Out & About

Essay: When the web site comment form still doesn’t result in customer service.

2012-01-19T15:40:00.000-08:00

I don’t expect a lot from Fred Meyer. They have made their choices and I know what I’m getting when I go there. If I want to talk to a knowledgeable (and even cheerful!) employee I will go to New Seasons, but at Fred Meyer I am on my own. However, recently I was infected with a bit of curiosity and turned to the company website for an answer. And now I know not to expect much from that venue, either.

Fred Meyer, for those of you who don’t live within its reach, is a combination grocery and variety store which was founded in Portland and spread across the northwest before being bought by Kroger. I grew up shopping Fred Meyer in Boise, Idaho and today in Portland, Oregon, a lot of my paycheck is spent at the store that is four blocks from my house.

Recently, I was buying crackers and I noticed the generic brand of Triscuits was not on the shelves. This was unfortunate, as I liked that brand and it reliably cost less than standard Triscuits. There are never employees available to answer questions in the grocery department, so when I came home I went to Fred Meyer’s web site and sent a brief note enquiring as to the status of the generic Triscuits.

A week passed. I received the following email:

Dear Ms. Collins:

Thank you for contacting Fred Meyer. Regrettably, I am unable to say with any certainty as to whether or not this product is being carried at your location. Please speak to your local store director regarding product availability as our office does not have access to inventory/ordering information. They can check inventory at other locations and will be able to advise if the product can be stocked and/or ordered. In addition, I have forwarded your request to the store manager for further review. Please do not hesitate to contact us at888.247.4439 if you have further comments or concerns. Thank you for your patronage and have a great day

Sincerely,

Brandee Powell

Consumer Affairs

Reference: 11429548

So Brandee Powell was able to tell me that 1)She has no idea about my local store and 2)I should contact the store director directly. She was not able to tell me what the store director’s name was or how to contact her or him, but was able to forward my information to said director for further review. What have I learned from Brandee Powell? That Fred Meyer’s web site is pretty much useless for answering questions and that Consumer Affairs employees can’t do a bit of research to find out what products their own stores carry, or even direct me specifically to a company employee.

So it’s been a week since I received the above email filled with the opposite of information, two weeks since I emailed the original question and that question still has not been answered. It’s not a life or death detail, and I can certainly live never knowing what has become of my generic brand snack crackers. But if you are going to have a feature on your web site offering customer service, it might be nice to actually have customer service by answering the questions submitted.

Two Hour Delay

2012-01-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

Snow was forecast, but I didn't get excited. We had some Tuesday, but it wasn't sticking. Going to bed Wednesday night there were two scenarios: the temperature would stay low and a bunch of snow would drop on the Portland area. Or, the temperature would increase and we would get a bunch of rain. I woke up Wednesday morning, hearing the rain and I assumed that we had missed the snow entirely. But no! We got a couple of inches before the rains came!

And those couple of inches were enough to delay school for two hours. We started at 10:30 instead of 8:30. Of course, Wednesdays are also our early release day. We are done at 1:00. So school started at 10:30, the kids had ninety minutes of learning followed by 30 minutes of lunch and 30 minutes of recess. Then everyone went home. It was kind of a lame day. 31 (of 142) students were absent and I don't blame them one bit.

Still, I did get some things done and had a nice nap before going to school. That was nice.

What I did on MLK Day.

2012-01-16T19:58:00.000-08:00

Three gallons of milk, a large pot and various small bowls of things. What else could I be doing but:

...making cheese!

I made my first pressed cheese: queso fresco. After it presses for eight hours, I can eat it.

When I wasn't actively making cheese, I planned this year's growing season. Sentinel helped.

Essay: Baby...

2012-01-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, Steve Duin, columnist for the Oregonian, lamented the misogynistic, graphic, abuse of women—or in this case woman—as seen in the David Fincher version of the movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. He wondered what his 21 year old daughter made of the violence and compared the different message given by another movie of the holiday season—Hugo.

Well, I’m not related to Steve Duin, and I am not 21 any longer, but I am a woman and I do have something to say about women and movies. While the “business-as-usual” depiction of violence against women is, and continues to be disturbing, my feeling is that it part of an even bigger problem. To twist a line from the band Cake, when it comes to women appearing in movies, “baby, we’re never there.”

In comparison to men, women’s stories are rarely told on screen. If we appear at all, it’s usually in one of two ways: as the biblically approved “helpmate” to further the male protagonist’s story; or the jezebel role keeping the male protagonist from something. Let’s take other movie Duin mentions, Hugo. The man character is a twelve year old boy. The secondary character is an aging toy seller. Both of these characters have female companions to help them along their journey: the toy seller has a supportive wife and the boy has a friend, the granddaughter of the toy seller, who might hold the key to solving one of the movie’s mysteries. Don’t get me wrong, Hugo is a good movie, well acted, well directed, beautiful to watch and I recommend it (although it is a tad slow.) But if you are looking for a story about women—their thoughts, their feelings, their journey, their growth—this is not your film.

And neither are most other films. I didn’t believe this myself until I started keeping track one year. I put each movie through the Bechdel Test. In order to pass the test, a movie must answer in the affirmative to the following three questions:

It includes two women
Who talk to each other
About something other than a man.

I didn’t expect a large number of movies to meet this guideline, but I watch a range of movies, from big, dumb blockbusters, to mainstream fare to independent and foreign films. Given such breadth, women would be somewhat represented in these films right?

Wrong. To my dismay, the vast majority of the films I watched that year did not even meet the first criteria, either having no women at all, or one woman (the wife/girlfriend role.) Sporadically I would view a film with two women in it, but when they did interact, they—yep—talked about a man.

This is a problem. It’s part of the blatant and pervasive sexism that seeps through every part of American culture. Women make up half of the population, but our stories--at least the ones that have something to do with a topic other than finding love--are not told. We don’t see ourselves on the big screen. The fact that we are rarely, if ever, on screen tells a bigger tale about our place in society than any movie made about the subject.

What to do? Let’s get some more women writing scripts and women directing and producing, heading major studios. Perhaps men could also take an interest in movies that tell women’s stories. We’ve got stories to tell and not just about how we landed our man.

Menorah!

2012-01-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

My friend Deborah invited people over to celebrate the sixth night of Hanukkah. As it has been before, it was a lovely and relaxing evening that left me wanting to celebrate Hanukkah too. Luckily for me, my Unitarian faith has no problem incorporating other religious traditions into my spiritual practice. Deborah mentioned that she bought her menorah at the Goodwill, so I resolved to keep my eyes open for one too. Instead, I scored at New Season's 75% off holiday merchandise sale. I brought home this beauty:

for a steal!

I'm not sure yet what my 2012 Hanukkah celebration (beginning the evening of December 8) will look like, but I've got the main piece of equipment and I can't wait.

Essay: My secret resolution.

2012-01-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Note: one of my goals this year is to write essays regularly for the blog. My goal is to have about 500 words ready to publish every Thursday. I'm not sure how good the writing will be from week to week, but my goal is to publish every week, so what gets written is what is published. As always, comments are appreciated.

Last year I made two public resolutions, accomplishing one and failing at the other. But I made another resolution, didn’t tell a soul and was very successful in keeping to that resolution for 2011. I resolved to not take a single class, in anything, for the whole year. No one-day workshops in gardening, no short series of exercise classes, no free classes at the library, no learning a new technique, new hobby, a new way to cook. Whatever knowledge I had going into 2011 was not going to be supplemented by any new knowledge given to me in class form.

Why did I do this? Sometime in 2010 I realized that I was out of control with the classes. My classes budget (actually performances/classes) was wildly oversubscribed and that red figure in the budget continued to be troubling. So money was an issue. Time was the other issue. Off the top of my head, I know that in 2010 I took two classes in growing fruit, a beekeeping class, a 10 week ballet series, a running group at my gym and an eight-week harmony singing class. All of those classes took time away from my already established interests, leaving me excited about the new thing I was doing and frustrated that other things (the gardening, the cooking, the reading, the regular, already paid for, exercise classes at the gym) weren’t getting done.

So I stopped. It was incredibly freeing. When the catalogs for community education classes arrived in the mail, I just tossed them in the recycling bin. When the emails about gardening series arrived in the inbox I just deleted them. When I read flyers on bulletin boards, I just moved on. There was no burst of nervous excitement. I didn’t have to wedge the class into my schedule, figure out where the money was coming from to pay for it or get caught up in the dream of how it would transform my life.

Because that, I realized as the year progressed, was what the problem with classes was. Upon the discovery of a new class I would invest a ton of emotional energy into the fantasy of how my life would be changed by this new thing. A ten week series in ballet would leave me more graceful and with the will to transform my body into the lean carriage of a professional dancer. A series of classes about growing fruit in my backyard would open the door to bushels of fruit and the dedication to the daily upkeep involved. A series in harmony singing would propel me toward a side career in folk music performance.

But none of those classes created those things in my life. The ballet left me frustrated, at the state of my body right now and how incredibly hard even the beginner class was. The fruit growing classes gave me knowledge, but left me overwhelmed as to which step to do next and so nothing was done. The harmony singing classes were a joy, and also a frustration as I repeatedly failed to hold my end of the harmony bargain. The sad truth of the matter is, forming a “new” anything takes a lot of time and effort which is tough for a person whose time and effort is pretty well parceled out already.

Last year, what I felt the most was peace that the person I am currently has many interests already to keep her occupied. And I had the realization that I need to carefully select the classes I take, being respectful of my time and my budget. I also need to keep in mind that the end result of the class will not be a brand-new me. It will most likely just be the same old me, with a bit of new knowledge who may or may not have the will and the time to integrate the topic into my already full life.

Three sentence movie reviews: Medicine for Melancholy

2012-01-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

There were parts of this movie that were odd, went on a bit too long or were just awkward. But I found the main male character delightfully amusing ("'preciate it" he said often at the beginning of the film, almost like a nervous tic, and that won me over) which partially made up for the somewhat flat female lead. If you are interested in views of San Francisco, or are intrigued by the "Before Sunrise" concept turn on its head, this is a movie for you.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/medicine_for_melancholy.html

This just in! She found the Peeps!

2012-01-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

The ones I gave Aunt Pat last June. She just phoned. I was beginning to think they would never be found, but she said the birds don't eat as much seed in the summer so she was just getting to the bucket. Now I have to be on alert. Where will the peeps turn up next?

And this too? Where DO you find the time?

2012-01-01T17:09:00.000-08:00

Dishcloth #3

Dishcloth #3's pattern had a lot of yarn overs and left twists which gave me ample opportunities to drop stitches, which I did often. At one point I was short six stitches, which resulted in my counting stitches as the end of the row more often. I think the next time I knit this pattern I will use markers to delineate where the transitions are supposed to be.

Three sentence movie reviews: Comedian

2012-01-01T17:01:00.000-08:00

If not for the inclusion of Orny Adams--a steaming bundle of neurosis and uncertainty who was painful to watch--this would have been a much better movie. I understand the dramatic contrast between the seasoned pro and the up-and-coming comic could have been an interesting one, but Adams was so unlikable that I mostly just waited for him to go away. There were some interesting and also delightful moments, like Jerry Seinfeld telling the story of the Glen Miller band tromping through a slushy Iowa field, but I'm not sure it's worth watching the entire movie to experience them.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2002/comedian.html

Poem for December 2011: A Song in the Front Yard

2011-12-31T17:02:00.001-08:00

Go to here to read this poem.

You also have the option to listen to the poem although I have to say that the recitation doesn't do a lot to bring out the charm.

I chose this poem because it accurately captures the frustration I felt growing up and being "good" all the time. (Whether I was actually good or not is beside the point. I felt like I was good all the time and every treated me as if I was good all the time, thus, I was good all the time.) As an adult, it's easy to see that "coming in at a quarter to nine--or even earlier--is a good thing, and perhaps hanging out with someone who sold a back gate is not the best company to choose. But there comes a time in childhood when a split seems to happen and there are suddenly the "bad" kids and the "good" kids. The bad kids might not really be bad, just testing rules to be cool or suffer from a lack of supervision. But the good kids can see the split and for me the longing to break rules and ignore the consequences was a strong one, even if it wasn't often acted upon.

We are now 1000!

2011-12-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

This here is post number 1000 on Out & About!

If I only had a dollar for each post I've written...

Three sentence movie reviews: Bright Star

2011-12-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

Much like Paul Schneider(!)'s character I really didn't get what John Keats saw in Fanny Brawne and so was befuddled for much of this movie, and thus missed tapping in to the star-crossed love. This was kind of slow, but I'm not really sorry I watched it. The director's interviews at the end were nicely illuminating.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/bright_star.html

How did those 2011 resolutions go?

2011-12-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

Well, it turns out I forgot one entirely. I was going to cook four different kinds of vegetables each week. That would explain why I had a separate "V" designation for chores accomplished (as compared to the "F" for anything to do with food. I did cook/prep a lot more vegetables early in the year and then less so the second half of the year.

I did do a very good job cooking food and not throwing out a lot of it. That list on the fridge I referenced in the resolution post did help a lot. I discarded the sheet at one point, but will bring it back. The notebook also helped and I have already purchased my notebook for 2012. I backslid a bit in November/December and ended up throwing out more food than I wanted. But overall this was a pretty good success.

Push ups. I still love them, but apparently not enough to really do them every day. Early in the year I did them pretty consistently and if I were in my mid-twenties, I would have been churning out my age. Alas, I am in my late thirties and didn't ever reach that number. I think I pushed too hard at the beginning and ended up incredibly sore which was a deterrent.

Resolutions for 2012? I'm pondering them right now.

Best movies watched in 2011

2011-12-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

The Annual Patricia Awards

I haven't stopped to count how many movies I saw last year. Let us say there were 70. Here are my favorites (and not favorites):

Best series to watch and then immediately invite your MAunts over to watch it so you can watch it again:

Pride & Prejudice (1995)

The movie I over prepared for (read book, saw original) and found disappointing:

True Grit (Cohen Brothers)

Best documentary illuminating the selection process for a Broadway musical:

Every Little Step

Wonderful, delightful tale that managed to completely eviscerate me emotionally in the last five minutes:

The Illusionist

Best random pack of scary sisters I want someone to write a novel about:

The Fighter

Not a movie to watch when trying to wind down after a hard week:

and

Best movie that passed the Bechdel test:

Hannah

Movie that could have gone so wrong, but instead was so very right:

Source Code

Movie that spawned a personal film festival:

Fast Five

Bad, forgettable title (I just had to google it to remind myself what it was) with at least one incredibly funny scene and well developed characters:

and

Good romantic comedy your boyfriend will probably also enjoy:

Going the Distance

Best of the Vin Diesel Film Festival.

(I know! I was surprised too!)

