Nina Lewis

Archive for October, 2009

I’m babysitting this week while my daughter goes back to work.  Poor her.  Lucky me.

This morning after our exercise routine and 5 mile jog, my granddaughter, Natalie, and I hunkered down for some serious bonding time.  I taught her how to scan raw eggs, ice cream, and mashed potatoes.  A very important life skill to have.

Next, we created a video that we are considering posting to You Tube.  It’s called ‘Grandma Cutting Zzzzs.’  I have to edit out the scene where grandma is drooling.   Natalie thinks it is funny.  I do not.

I taught her how to create her own blog and edit the HTML. I told her I didn’t want to teach her how to program.  I do not like looking for truant semi-colons or the if-then statements that don’t work.  She acquiesced.

We took lots of digital pictures and are in the process of creating a digital scrapbook.

All this before 9:30 a.m.

In the afternoon, we went to the beauty shop and had our hair done and our our nails manicured and painted.  We shopped at the mall and then had curly fries and Dr. Pepper at Arby’s.  We watched a chick flick and giggled over boys.

Quite the day for a granddaughter who is only 12 weeks old . . .

This well-done video is amazing.  It makes you realize how our world is such a teeny tiny piece of the universe and that the universe is a lot more than we have ever imagined!  If you believe in the big bang theory, this video makes one think that it would have to have been a mighty big bang indeed.  Downright huge.  Gargantuan.  A trillion times bigger than BIG.  And then some.

I almost didn’t read the book that our book club selected for our October meeting:  Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  But, one day I forgot to pack a book to read on the bus.  (Oops.  There I go again mentioning the bus. Sorry.)  I went to the library and checked out Speak and I’m so glad I did.

Speak (fiction) is about a girl’s experience as a freshman in high school.  She is the pariah of the school.  Her grades are horrible and she refuses to speak to anyone — even her parents.  In the climax of the book, you find out the cause of her problems.

This is a superbly written Young Adult book.  There are well turned phrases, subtle symbolism, great plot.  It’s funny.  It’s poignant.  It’s powerful.  It’s an easy read — one that is well worth your time.

Since I started riding the UTA to and fro, I set the goal to read a book a week.  That’s doable — especially if I quit dozing on the way home . . .

This week I finished my eighty-second book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Barrow.  Love that title!

This book is about the suffering of the people who lived on the island of Guernsey (in the English Channel) during five years of German occupation in World War II.  I’ve read lots of grim, gripping, grisly books about the effects that war had on people.  Those aren’t the words I would use to describe this book.  Sweet, charming, enchanting come to my mind instead.  Hardly words normally connected to war.

The novel is a series of letters written among a 30-something spinster novelist, the people of the island, and the novelist’s friend and her friend’s brother (who also happens to be the novelist’s publisher).  Because the letters are written from different perspectives, you get a good understanding of what the people are really like.  By the end of the book, you feel as if these folks are your friends. You want to invite them over for milk and cookies — and to introduce them to the Beatles Rockband.

Even though the treatment of the book is light and delicate, you still learn of the pain and the suffering the people experienced.  I highly recommend this book to everyone — even those whose bodies are filled to overflowing with testosterone.

So we got a new mattress.

In the days of yore, mattresses were ten, maybe twelve, inches deep.  My how things have changed.  Our new mattress is one hundred times deeper.  Nay, a thousand times deeper.  A million times!

Should we install an elevator to get to the top?  Do they make them that tall?

Before I begin my ascent to the top of the mattress, I grab my oxygen mask and take altitude sickness medicine.  Sometimes they help.  Once I’ve reached the summit, I fear the onslaught of pulmonary, peripheral, and cerebral edema.  My significant other (who shares this mattress with me) says that our mattress is not the cause of my cerebral edema (swelling of the brain which he calls ‘Ms. Fat Head Syndrome).  I think I’m going to push him over the edge of our mattress and watch him splat on the floor below.  Ms. Fat Head indeed!

Heaven help me when I kick my covers off and then later need to pull them back up.    I sit on the edge of the bed and peer down to the red speck that is my comforter that I see far, far, below.  It’s easier reaching for something at the bottom of the Grand Canyon than it is getting something off the floor while staying on top of my bed.  I need rappelling gear with lots of safety harnesses to ensure a safe trip down and back.

But I must say the pillow top is very comfy.  Like sleeping on a cloud.  I guess that makes the height bearable.  Barely.