Slice of Life 3/3

So Nancy's weddng went without a htch. We sorted out the ssue with the cake manufacturer and she fnally lost the last 67 pounds and ft nto her wedding dress lke a glove. For heaven's sakes, where s the 'eye' key?  cannot fnd t. Oh, there it is. What a relief. Anyway, the dress was just darling. And also my grandchildren are just darling. Today little Kaeliyne took her first step and it was so precious and I even forgave my daughter-in-law for picking such a stupid name. I suggested Dorothy Hyacinth after my dear mother but they weren't having it. Hmm-mm, no ma'am. In my hometown it was disrespectful to disrespect your elders like that. She's a real daft little thing, always on her iWhoosawhatsit and tweetering and giving her personal information to all these Intranet creepers. Anyway, Nancy and Tom are so happy to be married and I could not be happier. They took their honeymoon to Columbus and I just cannot wait until they get back. My son taught me all about Intranet abbreviations and I am going to try some out. Oh, and Flo broke her hip. She is at that dreadful hospital downtown. I have not been to visit her because she is with the dreadful nurse who mixed up my pills when I had my operation. To end on a positive note, here is a lovely recipe that I tried at Nancy's wedding:

1 cup ham, diced
2 tomatoes
1 1/2 cups Sunpix hearts of palm
1 box fetuccine
2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup melted lard
pinch chili powder
pinch cinnamon
salt

Put ham, cream, tomatoes, hearts of palm and spices in blender. Pulse until smooth. Boil in pot. Cook noodles, strain and put back in pot with melted lard so they don't stick. Mix with sauce. Serve lukewarm.

 Author's note: I did not actually go to a wedding. This is my old person alter ego and her life is much more interesting than mine at the moment. This is also making fun of those bloggers who post general information about their lives that no one really cares about. This recipe is mostly real. It is from the back of the Hearts of Palm jar. 

Slice of Life 3/4: Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King and Shooting the Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell

I forgot to read a book in these past two weeks, so I read two this week. Everybody Sees the Ants is about a kid who has been bullied by this other kid since he was in second grade. His parents are having marriage problems, so his mom takes his to Arizona to visit his aunt and uncle. He also has these dreams where he tries to rescue his grandfather, who never came home from the Vietnam War.
I really liked it. The main character was a believable teenager, and the author did a good job of exposing problems that people our age face while not making them seem incredibly stupid like some young adult authors. I liked the writing style and the protagonist had a very distinct and sarcastic voice. It was very interesting to read. The characters were all well developed and the many plot lines that were introduced were all tied up at the end. I would recommend this book to most people in our class, but it does have some mature themes.

My second book was Shooting the Moon. It is about a girl who has grown up in an army family and she is excited when her older brother enlists and is sent to Vietnam. Instead of letters, he sends her film, which she has to learn to develop. The pictures are graphic and bloody, and she learns that the army might not be as great as she thought it was.
I did not like this book. I didn't think it would be that young because the main character was about thirteen, but the author made her a total idiot. She also had no personality and the plot was incredibly predictable. The only good thing about this book was that the font was so big that it took me about an hour to read. I would not wish this on my worst enemy.

Slice of Life 3/2

         When I was in 4th grade, I was on an overnight and the vegetarian option was veggie lasagna or peanut butter and jelly. The latter seemed like the easier, more reliable option, but I was unjustly forced to eat the veggie lasagna, the most disgusting food I have ever eaten. Anyway, that is why I chose to go on the snowshoe trip on Friday. The Veggie Lasagna factor.
        Overall, it was disgusting. Basically, it was mushed up vegetables in between lasagna noodles, no cheese or anything. I ate it the same way I eat all horrible foods, by just picking at the less horrible parts. The edges of the noodles with no veggie mush tasted pretty good, the same way that the part of the digging the giant snow holes and eating lunch were fun on our field trip. And yet, the part that I still remember most vividly from both events were the bad parts, such as finding those little broccoli spores and painfully hiking up giant hills with feet that took a ton of effort to lift. Am I glad I ate the veggie lasagna? No. Am I glad that I went snowshoeing with my class? Yes. Somehow, the Veggie Lasagna factor has room for variation.

Slice of Life 3/1

Hello. My name is Etti. I am in eighth grade and this year I have studied History of Cooking, Tattoos and Exotic Animal Care (which sounded way less stupid in my head). I enjoy eating small children in my spare time.

I watched the animal shift his weight between his three-toed feet and I wondered how I never realized how prehistoric he is. His armor shifted and he opened his mouth to chew strawberries and green bananas, halved but unpeeled. He is a Greater One-Horned Rhino, or rhinoceros unicornis, and he is behind bars wide enough for a human to slip through. The keeper continued to toss fruit into a mouth big enough to hold my entire head. He has no incisors or front teeth at all, only molars to grind his strictly herbivorous diet. The black and white rhinos, found in Africa, are much more aggressive than this species. His horn is small and rounded, which unfortunately means that it is worth thousands of dollars, and his species is threatened by poachers. He is lined up against the bars and his keeper rubs his head. She has trained him to hold still while a veterinarian takes a blood sample, and for a wild animal, he is incredibly cooperative. I stepped up to his heavy, gray body and felt his skin. It is rough and dry, but the crease between the plates of armor is soft. His feet moved slightly, but he stayed focused on his meal. He is still wild, but he is calm by nature. It is hard to say if he did not know that we were there or simply just did not care, but I am amazed that I got to touch this bizarre, endangered animal.

Slice of Life #6

I think that there should be a mental health check before you can enter the school on EXPO. You would think that the only people that come are parents and grandparents, but I'm sure that there are a few random strangers that no one will claim to be related to. EXPO shouldn't be such a big deal anyway. I'm never sure why people care so much. There are always a few types of weirdos that I can count on, such as someone who will definitely tell me about my unit and someone who will definitely tell me wrong information about my unit. Visitors who loiter for too long, family members that block everything from others, strangers who want to take a picture of me, I've seen it all in my eight EXPOs, and I have given up on expecting normalcy.

Holes by Louis Sachar

This week I read Holes. I have seen the movie, but this was my first time reading the book. It is about a boy who is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and he is sent to Camp Green Lake, where his only job is to dig one hole per day, five feet deep and five feet wide. Eventually he realizes that the Warden is looking for something.
I liked it. There was a lot more to the story than just digging holes, and there were flashbacks to when the camp was a town. All of the story lines tied together at the end. The book was pretty well written, not great, but I had no complaints about the writing style. Some of the supporting characters were one-dimensional, but that didn't bother me so much. Overall, I liked this book.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

This week I read Code Name Verity, which is about female members of the Resistance in WWII, one a pilot and the other a spy. The story is told as each girl is writing an account of the events so far. There are a lot of suspenseful events and plot twists as you hear the story from both perspectives and it all ties together really nicely at the end.
I liked this book. It definitely had flaws, but I liked the writing style and the characters were well developed. The format was really cool. I liked how it was told in a realistic way and the author created a fairly accurate representation of written accounts. My main problem was that there were parts in the middle that got a little slow and there were a lot of military terms that weren't explained very well. Overall, I liked it and would recommend it to people. The surprise twist ending was definitely a surprise.