lucy, i'm home....

so i got some 'splainin to do....

i know, it's been a long time since last i blogged. i could offer valid excuses or viable reasons for my absence, but the fact remains that i have indeed been absent. for now, however, i have returned.

please, hold your applause.

school occupies much of my time these days. who would have thought it would be so complicated learning how to cut some hair and roll some perms? well, folks, it ain't easy, i'm here to tell ya. next time you visit your stylist, tell her thanks. this stuff doesn't just fall out of the sky! sure, some folks may make it seem like it's easy-peasy, but there is actually some brainy stuff involved. a little bitta chemistry, a little bitta math, and a whole lotta hand-eye coordination.

when i'm not in school, i'm working. friday is the only day i have off to relax. somewhere in the past 3 months i managed to finish reading "the stand." i'm sorry i couldn't finish blogging on it; i didn't realize how time-consuming that would be when i suggested that jackie and i do the chapter by chapter blog.  if anyone DID follow along what we did get blogged, i hope that it piqued their interest enough to set them to reading the book. it is by far my favorite stephen king novel and perhaps my favorite overall book of all time. when i neared the end, i found myself getting sad that i was going to have to leave stu, frannie, tom, and the gang. the funny thing about reading is that the characters sometimes come to life, in my mind at least. they become like real people; there have been times i've actually thought about them outside of the books. what would they look like if they were real people? how would they sound? would i like or dislike them as much in person as i do in character? do you do that also?

i dont know what i want to read next. i sorta want to dive back into "the passage" by justin cronin; i know there is a sequel coming out some time in 2012 and i am anxious for it. i think i might wait til closer to time for it to release before i begin part one again. harry potter has been thumping around in my brain and i've been tempted on several occasions to begin that series again. i have several other books here that i haven't read even once yet and i want to read them too! ah, the dilemma.....

i suppose i'll just wait until a definitive notion strikes me. if you have a suggestion, throw it my way.

i have a wicked nasty case of the hiccups at this very moment, exacerbated by an equally nasty case of heartburn. that vegetable beef soup from supper did a number on me tonight. i'm so glad there's nexium to keep the worst of it at bay.

i know this blog hasn't been the most riveting piece of work to ever spawn from my fingertips, but it's all i could muster at such a late and delicate hour. if you've passed the last few minutes reading my thoughts, perhaps you'll take another moment or two to leave a comment. i'd love to hear what you have to "say." if the blog won't let you leave your name, just comment as "anonymous" and tell me who you are.

i'm glad you stopped by, and i'd love for you to come back again.

be blessed <3

~t

just another manic monday

yep, that was my day. i wasnt late for anything (shocker!) but it was a hectic day nonetheless. the worst part of the whole day was the fact that i got less than two hours of sleep last night. i just could NOT fall asleep. hopefully i wont have that problem tonight!

so my books cost $275.00 and my kit cost $415.00.  *pulls hair out* i also have to have black scrubs (i wish someone had shared THAT bit of info with me before today so i could have prepared, those things aint cheap!) everywhere in vidalia and the surrounding areas are sold out of my size in that particular color so i have to drive all the way to statesboro to get them! i called ahead though to make sure they were in stock; they were, and the lady was kind enough to put them in the back for me. how nice of her! it's good to know that there are still people in this world who can be nice to strangers. i know that may not seem like much of a feat of kindness to some folks, but it is to me. i see so little of it in public today.

i dont know if i've expressed it here yet, but i am really excited about learning this new trade. i wanted to go into cosmetology as a teenager but i never did. well, it was a tossup between teaching and cosmetology. i didnt have the money to do either one so i just worked. eventually i had children and my dreams of education got pushed into the back corners of the attic. now though i'm able to pursue my dreams, both of them. i want to teach cosmetology but first i have to learn it and practice it. i want to teach, period, and i want to actually DO cosmetology so i decided to combine them. how smarticle of me!

i got to meet my classmates today; we are the junior cosmetology class. most of them seem like they are pretty well rounded and easy going. i am going to reserve most of my thoughts about them and see how they are once i get to know them better though. first impressions arent always accurate, either good or bad. but we all have to get along because for the next 16 months we will be together for 7 hours a day, 4 days a week. it'll be like a job or a family. i hope also that i am pleasant enough for them to be around; i know that sometimes i can be irritating. i hope i dont make a fool out of myself too often.

anyway, that was my day in a nutshell. i'm so tired and i still have some reading to do so i guess i'll get on that; that book isnt going to read itself!

taa-taa for now.....

~t

a new day

tomorrow i start back to school. this is going to be a long stint, 4 months, so i probably wont have as much free time as i did during the summer transition quarter. hopefully it wont affect my blogging though. i'm sure i'll have something to say about something, i always do.

i also talked to my boss and he doesnt need me on sundays anymore so that little bit of money is gone. he said he would let me work some in the evenings during the week but i've worked with him long enough to know when he's brushing someone off. maybe i'm wrong, i hope i am.

amberly and lucas start school tomorrow too. amberly is a junior and lucas is a sophomore already. it's so hard to believe they are so grown up! it seems like just yesterday i was taking them to preschool. *sniff sniff* it's no longer "mama can i have fifty cents to buy an ice cream?"....now it's "mama i need fifty dollars for band stuff"....*double sniff sniff* i love those kids with all my heart though, i wouldnt trade them for anything. they are both so much like me....THAT part i dont like sometimes lol. they got my good traits, for which i'm ecstatic, but they also got my bad traits, which is the source of much strife in our household. LOL top it off with the fact that they're both teenagers and wooo-boy it's never a dull moment around here, let me tell you!!

the stand: chapters 19 & 20

i can somewhat relate to larry underwood as he is in the opening of chapter 19. i've been gone from my hometown for a long time and now when i return, it seems like a foreign land. that's how larry sees times square now: he thought the years would have changed it into something magical but instead it still looked rank and dangerous, the same as it always did, which is a bit unsettling for larry. now it was the same and different, all the old crappy stuff replaced by new crappy stuff. gone is the penny arcade and the newsstand; in their places now lurk massage parlors and x-rated movie theaters. he feels now like a tourist instead of a son of the city, a homeless soul, not at home in los angeles, no longer at home in new york city.

