Ms. Crankypants

I worked for quite awhile this morning on a new cranky post (and here you’d probably thought I’d vanished into Cyberspace without a trace). When I went to finish the post that I’d saved in my drafts, it was gone!

More crankiness to come … but probably not until tomorrow since I have to start the entire post all over again.

UPDATE: I’ve discovered if I wait long enough to post, I’ll completely forget what I was going to say. As is the case with this cranky post that I was going to get around to writing “later” … well, it’s now “later” … and it’s gone. Nothing but a big blank in my brain when I try to think of what it was. It’ll probably come back to me when I’m in the shower or fast asleep or driving down the freeway … or some other time when I won’t be able to type it up before it slips on out of the brain once again.

I was tagged by WriterChick recently. So here’s the thing: I’m supposed to list five of my favorite restaurants here in my local area, then I tag five more bloggers to do the same. Food? Fun!

1) The Home Port (aka “Anthony’s” to locals).

Various locations throughout the Puget Sound region. A “chain” of semi-gourmet seafood restaurants in the Seattle/Tacoma area. Yeah, I know they’re not technically the best seafood places in Seattle (although they’re not bad at all!). The main reason I like them, though, is because of their Sunset Dinner specials. Early dinner menu served Monday through Friday, from 4:30 to 6:00pm. Each 4-course dinner includes a chilled shrimp cocktail, chowder or salad, entree and dessert. All for just $18.95.

2) The Urban Onion.

Olympia, Washington. Semi-vegetarian, fairly healthy fare. Omigosh. My mouth is watering just thinking about going there. I absolutely LOVE their freshly baked herb bread. It’s worth a stop just for the bread they serve with the dinner meals. It’s located in the historic Olympian Hotel building in downtown Olympia. Their menu is a bit on the expensive side for a place that’s almost a glorified lunch room in beautiful old building … but the portions are HUGE and I’ve yet to have anything to eat there that wasn’t delicious. My personal favorite is their Chicken Enchiladas. Mmm. My younger kids think the children’s pizza is wonderful … but a bit too small. You might want to order two for each child if they’re big eaters. I believe that nearly all of their meat entrees can have tofu or TVP substituted to make it vegetarian. I couldn’t find their website online, but I found a link to a review which includes location and contact information.

3) Dick’s Drive-In Restaurant.

Various locations around Seattle. I think Dick’s Drive-In Restaurants are probably the best living history example in Seattle. Simple food. No extras. And without a doubt, THE BEST fries anywhere — made from freshly cut potatoes. Yum! Unfortunately their burgers are no longer nineteen cents a piece … but they’re still reasonably priced. No trip to Seattle is complete without a trip to Dick’s. I remember having field trips to the local Dick’s with my Blue Bird troop in the mid-60’s. Yes, even Bellevue, Washington (now home to Bill Gates and other Seattle billionaires) actually used to have a Dick’s restaurant, believe it or not. My dad and grandfather are both named Dick, so when I was really little, I thought the restaurant was named for them because they ate there so often. I would tell the employees when we’d go there, “My daddy is Dick!” I thought that made my family soooooooooooo important. (And on a side note, I also thought that Richards Road in Bellevue was named for my dad and grandpa since they drove on it so much. I guess I thought the whole world revolved around our family, didn’t I? lol!) Dick’s has a section on their website where people have shared their memories of Dick’s restaurants. One of the pages is called Car Memories. My most vivid car-related memory of Dick’s was sitting in the car eating our hamburgers, french fries and root beer floats with the windows down enjoying a beautiful Seattle summer day. Seagulls were circling the parking lot looking for handouts … and then one of them flew right over our car … and pooped into the open window onto my oldest daughter. EWWW! LOL!

4) Brewery City Pizza.

Not quite sure why it’s so good, but this is my absolutely favorite pizza restaurant in the Olympia area. The crust is sooooooooooooo tasty. My personal favorite of their specialty pizzas is their Maui Wowie. Here’s the description from their menu: “Our signature barbecue sauce, mozzarella, shredded cheddar, red onions, green peppers, pineapple, diced tomatoes and marinated barbecue chicken.” The prices are very reasonable … and the food is so good. Sometimes they have really good steamed clams at the Lacey location as an appetizer (when they’re in season).

5) The Salmon Cooker.

