Launch Party and other news

On Saturday, my niece Ali and I went to Janet Lee Carey's launch party for her newest release, Stealing Death. It was a lot of fun! There was a Marimba Band and the food was good. Met some cool people, including Janet. I heard afterwards that Deb Caletti was there. I wish I would have recognized her. She's one of my favorite authors and she lives in the Seattle area. It would have made my month to talk to her. My niece got to talk to Janet about publishing her own work and she asked a lot of good questions. Janet is super nice and if you get a chance, check out her books. I will be posting a review of Stealing Death in the near future. Here's a few pictures that I took. They're not the greatest, because they were taken with my iPhone.

The Marimba Band

Janet reading an excerpt from Stealing Death

In other news, I mentioned that I was going on vacation starting today. Plans have changed, and I'm now going on vacation next month. My vacation plans are still the same though; read books and write reviews. Ah, if only I made money reading.

Speaking of reading, if you live in the Seattle area, The Half Price Books Warehouse in Seattle is having a clearance sale this Saturday and Sunday. They are selling everything for $1 or less!!! Those of you who don't live near Seattle, if you want me to keep my eyes out for something in particular, send me an email or leave a comment and I will look for it and mail it to you.

I know that some of my faithful readers have been waiting for another word definition provided by my awesome Word of the Day desk calendar. Lately the words have been pretty ordinary. But I will share with you yesterdays word because it annoyed me.

Improvident - an adjective meaning:

• not provident
• not foreseeing and providing for the future

The word itself isn't what annoyed me, it was one of the definitions. What kind of definition is "not provident"? It drives me crazy when a word is defined by the word.

Finally, I want to wish my awesome niece, Ali a Happy 17th Birthday!!! You're going to love your present!! (hehehe)

Random thoughts for today

My niece tells me I'm the queen of random. Whatever that means. But I do find I stumble upon really weird, random things quite often. The ones I find amusing I will share here on my blog.

For example:

I just walked out of my department at work into the foyer, where I saw a guy from the landscaping crew watering the plants. You may think this is not strange, and I agree; plants need to be watered. But the weird thing was he was watering the plants with a gas can!!! Yes, a gas can. I must of had a shocked look on my face as I walked by because he said "There's water in there, I swear!!" I quickly rearranged the look on my face and said, "Hey, you would know better than me what a plant needs to grow", and continued on my way.

I think this is the same guy who, last fall, was using a leaf blower to clean up the leaves in the parking lot. This also is not an unusual task in itself, but he was actually standing below a tree aiming the leaf blower so that it blew the leafs off of the branches. Appartantly he was in a race with Mother Nature and really wanted to win. My co-workers and I were taking bets to see if he was going to climb the tree and start plucking the leafs off.


And while I'm on the topic of random things, I am a huge fan of word definitions, especially obsolete or "out of style" words. I have a Word Of The Day desk calendar on my desk at work and every once in a while an interesting word presents itself.

For example:

September 1, 2009 - nomenclator - a noun meaning;

1. a book containing collections or lists of words


2. one who gives names to or invents names for things
   

I found this word fascinating for a few reasons. One, I have a book obsession, so anything book related is of interest to me. Secondly, the same niece who dubed me the queen of random also accuses me of making up words and inventing names for things. I wonder if I can use nomenclator on a resume? Hmmmm......