alice underwood is home from work with a bad cold (uh oh), the guest on the news show has the sneezies (double uh oh), heck, larry even recalls the abnormal number of coughing folks on the subway train (triple uh oh). he calls back to L.A. and discovers his buddy wayne is in the hospital with a nasty flu bug. (nice knowing you, wayne.) he also finds out that there's a nice chunk of cash waiting for him in a bank back in california.

larry returns home to find his mother collapsed on the floor, burning up with fever and delirious. she's telling larry to go to the bar and find his father, tell him to come home, he's there with the photographer! i wonder if mr. underwood was stepping out on alice? i dont think the book ever says that specifically but i guess we can infer that he was unfaithful. maybe that's why larry was hesitant to tell his mom that he was out with the dental hygienist? maybe mom has little use for men who just run around without the benefit of some semblance of commitment. so larry calls for an ambulance but just gets an answering machine at the hospital. things must be pretty hectic at the ER if they have a machine picking up the calls. larry is at a loss as to what to do, having never been in this kind of situation before, and decides to go to the hospital to find out what's going on. before he leaves, he goes to a neighbor, mr. freeman, to ask him to sit with alice while larry is gone. the chapter ends with larry approaching the neighbor's door.

chapter 20 is pretty cut and dry: we're back in maine with frannie, who is in a sort of mental limbo about her situation. she tries to type a letter to a friend but it seems more of a chore than a pleasure. she's already arranged a place to live (number 3 in a roommate situation) so that burden is lifted. she thinks that being away from her hometown and her parents (even her father) would be a relief; she feels like she needs to be on the defensive, almost like she expects that everyone is whispering about her or looking at her, or if they arent, that they WILL be. hmm, paranoia anyone? she gets a call from jess and she pretty much tells him she doesnt want anything from him. he insists that he wants to be there to help, but frannie feels like he's just doing it out of obligation, not because he actually wants to. hmm, skepticism anyone?

a phone call from her dad reveals that mother goldsmith is sick with a cold; in fact, she's been asking for it, running herself ragged with all her clubs and social events and even sleeping upright in the parlor the night before after her confrontation with frannie. remembering the whole incident makes frannie feel guilty, thinking that may have contributed to her mom falling ill even though she saw the haggard, run-down look her mother had even when she returned from college to visit. even though they fought and she's never really been close to her mother, frannie still doesnt want her to be sick and is worried about carla. on the way out the door to go visit carla, the phone rings again. frannie has a premonition of sorts that it's her father calling to say that her mother is worse. guilt weighs even heavier on frannie's heart. sure enough, it's peter goldsmith, and he's fighting back tears. carla is in the hospital, taken by ambulance, and peter is near hysteria. peter also tells frannie that the ambulances were busy and that there was a waiting list for the sick to be picked up. chapter 20 concludes with frannie waiting for her father to pick her up so they can go to the hospital to see carla.

so alice underwood and carla goldsmith are sick, while larry, frannie, and peter are not. hundreds of others are sick too; the hospitals in ogunquit and new york city are full!

the stand: chapter 18

chapter 18 opens with nick andros, the deaf-mute who suffered a major ass-whipping via the hands of sheriff baker's brother-in-law ray and ray's cronies back in chapter 9.  sheriff baker gave nick a job sweeping up in the jailhouse to make up for the week of pay he lost when the wayward welcome committee tried to show him the way out of town (and total existence, for that matter).  three of the four culprits now call the shoyo, arkansas jail home; only ray, the sheriff's brother-in-law, avoided capture and is now MIA.

nick has met the sheriff's wife, jane (who also happens to be ray's sister) and had supper with them. she apologizes to nick for her brother's actions, which shows a lot of character, in my opinion. while of course she has no control over her brother, she still shows a level of remorse (not really the word i am looking for but i cannot think of the right one) for what he did. jane baker is also concerned over her husband's health; he's very sick and is running a fever. she orders him to bed, in the way that only a loving wife can do, and he complies, in a way that only a husband who knows what side his bread's buttered on can do. sheriff baker asks nick to go back to the station to ensure the detainees have a meal, but before nick can do that, baker deputizes him. he also gives nick permission to sleep at the station.

while he's at the station having some down-time, nick pens a shorthand autobiography for baker. by the age of nine, nick was an orphan and living in a baptist orphanage. having been born a deaf-mute, his learning was already stunted, but living at the orphanage made it worse as no one knew how to help him. he was on his way to becoming a recluse of sorts until another deaf-mute, an adult man named rudy, showed up at the orphanage to help him. nick was stubborn at first but rudy got through his wall. when nick was 16, the orphanage went belly-up and nick ran away because he didnt want to live in a foster home with strangers.

sheriff baker seems to be making a recovery from his "summer cold," and he and nick have a little heart to heart. the local doctor comes by to check nick out and pronounces him bruised and battered but otherwise healthy. nick will probably lose his two front teeth, courtesy of ray's fraternity ring, but other than that, he'll be okay. i happen to know exactly what's going to happen to nick because i've read the book but i wont spoil it for you this early in the story. unless you want me to. then i probably still wont. HAHA

doc soames takes a peek at sheriff baker per mrs baker's request and discovers that the lawman is having a relapse with his cold. the fever is back, along with some glandular swelling (sound familiar??). doc orders the sheriff home to bed. the doctor divulges to the sheriff that the cold is making the rounds through town: a whole slew of town folk have come down with the sickness. oh me oh my, whatever do we make of this? captain trips is making his rounds right along with doc soames. even two townspeople who stopped in to check on nick are sick.

that night, nick dreams of being in a cornfield and being terribly afraid of something behind him. so nick is apparently dreaming about the same thing stu redman dreamed of. it's interesting that they both are not just "afraid" but they both experienced "terrible" fear. whatever's in the cornfield must be very evil. *shudder*

two or three times in this chapter it's noted that while nick is in the holding area, billy and mike (two of the four who assaulted him) are constantly verbally harassing him, even though they KNOW he is deaf and cannot hear them. i think they are half-brained brutes who probably dont know their asses from a hole in the ground. vince, the third assailant (and the one who spilled his guts when questioned by the sheriff) isnt harassing nick. i think vince is remorseful for what they did and for his part in it. he's also sick, very sick.

