Big Dan and Little Ann

Yesterday at chez DearReader there was some excitement: I heard a squeaking noise, and a minute later my (lazy, stupid, male) cat ran by chasing a mouse. Because I'm a stereotype, apparently, I ran out of the room and jumped up on the bed and sat there until the SO came home, 35 minutes later. By then, the dumb boy-cat had the mouse treed under the baker's tray in the corner of the dining room. Human interference in the form of the SO (I was still on the bed, natch) just made things worse. The mouse ran through pretty much every room in the place, without going to a bolthole, which makes me pretty sure it came in the front door and doesn't live with us.
After an epic cat-and-mouse hunt, the poor mouse was finally run to ground - both my cats had it in their mouths for a bit, but miraculously it didn't get killed. The SO took it out to a nearby field.
So, I've been calling the cats "Big Dan" and "Little Ann" - all the more appropriate because the girl-cat is small and tidy, like Little Ann.
On the way out to dinner (of course we had to go out; I was too rattled to cook, or to eat at home) I asked the SO: "do you think the mouse was on a heroic quest?"
(pause)
SO: "like The Tale of Despereaux?"
me: "Well, I suppose. But really, I was thinking of Mrs. Frisby."
And funnily enough, when I told this story to a bookish friend, she said exactly the same thing.

my 100th post!

I'm celebrating my 100th post with a meme I found here. Here's what one is supposed to do:
1) Go into your monthly archives.
2) Collect the first sentence you wrote in each month.
3) Publish them together for amusement and fun.

I'm not so sure about "amusement and fun", not with the sketchy, sporadic blogging I do, but let's see...
January:
I've started a project for the new year (the "Girlsown re-read", I've been calling it).

February:
I'm so tired.

March:
I'm sick again.

April:
Yesterday I woke up, went to the local coffee place to pick up cocoa and breakfast, went to work for 13 hours, and went home and directly to bed.

May:
I went to a wedding about 10 days ago, and afterward I roadtripped for a few days.

June:
Last week - ten days ago, I mean - I was flipping channels, because I'm always impatient when watching TV (especially extras-filled American Idol episodes).

July:
I had to read Margaret Peterson Haddix's Among the Hidden for a book club.

August:
Last week I went to a used bookstore and bought a Marion Zimmer Bradley book I'd never seen before: Survey Ship.

September:
I'm still working my way through Clarissa, and it's still fascinatingly dull.

October:
I'm sick (it's depressing, in retrospect, to think of how many posts in the last year have said this).

November:
Below is a Science Fiction Book Club list most significant SF novels between 1953-2006.

December:
I picked up Autumn Term by Antonia Forest the other day, because I wanted a book to read over lunch (handy, working in a library!).

To follow up on those stories: I'm less sick and burned out than I was earlier this year (though the cumulative effects of working so hard for so long are still with me, and I'm thankful that I'm taking a four-week vacation from work in January). Coincidentally (because I've been reading very easy books this year) the Girlsown re-read has bogged down at Tom Brown's Schooldays - I think I'm not interested because he's not Girlsown at all. I wanted to read it because it's such a standard Boysown story, if that's a word, and I've never read it. This is a bit of an epiphany, actually - I've blogged about my interest in all-female communities elsewhere, so I won't expand on it here. But of course that's another reason (aside from exhaustion) why I haven't been as interested in Tom, but I've still been interested in the GO re-read in general. Hmmm.
Clarissa, while still unfinished, is much more interesting (it got more interesting somewhere around the middle of vol. 2) .
I've known the friend who got married in May for 30 years, and I'm still not reconciled to her having a new last name.
Currently, I'm reading a Chalet School book, as well as the new Alex Rider, Ark Angel.

back to the Forest

I picked up Autumn Term by Antonia Forest the other day, because I wanted a book to read over lunch (handy, working in a library!). So then, inevitably, I was sucked into re-reading almost the whole Marlow series again. I skipped Thuggery Affair, because, well, it's Thuggery Affair, and Peter's Room because I couldn't find it on the shelf. I can't imagine a thief breaking in just for that one book, but that was the hardest for me to get. Bother.
The SO brought home a fun preread yesterday: 21 Proms, edited by David Levithan and Daniel Ehrenhaft. I'm only a few stories into it - I was underwhelmed by the Cecily von Ziegesar story, but really charmed by a few others. It often seems as though unknown authors write better for short story collections - they have to earn their way in by talent, instead of by their name.