Cam's Commentary

This Blog is Dead! Long live the Blog!

2011-07-01T22:44:00.001-04:00

I'm now posting here. I hope you will continue to follow me as I re-enter the world of blogging. If you'd like a link on my new blog, be sure to leave a comment on the new blog. See you around the web!

Sky High

2010-07-24T08:23:00.003-04:00

Blue Sky, originally uploaded by Cam.

This week's "Photo Friday"

Sweet Summer Sights

2010-07-19T00:22:00.001-04:00

It's hot here and the humidity has been hovering just below 100%. At least it's not raining -- all the time.

Yesterday, I went for a walk at the new 100 Acres Art & Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Two artists are living in a floating island in the lake right now. I'll have to go back again with the intent to bring something to trade and make a visit to the island. You can read about their project "Give and Take" here.

The camera, of course, was present on my walk. It's amazing the things you see when you start looking for them.

When I got home, I spied this beautiful blue creature on my patio table:

And these, that came home from the Farmers' Market:

which reminded me, as plums always do, of the poem "This is Just to Say", by William Carlos Williams. They were so sweet and so cold.

Summer Fun: Splash!

2010-07-11T22:13:00.003-04:00

Splash!, originally uploaded by Cam.

This week's entry for the Photo Friday Challenge, Summer Fun. Taken May, 2010, Washington Square Park, NYC.

BLOOM!

2010-07-03T13:16:00.010-04:00

Rose, originally uploaded by Cam.

This week's Photo Friday challenge is "Bloom". Since I like to shoot flowers, the most difficult part of this challenge was deciding what photograph to use. I shot this at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, May 21, 2010.

This was my second choice, also shot on the same day:

Rose II, originally uploaded by Cam.

Here's a link to several others.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

2010-06-25T16:48:00.000-04:00

Last week, the evening before an important business meeting, I tired of thinking about doing any further prep work for a presentation that wasn't likely to assist in maintaining my job past an upcoming merger. So, what to do, when one is in New York, doesn't have room in luggage to carry home lots of books, and hasn't scored tickets to Shakespeare in the Park in the virtual raffle: find a play with affordable tickets 20 minutes before the current rises. My choice: Nora & Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

The play, really a reading of several monologues by five actors, had some funny lines but dealt with a predictable catalog of "women's" issues surrounding careers, marriages, children, and health, divorce and death. While I enjoyed my evening, I not likely to remember much from the play in a week. But, later that evening, when I was unable to fall asleep, I decided to try to draw some examples from my own wardrobe over the years. What works as a device in the play, similarly, provoked me into thinking about various episodes in my life.

I'm not skilled at drawing, but voila! It is what it is.

As an adult, I came across a photo my father had shot one Easter morning. Alongside my 3 sisters, I sat on the porch, posed for the camera. We all were in brand new dresses and shiny patent leather shoes, with matching hats: four little ladies -- almost. From left to right, Michele, Helene, & Patrice sat primly, smiling, legs crossed demurely, their hats seated jauntily atop neatly brushed curls. At the end of the row was me: knees apart, dress rumpled and grass-stained, socks fallen, mud-covered shoes, straggly hair, hat in hand, unable to hide the fact that no amount of AquaNet could keep the curls from fleeing as soon as I went outside.

I suspect I never saw this picture when a child because my mother was aghast when she saw it. Many of the pictures from my childhood were similar. I knew from an early age that I didn't have a career in modeling ahead of me.

One of my favorite dresses when I was 6. It's was a hand-me-down and you can find a picture of the real dress in an earlier post. I felt like a princess in this dress, the green velvet vest the most luxurious item I owned. I thought I was beautiful! I wore it for every holiday for a few years, long past a proper fit.

It was certainly different than the scratchy wool uniforms we wore to school: Red plaid, white blouse with peter pan collar, navy blue tie, navy blue socks, serious looking shoes. I think they were saddle shoes, before those became retro and cool. We drew bell bottoms & flower power signs in our notebooks -- the closest we could get to dressing how we wished. Just before the start of the school year, all the moms would gather in the gym for a uniform exchange. For some girls the jumpers were too big at the start of the year. For petite me, they were too big and too long all year. There wasn't a chance in the world that I would ever fail the nuns' random tests to be sure that your skirt was only so many inches from the floor when you knelt. I detested the color red for years.

In Jr. High, my parents' placed me in a public school. Nobody knows me, I thought. Here's my chance of being cool. That lasted until my mother came home one day with my new school clothes. She also had a special surprise: she had my sister sew an outfit -- a pantssuit, with bellbottoms! -- for me. Nearly 40 years later, I still don't know what she was thinking and wonder if my sister really hated me that much:

Red and mustard colored paisleys on a sea of brown. Brushed velvet. Pants and vest, worn with a bright yellow blouse. I think the idea behind the vest was to hide my blossoming bosom.   My hopes for being considered cool were gone before I got on the bus. Years ago, when I taught school, I thought that the years between 12 - 15 were like walking down the school hallways naked, one's emotions so exposed , a chronic state of being self-conscious.   And then I think about the 7th Grade Pantsuit.   Naked would have been better.

I still feel horrible if I wear yellow.

At the start of 8th grade, I told me mother that The Pants Suit didn't fit me any more. It stayed in the back of the closet until it found its way into a GoodWill bag, with the aid of a younger sister who would have received it as a hand-me-down. My clothes weren't more hip, though I did have Five Minutes of Sartorial Fame in 8th grade during a 50's Day contest.   Happy Days was the new rage, and somehow dressing up in our parents old clothes was suppose to show our school spirit.   I was never much for those types of events, but I decided to wear one of my mother's dresses. While every one else was dressing in poodle skirts or leather jackets & rolled up jeans to look like Erin, Richie or The Fonz, I wore my mother's "Going Away" dress, the dress she wore when she & my father left for their honeymoon.   I thought the deep purple, ribbed knit dress was lovely. It had sparkling rhinestone buttons and a short matching sweater.  I wore my mother's matching pumps, the highest heels I had ever worn.   With an china pencil, I drew seams on the back of my hose.   To complete the June Cleaver look, I wore my mother's pearls and my Grandmother's fox stole, complete with --shudder -- feet. I think my school might have had Tim Gunn's soulmate on the staff:   I won the faculty award for best dressed and was given the title The Queen of the 50's.

More fun than actually winning, was the taunting I received from the popular mean girl who thought that she would win with the custom-designed poodle skirt her mother had made for the day. I can still hear her saying: You really shouldn't have won; I gave the idea for the contest to Student Council and I was supposed to win. You were suppposed to dress, like, you know, a KID from the 50's, not somebody's MOM from the 50's!

I started my first post-college job in the early 80's. Like everyone else, I wore serious looking suits, which meant that they looked like men's suits, with big shoulder pads.  And silk ties, tied in neat little bows, to look feminine.  Yeah, um, no.   I'm hopeful that look is never revived.

I started branching out a little in the late eighties, wearing dresses, even though we were told it was very MidWestern, and not very chic.

I had a teal skirt and blouse, that looked like a dress, that I thought looked really great.

And a more "professional" looking dress.   Why more professional?   Probably the damn bow. It took me a dozen years to realize that I look good in Red.

Eventually I moved away from the bows, and thought I was daring if I showed any cleavage, like the pink & blue dress that I was wearing when I met my first husband.   He invited me to a Halloween party the next weekend, although it was actually the weekend after Halloween. I wore green pants and sweater strung with christmas lights and candy canes.   This was before there were battery operated lights, so I had to plug myself into a wall socket so that people knew I was a Christmas Tree. I got lost on the way to the party and had to stop for directions.  They might have been tempted to direct me back to the insane asylum. I later thought of this as the Nightmare Before Christmas Costume.

As I moved into middle age, my wardrobe became more monotone. While there was the occassional purchase of something really awesome, like the Beautiful Green Suit, made from a brocade like fabric with small gold buttons,

mostly my closet reflected only one color: Black.

My husband once asked me why I needed 7 black skirts/dresses. Just because they are the same color, they are not alike. Since I know he knows how to count, some of them must look the same to him.

And, of course, the LBD:

These days, I work in an office with a casual dress code.

It's casual, not business casual. I could probably show up wearing exercise cloths. If I did, they would be black.

Photo Friday: Motionless

2010-06-25T09:12:00.005-04:00

Safe Harbor, originally uploaded by Cam.

This week's submission for Photo Friday. Taken at Isle of Capri, Florida, January, 2010

Fromage! (Photo Friday Assignment: Arranged)

2010-05-28T14:21:00.001-04:00

Fromagerie. Paris, May, 2009.

Photo Friday: Assignment "Arranged"

Family: Mother & Child (Photo Friday)

2010-05-21T21:20:00.001-04:00

Mother & Child, at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn NY. May 21, 2010

This week's Photo Friday Challenge: Family.

Coast: After a Storm (Photo Friday)

2010-05-09T01:31:00.001-04:00

This week's Photo Friday Challenge is "Coast". I shot the following on the Gulf Coast, following a storm in January, 2010. Amazing what creatures from another world the tide can toss ashore.

A is for The Address

2010-04-17T01:49:00.000-04:00

Last month, my husband and I traveled to the city where my father was raised for the funeral of one of my uncles. It was one of those bittersweet family gatherings, sad because of the loss of SJ, relieved that he and his daughters are no longer pioneering in the wilderness of his dementia, lively because of the opportunities to greet -- and in a few cases -- meet members of the extended family.
Coming to terms, in slow increments, one member of my parent's generation at a time, with being part of the senior generation of the family is an odd thing. Though it is a path that many travel, there is no roadmap. I remember my mother commenting after my last grandparent died, that she and my father were now the elders, with no parents. That sense of orphanhood was something that I didn't understand 30 years ago, and I am only beginning to get a glint of what that might mean now, despite the fact that my father has been deceased for 14 years, his sister for 16, his twin cousins and their spouses for over five years, his own twin for a year.

As we drove through the city, we passed places that seemed vaguely familiar. I saw that park where I think we sometimes would view July 4th Fireworks. Place names seemed familiar, although more from the retelling of events rather than any firm memories of experiences. Could I have possibly remembered my sister pushing my brother out of the car at the corner of Shermer and Beckwith? Mom seemed to think that I was an infant. Or was that another child? The story has been told so many times that it is my memory, even if that memory is only of the family tale. I certainly knew the intersection as we drove through it.

After the funeral, I got out the trusted GPS -- and my brother's not so trust-worthy directions -- and drove through the neighborhoods my parents lived in when I was a preschooler. I pointed out each of the houses where we lived, retelling stories. Then we headed north and toward the lake to The Address. Even my husband understood where we were headed when I gave him the number. Known only by its house number, if there was a family homestead in my family, it was this: my Grandmother's house.

Several years ago my husband was visiting my cousin and needed to login to her PC (on-site support and maintenance is the cost of boarding for free in Gotham).   Over the phone, from my desk at work, I asked him if he knew what my common password was. I don't need your password, he said. I need hers. Change the leters, keep the digits, I said. I bet that's it.   Puzzeled, he tried and was successful. That random number has meaning?

Yes, it does. Standing as a presence almost as monolithic as my grandmother, is that house, a house so symbolic in my father's family, it is known only by a number. I later learned that my father and my brother have also routinely used some variation of the address for passwords and lock combinations.

My grandparents moved into this house in the 1930's and lived there until long after the War when their children were grown and on their own. Eventually, they sold it to my Aunt. In total, the house was owned by someone in my family for over 50 years.

When I was a child, all family holidays happened at this house. There were numerous versions of holiday photos of my grandmother's 25 grandchildren. At Christmas, the aunts wore appliquéd aprons with trees and candycanes, the uncles sparkly vests with Santas and Snowmen. I suspect those accessories never left the house, but they've been memorialized in Kodachrome. At Easter, we all gathered on the front steps, smiling in our new Spring coats and hats.   But, despite the family traditions of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter, the iconic family holiday at The Address was Independence Day.

Every year we would gather on the 3rd of July. It was mandatory to arrive at Aunt Peg's the day before so that we would be rested for the events on the 4th. There were foot races, pie eating, and watermelon seed spitting contests for the neighborhood at the school. When we were really young, since we didn't live in town, we were coached on what address to give should we win. Even if I couldn't remember the street, I knew the house number, as if it was a Jungian ancestral memory, stored in my DNA. At noon, there was a parade down the main street, only a block from the house.   We'd arrive early to claim our places, having rode bikes which we had decorated with cards in the spokes and ribbons on the handlebars.  We wanted to be in the best position to catch candy thrown from the floats, and trail the end of the parade for a few blocks, adding to the cacophony of the parade. Afterward, there was a large picnic in the backyard, with all of my cousins, my father's cousins, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousins, many whom I couldn't ever remember their names.

Somewhere toward dinner time, we'd end up playing hide & seek.   The twist was always that we had to play inside, where we weren't suppose to be playing. But The House had so many great hiding places, how could we pass up the temptation?

Off the kitchen was a butler's pantry, with spacious cabinets that were perfect for hiding. There was a transom over both doors to the pantry, so you could hear the seekers looking for you. There was my Uncle's office, just off the main stairwell. Getting caught by an adult in that room was sure to bring a scolding.  It was also a great place to hide because of how one had to get there.   Since it was off-limits, and there were always adults in the living room, you had to approach the room from the back entrance. This meant that you had to walk down the scariest hallway in the world -- unlit, long and narrow, with floorboards the groaned even under a child's foot. Downstairs, in the basement, was the creepiest basement corner ever. Beyond the dim laundry and the darker workbench area, was the worst excuse of a dank add-on bath that one could imagine.   And in the corner, where the older kids hid their smokes and dope, it was even darker. There were plenty of places to hide, but some so scary that you couldn't wait to be found.

In the evening, if we didn't go to the park for fireworks, we would climb the stairs to the third floor to peer out the windows. From there, one could see the fireworks that were set off from the football stadium a mile away. The 3rd floor attic was rarely unlocked, but it was as mysterious as the basement and beckoned with more adventures of exploring years of collected and forgotten objects belonging to three generations.

When my cousins and I reminisced at Uncle Sid's funeral, we naturally talked about the 4th of July parties. I remember catching my cousin Helen smoking an odd smelling cigarette in the basement, of walking into the bathroom where my cousin Richard was shaving, of a spin the bottle kiss, just a peck on the check, when I was nine with someone whom I was certain wasn't related (what's a 3rd cousin anyway?), of sulking on the squeaky porch swing rather than watching the fireworks from the attic the year two of my cousins -- both my age -- were allowed to go watch the show at the stadium but I was told that I was too young.  How I disliked my mother that summer!

To my father, The Address was always his parent's house, though his sister's family lived there. I still know which street light he shot with a BB gun from his bedroom window and got away with blaming his brother.   I know which stair creaked loudly, learned from late nights as a teenager sneaking out with my cousins. It is the smell of my aunt's perfume, and my uncle's grilled hotdogs, with a strong note of perked coffee and stale smoke.   I know the house's rough stucco walls, and the thorny hedge behind the garage, and the Jewel at the corner between my Aunt's and Grandma's house.    It is the place with a grand piano in the parlor and my great-grandfather's water colors hanging on the walls. It is the house with clanky radiators and wobbly fans that greeted us and kept me awake the first nights of any visit.

I thought I might be saddened by driving by the house, as I hadn't seen it in years, hadn't been inside it for over 25 years. I had heard that the newest owners had done extensive remodeling.   I'm sure that they've redone the kitchen and certain that they would have added a dishwasher.   If I were a gambler, I'd bet money that the scary basement bathroom no longer exists, the hallway is lit, and the floorboards don't squeak.   And, while I can understand why they would have removed the French doors and the front porch, extending the living room, I missed seeing the old screen porch. But I can still smell the scent of the screens during a rain storm.  The old yellow brick lady still seemed the same. An extensive remodel, even to the exterior,  can't erase long set memories.

I considered substituting other numbers for the actual address of the house when I began writing this. Since I know that some in my family have used that number as passwords, I can't reveal what it is. I even studied the photo to be sure that the house number was not visible.   Oddly, no number I could think of seemed to work. Even if it had the same number of syllables, the same rhythm and cadence of the sound, it didn't seem the same. It took me awhile to realize that The House Known by A Number is more than just a house, more than just a number.  I couldn't call it by something that wasn't its name. Substituting a number wouldn't work because The Address is the essence of what a home is, and it signifies all that was my extended family when I was a child.

A is for Anna or Airplanes or Awe. B is for Books or Buttons, or Birds... P is for Photos, or Palwaukee....

2010-04-11T21:58:00.006-04:00

Ever since I saw Courtney, and then Charlotte tackling the "Alphabet: A History" meme, I've thought about doing it myself. I thought it might be a way to get back into blogging, a framework to help with the discipline of writing regularly.   But, even thinking about topics for the Alphabet meme, or any other blogging schemes (for instance, actually writing about the books I've read for Emily's TBR challenge) didn't seem to provide the structure I needed. I couldn't find the right way to start.   What would I write about for "A"? After all, starting at R, or B, or Q, may have been okay, it seemed to be more of a procrastination method that I could think of many other things to write about than something to write about for 'A'.   So instead of writing, I pondered possible blog post topics. And dismissed them all.

My maternal grandmother, Anna, was a possibility, but it seemed a topic both too large for a single blog post and too much in the fog of childhood memories to be much of anything unless I worked on it for a very long time. I wrote a short story about by grandparents 25 years ago.   Instead of writing the blog, I pondered how I could rework that story into something worthy of submitting for publication. But I didn't do anything but think about it. The story isn't of a quality that I would want someone else to read, but there was a lot of emotion surrounding the writing of it that I can't bring myself to edit it.

I thought about writing about airplanes: My first time in an airplane.   Riding in a sailplane with my father. Musings about my grandfather who trained to be a pilot during WWI. My son studying astronomical engineering and deciding to pursue a career in the Air Force.

My first trip in an airplane -- at age 12 and without any family -- was an adventure, but not all that spectacular.   Flying in a glider was one of the most peaceful, meditative experiences I've ever had, but I'd be terrified to try to pilot one.   I've learned recently that there used to be a photo of my grandfather on the wall of 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant. Maybe sometime in the future, when I'm in the Chicago area, I will venture out to the 'burbs to see if it is still. I wonder if it is at all like the photo that my father kept on his dresser throughout his life, the one I would stare at and dream up what adventures the smiling pilot in what looked like a Red Baron outfit might have had. I should find the photo before I write about it, I thought; it could be P is Palwaukee.   I could write volumes about my conflicting feelings about B's decision to join the USAF, but that decision is his, not mine and I know he wouldn't be comfortable with me writing about it.    Airplanes as one blog post?   I don't think so.

I thought about changing the biographical theme of the meme to one of ideas... A is for Awe, A is for Achievement, A is for Advantages, A is for Anger...   I quickly moved away from that idea.   What would B be for?   M? Z? It sounds like it could easily be preachy, or cloying, or just plain boring.

Thinking of Z, I thought I could start at the end of the alphabet and work to the front. Maybe then I would think of something for a post titled A is for ....   But, what would I do for Z? Z is for... Zero. I came up empty. Zero. Zilch. Zzzzzs.

And so it is when one wants to write but can't.   You come up with all sorts of reasons why you don't want to tackle something, or why you want to write about something else first, or you get tangled up with thinking that someone else won't like it, or you haven't all of the information or knowledge, or experience to write about it yet.   I started a novel in November, participating in NaNoWriMo.   I laid out the sketchiest of all possible outlines, but it was, at least, a plan to guide me.   But I've gone months without working on it.   Sometimes, when I'm stuck in traffic, or my mind wanders from a task at work, or I'm out taking a walk, I listen to the voices of my characters. They have told me some amazing stories, hinted at things about themselves that I have yet to learn.   But, they have yet to inspire me to sit down with the manuscript after several months. I haven't abandoned them, but I seem to find ten other things to do when I plan to write.   Perhaps I'm not disciplined enough. Maybe I'm afraid that I'm not good enough to write anything others would want to read. Maybe I just don't want to take on such a challenging, difficult thing that might consume more time than what I want to give.

The thing is when you want to write and can't, the cure seems to be that you just have to do it. Not quite ready to pick up the novel quite yet, but I want to write more often.   Even if it is painful to do so. Even if I want to distract myself with a hundred other things.   I want to find some sort of writing mojo, to stop talking about, or thinking about writing and actually write.

And so I will begin with A.   A is for ....   My next post.

A random review of the last few months

2010-04-05T22:23:00.000-04:00

* Number of books read between Jan 1 & Mar 31: 10

* Number of books for Emily's TBR Challenge: 6

* Number of books written about for TBR Challenge: 1

* Best book read so far this year:   Olive Kitteridge.   Awesome.

* Number of posts this year: a meager 16.

* Number of photos posted since Jan 1: 18. This is NOT a photo blog.   Not a photo blog at all. But I'm sure enjoying my new DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel XSi.

* Thought about renaming this blog Books, Birds and Bull. The bull is that I write about books. Below is a bird that entertained me today when I was working from home. Let's see: Work? Distraction? Joy?   Yep, Joy wins.

* Number of shots it took me to get a good picture of this bird: about 50. It's a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

* Number of holes this little guy drilled into this tree today: 6 in this photo. I thought about telling him to stop hammering on my tree, but I think he would say that it is his from root to crown.

* What the bird found interesting: these tasty (presumably) little critters.

* Varieties of flowers in the woods: at least 6, plus naturalized daffodils, crocus, hyacinths.
   - Trout Lillies
   - Bluebells
   - Cutleaf Toothwort
   - Trillium
   - Spring Beauty
   - Violas

    The Spring Beauty is my favorite wildflower. See the little ant crawling on the blossom?

* Number of movies so far this year: 6.

* Kept track of number of miles walked in January (16 total).   Feb & March: 0.   I'm a lazy slug. Am working to correct that. So far this month, walked 4 miles.

* Saw William Eggleston Demographic Camera exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago last month.   Liked the exhibit, was intrigued by the odd photographs of Elvis' house, not so sure what I think about the new Modern Wing.

* I'm looking forward to returning to the Art Institute to see Matisse: Radical Invention in May. Will also see The Taming of the Shrew at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre - a new production set in 16th century with new contemporary scenes by playwright Neil LaBute that are suppose to frame the Shakespeare work, "providing a 21st century lens" on the Bard's work.

* It's half time in the NCAA game, with Butler behind by 1 point. Blue is growling at those Blue devils! This city is wild.   Eavesdropping on conversations in the restaurant this evening, it was apparent that lots were heading downtown to the game. However, the people who were wearing their tickets around their necks: don't you think that was either a) just a bit stupid or b) a bit show-offish? Go Dogs!

Photo Friday: Blurred.

2010-04-02T15:34:00.001-04:00

This week's Photo Friday's topic is Blurred. I like the blurred branches in the foreground and the blurred reflection in the water. I like even more that it is no longer snowy & cold!

Taken Feb 6, 2010 with a Canon EOS Rebel XSi, @ Waycross Conference Center, Morgantown, IN

Shooting Mode: Auto

Tv(Shutter Speed): 1/500

Av(Aperture Value): 8.0

Exposure Compensation: 0

ISO Speed: 200

Focal Length: 250.00 mm

White Balance Mode: Auto

Pleasure in unexpected things

2010-03-28T22:32:00.010-04:00

Friday, my day started with a 6:45 phone call with a coworker in the UK, and I was rushed to get to the office by 9. But, just before I left, when I opened the drapes, I saw the most incredible patterns on the balcony. There had been just enough moisture to collect and then freeze as the temperatures hovered around freezing. Work be damned; I grabbed my camera and clicked away before the delicate lace-like crystal patterns evaporated. The drab, dirty tar of the balcony may not have been the most beautiful background, but the beauty was in nature's design.

I had to rush to get to the office before a 9:30 meeting, but it was worth the pleasure of snapping a few pictures to capture one of those fleeting, marvelous, moments that are too often missed in the chaos of every day life.

It's difficult to remember to look at the world around us with an alert eye. Too often I miss it all; but I try to be aware of the unexpected moments and not miss to many of them. It makes me smile when that happens.

I especially liked the shadows from the railings, in this shot.

I like the designs in the ice here.

I like the way the light reflects in this one.

This is the first time that I've participated in Photo Friday, a weekly challenge. This week's theme: Pleasure. Timely topic, given that I took these before I checked out this week's topic.

It's Spring!

