Ahhh...that independent toddler streak

So during the week, Leila and I really don't have too many World War Wardrobe conflicts because, lucky for me, the child wears a uniform. Our choices are limited to red or blue, shorts or dress, pink crocs or red crocs (and yes, the pink crocs are more often than not selected to go with the red uniforms.) With those limited options in place, her choice of personal expression is now manifesting itself in the form of hair style/accessories. I think I may have to go to remedial hair school, or steal some dolls to practice on while she sleeps, since my own personal grooming ritual is wash, condition, and scrunch a bit of matte product into my hair so it dries au natural into something sometimes resembling waves. Anyway...to date, I've gotten away with slapping a color-coordinated plastic barrette onto each side of Leila's head to keep her hair off her face. Every day this week though, she's come home with a cuter and cuter 'do by Miss Sara - in our brutally humid days this week, the kiddos have had less outdoors and more multi-room time, so the girls have all been going her lap to get their hair done. She even had two french braids down the side one day and looked like an absolute doll. I tried to take a little more effort this morning and got her hair into pigtails with carefully selected red bows only to have those bows ripped out in a fit of toddler rage to be replaced with the elastics she'd selected that matched neither each other, nor her red uniform. Oh well. If this is our biggest conflict of the day I guess we're doing OK.

The Mix-Up

Haven't bought this one yet, but I'm listening to it on-line now and it's quite smooth! I feel like our B-Boys are all growed up. But I'm sure they'll be back with rhymes involving falafel and crawl-spaces (that take me back to that deliciously awful Gary Busey movie "Hider in the House") in another couple years. For now, I can kick it with this. Not sure how long AOL streams new albums in full, but you can currently hear this at: http://music.aol.com/songs/new_releases_full_cds

Funny (odd?) Child

No need to continue supporting the "Kindie-Rock" industry in our household. After Leila's bath last night, she was wailing away for me to "put the Rolling Stones on Mommie!!!" I could barely get her arms through her PJ top before she threw an all out fit for the 40 Licks disc that I need to return to Floyd one of these days. Funny thing is, by the time she's of an appropriate age to go to a concert, we can probably make her first show a Stones concert. Ancient as they are, the show I saw nearly 10 years ago probably ranks in the top 5 shows I've seen in my lifetime (if I only count the 4 Dylan shows I've seen once!)


And to top that off...Once I got her in her crib, after my finest singing along to "Beast of Burden" between Richard Scarey stories, she bounced up and down on her mattress shaking her upper body from side to side and said "I want to do Shakira Shakira." One chorus of "Hips don't Lie" knocked her out for the evening.

Shameless Self Promotion

For 1-2 days once every three months my hair looks really, really good. I'm just posting this as evidence of that because the rest of the time it's a frizzled frazzled mess. Luigi works wonders. If he didn't I wouldn't have given him my patronage for the past 10 years. I think every time I've been in the Watergate Salon I've seen one of three people there: Condoleeza Rice, Elizabeth Dole or Bob Dole. Bob was getting a trim yesterday. Now there's DC Celebritology for you! And yes, I'm just that dork who took a picture of herself - hence the strained smile and wonky eye!

And not to take all the spotlight from another recent haircut in our household...This is just such the typical picture of little miss mess w/ lollipop and spider man (self-selected!) band aid.
And with another one of our top Target purchases of the summer - the $19.99 bubble machine. It is endlessly entertaining. "Knocked Up" was not exaggerating in the exchange Paul Rudd and Seth Rogan had about children's fascination with bubbles!

Weekend

I dashed around Target like a mad woman Saturday morning in search of those plastic swim pants that kids are required to wear over swim diapers at all the public pools because I thought Leila's first "perch" swim class at the Y was at 11:30 that day. I never found the darn things, but it was OK because her class starts NEXT Saturday. Yeah, the card they gave me when we signed her up last week says session starts June 30, but I was convinced they'd made a mistake because the catalog said June 23 and when I called to confirm the start date the woman from Aquatics verified June 23 - this Saturday. Anyway...My mistake, but I never want to disappoint our little smurf like that again (and yes, I know that I will, many many times over as she ages!) The look on her little face as she stood holding her daddy's hand in her new bathing suit and terry cover up while asking "what did the lady told you mamma?" just broke my heart. Luckily my brother lives 1/2 a mile or less from us and I knew they were around this weekend so I called and woke them up at 11:20 (ahhh..the good old days of sleep) and begged to bring her to their pool. Leila's disappointment at not having class seems to have subsided and it was much nicer to be outdoors in the sun with a gentle breeze than indoors at the Y with a bunch of toddlers in their leaky swim diapers. Will report on that lesson next week!


