All About Pompey

Shortly after Andrew and I got married, we decided our life was missing something: the pitter patter of little feet, or more accurately, the pitter patter of four furry little paws. It was time to get a cat.

To prepare for our new arrival, we bought Cats for Dummies, a book that, for all that it has a silly title, is filled with valuable information. Together, we read the book from cover to cover, soaking up advice on how to find the perfect cat, and then how to care for that perfect cat. We went out and bought everything we needed and then some. We bought a litter box and food bowls, a scratching post and cat bed, pet brushes and nail trimmers, toys and more toys. We set everything up in our guest room, making it nice and cozy. Our book had said it was best to set up a "safe" room for a new cat, a place where they could feel comfortable as they adjusted to their new living environments. When everything was ready and in place, we felt we were ready to go out and find a cat.

We went to a nearby shelter, to see what cats were available for adoption. There were several other families looking, and Andrew and I joined the small crowd of "oohhing" and "ahhing" potential cat families. We spent time peeking into each cage, watching the cats as they lazed about or paced back and forth. We spent some time in the giant cat room at the shelter where the older cats spent their days in comfort. Was there a perfect cat for us at this shelter?

We wandered around the shelter some more, and my eye was caught by a cluster of people around one cage. The "ooohhhs" and "aaahhhs" were much louder at this cage, and I was curious as to why. I peeked in a gap between the cluster of people, and saw a little kitten, a very little, itty bitty kitten, prancing about, preening under all the attention and admiration he was receiving. He was easily the youngest and smallest kitten at the shelter, which might have explained all the admiration he was receiving. I thought he was cute, but nothing about the little kitten really called out to me.

I was about to turn away from the cage when something again caught my eye: movement. There was another kitten in the cage. He was slightly older and bigger, with black and white markings. He was trotting back and forth behind the younger kitten, eager to get some attention himself, but the large crowd ignored him in favor of the younger, smaller kitten. Something about that older kitten, the way he eagerly moved about, looking adoringly up at the faces peeking into his cage, tugged at my heart. I couldn't believe no one was paying any attention to him.

I decided to move in closer to the cage, elbowing my way past the crowd. I managed to wedge myself near a corner, and immediately the black and white kitten came running in my direction. He butted his head against the side of the cage, trying to get closer to me. We had an amusing few minutes of cage play, with him rubbing up against my fingers and prancing about in pleasure. Before long however, one of the other kitten's adoring fans requested to hold the itty bitty kitty, and I had to move away as the small kitten was placed into the welcome arms of one of his welcoming fans. My little black and white kitten looked crestfallen. Why had his roommate got picked up but not him? I immediately tapped the shelter attendant on the shoulder and asked if I could hold the black and white kitten. My request was granted.

That black and white kitten just melted into my arms, with a purr starting up immediately. He seemed so content to just be held. He looked up at me with golden eyes and seemed to say, "Gee, I could get use to this!" As I cradled him in my arms, I continued to walk around the room, looking into other cages. My little companion looked about with curiosity as we moved from cage to cage, but he never squirmed to get away, never growled at another cat, never did anything but purr contentedly. I must have held him for twenty minutes before I reluctantly passed him over to Andrew. The black and white kitten didn't put up a fuss, just again snuggled right down into Andrew's arms, and then looked up at him adoringly, as if to say "I like you!" Andrew became smitten with the kitten, too.

As Andrew held the kitten, we looked at each other. We looked at the little black and white kitten. The black and white kitten looked up at us. We knew we had found our cat. Andrew passed the kitten back to me and tracked down an attendant to start the adoption paperwork. I held that kitten for a half an hour while Andrew answered question after question on the adoption form. The little kitten never stopped purring and never made even the slightest move to get down. He was just content to be held and continued to look up at me with an adoring look upon his face. He knew he had found his family.

