on so many "best American novels" lists. There is a strong love storyline and a lot of action in this book, so maybe people choose to just sweep the racism under the rug and remember it as a love story full of drama.

I actually re-watched the movie after I read the book because I didn't remember it being so bad, but it turns out a lot of the strongest racist plot-lines are left out or altered in the movie.

Oh, and I forgot to mention there is also a drunken scene with threatened domestic violence that looks like it's going to end up in marital rape, but the girl relaxes and ends up really enjoying it. What? Why, yes, this book was written by a woman.

I wouldn't say this was a bad book per se. It was well written. But if you want a romance with some drama, I'm sure you can find it elsewhere without all of the poor pitiful white southerners propaganda.

The End.