How to amuse yourself while commuting ... A Thursday Thirteen on Monday

Well folks, it's that time again. Yes ... I just had one of my quarterly commutes into and out of hell (L.A. traffic for those who don't know what I'm referring to). So of course I've got to unload by blogging about it. Since I try to turn anything unpleasant into something at least tolerable, I thought of ways to "play" while driving. What follows is a brief list of things you can do to amuse yourself while commuting in bumper-to-bumper traffic:

1. Listen to Old Time Radio shows on XM Radio.
2. Bring favorite coffee drink to enjoy in the car.
3. Pretend that you're just sitting around enjoying your coffee (since all you are doing during most of the commute is "sitting around"; this delusion is helped greatly if you have comfy car seats).
4. Compose blog posts by talking into a hand held tape recorder during the "not moving" times.
5. Work on other writing projects like novels/poems/short stories using that hand held tape recorder.
6. Scare the person in the car next to you by smiling when they look over at you.
7. Further scare the person in the car next to you by "toasting" them with your coffee cup.
8. Leave room for the 18-wheeler trying to merge over to one of the right 2 lanes where all big trucks belong (many of the freeways have left lane merges from other freeways leaving big trucks to work their way over to the right hand lanes).
9. Flash your headlights for the big truck so the driver knows he has room to move over in front of you (especially cool if the driver blinks his running lights to say "thank you").
10. Get in your ab exercises by doing abdominal squeezes (just think what a flat tummy you could have if you commute regularly!).
11. File your nails during the traffic stand stills (I can usually get at least one nail filed for each stand still).
12. Dust the car dashboard during "not moving" times (this should really be limited to the driver's side).
13. See if you can find the traffic report on AM radio when you see the traffic news helicopter fly overhead (just think ... you're part of the news!).

Feel free to add to this list in the comments section and happy commuting!

How many of these books have YOU read?

Somehow I found myself at Literary Cache and read this book meme. Apparently, I was automatically tagged because I read it! And of course I'm always up for book action.

Look at the list below: Bold the books you've read; Italicize the books you want to read; and leave the formatting alone for the ones you aren't interested in. I've also added additional notes in blue.

This reminds me a bit of a "game" I played with fellow Lit majors during my undergrad years. It involved drinking coffee into the wee hours of the morning and 'fessing up to some of the "greats" of literature that we had not yet read. Of course, one just can not have read everything so there was no shame involved, but it was revealing of just how much there is to read.

Enjoy the meme and TAG! You're it!

1. The DaVinci 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 Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (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) [read it but didn't care for it]
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. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) [read in part and need to finish]
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) [I did read 'Tis and will be reading Teacher Man]
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) [I'm not sure if I want to read this or if I just think I should]
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 Traveling 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 (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) [didn't like it enough to read the others in the series]
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 (Robert 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)

Sleeping with Bread: Where IS my bread anyway?

I'm having a difficult time these days keeping track of where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing. I'm sure none of you can relate (wink). I don't know if I'm coming or going ... and if my Outlook calendar doesn't "blip" at me and tell me what I should be doing at any given moment I'm likely to miss the meeting, forget the class, confuse the deadline. Case in point: I'm writing a Sleeping with Bread Monday on Tuesday. Obviously my calendar forgot to tell me to get this done.

A friend recently compared keeping track of her schedule to the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is looking out the window and various people and things whirl by. I can SO relate to this. Oh look! There goes JJ with a birthday party hat on her head -- maybe she'll get my gift on time if I FedEx it overnite. And there goes my husband -- oh no! I forgot that I was going to meet him at Islands for dinner 1/2 hour ago. Gee, why did my boss just whirl by the window? Oh yeah ... we have a meeting in 15 minutes -- maybe I'll get all green lights between home and work and can make it just in time (now there's a fantasy!).

Yes, my life is very busy and I often feel like the tornado is going to pick me up and never let go -- I will just whirl around forever trying to grab parts of my life as they whizz by. THEN ... then ... I suddenly find myself in the peaceful eye of that storm. I receive a phone call from JJ telling me all about her birthday and "thank you" for the present. I have a relaxing 2 hour dinner with my husband who doesn't mind that I'm 1/2 hour late. I get to the meeting just in time and find a cup of coffee waiting for me.

I feel needed. I feel loved. I feel appreciated.

Sleeping with Bread is a Monday meme thought up by Mary at Life, the Universe and Everything.