XXX

Unfortunate example of how Hollywood completely erases strong female characters:

(which is ironic, really, because this movie got me started on the book series)

Gone Baby, Gone

Best movie to watch on your boyfriend's birthday after bicycling many miles:

X-Men, First Class

Movie I enjoyed, but not as much as I thought I would:

and

Suffered, I think, from a long delay before the big monster reveal:

and

Most authentic (and hilarious) teenage boy dialogue:

Super 8

Best eye candy of the fashion variety:

Mad Men, Season I

The "man, why don't they make more movies about wrestling?" award:

Win Win

My favorite of the superhero movie this year:

Captain America

The "Please avoid the movie and take the time to read the book. You won't be sorry" award:

The Time Traveler's Wife

Absolutely delightful

(even though I still am squeamish about Woody Allen):

Midnight in Paris

Happy sigh:

Babies

Pretty bad "last" movie, but with entertaining "bonus" interview with the costumer:

The Thing Called Love

The documentary where the "normal" people were more compelling than the celebrities:

and

Even if you just watch the "Will Shortz reads his mail" scene you will walk away happy:

WordPlay

"Old Fashioned" style movie I absolutely loved:

The Good German

The "two hours reading the book will be time better spent" award:

One Day

The movie that was seared onto my brain at age twelve:

Stand By Me

Funny movie we had no idea we would see:

Horrible Bosses

Excellent ensemble effort:

Contagion

Hit the nostalgia button hard:

Pearl Jam 20

Best horror movie concept of the year:

Attack the Block

Excellent acting, all around:

Margin Call

Best reason to start knitting again:

Heroes, Season 1

Well done movie that was very slow, darn it:

Hugo 3-D

Yet another interesting illumination into Broadway:

Life After Tomorrow

Movie that surprised me the most:

Being Elmo

Remake that surprised me the most:

and

A good reason to go into movies with an open mind:

Footloose (2011)

Movie with the most delightful little scenes sprinkled here and there:

The Descendants

Movie where my front teeth dried out because I was smiling so much:

The Muppets

Best movie about baseball and math this year

(and possibly ever):

Moneyball

Best books read in 2011

2011-12-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

The annual Patricia Awards

(with 2011 being the year of the YA novel)

I read 101 books this year. I was hoping to read no more than 70 and completely failed. To be fair, there were a lot of YA novels, which are quick reads. There were also a goodly number of poetry and Shakespeare plays, which are also quick reads, but suffice to say I spent a lot of time reading this year. You needn't read as many books as I did. Instead, take a gander at the following awards and pick (or avoid) a read for yourself.

(All original reviews of these books can be found on this blog or on Goodreads)

Darn Good Concept whose ending was unfortunately bungled:

Incarceron

Catherine Fisher

Best female character I've encountered in years:

and

Best series to spawn 100 discussions about a variety of topics:

and

Best book by an author with my last name:

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Best novel to include a hilarious musical theater scene:

and

Most memorable main character since Owen Meany:

Will Greyson Will Greyson

John Green & David Levithen

Best book to read during the holiday season:

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Rachel Cohen & David Levithen

Book I couldn't convince anyone else to read due to odd subject matter, but that I (and the book group) absolutely loved:

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Muriel Barbery

Interesting portrait about one man overcoming (and succumbing to) his upbringing:

The Last American Man

Elizabeth Gilbert

An interesting idea, a gripping read, all capped off with two perfectly awful last chapters:

My Name is Memory

Ann Brashares

The classic novel I enjoyed much more than I thought I would:

Frankenstein

Mary Shelly

Sidesplittingly funny story of exactly what the title says:

The Absolutely True Dairy of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie

Good collection of poems about people and travel:

The Last Uncle

Linda Pastan

Interesting book (especially about the history of the science of diet and exercise) whose advice I would rather not follow:

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It

Gary Taubes

The most delightful tales from anywhere this year:

Tales from Outer Suburbia

Shawn Tan

Parts 1 & 2 of what would have been an intense five part novel:

and

Most heartbreaking story of its creation:

Suite Francaise

Irene Nemirovsky

Biggest slog I should have just quit reading:

The House at Riverton

Kate Morton

Best set of poems to read when you need a bit of a laugh:

The HaHa

David Kirby

Most fun book written this year for Laura Ingalls Wilder fans:

The Wilder Life

Wendy McClure

A bit too long, with a completely unneeded side plot, but still a very good read:

The Hour I First Believed

Wally Lamb

Excellent magical realism and overall most cherished book read this year:

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Aimee Bendar

Fun to read, if only for the Richard III as Rocky Horror Picture Show send-up:

The Eyere Affair

Jasper Fforde

Best reason to clear your schedule for a few days:

Freedom: A Novel

Jonathen Franzen

My two favorite British characters this year:

and

The kind of book where the five pages of setup is completely worth it for the joke's payoff:

Freddy & Fredericka

Mark Halprin

Best languid description of landscape:

My Antonia

Willa Cather

Best audiobook to listen to while you wait out the insomnia:

A New Earth

Eckhard Tolle

Best intriguing plot and plot shift:

Silver Sparrow

Tayari Jones

Most delightful eleven-year-old of the year:

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Jacqueline Kelly

Especially good novel to read aloud with a partner:

One Day

David Nichols

A bright bit of fun for a cold night:

13 Little Blue Envelopes

Maureen Johnson

Book that I finished, but only so I could discuss it at book group:

100 Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Best urban tale set in Canada:

Blink & Caution

Tim Wynne Jones

Book I found both heartbreaking and heartwarming:

A Place on Earth

Wendall Barry

Book I liked the best of the "Anne" series:

Anne's House of Dreams

L.M. Montgomery

My favorite book read for the Mock Printz:

A Monster Calls

Patrick Ness/Siobhan Dowd

Incredible, wonderful, stupendous book...Until the last four words:

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Laini Taylor

Best sci-fi historical fiction novel:

Kindred

Octavia E. Butler

Best "rough around the edges" memoir:

It's So Easy & Other Lies

Duff McKeagan

Books read in December 2011

2011-12-31T03:00:00.000-08:00

I finish my ten-title Mock Printz YA reading list and find some time for other things too.

Read

The Order of the Stick: Don't Split the Party

Rich Burlew

Read aloud.

A very long book that refuses to follow the advice of its own title. We spend a lot of time with one or another of the split party. This long book and suffered a bit at the end from the "let's wrap this up now" syndrome, but overall it was pretty entertaining, when read aloud.

Dead end in Norvelt

Jack Gantos

Read for Mock Printz

This was book 9 of 10 read for the Mock Printz discussion and was the outlier, falling into neither the "grim" nor the "tense" category. I started out loving it, as Gantos has a way of phrasing normal observations into something rather amusing and there is a scene at the beginning involving melting gold statues, a feisty old lady and a bloody nose that is pure comedy gold. But after that, my adoration cooled, due to the main character's father being a bit of a jerk, a mystery poorly developed and quickly solved, but not resolved, and a very ambiguous ending that left me perplexed as to just what, exactly, the message was. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't.

Kindred

Octavia E. Butler

One of the pluses of volunteering at the library is that I find very interesting books that I wouldn't have come across otherwise when I'm shelving. This book was shelved in science fiction though, in my opinion, it was really historical fiction in which the main character just happened to time travel to 1815.

As mentioned in my review of Jubilee, I find slavery/slave narratives interesting and out-of-fashion. Indeed, this novel was written in 1979. But experiencing slavery from the perspective of a modern-day black person was a fun narrative device that kept me reading. Recommended.

Good Masters, Sweet Ladies

Laura Amy Schlitz

This has been on my Goodreads list for years, and I finally read it because I noticed it while volunteering at the library shelving books. This is a fun series of poems/monologues of young people in a medieval village. It's a quick read and the sidebar historical information is interesting too. I also loved the YA novel this author wrote, A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama.

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest

Ken Kesey

Read for Kenton Book Group

This was a hard read, not because the prose was difficult, but the subject was. I had seen the movie and so I knew where it was going (assuming the movie followed the book) so there wasn't anything to look forward to and I kept putting off reading my daily pages. Still, it was well written, and I enjoyed the perspective of the Chief, which was not a part of the movie.

It's So Easy and other Lies

Duff McKeagen

Duff--from Guns & Roses (and Velvet Revolver and Loaded)--describes his life as a musician, an addict, and his life of sobriety. The writing is rough and unpolished, but enthusiastic and interesting, especially the details of the early G&R days. I was particularly interested in his journey to sobriety which I can sum up in three words: become a nerd. How could I not be delighted when someone's path to recovery includes reading, bike riding, martial arts and going to college?

My main quibble with the book was the question of who wrote it. Duff's name is on the cover, Duff is featured as the author on the back cover. Only on the last page of the book is Duff's collaborator listed. I felt like the book was mainly in Duff's voice and he probably did write most of it, but if you are going to use a collaborator (and there's nothing wrong with that if you've got a story to tell) the just put their darn name on the cover with yours.

Anne of Ingleside

L.M. Montgomery

Anne begins to fade into the background as her children take over more and more of the story.

Good Poems for Hard Times

Garrison Keillor, ed.

Yep. They were.

After the Golden Age

Carrie Vaughn

Okay entry into the non-comic superhero genre, though it was no "Soon I Will be Invincible."

It Looked Different on the Model

Laurie Notaro

Some funny stories. I recommend especially the one near the end about the dog translator.

Hamlet

William Shakespeare

As I read this, I was amazed at how many turns of phrase that we use in everyday speech originate from this play.

Anya's Ghost

Vera Brosgol

Read for Mock Printz

I've said before I'm not a graphic novel fan, but despite my "not" I loved this little story. Also, it was pointed out to me later that Central Library has a cameo role in the book. So exciting!

Started and did not finish

The Culture of Make Believe

Big thick book that made a lot of very good points in the first 75 pages I read. However, said points are rather depressing and sad and thus I wandered off. Would be worth tackling again in the future.

Three sentence movie reviews: State Fair

2011-12-31T02:22:00.000-08:00

Though I've only seen it one other time, this is one of my favorite movie musicals. The songs are good, the clothing is delightful, the story is hokey--but entertaining--and I love the idealized depiction of an Iowa State Fair. For those of you who would like State Fair in more forms, there is also a book by Phil Strong, a non-musical version from 1933 starring Will Rodgers and a 1962 version set in Texas starring Pat Boone.

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038116/

Note: I watched this sometime during Winter Break and forgot to record it in my journal. So here it is here, tacked onto the end of the year.

Also note: For Harry Morgan fans, there's a nice cameo of him as the man running the ring tossing booth, many years before his time as M*A*S*H's Colonel Potter.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Lion in Winter

2011-12-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

I hadn't watched this movie since high school, and near the end I had the thought, "This is sort of like the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but the parents have four children! I didn't buy the oh-so 1960s reason for Katherine Hepburn's actions, but I loved watching her and the hunky Peter O'Toole as well as a very young Anthony Hopkins (and also Timothy Dalton!) There's a scene near the end where a soldier is killed that I would guess is rather what hand-to-hand combat is like: quiet, desperate and takes much longer than one wants it to.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1968/lion_in_winter.html

Complementing staff

2011-12-30T16:45:00.001-08:00

Below is an email I sent to the Dr. Martin's store after successfully purchasing a pair of boots. In 2012 I am going to make an effort to use those handy web site comment forms to leave praise for employees who are doing a good job. As someone who worked for many years with the general public I know how hard it is, and how a few sentences of thanks can really lighten your day. Actually, I don't really know that, seeing as people only complained about me, but I can imagine.

Maybe you want to start offering thanks for some of the service people in your life too? It doesn't take long and like this man's experience, can have good effect on you!

Dear Dr. Martin's

I've been in the market for boots for some time and have had trouble finding a pair that fits my calves. Shopping for boots is an embarrassing and demoralizing situation, mostly because the sales people who bring me the boots are then witness to the zipper stopping short several inches from its intended target.

After a lackluster sales experience in another store, I stopped by your Portland, Oregon location. There I discovered the Phina boot which neatly bypassed the calf situation by utilizing pretty kick-ass buckles throughout the length. In addition, I had the great help of Callie, who was attentive, but did not hover and did not make me feel awkward. I thank both Callie for her sales technique and your company for making such an awesome boot.

Sincerely,

Patricia

Why yes, I would love to see what you've been knitting.

2011-12-29T17:09:00.000-08:00

So glad you asked! Dishcloth #2! This was a fun pattern, but I don't have the skill level to follow the pattern and converse with people. It's a "watching TV" sort of pattern.

Three sentence movie reviews: Moneyball

2011-12-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

Populated with actors I love, this was a tiny bit on the slow side (it gave me time to contemplate why Brad Pitt's house might have had plates hanging on the walls which seems a bit out of character for a single man) but also fun and enjoyable. One thing I knew, but didn't really realize until I saw this movie was how long into the season the trading of players goes on. The movie is about baseball! and math! and you will like it too!

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/moneyball.html

Three sentence movie reviews: The Muppets

2011-12-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

Oh Muppets, how I love you for your humor and your songs. My front teeth dried out while watching this movie, due to the constant smile on my face. The actors broke the fourth wall repeatedly in a way they usually don't and Matt laughed at one line delivered by Amy Adams for a good three minutes; tell me you have plans to see this, because it's the most fun movie of the season.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/muppets_ver4.html

Me too!

2011-12-23T11:50:00.000-08:00

Three sentence movie reviews: The Descendants

2011-12-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

Slow, in that good, meditative way that I enjoy, this was an acting tour de force by yes, of course George Clooney, but especially by Shailene Woodley playing his older daughter. The incredibly understated story has me wondering about the book which I've just put on hold at the library. As with most Alexander Payne movies, there were some excellent scenes that will probably populate my brain for years and I always, always enjoy Judy Greer who steals every scene she appears in.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/descendants.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Footloose (2011)

2011-12-19T17:04:00.000-08:00

Given that nearly every scene in this movie was reproduced verbatim,* I can only conclude that the reason for remaking this classic was to save today's teenagers from the heavy synthesizer soundtrack of the original. The new Ren and Ariel do not have the--and I can't believe I'm saying this--gravitas of Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer, and Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell are no John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest,** but I greatly enjoyed this movie. Setting this version in the South was a brilliant move and it's so true to the original that it's fun to see the "quotes" of the original movie sprinkled throughout in costumes, props and dance moves.***

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/footloose.html

*Footloose was the first movie I saw without my parents. In fourth grade I went with Angie Fuller after school on a very rainy day and we were quite scandalized by the language. My family had the VHS tape growing up and at one point my brother astutely observed that we missed a lot of the jokes the first several times through due to being too young to understand them. Viewing this film, I was very pleased when the MTV films logo popped onto the screen because if anyone currently does teen movies well, it's them.

**I did particularly enjoy the increase in Ren's Uncle, Wes Warniker's character. He was great.

***However, there is much to discuss in the small changes. Original Footloose fans, let's discuss the changes and which were effective.

New Slippers!

2011-12-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

I used the rest of my birthday money to treat myself to delicious quality brand new sheepskin slippers. I've been walking around in thick socks, due to the lack of slippers so these are a vast improvement. I love how this pair have the cutaway, making them easy to get my feet into.

First wearing of the slippers! Sentinel is going through an interesting shoe phase and is busy checking out the news from my shoes.

Emu brand! Deliciously warm! Hopefully I'll be wearing them a very long time.

Why I can't currently live in a tiny house.

2011-12-13T17:53:00.000-08:00

The coat closet rod is full of MY coats. Matt's are on the door.