So Leila actually ended up seeing Pepe (aka Carter) and Dani more this weekend than she probably does in any other given month because they've been begging to babysit and we had planned to bring her over Sunday afternoon and go see a movie before we barged into their lazy Saturday morning. We stuck to that plan and went to see Knocked Up. Sheesh - an afternoon at the movies has gotten expensive! I'll spare the "when I was young, a movie cost $3.50" talk, but $15 for a medium popcorn, medium coke and wimpy hotdog?! My fingers are still swollen from popcorn salt, but the movie was great! Yes, it's crude and I will never think of pinkeye the same and the birth scene is beyond graphic if anyone's squeamish about such things, but it is also very....sweet! Yes, sweet. I can't remember another movie in which I've found every single character to be so endearing and Paul Rudd has never been so hot. Not even in Cluless. The world needs more films like this that guys and girls can equally appreciate. I thought Cesar was not loving it becuase he was not laughing nearly so much as I, but as he walked out, he said "that was pretty good", which is a ringing endorsement from him. Keep writing Judd Apatow! My favorite minor moments in the film have to be Ryan Seacrest's hissy fit - because you just know he's got to be prone to hissy fits in real life - and Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd watching Cirque de Soleil out of their minds on shrooms. Fun stuff.


And one last movie note. I finally watched Pan's Labirynth on DVD this weekend. That is a most excellent film. Heartbreaking and inspiring all at once. Reminds the viewer what a great power the imagination is and reminds me that it is now my job to cultivate a healthy imagination in Leila.

I want to be a "nameologist"...

... though I think it may actually be a more natural calling for my husband who has just the knack for finding irrational, and often laughable negative associations in 99.5% of all names! There is not a service out there that people won't pay for apparently.


The Baby-Name Business
Parents are feeling intense pressure to pick names that set their kids apart. Some are even hiring consultants. Alexandra Alter on the art of 'branding' your newborn.

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

June 22, 2007; Page W1


What's in a name?


Stress.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118247444843644288-search.html?KEYWORDS=baby+names&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month

www.meosphere.com

I've never really gotten into the social networking sites (though I need to start taking better advantage of linkedin for professional purposes!), but I foresee this one becoming another one of the many great time killers that populate my days. It was written up in a Wall Street Journal article yesterday and I thought it could be a good way to refamiliarize oneself with the experiences one has had and those one would like to have. Back in the day when Emily and I lived together (those 10 years ago when I used to be told I looked like Drew Barrymore that I referenced in an earlier post this week - again, sigh) she used to write pretty much nightly in a "List Yourself" book and this seems to adopt the same concept. I very rarely wrote in the copy of "List Yourself" that Em gave me before I moved to Morocco because I was too busy living in the moment of Morocco so here's a new chance. Anyone looking for more on-line time killers and a chance to learn a little more about oneself enjoy!

Political Tees

I just saw a guy outside in a Stewart/Colbert 2008 t-shirt. I think I have to have one. But now I'm surfing the options on Cafepress and found the above. That would be one "very niiice" ticket in the words of Borat.

PoP! goes my heart

I <3 this silly little movie. I really, really do.

Partly b/c I have a long standing girl crush on Drew Barrymore stemming from the days when I was a cute 22/23 year old (10 long years ago - sigh...) oft told by boys at such classy establishments as Buffalo Billiards that I looked like her, which I would have just blown off as drunken bar speak from all-American rejects had not a Moroccan friend Abdesselam later taken to calling me Drew at the Embassy...and partly because Hugh Grant plays an Andrew Ridgley-esque has been from an 80's Brit pop synth band recently canned from his annual Knots Berry Farm performance. How great is that? You know you too longed to go see Rick Springfield perform at King's Dominion back in the day - admit it! And it's mostly great for being right up there with The Wedding Singer as a shameless I love the 80s shout out.

Mike D...

...looks like Adam Sandler channeling Bob Dylan. That is all. I think I like that the new Beasties album dropping June 26 is all instrumental. Not so sure I'm OK w/ it being sold in Starbucks.

This is pretty funny actually...

I don't know that having Celine Dion belt out your campaign song helps with that old electability thing (maybe I'm just bitter that Jesus Jones didn't make the first cut.) And I never even watched the Sopranos, but of course know how it ended; however, I am kind of loving this video! Journey's about to get some more play on my iPod on the way home tonight.