Located at 1301 Alaskan Way on Pier 57 on the Seattle waterfront. Not high class dining by any stretch of the imagination … it’s essentially just fast food on the waterfront. The fish is alder smoked (oh, gosh, it’s good!), flaky and moist. There’s an oyster bar, fish sandwiches and Caesar salads. And if you’re still hungry, there’s an ice cream bar where you can grab a sundae or cone. Outdoor dining, but the picnic tables are under cover with heaters overhead for those cold, rainy Seattle days.

Now … I need to tag five people. LOL! Well, I’m not sure that this particular blog even has five regular visitors.

Okay, I tag Kelsey … and if you’re reading this, whoever you are, TAG, you’re it!

General things that have made me cranky lately:

1) People put prematurely into leadership at church. My daughter knows a young man (he’s in his early to mid 20’s) who knows virtually nothing … and I mean NOTHING(!) … about the Bible or about the Christian faith. But he’s now been put into a position of upper leadership with both the college aged group and the high school youth group at church. (How stupid is that?)

2) Leadership in the high school youth group at church who are young in the faith and don’t have a clue how to live out their lives as godly young people. For example, one young woman’s idea of a good time is to go to bars, get drunk, and flirt with guys. But because she doesn’t officially “date,” she thinks she’s a good example of a Christian young person. She even leads small groups in both the high school and middle school ministries at church. (Hello?!)

3) Mission organizations that attempt to tack belief in Jesus onto the worship of foreign gods (or “idolatry”). Combining Christianity with other religions is called Syncretism … and it’s completely contrary to the Word of God. They’re not bringing people into the faith — they’re creating new religions instead.

4) Ministries to the “post-modern” world who attempt to become like them in word, action, deed, philosophy, etc., rather than minister to them from the position of propositional truth as revealed in the Word of God. These post-modern Christians discourage knowledge, discourage discovering truth (they don’t believe there is such a thing as “absolute truth”), and actually encourage deconstructing truths that have seen the Church through centuries of humanism, conflicting religious views, and even persecution. The post-modern world (read: post-”knowledge/thinking” world) doesn’t need the Church of Jesus Christ becoming just another option they can tack onto whatever the current wind of thought might be — the post-modern world needs the church standing up for TRUTH! God’s truth. The Bible’s truth. The faith handed down throughout the generations. The old, old story.

5) Pragmatism in the church. The idea that if a ministry doesn’t succeed (ie: “show the numbers”), then it’s dropped like a hot potato. What about missionaries who have struggled for years and years and years with essentially no measurable fruit, but they’ve spent all those years learning the language, translating the Word of God, building relationships, etc.? Planting and watering the seeds that someone else comes along and harvests later?

And that’s only the beginning and the simplest, roughest outline of my current wave of crankiness. I just don’t have time to write any more today. More to come.

Is it possible that an entire month has gone by without me posting anything new on this blog? I guess I’m guilty of serious blog neglect.

Before you think that perhaps I’ve had a cheery month without crankiness, let me assure you that my cranky opinions are still alive and well. Actually, the past two weeks have probably been two of the crankiest on record … I just didn’t have time to sit here and share it all. Plus, I was still trying to get my mind wrapped around some of the new cranky things that were starting to eat at me.

If I can see my way clearly how to talk about some of these newer issues, you can probably expect an influx of new posts soon. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

The following three questions are from WriterChick (the person from whom I originally discovered Alabaster Crippens Five Questions … see previous post on this blog).

1) What historical person would you have liked to spend the day with and how would you spend that day?

I found my mind running through lists of people. Lists of people in the Bible (the apostle Paul, John, King Solomon, Jesus, Simon Peter), lists of people in American history (Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Martin Luther King Jr), lists of people throughout History (Cleopatra, Winston Churchill, John Calvin) … and I found it hard to pick just one.

I also found myself thinking that if I spent a day actually doing something with any of them, it would probably change history in some way (I think I’ve watched too much Star Trek in my lifetime … I sat here worried about Temporal Anomalies … LOL!). Heaven forbid I should ever mess with the space/time continuum.

So after dealing with my temporal problems, I decided I’d like to spend a day with Benjamin Franklin. He was such an intriguing, odd little man. I think his autobiography is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. He was brilliant, thoughtful, and very egotistical. In other words, quite human.

I wouldn’t want to interact with him or with his time period, though (because of that temporal thing). I’d just basically want to be a fly on the wall, seeing what he was really like, what made him tick, how he treated people, how he responded to real life, etc.

Can you believe I actually worried about temporal anomalies? I’m so weird.

2) If you could change one person’s life (family members excluded) who would it be, what would you change and why?