2010-03-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

March Haiku

2010-03-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

Sun shines on birch branch
Huddled against cold blue sky
Early hopes of Spring

Quadrennial Love Affair

2010-02-24T00:28:00.000-05:00

On evening, in 1992, during the Albertville Olympics, I discovered my then 4-year old son attempting to recreate his own Olympic endeavor.   Having stacked his Playskol table and two chairs atop a sofa, then placing a cardboard box over the stack, covering it with a a white blanket and climbing to the top of his makeshift mountain, he yelled "Look, Mommy!" just before he attempted his first -- and last -- indoor luge run. While his ingenuity and swiftness in engineering his sliding track amazed me, I should not have been surprised that he would have thought of it. After all, my television had been set to non-stop Olympic broadcasts for the duration of the Games, as it has been for every Winter Olympics since I first fell in love with Jean-Claude Kielly in the 1968 Grenoble Games.

I'm not much of a sports fan, by every four years, I learn the names of the sliders, the skiers, and the skaters.   I brush up on the subtle differences between a triple lutz and and triple toe loop, learn the number of medals in each discipline, follow the made-for-TV rivalries, listen intently to the melodramatic stories of Olympian lives. During the day, I can now feed my addiction with the internet -- pictures, videos, commentary -- and when I'm near a TV, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC are on heavy clicker rotation.

Why do I like the Winter Games so much? Perhaps because I watch athletes do feats that I know I could never attempt. For example:

Skiing - My sharpest memory of my one attempt at skiing is that I went the weekend after Michigan changed its drinking age from 19 to 21. My friends abandoned me on the beginners' slope, and I abandoned the slope after two attempts and bruises that didn't fade for a few weeks. How anyone can remain standing on long strands of fiberglass confounds me.

Skating - I can skate forward. I can skate backwards. But, having honed my best technical skills on the neighborhood Overbee's Pond when I was eight, I'm best at the triple ass spin, a technique frowned upon by the Skating Federation.

Sliding - I mostly do this in my car in the winter. At speeds far slower than 90 miles an hour.  Without cowbells. Sometimes I think I deserve style points, though.

Freestyle & Snowboarding - I have never been that hip.

Curling - Until last weekend, when my husband had the curling matches on for most of the day, I would have said that brooms on ice scare me. But, having realized that CNBC stands for Curling. Nothing But Curling, I realize that this may have been a sport that I could have aspired to. The strategy of the game intrigues me. Still, trying to sweep stones over "pebbles" into the "house" seems a bit odd. I do like the tradition of the winners buying the losers a drink.   Quite sporting.

I never had any dreams about being an Olympian, though for years I would tell people that the 'J' in my surname was pronounced as in "Jean-Claude", and I had my hair cut in a Dorothy Hamel Wedge. Two weeks of races on fast sleds, jumping over obstacles of snow, jumping into the air, flipping head over heels on purpose, or racing downhill in roller-derby fashion: watching people trying to go fast and defy gravity while on slick surfaces will always grab my attention. Good thing that the Winter Olympics are only held once every four years; it would be too much excitement for me if it were more frequent.

Photo: Afternoon, Heron

2010-02-20T22:09:00.000-05:00

Photo: Afternoon (Ice)

2010-02-07T18:59:00.001-05:00

What they are saying about me?

2010-02-02T00:02:00.001-05:00

Who is revealing something about me?   My bookshelves, of course.   Although I didn't realize it until I saw this at Dorothy's site. Originally from Ella at Box of Books. My shelves are screaming the following things:

1. "We want more room!" The top shelve of one is bowed, due to the double- and triple-stacked books placed on top of it. Subtext: I hate to shop and continue to put off buying another bookcase. And really, do I need that stack of New Yorker guilt staring at me every day?   I really should pitch some of those old magazines.   I can get it on line!

2. "Lots of new books here!"  There are lots of new acquisitions in my library, although not all are recently published.   Untold story:  I had to send most of my library to the dump about seven years ago due to a flood. Although I think my buying has slowed a bit, I think there for awhile I was trying to build, in quantity at least, the same sized library I had previously. While I could buy new copies of the books, I couldn't replace the well-worn, cracked bindings of my favorite books, or replicate the notes I wrote in some of them.   Some of the books I miss most frequently are the anthologies that I used in school -- often I think of a passage of an essay, or poem and I can visualize exactly where it was in the book. How I would love to walk into the other room, search for a few minutes, until I found the book I was thinking of, then flip to some dog-earred, fingerprinted page to read the passage. While I may be able to find a copy of most of those works, I can't go back and revisit the notes I might have written when I first encountered it, the words I might have highlighted, the definitions I wrote in the margins.   I miss visiting that old reader and her thoughts.

3. "Disorganized!"   There is little reason as to where my books sit on the shelves. Generally, of the two bookcases in living room, one is works that I have read, and the other is works that I haven't read yet. Both need to be weeded and organized and many of the books should go to Book Mooch. Why? So I can get more books, of course!

4. "Someone in this house likes...."

...."Art!"   I have several art exhibit catalogs.   When I travel, I like to visit art museums and I have acquired several books on art as a result. The oldest exhibit catalog I have is from the first special art exhibit I remember seeing -- an exhibit at the Royal Academy in London on Post-Impressionism in 1979. The most recent is the book of photos and critical essays that accompanied the exhibit "The Americans" by Robert Franks, at the Metropolitan Museum last fall.   I've looked through this book numerous times in the last three months; I am in awe of these photographs.   Franks said of his photographs: "When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice." Robert Frank, LIFE (26 November 1951), p. 21. He was right about the quality of his photos, but it isn't just reading a line twice - it is reading the poem over and over again.

..."Poltical History!"   I have a special table top shelf that features several presidential biographies. My husband started on a project to read a biography of each American president. I keep thinking that maybe I'll start reading them too, but somehow that reading project never gets off the ground.

..."Theology". I used to belong to a monthly book club that met at a church and usually read something related to faith and spirituality.   If this says anything about me it is that a) I'll read anything, and b) I'm a seeker.

..."Reads 2 -3 crappy novels a year".   Most of the junk stuff was acquired due to my other monthly book club. Two or three times a year someone picks a real dog, again proving that I'll read anything -- at least for a few pages.   I could say that I keep these to protect against me becoming a complete literary snob.   So far, it isn't working. I often wonder why I even bothered to buy them. Most embarrassing: Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. A close second: anything by Jodi Piccoult or Barbara Delinski. I refused on principle to buy or bring into my house Glen Beck's The Christmas Sweater.

... "Likes to cook".   I do like to cook, but I like to eat more.   I have a huge bookcase in my kitchen with over 100 cookbooks, and lots of miscellaneous recipe cards, notebooks, magazine pages.   Besides art-related books, the other souvenir I would ever consider buying when I travel is a cookbook.   Most are in English; some aren't, which has lead to some interesting culinary recreations in my kitchen.

6. "Needs more bookcases!".    I have piles of books in nearly every room. The Shelves cry out for more; the books cry out: "Shelve us!"    My spouse and I once had a discussion if 52 books on the nightstand, beside the bed, under the quilt rack, etc. was too many. Can you guess my answer?

What are my bookshelves saying about me? That I am a reader!

Friday Bullets, because all the cool kids do it

2010-01-30T00:33:00.002-05:00

Since others have been doing bullets weekly, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

* It stinks to work late on the last day of the month, especially when it falls on a Friday. Even stinkier: to inadvertently do something to take the entire computer system down at 5:45pm when everyone is busy trying to get things finished for the day. When the crashing culprit and the computer fixer are one and the same, things don't get any better.

* You can call me a loser. Recently lost: a glove, a set of keys, my favorite hat (oh really cool NYC hat, please come back to me! Please!), lens cap to my telephoto lens, and my Rx sunglasses.   Probably a lot of other things that I don't even realize yet that I have misplaced. In addition to the thousand of thoughts that I meant to say, do, or write down before they slipped through the gray matter.

* Including the thought I was going to write here....

* The month goes really fast at work when you've been on vacation for most of it.   Easy task when weekly status and monthly status reports covered the same time span.   Having to add that you were the root cause of the only downtime this month because of something stupid: priceless. See first bullet point.

* Funniest thing I've seen this week: Tracy Ullman as Rachel Maddow & Ariana Huffington, w/ Meghan McCain and Barney Frank. Can't decide which character Ullman is best at impersonating. It's hard not to think that it is Huffington, but the other characters are nearly perfect as well. Makes me want to subscribe to Showtime so that I could watch all of Ullman's shows.

* Have made progress on Emily's TBR challenge. At least on the reading part. Not so much for the posting part.

* Even if you think you hate opera, you should make an attempt to see the Met HD rebroadcast of Carmen at a theater near you this Wednesday, 2/3 @ 6:30. I saw it when it aired live a few weeks ago. It was wonderful. Elana Garanca & Roberta Alagna spark and sparkle in this production.   Olivier Award-winning director Richard Eyre about his new production of Bizet's drama says: "It is one of the inalienably great works of art. It's sexy, in every sense. And I think it should be shocking." I have a friend whose Indian-born husband says he will go to the opera because it reminds him of Bollywood.  Productions like this one of Carmen make me understand that comparison -- song, dance, passion, humor, tragedy; it has it all.   This video is from the London production last year.

* At the beginning of December, I thought it was silly that the neighbors decorated a very tall tree with lights in the shape of a palm tree. Now that it is 8 degrees, I see it differently.   I hope they leave it up until warm weather has arrived.

* I made up a new cocktail this evening. I didn't have the ingredients for what I wanted, so it was a little of this, a little of that, from the licquer cabinet.   Hmmm...if I can recreate it, perhaps I'll think of a name and publish the receipe. Unfortunately, too much whiskey tends to make one forget the details.

* This is pretty cool. The history of the world told through 100 objects from the British Museum, produced by BBC 4.   10 episodes have been produced thus far.   So interesting that if all 100 were currently available, I'd have a hard time tearing my weary body away from the computer for a 25 hr period until I had watched them all.

Raymond Carver: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

2010-01-26T22:51:00.001-05:00

I was intrigued by the choice for this month's selection of my book club, Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk about Love. My book club has been meeting for eight years, but in recent months we've had some major changes in the makeup of the group, which have changed the dynamic. Not necessarily as a result of that change, but recently, our book choices have been pretty rotten. When my good friend, and trusted bookgroup member, S. sends me an email to informing me that I don't want to be bothered with picking up a copy, I know to take that advice. At one point a few months ago, I decided that if we didn't start reading "decent things" --which I defined vaguely as "not crap"--, I would consider dropping out. Every once in a while, reading something light and irrelevant can be good escapist reading, but when it is a constant diet of pap, well, I just don't have time.

So, when A. suggested Carver's first book of stories, I was intrigued and looked forward to interesting reading in the month ahead. This is an especially interesting choice since short story collections historically have not been very good discussions for this particular group. But, since the dynamic has changed, I'm glad that we are trying a collection again. I was also looking forward to this because I had not read Carver, which has seemed like a deficit in my reading. The only work that I know of his is the poem What The Doctor Said, which is a poem that has stuck with me since I first read it five years ago. Such persistence is surely a sign, if not of a good writer, at least of a good poem, and is certainly enough to merit reading more of his work, even if I had never heard any thing else about him (which, of course, I have).

When I went to the bookstore over the weekend to pick up the book, I was disappointed that they did not have this particular volume of short stories. But, they did have The Collected Stories of Raymond Carver. Since this included all of the stories from What We Talk About, I decided it was a good choice. What I realized later was that this volume also included all of the original, unedited, versions of the stories in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Knowing that Carver's editor, Gordon Lish, had done extensive edits, I couldn't wait to begin to read these works side by side.

Thus far, I've read the first three stories in the collection. I had intended to read all of them, as published in the original 1981 volume, before reading the earlier drafts. But, after reading "Mr Coffee and Mr Fixit", I couldn't wait to read the original. Because the original was so much longer there had to be a big difference in the versions and I couldn't wait to see what that was.

I found "Mr Coffee and Mr Fixit" to be a bit sparse, too sparse to be much of a story. It sets a mood of regret, resignation about the realities of one's life, dissatisfaction with one's spouse and children. But, the original story "Where is Everyone", while it addresses the same situations and circumstances, has so much more detail. I realized that I knew the characters from the first story, but found that I liked learning more about them in the second one. Did I need to know that his wife relapsed into alcoholism for the story to work? The narrator tells of his battle with alcoholism, but does it make a difference to know that his wife is struggling to remain sober too -- something that isn't obvious in the first story. Do I need to know that his mother knows about his wife's affair? How does it change the story that the last lines in the published version are spoken by his wife and not his mother? Is this really the same story? Can I go back to the published version and read it again without feeling that my perspective has been tampered with?

It is an interesting exercise to look at the stories side by side, but I have to wonder - which really represents the author? Does it really matter that they were edited so extensively? Does the extensiveness of the edits suggest more than editing, perhaps a co-authorship. Do the edits make the stories by Carver and Lish, rather than just Carver? Are they somehow different to the extent that they deserve an asterisk beside them -- something to denote that they aren't "real" Carver stories? Just reading one of the stories in both versions raised these questions.

Perhaps I need to read more of the works as originally published before I go back to reading those earlier drafts. What does one even call those -- early drafts? unedited manuscripts? I'm not sure what would be appropriate if they are all as different as these two stories. These stories don't seem like similar beings but completely different species. I don't know if I can compare them. Or that I want to. I do, however, want to read more of Carver's stories and will later read more of the earlier, unedited versions for comparison. I may though only have more questions, not answers.

2010-01-17T14:48:00.000-05:00

Not sure why in the middle of winter I would decide to read something with summer in it's title, other than to warm me. Of course A Midsummer Night's Dream has little to do with summer, but much to do with merriment. The opening lines always bring a smile:

(Theseus) Now fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame, or a dowager,
Long withering out a youn man's revenue.

(Hippolyta) Four days will quickly steep themselves in night'
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

(Theseus) Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth:
Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
The pale companion is not for our pomp.
Hippolyata, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won the love, doing thee injuries;
But i will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

The back & forth between Theseus and Hippolyta -- "It's four long days". "Four days is not long at all!" -- is the kind of repartee that occurs between each of the couples throughout the play and, while representative, is not at all the best example from the work. But, what merriment there is throughout for the audience. It is fun to read (or re-read) this play -- in midwinter January or midsummer June. I could write lots about this play, but my purpose today was not to critique. Reading Shakespeare was such a burden when I was a student, but what a pleasure it is now to read for no other reason than the sheer joy of it.

And then the sun shone warm upon the sands

2010-01-14T15:33:00.000-05:00

As some of you may have surmised from the pictures I've posted recently, I've been at the shore since the beginning of the month. And, as those of you who follow such things know, most of the country has been experiencing colder than normal temperatures. As I stood in line at the airport a few weeks ago, I realized that I had not left my hat and scarf in the car.  It seemed such a silly thing to bring with me to Florida.   It hadn't occurred to me that I might have to wear them, as I did last weekend when I was photographing birds at low tide. Temperatures in the low 30's are extremely rare in Southwest Florida, and while unpleasant for the vacationer or winter inhabitants, have caused serious issues for the growers whose crops cannot take sustained freezing temperatures.   There were even a few days when I shuddered as I looked at the sky and thought "snow sky".   I didn't see any flurries, although I heard a news report that some were seen about 30 miles south of where I am.

Two days ago, it began to warm, although the mercury struggled to reach 60 degrees.   There were some sun-seekers who, unwilling to be thwarted by capricious weather, decided to work on their tans. The running joke has been where they are from: Russia, Norway, Minnesota, Alaska, Siberia, North Dakota, Patagonia.  Even with the benefit of windbreaks constructed of beach towels and chaises, one must have a sturdy, winterized constitution to sit on a beach in a swimsuit at 55 degrees.

Something is different today though. It is in the 70's. There isn't a cloud in the sky and air is still. As I sit on my balcony reading, I inhale an intoxicating mix of cocoa butter, charcoal grills, beer, boat engines and the sea. Yes, there is something about warmer weather to lift one's spirit, as if the sun were capable of performing some sort of psychic photosynthesis on humans.   It is so much better to share the beach with the warmth of the sun, the salty smell of the sea, and the gleeful mix of surf, music, and child-like laughter as people gather to recreate.

Photo: Noon

2010-01-12T20:45:00.001-05:00

Cold weather has been banished! It's beginning to feel like Florida.

Photo: Night

2010-01-11T19:31:00.000-05:00

Morning, Noon, Night

2010-01-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

One of the things that I want to explore this year is taking photos in different types of light. Here is the first in this series which I am dubbing "Morning, Noon, Night".

TBR Challenge

2010-01-09T18:48:00.006-05:00

How many books did you bring?, my husband asked the other day.

Eight, I replied. I didn't need to look up to know the expression on his face. I packed eight. This, I said holding up the book in my hands, is the longest and I'm reading it first.

A few months earlier, during the long, hot, dog-days of a boring summer -- the sort of boredom that only occurs when stranded sans car at one's parents' home during the university's summer break when no friends are in town -- my son said, pointing to an overflowing bookcase:

I'm bored. Would you recommend any of these books? You know, for me?

I don't know if you'd like any of those books. I haven't read any of them. There are lots in that bookcase you might like. But this bookcase, it's my TBR pile.

None? he said, astonished by the bibliographic largess in the corner of my living room. Is there a meeting for that?

Then, sometime later, Emily created her TBR challenge, validation that I am not alone in my hording of unread books. Despite the four bookstore gift cards in my wallet calling my name repeatedly, cards presented by well-meaning gift givers who certainly did not have prior insight into the towering piles of unread volumes in every room of my house, I have decided to participate and read 20 books before I purchase another new book.

As the first of December, the start date for Em's challenge approached, I tried to choose 20 unread books, but soon I had more than the 20 required. I tried to organize into categories - fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama; contemporary, classic; topical categories like theology/philosophy, politics, ecology, art. The stacks grew and diminished as I tried to strike a balance. Finally, I gave up, leaving a pile of about 30 books on the floor, immediately in front of the bookcase. There they remained until last week when I hurriedly packed for a two-week vacation. Those that I chose were selected on a basis of weight and page length, after I estimated that I could read about 600 -700 pages a week.

Here is what I chose:

Abraham, Bruce Feiler

A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, John Muir
The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson
The Gathering, Anne Enright
Grace (Eventually), Anne Lamott
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
Arthur and George, Julian Barnes
The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

In Our Time is a re-read; The Omnivore's Dilemma is the lengthiest of the bunch and one that I should finish today or tomorrow.

My first book for this challenge, Florence of Arabia, Christopher Buckley, never made it to the plane as I finished it shortly before we left for the airport.

If you have grave concerns that I cannot count, I confess that eight was something of a ballpark estimate. Two of the books were in my computer bag, though I had intended them for this challenge. The two Shakespeare plays, I considered as one book, although by that logic, I should include the others in the set in my bookcase as part of one work, but I don't think that I will.

What about the other books to complete this challenge? Let's see how far I progress with these. It's been a cold and windy week in a beach condo not meant for near freezing weather. I've seen all of the movies I care to see right now, so it looks like there may be quite a bit of reading in the next six days, in between occasional daydreaming bouts of looking at the grey seas, and short walks along the windy shore.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-27T22:41:00.003-05:00

Stopping by to post a photo of the snowy day we had here today and to say that I intend to be back in this space regularly in 2010. See you then! Happy New Years!

Things to do when not writing NaNoWriMo Novel

2009-11-08T12:04:00.007-05:00

* Play Scramble on Facebook on the premise that you are a) limbering up your fingers for typing, and b) it involves words so it’s a pre-write exercise.

* Take a nap and have a dream where one of your minor characters makes a case for importance in your plot and then proceeds to tell you how she dies. Get up and write that chapter.

* Get so enamored with one chapter that you just want to edit, edit, edit instead of write, write, write.

* Use Find/replace to change all contractions to two words, thereby increasing word count by 50 words.

* Think of ways to color code your characters to aide in building a mind map of the plot lines. Spend too much time on which color is just right for each character. Be glad that you have a set of 64 colored pencils.

* Recalculate every hour how many more words you have to write to ‘catchup’, then whine about your swine flu setback.

* Check FB again in case something important has happened. Be amused by swiney cartoon son has posted on your wall. Decide that one of your characters liked Winnie the Pooh as a child. Consider this research.

* Peruse the NaNoWriMo Forums and wonder if everybody is writing either FanFic or Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Have an episode of self-doubt that you shouldn’t be doing this.

* Remind yourself that it’s just a goal to get a first draft completed.

* Realize at 11:17 that due to the time change the perfect sunbeam for napping is almost in place. Move laptop to bed. Realize 45 minutes later that the sun doesn’t move as quickly as you thought.

* Think some more about your characters. Maybe even write a character sketch.

* Write a blog post to tell your 5 readers that your word count is now 6828, which isn’t bad considering that you didn’t write for 4 days.

* Wonder if bullet pointed blogs posts count towards word count if you can attribute them to a character? After all, 392 words would increase your count to 7220, leaving you with exactly 1860 more words per day to write to meet 50,000 by Nov 30th. Consider that would be 380 words if you removed the contractions.

* Take another nap. The sunbeam is now perfectly aligned with bedroom window.

That wasn't so bad for a start....

2009-11-01T18:13:00.004-05:00

I was excited yesterday about doing NaNoWriMo. I even thought that maybe it would be okay if I started writing, since my outline had energized me. But, I decided that I needed to pace myself (and follow the rules if I'm participating), so I waited until today.

So, what did I do when I woke up this morning? Did I rush to the computer, armed with my outline, a cup of coffee, and thousands of good ideas rushing through the grey matter?

Are you kidding?

I drank my coffee, read about 75 pages in a book (Marilynne Robinson's Home, which I'm liking quite a lot), and then went back to bed. I crawled out from under the covers just before 10:30, just in time to see the nature montage that always closes CBS Sunday Morning.

After a few hours of procrastinating, I finally turned on the laptop. More time with email, news stories, Facebook, and other diversions, I finally started to write. I only had 300 words after a half hour. If I continue at that pace, I'll never finish in a month!

Finally, I started to write. My story went off in a direction I hadn't anticipated, but that's okay. I have now completed the first draft of the prologue and I'm content that I wrote not only a little more than 2000 words, but that I said what I wanted to say in the opening pages. All in all, not a bad start. Let's see how it progresses, some of which I hope to document here, though I don't anticipate doing that daily. No, NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo would be too obsessive, too much for anybody.

Happy wordful November, everyone.

NaNoWriMo Minus 1

2009-10-31T16:29:00.007-04:00

Having a few hours to kill in an airport and on a plane, I made use of pen and paper to begin planning my NaNoWriMo project. As I understand the rules, prework is okay before November 1st, and since I've never written a novel before, I thought I might at least explore a few ideas.

Yesterday, I saw a televised interview with John Irving. One things that Irving said that intrigued me was that he doesn't start writing his book until he knows the last sentence. It was, he explained, the only way he knew how to begin a plot driven work.

I'm not going to doubt a best-selling author's process, just as I would not doubt someone who had written several unpublished works, because I really haven't a clue how one writes a book. What I think the follow up questions should have been, though, was this: how often does that sentence remain the last sentence?

I wrote a last sentence and it isn't too bad as sentences go, but it really was no more than a prompt. It started me thinking and, although it was a workable sentence, potentially a poignant last sentence that with lots of work might be within reach of Fitzgerald's green light Gatsby close, I quickly realized that I probably didn't have a book. So much for that idea.

The fun part about imagining is not knowing where your brain is going to take you. I continued to write down ideas, drifting away from my last sentence. Soon I had several seemingly unrelated ideas, but I saw a pattern revealing itself.

So, while I think that there is more to the pattern to be found, and that the discovery will come in the writing -- and more certainly in the editing to follow after Nov 30 -- I now have a core idea. Nature, time and place will figure prominently in this project. What I'm envisioning is a series of loosely related stories. I've outlined the chapters and have given them working titles. The titles will serve as writing prompts. For about half of these, I already know either the characters or the plot. Some characters will be recurring, but in some chapters, place and nature/season will be what ties the piece to work as a whole. It may not work out, but it's where I'm headed right now.

I don't know why I feel compelled to put the working chapter titles here, but in some ways it makes it seem more real. If I focus on one of these a day for the next 30 days, I should have at least something of length, even if not of significance by the end of NaNoWriMo. This list is in a vague thematic order that is more or less seasonal, but it is not the order that I think that the book will actually be.

