Nuts!

In light of the speculation regarding the parentage of Sarah Palin's baby, I think it's time to point out the name of the place where McCain made his veep announcement:

Despite reports last night that the McCain campaign was having trouble giving away tickets to his vice presidential announcement at the Ervin Nutter Center, there's no evidence of that here, with an overflow capacity of 12,000 awaiting McCain's appearance with his shocker VP pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

A Nutter Center staffer in the press area just told us that the place is oversold, so the crowd could top 12,000.

So there you have it. Where else does a nutter go to make an important announcement?

Speaking of nutters, I also found bizarrely fascinating an article (can't locate it now) that talked about how Palin embraced the news that her son (grandson?) has Down syndrome. She apparently sent an email out to all of her friends and family members, written in the first person and signed by God, asking them to embrace His child, yada, yada ... either she has a well honed sense of humor, or she's something of a nutter herself.

Who'd have thunk things would take such a bizarre turn so quickly?

Pickles!

This Pickles?
No, silly ...
These pickles!
This is the first time I've made pickles. For some reason the jars are not sealing so they'll have to be refrigerator pickles. Should be good though: dill, onions, lots of garlic. Mmmmm. You can never have too much garlic.

The recipe comes from the Mennonite cookbook Eating More With Less, via my friend and fellow gardener Donna. (I met a woman last year who referred to herself as a "cookbook Mennonite." When I asked for clarification, she explained that there are people whose first experience with Mennonites -- one of the historic peace churches -- comes from the Eating More With Less cookbook. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. I also recommend the companion book Living More With Less.)

I belatedly bought a share in a communal garden when two of the gardeners had to leave town suddenly. Unlike a CSA, where you buy a share and get produce delivered each week, the shareholders in this garden do all the work. I'm coming in at the tail end, for the harvest. Lucky me!

The farm where the garden is located belongs to my friends John, Robin, and Susan. It is exceedingly lovely. I'll try to get some pictures in the coming weeks.

So far we have partaken in potatoes, tomatoes, sweet onions, sweet red peppers, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes ... Later come the melons, squash, storage onions, garlic, basil, carrots, green beans, and did I mention tomatoes? I have a date with Poodle Doc to can the first bunch of tomatoes tomorrow. Last year's tomatoes sustained us until mid-March.

What's so bad about No Child Left Behind?

I've been meaning to do a post about this for a while ... but this isn't it. (Sorry.) Until I get to write my post, read this article from The Progressive, written by a colleague in my school district.

Yesterday we opened our school year with a kick-ass general assembly of the entire instructional staff in the district. We were addressed by our brand new superintendent, who has been getting rave reviews from everyone who has already worked with him for the last two months.

There was live music -- lots of live music, including one of the payroll secretaries singing a somewhat incongruous country song. I'm hoping against hope that this signals a new era of support for the arts in the district. (Our previous superintendent, although his name is Art, once infamously said something to the effect of, "I grew up without arts instruction and I turned out fine.")

There was a promise from the new guy -- a promise that brought tears to my eyes -- that he would work to bring 4-year-old kindergarten to our district. You see, we used to have an excellent 4-Year-Old program; I was a teacher in it, briefly. The only thing was, it wasn't universal, meaning it was not offered to every single child in the city -- a state mandate. The powers that be (in their infinite wisdom) thought that the expense of expanding the program to be in compliance with state law was too high and canned it. The truly bizarre thing is, they are very tight-lipped in talking about it. Whenever the issue of 4K comes up in the media, the program we had for 15 years is not mentioned at all. We are one of the only municipalities in the state -- including many small towns -- that doesn't have a 4K.

So my hope is that, with a commitment to 4K will come a commitment to developmentally appropriate early childhood education in general. I have made a private commitment this year to make my kindergarten classroom much more play- and language-based. I've tried what Susie Hobart refers to in her excellent Progressive article -- the heavy doses of targeted literacy instruction that are supposed to "close the achievement gap" and bring up our test scores to meet our AYP (that's "Annual Yearly Progress", a NCLB term; if you don't meet it, you are designated a "failing school" subject to increasingly harsh sanctions.) I've tried it, and you know what? It's not working, because those 5 and 6-year-olds will persist in acting like, well, 5 and 6 year-olds. Hopefully I will be teaching appropriately with the support of my administrators.