BOOK REVIEW: So ... What IS the What?

The book club I attend has been reading What is the What by Dave Eggers. We haven't discussed it yet but I'm looking forward to the meeting. Briefly stated, What is the What is an autobiographical novel about one of the Lost Boys of Sudan named Achak Deng. What most inspired me going into this read was the chance to learn about something to which I've only given peripheral attention. I'm guilty of tuning out when I hear news about warfare and genocide in Africa. I've become numb to reports of yet more tragedy (hardly a strong enough word) on this continent that has seen and continues to see so much human degradation. I've turned the other way to avoid the discomfort of dealing with another person's pain.

The last paragraph of the book speaks to people like me -- people who are able to go about their lives in fair comfort and view the troubles of the rest of the world from a distance.

Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories. I have spoken to every person I have encountered these last difficult days, and every person who has entered this club during these awful morning hours, because to do anything else would be something less than human. I speak to these people, and I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. I covet your eyes, your ears, the collapsible space between us. How blessed are we to have each other? I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don't want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist. (Emphasis is mine.)

I have no glorified view of myself running out and hurling body and soul into the cause of the Lost Boys after reading What is the What, but my view of other people has been altered. I will find it impossible to pretend that those who are different than me don't exist; to look the other way because someone makes me feel uncomfortable or I can not bear to see their pain. The very least I can do is look people in the eyes and thereby acknowledge they are there ... that we have crossed paths and that they have a story that is just as important as my own -- probably even more important.

Achak's story doesn't begin with suffering and loss. In fact, he is a typical 6 year old boy in the village of Marial Bai. Traditions and wisdom are passed from generation to generation by stories. One of these stories involves the beginning of time. Achak's father is asked to tell this story at a gathering. The story goes as follows:

--When God created the earth, he first made us, the monyjang. Yes, first he made the monyjang, the first man, and he made him the tallest and strongest of the people under the sky....
--Yes, God made the monyjang tall and strong, and he made their women beautiful, more beautiful than any of the creatures on the land....
--[A]nd when God was done, and the monyjang were standing on the earth waiting for instruction, God asked the man, "Now that you are here, on the most sacred and fertile land I have, I can give you one more thing. I can give you this creature, which is called the cow...."
--Yes ... God showed man the idea of the cattle, and the cattle were magnificent. They were in every way exactly what the monyjang would want. The man and woman thanked God for such a gift, because they knew that the cattle would bring them milk and meat and prosperity of every kind. But God was not finished....
--God said, "You can either have these cattle, as my gift to you, or you can have the What...."
--But... What is the What?
--Yes, yes. That was the question. So the first man lifted his head to God and asked what this was, this What. "What is the What?" the first man asked. And God said to the man, "I cannot tell you. Still, you have to choose. You have to choose between the cattle and the What." Well then. The man and the woman could see the cattle right there in front of them, and they knew that with cattle they would eat and live with great contentment. They could see the cattle were God's most perfect creation, and that the cattle carried something godlike within themselves. They knew that they would live in peace with the cattle, and that if they helped the cattle eat and drink, the cattle would give man their milk, would multiply every year and keep the monyjang happy and healthy. So the first man and woman knew they would be fools to pass up the cattle for this idea of the What. So the man chose cattle. And God has proven that this was the correct decision. God was testing the man. He was testing the man, to see if he could appreciate what he had been given, if he could take pleasure in the bounty before him, rather than trade it for the unknown. And because the first man was able to see this, God has allowed us to prosper. The Dinka live and grow as the cattle live and grow....
--Yes, but uncle Deng, may I ask something? ... You didn't tell us the answer: What is the What?
--We don't know. No one knows.

I contemplated this question throughout the entire reading of the book -- what exactly IS the What? The story above actually gave away the answer to this question. It was not done overtly, but if one remembers that the first man chose cattle over the What -- that he chose contentment with what he had been given -- then the What seems more obvious. The What is the opposite of living contentedly with what one has. The What is the striving to gain what one does NOT have -- the grasping for power and wealth ... sometimes at great expense to others.

Achak's people experienced the fury of the What firsthand and were forced to flee their villages. The hope of the fleeing Sudanese was to arrive in a land flowing with milk and honey -- a paradise of peace and contentment. But instead of paradise, Achak finds that his relocation -- first to Ethiopia, then to Kenya, and finally to the United States -- does not leave behind the What. The What is all around him and he cannot escape this most ugly part of humanity. Assuredly this ugliness is more obvious and terrible in some places than in others, but in the end no people group and no place is immune from the What.