Wow. I’m making an easy question tough again. LOL

I keep finding I have trouble getting beyond the idea that people’s lives are the way they are for a reason … and God is sovereign, not me … and if I changed anything to what I thought would be “better” for someone, I’d probably mess them up for all eternity.

Hm … but as I continued thinking about this, I suddenly realized I might have an answer. There are kids living on the streets of Calcutta … the traditional cultural party line there says that those kids are there for a reason (working out some sort of karmic “problem” in themselves). But I’d want to take them all off the streets, feed them, give them shelter, and offer them hope rather than make them feel like they’re simply helpless victims of karma and the caste system.

So I guess I’m wrestling through some of my own “fate” related questions while I’m thinking about this. Hm. I think maybe I’ve just confused myself more. This is more of an off-the-cuff response rather than a well thought out posting. I might spend some more time thinking through this and trying to make sense of it for a future post, but in the meantime, you can just deal with my random ramblings.

I believe that God can work all things together for good in someone’s life. That doesn’t mean those things are good per se, but those very things can be used toward a good end and a meaningful purpose in someone’s life. For example, if I changed my own life, I would no longer be the person I am today. Some of the things I’ve gone through are horrible, but they helped to mold me into who I am today. And somehow I believe the outcome in my life can be used to serve God’s purposes.

Now all that’s not to say that I wouldn’t step in and help someone today. Changing someone’s life today would not only effect their “here-and-now” … but also their future … and maybe even their eternity. Plus, I also find myself getting caught up in that whole temporal anomaly problem again.

So I guess I’d feel like I could step in and offer help and change and encouragement now … but I can’t go back and change someone’s past.

I’d like to bring hope and healing and practical support into the lives of lost and hurting people who feel hopeless, helpless and trapped. I know that isn’t exactly what you asked me, but my mind never seems to go in a straight line or do anything “normally.”

3) If you could be the author of any book ever published what would it be, why would you choose that book and what would be your reasons for having written it?

Guess what? I made this question hard for myself, too! LOL!

I thought to myself, “Which books have had the most profound effect on me and my life over the years?”

Book Number One: The Bible — Well, since I’m not God, it would’ve been more than a little bit difficult for me to write the Bible. LOL!

Book Number Two: Anything by Elisabeth Elliot — But I’m not her. I couldn’t have written her books because I haven’t lived her life and most of her writings are based on lessons she’s learned through life unfolding.

I chatted with my daughter about this briefly, and she said that maybe it’d be easier for me to come up with a novel to have written, rather than a non-fiction work. She’s probably right. But novels don’t usually have such a profound change element in my life so they don’t jump out at me as things I wished I’d written or said.

I think I would’ve liked to have written Anne of Green Gables. It was such a fun book. Touching, funny, insightful. Set in a beautiful place. I always felt Anne was a bit of a “kindred spirit” … She loved learning. She knew firsthand about rejection and life’s difficulties. She discovered true friendship and love from her new adopted family. She was real. And quirky. I think I would’ve liked to birth her from my brain. LOL!

Thanks for your questions, WC.

~Ms CP

I received Five Questions from a complete stranger, Alabaster Crippins.

Here are the questions and my fairly off-the-cuff responses:

1. Tell me a story that makes you smile about someone or something that you’ve lost?

Had to think about this one for awhile. Decided I’d go with “lost” in the sense of they “died” rather than something I simply misplaced.

When I was a child, we had a pet cat named Simon whose best friend was a big German Shepherd, “Boot” (aka “Bootsie”), who lived across the street. Everyone in the neighborhood referred to the pair of them as “Puss ‘n Boot.”

Boot was one of those dogs that would chase cars … compulsively, obsessively, insanely. He was always running and barking and biting at the tires as if he were trying to bring down big game or single-handedly protect our suburban street from marauders. (Those marauding bands of sedans and station wagons were a constant menace to the peace and security of our quiet street, you know.)

Back to my cat. Simon learned to share in Boot’s thrill of the hunt. I can’t even begin to imagine what drivers thought as they looked out their car windows and saw a big dog and a small Siamese cat furiously chasing their car.

It probably goes without saying (but you know I’m going to say it anyway), but Simon was eventually hit by a car and killed. No serious surprises there, although it was a huge grief in my little child life at the time.

But I always smile in sort of a morbid way when I think of Simon, the car chasing Siamese, running happily alongside his barking German Shepherd friend, Boot.

