We’re also grammar geeks. Well, persnickety about some things – when the teen daughter asks “Can Caroline and me go to the mall?” she’s answered with a chorus [...]]]> We’re real punsters around here – it’s an exciting Sunday when the New York Times delivers two copies of the Magazine with the “Puns and Anagrams” puzzle inside!

We’re also grammar geeks. Well, persnickety about some things – when the teen daughter asks “Can Caroline and me go to the mall?” she’s answered with a chorus of “May Caroline and I go to the mall?!” … but letting some others slide – I, for one, can never remember when to use further and when to use farther.

This latest joke combines puns and grammar, and never fails to get a belly laugh out of the 7-year-old (whether he’s on the giving or receiving end):

Knock-knock.

Who’s there.

To.

To who?

To whom!

The Three Stooges have nothing on The Six TFOBs … nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

Peace on earth, goodwill (and plenty of good books!) to all

We’re home from a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with J’s sister in NJ, and hope that – if you celebrated – you had a nice time with family and friends, as well.

The drive home was long. Very long. What should have been a four [...]]]> (say it to the rhythm of “lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”)

We’re home from a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with J’s sister in NJ, and hope that – if you celebrated – you had a nice time with family and friends, as well.

The drive home was long. Very long. What should have been a four hour trip was about six hours with the holiday traffic.

At about the three-and-a-half hour mark, we started seeing signs on the side of I-84; kind of like those old Burma Shave ads, where the story continues from one sign to the next. Note: I am too young to remember these Burma Shave ads … I read about them in a book!

The signs indicated: “Rest area 1 mile ahead,” “Free coffee,” “Tolland Boy Scouts offer free coffee and snacks,” “Take a break … stay awake.”

We’d seen these in the past, but haven’t stopped. This time, our sign spotting coincided with driving fatigue and a little voice from the back seat saying “How much longer? I have to go ….”

We stopped and used the facilities (or as my mother would euphemistically say “stopped to wash our hands”), then crossed the parking lot to where the Tolland Boy Scout pack #15 had set up a large tent/canopy and were offering free coffee, hot chocolate, water, bagels, and popcorn. I imagine some of the food was donated by local suppliers, but the boys (and their families) donated their time, and were offering a service that was much appreciated.

At the front of the tent were two large bins full of American flag cemetery markers. It was dark when we stopped, so the sign may not be clear, it says:

The American flags here are given freely to the public by Troop 15. Every flag here flew over a veteran’s grave in the Hartford area, and was collected by hand by one of the scouts in Troop 15 when the flag either became worn, or the time came that a new flag was needed at the grave. This is an ongoing service project, and we collect hundreds of flags per year; do not feel guilty if you are taking the last flag, or if you desire more than one.

Please feel free to take one in keeping with the Boy Scouts of America’s Aims of Scouting, and the memory of those who fought.

“Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” Benjamin Franklin
The Historical Review of Pennsylvania 1959

My 9-year old, a Girl Scout, asked me to take a few photos to share the story with her troop (along with a flag). The kids enjoyed some freshly popped corn, J re-caffeinated, and I got all choked up reading the sign and explaining it to our 7-year old. Well played, Boy Scouts!

"Orchard House" - the Alcott home in Concord

The first paragraph includes this timely reminder:

Traditional Print Format: The A.B.C. Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie

This was a win from Harper Paperbacks and Booking Mama via the “Cool Down with AC” discussions going on this summer. I joined the discussion for Murder on the Orient Express (my first Agatha Christie!), and [...]]]> I’ve got three books going right now -

Traditional Print Format: The A.B.C. Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie

This was a win from Harper Paperbacks and Booking Mama via the “Cool Down with AC” discussions going on this summer. I joined the discussion for Murder on the Orient Express (my first Agatha Christie!), and was lucky enough to have my name drawn to receive a copy of this book. I’ve truly just begun it – only about 30 pages in – but I can tell you that I’m already drawn in. After I finish this Hercule Poirot mystery, I’ll likely dip in to a Miss Marple story.

Audiobook: Guilt by Association by Marcia Clark

I started this before we left for vacation, but didn’t listen to my iPod the entire two weeks we were away (a sign of a good vacation, I suppose – no housecleaning or lawn mowing requiring audiobook motivation!). I’ve restarted it from the beginning, and am making observations familiar from my first go around – I wonder how much of the main character (Los Angeles D.A. Rachel Knight) is based on Marcia Clark’s alter ego.

e-Book: Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour by Rachel Shukert

I picked up 18 of the 20 HarperPerennial e-books that are on sale for 99 cents each this month! With much hand-holding (thank you, Swapna!), I was able to load them onto my iPad and install the Bluefire Reader. I’ve already read Bad Marie (she’s so bad … but lovable!), and am working on Rachel Shukert’s memoir; so far a very fun mix of crass/cringe and laugh-out-loud situations.