From left to right:

Red rain slicker, for when it's really pouring.
Bright yellow flagger coat I wear when bicycling
Tan mid-weight jacket and matching fetching cap
Cute jean jacket
Tan vintage car coat whose button fell off and I need to replace
Red vintage dressy coat with fabulous button
Vintage red wool coat for when the temperature is below 40 degrees (also includes fabulous black hat with built in scarf and matching thick suede gloves)
Cream cashmere blend winter coat for when the temperature is above 40 degrees (also includes cute checked cloth cap and leather gloves)

Ideally, I would have one coat that could go on the bike, dress up, dress down and become warmer and cooler as the temperature allowed. I'm sure such a coat exists, but I have yet to come across it, especially at my store of choice, Goodwill. But if I found such a coat, I would have to give up all the other ones, most of which I like a lot, for one reason or another.

Decorating is fun

2011-12-09T17:52:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed decorating at my Mom's house this afternoon. Mostly because last year she had handily taken pictures of each part of the house and included them in the boxes so all we had to do was find the object in the picture and put it in the proper place.

As there were a lot of boxes, this was a very good thing.

Afterward, we had delicious pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad. Yum!

What I want for Christmas

2011-12-09T17:51:00.000-08:00

Smart Car wants people to drive them. So they set up on Broadway, right across the park from my work. I wandered over and got a test drive and a ten dollar gift certificate to the Pearl Bakery. They were fun to drive and now I know what you can get me for Christmas.

Only $12,000-$17,000 and you can make my wish come true.

Three sentence movie reviews: Life After Tomorrow

2011-12-08T17:05:00.000-08:00

Someone once told me there was a documentary about the girls who were in Annie and a post at the library blog prompted me to put the movie on reserve. I didn't see a stage version of Annie until I was in my twenties, but the movie--and the movie soundtrack--was a big part of my childhood. It was fascinating to hear the stories of the girls in the Broadway show and on tour; some details were a bit horrifying (ten-year-olds at Studio 54! Where were their parents?) and some girls clearly never got over washing out at twelve, but the subject was fascinating and made the ending song particularly bittersweet.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2006/life_after_tomorrow.html

Requiem: Goodbye to dresses

2011-12-04T17:48:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of vintage dresses. I love them and at one time in my life, I wore them a lot. Alas, none of them fit now. I've decided to trade them in at my local vintage clothing store. But before they go, here's a tour of these great specimens, all pretty wrinkled due to being rolled up and stored in Rubbermaid containers for many years.

This dress always made me think of a young co-ed, graduated, single and with her first job at a publishing firm in New York City. I also loved the double breasted buttons which worked well for me in this configuration, but never work in coat formation.

And look at the tag! Miss Executive!

Pendleton Woolen Mills is an Oregon company and so I snapped up this suit just after moving here.

I loved the color. The skirt was very unattractive, being a gathered, pleated-at-the-waist, hitting-at-the-mid-calf monstrosity. I had designs of cutting it into something that would work better, but never did.

Ah! My coat in Massachusetts for a long while. It kept me warm on my cold winter morning walks to work.

I always felt like I was in the rock band Led Zeppelin when I put it on.

I love looking at old labels on dresses. Peck and Peck sounds great, doesn't it? And according to Wikipedia, it once was. I know I found this dress one of my go-to classics.

And here it is. It covers most of your body, but the cut is incredibly sexy when worn. It was my first realization that more clothing, properly cut, could be much hotter than wearing less clothing.

See those great seams that cut across the bodice? Those made the dress. It also had a side zipper, which I love! This is the dress I will miss the most.

For awhile, this was my go-to dress. It dressed up and down (in fact, I tore a tiny hole in the skirt while playing pool one time) and I loved the lace around the collar.

Nice, eh?

This was a great summer dress, and a bit revealing for my mid-twenties-aged fun. I wore tap pants and a sturdy bra and was quite cool.

I made this dress for a party. It was my first (and only, thus far) foray into sewing with slippery material. I looked good in it and somewhere I have a great picture of my spinning in a circle while wearing it.

This was a favorite dress in high school and beyond. I loved the seersucker and the simple cut and, it being the early 90s, I wore it in the winter with long johns and converse sneakers.

It had this funny detail on the front.

This was my first dress with a side zipper.

I bought this my senior year of high school and wore it a few times until the freshman 15 caught up with me.

The matching jacket is fabulous and I always felt very much the sophisticated 50s co-ed when I wore this. This was also the favorite of Alexsandra, the woman I was trading with. She said this designer mostly did sportswear, so this was an unusual piece.

Boston in the late 90s/early 2000s was a great place to find cheap vintage dresses. I think I paid $10.00 for this beauty. I loved the color, the belt and the detailing.

Wearing this, I felt like the young sophisticated woman about town.

Another great label! And this dress completely looks like it is styled in California.

Another good Boston buy. I bought this for then-boyfriend John's cousin Karen's wedding. John wore a suit and a green striped tie and we looked great. Everyone looked great! East Coast people know how to dress up at weddings.

Detail of the waist.

This dress doesn't look like much on the hanger, but I loved it because I could wear it any time of year due to the pink or grey. I bought it right before I left Boston and wore it at the going away party we had at the house. I also love that it's homemade and the skirt detail reminds me of those birthday cakes with dolls in them that were popular when I was growing up.

Bodice detail. Someone was a good seamstress.

Skirt detail. I wore this for a party at church and one of the women was overcome because she had made this exact dress for a dance in high school. "Warren, don't you remember this dress?" she excitedly exclaimed to her husband. Warren did not. She told me that she had made it in red and black, which caused a bit of talk at the time.

So ends my tour of dresses. Keep looking for a shot of me in my new dress. And when shopping for dresses in Portland, be sure to visit Alexsandra's Vintage Emporium. Those out of town can click on the link and you can shop there from your computer.

Just one thing: Shelves in Order

2011-12-03T18:01:00.000-08:00

Hey, no doubt you've read the fascinating post detailing the bathroom shelves becoming organized due to diligence, Ikea magazine boxes and a box cutter. No? Click here.

Mission for the week of December 4-10: Clean out uppermost shelf in pantry.

Future Patricia here! I've journeyed all the way from January 1, 2012 to tell you that I did not accomplish this mission and then never set a mission for the rest of the weeks in December. I was really busy actively avoiding preparing for Christmas which looked like a lot of reading and watching movies and not much doing anything else. "Just one thing" will return in 2012.

Three sentence movie reviews: Being Elmo

2011-12-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

"There's a whole movie about Elmo?" everyone asked me when I mentioned I was going to see it. I was unsure too, I mean, Elmo the slightly annoying after-my-time Sesame Street character? But it was a fabulous documentary, because it was the incredibly moving story of someone on a path he was supposed to be on, and a story that included Jim Henson, who always cheers me.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/being_elmo_a_puppeteers_journey.html

I saw this for free (Thanks Kelly!) but now that I've seen it I can recommend it for people to pay money to see.

Poem for November 2011: Solitude

2011-11-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

You can read Solitude by clicking on the link below. I can pretty much guarantee you know the first two lines.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175207

I was drawn to this poem because of two passing comments made in books I read this month. In Anne's House of Dreams, at one point Anne says to her friend something to the effect of, "you will have all the joys and sorrows a mother can expect." In Wendall Barry's A Place On Earth several of the characters experience great sorrow, but continue to go about their business, integrating the sorrow into their lives for the time being.

This was interesting to me because I feel as though today we do not accept sorrow as a normal part of life, but rather a misfortune which just happens to find us on occasion. This poem, especially the last lines, seem to refute this notion, saying instead that we all need to pass through sorrows to get to the "halls of pleasure."

I also spent the entire month debating the tone of this poem. Is it one of those nineteenth century instructional poem, basically saying, "unfortunate things happen, but you are better off looking on the bright side?" Or, instead, is it tinged with a bit of bitterness, with the ultimate meaning being, "people will be your friends when you are happy, but once you experience sadness, you are on your own." After a month of reciting, I'm inclined to the latter opinion and I think that the second conclusion is the correct one, and I offer the last six lines as proof:

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,

But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure

For a large and lordly train,

But one by one we must all file on

Through the narrow aisles of pain.

The bit of reading I did about the poem (okay, I just read one Wikipedia entry, it's not like they pay me for this gig) said that Wheeler Wilcox encountered a woman dressed in black crying by herself on a train. She spent the ride comforting her and the poem sprang from that experience.

I take comfort in this poem. It says my sorrows are okay.

As for memorization, it went in pretty easily, but I think it will be hard to retain, simply because the order of the things are easily jumbled. Sometimes when I'm reciting, my mind wanders and I discover I have skipped entirely one pair, usually feast/fast, but sometimes glad/sad. For this reason I will put it on daily rotation for December and January, just to solidify it.

Books read in November 2011

2011-11-30T18:59:00.000-08:00

Aside from the book group selection, I only read YA (aka "teen") books this month. For those of you looking to boost your book-reading bragging rights, YA books are good for that. They don't tend to take a lot of time to read, and some are very well written like this month's selection, A Monster Calls.

Read

A Place on Earth

Wendall Berry

Read for Kenton Book Club

Ah! After slogging grumpily through last month's selection, this was a breath of fresh air. It was hard to get into at first as I spent a lot of time thinking, "now who is this character again?" But that eventually resolved itself and the characters became known and the writing was just lovely. I hadn't read Wendall Berry before, but I'll seek him out again.

Anne's House of Dreams

L.M. Montgomery

After the scattershot nature of the previous "Anne" book, this was a welcome relief. This time, there was a narrative structure which vaulted this book in to the category of "my favorite book of the series so far." The cast of characters was varied and interesting and even characters from other books came to visit now and then. There was a very nice narrative arc, unseen in any of the other books. And I greatly enjoyed Anne and Gilbert as young marrieds, though Gilbert at times seems to just fill the "husband" character and not show much of his own character.

Jasper Jones

Craig Silvey

Read for Mock Printz

Of the grim/tense category that all these Mock Printz books seem to be, this falls into "tense." I found the writing for this novel very uneven. For example, the story goes along and I'm populating the pictures in my head based on the book and then suddenly it seems that it's the 1960s. Insert record needle scratching off record. What? Really? Huh. This happened several times: the mother seemed to be a normal book mother and then suddenly she wasn't, the love interest had a too-convenient part to play. Also, this book takes place in Australia, which normally is a fun thing, but this book had a lot of Australian things that it didn't bother to translate into American. And there was A LOT of cricket.

So I never really took to this book. But I did like the following passage:

"I take a small incendiary pull. Of course, it attacks my mouth and burns down the length of my throat. I gag immediately, wiping my lips, trying to keep my lungs at bay. I slant my head and pretend to read a label that isn't there through my clouding eyes. This shit is poison. And I realize I've been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I'd adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. I can't trust anything. If sex turns out to be this bad, I'm never reading again. At this rate, it will probably burn my dick and I'll end up with lesions."

Imaginary Girls

Nova Ren Suma

Read for Mock Printz

Another of the "tense" YA books for Mock Printz reading. I hope all these adolescents are learning to breathe in yoga classes, or they are going to be incredibly tightly wound. This was nicely written and I spent the book engaged with puzzling through it, trying to figure out just what was up. I think it will inspire lively discussion when we get to discuss it. But I didn't like it. The main character's sister was quite unlikable and she was the book, so I spent a lot of time in puzzling dislike. "What's her deal?" I kept wondering. I'm interested to see what others think.

A Monster Calls

Patrick Ness, Siobhan Dowd

Read for Mock Printz.

Seemingly all ten of our mock Printz books this year are either grim or tense and this one falls into the grim category, what with a thirteen year old's mother very sick with cancer and his father living across the Atlantic with a new family and him not getting along with his grandmother and all. But despite it being grim, it was a fabulous story and my favorite Mock Printz book so far. It's short and there are wonderful illustrations and I highly recommend it for anyone going through a situation that involves loss. Even if loss isn't currently a part of your life, this book is worth reading for its very moving story.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Laini Taylor

Read for Mock Printz

"This book is awesome! I'm totally giving it five stars!" was something I thought repeatedly as I gobbled up this book, right up until the last page when the author actually used the words "to be continued." Invoking the "to be continued" phrase automatically breaks my "series rule" which is as follows: The first book in a series must be a complete story on its own; the second book should be a happy surprise, not a given." Authors that can't be bothered to come to a clear break in their plot are, in my opinion, lazy and should be rewriting a bit more before publishing.

So, the ending was disappointing, but until then I couldn't get enough of this book what with the kick ass female character ("This should be a movie!" I thought several times before I remembered how well Hollywood manages to diminish strong women literary characters) wonderful fantastical elements and a very interesting puzzle to unravel. Highly recommended, even with the disappointing ending.

Shelter

Harlan Coben

Recommended by my friend Maureen with the caveat that this book breaks the "series rule" (The first book in a series must be a complete story on its own; the second book should be a happy surprise, not a given) I read this in a day. Despite my compulsitivity, this book was awful. The writing was bad (though did not approach Twilight-esqe levels) and I feel like Coben's approach to writing a "teen" book was to read about seven of them and then take every cliche possible and shove it in his book. Let's count them up. We have: 1)The essentially orphaned, and mostly unsupervised main character, 2)The loud, eccentric best friend who might as well be wearing a jester hat, lest you not get that he's supposed to be the comic relief 3)The prickly fat girl who wears a defensive shell a mile thick, but is hiding a heart of gold and has a secret 4)much plot development action involving cell phones and 5)a large population of adults who "just don't get it" 6)Teachers who are all apparently very angry former drill sargents.

You know what else this book set in the present day had? Nazis. Really? Yes really! Because there is no better antagonist than WWII era Germany. But wait, there's more! A Strip Club. Prostitution. Mysterious White Van. Strange Tattoos. Stranger Tattoo Artists. Thinking over all of these elements put together I feel a building rage at the pure stupidity of this book. One or two of these elements in the hands of someone who can write would have resulted in something worth my time. But at this point, all I can do is warn you away. Go ask a librarian for a good YA book and leave Harlan Coben to the airport-novel-reading adults.

Also? Incredibly dumb character name. Mickey Bolitar! He was born in the mid-90s, for god's sake, not the mid-50s. In fact, I just checked Wolfram Alpha and the graph of the Mickey distribution shows a dip down to pretty much zero in the mid-90s when this character would have been born. It's rank is beyond 1000 currently. Mickey Boliter! Stay away! Far away.

Started and did not finish--None

Just one thing: Curtains Up!

2011-11-27T19:50:00.000-08:00

As you will no doubtably have read over in this post, I have completed my mission of getting the curtains up. Yay me! I was (again) a day over as I apparently needed the entire week off of work before I could bother to sit down and actually get the curtains prettied up and put on the wall. Yep, I did an hour's worth of work on Tuesday, then nothing until a few hours on Saturday and more hours on Sunday.

Mission for the week of 11/27 to 12/3: get the bathroom shelves in order. What's up with them, anyway? On the plus side, last week I cleaned out under the bathroom sink without it even being a "just one thing." Well done!