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/feature/song/video

Easy Dinner

I know there are many out there who actually take the time (and foresight!) to home cook a meal involving more than three ingredients, but I'm sure that there are also some like me who are always fishing for new, tasty and relatively healthy things they can 1)remove from fridge/freezer and 2)toss in oven.

Enter Trader Joe's Seasoned Rack of Lamb.

It is brilliant. I believe they've had a frozen version, but I found this one with the fresh meats and had not seen it there before. I didn't pay enough attention to the packaging to offer an exact product name, but it may have been Australian and it included farm-raised organic claims. Meat is vacuum sealed in plastic and it comes in the sort of black plastic tray rotisserie chicken comes in covered w/ a cardboard top. Hopefully that's enough vague detail to help you track it down in your store because it is well worth tracking down!

I adore lamb, but I have never ventured to buy a cut in a butcher's aisle and tried to figure out how to cook it myself. TJ's version is seasoned w/ a generous rub of rosemary, garlic powder etc. You plop it in a baking dish, cover w/ foil and shove into your 325 degree oven for 35 minutes (or slightly longer if you prefer it more well done than medium rare.) It tastes every bit as good as lamb I've ordered in restaurants and is certainly nice enough to be served to guests. In our evening crunch time we ate it with a bag of TJ's roasted veggies and potatoes, which was a bit too much on the salty side, but with more preparation, it would be excellent with any combo of roasted new potatoes/couscous or rice/steamed green beans or asparagus/salad...Bon Appetit!

Father's Day Weekend Fun

Daddy's carefully structured towers were quickly doused...

No chastising her for the "nip slips" until she's at least 12!

Again, mom's fault for buying a 3T suit...

Like father, like daughter.

We hit Chincoteague/Assateague for a quick beach weekend. I would have just been a golf-widow for father's day weekend (as I'm known to be on any old weekend) if we hadn't. The little escapes are nice every now and again, and of the beaches within a 3 hour radius, I like Assateague's best because pure, clean beach is all you get. I would like to know at what point in time mom's beach days return to splashing out with Vanity Fair or a good novel without having to focus on anything but when she's baked and needs to flip sides. It's a bit tiresome to vigilantly watch Leila and traipse up and down to the water to refill her buckets non-stop!

Funny kidspeak

I'm carrying Leila out to the car this morning and she points and animatedly says "there's a Mickey!" I pause for a beat then take note that a red MINI Cooper had just driven past. I can only assume that since she associates Mickey and Minnie (of the mouse variety) as a pair that her cute little brain just grasped at the wrong name to identify the car. And yes, she knows what a Mini is because her mother still narrates absolutely every mundane detail to her as we go about our days. Further, she knows that her 6 foot 4 Papa would not fit in a Mini. We have some very insightful conversations during our half mile commute to daycare!

WSJ Poll

By 52% to 31%, Americans say they want Democrats to win the presidency next year.

By 49% to 36% they say the Democratic party more closely shares their values and positions on the issues.

Good stuff.

New Pool!

The result of yet another weekend in Target and all of daddy's oxygen...





Samantha's got the moon bouncing thing down a little better than Leila. Was too fun to see all the kiddos out of school uniform at a party at Jenna's last weekend (and yep, it's official, my weekends are no longer my own.)

Just another cute smirky faced photo of the daughter.

Ummm...

The first line of this cover story in today's NYT just caught my eyes because we recently worked on a breast-feeding/infant formula project.

CAIRO, June 11 — First came the breast-feeding fatwa. It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties.

No further commentary.

And in happier news...

Fireflies are here! And yes, I'm excited to have seen the first few of the summer flitting about last night. There's just something about capturing and releasing fireflies on a fresh night that makes me feel like we're young, and it's summer and all is good. Sitting on our sorry excuse for a stoop licking drippy Popsicles with Leila, or coloring with her sidewalk chalk gives me the same feeling. Simple pleasures!

Sad news

I just learned that a dear old friend from Morocco, Joe McPhillips, the Headmaster of the American School of Tangier, died last night. He apparently fell down the stairs in his home and died of the resulting injuries. He was 71 and I can only hope that he did not suffer.

Knowing Joe certainly made my Morocco experience richer and I know he has touched countless other lives in his 40 years of service in Morocco. He leaves a wonderful legacy in his American Schools of Tangier and Marrakech. It was just weeks ago I was laughing about how curious it was that Jimmy Buffet is this year's AST graduation speaker.