Back to yesterday's meeting. We were also addressed by the honorable John Matthews, the executive director of our teachers' union for the last 40 years. His words to us were unabashedly political: This is an election year. Pay attention. At the state level, for 15 years we have had horribly damaging anti-education laws brought to us by ex-Gov. Tommy Thompson and the Republican-majority legislature. At the national level, NCLB. Vote for the party that supports education, supports teachers, supports kids. He said, pointedly, "It's not the Republicans." Yay, John! He is as tenacious as a bull dog when it comes to standing up for Madison's educators (and children. Because in education, the old adage definitely applies: "If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.")

Anyway, the whole thing was inspiring. The words rang true. I hope that this change at our local level is a harbinger of more widespread change.

Man, did this get lengthy! Read the article. That's all.

Important

Please go over to Quaker Dave's and read this excellent post about bullying.

Our daughter was bullied by kids in our neighborhood when she was a preschooler. At one point we considered moving, because it was so painful. When confronted, the parents said our child simply needed to 'buck up.' One parent had the audacity to tell me that some kids just have "victim personalities" implying that it was her fault from birth! How can anyone be so cruel to a 3-year old?

She's 19 now, and just the other day she was talking about it. Although she is a beautiful, talented young woman, the experience left permanent scars. Sometimes I wonder if we did enough to protect her. I know that if it were happening now, I would take a much more proactive stance as her advocate. Bullying is never OK and it is not the fault of the victim. Period.

Strangely Quiet

If you think I've been strangely quiet recently, have no fear. I've been getting ready for school. My classroom has 5 closets, loosely organized by subject areas (math closet, language arts closet, toys & games closet, dress up clothes ....) For the last 2 years -- since I've been in this classroom -- I've basically been throwing things into them willy-nilly, plus I have boxes of "teaching materials" (what other people refer to as "crap") that I've hauled around since the beginning of time. At the end of each school year I have to put everything away, so back in June I basically stuffed the closets full and slammed the doors before anything could ooze back out. Out of sight, out of mind ... until August.

Last week and this I decided to clear out and organize, one closet at a time. I've done 3 of the 5 closets, I've weeded my personal book collection of all the old ugly falling apart books and books that are just not appropriate for kindergarten (Valley of the Dolls had to go), and I feel so much lighter!

I gave an extensive collection of storybooks-on-tape away to the school book room, so that everyone can use them. And I'm considering putting away all the dress-up clothes, except for shoes, aprons, and purses -- figuring that then the kids will have to use their imaginations a little more. (Besides I got so tired of everyone fighting over the pink tutu.)

I still have to cover my bulletin boards and put up a few subversive posters. I have to move in the contraband mini-fridge. I keep wondering if anyone will notice if I take down the American flag and hide it.

Then I just have to plan for the first day on Tuesday, and we'll be up and running.

Blogging may be slim.

Okay, so we didn't rob any banks.

Instead we took a road trip to the Mississippi River. Mr Ether documented it in a series of lovely photos, posted at Enriched Geranium. I also took some photos, but they're on film so you'll be lucky to see them within the next 6 months. We drove to Prairie du Chien and followed the Great River Road to Cassville (home of the annual "Twin-O-Rama".)

We stopped to hike at a DNR preserve near Cassville, but the path was so overgrown with poison ivy that it seemed wise to turn around. As is so often the case in that wonderful thing we call nature, there were masses of jewelweed growing with the poison ivy. Jewelweed is a great antidote to poison ivy. It also has seed pods that sproing open when you touch them, and because I'm easily amused, we played with them for a while.
At Cassville we took a car ferry across the river to Iowa. We drove on to Dubuque, crossed the Mississippi again -- this time on a bridge -- and drove up through beautiful southwestern Wisconsin, stopping at the amazing Dickeyville Grotto.
From there we drove partway home and then turned around and went back to the Dickeyville Grotto because one of the chilluns had accidentally dropped her shoe in the road when she was getting into the car and didn't discover it until we stopped to ply the driver with spicy pork rinds, miles down the road. (How do kids manage to do things like that?)

It was much longer than I anticipated it being, but it was fun. We haven't done anything like that in a long time.

When we finally got back to Madison 9 hours later, we gulped some leftovers from the fridge and then headed out again to be treated to the dessert platter and "Happy Birthday" sung in Portuguese by genuine Brazilian lads at the Samba Brazilian Grill. (Thanks, Cinderbelle!)
All in all, a good start to my (gulp) 50th year.

