Jim & Gregg - Chirstmas 2008

This was Gregg and I's Christmas picture from last year. It's a bit out of date now, as Gregg has lost over 100 pounds since this picture was taken. If my long term insentive bonus comes in soon we will definitely have a new picture taken.

Cow Pies

2 C. Granulated Sugar
½ C. Butter
½ C. Milk
1/3 C. Unsweetened Cocoa
2/3 C. Peanut Butter
3 C. Quick Cooking Oats
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Combine Sugar, butter, milk & cocoa in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until misture comes to a rolling boil. Removed from heat & let cool for 1 minute. Add peanut butter, stir to blend, then add oats and vanilla. Mix well. Quickly drop mixture by heaping teaspoons ont wax paper. Let cool completely. Store in a dry place. Yeilds 24 cookies.

In Memorium

John William Edwards

1929-2009

(Pictured at far right.)

Review: One For The Money

One For The Money
By Janet Evanovich

Stephanie Plum is an unemployed lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey who is down on her luck. She is short on cash and long on bills, her Miata repossessed, and the furniture in her apartment is as scarce as the food in her refrigerator. Yet she is a woman not without resources, who black mails her perverted, bail bondsman cousin, Vinnie, into giving her a temporary try as an apprehension agent. Her assignment: bring in Joe Morelli, a cop on the run who stands accused of shooting an unarmed man.

“There are some men who enter a woman’s life and screw it up forever,” writes Janet Evanovich in the opening sentence of “One For The Money,” the first in her series of Stephanie Plum novels. As a teenager Joe Morelli cavalierly claimed Stephanie’s virginity behind the éclair case of a Trenton bakery and then scribbled the details of their encounter on a restroom wall in Mario’s Sub Shop. The next time she sited him was in the cross hairs of a Buick Hood ornament.

With an old score to settle and a $10,000 pay check for added inspiration Stephanie sets off on the trail of Joe Morelli. She begins to investigate and finds him almost by accident. But Stephanie, who is after all, new to this line of work, cannot bring him in. He insists that Ziggy Kulesza was armed when he shot him even though no gun was found on the body and there is at least one witness who was in the room who can back up his story… the problem: the witness has disappeared and no one know who he is or where he went.

In an effort to bring in her man and her ten thousand dollar pay check Stephanie begins to investigate the shooting herself, and soon finds herself being stalked by none other than Benito Ramirez, Ziggy’s boss and a heavy-weight champion boxer, who uses women as his personal punching bags. To pay the bills Stephanie also takes a couple of other cases, but requires the advice and assistance of Ranger, a fellow apprehension agent, who takes her under his wing and shows her the ropes. Eventually Stephanie and Joe realize that they need each other’s help, and Joe agrees to let Stephanie earn her $10,000 if she helps him unravel the mystery of Ziggy’s missing gun and the missing eye witness.

Janet Evanovich has succeeded in creating a novel of suspense, intrigue, humor and passion. That is not an easy thing to do in the crime fiction genre. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. Her characters are fully drawn and quite believable, even when their actions are outlandish. Her fast pacing and action filled plot kept me turning the pages and wanting more.

Review: The Elephant Keeper

The Elephant Keeper: A Novel
By Christopher Nicholson

Tom Page had been given an assignment, to write a history of the elephant. He was not to write a general history of the species, but one elephant in particular, Jenny. Tom was her keeper, and the first third of and the first third of Christopher Nicholson’s novel “The Elephant Keeper” is Tom’s history. The remaining two-thirds of Mr. Nicholson’s novel though quickly grows darker as Jenny, and by extension Tom, is purchased by a series of owners.

Set in the tumultuous late 1700’s of Georgian England, Mr. Nicholson has given his readers only the necessity of what his story requires. There is no mention of King George III or of the American Revolution. In fact, if only because of a scant mention here or there of the date, I dare say that Mr. Nicholson’s readers could have placed his story in almost any century from the 18th to the 21st, as he has created a world, as if within a bubble, where external events have no consequence to the story. Georgian England was on the brink of an identity crisis, but that is not the England of Mr. Nicholson’s novel.