by 8 AM the next morning, sheriff baker hasnt shown up for work, and no breakfast has been delivered for the prisoners. nick starts to feel a bit uneasy. he sees that vince has gotten even sicker and decides to go for the doctor. he finds the doctor, who is sick himself. he breaks the bad news that sheriff baker has died and mrs. baker is sick. as a matter of fact, several people in shoyo have died since yesterday and many more are sick and dying, thus running doc soames nearly ragged. the doctor reveals that all the phone lines are down and no calls can be made outside of the town and all exits are blocked off for road construction. in fact, the road crew look suspiciously like soldiers. never seen road crew salute each other, right? the good doc also suggests that someone somewhere made a mistake, a big mistake, and that's why everyone is sick. old doc couldnt be closer to the truth.

things are really starting to heat up now. i can imagine that mass panic is happening all around the country, perhaps even the world. people dropping like flies with no respect to class, race, or gender. the illness has likely traveled by plane, train, and automobile to all parts of the world by now. we see this kind of apocalyptic event in movies a lot but could you imagine if it REALLY did happen? think of all the things that would cease to exist: electricity, running water, HOT water, refrigerated food and drink. we'd all be back to living in pre-industrial america. and it wouldnt be just "the good guys" who survived. there would be less-than-admirable people among them too. so we wouldnt be faced with just the hardship of living in a different world, we'd also have to watch our backs constantly. no security cameras, no 911, we'd be right back to frontier justice. very scary.

this chapter was very long. it was difficult for me to blog, too, for some unknown reason. maybe the next chapter wont be the same.

(where oh where has my stu redman gone? i miss him and want to visit with him soon....)

the stand: chapters 16 & 17

ever rode in a lincoln continental? well that's what we're doing in chapter 16. trouble is, we're riding with a couple of dope-smoking murderers, lloyd and poke. poke is the brains of the operation (i use the term "brains" very lightly), and lloyd, well, he does all the jumping. poke just tells him how high. and speaking of high, they are both three sheets in the wind, which is no surprise, seeing as how they have a trash bag full of marijuana, some hash, and a dash of cocaine. along for the ride are a stash of guns and some stolen credit cards. oh, and for good measure, the car is stolen. stolen from a family whom poke and lloyd killed. this story just keeps getting better doesnt it? so from nevada to arizona and then back into nevada, poke and lloyd are on a robbing and killing spree, taking what they need and killing anyone who gets in the way. poke and lloyd met in prison, but only one will go back, because at the end of this chapter, the other is in the morgue.

this is one of the few instances where i HOPE the virus jumps on someone.

from one killing spree to another, we'll leave nevada for california for chapter 17. we're back at the army base that our contagious mr. campion ran from back in chapter one. starkey is still there and 2nd class frank bruce is still bobbing for beef in his campbell's chunky soup. more towns besides arnette, texas have had widespread outbreaks of project blue and the press has gotten wind of it. now starkey is forced to make an executive decision in what he perceives is protecting his military. on a call with an unidentified soldier, starkey gives the order for something code-named "troy." shortly thereafter, two reporters are stopped short of town and end up taking a one-way detour to the morgue.

these kinds executive decisions by high-ranking military personnel is something i've read about and watched in movies a countless number of times. i wonder if it really happens? i guess the idea had to come from somewhere....

i like the way king takes us from one story-line to the next; it keeps us on our toes. we have to remember what's going on with each character and where their stories ended when we left them last. 

tonight's the night....

....that i have to go to bed early because i have to work in the morning at the ungodly hour of 4:30! it should be illegal and unethical to have to wake up that early!!! BUT: on the good side, i am making money, so i'll grit my teeth and bear it. it's not so bad anyways. all i do is bullchit with people all day and do a little bit of actual work in between, so all in all, i'm okay with it.

cousteau (my little black kitten) has a nasty upper respiratory infection and has to go to the vet tomorrow, so as soon as i'm off work that's where i'll be heading. poor little critter is miserable, i just know he is. : (

classes start back next monday so this week is my last of vacation for a while. i'm looking forward to getting back in class. i am ready to get this show on the road, folks.

well, i have an app on facebook that i want to get caught up so let me go over there and get it done. until next time, faithful reader....

~t

the stand: chapters 13 - 15

from maine back to georgia, chapter 13 finds us in atlanta again, with stu redman. he's still locked up tight behind the steel doors of the "hospital," (i think it's some part of the CDC), and he's still madder than a wet hen. he still hasnt gotten the low-down on what's going on. but then, the steel door opens and enter dick deitz, the man with the plan, the guy who is going to get everything straight with stu. yeah. sure.

so stu and deitz have a little mano e mano, during which deitz tells stu that geraldo the guinea pig has been breathing stu's air and has yet to fall ill. (apparently project blue is harmful to those critters too.) so by the powers vested in deitz and the CDC in atlanta, he now pronounces stu healthy as a horse, but by no means a free man. of all stu's fellow townspeople from arnette, the only other person who isn't sick is eva hodges, one of the three children lila bruett was babysitting way back in the beginning. everyone else is either dying or already dead. in a bright moment of genius, stu, angered at being told everything is "classified" and can't be divulged, begins to hack and cough. deitz becomes scared and runs for the hills but before he can get out of the room, stu tells him it was a fake cough. haha i loves me some stu redman. he's a hoot! even in his sadness at the loss of his friends, he still found a way to deliver one below the belt to the people keeping him in the dark. but since they ARE trying to find a vaccine and/or a cure for the virus, stu finally concedes and agrees to be a willing test subject. deitz leaves, and stu sleeps, and dreams. he dreams of a country road flanked on both sides by corn fields. stu thinks that he should get to there, but in the corn fields lurks something evil, a pair of red eyes that fills stu with hopeless terror. stu wakes up only to think that he's never been to a place like that before in his life.

let's stay at the CDC/hospital/wherever the hell they are for chapter 14. deitz has retired to his office to log his session with stu redman. we learn that stu redman and eva hodges are code-named prince and princess. he talks on about stu's strength and stu's actions during the meeting. we find out how one person reacted positively to a possible vaccine but then died suddenly when the virus regrouped and came back for round two. deitz laments on the general population and how they will likely neglect seeking medical help for what they think is a "common cold" until it's too late, therefore the chances of finding a vaccine are slim. and sadly, we learn that the princess is now sick.

we're becoming familiar faces at the CDC/hospital/whatever place because we're sticking around here for chapter 15 too. if we keep meeting like this, people might start to talk. but that's okay because i dont know how many are gonna be around to spread the rumor! HAHA anyway, enter nurse patty greer, the little lady who got the short end of the stick way back when she tried to get vitals from stu. we can sum this chapter up very quickly: she just started sneezing. she's busy, though, and absently ignores it, thus infecting a bunch of folks throughout the facility. oh this is not going to turn out well. poor stu is locked behind a steel door and project blue is on the loose. captain trips is making his rounds and the prognosis isnt good.

although i've read this book several times, it's getting harder and harder to stop reading after our assigned chapters. i am really getting into it again even though i know what happens. i can feel the characters as real people and i am anxious to keep reading their stories. please, if you havent read it yet, i implore you to give it a try. it really is an epic adventure and a thought-provoking storyline. i doubt you will be disappointed.