Although the shelter was no more than 15 minutes from our house, it was one of the longest car rides Andrew and I had ever shared, that drive home with our new kitten. The shelter had let us take our new family member home that very day, tucked safely away into a carrier. Our new kitten cried like his heart was broken during that car ride. He had started crying as soon as he was placed in the carrier because we were no longer in his sight. We talked soothingly to him, but nothing helped. We knew all that kitten wanted was to be held and to see his new family. We were never so grateful to get home in our lives!

Up in his new room, our kitten showed just a passing interest in his surroundings, rather, he was eager just to get closer to us. Andrew laid down on the floor and I sat down on the futon in the room, and the little kitten spent an hour running between the two of us. He eagerly would run up to Andrew, go nose to nose with him, and give Andrew several adoring licks on the nose. Then, the kitten would run across the room, jump up onto the futon, crawl into my lap, up my arms, onto to my shoulders, so he could get nose to nose with me and give several adoring licks to my nose. He repeated this endlessly, until he finally fell asleep in my lap with a cute kitty grin on his face. He was definitely happy in his new home and he loved his new family.

Later that evening, conscious of all that our trusty worthy Cats for Dummies book had told us, we kissed and petted our new little addition, newly named Pompey*, goodnight, and left him to the safety of his "safe" room. We immediately regretted it. Rather than spending the time exploring his new space, relishing in the safety of the 'safe' room, our little Pompey begin to cry. If Andrew and I thought that the car ride home was unendurable, well, this was worse. After having spent several blissful hours with us, Pompey couldn't bear to be parted from us. He cried like the world was ending. Andrew and I stood outside the door, holding each other, willing each other the strength to do what the book told us what the right thing to do.

We caved.

Within fifteen minutes, we had let little Pompey out of his room, and he was having a grand time running around our house, exploring every nook and cranny. He never strayed far from our sight. In fact, Pompey would constantly run up to us, just to look at us. He always had this look upon his face, one that said, "Yup, you guys are still there!" Everything our book had told us to expect- shyness, a little fright, perhaps, the need for a secure space- this kitten didn't need. Apparently, we were his secure space. As long as Pompey had us, he was fine.

When it was time to go to bed, Andrew and I were firm in our resolve NOT to share our bedroom with the cat. We were not entirely sure we wanted a kitten, a very playful kitten, bounding and pouncing on top of us all night long. We decided that if Pompey had the full run of the house, he would surely be fine. There was lots to explore. We once more said good night to our new little fur baby, and then shut ourselves into our 'safe' room.

Well, by this point, I'm sure you can guess what happened. Little Pompey sat in front of our door and just sobbed his little heart out. Where were we? Where had we gone? He missed us. We couldn't take it. It was too much, this pitiful cry of Pompey's. We opened our door, and Pompey leaped joyously into our room and up onto our bed. He promptly claimed his own space right above our heads, nestled on the pillows, and fell right asleep. Andrew and I drifted off to sleep ourselves, lulled to dreamland by the gentle kitty snores and sighs of Pompey.

It's been five years since that first day with Pompey, and each day with him has been a joy. Pompey has been an endless source of love and devotion for us. We adore him just as much as he adores us. To this day, Andrew and I look at each other, look at Pompey, and wonder what we would ever do without him. He's such a wonderful member of our little family, a sweet little person in a furry package.

*Names have been changed to protect the furry! Pompey is just an amusing nickname for my furry little baby.

Life without Television.

For the past two years, my husband Andrew and I have been conducting an interesting experiment: living life without television. We didn't intend to make it an experiment- quite frankly, our television-less state evolved from a move to a new apartment in which we were too lazy to call the local cable company to set things up and a strong desire to save fifty bucks a month. We had plans to at least get an antenna- but as we were too lazy and cheap to call a cable company, we never got around to that (as a side note, a relative got exasperated at our television-less state and bought us an antenna for Christmas last year. When we hooked it up in August, we were amused to see we only got two very fuzzy channels in languages we can't quite comprehend).

