Oh extreme, extreme!

Just finished Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works last night, which reads like her diary. It's fiction, although partially based on facts about Shakespeare's life.

Not sure what to make of it. It's very odd. And there is a lot of sex. A. LOT. OF. SEX. Anne Hathaway comes to see Shakespeare in London for one week for his 30th birthday, and they act out every one of his plays in the bedroom. It's kind of amusing.

What is more amusing is that Shakespeare yells out, "Oh extreme, extreme!" when he's in the throes of passion. HAHAHA. That's the only thing about the book that made me bust out laughing.

And the book includes two completely revolting recipes. One for hare stew, in which the broth is made from the hare's blood. And the other for Mr. Shakespeare's favorite pudding.

There are some witty(?) inside jokes for Shakespeare fans. I guess it depends on your point of view. But it's a very quick read, so I suppose it's worth a couple of hours of your time.

***

I've stopped using Bibliophil. I guess I just lost the desire to keep track of every book I've ever read (and I can't remember them all anyway, so what I have is just a partial, but extensive, list). I'd rather just keep track of books that I actually have in my possession. Good Reads is good for that. And every once in awhile, I receive a nice comment on Good Reads too, so it's fun.

It's REALLY REALLY foggy this morning. It's so bad that I can barely make out the trees across the street. Lance is supposed to fly today, but he thinks his flight will be cancelled.

He added another house to our list this morning - a 1913 Craftsman home that is close to the other two homes we like that were built around the same time. This one has a nice big front porch on it. But instead of adding homes, we really need to be subtracting them. We have almost 50 on our list right now, and that is entirely too many to go and see during our brief week in Seattle. So we need to go through them and get rid of the ones that really aren't quite what we're looking for.

I was dismayed last night to realize that Elizabeth: The Golden Age is being released in the States this week (I spent at least an hour last night browsing the website, and it's amazing). I am DYING to see this movie! I love absolutely everything to do with Good Queen Bess (Elizabethan in a past life, perhaps?). Unfortunately, the movie doesn't come out here until December 20th, and we'll be back in the States by then. And the movie may not still be in theaters in the States by the time (but I hope it is). And we won't have time to see it whilst in Seattle in a couple of weeks (and I say we, as if I think Lance would actually like to see it).

So many good movies coming out in the next couple of months!

In Memory of Sherry

It's October 9th again. Don't think that I've forgotten, Sherry.

It's time for my organ donation post. Those of you who have been on my FL for years know that this is a subject that I am very passionate about, since I make these posts nearly every year. And there's a reason why.

When I was 14, my best friend was Sherry Payne. She desperately needed a heart and lung transplant, and was on the waiting list for a very long time. When I first met her, she was still relatively healthy and could live an almost normal life. Starting in 8th grade, she got increasingly ill. She could still go to school, but was not allowed to climb up or down stairs. So everyday, her father would carry her up the stairs at school to where the classes were. My friends and I would bring her a tray of food at lunch and we had special permission to sit upstairs with her in one of the classrooms and eat our lunches.

The summer before high school, she got worse.

She died before she ever got those healthy organs that she needed. She was fourteen.

Fourteen.

No high school. No driver's license. No prom. Her last days were spent confined to her house, as she was too sick to go anywhere and do normal teenage things.

I remember the day I found out about her death - October 10, 1989. My friend Tracey came up to me while I was at my locker getting my books. When she told me the news, I didn't believe her. I told her that she was a rotten liar. And then she began to cry. I just remember that small group of us, those who were close to her, huddling around each other all day at school and crying.

Her funeral was one of the worst days of my life. How do you confront mortality when you're 14? How is it even possible to think about death when you haven't yet lived?

The first thing I did after I got my driver's license a couple of years later was sign up to be an organ donor.

If you aren't already an organ donor, please consider becoming one. Giving the gift of life is the most precious and selfless act you can do.

For more information, visit: http://www.organdonor.gov/
(Look at the number on the waiting list. It's very sobering to think about.)