Novembrance

Moving House

2009-06-06T16:49:00.004-04:00

Novembrance has moved to Kashkawan! Update your blogrolls, bookmarks, and feeds and follow me there--please?

Technical Difficulties

2009-06-03T11:19:00.003-04:00

I am frustrated to report that there seems to be a problem with the recipe titles in some copies of Comfortably Yum. The proof copy that I initially received was fine, but when I ordered a big box full of copies for Leonora to sell at The Country Goose, one copy out of the twenty had illegible titles. Since then, I've gotten reports from five friends whose copies have similar problems.

I am so sorry about this. If you have received an imperfect copy, please let me know so that I can complain (further and even more vociferously than I already have). If you ordered it through CreateSpace, here's a link that will let you order a replacement copy. If you ordered it through Amazon, click here to get a new copy sent to you.

Comfortably Yum

2009-05-21T06:19:00.007-04:00

Drum roll, please! My cookbook Comfortably Yum: Food for Body and Spirit is now available at an e-store near you! It will show up on Amazon sometime in the next week, but this link is working fine.

It's gratifying to hold a copy of it in my hands after so many months of work. Looking through it, I think it's a pretty great collection of recipes, and I'm very excited that all my favorites are now in one place. If you're new to my blog and wonder what kind of stuff you might find in the cookbook, click on any of the posts tagged Delicious Dish.

I owe big thanks to many people on Planet Blog for their generous support; all my readers are wonderful, but a few stand out. Deb Barshafsky and Charrette for coming up with the book's title. Kymburlee, Brillig, Annette Lyon, and Anne Bradshaw have been fabulous angels of generosity.

Now I think I'll go make something from Comfortably Yum to celebrate. Hmm...Sticky Toffee Pudding? Stuffed Mushrooms? Tuscan Chicken? Dulce de Leche Squares? So many choices....

**UPDATE** CreateSpace (the company I used to publish my book) DOES ship orders internationally. Those of you in Canada, Europe, and the U.K. should not have any problem using the link above to purchase my book.

Hey, Daniel Jude!

2009-05-21T06:00:00.001-04:00

Manhattanites often refer to children as "delicious." I never really understood this until I had kids of my own; now I totally get it. All of the adjectives I normally reserve for food--scrumptious, piquant, choice, and so on--perfectly describe the way I feel about interacting with my children.

Daniel was particularly delicious this morning as he crept downstairs at the crack of dawn, a huge grin on his face. He's five today, and our years together have been savory indeed. Here's to many more happy returns of the day!

Bon Anne-iversaire

2009-05-13T08:23:00.003-04:00

At this time on this day one year ago, I was undergoing a Caesarean section. It wasn't much fun, but the result was more than worth the trouble and pain. Happy Birthday, sweet Anne!

An Unexpected Tribute

2009-05-11T21:48:00.008-04:00

I am blessed. Unbeknownst to me, seven-year-old Tess entered a contest sponsored by the local Lions Club chapter. She wrote an essay nominating me for the annual "Mother of the Year" award. I'll type it exactly as it appears on her entry form:

My mom is important to our family and this community because...
She is kind. She helps our family stay healthy. There are six children in my family. My mom helps us learn and she cares for all of us. My mom is also an author and we like her books. She is helpful to our family. She makes us healthy food, she never leaves us alone. I know she is a good mother and always loves us. She is sweet, too. She is always good and helpful and sweet and kind. We love her and she loves us. When she has a hard time cleaning, we will help her. When mom wants us to get Anne to sleep, we did it kindly. When my mom is alone, we cheer her up by taking flowers to her.

I got a call from the Lions Club last week informing me that Tess had nominated me, and that we were invited to a special dinner at The Plumbush Inn. So tonight, Tess and I got dressed up and went, not really knowing what to expect.

It turns out there were four divisions in the contest: Kindergarten through 3rd Grade; Fourth through Eighth; High School; and Over 18. The Lion's Club members read all the letters without knowing who had written them and selected a winner in each category.

After we ate a lovely dinner with the Lions Club members and the other mothers and children, Tess read her entry aloud to the entire group. I received a beautiful bouquet of roses and a plaque naming me Mother of the Year, K-3 Division. The other three winning moms and I and our children had our photo taken for the local paper; here's one I asked someone to take of Tess and me.Personally, I really think it should have been a "Daughter of the Year" award; my darling girl made me feel so special and loved. Thanks, sweetie!

Stay on Target...Almost There...

2009-05-05T13:22:00.004-04:00

How patient you have been! My cookbook Comfortably Yum should be available on Amazon any day now. Check back here in a day or two, and I'll give you all the details. (Click on the image above for a larger view of the adorable cover designed by Gary Brown, my uber-talented brother-in-law.)

It's not you; it's me.

2009-04-28T08:33:00.015-04:00

"Oh, no," some of you are thinking. "I've heard those words before. I know what they mean." And you're partly right.

I've just gotten back from a ten-day trip Out West. I'm still re-adjusting to Eastern Daylight Time, not eating in restaurants at least once per day, and being a mom to more than one child. As I do so, I'm mulling over all I learned.

David Farland's Professional Writers' Workshop was worth every penny and minute invested. Dave is a guru, coach, talespinner, and incisive yet kind critic. I acquired much information that will improve both the quality of my storytelling and the quantity of my output. I got to know a group of writers whose skill sets, needs, and goals are very similar to mine, and I look forward to extensive interaction with them in the future. I left Saint George burning to closet myself and write, write, write. But of course, things are more complicated than that.

The garden needs to be planted (and weeded, oh yes, my precious). Baseball and lacrosse seasons are in full swing. We have concerts and recitals and birthdays, oh my! In other words, my real life is full and runneth over. How to fit in a bit more fiction writing time?

It's time for another round of streamlining of my daily schedule. Clearly I can't cut back on kid time or Patrick time or scriptures or exercise. The calling and the yard won't tolerate much skimping, either.

That leaves you, dear blogosphere. Both my reading and my posting have been erratic since Anne was born, so you've already gotten used to much less of my time and attention. I won't be gone forever, but don't expect a whole lot in the near future. This will be easier for you than it will be for me, I'm sure. I'm betting you won't even really notice.

Guest Appearance

2009-04-14T16:06:00.002-04:00

There's an oldie-but-goodie of mine posted over at the fabulous Dunhaven Place today.

Joyous Easter!

2009-04-11T08:11:00.003-04:00

He Is Not Here, by Walter Rane

THE DAWNING  
by George Herbert

Awake, sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns; 
Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth; 
Unfold thy forehead gathered into frowns: 
Thy Savior comes, and with him mirth: 
Awake, awake: 
And with a thankful heart his comforts take. 
But thou dost still lament, and pine and cry; 
And feel his death, but not his victory.
Arise sad heart, if thou dost not withstand, 
Christ’s resurrection thine may be: 
Do not by hanging down break from the hand 
Which as it riseth, raiseth thee: 
Arise, arise:  And with his burial-linen dry thine eyes: 
Christ left his grave-clothes, that we might, when grief 
Draws tears, or blood, not want an handkerchief.

A Grand Day Out

2009-04-09T21:29:00.013-04:00

City-wise, San Francisco was my first romance. Paris is magnificent and London is endlessly intriguing. Rome smote me with love at first sight, and I'm dying to go back. But New York? New York is home.

Patrick and I have been invited to Passover Dinner by our friends the Leibowitzes every year we've been married, and we've never missed it; last night was my 19th seder with them. (It was Patrick's 21st; he and David have been friends since college.) Passover is always a lovely event, marked by memorable conversation, beautiful and symbolic readings from the family's tattered haggadahs, and delicious food.

When I realized that Passover fell during the kids' spring break this year, I decided to make a day of it. I haven't taken the whole group for an outing in the City since last August, so we were definitely due. My plan was that we would first go to the American Museum of Natural History, have lunch at Shake Shack, then spend the afternoon at the playgrounds and small zoos in Central Park. Last, we'd buy flowers and meet Patrick at the home of our host and hostess.

The weather was brisk and partly cloudy; the kids were quickly glad I'd insisted on bringing their coats. They had forgotten how exposed you are when getting around in the City, but I had not.Our plan went off with only a couple of tiny hitches. When we pulled into parking at the museum, I realized that there were tons of school groups there and that the place would be packed. I polled everyone for their top three spots other than the special Climate Change exhibit we knew we wanted to see (because you could easily spend an entire day investigating all of the halls and exhibits); we came up with "space," "the bug room," and "the whale room."

The Climate Change exhibit is fantastic, but I'll take the big kids back and spend more time there when the museum is less crowded. Here are the kids ogling an ancient TRS-80 computer. I told them, "That's the computer we used in my first programming class when I was 14." I think they got a bit of a clue as to just how old I am. Since we know the museum's layout by heart, we got to our other favorite spots and had a satisfying visit.

Shake Shack did not disappoint. Anne had her first (and second through tenth at least) french fry.After lunch, we drove to the East Side and parked the car in the Leibowitzes' building. We then made our way to Central Park. The contrast between my City-raised kids and my country kids was entertaining. Tess still can't get over her amazement at elevators and subways, and Daniel took it as a personal affront that the dogs were so public about their "business."

Daniel has also decided he doesn't like "exercise" (walking), because it makes his legs "feel not good." Note, however, that whenever we stopped at a playground, he ran around like the happy, energetic young sprout that he is.Central Park Zoo was also a hit with everyone. Christian, James, and Hope waxed nostalgic, while Daniel and Tess discussed at great length the dramatic license taken by the makers of the film Madagascar. It's always great to be at the zoo when they feed the sea lions; Daniel announced that we need to get one of our own. "It will live in your bathtub," he declared.

We stopped at the Tisch Children's Zoo on the way back uptown:

On the way back to our friends' building, Daniel was definitely flagging. Pep talks and Skittles weren't as effective anymore, and I wondered whether we should pack it in and hail a cab. But no; Christian scooped up his little brother and carried him cheerfully on his shoulders for the last mile. My kids are amazing.

All in all, we walked just a few steps (284 to be exact, Jenna) shy of ten miles. The kids were pleasantly tired during the Seder, and we had a great time with our old friends. Oy, the chopped liver was to die for, and the brisket? Like buttah, dahling. The event would have been perfect if Tess hadn't suddenly come down with the stomach bug her sister had had the day before, but she handled herself with grace and a minimum of drama.

On the way home, I mentioned to Patrick that the day would have been perfect if he had been with us on our pre-dinner outings. He expressed the hope that our three-week trip to France in August will be a string of such days. I share that hope. Days like yesterday are the gems in the crown of life: precious, brilliant, and forever shining.

V3ry C00l

2009-04-05T21:21:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I'm late to the party. Back in February, Charrette blogged about a cool project her husband was doing with his New Media class at BYU. I was slammed with deadlines, but kept promising myself I'd check it out.

I finally got to it, and it was so worth it. My big boys and I snuggled up with the laptop tonight and watched all eleven webisodes--that's all there are so far--of the new webcast series The Book of Jer3miah. It sounds like a marathon, but it wasn't; each webisode is only about five minutes long.

I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory, and Jer3miah does not disappoint. It's alternately sad, suspenseful, creepy, and funny (hint: I love the elven-dressed, RPG-playing next-door neighbor and his secret-combination-obsessed roommate). After the first three episodes, it stops going "all Cloverfield" (as Christian put it) with the handheld camera and settles down into some pretty cool cinematography.

If you find yourself wanting more (and each webisode manages to leave its audience hanging over a cliff), there are two ancillary websites offering extra clues to the mysteries surrounding Jeremiah Whitney and his fate. The Davenport Papers looks like a social networking site, and zoobynews.com is the reporting outlet set up by one of Jer3miah's characters.

Go watch it! You can get caught up in inside of an hour--less time than it takes to watch an episode of Lost or 24. You can bet the boys and I will be tuning in every Friday from now on.

The Hills Were Alive

2009-04-03T17:04:00.006-04:00

Q: Has there ever been a more handsome Friedrich in musical theater history?
A: NO!

Our oldest son, Christian, was absolutely adorable (don't kill me, hon) in his high school's terrific production of The Sound of Music last weekend. Stay tuned; I'm hoping to upload a video of him as "The Lonely Goatherd" as soon as technology will allow. Thanks for the photos, Mary!

**UPDATED** Here it is (the sound problems resolve themselves after a few seconds):

A Story Finds a Home

2009-03-26T17:33:00.004-04:00

My short story "Truck Stop" appears in the latest issue of the new webzine Noctober. I must tell you: it's in excellent company. The other stories are really good; they tell of all sorts of creepy shenanigans involving coffee, ponds, paintings, carpets, and ivy. My favorites are "The Water Lily Room" and "The Garden Keeps His Confidences." Let me know what you think!

The Answer is No

2009-03-25T21:17:00.004-04:00

James got a subscription to Gourmet magazine for Christmas; every month, he pores over each glossy, fabulous issue and decides what to make. Last month, he chose Butterscotch Pudding; this month, he decided to try what was featured on the cover: Strawberry Mascarpone Tart.

Fueled by tonight's success, he's decided to make a Lemon Curd Pavlova with Mixed Berries for Easter. Don't think I'm limiting him to one recipe trial per month; he's just getting going.

Here he is with his masterpiece; we cut it and had a slice about 30 seconds after this photo was taken, and it was delicious. So no, the fruit hasn't fallen far from the tree. And this tree couldn't be prouder.

Only Just Out of Reach

2009-03-20T12:48:00.021-04:00

I've mentioned before that one of the great perqs of Patrick's job is that we often get invited to the openings of Broadway shows. Last night was such an occasion: we saw the much-herald revival of West Side Story.

I had high hopes; Bernstein's brilliant score and Sondheim's genius lyrics are some of my favorite in all of the musical theater repertoire. I adore the tragic story (Arthur Laurents's retelling of Romeo and Juliet) and its gritty setting (mid-1950s Manhattan). Jerome Robbins's choreography is iconic, as are the rival gangs the Sharks and the Jets. I wanted to love everything about this production.

The show had some truly great moments. Laurents, who directed, took some inspired liberties with his 52-year-old book. He had most of the Puerto Rican characters' dialogue translated into Spanish; "I Feel Pretty" and "A Boy Like That" were also sung in Spanish. This worked beautifully (with the help of some fabulous body language), giving the Sharks and their women both dignity and irony; the characters are more fully human now.

Josefina Scaglione was so lovely and convincing as Maria that I found myself thinking, "Natalie who?" Karen Oliva was nothing short of smoking hot as Anita; she went from sardonic to sexy to tragic with incredible ease and grace. I wish I could sit and watch her fantastico "América" over and over again. All of the Sharks were delicious to watch--whether they were mamboing or rumbling--ai, caramba!

Would that the Jets had fared as well. Matt Cavanaugh's Tony was my most bitter Broadway disappointment in many a moon. I could have forgiven how mousily unattractive he was (though you know it's bad when Chino, Maria's intended husband, is miles more handsome than her star-crossed lover is).

I have no such mercy in me for his wobbly, nasal singing or his brick-like delivery. I had hoped that "Something's Coming" or "Maria" would make me weep; instead I cringed as Cavanaugh dog-paddled through each of Bernstein's treacherous intervals and modulations. Bernstein's music is horrendously difficult, but you never want performers to make it sound harder than it is. The last thing the audience should be thinking at the end of the show is "Maria, honey, you can do better," but there it is.

Almost all of Tony's gang buddies were also lacking in charisma. Only three of "los Américanos" came through: as the tomboy Anybodys, Tro Shaw may have been channeling Susan Oakes (who played the character in the 1961 movie), but she chanelled well. Curtis Holbrook brought a 21st-century hyperactive viciousness to his portrayal of Action; he transformed "Gee, Officer Krupke" from slapstick to harrowing social commentary. Finally, as Kiddo, Nicholas Barasch sang "Somewhere" so angelically that the tears I'd been saving for Tony welled up unbidden.

To sum up, large portions of the show were thrilling; unfortunately, that meant that the awkward and flat moments stood out in greater relief. This revival wasn't the triumph I had hoped for, but maybe I've just gotten too picky.

Speaking of which, after nearly 15 years of opening nights in London and New York, we are now so jaded that being invited to the cast party after the show is no longer a thrill; we opted to drive straight home afterwards instead. But that didn't stop us from reaping one of our richest crops of celebrity sightings in a long while. Among those present in the theater last night were Christie Brinkley, Kathleen Turner, Vanessa Williams, Taye Diggs, Spike Lee, and Keith Carradine; celebrity couples Phil Donohue & Marlo Thomas and Diane Sawyer & Mike Nichols; and Sondheim and Laurents themselves.

I'm a lucky, lucky girl, I mused as we drove in the dark up the Palisades Parkway on the way home. I fully realize what a luxury it is to attend such events on the arm of a handsome man who loves me. I'll try to get over my guilt at not being able to pronounce the evening an unqualified success.

Confictionary

2009-03-10T15:55:00.021-04:00

In the spring of 2007, back when I was a fresh, young blogger, I dug into the latest issue of the delicious ezine Knitty, as I do every quarter. Doing so, I found this lovely article. Go read it; I'll wait.

As I'm sure you noticed, Annette's bio for the piece reads as follows:

Annette Lyon’s three greatest addictions are knitting, writing, and chocolate. Her life has been run by all three for most of her life, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
In addition to her freelance writing and editing work, she writes novels and couldn’t resist working a character knitting socks into one of them.

Ooh, she's a writer! I thought, and immediately clicked on the link to her website. To my great delight, I then realized that not only was she a fanatical knitter, a novelist, and a chocoholic, she was also LDS. We had everything important in common; I overcame my habitual shyness and wrote her a fannish email at once.

Annette graciously replied, and a friendship was born. We met for lunch that summer when I was out in Utah; we had as good a time in person as we did via e-correspondence. Since then, she has provided constructive critiques on my writing, helpful advice regarding manuscript submission, and a listening ear during my ongoing search for an agent. So when she asked whether I'd like to be a stop on the blog tour for her new book, Tower of Strength, I jumped at the chance. I'm so glad I did, since it meant I got my hands on a copy before most of the rest of the world.

Annette is a gifted writer and a meticulous researcher; reading her endnotes is almost as satisfying as reading the story itself. Her characters feel like people you meet every day, natural and approachable. Annette makes her settings accessible; the reader can easily picture herself in the shoes of the main character. The main story is a classic tale of overcoming loss to find new love, and suspenseful subplots add spice and depth to the narrative.

I never give spoilers, but I'll warn you: sit close to a tissue box once you get to the last chapter. For everyone who likes a little romance with their history (or vice versa), I highly recommend Tower of Strength as well as the earlier volumes in Annette's "Temple" series.