The Map
Spring
Cemetery
Driving Lessons
The convertible and the tree
A Tale of a Bird Watcher
Ah, Pioneers
Baby!
Flower and Patio
Summer
Cherry
If It's Worth Building
Summer Storm
Escape
Getting Glasses
Home is not home if there are no oak trees
Fireflies and fireworks
Fall
Spook Spoof
Putting Dad to Bed
The Greenway Trial
Cowboy Camp
Deerhunters and the Tea Party
Fire Sale
Winter
Selling the Farm
An Accident
Break-In
5 Cents or The Dr. Is In
I'm Older than John Glenn
It was colder than this in 1875

As I actually get some words down on paper, I might be willing to share some of this with readers I trust. Let me know if you're interested...I probably will not look at specific criticisms until I'm ready to begin editing in December, but I'll take any encouraging words throughout November.

I will blame Courtney...

2009-10-30T13:11:00.004-04:00

Courtney unsuspectingly put the bug in my head a few days ago. I'm going to attempt to expunge a poor first novel by writing it during NaNoWriMo. We'll see how far I make it. I haven't posted here much this year, so there probably won't be much change in what is posted here for the next month. Wish me well.

This may be one of the pictures I gaze upon when trying to find new ways to procrastinate -- err, I mean -- write.

Book Review: It Happened in Italy

2009-10-28T10:04:00.004-04:00

It Happened in Italy: Untold Stories of How the People of Italy Defied the Horrors of the Holocaust, by Elizabeth Bettina, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2009.

This was a selection for my book discussion group this month. I was intrigued by the subject and was expecting something more than I got from this book.

Bettina, in this book, tells about how she learned, unexpectedly, that her ancestral town in Italy, where she traveled frequently as a child, had been the site of a Jewish internment camp during World War II. Even more surprising, though, was that this camp was not like the horrible death camps run by the Nazis. Unlike their fellow Jews in other parts of Europe, most of the Jews in Italy survived. The survivors documented in this book repeatedly talked about the generosity of the Italians who treated them humanely, and, when the Germans came, saved them by hiding them.

This sounds like a great story, right? I thought so, which is why I was so disappointed in this book. Great stories don't always make good books if the writing is not good. The book was more about the author's journey of discovery than about the survivors. As such, it was repetitive and boring. The book is desperately in need of very serious editing. If any chapter was submitted as a draft in a college writing class, I imagine that 'Show; don't tell" would be written across the pages.

Still, many of the photos and documents reproduced in the book are fascinating. It is uplifting to know that there were good people who worked to save their fellow human beings. The author writes about how she and her colleague videotaped the survivors of the Italian camps that they met. I'm sure that a documentary of the survivors would be much more interesting and I would watch it if it were available. Nowhere in the book does the author indicate that it has been distributed. Too bad. I think it would be more interesting than her story of finding these individuals.

Dusting off the cobwebs and ....

2009-10-26T20:53:00.005-04:00

...chasing out the ghosts on this blog to actually respond to a tag. Emily has tagged me for her Haunted Halloween meme and I thought I'd do it rather than risk being cursed by spurned spirits.

1) Which urban legend ghost scared the bejeezus out of you when you were a kid? One could have scared me with any of them, but the one that frightened me the most was a local one: The House of Blue Lights. Living only a few miles away, I was both excited -- and terrified -- by the thought of a nearby haunted house, illuminated with blue strobe lights where some crazy old man kept the mummified corpse of his wife, buried in her wedding dress, in a casket. There were many versions of the story of how she died and none of them were pleasant. The land was donated to the city many years ago and is now an urban nature park with forest and prairie plantings. I still live nearby the area, and I have no idea if school children still tell tales of The House of Blue Lights, but if they went on a walk through Skils Test Nature Park, I'm sure they could make some up when they came across the occasional reminder that there was once a house on the property.

2). Which horror movie has the best premise? Hands down, the best is Hitchock's The Birds. Scared the birdcrap out of me the first time I saw it. And the second. And the third. And many times thereafter when seeing a flock of nasty, cackling crows. The only time seeing the movie didn't scare me was when I watched part of it through a store window on a foggy night in Lucerne, but that probably had something to do with the beer I had consummed.

3) What is the most disappointing "treat" to receive in your bag on Halloween night?
Necco Wafers. I detested the chalky circles that always reminded me of an old granny's handkerchief drawer. It was such a disappointment to find them in my trick-or-treat bag. I was always suspicious that they were tainted with some foul-tasting substance that was probably good for you, like cod-liver oil. I'd always grumble about who was the cheap old meany that passed them out as treats. The mother of a friend loved Neccos and at her wake a few years ago, her granddaughters passed out wafers to everybody. A few weeks later, another friend and I were walking along the greenway and I realized that I had them in my coat pocket. As an odd memorial to our friend's mother, we opened the pack and popped some of the dusty wafers into our mouths. A few seconds later, we both spit them out, laughing at how horrible those nasty smelling things are.

4) What's the best non-candy item to receive? The smiles on kids' faces when they're having fun on Halloween, especially the little ones when you remark about their costumes. Or when you tell them you weren't expecting trick-or-treaters so you'll have to give them money. I guess that might be the best non-candy item to receive. It's worked the few times that I've been caught without candy.

5) Did a monster live in your closet when you were a child? I sometimes thought that the monster that lived in the hallway in my aunt's house sometimes visited my closet, but I was quite happy when he would return to her house and the creepy long, windowless hallway that lead from the front door to the butler's pantry. I didn't know what a butler was, but his ghost frightened me. Worse, we weren't' allowed to go through the living room in the morning, so the hallway was the only way to get to breakfast. If you made it to the end of the dark hallway, you had to open the creaky door with the stubborn doorknob quickly, because the butler's ghost might have made a trip to the basement and catch you by the stairs before you escaped into the safety of the kitchen. No wonder I started drinking coffee at an early age: needed it to calm my nerves!

6) Which supernatural creature sent chills up your spine when you were ten and still does? I had enough fears embedded in my young brain by the nuns and I so feared vengeful angels would scatter my sinful soul to the four corners of the earth that those other creatures didn't faze me. Come to think of it, maybe the nuns were the supernatural creature that sent chills up my spine!

7) Which supernatural creature makes you yawn? Vampires and werewolves.

8) What's your favorite Halloween decoration? I don't decorate for Halloween, but the best decoration when I was a kid was my neighbor's house. They would have candles lining the driveway and walk, a coffin on the front porch, and a gigantic spiderweb about 10 feet across, reaching from gutterline to front walkway that you had to walk under to ring the doorbell. The neighbor would dress as a witch. Creepy music would play. Unsuspected trick-or-treaters would be startled as she slowly raised herself from the coffin, or jumped out from behind the bushes to deliver candy. She always wore ghoulish costumes. Her daughter was always dressed as a fairy princess. Is it any wonder that I occassionally have dreams where I'm running through suburban yards and suddenly realize that it is that house?

9) If you could be anywhere on Halloween night, where would you be? At home. If not there, somewhere where nobody teepees your trees, smashes your pumpkin, soaps your windows, graffittis your car, or drinks beer as they escort their kids through the neighborhood. That describes my old neighborhood and it makes me happy that we've only had a handful of trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood in the last 10 years.

Suggestions?

2009-09-26T17:58:00.003-04:00

One has 4 days in NYC, Fri - Mon. Already scheduled: Play Sat Evening (Hamlet), musical on Sunday afternoon (South Pacific), and the Met Opera on Monday evening (Le Nozze de Figaro). What are your suggestions to fill my days?

Please note, the following are not on any list that will be considered: Empire State building (unless it is to laugh at the fools who take video pictures of a stationary building. It doesn't move, people!), Statute of Liberty, the Circle Cruise, staring at the empty pit that was WTC (I've taken the PATH too many times and it always saddens me to see it), eating overpriced oysters at Grand Central Station, congregating at Rockefeller Plaza during the Today Show, seeing real buildings where fake people supposedly lived (cf. Sex & the City tour), touring the Intrepid or strolling purposelessly through the blaring, sense-numbing, migraine-inducing wreck that is Times Square. In other words: I've been forced to do the tourist stuff too many times and am looking for other things to do. Suggestions involving good food or things of beauty always considered.

Not laboring today

2009-09-07T14:17:00.004-04:00

I had planned to write a post today, as I did yesterday, the day before, and many days in the last few months. I haven't moved beyond a few ideas, and one great title (Goose à la Road may still find it's way into written form). I've thought about doing the Alphabet posts that Courtney, Charlotte and others have done, but while I already have great things for b, d, i, s, and w, I can't seem to settle on something for a.

But, today is Labor Day, the ceremonial last day of summer. Here, in the Heartland of the US, it's chilly and grey. Unseasonably cool nights have already signaled to a few trees that it's time to turn color and prepare for dormancy. It's 2pm and I'm still in my pajamas. I looked at my blackberry once, said "not today", and threw it back in my bag. No laboring for me today.

Yet, I will encourage you to watch the clip below about work. But not just work. Hopes, dreams, struggles, and what the nature of work can mean regardless of one's economic status. One's life work is not necessarily one's job.

Makes me feel even lazier on my non-laboring day. Even that is okay once in awhile.

One Word Meme

2009-07-30T22:43:00.004-04:00

One last post for the month - and a lame attempt at that! Lots of ideas for posts this month, but never found the time to write them. Found this meme at Emily's site.

1. Where is your cell phone? Table
2. Your hair? long-ish
3. Your mother? newlywed
4. Your father? deceased
5. Your favorite food? comfort
6. Your dream last night? forgotten
7. Your favorite drink? manhattan
8. Your dream/goal? writer
9. What room are you in? dining
10. Your hobby? reading
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? comfortzone
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren’t? thin
15. Muffins? Nope.
16. Wish list item? nothing
17. Where did you grow up? Midwest
18. Last thing you did? facebook
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV? off
21. Your pets? none
22. Friends? Great.
23. Your life? hectic
24. Your mood? fair
25. Missing someone? no
26. Vehicle? Passat
27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
28. Your favorite store? books
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? 8pm
31. Last time you cried? Friday
32. One place that I go to over and over? NYC
33. One person who emails me regularly? SWG
34. Favorite place to eat? out

Who Am I? Am I A City?

2009-07-08T21:35:00.007-04:00

And the junk stood up into skyscrapers and asked:
Who am I? Am I a city? And if I am what is my name?
And once while the time whistles blew and blew again
The men answered: Long ago we gave you a name,
Long ago we laughed and said: You? Your name is Chicago.
Early the red men gave a name to the river,

the place of the skunk
the river of wild onion smell,
Shee-caw-go

- The Windy City, Carl Sandburg

Love Chicago? Love poetry?
Don't know Chicago? Don't know too much about poetry?

Whatever your answer, you should check out the Poetry Foundation's Chicago Poetry Tour.

This is an amazing feature produced by the Poetry Foundation with several tours of Chicago, featuring poetry from many Chicago poets. You can watch the tours online, with audio recordings of poets reading their works about or inspired by the city. Or, you can download the audio to play as you walk through the city. The site also has downloadable maps. There are 22 tours of downtown Chicago landmarks and surrounding neighborhoods. You can listen to Carl Sandburg reciting The Windy City, or Gwendolen Brooks, reciting her We Real Cool, as well as readings by other poets, writers, and critics. You can navigate to specific poems or poets, rather than navigating via the tour map.

I often think that New York is my favorite city in the world, but if I give it 'Best in World' title, I think it could be exempted from the competition for the Best in US laurels, a title which would then, undoubtedly, go to Chicago.

I'd love to see similar features of other cities, featuring snippets of poetry and prose of and about each city. Hmmm...this has me pondering what I would choose to include if this was done for my hometown. I think that's a future blog post.

Tagged!

2009-07-08T02:28:00.000-04:00

Ms Musings, from her sofa, nominated me for some sort of nameless award, provided that I write of seven personality traits. She was thus tagged by ZoesMom and passed on the honors to me and others. In what I'm sure is evidence of that old 'telephone' game we played in school, where one person would whisper a statement in another's ear, and by the time it traveled to the other side of the room would have transformed into something entirely different, I'm fear I've missed some important feature of this award. I think the photo above is part of the award. It's a nice one for this blog because it features a book, and the admiration of books and a sense of humor certainly would be the ninth and tenth personality characteristics I would list (alongside not playing fair and square with rules) if the rules allowed me to expand beyond seven. Perhaps the award itself is in the doing, as writing usually is.

Now, onward with my seven traits:

1. Unlike Ms. Musings, I'm rarely punctual. I live in my own timezone. Good for me that I have the flexibility with my job to come in when I please, because I'm not sure when my 'starting time' would be if I had to punch a clock. I always think that I'll be better about this, but I never seem to put forth much effort to change it. When it really counts, like airplane flights, funerals and such, I'll be there on the spot, but don't expect me, for heavenssake, to be early. If I am, there was probably a time change that I didn't know about. Best thing about this trait: I can lose hours reading a good book!

2. Like Ms Zoe's Mom, I am a shy person. I don't know how to make small talk. I am not very comfortable in new surroundings where I don't expect to know anyone and I haven't been before. Unless -- and I realize this is so narcissistic -- Ihave some sort of role in the gathering. For instance: recently I co-hosted a fundraising event and was expected to MC the evening. I could put on my competent MC/party planner/fundraiser hat without any problem. I pulled it off, looking cool and competent. Well, not cool, as it was 95 degrees outside and the AC wasn't working properly. Had I just been an attendee, I would have been quite agitated at having to chitchat with people I didn't know. Positive aspect to this trait: I've learned to compensate for the inability to small talk. Sometimes I'll talk about a book I've read; however, this fails monstrously if you're with non-readers.

3. I detest talking on the phone. I have a few exceptions -- some friends, a few members of my family, some colleagues with whom I'd rather not sit in a meeting room -- but generally I find it very difficult to understand the gist of conversations while on a telephone. If I can't see you, I just can't seem to understand all of the nuances of our conversation. How I deal with this trait: on important phone calls I outline items to cover before I dial; on conference calls, I love the MUTE button.

4. I find it too easy to take on the moods of others. Crabby people bring out the uber-crab in me. I don't like getting on that fast train to bitchiness, but it can be so easy at times. I want to avoid grumbly people. I struggle with it all the time. If I could change anything about this side of my personality: I hope for a time when that grumpy, cranky, crabby inner me stops wanting attention, shrivels up entirely, and falls into some dark, forgotten, flat corner of the world, leaving a much better, happier, joyous person out in the world. That would be nice.

5. I sometimes feel that I have no sense of what people think about me or why they get the ideas that they do. I remember a friend who had previously been a student in one of my writing classes, telling me about how some students talked about me one day. They envisioned me having gourmet dinner parties with lots of friends, fancy china and crystal, perfect centerpieces. I don't think I owned two plates that matched at that point in my life and my idea of gourmet was buying a salad at the drive-thru and serving it in a pretty cut-glass bowl, one that I had borrowed from my mother but not yet returned. Another friend told me recently that when she first met me 20 years ago, she initially disliked me because she thought I was everything she wanted to be: competent, confident, outgoing and portrayed those traits with ease. I guess she only started liking me once she saw through my facade. A true friend, indeed, who loves me as I am, not as how I appear to be. The upside: the older I get the better I am at understanding how my words and actions might be perceived -- and the less I care about perceptions and misperceptions.

6. I am very inquisitive. I know all sorts of trivia because at some point in time I thought "I wonder why that is?". I used to make myriad trips and calls to the reference library to satisfy my curiosity. Now, I just have to google it. I've been this way since I was a child. My sister used to tease me, calling me Encyclopedia Brown. I don't know why I file away the obscure but I do. An example: my doctor could tell you all about the very specific type of foot injury I sustained in an automobile accident a few years ago, but I would tell you only that this particular injury is named after Napoleon's gynecologist. You have to admit it: it's much more fun to know that than the anatomical details of healing torn ligaments. Potential benefit: As a result of this lifelong curiosity, if I could have a garage sale of trivia facts stored in my brain, I'd make a killing.

7. I have never revealed so much about myself to acquaintances as I have since I started blogging. I think my blog persona is more easily able to be an authentic person than I can be in real life, but also a much better person. Maybe that is because blogging, with it's ability to craft/draft/edit my voice, doesn't take all that energy to put up a facade. Benefits aplenty: I don't have to worry about being on time or too shy; I don't have to talk on the telephone, make small talk, or host dinner parties with matching china and crystal; I can easily choose not to let my crankiness surface here, and I won't see you roll your eyes when I share an obscure fact that I find fascinating and you find absolutely boring. Thanks for stopping by to read my blog and letting me be me. :)

Tagging seven bookish bloggers who I am glad share their voices through blogs:

Danielle, A Work in Progress
Ted, Bookeywookey
Smithereens
Dorothy W, Of Books and Bicycles
Stefanie, So Many Books
Diana, Diaphanous
SFP, Pages Turned

15 in 15

2009-07-07T16:46:00.000-04:00

I started this almost a month ago, but never found the time to go back to proof and publish. But, I really did this in 15 minutes. I am resisting the urge to change some of these now that I've had time to reflect, but I am leaving them as-is.

15 Influential Books (list comprised in 15 minutes):

1 The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Although I first read this in English, I remember it because it was also the first book I ever read in French. I read several French existentialist while a student, but Saint-Exupéry's book is the one that I not only remember, but I remeber enjoying. Besides, isn't it nicer to remember a fairy tale that Sartre's "L'enfer, c'est les autres"?

2 The Witch of Blackbird Pond A Newberry Award Winner. I remember this book because I didn't want to return it to the school library. I renewed it so many times that the librarian refused to let me check it out again. A boy in my class wanted to keep a book about the WWI and the Red Barron. We checked out each other's book and traded, content to continue reading our chosen books.

3 Biography of Jane Addams - The first biography I ever read. I remember this was part of a series of biographies. The books were covered in blue cloth and had nice end papers. The series was mostly about men, but three books were about women.

4 Biography of Amelia Earhart This book was in the same series as the Jane Addams book. (The other woman was Dolly Madison.) I remember that these books were my companions during a period when it seemed like I was continually grounded. Seems like I read them in my room on rainy Saturday afternoons.

5 The Great Gatsby. F.Scott Fitzgerald. I have read this book many times. It was required reading in high school and in two college classes. Each time I have read it, I have discovered something new that is particularly wonderful, whether it is Nick's elegy about the green light at the end of Daisy's dock in the final paragraphs, or the desolate description of Jay Gatsby's mansion after he has been killed, or the languorous way that Daisy and Sigourney endure the heat and boredom seated on a sofa, or the sense of fatality in the party scene when the group rides into the city before Myrtle is killed. There isn't a bit in this book that didn't awe me the first time I read it and I am never disappointed when I re-read it.

6 The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs. I read this three years ago and it opened my eyes to not only the horrifying nature of poverty in much of the developing world, but the equally horrifying realization that even though it is solvable, the "haves" of this world are not doing nearly enough.

7 Moby-Dick. Herman Melville. I read this during a short summer session while in college. Daily, I would pull my lawn chair into the yard of the run-down house I rented, grease myself up with suntan lotion, take a few cold beers from the fridge, and read. And read. And read. If it rained, or was just too hot, I would shift my location to the dive bar where my roommate worked, where I would sit at the end of the bar, usually the only "customer" in the afternoon, and continue plowing through this tome. I was surprised that I not only finished the assigned reading, but that I loved the book. All of my classmates thought I was crazy. Maybe it was the ever-flowing beer, but I think not. Although I don't know that I'll ever re-read Moby-Dick in its entirety, I think it will always remain near the top of my Best. Books. Ever. list.

8 Fire-Starter, Stephen King. This book was given to me as a birthday present, shortly before I graduated from college. The gift-giver told me to try to not be a snob and enjoy the book. It was the first book by Stephen King that I ever read and it taught me that there is a lot of merit in reading pop culture-type books. A good lesson for a snobby, newly graduated English major - especially as she learned in the midst of a recession that the real-world of work was not nearly as nice as the world of literature.

9 A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle. This may be the book that got me to give up on reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I thought L'Engle could see inside my head and based the character of Meg on me: smart, nerdy, few friends, short-tempered. I so wanted a Mrs. Whatsit or an Aunt Beast to drop into my world and take me away to some planet where I could be nurtured by them.

10 The World According Garp, John Irving. After reading Stephen King, I thought I could try another foray into pop culture. I had heard that Irving was a good writer, but I laughed at the marketing of the book (you could buy the book in one of several different colored covers). I rushed home every evening from a routine job -- my first "real" full time job -- to sit on the patio of the dull, little apartment I rented to read about the life of Garp. I thought it was wonderful that when he first meets his wife, she tell Garp that she wants to be a reader. How could I not love a book about someone who wanted to be a writer, and someone who wanted to be a reader?

11 A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving. It was several years later when I read A Prayer for Owen Meany. It is the Irving novel that I most often recommend. By far my favorite one of his books.

12 A MidSummer Night's Dream. William Shakespeare. It is possible that I saw the play before I read the play. I know that MidSummer's Night Dream is not the first Shakespeare play that I had read. High school requirements forced me to read Julius Ceaser, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. Hamlet, Lear and Richard III were all required reading early in my college work. But it wasn't until I read MidSummer Night's Dream that I fell in love with Shakespeare. I'm a sucker for any version of this play, and I think that I've seen most of the film adaptations of it.

13 Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. I can remember my grandfather coming to live with us when I was about 14. I was intrigued that he would read books like Alice in Wonderland and Huck Finn. (He read the encyclopedia too.) He told me I should read Huck, but I had a difficult time with the dialect. A few years later, during my Jr year in high school, Huck Finn was on the syllabus. My grandfather had just died, and I insisted on reading his copy of the book, having to cross reference the assignments from the school-issued version and mine. My English teacher was one of the coolest teacher's that I had; when she first spotted the dogeared volume I had, held together with two rubber bands, she asked about it. I explained it was my grandfather's. The next week, she had a special assignment sheet for me, adjusted for the page numbers in my book. While my reading that copy of the book was an emotional thing, Huck Finn is the book that I credit as being one of the most influential in making me a lifelong reader. And, when people have asked me if I want to write the "Great American Novel", I'm often tempted to say: "Already done. Go read Huck Finn.

14 Love Story, Erich Segal. Laugh. Snicker. Snear. Why is this book on here? It was one of the first "forbidden" books that I ever read. My mother had a copy on her nightstand and I would sneak into her bedroom to read it every day as soon as I got home from school. I would get about 3 pages read during the 10 minutes I had before my older sister would arrive home. I distinctly remember that the characters frequently called peopled sobs. I couldn't figure out what that meant. (Give me a break; I was 12). It took me most of the book before I understood that it was an abbreviation because I was reading a Readers' Digest Condensed version. I imagine that "sonofabitch" was just too racy for Readers' Digest.

15 The Once and Future King. T.H. White. I was mesmerized by this book. I never could understand why Guenevere would have fallen in love with Lancelot because Arthur was so wonderful. I had read A Sword in the Stone in 9th grade and didn't want the book to end. A few years later, when I learned that it was part of a longer novel (see note on English teach & Huck Finn), I had to get the book. It remains one of the few books over a 1000 pages that I have ever completed willingly and without being "required" reading. (Thanks to a short attention span.)

ABCs

2009-07-04T19:42:00.002-04:00

I saw this most recently at Becky's blog, but it's been done by Queen Emily and Zoe's Mom as well as others.

A – An advantage you have – born into a white, middle-class, educated family in America. Birth should not be an advantage, but it is. Although women can be discriminated against and that is unjust and shouldn't happen, white, educated middle-class women shouldn't bitch about discrimination as if it were the same thing as racial or socio-economic prejudice. It isn't; get over it.

B – Blue or brown eyes – Undeniably, boring, everyday brown.

C – Chore you hate – Toss up between cleaning and grocery shopping.

D – Dad’s name – Alfred. Because I hate the one-sided patriarchal nature of this question, here is my matriarchal lineage: Helen, Anna, Elizabeth, Freda-Lena, Anna. And on the other branch: Helen, Margaret, Elizabeth. I was named after a grandmother and a grandfather, which I think is cool.

E – Essential start of your day – Coffee. Big, tall mugs of American coffee, with lots of steamed milk. I love European coffee with it's stunning aroma and immediate jolt of caffeine, but it will never replace my slow entrance into daylight accompanied by my coffee.

F – Favorite colour – Blue; the deep, vibrant blue in mid summer after the sun has set on a clear day, just past twilight, before it is really dark, kind of blue.

G – Greatest thing you’ve ever done that made you feel really good – Anything I thought to write here seemed a little self-serving. I'll keep it to myself.

H – Habit you have – lots of bad ones, but I broke the nicotine one years ago.

