Monday, March 16, 2009

I'm leaving the club...

For those in the know, I've been a member of the Harlequin Book(s) of the month club for a couple years or so. I am going to have to quit though. When I joined up I got to select the type of books I wanted to receive. Unfortunately I couldn't specify Pirates, Vikings, or the Scots, but it did let me select Historical. Over the last few months it has apparently become optional to send me selections from the ONE group I specified I wanted books from. It started with a contemporary romance thrown in now and again. I didn't mind, because they were actually quite good and I enjoyed them, so I let the slip pass as the other 2 or 3 books were historical.

Then I got a book that was about a deformed girl with no face who never knew her family and the aunt who finally found out about her because the girl had been hidden by some crazy government/corporation thing. It was an almost thriller and I kept reading hoping for some sort of smut-related happening. I hoped in vain. Sorry to spoil the end for you, but the aunt ends up as a hostage and when the dude goes to shoot her, forces the gun to her eye so that her face could be given to her niece. Yeah, it was sappy but it was a fairly entertaining book. However, it was NOT smut. I complained and the historical romance started coming again, in fact I believe the next shipment included "The Pirate Bride", so I was satisfied once again.

Then I got a NASCAR themed novel. Are you kidding me? Not only are you sending Contemporary when I requested Historical, but now it's about car racing? I like pirates and vikings and knights and sword fighting and whatnot. What the crap do I want to read about car racing? I read it though. I figured I should at least give it a try. Well, it wasn't good. I mean, the smut parts were really good, but I could have done with the rest of the story and it dragged the whole thing down overall. This was nearly the last straw. However, I decided to give them another chance because once again, it came with historical smut too.

This however has now changed. Mid last week I received the second set in a row with NO historical smut. This is not acceptable. Additionally not only were they not historical, but they could barely be termed romance. Especially in the largest of the three books. The main character is a widow and she has a little widow's group where they make lists of their wishes. 2 of the characters fall in love and all that jazz, but it's very tame and peripheral to the main story. The main character just wants to go to Paris with someone she loves and it's something she never got to do with her husband before he died. Well, of course she doesn't fall in love, she ends up adopting a little girl and they plan to go to Paris because now she has someone she loves to go with her. Puke. Seriously, they should not be allowed to send this crap out labeled with romance because it's not. They should label it something like "Super sappy make you cry oh and there are dudes, but the women aren't focused on them they are focused on their loving friendships and parenting crap".

I will be cancelling my subscription and apparently I'm just going to have to create my own Smut of the Month by hitting up the Barnes & Noble one payday each month.

Now, for those of you left reading after that, I give you the rugrat portion of the post. We hit up the zoo on Saturday with Aunt Allee and had a great time. We were there for almost 4 hours and were able to see Muke. She's the gorilla that has cancer and isn't expected to live much longer. Malia was very happy to be able to see her, and then very sad when we got to the reptile house and the Anaconda that was her favorite animal in the zoo was gone. It passed away in January. She bounced back after we discovered that the crocodile is nesting, so there will most likely be baby ones fairly soon. Well, I don't know how soon. I'm no crocodile expert so I really couldn't tell you when they will be here.

After the zoo Malia got to go back and hang with Allee and her husband Matt while I went to my cousin Jessica's wedding dinner. It was a lovely dinner and the highlight for me was the little girl sitting at the table next to us who kept saying "ew" everytime Jessica and her husband kissed. I also enjoyed the stories the boys told about Jess. I don't envy her growing up with 5 brothers. I much prefer the 3 girls to 1 boy ratio in my own family. HAHA JC!

Anyway, rugrat and I have been discussing getting a cat again for some time. We had to give up the 2 siamese cats we had when we moved because our condo is just too small for two cats. I didn't want to split them up because they were from the same litter and had always been together. Every time we've discussed a cat, I've told her that I wouldn't be getting one until she finished cleaning her room. Well, on Saturday after spending a few hours at Allee's playing with her cats, Malia asked again. I told her that if her room were clean, I'd buy her a cat the next day. I didn't think much of it and we headed home and went to bed after the long day.

I dragged my sorry behind out of bed about 9 Sunday morning. I had been awake since about 7:30, but didn't want to get up so I stayed burrowed into my covers. I got up and while I was trying to get my contacts in Malia kept harassing me to hurry so I could come see her room. I didn't think much of it because she randomly moves stuff around or sticks pictures on the wall to show me. Well, that's not what she did. I don't know what time she got up, but she managed to clean her entire bedroom and put EVERYTHING away. Outside of needing a good vacuum, her room was spotless. She reminded me what I'd promised the day before. So, we got a cat. His name is Butch and he's from the Summit County Friends of Animals. He's 5 and completely black with green-yellow eyes. He's also a ton of fun and likes to cuddle, but not too much cuddling. Anyway, here's a link to the only picture I've managed. The little bugger runs off everytime I break out the camera. Yes, he's really that dark. He doesn't have any white spots or anything, he's pure black.

Now we're back in Adventuring season, I'm hoping to get posting a bit more often. It's hard to post when your adventures consist of cooking spaghetti casserole and reading a smut novel.