I wonder if Simon tried to bark at the cars, too?

2. What is the backbone of your life…the one part that if removed would leave you paralysed, unstable and broken?

My faith.

There have been so many changes in my life recently (my husband being diagnosed with a fatal, untreatable, degenerative brain disorder; moving from our nice home to a trailer park; becoming a single parent; changing cities; saying good-bye to my hopes and dreams; etc., etc.), I think I’ve already lost pretty much everything else that matters to me (other than my kids, thank goodness) … but I still keep on keeping on.

Only during the times when I was so low that I found myself doubting my faith, did I feel like I was truly going to lose it and become paralysed, unstable and broken. And those were very frightening, unnerving moments, let me tell you.

3. What thought makes you wake up in the morning? I mean the one that removes the haze of sleep and turns you back into a thinking being.

My kids.

Knowing that they’re there needing me to be a parent, a relatively sane person, a somewhat rational being, a role model, provider, defender, chauffeur. Without my kids the past couple of years, I probably would’ve just pulled the blankets over my head and stayed in bed.

4. Which is most likely to illicit a strong emotional reaction in you: a beautiful painting, a beautiful piece of music, or a beautiful poem?

Music, definitely.

If music touches me just right, I’ve been known to sit and bawl like a baby or be transported to heights of glory. Even something as simple as listening to the local Oldies radio station in the car can send me into emotional fits (ever cry when hearing Simon and Garfunkel’s vocal harmonies? … it’s a regular occurence for me).

I have to be careful when I’m in the car that I don’t listen to classical music very often while driving … I find myself needing to pull over to the side of the road and have a good cry, complete with goosebumps and gut-wrenching sobs. Especially from Mozart.

Although beautiful poetry can get to me, too … but not as deeply or as regularly or as varied as my emotional responses to music.

5. Tell me a story from your teenage years that still lingers today and defines part of who you are.

I sat down in Math class one day and my friend next to me leaned over and whispered, “Did you hear about Dave _____?

My initial gut response was thinking to myself, “No! I absolutely refuse to listen to gossip about my friend, Dave. He’s a good guy and I just can’t take all this high school gossip anymore! It just destroys people.”

Before I could respond, my Math class friend said, “Dave was killed in a car accident with three of his friends yesterday.”

Gulp. Not gossip. Horrible, horrible news. The worst news. I think I almost went into shock.

But something about that moment of deciding to refuse to listen to gossip followed immediately by the horrific news about my dear friend, Dave, solidified something in me about the need to protect people’s reputations and not participate in gossip. I decided right then and there that I wouldn’t listen to it, wouldn’t spread it, would correct people’s misconceptions about others if I had accurate information, and just generally make an effort to stop gossip from spreading, if at all possible.

And it’s still a defining characteristic of my life today.

If you’d like Five Questions of your own, feel free to leave me a note here in the comment section of this post and I’ll see what I can do about coming up with original questions. Pass it on!

What on earth is wrong with people?

Yeah, I know people are sinners, etc., etc., … but what’s wrong with their brains? Why can’t they think? Is logical thinking a lost art?

I spent some time while driving around the other day trying to think of people I know who I can carry on intelligent, logical, semi-intellectual conversations without worrying about losing them or having them make totally silly responses that show a marked inability to think.

It came down to three or four pastors that I’ve known, a couple of friends, a couple of college professors, and a few assorted people my daughter knows. Other than that, it seems everyone else has a serious lapse or two somewhere in their thinking processes.

Is everyone brain damaged?

It’s not like people need to agree with me and my cranky opinions for me to feel that they can actually think … I just would like to see some logic and normalcy to their thinking processes.

Maybe I just live in a really stupid area? Or maybe there’s something in the water that’s killing brain cells? Or … what?

I know that having an IQ of 163 makes me a bit out of the ordinary … but why can’t regular people think? I just don’t get it. I mean, gosh, how tough is it to think through something like: If A = C and B = C, then A = B?

I’ve had people tell me before that I’m “too logical.” They mean it as an insult, but I take it as a compliment.

But it begs the question, how can someone be too logical? To my thinking, that’s just not logical. I find that illogical logic comes up in everyday discussions, theological discussions, and even just in the area of cold, plain facts.

For example, I know a young woman who’s an absolute whiz at math (she thought college Calculus was easy, for example, while I had to work for my “A”). But this same young lady who breezes through higher math has no head for facts. It makes me scratch my head and wonder, “How can that be? Isn’t math all about facts?” But ask her a question about nearly anything not having to do with math, and she’ll pull some random — and usually wrong! — factoid out of her head (but then she’ll swear it’s right, too).