Being television-less has some interesting side effects. For one, we miss out on a lot of water cooler conversation. No, we haven't seen the latest Survivor or that action packed episode of 24. We're lost when it comes to Lost. We don't have a favorite hero on Heroes. Occasionally, we go through withdrawal. We had been addicts of shows like Law and Order and Monk, and suddenly, they were gone from our life. We'll never know if that criminal was brought to justice or what weird small clue solved the case. I in particular feel cravings for the Home and Garden channel, because I absolutely need to know the latest on home design (I like to dream!).

On the other hand, we find we have a lot of time on our hands. We read a lot. The latest Stephen King? We've read it. The final Harry Potter- we read it the night it came out (Okay, so did everyone!). We play games: Andrew still has yet to catch up to my some 5,000 point lead in Rummy, and I still can't beat him at Chess. We go for lots of walks. We play with out cats. Sometimes, we watch movies (we have no cable or antenna, but we still have that big black box collecting dust). We talk a lot. It's a nice quiet life, and we rather like it.

How long is this experiment going to last? I don't know. We've been dancing around the subject for a while now, wondering when we'll cave. The one thing we know is that when we do decide to get reconnected to the television life, we're going to make sure we know where that off button is and make good use of it.

Summer Reading Begins!

Ah, Summer has returned. The sun shines bright in the sky, brilliant in its golden haze, the heat washes over the land in warm balmy waves, and people rejoice in all the light, greenery and warmth. Well, most people do, but as for myself, this becomes my huddle and hide season. During the summer, I love nothing more than to avoid the sun and heat, and curl up inside- with air conditioning!- and read a good book. I'm just not made for the heat, I suppose- I did grow up in an Arctic Climate (Iceland, anyone?) after all, but that's a story for another day!

Summer provides ample opportunities to indulge in my favorite activity, reading, but my reading is slightly altered during these summer months. As a children's librarian, I feel its my duty (okay, it's really a joy!) to immerse myself in all the new children's literature with an occasional classic thrown in for good measure. After all, summer is the one time of year kids have the chance to read for themselves, and I love being able to converse with my patrons about good books, ones they've read and ones I've read. Its one of the wonderful perks of my job. Therefore, my summer reading list is quite varied, as I jump from genre to genre in an effort to read as much wonderful children's literature as possible before September rolls around.

So what exactly am I reading? This summer is proving especially diverse: I started off with the hot Young Adult title, Twilight by Stephanie Meyers. This was recommended to me by a patron, who said it was a great book, and she absolutely loved it. I have to admit, too, that it was a pretty good, rollicking read. A story of young love with a twist- the main love interest just happens to be a vampire! The story is filled with lush descriptions, some intense action scenes, and a healthy dose of angst-filled romance. Narrated from the first person point of view of Bella, the 17 year old heroine, the tone is both warm and amusing, I found myself reaching for the sequel, New Moon almost immediately, and am anticipating buying the third and final book, Eclipse in the next few weeks.

I followed Twilight with a jaunt into animal fantasy by reading Kenneth Oppel's Silverwing. I have to confess, of all the genres of literature out there, animal fantasy is my least favorite. I just can never wrap my mind around the concept of animals acting like humans. Yet, for all that I am not found of animal fantasy, Silverwing proved to be a rather good read. Once I accepted the fact that I was following the story of a young male bat named Shade, I was quite charmed with his heroic journey to join his colony after being separated from them during a horrible storm. The characters, for bats, were quite diverse and well rounded, the action was gripping, and the bits of mystery scattered about (what are those silver bands some bats have?) were gripping. I might, just might, pick up the other two volumes in this trilogy.

Next up is actually another jaunt into animal fantasy: Swordbird by Nancy Yi Fan. This book caught my eye because the author started writing the book when she was 13. The novel is turning into an interesting allegory for peace, using tribes of birds as representatives for the human race. The plot is compelling (how to maintain peace when war is threatening from all corners) and the writing is fairly well done- outstanding, in fact, when you consider the age of the author!