I met Joe my first Thanksgiving in Morocco when I was seated at his table during a formal dinner at the Ambassador's residence. Talk about your culture clashes - 6 turkeys (6!) at a formal seated dinner in Rabat at which the Moroccan Prime Minister was in attendance. Joe and I bonded over Bill Clinton and wine, and I apparently made an impression on him because I gained his friendship and trust for the remainder of my tour.

I always considered Joe my link to the great and colorful expats of an earlier generation. Close to Paul Bowles and the executor of his will, Joe had offered to introduce me to the famed writer if I was ever in Tangier at a time he was not too ailing. Bowles passed away in November 1999, and it was I who Joe insisted on being patched through to early morning when the Marines couldn't reach the Ambassador. We were in Marrakech after having enjoyed a US-Maroc friendly soccer match (and dinner following at Chez Ali, during which my friend David and I goofily chased down the Moroccan stars Hajji and Bashir for pictures while Cesar and Paul shook their heads at us.) I quickly reached our DCM and Consul General to notify them of the news -- mythic though he was, Bowles was still an American citizen who had died abroad. Later that winter, Joe invited Cesar and I to attend the wonderful memorial service and private dinner he had arranged for Bowles' circle of artistic friends. Though I did not get that chance to meet Bowles, it was wonderful to have the opportunity to pay tribute to him through Joe's thoughtful invite.

While some people who visit Morocco try to escape Tangier as quickly as possible if they even set foot there, I loved its weathered character and charm. We frequented the resort Le Mirage outside of town (and even adventured a stay at the faded Hotel Continental once) whenever we could. I would always call Joe in advance of these trips and he had us to his lovely house for champagne, or joined us for a visit at the hotel when his schedule allowed. He came down to Rabat just to attend the Ambassador's going away party for me in 2001 and gifted me a lovely blue and white dish modeled on an antique French design and a painted tile. I recall that he explained to me in his distinctive genteel Alabama drawl that he had chastised the staff member he sent out to pick up these gifts because the tile was not antique (little would I have known the difference!) I will treasure these keepsakes even more now and do my best to keep them safe from the curious toddler's hands.

All my well wishes go to the communities of the American School of Tangier and Marrakech. I know their members have many more memories of Joe as fond as mine. He was simply one of the most memorable characters ever to have touched my life.


MAROC-USA-DIVERSLE DIRECTEUR DE L'ÉCOLE AMÉRICAINE DE TANGER TROUVE LA MORT DANS UN ACCIDENT DOMESTIQUE
Tanger, 11 juin (MAP)- Le directeur de l'école américaine de Tanger, M.Joseph A. McPhillips, a trouvé la mort dans un accident domestique survenu dans la nuit de dimanche à lundi, a-t-on appris de source autorisée.Agé de 71 ans, le défunt a fait une chute mortelle dans les escaliers de sa résidence sise ''Rue de la montagne''. Il a trouvé la mort sur le coup. Le personnel de la résidence a aussitôt alerté les secours et la police qui se sont rendus sur les lieux.Le défunt, qui compte 40 ans de services au Maroc, avait assuré la gestion de l'american school de Marrakech, avant de prendre en charge celle de Tanger.(MAP).

Poor, poor Paris...

I am so fuh-reaking bored right now. I'm on the USA Jobs website searching for new employment and I'd estimate that 85% of openings listed in the sphere I'm searching are at the Department of Homeland Security (yuck), ALL the State Department civil service jobs are in Iraq and the International Activities Specialist position at the National Endowment for the Arts that I thought looked cool requires Russian or Arabic language skills. I think I might make a good "wild horse and burro specialist", no?

Boy have my music purchases ummm...evolved over the years. I just left Border's with the new Daddy Yankee - that one's for Cesar, though I do fess up to some mad love for "Gasolina" - AND:

Which is probably as much for me as it is for Leila at this point. She has very interesting tastes in music (not at all shaped by her mother!) and often asks me to sing, and/or play "Ring of Fire", "Fulsome Prison" ("Pepe's Song") or "Walk the Line." Thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a Cash album with somewhat lighter themes in our collection. He was such a great story-teller through his songs, but I foresee a day in the not-so-distant future when I'm asked "why would he shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die?" I'm hesitant to buy a lot of the "Kindie Rock" (yes, that term is in the lexicon) discs out there, so long as she seems content with our adult music library (though we do like Dan Zanes a lot), but once she starts to comprehend more mature-themed lyrics, I may have to rethink that. We've got years ahead of us before that day comes. I hope...Last summer's must play single was Outkast's "Hey Ya," and for the moment, she remains into Bob Dylan (her father says I brainwashed her, but I grew up on him and she can too!) and she's just getting a feel for The Rolling Stones. I tried to interest her in Justin Timberlake, but she just picks the disc out of my stack and says "that's mommy's CD" rather dismissively ; )