(Knitters, a hand-knit cabled pullover makes a cameo appearance in this book; maybe one day Annette will publish a book of patterns as a companion to her novels. Pretty please, Annette?)

After reading the book, I had a few questions for the author. Here they are, along with her replies:

1) In Tower of Strength, your two main characters don't meet one another for several chapters. This is unusual, at least in my experience of reading romantic stories, and serves to build quite a bit of suspense for the reader. Was this a conscious plot device, or did the story evolve organically in this way?

The irony is that I've always seen myself as someone who writes historical books that happen to have a romantic thread in them, not that I write romances in the typical sense. Because of that, I've never tried to model my stories after the traditional romance formula.

That's probably the long way of saying that the story unfolded that way organically. I personally had a great time getting to know the main characters before they met.

2) What, for you, is the biggest challenge in writing historical novels?

It really depends on the book. Since my historicals are all based on specific landmarks, I rarely go into the research with a story idea already in hand; I have to get to know the place first. At times it's unnerving to wait for the plot and characters to show up. Other times it's a challenge to make sure the history doesn't overshadow the story.

For this book, the biggest challenge was doing horse research and getting the horse scenes right. Those were rewritten over and over again. I think I might have shaved a few years off my life from banging my head against the keyboard so many times over them!

3) Your characters and settings are vivid, easily brought to life in the reader's mind. Would you like to see your Temple series produced as films someday?

First off, thanks! The places and people are clear in MY head, but as a writer, you never know if you've put enough on the page for the reader to see what you do.

It would be really neat to have a book made into a movie, but I doubt it will ever happen. Few book ever reach that point. I imagine the cost alone for a historical movie (sets, costumes, etc.) would be prohibitive.

On the other hand, there's always the worry of what the movie makers would do with the story--whether they'd be true to it, how they'd change it (because of course, stories have to change at bit in adaptation), and so on, and the original writer doesn't usually have much say.

But that's probably not an issue I'll have to face. (Although now I'm going to have to mentally cast Tabitha and Samuel . . .)

4) There are now well over 100 LDS Temples. How far do you see your series going?

My original thought was to just write the ones I could do as historicals--Mesa, Alberta, Hawaii, and so forth. About as modern as I wanted to get is London (1958).

That said, this will be the last temple book for awhile. Whether I do another will depend entirely on my publisher.

5) You've let your fans know that you have a variety of projects in various stages of production: another contemporary novel, a YA fantasy, and a chocolate cookbook, to name a few. How will you handle the cross-genre transitions?

I'll take a big gulp and do my best not to totally confuse my readership. :)

I'm not too concerned about my upcoming contemporary women's novel being a huge genre shift. My readership is largely women, so making that genre leap (historical romance to women's fiction) isn't as big a jump as other genres could be, and the topic (deployment) is so timely that I hope readers will pick it up regardless.

The cookbook should be an interesting experience, but I have a suspicion that people will buy that more for the chocolate recipes than for who wrote it, so again, I don't think fiction fans will have a problem. The YA fantasy--well, that IS different. But I'm so far away from publication on that one that I'm not thinking that far yet.

6) What's your best piece of advice for a writer hoping to break into the LDS fiction market?

Much of it would apply to almost anyone hoping to break into any market: Write. Rewrite. Rewrite some more. Read a lot. (And read as a writer.) Get solid feedback (joining a critique group was the best thing I ever did for my writing). Attend conferences. Network.

Also, make your own luck by meeting other writers and editors--whether that means virtually (such as through blogs) or in person at conferences. Find out what's been done, what hasn't been (and WHY on both counts). Figure out your market and its target audience. And then write what you love that will also fit into those requirements.

I'd never tell someone to sell out by putting aside what they love to write solely for the expectations of a market. But I'd also say that if you hope to sell your work, you will have to take the market you're shooting for into consideration.

I think there's usually a way to write what's in your heart AND make it fit the market.

Thank you, Annette! It has been an honor!

Good News

2009-03-04T08:33:00.009-05:00

There's nothing that chases away the late-winter blues like a fresh batch of good news. Here are a few items worthy of passing on:

Josi Kilpack's newest book, Lemon Tart, is the March selection for the Time Out for Women Book Club! As Josi mentions on her blog, TOFW chooses very few fiction titles, so this is indeed a huge deal. I got my own copy of Lemon Tart about a week ago; I can't wait to dive in and experience some delicious escape.

The Hunt for Dark Infinity, Book Two in James Dashner's The 13th Reality series, is shipping now via Amazon and will be in Barnes & Noble and Borders stores next week! My kids are all insane for Book One and can't wait to get their hands on this latest installment. (I love James's writing as well, so they'll be fighting me for it.)

Annette Lyon's latest Temple novel, Tower of Strength, is now available! I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy, and frankly, I can hardly wait to finish this post so that I can get back to it. Novembrance will be one of next week's stops on Annette's promotional blog tour, so check back here then to read my interview with her.

Fantasy writer Rebecca Weybright (apparently not her real name, oh the mystery) is editing a new speculative fiction webzine called Noctober. How could I not love it, with a name like that? I've read all five stories in the premiere issue, and I think they are great fun. The illustrious Kymburlee of Temporary? Insanity posted an interesting interview with Rebecca yesterday; you can bet that Noctober will be receiving a submission or two from me very soon.

Anyone who sings solos in church should own copies of the Sabbath Son g collections. (Anyone who doesn't, but loves good sacred music, should buy the CDs, recorded by baritone Clayne Robison.) They contain gorgeous pieces by two of my genius songwriting collaborators, Murray Boren and D. Fletcher, as well as many more selections by other prominent LDS composers; they are well worth your time. Sadly, none of my lyrics appear; we'll hope for Volume III.

Finally, for anyone local, our very own Christian will be playing the role of Friedrich in Haldane High School's production of "The Sound of Music" at the end of this month. It will be worth the price of admission just to see Christian as the lederhosen-clad Lonely Goatherd in the musical-within-a-musical (don't worry; I'll post photos when the time comes), though the whole production promises to be highly entertaining. The show runs Friday, March 27th through Sunday, March 29th; I couldn't be prouder.

Well, that's it for me; does anyone else have something worth sharing?

Read and Release

2009-02-26T08:38:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I was contemplating the bookshelves in our den, realizing it was time for a purge. Many, many books are keepers. Some I want to read again; I hope other people in our house will someday want to read them as well. Some have sentimental value, reminding me of a certain time in my life. Some are signed by author or illustrator; others are inscribed by friends or family members. In my opinion, there is no better room decoration than a shelf full of books.

But other books I can let go. Several years ago I sold a bunch on eBay, but that was more trouble than it was worth. I have donated many bags full to our local library; I like to imagine these rejects eventually finding a more appreciative permanent home. But right after my contemplative moment yesterday, I happened across something new.

Apparently, the latest cool thing in the online world of books is BookCrossing. Here's how it works. First, you read a book and register it online, receiving a unique number to put in the book and writing a journal entry about it. Then you 'release' the book: leave it at a café or on an airplane or park bench; give it or mail it to a friend; or drop it off at an official BookCrossing zone.

Eventually, someone will pick up the released book and read it. When that happens, the BookCrossing folks hope that this person will visit their website and record where it was found, what he or she thought of it--using the BookCrossing ID number--and release the book again. BookCrossing hopes to "make the world a library and recycle at the same time." I envision books circling the globe and picking up an interesting history all their own as they travel. It seems like pretty good karma to me.

Today I'm making a pile of books to register; later, I'll drive around and release them as fancy strikes me: at the bakery, the hair salon, or the laundromat; or maybe on the doorsteps of a few friends. Why don't you brush the dust off your non-permanent collection and join me?

It's Like He's Reading My Mind

2009-02-20T08:38:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Wondermark for quite some time, and artist David Malki never. Ever. Disappoints. Click here to see the above comic in its proper context.

There's a Book for That

2009-02-11T09:08:00.018-05:00

I've written here and here about my amazingly successful autodidact of a grandmother. She is the reason that, when I want to learn something new, I don't sign up for a class or ask someone for advice and hands-on help. Instead, I head for the library (or, increasingly these days, look online). I'm not saying that this is the best way to acquire a new skill; it's just my instinct.

It bothers me, not knowing things. It drives me crazy that I haven't been able to identify my favorite stand of trees in the median of the Palisades Parkway near Exit 5. Are the trees less beautiful--or, for that matter, less themselves--because I don't know their human-assigned designation?

And don't even get me started on the stars visible in the Northern Hemisphere, and how few constellations I can actually recognize. Somehow, if I could name them, they'd be more mine; I have a stronger connection with both things and people when I know more about them. I'm not saying that this is rational; it's just how I feel.

When Anne was struggling with sleep issues in January, I would rock her during the wee hours, all the while vowing to myself, "I've got to re-read Ferber." Morning came, and I never had the time; Anne eventually got back in her good sleeping pattern without my reviewing a book I once found crucial to maintaining sanity.

However, that midnight rumination caused me to realize that when I am faced with a crisis, I believe that the solution is more information, or better information, or a review of information that is no longer fresh in my mind. I'm not saying that this is true; it's just what I believe.

I often reinforce this with my children. Whether they are wondering how to spell 'Mississippi,' how to find the area of a circle, who Thomas Aquinas was, or how covalence works, I encourage them to look things up for themselves. I'm not saying I never give them the answer straight out; it's just that I believe this habit helps them become more self-reliant.

Hope turns ten in two weeks; I have come to terms with the fact that it's time for the "Our Changing Bodies" talk.* The way we discussed things with the boys doesn't feel quite right for Hope, for some reason, and I've been casting about for a new approach. Sure enough, Amazon seemed to have what I needed, and I'm once more armed with knowledge.

I remember vividly a book called Where Did I Come From? My dad gave it to me when I was Hope's age and left me to read it alone while babysitting. I was thrilled, thinking it would answer all my many questions about the pre-existence.

How very shocked I was to find out otherwise. I had many bird-and-bee-related questions, but was too shy to ask them; instead, I did further research the next time I went to the library. Sadly, the messy-sounding facts I'd read in that first book seemed to be corroborated, and weren't some horrible, sick joke.

Because that shock still resounds within me, I'm consciously going against my impulse simply to hand Hope a book and send her off to the window seat. I'm not saying that I'll do a better job explaining things than the experts I've recently consulted via printed page; it's just that in this case, I'm willing to brave blushes and eye rolls to make sure my girl gets good information presented appropriately and has all of her questions answered to her (and my) satisfaction.

* Of course we have basic conversations with all of the kids when they're much younger; but now it's time for the type of crucial details pre-adolescents need to know.

Wordless Wednesday: The Sleeping Muse

2009-02-04T10:27:00.001-05:00

The Parable of the Kevlar

2009-01-26T08:51:00.014-05:00

We didn't have much money when we first got married. Patrick was teaching school at first, then began law school at Columbia the next fall. Our financial situation was of great concern to Patrick's grandfather, who I'm sure imagined us scraping out a miserable existence in some little hovel on the edge of Harlem. Grandpa would send us packages of vitamins on a regular basis; he was very worried about my health, as well as that of his future great-grandchildren.

One day, a package from Grandpa arrived that was much larger than usual. We found inside not the usual bottles of pills, but a double bed-sized bedspread. Grandpa explained in the accompanying note that he was worried that we would not be warm enough at night in the winter to come. He'd seen this very warm and durable bedspread on sale and had thought of us at once.

(Little did Grandpa know that nearly every night of our 11 winters in Manhattan, we slept with the bedroom window open at least a crack. Energy-conscious officials should put addressing the chronically overzealous radiator heating systems of New York City's apartment buildings near the top of their lists when looking for ways to cut consumption and costs.)

Warm? Yes. Durable? Without a doubt. But also: the most hideous thing I had ever seen? Absolutely.

The bedspread is a denim grayish blue, one of my least favorite colors in the spectrum. It's spattered with little black and white and gray splotches, sort of Jackson Pollock-style, just not as cool. It's machine quilted with that transparent, stronger-than-the-cords-of-death nylon thread. And it's got thick black piping running all the way round the perimeter.

(Patrick would insert here that it's not that bad. He's not mistaken very often, but in this case? He's dead wrong.)

But we didn't have a bedspread, or really any substantial blanket-type bed covering, so we used it. I was grateful to have it, and don't worry: I thanked Grandpa profusely for it and his thoughtfulness on more than one occasion.

I thought we'd surely replace it after law school, one P was pulling in the big lawyer salary and we had our own bed out of storage once more (the married student housing in which we lived was furnished). But somehow in the years that followed, there were always other things we needed, and the bedspread hung around.

Once I tried to throw it out, but I discovered that my analytical husband has a bit of a sentimental streak. "It was a gift," he protested. "It was from the heart." I couldn't argue; I have hung onto plenty of stuff over the years purely because it reminds me of the giver. Then Grandpa died, and getting rid of the bedspread altogether was no longer an option.

For a long time, it lived in the linen closet and only emerged when we needed something to put on the futon when guests stayed over. Once we got the cat, though, it enjoyed both a second lease on life and a new name: The Kevlar.

Goldberry, like most cats, enjoys attacking things that move under cover--like bare, vulnerable feet, for example. Having a brain the size of a small bran muffin, Goldberry can't differentiate between feet moved in play and feet moved innocently in sleep at three o'clock in the morning. I don't think she bears us or our appendages any malice, but her claws are razor sharp, and she is very, very strong. Her midnight ambushes did little to foster bonds between owners and pet, to say the least.

I can't remember how we discovered that her claws couldn't penetrate Grandpa's gift, but once we did, the bedspread rarely left our bed. We could waggle our ankles and Goldberry could attack to her heart's content, with no one getting hurt in the process. I believe it was Patrick who, with the cat furiously biting and rabbit-footing the blanket surrounding his legs, cackled gleefully, "It's Kevlar, cat; knock yourself out."

I've contemplated recovering the Kevlar, making some sort of duvet cover for it out of fabric I actually like and wouldn't mind seeing on the bed. Doing so is low on my project list, though; it seems like I always have ten things more urgent to accomplish. Though I still find it hideous, it evokes fond memories every day when I make the bed, and it remains much-needed protection from nightly feline aggression. After nearly nineteen years, I've made my peace with the Kevlar.

We don't choose much about our lot in life; sometimes our circumstances seem unappealing indeed. But with time, we often find that those things we'd most like to change turn out to be the things that are most useful in difficult circumstances. Patience and faith can grant us a new perspective on even the ugliest of gifts, if we will only cultivate them.

Resources for Writers

2009-01-22T11:25:00.019-05:00

Long ago, I posted about resources I keep on my desk for use when I write; today, for your reading pleasure, I'll focus on online helps for writers. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but a writer should never feel alone when searching for help. The Web has so many sites for writers that one could easily spend all day perusing them instead of actually writing. Don't fall into that trap. Instead, use the sites listed below to help make the most of your writing.

All Writers:
William Shunn is a fabulous show-and-tell site illustrating exactly how to get your manuscript into the format that most publishing markets prefer.

Query Shark is another amazing show-and-tell site. It's the blog of prominent literary agent Janet Reid, who posts her edits of query letters submitted to her. My writer friend Melissa recently reminded me of this site, and I'm so glad she did. You can learn a ton by browsing through the archives and seeing what works (and what emphatically does not work) in a query letter. Ms. Reid doesn't call herself 'Shark' for nothing; she doesn't pull any punches. But she's always right, as far as I can see.

Scribophile touts itself as a free social networking site for writers, but I think it's more useful than that. Members can post works to be critiqued by peers and can critique the works of others in turn (there's a point system to it all). Writers can participate in forums for every interest from haiku to perfecting the art of speed pitching. Scribophile also hosts writing contests with some pretty sweet prizes. One runs the risk of spending a good bit of time vacuuming the cat here, but a motivated writer could also find a lot of help.

Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent is another blog, and that title always cracks me up (think "International Man of Mystery"). The San Francisco-based Nathan is young and looks like a surfer dude, but he's very much on the ball. He takes writing and publishing seriously, but is never self-important. Read his "Essentials" (links are halfway down on his sidebar), and you'll get a good and accurate education on the particulars of today's publishing world.

"Dave Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants" is an email series written by the phenomenally successful Dave Farland/David Wolverton. Dave is as generous as he is gifted, and that's really saying something. His goal is to remind people to write on a daily basis. He addresses all sorts of topics, often prompted by questions members of his large following send him. If you'd like to subscribe, email davidfarland@xmission.com and say "Kick me!"

Short Fiction Writers and Poets:
Duotrope's Digest is fantastic. It lists thousands of markets for all genres of short fiction and poetry and gives vital information on response times for each. It also has a terrific Submissions Tracker tool; I use it to keep track of where I've sent my stories. Duotrope is completely free, but if you find it useful, consider donating to the site to help keep it running.

Speculative Fiction Writers:
Whatever is the blog of science fiction writer John Scalzi. Scalzi is smart, successful, and endlessly entertaining (and his book Zoe's Tale made my 2008 Top Ten list). He hosts a regular series of interviews with other published writers called "The Big Idea"; these informative and inspiring posts outline how recently published writers came up with and developed their stories.

Submitting to the Black Hole is another website that lists response times, but it includes speculative fiction book publishers as well as short fiction markets. Believe me, when your story has been out in some editor's slush pile for weeks upon weeks, it can help calm anxiety to visit the Black Hole and realize that you are not alone. I always report my response times to both Duotrope and the Black Hole.

Ralan's Webstravaganza lists all kinds of markets for speculative fiction and humor writers: anthologies, books, and periodicals of every form and payscale. Ralan works very hard to keep his site updated and accurate, and often has the scoop on the newest changes to markets. He also gratefully accepts donations.

LDS Writers:
LDSStorymakers is a website devoted to the growing LDS publishing market. It includes links, a calendar of events, and a market directory. LDSStorymakers hosts a writers' conference every spring; see the website for more details.

The Association for Mormon Letters boasts a market directory as well as information on regional writers' guilds and an extensive review archive. The AML also publishes the periodical Irreantum twice yearly, which devotes space both to scholarly articles and to fiction and poetry.

There you have it: the online resources I've found most useful. Do you know of any I haven't mentioned? If so, please let me know!

May's Gift

2009-01-20T16:38:00.006-05:00

Annette tagged me with a photo meme, asking what the sixth picture in my sixth folder was. Here it is: James and Tess holding newly-brought-home Baby Anne back in May.