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the stand: chapters 11 & 12

meanwhile, chapter 11 finds us back in new york city, and larry underwood has made his way across town to the chemical bank building where his mom is head housekeeper. they have a long drawn out conversation during which alice underwood tells larry that she's proud of him for doing something with the talent that she always knew he had, even if she doesnt like his style of music. he's still a taker, she says, but not a bad guy. he tells her he loves her and runs off to see a movie (on her dime, at her insistence). the movie is a popular one, starring freddie kruger, with a packed house, including some guy in the back with a very persistant cough.

i'm glad larry got to see a bit of emotion from his mother. i think he has seen her as a hardened woman throughout the years, but seeing the flash of tears in her eyes made larry realize that she is still a woman and still his mother and she does love him. it's just hard for her to express it. in a lot of ways i can compare her to carla goldsmith, frannie's mother. they both lost someone they loved earlier than they should have and it turned them hard inside.


let's morph back to ogunquit, maine, for chapter 12. frannie is waiting in the museum (aka, her mother's parlor) to break the baby bump news. frannie's parents do indeed live together but the parlor is unequivocally her mother's. it's full of her mother's heirlooms: a handmade grandfather clock passed down for umpteenth generations, her mother's area rug, a genealogy scrapbook of her own heritage that she compiled herself. roses entombed forever under glass cases and various other decorations adorn this sacred room of tea parties and serious conversation. no traces of peter goldsmith are to be found. this is carla's room only and when you enter this room, you live by carla's standards. frannie has no good memories of the parlor and in fact she hates the room. she would rather be in her father's work room, where nothing but good memories abide. peter's work room holds an almost wonderland-like existence in frannie's mind, and she'd give anything to be a little girl there now. but alas, she is now an adult and most certainly pregnant and waiting to face her mother's wrath.

i love the way king tells the story of carla's parlor. he paints a picture of a time all but gone, and since he wrote the book originally in the 70s, this scenario fits then perfectly. i'm sure most of it would still hold up in the 90s when the book was re-released because there are still people out there who would shudder at the thought of their daughter becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and not for religious or ethical reasons. all carla is worried about is her image to her friends and her community. she could care less about frannie's feelings or well-being. i think also that deep down inside carla doesnt want to lose frannie the way she lost fred and frannie being pregnant is a sure sign of being grown up, and actually having the child is proof that frannie is no longer a child herself. but no matter what frannie does, it isnt going to be good enough to suit carla, because carla's baby (fred) is gone and frannie will never live up to what carla wants.

so frannie spills the beans and carla goes off the deep end; she threatens to cut frannie off financially and accuses frannie of behaving like "a bitch in heat." peter finally steps in and puts his foot (and the pimp hand) down, and it's about time. he should have done it years ago, in my opinion. carla basically reaches the hysteria stage after peter has his say and eventually she retires to her bedroom. the chapter ends with peter and frannie comforting each other in the parlor.

i feel bad for frannie at this point, even though she's not a character that i like very much, yet. i also feel bad for carla for the simple fact that she's alienating her daughter in return for a social life and the way things "should be." carla has woven herself into a cocoon of selfishness and there's not much time for making amends. 

early this morning

it's early in the morning and i really should be in bed. i have a field trip of sorts planned for today. i'm going to hang out with my bestest jackie at her house for a while. yeah, that's a field trip for me. lol. boring life huh? i like my boring life though. it's quiet and drama-free, for the most part. i have a great family and great friends (they also qualify as family, it's a two-fer deal yay!) who make me happy and i hope whom i make happy in return. every day i wake up i know it's a great day to be alive, and that's why you will rarely ever hear me complain. i might mention something that's wrong but that's not the same as complaining. that's not to say that i dont ever complain. sometimes i'll get in a tizzy here at home and i'll have my little tantrum and then i'm good for a while but i guess that's just human nature. is there anyone who doesnt have a tizzy once in a while? i seriously doubt it. if so, they're probably on the edge of becoming a serial killer or having a psychotic break of some type. yeah, i watch csi and criminal minds, i know about this stuff! HAHA

james, luke, and i watched a couple of good movies tonight. clash of the titans (the new one) and avatar (the blue people). both were pretty good. i've put off watching avatar because to be honest i didnt know what it was about and it just didnt look like anything i'd be interested in but once i started watching it i liked it. it was a heartwarming story, really. last night we watched the tourist with johnny depp and angelina jolie. that started off very slowly and i wasnt sure what kind of movie it was going to be. for some reason i thought it was going to be a thriller of some type but it wasnt. it was more of an action/mystery and it had a little comedy thrown in for good measure and i loved it. i predicted the outcome way early in the movie. eventually james is going to stop watching movies with me because i do that on a regular basis lol. i've just watched enough movies that i pick up on subtle clues. not all the time though. a lot of times i miss them by a mile. like in book of eli, i totally missed the boat that one lol. if you've seen the movie you know what i'm talking about.

anyway, i'm just wasting time lol. everyone here's asleep but amberly will be waking up in about an hour or so to get ready for band picture day. i need to go to sleep so i am gonna close this entry, so if you're reading this, i'm probably asleep by now.

thanks for reading, i appreciate you, faithful reader.

