I have worn the same earrings for about a year straight. Before that, it was another pair for another year, and so on, back to the nineties. Boring, I know. So this morning I got all wacky and decided to celebrate “logical Friday” by switching it up for another pair of earrings. Exciting life, eh?

I have plenty of pairs of earrings, some left over from the Reagan administration and mile-high bangs. I keep a small selection in a heart-shaped ceramic dish with a lid. I went digging around in there to find a matching pair that were somewhat more recently in style. As I was dishing around, I found a human tooth.

The tooth was obviously one of the kids’ and obviously left over from the Era of the Tooth Fairy, but that was awhile ago and finding it freaked me out a little and in a heartbeat, I lost all previously-held sentimentality. Yuck.

Jen on the Edge has some years of sentimentality left in her, and some pretty darn cute Tooth Fairy stories. Rock on, Jen. I’ll be over here on the sidelines in my fun earrings.

When I was a little girl, my father would develop a summer reading list for me. Written in his tiny, illegible to all but me handwriting, the list would fill a page of a legal-sized pad. I loved these lists, populated with treasures like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Orwell’s 1984 and Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. My dad fueled in me a love of reading and of wanting to be a writer; as I read books of lesser quality than those on his suggested reading list (piles of Nancy Drews, for example) I often thought, “I could do this.”

One guy who can do this, and does, is my blogger buddy Dwight Wannabe, who has published a reading meme this week; go see what you’ve read on his list. I published a slightly different version of this on Writing the Good Read (my long-neglected reading and writing blog) last year. I don’t have the energy to go through the exercise again, but note with some pleasure that I could check several more on that list as read.

My sister sent me an e-mail with a request for summer reading recommendations. I have a few, so I thought I’d share with the lot of you.

The Marijean Jaggers Summer Reading List

Disclaimer: This list is not for the feint of heart or wily-nily, namby pamby readers; nope, this is for the hard-core, plow through a novel in two days types. Yeah, the two of you reading this blog. You guys.

The Last Summer (of You and Me) A departure from my usual taste, this novel is the quintessential beach read. Read with sand under your butt and a drink, preferably with an umbrella in it, in your hand. It’s just this side of schmaltz, but engaging enough to get you through a long flight or an interminable car ride.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union Say it with me: Sha-bone! This is the first Michael Chabon book I’ve read and ya know? I think I get the buzz. I liked this book enough to highly recommend it to the other high-level discerning reader in my house. It’s funny and charming.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Foer’s style is so incredibly engaging I had a hard time putting this down. As a 9/11 novel, as it appears, there is a sort-of sub-genre that has emerged, I really like the way that event is treated and how it is not the core of the book, merely a character. If you like this, read Everything is Illuminated too. Foer is a genius.

Life of Pi If you’re vacationing on a beach or worse, on a boat, skip this till you’re inland for awhile but I promise you’ll enjoy it as thoroughly as I did.

My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead I’m having a long, drawn out love affair with the short story. I know it’s not popular or profitable but damn it, I love short fiction and always will. This collection of short love stories is edited by Jeffrey Eugenides, of Middlesex fame. Not all love stories have a happy ending and some are all the better for it.

Those Who Save Us Some books I read fade like the light at the end of the day from my memory. This one, though I read it several months ago HAUNTS me. The images created are as clear to me as if I’d hidden and glimpsed them inside a lighted window. I am forever changed for having read it.

(To paraphrase Dwight): Go read something.

Our kids are gone. The girl is on the great grandparent tour of 2008, visiting my in-laws, my husband’s grandparents and my parents. The boy has a night job which means he’s off to work before we finish our workdays and home long after we’re asleep. It’s awfully quiet around the house.

MAN, IS IT GREAT!

We’re experiencing how the other half lives, or what our lives will be like with the empty nest. We don’t really know how to do this so dinners are still made for four and we have a fridge full of leftovers. We often sit and just look at one another. After we’re done talking about our days and updates on the kids we just fall silent, and go about pursuing our separate interests. We have much more to say to the dog, who is taking on the role of surrogate child for the time being.

Yesterday, during a conversation with a friend, I invited her to dinner. It was a very spur-of-the-moment invitation. We hadn’t seen each other for some time and so I said, hey, come on over. I’ll even feed you. She accepted and I immediately began scheduling when I’d go to the store, what I’d make for dinner, how I’d clean up the house and when. I remembered to IM my husband to tell him about our unexpected dinner guest.