It's amazing to me how much James and Tess look alike in this photo, which is something I hadn't really considered before. I usually group James, Hope, and Anne in the 'looking like me' camp and Tess, Christian, and Daniel in the 'looking like Patrick' camp. It's fascinating how kids can look like both their parents when the parents don't resemble one another at all.

Also, Anne is huge now, and a fuzzy blonde to boot; all that dark hair she came with is gone. Oy, those kids: they're so delicious. I'd better stop, before I start crooning "Sunrise, Sunset" and weeping into my tea.

Thanks for the tag, Annette! I tag in turn Jenna, Kim, and Charrette.

There Is a Doctor in the House

2009-01-14T13:43:00.007-05:00

A couple of weeks ago at the dinner table, seven-year-old Tess was talking about Dr. Steele, her beloved eye doctor. Dr. Steele is one of the world's leading pediatric ophthalmic surgeons; he's done Tess's two surgeries, and she has seen him regularly since she was about two years old. He's handsome, kind, and has a fabulously high-tech Manhattan office.

Our twice-yearly visits to him usually follow this agenda: a) a movie in the car (we only use the DVD player on trips of an hour or longer); b) Tess's choice of candy from the newsstand down the street from the office; c) seeing the good doctor himself; d) getting a beany baby-like toy from his special drawer as a souvenir; e) lunch at Dallas BBQ across the street afterward; and f) a quick trip to the American Museum of Natural History on the way home. Tess loves everything about Dr. Steele (and our elaborate visiting ritual); she plans to become an eye doctor precisely so that she can join his practice in about twenty years.

Anyway, Tess was chattering about her next visit to Dr. Steele, how glad she is that he is her doctor, and how she couldn't wait to see him again, etc.

Four-year-old Daniel, clearly not wanting to be outdone, said, "I have a doctor, too."

We all looked at him; this was news to the entire family.

Daniel smiled and declared with perfect confidence, "His name is Dr. Seuss."

Glaring Omission

2009-01-12T09:47:00.010-05:00

I had to speak in church yesterday, and while I was preparing my remarks on Saturday, I realized I had left something huge off of my 'Best of 2008' list. A couple of you have probably been shaking your heads in puzzlement over this fact. I'm going to fix my post in just a minute, but I'll tell you about it in a little bit of detail here as well.

Last January, I joined Pezmama's online challenge to read The Bible in 90 days. I read every word from Genesis to Revelation, and on March 30th, I was feeling pretty good to be one of seven of the original 30 who actually finished. The weekly check-ins, daily page count guides, and periodical posts of progress and insight by group members were all huge helps. I read the King James Version, but other group members used other translations, which added interest and variety to our online discussions.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I decided to read the rest of my church's Standard Works of scripture in the next 90 days: The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price. A couple of good friends partnered up with me for this second challenge, and with their support, on June 30th I found myself reading the last verse of The Articles of Faith with a huge sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

That happy feeling of realizing a goal was second to the joy in the journey, however. Reading at such a fast pace did not lend itself to in-depth study, but I did see things I'd never seen so clearly before: overarching patterns, recurring themes, and how prophets have echoed and underscored one another through the ages. I got a keener sense of the symmetry and beauty of God's plan, and I think I had heightened abilities to deal with the many challenges of last May as a result.

How would I rank this accomplishment? It's definitely in the Top Five; it may even rank right under my #1. Would I do it again? Definitely; I highly recommend it. I'm enjoying the topic study I'm doing at the moment, but someday soon the mood may well strike me to gear up for another sprintathon through holy writ.

The Thing with Feathers

2009-01-05T10:51:00.018-05:00

I was looking for a quote on resolutions to kick off this post, but I got distracted by re-reading and snickering over my favorite 'demotivating' posters at the ever-fabulous Despair, Inc. Here I am again, and now I can't take any of the absolutely lovely sayings of Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, and the like seriously any more today. Go visit Despair, and you'll see what I mean.

Though I love a good bit of snark, I'm not a cynic, especially not when it comes to goals and dreams. I have a couple of resolutions that I'm keeping to myself for the moment, but I have some writing plans that I wanted to share. Here are a few of my goals for 2009:

1) Read 100 books.

I usually read close to 80 (and I do keep lists), but last year's unique circumstances only allowed me to get through about 40. Life's too short for numbers that low; assuming I live another 50 years, if I only average 40 books per year for the rest of my life, I will have only read another 2,000 books.

Depressing: I'm sure I could go on Amazon and find close to that 2,000 that look appealing right this very minute, and that doesn't take into account all of the treasures to be published in years to come. I like the number 5,000 much, much better. We'll see how it goes.

I believe very strongly that a writer must read as much as possible. The more you read, the better you'll write. Patrick, when reading this, will want to interject something here. Be patient, honey; "wait for it" (sorry--inside joke).

2) Sell a novel. I really don't mind which one.

On this very day one year ago, I mailed out ten query packages to agents and publishing houses. Over the next several months, I received eight rejections and had two non-responses; I still expect to hear from one of those, since the slush pile at that house is roughly 12 months deep, but the other I have written off completely. Flaky agent.

Then Anne came along, and I decided to concentrate on short stories for a while. I have enjoyed developing a new side of my talent; more on that farther down the post. But now I feel ready to get my books out to people again. The fact that David Farland/Wolverton has accepted me into his novel-writing workshop--to be held this April--has refueled my long-form-writing fires. I can't wait to go!

3) Have 5 short stories published.

I've already submitted two to new venues in the past couple of days. Both have been rejected elsewhere, but I have confidence in them and am sure that both will eventually find homes. More of their siblings will follow suit. I'm using Patrick's parking philosophy as I market them.

When I park my car, I generally look towards the emptier end of the lot or street, but Patrick gets as close to the door of his destination as possible, then circles outward. Though his approach runs counter to my instincts, it does tend to get results. So instead of starting at the bottom of the the short story food chain, I'm starting at the top.

For my short stories, I have a list of the SFWA-approved markets. To qualify for membership in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), one must either publish a novel with a company on their approved list, or publish three short stories with periodicals on a similarly exclusive list. It's a short list, my friends, made up of the top-tier magazines in my chosen field. I've started there and am now circling outward. I covet SFWA membership and am doing all I can to get it.

4) Keep Tuesday nights and Fridays as sacred as possible.

I can usually sneak an hour or so of writing in any given day, but larger chunks of time for writing are as rare as hen's teeth given my current situation in life. I do have Tuesday nights and Fridays from 9:30 to 3:30, though. It's not much time, but I am very grateful to have it.

I will resist the temptation to do other things on Tuesday nights and Fridays, fun things like visiting with friends or watching movies. Instead, I will write. Why? Because a writer writes. If you're thinking about writing or talking about writing or doing something else that isn't writing, you're not a writer.

Do you have any goals for 2009? If so, I'd love to know that I'm not the only one; let me know, and we'll keep each other accountable.

Oh, and just in case you didn't recognize this post's title, here's one of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

2008: The Year in Review

2009-01-02T21:38:00.028-05:00

For my 'Best of 2006' list, click here.
For my 'Best of 2007' list, click here.

Life just keeps getting better, though this year was more about quality than quantity. I didn't read nearly as many books, see as many movies, or eat at as many fabulous restaurants in 2008 as I did in previous years. I bought very little new music and saw almost no live theater. I didn't leave the the East Coast--let alone the country--except for two funerals. Despite all that, I count last year as the richest and fullest of my life.

Top Five Eating Experiences
1) Thomas Henkelman, Greenwich, CT
2) Petrossian, New York, NY
3) Grifone, New York, NY
4) Ocean House, Croton-on-Hudson, NY
5) Café Gray, New York, NY

Top Five Movies Seen
1) Wall*E
2) Quantum of Solace
3) Iron Man
4) The Dark Knight
5) Kung Fu Panda

Top Ten Books Read
1) The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
2) Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman
3) The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett
4) Stranger Things Happen, by Kelly Link
5) Duma Key, by Stephen King
6) In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan
7) Zoe's Tale, by John Scalzi
8) Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
9) Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
10) Last Year's Apocalypse, by Douglas Lain

Top Five Aesthetic Inspirations
1) diana:muse
2) amybutlerdesign.com
3) whatever.com
4) wondermark.com
5) madelinetosh.com

Best Birthday Present
Barack Obama being elected the 44th President of the United States

Greatest Accomplishments

1) Producing the utterly delicious Anne Catherine Perkins, born 13 May
2) Reading through The Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price by June 30th.
3) Running yet another rewarding (if streamlined) edition of Perkins Summer School
4) Successfully completing a two-year service mission leading the local women's group of my church's 12-step Addiction Recovery Program
5) Writing my cookbook Comfortably Yum, available in mere days(!) through Lulu.com
6) Querying agents and publishing houses regarding two of my novels
7) Surviving rejection and/or non-response from all parties queried
8) Writing my first-since-high-school short stories and submitting them for publication
9) Having my short story "Dodmen and the Holophusikon" produced as a podcast
10) Outdoing Patrick for the first time ever in our Christmas gift exchange
11) Putting up three fantastic batches of jam: pear, red raspberry, and peach-white raspberry
12) Creating my online Advent Calendar

Thanks to all my readers: both family and friends, lurkers and commenters. You were one of the main reasons 2008 was so fantastic. Happy New Year! Let's make sure 2009 continues the upward trend.

Christmas Day

2008-12-25T06:00:00.004-05:00

Prayer and Praise, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879)

The Savior

The Savior must have been
A docile Gentleman—
To come so far so cold a Day
For little Fellowmen—

The Road to Bethlehem
Since He and I were Boys
Was leveled, but for that 'twould be
A rugged Billion Miles—

--Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Invisible Light

Lord, shall we not bring these gifts to Your service?
Shall we not bring to Your service all our powers
For life, for dignity, grace and order,
And intellectual pleasures of the senses?
The Lord who created must wish us to create
And employ our creation again in His service
Which is already His service in creating.
For Man is joined spirit and body
And therefore must serve as spirit and body.
Visible and invisible, two worlds meet in Man;
Visible and invisible must meet in His Temple;
You must not deny the body.
Now you shall see the Temple completed:
After much striving, after many obstacles;
For the work of creation is never without travail;
The formed stone, the visible crucifix,
The dressed altar, the lifting light,
Light
Light
The visible reminder of Invisible Light.

--T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T06:00:00.005-05:00

The Adoration, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen.
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few believe
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve
“Come; see the oxen kneel

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

--Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

All Heaven Safe

2008-12-23T06:00:00.008-05:00

Nativity, Simon Bening (1483-1561)

The Christmas Moon

The Christmas moon shines clear and right;
There were poor travellers such a night
Had neither fire nor candle-light.

One plucked them stars out of the sky
To show the road to travel by;
So that the Ass go warily.

She had all Heaven safe in her hold,
Hidden within her mantle's fold--
All Heaven, and It was one hour old.

Her hair under, over Him spread
His spun-gold coverlet and His bed,
Twined with His little golden head.

She sang and rocked Him to-and-fro
Such songs as little babies know,
With Lullaby Sweet, and Lullalo.

He had no need of moons and suns,
Nor the gold-crested bird-legions,
Singing their lauds and orisons.

The Christmas moon shows a cold beam;
He hath His Mother, she hath Him:
Together they sleep, together dream.

--Katharine Tynan (1861-1931)

Renewal

2008-12-22T06:00:00.005-05:00

Nativité, Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

Before Dawn

Dim-berried is the mistletoe
With globes of sheenless grey,
The holly mid ten thousand thorns
Smolders its fires away;
And in the manger Jesu sleeps
This Christmas Day.
Bull unto bull with hollow throat
Makes echo every hill,
Cold sheep in pastures thick with snow
The air with bleatings fill;
While of His Mother's heart this Babe
Takes His sweet will.
All flowers and butterflies lie hid,
The blackbird and the thrush
Pipe but a little as they flit
Restless from bush to bush;
Even to the robin Gabriel hath
Cried softly, "Hush!"
Now night is astir with burning stars
In darkness of the snow;
Burdened with frankincense and myrrh
And gold the Strangers go
Into a dusk where one dim lamp
Burns faintly, Lo!
No snowdrop yet its small head nods,
In winds of winter drear;
No lark at casement in the sky
Sings matins shrill and clear;
Yet in this frozen mirk the Dawn
Breathes, Spring is here!

--Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Eyes of Faith

2008-12-21T06:00:00.006-05:00

The Nativity, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Nativity, A Christmas Poem

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

--John Donne (1572-1631)

The Holy Family

2008-12-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

The Nativity, William Bell Scott (1811-1890)

Before the Paling of the Stars

Before the paling of the stars,
Before the winter morn,
Before the earliest cock-crow,
Jesus Christ was born:
Born in a stable,
Cradled in a manger,
In the world His Hands had made
Born a stranger.

Priest and King lay fast asleep
In Jerusalem,
Young and old lay fast asleep
In crowded Bethlehem:
Saint and angel, ox and ass,
Kept a watch together
Before the Christmas daybreak
In the winter weather.

Jesus on His mother's breast
In the stable cold,
Spotless Lamb of God was He,
Shepherd of the Fold:
Let us kneel with Mary Maid,
With Joseph bent and hoary,
With saint and angel, ox and ass,
To hail the King of Glory.

--Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

The Little King

2008-12-19T06:00:00.006-05:00

The Star of Bethlehem, Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)

That Holy Thing

They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam'st, a little baby thing
That made a woman cry.

O Son of Man, to right my lot
Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
Nor on the sea Thy sail!

My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
But come down thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need--
Yea, every bygone prayer.

--George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Wise Men

2008-12-18T06:00:00.005-05:00

The Wise Men, Minerva Teichert (1889-1976)

Journey of the Magi

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt.
I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like
Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these
Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

--T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

The Magi

2008-12-17T06:00:00.002-05:00

Journey of the Magi, James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)

The Three Kings

Three Kings came riding from far away,
Melchior and Gaspar and Baltasar;
Three Wise Men out of the East were they,
And they travelled by night and they slept by day,
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star.

The star was so beautiful, large and clear,
That all the other stars of the sky
Became a white mist in the atmosphere,
And by this they knew that the coming was near
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy.

Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows,
Three caskets of gold with golden keys;
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows,
Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees.

And so the Three Kings rode into the West,
Through the dusk of the night, over hill and dell,
And sometimes they nodded with beard on breast,
And sometimes talked, as they paused to rest,
With the people they met at some wayside well.

"Of the child that is born," said Baltasar,
"Good people, I pray you, tell us the news;
For we in the East have seen his star,
And have ridden fast, and have ridden far,
To find and worship the King of the Jews."

And when they came to Jerusalem,
Herod the Great, who had heard this thing,
Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them;
And said, "Go down unto Bethlehem,
And bring me tidings of this new king."

So they rode away; and the star stood still,
The only one in the grey of morn;
Yes, it stopped --it stood still of its own free will,
Right over Bethlehem on the hill,
The city of David, where Christ was born.

And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard,
Through the silent street, till their horses turned
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard;
But the windows were closed, and the doors were barred,
And only a light in the stable burned.

And cradled there in the scented hay,
In the air made sweet by the breath of kine,
The little child in the manger lay,
The child, that would be king one day
Of a kingdom not human, but divine.

His mother Mary of Nazareth
Sat watching beside his place of rest,
Watching the even flow of his breath,
For the joy of life and the terror of death
Were mingled together in her breast.

They laid their offerings at his feet:
The gold was their tribute to a King,
The frankincense, with its odor sweet,
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete,
The myrrh for the body's burying.

And the mother wondered and bowed her head,
And sat as still as a statue of stone,
Her heart was troubled yet comforted,
Remembering what the Angel had said
Of an endless reign and of David's throne.

Then the Kings rode out of the city gate,
With a clatter of hoofs in proud array;
But they went not back to Herod the Great,
For they knew his malice and feared his hate,
And returned to their homes by another way.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Nativity

2008-12-16T06:00:00.002-05:00

The Birth of Jesus, Chinese Bible Painting, 19th Century

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the Kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him
And all the stars looked down.

--G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

Lullaby

2008-12-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

Virgin and Child, Stefano da Verona (1375-1438)

The Holy Night

We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horn'd faces,
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought visionary looks,
As yet in their astonished hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tongue:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

The Shepherds Worship

2008-12-14T06:00:00.007-05:00

The Adoration of the Shepherds, Caravaggio (1571-1610)

Christmas

The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul's a shepherd too; a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word: the streams, Thy grace
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing, and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord; wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.
I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev'n His beams sing, and my music shine.

--George Herbert (1593-1633)

Heavenly Choirs

2008-12-13T06:00:00.005-05:00

Angels Singing and Playing Instruments, Jan Van Eyck (1395-1441)

The Heavenly Choir

What sudden blaze of song
Spreads o'er th' expanse of heaven?
In waves of light it thrills along,
Th' angelic signal given--
"Glory to God!" from yonder central fire
Flows out the echoing lay beyond the starry quire;

Like circles widening round
Upon a clear blue river,
Orb after orb, the wondrous sound
Is echoed on forever;
"Glory to God on high, on earth be peace,
And love toward men of love--salvation and release."

Yet stay, before thou dare
To join that festal throng;
Listen and mark what gentle air
First stirred the tide of song;
'Tis not, "the Saviour born in David's home,
To whom for power and health obedient worlds should come:"

'Tis not "the Christ the Lord:"--
With fix'd adoring look
The choir of angels caught the word,
Nor yet their silence broke;
But when they heard the sign, where Christ should be,
In sudden light they shone and heavenly harmony.

--John Keble (1792-1866)

Annunciation to the Shepherds

2008-12-12T06:00:00.008-05:00

The Shepherds, Arnold Friberg (b. 1913)

New Prince, New Pomp

Behold a silly tender Babe,
In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies
Alas! a piteous sight.

The inns are full, no man will yield
This little Pilgrim bed;
But forced He is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud His head.

Despise Him not for lying there,
First what He is inquire;
An orient pearl is often found
In depth of dirty mire.

Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish,
Nor beasts that by Him feed;
Weigh not His mother's poor attire,
Nor Joseph's simple weed.

This stable is a prince's court,
This crib His chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
The wooden dish His plate.

With joy approach, O Christian Wight!
Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise this humble pomp
Which He from heaven doth bring.

--Robert Southwell (1516-1595)

A New Star

2008-12-11T06:00:00.006-05:00

The Star of Bethlehem, Lord Frederick Leighton (1830-1896)

The Hymn

But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

Ring out, ye crystal spheres,
Once bless our human ears,
(If ye have power to touch our senses so)
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow,
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

But see! the Virgin blest,
Hath laid her Babe to rest,
Time is our tedious song should here have ending,
Heaven's youngest teemed star,
Hath fix'd her polish'd car,
Her sleeping Lord with hand-maid lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.