I admit that she’s a rather extreme example, but even just general folk seem to have virtually no common sense, no logical abilities, and no grasp of basic facts about the world around them.

How did the whole world lose it’s ability to think? When did cold, hard facts become something relative and not something that’s either true or untrue?

Oh, it just makes me cranky.

A friend was telling me the other day about a book she’d read on recommendation from her son’s private Christian school. The basic premise of the book (unfortunately I can’t remember the title offhand) was that adolescence used to be something that occurred during a person’s teenage years and was usually over and done by about age 18 or 19. Then they’d move on into the adult world.

But now, according to the author, we have a world of adult adolescents … with their teenage years extending sometimes into their early 30’s until they finally grow up and function fully as adults.

I’d like to read this book just because it sounds like perhaps the author has thought through some issues that I’ve only recently become aware of, myself.

My oldest daughter just turned twenty, and she’s definitely well along the road to being a fully functional mature adult Christian woman. But the other young people at church are still essentially teenagers (even the ones we know who are in their late 20’s and early 30’s). Even the ones who are married and doing things like going through seminary, are essentially having trouble navigating adult life because they really just want to sit around and play video games, drink beer, and hang out with their friends all day on the couch.

And it’s not just the young people at our church, either. It seems to be pretty much across the board. My daughter has a number of high school friends who’ve gone away to college in the past year or two, and they end up seeing schoolwork and academics as secondary to partying and having fun. They’re basically majoring in “Having Fun.”

Whatever happened to the days when college kids worked hard to put themselves through school and made a huge effort to really learn something? The only thing these current kids seem interested in doing is continuing high school dynamics into their college setting (cliques, interpersonal drama, video games, etc.) … just throw in a little beer and a lot more freedom (and in some cases, a lot of beer).

My daughter was visiting a friend on his campus the other day, and she said that as evening came along, it was like the wild animals were let out of their cages. Nobody was studying or pursuing academics … they were just all yelling out their dorm windows and planning the next party.

I’m not saying all kids are like this (my daughter isn’t, for example), but I’ve definitely seen a change over the past 30 years of how “adult” young adults actually are. I got married at age 19 (which wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but that’s a whole ‘nother story), but when I look around me, I realize that even in the midst of our own stupidity and immaturity, my husband and I were really, honestly trying to make a go of it in the adult world. We paid our bills, worked hard, studied in school, limited the partying in favor of more important priorities (like homework and sleep and work schedules).

Yes, we were young and had fun, too, but we knew to balance the fun with the adult priorities of our lives. For example, my husband’s brother played in a band, and we’d frequently go dancing at whatever bar or club my brother-in-law was playing at … but we didn’t drink and drive, we didn’t stay out too late if we had to work the next day, and if we had a test at college, we’d pass on the dancing and bar-hopping all together.

My daughter and I have talked a lot about what’s wrong with the young people around her. She has a very difficult time finding young “adults” to befriend. Even amid the leadership in the college group at church, they’re still doing nothing more important with their lives than watching movies, playing video games, and taste-testing micro brews.

I have some thoughts about why this is happening, but this post has gotten long, so I’ll save some of my “why” thoughts for another day.

I think I was expecting to air cranky posts pretty regularly. Instead I ended up posting a photo of a cute kitty and a list of books. Hmm. You know what? Maybe I’m not as cranky as I thought I was. LOL! Or maybe I needed a change of meds? (Just kidding!)

But I’ll warn you, there’s a cranky post brewing in the back of my mind. Might take it a few days to percolate to the surface, however. Stay tuned.

Instructions:

Look at the list of books below.
*Bold the ones you’ve read.
*Italicize the ones you want to read.
*Leave the ones that you aren’t interested in alone.

If you are reading this then … tag, you’re it!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. A Movable Feast (Ernest Hemingway)
12. The Shining (Stephen King)
13. Childhood’s End (Isaac Asimov)
14. Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter — any of the titles (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Too bad there wasn’t an option for “movies seen” based on the books. I’ve seen quite a few movies of books I haven’t read … and tempting as it might have been to claim I’d read them, I knew that was wrong. So they sit there unmarked and condemning me with their unmarked little words … can’t you hear them?

“You saw the movie, and you enoyed it, but you didn’t read the book? For shame, for shame.”