Another New Link

I have added another new link to my list: The Rubin Review. Check it out, it's really funny.

Book Review--Better Read than Dead, by Victoria Laurie

This book is the second in the "Psychic Eye" mysteries. Very light reading, but lots of fun, in my opinion. Abby makes her living doing psychic readings for people. I guess one has to suspend disbelief if one doesn't believe in that sort of thing. However, her gift comes in handy outside of her work, especially since she tends to get into dangerous situations.

Abby is eagerly awaiting her reunion with her new boyfriend, Dutch, who is just getting back from FBI training when she gets a call from a fellow psychic, Kendal. Kendal's timing in calling in a favor that Abby owes him could not be worse, but she cancels her date with Dutch and reluctantly agrees to help Kendal do psychic readings at a wedding (interesting choice of reception entertainment, but then the wedding is on Halloween).

Kendal and Abby belatedly discover that the wedding is actually a mob wedding. They decide to leave early--and quickly--but not before Abby's psychic gifts catch the attention of a mob boss who wants her help. Abby tries to stand up to him, being way braver than I could probably be in those circumstances, but he doesn't exactly take no for an answer.

Meanwhile, the police recruit Abby to help out on a case involving a masked man who's attacking women. Her sister makes an unannounced visit, and Abby has prevent her from finding out about the mob boss and keep her out of harm's way. Dutch's new partner in the FBI makes it clear to Abby that she wants Dutch, despite rules against her dating a subordinate. You might say Abby's life has gotten rather difficult to manage, even with her psychic gifts, which can be impressive but seem to be rather selective (it's not like she saw this coming).

I really like Abby; she's very no-nonsense and straightforward, despite her unusual profession. The psychic angle is really interesting. Anyway, this is just a fun book, and a fun new series.

Movie Review--The Weatherman

This was a rather dark movie, but with an overlay of humor that kept it from being depressing. The story centers on a middle-aged divorced man, David Spritz (Nicholas Cage), who is a TV weather forecaster in Chicago. His father is a famous author who is terminally ill. Both of his kids are troubled. Feelings of inadequacy are definitely an issue for David. He can't measure up to his Pulitzer-prize-winning father, who gives him a hard time about getting divorced and about the kids. He doesn't have a degree in metereology and thus doesn't truly understand a lot of what he is saying on the air. Sometimes people who recognize him on the street throw things at him. Things are possibly looking up on the job front, though. David is in the running for a network job in New York. When he has to drive his dad to the doctor, David places a letter about the job where he thinks his dad is sure to see it and comment on it. First his dad sits on it, so when they get in the car after the appointment, David places the letter on the passenger side of the dashboard. His dad falls asleep without ever noticing it.

David contemplates his life, his career and his relationships. He's a likeable, sympathetic character. Who among us has not experienced at least some of these things--feelings of inadequacy or not feeling respected in our careers, worry about kids, grief over failed relationships, etc. It's easy to relate to his character.

The movie is kind of hard to characterize; I guess I'd call it a comic drama. David's character narrates his thoughts, and he has a kind of dark sense of humor. So if you like movies that are rather deep but with some humor to lighten things up, you'll probably like this.

Another New Link

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to another new link that I just added: Bond Hunter's Guide to Internet Counseling. Lots of good resources and interesting entries to read. Check it out.

Book Review--The Wonder Spot, by Melissa Bank

This book begins when Sophie, the protagonist, is 12 years old. Then she is struggling in Hebrew school and trying to convince her parents that she doesn't want a bat mitzvah. In Hebrew school, she befriends a former enemy from school.

The book is in several sections, different slices of Sophie's life over a span of about 25 years. There is a section from when she is in college and critiquing her roommate's love life, a section from when she is just out of college and trying to teach herself to type (in the days of the typewriter). Attempting to find lasting love is a common theme of many of the sections, as is her career satisfaction (or lack thereof). All involve her search for identity in some way.

I liked the book, but it's kind of hard to review in that it's more character development than plot. One thing I didn't necessarily like was the way it jumped around to different parts of her life; sometimes I was wondering whatever happened with a certain person or situation, and then the book jumps ahead several years. But it was all quite interesting, and I liked how Sophie didn't let other people's warnings about how a certain guy might be her last chance (to get married and have a family) sway her into marrying someone she didn't want to marry. I just thought, You go, girl! I think if people were only in relationships because they truly wanted to be with that person, and not because they think they need the security or are afraid to be alone or are worried about missing their chance to have a family or whatever--well, I think there would be a lot more single people in this world.