--John Milton (1608-1674)

Some Children See Him

2008-12-10T06:00:00.005-05:00

Madonna and Child, Madame Lo Chang, 20th century

Some Children See Him

Some children see Him lily white
the infant Jesus born this night
Some children see Him lily white
with tresses soft and fair.

Some children see Him bronzed and brown
the Lord of heav'n to earth come down
Some children see Him bronzed and brown
with dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed
This Saviour whom we kneel beside
Some children see Him almond-eyed
With skin of yellow hue.

Some children see Him dark as they
Sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray
Some children see Him dark as they
And, ah! they love Him so!

The children in each different place
Will see the Baby Jesus' face
Like theirs but bright with heav'nly grace
And filled with holy light.

O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering
Come worship now the infant King
'tis love that's born tonight.

--Alfred Burt (1920-1954)

New Birth

2008-12-09T06:00:00.005-05:00

Virgin of the Rocks, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

New Birth
(For N.)

In the snow, a Lily blooms,
Its warmth belies the frost;
It waits for one to shelter it
Regardless of the cost.
Through the mist, its fragrance swells
And softens winter's air;
Breathe it in, and learn the way
To Heaven's gardens fair.

In the gloom, a candle burns,
Though brightly, all unseen;
It lights the way to happiness
For those with eyes more keen.
Through the storm, that beacon shines
With beams of radiant gold;
Follow it, not looking back,
And haven safe behold.

In the waste, a fountain springs
Though bracken thorns conceal;
The rocky path is worth the pain
The parchèd soul to heal.
Through the drought, this river flows
Its water, living grace;
Come, drink of it, and find anew
Home's compassing embrace.

Hope...Light...Love...
The seeds, yet deep, will bear.
And soon the hour when forth will flow'r
Their gifts, so fine and rare.

Every heart's a broken circle that longs to be complete.

--Luisa Perkins, b. 1966

The verses above are actually lyrics to a song I wrote with my friend D. Fletcher; I wrote it to mark the occasion of the adoption of a lovely little girl by two of our best friends.

Since Blogger won't allow straight audio clips, I've made a little movie with some semi-random photos. Jeff Hardy is singing, along with Jonathan Austin and another tenor whose name I don't know. D. is accompanying. I hope you enjoy it.

Bethlehem

2008-12-08T06:00:00.005-05:00

The Census at Bethlehem, Pieter Bruegel (1525-1569)

Bethlehem

The day was done, and slowly in the west
Judea’s sun was sinking low to rest,
And o’er the top of Gedor cast a glow
Of deep’ning crimson. The twilight fadings grow
Far in the east, and with their waning light
Throw dark’ning shadows, heralds of the night,
O’er Bethlehem. Fair Bethlehem, set in
Mid scenes of beauty; city of the King
Of David, Juda’s pride; the sun’s last ray
Kisses thy walls with love, then fades away.

To Bethlehem this winter’s eve there come
Two travelers, who haste ere day is done
To reach the inn: and one of them, a man,
Of stately mein, with eagers eyes does scan
The roadway through the town—a princely form
Tall and erect, his liquid eyes, so warm,
With tender friendship shone; and by his side
Upon a patient animal, does ride
A woman veiled, but see, her veil falls low,
Her face is clear, lit by the sunset’s glow.

Surpassing fair, by right, for it is she
Who is the mother of the Christ, to be:
‘Tis Mary, and her soul’s exceeding grace
Is greater than all else. They reach the place
Of rest, they stop, and Joseph, for ‘tis he,
Enters, but soon returns and plain to see
With disappointment weighed, ‘tis true not there
Is room for them; it seems as though nowhere
They may find rest. At last he leads the way
Out of the town, out in the twilight gray.

Sadly they wander on, the dying day
Now fading fast has almost fled away,
The Virgin fainter grows, but soon they see
A hillside cavern—here their rest shall be.
They haste, they reach the place, they enter in,
The cave is cold, ‘tis full of shadows dim.
It is a stable, for against the wall
Are straw-filled mangers, meant for cattle stall.
Here is their rest, they raise their hearts above
With grateful prayers for God’s protecting love.

--Henry S. Kirk (1895)

Joseph

2008-12-07T06:00:00.004-05:00

The Dream of St. Joseph, Georges de La Tour (1593-1652)

The Temptation of Saint Joseph

Joseph:
All I ask is one
Important and elegant proof
That what my Love had done
Was really at your will
And that your will is Love.
Gabriel:
No, you must believe;
Be silent, and sit still.

--W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

Mary and Elizabeth

2008-12-06T06:00:00.005-05:00

The Visitation, Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521)

May Magnificat

May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?—
Growth in every thing—

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all—

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Annunciation

2008-12-05T06:00:00.004-05:00

The Annunciation, John Waterhouse (1849-1917)

The Annunciation

The angel and the girl are met,

Earth was the only meeting place,

For the embodied never yet

Travelled beyond the shore of space.

The eternal spirits in freedom go.

See, they have come together, see,

While the destroying minutes flow,

Each reflects the other's face

Till heaven in hers and earth in his

Shine steady there. He's come to her

From far beyond the farthest star,

Feathered through time. Immediacy

of strangest strangeness is the bliss

That from their limbs all movement takes.

Yet the increasing rapture brings

So great a wonder that it makes

Each feather tremble on his wings.

Outside the window footsteps fall

Into the ordinary day

And with the sun along the wall

Pursue their unreturning way

That was ordained in eternity.

Sound's perpetual roundabout

Rolls its numbered octaves out

And hoarsely grinds its battered tune.

But through the endless afternoon

These neither speak nor movement make,

But stare into their deepening trance

As if their gaze would never break.

- Edwin Muir, 1887-1959

This is a re-post from last year, but it's too good not to include again.

Mary

2008-12-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

Annunciation, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)

Sonnet

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God's Virgin. Gone is a great while since she
Dwelt thus in Nazareth of Galilee.
Loving she was, with temperate respect:
A profound simpleness of intellect
Was hers, and extreme patience. From the knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
Strong in grave peace; in duty circumspect.
Thus held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet. Till one dawn, at home,
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all, yet wept for a brief period;
Because the fulness of the time was come.

--Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

The World Awaits

2008-12-03T06:00:00.006-05:00

The Prophet Isaiah, Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520)

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o'er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times did'st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

--Anon. 12th century, trans. John Mason Neale 1851

The Lone and Dreary World

2008-12-02T06:00:00.002-05:00

Lone Tree in the Morning Mist, by Jack R. Johanson

Spring and Fall
to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

The Expulsion from the Garden

2008-12-01T06:00:00.002-05:00

The Guardian of Paradise, Franz von Stuck (1863-1928)

The Expulsion

Adam was happy--now he had someone to blame
for everything--shipwrecks, Troy,
the gray face in the mirror.

Eve was happy: now he would always need her.
She walked on boldly, swaying her beautiful hips.

The serpent admired his emerald coat,
the Angel burst into flames
(he'd never approved of them, and he was right).

Even God was secretly pleased: Let
History Begin!

The dog had no regrets, trotting by Adam's side
self-importantly, glad to be rid

of the lion, the toad, the basilisk, the white-footed mouse,
who were also happy and forgot their names immediately.

Only the Tree of Knowledge stood forlorn,
its small hard bitter crab apples

glinting high up, in a twilight of black leaves:
how pleasant it had been, how unexpected

to have been, however briefly,
the center of attention.

--Katha Pollitt, b. 1949

Advent!

2008-11-30T21:15:00.005-05:00

What's as good as an Advent Calendar full of chocolate? I'm not sure, but how about 25 posts in a row featuring my favorite Christmas art and poetry? Come back every day in December, and I'll try to have something lovely up for you.

Black Friday

2008-11-29T21:09:00.001-05:00

Police surround the body of Jdimytai Damour, the employee who was trampled to death by Wal-Mart shoppers in Long Island, NY on Friday morning.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.
--William Wordsworth

How Do You Solve A Problem Like a 37-Pound Turkey?

2008-11-27T19:23:00.002-05:00

Here's how it happened:

I told Josh, our butcher, back in October that I wanted to be on his list for one of his organic, free-range turkeys, as we have been for the past two years. He took down my name and told me to call to follow up with him in a few weeks.

Josh gets many of his turkeys from 4-H kids. These birds live in the lap of luxury, and are hand fed and given individual attention by devoted (and cash-motivated) children. When the turkeys' numbers are up in late November every year, they are killed quickly and humanely, and Josh takes over from there.

When Hope and I arrived in Kingston for our pick-up, Josh asked me what size bird I wanted; I replied that I was flexible. I needed to feed twenty people and still have ample leftovers, and James really wanted to try a recipe we'd made in our cooking class: a butterflied, stuffed, and bacon-wrapped turkey breast. I was thinking that we'd do a 'smaller' (i.e., 15-pounds or so) turkey and get a large breast as well.

He told me that he had a few smaller turkeys, but no turkey breasts; those had all been snapped up already. He did, however, tell me that he had a couple of larger birds left. I asked, "What, twenty pounds or so?" He laughed and said, "How about thirty-seven?"

After the initial drop of my jaw, I thought quickly. A turkey that size would certainly give us plenty of leftovers--and give us a breast big enough for our new recipe. "Can you cut it up for me?" I asked. "Because no turkey the size of your average four-year-old is going to fit in either one of my ovens."

"Absolutely," he answered, and got right to it. He cut both legs off, then boned both sides of the breast. While we were waiting, Hope and I chose some cheeses and got some other meat to put in the freezer. We lugged our haul out to the car and got moving. Once home, we roasted the carcass for stock and brined the four pieces: both legs and the breasts. Having the turkey cut up made brining infinitely easier; all four sections fit easily in our small cooler.

On Thanksgiving Day, I roasted one leg on a rack early in the morning. I put the other leg and one breast on a rack over a pan full of stuffing and got that going. This was great, since the dark meat cooks faster than the white meat; once the leg was done, I took it out and let the breast keep going.

James and I got busy with the second breast. We skinned it, then butterflied so that the meat was one inch thick. This translated into a rectangle about two feet long! We spread it with a cornbread-sausage stuffing, then rolled it, draped it with bacon, and tied it up.

We had a fabulous meal. The turkey was all delicious--tender, flavorful, and moist--but the bacon-wrapped breast was scrumptious. Also, I can't endorse brining emphatically enough. We've been brining our turkeys for about 10 years now, and I will never go back. For the best directions on the process, visit Cook's Illustrated online; a subscription to this peerless magazine is worth it for their comprehensive Turkey 101 Guide alone.

What's on tap for Christmas Eve? We'll see; Josh put us down for either a goose or a brace of ducks, if available. And if no 4-H kid comes through for us in December, we'll settle for a beef tenderloin.

My Very Own Fake-ronyms

2008-11-24T10:42:00.006-05:00

If you've hung around Planet Blog for very long, you've doubtless encountered folks discussing NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, which stand for National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month respectively. The first requires that the participant write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November, while the second requires that one post to one's blog every day in the month of November. Both are rewarded with special blog badges, a sense of accomplishment, and the approbation of peers from around the globe.

I 'did' NaBloPoMo in 2007 and had a blast, but it was exhausting trying to post every single dang day, especially since November is by far my busiest month of the year. I tried to do NaNoWriMo at the same time, but failed pretty spectacularly early on. No matter; I have my own schedule, and I'm cool with that. I think I may do my own version of NaNo in February or March, since those months are relatively uneventful at the Perkins Corral, and I haven't written 50,000 words in one month in a very long time.

I have a few close friends who are having huge success with NaNo this year, and I couldn't be more thrilled for them. To go from aspiring writer to writer-with-a-completed-first-draft in a mere thirty days is a Herculean feat worthy of much celebration. The consistency and momentum that is built with such an event is a fitting reward for the dedication and sacrifice required.

I don't know whether there is a term for words coined by putting the first parts of each word in a title together, as with NaNo and NaBlo, so I'm dubbing them 'fake-ronyms.' This morning, while rocking Anne-the-Fussy-Teether, I thought about creating my own November events and the fake-ronyms to go with them. I could easily earn shiny badges in the following:

CleCaBaDoCo: Cleaning Cat Barf out of Down Comforters Requirements include a neurotic feline, several bed coverings marked 'Dry Clean Only,' a washing machine with a capacious and forgiving lint screen, and a sense of adventure/desperation.

GeHiRuPriShaTi: Getting Hip to Running Primary Sharing Time I've taught Primary twice and served as chorister for a year once long ago, but I have far less experience in the auxiliary than most active LDS women my age. Last week, I got called into our ward's Primary Presidency, so I am surfing Teh Web like a crazy woman, trying to get up to speed.

FaPlaCaCa: Failing at Place Card Calligraphy Yes, we're hosting Thanksgiving again this year. With 20 eaters, the tables will be full and the fun will be plentiful. Every year I aspire to elegant table settings, and every year I settle instead for large quantities of tasty food. Will this be the year my spread looks like Martha's? Doubtful, but one can dream.

SleeDeTeeTo: Sleep Deprivation with Teething Toddlers and EnTaPre: Enduring Tattling Pre-Schoolers Ahh, the fantastic tag team my two youngest children are. Anne stopped sleeping through the night back around my birthday, and every night since then has been a bit dicey. My nights go like this: two or three solid hours of sleep, followed by four or five hours on the couch or in the rocking chair with a restless baby.

My days are dominated by Daniel, who is training for a future position in the CIA by spying on his siblings and reporting their behavior to me in the most annoying self-righteous tones possible. Alternatively, he tattles on me to me: "Mom! The bathroom is a mess. Mom! Anne is all alone in her bouncy seat! How could you leave her? Mom!" Fortunately, KiBaTiSheGi: Kissing Baby Till She Giggles and ReSeuMiTi: Reading Seuss for the Millionth Time go a long way towards mitigating the effects of these first two.

IgGraRooGroFee: Ignoring Gray Roots and Gross Feet Is there any way I can color my hair and get a pedicure before Thursday? Must. Fit. Into. Schedule. Somehow.

NaDaChoTum: National Daily Chocolate-in-the-Tummy I win, I win!

Happy Birthday, G-Man!

2008-11-19T20:31:00.006-05:00

My kids are awesome. Their long-distance friend Gary has his birthday today, so they wrote him a song. We'll record the final version on Friday, but they rehearsed hard all afternoon, and they wanted the G-man to know that they were thinking of him on his special day. So, here's Teh Posse singing "The G-man Blues." Christian's on guitar, Tess is on shaker egg, and Hope and James share lead vocals, with Anne as Official Muse. (Daniel was taking an OSHA break from air guitar when I took these photos.)

Wordless Wednesday: Luzern, 1998

2008-11-19T09:02:00.002-05:00

The Party in My Mind

2008-11-13T17:11:00.010-05:00

"No one is able to enjoy such feast as the one who throws a party in his own mind."--Selma Lagerlöf

Nearly 100 years ago, Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature; her birthday is next week. The above quote of hers perfectly describes the reason why I continue to write despite such distractions as a romantic husband, six adventurous children, a busy church life, and several absorbing hobbies. The party in my mind keeps pulling me back. Here's what's happening in my writing life lately.

According to lulu.com, my cookbook Comfortably Yum will be ready to order in 6-8 weeks. After I completed the manuscript, I was disappointed to find that it wouldn't be available more quickly--i.e. in time for Christmas--but I'll let you know the minute it comes out.

I'm waiting to hear from a couple of different magazines regarding short stories I've submitted to them. Submitting short stories to magazines is much less painful than submitting novels to publishing houses; my theory is that I'm less invested in short stories because they take so much less time and energy to write. I've successfully weathered many rejections in the past several months. So cross your fingers for this latest round! I would be so thrilled to be published by Strange Horizons, for example.

After the holidays, I'll probably dust off my fantasy novels The Holly Place and ZF-360 and try submitting them to agents again. I am thinking about re-titling both of them.

I got a card from a woman who recently read Shannon's Mirror and loved it. Fan correspondence is pure gold; I keep a file of things like this to pull out and review when I'm feeling discouraged and talentless.

I've started a new novel called Thrice Liam. It's the story of a grieving young widow who gradually becomes convinced that her new neighbor is actually her husband. Ghost story or portrait of a psychological breakdown? You'll have to read and see....

Last and almost as exciting as starting a new novel--I got accepted to Dave Farland's annual Professional Novel Writing Workshop, to be held next April in Saint George, Utah. Dave Farland, who also writes under his real name, David Wolverton, is a hugely successful writer. Apparently he's a terrific teacher as well; past workshop students of his include Brandon Sanderson and Jessica Day George. I am really looking forward to five days of fabulous instruction and growth next spring.

Obviously, one area of writing upon which I am not concentrating is ye olde blog. I only have so many WEUs at any given time, so be patient with me and keep coming back to visit.

Wordless Wednesday: Hope Donates to Locks of Love

2008-11-12T17:05:00.005-05:00

For information on hair donation to those in need, visit Locks of Love.

42

2008-11-04T08:20:00.006-05:00

Yes, it's the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. It also happens to be my age as of today. It's a special day for more than one reason.

It's not the first time that Election Day in the U.S. has fallen on my birthday in my lifetime; I turned 18 on November 4, 1984, and got to vote in my first presidential election that day. It, too, was a historic race; it was the first time a woman had been nominated as a vice-presidential candidate. I remember my grandmother marveling at that, since she could recall the time when women did not have the right to vote in this country.

Unfortunately, my candidate, Walter Mondale, did not win that year; I'm hoping America comes through with a better gift for me this time around.

The other day, Hope was anxious that I might be feeling old. She told me that I could just say that I'm 21 from now on. I told her I wouldn't be 21 again for anything. I have a wonderful life, and it has only gotten better as I've aged. I have no reason to believe this trend won't continue!

If you are a U.S. citizen and wondering what to get me for my birthday, get out and vote today, no matter how long the lines are, and no matter who your candidate is. If you're not a U.S. citizen, well...there's always chocolate.

Oui, Chef!

2008-11-01T21:18:00.004-04:00

Well, what a blast I had today. For the past couple of years, we've been giving the big kids events instead of stuff for their birthdays, and today James and I enjoyed his most recent gift. We spent six hours at the New York City branch of the Culinary Institute of America enjoying the semi-private tutelage of a team of chefs. It was a class for parents and teens--twelve students in all--with the theme "Thanksgiving Favorites," and it was fantastic.

We had a workshop on knife skills; I've always wanted to learn how to dice, chop, and mince like the pros! We made apple pie, duchesse potatoes, green beans in a butter pistachio sauce, and the central jewel in the crown: a turkey breast that we boned, butterflied, stuffed, rolled, wrapped in bacon, and roasted. Afterwards we got to eat the products of our labors: heaven!

