And So the Lion Fell in Love With the Lamb

So I read this little, unknown book recently. Y'all know how much I love to read and I couldn't resist a tale about a vampire falling in love with a human and grappling with his overwhelming desire to kill her. Sigh...How romantic! Perhaps you've heard of it....Twilight??
Anyhow, I'd heard that it was compared to Harry Potter but it was more for the teenage set. I thought to myself.."Well I loved Harry Potter and it was for "kids", so I may enjoy this too." Um, no. It certainly doesn't compare to Harry Potter in any way. The only way it may compare is the fact that millions of teenage girls are OBSESSED, I mean OBSESSED over this book series. Only comparison.

First of all let me say that I think the storyline was good, not great. Vampires living amongst humans and going unnoticed (almost). You have to admit...that's a pretty cool plot and you could do so much with it. What I have issue with is the writing. It's just um, not so good. As I was reading it, the minimalist writing style kept jumping out at me and tearing me away from the story itself. It seemed too simplistic and dare I say elementary, but it was written for teens... I kept thinking how I could make the story better. Not that I could, just sayin'. If I'm thinking this as I'm reading, then who else must be thinking the same thing? BUT I see how the teenage crowd would like it...every other page there are longing glances, getting close but not too close, starting at each other's mouths, the anticipation of whether or not he'll drink her blood that he craves beyone anything else in life.......sexy.

JK Rowling wrote with a flourish, describing every detail so that you can see things so clearly your mind's eye. Each character was described and well defines so that you felt as if you knew them personally. In Twilight, all I kept hearing about Edward Cullen (the aformentioned hungry vampire) was how beautiful he was. Beautiful like what? Like Gerard Butler beautiful? Beautiful as in angelic? Devilishly beautiful? Long and lean or muscular and strong beautiful? What the frick kind of beautiful was he???? TELL ME DAMNIT! I knew he had brown hair and amber eyes, but knew nothing of his face. Because I didn't know, I kept imaginging Brad Pitt as Louis de Pointe Du Lac enter the room and give bedroom eyes to young Bella and it just wasn't working for me...arg! I like to know what my characters look like before anything else. Otherwise I make them up in my head (Brad Pitt) and then my vision is skewed ruining the whole damn thing. Not that he is a bad image to have stuck in your mind, but still. Thank goodness the movie is coming out so now I know what Edward & Bella really look like, because she wasn't described well either. All I remember about Bella was that she was pale and had dark hair and I couldn't help but wonder what a man like Brad Pitt would want with a plain little girl like that. Ha!

Now THAT my friends is some beautiful vampire right there! (look up) Oh and by the way....this man (Robert Pattinson) also played Cedric Diggory in HP and the Goblet of Fire. I thought he was very sexy but kept it to myself because he was only in highschool (Hogwarts) and I am not a pervert! Geez!

Speaking of descriptions, I can alsmot recall Jk Rowling's description of Harry Potter to a tee when I first opened the book many moons (ha) ago. Don't quote me on this, but....he had dark untamed hair. A scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightenting bolt, green eyes just like his mother's. Round glasses that were held in place with a piece of tape. He was scrawny and wore old hand me down clothes that didn't match.

See......describe a little better from now on mkay Stephanie? Thanks a bunch!


Ok, enough of Edward's unearthly beauty. I generally liked the book. I admit it held my attention, not to mention that I read it while our power was out during the "hurricane"...in the dark while everyone was sleeping...so the creepy factor of the book went way up. I love the idea of Bella giving up everything for Edward, even though she knew he could kill her at any moment. I also like the twist in the story about the werewolves also living amongst the regular folk and how these two species/animals are co-existing, but also want to kill eachother. It definately keeps the anticipation level up. I was ready for him to bite her neck already and make her immortal, but alas, I have no patience.

Some of the things about the book bugged me to no end. I understand that Mrs. Meyer was trying to give her own interpretation of modern day Vampires. Ex: driving sports cars, wearing normal designer clothes, listenting to cd's, which is all fine and good....but it's a little too late to completley change our views and squash all myths and legends. What I am saying is that I want a little of that black cape wearing, coffin sleeping, superpower having, cliched vampire too! When the bad vampire (can't remember his name) lured Bella into a place to kill her, why did it have to be a stupid ballet studio IN PHOENIX ARIZONA (?) that in no place in the book held any significance? Dumb, dumb, dumb. This moment was built up and it takes place in a well lit, mirrored ballet studio? Pu-lease! What about that creepy set of woods on the edge of town that loomed over the city in dark mysterious fashion throughout all of the novel? How bout having some killing going on there? Hmmm?

