Buggy Ride

My friend here in the FP is the proud (and I mean Very Proud) owner of a Ranger. (imagine a golf cart mixed with a quad and you've got a Ranger). She loves four wheeling and she has been saving and hoping and wishing for this Ranger for a Long Time.

I, on the other hand, didn't even know what a Ranger was. I had no particular inclination for or agianst Rangers at first. When I saw it sitting in her driveway, I got a little bit excited. When she offered to take me for a ride, I got even more excited. My enthusiasm dimmed a little when L's son started begging to go on a Buggy Ride--I had been hoping to go out in the Ranger. It turns out that in L's family they nicknamed Rangers "Buggys." So when they talk about going on a Buggy Ride--they don't mean a horse drawn carraige (although, that would be a novel experience for me too).

So, Friday was the appointed day for a Buggy Ride. I was pumped because the weather was BEAUTIFUL. Blue skies, fluffy-puffy clouds, spring breeze, just-cool-enough weather. It was going to be awesome. L buckled her 4 year old twins into the back seat and I took the passenger seat. We headed out of town carefree and ready to get our fill of the Great Outdoors. We headed toward a destination an hour and a half away. Long Buggy Rides are a Good Thing in L's book.

And I was fully prepared to make the same mark in my book. That is, until the weather changed. The wind picked up, the clouds went from a hundred fluffy sheep to One Ginormous Monster of Doom. Then the dust started pelting us in the face--exfoliation at its finest, and most painful.

The four year olds didn't have jackets, so they huddled together under a blanket that seemed to fly off of them every 30 seconds. Eventually, I drove the Buggy while L sat in back to keep the blanket on the twins. That was fine until my left hand went numb from the cold, so I moved to the back and L started driving. About this time we saw some deer--a lot of deer. Running, leaping--gracefully maneuvering places I wouldn't find footing on at a slow walk. But, the thrill of seeing the deer didn't keep out the wind chill.

It was a miserable trip. Beautiful, but miserable. Both L and I were grateful that the rain stayed behind us, that the twins didn't really complain and didn't cry at all (they were AMAZING!). For a good portion of the return trip, both of them were totally covered by the blanket. It made it look like I was relaxing in the back seat with a blanket all to myself. When we stopped to give a man in a pickup truck directions, I tried to see if he did a double take when two little hats popped out from under the blanket.

When we hit pavement at the edge of town I hollered a WooHoo! L made some hot cocoa as soon as we stepped in her house, and I drank two cups full.

During that long trip home, I couldn't help thinking as the wind blew all of my warmth away and my hands turned numb and I shivered and shivered (a) how miserable I was; and (b) how in the middle of July, when the sun was scorching me , I'd think back with fondness on the cool breeze of this Buggy Ride. --Lu

The buggy at the beginning. Note the sunny disposition.

L driving the buggy, racing the storm (her hood and jacket are puffed completely out by the wind)

Me and the blanket, relaxin in the back seat.

Fly by Night

This book was NOT what I expected at all. I've been avoiding it because I thought the plot was about censorship (a logical assumption from the cover of the book), and I've had my fill of the censorship discussion already.

Turns out, the cover is misleading--at least in the assumptions it caused me to draw. (and the idea that "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover" is ridiculous...why else would that "Banned" banner appear if not to catch my attention and lead me to judge the book. Someone in marketing should see to removing that "Banned" logo before it keeps other people from reading the book, not because it's "banned" but because they don't want to suffer through yet another sermon on censorship. It totally skewed my perception of the book in a Very Non Flattering way. I realize that children might find the "banned" logo inviting, but are they the ones with purchasing power when it comes to children's books? Sigh. I know. I know. Librarians (who are quite Taken with the censorship battle) do have purchasing power. So maybe this edition was lobbied at them. (and, no, I really don't know the details of marketing books or who has how much purchasing power--my ignorance should have kept me from ranting about this issue, but...it didn't.)

Although the fictional society censors books, that is an appendage to the plot. It's really the story of a society in conflict: a mad duke is in charge of a city, his sister and several guilds are trying to control him--and in the thick of it is Mosca, a 12ish year old runaway. Mosca loves words and can read (a rarity among the common people) and she is employed as a spy. She seems to have a knack for involving herself in the impending war, making allies and enemies on every side.