I – Issue you hate that the world tries to make you pursue – That there is a clear demarcation between the two major parties in America. This leads to the demonization of each by the other. It's sick, but if you're interested in politics -- and every concerned citizen should be in my opinion -- it's hard to avoid being sucked into the vortex that is partisan politics.

J – Job title – Manager, Business Systems. Yep, I manage the BS department. How appropriate, some may say.

K – Kohl's or Target – Target. I almost went to Kohl's the other day but my son advised me that it was for old people. I then changed my plans, but I don't think I found what I wanted to buy. Maybe I am approaching the age of Kohl's shoppers.

L – Living arrangements – House that is way too big to clean, but is set in lovely woods.

M – Music you like – Springsteen, Dylan, Neil Young. Female vocalists with strong, clear voices who might have been 'torch singers' in earlier decades, like Carly Simon, KD Lang, Alison Kraus, Roseann Cash (although her stuff sounds too much alike). I also like opera, but I'm not an opera aficionado. I'm not likely to identify an opera from the opening measures of an aria or by the usually far-fetched plots -- that's what an aficionado would be able to do.

N - Nicknames – more varieties of my name than some characters in a Russian novel. One of them is in the title of this blog. Some idiots assume that my first name ends in an 'ee' sound because it is spelled with one 'e'. That's one of my nicknames but there are fewer than ten people in this world who are allowed to call me that. If you're reading this, you're probably not one of those individuals.

O – Overnight hospital stay – Twice. Once, when my son was born. But it was only 'overnight' in the sense that it was throughout the night. I was in the hospital less than 24 hrs. The other was following an episode where I passed out in the library and emergency personnel thought I had a concussion. And my glucose levels were something ridiculous like 15, which apparently means you should be comatose.

P – Pet Peeve – When people say 'We was..' or add an 'r' in words like 'wash', confuse effect/affect, sit/set, or pronounce pin/pen as 'peen'. Never heard of people speaking like that? You've obviously haven't spent time in Indiana. Welcome to my world; I live in the land of accents that sound slightly better than the noise emitted when dragging nails along a chalkboard.

Q – Quote that you like most – I honestly can't think of any right now. Guess I don't quote many people.

R – Right or left handed – Yes.

S – Siblings – 2 brothers, 4 sisters.

T – Time you wake up – Alarm sounds at 6:15. I'm sociable by 10.

U – Underwear – Usually. I've been told I have an obsession with finding well-fitted, comfortable bras. If you'd ever meet me, you would understand why.

V – Vegetable you dislike – Eggplant. Repugnant.

W – What makes you run late – Not enough coffee or time to gently ease into the day. And an innate disability with regards to the marking of the passage of time. I live in my own time zone, apparently.

X – X-rays you’ve had – neck, teeth, jaw, back, shoulder, chest, spine, elbow, hand, digestive track (ewwww -- nasty chalky stuff to drink), knee, ankle, foot. Jeez, what's left? Brain was done as MRI & cat scan, kidneys & gall bladder by some other sort of radiological technology. And some laparoscopy too. And then there's the other kind of GI tests that are a little more invasive than XRAYs. When I was a kid, a common curse was 'Up your nose with a rubber hose!" Who'd ever thought to turn that into a medical test? But, I'm not a hypochondriac -- smash up a couple cars and you'd get most of these. Live 5 or more decades and you'll have most of the others. Being something of a klutz explains the rest.

Y – Yummy food you make – My son loves it when I make him creamy mac & cheese with tuna fish. Spouse calls it 'cat food casserole'. Obviously, a divergence in opinion as to whether it is yummy.

Z – Zoo animal – Birds in the aviary. I always want to free them. I feel sad for most animals in a zoo. They all look bored. Wouldn't you be, too?

Felled!

2009-07-03T13:17:00.016-04:00

As longtime readers of this blog may know, I live in the woods, on a beautiful piece of land I call, rather tongue-in-cheek, 'Old Oak Hill'. It isn't the grand plantation or manor home that the name suggests, but there is a grand oak tree that crowns the hill and can be seen from a half mile away, towering over the other trees in the woods. When the weather is icy, I refer to my homeplace as Mount B----- (the name of the street I live on). Mount B seems like a Cat 3 climb in a difficult Midwest winter.

I drove by Old Oak Hill on my daily commute for seven years, always admiring the trees that shrouded the house three seasons of the year, the deer that sometimes jumped out of the ravine and into the road, sometimes a opossum or fox that would scamper once the headlights of the car would beam around the bend. When the For Sale went up when we were looking for a new home, I called my realtor although I was skeptical that the place could actually be mine.

We looked at the house in September, when all the leaves were still on the trees. My son, then 10, was excited that he could identify 27 different types of native trees on the property, thanks to a recently completed tree unit in his science class. When we went back for a second visit before making a bid, I noticed two tall trees stumps, about 15 feet tall and 15 feet apart, standing totem-pole like at the edge of the drive. Neither tree had any branches; when the surrounding trees were in leaf, you wouldn't notice immediately that these were stumps. In the late fall, once the leaves of surrounding trees had fallen, they stood like sentries, guarding the woods behind them.

Over the last 11 years I've watched myriad birds perch on the sides of these stately stumps: robins, wrens, sparrows, and crows, yellow-belly sapsuckers, red-headed flickers, and pilated woodpeckers. Squirrels and chipmunks would crawl up them. For a few years, before the insides began to rot, they spent time sunning themselves on the tops on warm spring days. Snow piled on top of them during winter storms, looking like caps with earflaps hanging down the sides. I've taken a lot of pleasure looking at these trees, not only watching the wildlife, but also imagining how magnificent they must have been when they had leafy crowns.
Over the years, though, the insides have started to rot. The flickers and woodpeckers finding food in the crevices of the bark were a sure sign that lots of small inhabitants of the insect world had made their homes inside the trunks. The flat tops of the stumps caved in, leaving ragged edges. Large sections of bark fell this spring, reveling the decaying insides. It was interesting to look at the cracks and crevices in the rotting tree. The variety of textures on one tree -- smooth, cracked, powdery -- revealed nature's progress at returning the tree to the earth. But, while Mother Nature was doing her things, decomposing the tree slowly over time, it became clear that either tree could easily be toppled in a storm, presenting potential dangers to people, property, or other still thriving trees. Sometimes being a good steward of the land means you need to remove a tree. And that is what was done yesterday.

As the tree trimmers felled the more solid of the two, I heard them laugh. One reached over, picked something up and held it for me to see. "A little mouse", he laughed, as he gently set it down at the edge of the woods. "He had a nice home, there". So, I was not only destroying a perch and pantry for birds and a playground for squirrels, but a home for field mice.

When I woke today I heard the birds chirping and the squirrels squeaking. "Where's the big tree", I imagined they were saying. I walked to where the trees had been to survey the area this morning. The negative space where the trees once stood looks stark: only bark and sawdust shavings remain, and two large holes in the earth.

I'll miss seeing these trees from my house. Soon the negative space will fill in with other trees and ground cover. The woods will recapture the holes and all sorts of interesting things will grow. The birds, squirrels, chipmunks and deer will still visit the woods, foraging, nesting, resting on or under other trees as they have always done. Still, I think I'll put out some extra bird seed this afternoon for my feathered friends -- and their furry woods neighbors.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

2009-07-02T15:55:00.005-04:00

Anne Tyler's Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is one of those books that has been on one of those self-created "I should read" list since it was first published in 1982. I'm not sure why it took over 2 decades to finally make it's way into my hands, but once I opened the book last week, I couldn't put it down. It even provided a brief respite during the middle of a busy day, where I closed my office door and read for 15 minutes -- something that I never do.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant was a choice for my book group this month, selected from a list of book options in the local library's "book group in a bag" program. This is a program of a nearby town's library system that allows one person to select a title and checkout 8 copies and a reader's guide for 6 weeks -- a great program for book groups. They even can provide copies in large print, which two of the people in my group need. This is the kind of 'your tax dollars at work' thing that just makes me smile.

One person in my group had read the novel previously and spoke highly of it. She told me the other day that she could not wait to discuss it because she had an entirely different perspective reading it 20 years later. Two other members of my discussion group have commented that they didn't care for the book. I look forward to a lively discussion this evening, although I suspect that I might have to refrain from shouting: How could you NOT like this book?

Dinner is the story of Pearl Tull, a hard-working, determined, emotionally distant and bitter woman left to raise three children on her own. The book covers four decades in the lives of Pearl and her three children, Cody, Ezra, and Jenny. Cody is smart and handsome, but spiteful and plotting, and so envious of his brother Ezra that it consumes him. Ezra, soft, doughy, and somewhat clumsy as a boy, is a peace-maker, the kind of person who wants to make everybody happy, even at the risk of his own happiness. He offers care for others in their woundedness and is loved for it, except by his siblings, who scoff at his efforts. Jenny, though determined like her mother, struggles to not be a stiff-lipped control-freak like Pearl, and she finally settles into a chaotic family life that seems to bring her some sort of purpose and acceptance of life, if not peace, in its total disorganization.

Each chapter of the book focuses on a different character, sometimes presenting the events totally from the perspective of that character. One chapter, in the middle of the book and in the middle of the chronology of the plot, is even written in the present tense, which I found a little disconcerting. When I read a book where the narrative perspective changes, I find myself wondering who the book is really about. The first several chapters of Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant appear to be about Pearl. But, then the book changes, and seems to be about Ezra and Cody, stuck in a life-long struggle, like Esau and Jacob. Sometimes the book feels like it is about Ezra, but then the reader's perspective is swayed, and you feel like it is really about Cody who can never quite leave his family behind, no matter how desperately he tries to distance himself. In the end, the book isn't about any one of them, but about a family; a dysfunctional one for sure, but a family nonetheless. Reflecting the name of Ezra's restaurant, The Homesick, an underlying theme in the book is that although one may hate one's family, one is often wistful that we can gather into families where all are happy and without regret, homesick for the family we want, not the one we may have. Like Tolstoy's famous opening line of Anna Karenina, we are reminded that such idealized notions don't exist. 'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is not a happy book. It's characters all have flaws -- like any human being. This unhappiness is why I suspect that people in my book group may not like it. But, I think it is what makes the book so good. Tyler's novel is beautifully crafted, and, despite the sadness and gloom of the lives of the Tull's, is a great book to read.

What are you reading this summer?

2009-06-14T01:53:00.008-04:00

Poets and Writers Magazine posed the question on their FaceBook page Friday: What's your summer reading list? I don't usually have a specific reading plan, regardless of the season, but it seemed a good time to look at some of the books that I have 'on deck'. My resolve to not buy any books this year hasn't held, but I have made a slight progress through the mountains of unread books. My list is 10 books, and 3 books of poems. Probably a bit idealistic, but I on extended summer until the first frost, I may be able to complete at least 50% of this list. What is your summer reading list?

Novels:

The Time Traveler's Wife. Audrey Niffenegger. My book group read this a few months ago, but it was during a period when I was busy with work, so I only completed the first few chapters. Reading LitLove's recent review has brought this back towards the top of the reading pile.

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler. This is the selection for my book group this month. This has been on a list of books to read for years. I'm looking forward to reading this.

City of Thieves, David Benioff. In a weak moment, (as far as my "no new books" rule) I was talked into buying this by a clerk at Border's. I have only read the first few pages so far -- not enough for it to capture my full attention, although I have heard very promising things about this book.

Short stories:
In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway. I was thinking about this book recently, and was prompted to buy a copy when I was bookbrowsing in Paris. Yes, it's an American writer, a book in English, but I was at Shakespeare and Company, a place where Hemingway hung out in the 20s, so buying a book by him while there didn't seem so out of place, just a bit touristy. Courtney wrote a few weeks ago about launching a "Haunted by Hemingway" reading group. I hope she includes this book.

Non-fiction:

Mark Bittman Food Matters. I purchased this book several weeks ago and was eager to read it immediately, but was disappointed when I opened the book to realize that the first page was page 53. I did exchange it for a copy that had all of the pages -- and in the right order -- but it seems to be a book that I'm reading in short spurts. Somewhere in the stacks are other books by Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and Barbara Kingsolver on food and ethics of eating local and organic.

My Stroke Of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor. I'm reading this for another book discussion group. A brain scientist, Bolte Taylor was able to learn about her area of expertise in a way few of her peers ever had when she had a devastating stroke at 37. This book is about insights learned during her long recovery.

Leaving Mum and Pup, Christopher Buckley. I saw an interview with Buckley a few weeks ago and was intrigued enough to go buy his book. The first few chapters have made me laugh in parts, and, in other parts, sympathize with his pain over the deaths of his parents. I've read about a third of the book, and while it can't help but be name-dropping -- it's about Bill Buckley the standard-bearer of conservatism for decades, for christssakes -- there is something in this book that goes beyond the celebrity nature of Buckley's parents. I'll probably write a post about this book at some point. I have a copy of one of Christopher Buckley's novels that a friend gave me a few years ago. It promptly made its way to the bookshelf with the cover not even having been opened. I may find that book when I'm done with this, as I do like his prose style.

Letters On Cezanne, Rainer Maria Rilke. Another book that I've had for some time. Rilke's letters to his wife regarding multiple visits to a Cezanne exhibit. I find writing about art very difficult because I do not have the vocabulary of an art critic. These letters, though, are not a critique, but a description of a personal experience with the paintings. I'm planning to avoid the lengthy commentary at the beginning of the book until after I read through the letters.

Spiritual
I usually have a book or two with a theological or spiritual focus that I'm reading. Right now it is L William Countryman's The Poetic Imagination: An Anglican Spiritual Tradition. I am expecting a heavy dose of Donne and Herbert in this book, but I am mostly interested in reading this because I have an interest in exploring the intersection of spirituality and art. This may be a bit too academic for "summer reading" -- maybe for any kind of light reading.

Poetry
Always have a few books of poetry that are close at hand for perusing, rather than languishing on the bookshelf. Current volumes are:

Sixty Poems by Charles Simic
After by Jane Hirshfield.

While in Paris, I purchased Into the Deep Street: Seven Modern French Poets, 1938 - 2008. The poems are in both the original French, and translated into English. This may take a long time for me to get through, but it should be interesting and challenging. I am unfamiliar with the 7 poets in the volume: Jean Follain, Henri Thomas, Philippe Jaccottet, Jacques Reda, Paul de Roux, Guy Goffette, Gilles Ortlieb. Actually, I'm unfamiliar with any contemporary French poet.

And, as for working on my French skills, I had to purchase a copy of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Le Petit Prince while I was in Paris. A favorite of mine since childhood, I use to have a copy in french that I first purchased in Paris 30 years ago, but I couldn't find it recently when I wanted to. I'll probably reread this again soon.

That's enough to last me through the season and beyond. We'll see how many of these are read in the next few months or what other books may grab my attention.

I'd love to read what you is on your summer reading lists. Leave it in the comments.

Celebration of Life at Six - OR - I love my nephew, but my sister can never read this post!

2009-06-10T20:51:00.009-04:00

Imagine a cinematic depiction of the most nightmarishly chaotic child's birthday party.

Now imagine that the scene lasts twice as long as necessary in this hypothetical movie: the audience has understood the point; it's time to move on.

Nothing could be that bad, right? But, for the sake of expanding one's knowledge -- or just to experience some party-crashing fun -- extend the scene into complete steadycam coverage of the 90-minute party. Except, here is the catch: while it may be theatre, it isn't film and there are no funny outtakes.

That is the how I spent my evening.

Kindergartners running rampant in the house. Toddling babies moving too quickly for their grandmas to catch them in a non-infant proof house with steps leading into every room. Food choices consisting of cold, greasy pizza and chocolate-dipped fruit arranged like flowers on plastic GIJoe spears stuck into a Sponge-Bob bucket. Drink: no sugar (good), no caffeine (bad), and wine in a jug so large, so Brobdingnagian, that it makes the extra-super, super-sized Tub-O-Coke at the QuikMart look like an palate-cleansing aperitif.

Orchestrate the scene to a soundtrack of a performance by STOMP! with harmony provided by a lively Labrador, located in the laundry, with a wood door as a washboard accompaniment, capable of performing simultaneously in two distinct voices: a high-octave yelp and a window-rattling, basso profundo woof.

And, to think that the sugar wasn't even introduced until the last half hour, served suitably, if not predictably, atop store-bought chocolate cake.

As we left the party, I turned to my recently injured son, hobbling out to the car without crutches, and asked: Got Vicodin?

For more party snarking, surf over to Cake Wrecks and laugh while you rubber-neck at some other party disasters.

Economic Balancing Acts

2009-06-08T11:35:00.002-04:00

The theme for the current issue of Qarrtsiluni is Economy. Browsing the site this evening and reading a few of the entries posted thus far this month, was all of a writing prompt I needed. After writing the poem below -- which certainly could benefit from additional revisions at a later date -- I listened to audio clip from 1-Jun, an interview with a Newfoundland resident, which gave me the last line for this poem.

Also linked on ReadWritePoem, prompt #77.

Economic Balancing Acts

Stretch dollars
till the green fades
and the faces blur
and you strain to hear
the clink of coins.

Stretch pot roast:
three lunches, two dinners,
the potatoes thinned to the point
of not remembering the dank,
loamy dirt of their birth.

Cramped in economy
class, with no room
for flailing arms
or growing legs
or new shoots,

You must conserve your movements,
and your thoughts,
and all divinations
for the future of your humanity.
Turbulence will leave your skins bruised.

Conserve your finances.
Conserve your energy.
Conserve your life.
Keep from others what you do not
want loose in the world.

Check your pulse.
Wear a crash helmet.
Catch your breath.
Avoid late blight.
Know your heart's capacity.

Know your heart's capacity.
No bailouts are needed;
only manage your own household.
Memorize all the thresholds of
the many-chambered dwellingplaces:

hidden caves,
deep, ancient crevasses,
undiscovered streams --
so you do not forget
your tuberous roots.

What you give, you'll never miss.

While thy Booke doth live

2009-05-29T16:13:00.021-04:00

Thou art a Moniment, without a tombe,
And art alive still, while thy Booke doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

- Ben Jonson "To the memory of my beloved, The Author Mr. William Shakespeare: And what he hath left us:

A suitably bookish thing to do on a sunny afternoon in Paris is to stroll through the Latin Quarter and stop to browse for books here:

or here:

Liked the signboard outside the shop:

Art High

2009-05-28T17:48:00.013-04:00

I've had a dream before, where I am in the Musuem of Modern Art, New York: There is a particular spot, between two galleries, where I could lie on the floor, or float perhaps, to soak up the art around me. In this spot, one could turn in one direction and see one of Monet's paintings of waterlillies. In the other direction, you would find a grouping of Brancusi sculptures. To your left, colorful masses replicating the effect of light on water and flowers. To your right, almost colorless, almost mass-less, sculptures defining a shapeless spirit. One a breaking down into parts of light to see what we don't always notice; the other a distillation of beings -- bird, tree, human -- into the simplest of forms, so that we can see beyond form alone to the spirit of the thing.

The first time I saw the grouping of Brancusi works, I had walked around the corner from another gallery to be stunned by this collection of sculpture; I gasped. When I later decided to move along to other parts of the museum, I turned slowly from the work to see, through the doorway to the next gallery, the large Monet painting, its familiar blue and mauve colors, making me smile like I was seeing an old friend.

There was a tug on me from these two very different installations: the many parts to see the one, the one to see the many. Is it any wonder I have since dreamed of being able to move around these works, undisturbed, in solitude? It is a nice dream.

This week, while not dreaming, nor able to circulate freely around artwork without hinderances of security features and other museum visitors, I was able to see works by both Brancusi and Monet. A bit of an art high for me.

First, Monet, at the L'Orangerie:

These works were created for this building, designed specifically for the curved walls of the L'Orangerie. Renovations to the building, completed a few years ago, adding skylights so that the works can be seen in a subtle, diffused, natural light. There is a tangible feeling of cool and calmness in these rooms that cannot be captured by a photograph of the paintings (as if any photo could capture a painting!).

Details from the larger work:

Then, Brancusi's Atelier, at the Centre Pompidou:

Brancusi left the contents of his workshop to France, with the condition that his studio be recreated as-is. In later years, Brancusi did not sculpt, but worked on the arrangments of his works in his studio, grouping them in various ways. With the aid of photographs, his workshop has been recreated. It's unfortunate that for security reasons the studios are set behind glass, but, you can observe the entire collection as a whole without having other patrons walking amongst the sculptures, taking away from the setting.

Brancusi lived with his sculptures. Note the loft area where he slept in the photo below, as well as the golf clubs on the wall, and a guitar in the back. See second photo below for enlarged detail of back of studio.

I also like this view as you can see the entrance into the studio. It too has a roundness of form that complements Brancusi's sculpted heads.

Here is a video clip from a 1996 Charlie Rose broadcast, with the late art critic, Kirk Varnedoe, discussing Brancusi. About 8 minutes into the segment, Varnedoe discusses Brancusi's arrangments in his studio.

Perhaps later I'll post on some of my other art-viewing adventures in Paris this week.

Spring: unfurled, unseen

2009-05-12T22:55:00.005-04:00

Spring unfurled unseen.
In times interwoven with rain
the warmth penetrated, luminous
diamond pipes between drops,
soaking into the loam, finding possibilities
archived from the shedding of previous years,
only faint jasmine scents of pleasures
in the gardens of Alhambra.

I forgot to listen at night
for the furtive sounds of the shoots
climbing a steady moon-lit path,
past decaying leaves to stand still
at dawn like vampires, lest they be seen.

And what of such duplicity?
What covenant with angels unknown have they made
that keeps secrets disguised by chlorophyll --
their colors so bright, so luminescent
that they hide behind ordinary greens --
so that we can never be
what they have always known?

If Jesus Was on Facebook

2009-04-12T15:17:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter!

I thought this was clever: The Passion: Facebook Editon.

Can you spare a word?

2009-04-04T14:33:00.002-04:00

The following was posted on the Read, Write, Poem site. This is part of an yet-to-be announced "assignment". A writing prompt, I assume.

Poet, Can You Spare a Word (or 50)?

This is part two of Welcome to NaPoWriMo Day! For future use this month (don’t worry, you’ll find out why soon enough), please use the above statement in an email to a poetry pal. Ask someone you know well, or ask someone you barely know (check out our participant page, perhaps, or the sign up list in the intro post here) for a list of 50 words. Feel free to ask for interesting words. Ask for wild words. Ask for mean words. All you really need is a list of 50 words and a poet (or two) willing to provide them. Stay tuned for your 50-word assignment(s)!

Can you provide me with a few words? Leave them in the comments. I'll use them in some way related to the prompt when it is posted and share the results with you. Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I don't follow rules very well, but I'll try to do it without stretching the boundaries into something unrecognizable.

Thanks for your contribution. Think of it as a contribution to National Poetry Month.

Poem here and gone

2009-03-31T08:27:00.005-04:00

Here:
Surrounding me, filling me,
a truth found, waiting impatiently,
to be chiseled in stone, written on the heart.
Ego satisfied, sitting back
in awe of the perfect poem.

Gone:
Slipping through my hands
before the pen, leaving only
the forlorn residue of escaped words,
finding the quick path to immortality
somewhere near the horizon line,
filling in between the trees,
expanding around the clouds.

Seen. Unseen.
Forgotten. Felt.
Out of grasp of hand and tongue.

Kiss My Fat Ass, Laura Ingraham

2009-03-17T13:48:00.004-04:00

Anyone who read this blog during the most recent election knows that I'm not a Republican. This is not an ode to Meghan McCain, about the current strife over identity and direction in the Republican Party, or even about Ann Coulter or Laura Ingraham. I know little about Ms. McCain, Coulter, or Ingraham, other than that one is a famous daughter of a political family, one a cultural critic whose approach to her ideology (and reproach to those who disagree with her) is too distasteful and disrespectful for me to read, and the last I recognize in name only as a conservative media personality. I could not have told you prior to this week if Laura Ingraham opinions appeared in print, on broadcast media, or on the Internet -- or all three.

Meghan McCain recently has written on her blog on The Daily Beast criticizing Ann Coulter and the Republican Party, claiming that they are out of touch, offering little to younger voters. Laura Ingraham, taking umberage with McCain's comments did not attach her views. Rather, she commented about McCain's body size, calling her 'plus size'. McCain's response on The View yesterday: "Kiss my fat ass!"

Kudos to Ms. McCain for clearly identifying two important points: 1. personal attacks do not cultivate intentional, effective discourse; and 2. it is ridiculous to buy into the current unrealistic media images regarding body size. McCain is a size 8 - 10.

