A whole week and no bloggings. Shameful of me, no?

First, God Bless Minnesota for blowing out the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. Because of this - Fox Sports opted to give the viewer a more competitive game - the Buffalo Bills vs. the Philadelphis Eagles. Unfortunately, the Bills lost, and just about gave me a heart attack doing it. It's probably a good thing I live in the Black and Blue Division, because if I had to watch the Bills' whole season, I'd probably be in intensive care by the time the playoffs roll around.

One major quibble in all this though is that Fox opted to switch over to the crappy Detroit Lions game in the last 2 minutes of the Bills game. I was mighty pissed at the time, but then I did miss that final Eagles touchdown - which was probably a good thing for my heart.

I'm also finally done with the dreadful Shadow Game by Christine Feehan. I know I blogged earlier that the book was good and the hero was yummy. Well I'm afraid the whole thing went downhill fast after my initial impression. It took me all weekend, of basically no reading (30 pages of a new book is "not reading" in my opinion), to recover from the experience.

The good news is that I'm reading the latest offering from Rebecca Hagan Lee right now - and it's a vast improvement. I've found the pacing a little slow in the first 100 pages, but Lee has such an engaging style that I'm easily turning the pages. I hope to finish Barely A Bride later this week.

And on a final note: if you ever come across Gossamer by Ms. Lee in a used bookstore snap it up. It's one of my sentimental favorites.

Depressing. Really, really depressing. That's about all I can come up with to describe last nights' Miami Dolphins/Buffalo Bills game. My first televised Bills game of the season, and it turns out like that. To be fair to my boys - Miami's defense came to play, and who can possibly stop Ricky Williams when he carries the ball like 500 times (OK - so it was around 40 something).

Haven't been reading too much lately, but I really need to light a fire under my butt since I drew the straw for Shadow Game by Christine Feehan. For those of you who don't move in romance reading circles - Feehan has this series featuring vampire hunters that fans are just ga-ga over (including a handful of my library patrons). I tend to not do vampires, so Feehan is completely new to me.

Shadow Game features psychic characters. There seems to be this growing trend in romance novels for psychics, and after a few Kay Hooper novels I found myself a little tired of the idea. Still, Shadow Game is quite good - and the hero is a major hottie - so what's not to like about that? Now all I need to do is sit my butt down and getting some reading done.

WooHoo! Nip/Tuck night!

I just realized something today though - Dr. Sean had a younger daughter when this show first started and I haven't seen the child around in weeks (she's grade school age). Maybe the writers just haven't found out what to do with her yet? Maybe they're just going to pretend she was "a dream" and that she never existed? Or maybe they'll give her SORAS (Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome) and there will be another dysfunctional teenager mucking up the works.

Speaking of soap operas - I'm reading Loaded by Shari Shattuck at the moment. Ms. Shattuck is an actress who's list of credits include some B movies and a 3-year stint on The Young & The Restless as Ashley Abbott (she may have been my favorite Ashley). And for my family's benefit - Oh My God! She's married to Ronn Moss AKA that big hunk of cheese, Ridge, on The Bold & The Beautiful!

Back to Loaded - it's a pretty interesting book. It's kind of like a crime/noir/suspense novel for women. The heroine is a wealthy heiress who has to shoot a man in self defense during the first chapter. As the mystery unravels - it appears that someone is out to silence her - probably one of the myriad of people who have been contesting her dead father's will for the last 2 years - a will that left everything to her.

Our fair heroine, Cally, is a little hard to like - mainly because she's made keeping people at a distance an Olympic event. Unfortunately that cuts both ways - while she's hedging her bets with a very yummy police detective, she's also hedging them with the reader. The first person narrative helps some - but I still feel like I'm on the outside looking in at times.

Fast read though - and there are flashes of brilliance.

Well I naturally didn't get to watch the Bills/Patriots game on Sunday. Sure enough I was stuck with the Lions/Cardinals and Colts/Browns as my options (both were snooze fests). However, that is why God created Sportscenter - and I have to say that there is no way I will ever get sick of watching Big Sam Adams run that fumble in for a touchdown.