New Links

I finally put some links on my blog. These are blogs that I enjoy; there's a little bit of everything. There are some other sites pertaining to books (I Love a Good Mystery, Gay and Lesbian Books); humor (Whoopity Doo, Digital Doorway, Wasted Blog); Personal Diaries (No Bravery, A Rich Tapestry of Barbara-isms, She Talks to Angels, All Things Jennifer, Championable: Fatherhood, Politics, Kids); politics (The Martian Anthropologist, Princess Wild Cow). Anyway, check them out.

Book Review--Case of Lies, by Perri O'Shaughnessy

Nina Reilly is one of my all-time favorite characters. I tend to like legal thrillers, and Reilly is an amazing lawyer who actually has a heart.

Nina's latest case comes her way when her massage therapist, Chelsi, asks Nina to talk to her uncle. Chelsi's aunt, Sarah had been murdered nearly two years previously while she and Chelsi's uncle Dave had been staying at a motel. It seemed to be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sarah had been shot while some other motel guests were being robbed. Even more tragically, Sarah had been pregnant with her first child at the time.

The shooter has not been found, and the Dave's civil case against the motel for negligence, having languished for two years, is about to be thrown out. Dave is broke, but Chelsi and her father are willing to pay the bills so that the case can go forward.

Nina has to race against the clock to gather more evidence before the judge tosses the case out. She searches for the robbery victims who were also witnesses to Sarah's murder, three brilliant MIT students who came to Tahoe to gamble. The students, master card counters, had won a lot of money the night they were robbed. The IDs they had provided were fake, so Nina has to figure out who and where they are, as well as try to find the shooter.

The student most central to the story is Elliott, a brilliant but unstable mathematician who is working on solving the mystery of prime numbers (numbers that are divisible only by one and themselves, such as 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc. As yet, no one has discovered a formula for predicting the location of prime numbers. This means that really large composite numbers cannot be factored, due to the difficulty of finding the prime numbers of which they are composed. Interestingly, encryption based on this fact is the best method of encryption on the Internet at this point, thought there are other possibilities such as quantum encryption. These other possibilities will have to be further explored when someone does figure out the formula for locating prime numbers.

Anyway, that's what I like about O'Shaughnessy's books; they are highly readable, but I learn a lot. In reading this book, for example, I learned more about math, while in another I learned a more about Russian history. The only thing I regret is that they can't write and publish faster; I'm always so anxious to read their next book.

Book Review--Peach Cobbler Murder, by Joanne Fluke

I love books in a series that feature the same character/s. Once I've gotten to like a character, I want to read more about them. This book is Fluke's fifth Hannah Swenson mystery. Hannah owns a small bakery called the Cookie Jar and is an amateur sleuth.

I will admit, one does have to suspend disbelief with these amateur-sleuth-type mysteries. For one thing, amateur sleuths in these books tend to do things in the course of investigating that I would think a private citizen would have difficulty doing. Also, these books tend to take place in small towns, and if there is at least one murder per installment of the series--well, that would make the murder rate in a town of 5000 people or so alarmingly high.

It doesn't matter, though; I always really enjoy these types of books. In this book, Hannah faces a serious threat to her business when a new bakery opens up right across the street. The new bakery is operated by two sisters, one of whom, Shawna Lee, is after Mike, Hannah's sometime-boyfriend. Since Shawna Lee is a rival of Hannah's in both business and love, she is a prime suspect when Shawna is murdered. So let's just say Hannah has a strong incentive to solve this particular case.

I really like all the characters in this series, but my favorite is Hannah's cat. He is far more intelligent than I think a real-life cat could probably be (not that my own little darlings aren't brilliant :-), but he has the greatest personality (cat-ality?). This is a cat who doesn't like Hannah's mother and so will puff up like a porcupine and hisses when her mother calls, even before Hannah answers the telephone. He also refused to kill a mouse in Hannah's mother's house, as if he just couldn't stand doing her a favor. On the other hand, he loves Hannah's other sometime-boyfriend, Norman, and will do anything Norman asks, including allow Norman to put a harness on him. The cat has strong opinions about people.