To attack McCain's appearance because her opinions differ is unbelievable for someone with a national audience -- or anywhere. What does one's appearance have with one's capabilities? Nothing! Ingraham, continuing her childish spat with McCain today, called her a idiot and a pawn of the liberal media. Unable to sustain her comments from a few days ago, and apparently unable to counter McCain's comments about the failure of the Republican Party to attract young voters, Ingraham continued her ad hominem attack on McCain. She has not moved forward any sort of reasonable debate with McCain and others who have criticized the Republican Party. It would appear that she doesn't care too. Perhaps Ingraham has unwittingly proved McCain's point of why some conservatives are out of touch.

That Ingraham would even suggest that McCain's weight has any bearing on her opinions, her writing, or her capability to comment on current political or cultural events is so beyond the pale of acceptable debate. One's weight should not have any bearing on one's professional capabilities. Haven't women been fighting this type of thing for years - that women must conform to certain stereotypical ideals in order to be acceptable? Had a man said what Ingraham said, he would have been vilified, perhaps asked to resign from his job (cf: Don Imus). In most workplaces, a man would have been fired if his opinions of a women's appearance were made known.

Yet, women often put up with this. We are barraged by unreasonable, unrealistic images of what we are 'suppose' to look like and are considered failures if we don't. As someone who works in a young company, I am one of the 'older' people in the office (I'm in my late 40's). Rarely is anything said about men in my office -- most of them much younger than me -- having gray hair. While nobody has said anything discriminatory to me regarding my quickly silvering hair, I have had many women ask me why I don't dye it. "Aren't you afraid what people will think?" "Will you dye it if you have to look for a new job?" "People will think that you don't care what you look like."

What? I'm always neatly clothed, even for a work environment that is jeans and tee shirts, wear makeup in the office, have nicely styled hair. How could anyone think that I didn't care about my appearance?

Like gray hair, weight is an issue. I've heard comments from men who have had beer bellies for 10 years and hair growing out of their ears regarding women who have a bit too much weight on their backsides, or heavy legs, or flabby arms. And we let them get away with it. We don't stand up against it. We do it to ourselves.

Women shouldn't put up with anyone verbalizing these ideas. We especially can't let other women do it. We can't perpetuate these weight-obsessed images with negative comments about how we look. We need to fight back for ourselves and our daughters -- size 8 is nowhere near a 'plus size'. And is it necessary to call any size a 'plus'? Being healthy and accepting of one's body type -- whatever it may be: curvy, slender, buxom, athletic -- is what we should celebrate. Not adhering to some unhealthy media image is the right thing to do.

Join me in echoing Meghan McCain's retort to Laura Ingraham, telling all who think that it is funny, snarky, or a legitimate response to disagreement to suggest that one's capabilities are determined by the size of one's skirt: KISS MY FAT ASS.

You can read Meghan McCain's response to Ingraham here.

Writer's Block?

2009-03-14T22:33:00.005-04:00

I was speaking with an acquaintance yesterday, who called me from BVI where she lives in the winter. We were speaking about some events that have impacted both of us and many friends, trying to come to terms with our feelings. I had written an email to her earlier in the day.

"You write so well", she said, "you should do so more often".

I found myself saying "I used to write a blog..." I startled as I realized I had used the past tense.

"You should do so more often," she said.

Yes, I should, but I just haven't been able to sit down, clear my thoughts and write for so long. Funny how the longer one goes avoiding something, the more daunting it becomes. Even when I have drafted something in my head, I have been unable to get it down with pen and paper or keyboard and screen. Posts about books and movies and plays, about daffodils and bleeding hearts starting to poke through the leaves in the woods or pictures the old dead stump of a tree that is about to fall, about the small joys of family, or how I've struggled to recognize the good in a difficult employee and suddenly we are able to laugh even when we disagree; about how writing status updates in 160 characters is too confining to me and that I think Facebook for finding high school friends is stupid, but that it has been a wonderful tool for communicating with a specific circle of friends, even in times of crisis: all of these and more would have been great posts; perhaps some will appear in the future.

In the grand scheme of things, I'm not worried about not being able to write again --it is temporary -- but I wonder how much of this is a general malaise that I see in many of my friends right now. I don't know if it's being at mid-life, if it's the economy, if it's only because it is still winter, despite the recent warmer days, but it seems that everyone I am friends with is going through some sort of major life stress -- stress at work, fear of losing their jobs and the fear of not being able to find another one, sickness, death of elderly relatives, struggling relationships, pain from one kind of loss or another.

It is all very real, painful; psyches bobbing in rough wakes. Not quite gale force winds in open seas, but stormy. It can wear you down and make it seem like there isn't time, or strength, or determination to do things like write.

As I read through this, I can predict that some people might conclude that I'm depressed. Let me assure you that it isn't something as drastic as that. It isn't as if I can't laugh, can't enjoy family and friends, or am ready to jump off cliffs real or metaphoric. It is only that writing is the activity that is getting squeezed shut right now.

Thanks to those of you who periodically stop by here. I don't intend to let the past tense to describe permanently this blog. But I don't know if I'll be back here tomorrow, or next week, or in a few months.

Peace,
Cam

Holy Water

2009-02-08T18:36:00.005-05:00

A guest post, by David J. Marsh

Knowing how nearby Walden slept, I had gone to bed the previous evening like a grade schooler – hopped up on the stimulant of an impending field trip – the pillow proving an obnoxious barrier between myself and wonder. Late into the night, I had flipped from one position to the next like a fish in the grass. And having no memory of having found sleep, I was shocked to consciousness by the blare of my wife’s cell phone alarm. Unlike that little kid, I had a most miserable time getting out of bed, and a foundational need for strong black coffee. Tall Americano. No, make it a grande – big day today.

Sunlight flickered across the dash, pulsating within and slightly warming the cabin of the rental car as we made our way up Route 126, having left Marlborough after a light breakfast an hour or so before. I was drowsy, relaxed and happy.

If my map reading skills and recollection prove trustworthy (you’ll not risk insult by checking), Route 126 becomes Concord Road just south of Concord, and before reaching the Pond transforms itself into Walden Street, preparing to meld into lovely Concord, Mass. At some point a few miles south of town, nestled in-between spacious lawns, is a lush community garden plot. It must be several acres, announcing itself with a sort of arch, lettering painted or pinned to it, declaring its purpose. As I anticipated the day ahead, I found this to be especially quaint, as we don’t see this sort of thing so much in the Midwest. We read about it in progressive magazines, but somehow we fail in the execution. I suppose I may have over-reacted a bit in response to this cultural artifact. Forgive me, for I was by that point brimming with the anticipation that I surely must be within only a few thousand yards of the hallowed kettle. I should mention that we were on a family vacation, a road trip. The back of the car was packed with our three offspring (our very greatest legacy), and all the trimmings. Our final destination was Cape Cod. I had lobbied long and somewhat hard for this detour in the itinerary. The stop was for me. Sure, someday the kids would come to recognize where they had been, and my wife had a passing knowledge of the importance of the place, but it was I who felt the urgency to visit this cathedral of American letters.

I knew little of what to expect. I had read the book, of course, and had been to the web site, sparse though it is. As we drove, I could not recall if his cabin was still there. That would certainly be an embarrassing question to ask. (I did ask. I asked an overly youthful attendant at the bathhouse. I figured I may not know about the cabin, but I had read the book…more than once. Surely the scoreboard would favor me.)

We arrived well ahead of many other visitors. I wondered what other visitors would mark such a milestone in their lives with a visit today. The bookstore was not yet open. All the cars in the lot could have parked in my driveway. Crossing the road and descending the incline, my first view of Walden Pond saw not a human in sight. She lay in the clear morning, a diorama, not a ripple, still – like one of those fake ponds behind the stuffed bear in a state museum, made out of some sort of epoxy that slowly fades into a landscape painted on the wall. The Pond is large – much larger than you think. Where I call home, northern Indiana, such a body of water would be termed a lake. Ponds are tiny and overgrown as far as my kin are concerned…certainly not large enough for a boat, and in no way suitable for human contact.

What a fine job of preservation she had enjoyed. Many women, I know, would delight in the opportunities she has enjoyed at being aided in retaining her youth. Either a diligent conservationist had been through the evening before, or there was a sacred understanding that littering here would bring existential turmoil. (Allow me to prefer the latter, won’t you?) The site is pristine, an outdoor, interactive American original. No discolor, no odor, no scum…would that I had a vat of her in which to soak my feet at the start of this New Year, or better, I suppose, a winter visit to see the bubbles trapped under the edges of her icy skirt.

As I reviewed the map, I thought, how fortunate is Walden. There seem to be others who could have stolen her glory. HDT could’ve set his compass on Flints or Farrar. If he’d desired less H2O, there may have been Crosby, Goose, or any number of others vying for his attention. Walden, however, was easily accessed; it was on the rail line, fell nearly due south of town (remotely at the time) and was only a short hike from his parent’s house. Location, location, location.

The morning saw us hike the entire circumference of the pond, taking the better part of a couple of hours. All along there were small places to sit – enough of an easement for only one or two – a few steep steps made of rock to lower you to water’s edge – a promotion of solitude. At one point was a pass, a land bridge just enough to separate the pond proper from a marsh…such a marsh as could’ve been a watering hole to mammoths, so untouched.

The sun overhead, we returned to the car to grab our swimsuits and change. It was here, that a graceful old gentleman, with an accent that sang a tune under his words, gave my son a beachball he had found. He was careful to explain that he would have had to either take it home or bequeath to another, as to leave it to the elements would not be an option in such a place. My son was delighted. I imagined myself living closer to the Pond, balding, retired. My respect even greater than it is now, I would come each evening and carefully inspect her shoreline for foreign objects and clear her eyes of splinters. I would tell no one. It would be my contribution to her office, my way of rubbing elbows with the ghosts who rest just a few miles hence in Sleepy Hollow.

Late afternoon, I climbed up out of the water, past the many other bathers and sat down in my lounge chair, to warm myself in the sunshine. I had just gone swimming with my kids in Walden Pond. I turned to my wife, and said (borrowing from Kurt Vonnegut Jr.),

“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is”.

I'm Back -- with survey results

2009-02-01T22:10:00.003-05:00

It has been almost a month since my Year End survey closed, but I had yet to post results. I decided today, that if I didn't do it today, I might never. Sometimes it's hard to get back into something if you leave it too long. But, I felt I couldn't post on anything else if I didn't publish the results. I wish more people had participated this year; maybe next year I'll do something different. So, here are the results

1. Favorite book you read this year:

Wesley the Owl

Imperium (nonfiction)

Paper Towns (YA)

Chess Story (Short fiction)

Stranger on a Train, Jenny Diski

The Gone Away World, Nick Haraway

2. Favorite Blog you read regularly:

Bookfoolery and Babble

Tales from the Reading Room

"I have too many to play favorites"

"I can't choose one favourite. I keep my blogroll small because it is the people I look forward to reading".

"I have a long list of blogs I read. I can't keep up with all of them on a daily basis. What I read each day depends on how much time I have and what sort of blog I want to read. I read some blogs that are strictly book reviews, others more general topics, some criticism, so it really just depends on my mood and available time. The problem with not reading some blogs every day is that you lose out on the comments discussions as others have moved on to more recent posts."

3. What surprised you most about blogging this year?

"How international blogging really is."

"How wide-spread the blog phenomena have become."

"How I really have come to know some bloggers, and regard them as friends. Sure, I only have a limited perspective presented in their blogs, in emails, etc., but I only present certain faces in some public arenas. I'm not sure what to call them if not friends."

"I didn't expect to get to meet so many bloggers in real life and to have online interaction with them in places other than my blog (email, Facebook, Twitter)."

"What always surprises me is that anyone out there wants to read what I write! And also, that a fair number of people are very interested in shoes."

4. Did your blogging change this year? Why?

"More posts."

"Yes, I feel as though the character of my blog 'settled' a bit and that my writing became freer."

"I began to post less frequently than in previous years, mostly because I have less time than I used to and perhaps a bit less energy too."
"It reduced, because I have less time at home."

"I thought I had posted less frequently but I checked and I had the same number of posts last year. I wrote less about books this year, but I also read fewer books."

5. How many books did you read this year?

21 -50 1 respondent

51-75 3 respondents

76-100 1 respondent

6. How frequently do you post?

1 -2 times a week - 2

3 -5 times a week - 2

daily - 0

1 -4 times a month - 0

Randomly - 1

7. If you participated in any sort of blogging challenge, how did it impact what you read and what you wrote? Did it challenge any assumptions you had? Change the way you read or wrote? etc.

"I hosted the Southern Reading Challenge. It opened my eyes to the amount of readers a little Mississippi blog could generate. I did add more "southern" posts during the challenge."

"The only thing challenges end up doing is frustrating me. I say I'm going to read many things, but the nature of my reading is more impulsive and I really like it that way. I still ended up reading and blogging on whatever I felt like. I don't know why I bother to do challenges, but I will probably do a few more next year."

"I didn't participate in any challenges. I'm trying to keep my reading plans as open as possible."

"I tried to participate in a reading challenge, and realised they are not for me. Even though I just fitted what I already wanted to read into the challenge, as soon as I committed to reading those books, I didn't want to. But, I thoroughly enjoyed NaBloPoMo, even though it was a lot of pressure. It showed me that I could find more blogging time when pushed (although I have fallen back into my old ways since)."

"I am always tempted to join every reading challenge I come across, but I've learned not to make commitments, since I never seem to meet the challenge. I do follow some of them though, as I discover interesting books that I might want to read. "

8. Participants:

Maggie Blogging since 2005

Ted Blogging for 1.5 years

Dorothy W Blogging for 2 1/2 years

Becky Blogging almost 2 years

Thanks to those who participated and thanks to all of you who continue to stop by my blog to help blow away the cobwebs. I intend to be posting more regularly in Feb and beyond. It was good to be away -- but it's always great to return to home!

HOPE for the future.

2009-01-19T12:24:00.002-05:00

The Absent Blogger

2009-01-15T00:16:00.003-05:00

I haven't abandoned this blog - just snowed under (metaphoricallly, though it is cold & snowy here). Promise I'll be back here soon. For those of you in snowy climates: stay warm.

3rd Annual Year End Survey

2009-01-03T20:10:00.000-05:00

Updated: I'm up to my eyeballs in work stuff, so I won't be able to post until midweek. So, I'm keeping this open until Tuesday night if you're interested in completing. Click here to participate.

For the 3rd year, I'm doing a survey and asking for participants to comment on books and blogging. None of the questions are mandatory -- you don't even have to give your name. As in the preceding year, this is a survey of your favorite books and blogs, not a competition to see who is most popular.

Because Emily has written many times that there is an unwritten rule about memes being limited to 7, I've limited the survey to that number -- unless you want to indicate your name and blog name. Blogging alias are okay, of course.

Survey closes at 11:45pm (EST) on Sunday, 4-Jan. Results to be posted sometime during the week of 4-Jan. If you indicate your name/blog, you'll be cited here.

Stay tuned for what's coming up in 2009 at Cam's Commentary.

You'll find the 2008 survey here.

Blogging 2009 Goals: Posting with a purpose

2009-01-01T20:38:00.007-05:00

Happy New Years!

January 2 marks the third anniversary of this blog. I had no idea when I started that I would still be doing this three years later.

While I've been consistent in the number of posts each year overall, I've always posted rather sporadically. Not sure if that will continue this year or not. I'm not setting any goals for the number of times I will post this year.

Something that I did in 2008 that I liked doing, was to have a tie-in between my blog and a charity. During NaBloPoMo, I donated $1 to Water Partners International for each comment left on my blog (71 comments).

This year, I've decided to start a lending team on Kiva. Kiva is a web-based organization that allows individuals (or teams of individuals) to help fund micro-loans to individuals in developing countries. By working with Kiva, you can actually do something about poverty. You'll know exactly to whom your money is loaned and what they're using it for. Most of all, you'll help someone
build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after the loan is paid back.

My goal is to have my lending team contribute $1000 in 2009. I challenge each of you who read this blog to join my lending team, Booklovers, and make a commitment to help alleviate poverty. Anyone can join. You decide how much you want to contribute and you get to decide who will be the beneficiary of your loan. When the loan is paid back, you can redirect your money to another loan applicant or you can get it back.

Today, I made a loan to an entrepreneur named Mary Nkrumah, a fabric retailer in Ghana, who is trying to raise $725 to grow her business. You can help Mary raise funds for her loans, or you can support another qualified loan applicant on Kiva. Just be sure to indicate that this is part of our Lending Team so we can track how much we raise in 2009.

Each month I will feature a different way in which my blogging will support microloans on Kiva. For this month, I pledge to donate $1 per comment, $1 per person who joins my lending team, and $1 for each new commenter on my blog. This money will go to Mary Nkrumah until her fundraising goal is met. Then, I'll find another entrepreneur to invest in on Kiva.

Won't you join me in this? Try it for 1 month! You can make a donation for as little as $25, and the Kiva site uses PayPal, so your transaction is secure.

I'm working on a badge you can put on your blog if you join the Booklovers lending group.

Poem

2008-12-28T23:28:00.003-05:00

A guest post, a poem written by my friend David.

A Few Such Nights

Before the moon, a quarter, a smiling Cheshire quarter, rises in the sky to kiss the lower limb of the hickory on the side hill, we are out after dinner. Mid-to-late February, they call it; finally a snap in the cold spell; a foot or more melts at dusk in the high thirties.

We climb the hill, the one under the hickory, shovels put aside for a moment; velvety indigo blue darkening in the west, giving way to the lights around the back porch.

Our sleds sit hard on the sun compressed snow, snow made into balls easily just past the crispy outer shell. He refused gloves as we left the garage, not expecting play.

He grabs my hand to steady himself on the climb. I think of his small, chilled bare hands against my chilled, leather-palmed work glove. I excuse my hand for a moment, remove the glove and take his hand again. I feel my hand warm his, and think I hear an unconscious lift in his voice.

© David J Marsh, 2007

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-25T22:55:00.005-05:00

I hope your holiday festivies were memorable -- and nobody made you wear funny sequeined vests.

Housekeeping A-Z

2008-12-08T12:50:00.006-05:00

I find this meme, which I first came across at Emily's (see also Ms. Musings, and Dorothy), hysterical. I know that there are people who take this seriously – and I don’t mean to be offensive to those who do – but I am so far removed from the life of Suzi Homemaker that I can’t really find much common ground. It’s not that I think people don’t do these sorts of activities, as much as it is realizing that someone might care enough to think about them seriously as something other than a necessary part of life, pure drudgery at that. (I think utilitarian cooking -- that which you do to fix a meal so you or your family doesn't starve -- as falling into that drudgery category. When I have time, and am so inspired, I like to cook. Sort of like the difference between writing catalog copy because you need a paycheck and writing a novel.)

I would love to be more organized and I would love to have a really clean house as long as it was still livable, but I’ll never be the type of person who cares so much about it that I would worry about a few cobwebs or dust or things that haven’t made their way into their proper spots. I’d like to live somewhere between CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome as the FlyLady says) and white-glove dust-test perfect. I guess that is what you call good enough for those with busy lives outside of the home. At least, for me.

Here are my responses to the A-Z meme, along with what I was really thinking...

A is for Aprons - yes/no? If yes, what’s your favourite?
When I was a child, my mother, grandmother and aunt had these aprons that they wore every holiday. They were frilly things, ones that you wouldn't want to cover with flour or gravy or baby formula, rather than something that you would wear to protect your cloths. These aprons had sequins, appliques, and lace trimmings. My favorite was one that had an applique that could be changed for each holiday: a turkey for Thanksgiving, a tree for Christmas, a champagne glass for New Years'. A few years ago one of my sisters found all of my mother's aprons, laundered and ironed them, and handed each of us one to wear when we gathered at Christmas. That was the last time I wore an apron.

A is for apoplexy – what my mother would have if she saw my closets.

B is for Baking - favourite thing to bake?
Baking is chemistry. I'm not a chemist. I can make bread in my automatic bread machine, though. In my family I can't escape the brownies I made when I was 12 years old. The closest thing to man-made shale, my brother claimed. We tried to throw them into a pond for the ducks. They sank before the ducks could get to them. Subsequent attempts weren't much better.

~~B is for books~~. Dang it! Already used by others. B is for bubble bath – much more fun than using scrubbing bubbles to clean the shower and tub.

C is for Clothesline - do you have one?
I don't think so. See W for Wash.

C is for clutter – unfortunately it abounds in my house. A perfect gift for me would be a personal organizer.

D is for Donuts - have you ever made them?
My mother used to let us make donuts by taking instant biscuits, cutting out the center with a turkey baster (perfect size for a donut hole), and dropping them into deep fat fryer. When they were cooked, we tossed them in a bag with powdered sugar or cinnamon. I don't buy premade biscuits, don't know if I have a turkey baster, and have never owned a deep fat fryer. There are donuts at my office every Friday morning. I never go near them.

D is for Dustbunnies – they sound so much nicer than they are.

E is for Every Day - one homemaking task you do every day.
Eh? Set the alarm when I leave the house, maybe?

E is for energy – I don’t have enough at the end of the day to really keep up a clean house.

F is for Freezer - do you have a separate deep freeze?
No.

F is for forgotten food that has been pushed back to the far corners of the fridge. Ewww!

G is for Garbage Disposal Unit - do you have one?
Yep! How does one live without one? Think of all the nasty stuff you'd have to fish out of the drain.

G is for grocery shopping – I have my picture posted in some stores with the caption: Have you seen this customer?We want her back.

H is for Handbook - what’s your favourite homemaking resource?
I own about 120 cookbooks. I like to read them, but don' always use them. My favorite ones to read are historical cookbooks that contain tidbits about the locale or a historical time period. I try to pick up cookbooks when I visit places. This may seem a strange souvenir for someone who doesn't cook much. I am a better cook than baker, though.

H is for HELP! I need to a housekeeper on speed dial!

I is for Ironing - love or hate it?
I firmly believe one may be lacking in some sort of mental grounding if one feels strong emotions for one's iron. Or vacuum. Or washing machine.

I is for Ignoring the mess.

J is for Junk Drawer - yes/no? If yes, where is it?
I'd like to know the name for the drawer that doesn't have junk in it. I think we don't have such a word because it is an non-existent thing. I'm not even sure my Safe Deposit Box would qualify as a no-junk zone.

J is for Just Clean Enough – if I can get there, I’d be happy.

K is for Kitchen - colour and decorating scheme?
Dark oak boards on walls (as in other parts of the house), white tiled floor, white tiled backsplashes with hand painted wild flowers found throughout the woods surrounding the house. I posted pictures of them here last July.

K is for klutz, domestic variety. I can’t bake or sew. I once sewed the dress I was making to the dress I was wearing. No wonder I hated 8th grade Home Ec class!

L is for Love - what’s your favourite part of homemaking?
Are you serious? Worse than having strong emotional attachments to a household appliance, would be having a favorite part of homemaking. Was this taken from a 1950’s home-ec book?

L is for leaving dust be. There’s always something more important to do – kiss your babies, hug your spouse, sing a song (well, I don’t sing much either, but metaphorically….)

M is for Mop - do you have one?
Yes. What else would you use when the commode overflows? Couldn’t tell you what type, color, model, etc. it is though.

M is for martinis. I will rinse the dust off the martini glasses and shaker if I need to get them out of the cabinet. Dust would ruin a good martini. Does that count as a favorite household task?

N is for Nylons - machine or hand wash?
Wear them as infrequently as possible. When I do wear them, I sometimes forget how to take them off, so I snag them; therefore, I have no need to wash them.

N is for (K)nick(k)nacks. I call them dust collectors. The fewer you have, the less there is to dust.

O is for Oven - do you use a window or open the oven door to check?
I have a window, but I usually open the door. This may have more to do with habits instilled when I didn’t have a self-cleaning oven, than anything else.

O is for obnoxious ads showing smiling housekeepers happy over toilet bowl cleaner and air freshener. Noxious chemicals should never make anyone happy.

P is for Pizza - what do you put on yours?
Eat from the box. When being fancy, use a plate!

P is for perfection: it’s unachievable. I can’t bring home the bacon AND fry it up in a pan. Case closed.

Q is for quiet - what do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment?
I certainly don’t think about housework! I can use almost anything as a procrastination technique for avoiding housework.

Q is for quilty. Oh wait, wrong spelling. For GUILTY. I confess: I’m a rotten housekeeper, but I don’t feel guilty about it.