the stand: chapters 9 & 10

****SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS****



we're in arkansas when chapter 9 opens. enter nick, a deaf-mute drifter, who is currently receiving a down-home ass-whooping by a few local "good ole boys." if they were half as smart as they are brutish, they may actually realize that he's deaf, but all they care about is exacting their pound of flesh for whatever slight they perceive he visited upon them. so the thugs rough nick up pretty good and leave him for dead; as a matter of fact they try to make sure he ends up that way by throwing him out in front of an oncoming vehicle. it turns out the occupant of the vehicle is a doctor who fixes him up and brings him into town to the local sheriff's department. nick is unconscious during all this and awakes to find himself in a cell. the local sheriff, john baker, listens to nick's story and decides he wont hold nick on any charges. well, that's mighty nice of him, eh? anyway, we find out that the head thug in charge is sheriff baker's brother in law. wonderful. just another small town perk, ain't they grand?? nick decides that no matter the consequences, he wants to pursue legal action against the brutes. sheriff baker will help him, and he commiserates that it's turning out to be a wonderful day; first a drifter in trouble, then finding out his brother in law is the culprit, and to top it all off he's got a summer cold coming on....

well, i guess we know what that means huh? sheriff baker is a bit "blue" and nick is our next main character. nick reminds me a lot of dale "barbie" barbara from king's under the dome. king has a lot of similar themes in many of his epic stories: a drifter, a gang of hometown thugs, a down-home sheriff, and an old, wise character (usually black).

chapter ten takes us back to larry underwood. it's the morning after a night on the town, full of drinking and apparently some sex. he's in some woman's apartment and she's half-naked, cooking him breakfast. sounds good huh? eh...not really. he doesnt remember much (what he does remember, i dont really wanna explain here lol) but he DOES remember that he left his mom's apartment without a goodbye note or anything. not so good in the gratitude department, are we, larry? mom goes out and buys you lots of great groceries and you leave her high and dry in exchange for a night of drinking and an oral hygienist (dont know how she is on hygiene, but she's great on the oral, so says larry). so when larry bails on the chick, she gets mad and tells him he "ain't no nice guy" after all and that's the only reason she went with him to start with. larry leaves her apartment with a headache and a bit of a guilty conscience. he remembers when he threw everyone out of the beach house back in L.A. and how they basically said the same thing: you ain't no nice guy. but larry did the right thing then, and he wants to do the ultimate right thing now: find his mom and make things right. their relationship isnt so kosher anyway, so he ought to do his best to make this right. so we end chapter 10 with larry in a cab on the way to the bank where his mom is a housekeeper.

character development is still in the works majorly at this point in the book. we see the people who are getting sick and dying, and there's the people who arent. the virus has made it from california to georgia to maine and to arkansas so far and lots of places in between. and it's only been a few days. surely all hell is going to break loose very soon.

thanks for tuning in, and i'll see y'all tomorrow for chapters 11&12.

thursday afternoon

it's so hot outside! i cannot even fathom going outside for more than a couple minutes at the time. weather underground says it's 97 with a heat index of 106 and possibility of thunderstorms. i hope it DOES rain! it at least cools off for a little while during and after. plus, there's nothing like the smell of the cool rain hitting the sun-baked ground, the smell that rises out of the dirt and grass, even off the scorching pavement....it's heavenly. i really dont even know how to begin to describe it to you, except that there's a hint of wet soil with a pinch of sweet thrown in (courtesy: grass), not a sugar-sweet smell though. i guess you just have to be here when it happens, lol. i know i've talked about this a time or two but i love the rain (i guess you worked that out already if you've been following my blog very long). the weather page tells me it's raining right now in vidalia and that the temp there is 79!! that's almost 20 degrees difference! (didnt know you were gonna get a math lesson today, didja?) now james has gone out to cut the grass and i'm just gonna chill inside :)

so for the past 4 or 5 days i've had a pain down in the bottom of my left ear; it's intermittent but i'm still not liking it. it brings back not-so-pleasant memories of the ear infections i used to keep when i was a teenager. once, i had inner ear infections in BOTH ears at the SAME time! that was not pleasant, let me tell you. an ear infection brings dizziness (because your equilibrium is off) which spawns nausea; the infection itself brings fever, and your entire head feels like it's going to explode. your jaw hurts and don't even THINK about trying to eat anything. not that you could keep it down due to the nausea, anyway. if you've ever had one, you know what i'm talking about. it's been a long time since i've had an ear infection, probably 8 or 9 years, but i still remember the unpleasantness. you know, we can remember smells and tastes, but physical pain is one thing that we "forget." we remember that yeah it hurt and we remember that it was horrible, but we cant actually REMEMBER the pain. i've been broken and bruised and even given birth to two children and i remember that it hurt, but i dont recall the sharpness of the pain or the intensity of the hurt. i've heard other people say the same thing and it rings true for me so i just figure it's the same for everyone.....what do y'all think? can you remember the pain or just the fact that it hurt? leave me some comments and let me know your take on it....

meanwhile, i think i'm gonna have a quick nap and then read some more of the stand. remember, faithful reader, synopsis and commentary on chapters 9 and 10 coming up later tonight. stay tuned!

the stand: chapters 6-8

i think i'm going to try to blog a little differently. as the chapters are getting longer, i think it's going to be harder to do a separate synopsis and commentary so i am just going to combine the two. let me know which you like better, reader.

chapter six puts us back with frannie goldsmith. remember her? she's the "little bit preggers" chick from chapter 2. frannie is 21 and in college in new hampshire but she's back in ogunquit, maine with her parents for the summer. right now, she comes home to find her father gardening and her mother gone shopping. i get the impression that her parents are well-to-do; her mother is in portland shopping for white gloves for a wedding. now i grew up poor and i never went out of town to shop for gloves, lol, so this is mainly what gives me the impression that they are indeed well-off financially. fran goes to see her father and tell him about the baby but before she does we learn a bit about carla, frannie's mother. she's an old-fashioned woman who finds it hard to believe that frannie's not at college husband-hunting. she also has a sharp tongue and apparently having that unleashed on you would be a bad idea. i think frannie is afraid of telling her mother about the baby but she's more afraid of telling her father, because his disapproval would be more devastating. she's probably had a lot of disapproval from mom over the years but dad is the one who's always "had her back."  i can relate to frannie because i've got people in my life who i dont want to let down and then there's people i love who i know i cannot please no matter what i do and anything i do will always be a bit of a disappointment. peter goldsmith has learned over the years to bite his tongue and i guess frannie has learned to do the same thing. so frannie tells her dad she's pregnant and jess (babydaddy) has offered to marry her or pay for an abortion, whichever frannie chooses to do. peter assures her he's not disappointed in her and he doesnt blame her but her mom will have a lot to say about blame.

