Ca alors!

Julie was suprised when she saw that Cathy had a picture of the two of us bhangra dancing at Mitali Perkin's book launch last week. Even more shocking? A youtube/google video has surfaced, featuring... us! Well, thankfully not us specifically, but, we are there, and we are dancing badly. To you, gentle reader, I present... bhangra dancing!!!!



If you can, then pick us out. Otherwise, that's too bad. I'm not going to tell which one of the dancers is me!

I took yesterday off, which meant I read lots of books. Well, three and a half to be more specific. They were: The Lady's Not for Burning by Christopher Fry (this is actually a play), Dairy Queen and The Off Season both by Catherine Gilbert Murdock, and Looking for Alaska by John Green.

I had picked up The Lady's Not For Burning thanks to my read through of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin. The plot does resemble Tam Lin a bit, at least as far as the girl ends up saving the boy from death. Thomas, in this case, went looking for death while she was attempting to avoid it (she was to be burned as a witch, he wanted the magistrate to hang him just to die). But, there at the mayor's office they met and he lost his heart and was willing to give her fifty years.

Dairy Queen and The Off Season go together as they deal with the same character. I had to go back to my FLA conference notes because I went to Murdock's discussion about Dairy Queen without having read the book (oops). Now the two things her children said after she finished reading it to them make complete sense.

Daughter: "The movie will have two kissing scenes."
Son: "You mean it was all a stupid English paper?"

I was glad for the ending of The Off Season. It wasn't the typical "happily ever after" type ending because, really, how real is that? Life isn't perfect, but there is a big world out there with many other options. D.J. saw a glimpse of that when she visited college with her brother Bill. I do wish that we could see her in the future, though I know that Murdock's next book is a fantasy novel. Perhaps more someday soon, though!

I should have more to say regarding Looking for Alaska after dinner. That's where I'm off to now.