What I Do for a Living

(1) I read many, many book reviews and blurbs. The company from which we lease best sellers sends a 4 - 6 page booklet of blurbs to help use choose. I try to be very open minded; I know that people like to read the darndest things. But this blurb just took the cake.

First of all, the author goes by the name Candace Camp.

Second of all, the title: An Unexpected Pleasure

Finally, the blurb"Irish-American journalist Megan Mulcaheny goes undercover as a governess . . . to discover if Theo Moreland, the Marquiss of Raine, murdered her brother, but her plan backfires when love blossoms between them, forcing her to choose between her past and her future with Theo."

I mean, come on. What else could she go under cover as but a governess? Take it as given. Of course a marquiss (dictionary.com reports the second "s" is a valid alternate spelling). Of course a the governess falls for the supposed bad guy/boy.

(2) On Friday, I had to call an exterminator for another problem with ants, but I did manage to rescue a skink that slunk into the building. I used a time honored technique of scooping it up on a piece of paper, letting it drop, chasing it with the paper, then finally get a hold of it firmly and yet gently enough to get it to the safety of the bushes.

(3) I read another interview with the Guys Read guy (author of The Stinky Cheese Man, Jon Scieszka). I think it is very fair to compare, as he does, the need for special attention to boys and reading to the targeted efforts to engage more girls in math and science.

(4) Also on Friday, I strung fairy lights, as the Brits call them, around a summer reading display called Light Reading.

(5) Read that Miyazaki's new movie, Howl's Moving Castle, is out, and that it's based on a teen novel by Diana Wynne Jones. I did not watch the trailer, but will as soon as I post this. I hid inside this afternoon to avoid the midday heat and watched Castle in the Sky. The fine folks at the Video Fan made me a list, from memory, of his movies when I said I couldn't remember the name, but I wanted to see more by the Spirited Away guy. Good service is a beautiful thing.

(6) Read professional literature, which can lead to learning too much bad news. On the Censorship Watch page of the June/July issue of American Libraries, I learned that Oklahoma passed a resolution that requires all books with homosexual "themes" to be shelved with adult books. The action stemmed from someone unhappy to have picked up the story book King and King. The other items had to do with the sticky territory of circulating "popular" DVDs, a library that forbade e-mail use by patrons on its computers - but backed off to disallow only chat room use, and whether paper sign in sheets for public computers are public records, open for all to view.