Innocente

I know I'm a little late on commenting on my beloved Tigers failing in the World Series, but life has been crazy lately. I'm knitting up a storm trying to build my stash as I'm participating in a craft show with a work friend in a couple of weeks. She knits fabulous felted purses/bags and felt she needed some lower end things for her table. So, she's going to take my scarves and put them on her table. I hope I sell lots – and I hope she does too. I think her prices are too cheap, especially for the neighborhood where this extravaganza is to be held, but if she's happy, that's all that matters.

On to My Tigers. I wasn’t mad at them, although I was a little disappointed in their fielding attempts. Fielding and throwing errors abound and it was painful. But again, I felt that the post season was all gravy (or frosting, if you prefer). When the season started people were saying they'd be happy if the Tigers simply had a winning season. I think it would have been a bit TOO Cinderella if they had won the whole kit 'n caboodle. And I'd rather lose to St. Louis, a fellow Midwestern blue-collar type town (and according to a report published just the other day, the first most dangerous city in the country with Detroit second), than New York. Granted, I have some issues with certain portions of the team, etc., but all in all, better them than any New York team.

As we say in Detroit, "Bless you, Boys!"

Since it's the first day of the month, you will now be subjected to the list of books and movies read and watched throughout October. I don’t think I did too badly, considering a lot of my time was taken up with baseball games and trips to Vegas.

Books

Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer – 385 pages – I love this series of Young Adult books damn near as much as I love Harry Potter. The cool thing is that Mr. Colfer doesn't limit himself to one series. Back in August, I had read one of his other books which sounded like it was going to be the beginning of another series. I like his style of writing and his imagination. If you aren't scared of "children's books," I definitely recommend the Artemis Fowl series

The Sultan's Seal: A Novel by Jenny White – 351 pages – I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. It was interesting, especially since I know damn near nothing about the Ottoman Empire, but it was essentially just a murder mystery. It was a relatively quick, easy read, and it kept me entertained, but I don't remember being overwhelmed by it.

The End by Lemony Snicket – 337 pages – I had been waiting for this book to come out for MONTHS, and it did not disappoint. It came out the day I left for Vegas, but didn't buy it until the day I came home when I picked it up at the Borders at the McCarran International Airport. I finished it before the plane got to Detroit. That's what happens when you fly through security at the airport (same airport where it took me damn near two full hours to get through security last year) and have HOURS to sit and wait for the plane which arrives late anyway. It was very Lemony Snicket-ish in that although the ending wasn’t what normal people would consider to be a happy ending, it was better than I had expected. I loved it.

Revenge: A Story of Hope by Laura Blumenfeld – 374 pages – The front of my book read "A terrorist shot my father. Ten years later I went looking for him." Or something along those lines. You can read the back cover of the book here for a much better summary of the book than I could write. Although this book was a bit different than the rest of the books I read last month, I really appreciated it. One thing I took away from it is that I could never in a million years be a reporter. It gave some interesting insight into the Jewish/Palestinian question regarding Israel. I highly recommend this book.

Complete Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde - 216 pages – I had bought this book a few months back, but lent it to a friend who loves Oscar Wilde. I didn't want to get too involved with a book with only a couple of days left in the month – it's all about finishing books for this monthly post – so I picked this up and immediately got sucked in. It's weird, I hate, as a general rule, short stories, but I have always loved fairy tales. I have this book called 50 Famous Fairy Stories that appeared at some point in my childhood and I have read it cover to cover more times than you can imagine. When I saw this book I read the first fairy tale and loved it. The difference between Oscar Wilde's fairy tales and the ones I read growing up is that the old ones ended "happily ever after." (Yes, I know all about Grimm's and how they're actually quite grim, or were originally, but I'm talking about the happy versions), while dear old Oscar was a bit more melancholy. Most of them ended quite sadly or at least, not happily. I thought they were quite clever and definitely worth reading. I would definitely recommend it.

I will tell you all about my movie watching tomorrow. I need to get my sorry butt to the gym.