The next few weeks are being claimed by perhaps the biggest phenomenon of the summer for children's literature- Harry Potter. I am an avid fan, of course, and with the seventh and final book about to be released, I want to refresh my memory of all the wonderful twists and turns of the past six books. Already, I have kids coming into the library wanting to discuss theories (is Snape good or evil? Will Voldemort or Harry die? Who is RAB?). It is fantastic to see so many children involved in this book series, and wonderful that, thanks to Harry, many have opened their minds up to other books. Harry Potter might just be the reason we have such a strong generation of readers!

My reading list will continue to grow over the summer as kids and friends and coworkers tell me of must read books ( The Manny Files by Christian Burch just landed into my to-read pile!). It will be interesting to see what the summer brings (just so long as I don't have to go outside!).

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Heart Shaped Box is a hard novel to review. Not because it was a bad read, but because the author's background is hard to separate from the story. Joe Hill, soon after his book was published, was revealed to be the son of Stephen King. Some may say the revelation was a publicity stunt, and maybe it was on the publisher's part, but I do not believe this was Hill's desire. According to reports and interviews, Hill was careful not to tell his publishers exactly who he was until his manuscript was accepted on its own merits. I can respect and understand that: how can you know you are good if you are published on your father's laurels? Add in the fact that Heart Shaped Box is a ghost story and I believe Hill hands down. You have to be pretty blasted bold to write and publish a ghost story while hanging on your father's, the master of horror's, reputation.

So, for the moment, let us set aside the notion that Joe Hill is the son of Stephen King, and see how Hill stands on his on two feet.

Heart Shape Box opens on one of the most absurd, but logical premises: an aging rock star, Jude Coyne, (think an American Ozzy Osbourne, but one who was a little more sober) buys a ghost off an Internet auction site. Absurd, yes, but logical, too: after all, there seems to be EVERYTHING for sale on eBay. The ghost really does exist: a menacing figure of an old man, with disturbing black squiggles for eyes- as if a child scribbled on the eyes in a photograph with black marker. Yet, the ghost is no ordinary ghost, however, rather he is the ghost of the father of one of Jude's cast away girlfriends, and he's out for revenge.

What follows is a curvy, up and down ride of slow thrills and chills. Hill takes the simple yet absurd premise and builds up a tale of surprisingly chilling horror. Nothing is ever how it seems, neither Jude nor the ghost, the haunting or the haunted. The story itself takes off in directions not to be expected: for example, rather than stay and fight the ghost at home, Jude hits the road- if he has to fight a ghost, he'll fight it in his own way and time. The result is an enjoyable thrill ride, and a nagging feeling to check the eyes of any suspicious person for black scribbles.

Now, as mentioned above, Hill does have an impressive family background, and the question remains: how does he compare? The answer is simple, yet complex. Joe Hill stands on his own. If you read the book with no knowledge of who his father is, you would find it perfectly enjoyable: the writing is impressive, well composed; the plot is quirky, unique, enjoyable; the characters seem like old friends. Those same traits, though, are what his father is known for. Yet, rather than just being an imitation of King's style, Hill has shaped that style into a form of his own. The bones are the same, the delivery- excellently done- is all his own. It is obvious Hill learned on the knee of a master, but it is also apparent that Hill is a writer of his own merits- one to watch.

Bottom line: Joe Hill is a writer to watch, and his parentage just makes the package all the sweeter.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

You may have heard of this book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, it was recently selected for Oprah's Book Club. It was really amusing, actually, because the day before the book was announced, I ran across a review of the book, which reminded me I wanted to read this title due to the interesting concept, and I placed a hold at the library for it. Who knew that this grim little book would be Oprah's book choice?

And The Road is a a grim little book. It is sparse and dry, empty and full of quiet heartbreak. One does not smile reading this book. One does not feel joy reading this book. McCarthy paints a bleak future, where man hunts man and the world is dead. After closing the pages of this book, I felt tired and emotionally dead. The book left me feeling there was no hope in the world, if that was the end.

