Happy Super Bowl Sunday. Although I watched a LMN mystery movie this morning while devouring the NY Times in bed, along with delicious French toast Steve made, I've been out in the living room watching pre-game show stuff with Steve along with finding the kitchen counters and doing laundry. Paula Abdul with a new single? It is so computerized sounding who knows if she is even singing it. Loved seeing Willie Nelson's beat up guitar - it even has a hole in it. Never noticed that before. A bit of trivia - I have driven past the very spot on the Texas highway where the cops found Willie pulled over sleeping off a pot buzz. Don't know why he is one of my favorite non-typical celebrities, but he is. His gravely voice works well with the crystal clear voice of Sara Evans, who sang with him.

Once Steve heard I was rooting for the Giants he decided he'd go for the Patriots as apparently I am bad luck! I always root for the underdog. I'd love to see the Giants win, but from the sounds of all the pre-game hype they don't stand much of a chance. We shall see. I remember watching the 2003 Super Bowl from the US Virgin Islands. We had flown down there for my interview for the position as the Library Director, St. Thomas Campus, of the University of the Virgin Islands. We were watching the game in bed as it came on late (Atlantic time zone) and I was exhausted from the stress of the interview and the thought of moving so far away that I fell asleep before it was over. Don't even remember who played. Happy and content back in civilization, teaching youth literature courses full-time, I am glad I took on the challenge of working as an academic librarian, but it was not my cup of tea. Big difference between teaching search strategies to marine biology students during the day and teaching children's and YA lit courses online at night. I had no regrets about not accepting an extended contract. I still love the islands, but trying to work there was very difficult. I am too type A to work on island time.

My latest read is an ARC for the new title in the Alane Ferguson Forensic Mysteries - The Circle of Blood. Since I some how have fallen off of the review copy list for Viking I hadn't read any of the other mysteries about 17-year-old Cameryn, assistant to her father, the County Coroner in a small Colorado town. Now I am sorry I hadn't. I have mentioned before what a big NCIS fan I am so these books are right up my alley. Cameryn has more to lose in this latest mystery because her mother, who has not been part of her life since she left years before, has returned to their small town and wants a role in Cameryn's life, much against the wishes of her father and grandmother. Cameryn had recently visited her mother when she saw her with a young teenage girl in the car with her. She also saw her mother run after the girl, whose is later found dead in an alley, with her long braid cut off. Did her mother murder the girl? How much of what she knows about the girl's last hours of life and her mother's involvement in it does she tell her father? Clearly Ferguson has done her forensics homework and knows the process of an autopsy, etc. She has also created a feisty, intelligent female protagonist who teen readers will be more than happy to help solve murder mysteries via forensic science. I just checked out Ferguson's web site: www.alaneferguson.com and realized why her name is familiar. She, along with Gloria Skurzynski, write the Mysteries in Our National Parks Mysteries, an upper elementary series.

Skurzynski is the author of the Virtual War Chronologs. I booktalked the first title, The Virtual War, quite a bit but hated the cover on the hardback. Was so glad to see a much more attractive cover on the newer paperback edition. A teenage boy in a furistic world who is basically raised by a hologram and has never had any interaction with other humans is quite intriguing. Add to that his training to fight a virtual war, with a teenage girl and a mutant boy, to win the last piece of uncontaminated land on earth - easy to booktalk and then some. There are now 4 books in the series, with the latest entitled The Choice.

Just listened to Alicia Keyes sing. I first heard of her when she was scheduled to give a concert on St. Thomas at UVI. Not sure what happened, but it was cancelled. That happened a lot down there. We went to a number of concerts at the university but the seats in the outdoor concert hall are so darn uncomfortable unless you right down on the floor in the expensive seats. I couldn't even sit through the one concert we sat on the upper tier wooden, backless seats. What a gorgeous facility, but I figured out real quickly why so many people were renting seat cushions when they entered!

All for today. Sorry for any typos - the spellcheck isn't working

Go Giants!!