People are Still Fascinating

This weekend I was at the Maryland Wine Festival and then various places in DC. Still found a lot of strange comments, although, yes, some were alcohol enhanced.
I watched one woman pull her car to a dead stop on the highway. She hopped out and dragged her kid out, yanking clothing off and holding the kid over the grass to pee. While I understand it was a more rural highway, it sure seemed like there had to be a safer place to pull over.
-So, you have red hair. Is that why they made you serve red wine. (I answered yes. Seemed useless to explain that I was serving both red and white.)
-Give me your favorite wine. (Which is really code for, I'm just getting drunk now.)
-Pinot noir, please. (Ever since "Sideways", I get asked this once per festival. Even though the winery I volunteer at does not have a Pinot of any kind. Nor do we have anything close, unless by close you mean red.)
Also, (and yes, this turned out much more wine fest focused) somebody had the brilliant idea to make the wristbands gold, which of course meant they were a dingy color that blended in with a lot of people's wrists. Next year I vote for neon pink.

People are Fascinating

This weekend I was at a congregation event so I was hanging with teens, hanging with adults, eating possibly more garlic bread and ice cream that one should in such a period, and knitting. Now I want to stress, while I am finding amusement in some of the things people said to me, everyone was totally lovely (especially and including the teens).
About me:
"You waiting for your teen?" (Ah yes, just two weeks ago one parent thought I was a teen. Now they think I am a parent. Yes, I know the latter is far more likely.)
"Bread makes you fat."
I responded, but it's yummy. And then the teen patiently explained to me that she was quoting from Scott Pilgrim. Pop culture fail. I did then re-answer, "Bread makes you fat?"
About knitting:
"So what are those really neat things you have there?" (Stitch markers. The Clover kind.)
"So this might take you weeks to finish?" (I should note that last year a small child saw me knitting and saw me again a few hours later, looked and said, "You're not done yet?" So, this is an improvement.)

Dewey's back!

And he's so cute! Or something. Anyhoo, this year's recipient is the Village Learning Place in nearby Baltimore. There are several ways to donate. And if you scroll down through the comments here - Pamie's giving away copies of her Going in Circles which I read and adored.
So, I went to the teen list (yes, I know you are all very shocked) and found a banned book or two to donate. (It might have even included an author that caused a little contrversy not too long ago in Texas.)

Impatience and Excerpts

I am an impatient person about some things. (Shocking, I know.) Books in particular. I hate excerpts, sample chapters and the like and avoid them like the plague because - unless the book is already out - if it’s well done, I have to wait for the next page. Sure, sometimes when waffling on a particular choice I’ll skim some pages, but that is again on books already out. I don’t like waiting more than I have to to read the good stuff. And publishing is a whimsical business. That’s why of the five pieces we heard at Cherry Con, two of them are (freaking, finally) coming out this year. I may have told a person or twenty about my excitement about this. But that is an interminable (in my opinion) amount of time to wait. I accidentally read the excerpt for the next of Eilieen Dreyer’s historicals, and I have no idea how I’m going to wait for April. (Better be April or sooner people, or I’ll...be crankier.) I have been known to peek at an excerpt in an ongoing series to get a sense of who the next book was about. And sure, once, I read the whole freaking excerpt on purpose because in my excitement about the resolution the next book was going to provide my peek turned quickly into reading the whole darn thing. But generally, while I absolutely see the value in having excerpts and sample chapters, I don’t read them. Nope, not at all. So, now you know what I’ll be doing November. And April.

The Best Fiction or So They Tell Me

I was going to wade in on the whole debate that emerged on twitter and across the internet about the New York Times Book Review’s coverage (or lack thereof) of genre fiction, and how it raised some intriguing points about coverage of female focused or penned books and whether a book review should focus on the very highest quality* of books or if it should pay more than nominal attention to the the books more people read, but I am now exhausted having read so much of the coverage so, should you have missed this, I shall point you here, to Jennifer Weiner who kicked this off (as a long time reader of her blog, I will point out she has been talking about this for a long time, it just seems to have sparked something this time). She also provides links to some of the resulting articles and to Laura Lippman’s thoughts. And I will point you to the brilliantly named Monkey See post. And I will point you to the lovely Caridad Ferrer’s thoughts here.

*And yes, I know that assuming that the only quality stuff occurs in non-genre fiction is hugely wrong but that is a whole other rant.