Today I’m posting a response from an online friend that I had asked to review my new blog. Since I’m brand new to this stuff, I value the responses of anyone who cares to comment (trolls excepted), but comments from friends are especially welcome. I haven’t actually met Fred yet, but we’ve had a lively discourse over the past few months. He’s an 80 something supporter of all things liberal and a senior member of the Universal Unitarians, or something like that. I’m a 40 something Southern Baptist with a non-standard point of view, but have no doubt that I support the right to life for unborn children.
This is Fred’s response; please feel free to comment on this as well, the books, not the politics.
This Book Weasel/Dog Weasel Blog gives a whole new dimension to the author, and no end of difficulties in coping with her. Literate, witty, erudite, unpretentious and entertaining … not even remotely approaching the expected from a Southern Baptist basking in godly love and convinced that her fetus was talking to her seven minutes after conception.
(BookWeasel: Nearly true, I maintain that I knew I was pregnant with my only child very nearly from conception. Fred maintains that I’m a jibbering *&$^()#$ and wouldn’t recognize a fetus if it jumped up and called me Mama.)
It gives rise to about a million questions (marked down from 1.7 million questions), a sprinkling of which are:
* Why do you do it?
* What rewards are in it for you?
* What are your goals for it?
* Why is your name not on it?
* How do people know it is there?
* How many “hits” in any given period of time?
(BookWeasel: Excellent questions that I’ll ignore for now because it’s my blog and I get to play dirty.)
Ah, Chihuahuas. For four decades I co-existed in perfect civility with my next door neighbor, X, as he advanced from jail sergeant to long-time sheriff of X County. He died, and his widow moved, and soon we got The Neighbor From Hell, a social worker (I understand) who quickly alienated everyone on my block of X Avenue. Like turning in a neighbor for her 25 cats. Like calling the law when someone had an asthma attack and parked in her driveway. Like accusing my son of stealing stuff off her lawn, other neighbors of stealing other stuff. All of which is meaningless preamble for her (three) Chihuahuas From Hell, who go off regularly at 3 a.m. with yelps that sound as if one just set foot on a mouse trap. (We have a cat …)
(BookWeasel: It’s true that Chihuahuas, especially en masse, have a truly irritating yap. It sets up a resonance in the inner ear drum that can cause sterililty, toe fungus, and a craving for licorice. However, in respect for Fred’s cat (yuck), I’ll soon be reviewing a Terry Pratchett novel called ‘The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents”.)
I am overwhelmed by a sense of guilt on my non-book reading habits. I have an ex-nun’s history of god at my bedside, thinking that I ought to have some knowledge of the subject for my September sermon. I’m stuck in the first hundred pages. I got to the last chapter of Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” and just quit because a guy embracing those who’d wipe him (and ME!) off the map has a tent too big for MY tastes. I adore political humor – Molly Ivins, Art Hoppe, Al Franken … But mostly I stick to them thar librul periodicals – The Nation, Harpers, Mother Jones, The Progressive. Haven’t tackled a good novel in years. There’s also the half-hour-standing-at-a-Borders-counter read.
(BookWeasel: I’ve been known to read the back of cereal boxes when nothing else was available.)
So there you go, expect to hear more from Fred as I sneak in the occasional weasel. Next up will be the book review of Maurice, a very smart cat who has figured out a financial scam involving a large group of traveling, also smart rats. There’s a not-so-smart kid that plays a pretty good horn, and plenty of gullible townies willing to pay to get rid of their Oh-So-Sudden rat problem. This novel is one of Terry Pratchett’s youth entries but don’t let that fool you, Sir Pratchett’s youth stories are some of the best fiction I’ve read without any condescending for a younger audience.
“The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents” is published by Harper Torch and takes place on the magical Discworld. It’s a departure from his usual Discworld characters so it stands alone and is a perfect introduction to the author for teen or adult.
In Maurice’s story, the rats have been hanging out behind the University of magic and the garbage left behind by wizards has some pretty strange side effects. Maurice didn’t get so smart from eating the garbage, he got smart from eating…. Let’s just say that Maurice is one very smart cat. In fact, he’s a little too smart for the villagers and gets up to some pretty illegal behavior. This con cat runs into a problem in his last town and the rats have to save his bacon. Good thing he has a few lives left, and that Death likes cats.
This book gets the Multiples Read, I’ve read it two or three times and will for sure go back for more. And I don’t even like cats.
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