Being without power for 48 hours taught me a few things:
- I now completely understand why Wally takes a leak on the dwarf Alberta spruce that sits right next to the patio each morning, rather than heading further away from the house. At the beginning of day one, I was heading to the woods. By the beginning of the second day, I was 5 steps off the patio. By the end of the second day, I was standing right at the edge of the patio. Give me a couple more days and I probably would have just opened the door to the patio and let fly right from the kitchen.
- As the picture below shows, its always important to brush your teeth before going to bed.
- The only time it's OK to wake Kim up at 1AM in the morning is when you're telling her that the power is on. I actually got a high five.
- The sound of the toilet tank filling back up with water -- automatically -- is a beautiful thing.
Last week, I read an article in the New Yorker that said that scientists had demonstrated, through DNA testing, that all non-Africans have traces of Neanderthal DNA. The traces range from 1% to 4%. That sounds small but, in the face of Hurricane Irene, I've found that every little bit helps.
We've been without power since just after midnight early Sunday morning. Having no electricity is a bit of a problem. The food in your refrigerator starts to go bad, you can't watch television, and your wireless router doesn't work. Worst of all, when you're reliant on a well, you can't get any water. That's not a good thing.
Irene was pretty bad early Sunday morning. I lay in bed, listening to the wind and rain hit the house. Right after midnight, the power went off. I didn't think much of that since we've never lost power for more than a few hours, even in the midst of those monster snowstorms a few winters back. As I lay there, waiting to see if the big pine tree in the front yard would snap and crash into the house, I also waited for the power to come back.
By 6:15AM, the storm seemed to have died down a bit but the power wasn't back. I got out of bed and went to the window to assess the damage. The pine was still standing but one of our huge tulip poplars had snapped in half and managed to land directly on the neighbors' driveway. Thinking it was too early to get out the chain saw, I decided to go for a walk and see what else had happened in the neighborhood. First, though, I got a Post-It note and stuck it on the seat of the boys' toilet (yes, the seat was down -- what good boys we have) telling them to go to the bathroom outside when they woke up. Then I went outside and set an example for them.
As I walked through the neighborhood in the rain, I saw only one more downed tree. By the time I got back to our house at 7:15AM, the neighbors were already out with a handsaw cutting up the smaller limbs on the tree. They were desperate for coffee and wanted to get out to get some. I just don't understand the coffee fixation. I helped them clear a path on their drive and away they went.
After they left, I got out the chain saw to cut up the rest of the tree. It didn't take too long. It was still raining and the wind was still blowing. I was wet and covered with sap and sawdust. It was then that I remembered that I wasn't going to be able to shower. Oh, well. Now that I was a mess, I figured I might as well keep on working. I decided to figure out what trees were the next most likely to fall across their drive. I found three more, cut them down, chopped most of them up, and then my chain saw started acting up so I had to quit.
By this point it was a little after 10AM and I was pretty much a mess. I was certain Kim wouldn't want me back in the house. Trying to figure out how to clean myself up, I headed back to visit the facilities in the woods behind the house. That's when it came to me -- "What would Katniss do?" I remembered I was wearing a bandana. I knew there must be puddles in our driveway since there always are. I decided to give myself a sponge bath in the driveway. I peeled off my boots, socks, and shirt and yanked off my bandana. I soaked it in a puddle and got started. Face, hands, arms, armpits, neck, legs. I got a pretty good rhythm going -- soak, scrub, wring out, repeat. I had this Neanderthal thing down pretty well.
I'd like to tell you that I fully embraced my inner Neanderthal yesterday. The reality, though, is that modern man's DNA took over again. You see, I don't like being dirty and I just wasn't clean enough. By nightfall, we'd checked into a hotel so I could take a real shower.
We're back home and are doing our best not to head back to a hotel. Now they're saying that the power won't be back on til Friday. Should be a fun week.
It was just starting to get quiet around here. Everyone had started to settle down from our big earthquake. We had a couple of days where we got to start every conversation with "Can you believe we had an earthquake?" and trade stories about where you were when it struck, what you thought it was, how you reacted, etc. It was kind of hard for me to join in since my story was pretty boring. I was in my car on the BW Parkway. I felt nothing. Of course, feeling nothing is pretty much par for the course for me.