The plot is a combination of Dickensian twists (and characters) and a sort of Lemony Snicket love of words (without the repetition and slow pace).

The inventive names and places held my attention until the plot had revealed that this was a story I would enjoy. Names such as: Eponymous Clent, Hopewood Pertellis, Goodman Grenoble of Keeping Knots out of Moustachios.

Despite the silly names and some far-fetched coincidences, the book has a serious and intriguing question at the heart of the plot: how do people respond to power? Religious beliefs, superstition, fear of past political cruelty, ignorance, greed, nobility, morality...the panoply of emotions and rationales that guide people in the real world, guide the characters. Also hidden behind the fanciful names and thrilling plot twists is the question of the validity of religion. When does religion become tradition without belief? Is religion really necessary when it can be twisted to justify evil purposes?

I think that I wouldn't have followed the political intrigue had I read this as a 10 year old, and I might have misunderstood the "attack" on religion. As an adult, I appreciated the intrigue and tension of a society in flux. I agreed with the underlying message that people should attempt to Do Something in such situations instead of ignoring the impending doom in favor of pretending that their comfortable life will continue as usual. I'm not certain of the ultimate message the author intended to send about religion and it doesn't really matter to me. I appreciated the challenging questions the book raised about religion because religion is used to justify heinous crimes. Religion is used as simply tradition or as an attempt at comfort without belief or faith in the ultimate message.

I've decided that this book was well worth the time I spent reading it. It was entertaining, thought provoking and ...I really did enjoy the inventive character names.

[note: in looking for information about the author's other books, I found this: her description of learning to ride a motorcycle. It's quite entertaining. I also discovered that one of her other books is called Verdegris Deep in the UK and Well Witched in the US. I wish we had gotten the Verdegris title.] --Lu

Snakey

Last night we were talking to an elementary school teacher. This person, Mr. R, said that he was having a great day because he had found his king snake. "It's been five days since he disappeared, so I thought he was long gone."

You might wonder how the snake disappeared in the first place. Mr. R explained that he has a memory that is "two inches long" so when he was cleaning the king snake's cage and decided to crack the lid open to get rid of some of the extra condensation inside the cage, it probably wasn't the best idea. He thought he'd come back in an hour and put the lid down. Twenty-four hours later, he remembered, and discovered that the snake had taken the opportunity to escape. Because the cage is inside his classroom (ACK!) he frantically searched the room. He even had a friend come and move the furniture around. He looked everywhere. It seemed that the snake was gone.

On day five, Mr. R decided to clean "the rat's nest" (the corner of the room where he dumps any paperwork he's not ready to deal with when it's handed to him). At the bottom of the pile...was the snake, looking up at him.

--Lu

Matthias' Bean Recipes

Another round of shameless self promotion: a new post over on lufoodstorage.blogspot.com. I've been neglecting it for a while, but have resolved to do better.

This is the first guest post for the blog, done by the wonderful Matthias (of mmwhitney.blogspot.com fame). Check it out, and be sure to try one of his recipes.

--Lu

Moo is Ashamed for not posting

Note the capitalization?
That means true penance.
Or at least enough shame to get me to post something.

Back in my young and reckless years as a sophomore in my illustration program, a group of us under the real aliases of Thing One, Thing Two , Thing Three (me) and Thing 3.14, started

The Argyle Club


The main purpose of this club was to have a nice excuse to eat chicken and cheesecake on Thursdays, with a rousing game of croquet shortly after in our argyle socks. What more, and better still, it was an indoor croquet game in a small squashy space with about 12 people and a bunch of chairs and tables and much violent mallet whacking.
The Argyle Club's Thursday theme song is one worth listening to, called

Cheesecake
by Louis Armstrong

This is one of those songs I can guarantee 90-100% of you will like.

Happy Friday, and cheesecake eating.

Moo

Note: the SHOO FLEA was just too good not to post. Just say it outloud: "shoo-flea."

Book Binge

After my last post about the life of leisure, I thought I would make an effort to justify my book binge by reporting the results.

