Upside Ann

 "My dad gave me a present once," Nico said.  "It was a zombie." Reyna stared at him.  "What?" "His name is Jules-Albert.  He's French." "A ... French zombie?" "Hades isn't the greatest dad, but occasionally he has these want-to-know-my-son moments.   Guess he thought the zombie was a peace offering.  He said Jules-Albert could be my chauffeur." ..."To take you to the mall," Reyna said.  "or the drive-through at In-N-Out Burger." "I suppose....Because nothing helps you make friends faster than a rotting corspe with a French accent." And there you have it.  How to make friends.  Where could I find one of those zombies?

We spent the night in Sturgis Wyoming- yes, even without a motorcycle!  I had been struggling with trying to figure out what we would see and what we would have to skip in the Black Hills: scenic drives, wild life drives, caves, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse... so that we could end up the day in Cody and be ready for Yellowstone on Wednesday.  Ends up- we skipped them all.  I just couldn't face driving back East - even a short trip - even to see Mt. Rushmore.  (Though in all honesty, Mr Rushmore - was a much higher priority for Kevin than it was for me.  YES. I know I wrote Mr.  I did that ALL THREE TIMES that I've typed the name in this blog.  I finally admitted defeat and let it stand.) Devil's Tower, however, was one of our big ticket items.  After all, we had made a special effort to obtain and watch "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" before our trip!   ba, ba, ba, ba, baaaaa  

"And the dead stood with the living, and the living knew it not." I heard Mr Buehlman being interviewed on our public radio station, WYSO's program "The Book Nook".  I don't think they were talking about this book - but then, I don't know which book they were discussing.  What I picked up on was that Buehlman wrote horror.  I read horror.  That was enough.  The host did mention this title, I know, because I wrote it down on a piece of paper I had in my car.   "Daughter witch page saint prophet angel what are you what are you You Delphine 'What are you?' he said. 'Two things, I think.  but soon I'll be just one.'" This tale is the epitome of good vs evil in that the conflict is directed by fallen angels against god's creation of men on earth.  Monsters, demons, even wine making zombies at one point.  This immense and widely disseminated evil must be combatted by an excommunicated knight, a priest who lost his flock after ...

You know, these are very violent stories.  Dave and Cletus - while I love these characters - I would not want to hang with them.  People are always getting hurt.  God forbid you are morally questionable.  Chances are you may not survive the novel.  I'm just trying to come up with a body count for this book - without any spoilers:  seven - no eight.  Two I can share without ruining anything - Dave's mom - Oooo - nine. Like other Burke stories he writes beautiful descriptions of characters that capture their essence and their mood, foreshadowing particularly within dream.  Bad guys are inherently evil - but good guys can do and do do really bad things.  Refer again to that body count. wait - Ten. I'm not sure what someone reading this blog post is expecting.  A synopsis that is somehow different from the book jacket?  Don't know that I can do that beyond what you've just read.  Dave learns that bad cops murdered his mother ...

  I didn't even know it was a thing.  It wasn't until I was on the table that I learned that should I pass this test, I could be free from pap smears for THE REST OF MY LIFE! *  Had I that knowledge ahead of time, I might have studied for this test.  But no - they sprang that challenge on me as I was strapping in, stirrups on, for the examination.  That was Tuesday.  I got the result on Friday...   I'm not sure why this isn't a recognized Hallmark moment, but at least my gynecologist was thoughtful enough to send me a hand-made congratulations card.  Woohoo!! I am so thankful as with age the pap smear has become even more painful than the mammogram.   * I am free unless I decide to become sexually promiscuous.  That, at this time, is not on my bingo card.

 Kevin and I celebrate our anniversary on Halloween.  It was on (near) Halloween 45 years ago that we went on our first "date" - off to find white cotton gloves for, I'm guessing - you'd think I'd know - but I don't- a costume.  This "date" occurred after weeks of me telling him "no".  I was too broken-hearted from the loss of my previous.  He was persistent enough - and so was I, I guess - that when he eventually made me a mix-tape (that was a thing, young one - see the movie "High Fidelity") it included "our song" - "Love the One You're With".  We would have (eventually) gotten married on Halloween to make that date "official" (OMG - wayyyyy too many quotation marks in this post), but my dad was having chemotherapy and couldn't make it.  Given that our guest list was only immediate family - and the importance of the bride's father - we rescheduled to December. We celebrate our anniversar...