Three sentence movie reviews: Hugo 3-D

2011-11-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

This was well acted, very pretty to look at, had an interesting plot and was, alas, very slow. This was also the first modern 3-D movie I've seen and I found the 3-D to be a very distracting experience. "More like a Viewmaster, than actual 3-D" the person behind me commented and I couldn't agree more.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/hugo_ver9.html

Bigger bread

2011-11-24T17:44:00.000-08:00

I found a pretty good "no knead" bread recipe, but it gave me two "bricks" or small flat loaves. Not exactly what I'm looking for for sandwiches and the like. Then I remembered my mother mentioning that she never could figure out how my grandmother's biscuits always came out so large until she realized her mother doubled the recipe and cut out the number for one recipe. I combined my two loaves into one and got a big loaf. See it there, on the left, as compared to its earlier friends on the right.

It was a little too big, as evidenced by this ooze. I'll make 2/3 of the recipe next time and see if that makes a difference.

Three sentence movie reviews: Heroes Season 1

2011-11-23T17:04:00.000-08:00

I had to start knitting again because I needed to somehow feel productive while watching,say, four straight episodes of this series. It also caused me to break my "watch one disk and then back to the library" rule because it was just so damn good. Though I was quite disappointed in the final episode, what came before was amazing in a way I haven't seen on a network series in forever--if ever.*

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0813715/episodes#season-1

*I mean, when was the last time you saw subtitles on a network show?

Just one thing: Supply Shop done

2011-11-19T09:13:00.000-08:00

Now that we are not a car-free household, the supply shop is much easier to carry off. Back in the day it would take two or three trips because while saran wrap isn't particularly heavy and kitchen sponges are not awkward to carry, laundry detergent IS quite heavy and toilet paper is quite awkward.

Now I just fill out my pre-printed list and let the car do the heavy lifting.

Mission for the week of 11/20 to 11/26: Curtains finished.

I finished the Roman Shades in September and bought curtains for the remaining two windows. I could just hang the curtains, but that would be too easy. I want to sew a border onto the curtains with the material for the shades. That will tie everything together, nicely. I don't have school all this week and so this project is perfect.

Three sentence movie reviews: Singles

2011-11-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

Hit with a massive wall of nostalgia from watching Pearl Jam 20, I had an intense craving to watch this movie, which I own. Alas, I own it only on videocassette and our DVD/VCR combo player bit the dust, only to be replaced by a DVD-only player necessitating me ordering this movie on DVD from the library. It's been several years since I have seen it, but I still enjoyed it as this is a movie I can't be objective about--it has changed in my mind from a movie to a "conduit to visit emotional states from many different points over a good decade or so of your life."

Note that this was a pretty basic DVD of the movie including only the trailer and two deleted scenes. Perhaps for the 20 (!) year anniversary next year we could have something that at least gives us a director's commentary?

poster from:http://www.impawards.com/1992/singles.html

Perk

2011-11-17T09:30:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of good things about my job: I get full medical and dental benefits paid for, I get copious amounts of vacation, I get a reduced schedule during the summer and I enjoy the people I work with. But some of the best perks are the random gifts from children. In this case, Leo and Cian decided they wanted to make hot chocolate mix for all the teachers, etc. So they came around with order forms after school one day and we all placed our order. The next day I was greeted with a delightful package of homemade hot chocolate mix.

Complete with instructions and picture.

Here was my order form. "You can get more than one kind," said Cian. So I checked two kinds. I got both kinds in one package. Altogether, salted caramel and peppermint work fairly well when combined.

Thanks Leo and Cian, for making my day.

Just one thing: Corn stored.

2011-11-13T09:12:00.000-08:00

Oh, alas. As I say in my post about the winnowing of the corn, it's very difficult to get started on something I've never done before. Plus, I had a party to prepare for, and that was taking a lot of my energy. So I didn't do this by Saturday, which was my goal, but I did finish it on Sunday which was only one day late. (This may become a theme for "Just one thing")

Mission for the week of 11/13 to 11/19: Supply Shop. Theoretically, every three months, I buy all the basic items for the house: toilet paper, waxed paper, cling wrap, etc. In actuality, I mostly put off doing the supply shop until we are down to one roll of toilet paper. The toilet paper is getting low, so it must be time for a shop.

Pub Quiz Questions 16-20, plus the dreaded fill in.

2011-11-12T09:32:00.001-08:00

The last of the pub quiz questions. How are you doing? If only you had a team to depend on.

16. The city of Boise, Idaho supposedly came by its name when a French speaking guide, overwhelmed by weeks in the desert-style terrain of what is now called southern Idaho, saw signs of what is now called the Boise river and was overcome, yelling "The Blank! The Blank!" What word, or it's English translation was he shouting?
17. The original trivial pursuit game had the following colors of pie: blue, pink, yellow, brown, green & orange. The original categories were: Art & Literature, Entertainment, Geography, History, Science & Nature, Sports and Leisure. Match at least two colors to their correct categories.

18. The planet Uranus, aside from giving people the opportunity to say "heh" on a regular basis, has 27 moons all named after characters of William Shakespeare and also Alexander Pope. Which of the following list of characters from Shakespeare is not also a moon of Uranus? Anne, Bianca, Cordelia, Desdemona, Margaret, Oberon

Bonus: Match any of the characters listed to their play. Maximum 2 points.

19. Rob Thomas, creator of the television series Veronica Mars, originally wrote a teen detective novel with a male protagonist whose father was a Vice Principal at the high school he attended in Austin, Texas. For the television series he changed the unnamed teenage detective from a male to a named female, Veronica Mars, and the setting to Neptune California. He also changed the father's occupation. In the television series, what was Keith Mars' occupation?

20. This Author was born April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, MD, though she grew up in rural Kentucky. She has published novels such as The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven, essays such as High Tide in Tucson, as well as non-fiction books. One of her books was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club book, another became a best-seller about eating locally. What is this author's name?

The dreaded fill in. Or: It could be anything!

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Robert Frost

Nature's first _________ is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a ________;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to ______.

So ________ sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to ________.

Nothing gold can stay.

Answers below:

16. Bois! Trees!

All the Boise people know this story like the back of their hand. Although I think in French I learned the word is "boit" meaning "forest." I think.

17. Blue: Geography, Pink: Entertainment, Yellow: History, Brown: Arts & Literature, Green: Science & Nature, Orange: Sports and Leisure

There were apparently a goodly number of Trivial Pursuit players as all teams were able to match two.

18. Anne (Richard III) does not have a moon named after her.

The rest do and they are from:

Bianca, (Taming of the Shrew)

Cordelia (King Lear)

Desdemona (Othello),

Margaret (Much Ado About Nothing)

Oberon (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

The bonus question that was easier than the original question. Nearly every team correctly identified two characters in their plays. Nearly all picked Cordelia and Desdemona.

19. Private Investigator, Sheriff.

A question to reward those who love this show.

20. Barbara Kingsolver

This was one of those questions that I think would have had less correct answers with at a real pub quiz. My "pub" was packed with well-read women and I bet nearly every one of them had read at least one book by Kingsolver. My guess is the usual pub quiz crowd would not have that same demographic.

Fill in:

The dreaded fill in.

"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

Robert Frost

Nature's first GREEN is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a FLOWER;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to LEAF.

So EDEN sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to DAY.

Nothing gold can stay.

As with everything, this is so much easier when you know the poem. Most teams got two or three points from this. The best rhyme was from the Wasabi Honey Bears who felt the line was "Then leaf subsides to Omar Sharif"

Scoring: Two points for each right answer on the questions, one or two points for the bonus question, five points for the fill in. Total points possible this page: 17.

Post your scores. And thank you for playing.

pictures from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise,_Idaho

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&biw=1024&bih=600&gbv=2&q=trivial+pursuit+genus+edition&gs_upl=8434l9959l0l10796l10l9l0l3l3l1l216l1150l0.3.3l6l0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=8963689344025325423&sa=X&ei=Kk_NTonOLqjKiQKNoIX3Cw&ved=0CHUQ8wIwAg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Mars

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/

Pub Quiz Questions 11-15

2011-11-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

More questions from the 10 Years in Portland pub quiz. How are you doing?

11. An Homage to Trivial Pursuit* question: Circa 1984, what was the only NFL team to not have a logo on their helmet?

*My family plays the Trivial Pursuit often. The original box is full of out-of-date questions, referencing the USSR, people who have died, records that have been broken etc. So sometimes we have to preface our questions with "Circa 1984..."
12. In the movie Field of Dreams Kevin Costner met up with James Earl Jones, who played fictional reclusive author Terry Mann. In Shoeless Joe, the novel by W.P. Kinsella, the movie the novel is based on, what real life reclusive author did Ray Kinsella meet up with?

13. This actor was born June 28, 1966 and appeared in the movies Class, Sixteen Candles, The Journey of Natty Gann, Stand By Me, Eight Men Out and Say Anything. What is his name?

Bonus: In the movie Say Anything his character mentions three things he doesn't want to do as a career. What are those three things?

14. Patricia and Matt recently saw the movie "Attack the Block" in which a gang of South London teenagers mugging a woman are interrupted by an alien crashing into a car near them. Soon, many other aliens are crashing to the earth near their housing project. These explosions go unnoticed by everyone else because they blend in with the fireworks that are going off around the city as part of an annual celebration that happens every year in November. What annual November celebration in Great Britain includes a lot of fireworks?

15. Patricia used to live at the corner of SW Jefferson & SW Broadway before her beautiful building was torn down by the First Christian Church to make parking spaces and "luxury apartments." What Portland institution is still across the street from her former residence?

Answers! Coming right up!:

11. Cleveland Browns

Later, after everyone had left, Kevin told us that "Cleveland Brown" was also slang for a woman who was incredibly good looking until you got to her face. Good to know.

12. J. D. Salinger

Most everyone got this. Because how many "reclusive authors" are (or now: were) there, anyway?

13. John Cusak

13 Bonus: Sell anything, buy anything or process anything.

I think this question would have been a bit harder if the bonus question hadn't been there. Everyone got the question, no one got the bonus question.

14. Guy Fawkes Night

Julie, hailing from England, though living here for many years now, was one of the first to reply to my invitation. "Will I know any answers?" was her question. I said that I thought she would, and to sweeten the deal I would write a question that I knew she would know. Surprisingly, nearly every team knew this too. I guess more people are up on British holidays than I originally thought.

15. The Oregonian or Higgins.

I thought this might be a difficult one, but most teams consisted of people who knew me when I lived there. Joshin asked if I would have accepted "Gifford's Flowers" as an answer. It's the flower shop in the basement of the building. I said I would have. So if you answered Gifford's Flowers, give yourself points.

Scoring: Two points for each question, one point for bonus. Total points possible this round: 11.

pictures from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_helmet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoeless_Joe_(novel)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_candles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_the_Block

http://chatterbox.typepad.com/portlandarchitecture/2007/06/a_tragic_day_fo.html

Pub Quiz Questions 6-10

2011-11-12T09:31:00.001-08:00

Questions 6-10 for the 10 Years in Portland Pub Quiz. Play along at home.

6. Oregon celebrated its centennial beginning February 14, 1959. Who was governor of the state at that time?

7. Cameron Crowe's 1992 movie Singles captures the early 90s zeitgeist of a certain US city. Name the city.

Bonus: Which of the following people did NOT appear in the movie: Kyra Sedgewick, Matt Dillon, Kate Hudson, Eddie Vedder.

8. The alphabet district is named after prominent (male) Portlanders of the 19th century. Name five streets in the alphabet district. (Note that in the early 2000s it was officially decided that one of the alphabet streets would be named after the slave in the Lewis & Clark Expedition, although that was already the name of the street)

9. Abigail Scott Duniway came to Oregon in 1852 and spent the majority of her life working for women's suffrage. In what year did she finally get to vote in an Oregon election? 1892, 1901, 1912, 1922

Bonus: Which prominent (male) Oregonian is she related to?

10. Patricia has lived in four states: Idaho, Missouri, Massachusetts & Oregon. Oregon is known as the Beaver State. What are the other states known as? Name two.

Bonus: Name all three

Answers be below!

6. Mark O. Hatfield

I thought that a number of people would get this because Hatfield died recently and there was a lot of coverage of his legacy. But only one group did.

7. Seattle

7 Bonus: Kate Hudson

This may have been the only question that every team got both the main question and the bonus question correct.

8. Ankeny, Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby, Raleigh, Savier, Thurman, Upshur, Vaugh, Wilson, York.

Every team could come up with at least five.

9. 1912 (Oregon became the seventh state to pass a women's suffrage amendment.)

9 Bonus: Harvey Scott, editor of the Oregonian.

There were a lot of 1922 guesses. Since national women's suffrage passed in 1920 with the 19th amendment, that would be be a bad guess. But that implies you know when the 19th Amendment passed. Which would probably mean that you were a history major.

Also, two teams wrote the answer to the bonus as "Scott" which was very clever on their part. I gave both of them the opportunity to tell me the rest of the Scott name and they could have the point. They both were abel to.

10. The Gem State, The Show Me State, The Bay State.

The genesis of this question? Here was my though process. "Oh! State names. Excellent. I can build it off of states I have lived in. Oregon, that one we will just tell people as they probably already know. Idaho. Tricky for people who haven't lived in Idaho. Missouri, easy as it's fairly unique. Then Massachusetts. The--. Huh. What the heck is Massachusetts?"

So not even the quiz master knew all the answers right off. After I looked it up, it was a duh moment. "Bay Staters" is a term used in Massachusetts like "Oregonian" is used in Oregon.

Score: Two points for each question answered correctly, one point for each bonus question answered correctly. Total points possible: 12. Post your scores below.

photos from:

http://lostoregon.org/2009/02/15/oregon-centennial-expo-1959/

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=singles&hl=en&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=jzGTQzTkNxQegM:&imgrefurl=http://www.amazon.com/Singles-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B0000028MA&docid=Ug_UeMK2txHy0M&imgurl=http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61G6ZP6A0PL._SL500_AA300_.jpg&w=300&h=300&ei=8CrNTpS3LcO0iQKf2f3vCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=176&vpy=160&dur=27&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=99&ty=103&sig=116650250524927252797&page=1&tbnh=114&tbnw=115&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1024&bih=600

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=alphabet+district+portland&hl=en&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=jNwN8rQjlfOh_M:&imgrefurl=http://museumofthecity.org/exhibit/growth-and-expansion-portland-oregon&docid=v6QzdoXu5V_tYM&imgurl=http://museumofthecity.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/exhibit-full-size-fluid/storage/asset/image/23/2011/8/Couch%2525E2%252580%252599s%252520Addition%252520Map,%2525201891.jpg&w=890&h=645&ei=EivNTsiGMOeniQL-y_jqCw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=280&vpy=274&dur=340&hovh=107&hovw=154&tx=153&ty=105&sig=116650250524927252797&page=3&tbnh=107&tbnw=154&start=32&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:32&biw=1024&bih=600

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Scott_Duniway

http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/flags/or_flag.htm

Pub Quiz Questions 1-5

2011-11-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

Pictures from the pub quiz are here, but below are the actual questions asked.

These are the first five questions (of twenty) from the Pub Quiz I hosted to celebrate 10 Years in Portland. How well would have you done? Would you have been an asset to your team? Answers below.
1. Bon Jovi's album New Jersey produced five Billboard "top 10" singles, which is the most top 10 hits for a rock album to date. Name one of those singles.

