Meet Jonny Flynn!

This week was my favorite Timberwolves Season Ticket Holder event: Meet The Timberwolves!! Yay! And my goal was to get a pic with our rookie, Jonny Flynn. Mission Accomplished!


How cute it he? And he's a wonderfully sweet guy. If I was ten years younger . . . OK. Twenty-five years younger, but who's counting? :-)

On the reading front: Yup. I'm a Harry Potter convert. Love them! I'm almost done with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and once I finish the books I plan to watch the movies. I hear nothing but good things about them.

On the cooking front: Here was one of our meals last week that we LOVED! I've linked to the recipes on the Eating Well Magazine website, which has become my new favorite recipe browsing site.

Tofu Au Vin served with Roasted Cauliflower with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette



Over the last couple of weeks I have learned that anything that calls for two cups of red wine in the recipe probably tastes fabulous. ;-) I'll be back soon with some more of those kinds of priceless vegetarian cooking tips. Don't forget your corkscrew!

Go Wolves!

And the 2009-10 NBA Season has begun! For my new readers, this is when I start spouting about my Minnesota Timberwolves and how much I adore them. I'll try to keep it to a minimum as the season rolls on, but I won't be able to stop myself on occasion. Tonight is the season opener for us, and I'm thrilled!! GO WOLVES!

Now that I got that out of my system, Peter and I are almost finished with The Teaching Company DVD course "The Art of Reading." I cannot recommend this course highly enough for anyone yearning to get more out of his or her reading. The instructor, Dr. Timothy Spurgin, is great. In twenty-four half-hour lectures he gives tons of usable, understandable advice for "unpacking" and analyzing even the most complicated literature, and he makes every book and story he discusses sound irresistible. After last night's lecture on War & Peace, even Peter, who is an avid reader but not much interested in classic literature, was thinking he should give Tolstoy a try! I felt all kinds of brilliant when the translation the instructor recommended was the very one I had chosen and read a couple years ago. :-)

We only have one lecture left in which all the "tools" we have been given will be summed up, and I'm sad to be finished. I'm going to have to purchase another course Dr. Spurgin teaches. But the knowledge I have taken away from "The Art of Reading" has readied me for the next stage in my reading life. I'm ready to go back to Proust and Faulkner (much to the dismay of A Readers' Respite) and all the other books and authors that intimidate me. I'm ready to stock up on note-taking materials and spend my winter making wonderful literary discoveries!

And going to basketball games, of course. ;-)

We Got Him!!

Yes, that would be a Minnesota Timberwolves cap on the head of Ricky Rubio!! All of us at the Draft Party went crazy! Now to cut through all the NBA "business" and actually get him here, which, it turns out, may be problematic. Oh, well. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I have a show tonight, so I'll be singing instead of reading. But after this, I have a couple of months with no shows and no dog trials, so you all know where I'll be: On the patio with a stack of books. Until then, and in honor of our newest T-Wolf, here are Tony and I playing one of the songs we'll be doing tonight -- "Sweet Child 'O Mine":



Have a great weekend, everyone!

Please, Please, Pretty Please!

Tonight is the NBA Draft, and my Timberwolves are sure making it exciting! We traded Mike Miller and Randy Foye the other night for another great first round draft pick (we now have four total), but I get so attached to our guys that it's always difficult for me to see players leave due to trades, non-renewed contracts, etc. However, rumor has it that this is the man we may be going after:

Wouldn't that just suck to have to watch him play all season long? ;-) I'm thinking court side seats for next season. And I'll sell the plan to Peter under the guise of him needing a better view of the Dance Team. It's not totally a lie. He really would get a better view of the Dance Team. I like it! I think it will work! I mean, after all, if they're going to trade away all my favorite players (please don't trade Craig Smith, please don't trade Craig Smith), the least they can do is give me this Ricky Rubio guy to look at, right? (Holy cow. He's only 18 years old. I feel like a dirty old lady!)

I'll let you know tomorrow if I have to upgrade our seats. Maybe they'll let me be the Gatorade Girl during the games?

Meet The Timberwolves!

Too much fun!! My guy Craig Smith wasn't at the Meet The Team event last night. He was sick. Bummer. (Get well soon, Craig!) And Big Al Jefferson just had knee surgery a couple weeks ago, so he was missing. (You get well soon, too, Al! We need you!) But Peter and I had a blast chatting with all the other members of the Timberwolves and having pics taken. Here are the ones we took. There are a few others that were taken by the team photographer that will be emailed to us later. In the meantime, here is me schmoozing it up:

The awesomest mascot in the NBA, Crunch



Me and our rookie, Kevin Love



Fan favorite, Mark "Mad Dog" Madsen



Sebastian Telfair (How cute is he???)



Rodney Carney and one of our newest team members, Bobby Brown. No jokes. He's heard them all. :-) Bobby was traded from Sacramento, so I made sure to tell him it really was going to get warmer here someday. I'm not sure he believed me.



The Timberwolves are a first class organization. They really make their fans feel special, and we had a great time!

Max Will Be So Happy!

After our winter hiatus, Max and I are getting ready to head back to the competition ring! I sent in our entry for April 4. That is Max's birthday, so he's going to have one of the best birthdays ever in his little Border Collie book. Nothing like running a bunch of obstacle courses in the dirt of a horse barn to make turning five years old a grand party! Skye and Peter are sitting this one out, because they are putting their time and resources into honing their sheep herding skills. Peter is thinking about competing in that later this spring. I so hope he does! It would be wonderful to see Skye competing in his first love the same way Max does. Peter's a little nervous about it, but any encouragement for him from all of you would be great! Wouldn't you love to see some photos of Skye rounding up those sheep? Me, too! In fact, I think you can see in this photo that he is wishing he was in a sheep pasture instead of on a dogwalk. His expression is very, "Is there a point to all of this??" :-)


On the basketball front, tonight we're going to a special season ticket holder "Meet The Team" event. There will be food and video games, and the whole Timberwolves team will be there signing autographs and posing for pics. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!! It's been a rough season, but I still love our guys!