Now, we've got the hurricane coming. I think it's going to be a big deal. Everyone's certainly preparing as if it's going to be. I had to stop for gas on the way home from work because the warning light came on in the car telling me I was running low. There were so many people at the High's at the traffic circle that I actually had to wait to turn into their lot. After I got into the lot, I found a spot in line behind one of the pumps, and waited my turn. Luckily for me, I got to hear all of Britney Spears' "I Wanna Go" (you know you like it, too) while I waited. Even better, no one had used our Giant gas points in a while and I got 30 cents off each gallon. That always makes me so happy. I saved a whopping $4.20. That almost pays for the overpriced yogurt parfait I bought at Starbuck's in the Columbus airport on Wednesday. Overpriced but pretty darn good, too.
When I got home, the spirit of hurricane preparedness really hit me. All spring and summer, I've watched the gutters over the front porch overflow whenever we get a heavy rain. Actually, all our gutters overflow but the ones over the porch are the only ones I can really reach with my ladder. So, I decided I needed to clean them out before the big storm hits. As I headed outside, Jay told me he was worried about me. He remembers my last ladder fiasco. But, no problems this time.
I can't wait for tomorrow morning. I'm going to bring in the outside furniture and fill the bathtubs up with water. I may even head down to Kim's bomb shelter and do an inventory of our back-up food supply. Just in case.
The Howard County Times is a weekly newspaper that covers happenings here in bustling Howard County, MD. We don't subscribe to it but, somehow, a copy made it to the bottom of our driveway this past week. Since I didn't have any more Hunger Games books to read (boo-hoo), I sat down and started to flip through the newspaper.
I skipped the front-page article ("County Boomers Stay Put -- And Active: Not Your Grandmother's Senior Center"), as tempting as it seemed. Since I'm not on Facebook, I also skipped the big article on the newly-started "You Knew You Grew Up in Columbia When ..." Facebook group. And, yes, I also skipped the third feature ("Ulman Offers Rent-Free Land to Revive Post Office"). Why should the Post Office get rent-free land?
I was just about to completely give up and toss the paper in the trash when I came to page 49. It was a re-cap of the recently concluded Howard County Fair. I'd hit paydirt. You see, the next 39 pages contained a complete listing of all the winners of every competitive category that had been judged at the Fair. Each page had nearly 50 categories listed. That's almost 2,000 different categories! I knew they had champion steer and prize pig, but 2,000 categories?
In case you didn't have a chance to review this comprehensive listing of winners, let me bring you up to speed on just a few of the things you missed:
- The major categories are 4-H Home Arts, Open Home Arts, Arts, 4-H Livestock, Open Livestock, and Open Farm. OK -- that's six categories. That doesn't seem too unreasonable, right? Until you realize that ...
- Each category has dozens of different sub-categories. For example, in the Open Home Arts category, the first sub-category is "Food Preservation - Canned Fruit and Vegetables." There are 84 different contests in that single sub-category. Trust me. I counted them. My favorites are "Other Butter," "Sweet Pickle Peaches," and "Meat - Jerky." Who knew that Meat - Jerky is a canned fruit or vegetable?
- I definitely want to be a judge next year in the Baked Goods sub-category. Would you believe there are three different contests just for brownies with no icing? There's "Brownies," "Brownies - Chewy," and "Brownies - Cake Like." I'm a little confused by the just "Brownies" category. If they're not chewy or cake like, what are they?
- Kim must not be the only one who has a million different types of vinegars in the pantry. Vinegar contests at the Fair included Tarragon, Rosemary, Dill, Basil, and Mint. I'm wondering why no contest for Red Wine or White Wine.
- Finally, if you're wondering, here's the complete listing of categories for Children's Art Work - Ages 5 to 7:
- Pencil
- Colored Pencil
- Crayon
- Colored Markers (what other kind of marker is there?)
- Watercolor & Tempra
- Pastel
- Mixed Media
- Building Theme
- Charcoal
- Miscellaneous Forms (OK, would that be scribbling?)
.
We took Hannah back to Penn State yesterday. Physically, it was pretty uneventful. We got there early enough that we beat the heat and the traffic jams on campus. We had just one accident with the dolly (and it wasn't even Hannah's stuff that was on the dolly when it fell over). The only injury I suffered was a small puncture wound on my finger when I was pulling the packing off of her new mirror. It bled a bit but, compared to the "incident" I had with the drill last summer, it was no big deal.
Hannah's room, while still small, seems a bit bigger than last year. All her stuff fit in it pretty easily. In fact, once she gets rid of all the gifts she assembled this summer for her little sister, I think she may even have some extra space.