What has Dr. Monkey been up to lately?

Where will the monkey appear next? I have an idea: Johnson City, Tennessee. Bad Dr. Monkey!

Celebrate!

Tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm thinking of doing this to celebrate. Good idea, no?

Happy Hippie Christmas!

I don't know if you experience anything like this in your neck of the woods: We live in a university town, and the landlords near campus have synced up their leases, so that most of the students move between August 14-16. It tends to be a madhouse of traffic and hundreds of overflowing bags of trash on the curb. But it's also a trash picker's paradise, because so many of the selfish little brats -- sorry, I mean students -- can't be bothered to take stuff they don't want to St. Vinnie's or Goodwill (even though they park semi-trucks right there in the neighborhood to collect stuff) so they dump it on the curb along with the pizza boxes and beer kegs than never got returned to the liquor store.

Well, last weekend when he was at the grocery store, Mr. Ether was cajoled into taking a newspaper that is published by homeless people here in town, and on the front page there was a big article referring to student moving days as "Hippie Christmas." That kind of tickled my funny bone.

The other phenomenon at that time is that there is usually a gap of a day between moving out of the old apartment and into the new one. A lot of times, students just move all their stuff to the lawn of the new house and camp there for a day. A few years ago I was picking up my child at her day care center on campus, and witnessed a yard full of furniture, lamps, etc. A young woman was sitting on a chair in the middle of it all, reading a book entitled Feng Shui Made Easy. Oh, to have had a camera!

Human Rainbow

Luna is a beautiful green moth that is only seen at night. Luna is also a beautiful girl who shows herself only at night, and only to her sister, 15-year-old Regan. By day, Luna is really Liam, Regan's 17-year-old brother, a senior in high school, academically brilliant by all accounts. But Liam is transgender; since he was very young he has known that he is a girl accidentally born with a boy's body. As he approaches his 18th birthday, Liam/Luna begins to "transition", to show the world his true identity. Regan is the only other person who knows his secret, a burden that proves to be almost too much to bear.

On the surface, Luna is a "problem novel" written for young adults, joining a host of other books that deal with issues that teens encounter. What sets it apart from the others is the groundbreaking subject matter. I can't think of another children's book that deals with this issue. The author, Julie Ann Peters, handles it lovingly. She does a good job of showing the conflicting emotions that Luna's transition causes to the people closest to her, but she makes it clear that in the end Luna has an essential right to be who she is -- and when she is free, then the people around her are free as well.

I found Luna to be a beautiful, harrowing, poignant book.

A few years ago I taught a first grade boy, whom I am fairly certain is transgender. He simply saw himself as a girl. It was/is tough; he's a biracial child, with an African-American father who isn't real into having his son be a girl. I spent a lot of time on the phone with his mom, mainly because this child also had major anxiety issues that made it hard for him to learn. One evening we were talking, and she said, "I really hope this is just a phase he's going through." She paused, and then she said, "But it's not, is it? I just need to love him the way he is." His mom was great; for his birthday that year she bought him an American Girl doll and a Powerpuff Girls t-shirt. I think he's had a fairly positive experience in school so far. In my class he loved dressing up in a pink tutu (a lot of boys seem to love the pink tutu), drawing beautiful pictures of princesses and cheerleaders, and hanging around with the girls. He'll be a fifth grader this year. I worry about him as he gets into adolescence.

We actually have a full time teacher in our school district whose job it is to facilitate support of LGBT students throughout all the schools.

There is a transgendered person that I see in my part of town a lot. It's clearly a man dressed like a woman -- clothes, jewelry, make-up -- S/he dresses more frilly than I ever do. I see her most frequently in thrift stores, I always say hello, but I've never struck up a conversation -- which I'd like to at some point. One day, however, I overheard the sweetest conversation in St. Vincent dePaul's. There was a long line for the fitting rooms. S/he was in line, and right behind her was a young mom with two little girls. One of the girls was staring and staring at this man in a dress; she finally said, "Your dress is pretty." S/he said, "Thank you! So is yours," and they smiled at each other for a while.

I hope that some day our society will reach a point where we recognize that there is an infinite spectrum of what constitutes "human-ness" and we allow all people to be who they are -- from the youngest child to the oldest adult.

Anyway ... Luna. Highly recommended.

The REAL John McCain

How is it that these obscenely wealthy politicians manage to convince a percentage of hardworking Americans that they are "one of them"? Please spread this around.

