Thank you, Camus

"No problem, World. My pleasure."

Thank you for THIS!:

I think "A Perfect Achievement" may be an understatement. I love, love, LOVE this book. As diverting as the cute little Twilight series was for a short while, I've been really glad to have some quiet time lately to read something actually good. Hehe. (I don't get a whole lot of time to read! One of the reasons I rushed through the Twilight series more than I should have—it was so novel for a few days to have time!) So I reread The Plague—first time in, man, probably 7 or 8 years—and loved it even more than before. My only sorrow is that Camus didn't write in English—also, that I don't think the translation we have is as good as it could be. So I'm on the hunt for a different translation.... And then, I think, I could read this book a hundred times. So grim, but SO inspiring still. Really a fabulous work.

And then I read this:

HA HA HA!! Somehow I missed the memo that this is a controversial book. I just thought it was famous for being good or something. Hehe. I was feeling so great about reading after finishing The Plague that I just had to pick up another book right away. The Catcher in the Rye is short (always appealing :)) and has been sitting on our shelf looking interesting for a while, so I dug in. Ha ha ha!! This book kills me! I'm sure plenty of people find it awfully offensive, but I thoroughly enjoyed the character. Very witty and interesting—and every time he described phoniness, I wanted to die of laughter for how right-on he was. Hahaha!! So great. I was really looking forward to whatever crisis I was sure would come in the last few pages to make the book make some beautiful sense . . . . But, um. It ended without ever making a great amount of sense. Really a bummer, too, because the character was a goodie—could have really made for a great book. If anyone can tell me what the heck this book was supposed to be saying, I'd be in your debt. Unless what you have to say is, "he realized in the end, with his sister, that he couldn't be a 'catcher in the rye,' and that kids just need to grow up on their own."   No.   No way. If that's what the author was really trying to get at, he did a bad job of it. And I'm willing to believe that maybe this is a good book and I just missed the point—so fill me in if you know what it is. :) 

Next on my list: Heart of Darkness. Can you believe I've never read it? 

Another One :)

This morning I asked Seth what he wanted to eat for breakfast. He smiled and sighed, and said "Butter! Beautiful butter...." 

:-D

Some Funny Things

Here are some random funny things we've been surprised to hear Seth say lately....

A couple nights ago, he decided to stay awake until 1:00 in the morning (3-hour church meetings mess everything up! I'm not sure how Mormons have a reputation for being "family-friendly"! Three hours of church...? What about naps and food? Are we trying to torture small children? And moms? Hehe. Oh, the horror!). When cozying up to watch The Sound of Music wasn't working, I finally said, "Seth, it's about time to go to bed. It's LATE...." Without missing a beat he responded: "Nooo. It's NOT late.... It's Happy-Time!" 

Ha ha! I have no clue how he came up with that one.

A couple weeks ago we were driving in the rain. Seth, always so astute, stated the obvious: "It's raining." Which gave him some sort of exciting epiphany and he started repeating something over and over, trying to help me understand. I just wasn't getting it.... I'd repeat what it sounded like, I'd ask him questions, but we just weren't making any progress. After a couple minutes of this, he finally full-on sighed, and said: "I'm telling the truth, Mom! I'm telling the truth!" Ha ha! Oh man. It killed us. I would love to know what he thought that meant. Right after that he said, "Mom [somethingsomething] ABC's" and said the phrase again that I hadn't been able to understand. The ABC's clue (I thought that was clever of him :)) finally tipped it off for me. He was saying "rain starts with the letter RRRRRRRRRR...!" He was telling the truth!

Last night he wanted to turn the light on in the car, and wasn't buying our faulty logic about the light making it harder for Dad to see while he was driving. I said, "I know it sounds weird and doesn't make sense, but it's true! We have to keep the light OFF right now." And he said, "No. It's NOT so weird.... It's HORRIBLE!" Ha ha ha! And then he asked us again to turn the light on because "I NEEEED to see." 

And speaking of things he "needs" to do, that's just about everything lately. 

"Seth, please don't kick the seat in front of us." Seth looks up all cutely: "I NEED to." 

"Seth, why are you doing that?" Seth: "Cuz.... I NEED to do this. I NEED to."

"Seth, you know we can't play with the plug. That could hurt you really bad." Seth: "I HAVE to, Mom. I HAVE to play with the plug. Right NOW."

He always says things with such sincerity that he's mighty hard to resist.... Hehe.

Oh, and let's not forget that he held our friend Elizabeth's hand the other day, looked into her eyes and said, "you're cute!" HA HA HA!! Where is he learning this behavior? When we told Seth we loved him, instead of saying "I love YOU" like usual, he leaned out of my arms toward Elizabeth and said, "I love HER!" There you go. True love. :)