So, there were no big mishaps. But, it was still hard to say good-bye. Hannah really loves Penn State. Dropping her off this year was quite a bit different for me than it was last year. Back then, I remember leaving with many questions:
- Will she get along with her roommate? Turns out the answer to that was "no" but she got past that speed bump.
- Will she have fun? Can you believe I asked myself that? Looking back now, I laugh when I think I really wondered if she'd have fun.
- Will she stay out of trouble? I believe the answer to this one was "yes" but do I really know the real answer? Do I want to know?
- How will she do with her classes? Hmmm. Let's just say that, other than the couple she dropped, she did just fine.
- Will she miss us? That's right. Selfishly, I wondered if she would even care that she was gone.
This year, when I said good-bye, I wasn't thinking about those sorts of things. Instead, I was thinking of how confident Hannah became last year. And, I was thinking that I'd only be dropping her off at school two more times. After that, the next time I drop her off, it will be permanent. I know she'll be ready for that when the time comes. Yesterday, I could sense that in her. I wonder about myself, though. I've got some growing up to do in the next couple years if I'm going to be ready.
Monday was a big day as Swansea City, my new favorite Barclays Premier League team, had its debut match against Manchester City. You might remember that Swansea City was promoted to the big time after winning its playoff match against Reading a few months back.
Luckily for me, the game was broadcast live on ESPN2 Monday afternoon. I set my DVR so that I could watch the game when I got back from work. After dinner, I sat down (OK, technically, I laid down on the floor) to watch the match.
For the first 20 minutes or so, Swansea City had the lion's share of possession. The announcers were waiting for them to fold. I kept hearing about how Manchester City is one of the favorites to win the Premier League this year, how 9 separate Manchester City players had salaries that exceeded Swansea's entire payroll, and how it was only a matter of time before the Jacks folded. Enough already.
After the first 20 minutes, Manchester City started to control the game. But, they couldn't put the ball in the net. At halftime, the score was 0-0. I was reminded of the Queen's Park Rangers match we went to see when we visited London a few years back. That game ended 0-0 and, just a few minutes before the final whistle, the young English boy sitting behind us sadly said to his father, "Nobody cares about nil-nil." How true.
Anyway, I was tired by this point (it was 9PM which is pretty much my bedtime). So, I turned off the TV and went to bed. On Tuesday morning, I told Nick how Swansea City was getting run all over the pitch by the end of the first half but that it was still a tie game at 0-0. I headed off to my lunch meeting, planning to watch the rest of the game later Tuesday. When I got home, Nick promptly told me that he'd gone online and seen that Manchester City ended up winning 4-0. So much for suspense.
I did watch the rest of the game. The first 10 minutes of the second half were great. The Swansea City fans in attendance were singing their chants so loudly that the Manchester City fans started whistling at them angrily. I learned that Swansea City fans are called "Jacks" after a legendary dog (Swansea Jack) that saved 27 people from drowning on the shores of Swansea during a storm back in the 1930's. Best of all, I heard the Jacks singing "Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" (Land of My Fathers), the national anthem of Wales. Just a couple days ago, I thought that "O Canada" was the best national anthem. Now I think I may have to change my mind.
I'm looking forward to Saturday's match against Wigan. It's a home match so I'm expecting a win. We'll see.
I just finished "Mockingjay," the third and final book in "The Hunger Games" series. That's three books in three weekends. I'm exhausted.
The first book was by far the best. In fact, each book got progressively just a little bit worse. By book three, it seemed like Katniss spent more time heavily medicated than she spent doing anything interesting like going to battle. I understand why Hannah gave up halfway through book three. Not me, though. I kept on plowing through. I had to find out the answers to those burning questions:
- Would Katniss pick Peeta or Gale?
- Would she finally find and kill President Snow?
- Was District 13 good or bad?
- Would Katniss pick Peeta or Gale? Wait, I think I already asked that.
I can't really make fun of the books. I did just read them, after all. And, I know I'm going to be in line next year when the movie comes out. Maybe these adolescent novels really are the right form of entertainment for me. I think I'll go ask Jay for his copy of "I Am Number Four."
Dear Tiger:
How are you enjoying your day off from work today? You didn't seem too happy about it yesterday afternoon when you realized that your work week was being cut from 4 days to 2 but, now that you got to sleep in this morning, maybe you've realized that it's not such a bad thing after all. Kind of like a snow day, right?