McCain is a Weenie

“Some of the richest people I’ve ever known in my life are the most unhappy. I think that rich is — should be defined by a home, a good job and education and the ability to hand to our children a more prosperous and safer world than the one that we inherited. I don’t want to take any money from the rich. I want everybody to get rich. I don’t believe in class warfare or redistribution of the wealth. But I can tell you for example there are small businessmen and women who are working 16 hours a day, seven days a week that some people would classify as, quote, ‘rich,’ my friends, who want to raise their taxes and raise their payroll taxes. Let’s have — keep taxes low. Let’s give every family in America a $7,000 tax credit for every child they have. Let’s give them a $5,000 refundable tax credit to go out and get the health insurance of their choice. Let’s not have the government take over the health care system in America.

“So I think if you’re just talking about income, how about $5 million. But seriously, I don’t think you can — I don’t think, seriously that — the point is that I’m trying to make here seriously — and I’m sure that comment will be distorted, but the point is — the point is — the point is that we want to keep people’s taxes low and increase revenues. And my friend, it was not taxes that mattered in America in the last several years. It was spending. Spending got completely out of control. We spent money in a way that mortgaged our kids futures. My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue, but the point is — but the point is it was $3 million of your money. It was your money.

“And you know, we laugh about it, but we cry and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars. so what did they just do in the middle of an energy crisis when in California we are paying $4 a gallon for gas, went on vacation for five weeks. I guarantee you, two things they never miss, a pay raise and a vacation. And we should stop that and call them back and not raise your taxes. We should not and cannot raise taxes in tough economic times. So it doesn’t matter really what my definition of rich is because I don’t want to raise anybody’s taxes.”

Umm, George -- I mean John? (I never could get those Beatle names straight.) Can I make a few points here?

• 3 million dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana (for which there probably was a good reason; have you ever noticed how the wingnuts just love to highlight the "ridiculous" ways that "our tax money" is "wasted" by elite intellectuals?) is a drop in the bucket compared to the over half a trillion dollars spent so far on Bush's War.
• Congress went on recess for 5 weeks. How many days of vacation has that mean,rich little man in the White House taken since he first ascended to the presidency? An average of 69 days a year? (69, hmm? My brother Jim, when he was about 14, painted a great big 69 on a t-shirt and wouldn't tell me what it meant. But I digress.)
• You keep saying "they" like it's someone else taking the flargin' Congressional pay raises!
• "Let's not have government take over the health care system in America" Um, except for the Congressional health care plan. That can stay.

Grrrrrrrrr. Mr. McCain, you are not only a weenie, but a blithering idiot. And a whole lot more, but the cuss-meter inside my head is about to go sproing.

Lest We Forget

Today marks the one year anniversary of the rescue attempt of 6 miners trapped in the Crandall Mine, Utah. If you recall, 10 days after the initial collapse, more of the mine collapsed on the rescuers, killing 3 more men. Remember that mine owner Robert E. "Bob" Murray (who says he got into mine ownership one day when a squirrel hopped up on his front porch and told him he should be running mines) swore up and down that the second collapse was due to an earthquake, even though no seismologists detected any seismic activity anywhere in the area. Remember also that Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, is a Bush crony. The MSHA conducted an investigation that placed the blame on the mine operators. However, a second independent investigation, conducted at the behest of the Department of Labor, held the MSHA responsible for ignoring reports of a potentially dangerous condition at the mine. Good articles about it here, here, and here.

The twenty-first century, and not much has changed since miners were fighting for their rights in the early part of the twentieth. Three book recommendations: Storming Heaven and The Unquiet Earth by Denise Giardina, Holding the Line by Barbara Kingsolver. Two film recommendations: Salt of the Earth and Matewan.

Nice and a little strict ...

I had avoided reading this article in our local paper this week, because I figured something about it would probably piss me off. Education articles frequently do. But I was tipped off tonight that I should read it, and was surprised to see quotes from these two spokespeople for responsible classroom placements:

Two students at Emerson Elementary on Madison's East Side, fourth-grader Lilly Jenssen and her brother, Owen, a first-grader, said they're hoping to be assigned to teachers who are nice — although Owen allowed that "sometimes strict teachers teach you more things."

I'm so proud. Those are my former students! I had Lilly for kindergarten and first grade, and Owen for kindergarten. And yup, sometimes I had to use my strict teacher voice. But mostly I was nice.

