I've Always Felt that Something was Missing

I recently re-read "Do You Call That A Dream Date?" by Mary Anderson


Briefly, it's about a girl named Jennifer who plagiarizes, with some slight changes, an essay written by her older sister in order to win a "dream date" with a celebrity.
She wins, and has her "dream date," which, in fact seems more like a dream than reality to her.

And then she is exposed, and has to apologize in assembly.

Now, I've always felt a bit cheated when it comes to this book.   There seems to be something missing.

Shouldn't the girl whose essay was judged second-best.... the girl who should have won the contest... have at least received some recognition?

So I asked myself, "What if, when I was a teenager, I lost out on a chance to spend an
evening with one of my favorite singers because someone else cheated?  How would I have felt
when I learned the truth?"

I came to these conclusions:

1: The writer in me would have been darn proud of having WRITTEN the best essay.

2: The teenage fan in me would have been, to use a cliche, madder than a wet hen.


As for the READER in me, she would have liked to see a confrontation between Jennifer and the
girl who SHOULD HAVE won.

And as a fanfic writer, well, someday, maybe....

Post

I've started several posts in the past hour, but somehow not ONE of them seems right.
But I said that I would post SOMETHING every day, either here or on fanfiction.net.
I did get an idea for a fic; I've jotted it down in my Plot Bunny Hutch.  However, it
probably won't get written right away; I'm juggling too many fics, both ongoing and
in the planning stage, as it is. Incidentally, the word Juggling will be in the title of that fic!
Notice that I said PROBABLY; it could very well get written tomorrow!
As for the posts I've started, with a little work I should be able to make something out of them.
So I'm set for most of the week!
Funny... I thought this would be a post about not being able to post, but it turned out to be
just a post!

Books Read in the Week of September 6-12

Books read for the first time are marked with  a #

Books are grouped in their sections by author,
and not necessarily in the order read.

Sunday book(s) 

"The Happiness of Heaven"

by Fr. J. Boudreau, S.J.

"In This House of Brede"

by Rumer Godden

[fiction]

one of my favorite novels; I loved this even

before my conversion.

Weekday Books


"Do You Call That A Dream Date?"
by Mary Anderson
[YA fiction]
(openlibrary.org loan)
{carrying over into next week} 

"Casebook of Successful Ideas for Advertising and Selling"
by Samm Sinclair Baker
[non-fiction]
(This has been a favorite book of mine for years.  
I love the anecdotes!)
{carried over from last week} 


 "The Kitten's Secret" #
by Margaret Gossett
[picture book]
(openlibrary.org loan)


"Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!"
by M. E. Kerr
[YA fiction]
{carried over from last week}  

"Betsy and the Great World"
"Betsy's Wedding"
by Maud Hart Lovelace 
[YA fiction] 


 
A Book for Weekdays AND Sundays

"The Imitation of Christ"

by Thomas A Kempis

[Kindle book]

This Week's Fan Fiction

The Poem
Two new chapters added to this AU prequel to The Waltons.

Heroes

September 11th again. 
I don't want to think about the attacks.
I don't want to think about the terrorists.
This year, I've been focusing on the heroes.
All the heroes.
The passengers who fought the terrorists.
The police officers.
The firefighters.
The doctors and nurses who tended the wounded.
 And the unsung heroes.
The teachers who kept their students as calm as possible.
The parents and grandparents who had to explain to their
children and grandchildren how such things could happen.

And all those who clung to and comforted each other.

Perhaps you who are reading this are among the heroes,
but you never realized it.

Post 2 On A Book About Clubs

This, as the heading indicates, is my second post about "Ladies, Please Come To Order," by Peggy Cameron King. 
In the chapter called "Rub-a-dub-dub, What Name for the Club?" the author writes (or should I say, wrote, to be perfectly accurate?)
"Nowadays most people belong to something anonymous..... But your club is special and should have a more descriptive title. One of the first decisions will be regarding the suffix which might be Association, Auxiliary, Circle, Federation, Group, Guild, League, Unit, or anything else that implies a union of congenial personalities."
 I agree that these are all good suffixes, and there are others just as good, for example, Society.  (I belong to the Betsy-Tacy Society.)
This is the part I do NOT agree with:
"It seems too bad to fall back on the standard Club."
Sorry, but I don't see anything wrong with calling a club a CLUB, in fact, it often sounds better than the other suffixes, good as they may be.  Try replacing the word CLUB in  Book Club or Garden Club.  It doesn't work, at least in my opinion.  
 Then again, one  could give a Card Club a tongue-in-cheek name, such as Card Spade, Card Heart, or Card Diamond.

Post One Of Two on A Book About Clubs

I recently borrowed "Ladies, Please Come To Order," by Peggy Cameron King, (published in 1968) from openlibrary.org. It won't be on my book list, however, because I don't intend to finish it.  I found certain parts too annoying.
This paragraph in the chapter called "A Very Select Membership"  especially irritated me. (My responses, which I wish I could have made directly to the author, are in blue.
"Girls who are in poor health you can class as bad risks just as insurance companies do. They always use the excuse "I'm under the doctor's care" to get out of any little demands you may make of them, 
 They are not making excuses; they are stating a fact.   Many of them are glad to do what they can, and those who can't exert themselves too much physically may come up with some excellent ideas that the more able-bodied members can carry out. Besides, there are many clubs whose members just meet to talk about a chosen subject.
and no matter what the menu is, it doesn't agree with them. 
 Is it that difficult to provide something they can eat? 
 Perhaps you should admit a few as a humanitarian gesture
So the able-bodied members can feel good about themselves?
 although I can't think of any good reason for exposing the club to their ailments."
Poor health isn't always contagious. 

I also wish that I could ask the author if she even thought about how her unkind her statements sound,  and how they might make someone in poor health feel.  Perhaps, though, she didn't mean to be unkind; she may simply have been trying to be funny.   If so, she laid an egg as far as I'm concerned.