Carl Hiaason

If you are looking for a book that will take you to a wickedly funny place and make you laugh out loud, then I highly recommend Carl Hiaasen's new book, Bad Monkey, to you.

I just finished reading it while on vacation at the beach last week and I loved it!  I can't tell you how many times I was sitting in my beach chair with my book while my friends were talking and catching up with each other.  There I was, face stuck in the book, reading Bad Monkey and literally bursting out laughing at the smart, flip and hysterical dialogue.  Truly great stuff! 

Come on.  Admit it.  You can't always read heavy, informational, historical books that you know will keep you up to date about what is happening in this crazy world of ours.  Sometimes you just have to read something for the pure unadulterated fun of it because laughing helps you de-stress and triggers positive emotions.  Laughing is definitely an energy and mood booster!  I usually experience my best laughs when I am relaxed.  Things just aren't that funny when you are tense, twisted and closed up.

 

 

Carl Hiaasen's gift to us as readers is that he always manages to create fabulous characters in all of his books and they always end up in a lot of wacky situations.  Given that Hiaasen writes a column for The Miami Herald, I have a feeling that he probably knows some of these people he writes about or has taken bits and pieces of different people's personalities he comes in contact with as a reporter and thankfully creates new people in his fabulous fiction.

 

I don't want to reveal the places in the book where I couldn't stop laughing because you really need to know the plot and the characters of Bad Monkey and allow them to cook together for a number of chapters before it truly becomes funny.  However, just to give you a flavor of Hiaasen's satire, here's a short excerpt involving the main character, Andrew Yancy, and Yancy's love interest, Rosa:

 

"Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy's front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.

While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, "Know what?  We'd make a great crime-solving duo."

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Have mercy, woman.  I ran out of Advil."

"Well, I don't sleep with drunken guys.  Period."

Yancy sighed.  "So many rules."

She took notice of the shotgun propped in a corner, and Yancy told her restaurant inspections could be dangerous.  She informed him that for dinner she was doing blackened grouper with mashed sweet potatoes and a grilled Caesar, and that he was going to finish every bite or never see her again.

"I also stopped in Key Largo and got some homemade carrot cake," she said.

"From where?"

"What's the difference?"

"Rosa, you don't understand.  I see all the health reports.  I know the dirt on every kitchen."

She ordered him to be quiet while she sewed up his gnawed butt cheek.  To take his mind off the intimate unpleasantries, Yancy told the story of how he was conceived during side of one of Abbey Road.

"You mean side two," Rosa said.  "The medley."

"No, side one.  According to my mom, the big moment happened during Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

"It's all starting to make sense," said Rosa.

 

Besides Hiaasen's dry and snappy dialogue, Bad Monkey takes us on some unpredictable trips through Florida, where Hiaasen was born and raised, and also to the Bahamas where "everyting is jahmmin'."

 

Bad Monkey is a everything I wanted it to be: a great read and a fun, wonderful escape!

Carl Hiaasen never disappoints.

 

Weekends Go Too Fast

I hope your weekend was a good one and that you had a chance to relax and renew yourself.

 

My weekends always seem to fly by and just when I'm feeling as though I have totally brought myself down from the workweek, it's time to begin a new one.

 

It's okay though; I selfishly wring every minute of down time out of the weekend that I can.  Even if I am grocery shopping or running other errands, I try to enjoy the outdoors and reduce the pressure to get everything done in record time!

  

 

I try to unplug myself, even briefly from my electronic gadgets because I think they make me less patient.  More and more is supposed to happen in an instant today and life doesn't always follow our wants.  We become frustrated when phones are busy, computers freeze up, ATM machines run slowly or the checkout lines are long.

 

Waiting for something to work is an opportunity.  It is.  Come on, you know it is.  This is what I tell myself because no matter how much I want something to work faster, it never does.

It's an opportunity to pump the brakes and slow myself down.  I may feel like I am trying to beat the clock when I set out to do my errands but I really don't need to accomplish all my wants in one day. 

 

So when I miss a green light or have to reboot my computer and open all my programs up again, I try really hard to use that time to take a couple of deep breaths and remind myself that whatever I am trying to do will get done. . .eventually.
 

iPods Forever

I am deleting all of the songs on my iPod and starting over.

Here is a blast of a song from the '80's that I will be adding to my new song list.

I don't know what happened to Lisa Stansfield but I always turn up the volume when I hear this song:

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Earth Day -- Big Yellow Taxi

Today is Earth Day and I give thanks to Mother Nature for her endless gifts.

 

As we turn our focus on cleaning up and protecting the environment, events in Washington, DC (cleaning up the Anacostia River) and communities around the globe are being held today to remind us that our natural resources are precious and finite and shouldn't be taken for granted.  When we take better care of Mother Earth, she takes better care of us, giving us tranquil beauty and continual inspiration.

 

Nature also has the incredible capability to heal us: the fragrance of a flower, the cleansing sound of the ocean and the glorious rise and set of the sun.

 

When I spend time outdoors, I de-stress and relax and start to feel connected and much better almost immediately.  Whether its a leisurely stroll or an aerobic run, I take deep breaths and notice and try to enjoy whatever is around me.  Right now that would be the smell of freshly cut grass and deep pink azelea buds ready to burst open.