The funny thing was, the tip-off came from Owen and Lilly's parents, whom I bumped into at Mr. Ether's gig tonight. They were out on a date, while our daughter was babysitting for Owen and Lilly. Sometimes this town seems so darned small!

Can I bring a concealed "education model" to school with me in Texas?

Probably OK, just so long as I don't have more than 5!

If you haven't seen this precious video, please watch it. God, how I miss Molly Ivins.

Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Idea

HARROLD, Texas — A tiny Texas district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings when classes begin this month, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.

The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office, leaving students and teachers without protection, said David Thweatt, superintendent of the Harrold Independent School District. The lone campus of the 110-student district sits near a heavily traveled highway, which could make it a target, he argued.

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in a story published Friday on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Web site. (Read the rest if you can stomach it.)

What would Molly Ivins say about this?

Texas -- the state where you're not allowed to buy a vibrator, but guns? Hey, no problem.

Sheesh.

Further Bark Park Adventures

This evening found me and Molly at the bark park once again. Mr. Ether is the official Bark Park Guy™, but he was busy making supper. (If you remember, when last I went to the bark park he was painting the bathroom ... I think he's feeling guilty about the Farrah Fawcett affair.) Luckily I thought to bring a camera, because it was a beautiful evening ...
There are two bark parks that we go to. One -- Warner Park -- is next to a big lake and is more of a wetlands habitat. The other -- Sycamore -- is built on an old landfill with a hill in the middle, and it is more of a prairie. Tonight we went to Sycamore, arriving just before sunset. Standing on the top of the hill at sunset, it feels sacred and mysterious: Stonehenge of the Midwest. And then a slobbering bull dog runs up and steals your tennis ball.
I really like Sycamore, even though it is built on a pile of garbage, and is surrounded by the kind of nameless suburban sprawl that I've grown to hate. What's cool about the neighborhood though -- ugly as it is -- is that in the last 5-10 years it had some of the more affordable houses in town. When I used to teach at the school out there, a number of our Hmong families were able to buy houses in the area as they became a little bit better off. And indeed tonight, I noticed a number of Hmong families in the park shelter and on the playground. It was all very peaceful and sweet: the sunset in one direction, the moonrise in the other, sounds of children and dogs playing, crickets chirping ...
And then there was Molly, and her ball. "Boundless Joy" is the phrase that often comes to my mind as I watch Molly at the bark park.
How does she fit that ridiculous tongue back into her mouth?

Bark Park Angel

I had some errands to run this afternoon. They all had to do with Molly, the Official Dog of the Impeachment Movement™ who quite possibly is the most indulged dog in town. When Molly came to us, her diet consisted of 4 different kinds of dog food at each meal. We've whittled it down to 3 (eliminating the one that caused most of the noxious emissions) plus treats. But -- woe was Molly -- we were out of treats and the special "Molly nuggets" that go on top of her food at every meal. Of course, the treats and the nuggets are not available in the same place, so I had to plan my trip well. To be even more efficient I took Molly with me, intending to end the trip at the hallowed grounds of the bark park.

First of all, Molly is dreadful in the car. She is so excited to be going somewhere that she begins barking as soon as she is out of the house and doesn't stop until we arrive at a destination and throw the tennis ball for the first time. She was not pleased that we had to make some stops, even though I explained that they were for her. She was extra hyped up by the time we arrived at the BP. I got her out of the car, reached for the Chuck-it™ (a kind of atlatl that is used for chucking tennis balls) and ... horrors! There was no tennis ball! Too late I remembered that Mr. Ether had told me that Molly had lost her ball in the long grass in the dark on yesterday's BP visit.

Molly was bouncing around me on all fours, barking, "THROWTHEBALLTHROWTHEBALLTHROWTHEBALLNOW!" while I frantically got out my cell phone and dialed the next best thing to 911 -- Mr. Ether. (Mr. Ether was home painting the bathroom, because he's a saint.) "In which long grass did Molly lose her ball last night? Please, you have to tell me ..."

Just when I thought all was lost along with the tennis ball (Molly lives to chase the tennis ball at the BP) a sweet, golden, harp-like voice inquired, "Do you need another ball?" I turned to see an angel, bathed in a sunbeam, holding out a tennis ball. (OK, it might have been the owner of a chocolate lab who is equally ball-obsessed.)