The story follows a nameless man and his son. In this future world, names do not matter, only survival. The man strives on only for his son: if he can stay alive, so can his son. The son is suppose to be a bright beacon. He still believes in good guys and honesty and something waiting at the end of the world. Yet the world this child walk through shows nothing to support this belief in good amd a future. The earth is dust, dry and barren. The few people encountered on the road are theives and cannibals. Starvation is a constant companion.

Yet, for all that the book is depressing and draining, it is compelling. Although you know there is no hope, it is written into the very landscape of the novel, you read on, hoping against hope for some ray of hope. The writing is crisp and smooth: McCarthy has a deft hand at words. If you are looking to go on a journey with a master storyteller, regardless of an outcome of sheer darkness, than this is a book to persue, but if you are simply wishing for a pleasent read, well, one might wish to look elsewhere.

Angelica by Arthur Phillips

On the surface, Angelica seems simple enough: a classic take on the Victorian ghost story, with a slight psychological twist. The plot revolves around a young mother in Victorian England who begins to suspect that her daughter is being haunted by a vengeful ghost. But what begins as a simple Victorian thriller spins out to be a complex and thought-provoking study of human relationships and the delicate nature of the human psyche.

The book starts from the point of view of Constance Barton. Her young daughter, Angelica, is finally being sent to stay in her own room, after having spent the first four years of her young life sleeping in her parents' room. The move is more traumatic to Constance as a mother than it is for her young daughter. Angelica is Constance's only child, after a painful series of ill-fated pregnancies. She also serves as Constance's protection from intimacy with her husband Joseph: Constance has been warned that having further children will kill her, and as a result she fears her husband's touch.

On Angelica's first night in her own room, Constance wakes in the middle of the night, feeling uneasy and bothered by a slightly noxious smell. She follows it to the door of her daughter's room, peers in and sees a ghostly sight: a faint blue glow hovering over her daughter. Thus begins Constance's battle with nightly terrors, and the reader's journey into wonder: What is Constance seeing? Is it truly a ghost? Is Constance stress and terror over the separation from her daughter causing hallucinations? Or is something even more sinister at work?

When Constance's story reaches its pinnacle, the novel takes an unexpected turn: the story turns back on itself, and begins again, only this time from the perspective of Anne Montague, a medium whom Constance called upon for help. Things first seen from Constance's perspective are now shown in a new light: conversations have a new depth, events a slight twist. Angelica's haunting is seen with a fresh eye and new suspicions: the mystery expands as new details are revealed. Anne's tale then spins to a close to reveal the same tale again, this time from Joseph's point of view. The book closes with the recollections of Angelica herself.

The effect of a story told in four parts, over and over again, from a different perspective is an unusual one: a fifth perspective is created. That fifth perspective is that of us, the reader. Following the tale as told by four separate voices, one cannot help but tell the tale to themselves, thus creating one's own private interprations of events. The result is a tale both engaging and thought provoking, one that will stay with a reader long after the book is done.

Angelica is one of those rare books that, when you close the cover on the final page, you can't help but see the world in a new light.

Who am I? And why are you reading me?

Welcome to my little spot on the Internet! After idly reading other people's blogs for ages and ages, I decided it was time to be a lemming and start my own blog of random musings.

I have to confess, though, that I live a very boring life with not much excitement in it. I'd wondered for a while what on earth to blog about, without much success, until just the other day inspiration struck! While my life is fairly boring, I liven things up by reading, reading, and reading. To say I am an avid reader would be an understatement- I am never without a book, never. So, I thought I would blog about the books I read, or rather, those books I feel merit blogging about (I'll spare you the boring ones!). Occasionally, I might even comment on movies, TV shows, and other random occurrences in my life, as the mood strikes me.

Beyond all that, who am I really? Well, that's a secret! But, as my name suggests, I am indeed a librarian (hence the love of books), but that "witty" part is up for debate. I am also happily married to Andrew and have two adorable fuzzy children, Caesar and Pompey (they're cats, so they are suppose to be fuzzy).

So that's me, and this is my blog. I hope you enjoy it, and maybe you'll find a good book or two or a dozen (and remember, all books are available at your local library!).