R is for Recipe Card Box - yes/no? If yes, what does it look like?
I have lots of print outs from Internet downloads, recipes stuck inside other cookbooks, and a collection of loosely piled recipes cut from magazines on the cookbook shelf. Sometimes they get filed in notebooks.

R is for restaurant reservations – much better to make for dinner than Hamburger Rescue after a long day of work.

S is Style of House - what style is your house?
Typical 50’s style American ranch, although since my house is cantilevered over a ravine, it has a basement, unlike many ranches. Most of the basement isn’t really basement at all since it is above grade. It is way too big for me to clean. Anything more than a maybe 500 square feet might be too big for me to clean.

S is for showoffs – those who can actually come up with appropriate, non-sarcastic answers to this meme, and have perfect kids and terrific jobs! I am so jealous. What's your secret?

T is for Tablecloths - do you use them?
Nope.

T is for table – if you’re by yourself, do you need to set the table for dinner?

U is for Under The Kitchen Sink - organised or toxic wasteland?
Remember Love Canal or the Cuyahoga River when it burned? If this were the 1980’s, I might qualify to apply for SuperFund cleanup funds. When I look under the sink, I think of GhostBusters and EPA agent Peck threatening to shut them down.

U is for understanding – I do understand how people can obsess over things like perfectly clean houses. There is plenty that I obsess over – owning House Beautiful isn’t one of them.

V is for Vacuum - how many times a week?
A week? You’re suppose to do this weekly? Is that why the vacuum store suggested I get my vacuum cleaned when it was one year old? Didn't seem like it needed it yet.

V is for visiting vacation fairies – I really want them to visit my home when I’m on vacation next time, get rid of all the junk, repaint the kitchen ceiling, organize my household papers, clean and rehang the draperies. Is that too long of a list for a week?

W is for Wash - how many loads of washing do you do each week?
Zero! Someone else in this house does the laundry. I am very spoiled.

W is for wash – I’m so lucky that I have my own personal laundry guy. And he never, ever ruins the clothes by mixing colored stuff with whites. I am very, very spoiled.

X’s - Do you keep a daily list of things to do that you cross off?
I go through obsessive bouts of doing this at work, but rarely do I do this for home.

X’s and O’s: my family still loves me even though I am a miserably unsuccessful housekeeper.

Y is for Yard - who does what?
My yard is a natural habitat of dense deciduous trees. The only yard work we have is to get rid of the leaves from the gutters, driveways and porches, which we usually hire out. While that may sound like a luxury, the gutters are >30 feet off the ground and I don’t like heights. The leaves on the driveway come as a packaged deal with the gutters.

Y is for Yeah! When the house is clean (by my standards) it does make me a teeny bit happy.

Zzz’s - what’s the last homemaking task you do before bed in the evening?
Turn out the light and fluff my pillow!

Z is for zippedity-do-dah. I have nothing more to say!

Today....and tomorrow

2008-11-30T23:44:00.008-05:00

Two things about today ....

Today is the last day of the long holiday weekend, and like most end-of-holiday weekend, I greet the evening with a mixture of sadness that it is over and relief that is. Sadness because visiting family have returned home, the trappings of the weekend put away, my son has departed to go back to school, and Thanksgiving is over for this year. Relief for much of the same reasons. Sometimes the break from the routine, even when you enjoy it, is too disruptive. While I would relish a few additional vacation days -- I'm down to only a few more that I can take off from work -- there is something about the rhythm of the normal routines.

Today is the first day of Advent, the start of the Christian holiday season. While retailers have been promoting the secular Christmas for what seems like weeks, the official 'kick-off' of the season generally starts on the day after Thanksgiving. The lights have gone up on trees and houses around the neighborhood. Our neighbors across the street have decorated a very, very tall evergreen with white lights. Not to be outdone, the house next to them have strung lights on two tall oaks. On one multi-colored lights merely twist around the trunk towards the top branches. On the other, white lights encircle the trunk, while green lights at the top form an outline that makes the tree look like a palm tree. I'm not sure that there is any symbolism to a palm tree, but I like the idea of something reminiscent of warmer climates on the snow-sprinkled slope of a ravine in the heartland of the country where palms are only found inside conservatories.

Light: it seems a natural that many people in northern latitudes would have celebrated the idea of light during a time when the hours of sunlight decrease so dramatically in the weeks before the solstice. How could one not recognize that rhythm of the earth? No wonder that as the Roman Empire spread throughout Northern Europe, church officials co-opted the feast of Saturnalia to fit their new religion. The cycle of light - dark - light, paralleling the fertile - fallow - new growth patterns of crops, is so obvious to a casual observer, much less people whose lives were ruled by the seasons, any effort to block out such celebrations would have been futile. Even knowing the origin of the light and new birth symbolism in the Roman's Saturnalia, I can embrace these metaphors as part of my faith because they make sense to celebrate. Nor was this concept of light and illumination vs. darkness unknown to the early Christians; one can find it in the Hebrew Scriptures as well. If you're interested in such things, you may want to check out Jan Richardson's blog, The Advent Door during this season of liturgical preparation for Christmas.

Two things about Tomorrow...

Another kind of light, that of the night sky, will provide a treat tomorrow. Jupiter and Venus will be in conjunction, appearing close together in the early evening sky. This occurs twice (once in morning sky, once in evening sky) every two years. Tomorrow, December 1, not only will they be in conjunction, but they will form a triangle with a slivered crescent moon. If the sky is clear enough, you will be able to see the rest of the moon as well. Sometimes referred to as earthshine, the phenomena also is called the old moon in the young moon's arms. Isn't that a lovely description of it? Read more about the conjunction and the brilliantly lit trio at Space.com or see this Yahoo article. Here is a picture of how the moon, Jupiter and Venus will be aligned tomorrow.

On a more serious note, and quite the opposite of light and life, tomorrow is World AIDS Day. UNAIDS estimates that there are an estimated 33 million people infected with HIV. 22 million of those infected live in sub-Saharan Africa. While AIDS can be a manageable disease that one can live with in the West, in developing countries, it remains a death sentence for most. If you read or hear anyone saying how there is too much money going to AIDS, that the infection rates have slowed and that people can now live with this disease, don't accept that at face value. That is true if you exclude Africa. What is the difference between AIDS in the West and Africa? Money, access to appropriate healthcare, treatment. Educate yourself about the facts. Avert.org is one place to start. Read the executive summary of the 2008 UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic. An excellent book to read is 28 stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen. You can read about a remarkable program in Eldoret, Kenya here.

What can you do to recognize World Aids Day? Educate yourself and others. Raise Awareness. Raise funds. Donate.

10 Things I've Learned From Blogging Every Day

2008-11-29T21:40:00.020-05:00

What I've learned from NaBloPoMo participation this year:

not

Water Partners International

Kiva

Emily

After participating in NaBloPoMo for two years, I don't think that I will do it again. However, I hope that I will post more regularly. There have been a few months this year where I only posted two or three times. I'm hoping I can stay motivated to post two or three times a week. This was a beneficial exercise and helped my blogertia, that condition of lack of motivation to blog as named by Bloglily a few months ago.

Here are some stats from this month:

Posted once every day, and three times posted additional posts.

Used 26 different tags:

using one tag five times
two tags four times each
Four tags three times each
five tags twice.
Most popular were: miscellany, food, politics, art, books, blogging, life, NYC

I linked to other posts 57 times.

Posted one you-tube link and 19 pictures, but only one post was dedicated to photos with only minimal words.

Had 669 unique visitors according to StatCounter, with an average of 23/day.

Only did one meme, but I wrote a lot of commentary on it, which was not part of the meme. Did one quiz.

Hits:

Oddest hit from google query this month: Toss up between ounces in #2 cam and black and white picture of Paul Newman in bath.
Most frequent hit query: concept that heaven is 3 feet up.
Query I found the funniest: someone in Denmark who returned to my site a few times with the query I peed my pants.
Seven queries took the inquirer to landing pages from last year's NaBloPoMo.
Queries that most pleased me: Four related to the opera Dr. Atomic and the aria from that opera based on John Donne's sonnet Batter My Heart 3-person'd God

Congratulations to all who undertook the NaBloPoMo Challenge this month. Give yourself a round of applause!

Local, Organic, Food (Part 1)

2008-11-28T09:39:00.007-05:00

I don't know about you, but I'm still digesting a hearty, caloric, too-high carbohydrated, Thanksgiving meal. So one would think it would be unlikely that I would again be writing about food today. But, here I am, posting about food again, even though I'm not too interested in eating much of anything now.

Late in the summer, we received word about a benefit dinner, sponsored by Slow Food Indy, for local chefs who were planning on attending the biennial Terre Madre conference in Italy. We attending two of these dinners, one at a one of our favorite restaurants (R Bistro locally owned, local foods, great chef) and one at a farm in a nearby community where dinner was served in the barn. At both of these events we were treated to wonderful, locally grown, in season food.

I think that one would have to have been living (or eating) under a rock if one were either a foodie, or environmentally oriented, not to at least have an inkling of an idea about the local foods movement. But, as a consumer, one is bombarded by terms like organic, local, natural when at the grocery store and sorting out the marketing bandwagon hype from the local movement can be slightly daunting.

I don't think that I had really taken any time to educate myself about why locally grown is a good thing until this summer. I'm not an expert, by any means, but I have learned much in the last few months. For the last several spring/summer seasons, we've frequented the local farmers' markets. There is now one within walking distance from me, although I usually buy at a larger one that is in the same area as other places I go while making the rounds for my usual Saturday morning tasks. This year, there is a Winter market that I'll try, and there is small market stand that sells local produce in season that will be open this winter. There isn't much local produce one can buy in the winter months in the Midwest, but I want to see this place survive -- and Florida oranges are Florida oranges whether I buy them here or at the big-chain market -- so I'll continue to go there.

On top of the pile of books I've started and have been meaning to complete are Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollen's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

But, the event that I'm looking forward to most immediately, is a lecture next week by Alice Waters, chef at Berkeley's Chez Panisse, local-food, slow food guru, and originator of the Edible Schoolyard project. Waters is speaking at the Indianapolis Musuem of Art. The IMA's blog has posted a portion of an interview with Waters (here). I particularly liked what she had to say about working with artists:

The reason I’m interested in working with artists is to take food out of that ‘foody’ place and put it into the beauty of culture. Food is a universal language.

I'll be posting about the lecture soon.

Gratitude and Grace

2008-11-27T13:58:00.006-05:00

The house is starting to overflow with the aroma of spices and cooked foods. Colorful entrees are starting to be lined up on the counter - a golden brown pumpkin pie, a bright orange sweet potato casserole, crimson-colored cranberry sauce, green Brussels sprouts and apples, deep plum-red wine - waiting to be boxed for transport to my sister's house where they will be placed on the table with turkey, stuffing, salad, mashed potatoes, and other pies. We'll have a toast of champagne and share something for which we are thankful before we sit down to eat. Despite occasional failures, disappointments and setbacks, a troubled world that sometimes seems on the brink of overwhelming us with financial fears, political strife and divisions, we have many reasons to be grateful: health, family, love. Without the overabundance of food and wine, we would still have these. We live with grace everyday; it is there in what we choose to see, in the recognition of the daily blessings in our lives.

I walked out of my office building last night and saw that the traffic on the interstate was moving slowly, but not stopped. There were no flashing emergency lights for the nearly two-mile stretch I can see. For just one moment things were running smoothly, people were on their way home, or to the store, or to visit loved ones. The air had a crisp, autumnal quality to it, not quite as cold as it had been in the morning. The sun had already set but the sky was still blue, on the edge of turning black. A few stars were shining. It had been a busy day at work, but I felt like I had accomplished much. It had been an ordinary day, a good day. I was thankful for all of these things: smooth-flowing traffic, crisp air, twinkling stars, a rewarding feeling for work well done.

It is so easy for me to gripe at times about working with people who do things that seem idiotic to me, who's agendas are different than mine, who have different things to accomplish that don't align with my goals. It's easy to kvetch about dealing with traffic jams, and not to consider the misfortune of those with the flat tire or broken down automobile blocking the exits or even those exhibiting the inconsideration of others when they try to cut into traffic because they have places they need to go too. It's easy to complain about how it's almost winter and I'd rather be somewhere warm.

But these are all minor things. It is just as easy to be grateful for having transportation, a job, a cool night with a starry sky, a family to go home to. I often forget that. My goal from now until the end of the year is to recognize something to be grateful for each day, some occurrence of grace in my life or the lives of those around me, and to be thankful for it.

Today I can be grateful for the love of family the comforts of a secure place to live, a home, and the abundance of food. But I can also be grateful that this world has little things of beauty abounding in it, like misshaped sweet potatoes covered in dirt that someone worked hard to grow, to transport to the market, for the man who is struggling to operate the local growers' mart, so I could buy them to grace my table.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear reader. May your life be full of blessings and joy.

From Poets.org, links to poems about Thanksgiving.

Variation on 6th folder meme

2008-11-26T23:24:00.009-05:00

Ho hum. Getting towards the end of the NaBloPoMo thing, and while not running out of ideas, certainly getting low on motivation. Looking for something quick, I'm taking this from UnrelaxedDad, the 6th folder meme.

Instructions: Go to the 6th folder on your hard drive. Post the 6th photo in that folder.

I got halfway through the assignment. Don't you think that the person who made this up liked the 6th photo in that folder? So, I figured I could pic & choose too. Besides, I could probably find a way to sort the file so that this was the 6th, but it sounds like too much work!

The 6th photo is a photo of a Monet that hangs at Musuem of Modern Art. I took it as a closeup because I was trying to capture the brushstrokes. But, if you didn't know what it was, it looks like the camera accidentally went off inside one's backpack. So, I'm posting a picture I took on the same trip (about a year ago). I like this painting very much:

The Dance, Henri Matisse

I always smile when I see this painting, not only because I like it, but also because of my reaction the first time I saw it. Although I had seen photos of this painting, I hadn't seen it before, or at least not that I can remember. It was on my first trip to MoMA after they re-opened following a major renovation project. Since I was only in New York for a few days, I was trying to stuff as much experience as I could into the trip, and was trying to take in as much of the museum as I could. Note to reader unfamiliar with MoMA: This is a really stupid idea; the museum is simply too big to see everything in all the galleries in one day, without your eyeballs and brain exploding.

My feet were getting tired and I was about to call it quits. I walked out of the gallery and thought I was headed to the escalator. I entered a stairwell. As I turned around to go back into the gallery, I saw this magnificent painting on the wall. It is very large, 12' 9 1/2" x 8' 6 1/2", but instead of overpowering you, it envelopes you with its liveliness.

When I saw the painting I remembered an episode from high school, where one of my friends who frequently worked crew in the theatre department, was asked to help with some sets at the local university's auditorium. She, of course, agreed to do so, although she knew nothing more than that they were moving some scenery drops -- and she got to get out of school early to go help. The next day she exclaimed: I got to touch a f'ing Matisse! A real Matisse! You wouldn't believe the colors. What she had been drafted to help with was to hang some drops that had been used by The Ballet Russe, and one of them had been painted by Matisse. I was jealous then, and remain a bit so now, nearly 30 years later. (Link to website about the drops here and here)

The colors of this painting grabbed me as well as its composition. It is very muted, and that gives it a dream-like quality, enhancing the floating movement of the dancers. What I didn't know at the time is that this was a study for the commissioned painting. The commissioned work is nearly identical in composition, but the colors are much different: bright red, green and blue. The color choice gives the painting a completely different feeling. You can see both paintings here.

I don't get to MoMA frequently, but when I do, I always try to walk into that stairwell to see this work. I always smile when I do.

New Books in My House

2008-11-25T22:31:00.004-05:00

A box was left at the usual dropoff point, the place on the front walkway near the edge of the drive that looks like a front porch only to the driver of the big brown truck. I'd been looking for it for a few days, my latest order from Amazon.

It's an interesting collection of books, three books that have nothing to do with one another, that might appear to not have been ordered for the same reader.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East, by Sandy Tolan, is a book I heard about on NPR when it was published a few years ago. It sounded like a interesting book but I never got around to ordering it. I thought of this book as recently as a few months ago -- I even remembered its name -- although I have no idea what caused the title of this book to drift across my brain. So, when I heard The Lemon Trees was the next title for one of my book clubs, I thought If only it was the same book.... This is not the type of book that we usually read, and the selections recently have been rather lightweight. When I went to order it, I was surprised to find that it was exactly the book I had heard reviewed previously.

The second book is for another book discussion group, and it, too, is unusual for this group. The Lemon Tree because it is non-fiction and somewhat serious might be an appropriate book for this second group. But, what are we reading for December? I rubbed my eyes in disbelief when I saw the email: Anne Rice's Christ the Lord Out of Egypt. I almost didn't buy it, but decided I was being too much of a snob. I have so many preconceived ideas about this book and am convinced that I will hate it. I decided I wouldn't spend more than $10. It was .20 cents over and I needed the extra to qualify for free shipping (so I could have it arrive on time, in the middle of the yard, in the rain...). The book was stuffed into the box in a way that crumpled the cover. Even though it is a book that I'm not too excited to have, I wasn't happy at the packaging. I read the first chapter. It is about what I expected and don't know that I'll make it through the entire 337 pages, but I'll try to keep an open mind. Blahhhhh!

The third book, and the one that I was most eager to arrive, is Sandi Shelton's Kissing Games of the World. I've been reading Sandi's blog for awhile now and I always find it worth my time to stop by to read her posts. BlogLily recently wrote a review of it that prompted me to click open another browser window immediately and order Sandi's book. I read the first chapter this evening and knew that if I didn't put it down, I would stay up all night reading it. Unfortunately, I have to work tomorrow, so it will have to rest until tomorrow night, when I can start to read it while doing some preparatory baking for Thanksgiving.

It struck me after I leafed through the opening pages of each of these books, that I have one book that is about a historical figure, but is completely a work of fiction as there is no historical record for when Jesus of Nazareth was seven years old, one work of fiction, that, in the first few pages, grabs you with very real characters, and one non-fiction book that tells the stories of several people, who in telling their stories, are conducting a very real political act.

Feast

2008-11-24T22:50:00.009-05:00

Many years ago, I had a friend who always organized a dinner around Thanksgiving time, with all of the traditional fixings, but with none of the traditions or expectations of a family gathering. Only women were invited (my son did make an appearance as honored guest when he was 7 weeks old and had just come home from the hospital a few days before), and the intent was to just have a nice relaxing time with friends without any pressure for a ridiculously clean house, fancy table decorations, extravagant food, or bickering relatives.

Each year the hostess would assign each attendee a dish to prepare. It was always well planned, and there was little stress. I wasn't much of a cook at the time, so I think I always brought something foolproof, like fresh fruit, or a salad, or deviled eggs. But one year, the usual hostess needed a break. She agreed to have it at her house and would cook the turkey, but she asked someone else to plan the rest of the menu. The stand-in planner was not nearly as organized. She waited until it was close to the time of the event and then simply told people to bring whatever they wanted.

There was almost a mutiny. How was that going to work? So, she revised her instructions. Her assignments were a bit more specific: drinks, vegetables, desserts. I was assigned vegetables and decided to be a bit more daring than salad and settled on a green bean recipe that I couldn't mess up: green beans with slivered almonds. Hardly even cooking: beans in pan, heat, add slivered almonds, and, most importantly, put in fancy cut-glass bowl that makes anything look special. I knew it was lame, but it fit the bill.

I arrived at the dinner with my veggies in hand. I hadn't made too much, as I calculated that nobody would be very interested in eating them anyway. As I went to put them on the table, I started laughing. My green bean dish took its place next to several other vegetable dishes, each different in execution, but all some combination of green beans. Green beans with mushroom soup & onions. Green beans with pinto beans & almonds. Green beans with wax beans. Green beans and almonds and crispy fried onion rings, mixed with sour cream. Green beans & onions and almonds held together by something undefinable. Green beans in a souffle. Green beans in a casserole dish. We all laughed at the variations and had fun trying the different recipes even if it did make for a lop-sided dinner.

That is how pot luck suppers go; you never know what anyone will bring but it always seems to turn out. And so it is with my virtual thanksgiving feast.

Litlove tried to make a traditional US Thanksgiving meal, but she found herself short on two things: time and the ingredients for thetraditional American meal. She writes that she is perplexed by the American combination of sweet and savory dishes -- noting that only an unseasoned palate, like that of her adolescent son, would think it starchy potatoes and marshmallows sounded wonderful. Instead, she opted to roast a chicken, surrounding it with root vegetables in the roasting pan. Sounds simple, elegant and delicious.

Emily does a turn at being a food historian in her post on Sweet Potato Casserole, discussing the evolution of her recipe from a run-of-the-mill to a no-fail, crowd-pleasing favorite that she is asked to make every year. I think it sounds wonderful, and I'm planning on making it this Thanksgiving. I love sweet potatoes and don't usually add sweet ingredients to them, but I think this sounds like it will be something that the family crowd this Thanksgiving will like.

In a post that eschews the meat-centered Thanksgiving table, Stefanie writes about how she and her Bookman have defined their own traditional Thanksgiving dinner while staying true to their vegan philosophy: they don't eat animals or anything that tries to mimic meat. Her tradition is an enchilada casserole. It sounds delicious. Unlike a turkey, this isn't something that you have to spend hours preparing. Stefanie also contributes a vegan pumpkin pie. I can't wait to make this one and I love her suggestion for chocolate bits on top (chocolate can go anything, right?), though I think that I will make real whipped cream, an indulgence that I only do a few times a year and Thanksgiving is one of those times!

So Thanksgiving, this year, is more about rest and less about the food, Courtney writes. I think that is a recipe for a great holiday. I think holidays should be about rest, relaxation, finding ways to de-stress and to remember that we sometimes need to remove ourselves from the worries of hectic lives. Courtney's recipe isn't a traditional Thanksgiving recipe, but a recipe that she is thankful for. I think her Steak, Ale and Cheese pie would be great to make when you tire of all the leftover turkey (and the wait for pizza delivery on Saturday will be two hours), or to make anytime during the cold, grey winter months.

So my contribution? I've never made a turkey and I don't know that I ever will. It really seems like too much for a small gathering, and I don't think I could handle cooking for a big crowd. (Note: my family = big crowd if everybody shows up.) Last year, I shared two of my favorite Thanksgiving meal side dishes - cranberry sauce and the thing I make with sweet potatoes and apples. I have the cranberries to make the sauce, but I'm the only one in my extended family that really likes cranberries, so I think I'll just make it for me. Earlier this month, I posted a recipe for Brussels Sprouts and Apples. I'm bringing the Brussels sprouts, Stef's pumpkin pie, and Emily's sweet potato casserole this year. My husband is making his Corn Souffle (1 can cream corn, 1 can corn, Jiffy Mix cornmeal, some eggs, some sour cream, jalapeno -- I know this isn't a recipe. I don't know his secret recipe.)

So, what will I bring to this virtual feast? Although I already wrote once this week on alcohol (usige, whiskey, scotch or bourbon?), I'm bringing wine, just as I am in real life.

A tradition in my family is that we always have champagne at any holiday celebration. I like sparkling wines, the drier, the better. My mother, who is a very good cook who never skimps on quality, likes a really sweet champagne. She buys the really inexpensive, too sweet champagne you find at the grocery. Sometimes I feel like I should buy her a bottle just for herself because I think you should drink what you like and who cares if it isn't rated highly in Wine Spectator?

But, as long as I'm responsible for bringing the libations, I will bring something I consider good, compromising a little on the sweet/dry issue. This year, I decided to bring a Spanish Cava, Segura Viudas Aria. It is a dry wine, but has a touch of sweetness. I think it will please. When I was at my favorite local wine store the other day, the store owner convinced me to buy a bottle of a sparkling Rose of Malbec, Reginato Celestina. Haven't decided if I'm going to bring it to my sister's on Thanksgiving, or save it for hubby and me to share on some occasion. For table wine, I'm bringing one of my favorite, anytime wines, Red Truck Red. It's a blended California wine that is medium bodied and absolutely delicious. No need to be a wine snob or to spend a fortune on this. Best yet, in Indiana, which has weird and archaic beer and wine distributor laws, it is readily available in the grocery store. I haven't tried Red Truck's white wines yet, but I bought two bottles of White Truck White as well. It's advertised as not having anything oaky about it, which I should like. Last, although it won't be my contribution to the party, I'm pretty sure that we'll end the evening with dessert, and coffee with either Bailey's or Kahlua.