As the remaining two thirds of “The Elephant Keeper” unfold, Tom and Jenny begin to communicate with each other, at first through commands and gestures, and slowly a sort of telepathic communication between the two emerges. Tom has grown to love Jenny, and has convinced himself that Jenny cannot survive without him. He pushes away the only girl who truly loves him to take care of his elephant. Is Tom the keeper of the elephant or is the elephant the keeper of Tom?

I was totally confused by the last chapter of Mr. Nicholson’s novel. I had been jarred by the switch in tone from the first third of the book to the last two-thirds, but nothing prepared me for a 200+ year flash-forward stroll through a museum to find Jenny’s articulated skeleton. Who is the chapter’s narrator? Has Tom somehow survived 200 years? And what purpose does this last chapter serve other than to completely confuse the authors readers?

“The Elephant Keeper” started off well, then grew darker, and ends up bordering on the realm of science fiction and fantasy. In the end I was left confused as to Mr. Nicholson’s purpose and theme of his story, and was left feeling unsatisfied when I finished reading it.

ISBN 978-0061651601, William Morrow, © 2009, Hardcover, 304 pages, $24.99

Amazon Reviewer Helpful Votes

I picked up 3 more helpful votes for my Amazon.com reviews over the weekend, bringing my total helpful votes for my reviews to 138. My current reviewer ranking is 11,093, but the ranking changes seem to lag a few days behind getting a helpful vote. Including my "Listmania!" lists I have received 150 helpful votes out of a total 177 cast, so I'm at an 85% success rate!

Reading Log

I guess this falls under the heading of anal retentive... but I've been keeping a log of every book I have read since 2001. It as been a few weeks since I changed servers for my website and I've just now updated & uploaded my Reading Log to the website.

Book Review: Buffalo Lockjaw

Buffalo Lockjaw: A Novel
By Greg Ames

James Fitzroy is a man on a mission: to kill his mother. He is not a diabolical man, he loves is mother. He’s not an assassin; he doesn’t want her to suffer. He has a vague idea of who he is, his mother does not. Fifty-six year old Ellen Fitzroy, who spent a lifetime researching dementia, now lives in a nursing home, unable to care for herself, suffering from the effects of advanced Alzheimer’s disease.

Greg Ames boldly has chosen euthanasia, a difficult topic filled with internal and external conflicts, for his debut novel and set it in the cold winter of Buffalo, New York, a town which seems to have as much of an identity crisis as Ellen.

James arrives at his mother’s bedside just in time to help her celebrate Thanksgiving. His father, who visits Ellen every day and sister show up shortly there after. This isn’t the holiday of James’ childhood. James recognizes what everyone around him fails to see, Ellen is suffering a fate she never wanted to suffer, she wanted to die with dignity and now even that has been taken away from her.

As James wrestles with the idea of helping his mother die, he makes contact with friends of his passed that are stuck in Buffalo, both literally, figuratively, and as a mindset, and as he drives through Buffalo, the past is never as far away as he once thought it was.

I did not find Mr. Ames’ novel “darkly comic” as blurbed on its back cover, but rather a well written, easy read. And that’s about as much as can be said about it. While reading it, I felt a tangential connection to the characters, but I never really got to know them, and in that respect it was unsatisfying, I wanted to dig deeper into these characters. There was no ratcheting up of the plot, aside from Ellen’s life, which as for all intents and purposes already ended; there is nothing at stake for James.

In the novel’s conclusion, Mr. Ames took the easy way out, Ellen is dead, and James did not kill her. It is an anticlimax that left me feeling nothing but the satisfaction of having finished reading the book.

ISBN 978-1-4013-0980-0, Hyperion, © 2009, Trade Paperback, 304 pages, $14.95

Gregg & Dougie

Gregg and Scarlett @ Scarlett's House