I got a slew of reading done this weekend and finished up Between Friends by Debbie Macomber. What a book! I swear to you gentle blog reader that I got misty-eyed on more than one occasion. While it wasn't an entirely perfect book (there were certain plot developments that were glossed over) - it is easily the best book I have read in ages. Very memorable - and one that I will be recommending to various library patrons.

After reading an emotional book like BF - I decided I needed fluff, so I picked up The Rich Girl Goes Wild by Leah Vale. This is a happy little Harlequin about a wealthy heiress trying to bury herself (and past hurts) by devoting her time to being the family social secretary. When her brother's former college roommate, a billionaire in his own right, comes to town posing as a little ole' nobody - well he decides that the heroine needs to loosen up a bit. Nice sexual tension thus far - and even if I normally don't go for gazillionaire characters these two have been a pleasant enough diversion thus far.

OK - so I was wrong and the NY Jets lost on Thursday night. Hey - nobody's perfect.

However I have something to be positively gleeful about. SoapNet is bringing back Dallas! Yes, my favorite trashy soap opera from the 1980s is coming back in reruns. I knew there was a reason that I paid entirely too much money for digital cable.

I'm reading a really different book at the moment. Between Friends by Debbie Macomber follows the lives of 2 best friends from 1948 to 2002. The entire book is told via journal entries, letters, postcards, e-mails etc. without a stitch of dialogue. It's literally a snap-shot of the baby boomer generation - and a real pageturner. Macomber tosses in everything from unwed pregnancy, philandering husbands, the JFK assassination, the Vietnam conflict and 9/11. It's the kind of book I'm half tempted to force my mother to read.

Notre Dame opens their football season today - which means I lose my boyfriend to the TV. Saturdays of Notre Dame football usually find Wendy sulking off to a secluded corner somewhere to read - or hightailing it to the bookstore. So really, I shouldn't complain.

In the meantime - cross your fingers that I get to actually watch the Bills/Patriots game on Sunday. Although living in a region dominated by the Black&Blue division - I'll probably be stuck watching the crappy Lions game.

WooHoo! Day off tomorrow! Of course I got Friday off because I have to work Saturday, but for now I'm all WooHooing it up. Saturday will likely find me whiny and surly.



NFL starts tonight - and while I plan to avoid the Britney Spears "show" before the game, Miss Aretha singing the Star Spangled Banner should be a treat. Actually I'm kind of hoping that Aretha and Mary J. get in a smack down with that no-talent excuse Britney - but that seems pretty unlikely, even if it is the stuff that dreams are made of.



The start of the football season also signals the start of my annual rumble with my boyfriend. This will mark the 5th year (I'm pretty sure it's the 5th) that we have "called" the games. We use a spread system - for instance I think the Jets will win by 3 tonight. I have this irritational hatred for the Redskins - and I'm not ready to count Vinny out yet. Dan will probably go with the Skins - which will make the spread pick irrelevant.



I have to redeem myself this season. Dan kicked my a** last season. It was really embarrassing. I lost by like 20 games. Now the season before I did awesome. I whomped him by like 10 games - which I think is pretty good for a girl. And when one takes into account that the girl is also a librarian - well it's astounding isn't it?



Wish me luck.

Hope everyone had a nice, relaxing holiday weekend. Our last grasp of summer here in the midwest brought rain all day on Monday - whatever. I actually spent most of Sunday and Monday holed up in my apartment avoiding the outside world. It was quite refreshing.



Labor Day also signals the death of summer hours where I work. This means that every Tuesday night, yours truly is at the office until 8PM. This is a tad tedious - although I don't actually have to show up until 11:30AM. I get a lot of reading done on Tuesday mornings in exchange.



Tonight is Nip/Tuck night. I am so addicted to this show - it's kind of sad actually. To my credit, I watch very little TV these days. Most of the time the boyfriend has it tuned on sports or a movie - neither of us is terribly moved by the current crop of sitcoms and hour-long dramas. Don't even suggest reality TV - I pride myself on having some semblance of taste thank you.



Speaking of sports - the NFL season kicks off on Thursday, which means cheering on my favorite team, the Buffalo Bills. I'm not terribly optimistic this season, as I'm not convinced the organization has fixed the defense problem (we basically didn't have one last season). My prediction for this season? The Bills go 9-7. I'm pretty set with my opinion, but the AFC East is a nightmare division - so really anyone could win it - including the Bills.