I miss the good old days, when you were on top of the world with your unique combination of domination and arrogance. Unlike your fellow competitors, who seemed almost terrified by the thought of winning, you refused to accept failure. It was great fun to watch. Seems like a long time ago, I'm sure.
Unfortunately, like Austin Powers, you've lost your mojo. I've got a couple of suggestions that might help you get it back.
- First, lose the facial hair. It's never been a good look for you and that's not going to change. I know Gillette dropped you as a spokesperson but I'm sure you've still got a ton of free razors laying around the house. Pull one of them out, fill up the sink with warm water, put on the shaving cream, and get rid of that mess.
- Second, get a real caddy. It's been hard to be a Tiger apologist over the past 20 months. You haven't exactly set a good example for my kids. It would be easier if you dumped the "best friend" who's been moonlighting as your caddy for the past 2 weeks. You see, if he's really your best friend, then he knew you were cheating on Elin. Hanging around with him in private is bad enough but publicly parading him around with you on the golf course is really pretty tough to watch.
- Next, get a new agent. Just read the bullet right above this one in case you're wondering why I'm suggesting this to you.
- You're going to have to suck it up and realize that you're not a very good golfer right now. You can go home to the practice range and putting green at the new estate in Florida but what you really need is competition. Unfortunately, you're not good enough for the FedEx playoffs. However, there's something on Tour called the Fall Series. It's for guys at the back of the pack who are scrambling to finish in the top 125 on the money list. You've never had to worry about that before so you might think that the Fall Series is not for you. But, let me break it to you -- you're one of those guys now. Go play the Frys.com Open and the McGladrey Classic. I know -- they're not "prestigious" and they don't have strong fields. I don't care. You need to hit shots when it counts.
- One more thing -- kick the swing coach to the curb. You don't need a swing coach. I know you've had knee problems throughout your career and you say that the changes in your body require changes in your swing. Arnie says your wrong. Jack says your wrong. So do I. Just trust yourself.
So, that's it. Get yourself some lunch, turn on the TV, and kick back and enjoy the rest of the afternoon watching those poor stiffs who, unlike you, had to go in to the Atlanta Athletic Club this afternoon to work.
Your friend,
Mike
Canada has always been my favorite state. It keeps to itself, doesn't cause any problems, and hosts good Olympic games every once in a while.
Up until the last few days, when I thought about all things Canadian, this had been my top 10 list:
10. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Come on -- Canada's most recogizable armed forces still ride horses. Well, this isn't exactly true but it's fun to imagine that all their cops are still riding around on horseback, isn't it?
9. Latin club field trips to Toronto back in the early 1980's. Can you believe it used to be OK to send a bus full of teenagers off to the (relatively) big city for the weekend with only one chaperone --and that chaperone was Mrs. Mix? Who's idea was that? Did our parents even care what we were up to at that age?
8. An effective parliamentary democracy. How I wish we had one of our own.
7. Saskatchewan (just because it's fun to say).
6. 20-yard deep end zones.
5. Rush.
4. Janet Jones, circa "The Flamingo Kid."
3. Geese, of course. I'm particularly fond of those that fall dead out of the air right at the base of the blind after they've been shot.
2. Michael J. Fox. His "Go Princeton. Beat Yale. I mean that." line at the end of the Family Ties episode where he makes a college trip to Princeton but has to bail from his interview because Mallory (who came along to visit Jeff, her high school boyfriend, only to find out he's now dating a pretty coed) is sobbing outside the Dean's door is still one of the best-delivered lines ever in the history of TV.
1. O Canada! Seriously, this is a great national anthem. I always sing along.
Now I've got a new item fighting to take over the top of the list - Canada's AAA credit rating! They have one from all 3 major credit rating agencies! How awesome is that? Do you think they could maybe loan (or maybe I should say "give") one of those to us for a while so we could have a complete set again?
Joe Paterno got run over at practice yesterday. Luckily for him, the guy who ran him over was Devon Smith. Devon's the fastest guy on the team but he's also probably the smallest at 5'7'' and 155 pounds. That's hardly much bigger than me.
According to the stories I've read, JoePa either broke his arm or his pelvis. This is starting to become a recurring problem. Back in 2006 or so, he got blindsided by God's Gift (that would be Andrew Quarless to the uninitiated) after a completion along the sideline during the Wisconsin game and broke his leg. Then, a few years later, JoePa hurt his hip trying to demonstrate an onside's kick. Now, he's been run over again.