 

The first April 22 Earth Day was held in 1970.  I don't think it's a coincidence that the multi-talented and award-winning singer songwriter Joni Mitchell wrote and originally recorded "Big Yellow Taxi" also in 1970.  It's a great song that is known for its environmental concerns.

 

Do something green today, such as walk, buy locally grown produce in season, recycle, use cloth totes for shopping, or garden and sing along loudly to  "Big Yellow Taxi:"

 

 

 

28 Cats

Okay.  I admit it.  I have a totally silly side and ridiculous pictures of cats and dogs crack me up.

 

This post may seem random to you but it's not.  It's humor therapy!  Smiles and laughter can help us heal.  Scientists report that laughter changes our brain chemistry and boosts our immune system. 

 

We have to be able to laugh at ourselves and at humorous situations.  If we can't find the funny side of life, then we're in trouble.

 

My wonderful son found this on buzzfeed.com and thought it was hysterical; which it is!!

In fact, I would really love it if you would comment below and tell me which is your favorite among the crazy, wacky cat pictures!

Here's my favorite:

Courtesy of reddit.com

So Happy Friday and as we ease into the weekend, enjoy the following link which will take you to "28 Cats Who Have No Idea How They Ended Up Here":

http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/28-cats-who-have-no-idea-how-they-ended-up-here

 

Grounded To The Ground

Staying Grounded

Have you seen that television commercial where the couple is test driving a new car in the desert and then later someone off camera asks them why they liked it?

The man says something about wheel rims on the tires and the way the car felt when he was driving it and then the woman says more good stuff about the car and ends the commercial by saying it felt "grounded to the ground."  The guy off camera can't believe she has expressed herself this way and he repeats "grounded to the ground" as though it were a question and then she laughs while saying the phrase again.

It's not just the words "grounded to the ground" that crack me up but it's also the way that she says it.

It's funny and at the same time the phrase strikes a chord with me these days.  Most people do want to feel as though they are "grounded to the ground."  Stability and reliability are good things.  It's reassuring to know that certain things will work or happen at certain times.  And that you can count on certain people to be there for you when times are tough.

 

It's very unsettling when you feel as though parts of your life that you can't control are flying in whatever direction they want.  You start to wonder what will happen next because you didn't anticipate these events AT ALL!  I can't be more specific because other people would prefer that I not go on and on about it in my blog.  But I am trying to take my own advice about slowing down, taking a deep breath, and keeping life's unexpected events in perspective.

I have nothing against spontaneity but lately there have been too many health surprises in our family and I now find myself wishing for consistently healthy days for everyone I know.  While writing this post, I am drinking a cup of hot herbal tea and channeling good, peaceful and calming thoughts.  Yes, I have been praying too and that helps to destress my thoughts and feelings.  Knowing that I am not alone in this huge.

 

So I continue to mentally sort through my emotions, talk, talk, talk to friends and family and share all of this with you my wonderful readers which definitely helps me feel more "grounded to the ground."

 

Thanks for being here today!!

The Night of The Cicada

 

I am happy for the arrival of today, for yesterday was a day when I was trying to follow my own advice about staying positive, breaking down a problem and letting it go when you can't do anything more.

 

For me, I get stressed when I am thrown into a situation at work and expected to solve it quickly.  I can work under pressure but I don't really like it.  I prefer to see the problem ahead of time and work on it in increments.

 

But that isn't what life is always about.  Untangling the problem takes time and sometimes I just don't have the luxury of time to figure something out.

 

It's BOOM and then I'm on deadline and that's it.

 

I did what I could to fix the problem and then because it was Friday afternoon and since others who could helped me had already left for the weekend, I had to leave the problem where it was.  Getting on the elevator to leave work and even while I was driving home, I really made a concerted effort not to bring the stress home with me.

 

I took deep breaths, I went down a mental check list of what else I could have done to solve the problem before I left work and there wasn't anything more.  I didn't play music on the car radio because I really wanted to calm myself.

 

I wanted to stop at the grocery store and buy myself a huge container of Ben & Jerry's Chocoloate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream but I didn't.  Instead, I tried to remain zen about my stress and and not let it the better of me.  I really wanted to have a really ugly cry and I was ready to let myself do it when I realized I left my cell phone out in the car. 

 

I went out to get it and when I came back into the house I accidentally let a cicada fly in.  OMG, OMG.  If you have never seen or heard a cicada then please take my word for it that they make a really weird awful buzzing sound when they are flying.  They are rather large, similiar to locusts, and they are just tooooo gross.

 

Now the thing is in my dining room, flying around inside the light fixture and trying to find it's way out.  All I could do is stand there and watch the cicada flying around in a panic.  I  couldn't touch it and if it flew out of the fixture I was going to open the front door and try to get back outside but that never happened.  It just flew around in circles until it tired itself out and through the glass of the light fixture I could see that it was laying on its back.

 

OMG what is a girl to do?  At least my work stress was gone but I couldn't take the cicada anymore.  I called it a night and quickly fell asleep.

Fortunately or unfortunately, so did the cicada!