Each installment also has lots of recipes to try, mostly desserts. I haven't tried any yet, but, well, they all look really good, so these are a bonus that you get with each book.

Movie Review--North Country

One thing I can definitely say about this movie is that it gives one perspective. Anytime that I think that I hate my job, I'll just think about what it would have been like to work in the hellhole portrayed in this movie. I think working in a mine would be bad enough, never mind working there when one is subjected to daily harrassment. I'm talking feces smeared on the walls of the women's locker room, sex toys in their lunch boxes, ugly rumors and name calling, and generally having to go to work every day in fear.

The movie is inspired by a true story involving a class-action sexual harrassment suit against a mine in 1989. It centers on a character named Josie (Charlize Theron) who moves back to her hometown with two kids in tow when she leaves her abusive husband. She moves in with her parents and gets a job washing hair in a beauty salon, but one can't exactly support oneself and two kids on those wages. A female mine worker and union representative suggests that Josie get a job working for the mine, which pays six times what she makes washing hair.

Josie's dad also works for the mine, but he is far from supportive. And from day one, Josie is subjected to an incredible amount of harrassment, as are the other women who work for the mine, who are outnumbered 30 to 1 by men. Most of the women try to brush it off, but Josie has a much harder time doing so. The final straw occurs when she is attacked by one of the men. She gets a lawyer (Woody Harrelson) and sues the mine.

Theron does a wonderful job as Josie. The character is an amazing person, someone who has really been through a lot and is amazingly strong. Since the movie is "inspired by" a true story, I am not sure how much of her character is based on an actual person, but the real life women in this case must have been incredibly courageous as well, to take on the mine like that and make history.

I'm glad I saw the movie, because it is really good and it portrays an important piece of history. However, it was really intense and hard to watch in places, so I'm not sure it's the kind of thing I'd want to see again. Not a good date movie, that's for sure. It's the type of movie to see with someone capable of providing good emotional support.

Book Review--Mercy, by Jodi Picoult

I've mentioned before that I love Jodi Picoult. I love the way she writes about pressing social issues and the way she treats them with such sensitivity and depth.

Mercy is about a mercy killing. A man, Jamie, kills his wife, whose body is riddled with cancer, by smothering her with a pillow. He confesses immediately to the police chief, who happens to be his cousin, Cam. Cam then has the difficult job of arresting his cousin, and then aiding in his prosecution.

Meanwhile, Cam's wife, Allie, is doing her best to help Jamie. She seems to feel a kinship with him in that they both have or had an extraordinary devotion to their spouses. Allie is impressed that Jamie loved his wife so much that he would go so far as to kill her when she asked. But while Allie helps Jamie and Cam helps the prosecution, the distance between them grows. Complicating matters further, Cam finds himself thinking about Allie's new assistant, Mia.

Did Jamie really agree to kill his wife because he loved her so much that he only wanted to end her suffering? Or was it because it had become too hard for him to watch her suffer? Or was it because she had changed from the person he had loved so much into one he no longer wanted to be around? These are the questions that the book raises. As with her other books, Picoult provides no easy answers, but compels the reader to consider the questions.

Book Review--Your Cat's Just Not That Into You, by Richard Smith (Illustrations by David Sipress)

I always thought my cats were pretty into me. They greet me at the door. They sleep with me at night. Sure, they're a little friendlier when I'm trying to eat dinner in peace, but for the most part, I thought they loved me unconditionally.

Clearly, I was living in a dream world.

Last night I was at Hastings, looking for an audiobook to rent, when I saw Your Cat's Just Not That Into You. Feeling sorry for people who clearly have settled for a less-than-optimal cat-human relationship, I picked it up and thumbed through it.

It's always a shock when you think everything is perfect in a relationship and then reality hits you in the face.

I was reading about myself and my cats.

Being all sweet and cuddly and then suddenly bolting away? My cats do that! Separation anxiety if I close the bathroom door and then ignoring me when I open it, clearly meaning that they are only into me when I am not there? My cats do that! And forget about coming to me when I call them. Then of course there is the physical abuse. They are always supposedly "just playing" when they scratch me, like they didn't realize their claws weren't retracted.

I sobbed for hours.

Dramatics aside, the book is hilarious. It is of course a take-off on He's Just Not That Into You, that book which helps women face the truth about their jerk boyfriends. From what little I've seen of that book, this one is laid out in the same way, with letter from people and advice. It's a must-have for any cat-lover.