James soaked it all in and was a terrific student. Near the end of our cooking time, the chefs were counting down the minutes until we had to plate our creations, and it felt just like we were in Kitchen Stadium. Some of the other kids got a bit snippy under stress, but not James. He stayed calm and cool as he piped the last few of his potato rosettes and finished the pistachio sauce. I was and am immensely proud. We're both excited to try some new things at Thanksgiving this year!

I Can Haz Do-Over?

2008-10-31T08:28:00.003-04:00

I won't bore you with all the details of my morning.

Suffice it to write that highlights (or would that be lowlights?) include fishing a little girl's hair accessory out of the toilet and witnessing our emphatically non-LOL-cat barfing under the kitchen table.

Do you ever wish you had a magic rewind button for your days?

Yeah. Me too.

Contest Results

2008-10-29T15:44:00.004-04:00

Thank you to everyone who participated in my Book Naming Contest. I'm sorry to have taken so long to decide on a title, but it was a three-way tie in my mind for quite a long time. Many of you had terrific ideas, and every comment made me smile.

The tie was broken when I decided to combine two submissions, which means there are two winners who will each receive formal acknowledgment in the book and her own signed copy.

The lucky winners are:

Charrette! and Deb!

And the title of my forthcoming cookbook is:

Comfortably Yum: Food for Body and Spirit

My goal is to finish up the publishing details on Friday; I'll let you know as soon as the book is ready to ship!

Book Naming Contest!

2008-10-07T22:52:00.004-04:00

I'm thrilled (and a bit nervous) to announce that I've been writing a cookbook, and that I am self-publishing it through Lulu. If you have ever enjoyed one of my recipes (filed under the Delicious Dish category to the right), then I think you'll find this cookbook to be a great addition to your kitchen shelf. I've been having a blast re-testing many of my recipes to make sure they're worthy of publication; it has been a fun project.

Here's the only problem: I can't think of a title that I like. I've bounced a few ideas around with Patrick, but nothing has really worked for us. So I open the question to you, my faithful and patient readers. Can you think of a great title for my cookbook? Something that is witty, original, thoughtful, and connotes deliciousness? Something that will compel the consumer to buy ten copies as holiday gifts this season?

If so, submit it to me in the form of a comment on this post. (No, Pez, I am NOT just fishing for comments here. No, I'm not.) Do me a favor and run your submission through Google or another search engine beforehand, just to make sure it hasn't been used somewhere before.

If I choose your submission as the title of my book, I'll not only mention you prominently in the acknowledgments, I'll send you a signed copy free!

So put on your thinking caps and get to work! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Bacon: The Gateway Meat

2008-10-04T06:55:00.012-04:00

That's what's printed on a T-shirt for sale at Fleisher's, my 'local' butcher. It makes me laugh every time.

Last Thursday, I called Fleisher's owner, Josh Applestone, to check on the availability of trotters and suet. Suet he had frozen, he answered, but he was getting fresh trotters in on Friday morning, and he could hold some for me for a day or two if I liked.

I hadn't planned on going up there for another week or so; I had slated Friday to be an all-writing day, and it's an hour each way to Kingston from my house. But fresh trotters were too good to pass up, so I made the trip and bought a month's worth of meat to make it worth my time and gas.

Josh is a great guy, a former vegan of 17 years who now supplies locally raised, sustainably produced, grass-fed meat to everyone from Mario Batali and Dan Barber to, um, me. We chatted about Thanksgiving turkeys (this will be our third year getting our bird from him) while I chose what I wanted. Besides the trotters and suet, I got ground beef and lamb, two gorgeous London Broils, four chickens, some liver, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Just kidding about the partridge; I didn't see any game birds in the front case on this visit.)

Regular readers of this blog know why I avoid feedlot and factory-produced meat whenever possible (but click on the link if you don't). I'm glad to know that the animals whose flesh I buy at Fleisher's lived happy, healthy lives in pastures on small farms and were slaughtered with dignity and compassion.

There's a difference between 'cheap' and 'frugal.' I try to be frugal. We don't eat meat every day, and when we do eat it, I make sure it's the very best quality, and I use every part of it. I use bacon grease and chicken, duck, and goose fat in my cooking. I save the bones from the meat we eat and use them to make stock. I make chopped liver and lard and demi-glace.

I actually don't believe food should be cheap; I think this society has a damaging addiction to cheap food. I'd rather know that when I buy it, farmers and producers are being fairly compensated, not squeezed by big corporations, then subsidized by our government. One way to know that is to make sure you buy locally produced goods, whether from a CSA, a farmer's market, or from a small, independent store like Fleisher's.

My (Guitar) Hero

2008-09-30T08:54:00.005-04:00

My Mind = Desert

2008-09-24T16:18:00.007-04:00

I've been having a stupor of thought when it comes to the blog lately. In an effort to inspire me, the excellent Megan recently supplied me with a list of ideas for posts. (Go read her great piece on Joyce Carol Oates's classic short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been"; you won't be sorry.) All Megan's ideas were great, but I'm still coming up short. Is there a such thing as "blogger's block?" If not, I just invented it. Again.

Life is good. Everyone is healthy and happy (except Hope; apparently there is a wormhole in our house, and her backpack has disappeared into it). The weather is gorgeous. I'm busy, busy, busy, but that's nothing new. And I'm thinking that my recent jam-making exploits or ruminations on the current state of the speculative fiction world or rages over evil ninja garden-decimating deer aren't terribly interesting to anyone but myself.

Maybe I'll get myself together in time for Fascista Friday or Soap Opera Sunday later this week, but for now? I'm hoping James Cromwell will nod and smile at me and say, "That'll do, pig."

Can anyone guess which Pink Floyd song is running through my head?

2008-09-12T07:41:00.001-04:00

Anyone...anyone?

This Man Is Clearly Writing For Me

2008-09-10T09:16:00.005-04:00

(Click on the comic to enlarge it.) A friend just sent me another Wondermark comic today, and I fell in love instantly. Find more neo-Victorian hilarity at www.wondermark.com.

The Joy of Brookies

2008-09-04T11:41:00.006-04:00

I invented these mouthwatering treats accidentally. There I was on the Fourth of July, racing around in the time between the Ward Pancake Breakfast and the arrival of our good friends, who were coming over for an afternoon and evening of fun and games. I wanted to make a treat, and I needed it to be relatively low-input, so I opted for a bar cookie.

I opened up Christopher Kimball's excellent Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook and found something called "Butterscotch Brownies." Yum, I thought, then noticed that the recipe called for an 8x8" pan--which wouldn't be nearly enough for the crew I would have to please. I decided to double the recipe, then monkeyed around with the other ingredients, as is my wont.

They smelled divine while baking. They looked gorgeously golden brown upon their exit from the oven. We let them cool--barely--and then I cut them into squares. As I did so, I suddenly realized that I had doubled everything except the eggs. Oh, no! I thought, but remembered that on the back of any given brownie mix box, one is usually given two options: fudgy (two eggs) or cakey (three eggs). I'm a fudgy gal, so I crossed my fingers and hoped that this new, 'reduced-egg' treat would be passable.

They skyrocketed way beyond passable. They are so good that I simply cannot make them unless there is a social function involved: picnic, party, whatever. Otherwise, I will eat the entire pan.

Hope dubbed these "Brookies." Here's the recipe, without further ado:

Brookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons molasses
2 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional, but highly recommended)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 13x9" baking pan. Beat the butter and the sugars on mixer's highest speed for a minimum of 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then beat in the vanilla and the molasses. Scrape down the bowl again and add the eggs one at a time, then beat mixture on high speed for another 3 minutes.

With the mixer on its lowest speed, stir in the salt and the flour and mix until incorporated. Add in the chips and optional nuts and stir. Transfer batter to pan and smooth with a spatula. Bake for 45 minutes, turning the pan halfway through. The top of the mixture should be dark golden brown and should crack in a few places; otherwise, the center will be too gooey. (Though you can eat all the edge pieces and rebake what's left for about 15 minutes; don't ask me how I know this.) Let cool in pan and cut into small squares.

If you try them, let me know what you think!

Is it Wordless Wednesday yet?

2008-09-02T09:50:00.002-04:00

Dodmen and the Holophusikon

2008-08-29T19:21:00.003-04:00

I recently sold a short story called "Dodmen and the Holophusikon," and it is now available as a FREE podcast on the website of the e-zine Steampod.org.

The story is 'steampunk,' a subgenre of science fiction in which the setting is an 'alternate history' world--in this case, a Victorian England which has developed computer technology powered by steam engines. If that weren't weird enough, the main characters are all mammals. Talking mammals, even.

I would be so delighted if this new start-up e-zine were flooded by responses (hopefully positive) to the story. The pay wasn't much, but I am very happy to have the publishing credit.

Would you be willing to take a few minutes and listen? Here's the link:

http://steampod.org/2008/08/episode-7-dodmen-and-the-holophusikon/

And if any of you would like to blog about the story and link to it, I'd be forever in your debt. Really. Throughout eternity.

Thank you so much!

I.O.U.

2008-08-29T15:39:00.015-04:00

Ahh, my bloggy friends. Time flies when you're having fun; I can't believe how fast the last three months have gone by. Thanks for your patience and all of the good wishes you've sent our way. How have you all fared in my absence?

I owe you many things:

1. Update on Anne: she's fabulous. She's healthy, alert, beautiful, smiley, sleeping through the night, and nursing like a champ: definitely worth every bit of trouble!

2. The end to this Soap Opera Sunday story: I'll try to get to it in the next couple of weeks. (How have you all stood the suspense?)

3. A review of the fantasy novel Far World: Water Keep and an interview with J. Scott Savage, the author. Back in April, I committed to be part of Scott's Far World Blog Tour, and told him I'd be available to do that at the end of August. Which would be now. I'll have this post up next week.

4. The recipe for Brookies, the delectable brownie/blondie/cookie bar that no one can stop eating. I'm drooling at the mere thought of them. Soon, very soon. They are phenomenal and well worth the wait.

5. A report on Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies (and a shipment of same to a certain special someone and partner). Also nearly ready to go.

6. The news that I sold a short story! The online magazine SteamPod bought my short story "Dodmen and the Holophusikon" and is producing it as a podcast that will be available for your download-and-listening pleasure in the next few days. I am thrilled that my story will follow that of Paul di Filippo, a writer I greatly admire. I'll post the direct link to my story the second it is ready.

7. Updated photos of everyone: Done (see above)!

8. I'm sure I'm missing other things you've been expecting (no, Lori, I haven't forgotten that the Grammar Fascista promised to address the dreaded 'lie/lay' issue). Remind me, and I'll see what I can do.

My online time is very limited still; I can read while feeding Anne, but one-handed typing is not my favorite thing. It's also been liberating not to worry about the dreaded feedcrack cravings that accompany blogging (at least, for me they do); I need to be careful that my addictive tendencies don't take over and encroach on essential real-life stuff. I guess all I can promise is my best, right?

It's Break Time

2008-05-21T15:54:00.017-04:00

Great news! We brought Anne home from the hospital yesterday, a week after she was born. She's breathing, eating, sleeping, and doing all else newborns are supposed to do; she's a delight.

I went into pre-term labor on May 7th (a little less than six weeks early), but my midwives admitted me to the hospital, and we were able to hold off delivery (via C-section--Anne was obstinately transverse) until May 13th, which means she was born at 35 weeks instead of the usual 38-40 weeks. Though she had some extra time inside, Anne was born with slightly premature lungs and had to be whisked away to the NICU almost immediately (though she first scored a 9/9 on her Apgar, thank you very much).

While on breathing assistance (C-PAP), Anne perforated a lung and had to be transferred to a much larger hospital for careful monitoring. Her lung healed quickly and well, and after a few days she was able to breathe room air without any help. She graduated yesterday, and we brought her home with much pomp and circumstance.

Life is now a perpetual three-hour cycle of feeding, changing pants, napping, and snuggling, leaving little time for anything extracurricular; as a result, I'll be taking a very extensive maternity leave from most things internet-related. Streamlining is the key to a peaceful life, I've found. And life, though busy, is very, very good right now.

But I couldn't leave all my contestants hanging without letting you know the results of the Luisa Trivia Quiz. Here are the correct answers, followed by the announcement of this year's winner.

1) Misspelling 'the' as 'teh' is a bit of Internet slang I like to throw around in order to feel hip and with-it. 'Teh' means 'THE' in all caps, with connotations of ultimate status. For example, "Coldplay is teh kewl" means "Coldplay is the coolest" in regular slang.

2) The correct answer is d) RFK, Jr. I love Jack Ryan and Jack Bauer, but, um, they're not real. I adore Alice Waters, but am glad she chooses to focus on what she does best: preaching the gospel of eating locally, seasonally, and well. Al Gore is my personal hero, but he's already been elected President. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., with his near-mythic pedigree, and who heads up the environmental watchdog group Riverkeeper, is my current dream candidate.

3) The best TV show of all time is Firefly.

4) Four of my six brothers have the middle name 'Michael.' The fifth has it for a first name.

5) Scott Card would probably have a conniption if he ever read this, but I think he peaked early with his second novel, Treason, published way back in 1978. It's tightly and imaginatively plotted, with none of the philosophizing in which he tends to indulge. It's a fabulous read; I highly recommend it.

6) Anyone who made reference to Simon & Garfunkel's 1967 hit "Mrs. Robinson" (or to Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel) scored a point.

7) The name of our band was Tetra Ruby, and we rocked it, baby, covering songs by everyone from The Cocteau Twins to Erasure to Nancy Sinatra. I'll give anyone who mentioned 'Tetra' a half point.

8) Styrofoam is evil, but functional. PowerPoint is pure evil with no redemptive features whatsoever. If someone made a PowerPoint presentation that featured clowns and lifelike baby dolls, I would take it as a certain sign of the impending Apocalypse.

9) "I am the son and the heir."

10) Morrissey is making reference to a line from George Eliot's Middlemarch, "To be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular."

11) The correct answer is d) "Don't Fear the Reaper." I never get tired of watching this sketch; Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken slay me.

12) "Manuela Run," from Toto's first album, is by far my favorite Toto song. It was never a hit, never even a B-side. But it's pure pop greatness.

13) Part of Rattle and Hum (a) was filmed at a concert at ASU in 1987; I was there. It was great, but U2 was way better when I saw them on their War tour at the Cow Palace circa 1983.

14) The real question is: why does anyone use straight needles? Circulars work great for knitting in the round OR knitting back and forth. When you use circulars, the weight of the work stays in your lap, instead of hanging off the end of the needle, as with straights. You can also use two circulars whenever double-pointed needles are called for. And you don't have to use your forearms as much, so knitting in tight quarters--on the subway or the bus, or on the couch surrounded by your kids--is much easier. Getting off my obscure soapbox now.

15) The correct answer is b); Daniel's middle name is 'Jude.'

16) I know where to find Noggin and The Weather Channel. The rest of cableland? It is a puzzlement, but I'm never in charge of the clicker, anyway. Newsflash: as of this week, I now know which channel is Sports NY.

17) Robert Redford is a beautiful man. I love Keanu despite his many shortcomings as an actor. Dennis Quaid is hotter than July as the dad who makes it to The Show in The Rookie. Denzel makes me cry each and every time I watch the Titans in action. But it is 'Marky' Mark Wahlberg (e) as the indomitable Vince Papale who rocks my sports fantasy world--yes, even with those plaid pants he wears at the beginning of the movie. Maybe I'll pop in Invincible later tonight....

18) The correct answer is c) Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel; all the rest allude to John Bunyan's classic in some way. Read Pilgrim's Progress! It's fantastic, and it's a cornerstone of Western cultural literacy. Once you read it, you'll see references to it everywhere.

19) The correct answer is c) an Old Timer with Cheese (medium rare, if I can get them to agree to that), with nothing on it but mayonnaise and mustard, and a Chocolate Shake. Ketchup comes on the side, and I dip the burger in it as I go. Now my mouth is watering.

20) Sally in When Harry Met Sally has very specific requirements when it comes to menu choices. And why shouldn't she? If you are going to pay someone else to prepare food for you, shouldn't you be able to get it exactly the way you want it? Well? I rest my case.

Scoring:

1 point: Mary-Laure, Millie, Dawn, SidneyMin, and Adriana
3 points: Poodlegoose
4.5 points: Melissa and Radioactive Jam (1 extra point given to RaJ for high entertainment value of answers)
5 points: Brillig (gets extra credit for submitting her comment a second time after Blogger ate the first one)
6 points: Pezmama, Artemis, and Goofball
7 points: Charrette
9.5 points: Ronnie (emailed his fabulous answers)
10 points: Annette and Jenna

And the winner, at 11.5 points, is Anjmae, who also emailed her answers. Anj, I'll give you your prize when you get here! Thanks to all who played; reading your responses helped keep my spirits up during my nine-day hospital stay.

I don't know when I'll be back, but I'll be in touch. Love to you all!

It's Go Time

2008-05-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

If this post is up, it means I'm off having the baby. Woo-hoo! Let's hear it for that whirlpool tub in the labor room.

To keep busy while I'm gone, try your hand at the latest version of Luisa Trivia (just for extra entertainment, last year's quiz is here). The commenter with the most correct answers will receive a fabulous goodie box from me, which is already packaged up and ready for Patrick to pop in the mail once you supply your address to me via email.

NO online cheating is allowed: no surreptitious use of Teh Google, Teh Wikipedia, Teh YouTube, or Teh iTunes.

And believe me: if you cheat, I WILL KNOW.

1) Luisa is a fanatic about correct spelling, grammar, and usage. Why does she use the intentional misspelling "teh" in the rules above?

2) If Luisa believed in throwing away her vote, which of the following great Americans would she be most likely to write in as a candidate this November?

a) Jack Bauer

b) Jack Ryan

c) Alice Waters

d) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

e) Al Gore

3) In Luisa's opinion, what is the best TV show of all time?

4) Four of Luisa's six brothers have the same middle name. What is it?

5) Orson Scott Card has written some terrific books. Which of the following of his novels is Luisa's favorite?

a) Ender's Game
b) Lost Boys
c) Treason
d) Seventh Son

6) Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

7) When Luisa was in college, she sang in a band. What was its name? (Hint: it is also the name of a popular fish food.)

8) Which does Luisa hate more: PowerPoint presentations or styrofoam?

9) In the Smiths' hit "How Soon is Now," does Morrissey sing "I am the sun and the air," or "I am the son and the heir?"