So, what are you cooking, baking, buying, eating or drinking this Thanksgiving? Leave a comment or a link to share. I hope you have lots to be thankful for and enjoy your holiday!

It's Not Too Late: Share Your Thanksgiving Recipe

2008-11-24T07:37:00.000-05:00

It's not too late to participate in the Virtual Thanksgiving Feast. Send me a link before noon (Eastern time) Monday and I'll link back to your recipe. I've already decided to include two of the recipes on my Thanksgiving menu. Check back tomorrow to see which one. See details here.

Join Feast, post recipes, chance to win a prize

2008-11-23T23:50:00.000-05:00

Just in the nick of time to help you with planning your Thanksgiving meal!

Attend The Virtual Thanskgiving Feast! Tell your blog friends -- the more the merrier.

To join:
1.Leave a comment letting me know your participating.
2.Post to your blog your recipe.
3.Send me an email with the link by Sunday Nov 23rd.
4.Post on or before Thanksgiving on one ot these topics:
- A favorite holiday tradition in your family
- A favorite holiday memory
- Something that you are grateful for this year

See original post for details on prize giveaway.

Check back here on Monday Nov 24th.

Joining in:
Courtney
Stefanie
Litlove
Emily

Uisge, Uisge Everywhere And Plenty a Drop to Drink

2008-11-23T14:51:00.011-05:00

I'm a bit befuddled sometimes when I order a cocktail. Sometimes it's easier to order something with a frou-frou name from the 'specialty' menu, than to navigate into unknown territories of mysterious libations.

When I was in college, it was common to drink Rum and Coke. It didn't matter what kind of rum; there was only one: cheap! A Seven & Seven was something a little more sophisticated, but the first time I ordered one, I was asked if I wanted the well brand or Seagrams. Uhhh? Yeah, I said, not having a clue. Scotch aficiandos might find it scandelous that, over the years, I've come to like Scotch & Seven, rather than Seagrams or any other kind of whiskey with 7-Up.

Martinis were something that my dad drank and I learned how to make them when I was about 12. Couldn't stand the taste, though I made them per directions for my dad frequently. When I came of drinking age, I always preferred whiskey drinks over anything made with gin. My mom always said that my dad's family drank alcoholics' drinks - Manhattans, Martinis, Old-Fashioned. Aren't they all made from alcohol? I remember thinking. It wasn't until I was older that I understood what she meant - drinks that were a mix of liquor and liquor, rather than liquor and something non-alcoholic.

Last week, I ordered a Manhattan, one of my favorite cocktails. Maker's Mark okay? the waiter asked. That's fine, I thought, although since I had recently posted some drink recipes for Charlotte, I knew that a Manhattan should be made with whisky rather than with bourbon. But, what is the difference between the two? I wouldn't have been able to tell you.

Uisge or Uisce is the Gaelic word for water. Uisge beatha is a Scotch word literally meaning water of life. Whiskey (with the e) generally refers to American or Canadian Whiskey. To be a Bourbon, a US whiskey must be distilled in Kentucky, aged at least three years and one day in an uncharred new oak barrel, and be at least 51% corn. A Tennessee whiskey is almost identical to a bourbon, but is filtered through a sugar maple charcoal. To understand this difference on the palate, compare a sip of Jack Daniels with a sip of Maker's Mark. Canadian whiskies are often called 'rye whisky' but aren't required to have any specific proportion of rye.

Scotch whisky is made from barley and must be made in Scotland and matured for more than three years in oak casks. Single-malts are the creme de la creme of Scotch, although many brands of Scotch are blended malts. Irish whiskey is similar to Scotch, but is usually distilled three times and usually distilled in a pot still. Some Irish whiskey is peated and the aroma is distinct. If you've ever been in Ireland when peat is being burned, your sense of smell will transport you back when you open a bottle of a peaty Irish whiskey. There is a cocktail that I like -- a Rusty Nail -- that has a bit of an urban legend surrounding it. Made of whiskey and Drambuie, a liqueur made from a secret recipe of honey, spices and Scotch, a Rusty Nail supposedly earned its name from irate Irish bartenders who thought that by diluting a good whiskey with a Scotch liqueur was like stirring a drink with a rusty nail.

Taste Test: Whiskey, Scotch, Bourbon.
(l to r) Tyrconnell Single Malt Pure Pot Still Irish Whiskey, Chivas Regal Blended Scotch, Maker's Mark Bourbon Whisky.
I poured each of the three types of whiskey I had and did a taste test today. There is an obvious difference in color, although the Irish Whiskey was similar to the Scotch. The Scotch had a stronger taste, one that had a slight burn as it goes down the pipe. But the Bourbon is much different than the others, in color, aroma and in taste. It is sweeter and much smoother. It may not be the best description on the web, but you can find out more general facts about the difference between Whiskey, Scotch and Bourbon at this Wikipedia entry.

So, does this clear it up for me? Not much. Like with wine, I think it comes down to one important thing: what you like.

Reading Notes: Reading for work

2008-11-22T16:21:00.003-05:00

Most of the books I read that are work related are technical books, not the kind of material that one reads 'just because'. A book with a title such as Managing A Software Development Project without Losing Your Staff or Your Cool isn't something that you'd curl up with on a grey Saturday afternoon. When I have to, I don't read these books, I skim them. I have such a book on the credenza in my office right now, something my boss ordered, for some sort of business intelligence software. Implementing that software will be one of my objectives for next year. Oh hum, boring!

Recently, the training manager offered a leadership class for employees, and is conducting the class as a book study. We meet weekly and there is an internal wiki page where participants can comment. Only once before have I been in any sort of book-related study at work. I'm finding it to be an interesting experience.

The book that we are reading is Leading from the Front: No excuse leadership tactics for Women, by Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch, who are former Marine officers. We discuss one chapter each week. I have to admit upfront that I haven't read the chapters when I've known that I wouldn't be able to attend. When I do attend, I block out about 30 minutes during the week to read. That block is usually compressed into 15 - 20 minutes, right before the session. But, I'm finding that is enough time, because after the discussion, I usually re-read sections from the chapter.

One of the interesting things about this exercise is that, although the book is aimed at women, there are both men and women participating in the class. I work at a company (and in a field) which is predominately male. According to some statistics I've read, it is more male than any other field in the US (except perhaps, I guess, the Catholic priesthood).

I've found that by discussing the book, I'm seeing some of my colleagues in a different light. I've been surprised at how involved emotionally some of the men are with their work and their staff. (I don't mean emotionally involved as in romantically involved.) Some of them seem to be much more caring than I thought, and others more tolerant of dealing with the foibles of the staff than I would have guessed. Reading the book is sort of an equalizer: everybody's opinion is valid and there isn't any org chart considerations given to the makeup of the group. Since schedules don't allow all to attend each week, the wiki has been an welcomed adjunct to the weekly sessions, although I think the HR leader would have liked more people to participate in the online discussion. It's an interesting exercise for me and I'm glad that I participated.

This week's chapter was on crying at work. I have always worked to NOT do this at work. I was surprised that there was an entire chapter in the book about it. Who would think about crying at work? Sure, there have been times that I've been upset and have sought refuge in my car or a bathroom stall to shed a few tears, but crying in front of a supervisor or a colleague over a typical work situation would be humiliating for me. But, one of the interesting things about this chapter is that it also discusses how other emotional outbursts have the same effect as crying: one loses her credibility, is seen as weak, people avoid, or superiors pass you up for plum assignments because you can't handle stress. Griping, whining, complaining and angry outbursts are in the same category according to the book.

I am sometimes prone to 'vent'. This is something that took me a long time to realize wasn't going to fly with my boss. When I was on a high-stress project that was not going well last year, he frequently had to "talk me down". Some of it was understandable, but back in the office, I realized that it was important that I not be so negative when talking about my projects and the roadblocks we were experiencing. While I caught on that I wasn't doing myself any favors, I never thought of it as being akin to crying. I don't think that it is as bad, but I can see how women doing this can be perceived by men as something that it isn't meant to be.

Interestingly, last year, the feedback I got in my review was that my team didn't think that I was a very emotional person. It's a tricky way, the tightrope that a woman manager needs to travel on between being too sensitive and emotional, and being seen as aggressive and cold-hearted.

Lame Blog Post for Friday

2008-11-21T00:07:00.002-05:00

I find the results rather funny. Seems like someone interested in things religious might have issues with the numerology aspect of this. Still, given much of what I've read this year, it seems rather close to reality.

Camille's Dewey Decimal Section:

262 Ecclesiology

Class:
200 Religion

Contains:
The Bible and other religious texts, books about the general philosophy and theory of religion.

What it says about you:
You don't mind thinking about the unknown or other very big ideas. You will never feel like your work is finished. The 200-series is dominated by Christian topics, so you may feel like you're constantly surrounded by Christians.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Found this at Emily's who found it at Stefanie's.

My Blog, Review Copies, Honest Criticism

2008-11-20T23:13:00.004-05:00

I haven't participated in Booking Through Thursday before, but I do read the posts of some who do regularly. Today Ted's post caught my attention.

I received a review copy yesterday and I started reading it today. Someday I will post about it. But, like Ted, I have no obligation to write niceties about a book simply because the publisher or publicist gave me a copy. When I first started writing reviews, I tended to be very harsh in reviewing books that I didn't like. I have soften that somewhat -- not because I don't want to hurt the author's feeling, but because I don't want my blog to be a snark-fest. That doesn't mean that one can't be critical, however. If I choose to write about a book -- whether it is a review copy given gratis or a book I have purchased -- I will write about it honestly. As Ted writes in his post: This is my blog.

Only once have I had an author comment about a negative review. The comment was very simple; paraphrasing, it was something like: I'm disappointed you didn't like my book. It pained me at first to read that. I thought: Oh, he actually read my blog. I might have hurt his feelings. Then I recovered, realizing that he shouldn't -- who knows, maybe didn't -- expect all reviews to be positive.

Upon further reflection, I realized that I was not only disappointed in the book, but disappointed in the author's comment. I wish that he had addressed some of the issues I had brought up (this was a non-fiction book, and I questioned his approach and assumptions). It seems like there was a lost opportunity there.

I don't get too many requests to review books. I do get review copies sometimes through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program, and occasionally through a program offered by Harper-Collins. I have been approached a few times, but I've been wary about accepting them. When I first started blogging, I had someone, who appeared to be a publicist, request that I review a book. I agreed, but was astonished at how amateurish the book was. I didn't finish reading it and I never posted. I figured that if it wasn't published professionally, a negative review might not be accepted in a professional manner either. I never regretted not having reviewed the book.

$51 -- it's adding up

2008-11-19T08:29:00.006-05:00

I promised when I started NaBloPoMo that I would make a charitable donation for every comment I received this month. So far, I've received 51 comments. That's $51 dollars for a good cause. 11 more days. I'd like to reach 100 comments. $100 dollars for 100 comments.

I said that I would donate to a cause dedicated to helping eradicate hunger and water scarcity. A few facts about water scarcity on our planet:
Each year more than five million people die from water-related disease.

2.5 billion people still lack access to improved sanitation, including 1.2 billion people who still have no facilities at all.
Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
Millions of women and children spend several hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.
At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.

These facts come from the website of the organization I have chosen to donate to: Water Partners International.

Water Partners is a non-profit dedicated exclusively to helping provide safe drinking water and sanitation to people in eight developing nations: Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Kenya, and the Philippines. The organization partners with other organizations 'on the ground' in these countries and also offers micro-loans to villages to build their own water infrastructure.

Here is an indication of how funding can help Water Partners Int'l provide people in need with safe water:

$25: provides someone with access to safe drinking water for life.
$150: meets the water needs of an entire family.
$200: provides a household water tap and toilet to a family in Honduras.
$1,000: provides public water points and latrines to a village of 400 in Bangladesh.
$5,000: covers construction of a spring protection system for a village in Ethiopia.
$10,000: Provides water hook-ups and toilets to 300 people in an urban slum in India.
$20,000: covers the cost of a deep borehole well for an entire village in Kenya.

Isn't it amazing what so little money can do?

5 Things I learned today

2008-11-18T23:21:00.004-05:00

Taking a cue from Emily, because you don't have to be in school to learn:

1) The weather outside is so much more enjoyable when you wear a warm coat. (Like I've lived all these years to learn that!)

2) My cousin gave me some Samphire and Seaweed bubble bath. I didn't have a clue what Samphire was, but it smells heavenly. Samphire is a coastal plant in Great Britain, has white flowers, and is mentioned in King Lear.

3) It was driven home this evening that how one acts when leading a meeting can really go a long way towards setting the tone, especially when delivering bad news. It wasn't easy, as I was disappointed too, but by acknowledging my disappointment and then stating that we weren't going to dissect the decision that we couldn't change, the group was able to focus on new, positive ideas that will help us accomplish our goal, although in a different manner, with less money, in a different time period.

4) The fastest way to burn your butt is to turn the seat heater to max heat.

5) The last President who was also Secretary of State was James Buchanan. The last Secretary of State to run unsuccessfully for President was Edmund Muskie. Definitely news you can't use -- unless trying to win an argument about whether Hillary Clinton will use Sec'y of State to launch her next presidential campaign in 2016.

Bonus: I'm not so sure that I'm running out of ideas for posting daily, but I'm sure running out of energy to write long posts!

Not at all James Bondian

2008-11-17T21:00:00.013-05:00

Saturday morning, as I sat in Catherine's kitchen drinking coffee and watching the fog slowly lift to reveal the magnificent cathedral of St John's the Divine, the phone rang. It was her friend Taradina, who I had the pleasure of meeting while in NYC on business last year, calling from Senegal.

Catherine told her that I was in New York to meet someone from Germany, along with some NY-area people, none whom I had ever met in real life.

Really? Sounds rather James Bondian she said with a giggle.

Well, I didn't have to get any sort of combo driving-flying-boating spy vehicle to arrive at the rendez-vous point. There were no secret passwords or handshakes. I simply walked out the door and around the corner to the designated spot, The Hungarian Pastry Shop. I didn't even have cool boots and an umbrella a la Diana Rigg. The Avengers was always more my thing than Bond. Not that anyone would ever mistake me for Diana Rigg -- or a spy.

The Pastry Shop has more of a college vib than some sort of secret service haunt in a Rive Gauche cafe, a Monaco casino, or hookah bar in Marrakesh: cramped, crowded, oddly matched tables and walls covered with literate graffiti, flyers for happenings at nearby Columbia, ads for people selling dog-walking services or organizing one's apartment, people busily scribbling in notebooks or typing on laptops, or just chatting with friends. As I walked in, I only glanced for a nanosecond at the delicious baked goods in the display case. To walk past this is an act of courage for most sweet-tooths. I immediately spotted a table at the back with 6 people looking expectantly at each person who walked in the door. I immediately recognized Emily from pictures on her blog and Hobgoblin because I remember him writing once that he wore his hair in a ponytail. Then I saw Charlotte, who has also posted pictures of herself on her blog. Immediately I was introduced to them and to Dorothy, Marcy, and Becky.

We each had some sort of delicious baked good -- I had an apricot linzer torte & a cup of tea, perfect for a foggy, grey day -- and commenced talking. Hobgoblin and Dorothy know Emily and Becky. Emily, Becky and Marcy know each other through professional contacts as well as their blogs. Charlotte and I were the ones who hadn't met any of the others in real life. After a bite to eat, we were off to the Strand with its 18 miles of bookshelves. Charlotte wanted to see some of the city by walking, but the 7 miles to the Strand was a bit too far. We walked for a bit and then took taxis. I appreciated that everyone was understanding that I, feeble-footed as I still am from my accident last year, couldn't walk very far.

The Strand is one of those overwhelming bookstores that any booklover can't believe they've landed in. There are books on tables, books stacked on the floor, books on shelving up to the high ceilings -- on 3 floors. It is one of those places where you don't find books; they find you. My advice to anyone visiting the Strand - unless you have about a day & half to spend there -- is that you have a plan for 2, maybe 3 sections, that you want to browse. I immediately hit upon a section of travel essays and picked up two books, a translation of Guy de Maupassant's Afloat, and The Search for the Pink-Headed Duck: A Journey into the Himalayas and Down the Brahmaputra by Rory Nugent.

The de Maupassant book is described as a merging of

fact and fiction, dream, polemic and documentation in a wholly original manner. Humorous and troubling stories, unreliable confessions, stray reminiscences, and thoughts on life, love, art, nature and society....

The Pink-headed duck is about a journey through India, which appears to have much to do with India, and only a little to do with a bird that hadn't been seen in a half century. How could I pass up either of them?

But my real find of the day was found on a remainders table between fiction, literary biography and poetry: a book reproducing William Blake's illuminated poems, Songs of Innocence and Experience, with transcriptions and commentary on each of the individual plates. When I showed it to Catherine that evening, she said (as anyone on the business side of publishing might), This is expensive paper. I don't know why they used it in the signatures that are just text, yet they were too cheap to use colored end papers. As a lover of books, of poetry, and of art, who first discovered Blake's paintings as a young college student wandering through The Tate, I don't care how unprofitable such a book might be; I just care that it is a marvelous book, beautiful to hold and to read. I even like the two brown ribbons, for page marking both the plate and the corresponding commentary, that match brown fabric on the spine of the book. It is lovely. Although heavy, I carried it aboard the plane today so that I wouldn't chance the airlines loosing it.

After The Strand, we had a late lunch. If you read Dorothy's blog today, you may have wondered about mimosas and mac 'n cheese. They don't really sound like they'd go together, but they mixed well with good conversation and an intermittent commentary on the 80's music that was playing. It was fun spending time with the other bloggers. As Dorothy wrote today, it does feel a little strange to meet people in real life who you know only through their blogs. It is like you know them, but yet, you only know their on-line persona, one aspect of their lives. I wasn't surprised by anyone though. I think that each is very similar to their online voice. I am glad that I had the opportunity to meet them. If you don't know any of these bloggers, go to their blogs now and meet them online.

PS -- I also discovered the real-life name of Dorothy & Hob's pseudonymous dog, Muttboy. All I'll say is that it is fitting, although I will always think of him as Muttboy.

Dr. Atomic

2008-11-16T20:43:00.003-05:00

I saw the Met's HD presentation of John Adam's Dr. Atomic (libretto by Peter Sellars) last weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. Spending a Saturday afternoon watching an opera about Robert Oppenheimer and the first atomic test definitely seems like something that might require an eclectic taste, and to be honest, I didn't think that it was a taste that I had. But, much to my surprise, I really enjoyed the opera.

If you want an excellent review of the opera, you should go read Ted's post about it. He did a much better job of a review than I could ever do. But, I will endeavor here to put some sort of shape to the many thoughts I've had this week about the opera.

The opera starts out with the chorus chanting Matter is neither created nor destroyed. This is a tenet that I've always thought of as being as much spiritual as it is scientific. I've known many people who have thought that this is a rather odd perspective. But, I've always looked at the periodic table of elements, with its perfect assembly of elements, as evidence (though not proof) that the universe was created by some sort of superior intelligence. I can't envision such ordered beauty could be developed randomly. In reflecting on the opera, this seems a perfect choice to start the opera, as there is a tension throughout about what the was being unleashed upon the world by man ushering in the atomic age.

There is a Faustian undercurrent throughout. (How could there not be?) At first it seemed as if Oppenheimer scoffs at the idea of any sort of moral implications of the bomb, but throughout the opera, he suffers from doubt and awe at what he has done privately while admonishing physicist Robert Wilson about his efforts to have scientists petition the government not to use the bomb on population centers. The opera doesn't deal with Oppenheimer after the war, but allegedly he was very depressed after the bombings of Japan. Even people who do horrific things, or produce horrific things with good intentions as did Oppenheimer, have doubts privately.

There are many literary references throughout the opera's libretto: Baudelaire, John Donne, Bhagavad-gita, Muriel Rukeyser, Native-American songs. I was fascinated by the use of entire poems in the libretto. While they complemented not only the music, but also the tension in the libretto, I was at first unsure about how I felt about the use, or why Adams and Sellers decided to include them. I liked them, but I was puzzled about why there was so much. But, afterwards I did some more reading on the opera, and discovered an interview with John Adams discussing the works the Oppenheimer read. Adams referred to Oppenheimer as being one of the most cultured scientists we have ever had. Two of Donne's works, -- one Holy Sonnet 14 was sung as an aria -- were cited by Oppenheimer as inspiring him to name the test site Trinity. I always thought that Trinity was a bit sacrilegious, but know that I know why Oppenheimer named it, I don't think that it was. Instead, I think that it might have been his way of acknowledging some inner struggle with what they were developing. But perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

I loved the Batter my heart aria. I thought the music was lovely. I have always liked this sonnet, but have struggled with coming to terms with it. (I wrote about Donne's sonnet here last year). The poem is a paradox and is fitting in its use in this opera. It is violent, yet begs for mercy, love and redemption. This aria is a moving, tour-de-force. A few days after I saw this, I came across a passage from theologian Walter Brueggemann that discussed how scripture utters, shatters, destroys, and creates. I couldn't help but think about Donne's sonnet, and the opera. Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

Here is a clip of Gerald Finley singing the Donne aria:

Read this Blog

2008-11-15T22:03:00.003-05:00

Not this one. This one: Further Tales of Ngor.

A Virtual Thanksgiving Feast -- Please Join Me!

2008-11-14T21:34:00.010-05:00

Please join me for a virtual Thanksgiving feast. Here's how:

* Sign up in the comments for what dish you will 'bring'.

* Post to your blog the recipe for your dish. Be sure to give credit if it comes from a published cookbook.

* Send me an email with the link (an cam jong AT yahoo DOTCOM) no later than Sunday November 23rd with the link. You can also link to this page if you wish.

* Write a post on your blog on or before Thanksgiving on one of the these topics:
- A favorite holiday tradition in your family
- A favorite holiday memory from your childhood (or from anytime if you happily think that you can still have the joy of a child)
- Something that you are grateful for this year

I'll host the virtual dinner here on Monday, November 24th.

Suggested menu:
- appetizers
- turkey (or some other main course if you don't do turkey)
- a vegetarian option for the vegans who will visit
- stuffing
- corn souffle
- some sort of cranberry dish
- vegetables
- potato dishes (mashed, smashed, baked, sweet, candied, etc.)
- salad (we need to feel healthy, and some us will be)
- libations -- before, during, after dinner
- desserts of any kind
- anything else that you would like to bring

Will you join me for this virtual potluck? (or, as Hoosiers say, a 'pitch-in'). There will be prizes for best recipe and best blog post and to a randomly chosen dinner guest.

Autumn Leaves

2008-11-13T23:58:00.006-05:00

Most of the leaves from the driveway have been swept away. While I'm glad that we no longer have the thick blanket of wet leaves on the drive, it also means that winter will be here soon. Most of the leaves have fallen and the trees are bare. Here are some photos I took a few weeks ago, when the leaves were flaunting their colors.

Leaf on Drive

More than Net

Geometry in the Woods

Light and Shadow

Against the Wall

Winter Hat

2008-11-12T22:39:00.007-05:00

A few years ago, I left home on a sunny early spring day for a business trip. It was unseasonably warm, the kind of warmth that makes you realize that winter really has been that long and makes you hopeful that the warmth will stay. It was a quick trip - just two days - and the weather forecast was all about how warm it was suppose to be for days on the Eastern seaboard. And so it was, for most of my trip.

As I dragged my small roller bag from the train station into the office at the start of my last day, having already checked out of the hotel and confirmed car service to LaGuardia for early afternoon, I noticed that it was starting to sprinkle. No problem, I thought, I don't have to be walking about in this, and I'll be home this evening to spend a restful weekend.

Thinking one will get home on time is the curse of frequent business travelers.

Within an hour one of my colleagues, seeing the suitcase in the corner of the conference room, asked: You're not staying? You didn't keep your room?

I looked puzzled.

My flight was cancelled at 6 am this morning, due to weather he said. I'm leaving tomorrow.

No, I checked in for my flight when I arrived at the office. Just a few minutes ago, I added as if to convince myself that he was wrong. Must have been a mechanical problem with the plane.

I looked out the window. I saw nothing but a dim, light, greyness hanging over the Hudson. When you can't see Manhattan from across the river, you're in trouble.

Within minutes, my cousin C and my husband both called me, C to offer her sofa and my husband to say that he didn't think I would make it home. No, I reassured them. The flight was still on.

Within minutes, all three airports in NYC had been closed. There wasn't a snowball's chance that I would get through to the airlines, although there was suddenly plenty of snow everywhere.