Movie Review--In Her Shoes

Another great movie. In Her Shoes is about two sisters who are complete opposites. Rose is an uptight lawyer, very responsible and good at her job. Her younger sister Maggie (Cameron Diaz) is beautiful, irresponsible, can't hold a job, and mooches off of Rose. The sisters lost their mother when they were young. They don't always get along, but they are close.

However, their relationship is severely tested when Maggie sleeps with a man who is sort of Rose's boyfriend. Rose kicks Maggie out of her apartment. Fortunately for Maggie, she has a place to go. She has a tendency to snoop through other people's things, looking for cash to steal. It was when she was snooping through her father and stepmother's things that she discovered the whereabouts of her maternal grandmother, with whom their father had cut off contact years ago.

Maggie goes to visit her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) in Florida for the first time in her life. Her grandmother is delighted to meet her granddaughter at long last, but less happy about her granddaughter's mooching tendencies. When she discovers Maggie looking through her things for cash, she strikes a deal with Maggie: Maggie can stay with her, but she needs to get a job. Maggie's grandmother promises she will match the money Maggie earns through her job in order to help Maggie go to New York so she can study acting.

In staying with her grandmother and developing a relationship with her, Maggie begins to gain a sense of responsibility. Meanwhile, back in Philadelphia, Rose is learning to loosen up. She takes a leave of absence from her job and takes a job walking dogs. She starts dating a new man (not the one who slept with her sister). But she and Maggie miss each other terribly. In Florida, their grandmother (whom Rose has still not met) encourages Maggie to contact Rose. Meanwhile, their father doesn't even know that Maggie is no longer in Philadephia.

The sisters have to come to terms with their relationship and their past. They are both lost in their own way and need to find themselves.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I love chick flicks. I also like movies about the relationship between sisters; the dynamics are really interesting to me. In this movie, Shirley MacLaine is great as the grandmother, but then I always like both her and Cameron Diaz. I highly recommend this movie.

Book Review--The Mystery of Breathing, by Perri Klass

Dr. Maggie Claymore is at the top of her profession. A neonatologist, she works with the smallest and sickest premature babies, ones so ill that other doctors might give up on them. She is fiercely devoted to the babies, sometimes to the point where others thinks she tries to save babies whose chance for any kind of decent quality of life is very small. However, she is a very talented and dedicated doctor, and she is in line for a promotion at work. Personally, she doesn't have kids, but she has a terrific husband, also a doctor. Life is pretty good.

But Maggie's life starts to unravel when she gets an anonymous letter, one saying, among other things, that she harms her patients and that the doctors she trains hate working with her. And the harassment doesn't stop with one letter. Maggie and some of her colleagues keep getting increasingly hateful letters, and finally the accuser goes public and puts up posters around the hospital, warning parents to avoid allowing Maggie to treat their child. Worst of all, the letters and posters blame her for the death of a toddler who died in the hospital the previous year.

You'd think someone would notice a person putting up posters around the hospital, but no one does. Investigator Donna Grey asks Maggie about any possible personal relationships with coworkers, talks to her husband, and investigates all aspects of her life, but the perpetrator leaves scant evidence.

The book alternates between what's happening in Maggie's life in the present and different times in her past. The interludes from the past are supposed to provide a deeper insight into Maggie's identity, but while they were usually interesting, I didn't always feel that they added a whole lot to the story. Also, I sometimes felt that they interrupted the flow of the story. Things would be getting really interesting in the present, and then the next chapter would abruptly switch to some time in Maggie's past.

The other thing that frustrated me about this book was that it simply left too many loose ends. I don't want to give too much away in explaining exactly how. It was probably more true-to-life than many other books in that regard, but I would have preferred a tidier resolution.

Book Review--Seizure, by Robin Cook

I have read most of Robin Cook's books, and really like them. I liked this one too, but not as much as I've liked some of his others. The main problem I had with Seizure was that there was simply too much clutter in it. It took around 400 pages to get to the part in which I was most interested.

Dr. Daniel Lowell has invented a new technique in stem-cell research, one that promises to save many lives. He and his partner (personal and professional) Stephanie D'Agostino, have their own biotechnology firm, and with it they hope they will save lives and reap huge financial benefits.