all in all we learn more about frannie and her personality. she gets the giggles too much and apparently her mom used to too. frannie finds it hard to believe her mom ever giggled or drank beer or ever had a good time. peter explains that the death of fred, frannie's older brother, changed carla and she basically shut off when he died. fred was her favorite and frannie is peter's. frannie decides an abortion wouldn't be cool and that she wants to keep the baby. frannie is still a young woman and the world has been good to her, for the most part. but frannie's about to fall on hard times and the fate of her and the baby are hanging in the balance. ooh the plot thickens!!

let's travel down the eastern shoreline to georgia for chapter 7. remember vic palfrey? he was keeping bill hapscomb company at the texaco when the state patrolman came to give them the heads-up about the pathologists. well, vic is in a hospital bed somewhere in atlanta but not just a regular hospital, mind you; this one has steel doors and doctors in spacesuits. so we know vic is very sick and he's being treated and observed by an arsenal doctors and scientists but vic is delirious and his "magic hour" is over. the whole texaco crew and their families are in atlanta, including norm "jerk" bruett, lila, and the kids.

woowee i loves me some stu redman, he's my fav character in the whole story. not to mention the fact that every time i read it now i see gary sinise, who played stu in the movie version. and i loves me some gary sinise. lol. anyway, back to the story....chapter 7 concludes in a hospital room with stu. he's not sick and the scientists and doctors want to keep testing him to find out why. however, stu is fed up with being kept in the dark and refuses to cooperate any more.  he recalls being taken into custody and the ride down to atlanta with several of his fellow citizens, all of whom appeared in some way or another to be sick, from a case of the sniffles all the way to a bad case of fever and fainting (norm bruett). oh and mix in a little bit of hysteria on the part of lila and it was a plane ride made in heaven! stu remembers the ride to the airport and remembers seeing soldiers cordoning off the entire town with barbed wire. so the town's in quarantine but it hasnt made it on the news yet. stu knows this because he has a tv in his hospital room. he's definitely getting scared but he's keeping his poker face on. let them see your weakness and your fear and they'll never give you any answers, that's stu's thoughts.

by now the story is starting to get good, it's digging it's claws into my brain and doesnt want to let go. will stu get sick? if not, why?? he's locked up in a steel hospital room while the world is dying. surely nothing good can come of this. **bites fingernails** oh, and on the ride to the airport from arnette, stu noticed that one of the soldiers became sick. it's implied that he wasnt sick before the ride. so in the short period of time that the solider was exposed to the sick texaco crew, he developed a sneeze. holy cow, it's incubating faster now! ooh this cannot be good!!

chapter 8: the captain trips chain letter. it basically outlines how project blue, captain trips, the virus in question, made it from one state patrolman (joe bob, bill hapscomb's cousin/messenger man) to a speeding driver, to a diner full of people in east texas. all those folks carried it away to their families, friends, coworkers, and any strangers they passed along the way. we see the virus splinter and go its many ways, like a firework exploding in the night sky; too many sparks to count, going too many ways to follow at once, or to even comprehend. ripples on the surface of the water....starts out tiny and grows and grows until it's not even discernible.

 chapters 9 and 10 tomorrow. they're getting longer so i think we're probably gonna have to stick to 2 a day, otherwise this is going to become more like a chore than a project of fun. thanks for reading, and comment if you want!

wednesday afternoon, august 10, 2011

well i stayed up way too late last night (gasp! shocker! NOT!!) so i slept most of the day away. i have always loved to sleep during the day and do what i need to do at night. i've been like that ever since i was a child and no matter how hard or how many times i try to change it, i just cant seem to break out of it. i've been called lazy and sorry and several other names i'd rather not put into print, but the simple fact is this: after 30+ years of doing this, i think this is just the way it's going to be. everyone's entitled to his or her own opinion and i respect you in that aspect but this is just me.

i'm looking forward to the end of summer; hopefully around the end of august when it starts to cool off i'm going to start walking, i've made up my mind and nothing is going to change it. jackie is going to walk with me, and nothing is going to change that either, right, jackie? jackie?? now where'd she run off to...?........

on another subject, amberly is trying to sell her guitar and amp, but all she keeps getting are scam artists. they keep wanting to send her checks and money orders for large amounts of money that she can cash, keep her share plus more, then send them the remainder. now i've been online long enough to know that this is a scam but she's only 16 and she doesn't understand. she thinks i'm just being stubborn about her selling the guitar. i think she knows deep down inside that it is a scam but she's disappointed and doesnt want it to be true. i feel bad for her and i wish i could get my hands on the sorry S.O.B. who is trying to scam her. i'd make her eat every one of her emails! (and since emails are on the computer, that means a big ole side dish of hardware, ya sorry bastid!!)

lastly, i'd like to impart the fact that i passed both of my summer classes with flying colors. the quarter ended yesterday and i have a 4.0 GPA.  i'm not bragging, i'm just.....well, yeah i am bragging. i'm proud of myself. i showed up for class every day except once and i was never late.  that's the biggest thing i'm proud of, because i'm always late! ask anyone who knows me well. ask my boss!! hell, ask my ex, i was late twice too many and we ended up with two children, LOL.

well it's almost suppertime so i better mosey to the kitchen and see what i can rustle up for my crew. thank you for taking time to read along with me, and i hope to see you later on when i blog about chapters 5-7 of the stand.