Geeked out DC

Here's a snippet of a conversation I just picked up while I was strolling down Connecticut Ave.:
"I mean it's sort of like Jack Bauer...If Kiefer Sutherland had run for President..." I have no clue where the speaker was going with this, but it just sounded as if it had to be one of those only in DC conversations.

And speaking of only in DC...I have yet to get engaged whatsoever in the 2008 Presidential primary race - if the debates aired at 9:00 after Leila's abed, I might try to put a bit more effort into it - but I did drop by a Hillary rally last night and am now feeling slightly more motivated. I'm still not sure I want her to be our nominee, and I still flirt with Obamania now and again, and when it comes strictly to policy issues on the table Edwards is my boy, but I did feel the energy generated from the "historical movement" to elect our first woman president. Plus, she's comes off as being so polished and you really do feel she's committed to diplomacy and restoring America's good name in the greater world when she speaks. The Post did a fairly amusing write up of the event (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/06/AR2007060602520.html?hpid=topnews "It is not every day that the words "moon bounce" and "Madeleine Albright" appear in the same press release..."), so I won't recap. I did snap a pic of Katherine McPhee on my camera phone - well, of her partially obstructed by the fence through which she was signing autographs as people filed out. Don't know why! Her performance was pretty terrible - though I heard a tweener muse "she was better than the old guy" ("the old guy" was Babyface!)

I think this is the picture for the father's day card. I'd forgotten how fun it was to clomp around in daddy's or mommie's shoes...Whilst shoving gummy candy into our mouth of course.





Or we could go with this one, but the dad's surfer girl tee is somewhat obstructed by our handle bars.

And just for good measure, let's demonstrate how good we're becoming at imaginative play. I love that each member of the potato family - mommie (the bunny - she brings her to me and says "here's you mommie"), daddy and Leila - gets their own serving of craisins.

In sickness and in health...

Ugh! Was up all night listening to dear husband cough. I empathise with his pain, yes, but he is quite possibly the loudest cougher ever. He tried to be thoughtful and go downstairs, but in our close quarters, not a huge help. I did manage a doze long enough at some point to dream that I ran into Bill Clinton sitting alone at an outdoor cafe in Shirlington, but I am a zombie. Somehow, when it is your child who is sick at night adrenalin kicks in and you do what you have to do, but when it's your husband, it falls more into the annoyance category. And before I'm chastised for cold-heartedness, let me point out that he's had this cough for days, and he only could have aggravated it by going to hit golf balls in the driving rain yesterday to avoid going to brunch with my family!! Needless to say, I have made a Dr's appt. for him this afternoon.

Nothing much newsworthy about our weekend. My biggest thrill was getting in and out of the grocery store with purchases totaling a mere $108.40. We tend to average out b/t $130 and $150 ($160+ if it's a rare Whole Foods week) plus $80 at Target every other week when the diaper run is necessary, so I felt pretty good about my shopping success yesterday! We ran Leila out to the Tyson's Cartoon Cuts Saturday morning and her bangs are now about 1/2 inch long thanks to her squirming and fussing about. If anyone has an alternative idea for kids cuts, please let me know (Luigi won't touch her yet!) Followed that up with a brief visit to a McLean playground -- we are determined to hit every playground in the greater metropolitan area this summer -- and did a little Old Town strolling and fish 'n chips dining (Eamonn's does a great room temperature pour of Guinness complete w/ shamrock etching FYI) Saturday night. Yesterday was pretty much a washout, but I heard my new favorite Leila-ism: "flash my sumbrella" for open my umbrella??? Umbrella is "sumbrella" b/c in her Spanglish thinking the melding of sombrilla and umbrella somehow makes sense, but "flash" - where'd she come up w/ that one?

