“If your great umbrage would care to meet my high dudgeon at 12 paces, I would be happy to entertain you at dawn.”

The third 39 Clues book came out today. Unless you are an eight-year-old boy, or the parent of an eight-year-old boy, I don't expect you to realize the import of today's events. It seems to be, at least to Primo, somewhat akin to the Harry Potter mania. But without costumes. Or maybe Webkinz, without the little animals, and more...cerebral.

From Powell's:
The 39 Clues is Scholastic's groundbreaking new series, spanning 10 adrenaline-charged books, 350 trading cards, and an online game where readers play a part in the story and compete for over $100,000 in prizes.

The 39 Clues books set the story, and the cards, website and game allow kids to participate in it. Kids visit the website — www.the39clues.com — and discover they are lost members of the Cahill family. They set up online accounts where they can compete against other kids and against Cahill characters to find all 39 clues. Through the website, kids can track their points and clues, manage their card collections, dig through the Cahill archives for secrets, and "travel" the world to collect Cahill artifacts, interview characters, and hunt down clues. Collecting cards helps: Each card is a piece of evidence containing information on a Cahill, a clue, or a family secret.

Pret-ttty darn cool, eh? Primo dived headfirst into the Internet phenomenon of this series, aided and abetted by his mother, who understands all too well the desperate desire to read a new book RIGHT. NOW. DAMMIT. (In fact, his mother even rescinded her homework-before-all-else rules tonight and let him finish the book before tackling the homework.)(And let him use HER laptop to register his new cards. Greater love, blahblahblah....)

When at B&N this afternoon (yes, I made a special trip, shut up, you would, too), the lady who works the kids' section (but seemingly knows only what the little cover blurbs and PW says about most children's books, which I find distinctly odd) recommended Trenton Lee Stewart's The Mysterious Benedict Society. Now I don't need to know if it's good, because I already bought it and intend to read it before passing it on to Primo to keep him occupied for a few hours; what I need to know, and I need you, my 'netties, to help me with, is this:

Recently, at least, within the past year, maybe, I read an adult book with a cover screamingly similar to this. And yet I can't dredge up from the soggy depths of my brain what book it was. Helllllpppp. Meeeeeeee. Help! before my brain drowns and all prior knowledge with it.

Because it's driving me CRAZY.

***************

*Benedict Arnold (The man was surprisingly snarky and amusing.)

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”*

Random, random.

I am happily reading two involved books at the same time – Michael Lee West’s She Flew the Coop and Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Marking Time.
Michael Lee West’s books always take me by surprise; they seem lighthearted and happy, what with the snarky Southern women and delectable sounding recipes sprinkled throughout, and they are often very funny, but they also often deal with serious life-or-death issues, and the culmination of events often smacks you in the face with reality.

Elizabeth Jane Howard’s books are for anyone who read the Penny Vicenzi Lytton family books, or Rosamunde Pilcher’s “big” books, and enjoyed them. The first one in the Cazalet series, The Light Years seemed to take me forever to read, but I gobbled down the second (I am just about finished) in less than a week and just ordered the third (of a quartet).

I am also reading the strange but intriguing The Partisan’s Daughter, which is so completely different from the only other Louis De Bernieres I have read (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin) that I feel like I am reading a book by a different author.

***********

The two older boys and I got in what may well be the last round this winter of ice skating. H’s cousin generously gave s some of the free passes he had won to the downtown rink. It was freaking cold and we were in what amounts to a wind tunnel, but it was not crowded at all and the ice was in good shape. My skates need to be sharpened desperately. I am a pretty good skater and may opt out of my run Wednesday when the babysitter comes for an hour on skates instead. I won’t be able to skate outdoors for much longer.

*********

Our annual St Pat’s party is approaching, and I can’t find my file from last year that reminds me how many pounds of corned beef I need to feed 80 people. Grrrrrr. I have a sinking feeling that the document was on my hard drive that was wiped away when my computer died this summer.

************

We found an amazing appliance repair guy who fixed my cook top griddle and my oven, both of which are over fifty years old. Because of the way the appliances are integrated into the cabinetry, and because any major kitchen overhaul is on hold for a good long while if not indefinitely, it was my deepest desire this year, for Christmas, to have someone make my oven work.
Because cooking dinner with your only working oven in the basement bites the big one.
Especially when your baby sits at the top of the basement steps, sticking his little arms frantically through the cat door and wailing piteously until you return from the depths.

So my upstairs oven works. Yay, me! Now I can bake real chocolate chip cookies.

Next gift: calling the carpenter to build bookshelves for the stacks of dusty books piled around my bedroom floor.

Actually, my next gift is to take the money H gave me for Christmas to spend at Half Price Books and compile a rather large order from Persephone Books. A blogger who shall remain nameless (but who is insanely generous and has a really cute new-ish baby boy) sent me, as a lovely and completely unnecessary thank you for some minor things, a gift voucher for two Persephone Books. (I KNOW! Could anyone have given me a more thoughtful gift?) I spent a glorious afternoon perusing the catalog and trying to decide. In difficulty of choice, it completely blew past the cheese counter at the import store, and also picking candy at the chocolate shop. (In fact, my thought process regarding my choices might be worthy of its own blog post.) But I was even more excited once I factored in that H gave me that money specifically to spend on books, and he did say HPB because that was where I have been book-shopping, bur I don’t think he’d care if I spent it at Persephone instead.

As long as I really do get those bookcases built...

************
*Leo Tolstoy