I love Joe Paterno but the man is old, slow, and brittle. That makes standing on the field during practice and on the sideline during games a risky undertaking for him. He just needs to stay in one piece for a little while longer. He owes it to his biggest fan -- Nick. If Nick makes it to Penn State, sleeps in Paternoville, finally gets his seat in the student section, and then doesn't have JoePa on the sideline for at least one season, I think he'll have a hissy-fit. The real JoePa just has to be there for Nick. God knows we can't send him off to school with his life-size Joe Paterno cut-out (yes, he has one). That's got to stay in Nick's room here at the house for me to enjoy.
Early August weekends are often the pits, particularly when I'm home. I pretty much get by on 3 things when I'm home on the weekends: working in the yard, watching sports on TV, and eating. Simple pleasures for a simple man. It's tough in early August, though. Here's why:
- It's too hot and muggy to work outside in the yard. Technically, it's not even that bad today since it's "only" 80 degrees at 10AM. But, I came back from my morning run soaking wet. The vaseline I applied wore off by about mile 5; I'm paying the price for that right now. After finally cooling down and taking a shower, the last thing I want to do is head back outside to prune, trim, and weed. I know I'll just be soaked again within 15 minutes.
- Early August sports viewing on TV is a dead zone.
- Golf (particulary with Tiger still struggling) = yawn.
- Baseball (even Yankees vs. Red Sox) = nap.
- Is there anything else?
- It's even hard to get excited about what might be for dinner. I really do spend a lot of my time thinking about what I'm going to eat at my next meal. I guess that's the remnants of the cave man in my DNA. Unfortunately, in early August, I'm just so lethargic that I don't even build up a real appetite.
Luckily, there are a couple of things that may get me through this weekend.
- We just ran through the schedule on the Big Ten Network and they're replaying the Penn State - Northwestern game from last season at 6PM today. You remember -- Penn State rallies from 21 points down to get JoePa his 400th win. That could be worth a shot.
- I can continue on my reading kick and plow through "Catching Fire." I started it yesterday and quickly read almost 100 pages. It's good. I just love that Katniss Everdeen.
- Or, I could spend countless hours agonizing over whether to make any changes in our investment strategy given all the chaos in the markets and last night's credit downgrade. That sounds like fun! I think I'll start there.
I've never had a real theme for this blog. One day it's deer eating all my lilies and the next it's commentary on Pippa Middleton. That's just the way my mind works -- I get bored easily and I think about a lot of silly things. Oh, well.
I've purposely tried to stay away from politics here (except for briefly covering Maria's run for office in Canandaigua, which I'm sure I'll come back to before November). In real life, I've found that you bring a political topic into a conversation at some considerable risk. The risks are two-fold. First, you may find yourself talking to someone who cares just a bit too much. Second, you might make somebody angry. Do I really want either of those two things to happen? The answer is "no."
Growing up, I had an interesting political childhood. My dad was (is) a Democrat and my mom was (is) a Republican. Listening to them debate issues as a little kid, I walked away thinking that Republicans (that would be my mom) were rule-followers who didn't like change. Democrats (that would be my dad) thought that someone was always trying to take advantage of "the little man." To this day, I still wonder if my mom is really a Republican or if she just wanted to cancel out my dad's vote.
Anyway, I got older, registered to vote, went to college, majored in political science and economics, started to form my own opinions about things, got a job, got married, had kids, bought a house, got another job, and started to see some of my opinions about things start to change. Then I got even older, saw my kids growing up, listened to their observations about the world, and started to get frustrated by career politicians and their relentless short-term focus which seems to be taking away the long-term options for my kids. You know what? My opinions about things continued to change.
So, let's talk about the debt ceiling fiasco that we've been dealing with for the past few weeks. A couple of things seem incredibly obvious to me:
- We owe too much money.
- We have to cut entitlements.
- We have to raise revenue.
Unfortunately, these things just don't seem obvious to Congress and the President. I get that it's not fun to make tough choices. But, that's what we need.
I stole the title for this post from Ezra Klein's article in The Washington Post's online version today. I've never done this before, but I'm going to past a long section of his article right here. He says it better than anyone.
The debt-ceiling deal passed the House last night, and it did so with ease. With 269 "yea" votes, the bill was never even close to failing. And a good thing, too: there were mounting signs as the weeks wore on that the market had had just about enough of Washington's games. A TARP-like failure could have provoked TARP-like chaos in the markets, where even a quick congressional recovery doesn't fully undo the damage the initial fumble causes to investor confidence.
