Ubalblog

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[ Currently: Waiting to Wake My Husband Up So We Can Go to My Dad’s for B ]
This book is the latest entry in Tamora Pierce’s Circle series. And those of you that visit here often, know how much I like Tamora’s work.

This entry finds our four mages at the age of 18. They have begun to return from their travels abroad only to find that their bonds aren’t as strong as they used to be.

Sandry, the young noble of the group has to go survey her lands in a far off empire. Her uncle persuades the other three to go along to protect her.

The Empress wants to keep these talented young mages for a variety of reasons. She throws handsome young men at Sandry. Briar gets access to vast imperial greenhouses. Tris gets a book collection. And Daja gets a female lover.

This book is more mature than previous entries, although if you are looking for soft-core porn, its probably best to head somewhere else. Pierce treats Daja’s lesbianism as a matter of fact, not a titillating tabloid story. Mind you, making the large, brawny girl a lesbian is feeding into stereotypes. Would have been cooler if Sandry turned that way.

Not a bad read, but not her best by a long shot.

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Getting ready to go to my mother’s for a feast. ]
Just wanted to say:

And perhaps a more appropriate image:

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching Britain’s Next Top Model ]
So yesterday we got 30mm of rain, that’s about an inch. It was warm enough that it rained in December Then the temperature plunged to the negative regions, so the rain started to turn to ice. And then the wind picked up, blowing that water to the drain, so there was some ice this morning, but not much.

Now it is snowing.

Who wants to move up here?

[  Mood: Amused ]
[  Currently: Watching America’s Next Top Model ]
Last night Husband Unit, Maternal Unit and I went off to the National Arts Centre here in Ottawa to see a live performance of The Vinyl Cafe.

The Vinyl Cafe is a bit like a Prairie Home Companion, humourous fictional stories strung together with music.

Host Stewart McLean had two new Dave and Morely stories and one old favourite last night, plus a new episode of the Eggs Blackiron show. Musical guests were Danny Michel and Allison Russell. The Husband Unit had managed to snag front row seats. In fact, we were right in front of Stewart for most of concert. We were the people he monitored to see how the concert was going.

Funny, and enjoyable. Given that many of his stories, including my fave, Wong’s Scottish Meat Pies are available on CD or for download, I think you should check them out.

[  Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
So we got hit with a very big storm yesterday, and the vestiges are still here. We got at least 31 cm of snow. That’s over a foot. The snowplows have not cleared all the snow yet. The city is pushing garbage and recycling off by one day. There is a great deal of wind, causing blowing snow, and dropping the temperature from -14C to – 24C. In imperial, that’s 6.8F dropped to -11.2F thanks to the wind. It is so bad, the cops are asking people to stay off the road.

But guess what? I have to go to work.

Yup, although the buses are canceled and the city is asking the rest of us to stay home, I have to get to work to provide free babysitting. The reality is that there are parents who are going to get up, drive their kids to school and then go home. There are other parents who will not understand that the buses are canceled all day. These are the parents we will be calling at 3:00 pm to find out why they haven’t picked up their children.

You might think that I am bellyaching for no reason, but we’ve already had one of these days this year. The children who showed up were the children who lived far enough away that they needed drives. The children who stayed home all walk to school. Maddening.

And the parking lot will be nuts. It will not have been plowed, so now you will have hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of cars dropping off little Billy or Ethel or Mohammad in a lot designed to park about 40 cars. Last time around, many of these cars got stuck and had to be pushed out. Male teachers had to go out and push cars. I don’t remember that being covered in teacher’s college. And it wasn’t like some of the parents were practicing safe driving or that others had bothered to buy snow tires, even though they live in CANADA!!!

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!

I hate days like this.

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Watching America’s Next Producer ]
So I was doing some Christmas shopping on Saturday. I was wandering up and down the aisles of the Bay, trying to decide if I should buy the Husband Unit some Stanfield’s on behalf of Santa, when I got sight of some pretty sexy underwear made by 2(x)ist.

I thought to myself, when did they start making lingerie for men? I didn’t really care, but I liked it!

Then I thought, lingerie is such a girly word. Men’s lingerie needs something a bit more classy, manly as it were.

So then I thought Mangerie.

Good, but not perfect.

Then it came to me, Mengerie.

It sounds more like Lingerie, making the word flow better.

So I have now entered it in the Urban Dicitionary. Accepted or not, I want you all to go out and use it wisely.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Working on the grocery list ]
So Thursday I went to the library to pay off some fines and deal with a book my students had lost. It cost me $50, but then I could take out books again.

On Friday, my students had silent reading. As they were digging for books in the library, they came across one of the books, Through My Eyes, by Ruby Bridges.

No problem, take it back you say. No. If you pay for a book that is lost, you can’t bring it back. Well you can, but you won’t get the money back. Something about the library’s computer system.

Since I wanted to buy the book anyways, and this one is a fully protected library copy, I am not too upset.

But oh, the irony.

[  Mood: Silly ]
[  Currently: Working on the blog ]
I was wracking my brain for something to write about today, and nothing seemed blog worthy or at the very least legal. Except maybe the chaotic game of barnyard tag that I had my class play for their Daily Physical Activity. It involves rubber chickens and a lot of running around and screaming. It’s what I imagine an evening with Dharma would be like, but I digress.

So I was watching a repeat of the Colbert Report and an ad for this came on the TV.

I started to laugh.

It is not ridiculous enough that there was a Faux Fire, but it was so popular that there had to be a Faux Fire 2.

Who new the end of days would be so funny!

[  Mood: Angry ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast – Organic Shreddies Knock-off with Raspberries and ]
So last night, I settled into bed for my long winter’s nap. I quickly fell asleep, which is an indication of how tired I am. I hoped to make it through the night rather than have the 2:30 bathroom call and the insomnia that follows.

Imagine my surprise, when at 4:00 am, the snow clearing equipment goes by.

Here in Ottawa they come and take away the snowbanks fairly regularly. If they don’t, the snowbanks start to narrow the roadways and it makes it difficult to drive.

But do they have to come at 4:00 am? My neighbourhood is not downtown, so it’s not like doing this at 3:00 pm is going to cause a lot of disruption. Yet the city insists on doing all of this kind of work at night.

So now instead of pregnancy related insomnia, I get snowclearing related insomnia and headache. I mean a bad one too. And given that I am pregnant, I can’t really take anything for that.

Nice.

[  Mood: Angelic ]
[ Currently: Getting the grocery list ready. ]
Luke is a third child in a world where every couple is only allowed to have two. His family hides him in the attic and he is only allowed outside when no one is around.

Then one day, the government forces Luke’s family to sell the woods that are around his home and he is suddenly confined to the house. Things get worse when the woods are cut down and homes for "Barons", the rich, are built. Now Luke can only sit on the stairs to eat his dinner.

Luke notices a face in the window of one of the homes after everyone has left and realizes, there is another third child. He meets Jen and learns that there are many, many others in the same situation as him. Jen tries to get him to join in the fight to free the third children, or shadow children, as they are known.

Margaret Peterson Haddix has created an utterly believable dystopia in this book. Luke’s joy at finally having someone outside the family to talk to is believable and so heartbreaking. The resolution of the story, while heartbreaking, is also right on track and opens this up for a continuing series.

Nice read.