~t

the stand: chapters 3-5

jackie and i decided to try to blog four chapters but chapter 5 was pretty long so we're going to start on 6 tomorrow.

the first part of chapter 3 opens with norm bruett, a man we met at bill hapscomb's texaco back in chapter 1. norm is at home now, and we learn he has a wife and two children. wife lila is away babysitting for a "dolar" and has left a "sassage" for his "luntch." norm is sad when he sees his two young boys playing outside in hand-me-downs and simultaneously angry with a desire to beat them. times are tough for the bruett family, and now norm has a cold.


there's nothing like some financial hardships to bring out the beast in some people, but overall, norm is a class-a scumbag, in my opinion. his and his family's characters are stereotypical but unfortunately pretty spot-on. it's implied that his wife is uneducated and he's abusive. their family has fallen on hard times; he is laid off from the calculator factory (we learned that in chapter 1 also), and now, norm is sick: headache, body aches, and sneezing.

we're back at bill hapscomb's texaco for the second part of chapter 3. bill is working on a car and his pal vic is keeping him company. bill's cousin, a state patrolman, comes by to gas up and impart some serious information: some houston pathologists and some people from the plague center in atlanta are coming to inspect the bodies of charlie campion and his family. bill and vic are both showing early signs of a cold.


we can see a sickness beginning in this small town. we also have to remember that the old guys at the texaco aren't the first people that charlie campion and his family came in contact with; after all, they did make it all the way from california to this small town of arnette, texas.

the chapter ends with lila bruett, norm's wife, babysitting the hodges kids. she's watching a soap opera and lamenting over how nice sally hodges' house is with a color tv and paint-by-number pictures of Jesus. lila has a cough and a tickle in her throat, and the youngest hodges baby is sick too.


now the sickness is spreading fast. lila and norm were only in each other's company for presumably half a day after he was exposed to campion at the texaco. lila has been with the hodges children for less time than that and already the baby is sick. true, the baby could have been exposed in some other way but we dont know and we're left to assume that her exposure came from lila.

i've had some training in healthcare and i understand about airborne pathogens, and this scenario is scary. most viruses incubate for several days or even weeks before symptoms start to emerge. this illness is spreading and showing in less than 24 hours. very very scary.

project blue. that's what the marines are calling the sickness. the marines are at the base where it originated, the same base that charlie campion ran from. there are many dead people on the base in the labs and in the cafeteria, even a guy who died and fell face first into his bowl of soup. the virus has an ivory soap communicability rate, 99.4% with an equal mortality rate. the town of arnette, texas is under quarantine, and the crew from the texaco station all show signs of sickness except for stu. the news around town is an anthrax outbreak. 


this chapter kinda depressed me. starkey, a marine bigwig who is at the base, is the main character of this chapter and he has to deal with the reality that this virus is now out in the open and he is scared. i am sad for starkey and scared with him. i sympathize with him when he imagines having to tell his daughter that her husband (his coworker or maybe subordinate) is dead. (not from the virus though; he committed suicide in the face of the impending disaster.) this chapter also has one scene it that has stuck with me since the first time i read it: the dead guy with his face in the bowl of soup. this scene has popped into my head at various random times throughout my life. the stark reality is you never know when and where your day is gonna come so always wear clean underwear and always pack a great lunch. stay away from the soup though....i hear it's killer.

chapter 5: larry underwood, up and coming pop music star, goes back home to new york city to visit his mother. life in los angeles has been good to larry lately; he cut an album and made it to the billboard music chart, even made it so far as to be featured on kasey kasem's top 40. but things got out of control: parties, drugs, a leeching girlfriend. a fellow musician takes larry aside and forces larry to see what's really going on. larry leaves los angeles and heads back to his mom's apartment in new york for a vacation. larry's mom is a tough woman who had to raise her son alone after his father died. larry left home with a less than heartwarming goodbye, and his homecoming is about the same. she doesnt approve of larry's style of music and she doesnt mind letting him know. on the day larry unexpectedly arrives, she has called in sick to work but, upon his arrival,decides to go to work anyway.


larry was one of my least favorite main characters the first time i read the book. he's careless and selfish and naive and just overall a jerk. but when times got tough, larry knew where to turn: home, the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. i sort of feel sorry for larry once he's home; guilt trips are no fun even if you are in the wrong. all in all, chapter 5 was a "get to know ya" chapter for larry. i think what happened to him in los angeles shook him a bit, but i agree with his mother that it's going to take something major in his life to make larry wake up and smell the coffee.

the dead cat in the garbage can and the rat gnawing on the cat seem to be foreshadowing symbolism to me. good vs evil with a major case of role reversal; mankind, virtually dead in a wasteland, is being preyed upon by the evil that lurks in the shadows, an evil that just needs some bright headlights to send it back to its hiding place.

thank you for reading along so far. please feel free to comment if you wish.

the stand: the circle opens, captain trips, chapters 1 and 2

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, DONT READ IF U DONT WANNA KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!




the beginning of the book finds us on a military base where our first character, a soldier named charlie, is waking his wife from a dead sleep. he's in a panic and he's prompting her to get dressed, dress the baby, and let's get the hell outta dodge. the warning light went off in the tower when charlie was on watch and all the other soldiers are dead; he managed to escape before the tower sealed off and he's come home to rescue his family. they throw together some clothes, grab some money they had hidden away, and haul buggy off the military base. 

in the previous few sentences i've basically summed up the opening of the book. however, king said it well in his preface to the stand that an entire story can be told in just a few sentences but it's all the extra stuff that makes it good. i mean, admit it, my short summary is pretty crappy. but his approximately 7 page beginning, he starts to weave a tale that just grabs your attention and holds it tight. and if you're anything like me (as a reader) then it wont let go until long after the book is finished. *sigh* i'm already dreading the end of the book and i'm only on chapter 3!

chapter one transports us to a small texas town where several old men are in the local texaco, hem-hawing over the poor economy in said town. we meet a slew of characters, from the owner of the station  to out-of-work factory employees. one attendee of this local yokel meeting is stu, who will eventually become one of our main characters. he's the youngest of the bunch of old philosophers. he's pretty quiet, in general, having grown up on hard times and then losing his new wife to cancer, the same cancer, we learn, that killed his mother years earlier. while he listens to the old guys chewing the proverbial fat, he witnesses in the distance a vehicle traveling erratically toward the station. the car comes to a crashing halt at the station and charlie, our character from chapter one, falls out of the car when the door is opened. charlie is very sick from what appears to be food poisoning or perhaps cholera, or so muses one of the onlookers from the station. his wife and child are inside the car, dead from apparently the same thing.