So Molly got her ball-fix after all. She chased the ball, ate grass, barfed, chased the ball again. Then she came home and had cuddle time with me on the porch (another daily necessity.) Now she's ready for another day of lobbying for impeachment to be put back on the table.

Just the facts, ma'am.

Dave, the Agitatin' Quaker, tagged me for this meme. I'm pretty sure I've done this one before, but heck, I ALWAYS do what I'm told, no questions asked don'cha know, so here 'tis.

Rules first:

1. List these rules on your blog.

2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog.

3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

And then the facts:

1. I was a child actor. From opera with the University of Wisconsin Opera Company at age 10 (The Poacher by Albert Lortzing) to various school and community theater groups. I was in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Ardele a French farce by Jean Anouilh, and Thornton Wilder's Our Town, among others. I stopped acting partially because I had a high school drama teacher who picked favorites and always gave the leads in the school plays to the same girl (not me) and really undermined my confidence and made me lose interest. Learning to project my voice has been invaluable for teaching though!
2. I love being "up Nort'". I love the north woods, I love the lakes, I love the forests of mixed pine and birch. I love it in all seasons. My eldest child talks about moving south where she doesn't have to experience winter. If I was going to move from here it would be to go north: Vermont, Maine, Canada ... where mukluks are a way of life.
3. I don't like scary movies. I don't like suspense either -- the kind of thing that keeps you on the edge of you seat in the movie theater. Or gratuitous violence.
4. One of my favorite things these days is playing the guitar. And one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't start when I was younger and had all the time in the world (or so it seemed) and could maybe have gone on to be a performer. Kind of like with acting, I allowed the people around me to undermine my confidence and just stopped making music for a while. But I've taken lessons for a few years now and it's good. I still have a hard time thinking of myself as a musician.
5. I do artwork when I can. I am a knitter and seamstress (although not a member of the Guild of Seamstresses, so no comments to that effect, Mr. Ether.) I also make Ukrainian Easter eggs. When I was younger, I did watercolor paintings. I'd like to do more.
6. Like Quaker Dave, I carry a poem in my wallet. It goes: Hold fast to stars. Hold fast to the elusive, the intangible, the never-to-be-had. For stars fall from Heaven sometimes, kings are born in barns, and miracles rise from little things. I clipped it from somewhere and put it in my wallet when we took my daughter Sophie to the hospital for her heart repair 14 years ago. It comforted me in the months after her death.
7. And finally -- my daughters would be soooo disappointed if I didn't include this fact: My grandfather invented one of the early processes for putting whipped cream in an aerosol can. He also invented an early infant formula and individually wrapped cheese slices. He was a food chemist and held a number of patents for different products; he stipulated that on his death they would be released into the public domain. And that, dear readers, is why I am not rich.

I tag ...
Poodle Doc
SamuraiFrog
Tweetey30
Sorghum Crow
Yearning for God
The Sminthophile
Enriched Geranium ('cause he hasn't done it for Quaker Dave and he has some weird facts, believe me. Go there and ask him for the Dimebag Darryl story. And we forgive him the guitars he built for the band members of the guy whose initials are TK.)

Reading Fantasy

Raise your hand if you ever read The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Higher! I can't see it ... OK, leave a comment instead. The Last Unicorn was one of my favorite books at one point during my teens in the seventies. I mostly haven't thought of it in years, but last month I became obsessed with getting it into the hands of my daughters, who both love reading fantasy. I looked for it on the shelves of our big central library, but they didn't have it. They did, however, have some other books by Beagle, so I checked out a couple.

I didn't even know whether this author was still alive, much less still writing! (He actually wrote the screenplay for the animated Lord of the Rings movie that hooked young Peter Jackson on the book.) Tamsin was published in 1999, and I was blown away by how good it was. It is about Jenny Gluckstein, a sullen 13-year-old girl who has to move from her home in New York City to a farm in rural Dorset, England when her mom remarries. Determined to hate everything about the experience, Jenny is nevertheless sucked in when she meets Tamsin, the ghost of a girl who lived on the farm 300 years earlier. Tamsin introduces Jenny to a host of "creatures of the night" from Dorset folklore, all of whom play a part in solving Tamsin's mystery and freeing her so that she can finally rest in peace.

I loved how the story wove folklore with historical events. It was also a damned good teen girl angst novel, and I am hard-pressed to know how a 69-year-old man could capture the voice of the teenaged Jenny so well.