Books? I'm working on The Confessions of Nat Turner, and I'll be getting back to my Class Notes posts hopefully this weekend. Until then ~

Happy Reading, Everyone!

In My Book, He's An All-Star

Big sigh. Once again, Big Al has been snubbed. No All-Star status for him, even though he is one of the only three guys in the NBA with a 20 point/10 rebound average for the season, and the Timberwolves currently hold the best record in the league for 2009. (Just for the record, the other two are in the All-Star lineup.) And our rookie Kevin Love was not invited to the Freshman/Sophomore game despite his outstanding play and high rookie ranking. Grrrrrrr. No respect.


Our time is coming! Until then, these guys are All-Stars in my book!
Go Wolves!!!

Pic From Last Night

We just got the pics from last night. Here we are during our 15 minutes of fame! :-) If I were smiling any bigger I think my face would crack. I look like I'm goofy, but I sure was having fun!

Go, Wolves!

We didn't win the game, but the guys played great and what a fabulous time we had!

We got to the Target Center about an hour before game time. As soon as we got there, our T-Wolves ticket rep gave Peter a mini-basketball that said "Season Ticket Holder of the Game" on it, and I got an autographed pic of my guy, Craig Smith. Peter has been promised an autographed pic of the Timberwolves Dance Team as soon as it's ready to go. He's quite happy about that as it will go well with the one of the dance team from last year. :-)

Then we went down to sit courtside and watch the team's shooting practice for about a half an hour. It is really something to see NBA players up close and personal at practice. They are an impressive lot! While we were there, we chatted just a bit with Mike Miller about his dogs (He's a dog lover who has three German Shepherds), we watched our star player, Al Jefferson, work on shooting over defenders, and I got a fist-bump from Mark "Mad Dog" Madsen so hard that it made my knuckles hurt!

The oddest thing that happened was just before game time. We were standing where were told to wait, which was right by the Utah Jazz, our opposing team that night, getting warmed up. Peter just happened to make eye contact with one of their star players, Andrei "AK-47" Kirilenko, who came right on over to shake hands and say "Hello". We thought that was awfully nice of him to make an effort to be friendly to fans of the opposing team.

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At game time, just before tipoff, we stood on the sidelines at midcourt for the National Anthem, then it was our big moment! We were announced as the Season Ticket Holders of the Game, we wandered out to the middle of the court and had our picture taken with Rodney Carney while they showed us on the Jumbotron. (They will be posting the photo here.) Rodney signed our basketball, and we were taken to our super-cool seats right under the basket by the Timberwolves bench. And just to top the night off, they had given the couple that we split our season tickets with the seats right behind us, so we finally got to see a game all together for the first time since last season!

It is quite an experience to watch the game from that spot. You can really see how big and athletic those players are and how physical the game is, especially right under the basket. We were so close we could hear the coaches talking to the players, the players on the bench cheering for their teammates, and the trash-talking on the court, which is often quite funny actually. Oh, and we got asked by another fan if we were Mike Miller's parents! Nope. But I'd be proud if we were. :-)

And just in case you were wondering, I did get a couple of big smiles from my guy Craig! Big sigh. . . :-)

I'm Soooooo Excited!!

I just got an email from our ticket rep for the Timberwolves. Peter and I are going to be Season Ticket Holders of the Game tonight and we're getting seats right next to the team!! How cool is that?!?! I better get home early and spiffy up. I can't have my boyfriend Craig seeing me like I look at work! Good thing Peter is such an understanding guy. ;-)


I'll be back to blabber all about it tomorrow!!

Wolves Win! Wolves Win!

It was a nail-biter, but the Wolves pulled off the win. We're 1-0! Yay! Now my throat hurts from yelling, my hands hurt from clapping and high-fiving, and my face hurts from smiling. I can't wait to do it again on the 15th!

Until then, on the book front, I've got three murder mysteries going at the same time. I've discovered it's a good thing I'm not a detective, because I find myself getting my cases mixed up. Just for the record: In my car on audio CD, Tempe Brennan is hot on the trail of a murderous Satan worshipper and battling her former alcoholic demons (Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs). At work on audio CD, Virgil Flowers is investigating a string of murders involving Vietnam vets and lusting over everything female (Heat Lightning by John Sandford). And on my nightstand, Alex Delaware is currently mystified by a serial killer who removes the victims' right hands (Bones by Jonathan Kellerman). Yeah, it gets confusing, but on the upside? They are all quite good! More info coming once I finish them up.

On the dog front, Skye and Max will both be competing on Saturday. Max will be working toward more Championship Q's due to his new status as an Enthusiast. I think Skye might be in a position to finish up his Level 3 Handler Games Title. We're thinking of switching him to Enthusiast next year just to cut him a break on his jump height. Since we just do agility for fun, there's no sense in risking wearing out his joints at a higher jump height. After Saturday's trial, I think we're done until April. Once the snow flies, I won't be able to get Max out to walk as much as I should between runs, so we'll most likely take a break from competing until it starts warming up again. Not that the boys don't love their time in the snow. . . .


I call this one "THE SNOW SHARK". :-) I love the look on Max's face. Boys. What do you do with them?