I was reading a novel that I was really getting into. It's Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I guess it falls into the Sci Fi/Fantasy genre, which is not one I typically embrace. Odd for a chick who loved The X-Files, Star Trek TNG and DS9, eh? Steve gave me the book when he left for Saipan and I finally got around to reading it. It was a bit slow in the beginning but then I got into it - willing suspension of disbelief and all that. I flipped to the back NOT TO READ THE END but to see the # of pages: 388. The story seemed to be wrapping up but there were too many pages left. I was intrigued - what last-minute plot twist was Gaiman going to toss my way? Then it ended. Bam. Turns out the last 18 pages are a preview of his subsequent novel! I felt cheated. I was quite disappointed. It's not that Neverwhere had a bad ending; it didn't. I was just looking forward to 18 more pages of it.

Yesterday I had a 4th of July gathering of sorts. It's hard to celebrate Independence Day while Bush shows absolutely no shame. Happy Birthday USA oh, and by the way, Scooter doesn't have to serve an hour of time. Martha Stewart, yes. Even Paris Hilton for Christ's sake. But Scooter? Nope. God Bless America, right? Wow. So there was no way I could do the patriotic fireworks glorification of our government. No, instead we had a wake. The theme was black and it started with chocolate martinis. I definitely do not think that alcoholic beverages should be so sweet. Give me a scotch (single malt, highland please), a good tequila or a g&t but not something with vanilla vodka (stoli's of course), Grand Marnier, creme de cacao & Godiva liqueur. Too sweet. The dark theme continued throughout the courses -- charcoal (we grilled) and a heck of a lot of chocolate. Someone brought a homemade cake, Patrick brought homemade chocolate mousse with raspberries (yummy!) and I got a cake from Robyn Loves Cake. If you are ever in the Sta B area and need a cake for an occasion, do order one from Robyn. She is over-the-top. I told her the party's theme and I made a few suggestions. Here is what she created:


Around the edges were chocolate tombstones with: RIP Justice; RIP Reason; RIP Free Speech; RIP Habeas Corpus; RIP Mother Earth; RIP Abortion Rights; RIP 3583 US Soldiers; RIP 73,000+ Iraqi Civilians; RIP Peace; RIP Tolerance. It was a glorious cake! And with chocolate devil's food cake and a mocha buttercream frosting, it was a tasty and tasteful wake. It's even good the next day (munch munch).

We also watched these cheesy DVDs I have. My brother and his wife gave me this "Pure 80's the Ultimate DVD Box" set for Christmas. To be honest, I hadn't opened it before yesterday. OMG. It is so bad it's good. Really. I had forgotten how cheesy those 80s videos were. It took me back to middle school when I would go home from school and plop down in front of MTV. Scary thing is that I knew most of the songs' lyrics by heart. Ug. Who wants to have "Sister Christian" memorized? Wow. I guess the next question is who admits in a public forum to knowing "Sister Christian" by heart? Whoops. Good thing no one is reading this anyway. One of the party attendees said, "It's just not the same without Martha Quinn." True enough. I learned from this same guest that "The Safety Dance" was actually a song protesting slam dancing so all self-respecting punker wanna bes had to reject it outright. Who knew? Another person said, "Wow. The narrative music video. How many years did that fad last?" I guess music videos aren't like that anymore. I don't know; MTV just seems to have lame ass programming now. Whenever I surf through it I don't see music videos. Blondie's "Rapture" video looked like someone had an early camcorder (maybe Betamax, ha ha ha) and filmed the whole video with that. Quite special. I'll have to remember to thank Phil & Erin for that gift. It was the life of the wake!