I’m finding the iPad/Bluefire reader a better fit for me than the nook – I really like the highlight/bookmark feature, and the full touchscreen is really nice. I would like an instant dictionary for unknown words (maybe I have it, but haven’t yet found it?). I still believe that I best remember a book read in traditional print format more than any other … time will tell if I become a huge proponent of e-books.

What books are you juggling this week? Do you read multiple formats?

I (not a dog person!) loved Klam’s You Had Me at Woof, and am looking forward to reading Love at First Bark.

Love at First Bark: How [...]]]> Did you read the news that Julie Klam’s forthcoming memoir, Love at First Bark (Riverhead, October 2011), has been named a Top Ten Memoir of Fall by Publisher’s Weekly?!

I (not a dog person!) loved Klam’s You Had Me at Woof, and am looking forward to reading Love at First Bark.

Love at First Bark: How Saving a Dog Can Sometimes Help You Save Yourself focuses “on dog rescue, and its healing power not only for the dogs who are cared for and able to find good homes, but also for the people who bond with these animals.”

In honor of the occasion, I’m rolling out one of the vanity plate pics I’ve collected.

And, Julie, if this earns us any brownie points toward having an event for Love at First Bark at the Concord Bookshop, double woof!

“My sister did this experiment last year when she was in Eighth Grade.  So, it’s a big kid science project, and we just changed it a little bit so I could do [...]]]> I’m stretching this one, because LM6 has asked for equal time to show off his Science Fair project. On with the show:

Separating Mixtures

“My sister did this experiment last year when she was in Eighth Grade.  So, it’s a big kid science project, and we just changed it a little bit so I could do it in Kindergarten for the Science Fair. I’m going to separate a mixture of four solids.”

"We bought some Wooly Willies from the Five and Dime."

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"We had some Styrofoam bowls that I used in the project."

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Note from Dawn:  Before anyone questions our environmental friendliness, let me explain that we don’t generally have Styrofoam bowls in the house.  I bought them for LW8′s science project, so that she could put her vegetable dye in them, without risk of staining our “real” dishes.

"We had gravel in the bowl from when my sister's fish died."

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Note from Dawn:  This was a betta fish that was given as a birthday party favor – bad idea, people!  These little ornamental bowls are too small for a fish to live in … leading to dead fish … leading to tears!  As to why we still had the bowl and gravel two years later, I can’t answer!

"And salt. I needed salt for my experiment."

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"I cut up the bowls into little pieces. It was A LOT of work!"

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"Look at it all in the bottom of the bowl."

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"I added some gravel to the big bowl."

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"Next, some salt ..."

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Note from Dawn:  J and I are such big fans of It’s a Wonderful Life that we usually follow any mention of salt with the line spoken by Mary Bailey, “that life may always have flavor.”  The kids have started to do it, too, which elicits odd looks from people, but it’s just one of our little SITFOB quirks!

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"Mom cut open the Wooly Willies and I poured in the hairy stuff. That's iron filings, and they're magnetic."

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"This is my mixture! Four solids - Styrofoam, gravel, salt, iron filings."

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"The first thing I separated was the iron filings. It didn't look like there were many in the bowl because they were so small. I swirled the magnet around and around and got a whole bunch of them. I pinched them off with my fingers, and some of them stuck on the magnet."

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"I kept swirling the magnet around and around until I couldn't find any more. Look how many I got!"

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"I added water to the rest of the mixture in the bowl."

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"And look what happened. The Styrofoam floated to the top!"

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"I scooped it out with a slotted spoon. I didn't know what that was called before, it's a very useful tool."

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"There's all the Syrofoam! Mom said I could try to put it back together like a puzzle, but I didn't really have to do that!"

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"I used the slotted spoon again to scoop out the gravel."

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"It was easy to scoop out the gravel because I could see it all and it didn't float off the spoon."

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"We poured the water onto a cookie sheet."

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"And Mom put it in the oven. It didn't take long for the water to evaporate and leave the salt behind."

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"When it cooled off, I scraped the salt from the pan."

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"It didn't look like the salt I poured from the container, but it WAS salt!"

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"I did it! I separated a mixture of four solids!"