National Poetry Month, National Humor Month

Both National Poetry Month and National Humor Monthv start tomorrow. That means another "write a poem a day" challenge. How many can be funny (intentionally or not) remains to be seen.

Quotes that Speak to the Heart of the Blog

“Evermore in the world is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats.”
 Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards and we will go to great lengths to prove it. Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists in the room will laugh equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.”
 Garrison Keillor

"Marrying George Clooney: Confessions of a Midlife Crisis" — not what I expected

Marrying George Clooney: Confessions from a Midlife Crisis by Amy Ferris
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

corrections made 3-24-12

I wanted to love this book. I wanted to identify with someone from my age group writing about that certain time of life when the reality of mortality smacks women right in the reproductive gut. Unfortunately, some reviews I read in advance led me to believe that this was a humorous book. It is not. Sure, there are some moments of humor and irony, but mostly, it is a sad and angry book. The most poignant moments deal with her relationship with her mother, who is slipping further and further into dementia. The most annoying moments are disjointed, stream-of-consciousness rantings with large gaps between paragraphs (in the Kindle version, anyway.) I found her "vile" moods (her word, not mine) frightening, and I began to wonder if this is what I can expect from myself a bit further down the road. 

So, maybe I am a wee bit too close to the menopause/midlife crisis time of life. But if now wasn't the right time to read this book? When is? 

It is finally in the Epilogue that Ferris writes the most compelling prose of the book. The story of her mother, their relationship, their life together. This would have been a much stronger, more cohesive book if the parallels to Ferris' change of life and her mother's change of life had been more successfully woven together. 


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In the True Spirit of this Blog

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More Critters and Varmints in Central New Jersey

Dragons may be next.

It is a well known fact that I have battled with critters of all kinds in my house.  Rats, cats, bats, gnats - all the rhyming pests have been after me.  Outside the house, despite the constant hunting, chasing and barking by my dog Zelda, the yard is still under siege to squirrels and a groundhog. I am always cautious when opening the back door, in case I have visitors on the deck. Until now, I've considered my encounters with all this fauna to be typical for living in a suburban New Jersey town. I have even seen a coyote loping across an open field a few miles away, and deer are everywhere.

However, this past week I encountered a new critter that actually caused me to do a double take. I was in the driveway, with Zelda on a leash, ready to put her in the car to take her for a ride with me. Normally, this thrills her and she can't wait to jump in. This time, however, instead of jumping in the back seat, she tried to crawl under the car. I was holding her in place, but her feet were still pedaling along. With great effort I hauled her up and into the car, where she immediately jumped into the front seat and pressed her nose against the windshield, looking, looking, looking.

I figured that a cat, or some dry leaves or a stray piece of newspaper was under the car, I knew that if it was a cat, it would come running out the minute I started the car. When I revved up the engine, nothing ran out, so I thought, dry leaves or garbage. I started to back the car out when something reddish popped up in front of the car.  Something slow and feathery — a chicken! A chicken that was completely unperturbed by the engine of the car, a chicken who just ruffled up her feathers,  deposited some lovely chicken droppings on my driveway, and slowly waddled away. I've since realized that down the street, some is actually keeping chickens, and I swear, I heard a goat, too.

Who knows, maybe there is going to be a cattle drive down my street soon. I better keep the dog in the house.

Was Our Warm Winter My Fault?

The FUN stuff of summer.

I don't like the cold weather. I don't like the darkness. In fact, there is very little that I do like about winter, except, perhaps, that the grass doesn't need to be mowed and most of the bugs are inactive. I do, however, realize the value of winter in terms of slowing down germs and viruses as well as holding down the population of those previously mentioned bugs.

Yesterday, I basked in the sun on an unusually warm March day, remembering that in June I couldn't even sit on my deck without gallons of bug repellent. Yes, the warm days of winter were truly wonderful bug-less treats.

My reverie was interrupted by something buzzing around my head. I opened my eyes to see a lone fly circling me. Well, flies can be found any time of year, I told myself. Then I noticed that all around my yew tree was a thick mist of gnats - pests I don't normally see until late spring.

It was then that the horrible realization came to me. A warm winter surely means a bumper crop of pests in the yard, all of them trying to get into the house. It means daylight mosquito bites and wasp nests inside screen doors. It means swatting gnats in March.

New Jersey is surely going to pay for this past mild winter. What we saved in rocksalt we are going to spend on bug repellent. And I think it may be my fault. It is quite possible that the nuclear-reactor type hot flashes I have been having on a daily basis this winter actually raised the average temperature of the entire state. If we have record-breaking heat this summer, you'll know why. I apologize in advance.

Retrieval Artist #8 - "Anniversary Day" by Kristine Katherine Rusch

Anniversary Day by Kristine Katherine Rusch

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Retrieval Artist series is by far my favorite set of audiobooks, both because of the exciting and intricate storylines, but also because of the superior narration of Jay Snyder. A new Retrieval Artist audiobook means I'll be listening every chance I get - in the car, in the bath, while eating lunch at the office.