A Tale of 12 Kitchens: Family Cooking in Four Countries by Jake Tilson. This isn't your normal cookbook, which is what caught my interest. The page layouts look like a scrapbook, but not the kind on display in Michaels or Joanns. This is an unexpected, unique style of collage: there are pictures of packages, menus, kitchens, paraphernalia from the towns where the recipes are eaten, random things like president shaped cookie cutters...I can't do it justice here. The book is worth looking at just to enjoy the layouts. One of my favorite sections is the New York section, in which the author tells how he wanders through the city for Breakfast No. 1 at 6am (in the bitter cold) then treks around the city till his wife joins him for breakfast No. 2, then plans to have breakfast No. 3 two hours after that. That is my kind of itinerary. That page features a menu graphic of two little birds chirping "Good Morning Breakfast Menu," a picture of a diner on a winter day, a plastic toothpick sword, and a full page picture of pancakes on the page opposite. It's charming! The author details his love affair with food in four different countries by recounting the memories he associates with the food along with the stories of the people who supply the recipes included. I'm not nearly cosmopolitan enough to appreciate most of the included recipes--they are regional and mostly unfamiliar foods. The ones I plan to try: Pancake Laboratory (substitute oj for milk and I'd try the snowcakes if it would snow again here); Skirlie (scottish oatmeal cooked with onions); and Don't Go to Any Trouble Backstreet Couscous.

Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White. My dad loves reading Bailey White; he donates his books to me when he's finished reading them, so I gave this one a whirl.
Ms. White relates anecdotes from her life, her mother's life, her aunt's life...by the time I read all of the stories, I realized how different my life is from hers. I don't have a screened porch with a bathtub that empties onto a bed of lilies. I don't have a pond full of alligators (which, may not be lamentable), and I don't have a mother who eats road kill (also, probably not lamentable). In spite of the differences, I was left with a feeling that, somehow, I do relate to her life.
I love this book because the stories are short and funny. I love the simple style, the way she laughs at people's quirks without being cruel, and I love the perspective the stories encourage. I kept thinking, there's so much to appreciate and enjoy in regular life. My favorite part? The fact that she uses sea chanties to teach first graders to read. "Give me a man overboard or a good sinking ship, and I can teach a half-witted gorilla to read."

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
This isn’t my normal novel (although my town library has classified this as a Young Adult book, I would keep it in the adult section), so heads up. It was violent (it’s more violent in parts than the Jason Bourne movies, so if you didn’t like them, don’t go near this).

I didn’t like the book, although I’m glad my complaints come from another angle than I was expecting.

It was cliché—the seedy contacts that were used to gain false ids, the bad guys, the sidekicks, even the descriptions of alternate realities—cliché. Maybe that isn’t the author’s fault, maybe this book generated spinoff tv shows or movies or books that got to me first. But, I’m skeptical.

Another complaint. The author dished a fairly intricate plot and then wrapped everything up in under twenty pages. I’m supposed to believe that the thing the characters considered to be an impossible task actually was that impossible when it only took a few pages to get through it? I was more focused on how few pages there were left in the book than in the ending itself. I kept thinking, “There can only be three or four pages left. That isn’t enough to do the plot justice.” At that point, I knew it was going to be a lousy conclusion. And it’s not the kind of ending where I was so excited knowing that there was a sequel coming to keep the story going. No. It was more like, “I can’t believe I wasted all of that time plowing through the story only to have a cheap ending.” So, I read a plot summary on Wikipedia, and confirmed that the next book is even more silly than this one.



Into the Wildewood by Gillian Summers. The cover is deceiving. It gives one the impression that possibly, this won't be a totally ridiculous book. It's a fifteen year old girl who is an elf living in the human world. She and her father travel to different Renaissance Fairs to make money selling furniture. It has the potential to be an interesting plot--an elf girl who can talk to trees, distraught trees in need of someone to save them. Then, a unicorn steps on the scene. I was prepared to play along, elves, talking trees...why not a unicorn too. But, it didn't improve. The plot dragged on and also came up at random moments (e.g. girl is in precarious situation at work and suddenly, in the middle of the work drama feels compelled to find out what a tree is thinking. Just because.), and was eventually resolved in a way that every teenage girl would want it to be.