10) The line in the previous question refers to a passage in which great Victorian novel (that happens to be one of Luisa's favorites)?

11) Which song is featured in Luisa's favorite Saturday Night Live sketch, "More Cowbell?"

a) Loverboy's "Everybody's Working for the Weekend"
b) Santana's "Black Magic Woman"
c) Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet"
d) Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper"

12) In Luisa's opinion, the very best Toto song is:

a) Manuela Run
b) Africa
c) Rosanna
d) No Toto song at all

13) Luisa was present at the filming of part of which great rock concert video?

a) U2's Rattle and Hum
b) Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same
c) The Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense
d) Pink Floyd's The Wall

14) Why knit with circulars?

15) Which of the following (all, coincidentally, to be found in Beatles songs) was NOT vetoed by Patrick in baby name negotiations of years past? (Think middle names, people.)

a) Eleanor
b) Jude
c) Martha
d) Prudence

16) Luisa has only two cable channel numbers memorized. To which two stations do they correspond?

a) Sports New York
b) Noggin
c) The Weather Channel
d) The Food Network
e) Turner Classic Movies
f) VH-1

17) Luisa is a sucker for a great sports movie. Which one of the following dreamy underdogs does she love best?

a) Robert Redford in The Natural
b) Keanu Reeves in The Replacements
c) Dennis Quaid in The Rookie
d) Denzel Washington in Remember the Titans
e) Mark Wahlberg in Invincible

18) Which of the following does NOT make reference to Luisa's favorite book, John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress?

a) Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray
b) Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
c) Look Homeward, Angel, by Thomas Wolfe
d) Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
e) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, by Alan Moore

19) Every time she has gone to Chili's in the past twenty years, Luisa has ordered precisely the same thing. Which is it?

a) Baby Back Ribs with Ranch Dressing on the side and a Sprite with no ice
b) Mushroom Jack Chicken Fajitas (hold every single bell pepper) and a virgin Piña Colada
c) Old Timer Cheeseburger (with mustard and mayonnaise only) and a Chocolate Shake
d) An Awesome Blossom (with ketchup instead of the regular sauce) and an ice water with lemon slices

20) Because Luisa is so particular when ordering at restaurants, Patrick lovingly likens her to which of the following quirky movie characters?

a) Amanda in Adam's Rib
b) Jo in Funny Face
c) Judy in What's Up, Doc?
d) Sally in When Harry Met Sally
e) Annie in Annie Hall

I Never Metafiction I Didn't Like

2008-05-07T06:18:00.003-04:00

I've been pondering all things meta this week.

Well, not all things. But definitely many things meta-related-to-the-arts.

I've been playing a game inside my head as I've done the dishes or driven people to sports practices or tried to get back to sleep in the middle of the night after going to the bathroom for the fourteenth time.

(It's just one of the many crazy games I play all alone in this head o' mine, another being "List all the adjectives with the suffix '-id.'")

The game is this: list all the films about film. Now all the songs about songs. Now all the poems about poetry. Now all the theater about theater. And now (my favorite part) all the fiction about fiction.*

Ready? Go.

Films About Film
(or TV About TV)

The Player
Singin' in the Rain
The Truman Show
30 Rock
Studio 60
The Simpsons
Stranger than Fiction (borderline: a film about fiction writing)

Songs About Songs, Singers, and/or Singing

"Hey, Mister Tambourine Man" (The Byrds)
"Thank You for the Music" (ABBA)
"Sing a Song" (Earth, Wind, and Fire)
"I Write the Songs" (Barry Manilow)
"If Music Be the Food of Love" (Shakespeare/Purcell)
"Piano Man" (Billy Joel)
"Rock and Roll Band" (Boston)
"Killing Me Softly" (Roberta Flack)
"The Day the Music Died" (Don McLean)
"This is Not a Love Song" (Public Image, Ltd.)

Poems About Poetry

"Essay on Criticism" (Alexander Pope)
"Don Juan" (parts of it; Lord Byron)
"Ars Poetica" (Archibald MacLeish)
"The Uses of Poetry" (William Carlos Williams)
"There is no frigate like a book" (Emily Dickinson)
"The High-Toned Old Christian Woman" (Wallace Stevens)

Theater About Theater

All That Jazz (Well, okay. It's a film about theater.)
Kiss Me, Kate
The Taming of the Shrew
The Producers
A Chorus Line
42nd Street
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
The Mousetrap

Fiction About Fiction (and this would be my wheelhouse, people)

The Princess Bride (William Goldman)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke)
Little, Big (John Crowley)
Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio)
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino)
Anything written by Jasper Fforde
The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)
English Music (Peter Ackroyd)
The Thirteenth Tale (Diane Setterfield)
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
An awful lot of Kurt Vonnegut
And a whole bunch of that Pratchett genius
Leaf by Niggle (J.R.R. Tolkien)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)
Atonement (Ian MacEwan)
The Dark Tower, etc. (Stephen King)
Possession (A.S. Byatt)
The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander)
A Princess of Roumania, etc. (Paul Park)

What about you? Can you add to the lists?

*LDS readers, here's a fun study topic: revelation about revelation. And extra credit: revelation about Revelation.

Seven Up? On the Rocks.

2008-05-05T10:02:00.017-04:00

My apologies, Soap Opera Sunday fans: this weekend was too hectic for me to write the thrilling conclusion of "The Princess and the Pauper." I'll do my best to get it posted in time for Mother's Day.

My new blogpal Paul tagged me for a meme last week, and I promised I'd play. I've participated in many memes in the past several months; I just went through my entire "Dancing With Myself" tag file to refresh my memory as to what I've already revealed in this setting. The result is that I'm a little discouraged. I'm not sure what else I can disclose that will be the slightest bit interesting and fresh. But here's my best shot.

1) I have a phobia of spiders; here's how it came about. When I was eight, we lived in an old house on a really cool piece of property. In the bedroom I shared with my sisters, there were French doors to the outside, but the doors were so completely covered with thick ivy that they couldn't be opened.

Our bunk bed was up against the doors, so I could see through the glass panes as I lay in bed. Guess what liked to nest in that dense foliage? Many, many black widow spiders. So I'd lie in bed, terrified to look at the poisonous little things hanging just a few inches from my nose, but more terrified NOT to look at them. Because what if one somehow got in through a crack while I wasn't looking? Gah.

2) If I went to live on a desert island and could only take one cosmetic with me, I would choose brown eyeliner. This is assuming that lip balm would be considered not a cosmetic, but an essential, life- and sanity-saving substance. If forced to choose between eyeliner and lip balm, I would pick lip balm every time.

3) When I was 18, I stayed up all night one night reading The Clan of the Cave Bear. When dawn came and I turned the last page, I felt sick and dirty. It was the grossest book binge ever. I'm not sure why; I've read books far worse since. It was probably the 'all in one gulp' factor.

4) Two horrendously bad movies that I love are Made in Heaven, starring Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis, and A Time of Destiny, starring Timothy Hutton and William Hurt. Timothy made these movies back to back; it must have been a tough time for him, since the critics despised them both. But I adore them. The last time I checked, neither was available on DVD, but I still hold out hope.

5) I once saw Timothy Hutton in real life (he lives not too far away from us). He was at The Red Rooster buying his son an ice cream cone.

6) I've never eaten a Cheeto. But I'd be willing to try one if Jenna were willing to try escargots, foie gras, or frog's legs. Yeah: it's never gonna happen.

7) I feel as big as a house right now. And not your average Cape Cod or bungalow. No. I feel like a super-duper McMansion on a postage-stamp-sized lot, the kind you see in places like Rancho Cordova, Sandy, or Schaumburg. My only comfort that in four to six weeks, I'll lose at least ten pounds or so through a Miracle Diet I've used several times before. And what a miracle it will be; can't wait to see you, Baby Girla.

Thanks for the tag, Paul! I know many of my readers have done this meme recently, so I will tag only newbie Charrette this time around. Charrette, it's your first meme! Will you play?

Fascista Friday: Author and Attorney

2008-05-01T09:30:00.016-04:00

If this is your first time reading a Fascista post, please read the disclaimers first.

Thanks to everyone who has written to me with requests and suggested topics. I've made a list (sorry, Brillig; no spreadsheet yet) and will address them in the future. Keep 'em coming! I love your feedback.

I'm a writer; Patrick is a lawyer. Today I take on the misusage of two words related to the professions we have chosen: 'author' and 'attorney.' Despite what you probably hear in everyday conversation, neither word can stand alone in describing what someone does for a living.

An author is someone who creates something, as in the following examples (emphasis mine):

"The author of our salvation was made perfect through suffering."

"...it will be necessary to provide affidavits establishing the commission of the crime and the identity of the fugitive as the author of the crime."

"As the author of Moby-Dick, quite possibly the greatest American novel, and slippery protomodern works like 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' 'Benito Cereno' and 'Billy Budd,' Melville is a towering presence."

Notice that in the preceding sentences, the word 'author' is always followed by 'of [something].' Let's say that I'm at a swanky Manhattan cocktail party, the kind where as a conversation opener, someone invariably asks, "So, what do you do?"

I would normally answer, "I'm a writer," but I could also use the words 'novelist,' 'lyricist,' 'poet,' or 'essayist,' depending on which part of my body of work I feel like highlighting. I would never say, "I'm an author," full stop/period. Never.

The word 'author' demands a modifying prepositional phrase describing the creation. I might say later in the conversation, "I'm the author of Shannon's Mirror," or "I'm a co-author of the essay collection Silent Notes Taken," or (let's all cross our fingers together) "I'm the author of ZF-360, a fantasy novel being published next year by [reputable publisher]."

This means that the creator of the course title of a class I took my freshman year of college, "Major British Authors Before 1800," employed incorrect usage. Why would an English professor, of all people, fall prey to such folly? I have to assume that s/he thought 'Authors' sounded somehow more weighty and important than 'Writers.' And in fact, Fowler points out that a large portion of usage errors arise from the desire to dress up language; insecurity is often the sorry parent of this desire.

People misuse the word 'attorney' for precisely this reason. 'Lawyer' has had negative connotations from at least the time of the translation of the King James Bible ("Woe unto you also, ye lawyers!"); these connotations obviously persist today ("A lawyer, a loan shark, and a garbageman are in a bar..."). But here's why 'attorney' should not be used as some kind of distancing euphemism.

Patrick went to law school, earned a Juris Doctor degree, and passed the New York State Bar to become a lawyer. But all this didn't make him an attorney.

An attorney is "a person legally appointed by another to act as his or her agent in the transaction of business." This is why when someone grants you a power of attorney (though you may not be a lawyer), you are authorized to act in behalf of that person in specific instances. In this case you would be an attorney-in-fact, as opposed to an attorney-at-law.

If Patrick has no clients, he is not anyone's attorney. Fortunately for us, he does have clients; he is Bill Brohn's attorney, for example. (Trivia: the Attorney General is the main legal adviser to the government.) So, at that same swanky cocktail party, modest, self-deprecating Patrick will declare that he is a plain, ordinary lawyer, not an attorney, and endure the inevitable jokes that ensue.

Can you think of other professions that get dressed up with fancy words to make them sound more important? Other than the two I've addressed here, I can only think of 'sanitation engineer.' Let me know.

**UPDATED** I am in no way saying that all those who use 'author' instead of 'writer' or 'attorney' instead of 'lawyer' are doing so because they are pretentious. These are common, everyday errors that the unwitting can easily pick up through linguistic 'osmosis.'

Yard Version 6.0

2008-04-30T11:20:00.022-04:00

It will be seven years in June since we moved to the country from Manhattan. In 2002, I began what has since become a yearly occurrence: a quest to remake our yard in rather dramatic fashion. In my Garden Journal, I still have a copy of the first ambitious proposal I wrote early that spring after having read several gardening and landscaping books over the winter.

I should note here that I had very little practical knowledge of these matters other than what I gained while 'helping' my grandmother in her yard when I was ten or so. We'd never had a yard of our own, having lived in Manhattan for the first eleven years of our married life. Patrick, who did a lot of lawn mowing and other yard chores for his parents when he was a kid, was far more experienced than I was.

My vision was big, but we started small, with a 4x4-foot garden plot in the sunniest area of the yard. Back then, most of the yard was in the deep, dense shadow of a line of 40-foot-high Norway maples. Grass wouldn't even grow under them, due to the lack of light and the fact that Norway maples' roots are so shallow that they compete with lawn for water. For me, having grown up in the relatively treeless Central Valley of California, cutting down a mature tree was well nigh a sin, so I tried to work with what we had.

Please, never plant Norway maples. They are horribly invasive, for one thing. But another, more selfish and practical reason not to is that they have a bad habit of choking themselves with their own perversely circular-growing roots. They are also prone to a really gross blight called Black Spot. Between these two factors, we've had to remove six huge maples altogether; only one of them remains. The good thing is that we still have two huge oak trees, a mountain ash, and a Japanese maple standing. Another good thing is that we have at least three years' worth of great firewood stacked along the fence. But the best thing is that we now have plenty of sun in our yard--and a lot more flexibility as to what we do with it.

Between 2003 and 2006, I experimented with raised bed 'lasagna' gardening, with varying degrees of success depending on how much time and energy I had to spare in any given season. (I had Daniel in May 2004; that was not a great year for the yard.) Raised beds are a terrific solution for anyone dealing with rocky, clayey soil. You should see the piles of rocks we've unearthed over the years in this whole yard-remaking process; I now know exactly why my ancestors all left New England and moved West just as soon as they could.

In those years I also started a perennial border along a 100-foot section of fence that borders our busy road, planting about 25 feet per year. This border has been a reasonable success, despite the near-constant battle with ground ivy, one of the most evil weeds known to man. The roses, irises, peonies, and lilies have been well worth the trouble, though.

We even planted a few dwarf fruit trees a few years ago. Last year was the first that we literally harvested the fruits of our labors; my kids are still talking about those three or four blissful days of fresh peach indulgence, and they look forward to more this season. We hope for a few cherries and apples to boot.

Via this blog, I officially declared last year "The Year of the Garden." We had just finished the second (and final!) major renovation of our little house, and I was excited to turn my attention and energy once again to the yard. I decided to scuttle all of my amateur garden designs and pay a professional to help me. Because the front yard was at that time the sunniest area we owned, our designer drew up a plan for us that put all of the vegetable beds and fruit trees there. So we did.

Alas, last year, a well-organized cell of ninja deer caught onto what we were doing; we hadn't had much of a problem with them until then. Within a couple of nights, they laid waste to most of my carefully nurtured seedlings, disdaining only the squash and the African Jelly Melons. One lone Charentais melon plant survived by hiding among its spiny, exotic cousins; we harvested exactly two (admittedly delicious) melons last year.

Since I can't camp on the porch every night with shotgun across my knees, I knew we had to make major changes once again. As I write, workers are fencing off the now-sunny side yard with seven-foot-high deer fencing; other workers are grinding out the massive stumps of the once-proud maples. In a couple of hours, a pal of ours will be here to consult with me about grading and leveling the new garden and play yard areas.

In the next few weeks, we're moving the raised vegetable beds and all of the fruit trees, as well as the entire perennial border. We'll plant evergreens along the road fence for year-round privacy and a row of Lombardy poplars along the lane for a little taste of France. (Yes, we know that poplars can be problematic, but we're willing to gamble in order to fulfill an aesthetic dream of Patrick's.) We'll aerate, top-dress, amend, and overseed the lawn area while we're at it.

I've made long lists of what to buy, what to move, what to plant, and how to phase it all in and coordinate it. The long-suffering Patrick is, as usual, footing the entire bill. The whole process is as complicated as choreography, but when it's done? I think (hope, pray) it will be great.

"We fail forward to success," as Mary Kay used to say. If that's the case, our yard and I are due any season now. Let's hope that Version 6.0 will be our break-out year. Is it all worth the pain, work, money, and aggravation? If you could smell the lilacs I just cut (pictured at the top of this post), I think you'd agree that, yes, it is.

Better Than Money in the Bank

2008-04-29T09:26:00.020-04:00

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

My illustrious blogpal Deb recently quoted an excellent article by Heather Havrilevsky on salon.com:

Lately I've been buying beans. Not canned beans, mind you: Dry beans. Bags of dry beans that only cost 65 cents, beans that have to be soaked overnight, beans that you have to sort very carefully to make sure there aren't any chunks of gravel in there.
This is my response to an impending recession, my move to scale back and batten down the hatches for the coming economic storm.

Heather, I'm totally with you, babe. In fact, I may have a bit of an edge in the dried bean department. Let me 'splain.

For decades, leaders of my Church have been asking members to set aside food, water, and money to be used in times of emergency. When we lived in a 900-square-foot apartment in Manhattan, we stored what little we could, but when we moved to a house with a basement, we knew it was time to start following the counsel we'd been hearing for years. We took the 'building up' phase slowly, but now we're in the happy situation of being able to rotate and maintain a year's supply of food for our family. (Have I mentioned recently that there will soon be eight of us? Yeah. That's a lot of food.)

It's quite a comfort knowing that we could feed our family if disaster struck. It wouldn't have to be an earthquake; I've known families who ate well using their food storage for months on end when jobs were lost or providers were disabled. I know other families who 'practice' living on their food storage alone for a few weeks at a time, just to make sure they can do so comfortably. (This is a good way to find 'holes' in your storage that can be filled later.) They then bank the cash they would have used for groceries during that time, which adds to their emergency savings.

I've heard of some bunker-mentality folks who buy guns so that they can "protect what's [theirs]." This attitude is anathema to me. Theodore M. Burton said,

Some members of the Church have said to me, “Why should we keep a store of food on hand? If a real emergency came in this lawless world, a neighbor would simply come with his gun and take it from us. What would you do if a person came and demanded your food?” I replied that I would share whatever I had with him, and he wouldn’t have to use a gun to obtain that assistance either.

My dear friend C had quite a bit of fun poked at her by movers when she and her family relocated to Puerto Rico and took their massively bulky food storage with them. But when a hurricane laid waste to their side of the island months later, they fed their entire neighborhood for the two weeks it took for power and transportation to be restored.

If something similarly devastating happened here, I'd immediately let our neighbors know they were welcome at our table. (Just another reason for you to buy the house that's for sale next door, people.)

My food storage isn't perfect; we need more honey, for example. But here's what we've got.

Wheat:

Yep, we actually eat it. I have a wheat grinder and a bread machine, both of which get regular use. I also have an awesome Wheat Berry Salad recipe that I make a lot in the summer. We've also had sweetened cooked wheat berries for breakfast in times past. It's rib-stickin.'

