Last night we went to see the 3 Redneck Tenors at The Majestic theater in Dallas.

The musical comedy featuring classically trained veteran artists from Broadway and world opera stages is like Greater Tuna meets Das Barbecu - down home laughs with big city music!

The show was funny, and topical too. At one point they're playing around with a "potato gun" and one of them shoots the other. The one that got shot asks "Who shot me with this potato?" and the others reply "Dick Cheney, yep, that's right the vice president shot you with that potato". Dave almost fell out of his chair he was laughing so hard. I'm sure the rest of the audience wasn't nearly so amused, it looked to be full of some hard core Republicans.

We had a really great time. The music was amazing, three operatically trained singers can make anything sound good. If they get anywhere near your area on this years tour, it's worth a visit.

Finally some updated photos of my crafting projects. It's been raining, so I wasn't able snap the photos outside, which I prefer since the indoor lighting isn't that great for detail.

The first two are from the 17C English Sampler. Photo one is the first three bands, photo two is of bands four and five. Bands two and four are cream on cream satin stitch, and didn't photograph all that great.



The final photo is of a garter lace shawl I started. The pattern and yarn are from KnitPicks. I saw it in a magazine, and thought it would be fun and inexpensive, and still fit even after I've lost weight.

Book review for Harper Collins First Look



A Dirty Job
by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore is a wildly popular cult author with eight best-selling novels to his name. Populated with the usual oddball characters, sticky situations and hilarious prose which may garner the reader indignant looks when they laugh out loud in public places, A Dirty Job most assuredly will be the ninth.

Protagonist Charlie Asher is the quintessential beta-male, mild mannered and unassuming with a slight touch of hypochondria; he goes about his daily business as the owner of a thrift shop who is trying not to make any waves. On the life-altering day when his daughter is born, as he returns to his wife’s hospital room, he discovers a seven-foot tall, black man, wearing a mint green suit standing over her bed, just as the heart monitor alarms start wailing. Taken aback to be seen the mint green man disappears without a trace. As the days go by, trying to recover from his wife’s death, Charlie starts noticing certain small items in the shop have a bright red glow and he discovers names and numbers on a pad by his bed that he doesn’t remember writing. Charlie catches up with Minty Fresh, the man in green, and finds out that he has been chosen to be a Death assistant or Death Merchant as Minty likes to style himself. Not as bad as it sounds, but not a barrel of monkeys either, Death Merchants help souls travel from person to person in their endless ascendance towards perfection. Muddling through his first few weeks, Charlie deals admirably well with being assaulted by oversexed female demons, coping when dish-soap eating hellhounds show up to protect his daughter, handling a morose goth employee who steals his Big Book of Death instruction book, and a police detective who invariably shows up when he’s doing something really odd, such as talking into the sewer. Then the proverbial hits the fan, and Charlie finds himself faced with saving the world from the Forces of Darkness, assisted only by a Boston Terrier, a Desert Eagle pistol and a furious, Spork brandishing army of squirrel-people. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Somewhat over the top, Moore’s take on death is refreshing, irreverent and comedic yet with moments that are unexpectedly poignant and winsome. Moore is doing what he does best, playing on the supernatural for laughs and making even the most ludicrous events seem possible. Faithful readers will find another winner to add to their collections, and new readers will be snapping up his previous offerings to get their fix.

Book review for Armchair Interviews

Vellum by Hal Duncan


Debut author Hal Duncan has crafted an innovative look at the age old war between angels and devils. A blend of ancient Sumerian and Grecian mythology with futuristic science, Vellum is a wild mind-blowing ride through space and time. The Book of All Hours also known as the Macronomicon, is an artifact said to have been commissioned by God himself. Lost somewhere in the sands of time, the content of the book is subject to much speculation. Some contend it is a laundry list of the names of all who have lived, and all who have yet to be. Others say it is the Devil's book of hours, and to read it is to die. Still others say it is merely a legend and doesn't exist at all. The Carter family who in generations past is rumored to have been the guardians of the book are likewise divided. Young Reynard Carter determined to prove the books existence, one way or the other, discovers to his delight and chagrin that it is a gateway into the world beyond, into the Vellum.

Reynard and the other main characters, Jack, Joey, Phreedom, Thomas and Finnan are unkin, a condition that makes them more than human, and perfect to be used as pawns in angelic war-games. These characters are used to link recurring events from the distant past all the way through into the future present; being unkin allows them to freely traverse the Vellum where time is liquid and “not just a straight path from the past to the future”. Duncan's non-linear style of jumping through time may be confusing at first but once the reader realizes that “eternity doesn't pay much mind to clocks and calendars”, they are in for a thrill.

This is a fantastic tale of dark fantasy which not only promises but also delivers. This book is subtitled as being volume one, happily there is more story to come, and any loose ends will be tidied up in a future volume. Readers who enjoy the writing of Neil Gaiman and China Mieville will be enthralled.

Very bad picture of my progress on 17C English Sampler.



Wish I had something better to show, but Dave hid the camera, he took some photos of me and he knows I'd delete them if I could. I absolutely hate having my picture taken.

I'd be moving along faster on this project if I didn't have two more book reviews due. So I'm reading, and thinking about what I'm reading instead of crafting.

Book Review written for Armchair Interviews



Camille Claudel: A Novel
By Dr. Alma H. Bond
Publish America

Camille Claudel was a 19th Century Parisian sculptress best known for her love affair with Auguste Rodin. This book purports to be Camille's memoirs written during her confinement in a mental institution, that were lost and then discovered hidden in an attic after many years.

Camille's family was bi-polar; her mother and younger sister were cold and unloving, while her father and brother were warm and encouraging. This dichotomy didn't stop her from pursuing her art, first by sculpting figures out of mud, and later from clay. As she matures into a young woman, she obtains a place as a student with Alfred Boucher, who later passes her apprenticeship to Rodin. Camille held within her an artistic fire, which burned brightly and expressed itself in her refusal to be dominated by male society. She was born to sculpt and ferociously attacked anyone who attempted to say otherwise, even when in later life it meant nearly starving for lack of a commission.

Throughout her life, Camille dreamed of "her artist," the one who will sweep her off her feet and teach her everything; Rodin becomes this artist for her. She falls deeply in love with him, as he protects and encourages her both as a sculptor and as a lover. Unfortunately, despite ten years with Rodin, he refuses to marry her instead maintaining his common law relationship with another woman. This drives Camille deeper and deeper into despair; she starts suffering from paranoid delusions about Rodin. In her madness, she destroyed many of her own pieces believing them to be in jeopardy of being stolen by "Rodin and his gang." Ultimately she is committed to a mental institution by her mother, where she remains until her death, thirty years later. Her descent into madness, as rendered by Bond, a psychoanalyst, is fascinating, gripping and provides a special insight into the human brain.