The Nursery Crimes Division of the Reading Police Department has uncovered a horrible tragedy - Humpty Dumpty has been murdered! Found behind his wall, shattered into a million pieces, the situation seems simple enough - someone pushed him off and he died. But nothing is ever as simple as that when it comes to Nursery Crimes. It's up to Jack Spratt and Mary Mary to uncover the intricate plot behind the murder.
But Jack Spratt has enemies, and the Nursery Crimes Division is about be disbanded. Can Jack and Mary find the murderer and save the department?
Of course they can, but how they do it is infinitely complex and surreal when half of the mystery revolves around improbalble nursery rhyme characters and a crime publication that has enough power to make the police bend over backwards.
Jasper Fforde has written this book for the avid mystery enthusiast. Making fun of its own genre in the Big Over Easy, Fforde does for detective novels what he did for literature in the Eyre Affaire. If you are a fan of who-done-its, and you have a sense of humor, you'll love this book.
The kids in our neighborhood went back to school today. We watched them march off with their backpacks, parents skipping home alone.
We celebrated the first day of school by going to Disneyland.
We went on four rides, one of which was the new Pirates of the Carribbean. There were a few things I noticed this time around, that I had missed the first. I was surprised when we went through the battle scene (ship on one side, fort on the other), when a powerful gush of air hit me in the head, apparently a cannonball that barely missed us. Nice touch. They also had large spalshes where the cannonballs were landing. Got us pretty wet.
When we came out of the ride, Jack Sparrow was standing right there! Uh, I think I have thing for Jack. My heart hopped in my chest and I had momentary memory loss on how to breathe. Thank goodness the kids were with me to keep me from running over to him and asking for his autograph when I had no paper on me. Heheh.
I was going through, deleting junk comments and junk trackbacks, and I accidentally deleted the last 20 approved comments on my blog. I don't think I can get them back. I'm bummed. I miss them.
I've decided I want to buy and install a bionic leg.
That way, when I drop things on my feet, smash my knee into things or want to run for very long distances, I can do so without pain or consequences.
I wonder how much they cost and where I can get one. Actually, maybe I'll get a pair. Just in case my left leg introduces my right leg to Murphy and they become friends too.
Who was it that told me that once you hurt something, you're bound to hurt it again and again? Laura? You so jinxed me.
I guess the planets are still aligned - body ailments continue to reign in the house of T.
First, it was toe-smashing (me), then a bug in the ear (me), followed by bronchitis (hubby), which then led into a smashed knee right at that spot I try to avoid (me).
So what could top all of that you ask? How about a shoe in the nose? Yes, indeed, it's possible. And it was our youngest who made it happen. She managed to shove a small polly pocket shoe up into her nose so far that I could barely see it.
Fortunately, there were no incidents of hysteria, or even mild panic. Megan took it in stride, and although she tried to dig it out with her finger, she wasn't distressed about the foreign object. She was plenty satisfied with knowing that I was going to take her to do the doctor to get it out.
I was ready to take her to the ER after the doc told me over the phone that there really wasn't anything she could do, even if I waited until tomorrow to take her in. But when Yoshi got home, he was sure that he could get it out.
The problem was finding an appropriate device for extracting the shoe which had lodged itself sideways in her nasal cavity. With his Maverick style capabilities, Yoshi rigged up a plastic paper clip. Using careful manipulation and a lot of force to keep Megan from moving, Yoshi pulled out the goo-covered shoe. It was purple. The shoe, not the goo.
Once the shoe was out, Megan bounded off to play somewhere else, without looking back. Yoshi, Allison, Cameron and I stared at the tiny shoe sitting in Yoshi's hand and we all knew - that used to be jammed up Meg's nose. Meg, she had already forgotten.
When I was five, I was playing in the yard when an ant crawled into my ear. I remember freaking out because it sounded like it was crawling on my ear drum, and there seemed no way to get it out. Luckily, at the time, our neighbor was a family physician, and he got the ant out with some water.