Other Bulk Items: Above are buckets with sealed mylar bags inside for super long storage: oats, other grains, beans, etc. That stack is three buckets deep.

Here are the 'open' buckets, with these awesome 'Gamma Seal' lids on them.

I have a few freeze-dried things in #10 cans, but not a ton, because we don't really like the stuff. Tip: don't store what you won't eat.

Deep Freezer:

We generally buy our grass-fed meat and pastured poultry in bulk: a few chickens, a side of beef, a whole hog or lamb, etc., at a time. We need to find a new supplier this year. In years past, I have also blanched and frozen excess garden or CSA greens and squash for winter use. This year, I hope to expand to putting up frozen fruit.

Garden: I've got a post in the works about this year's garden; but for now, here are our seedlings. I started the tomatoes and herbs a few weeks ago. The cucurbits, planted last week, are just starting to sprout. I'm trying to rig up my light above them, because it's supposed to be cloudy all week.

Equipment:
In addition to the electric wheat grinder, I have a food dehydrator, a hand grain grinder, a sprouting kit, and a large thermos (passive heat for grain cooking and yogurt making). I didn't photograph them, but we also have two 55-gallon drums filled with water and a siphon to go with them. I also love that we have a creek running behind the house; I have a lot of water purification tablets, if need be.

Books: Could I write a post like this without mentioning the books I own on the subject? Doubtful. All these are incredibly useful; they are, clockwise from upper left: Keeping Food Fresh, Eating Off the Grid, Nourishing Traditions, Cooking with the Sun, The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (buy it used; it's the best whole grain bread book ever, but it's now out of print), and (the book with the best title of all time) Apocalypse Chow. If we lost power for days or simply couldn't pay the propane and electric bill, I'd still have a plethora of options for food preparation.

While we're on the topic of books about food, let me put in a plug for Michael Pollan's latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. It will certainly make my Top Ten Books Read list this year. It is a clear-eyed look at modern America's unhealthy relationship with "edible food-like substances," and proposes simple solutions not only to what Pollan terms "orthorexia" (an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating), but also to our rapidly expanding waistlines, our continent-wide health crisis, and global environmental issues. LDS readers: this book dovetails beautifully with a certain Section 89 (except for a couple of paragraphs on red wine).

We have ample food here at the Perkins Homestead, and plenty of cheer and song to go with it. Stop by any time!

SOS: The Princess and the Pauper

2008-04-27T08:44:00.025-04:00

This post is intended to be part of Soap Opera Sunday, Brillig and Kate's ongoing series celebrating the melodrama in ordinary lives. I'm not sure whether anyone else is playing this week, but that's okay. I'm used to dancing with myself. Names in the following story have been changed; I don't need operatives from a Middle Eastern nation-state hunting me down. But all the other details are absolutely true.I met Dara in choir our junior year of high school in the early spring of 1982. Sitting next to each other in the alto section, we must have been a study in contrasts: me, busty with extremely short, bleached hair and wearing concert T-shirts and torn Levi's; her, tall, slim, and unfailingly elegant in the latest European fashions. All the girls in choir wanted to be Dara's friend, but English was her distant third language after Arabic and French, and this proved to be quite a barrier when she first arrived.

I had an edge; I'd studied French since third grade, and while far from fluent, didn't mind hacking that beautiful language to bits in the struggle to understand and be understood. It turned out that my year-long course of study and competition in Debate ("Oil Conflicts and Solutions in the Arabian Peninsula") also served me well; no other girl I knew could name all of the United Arab Emirates, for example.

Dara was from Beirut; she had come to California to live with her older brother and her sister-in-law when the Lebanese Civil War escalated in early 1982. She was justifiably heartbroken and terrified about what was going on in her country, and the fact that I could actually find Lebanon on a map made her feel like someone in America sympathized.

The first time I slept over at her house, I asked her what her father did; she replied that he was a minister. I remember thinking, "No wonder she's so strict about her prayers--her father is an imam." I nodded and smiled politely, and we moved onto other topics.

But not many days afterward, when we were in Taco Bell (of all places), a middle-aged woman saw Dara and immediately fell down at her feet, hugging her ankles and moaning. It was the only time I ever saw Dara flustered. She bent down and hissed Arabic into the woman's ear; the woman immediately jumped to her feet and, bowing repeatedly, backed out of the restaurant and fled.

Dara recovered her composure, but once we got back to her house, I asked her what had just happened. She sighed, pulled a big box out of her closet, and gestured for me to open it. Inside were piles of different Arabic magazines with Dara on the covers. "You're a model? That's so cool!" I exclaimed in French. She shook her head, sighed again, and started to explain.

Though Dara was hesitant at first, the details soon came rushing out; I think she was relieved to share her many secrets with someone. It turned out her father wasn't a minister; he was a Minister with a capital 'M,' a member of the Lebanese Presidential Cabinet. Dara's family was an ancient and royal one; she wrote out her very long and exalted title for me in Arabic and in English on a piece of binder paper (I still have it); it included phrases like 'Serene Grace' and 'Princess of Mekka,' and even the ball-point ink on the college-lined surface looked regal.

She had been engaged since birth to the Crown Prince of one of those little countries I'd studied; once she turned 18 and graduated from high school the next year, preparations for their royal wedding would begin. And the final bomb she dropped that afternoon? Her best friend Stephanie, with whom she had had several long and involved telephone conversations in lightning-fast French in my presence, was none other than Princess Stéphanie of Monaco.

I'd been hanging out with a real princess. The Hans Christian Andersen, Grimm, Perrault, and Andrew Lang I'd been reading all my life were scant preparation for this; I was stunned. Dara made me swear not to treat her any differently and not to tell anyone at school. She was enjoying a relatively normal life--minimal and unobtrusive bodyguards, no paparazzi--and she planned to savor it for the next year or so. I agreed, and life went on.

Dara's English improved rapidly as the end of the school year approached. She started spending time with Melanie, another girl from choir. In May, Dara's parents moved to our town (and just in time, too; in June, Israel invaded Lebanon and laid siege to Beirut). Dara's brother had bought and furnished a house for them in preparation for their arrival, and it happened to be next door to Melanie's in an exclusive subdivision on the other side of town from my house.

I didn't mind Melanie, but she actively disliked me, so the three of us didn't do much together that summer. This was fine; I had my weekly Dungeons & Dragons group and a boyfriend whose parents had cable, making near-24-hour worship of the newly minted MTV possible. It never occurred to me that Melanie might try to sabotage me when I was otherwise engaged.

Staying over at Dara's was always a treat. A beautiful swimming pool surrounded by lush flowering shrubs graced the back yard. Gorgeous Persian rugs and paintings covered nearly every surface of the interior. The exotic foods her mother prepared were delicious: flatbread with labneh; shish taouk; and my favorite, lahmadjoun, a pizza-like disk of dough spread with minced, spiced lamb, tomatoes, and onions.

The cold water that came out of their refrigerator dispenser was somehow scented/flavored with roses. And Dara's bed was a marvel: the king-sized waterbed (remember, it was 1982) had a featherbed between the mattress and the Egyptian cotton sheets and was topped with a lofty, silk-covered down comforter. It was the most insanely luxurious thing I'd ever encountered.

Then there was her car. Dara would have preferred something sportier, but her brother maintained that a big American sedan was much safer for her to drive. Consequently, the vehicle in which we cruised around town, blasting cassettes of Dara's beloved Bernard Sauvat, was a huge, swanky boat of a Cadillac.

Even with all these perqs, I loved Dara for herself. I couldn't get enough of her stories of a life so wholly other. She was kind, funny, and interested in more than what went on in the confines of our small Central Valley town. I enjoyed her company, and I think she valued mine. I always listened when she lamented over the latest bombing of her home city. I tried to comfort her when she confessed her worries about the eventuality of marrying someone so much older than she was. She cried in my arms that horrible week in September, when Princess Grace died and Bachir Gemayel was assassinated on the same day.

All this bonding made what happened in November that much less comprehensible to me....

To be continued next week, in fine SOS tradition!

Fascista Friday: House and Home

2008-04-25T09:11:00.001-04:00

If you're new to Fascista Friday, please read the caveats and disclaimers here.

It's a reality that language is a changing and evolving entity. Verbs become nouns, nouns become verbs, and slang transforms from shibboleth to common usage in the blink of a generational eye. Those fluent in modern English don't speak, write or think using the same language the translators of the King James Bible or the framers of the Constitution did, even though it seems that way some of the time. I can accept this, for the most part.

Today's subject is a crusade doomed from the start; I stand as but a feeble stem in the tsunami-level tide on this one. Why bring it up for the Fascista's sophomore week? Maybe because it's my most cherished usage peeve, or maybe just to prove to the world how very quixotic I am. If I were Catholic, I would take the matter to Saint Jude, the patron of lost causes. I'm not, though, so I guess I'm on my own.

My topic today is the usage of 'home' and 'house.' Traditionally, 'house' described a particular type of physical structure, whereas 'home' meant the place where you live and feel you belong.

Here's how Robert Frost famously defined 'home,' from his 1915 poem "The Death of the Hired Man."

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

But this strict and precise definition of 'home' started to change in the 1950s. After World War II, when America invented the Suburban Dream, a profession rose up out of obscurity into great prominence. I refer, of course, to the vast army of real estate agents now entrenched permanently throughout the global village. These humble soldiers, given the task of marketing properties to a prosperous public, redefined 'home,' with far-reaching results. Here's what usage guru Kenneth Wilson writes [bold emphasis mine; italics his]:

Realtors have turned home into a euphemism: no realtors worth their salt will sell houses, only warm, emotion-filled homes....Nor is this the only euphemistic entanglement the highly charged word home has been involved in: the terms convalescent home, retirement home, and nursing home are in such universal use that the more explicit, informative asylum, convalescent hospital, retirement center, or nursing hospital are no longer current. Much tugging and hauling is ill-concealed in this double use of the word: We wanted to keep mother at home, but the doctor said she’d be better off in a home.

--Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

Modern dictionaries are now bowing to the weight of nearly universal usage of 'home' in this way, though stalwarts like the OED persist in more traditional (though somewhat slippery) meanings such as "the physical dwelling-place of a family."

Redefining and using 'home' for purposes of commerce has cheapened the term. I hear nearly everywhere phrases like "a home's energy use" or "that old Victorian home on the hill" or 'his home value went up with the pool installation" or "buying a home in Montclair" or "sold their home for less than what they paid for it."

Just as money can't buy you love, money can't buy a home. In all cases in the preceding paragraph, 'home' is used incorrectly; 'house' would have been proper usage. It may seem extreme to you, but I believe that using 'home' to refer to a physical structure rather than a place of the heart (or at least, habit) shows our culture's unhealthy focus on material objects as substitutes for the things that really matter in life.

Here are some examples of 'home' used appropriately:

She returned home after a grueling semester at college.

They made their first home in Ames, Iowa. [They didn't buy or build the physical structure; they settled in and made the house their home. Got it?]

He filled our home with laughter and chaos.

And finally, a bit of doggerel that may prove a useful mnemonic for those willing to join my crusade: “A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

Some of you are now muttering, "Lighten up, Francis." I bow to your wishes and offer you a lighthearted, but topical, bit o' fun:

Ask Not What Your Earth Can Do For You...

2008-04-22T06:24:00.011-04:00

This post is brought to you by the hellebores and muscari in my yard.

Today is Earth Day. I'm not going to preach to you, since half of you are in the 'choir,' and the other half don't care to be. Instead I'm going to give you some practical (and hopefully non-controversial) ways, big and small, that you can commemorate this world holiday. I'm sure that even the busiest among us can fit one of these into our schedules in the next several hours.

1. Clean up a local public area with your family. Members of our church did this on Saturday; many families, including ours, went out with safety vests and garbage bags and picked up hundreds of pounds of trash along a popular bike path near the chapel.

2. Buy reusable grocery bags and keep them in your car so that you remember to use them.

3. Figure out your local walkshed and enjoy using it instead of driving at least once a week. Thinking about moving? Figure out your potential new neighborhood's Walk Score. Our neighborhood is only average, getting 52 points out of 100. (Our old neighborhood in Manhattan scores a whopping 98.) That said, nearly everything I need on a weekly, nonexceptional basis--namely, the grocery store and the library--is within a half mile of home.

4. Buy and eat locally grown food. Find out where the nearest farmer's market is. Join a CSA. Patronize producers of grass-fed Real Milk. You'll make new connections in your community, and your taste buds, your waistline, and your local farmers will all thank you.

5. Read the fantastic book Food, Not Lawns, by H.C. Flores. Then plant a garden, even if it's just a couple of tomato plants in a bucket on your patio.

6. Read Michael Pollan's essay "Why Bother" from last week's New York Times Magazine.

7. Check out the funny, informative, and inspiring blog of Colin Beavan, a.k.a. No Impact Man. Colin is Walking the Walk, my friends; it's pretty great to witness.

8. Subscribe to Grist, the free online environmental news and commentary site.

9. Don't just recycle it; take steps to reduce the junk coming into your mailbox. Pay $1 to the DMA's Mail Preference Service to get off undesirable mailing lists. The Big Three credit bureaus have an opt-out function for the deluge of credit card applications many of us receive on a daily basis. Join Green Dimes! This service is terrific.

10. Just say 'no' to more stuff. Set at least a 24-hour 'time-out' period in which you consider whether you really need that new (fill in the blank). Use your library more. Share yard tools with your neighbors. Downsize your wardrobe and donate your excess to a responsible charity. To quote Emme, a prominent simple lifestyle blogger, "Living simply does not have to mean sacrifice or hardship. It means focusing on the things that are important to us and in our lives." Amen, sister.

Speculative Fiction on Screen

2008-04-20T17:28:00.019-04:00

I'm not much of a television connoisseur, so it may not mean much for me to say (again) that I consider Firefly to be the best television show ever made. Why do I love it so? Because Joss Whedon put so much time and care into creating his world and characters. (The fact that he is a genius writer of dialogue doesn't hurt.) The series views like a great novel; for every line of dialogue and for every set, I get the sense that there is a ton of fascinating backstory underneath. Get the tragically cancelled series on DVD; you won't be sorry.

Why is it that speculative fiction is so much more accessible in movie or TV format than in print? I know many, many people who have never cracked open a volume of Tolkien or Philip K. Dick, but who love the movie adaptations of these greats' works.

It's probably because movies and TV are just more accessible in general. I wonder, for example, what the ratio of viewers of James Bond films to readers of Ian Fleming's novels is; I'm betting it's quite unbalanced.

Just because I feel like it today, here are some lists of stuff I like. Not all of the movies below are adapted from novels or short stories, but most are. I haven't ranked them because the rankings would probably change from day to day depending on my mood.

My Top Ten Science Fiction Movies:

Blade Runner
The Matrix
Galaxy Quest
The Lathe of Heaven (1980)
Star Wars (1977)
The Incredibles
K-Pax
Serenity
Donnie Darko
I Am Legend (2007)

My Top Ten Fantasy Movies:

The Lord of the Rings (I'm counting all three parts as one. Because I can.)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Princess Bride
The Wizard of Oz
It's a Wonderful Life
Groundhog Day
Fanny & Alexander
Brazil
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Spirited Away

Five Spec Fic TV Shows I Love (Other Than Firefly):

Star Trek (Original Series)
The Prisoner (Freaktastically brilliant 1960s paranoia)
The Wild, Wild West (Steampunk before there was steampunk)
Medium (Not watching this season since it's on at 10pm now, but I'll catch up.)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Really, Joss: if I were a pagan, I'd worship you.)

At some point, we'll borrow The X-Files DVDs from the library and watch them all. We could never make the commitment to give the series our full attention when it was on the air. Ditto for the new Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

Ten Spec Fic Books I Think Would Make Fantastic Movies:

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
Treason, by Orson Scott Card
Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
The 13th Reality, by James Dashner
Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson
Mister Monday, by Garth Nix
Under My Roof, by Nick Mamatis
Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis

Ten Spec Fic Books I Adore, But Fear Would Not Translate Well into Film:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
Beloved, by Toni Morrison (I know they already made it into a movie; I have been afraid to see it.)
The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman (I saw part of the BBC series and cringed.)
The Otherland series, by Tad Williams
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
The Diamond in the Window, by Jane Langton
Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin
Was, by Geoff Ryman
Little, Big, by John Crowley

What about you? Are you a viewer but not a reader of science fiction and fantasy? What do you think accounts for different tastes in different media? Give me your thoughts.

Fascista Friday: The Launch

2008-04-18T00:01:00.013-04:00

I heart grammar.

Here's why. The object of prose writing--novels, essays, short stories, blog posts--is communication and expression. To communicate clearly, prose should only be a vehicle; it should never draw attention to itself (poetry is another story). If it does, it distracts the reader, and its effectiveness to communicate the underlying idea is diluted. If I'm reading fiction, for example, the minute I focus on the words, I've fallen out of the story. Not good.

In order to have the most transparent and effective communication, a writer should pay attention to infrastructure: spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage. Otherwise the writer runs the risk of losing her audience.

Let's say I want to brush up on current politics. I drop in on a popular blogger to get her view on the latest GOP scandal. As I read, I encounter spelling errors and usage of the word 'lay' when the writer clearly meant 'lie.' Since I can't trust her knowledge of the rules of her chosen medium, I find I also can't trust the opinion she is attempting to convey.

I'm not a licensed grammarian (nor do I play one on TV, more's the pity). However, my daily dealings with the general public lead me to believe that I know more--or, at least, care more--about spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage than does the average bear.

The reference books on my desk are probably another clue:

In case you can't read the spines, the books pictured are (from left to right):

The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary;
The American Heritage Dictionary;
Words into Type;
The Chicago Manual of Style;
The Modern Rhyming Dictionary;
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations;
The Little, Brown Handbook of Grammar;
Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus;
Strunk & White's The Elements of Style; and
20,001 Names for Baby (I use it for naming characters).

Not pictured but often consulted is Fowler's Modern English Usage; I keep that one by my bed.

I'm afraid I'm not kidding.

I'm trying something new here at Novembrance for the next few Fridays: I'm going to write a piece each week on a little-understood, much-abused rule of grammar or usage. I might toss in some punctuation or spelling advice just for spice. I'll try to keep the posts brief and entertaining, and we'll see how it goes.

Disclaimer 1: Since I heart grammar, it's possible that you and I have different ideas of what constitutes entertainment.

Disclaimer 2: I sometimes break the rules. In fact, I've broken several rules of formal written English already in this post. Usually I do it consciously for various creative reasons, but sometimes things slip by me. I'm not setting myself up as any sort of infallible authority, even though one of Patrick's pet names for me is "The Grammar Fascista."