Reading Tamsin made me think about fantasy writing. As I said, my daughters are both crazy about fantasy. Their standards are high; the ultimate dis' of a book is "It's obviously a rip off of Lord of the Rings." They tend to like the writing of Tamora Pierce, and novels based on fairytales: Spindle's End by Robin McKinley and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine are two that my eldest took to college with her last year. My youngest likes the writing of Diana Wynne Jones: Howl's Moving Castle, which you might know from the Japanese animé film. They both loved East by Edith Pattou.

I too enjoy reading fantasy, but there is so much being published right now that is mediocre, especially in the world of children's and young adult literature. I guess I am just bored by dragons, quests, and trilogies. Simply including wizards does not make a good fantasy either. I am tired of heroes whose names are derived from Aragorn. Maybe that's it: too much fantasy writing is derivative. I know that lots of fantasy is derived from old myths and legends, but it seems as if now we are getting derivatives of derivatives.

When I read fantasy I do not want it to feel self-conscious or contrived in any way. (I know that many people will strongly disagree with me on this point, but I found Harry Potter to be derivative, self-conscious and contrived -- especially after the first book. But I digress.) I tend to love fantasy that is rooted in old magic and folklore.

Here are some of my favorites: The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander; The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper; The Diamond in the Window, The Astonishing Stereoscope, and The Swing in the Summerhouse by Jane Langton; The Owl Service by Allen Garner. I had an aunt who worked in publishing and occasionally I would be the lucky recipient of a bag of books, galley proofs and what-not, so I got some interesting books that way. One that I loved -- now out of print -- was The Seal Singing, an environmental ghost story that took place in Scotland.

Enough pontificating. Check out Tamsin if you enjoy fantasy or ghost stories. One last thing -- in one of my ridiculous online impulse buys, I ordered 2 autographed copies of The Last Unicorn from the publisher, one for each of my girls. I hope they like it!

Delicious!

I'm not like some of my blogging friends -- Dr. Monkey and Sacred Suzie, for example -- who can cook fabulous meals and document the process in lovely photographs. I am usually running around the kitchen like a chicken with my head cut off because I started preparing dinner later than I wanted to and everyone is hungry. Still, I'm a pretty good cook, I almost always cook from scratch, and this time of year I love the availability of wonderful, locally grown produce. Yum.

A few days ago I bought a nice baguette intending to make garlic bread, but I forgot that I had it and by yesterday it was as hard as a baseball bat. What to do? I know -- make Tuscan bread salad!

I used this recipe adding steamed string beans (yellow and green), red and yellow carrots, tomato, LOTS of garlic, plus diced cheese and salami. It was kind of like a sandwich all chopped up in a bowl, now that I think about it. Colorful, tasty, and I believe that everything was locally grown/made.

Organic Valley is a good source for recipes and their UHT milk in single servings is a godsend on camping trips. However, I was very disappointed with the revelation last month that they were purchasing a portion of their milk from a corporate "organic" "farm" in Texas. The CEO of OV was largely unapologetic. It reminded me a little bit of how the CEO of Urban Outfitters went from being a counter-culture "hippie" type to one of Rick Santorum's biggest supporters. Hope that's not what's in store for Organic Valley, which has been a boon to the little town of LaFarge, Wisconsin.

More reading

I just finished Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. While I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, I found it profoundly unsettling. Horwitz spent three years traveling through the 10 states that made up the Confederacy, exploring his childhood obsession with the Civil War as well as the continuing impact of the war on the psyche of the American South. Throughout the book he asks why this war, unlike any other in our history, resonates so forcefully, but he never really finds one definitive answer. He meets many different people along the way -- Civil War scholars, hardcore reenactors, kooks, neo-Confederates, and ordinary people just trying to get by -- and everyone seems to have a different answer.

One thing is for certain: what we learn as history is not carved in stone. I appreciate the writers like Horwitz who take the time to dig deeper and look at the whole thing with a sympathetic eye, while still asking hard questions.

I didn't find the book to be "hilarious" as one reviewer wrote. It was certainly amusing in parts. Maybe the unfinished business of the Civil War affects me too; I find it a very compelling subject.

I finished the book feeling rather dispirited. Horwitz wrote this book 12 years ago, and at the time found little to be hopeful about regarding race relations in the U.S. If anything, it seems as if that gap has widened in the ensuing years. As the economy continues to tank people who are suffering need to find someone to blame, and there are plenty of people out there who willingly fan the flames of hatred. Like that country singer whose initials are TK, or any number of media loudmouths.