This morning, I had a flashback to that time when I was five. A bug crawled in my ear. Not only that, it happened at six in the morning, while I was asleep, and it woke me up. At first, it felt like my ear was itchy, so I stuck my finger as far in as it would go and wiggled. Then, the noise started. It sounded like crinkling paper inside my head. It wouldn't stop. There was definitely something in there, and it was moving. In my half-asleep state of awareness, it was all too easy to imagine the little...something..crawling around in my ear.
I jumped out of bed, nearly stumbled over a sleeping Megan on the floor trying to maneuver in the black, and made my way to the sink. I filled my ear with water until the noise stopped. Then, I put more water in just to make sure the thing that was in my ear was either gone, or at least drowned.
I'm still freaked out about it. My ear hurts, and I don't know if I'm making it hurt by being freaked out. Or if maybe the dead bug is still in there, infecting my ear. Or maybe it was a spider and it spun a web around my ear drum (God knows how hard webs are to get off of things). If the pain doesn't go away by the time we get home, I'm going into the doctor and have him look in there, just for peace of mind.
In the movie Wrath of Khan, there's a scene where two of the Star Trek crew are implanted with slugs in their ears to control their minds. I remember seeing that scene as a kid - after the ant incident - and being forever scarred. Will I ever outgrow the fear of things crawling in my ears? NOT if things keep crawling into my ears!
Allison has her first loose tooth. She reports her tooth's progress every hour or so, reassuring us that her tooth still wiggles.
We asked Cam what the tooth fairy gave hom for his first tooth, because Yoshi and I couldn't remember. Cameron remembered distinctly. He told us it was an electric toothbrush. We had to make sure we give the same thing to Allison, or else, you know we'd hear about the inequality.
Allison's baby teeth are so cute, it's hard to imagine her with big teeth. She's still my little one, even though she insists on being a "medium girl". It was exciting to see her tooth wiggle, but a bittersweet sign that she's getting older.
A few people have asked me what my last post was about. What am I thinking about giving up?
Well, it's not video games, because that's something that if it were time to give up, I wouldn't waffle much. When it's time to be done with a game, I just stop playing. So don't worry EQ friends! I'm not leaving just yet. Maybe playing less while I do other projects, and while Yoshi is obsessed with his new electric bass guitar. I'm still earning the big bucks and working on research, and will be around for a while longer.
For those of you who aren't playing EQ with me, and who I haven't yet lost on this post, I'm thinking of giving up Step. I've been teaching Step for over ten years. And I think I might be done.
But the problem is that it's not as easy. I can't just walk away. It's a complex situation, and I have to know for SURE that I'm really, truly done before I call my coordinator to tell her my decision. Because when I say goodbye this time, it will be final.
Thanks for the input everyone. I appreciate the help in trying to decide the best thing to do.
When you're involved in something, like a program, or a volunteer job or a class, how do you know when it's time to end it and move on? I'm struggling with something I've been doing for over ten years, and I'm just burned out. I've taken several breaks, and each time I come back enthused for about a week, then it becomes a chore again. But there are so many elements involved than just what I feel like doing. What are the most important factors of deciding to leave something you've been involved in for that long?
Today, the kids are at MyGym camp. All. 3. of. them.
I'm spending my time at the library, getting some work done, getting some playing done. It's a nice break. I wouldn't want to have it every day. But it's nice to have once in a while. I'm already looking forward to picking up the kids in a half hour and spending the rest of the day with them.
I hope the transition to indpendence is slow for them. I like being around them so much, it will be hard when they are spending more and more time on their own. Thank goodness, I still have at least a couple more years before they start to peel away. Wait, they are already starting to peel away. Darn, it's started, and I wasn't even paying attention.
I imagine it will be a lot like how I felt after spending three days with Yoshi. I enjoy his company so much, it was hard to see him head to work the next day. And when he goes away on a trip, that's always hard. But, I got used to it, of course. As humans, that's what we do - get used to change.
I bought another bag of clicky pencils today. It's a shopping list item, along with milk and cheese. Because, I have found, that no matter how often I fill my desk with pencils, we're always down to that last one. Where do all my pencils go? I don't see the kids write that often. What are they using them for? Is there anything in your house that disappears like this?
