Max walks!

Crow's feet

I came home from a concert last night after seeing my husband talk to a sexily clad woman he knows from work-- I inspected myself in the mirror and discovered crow's feet.  Nice, huh. 

In case you were wondering...

If you are married to a Reynolds boy you know two things:

1) They can't (or won't) peel oranges.  You are the official orange-peeler of the relationship.  They will forego the orange before they will peel it themselves. Trust me.   

2) They always ask kids funny questions.  Case in point:

Robert (to E & J):  What's the true meaning of Halloween?

Ella (with a "DUH" look on her face): Heavenly Father!

Jackson (standing up on his chair and excitedly waving his arms):  And that BABY!

We are either doing a great job teaching our kids or a really crappy one.  

Stealing

I am blatantly stealing this post from my friend Amy (at least, I hope we are still friends). Thanks for the idea. I love to read and so I must copy, steal and support this idea! Plus, I haven't posted for a while and this is a lot easier than downloading all the photos off my camera, organizing them in iphoto and thinking of something interesting to say about them. Give me a break, I've been sick this week. Just be glad I'm not blogging all the gory details.

Anyway, The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program to encourage community reading initiatives.  This is a list of their top 100 books.  They estimate the average adult has read only six.

Bold those that you have read.  Italicize those you intend to read and *star the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen***(seriously deserves that many stars, along with all the other Austen books.)
2. The Lord of the Rings-JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte**
4. Harry Potter Series-JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee*
6. The Bible 
7. Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte***
8. 1984-George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials-Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations-Charles Dickens
11. Little Women-Louisa M. Alcott**
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles-Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22-Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare(Sure enough to bold but I may have missed something!)
15. Rebecca-Daphne Du Maurier*
16. The Hobbit-JRR Tolkien
17. Bird Song- Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye--JD Salinger*
19. The Time Traveler's Wife-Audrey Niffenegger*
20. Middlemarch-George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind-Margaret Mitchell*
22. The Great Gatsby--F Scott Fitzgerald*
23. Bleak House-Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy--Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisted-Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment-Fydor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll
30. The wind in the Willows-Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy*(One of my all time FAVORITES!)
32. David Copperfield-Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia-CS Lewis
34. Emma-Jane Austen*
35. Persuasion-Jane Austen*
36. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe-CS Lewis*
37. The Kite Runner-Khaled Hosseini*
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin-Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden*
40. Winnie the Pooh-AA Milne*
41. Animal Farm -George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown*
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude-Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( I feel like I should get some stars after reading this book.  Read it and you'll see what I mean!)
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney-John Irving
45. The Woman in White--Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables-LM Montgomery***********
47. Far From the Madding Crowd-Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale-Margaret Atwood 
49. Lord of the Flies-William Golding
50. Atonement-Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi-Yann Martel* (Super good!)
52. Dune-Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm-Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen*
55. A Suitable Boy-Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind-Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World-Aldous Huxley (Yawner!)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time-Mark Haddon
60. Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men-John Steinbeck
62. Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History-Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold* 
65. Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
66. On the Road-Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure-Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary-Helen Fielding(Are you freaking serious?)
69. Midnight's Children-Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick-Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens
72. Dracula-Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden-Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74. Notes From A Small Island-Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses-James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons-Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal-Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair-William Makepeace Thackeray*
80. Possession-AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens(Would star but so SICK of the story that I just can't do it!  Even Barbie has a version now.  Can we say all together "OVER DONE!"  Just leave the story alone, people.  Please.)
82. Cloud Atlas-David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple-Alice Walker (I'm curious if Oprah will come after me with her secret network of spies.  Still, no star.  Why? Well, because I'm feeling a little mad about her blatant financial support of a certain presidential candidate that has representatives call my house nightly and fill my mail box with junk and interrupt my favorite TV programs! So there!  Take that!)
84. The Remains of the Day-Kazuo Ishiguro*
85. Madame Bovary-Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance- Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web-EB White*
88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven-Mitch Albom*
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection-Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness-Joseph Conrad (This is a caca book. Only read if you are feeling like being depressed or you have to write an English paper.)
92. The Little Prince-Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory-Iain Banks
94. Watership Down-Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole(I only bolded half because I read half of the book and then got bored and seduced by another more interesting book.  I never came back.  Sorry, I'm just like that.)
96. A Town like Alice-Nevil Shute
97. The Three musketeers-Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet-William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables-Victor Hugo* (Really good book.  Especially if you skip the 100 pages on the description of the town...or was it something else?)

135 MacDougal St. #3A

When I first walked in, I sat down on one of the double beds provided for married students attending NYU and cried.  I couldn't decide what to cry about more: the shit-brown walls(pardon my language, but that really was the color!), the 480 square feet, the tiny closet, the big cockroach in the bathtub, the elf size stove and refrigerator, the three floors I had just walked up, the glaring lack of any appliance that washes, or maybe the fact that I had overpacked just a wee bit.

(Entertaining friends)

 

And yes, that is the whole apartment! Robert grew to love the place, but I never did.

When we went back to NYC a few weeks ago, we walked by our old apartment on MacDougal.  I was elated to see that I was proven correct--the building was about ready to fall down--it was boarded up and everything. I felt vindicated!  And I got to tell Robert that I was right about our old hell-hole of an apartment.  I felt giddy!  That is, until I read the sign.  Well, I'm off to google asbestos poisoning...

Apology

Dearest Max,

I know you are not happy with me today.  I can tell by your pouty lip, complaints and watery eyes.  I can see that if you could speak, you would form the words, "Mean Mom!"  I know that I am a Mean Mom and I am sorry.  I have tried to support you in your obsession with toilet water but I find that I am wholly unable to get behind this activity.  I know you are mad about the gate and toilet lid locks.  I am sorry.  I hope to be able to be more supportive of your future activities.  I realize that we have had a few disagreements about your culinary tastes.  I must stand firm in my belief that fuzz off our rug and dust bunnies from the corner are not food groups.  I hope that we can come to some sort of an understanding on this point.  Perhaps, if I added a new food to your diet?  

We do have some common ground.  We both enjoy your naps.  May I respectfully suggest that you add a few more minutes to your afternoon snooze? I really think that this may help us get a long a little better.  

As always,

Mom

P.S.  I apologize in advance for the new locks I am about to install on the doors.  I know this will keep you from exploring our front yard, street and garage--some of your favorite places.  I hope that you can overlook these infractions on your freedom and remember how many times I have changed your not so fragrant diapers.

Happy Birthday, Max!