However, the biotechnology firm faces a serious threat. Senator Ashley Butler, an extremely conservative Southern Democrat (he seemed more like a right-wing Republican), has introduced legislation to ban Daniel's technique. Daniel and Stephanie go to Washington, D.C., to testify in a subcommittee meeting in which they attempt to explain the procedure and emphasize that it does not involve the dismemberment of human embryos. They fail to convince the senator, however, and are frustrated by the biased hearing.

A few days later, however, they are contacted by Butler's Chief of Staff for a top-secret meeting. The senator has a progressive form of Parkinson's disease, and he wants Daniel and Stephanie to treat him for it using Daniel's new technique, though they have yet to try it on a human. The senator demands absolute secrecy, as he doesn't want knowledge of his illness to threaten his political future, which he hopes will include someday becoming president. In exchange, Ashley promises that the bill he is sponsering banning the procedure will die in subcommittee. If the bill dies, the financing for Daniel's company would come through.

Ashley has one final demand. The procedure requires the DNA of someone who does not have Parkinson's disease. It doesn't matter who the person is, since there is no tissue matching involved, the way there would be for an organ transplant. He wants the DNA to be obtained from a blood sample taken from the Shroud of Turin, which is thought to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ, though this is controversial. Ashley believes it to be real, and he wants this bit of "divine intervention."

Here is where it starts to get really "cluttered." Ashley greases the wheels so that Daniel and Stephanie are able to get a sample from the Shroud of Turin. They make a trip to Turin to obtain it and nearly get arrested. They get away but have to leave all their luggage. They then go to the Bahamas, where the procedure has to be done in order to avoid violating any FDA rules. They have to be there several weeks before Ashley, as there are things they have to do before they will be ready to do the procedurel. The clinic where the procedure is to be done, Wingate Clinic, was featured in a earlier novel of Cook's (Shock). The clinic was in Massachusetts, until the directors moved it rather suddenly to the Bahamas rather than face the consequences of being involved in the disappearance of two female Harvard students and unethical practices related to infertility treatments and illegally removing ovaries from women without their consent. Stephanie had to reluctant to go along with treating Ashley in the first place, and she is not happy about dealing with the Wingate Clinic and its directors, Dr. Spencer Wingate and Dr. Paul Saunders. She does some snooping, hoping to find evidence of wrongdoing which she can turn over to the authorities once they are done treating Ashley. She manages to get into their "egg room" and gets caught by their thug of a security guard, who puts her into an actual jail cell in the clinic's basement. To get her out, Daniel has to sign some sort of confidentiality agreement, basically stating that if he or Stephanie blows the whistle on the clinic, the clinic will blow the whistle on them.

An additional side plot is that Stephanie's family has mob connections, and her brother and some of his associates are not happy about their investments in Daniel and Stephanie's biotechnology firm being in jeopardy. They cannot understand how Daniel and Stephanie can be trying to save the firm in the Bahamas and send a thug down on two occasions to communicate their displeasure.

Now, the book is called Seizure because the procedure causes Ashley to have bizarre seizures. So, I figured that the procedure would be done relatively early on in the story, and that the story would focus on that more. But that's not what happens. Ashley doesn't have the procedure done until almost the end of the book, and very little time is devoted to actually dealing with the complications. The ending, by the way, is quite bizarre.

So anyway, the book was still pretty interesting, but it had too much clutter and too many side plots for my taste. Some side plots are fine; they make a book more interesting. And it wasn't that these subplots weren't interesting or even that they were hard to follow; it's just that there were too many.

Movie Review--Flight Plan

Another enjoyable movie. Jodie Foster is great in the role of Kyle Pratt, a recently widowed mother whose husband was killed in an accident. Kyle is traveling from Berlin to New York with her 6-year-old daughter when the unthinkable happens and her daughter disappears. She searches the plane (which is much bigger and more impressive than any plane on which I've flown) to no avail. She enlists the help of the flight crew. The only problem is that there's no record of her daughter ever being on board. None of the flight crew or passengers remember whether or not a little girl was ever with Kyle. They believe that maybe her recent loss has caused her to snap and imagine her daughter was with her. Kyle understandably gets more and more upset as more time passes and her daughter remains missing, but this only makes her look more unbalanced. She is on her own in trying to find her daughter.