But with the details understood and the legislation on its way to a quick approval in the Senate, it's worth stepping back and saying what we all already know: This is a terrible, no-good, very bad deal.
It's not just that Congress waited until the last minute, taking an unnecessary risk in a fragile economy. And it's not just that the tough decisions got punted once again. This is a bad bill at a time when the economy -- and the American people -- needed a good one. It's a bill that does too little now, and too little later, and it comes in lieu of an obvious, achievable solution that would have done better.
The two reigning theories of our current economic moment are not opposed to one another. The economy is weak now, with too little demand and too little growth, and threatened by mounting deficits later. The answer, as any economist can tell you and as many told Congress, is simple: do more to support the recovery now and more to cut deficits later. In the short-term, we should expand the payroll tax cut, make a massive investment in infrastructure, continue funding unemployment insurance, and do more to aid the states. In the long-run, we should cut spending in entitlement programs as well as discretionary programs, and raise significant revenues and modernize the tax code by flattening the base and closing loopholes.
These two priorities don't conflict. In fact, they support each other. Faster growth now will mean smaller deficits later. And politically, more stimulus now would have helped Democrats agree to more deficit reduction later. But our political system isn't very good at both/and. It's more suited to either/or. And so Republicans fought stimulus now and couldn't agree to the revenues necessary for significant deficit reduction later. So we got neither. We're pulling support out from under a teetering economy now and we're punting the hard decisions on the deficit to yet another committee, and yet another manufactured deadline.
It's been incredibly frustrating to watch this mess play out. The market's reaction today was perfect. The markets get that this deal does absolutely nothing to address our problems other than punting the tough decisions to a later date. My guess is that our friends in Washington were certain that, once they'd agreed on a deal, the market's would rejoice. How wrong they were. How screwed we are.
OK -- that's it on this topic (you hope, right?). By the way, did you hear that WHFS is back on the air? It's no longer 99.1 WHFS -- it's 97.5 WHFS. I might actually have to listen to something other than Sirius XM.
Yesterday I stunned the world (or at least my family) by reading an entire book in one day. It was a 380 page book, no less. It wasn't "Working With Emotional Intelligence." That was the book that was recommended to me at the end of a 3-day training session that I went to for work this May. It's supposed to help me get better at demonstrating empathy. Apparently, that's not a strength of mine. I bought "Working With Emotional Intelligence" when I got back from the training session but it's still sitting -- unread -- on my desk upstairs. I'll get to it eventually.
So, what did I read? I read another book targeted at middle-aged, white, male, professionals. That's right -- I read "The Hunger Games."
Jay read the entire Hunger Games series a while back and he loved it. I've been threatening to read the first book ever since but never followed through. Then, last week Nick picked it up. Within the week, he'd read all 3 books in the series. The fact that he's banned from watching television from 10AM - 4PM each weekday probably helped but still -- 3 books in one week? I was impressed. On top of all that, the new issue of Entertainment Weekly showed up on Thursday and, for the second time in two months, there was the cast of "The Hunger Games" movie on the cover.
In any case, there I was just before lunch yesterday. I asked Jay where I could find the book. After retrieving it from the basement, I opened it up and got started. After a quick 70 pages, I broke for lunch. As soon as lunch was over, I picked it up again and read another 70 pages. I was starting to get nervous. What was wrong with me? Weren't there YouTube videos I hadn't seen yet, Buffalo Bills training camp updates to read, and televised golf events to watch? I decided to give myself a break. But, by 5PM, I couldn't take it any more. The story had me completely hooked. I picked the book up again. I kept right on reading while I stood over the grill before dinner. As soon as dinner was over, I took the book upstairs and, by 9:30PM, I was done.
What a good book! A post-apocalyptic world, an evil regime, young kids forced to fight to the death for pure entertainment, a love triangle (I think). This story has everything.
I can't wait to tackle the second book, "Catching Fire," this weekend. First, though, I'll need to reserve it from the family library. You see, Hannah was so intrigued by the fact that I read the book in one day that she decided to one-up me. She read "The Hunger Games" today and is already starting in on "Catching Fire." It's not her I have to worry about, though. Kim now has the bug. She's started "The Hunger Games" and I'm afraid she'll beat me to "Catching Fire" if I don't stake my claim now. I better get out my library card.