Bonus: Name the New Jersey City John Bon Jovi called home. (Probably useless hint: the song "Raise your hands" from the album "Slippery When Wet" ends with the name of this city.) New York, Detroit, Vancouver, London, (insert name here)

2. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie Series of books chronicles the journey of the Ingalls family across frontier America. Laura, one of the characters in the books, as well as the author, had three sisters. Name all four Ingalls girls.

Bonus: Name the books in which the sisters first appear.

3. In 1946, 1967, 1975, & 1986 this American League Team lost the World Series. Name the Team.

4. In 1804, the Lewis & Clark expedition set off to map the Louisiana Territory. On their journey, they established relationships with two dozen indigenous tribes as well as wintering at what we now call the Oregon Coast. They brought with them mapping equipment, scientific materials, journals as well as a Newfoundland dog and a slave. Along the way they "hired" an Indian interpreter who gave birth along the journey. Name at least two of the following: the dog, the slave, the Indian interpreter, her baby. (Identify who was who: Robert the dog, Mary the slave etc.)

Bonus: Name all of them.

5. Currently, only one person has ever won an Academy Award for both writing and acting. Who was this person, who won for adapted screenplay in 1995 (from a book by Jane Austin) and won an acting award in 1993 in a movie based on an E.M. Forester novel.

Are you ready for answers?

Question 1: Bad Medicine, I'll be there for you (both hit #1,) Born to be my Baby, Lay your Hands on Me, Living in Sin

Question 1 Bonus: Sayerville, New Jersey

Notes from the evening: Only one team (of five teams!) could correctly name ONE song from the New Jersey album. This astounding lack of knowledge about Bon Jovi has ensured that there will ALWAYS be a Bon Jovi question on every single pub quiz I write.

Question 2: Mary, Laura, Carrie, Grace

Notes from the evening: Every team could cough up Mary, Laura and Carrie, but only one team remembered Grace. Poor Grace. I'm guessing she wasn't in the TV show?

Question 2 Bonus: Mary, Laura. Little House in the Big Woods. Carrie, Little House on the Prairie. Grace. By the Shores of Silver Lake.

(Note that there was a general hue and cry that Carrie was in the Little House in the Big Woods. I did a skimming of the book before the quiz to check my work and did not find her there, but if someone tells me a page number, I will retract this statement.)

Question 3: Boston Red Sox

An easy question for anyone who has spent any time in Boston, even if they are not a baseball fan.

Question 4: Seaman the dog, York the slave, Sacajawea the Indian Interpreter, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau a.k.a. Little Pomp, or Pompy, her baby.

There were enough "born in Idaho, Oregon or Washington" people to ensure that many teams got all of these.

Question 5: Emma Thompson. (Acting: Howards End, Writing: Sense & Sensibility)

Interesting guesses (all men) and one team got it right!

Score two points for each question and one point for each bonus question. Total points possible this page: 12.

Big ship

2011-11-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

Man, what a gorgeous autumn day. I hope I appreciated it.

Often I see these big ships tied up (parked?) and wondered how they work. In town, near the bridges and the silos, they seem huge, but I bet on the ocean they seem very small. I wonder what it's like to be on one, how many people work on them and what their work is like. I also see the comparatively tiny lifeboats on the side and can't imagine ever needing to get into one. How does one find out what life on these ships is like?

Requiem: Workout Pants

2011-11-07T19:10:00.000-08:00

The black blob to the left of the pants is Antares, who did not wish to be photographed for this picture, but also did not wish to move.

I can recall a time in early college, when I realized I had owned a skirt for five whole years! That was the beginning of the realization that clothing could last a very long time and these pants here are an example. I've had them for nearly ten. I can remember when I bought them, as they were on sale at Meier and Frank (now officially Macy's) and were such a good deal I bought two pair. I was very excited and they went with me on many walks, jogs, bike rides and through a lot of work around the house. They were made from some sort of "wears like iron" polyester blend that just kept going and going. And going. In fact, for the last two years, I've hated these workout pants and wished I had others. This hatred was not enough for me to find new workout pants as the intersection of "in the mood to shop" "pants that fit" and price I feel is appropriate" (sixty dollars? For workout pants? You have to be kidding!) is an intersection I don't happen across overly often.

However, a Goodwill trip recently was fruitful and I am now the owner of two new pairs of workout pants (that cost $12.00 combined) and so I bid these pants a farewell (not, alas, fond as I let them overstay their welcome) thank them, and wish them a good journey.

Three sentence movie reviews: Margin Call

2011-11-01T19:00:00.000-07:00

I hadn't heard of this populated-with-excellent-actors-who-acted-excellently movie. Aside from the somewhat frequent use of the f-word, it was a bit old-fashioned in the contemplative way and I enjoyed going along for the ride. This is not a movie to begin watching late at night, for you will surely fall asleep, but on a rainy afternoon, immerse yourself in this.*

*Then get mad.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/margin_call.html

Poem for October: The Raven

2011-10-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

UNCLE! I cry UNCLE. I give up on this most delightful poem. A few things went wrong here. First off, it was too long to memorize over two months. I think my original assignment had me committing two to three stanzas per week to memory. That just wasn't possible, for on the best weeks I could get maybe a stanza into my brain. The second problem was the darn "archaic language" problem. I will most likely never in my life say the sentence "Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore." It's a great sentence. I love "dirge," "melancholy," and the alliteration of "burden bore," but so much "old fashioned" in one sentence just doesn't stick in my head.

This was an incredibly fun poem to memorize, full of fabulous alliteration, great turns of phrase and much drama. Rather than recite it in the boring "poetry recitation voice" you can actually act it out. But I just can't get it all in. I had thought of extending my memorization period into November, but I seem to be falling behind again and again and my frustration has grown, mirroring like the main character's journey with the Raven. So I'm letting this one go and learning a good lesson about biting off and chewing. For the record, I made it through 12 stanzas.

My favorite lines? "And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain/Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before."

I also loved the stanza that begins "Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing."

I'll look into a shorter Poe poem. His rhyme scheme is great and world choice is delightful. In the meantime, enjoy this as I did. Try reading it aloud.

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -

Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -

This it is, and nothing more,'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -

'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

`Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.

Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -

Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as `Nevermore.'

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -

Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'

Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

`Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -

Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore

Of "Never-nevermore."'

But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

`Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee

Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -

Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -

On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -

Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

`Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -

`Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted - nevermore!

(from http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html)

Books read in October

2011-10-31T15:26:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, 12 books read this month. With the Mock Printz, the read aloud that Matt and I are doing and the generally cold and dreary weather I have failed at my goal of reading no more than 75 books this year. Geez.

Read

Order of the Stick War & XP

Rich Berlew

Matt and I Read Aloud

Berlew leaves our Order in grave--literally, in one case--disorder by the end of this very thick book of comics.

Richard III

William Shakespeare

There are too many people! They all have the same name! I have no idea what's going on! Richard III spends a lot of time telling people how bad he is! But he really is!

As usual, much better when the actors bring it to life.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Jacqueline Kelly

Recommended by my friend Kristen, I liked this book for a variety of reasons. It was set in 1899, rural Texas, but the main character's family was quite well off. I feel like a lot of books set in the frontier west focus on the poor and struggling, so this was a nice change of pace. The main character was quite engaging, being the middle child with three brothers on either side. The struggles she had maturing into a new life stage were engaging, and her family was well formed for such a large bunch. Also, the writing was very good, especially for a YA novel. And it was funny in places, which always makes reading enjoyable. This would be a great book for someone who has never read--but is interested in--YA fiction.

One Day

David Nichols

Matt and I read aloud

This was a fabulous read-aloud book because the writing is quite good, the passages through life are very apt and the dialogue is a pleasure to speak. It is an even better read-aloud with your opposite sex significant other, because one of you can do the female parts and the other do the male parts. (I'm sure same sex couples would also have fun too.) Now that I've seen the movie I can heartily entreat you to bypass it altogether and just read the darn book.

13 Little Blue Envelopes

Maureen Johnson

I've been submerged in Shakespeaere, and the long slow and--frankly--very boring book One Hundred Years of Solitude for nearly a month. I've just received the Mock Printz list and noticed it contains 10 books all of which look to be rather tense and/or grim. There is going to be a lot of buckling down reading in the next few months. What to do? Realize that I haven't yet read anything by Maureen Johnson, wander over to the YA stacks and grab the first book I see by her. Then: devour it in a 24 hour period.

I've been meaning to check out Maureen Johnson since I began watching the Vlog Brothers, and I found her just as delightful as John Green was telling me she would be. This book had a great premise: Flighty Aunt sends niece a letter and money and tells her to follow the directions of that letter and the 12 following. It was fun and funny and had a plot twist I didn't anticipate. After clearing my head with this bit of delight I could plow through the last 40 pages of Marquez' tome. Maureen Johnson was just what the doctor (or perhaps Youth Librarian) ordered.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Read for Kenton Book Club

The nice thing about book club is that I'm forced to think more deeply about why I don't like books. In the normal order of things, I would have set this book down, bored and frustrated around page 50 and it would have been returned to the library eventually. Because we were discussing it for book group, I wanted to finish it, even though I didn't like it. First off, finishing it for book group sometimes pays off as with Inez of my Soul where there was a twist at the end that (mostly) made the book worth reading. This book, alas, had no such thing. But as it was such a long book (417 pages) I spent a very long time analyzing what I didn't like. And here is my list.

1) I think when this was written there wasn't really magical realism in literature and so it was this new crazy thing that everyone was quite astounded by. However, now that magical realism is everywhere, this book is just a so-so entry.

2)I was not a fan of the very fluid timeline. Several times I found myself wondering how old a character was, which took me out of the book.

3)The characters having the same names? Very confusing. And not in a good way.

4)The writing style (or translation) was not something that drew me in. I found it very flat.

5)I didn't really like any of the characters. And spending 417 pages with a bunch of people with the same name that you don't really like is not very fun.

6)I did, however, perfect the talent of falling asleep while balancing the book on my chest while reading this book.

Interestingly, the book club members didn't really like it either. Reactions ranged from "Well, I'm glad I have read it, though I didn't enjoy the reading" to "I absolutely loved this 25 years ago and spent this rereading wondering what I liked so much" to "I could have done with 50 years of solitude, but one hundred years was a bit much."

Despite our dislike, our discussion was rich and interesting.

The Order of the Stick: Start of Darkness

Rich Berlew

The book that we learn that Xykon is pure evil while Red Cloak is not actually evil, but has instead made a series of increasingly bad decisions.

(In our house this emerged as: "You know, I think Red Cloak is the George W. Bush, but Xykon is the Dick Cheney of the Order of the Stick World.")

Anne of Windy Poplars

L.M. Montgomery

I sort of get the feeling, reading this book, that L.M. Montgomery was often trapped in rooms with eccentric women who nattered on. I get this feeling mostly because Anne keeps getting trapped in rooms with eccentric women nattering on. Character development was nil here. Anne encounters different people over three years and manages to happily change all of their lives. Except that eight year old boy the author killed off so that another character could have a happy ending. She writes letters to Gilbert narrating her life, but we never hear anything from him. This lack of development of the main character's fiance seems like a rather large oversight. As their relationship has gotten more serious, we have heard less and less from him. And characters from the previous book are completely missing. What's up with Priscilla? How is she adjusting to being a minister's wife? I realize they live in different places now, but couldn't she even write?

I still enjoyed reading this, but I think Montgomery is coasting a bit. Also, the cover of the edition I read annoyed me. Here is Anne, a B.A. and principal of the school and they've got her walking around in dresses the length she would have worn as a fourteen year old. Where is her mature woman dress? Where?

Chime

Franny Billingsley

Read for Mock Printz

I sort of didn't like this book from the beginning and now I've read it to the end and can clearly state that I don't feel it was a good book. Let us examine the ways.

Setting. This book was ostensibly set in early 20th century small English village, though none of the characters struck me as anything other than modern in their thoughts, actions or deeds. If one of them would have pulled out a cell phone and started texting, I don't think it would have registered as something out of the ordinary. Also, there is a magical realism element to this novel, but it felt forced, as if everyone was trying very hard to talk about the witches, etc. but the effect was neither magical nor real to me.

Writing. The cover tells me it is a "beautifully written" book, but I found the style quite grating. The repetitive sentences were, I believe, supposed to give me insight into the tormented mind of the main character, but instead inspired a lot of tormentation of my mind. Perhaps the overwroght-ness would appeal better to a teenager. Also, I found the names of the magical elements rather immature in nature: Mucky Hand, Boggy Man. Grownups went around saying those names and I think grownups would not want to be uttering toddler-type names for long.

Characters. I got pretty clear pictures of the main ones, but things were a bit hazy with the narrative and everyone else sort of faded into the background.

Narrative. By the time the plot had wrapped itself up, nothing was a surprise to me, because so much of it had been hinted at before.

Blink & Caution

Tim Wynn-Jones

Read for Mock Printz

When I received the list of ten books to read for the Mock Printz discussion, I groaned. A cursory check revealed them to all be grim/tense. I'm a fan of grim/tense, though not for 10 books in a row. After wading through Chime, I got ready to force myself through this book. Happily, I was reminded that not all the books we read are bad.

This one fell into the "tense" category, but it was tense in a way that made me cast off my other reading and just rip through the book. The characters were great, incredibly likable, not perfect and street smart. I loved that it was set in Canada (authors live in Canada too? I had no idea!) and encompassed both city and country. This would be a great read for a reluctant boy reader and girls will like it too. There is mention of sex/amateur porn in the beginning, but it's alluded too and not graphic. Overall, a very good read and so far my favorite of the Mock Printz books I've read.

King John

Wm. Shakespeare

If you could sort my Goodreads Shakespeare reviews and read them all at once you would find they all say the same thing: Bor-ing! Boring, boring, boring! This one too. However, it does help to read them before we see the play as I discovered when we abruptly moved our tickets up a week and I hadn't read the fifth act. My mind wandered a lot more during that act then the others because I didn't know what was coming. So I will keep reading these boring plays before seeing them brought to life by actors who know what they are doing.

The Berlin Boxing Club

Robert Sharenow

Read for Mock Printz

In my normal reading life, I've been avoiding books about the Holocaust. I know that this period in world history provides a lot of drama and pathos and many themes to explore, but I'm tired of reading about it. So I avoid. But my Mock Printz booklist is apparently not aware of my "No Nazis" rule and so I read this book set in 1930's Berlin. I remarked earlier that my list of ten Mock Printz books are all either tense or depressing. This falls into the depressing category, with a bit of tension thrown in. Despite these marks against it, I liked the book. It was well written and I felt the plot brought to life the decreasing freedoms the Jewish people of Germany experienced in the 1930s. I've read about it in the history books, of course, but the main character's experience made it much more real. It was especially interesting to see the difference for the main character, who did not look Jewish and found it much easier to move about the streets, with his sister, who looked very Jewish and experienced much more harassment.

The boxing sections were interesting too. I was particularly taken with the idea of "the 300." That would be 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 50 pull ups and 50 minutes of running. In the book, Max Schmelling proscribed that daily fitness routine for aspiring boxers. Inspired, I attempted a 300 of my own, and like the main character's experience, my first 300 lackluster, clocking in only at was 51.