***************************
Also reviewed by:
Lezlie at Books 'N Border Collies

Thursday Thirteen: Meet the Blogger

I've been having a bit of trouble writing lately, so I looked into a variety of memes and prompts to help me through this period of writer's block. I thought I'd put the Thursday Thirteen meme to work this week. Some of you know me personally, but many of us have never met and you only know me through what I reveal in my writing here at Tip of the Iceberg. And I don't reveal too much! So this week's Thursday Thirteen will serve the purpose of providing a bit of information to help you put together a picture of Terri B. If I ever bother to sit down and figure out how to get the pictures from my camera onto the computer (not hard I'm sure), I'll post a current picture of myself (though I am partial to the picture of 4-year old Terri B. attached to my profile).

1. I've made the bed every morning for the last 3 months. This is a big deal. Really. As I've mentioned somewhere else on this blog, I'm not a terribly disciplined person. Focused, yes. Disciplined, no. I've rarely made the bed for the 25 years I've been married. I made the bed all through my childhood and continued this habit even while living in a college dorm. It was only when I got married that I quit this habit -- not sure why. Recently my general lack of discipline started to bother me so I vowed to work on this area of my life a piece at a time starting with this "messy." The house looks so much tidier with the bed made! I had no idea how much difference this would make, but it is quite noticeable. The big payoff is the increased motivation to take care of other household duties. Who could have known that making the bed would do all this??


2. I've been married for 25 years to the same wonderful man.


3. I met my husband at university. I was wandering around campus one evening with a friend and we heard a band playing. We followed the sound until we found the origin of all the noise. My now husband was playing guitar with his band. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Two years later we were married. He still plays guitar.


4. I have 3 granddaughters. I skipped parenting and went straight to grandparenting. Well ... that is not completely true. I parented and continue to parent, but because of circumstances I've never felt comfortable calling myself a mom. Grandma, on the other hand, feels completely natural. Perhaps I'll write a bit more about this around Mother's Day.


5. I'm short ... 4'10" to be exact. But I tell people that I'm 5 feet.


6. Most people don't realize how short I am until they are standing right next to me. My proportions help camouflage my short stature.


7. I recently got my weight down to a healthy level. I gained about 25 pounds over a period of 25 years. This was a slow weight gain that was easy to ignore until recently. I didn't like the way I felt carrying this extra weight, I didn't like the way I looked carrying this extra weight, and my doctor was not happy about the extra weight. Now that extra weight is gone and I can't tell you how much better I feel.


8. I'm a librarian and, no, I did not choose this profession because I love books ... even though I do love books. I chose to become a librarian because I like to connect people to the information that they need. It's a world-wide-web-of-confusion out there and I get satisfaction from helping bring some order to the chaos.


9. I have a "book problem." I have altogether too many books in my personal library. I'm working on this problem. I'm learning to pass along many books after I've read them. I've also been trying to make better use of my public library card -- you'd think this would be a no brainer for a librarian.


10. I didn't get my first car until I was 37. What I should say is that I didn't get my VERY OWN first car until age 37. My husband and I walked/biked/bussed everywhere for the first 2 years of marriage. We then bought one car and remained a one-car family for the next 15 years.


11. My car's name is Sophie.


12. I've cycled in 2 different century rides. For those who don't know about century rides, this means riding a bicycle on a pre-arranged 100-mile route in one day. Yup, I did it.


13. My favorite vacation involved a 2 week long tag team bicycle ride up and over the Colorado Rockies with my husband. A typical day would start out with husband on the bike. I would drive ahead about 45-50 miles, then wait by the side of the road and enjoy the beautiful alpine scenery and do a little reading. Once husband reached the waiting vehicle, the switch would be made. He would take off in the car and I would ride until I found him by the side of the road enjoying the scenery and reading. All went well until I got wrapped up in the beauty of the drive on the Million Dollar Highway and drove ahead about 70 miles without realizing how far I'd gone or how high in altitude I'd climbed. I waited by the side of the road. And waited. And waited. Finally, I saw husband in the distance steadily pedaling up the mountain to the waiting vehicle. He stopped next to me gasping for air and unable to speak (probably a good thing for me). Not surprising since I was waiting at the top of Red Mountain Pass at an altitude of 11,018 feet. Oops.