Somehow I managed it; cleaning up while dinner cooked (stuffed shells, salad and cheesebread) and even YES, baking a chocolate chip bourbon pecan pie for dessert. (Pecan pie is one of the easiest, quickest pies to assemble. Baking takes about an hour so if you start the pie as you’re starting dinner, it will be ready to eat after it has cooled.) Our friend showed up right at 7pm, just as everything was coming out of the oven. We talked uncensored, (without kids ears at the table, no topic is verboten) laughed and shared some wine (me) and beer (my husband and my friend) and generally had a wonderful time.

I’m not much of an impromptu person, so this was quite a leap for me, but as soon as the offer was made, I was able to plan everything else.

Our kid-free evenings will continue for another week and of course I’m planning another painting project to take advantage of the three-day weekend. I’m filled with post-vacation ambition that will hopefully last the rest of the summer. It’s fun to be living the life of the childless, but only because I know she’ll be back soon and the boy will eventually have a day off from work.

I haven’t forgotten those endless days of toddlers and diapers, of not even being able to go to the bathroom by myself and never, ever having a moment alone. I’m here to tell you: those days DO end and you, too will have kid respite in your future. You’re gonna love it.

We took a trip up the coast to Rockport, Mass. and stayed in the perfect seaside retreat.

The house has 10 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms; a good thing when 21 relatives are reuniting in it for four days. Here’s the view from the lawn:

Two working lighthouses on an island in the bay, one beach in walking distance and another, sandier beach a short drive away.

We had some lobstas:

And some steamas:

and stopped pronouncing our “r”s, especially when we went into Glousta, er, Glouchester.

The girl wrestled with and ate her own lobster, filling us with pride.

It was a great family reunion in a perfect vacation spot. We had a great time visiting with family, eating tremendous amounts of delicous food and relaxing.  

I’ve been away on a several-city tour including Newport News, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, Norfolk in Va., Clifton Park in N.Y., Rockport, Boston and Glouchester in Massachusetts and now we’re home.

Much reading to do and catching up before returning to work on Monday.

I’ll fill you in on the travels as soon as I’ve recovered from the journey. Looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

Get it? Pie Ate Us = piatus = pie hiatus? A lotta late night time burned thinking up that one.  The Life of Pie experiment will continue; to date I have created eleven pies. For those of you playing the at-home game, the pie posts are linked here:

Oh, My: Pie! In which I buy a book and decide to bake. Obsessively.

In which I search for The Lard.

My first pie, Fancy Sweet Potato, which made Benticore fall a little bit in love with me.

Where we named the pie blog Life of Pie — thanks to Maya.

Then there was the utter disaster we called Banana Cream Soup. Splooosh.

Chocolate Chess Pie. It’s a Southern thing.

In a rush, I made two “cheater” pies for the band banquet.

I made Stuff I Had in the House Pie. I don’t recommend this.

I then made my most beautiful pie to date, the Blueberry Lattice Top Pie, which sent Dwight out onto the streets of Cleveland in search of pie.

Ignoring orders to knock off the pies for awhile, I made two graduation pies, a sugarless berry apple and a bourbon apple.

Last weekend, I made a Cheddar Cracker Apple and a Chocolate Brownie Pecan for a picnic.

So I have to knock it off for a few weeks to accomodate some family time and to lose the three pounds I’ve gained back. (The Chocolate Brownie Pecan was irresistable.)

When I get back to it, probably in July, I would like to make one of YOUR pie recipes. If you have a favorite, send it to me. I won’t make anything with walnuts or bananas but those are the only rules. I’d love to know what pies you like or what pie you challenge me to create.

Thanks to everybody who commented in an attempt to win a Grill Daddy.

I hate to say it, but ya’ll are just not that funny. I really thought I’d be like Ree, holding my sides and guffawing my way through the comments, or at least completely grossed out by your grimy grill descriptions, but no, not really.

A couple of you did make me wrinkle my nose or chuckle a bit, and these three are the WINNERS:

Zuzu said: “We were cooking hamburgers and my husband noticed that the top rack was really dirty. He absent-mindedly scraped the top rack with the grill spatula and watched as a little shower of rusty METAL powdered our hamburgers. He thought he could get away with blowing it off the burgers, but when he blew, all the scrapings of a hundred previous grillings billowed up from the coals onto the bottom of our burgers. Not willing to admit defeat, he served the burgers, displayed prominantly next to bottle of seasoned salt that looked conveniently rust colored.”