Then, when the guy gets mamed...we don't see it cause Bella passes out. Booooo! I want to see some maming and bloodshed alright? I'll probably get some rants from teenage girls from this post. "Like, you're an adult and this book isn't even like for you and like Edward is so sexy and how dare you call Bella plain? Your mama's so fat she has planets orbiting around her and like you're just a ho!" He he he.

Overall, the book was good, but I have yet to read the sequals...maybe after I watch the upcoming movie I will venture on. I think as far as plot line, she hit the jackpot and I wish I'd had this idea before her....gosh darn it anyway! For a first time author she did good...let me not to forget to give credit where credit is due because if the book sucked horribly I wouldn't be sitting here talking about it, now would I?
Speaking of the movie...I am excited to see it, but will not be one of those who is
standing in line on opening night wearing fake fangs and pale foundation. Um...no. Here's the official trailer. Looks pretty good, ya think?


Onto other topics...I'm back to work tonight after a little over a week off. It wasn't a vacation, just the way the schedule fell and I wasn't about to complain about it, but it makes it that much harder to go back. You never know what you're going to get when you walk in there. I always assess the dayshift nurse's faces when I walk in to determine how my night will be. I also check out the rooms....empty =bad. Empty beds means middle of the night admissions which = long and crappy shift. Boy, I just can't wait!

One of the worst kind of pt's to have is an alzheimers surgery pt who is on the Mary alarm. If you aren't familiar with the alarm allow me to explain...it's a bed alarm that goes under their bottom and anytime they try to get up Mary Had a Little Lamb plays loudly awaking all the other patients and works on your already frayed nerves. When someone has alzheimers, this alarm may sound 100 times in a night. You have to run in there because for all you know they could be hanging upside down while their foot is caught in the bedrail or wandering into the hallway pulling their IV line like a dog leash. On top of that, many times they are trying to pull out their NG tubes, Jp drains, Iv's, catheter's etc and are often times successful and you are spending the majority of your time putting these things back in. Many of them also have MRSA and that's a real hoot! "Hold on Mr. Doe...let me gown and glove while you flail on the floor in a pool of blood because that is protocol!" Sometimes you just have to laugh because if you didn't you may find yourself on the floor with them, curled up like a fetus saying Why...Why...WHY?

I had a pt last week who had alzheimers and thought we were trying to set him on fire while we were trying to reposition him. He kicked me right bewteen my breasts and knocked the wind out of me for a good long while. I had my ID on and he hit it squarely....it saved me from getting the sharp hook of his heel in my xiphoid process. Guess you could say I was saved by the badge. Note to self...If I am every choking, I will go stand at the end of his bed.

You also get the "drug seekers". I use to hate that term...but it is one of the more predominant of patients. "My pain is a 10." click, click on the remote with a calm drowsy drug enduced glare. "Can I get my dilaudid 1 mg q hour prn for pain? Oh, and I'm allergic to Morphine, Lortab, Percocet and Demerol." Me: "Well, what kind of reaction did they give you?" Them: "They just made me feel funny." I once had a pt who got 100 demerol IM & 12.5 of phenergan IM q hour and was also on a dilaudid PCA. WTF! I know surgery hurts, but not that damn bad people! They really think we don't know, but we do...we do.

The majority of my pt's are good ones...who's goal isn't to run you to death with little errands such as warm blankets and banana popsicles. We don't have blanket warmers on our units people!

It's funny how the nurses and other staff have come up with things to eat while they are up all night. For instance you can make coke floats, mix sherbert, orange juice and sprite together for a nice little wedding punch, the peanut butter in a squeeze tube isn't bad either...or so I've heard. Or you could also have downtime where you put redbull in small plastic medicine cups and take pictures of people "taking shots" to stay awake and leave them on the printer for the dayshift staff to see. OR you could have water fights with normal saline syringes and run around the halls playing hide and seek. But I've never done any of these things, that is just so wrong and childish, not to mention UNPROFESSIONAL! ;)

Alrighty people....enough of the talky talk. I'm off to do some things then get ready for work. Think I'll wear my cheezy Halloween scrub top tonight. I bet all the older people will appreciate little black spiders dangling from their cute little webs.

Aurevoir!