I felt that there could have been more illustrations and--contrary to my usual feelings--I would have liked some sort of epilogue. But this was a good read and I finished it ahead of schedule which I take to be a good sign. This is another "good for boys" book. If they are Jewish or into boxing I suspect they would like it that much more.

Started but did not finish.

The Way

Kristen Wolf

This was a promising book. A friend recommended it most forcefully. I started it, but got bogged down in other books that come with deadlines to finish so this went back to the library. Another time.

Day of the dead

2011-10-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

These little darlings are one of the children's choirs at church. They had a Day of the Dead song to perform and dressed the part.

"Just one thing" mission week of 10/30

2011-10-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

Take all the film plastic/hard plastic to the recycling center.

Much like the Goodwill, it's been too long.

"Just one thing" mission accomplished again.

2011-10-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

We (meaning Matt drove) took everything to Goodwill! It was such a relief. A lot of that stuff has been sitting on the shelf by the front door for more than a year, waiting to go to Goodwill. The shelf has been completely cleared off and I put it out on the parking strip as "free stuff." It was gone before we came home from the gym. So now I have a clear area by my door. The plan now is that we will keep anything that needs to go to Goodwill in a bag in our room, and the door will stay clear of debris. This feels much better. As a lot of the Goodwill stuff was stacked in the storage shed, it also allowed me to clear that space and move the potatoes out to the storage shed instead of having them stacked along the wall in my room. So two areas in the house are clear.

Also! I asked, and Goodwill took the broken printer and broken toaster. I thought we would have to make a separate trip to the recycling center, but they took everything! Hurrah!

Just what you need

2011-10-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

From the pile of useless advertisements that come by fax each week:

The time change is coming! Better stock up on your pencil sharpeners!

Foggy Birthday Morning

2011-10-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

I am a great fan of the fog as it is mysterious and always reminds me of South Boston, whose siting in Boston Harbor guaranteed a lot of foggy mornings. So it was lovely for someone to arrange fog for me on my birthday.

Just one thing mission one completed

2011-10-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

I envisioned "just one thing" as running Sunday through Saturday, but Saturday came and went and I still hadn't gotten the dryer vent tube. But I figure that I posted the original post on a Monday, so a task completed on Sunday still falls within the "week" qualifications. And on Sunday I completed my task. Dryer vent hose was bought, installed and the old one made its way to the trash can.

My "just one thing" task for this week: Goodwill run. I've got a ton of stuff to go.

The debut of "Just one thing"

2011-10-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

The house has been overwhelming me lately. I'm finding it hard to keep a basic level of "clean" much less all the little niggly things: the fan in the bathroom needs a scrubbing, there's that cobweb still hanging in the middle of the living room, the vacuum cleaner needs to get serviced, etc. etc.

So each week, I'm going to do just one thing per week. Ideally it will be on top of the weekly cleaning of the house, but if I don't get to cleaning the house, I don't. Matt tends to chip away at the cleaning each weekend anyway, even if he doesn't get all the way through the official list. I'll post my "one thing" on Sunday and update when I have done it. I will not make a list of five "one things," I will just do one thing. Because right now nothing is getting done. And if I can do four things in a month, that will be a great improvement.

My "one thing" this week? Buy a new dryer exhaust tube. Ours broke (well actually, I was cleaning the lint out of it and accidentally stuck my finger through it making a lovely hole which I temporarily fixed with packing tape topped with duct tape*) and there is a lot of dryer use in the house. I can see how the temporary fix could go on for months. But it won't. Because this is my one thing.

*and yes, I know that you shouldn't use duct tape for ducts anymore. It was just what we had on hand.

Three sentence movie reviews: Attack the Block

2011-10-15T14:08:00.000-07:00

This was a very fun movie which probably would have been even funnier if it had been subtitled as a lot of the British English mixed with the British slang flew past my ear. I loved the low production values, the characters were funny and sympathetic and the plot was interesting. Highly recommended, for people with the right frame of mind.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/intl/uk/2011/attack_the_block.html

Holy Peanuts Batman!

2011-10-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

I paid six dollars and something cents for this jar of peanut butter only a week ago. Today:

I've been sticking my head in the sand about the rising food costs, but this has shaken me out of it. I'm going to keep a closer eye on what I eat and how much it costs. Peanut butter is somewhat like water in our house in that both Matt and I dip into on a regular basis. Between us we easily finish a jar a week. But no longer for me. My average 2-oz serving of peanut butter now costs $0.44 which (in my mind) is the price of a candy bar. Of course, candy bars cost even more now.

House Frau and others

2011-10-08T07:25:00.000-07:00

When you don't have much clothing (and I have a goodly amount by choice, but not a ton) sometimes you need to wash everything. Other times I desire to be dressed because I have things to do around the house, but don't want to actually put on pants. What do I need? A House Frau dress. I've been wanting one for awhile and my trip to the Goodwill yielded this classic. I love it. It's a great color, not binding at all and, yes, incredibly unflattering. But that doesn't matter, because after this picture, the public won't see it.

It was a good Goodwill trip in other ways. I also got this great shell which is a bit more flattering than the House Frau dress.

And! In the Halloween section, of all places, I got this fabulous car coat which not only goes with the dress, it bridges the gap between the "too cold for no coat, too hot for the lightest weight coat." Yipee!

Poem for September: Coming soon.

2011-09-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

The poem for September is actually the poem for September and October, so tune in for the October 31 post to find out what the poem is. In the meantime, let's chat about how I keep all these poems in my head.

Or at least that was what this post was supposed to be about as I was going to have the plan in place by the time I got to this post. Alas, here I am with no plan. So we shall create one.

When I started the project, the plan was that I would work on the current month's poem daily and Sunday would be my review day. I knew the key to remembering all the poems would be to keep them fresh in my mind so I would recite all the poems in order from beginning to end weekly. This worked pretty well until I got about a year and a half in. Then there were too many poems to whip through on a Sunday. And Sunday turned out to not be such a good day for review anyway, as it doesn't usually involve a lot of biking or walking.

I find that I can usually remember the previous year's poems, the poem I'm working on and the previous month's poem, but have trouble remembering the previous six months poems. There seems to be a gap where the poem has to sit forgotten in the brain for a bit before it emerges into consciousness again.

So here's the new plan. I've typed a list of all the poems I've memorized. At this point, it's 31 poems. I've also got them listed quarterly by year. For instance: January, (2010--Invictus, 2011 The Pool Players) February (2010--February, 2011--Oranges) March (2009--Incident, 2010--Otherwise, 2011--Wild Geese) These are both in Excel so I can add to them as I add more poems. The plan will be that the current review is the current quarter we are in. September is the last month in the July/August/September quarter. Beginning in October I will review the poems in the October/November/December Quarter. I will also go back over the previous six months of poems.

I won't have to do this for each poem every day. In fact, that would be a bit of overkill. Instead, I can review one poem per day while I am dressing in the morning. I've started a hard copy poem book that contains each poem I've memorized. I will also make an extra copy of this book for my bag. A lot of my poem reciting happens when I'm walking or riding the bike. Having a secondary poem book to refer to will be handy for when the exact words don't come immediately in my head. Right now I get to a point like that and think, "damn it. Something, da dah, da dah da dah something." Then I have to remember to look it up when I get home which never happens.

The other thing I'm going to do is let the poems I don't really like go. Such is the case for 'Praise Song for the Day." (October 2010) It was a complex poem that I really didn't like by the end of last October when it was all stuck in my head. Looking at it now, I remember almost nothing of it. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the current month's poem and don't have the energy to shove it back in. I may come back to it someday, but not right now.

The September/October selection may bleed over into November. We shall see what October's memorization brings.

Books read in September

2011-09-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

Not an outstanding fiction month, but good enough.

Read

Mexican White Boy

Matt de la Pena

Recommended by Fabulous Librarian Deborah, I initially had to put down this YA novel because it was a bit too gritty for me. I get excited when I read YA literature that tells stories of other classes and cultures, yet the characters reminded me of the students I volunteered with at a middle school. Were they doing some of the things these characters were? Also, after all these years, I still feel uncomfortable with teenagers drinking. It throws me right back to my high school awkwardness around the issue. I didn't drink and I just wished that everyone else wouldn't either.

After a few weeks of separation, I nosed back into the pages and found that I couldn't let go of the characters. The main character's struggle--and his various ways of dealing with--not fitting into either world was gripping and I was incorrect in my prediction of what was up with his dad. There was one rather loose end left untied which I would have appreciated some clarity about, but otherwise, after my first reaction, I greatly enjoyed this book.

Silver Sparrow

Tayari Jones

I thought the shift in narrators mid-book was a particularly brilliant strategy. Up until the shift the book is interesting. How does it work when your dad has an entirely different "real" family and you are the secret family? But once we shift to the legitimate daughter's point of view the tension mounts as we explore the realities of her life.

I will be investigating this author's other work.

Fiona, Stolen Child

Gemma Whelan

Read for Kenton Library Book Club

Oh dear, this book was a steamin' heap of first novel cliches! Dead sister inspiring guilt? Check! Sexual abuse of main character? Check! Inability to deal with various aspects of life because of it? Check! Strained relationship with remaining sibling? Check! I sighed through every page and if it wasn't a book club book, I would have put it down. Interestingly, the author came to book group and chatted with us about the book. I enjoyed hearing about how she came to write this book. Talking with her, I could see how attached she was to her character and the novel itself, which she wrote over a period of ten years. I enjoyed her chatting, much more than I did the book. Based on this chatting when her next book appears, I'll dip into it and see if the second novel is more to my liking.

Spooky Little Girl

Laurie Notaro

There were clunky parts to this story and details that didn't quite match up. For instance my drug counselor boyfriend pointed out that drug tests are not like pregenancy tests. They come about in a different manner. However, I greatly enjoy reading people's imaginings of the afterlife and Notaro's was sparkly and interesting. It's a fun book that one shouldn't think too deeply about.

The Pot and How to Use It

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert is a funny man. Aside from the fact that he clearly loves movies, his writing style and general giddiness is one reason I love to read him. In this, he makes an argument for cooking with "the pot" by which he means a rice cooker. Apparently it's a one-pot cooking wonder. There's a line about men who cook in the introduction that slayed me and his argument was enough to convince me to buy a rice cooker, although I haven't done so at this juncture. Perhaps when I do get one, it won't die early on like the last one did.

Anne of the Island

L.M. Montgomery

Anne becomes a B.A. and we follow her through her college years. They go by fairly quickly in many very short chapters of three pages or so. As I was reading a chapter per day, it took forever to finish this book. Future chapter-per-day readers take note: combining several chapters together will help this seem to be shorter than four years. Though this was an enjoyable tale, I feel like Montgomery only has enough juice in her to develop one character per book. In this book it was Priscilla Grant, the somewhat spoiled, full-of-fun housemate of Anne. Everyone else remains shadows who flit through, including Roy Gardiner, whom Anne almost becomes engaged to. If there is any character I should have a good picture of it is him.

Aside from that (rather major) failing, it was still an enjoyable, entertaining book, and much more fun to read on a daily basis than Fiona, Stolen Child.

Partly Cloudy

Gary Soto

Half the poems are from teenaged girl's points of view and half are from their teenage boy counterpart. Only one poem did I find "keepable" so this book was not for me, but I'm not really the demographic.

Started and did not finish

You Learn by Living

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt has a very chatty writing style that I found enjoyable to read. However, I wasn't so much into self improvement when I was reading the book, and did not make much progress. I was not able to renew it, so back it went. I might pick it up again later when improvement to self is a more interesting idea.

Three sentence movie reviews: Mad Men Season II

2011-09-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

A friend commented that she couldn't watch this show because she always felt uncomfortable. And I have that feeling too when I watch--always unsure where the narrative will take me. But Don Draper is an enigma, especially for a television character and Peggy Olson I simply adore, making this some darn good TV.

poster from: http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Men-Season-Jon-Hamm/dp/B001GCUER0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318301768&sr=8-1

Three sentence movie reviews: Pearl Jam 20

2011-09-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of Pearl Jam's music and never have been, but I am a fan of Cameron Crowe and my friend Kelly is a fan of Pearl Jam and this documentary appeared on my radar somewhat near her birthday so off we went. With all that said, I LOVED this movie. It might have been the huge nostalgia factor--there is a ton of early footage--that reminded me of my youth spent having crushes on boys whose style looked an awful lot like early 90s Pearl Jam, or it might have been that everyone interviewed came off as nice and their story compelling and so I couldn't stop thinking about this movie for days.*

photo from: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pearl_jam_twenty/

*Please note that I've read now two scathing reviews of the movie and the Rotten Tomato meter is at this date at 68% for critics. So clearly I'm not the best judge. But note that the Audience Review on Rotten Tomatoes is 97%. So if you want to see this film, you are probably going to like it. As far as I'm concerned, Cameron Crowe could just make music documentaries from now on.

Three sentence movie reviews: Contagion

2011-09-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

Not a film to take your germ phobic friend to, it was fun to see the many famous and talented actors (including, as I realized three days later: "That was Lizzie! From the Pride and Prejudice Miniseries) wander through this film. But what I enjoyed the most was the exploration of the societal aspects of the epidemic: the closing of state borders, the rioting, the looting. One slight criticism: if the mortality rate was 40%, why did we never see anyone get sick and then recover?

Also, was this a movie that passed the Bechdel test? There were a goodly number of women it it not talking about a man, but did they ever talk to each other? Readers, weigh in.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/contagion.html

A bag of books for $5.00

2011-09-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

The Title Wave Bookstore, had a screaming deal: a bag of books (or other media) for $10.00. As I had a $5.00 gift certificate from volunteering for the Summer Reading program, I followed Kelly's lead and we made our way to the bookstore on a cold and rainy day. What I discovered? A lot of cookbooks! A lot of cookbooks that cost tons of money in the stores. I brought home a bunch and I will harvest the 3-5 recepies that appeal to me and then donate the books. What a deal!

Three sentence movie reviews: Horrible Bosses

2011-09-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

Matt and I thought we were seeing Bridesmaids, but apparently the truck stop movie theater switches its movies on Saturday, not Friday. So when it started, there was a moment of cognitive dissonance and confused discussion before we accepted our fate and settled in to this movie. However, as Matt pointed out, this was free of most of the usual "boy movie" fare (projectile vomiting, fart noises, diarrhea, overtly disgusting sex) and was rather witty, which made it a pretty enjoyable movie.

*That boss there on the right? That's Colin Farrell! I watched the entire movie and had no idea. None!

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/horrible_bosses_ver4.html

Mail mystery

2011-09-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

I received a mysterious package in the mail on Saturday. It consisted of a DFTBA* sticker and five of the postcards pictured below. Where did it come from? The return address gave no clue, and I had no idea who would send me Nerdfighter material.

Nerdfighters are, of course the awesome fans of John and Hank Green, known as the Vlogbrothers. They fight to decrease world suck and increase awesome. I've spoken of them before in this post. This random package had certainly increased my awesome, but where did it come from?

I set it aside, pondering it now and then over a few days. Then the answer came. It was Shawn from Pike Schemes, knowing my fandom of Nerdfiteria, had randomly sent me some postcards.

Thanks Shawn. You must be a Nerdfighter too!

*Don't Forget To Be Awesome! Which is a Nerdfighter's slogan.

