He's just not that into you (and the Friday book review)

Sigh. Story of my dating life from college on. I meet a great guy. We seem to have decent first date chemistry. I get the all-important post-first-date phone call wherein he says he had a good time, too, and wants to go out again and then POOF! I get Lone Ranger'd. You know...he vanishes into a cloud of dust with a tip of his hat and a hearty "heigh ho, Silver!" GRRR! It's just so damned frustrating!

And for the life of me, I do not understand why a man would go to the trouble of making a call to say he had a good time and wants to go out again if he just plans to blow me off. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to just not call after the date? Isn't that the world-wide accepted method of blowing someone off?

So, Literate Guy is, apparently, history. Or, at the very least, as the book says, "he's just not that into me."

Whatever. Onward and upward.

I had a friend help me re-write my profile in the hopes of getting a little more play from the on-line dating game (thanks, Jenie!) but the results haven't been much better. At least I'm GETTING mail now - one from a 55 year old illiterate from the east coast with no picture who wanted me turn over my IM address so we could get to know each other better. Er...yeah...I'll get right on that. Not. The others I've received have been equally unsuitable for various reasons.

For this I lost 53 lbs.??? I could've stayed fat and at least known WHY I was getting ignored. Sheesh!

Okay, enough with the dating self pity. I have a book review to do. Wish I had multiple novels to talk about, but there's just one this week. I read the latest installment of Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" series entitled "Black Powder War." Novik continues to chronicle the adventures of Captain Laurence, the Celestial dragon, Temeraire, and his crew as they leave China under orders to get to Istanbul and pick up a couple of rare and valuable dragon eggs. The eggs need to be returned to England before they hatch because they are the British Aerial Corps' only chance at aquiring a fire-breathing breed of dragon - something they sorely need in their ongoing resistance against Napoleon's constant aggression. Once again, Novik excels at keeping the level of action constant and interesting. In fact, I made the mistake of picking this book up at bedtime about halfway through it and next thing I knew it was 2 AM and I was feverishly turning pages to get to the end or else a decent stopping point. Laurence and crew seems to be constantly jumping from the frying pan to the fire to...what's worse...maybe lava? So, don't miss this great read, but make sure to either not read it at bedtime or do it on a night where you don't have to go to work the next day. I should also warn you that this particular installment has a bit of an "Empire Strikes Back" type of ending. Major point left unresolved as set up for the next novel. Not my favorite type of ending - I feel strongly that each novel (even in a trilogy) should be complete in and of itself, but Novik is one of the few authors I'll give a bit of a pass to since she's so good in other respects. At least with the books, you know there won't be a three year wait until the next installment as opposed to the way the original "Star Wars" trilogy was released.

Oh, and since I didn't have anything else to review today, here's another picture from the L.A. Gift Show:


These are called "shimmerwing" pendants. They are actually sections of real butterfly wings encased in glass and bound with sterling silver. I've only scanned one side of them, but the backsides are just as beautiful, albeit with a different design. The scan does not catch the opalescent quality of the colors.

And, just in case anyone was wondering, I have a statement from the vendor that no butterflies are killed to make these. They are collected from the floor of the rainforest in Peru at the end of their natural life cycle (butterflies don't live very long - just long enough to mate and lay eggs which is sometimes only a matter of days). Now, normally, I might be somewhat skeptical about this statement, but I actually saw a documentary on the Discovery Channel some years back about not only this process and how it provides income for some of the local Peruvian populace, but they actually had footage of how the forest floor was actually glittering from all the fallen butterflies who had just died naturally and fluttered down to cover the ground. I like the idea of some of that beauty being preserved and passed on.

I think these pendants would like equally great as the focal points of a beaded, multi-strand necklace as they would simply strung on sterling silver chain or black leather cord.

That's it for now everyone. Happy weekend!

KJ