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Woohoo! I got started on The Two Towers this morning, and read the first two chapters! One is short (20 minutes) and once is very long (over an hour).

Two Towers Bk 1: 01 The Departure of Boromir
Two Towers Bk 1: 02 The Riders of Rohan

I haven’t read The Two Towers since probably the early 2000s, when I read it to Henry! So, though I remember what happens generally, it’s lovely to get all the details again.

Please buy a copy of your own :)

Henry and I had a little film festival today. We started with Vertigo, ’cause he’d never seen it, and then finished up with some old favorites: O Brother Where Art Thou, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. Fun.

I’ve been feeling good all week! I think I’m finally finished with the killer November virus, plus I’ve been really hard-core about my sleep hygiene: no screens except for my Kindle once I’m tucked in bed, and an alarm set for the same time every morning. And when my alarm goes off (The Goldberg Variations, of course) I actually GET UP and go out to the kitchen and eat something right away before my brain can come up with a whole lot of things to do that are more fun than eating.

Henry discovered a two-man Settlers of Catan variation that is super-fun! We just played twice. It feels _almost_ like playing real Settlers.

Here’s a link to the pdf: http://nick.borko.org/games/Catan2Players.pdf

To sum up: remove 5 land tiles, several Dev cards, a couple of number chips, and a few of each player’s pieces. You may trade only with the bank (4:1) until you get a harbor.

It’s tight and fast and the board feels appropriately crowded. I sent Henry on a one-way trip to Butt-Kick City for I am the LORD AND MASTER OF ALL CATAN :)

Uh. Flickr is adding crap on top of my photo when you mouseover. Revolting. Time to find another photo host.

Here are the last two chapters of Spiderweb for Two:

Spiderweb for Two 13 Seek in the Dust
Spiderweb for Two 14 A Door Unknown

You can find the whole book on my “kayray reads to you” page. The rest of the Melendy Quartet is there too: The Saturdays, The Four Story Mistake, and Then There Were Five.

If you’d like to read another book about kids on a treasure hunt, try to find “Go to the Room of the Eyes”, by Betty K. Erwin. It’s out of print, naturally, but maybe your library has it.

Spoiler alert:

I wonder if Mrs. Oliphant’s house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright? It sounds like his kind of house, doesn’t it?

My plans to visit a friend today fell through so instead I stayed home, did one recording, and un-decked the halls and un-trimmed the tree, which is a job I actually enjoy. I listened to my non-Christmas music library on shuffle (there were some wild juxtapositions, let me tell you) and, through careful and efficient packing, I managed to condense our four boxes of Christmas stuff down to only three. It was a triumph, I tell you!

And here’s today’s recording:
Spiderweb for Two 12 Bright Changelings

There are only two more chapters of Spiderweb and then that’s the very end of the Melendy books, alas. But then I’ll get started on my Big Project for 2014 which will be, by popular request… drumroll… The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Call me crazy, but I think I can do it if I can avoid being taken down by any more two-month viruses!

Oh my god I’m tired tonight. I gave up and went to bed at 5, and have been hanging out playing Happy Street and watching Peep Show. Not really PLAYING Happy Street as much as letting it sit there running on my iPad so I can harvest a Sun Ray every 11 minutes so I can make Rainbows so I can upgrade my Water Slide… yeah :)

Attention Melendy fans! Here are three new chapters of Spiderweb for Two:

Spiderweb for Two 09 Number 10
Spiderweb for Two 10 Explore a Cave
Spiderweb for Two 11 Between Two Roofs

I hope you like them :)

Henry and Mom and I are visiting Kirsten and Marcos and Emma Rose and having a wonderful time. We’ve mostly been lazing around in pajamas all day, playing QuizUp, watching a bit of TV, listening to music, and playing with the baby, who is a dear darling adorable 6-month-old squeezable dumpling! I brought along wool to knit her a red-and-white striped cardigan and finished it today, but I have to take it home with me to install a zipper. Photo soon.

Let’s hope 2014 is better than 2013!

Merry Christmas! Today in my podcast feed I put a few of the Christmas carols that I sang for various LibriVox Christmas Carol Collections over the years. I am NOT a great singer, but I think they sound jolly anyway. Hope you like them :)

Sussex Carol
The Holly and the Ivy
Good King Wenceslas
Deck the Halls
The Boar’s Head Carol

A Christmas Carol: 05 The End of It

Yay, I’ve just done my first recording since I got sick in November. I had to take several coughing breaks but I did it. :)

For all of you rabid Melendy fans, I present:
Spiderweb for Two 08 Prisoned in Ice

Enjoy! :)

A Christmas Carol: 04 The Last of the Spirits

A Christmas Carol: 03 The Second of the Three Spirits

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates 100 years of crosswords! They put up an actual playable crossword. It’s a good one, too — it felt like a Monday-ish NY Times puzzle. That is to say, easy but not STUPID :) I solved it in 13:30.

I’ll add a direct link to the crossword doodle when there is one (when it moves to their doodle archive).

Here it is: http://www.google.com/doodles/100th-anniversary-of-the-crossword-puzzle

A Christmas Carol: 02 The First of the Three Spirits

It’s almost Christmas! Time for my recording of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens.

A Christmas Carol: 01 Marley’s Ghost

If you’ve never heard Dylan Thomas’s own reading of this, please seek it out. Mine is good, but his is, of course, perfect.

A Child’s Christmas in Wales, by Dylan Thomas

When I was little, we had a little square book with woodcut illustrations by Ellen Raskin. This is the one — which I have now added to my Amazon wishlist because, miraculously, it’s still in print! (Edit: Mom found a copy for me!)

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

Sorry, tired. (I write these Christmas entries the night before they post.) No description this time. It’s a good chapter, though!

More William, chapter 14: William’s Christmas Eve

See yesterday’s blog post for info about this lovely book.

Heads up, parents: this chapter might be too intense for very little ones — please pre-listen so no one gets scared :)

The Dark is Rising Pt2, Ch4 – Christmas Day, Part 1
The Dark is Rising Pt2, Ch4 – Christmas Day, Part 2

Again, I’m dropping you into the middle of a great book. Here’s the “Christmas Eve” chapter from the fantabulous “The Dark is Rising” by Susan Cooper. I re-read this book (or re-listen to my audio version) every year at Christmastime.

The Dark is Rising Pt2, Ch1 – Christmas Eve

Click the image to see the book on Amazon and buy your own copy. I’m serious. Do it.

Amazon blurb:

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift — that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.

Today, something a little bit different. This is the last chapter (in three parts) of a hilarious book called “Absolute Zero”, about the eccentric Bagthorpe Family. I think it will be enjoyable even if you are unfamiliar with the book.

Quick summary up to this point: the entire Bagthorpe Family has become obsessed with entering competitions. Their dog, Zero, has had the most success, becoming the nationally famous spokesdog for “Buried Bones” pet food. In addition, through big sister Tess’s clever manipulation of the truth, the family has been named “Happiest Family in England”; because of this, they’ve had a film crew in their house for weeks and their “Happy” Christmas celebration will be broadcast live on television.

Absolute Zero 15a Christmas
Absolute Zero 15b Christmas
Absolute Zero 15c Christmas

(Seems to be out of print, so I’ll just link to the wikipedia page.)