king paints a portrait of life in any small american town. the old men gathered together to talk politics or the economy, or maybe both. if you've read much of king's work, you know he has a knack for grasping the small things that draw you in on such a base level that you cant help but identify in some way with whatever he's writing about. no, i've never been chased by a rabid saint bernard, and i've never owned a possessed car (i had one repossessed once, but that's a whole other can of worms!), and i've certainly never been trapped at the school dance when a teen telekinetic is pushed past the breaking point , but it sure felt like i could have been at any or all of them. they all seemed real and all happened in places where i very well could have been. i could identify with so many nuances of those stories, just as i can with this one. no, i'm not an old man but i see them in action on a regular basis with my work, and i grew up around older men (uncles, grandfather, etc) and i've heard the same things said in so many different ways.

enter our next character, frannie. she will later become a main character, but for now she's a 22 year old local girl who's just "a little bit preggers." she's meeting her boyfriend/babydaddy on the beach, the same beach where the babybump was made. watching him from afar, she realizes she is not in love with the guy anymore, and when she tells him she's pregnant, he seems lost. they go to have ice cream, they quarrel, they kinda break up. their future is a bit uncertain at the moment. chapter 2 in a nutshell.


having read the stand several times, i guess i may be biased when i write my summaries. if i were reading it for the first time, i'd probably include a lot more details. it's also hard not to include events that i know are going to happen. chapter two is kind of bland. i see frannie painted as a sort of a bitch, but i know that she's not. hormones? disappointment? resentment? probably all of the above and more.

i look forward to chapters 3 and 4. it's kind of fun to analyze them also. i havent done this kind of thing before (well i probably did in literature class in high school but that was many many moons ago and mandatory, this is voluntary and much more fun!) so i guess it might get interesting later on as the story progresses. i hope, if you're reading, that i'm not spoiling anything for you. even if you've not read the book and you come across this blog, i hold no candle whatsover to the awesome mr king and you would do so much better to read his version. in addition to mine, of course ;)

until tomorrow, friends....

my love of books

my mother read to me all the time when i was a child, even before i can remember. some of my earliest memories were of mama and i curled up on the couch at our old house, she lying on her side with her knees crooked out toward the edge of the couch, and me lying behind her legs with my head propped on her hip. she would read from one of four large, hardback richard scarry books. for those of you who dont know, richard scarry books were compilations of childhood nursery rhymes, short stories, etc. sometimes she would read the stories to me or i would just look at the pictures. when i was old enough i would read the same books myself. that was my fun time. i even read when i was potty training! there i was, sitting on the white plastic potty, big-girl panties in a heap on the floor, reading from a book. good times, good times!

as i got older, i used reading as an escape of sorts. we lived in the country and all of my cousins who were anywhere close to my age lived in other towns. there were few children in the area, and the ones that were around didnt play with me, for whatever reason. (i think it was a social clash, their parents didnt want them playing with the poor white trash girl.) so books became my escape, their characters became my friends. i would pretend i was whatever heroine was at hand and i would live her story. 

i even read nonfiction works; the encyclopedia was a smorgasbord of information. i would read about the presidents and then write summaries of what i had read. i would make little booklets with all the presidents in them and later i would use them to "teach" my playschool classes!

as i got a little older, i would read magazines and magazine-type books; ellery queen, reader's digest, tv guide, the enquirer, MAD, anything i could get my hands on. my aunt betty was a fanatic for the romantic true story magazines, so i even read those, and she later introduced me to historical romance fiction and harlequin books. i loved those and simply couldn't get enough. 

during the summer and every other chance i got, i practically lived at the evans county library. i cherished walking up the sidewalk to the huge brick building with its smoky glass windows. entering the atrium brought such joy to my heart; the library had a smell all of its own: books, air freshener, a hint of cleaning supplies. the conditioned air from the book haven would hit me as i opened the second door that led from the atrium into the main lobby and i would always have a smile inside my heart. occasionally that smile would make it to my face.

i would scour the shelves of the library; there were no computers back then in our small, rural library. soon the junior section of the library became boring, and i graduated to the adult book section when i was about 11 or 12. i read every book i could get my hands on, from anatomy & physiology to do-it-yourself to non-fiction. i was a sponge. then, i found stephen king. 

the first book i read by king was christine, and i was hooked. i read and re-read nearly every king book i could get my hands on, and my love for reading horror was born. i already had a love for watching horror movies since i was a small child, and this just perpetuated the cycle! while i love almost all aspects of horror, my heart lies in the paranormal. ghost, goblins, vampires, werewolves, monsters, they hold my interest more than anything, in both books and movies. 

all this leads up to one thing: the stand, an epic apocalyptic novel by stephen king. jackie and i are going to read the book together according to a set reading pattern and blog on it daily. by our calculations, it should take approximately 39 days to finish. i read my allotted two chapters and it was very hard to put down! i've read the story three or four times already and it just keeps getting better. 

i <3 stephen king!!

morning, august 08, 2011

Matthew 7:6 says "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

i listened to masked hate, bigotry, prejudice, racism. i didn't say anything. i felt it was futile. just because i am white does not mean i hate everyone who isnt. i do agree that there are bad apples in every bunch, no matter what ethnicity they are, but don't cloister everyone! how can you say you love God and how can you go to church and then proceed to judge someone? ugh! i know people are raised certain ways and to believe certain things but once you become old enough to form your own opinions, you arent bound by what you were "taught."

"that's how i was raised" is such a cop-out. i was raised that way too but i dont practice that nor do i feel that way in my heart. i love everyone but i dont like everyone, but you can be sure that if i dont like you it's because of something i personally experienced with you, not some preconceived idea i have about you because of your skin color, religion, sexual preference, or whatever.

i'd be a virtual hermit if i shunned everyone based on their prejudices, but i dont always keep quiet. i will tell my opinion and beliefs and i never lie or go along with what someone is saying just because i dont want to be ridiculed. i am a firm believer in standing up for what i think is right no matter who is opposing it. this time, though, i felt it was futile and i know for a fact that not everyone in the group has the same hateful opinions that i was hearing. besides, i was in someone else's home and i was not at liberty to leave at a moment's notice if things got less than pleasant, for i was riding with someone else. so while i do stand up for my beliefs, i also recognize a situation when i need to keep my mouth shut. the time will come for me to say what i need to say.

my movie list

movies i love and could (and have, and DO!) watch over and over again:

armageddon
forrest gump
dirty dancing
independence day
remember the titans
rocky horror picture show
toy story
the lion king
pretty woman
liar liar