Tick Tock

Tommy Phan is a successful detective novelist living the American dream in southern California. One evening he comes home to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. It's a simple doll, covered entirely in white cloth, with crossed black stitches on the eyes and mouth and another pair forming an X over the heart. Curious, he brings it inside.
That night Tommy hears an odd popping sound and looks up to see the stitches breaking over the doll's heart. And in minutes the fabric of Tommy Phan's reality will be torn apart. Something terrifying emerges from the pristine white cloth, something that will follow Tommy wherever he goes. Something he can't destroy. It wants Tommy's life, and he doesn't know why. He has only one ally, a beautiful intuitive waitress he meets by chance- or by a design far beyond his comprehension.
And the vicious and demonically clever doll has left this warning on Tommy's computer screen: The deadline is dawn.
This is an older Dean Koontz book, I think from 1996 and somehow I missed it. It was not the best of Koontz's work but it kept me entertained and turning pages to find out how Tommy Phan gets out of that mess.

Somebody Help Me

I don't know what is up with Netflix lately, I swear they only have one copy of each new release. It is taking forever to get a good movie, so they keep sending me movies that I put on my queue a long time ago and forgot about. I will be going on my list today and deleting a whole bunch. Then they will have no choice but to send me a good one!

This is a low-budget horror movie about some young kids that go to a remote cabin for the weekend. They start disappearing and there is some crazy guy who wears a mask and he has the kids in cages, takes them one at a time, and cuts off an ear, or pulls out teeth or eyes. Really pretty badly made.

Fireside

Baseball hopeful Bo Crutcher is about to get his shot at the majors. That is, until life throws him a curveball. When AJ, the son he's never met , lands on his doorstep, Bo's life becomes a whole new ballgame. He needs help-fast.
Enter Kimberly Van Dorn. Hired to smooth Bo's rough exterior for the media, she expects the kind of shallow pro athlete she's used to handling. But Bo is willing to sacrifice everything for his vulnerable son.
I don't think I have ever read a Susan Wiggs book that I didn't like. They are fast and easy reading.

Winter Carnival

Brooke had Winter Carnival over the weekend. And yes, my camera took really shitty pictures. Brooke has better ones that she was supposed to e-mail to me... We got more snow on Sunday, surprise surprise.

I have resorted to shoveling one little path for the dog on the deck. But, if I want to go in the hot tub I better get out there today and shovel another path. This snow can stop anytime now, really! I have a cold. Thank you to Gary for that! He gets a cold and it is gone in 2 days, I get a cold and it drags for a week or more. Brooke has school vacation this week, she is gone to UMaine for accepted students day. She is staying with her friend in her dorm until Sunday. That will really give her an idea of what the college is like, and if she wants to go there.

Quarantine

When a news crew decides to trail a brave fire-fighting team, then never suspect that the first call for help they respond to that night may be their last. Now they're trapped in an apartment complex sealed off by the government. With no way of escape, they find themselves surrounded by frightened residents who are infected with a deadly mutant virus. What happens next is only known because of the footage left behind.

I like a good scary movie, and this sadly was not one.

Nights in Rodanthe

With chaos tearing her marriage and family apart, Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane) takes a weekend caretaker job at her friend's coastal North Carolina inn. When a storm hits, stranding the inn's only guest, Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere), Adrienne's life changes forever. As the storm rages outside, Adrienne connects with Flanner, who came to the Rodanthe retreat to escape his own personal crisis.

This was a tear jerker.

Henry Poole Is Here

Rather than living his last days to the fullest after learning he only has six weeks left on earth, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) cuts himself off from his fiancee and his family and binges on Twinkies, pizza and liquor. But a fortuitous miracle and a clash with his eccentric meddling neighbors derail Henry's plans. Also stars Cheryl Hines and George Lopez.

This movie was better than I thought it was going to be.

All Together Dead

Betrayed by her long-time vampire love, Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse must now not only deal with a possible new man in her life- the-oh-so-handsome shape-shifter Quinn- but also contend with a long-planned vampire summit. With her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans, the local vampire queen is vulnerable to those hungry for a take-over. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe....
This is the seventh book in the series that the HBO show True Blood is based on. The next book doesn't come out in paperback until the end of March I think.

Mall Cop, A New Motorcycle, and an Eagle

I am on a new diet. It is called the MY-HUSBAND-JUST-BOUGHT-A-MOTORCYCLE-AND-I-DON'T-WANT-MY-ASS-HANGING-OVER-THE-SIDE-OF-THE-SEAT diet. Nor do I want him grunting to hold it upright while I am on the back. We had some scooters in summers past that we used to ride around York in the summer. Last summer we had sold them all in order to pay for our new sun room on the new camper. We really missed puttering around the back roads of York so we got something else. This is a little bigger than the Honda Ruckus we had, and look at that back seat, I can lean back and I won't feel like an old lady 10 minutes into a ride and saying, oh this is killing my back! The Ruckus had no back rest and it used to kill my back!

Brooke and I went to the movies yesterday with my sister. (Gary had to work poor baby!) We saw Mall Cop. We chose that because the movie theater in our town is very crowded on Sundays and we figured that movie might be less so at this point. It started out not-so-funny. And I was a little disappointed, but it got considerably funnier by the end. It was nice to get out of the house for a while. On the way home, we were sitting and waiting to turn onto Bay Rd. and we saw a big eagle fly by, to the left of us. It had something hanging from its claws, it looked like red fabric. I read that in the Spring they fancy up their nests after the Winter and maybe it had snagged some cloth somewhere for its nest. I was so surprised to see it, and the light had turned green so I didn't see where it went. It came from the direction of the lake though. This was not the one I saw, because of course by the time I registered what I was seeing, it was way too late to get my camera phone out. But it looked just like it.

