Cassia's Reading: November 2008

19 ways to keep a healthy level of insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.
2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.
3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.
4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it 'In'.
5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.
6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks , Write ' For Smuggling Diamonds'.
7. Finish All Your sentences with 'In Accordance With The Prophecy'.
8. Don't use any punctuation.
9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is 'To Go'.
12. Sing Along At The Opera.
13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme?
14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.
15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their Party Because You're Not In the Mood.
16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.
17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream 'I Won! I Won!'
18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling 'Run For Your Lives ! They're Loose!'
19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, 'Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.'

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Edgar Allen Poe: Poetry for young people

In a colorfully illustrated picture book, Poe's poems come truly to life. I really loathe E. R. Poe's short stories (frankly they make me sick), but his rhythmic poetry creates an engaging landscape of usually dark but occasionally bright worlds. In Annabel Lee (as seen on the left hand side of my blog), perhaps one of Poe's most famous poems, Poe describes a fantasized version of his wife's death, and his wishes and thoughts afterward. Annabel Lee is probably my favorite poem of all time, partially because of the personal moods and feelings Poe expresses and partially because of the original rhymes and steady rhythms he set the poem to.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Grace at Low Tide

Grace at Low Tide by Beth Webb Hart is a wonderfully crafted inspirational novel about an origional blue blood teenage girl, DeVeaux, gone bankrupt. All around her, old and new friends on "both sides of the tracks" grow up and change from who she thought they were. DeVeaux's father is hit hard by their downfall. With the bankruptcy in addition to his mother and sister dying, he becomes a whole new person seperate from the father DeVeaux knew in her childhood. In a world where temptation are around every corner, and desperation and hopelessness shadow her every move, DeVeaux struggles to hold on to her faith.

I absolutely loved this novel because I think that anyone going through hard times in their life, or have at one point, can relate to DeVeaux's struggles with herself. I would give it five stars!

Cassia's Reading