Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Titles I've Read

Apparently the BBC thinks most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books . Let’s see how we all do.

1) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8)Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien X
17) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger X
20) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X
22) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams X
26) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis X
34) Emma - Jane Austen X
35) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X
40) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41) Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50) Atonement - Ian McEwan X
51) Life of Pi - Yann Martel X
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
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 X
62) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov X
63) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding X
69) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72) Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses - James Joyce X
76) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal - Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80) Possession - AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
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 X
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
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
96) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas X
98) Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl x38 X
100) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

Monday, February 27, 2012

Used vs. Loved

My Dad sent me this email awhile back....made me reflect...


Used vs. Loved

While a man was polishing his new car, his 4 yr old son picked up a
stone and scratched lines on the side of the car. In anger, the man took
the child's hand and hit it many times; not realizing he was using a
wrench.

At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers due to multiple fractures.

When the child saw his father.....with painful eyes he asked,
'Dad when will my fingers grow back?'

The man was so hurt and speechless; he went back to his car and kicked
it a lot of times. Devastated by his own actions.......sitting in front of
that car he looked at the scratches; the child had written 'LOVE YOU DAD'.

The next day that man committed suicide. . Anger and Love have no
limits; choose the latter to have a beautiful, lovely life..... Things
are to be us ed and people are to be loved, But the problem in today's
world is that, People are used and things are loved...

During the day, be careful to keep this thought in mind: Things
are to be used, but People are to be loved ... Be yourself....This is
the only day we HAVE. Have a nice day Watch your thoughts; they become
words. Watch your words; they become actions.

Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits they become
character; Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Top 10 Reasons Why You Can't Trust Pitbulls

10. They will steal your spot on the couch while you are up getting a soda.
9. They will take the treat you give them and bury in the back yard like a paranoid crack head hiding their stash.
8. They will jump on your bed with muddy feet. Making you do the laundry...again!
7. They will lick visitors with an uncontrolled passion only they understand.
6. They will cause children to smile.
5. They will make you feel horrible for not walking them by looking at you with deep sad eyes.
4. They will look at you like you committed a crime against them if you don't let them lick your ice cream bowl.
3. They will cause wide spread happiness in large group settings.
2. They will crack you up by shaking their butts so hard you think they are going to snap in half.
And the number one reason why you can't trust vicious Pit Bulls...
1. They will steal your heart like a thief in the night, showing you complete and pure love that only a Pit Bull can show.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Insomnia Strikes Again

Post Valentine's Day, and after a night out with my girlfriends, I find myself unable to sleep.   The only thing going through my mind at the moment is the French lullaby, Au Clair de la Lune.  My mom used to sing that to me to go to sleep, so perhaps my sleep deprived subconscious is trying to get me into a REM cycle.

"Au clair de la lune" means "Under the moonlight"  The song speaks of the search for a pen to write, under the moonlight.  Funny, I now lay in bed, au clair de lune, searching for inspiration.  

Lyrics go something like this
(from what I can remember, there are several more verses)

Au clair de la lune
Mon ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot
Ma chandelle est morte
Je n'ai plus de feu
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour l'amour de Dieu

"Under the moonlight,
My friend Pierrot
Lend me your pen*,
So I could write a word
My candle is out,
I've no more light
Open your door for me,
For God's sakes"




Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c'est qu'il cache un puits quelque part...Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Je Ne Vous Oublie Pas

"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden." 

Has it been a year??? My dear, dear baby boy...I miss you so much, I hope you're watching over us. 

Thank you for visiting me in my dreams the other night, I can't tell you how much I've missed the sound of your voice, your corse fur, and the thump of your tail...


It was a year ago today, that I lost you, that you crossed the bridge.  I can only hope and pray there is a special place for dogs to go after they leave this life...and I can only pray, I can go there too.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Life is sublime

This past weekend I was able to celebrate my cousin's marriage to his girlfriend of 10 years.  My entire family (maternal side) came out...all the way from Vietnam, Korea, Florida, Texas, and Washington.  It was wonderful to see everyone after so long, 5+ years for many of us.

My cousins are no longer my little baby cousins, but grown women, over 21 and most in college or recently graduated.  Seeing them, it was like we were never parted.  We're all still reflections of the same little girls that played on the ranch in Houston, Tx, ran amuck at Islands Of Adventure in Oralando, FL, we're still the same hoodlums our parents had to chase around the house to get the pantyhose off our heads.  I realize time does not effect my relationships with my family, our bonds are like the oldest redwood, we just get stronger with time. 

This particular celebration was bittersweet, the groom's father, my uncle, had passed away 6 days before the wedding.  He had been battling cancer for some time, and was unable to fight any longer.  My Uncle Thuc, was a helicopter pilot for the VN army, he was a devout Catholic, he is a hero, and he used to call me his Famous Star.

Rest in Peace, Uncle...we'll remember you forever  06.02.1942 - 01.29.2012
 
 
 I believe my uncle was comfortable to leave, knowing his sons had grown into good men that love their wives and his daughter is strong and marvelously creative.  My aunt has a grandson, and another on the way, she no longer has her husband, but his legacy lives on within his family.

Life is sublime, our threads weave a tapestry so magnificent and elaborate that time itself can lose itself within our colors.  In reflection, I am so fortunate to know the people I know, and they have changed my life in ways I cannot begin to describe.