The week is almost over...

...and all the kids are well and in school today. Wrote Bear a letter explaining his absence and of course he left it at home. *sigh*

The temperature has gone up again, from the 50s to the 70s. Typical Florida. LOL

There's a SWAT standoff on the news this morning and the information is rather vague - there's a father in the house who won't come out so his adult children called the cops. Well, Sharky and Petunia were watching the report and Petunia shrugged and said, "Well maybe the guy is homophobic?" We both looked at her in puzzlement. "Homophobic? Scared to come outside?" said she. Oh... Agoraphobic. (We watched an episode of House about an agoraphobic patient.) Sharky looked at me and said, "Well, better explain homophobic." I informed Petunia that it meant someone scared of gay people. She laughed and said that was no reason to be locked in your house. Sharky replied, "It would be if it was a gay SWAT team outside." Oh, the visual of pink cops with sparkles and boas crossed my mind right then...

I just finished E. Annie Proulx's Postcards: I knew she was famous as being the author of the short story that became "Brokeback Mountain" but I had not read any of her books before. On Bookcrossing, I joined a bookring to read her book called "Postcards". It was highly recommended as a "stepping stone" to her works, since it supposedly was a shorter and easier read than her other more famous works such as "The Shipping News", etc. Well, honestly, as another person on the bookring mentioned, it was very much like a grownup version of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. Egads, the family in the book suffers so freaking much. It follows the course of the Blood family from their farm in Vermont during WWII until almost present day, detailing all their trials and tribulations. I cried a lot during this book. The family isn't too likable, but Proulx's writing makes you feel like you are watching a movie - her writing is very, very full and detailed and I ended up pitying everyone. I guess the crux of it all is, these characters were very realistic and you know that people like this existed...