Inspired by last night, here is just something I felt like putting out there…

She walked into the warm coffee house, happy to be coming in from the blistering cold that only a Canadian winter can deliver. Her glasses immediately fogged up and left her a little blind, but mostly just blurred everything around the edges in a way that made the world seem softer, kinder. As she waited for the fog to clear, she took a few tentative steps toward the counter to order, deciding en route what she felt like drinking today. In the end, warmth won out over nutrition and she settled on a grande hot chocolate with whipped cream. As she paid and picked up her drink from the counter, she sighed with relief as the warmth of the liquid seeped through the cardboard and warmed the tips of her fingers. Looking around the shop, she settled on the perfect table. Hidden in the corner, with a comfy overstuffed armchair, but with a clear view of the rest of the shop for people watching, she settled in to relax for a few stolen moments.

She picked up her book and opened to her bookmark, already anticipating being swept away by the author’s wry humour, when suddenly it hit her. She was overwhelmed by him. The scent of his cologne and the unique blend of sweat, masculinity and virility that distinguished him immediately to her olfactory senses. Afraid to look up, and see him after all these years of denying herself contact, she kept her gaze steadfastly on her book, willing him to leave without seeing her. Now that she was aware of his presence, she could pick out his voice, all rough and sensual, evoking bittersweet memories of late nights and long afternoons. It was secretly thrilling, knowing that five years later she could still pick him out by his scent and voice and be certain. She was so in tune to him in the coffee shop by now, that she could pick out his footstep and know that he had seen her and was coming tentatively toward her. At the very last moment, she raised her gaze and met him squarely in the eye. “Hello,” she half breathed, half spoke.

I am beyond excited. One of my favourite authors ever, Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander Series, is in town tonight. And I have tickets to see her!! She is in town to promote her new book, the latest one in the series, An Echo in the Bone. I have not yet read the book. It came out in September and I was going to read it before tonight, but as it is really long and one of my favourites I decided to wait a bit and then read it slowly, savouring each page. I am so very excited to hear her read from it tonight. I am dying to know which part she chooses to read, and find out why she chose it. I am also excited to hear the words in her own voice as I am sure it will add even more meaning to the passage. I am hoping there is a Q&A as well so I get to hear her thoughts on all the characters and plot developments and upcoming ideas/books. I truly love her books, and think she is an amazing writer, and I am feel like I am going to meet a rock star!

Update on yesterday – She was so fabulous!  She was everything I expected and so much more.  She is incredibly funny and has a very dry humour which I guess I should have figured out from the dry humour in the books.  She read a great passage about Jamie and Claire.  There was a question and answer period as well, which was mostly filled with questions I already knew the answers to from reading her webpage occasionally, but was still fun to hear her answer in person.  And then the woman signed books for over an hour.  I am not sure how long she was signing for because I waited in line for an hour and 15 minutes, got my books signed and left, but there was still a really long line of people waiting when I left.  I am sure she was there for another hour at least.  Some people brought gigantic bins of books!  Craziness…but wow I love her even more now that I have met her.  And boy I really need to start writing that best selling novel I always planned on publishing .

I rewatched Four Weddings and a Funeral last night which is one of my favourite movies.  This time the part that struck me most was the reading of this beautiful poem by WH Auden.  I had to share it with you.

Funeral Blues 

by WH Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and, with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message: “He is dead!”
Put crepe bows around the white necks of the public doves.
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my north, my south, my east and west,
My working week and Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one.
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can come to any good.

I am reading a book right now that is designed to pull me out of my funk: What Was I Thinking?  58 Bad Boyfriend Stories.

It is wonderful, witty, insightful and just plain fun.

My favourite one so far is this:

Three Shoes by Maira Kalman

I once had a boyfriend who did not read books

I thought he was sexy and primitive

But he was just an idiot.

Teehee!  Thank you Maira for making me smile!

I just finished the most extraordinary novel, The Quincunx by Charles Palliser.  I have no idea where I heard about it as I just add books to my list of things to read whenever someone suggests them and this was the next one that caught my eye.  It is huge!  787 pages.  I only had 5 days to read it and an insanely busy week, but I made up a reading schedule (seriously I am that anal) and I got through it!  I finished it last night on the way to a friend’s wedding rehearsal. 

It was truly a fascinating story about a boy who has to learn who he is and all about his family history in order to understand his inheritance, and stay alive.  It was so tremendously written!  It was actually an easy read, despite its size.  I loved the way it started with this very sparse family tree, and at the end of each section, it was filled in a bit more with the stuff you had learned in the previous pages.  So brilliant, it helped you to keep track of the enormously complicated plot.  Loved it!

And yes…I am.  Bitten that is, by Kelley Armstrong’s first book of her Otherworld series.   The book was recommended to me by a local book seller and I was a bit skeptical as really, I am a vampire girl, not so much into werewolves.  This book is amazing though.  It drew me in right away, and Elena is such a fierce lead character.  I loved her!  Not to mention that Elena is my daughter’s middle name so I absolutely loved the name too.  I loved the male lead as well, Clayton.  He was very well written and the story was just terrific.  Great supporting characters too that I can’t wait to learn more about.  

 I look forward to reading the second book in the series, Stolen.  Oh and even better, the author is Canadian!  If you have already read it, let me know what you think of the series.

I got a beautiful collector’s edition copy of Twilight and was waiting for the right moment to re-read it.  I watched the movie yet again last week and afterwards just had to read the book.  I am such a book person and this copy is the really nice one with uneven pages, and a pretty bookmark and it just smells good. I curled up in bed and read a few chapters.  I had forgotten how much I loved the story and the character development.  So much of that is lost in the movie it is really great to fall in love with the book again.  So to all you Twilighters out there – re-read!  It is so wonderful.

Spring has come a little late to our house (I blame it on the crappy summer weather – makes me think it is still Spring with all this rain).  I am suddenly (today) on a major cleaning binge.  I have finally cleaned out our front hall closet.  It has been a few years since I have been saying I really need to clean out our front hall closet…finally it is done!  I am embarrassed at some of the things I found in there…things we have been looking for.  Oh well! 

The other thing I cleaned out today were all the old textbooks from our bookshelves.  We had a ton of them.  I am not sure what to do with them now…I am trying to find somewhere to donate them…so if anyone knows of anywhere that takes old textbooks, please post in the comments section.  Now, on to my next cleaning task!

I leave on a 6 day vacation to the country tomorrow, which means no email, or computers or blogging.  I am halfway through the House of Night series by PC and Kristin Cast.  I have read 2 of 5 books and have the next three already packed for my week of reading.  Are they as amazing as Twilight?  No, but I am enjoying them immensely.  Sometimes it is just refreshing to rip through a fun book about hot vampires and powerful teenage girls.  So I leave you to spend a week with Zoey Redbird and Erik Night and the rest of the House of Night crew…enjoy!  Let me know if you have read them and what you think.