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Me [as a jellyfish] dancing with Lady Gaga at our neighbor's Halloween Party last Saturday.

I love surprises. This week I'm going to post about things that have surprised me lately. You never know where a good idea might come from or who might inspire you. A few weekends back Joe and I were at a Harvest Festival at a local winery. I was uninspired for my Halloween costume--thinking I'd go as a hula girl. Sort of not into it. So I asked the folks we were with at the festival what they were dressing up as for Halloween. Nobody had a party to go to, but one gal at the table said, "I don't have anywhere to go, but if I did, I know exactly what I'd go as." I thought it was so cute that she was so passionate about the subject. "I'd go as a jellyfish if I had one of those clear umbrellas." I'm like, I've got one of those. She said to Google Martha Stewart jellyfish costume. And I did. Pretty fitting since we live right on Monterey Bay. Nice to tie Halloween to where we happen to be living at the time too. I made a few upgrades adding a boa and some battery operated lights, which were a hit. It was a blast. One guy who was a pirate kept asking me if I sting all night. Hilarious. And the funny thing was my neighbor didn't recognize me at all and wondered who "that girl" was. You all have any Halloween party stories?

Who's taking who for a walk?

My very first submission to SFG and I'm late. I'm just happy to be here.

Today isn’t our Oxford World’s Classics discussion day (hence my bad pun about an “unblogday”). Don’t be too upset though, because we will be discussing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on Thursday. Get ready for some maddening discussion!

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Part of a series on invertabrates, Gooey Jellyifsh presents facts about these spineless sea creations in clear short sentences... Read the rest of this post

Girl at Sea by Maureen Johnson is about-- who would have guessed?-- a girl at sea.

Clio Ford is a 17-year-old girl with a most fabulous tattoo and, she thinks, a most fabulous summer plan. But then Things Go Terribly Wrong. Her mother, an artist (Clio is an artist as well) gets a fellowship for the summer that causes her to move to Kansas. Clio has to give up her summer job at the art store with the Cute Boy and spend the summer with her father on a yacht in Italy. Oh, the horror.

Yacht = good, right? Clio doesn't think so. Bad relationship with father + no Cute Boy + no art store = lots of teen angst. But it's all good fun. And anyway, there's another Cute Boy, and he's much more awesome.

Anyhow, there's an ancient archeological mystery, some jellyfish, and much snarkyness. Read it. Don't let the cover fool you-- it's good.*

Oh and Aiden (that's the Cute Boy-- the one on the boat, I mean, not the one from the art store) is most wonderful. And he has great hair.

I bestow upon this book 3.5 daggers, because it is enjoyable and very entertaining, not to mention well written... but it's fairly frivolous. I mean, it's not a great work of liturature, but who wants to read nothing but great works of literature?** But, I mean, it's good, but it's, er...

Okay. I'll say it.

It's a girly book.

You got a problem with that?

Laughing at headless girls, reading girly books, fearing jellyfish, and yours,

*For some reason, two other books by Maureen Johnson have covers with girls who only have half of a head. Disturbing.

** Okay, so quite a few people, but my point is NOT ME.