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Interview Me!

Kimba at Stay Sane Inside Insanity has chosen to Interview Me (read her interview here). If you'd also like to be interviewed, leave me a post & check out the "rules" below!

Here are her questions and my answers:

1. You've just been given $1000. What are you going to spend it on?

I would probably spend it on paying student loans, but that isn't very fun. So, instead, I would use it to pay for my airfare to England. I have long wanted to go there. See my next answer.

2. Where would you like to visit that you've never been to?

I would love to visit England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Going to those countries would be my dream trip and I would want to stay for ages and ages.

3. If you could instantly be given a talent, which would you choose?

I would love to be able to sing and sing opera, like Renee Fleming (and then I could duet with Josh Groban!). Isn't it beautiful?

4. Where did you last dine out & what did you order?

This afternoon I had lunch with my sister and father at one of our favorite restaurants/diner, Ferguson's. The diner scenes in Benny & Joon, starring Johnny Depp, were filmed at Ferguson's. They have great, inexpensive food. I had the half-order of French Toast with Bacon. Even the half-order is a ton of food. They use big, thick bread and lots of cinnamon. I like tons of syrup. Soooo good! I also had chocolate milk.

5. Do you subscribe to any magazines? Which ones?

I subscribe to Every Day with Rachael Ray (my favorite), Cooks Illustrated, Taste of Home, and Entertainment Weekly. I think that's it. I only subscribe to Entertainment Weekly because I got a free 8 week subscription when I purchased a movie and I haven't canceled, even though it has been a year and a half! Silly me!

Thanks, Kimba! Kimba and I share a birthday and a love of all things Regency England.

If you want to continue, here are the rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

We're going to see Josh Groban!

Ahh! I just bought tickets to see Josh Groban with my friends Aj and Lady Lori, in Seattle on 18 August 2007! I am soooooo very excited and we got absolutely fabulous seats!

Are you going?

For Shakespeare and St. George

Today is the great William Shakespeare's birthday and the Feast Day of England's patron Saint, St. George. Both events are worthy of note. So,

Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!

And,

"Cry God for Harry, England and St George!"
William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1, l. 31

I highly recommend this column about both.

26!

I will be away this weekend, working on a retreat, and my birthday is Saturday, 21 April (I share it with Queen Elizabeth II and Charlotte Bronte!)! There will be no posting (not that it hasn't been light already!). I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Friendship is the Finest Balm

I saw this quote over at the Jane Austen Quote of the Day blog and had to post it. Most appropriate (and I am also re-reading Northanger Abbey).

"Friendship is surely the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love."

• Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 4

For K.: Adieu

How well do you know HP?

Entertainment Weekly has an abbreviated version of the huge Harry Potter quiz they put in the 6 April magazine. You can take the 12-question version here.

If you haven't seen the cover of Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, you can find it here (and pre-order it here.).

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling, Book 7,

'Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art'

I love Keats' poetry, particularly poems such as "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (sadly, it foretells Keats' fate), "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," and "Ode On A Grecian Urn."

The Guardian (UK): Film-makers fall in love with Keats:

Rarely has death seemed so cruel yet so poetic. John Keats fell in love with Fanny Brawne when he saw her walking in her garden and was inspired to produce some of the most beautiful verse and love letters ever written. By the age of 25 he was dead, the world robbed of his genius by tuberculosis.

Perhaps it was only a matter of time before such ingredients caught a filmmaker's eye. The intense but doomed affair is to be the subject of a literary biopic written and directed by Oscar winner Jane Campion.
[. . .]
The film's title, Bright Star, comes from a love poem for Brawne which Keats wrote in the flyleaf of his copy of the works of Shakespeare. It begins: 'Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art'. It finishes with the memorable lines: 'Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,/To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,/Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,/ Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,/ And so live ever - or else swoon to death.'

Keats's life was even shorter than those of fellow Romantic poets Byron and Shelley. Living in Hampstead, north London, between 1818 and 1820, he enjoyed a stupendous burst of creativity, producing works including 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'The Eve of St Agnes'. Brawne was the daughter of the family who lived next door and Keats initially considered her a 'minx' but could not help falling in love with her. They became engaged in October 1819 but the wedding day would never arrive. Stricken by tuberculosis, Keats was advised to seek a warmer climate, and left Britain for Italy in 1820. His final poem was called simply: 'To Fanny'.

Sadly, Keats and Fanny never met again. But such romance . . .

Gravely ill in Naples, he wrote of his love for Brawne to his friend Charles Brown: 'The persuasion that I shall see her no more will kill me... I can bear to die - I cannot bear to leave her. Oh, God! God! God! Every thing I have in my trunks that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. The silk lining she put in my travelling cap scalds my head. My imagination is horridly vivid about her - I see her - I hear her. There is nothing in the world of sufficient interest to divert me from her for a moment... O that I could be buried near where she lives!... Oh, Brown, I have coals of fire in my breast. It surprises me that the human heart is capable of containing and bearing so much misery. Was I born for this end?'

He never saw her again and died in Rome in February 1821, unappreciated by the literary establishment during his lifetime. Brawne soon fell ill and went into mourning as if she had been married to Keats, wearing a widow's black dress for three years and spending hours in her room re-reading his letters or wandering alone on Hampstead Heath. In 1833 she married and later had two children, but never took off the ring Keats had given her. It is now on display in the museum at Keats's house, along with a lock of her hair and a letter to her from the poet.

You will find more information on John Keats, as well as his poetry, letters, etc., here.

Technorati Tags: John Keats, Fanny Brawne, Poetry, Films, Bright Star,

He Is Risen! Alleluia!

Luke 24:1-9:

1 But at daybreak on the first day of the week they took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

4 While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. 5 They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, "Why do you seek the living one among the dead? 6 He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day."

8 And they remembered his words.

9 Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others.


Jesus Christ is Risen Today! Alleluia!
Happy Easter!

Opening Day for America's Pastime!

Today is Opening Day for the 2007 Baseball Season! I am watching my Seattle Mariners take on the Oakland A's. Go M's!

Who are you cheering for?

100 Books

I have seen this several places and have even received it in my e-mail. Why I decided to do it today, I have no idea. I am not going to tag anyone, but feel free to copy it.

The 100 Books Meme
• bold the ones you’ve read
• italicize the ones you want to read
• cross out the ones you won’t touch with a 10 foot pole
• put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf
• asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. + Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. + To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. + The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. + The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. + The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. + Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11.+ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13.+ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. + Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone (J.K. Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. + Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J.K. Rowling)
20. + Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. + The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. + The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. + Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. *The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. + Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. + The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. *Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. + 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. *The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. *The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. + Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. + Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. + A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. *Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. + Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. + The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. + Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. * Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. + Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. + The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. + Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. + Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. + Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. * The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. * Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. * Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. * In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. + Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Ludlum)
96. + The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)