Anniversary Day continues the interwoven story of the future colonized moon, as well as its place in the greater Earth Alliance. What is especially appealing about this series is how each book builds on the previous ones, creating one long tale of not only retrieval artist Miles Flint, but also the stories of those who has worked with or crossed paths with. In Anniversary Day, he is not really the lead story, but his involvement is critical. We spend a lot of time with Bernard Nyquist, whom we've previously met. We also get glimpses of life in other areas, other domes, of the moon besides Armstrong as the entire moon, and perhaps the entire Earth Alliance faces a crisis of incomprehensible magnitude.

I will now be waiting impatiently for number 9!





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Giant Rats? And it's a GOOD thing?

When John Platt writes an article about ecology, conservation and general animal welfare, I pay attention. He knows his stuff. Last week I cried over his article about rhinos who are attacked for their horns, then left to die, bleeding and mutilated.  Other times, his stories bring a smile when we learn about a species making a comeback, or a habitat being protected. However, today his article touches on a subject often discussed here at Roderama — mainly rats and the other small furry ones around us.

I've written about the rat experiments that humanize them to an uncomfortable degree, rats that have outsmarted scientists and the rats that, every so often try to share my home. What I have never written about is the rat-as-food although I do know that occasionally someone on "Survivor" might consider preparing one for dinner.  Honestly, a rat would have to be a meal of desperation, even the biggest rats I've ever encountered wouldn't be much of a meal.

That is what I thought until John's article. While rats as big as cats are an urban legend in cities, they are apparently really alive and kicking in other parts of the world. Called "cane rats" or "grasscutter rats," these native-to-Africa rats are apparently large enough to be considered "mini livestock," suitable for farm raising as an alternate meat source. One of the challenges, apparently is understanding "grasscutter reproduction."

A little rat research into experiments previously covered in this blog will reveal the "drive female rats mad for sex" drug. A little of that and we can have all the giant rats we want. I can't wait to see the recipes that will be featured on The Food Channel.

John Platt's original article

Some Bumps in the Road at MidLife

I've been quiet about it, preferring to pretend it hadn't got me, or at least that it wasn't bothering me. For quite a while, that was really true. I am six years past the average onset, and was feeling somewhat invincible, even immortal. There were some signs, a drenching sweat while doing a photo shoot for an annual report back in 2006; something I chalked up to thyroid issues because it only happened the one time. (and it still may have been thyroid related, these things are woven together). However, as of 2012, there is no ignoring it. The 18-wheeler truck carrying my order of menopause has run me over like a bug on the highway.

Contrary to the impression I had always had about how this "life transition" took place, things did not gently slow down to a stop. My body slammed on the brakes with little warning. After a couple of months I thought that was easy. Then truck #2 came into town, and this one was piled high with surprise gifts. First are the proverbial hot flashes, which come in two styles —drenching night sweats and desert dry day saunas. I wake up in bed, treading water in the fluids generated by my own body. Some days it actually feels like I am back in the August Arizona desert, shirtless and hatless. My skin feels as if it could burst into flames at any moment.

The second surprise is something that has been called the "menopot." Ever since having 3 C-sections, I have had the C-pot, but now, suddenly, there is a twin to it, sitting on top of it, and growing at an alarming rate. Since I've lost weight in my extremities, I find myself fast approaching a body type more suitable to an M&M. Other gifts include my thin, fine hair becoming thinner and finer while bold dark hairs have started sprouting on my cheeks and chin. It's a lovely picture isn't it? The newfound fear of shriveling up like a raisin has sent to the cosmetic counter, looking for a 55 gallon drum of something I can dip my whole body in.

Call me a vain Babyboomer if you want. But I am not going gently. I'm too busy growing, reinventing myself, and enjoying life to get stuck in traffic on Menopause Lane. This is not the end of the road, just a shift in gears.

Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel present "Lunatics"

Lunatics: A Novel by Dave Barry

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The audio version of the book starts out with the two main characters yelling at each other over how many people, groups, countries, and other entities they need to apologize to. It is a high volume profanity-laced intro that was a bit off-putting at first. However, once the book started and I realized who each character was (meaning who Dave Barry was portraying and who Alan Zweibel was portraying) I was able to settle in and enjoy their ridiculously far-fetched, over-the-top tale. To try and describe it would be to do it a disservice. Madcap is a word that comes to mind - and that is a word that seldom comes to mind in this day and age.



Having read almost everything ever written by Dave Barry, I noticed that he took the opportunity to work in some of his favorite subjects - children's organized sports,dance recitals, low-flush toilets and disgusting bodily function scenarios - to name a few. There is some voice talent utilized to represent various news reporters and outlets and accents galore as this pair of nincompoops (another word that rarely comes to mind) manage to obliviously stumble their way through a world of trouble. And I'd say they come out smelling like roses, but that would not be the smell you will associate with them once you listen to this audiobook.



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