OMG — I can’t believe your husband served metal studded burgers to your family — that’s a winner.

Stormy made me snort a bit when he said: “When summer rolls around and I want to experiment with fruit on the grill, it takes a ton of cleaning or my grilled peaches taste like peach flavored hot dogs.” Mmm. Peach hot dogs.

Suzanne B. said: “When we smoked, we used to put all the cigarette butts in the grill when we were done with them. Well.. it kinda got full. When summer rolled back around and my other roommate went to grill something… well.. needless to say we got another grill.” That one made my jaw drop. I could just imagine somebone cooking with all those butts burning down below. Gross!

Congratulations to Stormy, Zuzu and Suzanne B.!

I was born on a Friday the 13th. I consider them my lucky days. My mother actually chose to have me on that day, given the choice with a scheduled C-section she was asked, are you superstitious? She said no, and the date was set.

I look for lucky things to happen to me on Friday the 13th. But today might be YOUR lucky day. There are 15.5 hours left in the Grill Daddy Giveaway! You could be a winner!

 Time’s UP! Winners to be announced shortly. 

A few days ago I told you all about my favorite As Seen on TV product, the Grill Daddy. I included a note to the Grill Daddy peeps, just in case they were reading and lo and behold, they came through.

WELCOME TO THE GRILL DADDY GIVEAWAY!

I have been authorized to give away THREE FREE GRILL DADDIES! Whoo hooo!

Here’s the deal: by midnight, Friday, June 13, leave your most descriptive, disgusting and/or funny comment about the crud on your grill and I will choose the three winners and publish them here. My call. Winners must supply a valid mailing address to receive the Grill Daddy. Whille this makes a great Fathers’ Day gift, it’s unlikely they’ll get there in time, so you might want to go ahead and BUY your dad a gift.

OK — go! Good luck. Make me laugh. Or gag. Whatever!

The boy has been looking for a summer job. He’s applied to a dozen jobs and had a few interviews. In the meantime, he’s done several odd jobs including babysitting, lawn mowing and, perhaps the coolest of all, assisting Sean Tubbs with recordings for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. These are all great jobs to have, but too few and far between to assist him with the pain of his oncoming life as a poor college student.

He interviewed for a sales job, which turned out to be that time-honored appointment-driven scheme to sell Cutco Knives. What funny about this is that in 1989, my husband had the same interview, was presented the same earning structure, had the same “convincing” conversation with me about taking the job. He sold knives to several friends and we still have his sample set; the best knives we own. The boy made a list of all the people he could imagine coercing to buy knives from him. He came up with 10 names. Then he decided he’d better let that opportunity go.

He’s a good kid; smart, reliable, has his own wheels and is willing to work hard. For money. That’s the important part. Let me know if you have a dog sitting, lawn mowing, filing, binder assembly, podcast recording, ditch shoveling, telemarketing, table-waiting, coffee-fetching or other menial job for him. You’ll be saving his hide because his dad’s going to wring his neck if he doesn’t get a job soon.

I hope he does get a non-terrible job, although I think everyone needs a truly awful job at some point, hopefully early in their career. Everyone needs one demoralizing, insulting, disgusting, offensive job to reminisce about when their work-life improves. Think of the opportunities to play that negative one-upmanship game comparing past work lives with current coworkers.

My friend Jim had a bad job when he was in high school. He worked in a pickle plant, driving a forklift. It was hot and smelled to high heaven of pickle brine. Just talking about it, his nose wrinkles with the memory of a smell he was not rid of from May till August.

One of my husband’s first jobs was in the Chrysler plant, attaching hood ornaments to minivans, working on the line during the night shift. The plant was hot; the work, mind-numbingly boring. Charmingly, he presented me with a hood ornament in lieu of an engagement ring when he popped the question. Luckily, a ring came later.

I worked as a waitress for two weeks; till a construction worker slapped my butt and my fellow waitress creeped me out by reading the Satanic bible and telling tales of her extensive drug use. I also worked at a mall McDonald’s and vividly remember scraping off the remains of a cheeseburger that had been plastered to the wall.

Everyone needs THAT job, the one that makes you never go back, to work hard, study harder and believe that there’s a better place for you one day; that you deserve it and will do anything to get it.

What was your worst job?