Category Archives: humor

The Sweater

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I came to Charlottesville for the VA Festival of the Book and enjoyed my day out, eating excellent foods from distinctive cooking traditions and haunting yarn shops. Yesterday I listened to three writers in two panels discuss their work and how it comes together, and it was good info. My panel is this morning, talking about Appalachia as stereotype and reality in economics, foster care, and history.

IMG_3588But I have been these last ten weeks in Fayetteville, West Virginia, a town with a different ethos. This is what I wore in Fayetteville quite a bit, and people would stop me and say, “I love that t-shirt, and your sweater is beautiful. Did you make it yourself?” I saw one woman cross the street to come talk to me, and the first thing she did was fondle my sweater.

Here in Charlottesville, the city of wealth, people are not lame or demeaning. Don’t get that idea. But they look at my sweater and avoid making eye contact. The night I pulled into the hotel at 11:30 pm, lugging my worldly goods in a laundry basket (didn’t have any luggage with me at the writing residency) the desk clerk said, “May I help you?” When I said “Welch,” she looked at me for a moment, then blinked.

“Oh, you have a reservation.” And her fingers flew. So it was only a second there that she wondered why this road-haggard woman with the dandelion fluff hair and the fuzzy sweater carrying a laundry basket was standing at the counter.

Friday, I went out with my sweater to see the world, Charlottesville style. On the Pedestrian Mall (socks $25, earrings $30) people glanced at my sweater and looked away again. I know what they were thinking, “Gee, I wish I had a sweater that pretty.”

:]

ELLEN KEY’S MONDAY BOOK

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Dragon and Thief
Timothy Zahn
A Starscape Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
First Starscape edition published March 2004
248 pages
US $5.99
ISBN 0-765-34272-3

26754248_1710858812270915_1194046930_nJack has a secret that he’s been keeping for quite some time. If this secret gets out, he could be in a world of trouble. As it is, he’s already in that – on a whole different world. In a whole different galaxy.

Hiding out on the uninhabited planet of Iota Klestis, Jack and his Uncle Virgil are witnesses to an aerial battle in the sky above their concealed spaceship. As they watch, four little ships are firing on four large and lumbering spaceships. At the end of the short and deadly battle, one of the large ships has crashed on their hideaway planet. Uncle Virge urges Jack to go search for survivors or anything else worth salvaging.

This is when the story gets interesting. Jack comes face-to-face, or should I say, back-to-front, with an alien K’da dragon warrior named Draycos, who is like nothing that Jack has ever experienced before. Draycos changes from a three-dimensional dragon to a two-dimensional form that flows onto Jack’s body, and transforms himself into a living tattoo that wraps itself across Jack’s back, shoulders and arms.

Needless to say, Jack is freaked out! This book will keep you fully engaged in the adventures that Jack and Draycos encounter, while continuing to establish their relationship as host and symbiont. Draycos also teaches Jack about ethical behavior, as befitting a K’da dragon warrior.

This book is the first of six books in the Dragonback series, written by none other than Timothy Zahn, who is well known as the author of eighteen science fiction novels, among those two Star Wars© series.

I stumbled across this book (written for young adults aged 10+) at my local “used books” bookstore. Intrigued, I stood there reading it for a good 30 minutes, before finally putting it down; but not before I had taken a quick photo of the cover. A year later, I went back to find it. I had been so impressed by the creativity of the author that I just HAD to finish reading it! It’s a good 2-hour read from start to finish. You will enjoy it – if you are looking for the feeling of having finished something light and satisfying, when you turn the last page.