In what appears to be quite possibly the weirdest assignment ever, a professor is giving a test this week on the book Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama. Now before you judge me, let me explain the situation. At libraries, this book, quite obviously and understandably, is checked out. All of them. Everywhere. Especially in Illinois, The week after the election of Barack Obama! So, I had a little laugh to myself when two students came into the library wanting this book. They wanted me to check the catalog, then the other college libraries, then the public libraries. All of them were checked out. They did not seem to understand this. They assumed the book would be available somewhere and wanted to know if I could get it for them, delivered here, today. I explained that books from other libraries take several days, if not a week, or more to arrive here. They replied with the best question I've gotten all week "Do you think it's available at Walgreen's?" I said maybe, they thanked me, and presumably wandered off to Walgreen's.

More details about Max Brooks and the amazing Zombie warnings. Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks so you can kind of see where this is going, is funny. His entire talk about zombies had most of the audience asking real questions about imminent zombie attacks, what things we could do to prepare for said zombie attack and where we should go should the zombies attack (One guy mentioned Detroit as place to go where no one wants to be and thus be safe from zombies.) Every question was treated with as much seriousness as possible and even though most questions were asked in the guise of serious zombie annihilation, most answers resulted in extreme laughter. I truly recommend seeing this guy talk should he ever make an appearance near you. The talk at Harper was sold out and the culinary students took time to sell spooky cupcakes and cookies, so it was quite an event. I think that Martin, Mom and myself were the only three people who weren't standing in line waiting to get a book signed. Max Brooks also wrote The Zombie Survival Guide so you can see that he is getting ready for it, why aren't you?

Happy Guy Fawkes Night everyone! Bonfires and fireworks for everyone!
Work is going well. I'm learning the ropes. I'm staying busy. I'm staying alive.
ah ah ah ah Staying Aliiiive...

Taking it easy the past month. We visited my two only and favorite nieces this past weekend in Allentown and they are lovely. They are both growing quite fast, but I guess that is to be expected since we haven't seen them since Passover back in April. We only spent a day there, but it was a nice low-key visit with Martin's parents also in attendance.

My mother came to visit for almost a week - for the American Dietetic Association meeting at the convention center in Chicago. We went to look at the exhibits on the Sunday that she was here and basically ate our way through just about the entire exhibits floor. Then, we went to Chinatown for dinner!

While Mom was here we also got cool, cheap, box seats to see Jeff Daniels in "Turn of the Century" at the Goodman Theatre. It was a musical and very cute. Of course when I told Mom we were going to see Jeff Daniels she replied, "Oh he played that SOB in that movie where Debra Winger dies." Personally, I preferred his turn in Arachnophobia. We also saw author Max Brooks, of zombie fame, writer of "World War Z" give a talk at Harper College. It was probably the funniest author talk I've ever witnessed.

My friend Mandie and her daughter Holly stopped by for a few days in October as well. Since Holly and I share the same birthday, we of course did what all 30-something girls like to do on their birthday: go to the zoo! I hope Holly liked it too since she rode the carousel and got to see the lions. Then we did what all 6-year old girls dream of doing: A Hawaiian dance extravaganza at the Tiki Terrace, our fave local Hawaiian place. Dinner and show, every girls dream!

So maybe this past month wasn't as tame as I thought. Even without flying, we stayed pretty busy.