The movie was a little slow to get started, but after that it was suspenseful and entertaining. In general, I like Jodie Foster; if you like her, you'll probably like this. One did have to suspend disbelief at times. I never thought anyone could be that hard to find on a plane, even though it was a much bigger plane than any I've flown on. I did enjoy it, however.

Movie Review--Just Like Heaven

I loved this movie. I really like Reese Witherspoon in pretty much anything she is in, and I like most romantic comedies. This romantic comedy was rather unique in that one member of the couple wasn't quite physically present.

Reese Witherspoon plays a doctor, Elizabeth, who is totally wrapped up in her work, to the exclusion of any kind of personal life. One night after an especially long shift, Elizabeth is driving to her sister's and gets in an accident.

David (Mark Ruffalo) is a widower who is still grieving the loss of his wife. He rents a furnished apartment in San Francisco largely based on the fact that he likes the couch. He then proceeds to veg out and make a mess of the place.

He then discovers he has a roommate, a bossy young woman who insists that he's in her apartment and is highly indignant about the mess he is making, especially his failure to use a coaster. At first he assumes that there is a misunderstanding, but then he realizes that his roommate can pass through solid objects. She also has a tendency to appear and disappear at will. David then believes she must be a ghost and tries to help her pass over to the other side. He checks out an occult bookstore and even has a priest do an exorcism, but nothing works.

Elizabeth realizes that her ability to pass through solid objects is rather odd, but still believes that she is alive somehow. Unfortunately, she cannot remember who she was before; at first she cannot even remember her name. So she enlists David's help to figure out who she was and what happened to her. They fall in love, but realize that they may never really be able to be together and that time is running out.

The movie is sweet and touching, as well as funny. Ruffalo and Witherspoon are great together. I also thought Jon Heder was hilarious as Darryl, a psychic and medium who works in a occult bookstore. I would definitely consider it a "chick flick" (the best kind of movie in my opinion). I highly recommend it.

Book Review--The Stupidest Angel, by Christopher Moore

Okay, it's not exactly the right season for this. I seem to have a habit of reading Christmas books out of season. But this isn't exactly a typical Christmas book anyway.

The story takes place in the small town of Pine Cove, California. There a seven-year-old boy, Josh, is distraught because he thinks he saw a woman kill Santa Claus. He prays that Santa will come back from the dead for Christmas.

In reality, Lena Marquez had just killed her hated ex-husband, who had been wearing a Santa suit. Josh doesn't know that, of course, so his one wish for Christmas is for Santa to come back to life.

Raziel is an archangel who has come to Earth to grant a Christmas wish for a small child. Raziel isn't too bright, however, and in attempting to bring "Santa" back to life, he casts too wide of a net. Long-dead residents of Pine Cove come back as zombies to terrorize a Christmas party.

The characters in this book are great. My favorite is Molly, a schizophrenic who went off her meds in order to be able to pay for a Christmas present for her husband. She's just such a colorful character.

This is the first book I have read by Christopher Moore, and it was a lot of fun. Apparently some of the characters, including Molly, have appeared in some of his other books. I will have to check those out.

Random Thought Number 11: Swimming Cats

Last night I had the strangest dream. In the dream, my cats were swimming in the pool in my apartment complex and just having a great time. I have had variations of this dream before, and I'm always amazed. "I didn't think cats could just automatically swim the way dogs do, but I guess they can," I always say to whomever is with me. This time, I was worried about the cats being in the pool, though I thought it was pretty amazing that they could swim, since cats aren't exactly allowed in my apartment complex swimming pool. It was hard to keep them out though, because somehow they kept escaping because they wanted to swim so much.

I looked this up in The Everything Dreams Book by Trish and Rob MacGregor. This is a pretty interesting book. Though it discusses the importance of determining what different dreams and dream symbols might mean to the reader personally, it does have some interpretations of common dream symbols. Anyway, not surprisingly, it doesn't have "swimming cats" so I looked up cats and swimming separately. Cats can be a postive or negative symbol, depending on the dreamer's association with cats and the other things happening in the dream. I love cats and it didn't seem like a bad-luck kind of dream. So, I don't think the cats should be interpreted in a negative light in this dream. (Cats can mean prosperity or represent independence, the feminine, or sexual prowess, according to this book). However, I did have mixed feelings: amazement that they could swim, and worry because they weren't supposed to be in that pool and I couldn't seem to keep them out of it.