Still, I recommend it -- highly recommend it, in fact. It is immensely readable and explores some pretty important ideas along the way.

A Wee Bit of a Problem

Kind of embarrassing really. I have a brand new iMac, purchased yesterday to replace our 7-year-old Mac that died in the spring. Mr. Ether -- the guy who fixes things -- set it all up for me, transferring all of my files and applications. I used it last night; it worked like a dream. I shut it down before going to bed. But here's the thing: I went to check my email this morning, and I CAN'T FIND THE FLARGIN' POWER BUTTON! Mr. Ether (who has graciously shared his MacBook with me for the last couple of months, and unbeknownst to him is still sharing it with me) is going to laugh so hard when he wakes up. I'll be the butt of the jokes around here for a while. Maybe I should go bake some brownies or something.

And later that same day ... FOUND IT!

Happy Birthday to a special someone ...

... and no, I don't mean Barack Obama. Happy birthday to Anne, one of my oldest and dearest friends (and by "oldest" I am in no way intending to imply that she will always be older than me by two-and-a-half weeks, or that she will in fact turn fifty, the big 5-0, two-and-a-half weeks before I do, although that is still a year away.) What I'm saying is, Anne has been my best friend since we were in 5th grade, when her family moved in around the corner from my family and we began our long history of getting into (mostly innocent) trouble together. And having a hell of a good time.

Anne, I just know you're lurking about my blog, and since I didn't get my card mailed on time, I'll say it here: I hope you are having a wonderful birthday today. Love you.

Book Reviews: Wyrd Sisters & Witches Abroad

I realized that I mentioned these books, but I didn't review them. Silly me. By now, if you read my blog with any regularity, you'll know that I'm a fan of the writing of Terry Pratchett. He is often classified as a fantasy or sci fi writer. I tend to think of him more as a writer of satire that just happens to be set in a fictitious place that frequently mirrors our own -- Discworld.

Wyrd Sisters is the novel that introduces the characters Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat, three witches who loosely represent the archetypes of the crone, the mother, and the maiden. If that sounds all scholarly and high-fallutin', don't worry. It's not.

The story takes place in the small mountainous kingdom of Lancre, which happens to be the place from which most of the magic on the Disc emanates. It opens with the assassination of King Verence, by the treacherous hand of his nephew. The king's infant son and heir is spirited away to safety with the aid of the three witches (who don't believe in meddling with the affairs of state, really they don't) and the dead king remains as a ghost to haunt his palace and seek revenge for his death. Does this plotline sound at all familiar? Read any Shakespeare lately?

In Witches Abroad, the local fairy godmother has died and bequeathed her wand to the young witch Magrat, with instructions to journey to the far away city of Genua to prevent a marriage.
Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax join her on the journey to "foreign parts", where they encounter a great many interesting people and learn that not all stories have happy endings (or do they?)

Personally, I think that Terry Pratchett is a literary genius. He writes with intelligence, laced with sly humor and the more than occasional groaningly bad pun for which we try to forgive him. He is extremely prolific, with 35+ books in the Discworld series. If you are new to Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters is as good a place to start as any. I'm sure that Enriched Geranium will also chime in with his Pratchett-reading advice in the comments section, any minute now.

What I'm reading ..., pt. 2

I'm ba-a-a-ck!

I packed 4 books to take with me to Rock Island. No blockbusters, in the end wisely deciding that they simply weigh too much and are difficult to hold up for reading in the hammock. At the last minute I threw in 3 more, all Terry Pratchett books.

7 books? What was I thinking??? I ended up reading only 2! I read Wyrd Sisters by Pratchett, tried to read one of my other books (a novel by Peter S. Beagle, author of the cult classic The Last Unicorn) but got bored because he doesn't write like Terry Pratchett, and then read Witches Abroad by TP. I'm such a dork sometimes.

One year I'd like to try going to the island with just one book, or NO books (scary thought) and see what kind of entertainment I can make for myself. It's not as if there is nothing to do.

I should say that it feels good to be home, and it does, but I miss Rock Island. It is such a wonderful place. I have never put it to the test, but I think I could happily stay there for 2 weeks, pit toilets, hauling water, sleeping on the ground, and all. More on the week later.