Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Two of the six of us attended church in person today–and hopefully behaved, given that it was the middles and they used to fight constantly. My youngest still sounded gunky, although she said she felt better than she had the previous several days (this morning she said she felt good, and I dubbed her sufficiently less gunky that I sent her to school), my hubby was tired and struggled to get going, and my oldest and I have been gifted the gunk of my youngest. Thank goodness for modern cold medicine! My ears are still blocked, though, and THAT’s driving me crazy.

We did manage to watch “The Quiet Man” together yesterday, which my parents (especially my dad) like watching around St. Patrick’s Day; it’s got some very awkward moments for modern times, but my oldest got a kick out of it. Sadly, my favorite of our bunnies isn’t responding impressively to the medicine the vet prescribed, and while we’ve had him inside and all done some snuggling, I suspect we’re going to have to put Peter down. I lost pets as a child, but this is pretty much a first for my children–and it’s not like being an adult makes it easy.

Moving right along, then, since I’m struggling with that topic. I have a ridiculous quantity of books waiting to be reviewed, and as I was dealing with this week’s crop of library books that are due and not renewable, I realized that one of them fell into that category. If I review it today, it can come back straight into my children’s hands, right? And ironically, it’s a collection of comic short stories–which our family could probably use right now.

Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. boasts at least four Newbery winners among its writers; it’s also a fantastically funny collection of short stories written entirely by women. I’m not sure why there are people in our culture that believe women can’t be as funny as men–seriously, have they SEEN Carol Burnett in anything?–but they’re out there, and this book aspires to prove them wrong.

It succeeds.

Funny Girl features a wide enough range of stories to appeal to just about anybody, but I had definite favorites. Raina Telgemeier’s comic made me grin maniacally, while Ursula Vernon is just plain always fabulous; Carmen Agra Deedy’s story, especially, was a completely fantastic surprise (I hadn’t heard of her before now). If your day needs lightening and you’re looking for a laugh, look no further–and don’t ever let anyone tell you (or anyone else, for that matter) that women aren’t funny.