A dream about swimming, on the other hand, "suggests the dreamer is immersed in an exploration of emotional matters or the unconscious. " (p. 270). This is interesting to me since I often have dreams about swimming with no cats involved, since I love to swim. However, I am not sure how to tie these two elements together. I don't think it was trying to tell me that my cats are deep in thought about emotional matters or the unconscious, for example. Does anyone out there in cyberland who is better at dream interpretation than I have any thoughts about this?

Movie Review--March of the Penguins

This movie wasn't what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of Ice Age or something like that. I did enjoy March of the Penguins, however. It's a documentary, narrated by Morgan Freeman, about the lives of penguins. This may sound rather dry, but it was really interesting. If there really is such a thing as reincarnation (which I do believe in), I definitely don't want to come back as a penguin.

The movie starts with the penguins' march (they walk or slide on their stomachs) of some 70 miles. They do this to spawn. They have to get to a place where the ice is really thick and won't melt until summer, so their offspring don't fall through. When they get to the spawning place, they engage in a sort of "singles" ritual. It's unknown exactly what they are looking for, but they are looking (interesting, since they all look exactly the same). They only have one mate, but I think this only lasts for a season. The females lay the eggs (one egg apiece). Once they do, they have to pass it off to the male right away, and he protects the egg from the cold via a flap in the skin. But they have to be really careful in passing it off, because if the egg is exposed for any length of time, it will freeze and the chick will die. Then the females, having lost a third of their body weight from producing and laying the egg, have to eat, which requires trekking back to where they came from and diving into the ice-cold water to get food. They stuff themselves with food, enough so that they can regurgitate some later and feed their offspring, and make the trek back again. Once they come back, the chicks have hatched, and they take care of the offspring while the males, having lost half of their body weight, go to eat. Some of the chicks freeze to death, and the mothers grieve, sometimes so much that they try to steal another penguin's offspring, though the other penguins stop them from doing so. They have a strong bond even though they haven't been together that long. But once it's time to leave the spawning place, and the babies can care for themselves, the parents and offspring probably will never see each other again.

Anyway, I knew absolutely nothing about penguins before seeing this, and I found it all really interesting. Looks like a really miserable life, though. I guess it's not like they know of any other way to live, though.

Book Review--Twilight Children, by Torey Hayden

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Torey Hayden is one of my favorite authors. Twilight's Children is her latest book, just out this year. Most of her books are about her experiences in the classroom, teaching emotionally disturbed children. This book is about her experiences working in the psychiatric ward of a children's hospital. The focus is on three people with whom she worked.

Cassandra was nine years old. At age five, she was abducted by her father. He kept her for two years. Finally Cassandra was found three states away, alone, starving, filthy, and forgaing for food in garbage cans. When she finally returned to her mother, she didn't speak, and even when she began speaking again, she refused to talk about anything that had happened during the time she had been abducted. She had post-traumatic stress disorder and had been sexually abused.

Drake was a happy, intelligent four-year-old. Yet he never spoke, except to his mother. His extremely overbearing grandfather brought him to Torey, knowing that her specialty was elective mutism, and expected her to get him to speak immediately. Was there something physically wrong with Drake, or had he suffered some horrible trauma that had caused him to stop speaking? The truth was actually quite shocking.

Gerda was an elderly woman in a rehabilitation unit close to the children's hospital. A stroke had robbed her of most of her speech. Torey usually only worked with children, but she agreed to see Gerda as a favor to a friend. She ends up learning interesting details about Gerda's past, though Gerda had a tendency to speak in monologues rather than actually being able to converse. The attitude of some of the people who worked with the elderly came as something of an unpleasant shock to Torey.

I always like Torey Hayden's books, but this one, though still good, wasn't necessarily one of my favorites. The three cases, though interesting, were disconnected, and there wasn't as much of a unified story as with her stories about teaching, and her other book about working as a therapist, Murphy's Boy . I wasn't even quite sure why she included Gerda's case, since it was so different from any of her other cases and though it was rather interesting (and sad), there didn't seem to me to be that much to say about it. I did feel bad for Gerda though; she had no family that really cared, and her cats were put to sleep since she couldn't take care of them anymore. That made me mad. She had a lot of cats and it would have been hard to find homes for them all, but it still made me mad; it was just so cold, getting rid of her loved ones.

Anyway, not quite as good as her other books, but still really enjoyable and thought-provoking.