And as an addendum to my book list, there was some surprise that I did not note The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which I did love and simply thought there may be enough universal accolades about it out there. I look forward to reading his new novel later this summer. Another that I had intended to include is Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. It may take an odd duck like me to get into 1,000+ pages on dueling magicians during the Napoleonic Wars, and it did take me a good couple months to read last summer, but I just found all the characters to be so fantastic (how fabulous to have a mischievous faerie called "the man with the thistle down hair"...). Once it sucked me in, I got completely lost in the tales of magic and faerie enchantment. And I did watch the movie version of Little Children Friday. It's very well done, but may be even more entertaining if you haven't read the book. There was some crucial character development that was just glossed over (likely for the sake of keeping it to a 2hr frame), and some may find the narration off-putting. Patrick Wilson is a pretty pretty man though. All American w/ a receding hairline yes, but pretty pretty eyes, and there's almost something a bit Jude Law like in the delicate lines of his nose and chin. OK - Enough with that!!

Summer Reading

First off, and unrelated to books, I am really digging Gnarls Barkley's cover of the Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone" these days. Something about it just makes me feel like I'm 13 again listening to the Femmes and B-52s on my pink boom box on my parents' porch during a rousing game of pictionary or trivial pursuit with the neighborhood kids late into a sticky summer evening...Anyway...


I was counseling Massi yesterday on which Salman Rushdie books she should pick up when she's next in the Strand, and it got me thinking that I should do a dump of some of my favorite reads in recent years, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels lost in the bookstore at times. If you do have any interest in becoming a Rushdiephile, of those I've read, my order of preference goes:

The Moor's Last Sigh
Shalimar the Clown
The Satanic Verses
The Jaguar Smile (non-fiction about Sandinista Nicaragua)
The Ground Beneath Her Feet
Fury


If you just want a little taste of Rushdie, you can't go wrong with Shalimar the Clown or The Moor's Last Sigh. And if you have no interest in him whatsoever, some other books I've really enjoyed follow below in no particular order. I am currently a mere 32 pages in to Robert Fisk's: The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, because I do, every now and again, feel compelled to gain a better understanding of our world. All other reading materials will be dropped; however, on July 21 when Harry Potter hits my doorstep!


March by Geraldine Brooks (an imagined tale of the absent father from Little Women - recounts his service as an army chaplain during the civil war and all the ghosts he faces as a result of this service interspersed with moments in the lives of Marmee and the girls. Just finished it last night. It's really quite compelling and creative. As is A Year of Wonders by Brooks - A novel about the plague, yes the plague and it's good.)


The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (a young boy's love affair with books leads him to a twisty, Gothic scavenger hunt in post-Franco Barcelona. Largely contributed to my insistence that we hit Barcelona on our recent trip to Spain.)


The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss (beautiful tale about the tangled web of connections that link two people and about the power of writing, words and yes, love.)


What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller (or, one could just rent the movie. The strength of Blanchett and Dench's acting captures the mood and tone better than any book to screen translation I've seen. A perverse, lonely, dowdy, psychologically controlling teacher tells of the fall from grace of a younger colleague resulting from an affair with a 15 year old student.)


Little Children by Tom Perrotta (I expect to watch the movie this weekend, so I'll report on how it matches up. Suburban angst and temptation amongst housewives/househusbands and the paranoia that strikes when a pedophile moves into said suburban community.)


The Ruins by Scott Smith (In a word - terrifying. And skin crawling - literally. Hang up any notions of an adventure tour of the Mayan ruins of Mexico - or to any jungle-like setting - after reading this one.


A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (Completely different from the Ruins, but equally horrifying and suspenseful. The devastating train-wreck and psychological unwinding that results from the decisions made after 3 men discover 4 million some dollars in wrecked plane in the snowy backwoods of middle America.)


American Gods by Neil Gaiman (one may have to be a bit of a sci-fi, and/or David Lynch geek to appreciate this one, but it blew me away. The gods of the old world face off with the gods of the modern age in this wild trip through America's roadside attractions.)


The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (as well as The Interpreter of Maladies. I know "Kumar" takes on the role of Gogol Ganguli in the movie version, but don't let that put you off. A tale of the multi-generational immigrant family experience and of coming to embrace one's name/heritage.)


The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (pure magic. Then again, I read this during the first trimester of pregnancy, so my emotional reaction may have been stronger than under normal circumstances, but I fell hard and fast in love with this one. And w/ Henry the time traveler.)


The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Somewhat in the mode of A Simple Plan. The psychological unwinding of a sometimes too tight knit group of college Classics students as a criminal situation spirals out of their control. And don't bother with Tartt's The Little Friend, that was a tedious one to get through!)


I could probably go on and on, but really should do something work related! Do feel free to contribute personal faves as I'm always looking for additional reading inspiration.