Have you ever been at an art museum down a dark spooky hall right off of the super scary Native American head and face mask exhibit waiting for your boyfriend who’s in the bathroom and leaning just slightly against the wall because you wore two inch heels that are starting to make your back hurt when you hear footsteps tap tap tapping toward you and you suddenly think that you must have somehow slipped into an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and there’s some sort of Pacific Northwest version of the Inca Mummy Girl coming to get you? Only to discover that the tap tap tapping is just some random guy instead of a supernatural force of evil and that you are surprisingly a bit disappointed? Not that you wanted to get eaten or anything, but you’d been starting to think that an encounter with a force of evil might be a nice distraction from the aching back?
If so, I had the exact same experience on Saturday! Yes. At the Portland Museum of Art. Besides the disappointing lack of evil forces etc. it was quite a nice museum — a good variety of art, lots of stairs to get a good work out on. I was least fond of the scary television art that made me feel like television was a force of evil sucking daylight right out of the sky and most fond of Paulette and the Cat, the painting of a lady on a nice big fainting couch under this fabulous fluffy eiderdown quilt with a cat at her feet (I think the stairs + two inch heels had really gotten to me by then).
In other news, the Newbery was announced today! I’m so in love with the winner. The Gravey
ard Book by Neil Gaiman is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It’s so well written — I wrote on Tarts’ Wardrobe that reading it is like rolling on crushed velvet. It’s a lovely lovely book.
I’ve read a couple of the Newbery Honor books and they are both on my top list. I just read After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson yesterday and it’s beautiful and emotional and one of those trying-to-find-yourself stories that really works. I’ve mentioned The Underneath here before — it’s lush and sprawling and draws you right into the world of the bayou. You really care about those kitties and the evil that is around them. And hound. I love that dog. I’m on the list at the library for the other two Honor books.
I hadn’t read many of the Printz books (I don’t know how this happened, I try to read them all!), though I was happy to see E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks on the list.
And now I need to be tagged. If this was really a game of tag I would be like the worst taggee in the world as I think it’s been over a week and the game would have come to a grinding halt and I would be shunned from all sports forever (as I probably should be).
I was tagged by Lisa Nowak of The Tao of Webfoot.
The rules are: link to the person who tagged you; write down six things that make you happy; post the rules; tag six others and let them know you have done it; tell the person who tagged you when your entry is up.
Six Things That Make Me Happy (in no particular order):
1) Brand new books by my favorite authors. Meg Cabot is great for this since she has several every year where
as with most authors I have to wait for that one special book they put out that year. Right now I’m really excited about City of Glass by Cassandra Clare coming out this spring. Over the weekend I read Chalice by Robin McKinley — she has such a distinct style, much slower paced than I’m used to, but I always end up enjoying them so it’s exciting to pick up one of her new books. This one has a lot of bees and honey in it and it has that kind of lazy summer day bumble bee feel even when it isn’t summer in the book.
2) Baking — Made some totally crazy Pirate Bread Pudding yesterday. It had coconut, pineapple, and rum (ergo the pirate name). Smelled so delicious while cooking. It’s a little odd texture-wise as I’ve never had anything quite like it, but it’s growing on me. I love trying new recipes and they always smell good even if they turn out a little odd.
3) Fireplace — I think this is just as good as the wood stove at our house in Madison. It’s definitely bigger if not as fuel efficient. I had the best nap/doze in front of the fire last night while Barrett made dinner (I made breakfast AND lunch today so I am not 100% the bum, just like 70% or so).
4) My cats — They don’t even need to be awake and they make me happy. In fact, I like to live vicariously through them and their frequent naps.
5) Cheese — My current favorites are that Irish cheddar that comes in a black wrapper with Blue Diamond almond crackers, Trader Joe’s double cream brie (I usually like the Belletoile triple cream but this one is pretty good and much cheaper) with Trader Joe’s multi-grain table water crackers, and the little herb log goat cheese but I’m having a difficult time finding a good cracker that doesn’t split on me with this kind.
6) Sunshine — Yes, I do follow patches of sunshine around the house just like the cats do. It’s so NICE in the sun.
I chose things that have made me happy in the past few days and I’ve realized that I might be turning into a hobbit.
So now I need to choose six people (yikes! that’s a lot of people) who have not been tagged before. Okay, I’m going through my blog reader and I’m going to try and make sure that at least some are newer bloggers because I’m sure they most likely probably maybe haven’t been tagged before and hopefully the others haven’t been either!
Have a great week!
Bridget
Wow, that bread pudding sounds yummy.
I love cheese, too. They were doing a tasting at Haggen’s in Oregon City before Thanksgiving and I fell in love with every kind I sampled. I can’t remember the name of my favorite, now. It was English and had bits of onion and chive in it. The other day they had samples at Fred Meyer. I think it might be the black label one you mention. Yummy, but a little wedge was almost $8!
I know what you mean about cats making you happy even when they’re sleeping. Which reminds me, I need my kitty fix. See you later!