I went to two yoga classes this week. One was restorative, the other was a gentle Anusara class. Including the classes I teach, that will make 4 yoga classes in one week. I think, if I mixed things up, I could easily take a yoga class everyday. I love the yoga classes at the studio. The teachers know their stuff and are SO thorough. They recognize immediately that I need a challenge.
Today, in the gentle class, the teacher came around for each move and put me in a more intense version of the pose. Even when I start a yoga class with the intention of relaxing and keeping things light, I can't help but give off that "kick my ass" vibe. And, truly, I do love it. When my arms ache and my legs shake, I'm in heaven.
For me, yoga just feels "right". It makes sense to me. It didn't always. But then, before, when I was an aerobic maniac, I don't think I was ready to hear what the yoga instructors had to teach. Now, I'm all ears.
I've been in a such a rotten mood. I don't even want to talk about it.
What do you do when you're in a rotten mood and you can't shake it?
Hubby is SUCH a good cook. Going to bed with a happily full belly tonight.
This is the last time I'm going to post about my toe - I promise.
One of the commentors on an earlier toe post said she stubbed the same one as I did, just a few days after me. Then yesterday, my mom was casually talking, and told me how she had stubbed the pinky toe on her left foot on Monday, which was two days after I hurt mine. She showed her toe to me, and it was black and blue, about the same shade as mine. She had no idea I smashed my toe (she doesn't read my blog, can you believe it?) and was shocked at the uncanny coincidence. I was shocked too. Perhaps, toe injury is contageous.
Don't stub your toe after reading this.
In the past four days, I've received over 100 junk trackbacks. Spammers have phones, snail mail, email, comments and trackbacks to innundate me with useless links to porn and scams. Thank goodness for spam filters (preferably ones that I control, not my ISP) and blog moderation capabilities.
Whenever I see these thing go through, I wonder, does anyone EVER click on the links? And, is it really worth it for spammers to spend all that time sending their bots around looking for blogs to add comment or trackback spam to?
It's been hot. And when it's hot, the ants come a-marchin'. We woke up Monday morning to a thick trail of black ants emerging from our bedroom window, down into a corner, disappearing underneath some bags. After moving everything aside, we discovered the ants' destination: a box of sealed Godiva chocolate that I had intended to give my friend for Christmas.
The odd thing wasn't that the ants were diving for the chocolate, but that it was still sealed, so there were no black ants on the inside of the box. Instead, when we opened it up, the underside of the plastic wrap was covered in red dust. Then, we noticed a tiny red carpenter ant scurry from one side of the other under the plastic. We realized then, that the box was full of carpenter ants.
But, there was no trail of carpenter ants, just black ants, right to the box. The only thing we could figure out was that the black ants were eating the carpenter ants that made it out of the box, probably through a very tiny hole in the plastic. And the carpenter ants were living off of the chocolate. We had a whole ant ecosystem living in our bedroom.
We disposed of that, and the rest of the day, we saw ants out of the corner of our eye everywhere we looked.
This morning, we headed next door to walk our neighbor's dog, and lo and behold, the ants had decided to move in next door, since our house wasn't all that hospitable. This time, they made a bee-line to the dog food dish from the front door. Just black ants this time. This trail was a lot wider and more chaotic than the one in our room, so it was a lot harder to clean up. I had ants crawling all over me. After I was done, I felt like I had ants crawling on me for hours.
I'm done with ants. Ants - begone!
Cameron asked me today, "What is God?"
This is almost as hard, if not harder, than the "Where do babies come from?" question.
We talked a bit about it. I gave him a couple of perspectives, and told him that it really was up to him to decide what God meant, and that it means different things to different people.
Then he asked, "Was Noah's Ark real?"
Again, tough question. Again, I told him, "You're gonna have to come up with your own answer for that too. Some people think yes, some think no, and some think the story is partially true."
He replied, "I think it's true." I said, "OK."
As much as these conversations can be challenging, I'm so glad they ask tough questions. Cameron didn't realize this was a tough question. He asked it like he'd ask, "What's the president do?" But as time goes on, it'll be by these kinds of conversations where they'll learn that there's no innate right or wrong. We all have to figure it out for ourselves.
