Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


As usual, Pratchett starts with a simple joke, and takes you way beyond. When death is given his own hourglass, he gets a taste of what it's like to live on limited time. As usual, his reaction is to turn to the humans he harvests to attempt to understand his impending doom. He takes up farm work as a reasonable alternative to reaping souls. In a parallel story, the wizards of the Unseen University are dealing with a surfeit of life, the obvious result of which is, of course, a shopping mall, complete with evil shopping carts. When the wizards are captured by the mall, a group of reluctantly undead take up the fight. Pratchett's point or moral, for lack of a better term, is not as clear to me in this book as it has been in others, but I definitely got that Death chose not to go quietly, and that we are all better off with a Death who is both interested in and fascinated by us, than a faceless emotionless specter.



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They are singing "I'm a little candle, dressed in white."

Reindeer Pokey

This video was taken from the last row in the room by mommy standing on her tiptoes and holding the camera as high above her head as possible. The only way we could see her was on the camera screen. Not bad eh?

Kate's Perspective

nona made my new bed. it has pink covers. my quilt is pretty. i love nona and papa.

Grandma's Make It Special

Kate is very lucky to have some spectacular grandmothers, and I'm even luckier. As a parent I finally appreciate the purpose of grandma's. Mommies take care of the basics: food, baths, tooth brushing. Grandma's can do these things too, but they do them with so much more style. Grandma's take the time to make stuff special. Grandma's have the things kids really need, not just the basics. For example, it is time for Kate to have a big girl bed. While I would have gotten the job done, mostly with the help of Wal-Mart,Grandma came through with a hand pieced, hand quilted bedspread made just for Kate. It's not just a bedspread, it's love that keeps you warm at night.

And we mustn't forget that Papa painted the bed too. I'll say it again, Kate's one lucky kid, but I'm even luckier.

A Winter Day

It seems only yesterday we were enjoying the end of fall weather. Last night, however, winter showed up.

I was to drive to Kent today and present at a workshop. I'm particularly frustrated that on a day when I normally would stay home anyway, but on this particular one was scheduled to travel, I am snowed in. However, there are compensations:

Kate had a great time playing in the snow, and stopping every ten minutes to howl, "Snow in my glove, snow in my glove!" at which point I was required to remove my gloves, remove hers and dust all the snow away. Snow angels was a bit of a laborious process, made more so by the dog who is pretty sure he should help us when we are laying on our backs in the snow flapping around like gasping fish. He was really confused when he came to rescue us and we hollered at him to not ruin the angels. Fort Katie looks quite beautiful in the snow.

And my gardens are even more so since the snow means I have no responsibility to them whatsoever.

And what snow adventure is complete without hot chocolate?
In a tiny cup we found in the Christmas decorations. I wanted to hang them on the tree, but Kate was pretty sure they were just her size. You may spot a few tears in this picture. While wool socks are excellent for keeping little feet warm in snow boots, they are terribly slippery on the hardwood floor, and we had a wipeout.