Blindness

Jullianne Moore stars in this adaptation of Jose Saramago's gripping masterpiece in which a plague of blindness overtakes the residents of her entire city. All sense of order breaks loose in the mental hospital where the blind are being quarantined, and it's up to a woman (Moore) who's keeping her sight a secret to lead a group safely to the streets. Also stars Mark Ruffalo, Sandra Oh and Danny Glover.

What can I say? This was just a bizarre movie, weirdly filmed. it never explained why she was the only person to have not lost their sight, and what was causing it to begin with. I don't like when movies don't answer the all-important questions and leave you hanging.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day to all!

The Hour I First Believed

When forty-seven year old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated , murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right , and further tragedy ensues.

This was an excellent book. It was about so much more that just the Columbine shootings, and the tragic deaths that ensued, it was about the ones who survived too and how hard it was for them to cope with the trauma. It also delves into the Quirk family history which has a whole lot of "skeletons in the closet" so to speak.

Sunday in Maine

I guess Gary fell asleep while we were taking that picture! :)

Brooke did not want to go, so she stayed home to do homework and give Dirty Louie a bath. We ate lunch at the pizza place, then went to the camp to check on our camper. It didn't look that deep but once we got going I could have used some snowshoes. Then we parked by the beach and Gary took a little snooze, while I read the paper. When he woke up we walked the beach. It was in the lower 40's yesterday but very windy on the beach, when I first got out of the car I was all , oh, I don't even think I need my gloves, or my ear warmers, and Gary said yes you do. Good thing I was wearing them because the temp on the beach was much different than the temp standing next to the car. I was wearing my Ugg-Look-A-Like boots. On the way back to the car, we still had at least 10 minutes to walk, something was rubbing against the back of my ankle, felt like a piece of glass. By the time I got to the car and looked, it was rubbed raw and bloody. Nothing in the boot except the seam?

I noticed on my Live Traffic Feed that someone from Medfield, Mass was on my blog. It took me by surprise because I grew up in Medfield! So whoever you are, if you come back, leave me a message. I grew up on Green Street, we lived there until I was 15. I have good memories of that place. In fact here is our old house:

Just Kidding! This is the house we stopped to look at yesterday in Gilmanton. Isn't it gorgeous! It was so windy there I could barely open my car door.

This is actually the house I grew up in on Green Street in Medfield. It looks a little different than when I lived there.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

This is the second movie of The Chronicles of Narnia. I read all the books a couple of times, but it was so long ago that I didn't really remember any of this one. It was pretty good, with a lot of action, maybe a little too much of the fighting for my taste. But great special effects!

Bangkok Dangerous

This was an okay movie. Nicolas Cage was just a tad corny in it, but there was enough excitement to keep my attention. He plays an assassin who is doing one last job in Bangkok (who in the world named that city?) the job that will pay enough to let him retire.

Introducing......

Ryan Alexander Johnson

2/4/09

8lbs. 4oz.

20 1/2"

Isn't he cute? He was born around 3:30 am. Does that make me a great-aunt? I am never sure how that works.

It's February. Not that February is any different from January in my opinion. Still cold. Still snowy.
Yesterday we went to Northwood to meet friends for lunch. On the way there we noticed the car felt kind of bumpy. Gary said there was probably a piece of ice stuck to the tire and it would come off as we got going. We got on the highway and it went from feeling kind of bumpy, to Oh my God, my brains are rattling around in my head! Of course when you head south on 93 from our exit, the next place to get off isn't until Canterbury, so we bumped along as fast as we could, the faster we went the worse it was. Seriously, I thought the tire was going to come off. We got a couple of strange looks from people passing us, but most people didn't notice us bumping along, good thing it wasn't an emergency. We got off in Canterbury and pulled into the general store parking lot and sure enough, there was ice inside the rim, Gary had to poke at it with the ice scraper to break it up and push it out. I am just glad I wasn't by myself and experiencing this, because I would have been freaking out!!
We had a great lunch with our friends, I had part of Gary's salad and then fantail shrimp with french fries. We got home in time to watch the Superbowl. I was rooting for the underdogs because I don't follow any particular team except for the Patriots. But the Steelers did it again, and I think they are being just a tad bit greedy. The sixth time they have won?? The commercials were just okay. There was only maybe one or two that I thought was any good, and there were quite a few I thought were downright strange. But the half-time show? That was awesome. I was supposed to see Bruce Springsteen in concert back when I was a senior in high school. I was going with my brother, his girlfriend and my brother's friend Kevin. Only, it happened to fall on a night that I had driver's ed of all things, and the teacher told me if I missed that class, I was going to have to take the whole course all over again. Can you say piss ant? So I watched my brother and his girlfriend and his friend all drive off in the snow. Yep, it was snowing, and hard too. And yep, my driver's ed class got cancelled after they drove away. SO anyway, I enjoyed the half-time show and i also thought Jennifer Hudson did a fabulous job singing the anthem.
In other news, my nephew's wife is over due at this point. I think her due date was on Thursday? something like that. So we wait for news on that.

February Twilight

I stood beside a hill

Smooth with new-laid snow

A single star looked out

From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature

That saw what I could see-

I stood and watched the evening star

As long as it watched me.

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933), "February Twilight"

The Alphabet Killer

Inspired by true events, this psychological thriller stars Eliza Dushku as Megan Paige. a dogged police investigator obsessed with capturing a demented serial killer targeting young girls in Rochester, NY. Haunted by the grisly rape and murder of a 10-year old victim, Megan begins to to suffer hallucinations. Also stars Cary Elwes and Timothy Hutton.