Warrior Dash

2011-09-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

Who is this good looking couple and what could they be waiting for?

Why the Warrior Dash, of course. If you want to see Matt's Warrior Dash experience, click here.

Photos and Compliance.

2011-09-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

I’m a member of the Religious Education (RE) Committee at church. At my church Religious Educators were called Sunday School teachers when I was growing up. The RE Committee has many duties, one of which is to assist during trainings. Last night was the first night of the two-day teacher training before the start of the church school year and I and two of my fellow committee members were tasked with creating a sandwich dinner. One person did the “big shop” for supplies, and we all unloaded the food, chopped things, plated things, gathered enough plates, glasses and silverware for everyone and arranged everything buffet style.

As the teachers were going through the line, we observed, taking care of needs here and there; refilling water pitchers, chopping more tomato, picking up dropped items and exposing them, what have you. After everyone had been served, we served ourselves.

I was standing with my fellow committee members near the buffet table eating a rice cake sandwich and had just taken a rather large bite when a woman approached with a camera. She held it up, the now universal command of “arrange yourself for a portrait!” and my fellow committee members moved in on both sides of me. I don’t mind impromptu portraits, but was not really thrilled to be captured with a large amount of food in my mouth. Still, I made the best of the situation, shifting the food to the middle of my mouth, dropping the plate to waist level in anticipation that the photograph would be from the chest up and giving a great big closed mouth smile.

At that point, another woman noticed that I was holding the plate at waist level. “Patricia!” she said in a scolding voice, and held out her hands to me to take the plate. I handed it over, attempted to move some more food in my mouth with my hand and straightened back up for the picture that I was at this point not at all interested in being a part of.

“Are you done and ready for the photo?” The photographer asked in a rather dismissive tone, as if I was being the troublesome one.”

“Just take the picture.” My lack of enthusiasm came through despite the food in my mouth, I reassumed my closed mouth smile the picture was taken and we all moved on.

The incident was over, but sticks with me. Who was the rude one here? From the scolding tones of both the bystander woman and the photographer I am left with the impression that I was. But having a camera in one’s hand does not guarantee cooperative subjects. In fact, with the ubiquitous of cameras, we seem to have lost the ability to ask permission to take a photo, grandly assuming that everyone is ready to smile for the camera. The same photographer took many photos earlier when I was setting the food out. I was busy and concentrating on my work and so ignored her efforts and went about mine, but felt a twinge of annoyance and would have preferred not be photographed at that particular moment. Later, if she had asked to take my fellow committee members photo in appreciation of our efforts, I would have been able to say, “can you wait a minute, so I can finish chewing?” and posed in the grand style my women’s college social education has prepared me for. But she just held up her camera and assumed compliant subjects.

When I was growing up and film was expensive photos were comparatively rare. A few years ago, looking at the photos my friend had amassed from high school, I marveled that the number of photos she had taken of our entire high school experience was equal to perhaps a month of our photos taken today as we’re both bloggers. But when film was expensive, there was much more of an opt-out clause. In fact, several of my friends didn’t like having their photos taken at all, going so far as to hide their faces in the nearest corner to avoid the camera. With the expense of film removed from the process, one can now snap photos of the reluctant subject until they comply with our wishes. But should we?

I see the effects of digital photography at school. It has become another means of teachers for teaching, for illustrating the passages in their classrooms. At the beginning of the school year, the teachers take close-up portraits of students, enlarge them and hang them on the wall with the students’ names. They tend to do this at recess, and I watch their progress as they work through their class list. Every student complies, standing at attention, smiling for the camera. None of today’s generation seems to be camera shy and I don’t think it occurs to them they could be, as the digital photography revolution happened before their birth.

Still, I think people with cameras in hand should keep in mind that the photograph they would like to capture isn’t necessarily a priority for the people in the photograph. A simple, “May I take your photo?” would be helpful to those who are not willing to be photographed, either in the moment, or ever. And when asking, photographers need to leave room for a gracious “No thank you.” For whatever reasons.

Three sentence movie reviews: Stand By Me

2011-09-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

I saw this movie once when I was thirteen or so and clearly it made an impression on me as I discovered with this re-watching. Nearly every scene was seared onto my brain from that one viewing. This holds up remarkably well and has excellent performances by all the boys, but especially, I thought, Will Wheaton.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1986/stand_by_me.html

I think my favorite thing about this poster is the folds in it.

Poem for August: Mentor

2011-08-31T15:24:00.000-07:00

Another modern one, so you must click on the link: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/163.html

Poetry that rhymes is much easier to memorize, in my opinion. It's probably because I am walking or riding my bike while memorizing and the beat of the words meshes nicely with the beat of the poem. I'm not a poet, but sometimes I think the imposed structure of "must rhyme" would be an interesting guideline while writing. It seems that most modern poets aren't so interested in the whole rhyme scheme thing, which is cool, but the rhyme was what attracted me to this poem. I was interested to note that the poem was originally published in a poetry journal completely dedicated to metrical poetry and I thought I should check out this journal. Alas, it was last published in 2004 according to a wiki stub.

Oh well, I'll have to find my metered poems elsewhere. Like, say: the past. Stay tuned.

Books read in August

2011-08-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

A variety of reading styles this month: several "read aloud" volumes were finished, a poem book, book group books, a play, and an excellent piece of thick juicy fiction. But wait, there's more! Read on to find out what other winners there were this month.

Read

All Night Lingo Tango

Barbara Hamby

These were enjoyable poems by someone I would guess is either a night owl or has insomnia issues. Hence all the classic movie references. The middle section are sonnets and reading them, I was quite confused as they did not follow the sonnet format I had read about. However, at the end, Hamby explains they are what she calls abecedarian sonnets, which she explains as, "There's one poem for each letter of the alphabet, each poem except one opening with its title letter and then following the alphabet through the poem." When I looked back, I saw this was true and found this to be a rather amazing feat of writing.

Favorite poems:

Sonnets from the Psalms
Ode to Airheads, Hairdos, Trains to and from Paris
I find an Entrance to Hell
Ode to Cake, Catcalls, Eggs with a Minor Scary Reference to the End of the World
Ode to Little Boys

Anne of Avonlea

L. M. Mongomery

I found the incredibly underdeveloped character of Dora to be quite a distraction in this book. Davy, her mischievous twin was delightful in his badness, but she was a blank slate. Other than that, Anne's navigation through early adulthood (although that started sooner then as she is 17-18 in this book) was enjoyable. Some of the "teacher" chapters were particularly amusing.

Freddy and Fredericka

Mark Halprin

I got this book from a booklist at the library, one of those "if you like this, you might like this" sort of things. I can't find what the "this" was that led me to the book, but I quite indeed like this book and I'm thankful for the list for steering me to it.

In an alternate present, the Prince of Wales (Freddy, son of Phillipa, not Charles, son of Elizabeth) is sent by the mysterious Mr. Neil to travel incognito with his glamorous wife to conquer the United States of America. The book skewers everything: the British press, the American press, the monarchy, the parliamentary system, the constitutional form of government, political campaigns, etc. etc. etc.

It's also quite generous with its use of words. The "sending of Freddy to conquer the USA" is first breached on page 170, all that comes before is establishing background. Halprin is clearly not worried about electronic age readers attention spans as he often takes more than five pages to set up a hilarious scene, which results in the reader working for the laughter, but many funny moments. There are also several touching scenes, one of which brought tears to my eyes, which was unfortunate as I was riding the Max train at the time.

For a busy person who only has time now and again to dip into this book, I would say, don't bother. But if you have the time to put into it, this is a very rewarding read. Perhaps it will do for your next vacation, no?

My Antonia

Willa Cather

Read for Kenton Book Group.

Ah, there's nothing like settling in with a book that you know you enjoyed before. It was enjoyable this time too. I think Willa Cather is the landscape painter of early twentieth century fiction and not only that but she can spin a yarn, too. Both times I've read this book I've been on deadline (first for a "History of Westward Expansion" class in college, now for Kenton Book Club) and I probably wouldn't have made it through this book without the deadlines due to its early twentieth century "you have to pay attention" prose and it's meandering pace and my book ADD, but it is such a marvelous book I'm glad that I've twice had the incentive.

Pride & Prejudice

Jane Austin

Matt & I read aloud

I actually finished this earlier in the year by reading it in bits through Daily Lit. However, I forgot to mark that momentous occasion via Goodreads. I read for the second time this year, because it was my selection to bring along for "read aloud" on the Bike Trip. The book was chosen because Matt and his friend Jeff wandered through while I was watching the miniseries and they started making fun of the story, categorizing it as "Mr. Darcy needs fixing and once the lady does, he's so much better." This isn't the point of the story at all, but after making a few attempts at getting that point across that were resoundly booed by both Matt and Jeff, I figured it would be much better if Matt read it for himself. And so the book was chosen.

I find this book quite funny, and enjoyed the characters. There was a point where I felt the narrative was a bit slow (it was post-Lizzie's visit to see Mr. & Mrs. Collins and pre-Lydia's scandalous behavior) but the story is so rewarding, I can overlook that. It was fun to read aloud and do the different characters. I especially enjoyed being Mr. Collins. Also, Matt saw the error of his ways, which is always nice.

AND the introduction of the edition we read (1994 Tom Doherty Associates, LLC,) was quite good. It seems to not have an author listed, but was called "The Life and Times of Jane Austin."

Much Ado About Nothing

William Shakespeare

Rumor mongering can kill a girl. And don't you forget it. My favorite part? "Yeah, that Hero girl is dead, but my brother has a daughter just like her. You want to marry her?"

Yep. Those women sure are valued.

On Beauty

Zadie Smith

I've had a great streak of big, thick books about families. First there was Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, then Freddie and Fredericka by Mark Helprin. Now, another good entry comes from Ms. Smith, an author I've heard about, but never read.

I enjoyed wandering through the Beasley family's life, seeing the perspective from many different family members. I look forward to reading more of Zadie Smith.

The Order of the Stick Volume 2: No cure for the Paladin Blues

Rich Burlew

Matt & I read aloud.

The story continues with humor and more stick figures. The humor included a joke about a druid and a tree that had me laughing so hard we had to pause while I moved into silent laughter territory.

Order of the Stick, on the Origin of PC

Rich Berlew

Matt & I read aloud.

I'm a sucker for back stories, so I was happy with this slim volume in the OOTS canon.

A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood

I found this to be very spare writing that normally I would discard before I read too far in the book. Only the fact that I was constantly comparing it to the movie kept me reading. The characters in the movie were flavors of the characters in the book and the "one day" premise was the same, but many other things were very different. I did appreciate, as someone in one of the movie commentaries pointed out, that Isherwood was writing very matter of factly about the gay "lifestyle" in 1962.

A New Earth

Eckart Tolle

The insomnia I thought I had banished forever returned this summer and because I was not required to be at work at a certain time I was not proactive in getting rid of the insomnia by setting firm "go to bed/get up" times. What's a girl to do for and hour or two when she's awake in the middle of the night?

It turns out, listening to Mr. Tolle read this book was a highlight of my summer. His quiet, oddly accented voice was incredibly calming, and I took away a lot of his "live in the now" philosophy. I glanced at a printed copy of this book at Powell's and I think I can say that I would not have made it through this book if I had to read it. It seemed a little bit dry on the page, but was quite interesting to listen to. If you have chunks of time where you can do nothing but listen this might be an enjoyable book for you.

If you say so

2011-08-31T07:06:00.000-07:00

While waiting for my haircut, I was amused by this ad for hair color:

Well, as long as it's the MOST masculine way to reduce grey...

And how do they quantify that, anyway? Were there studies?

6 Ranch pickup

2011-08-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

The beef has arrived! Our shipment of beef from 6 Ranch came today and the Aunts and I picked up our orders.

Aunt Pat writing the final check.

Liza Jane and her daughter unloading the truck.

People waiting. In the background you can see two women dividing their order.

It's nice to have a full freezer of beef again. If you are interested in ordering grass fed beef from 6 Ranch, you can go to their web site: http://www.6ranch.com/

Last day of Summer Reading Volunteering

2011-08-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

Today was the last day of my summer reading volunteer stint. It was a great volunteer gig. I showed up for two hours every Monday afternoon and assisted children 0-18 participating in the program. This involved stamping their summer reading passport and letting them select a prize depending on what level they had achieved. This took about 15 minutes total of every two hour shift. The rest of the time I caught up on my own summer reading, watched the patrons in the library and absorbed the varying hubbub that is my popular neighborhood library branch. It was a good way to end my Monday workdays.

Have you thought about volunteering for Summer Reading? They will need you next summer, so I encourage you to sign up. Just like my friend Kelly encouraged me to sign up. You won't be sorry. And you get a t-shirt!

Certificate has arrived.

2011-08-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Eight classes completed. Approximately $8000.00 spent to earn my Graduate Certificate in Middle School Math. The certificate arrived today. It's not so much a certificate as an approved form.

For the amount of time and effort I put into this, I think it's not too much to ask for something a little more diploma like and less bureaucratic.

But that's Portland State for you.

Three sentence movie reviews: One Day

2011-08-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

The thing I loved most about the book that this movie is based on is the numerous spot-on descriptions of life's passages between 22 and 42. There was no way the movie could depict these descriptions, leaving me to enjoy the passage of time through clothing, but little else. It wasn't a bad movie, it just paled in comparison to the book.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/one_day.html*

Also, I think there is an excessive amount of tongue in this movie poster. It makes me think "ew" every time I come across it in the paper. Even if it is two actors I find attractive.

Pride and Prejudice: Worst. Cover. Ever.

2011-08-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

When I go to Powells to purchase a classic, I'm always looking for the crappy paperback, of the $1.00 variety. Sadly, it seems that I need to employ a time machine to find that kind of book, as Powell's current prices bottom out at about $4.00. Or $3.95, which I paid for the copy of Pride and Prejudice (pictured below) to take on the bike tour. I might have paid a little more just because the cover to this book is so incredibly lame I still giggle with delight looking at it.

I initially judged this edition to be published in the early-to-mid-80s due to the Regency Romance type cover and was surprised to find the edition to be published in 1994. Note that it assures me right on the cover that this edition is "complete and unabridged." Um, yes, that is what I'm looking for.

It's a tossup which is my favorite part. The tagline "Mom's fishing for husbands--But the girls are hunting for love" is such a groaner and also not actually reflective of the story, as Matt exasperatedly pointed out before we were even halfway through our reading of the book.

Or perhaps I love most that Elizabeth Bennet, someone who in the novel does not yet have one and twenty years, is depicted as someone closer to my own current age cohort which is mid-to-late 30s. Quick, grab her Darcy, before middle age begins! Also, would Darcy have ever kissed her hand like that? I think not.

This edition, aside from meeting the high standard of delivering the complete and unabridged book, did contain an excellent introduction titled "The Life and Times of Jane Austin" which I found quite interesting and informative. So just one more reminder to never judge a book by its cover.

