Her Not So Storybook Life - The Book

Twitter oh how I love you, let me count the ways in 140 characters. No really I love twitter. I don’ know why, I just do. So today I get a tweet from Mabel’s House.


Okay, so I didn’t know who Mabel was before today or that she even had a house. Today however not only was I introduced to her but I was invited to read an excerpt of her new book. I was so excited I almost peed myself. Which I guess if you think about it is a lot better than peeing someone else. I digress.

So I read the clip from My (not so) Storybook Life by Elizabeth Owen. I loved it. I lived it. No really I lived the same situation she wrote about. I was there with her holding my breath, praying for fresh air and trying to keep the poopacalypse from seeping into every aspect of my being.

Ms Owen did a wonderful job and I can’t wait to read the rest of her not so Storybook life as soon as it is available. You need to too.

My Found Day

Not to seem ungrateful to all of you who have sent me birthday wishes but I feel compelled to correct you. Today is my “found” day. You see I was not born but instead my family unit found me under a rock many many years ago.  No really go read about it here.  I'll wait.  http://gladysspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/01/found-under-rock.html


Now you may recall from my earlier post about it that I might have been left by a circus that not-so-accidently moved on without me. This theory has long been Matilda’s explanation of my coming to reside with her family. You see for her it was the only way to confirm my enormous Dumbo like ears, brillo pad hair and my buck teeth.

Her theory lies in that I was in fact the love child of two circus freak performers and as such I was so hideous that even they didn’t want me. Trooper Bob and Nurse Meme being the giving loving people they were overlooked my hideousness and instead graciously took me into their home.

Matilda believed that they had in fact done this so that she would have someone to whom she could hand over her chores. Thus giving her more time in which she could separate her eyelashes and stroke her beautiful Marsha Brady hair.

Buck on the other hand was convinced that I had been left by an alien space craft which had unfortunately crashed upon the site. The alien baby seeking shelter crawled under the rock because it was similar to the conditions of its home planet.

In his theory there was a meteor which hurdled toward the earth burning and turning. It hit the earth’s atmosphere and much like Superman the meteoric like craft came crashing into an open expanse of desert. He tried to prove this theory by using me as his private laboratory specimen. I of course have had a fear of being struck by meteor’s my whole life not to mention I won’t go near kryptonite. Unfortunately the only “super” power I can report to is the ability to talk a person to death.

No really I can. I truly believe one of the reasons I have never been taken hostage is because terrorist take one look at me and say “No Fred, don’t take her. She will kill us with her words. Too many words.” Then like Dick Van Patton in High Anxiety they would be found dead on the ground with blood oozing from their orifices. I digress.



I believe I was explaining to you all that while “birth day” is appropriate for most normal humans, it does not relate to me. You see I am not a normal human. I am in fact the girl who was found under the rock. The anomaly, the mystery, the enigma of a being who never seemed to fit. I tried to talk like everyone else, walk like everyone else and even dress like everyone else. When Matilda got Farah Fawcett hair, I immediately went out and tried to replicate that but instead looked more like Gilda Radnor’s rendition of Roseanne RoseannaDanna.

When Buck excelled in math and science I too tried to understand the Pythagorean theorem but mistakenly understood that it had something to do with Pythons and I’m deathly afraid of snakes.

The whole point of this is to tell you thank you for celebrating my Found Day with me. You see every year on my Found Day I look in the mirror and celebrate the fact that I am. I don’t care that I was found under a rock. With each year I progress and learn to love my Dumbo ears and my Melissa Gilbert overbite.

Each year I age I accept the fact that I’m never going to be Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein. I instead take the day of my Finding to celebrate me.

So are your ears bleeding yet?

The Winter's In Bloom

A couple of months ago Simon and Shuster sent me a request to review a book. I’ve been unusually busy lolling about and being lazy and really hadn’t given it another thought. One day last week Kahuna looked at me with that look in his eye and whispered those loving words in my ear “Surf’s up!” I of course instantly grabbed my beach bag and bikini, yes I still wear a bikini it may not be pretty but I still wear one, and headed out the door. I did pause long enough to grab The Winter’s in Bloom by Lisa Tucker.


I read this story with the waves crashing and the sea gulls squalling but was oblivious to anything but Ms. Tucker’s story of a young woman’s strife and life as an abandoned child.

The story begins with a young over protected boy and the world in which he lives with two highly smothering parents. Michael, the boy, relates his world of making sure he made his parents feel safe about him being safe, but was he safe? He was beginning to believe he had made a huge mistake going with the nice lady.

The story winds and twists telling each character’s insecurities, feelings of guilt and reaction to the little boy whose has mysteriously gone missing. Each person has their suspicion as to who has taken him. Each character then must deal with the skeletons in their respective closets and try and figure out how they and their past played a part in Michael’s disappearance.

I loved this book because it is much more than a mystery it also gives us a glimpse of what many in our society wrestle with every day. We all have feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Ms Tucker really delves into how it affects her characters and the fears we create because of those feelings. It made me stop and think about how many of my fears are based on my perception of events and not on truths.

Ms. Tucker kept me turning pages and wanting to know how this family could and would work through this horrific event. She did so beautifully with the right tempo and beat only revealing the facts as they were needed.

I recommend The Winter’s in Bloom by Lisa Tucker which is scheduled for release on September 13, 2011. Download it on your Nook, Kindle or Ipad or go all wild and old school and pick up the hard copy at your local bookstore. You will be glad you did.