I made arrangements for the car service to pick me up at 5:15, rather than 2:30. No need to drag my luggage to the Upper West Side on the subway, I thought. I went back to work.

Sometime during the afternoon, locked inside a conference room, the stranded travelers and those who only had a short distance to go home, decided to continue to work as long as we were stuck there. Our project had a deadline and we had been given bonus time. I cancelled the car service and continued to work. Somewhere around 7:30pm, we decided to call it quits for the weekend.

I had tried all day to call the airlines, but only received a fast busy. Nevertheless, I told my co-workers that I would join them via conference call on Monday morning. I'm sure I'll get out of here tomorrow, I said, oblivious to the current weather conditions outside.

I packed up my laptop and notebooks, grabbed my suitcase and a box I needed to bring home with me, and headed to the door. As I walked outside, I realized that I might have underestimated the snowstorm. First it had rained. Then it sleeted for a few hours. A few inches of heavy wet snow had been piled on top of the ice glazed streets. As I stepped off the curb onto the cobblestones, I knew it wasn't going to be easy crossing to the PATH station. A few steps and suddenly I was knee deep in a water-filed pothole. Bad enough that my shoes -- an impractical pump - had already filled with snow, but now my slacks were wet too.

I continued on, grousing under my breath, that I never should have given up the car service and should have left a few hours earlier. I knew I had no chance of catching a cab after the short train ride across the Hudson. As I waited nearly 30 minutes for the next train, I was just short of shivering from my now wet clothes.

As soon as the train left the station, I realized that I wasn't on the train I normally took. Not a problem, I assured myself, I can still get to where I'm going from the other station. It was only a matter of taking a different subway line; I had done it before. Had the weather been nice, I could have walked a few blocks and caught the train I had originally intended, but the other was a workable option, so that's what I did.

Except I didn't know that the train made different stops after a certain time of night, so I couldn't switch where I wanted. Still, I had been on the NYC subways enough times to know my other options. I switched trains where I knew I should, and without a delay, caught the next train.

But, it was now after 9pm. Track repairs had been scheduled. I sat on a track between stations for another 25 minutes. My hair was wet; I had no hat. My slacks were wet. I was toting a heavy briefcase, a box of manuals that I held with a plastic handle that cut through my hands, and a roller bag that suddenly seemed more suited for a 3 month tour instead of a 2 day trip. My fingers and toes were numb. I sat in the subway car, watching water pour down the sides, never wishing more that I was anywhere but where I was. I puzzled why there was so much water; it didn't occur to me that it was the melting snow from the streets above. Was there really that much snow?

As I waited for the subway to begin moving again, I debating whether I would make one more train switch. I was tired. I didn't want to walk up any stairs carrying the baggage that I had. Yet, there was a nagging voice in my head that said that I should. Had I stayed on that subway line, I would have had to get off at a stop that I had only been to once, about three years before. I knew the walk to my cousin's apartment wasn't long, but I figured there must have been some reason why I always took the 1/9 train.

I made the switch at the last minute and regretted my decision as I waited on an empty platform, watching several trains move through the station without stopping on the other tracks. Finally, a train stopped, and I hopped aboard. Within a few minutes, I was at the stop I needed. I'll be inside in a few minutes, I thought. I only had to get up the stairs with the suitcase.

Once on the street, I realized that I my challenges were not over. The snow had turned to a sharp wind-driven ice, falling heavily and quickly, each pellet stinging you as if you were in a desert sandstorm. I had two blocks to walk. Two blocks to pull a suitcase through slush the consistency of pea gravel.

Snow and ice accumulates under the wheels of a roller bag, just as it does the wheels of your car. 40 lbs propelled by ice covered wheels may be less treacherous than a 1 ton car on icy roads, but it is not much easier to navigate.

As I got to C's building, the door was open, so I didn't have to ring. (Her super would be at least one full blog post and it would explain why this could happen under his watch!) I got on the elevator and made my way to her apartment. There was a chef who got on the elevator at the same time. He had flour on his shirt and his checked chef's pants and he smelled like garlic. I wanted to follow him when he exited at the 5th floor. I'm tired, cold and hungry. Will you make me dinner? I wanted to say.

When I got the C's, I was exhausted and out of breath from walking so hurriedly down the street, trying to get out of the elements as quickly as I could.

Why didn't you call me? she said. I would have helped you carry your bag. I knew you would have a miserable trip, so I didn't have the heart to tell you that the elevator was broken.

It's fixed now, I said. Had it been broken, I would have stayed in the lobby and slept in a corner. I don't think the super would have noticed, and I don't think his noisy kids would have kept me awake!

After I had changed clothes, had a cup of tea to warm up, and a glass of wine to wind down, the 2 hour trip didn't seem so bad. I laughed at how ill-prepared I was with the only clothes that I had: a Spring-weight jacket, heels, no hat, no gloves.

When I finally reached the airlines around noon on Saturday, the first flight available was Tuesday night. Somewhere over the next three days, I managed to find a pair of gloves and C gave me a hat. My clothes dried and I felt better about being stranded. By the time I was ready to leave Tuesday evening, I had worn the hat -- a beige, brown and red cloche -- several times. C said it looked like it was made for my head and that I should keep it.

I don't live in a city where you walk outside much in the cold weather, so the hat doesn't get much wear, sometimes just a few minutes in the car. But, whenever I go to NYC in the winter, I wear it. It is a perfect hat for the subway: easy to take off without messing your hair, not so hot and heavy that you can't leave it on. I've come to think of it as my New York hat.

Last Sunday, as I prepared to go outside, I realized that it was cold. I grabbed my hat and gloves. The air was not only cold, but it had that heavy, November feel to it that tells you that winter is about ready to knock on your door, announcing that Fall is over.

I'm flying to New York in a few days to spend time with some friends (and meet some bloggers too!). The hat will be making the trip as well.

Last winter, I was in an elevator in New York. There was a little boy about 2-years old in a stroller. He looked up at me and pointed. Nice hat he said.

It is.

Food Find

2008-11-11T22:15:00.002-05:00

I recently stumbled upon the blog 101 Cookbooks. A site started by someone who decided that she had too many cookbooks -- I think I have more than she did when she started -- is bound to be a site that I like.

I found a delicious recipe for Brussels sprouts yesterday. I realize that some may think that one could never use the word delicious to describe Brussels sprouts, but if you think that, I'd bet that you've never had fresh sprouts cooked correctly. I think that they are one of those adult tastes that most adults veer away from because they have horrid memories of nasty, bitter, overcooked sprouts that some old relative cooked and made you eat. Nobody ever remembers their own mother cooking those horrible mini cabbage bombs; even the cruelest mom wouldn't force her offspring to eat such unappetizing green things.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts and Apples turned out to be a perfect recipe for me. I did not use the tofu called for; (Warning: Vegetarians, close your eyes and skip to the next paragraph) instead, I used pork roast, leftover from the roast we had Sunday night. The combination of sprouts, apples and pork was great.

I didn't have real maple syrup in the house, so I used some pure Indiana Shagbark hickory sauce. It isn't quite as sweet as maple syrup, but it worked fine in this recipe.

I also didn't have any pine nuts in the cupboard, so I used a handful of pistachio and dried cranberry mix. The cranberries complemented the apples nicely, but the pistachios didn't seem to fit. I ended up picking them out by hand. The cranberries, though, added nice color to the plate.

Heidi's site is mostly vegetables, but occasionally she features some dessert recipes as well.

This site led me to another find: TasteBook. At TasteBook, one can design one's own cookbook, fill it with favorite recipes online, and then have copies printed and delivered. The ability to customize these books is really nice. I think that this would make a great housewarming present for someone with a new kitchen just begging to cook up something great.

Touch Me Not

2008-11-10T22:45:00.004-05:00

I don't usually write about work, but today I'm going to write about a workplace situation.

I'm not a very touchy-feely kind of a person. I take an interest in my co-workers, but try to keep a safe and appropriate distance. Obviously, there are some co-workers that I know better than others and might be more willing to share personal information with. I'm not a loner, nor do I shy away from interactions from people.

But, I'm not a very physically demonstrative person. I don't greet my friends with hugs. The two-sided air kiss isn't something that you see here in the Midwest, although I've seen friends of mine do this in NYC. When I was first beginning my career, I learned how to have a 'serious' handshake -- one that wasn't too girly, nor too harsh. I struck me then that it was a silly thing to have to study, but I think that many people need to, especially women. Maybe that is changing with younger women, but when I first started working, it was still considered optional for women to shake hands.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a germaphobe, but I really don't like shaking hands. I frequently want to grab the bottle of hand sanitizer. But, it's a necessity in the business world.

So here is a situation I experienced last week. I flew to one of my employers offices on the East Coast for a meeting with members of four different functional areas. Everybody in the room knew each other because they work together on a daily basis. I was the only person in the room who didn't deal with everybody else regularly. In fact, I didn't know half of the individuals in the room.

So, imagine my surprise when I walked in with the two colleagues who traveled with me and was greeted by the meeting leader -- with a hug!

She had been seated and on the phone when we walked in. We had each taken our seats at the conference table. There was a mess of cables & power cords near where she sat. I honestly thought that she was about to fall as she leaned towards me. Naturally, I started to roll my chair away, in an obvious enough way that she said: I'm trying to hug you.

That I never expected. We all got hugs and acted cheery and glad to be there. At the end of the day, there were hugs all around too, and wishes for safe travel. I understand that she was trying to be friendly and that she is a demonstrative person. I appreciate the 'have a good flight' sentiment at departure. But a hug hello & goodbye? I think everybody gets this type of greeting. I think this is very weird.

How would you have reacted? What is the appropriate way to graciously deny a hug? Am I just wound too tight? Too much of a touch-me-not? I don't think that a man could get away with this. Her boss does handshakes or fist bumps, but I don't see him slapping his high-performers on the backside or exchanging hugs. What do you think?

Manhattan

2008-11-09T14:14:00.015-05:00

My favorite drink (for Charlotte who asked), this one from The Four Seasons The Ultimate Bartenders' Guide:

I like mine "sweet & neat" -- sweet vermouth & no ice.

Four Seasons Manhattan
2/12 ounces rye whiskey
1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
Maraschino cherry for garnish
Pour into mixing glass. Add ice & shake. Strain into glass & garnish.

If that isn't sweet enough, there is this version:
Sweet Manhattan
2 1/2 ounces rye whiskey
1/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1/4 ounce maraschino
1/4 maraschino cherry for garnish
Pour into mixing glass. Add ice & shake. Strain into glass & garnish.

Or another variety:

Hudson River Cocktail
2 ounces whiskey
1/2 ounce dry vermouth
1/2 ounce orange juice
Combine in mixer, add ice, shake, strain.

Looking forward to meeting Charlotte, Emily, Hobgoblin & Dorothy, Becky & Zoe's Mom next weekend in -- where else? -- Manhattan.

Flyaway Bird

2008-11-08T19:44:00.011-05:00

I was seated at my dining room table this morning, reading the newspaper.

"Stupid Bird", my husband said.

I looked at him puzzled, and turned around towards the window.

As I was turning, there was an enormous crash as a bird slammed into the picture window. I saw two other birds, large, black grackles, turn suddenly upward and fly over the house. At the same time, a big squirrel with a bushy tail jumped several feet, away from the edge of the pond, scampering down the wall. I didn't see the bird that hit.

"I meant the bird looking in the empty feeder. Not that one," my husband said.

I looked for but didn't see the bird that had mistaken my dirty window for clear air. He had hit hard and it would have been about a 15 foot drop to the patio below. I didn't think that he had survived.

I watched the squirrel on the driveway. He looked to see if there was a present danger before scaling the stone wall again to slink near to the edge of the pond. At first he sat on the edge of the skimmer. Then, he slyly edged towards the water. I wasn't sure whether he was wanting a drink or wanted to fish.

Not trusting that he was only thirsty, I cracked open the casement window. Usually the noise from unlatching the window is enough to scare a chipmunk, but this squirrel was brazen. I opened the window further, and leaned out to scream at the squirrel.

"Leave my fish alone", I yelled. He turned, scampered down from the terrace and ran across the drive to a big ash tree. Apparently, only small rodents will listen to me (and not every time).

As I leaned out the window, I saw a bird perched at the other edge of the pond and chirping. I thought it was a pigeon or maybe a catbird. I couldn't be sure. Suddenly, I saw a bunch of feathers on the opposite side of the pond. It wasn't moving and I couldn't see its head.

I ran out to the garage and grabbed the flat, fine-meshed net we use to pull leaves out of the pond and ran to the side of the house. I jumped on the wall, ran along the edge of the rocks, to the side of the pond were the bird was. I fished the bird out as quickly as I could and gently dumped it out of the net onto the ground. "It's a robin!" I shouted to my husband who had now caught up with me outside.

I could tell from its markings that it was a female. She opened her mouth but made no sound. She stared at me. She looked scared.

I wasn't sure that she was going to make it. My husband suggested that I put her back in the net and he'd take her towards the woods. I gently scooped her up, talking to the bird. "We're trying to help you, birdy", I said in a quiet voice. I know it is silly to talk to creatures, but I do. I'd like to think that she sensed that I was trying to help her.

My husband walked toward the edge of the woods and put the bird on the ground. In a few moments, she had recovered from her crash and near-drowning, and flew away.

NOTE: Spouse just informed me that I am not living up to some sort of journalistic integrity, that I misquoted him. He claims that he did not say "Stupid Bird", rather than he felt sorry for the bird on the empty feeder. Not to take liberties with quotations, but I don't remember it that way :)

Note II: He says that I'm really saying that I never admit that I'm wrong!

3 Beautiful Things

2008-11-07T17:34:00.002-05:00

I started this last year -- posting short lists of beautiful things -- but didn't continue it for long. Since it's Friday and it's been a long week, it's a great post idea of today.

Three things I think are beautiful and am grateful for today:

1. The wonderful colors of the trees in autumn.
2. A flock of birds flying south for the winter.
3. My son's handsome smile.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Go observe something in your world and be thankful for its inherent beauty.

A few observations

2008-11-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

I worked at the polls on Election Day, a volunteer with the Obama campaign, collecting data for Get Out the Vote efforts.

- People started lining up at the polling place around 4am. There were about 200 people in line when the polls opened at 6am.

- I was at a polling place that housed 3 precincts. Once inside the room with the voting booths, the room was well organized, but the facility didn't allow for 3 separate lines, which slowed things down.

- There were voter assistance advocates there, but not until later in the day. I can't say that they didn't help, but there were quite a few people who didn't know where they were suppose to vote and many found, after waiting in line for a long time, that they were at the wrong polling place.

- I wish that technology had been access able to look up voter registration & polling places. There is a web site from the Secretary of State's office where registration can be confirmed. This would have been much more efficient than calling the hotline number, waiting on hold for up to 10 minutes, to get the same information.

- After the early morning line dwindled, there was a steady stream of voters, but only short waits. After 9am, I don't think that anyone had to wait more than 30 minutes. I wish that our polling process could be more efficient that a 30 minute wait seems exceptional and too long, rather than a good thing.

- 80 year old men and women in walkers shouldn't have to wait in line for a long time. Nobody should.

- I was in a precinct that was about 99% African-American. The atmosphere was exuberant. It was exciting to be a part of this.

- Around noon, a poll worker at one of the other precincts said in a loud voice: I have a new voter here who needs some help. Can you lend a hand? Everybody stood up & applauded. This continued for the rest of the day. It was awesome!

Transformation

2008-11-05T23:14:00.003-05:00

There have been many pivotal, maybe even transformative, national and international events that have occurred during in my lifetime. I was born during the waning days of Eisenhower's presidency. I don't remember JFK's assassination for what it was on a national level but for the phenomenal event of my father moving the television into the dining room for the latest news updates and for my brothers jumping over chairs, nearly knocking over my younger sister's high chair, to turn off the TV when Ruby shot Oswald.

I remember the shock of hearing of King's assassination during an interruption of a favorite TV show -- I think it was Bewitched -- and my sister waking me up in tears to tell me about Bobby Kennedy being killed two months later. The nuns at school, their eyes red and puffy, led us in prayers for most of the next morning. I can remember these event, and they are not without impact on my life, but they weren't significant in a personal way.

Beginning around age 10 I began to read the paper on a regular basis and one of my favorite things was Howard K Smith's Commentary at the end of the evening newscast. The Vietnam War was going on and I knew about hippies and radicals and student protests in far away places like Berkley and not so far away like Kent State. I remember my older brother, a college student, telling me that I better start paying attention because the Republicans had done something really stupid at a hotel in Washington and it would be big news. This angered my father, an avid Nixon supporter and staunch Republican, very much. I watched the television coverage of Nixon walking across the White House lawn to the waiting helicopter and waving one last goodbye in August of '74. A teenager by then, I knew that this was a momentous -- and somewhat frightening event to adults -- to see a President both disgraced personally and be disgraceful of the honor of his office. But still, these events were remote, contained to the nightly news and morning papers.

As I ended high school and began college, it seemed that I had several friends who wanted to brand themselves as like the 60’s radicals but failed to ever find an identity of their own. They wanted to fight against the mainstream. We found our heroes in the idea of those who rebelled in the '60s and were somewhat disappointed that we had not been born a few years sooner so that we could have self-righteously worked for truth and justice and good in the world. So that we could have made a change.

But, even as we expressed wistful regrets that we had somehow missed the big happenings of the Baby Boom era that we were still a part of, we understood the feelings of Alex's friends gathered in The Big Chill: that it all might have been for naught. We weren't so arrogant to believe that we could have made it better, but we lacked a sense of calling and purpose that we saw in our older boomer peers. They were selling out, so we just got stoned, had fun, made ourselves into our images of philosophizing intellectuals, did nothing more radical than act as escorts at Planned Parenthood clinics, try to support the small population of Middle Eastern students at our university who were being spat upon and jeered in '79 - 80, or lamely protest US intervention in places like El Salvador.

After graduation, many of my like-minded students -- a small minority of the university by any count -- rushed to law school, or to get MBAs, or into corporate America. Still, as we took our places in the mainstream adult world, I think that a few of us felt that we had missed out, that fate, the chance of birth had played a trick on us, depriving us of an experience, a sense of community perhaps, that we never had the opportunity to experience. We didn't get our 'moment'.

Through the Reagan years we moaned about the Moral Majority and trickle down theories. We watched in horror as the Challenger blew up and thought that this might be our generations 'Where were you when ....' event. We never dreamed that a little less than 20 years later something far more inconceivable than a spacecraft malfunction would be seared into our brains and that everybody would feel empathy for the iconic New York City.

I watched Apollo missions and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. I threw away the slide rule that had been handed down by a sibling since a calculator was now the required tool in science and math. I witnessed the birth of personal computer era with a Tandy, a K-Pro, and an Apple II and parlayed my typesetting skills on a Wang into a jobs as a computer operator, then trainer, then software developer. A new profession for which few had studied allowed me access to a career that I never would have imagined when I nearly failed a college computer class when I carelessly dropped hundreds of punch cards and almost didn't complete my final project. A revolution was happening every day and while I knew it was significant, I was swept up in the steady wave of changes.

It doesn't seem so revolutionary when you are in the midst of constant cultural change; it is difficult to step back from when you are living it. It isn't easy to see that things are dramatically different. I thought that an experience of 'a moment' was something that would be lost to me and my peers.

Until last night seeing Barack Obama addressing the nation in Grant Park.

"This campaign was never about me', Obama has said. "It's always been about you". November 4th, 2008 was a defining, transformational moment, a demarcation between the past and whatever is to come.

This morning I was thinking what my Dad would have thought about Obama's election. I am doubtful that, if he were alive, he would have voted for Obama. I think he would have had immense disagreement with the Bush administration, but I think he would have liked John McCain. But....he would have been watching the midnight speech. I think he would say that he understood the exuberance of African-Americans and he would have compared it to how he felt as a Catholic when John F Kennedy was elected. Although miles apart economically, like my Dad, Kennedy was Irish and Catholic, and he opened doors for all who had been called 'mics'. There is a bond in the shared commonality of those who have suffered from racial discrimination that my father would have understood.

He also would have understood how much harder it has been for African Americans, and for a country as a whole that continues to struggle with the ugliness of slavery in a society of the 'free'. He would have understood the enormous significance of people of all stripes -- religiously, economically, socially, racially -- coming together to elect Barack Obama. No matter what he might have thought about the Democratic policy platform, he would have loved the fact that this was made possible by contributions of money and time by individuals, the real average Joes, and Joses, and Janes that make this country great. An army of volunteers believed that this is America and things could be different if we tried. Obama said last night that it is an American Creed "Yes I Can".

Yes, we did. This is our defining moment, and it is a glorious one. And, now, we continue with the hard work that is the responsibility of every citizen in a democracy.

Election Day

2008-11-04T00:01:00.004-05:00

photo of Jasper Johns 3 Flags, 1959

GO VOTE!

A few words on Joe

2008-11-03T21:19:00.004-05:00

I'm
...Cam the Commentator
...Cam the daughter
...Cam the wife
...Cam the sister
...Cam the mother
...Cam the friend
...Cam the mother
...Cam the salesman's daughter
...Cam the banker's daughter
...Cam the worker
...Cam the IT Program Manager
...Cam the taxpayer
...Cam the thinker
...Cam the hard worker
...Cam the concerned citizen
...Cam the home improvement generalist (including plumbing)
...Cam the art appreciator
...Cam the movie fan
...Cam the feminist
...Cam the tuition paying parent
...Cam the gardener
...Cam the community volunteer
...Cam the reader
...Cam the writer
...Cam the Hoosier
...Cam the savings account owner
...Cam the homeowner
...Cam the commuter
...Cam the observer
...Cam the lousy housekeeper
...Cam the business analyst
...Cam the programmer
...Cam the amateur photographer
...Cam the traveler
...Cam the (small 'd') democrat
...Cam the foodie
...Cam the farmer's market patron
...Cam the thoughtful
...Cam the politically aware
...Cam the multifaceted, won't be pegged by an occupation, campaign spin weary, everyday AMERICAN ..... AND I VOTE!

Don't tell me that you represent me, John McCain, if you think that we can be defined by only our professions. Don't treat me with disdain and pretend that I am naive -- or worse -- stupid if I support your opponent.

Oh, by the way, I've been meaning to tell you for weeks. The word is 'pundit', not 'pun-dent'.

Thin Places

2008-11-02T17:42:00.005-05:00

In Celtic tradition there is a saying that heaven and earth are three feet apart.

If the intersection is that close, why is it that we so often miss it?

The sermon at church today -- the Feast of All Saints -- was about thin places, Celtic Samhain or the day with daylight, and the Christian tradition of All Saints' Day, which was surely influenced in its practice by the Celtic tradition.

Thin places are those places where earth and heaven are close, the barrier permeable.

Many years ago I was in a prayer & study group with an adult woman who had Down's Syndrome. I remember her saying once how she had been in church and was moved by a gloriously sung anthem. I was young, not very patient, and I think it is safe to say that I was somewhat dismissive at first of her description. But then she started to talk about how she was sure that she saw ghosts or spirits flying around the choir and the alter, floating through the rafters, filling the pews, singing. She spoke about how she wondered if everyone she saw that day was alive, or if some of the physical bodies she saw were actually spirits of the dead, the saints of heaven.

I am a bit of a Doubting Thomas. This is the type of story that has me trying desperately to refrain from rolling my eyes. I don't believe in ghosts, for chrissakes! And yet, nearly 20 years later, I still remember her story and I think that there could be something to it, even if it was only the way that she was capable of perceiving a glimpse of the eternal.

If there are thin places where there is an intersection of heaven and earth, the temporal and the eternal, perhaps we are too often not naive enough to notice. Three feet isn't a great distance, but it might has well be an uncrossable chasm if we fail to see it.

There is a questionnaire that James Lipton uses during each episode of The Actor's Studio, adapted from a questionnaire by Bernard Pivot. If heaven exists, what do you want God to say to you when you arrive? The first time I was asked this, I said: "Your Dad is right over there. He's waiting for you with a whiskey sour".

If heaven exists, I think that we can't possibly wrap our minds around what it is like. All descriptions will fall short. If it is eternal, it is not the afterlife, but the here and now, the constant forever that we haven't yet reached. But, I think, it is okay to think of it in terms that bring us pleasure -- like meeting a loved one and sharing a good drink and a laugh. We can only be aware in this world that we might encounter a thin place, a place so near yet so far, that we can only glimpse the possibilities, and be open to what those few and far between glimpses mean.