Tales from Shakespeare by Tina Packer. This is a beautifully illustrated collection of summaries of the plots of 12 Shakespeare plays. I enjoyed it immensely. I've read and seen most of the plays. I've analyzed them, written papers about them, even memorized lines from them. I haven't ever taken the time to simply enjoy the story and appreciate the plays for what they are: interesting stories. They are sometimes silly, many times improbable, and yet, they are compelling. These summaries give you a chance to appreciate the plots without getting bogged down in the language (I know, not a very scholarly or sophisticated approach, and blasphemy to some). I would love to read these with middle school kids. Then, I would feel comfortable taking the students into the original text because they would have an idea of the overall story to back them up through the difficult reading. It's also a great refresher if you need to brush up on Shakespeare.


The Owl Service by Alan Garner. This is an older book (published in the sixties); I found it in the little town library and took it home out of curiosity. It is a fantasy based on a Celtic myth--and it's a little strange. The author twists the scenes and the dialogue leaving the reader to make assumptions about what has occurred. The slang is dated and is difficult to interpret at times (maybe a Brit would have an easier go at it). At some point I realized that this novel would have been more effective as a movie--I think the audience would follow the character's emotions better, and the setting wouldn't be so confusing. It's not particularly a happy book--it's a myth, not a modernized fairy tale. It has received some prestigious awards. Maybe I'm suffering from a lack of literary appreciation, but I don't intend to read it again.



Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had To Go by Annie Barrows, Illustrated by Sophie Blackall. I liked this book. I really liked this book. It's funny, it's genuine, it's...well, it's second grade. Made me want to go back for a few days. The illustrations made me laugh and fall in love with the characters (and made me want Bean's octopus shirt!). This is "chapter book" that was actually enjoyable to read. Usually, I loathe early reader types. I plan to read more. The two main characters, Ivy and Bean, determine there is a ghost haunting the girl's bathroom and come up with a plan to get rid of the ghost. Of course, the plan they come up with is totally silly. I'm looking forward to reading the next one.



As The City Sleeps by Stephen T. Johnson.
This isn't really a "story" book. It's a compilation of "pictures" of a city at night. Each picture has a caption that hints at the story behind the picture. And all of the pictures are designed to spark your imagination. What is that running through the city? Why is that cab moving without a driver?
It reminds me of Chris Van Allsburg's book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Every so often, my sixth grade teacher would choose a picture from that book, and we used it and it's caption as the starting point for a creative writing assignment. As the City Sleeps would be perfect for that kind of exercise. It's a little spooky too, which is sure to get kids interested.

Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban
I haven't read this book since I was a child. I had forgotten the plot, but the illustrations all seemed familiar. In short: I loved it. It's the story of a little badger, Frances, who only wants to eat bread and jam. It's actually funny. And the story is better than typical "I don't want to eat food" kinds of books. One of my favorite things about it is how Frances sings little songs to and about her food. I thought I was the only one!

How Living a Life of Leisure = Embarrassment

This morning, I awoke to the sound of someone knocking on my front door. I tried to peep out the window (unsuccessful because I didn't have my contacts in and because to do it properly I would have had to open the blinds all the way, which would have been Very Obvious). I went back to bed, but the knocking continued--it seemed to go on for at least five or six minutes, and who knows how long it had been going on before I woke up.

I checked out the window again (because this time, my sleepy-logic told me, I would magically be able to see!). Turns out, I still couldn't see who was at the door, but, thankfully, I could see The Rock's truck pulling up in front of the house. For a moment, I thought that something was terribly wrong, but then realized it was lunch time and he was probably just home for lunch (as I hadn't gotten up earlier and made him some before he left for work).

Oh yeah, it was lunch time. And I wasn't even awake.

I hastily began trying to find some non-pajama pants to pull on (no easy task since I had made a mess of things the night before) and was still looking for them when The Rock found me. He looked pretty amused at the clearly discombobulated state I was in. He told me my friend K was at the door, then trekked off to the kitchen to fix some lunch. I finally found some pants, then stumbled toward the front room.

It was only slightly awkward when I stepped out the front door--hair tousled, eyes puffy, XXXL shirt hanging down to my knees. But, she sympathized when I said, "I stayed up till 4:30 this morning reading a book." She's been known to do that too. She didn't even laugh too hard.

Turns out, she wanted me to babysit the little kids who had been banging on the door. They were really excited about knocking on the door, apparently, so she just let them keep at it even when I didn't come.

End result: I babysat the kids for two hours this afternoon. I was yawning the whole time, but they didn't seem to notice at all. --Lu