Three sentence movie reviews: Glee Season 1, Road to Regionals

2011-08-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

The second half of season one had many delightful moments, perhaps my favorite being the Madonna episode and also the Safety Dance flash mob scene where both Matt and myself felt sad because Artie is such a good dancer and we normally never get to see him move his feet. I found the Bohemian Rhapsody/birth scene to be a bit of a stretch, but as usual enjoyed the singing and the dancing. Matt and I watched a dance tutorial in the DVD extras that told us how to do a tiny bit of the "Rehab" dance and I was somewhat discouraged to realize that they were teaching us the dance at about one-quarter speed.*

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/tv/glee_ver12.html

*I have to say that the DVD extras were very informative on the subject of dance. I've noticed that often the main cast mostly does the "circle around the piano singing" style choreography, which I understand as I don't see how they all have time to learn all the songs as well as do the acting part and then throw in the dancing on top of that. So I'm always thrilled when we get to see dancing from "other schools" which are clearly populated by professional dancers who always cause our jaws to drop. Zach Woodlee's choreography is amazing. Although of the main cast, Matt is a huge fan of Heather Morris' (Brittany) dancing.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Good German

2011-08-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

This movie finally broke my streak of movies that contained good acting, good story, and were a little slow. I'm not sure how I missed this in the theater, as it has three actors I love to watch, and I appreciated their performances as well as the swelling 40s-style violins, the black and white film and the plot that kept me guessing. It was odd to see Toby Maguire as a morally compromised person, but that was just part of the fun.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2006/good_german.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Word Play

2011-08-17T19:52:00.001-07:00

I myself am not a crossword puzzle person, though I would like to be. I found the opening--where Will Shortz reads his mail--to be hilarious and the story surprisingly moving. There are "famous" people throughout this documentary, but I found the most interesting people to be the "only famous in the puzzle world" puzzle people.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2006/wordplay.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Where History Lives: A Tour of the White House

2011-08-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of Aaron Sorkin's TV series the West Wing for some time and I must confess that until I watched this DVD I didn't really understand what the actual West Wing was.* Luckily, I was hard up for movies and brought home this 30 minute DVD, hosted by Laura Bush, and it explained it to me. Thank goodness the library stocks such informative information.

No picture. Apparently informative DVDs don't have posters.

*This is much like me not really understanding that the US Capitol Building and the White House were not the same building. It was only when I visited Washington DC with my family as a 13 year old and saw they were two separate buildings that I realized that the White House was where the US President lived and the Capitol Building was where Congress did there work. Before the visit I could have drawn you pictures of both buildings, but they had joined in my mind as some hybrid where the president lived and the congress worked.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Chronicles of Riddick

2011-08-16T19:51:00.001-07:00

This seemed to have higher production values than Pitch Black, though I found the story less compelling. The sets were awesome and I enjoyed seeing the arc of Riddick. In fact, I wouldn't mind some more Riddick movies, though I think this one makes it a little impossible.

At this point, I've seen all the Vin Diesel movies the library owns, though IMDB tells me that the library doesn't own all Vin Diesel movies. I guess I'll eventually have to search out the rest and actually (gasp) PAY to watch them.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2004/chronicles_of_riddick_ver3.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Dark Fury

2011-08-16T19:51:00.000-07:00

We currently have at our house a borrowed copy of the DVD set of the Chronicles of Riddick Trilogy including this movie, Dark Fury. It's all packaged together and so I wasn't aware that this is a 30 minute animated "bridge" between two films. It was clearly drawn by people who think that Vin Diesel is one of the ugliest people on the planet, and thus was not really very fun to watch.

poster from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407658/

Three sentence movie reviews: The Thing Called Love

2011-08-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

I knew going into this that it was a really awful movie, but had hope that the scuttlebutt was wrong, as Peter Bogdanovitch was the director, plus Sandra Bullock and Durmot Mulroney starred along side River Phoenix (his last movie) and Samantha Mathis (who?*). But yes, it was that bad. There were a few lovely moments, and the commentary features make me like it a bit better, but mostly this is a "only if you have the flu" movie.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1993/thing_called_love.html

*the commentary alerted me to the fact that the studio was pushing her as a new big thing. I didn't recognize her at all, but IMDB helpfully informed me she stared as the "older Amy" in Little Women. Oh yeah, her.

Three sentence movie reviews: Pitch Black

2011-08-15T19:47:00.001-07:00

I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this film, which I was only watching due to the Vin Diesel Film Fest. My liking had to do with two main things aside from the presence of Mr. Diesel: 1) there's actually a strong woman character in this movie, much to my surprise and enjoyment 2) when the monster part comes, it's pitch black and so we never really see the monsters eat the people. This is apparently an overlooked movie, so perhaps my recommendation will spur you to seek it out.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2000/pitch_black_ver4.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Babies

2011-08-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

Note: this great swath of eight movies watched in four days was because I was working on the Roman shades for the front room and there was a lot of hand stitching, which called for a lot of movie watching.

Documentaries for me are like my sometimes feelings about exercise, namely they tend to be something I have to force myself to partake in and then I usually quite enjoy them. This was no different. With hardly a word, we get to experience the first years of four children in widely different settings, which was informative (so that's what they do when there are no diapers!) funny and moving.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2010/babies.html

Building Gone

2011-08-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

When we last checked in with the site of the former club Satyricon, it was in the process of being torn down. I'm midway through a three week vacation, so I haven't followed the daily progress, but I happened to be in the neighborhood today and so stopped by to update.

The building is completely gone, debris moved away and there begins to be a hole dug.

If you squint at the above picture you can barely see the little graffito in the middle of nowhere. Below is a closeup. My theory as to how it got painted in the middle of the wall? I think there was a window that was still operable when the building went up and someone opened it and muralized.

I have 8 pounds per year.

2011-08-13T07:29:00.000-07:00

Matt and I have been reading Pride and Prejudice where one of the general items of gossip is how many pounds various gentlemen have per year. Mr. Bingley is a good catch with four of five thousand pounds per year. Then Mr. Darcy enters the scene and is said to have ten thousand pounds per year. This circa 1800, so four or five thousand pounds will take you pretty far, but ten thousand? Wow.

I'm assuming that "having X number of pounds per year" means that the interest payments on your total fortune give you that amount to live on, though I'm not one hundred percent sure of this. However, my bank statement arrived the other day and I noticed that the quarterly interest on my savings account was $3.26. I multiplied that by four to get the yearly total ($13.04) and used google to convert the currency to pounds sterling. It turns out I have a fortune of $8.01 pounds per year. This in 2011, not 1800.

I see that there's no doubt about it. Of the characters in Pride and Prejudice, I would have been one of the maids. Or maybe in a few years I could be Hill, the housekeeper.

The new house on Omaha

2011-08-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Matt and I were walking back from some good BBQ at Seven Rivers BBQ and we stopped to check in with the lot where the tiny house was. As you can see, it is being replaced by a gargantuan house with very little yard. Alas.

Three sentence movie reviews: Invictus

2011-08-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

The theme for August movies seems to be "a bit slow" and this one was no different. The other theme is, "quite good acting, with enjoyable actors" and this movie fit that theme too. I was amused at all the lines of dialogue that clearly served only to inform the non-rugby understanding public of what the heck was going on, but overall, I was mostly bored.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/invictus.html

Three sentence movie reviews: A Single Man

2011-08-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

This was a gorgeous movie to look at and the acting was very good. It was clearly carefully composed, but somehow, it came off as a bit cold. I was drawn to the story and many elements were quite good, so I recommend it anyway.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2009/single_man.html

Subject headings

2011-08-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I amuse myself by searching the library catalogs subject headings. The minutia of these fascinate me. I first discovered their delight when reserving a season of the television show the Office, Season Two. Are you aware that one of the subject headings for the show is "Clerks--Pennsylvania--Scranton--Drama"? Another is "Office Politics--Pennsylvania--Scranton--Drama" But here's where the electronic catalog is much more fun than the card catalog. By a single click, I can find out how many other titles have the same detailed subject matter. In the case of the above subject matters, there are five other titles--all seasons of the Office.

But let us follow a trail of subject headings and see where they lead us. I've just put on reserve Eleanor Roosevelt's 1960 book You Learn by Living, which has the intriguing subject of "Conduct of life." There are 797 other titles following in the subject heading from Las 3 preguntes: Quien soy? Adonde voy? Con quien? to Zig Zigler's Life Lifters: Moments of Inspiration for Living Life Better. But going back to the subject heading, I see there are some other intriguing subjects nearby. First off, the catalog helpfully tells me there are 37 related subjects from "Benevolence" through "Folly" "Self-Interest" and "Reliability." But there are also a host of different categories of "Conduct of Life" from 15 separate categories for African Americans (boys, children, teenagers, men, Mississippi, women, quotations, etc.) to "Conduct of Life, Celebrities United States" which is at the bottom of the page. Clicking to the next page would undoubtedly open up a whole world of "Conduct of Life" but we'll continue our journey with "Conduct of Life Anecdotes" with 19 entries.

The entries in this contain a few Chicken Soup for the Soul books and two different titles about how John O'Hurley has learned about life from dogs. But we will click on the title: Artistic License: Three Centuries of Good Writing and Bad Behavior. This gives us three other subject headings, we'll go with "Authors--American, Anecdotes." This gives us three other titles, two of which have to do with animals: dogs and horses. Apparently a lot of American Authors write about animals. By clicking on Cold Noses, Warm Hearts: Beloved Dog Stories by Great Authors we will then find ourselves with new subject headings. I'm going to take a more general one, to try and get us out of this dog trail and so I will choose "Authors--Anecdotes" which gives me three more books.

This time I'll follow the trail of It Takes a Certain Type to be a Writer which only gives me one new heading, which I must follow: "Authorship--Miscellenea" which sends me only one new book, Lucky Break: How I Became a Writer. From there I can follow "Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)" which seems to be a broader category and it is, with 137 entries.

From there I can scroll and click until I find a book that interests me enough to put it on hold. The Multnomah County Library system has many small branches and one big library. Growing up, I usually found books to read at the Boise Public Library by wandering the stacks and grabbing what looked good to me. Now that the stacks at my local branch are much smaller and our library's hold system is so awesome, I tend to take recommendations from friends, newspapers and magazine and put them on hold. Scrolling through the subject headings is a new way for me to wander the stacks, at least virtually.

Three sentence movie reviews: Becoming Jane

2011-08-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

Enough of making movie adaptations about Jane Austin's works. Instead, why don't we see something about the author herself? This movie was a bit slow, but packed with very good actors and so was fun to watch.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2007/becoming_jane.html

Transparents are here

2011-08-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

The Transparent apples on my Aunt's tree are ripe which means it's time to make applesauce. Last year, Matt and I peeled and cored all the apples, but this year I'm just steaming them and putting them through the Squeezio Strainer.

I took home about 30 pounds and that was just a small fraction of the total number on the tree, even though this was a bad year for apples.

Books read in July

2011-07-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

The month in which Patricia sabotages her plan to read many fewer books than she read in 2010.

Read
The Hour I First Believed
Wally Lamb
This is a massively long book which I found to be a very, very good read. It wandered onto an additional tangent there near the end. I could have done without the Quaker/Abolitionist/Prison Reformer character/tangential side plot, but I was willing to because Wally Lamb is excellent at writing characters I want to keep reading. This novel is sweeping in that it covers, Columbine, the fallout from Hurricane Katrina and prison reform as well as family secrets large and small. Could it possibly be a bit over written? Possibly yes. Did I compulsively read until the end despite this fact? Yes indeed. In another nine years when Lamb finishes his next novel, I will happily line up to read that one too. Or wait to come across it in the library, which is what I did with this one.

The Tempest
William Shakespeare
Oh crap, we're seeing the Tempest tonight. That means I need to start and finish reading this play today. As usual, the Bard's words failed to move me, but the play was quite delightful.

Lost & Found
Geneen Roth
Roth uses the loss of her fortune (thanks, Bernie Madeoff!) to examine how her relationship with money is similar to her relationship with food, as well as how family experiences with money contributed to her view of, and management of her money.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Aimee Bender
Aside from having the best title of the year (I sometimes randomly say it to myself for fun) this is a wonderfully written piece of magical realism. In my view, the best magical realism causes me to think, "what would my life be like if that happened to me?" and this book kept me pondering, in many different ways, after I finished it and I'm guessing I will continue to think of it on and off for years.

It's also a my favorite kind of magical realism: somewhat impossible to make into a plausible film. That means I get to keep my own pictures in my head.

Red Hook Road
Ayelet Waldman
So Bildungsroman is a novel which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood, but what is the term (and it must have a somewhat Germanic sounding name) for a novel that examines the thoughts and motivations of a family, or group of characters, usually after some major event has happened. English majors, help me out here.

This is my favorite kind of novel. I get to drop in on a family, see what's going on, make judgements about their motivations, become attached to them and see how it all works out in approximately 500 pages or so. For a long time, I resisted reading Ayelet Waldmen because she's married to my Amazing 21st Century Novelist/Essayist Boyfriend (Michael Chabon) and I was worried that reading her might mess up my relationship with him, but it turns out we can all happily exist together and I have another good author to catch up with.

The Postmistress
Sarah Blake
Sort of a second-tier, Lifetime Movie or Hallmark Channel-esque entry into WWII US based fiction. It wasn't great, but I kept reading.

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy
Read for Kenton Library Book Group
I really hated this novel for the fact that it was too violent and there was never any explanation or explorations as to why the characters were so violent. I felt like I was trapped in a Quentin Tarantino film. I kept reading, hoping for something--anything--that would make me like this book, and also because I was reading it for book group. I never found anything to like, but in the book group discussion I learned that the premise of this book was based on a historical incident, which was interesting. Also that there is a free e-book available for those who want to delve into the nuances of the story.

While I was reading the book, I was explaining to someone that I had a bookmark advertising the movie Jayne Eyre in my copy of Blood Meridian and her comment was, "You need a bookmark for that book. Every time you open it, there's some sort of killing going on."

I really enjoyed "The Road" and "All the Pretty Horses" but I was not a fan of this book.

Gardening Without Water
Charlotte Greeno
I was hoping this was a comprehensive sort of book about storing a lot of water including step-by-step instructions as to how to build such a system for myself. Alas, it wasn't. It's an English book, so some things don't apply. Like she cut into her pipes to divert greywater into her shrubbery and observed that most pipes in England are on the outside of the house, so this is easy to do. Not so in America.

The Eyere Affair
Jasper Fforde
A quite delightful alternate-reality-English-special-forces-in-the-literary-sense book. I particularly enjoyed the Richard III as Rocky Horror Picture Show scene.

Freedom: A Novel
Jonathan Franzen

Yeah, so, WOW. There was so much to like about this book. It was huge. There were a lot of words. Paragraphs were very long and the semicolon was used to make sentences even longer. It was very observant about the quirks of late 20th/early 21st century US lifestyle. The writing was fabulous, so much so that I added at least seven quotes to my Goodreads quotes page. It is a novel I keep thinking about. And it was so well written that it took me more than a week to realize I didn't really like any of the characters. Really. They all were kind of icky in their own way, but so completely and competently drawn that I was so entangled with their lives and I didn't notice that I would not have enjoyed being their friends in real life.

Also, Richard's interview where he compares making music to manufacturing chicklets? Priceless. That along was worth the price of admission. But you also get numerous other human foibles and humerous situations included free! Read it today!

Started, did not finish

Great House

Nicole Krauss

I really tried to like this book, but the writing was spare and I couldn't get into the related short story setup.