Disclaimer 3: The rules of written English differ slightly depending on the field in which one is writing. For example, the rules of the Modern Language Association (MLA) govern the world of academia, while the Chicago Manual of Style and Words Into Type are large and in charge in the world of mainstream publishing. The latter arena will be my focus here. I haven't written a term paper in years, so when you need the nitpicky details of academese and its particular shibboleths, ask someone else.

Now that we have all that out of the way, here's a little snippet of usage goodness to kick things off.

The word 'unique' means "being the only one of its kind...without equal or equivalent; unparalleled."

In other words, 'unique' is an incomparable; either something is unique, or it isn't. If you don't believe me, go ask Stephen King. 'Unique' should never be modified with adverbs such as 'very,' 'more,' or 'so.' (Fowler says 'unique' can tolerate a very few adverbs, 'almost,' 'nearly,' and 'perhaps' being the best examples. But Fowler was a pro; my advice to you is to err on the side of caution and don't modify it at all.)

Bad usage: "Her hairstyle is totally unique."

Good usage: "Her hairstyle is unique," or "Her hairstyle is very unusual."

There you have it. Tune in next Friday for another installment from the Fascista (but I'll be around here plenty in the meantime, so don't be a stranger).

Wordless Wednesday: Missionary Companions, Montreal 1989

2008-04-16T09:00:00.002-04:00

(I'm the short one.)

Famous Last Words

2008-04-15T05:54:00.009-04:00

(Tombstone image borrowed from the yet-living John Scalzi)

The wondrously fine Bea and the ever-scrumptious Adriana both tagged me a while ago for the Six-Word Epitaph/Autobiography/Memoir Meme that's been floating around Planet Blog for a some time, and I've been trying and failing to define myself cleverly but succinctly ever since.

Here are some great examples of successful memery crafted by bloggers with bigger brains than I have: Bea of Bub and Pie (scroll down a bit); Veronica Mitchell of Toddled Dredge; and Adriana of What I Made for Dinner.

(If any of you other readers have done this meme, and I missed it somehow, leave me a link in your comment. I'd love to see what you've done with this.)

Anything I concocted sounded a lot like Adriana's or Veronica's, but not as good. Finally, I decided to borrow inimitable words from my favorite poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Here's what I would have carved on my tombstone (right after all the clear and accurate vital information courteously provided for genealogists of the future):

Kingfishers catch fire; dragonflies draw flame.

Someone wandering around the cemetery and happening upon these words might wonder about their context. Here's the whole poem:

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:	5
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;	10
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

What I do is me: for that I came.

I love to write, read, visit with my dear friends, and play with my kids. I enjoy cooking, gardening, knitting, and family history work. I swoon over fabulous restaurants, great art and music, and my husband. I could define myself by any of these daily actions, and much of the time, I probably do. But ultimately, I hope that my life will be defined by my faith and how it comes into play in my every decision.

Here are two links to more words not my own that powerfully express how I feel about my faith: the audio file and transcript of the last public words of Bruce R. McConkie, an LDS church leader who died in 1985.

Elder McConkie died just two weeks after giving this gorgeous and moving address; I do not doubt that the statements of the final few paragraphs proved true. (Warning: if you are not up for something Deeply Christian, don't bother.)

Music Monday: That's Entertainment

2008-04-14T07:33:00.012-04:00

Mondays can be rough, especially when your Sundays are as busy as ours are. Patrick had a very early and important meeting scheduled for this morning in the City, so we worked out a plan last night whereby I would get up at 5:40 and drive Christian to Seminary, and Patrick would take the 6:57 train into Manhattan. (Patrick usually takes Christian while I get the other kids up and make breakfast and lunches.)

Ah, the best-laid plans. Christian and I got home from Seminary at 7:00 and were rushing to get lunches made with James's help when Patrick walked back into the house. A state trooper had pulled him over and given him a speeding ticket, causing him to miss that crucial train. Now, Patrick can always admit it when he is in the wrong, so when he tells me that he wasn't, in fact, speeding this time, I totally believe him. He came home to check the schedule and see whether he could catch another train down in Croton that would get him to that meeting on time (he couldn't), then left again under a bit of a dark cloud, poor thing.

Daniel complained about breakfast. "We had this sixteen years ago," he cried in dismay, then got really mad and threw a fit when I started laughing uncontrollably (Daniel is three). I am now wearing sackcloth and ashes as I repent of mortally injuring his pride.

I'm tired, tired, tired, after hosting a bridal shower Friday night (dinner at our house for 25); working like mad Saturday on our donated gift baskets for the auction at the Youth Camp Fundraiser Saturday night; and teaching a tough doctrinal topic in Relief Society (the Church's women's organization) yesterday. But today is Needlework Group, so I've got to rally, clean up the usual weekend detritus, and make some treats for when the ladies get here at 10:00. There's no rest to be had today, unfortunately.

(Ladies, I love you and look forward to your terrific company, and I know deep down that you would never judge me for having unswept floors, an overflowing hamper, and no baked goods to offer. Still, I must forgo a nap and prepare for your arrival.)

But bright spots can get me through even the crummiest of Monday mornings. I got an email this morning from a long-lost friend with whom I've recently reconnected. He found my blog a few months ago, and it's been fun to renew our relationship after 20+ years. This morning he sent me a link to a video of "That's Entertainment," by The Jam, a song he first heard when we were driving in his Volkswagen Scirocco from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. (I had been a fan of the band already for several years; I've just always been hip that way.)

The Jam elevated the savoring of bitterness to high pop art; "That's Entertainment" is a great example of lead singer/songwriter Paul Weller's genius in the medium. Though the words are about life in a small, downtrodden English town, for me they will always evoke the memory of driving up Highway One, windows down and Doritos bag and Big Gulp wedged next to the emergency brake, me singing full-throated to the accompaniment of a poor-quality cassette mix tape with a good buddy at my side. And today the song reminds me that, after all, I've got it pretty darn good.

For more Music Monday, please visit its creative originator, Soccer Mom in Denial!

Let's Hear It for the Boys

2008-04-08T06:00:00.009-04:00

One of the great things about blogging is meeting people from all over the globe whose interests are similar to one's own. I've been delighted, for example, to get to know several writers who are having wonderful things happen in their careers. Reading about their experiences has been both inspiring and educational for me, and many of them have graciously given me feedback on my own work. Writing can be somewhat isolating at times, so what a blessing it is to find and connect with other people doing the same thing.

J. Scott Savage recently signed a contract with Shadow Mountain for a YA fantasy series called Farworld. The first book, Farworld--Water, comes out September 5th. To help promote it, Scott is launching a virtual book tour via Planet Blog, with nice prizes (read: free advance copies of the book!) for participants. Go here to read more about it and get involved!

James Dashner is enjoying breakout success with his middle-grade fantasy novel The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters. It's well deserved, too; James sent me an ARC of the book several months ago, and the three older kids and I all loved it. In fact, The 13th Reality is our James's favorite book at the moment. Yesterday James (Dashner) featured a new and exciting marketing tool for his book on his terrific blog; I just had to share it, because I think it's super cool--a trailer for a book--who knew?

The production company for the trailer, Reel Line, has a fun 10-minute interview with James on its website (but James does give away a few plot points in it, so if you are spoiler-averse, don't go watch it until you've read the book).

Congratulations, guys! People like you who 'pay it forward' deserve every bit of success you garner.

It's the Smell

2008-04-07T08:26:00.008-04:00

I've mentioned before the superpower with which pregnancy curses me: an ultra-bionic sense of smell. Some of you thought this sounded cool when I did so; I assure you, it is not.

It is not cool to know exactly what is in the kitchen garbage can at any given moment.

It is not cool to be able to determine with precision what the person behind you in the supermarket line had for breakfast.

It is not cool to be able to tell from six feet away whether or not your kids have brushed their teeth yet this morning.

It is not cool to be awakened by the smell of old fish as the cat gives herself a midnight bath at the foot of the bed.

I feel assaulted.

In the very cool movie The Matrix, an artificial construct named Agent Smith (played by the fabulous Hugo Weaving) characterizes the human plane of existence thusly:

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

I know; he's a bit extreme. But I can identify, I really can.

Fine ladies in medieval times carried around scented handkerchiefs, pomanders, or ripe fruit to ward off the pervasive scents of the vast unwashed all around them. There's even an heirloom melon called "Queen Anne's Pocket," grown only for its rich, powerful fragrance (its taste is utterly bland; the vast majority of its volatile compounds are found in its skin, not its flesh).

Do you think anyone would notice if I wore a clove-studded orange around my neck on a ribbon for the next nine weeks?

Rumination

2008-04-03T07:15:00.001-04:00

From Teh Wikipedia:

A ruminant is any artiodactyl mammal that digests its food in two steps, first by eating the raw material and regurgitating a semi-digested form known as cud from within their first stomach, known as the rumen. The process of again chewing the cud to break down the plant matter and stimulate digestion is called ruminating. Ruminants include cattle, goats, sheep, camels, alpacas, llamas, giraffes, American Bison, European bison, yaks, water buffalo, deer, wildebeest and antelope. The suborder Ruminantia includes all those except the camels and llamas, which are Tylopoda. Ruminants also share another anatomical feature in that they all have an even number of toes.

I, my friends, am a ruminant. Not literally (though I do have an even number of toes); what I mean to say is that the process of story creation is for me a ruminative process.

I realized this yesterday. Poor Patrick was trying to have a phone conversation with me, and I kept dropping the dang ball and staring off into space. I had been thinking about an idea for a new story when the phone rang, and it was so intriguing that I couldn't keep my brain trained on the here-and-now. Chewing that tasty cud, chewing, chewing...what, honey? Did you say something?

There's a great scene in one of my favorite movies of all time, Blade Runner, in which Detective Deckard is using a computer scanner to examine a photograph for clues. It's a pretty crummy snapshot, but because Deckard takes the time to focus on different parts of the image, then enlarge and enhance those sections for clarity, he finds a crucial clue that allows him to solve the mystery before him. I realize that this technology is now used all the time as a plot device on TV shows like CSI, but believe me, back in the day (that would be 1982), this scene was unutterably cool. (It still is, in fact. Let's go pop it in the DVD player, shall we?)

Most of my story ideas come from dreams. The kernels of both novels I'm shopping around town, The Holly Place and ZF-360, were crazy, vivid nightmares, the details of which I wrote down in my Idea Journal as soon as possible after waking up. I'm the only person I know who enjoys having nightmares, by the way; all I can think about in the morning is whether the dream is a viable story idea or not.

In my experience, it usually is. Yesterday I wanted to start something new, so I went back through my Idea Journal and found a dream fragment from several years ago. The mystery and wonder of the original image grabbed me all over again, but it was only the most hazy of concepts. I methodically worked on the material--focus, enhance; focus, enhance--until details started making themselves known to me.

To work the cud, I have to get myself into an obsessive, almost trance-like state. That's when the process really starts to Flow. Of course, that's also when laundry, appointments, and family members run the risk of being ignored, because in the Flow, Time itself seems to stop and dilate. It doesn't, of course; it just seems that way, which can cause problems. Another problem is that the Flow is so delicious that it's hard to leave it behind and return to reality. It's the best drug ever.

I tell non-writers that writing is even more transporting than reading. Think of a novel that swept you away so thoroughly that you didn't hear the phone ring, didn't realize you were hungry or thirsty or exhausted, and when it ended you either wanted to cry or to start it all over again, because you loved being in that world that much. That's how writing is for me; that's why I do it.

And that is why I wrote almost not at all for the first twelve years of my mothering career. I didn't want to resent my kids for distracting me, so I gave up the cud--went pretty much cold turkey off that Flow crack--until I felt I could handle a more mature balance. Am I handling it now? I think so, but 20 years from now, my kids may tell their therapists an entirely different tale.

Now let me get back to my new story. It's called "The Summer Room," and I'm totally in love with it. Let's hope some editor feels the same way.

Music Monday: Variation and Interpretation

2008-03-31T09:51:00.006-04:00

Today I'm taking a page out of thrifty Brillig's book and re-posting something I wrote back when I only had a tiny handful of readers. For those of you who have read this before, you have my apologies; I wanted to participate in Music Monday this week, and I didn't have a minute to write something new. The following is from February 2007.

Last Friday night I was driving home from Book Group. It was late and it had been snowing for several hours. I love being alone in a black night with snow; it always reminds me of one of my favorite paragraphs in the world, the last sentences of James Joyce’s The Dead:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It
had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark,
falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on
his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over
Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless
hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly
falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every
part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay
thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the
little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow
falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of
their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Karen, Melissa, and I had carpooled to Book Group over at Camilla's house in Golden’s Bridge, chatting the entire time. On the way home, after I dropped off my two friends, I turned on the radio. I had for company someone playing the piano. I half-recognized the piece, but there was something so different about what I was hearing that I didn’t make the connection for a minute or two. Then it hit me with a flash: it was Bach’s Goldberg Variations. And played on the piano, not the harpsichord—but it didn’t sound like Glenn Gould.

I find it particularly appropriate to listen to this piece of music when the rest of the world is asleep. Bach wrote the Goldberg Variations for a Count who struggled with insomnia; the Count had asked Bach to write some clavier exercises to be played in the middle of the night, something to soothe and cheer him through long, sleepless hours. The Variations are named after the Count’s talented young harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg; I imagine the poor young man being roused from slumber on any given night to play for his patron, because the Count apparently never tired of hearing them.

The Variations were published in Bach’s lifetime, but for many years afterward were regarded as dry, rather difficult pieces to be played on the harpsichord. In the middle of the 20th century, however, a brilliant young pianist changed popular opinion of Bach’s piece forever.

I know Gould’s landmark 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations as well as I know any piece of music. I’ve listened to it hundreds, maybe thousands of times. It has been a great friend to me, as the Variations were for the Count who commissioned them. But what I was hearing Friday night was so alien: haunting, personal, almost painful in its execution, where the version I know—lively, technically flawless—evokes a detached, peaceful mood.

Puzzled, I drove on and thought about our Book Group meeting earlier. We had had a intelligent and compassionate dicussion of a modern classic: Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. Its main character, Susan Burling Ward, has chronic myopia when it comes to the life she has chosen; throughout her life, she compares her situation unfavorably to that of her best friend, Augusta. She doesn’t realize that she has within her grasp all the ingredients for a wonderful existence.

Her interpretation of herself, the reader easily sees, is faulty. She has, in fact, married the better man; her life of ‘exile,’ as she terms it, has defined and refined her work as an artist, not limited it. One woman in our group raised a question: How do you know when to be content? In other words, when you are in the middle of living one of life’s countless challenges, how do you stop looking over the fence at seemingly greener grass? It’s a good question, and an old one, one that has given philosophers pause for centuries.

After a lot of thought on the topic myself, I think the secret lies in our interpretation of what we’ve been given. Happiness is a choice; for some it’s a harder choice than for others, but it is there all the same. One need look no further than Victor Frankl for proof of this truth.

I myself have been given all the components for a perfect life: good health, every temporal comfort, lovely friends and children, meaningful work, and a dear man who loves me. But if I’m not careful, I can take the route Stegner’s heroine takes. I can focus exclusively on what I see as being wrong: my weight; brain chemistry that defaults to a baseline level of melancholia; the current state of our yard; the child who is misbehaving on any given day: the list could go on for quite a while, if I let it. But that interpretation of my life is a sure path to misery; I believe this is one of the points Stegner is making in his beautiful book.

Once home, I sat in my dark car in the driveway for few minutes so that I could discover the identity of my mystery musician. At the stroke of midnight, after the last few notes of the Aria died away, Bill McGlaughlin came on the air and informed me that it was, indeed, Glenn Gould playing the Variations—but that this was a performance recorded shortly before Gould’s death in 1982.

This was the same music played by the same artist I thought I knew so well. But the interpretation was so different that it changed the piece completely. Older, wiser, at the end of his life, Gould let his life inform his art and transform it; he put himself wholly into his work, and both were changed thereby.

Stop looking over the fence and start doing all you can to green up what you’ve got. Take plenty of time to rejoice in its verdure, and take plenty of time pay respects to the Source of all that is good and green. It is advice simpler to write than it is to live, but the secret to happiness is in the interpretation.

For more Music Monday, visit Soccer Mom in Denial!

Knock-Knock Joke of the Absurd

2008-03-28T08:28:00.008-04:00

Daniel: Mama, knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Daniel: Graham cracker.

Me: Really?

Daniel (rolling his eyes, whispering): Say "Graham cracker who."

Me: Graham cracker who?

Daniel: Graham crackers can't fly. People eat them.

Me: Yes...yes. That's right.

I think we possibly have a new income stream here; I'm now considering producing our own series of educational videos entitled "Baby Ionesco."

What: you don't think they would sell?

Been There, Done That

2008-03-27T09:03:00.007-04:00

Before we get started: above is Christian in full lacrosse regalia. It's not that he's consciously trying to look grim and foreboding; his newly-braced teeth are just pretty achy still.

So, here's my problem. Blog geniuses like Jane Brocket can make each day and each season seem fresh, new, and gorgeous, despite the fact that they have been posting for several years.

I'm just not that good. (Don't argue with me; Jane got a fabulous multi-book contract purely on the strength of her blog. Me? No such offers are coming in. I rest my case.)

It's spring, but I blogged last year about seed starting and crocuses. You've seen most of my best recipes, and I haven't come up with much that's new and kitcheny lately. Last year I was writing; this year I'm writing. You've endured me rambling about great restaurants, great books, great music, and my great family. Last winter I knit hats, scarves, and socks; this winter I knit hats, scarves, and socks. Here are the latest:
This hat was made after Sarah Lilly's "Bloody Stupid Johnson" pattern from the Winter '08 issue of Knitty. It's for a certain Pratchett-loving, near-Arctic-Circle-living blogpal o' mine; my goal is to MAIL IT TO HER before winter has entirely left her region (don't worry, Kim; though Daniel is the model here, the hat fits my head perfectly, and thus should be just right for yours).

Cable enthusiasts, this is the hat for you; it was challenging, but great fun to make (see the pattern link for how the cables 'unravel' on the back part of the hat), and a nice little clinic on short rows, to boot.

Here's what's on the needles now: a scarf after Vyvyan Neel's Argosy in Knitty's Winter '06 edition. It's made with some Lorna's Laces sock yarn Mom sent me recently.

This pattern is a bear. I've started this scarf at least five times, and even now that I have the repetitions basically memorized, I still find myself doing a ton of tinking and frogging. But I think it will be worth it; once I finish it and block it, the cool square lace pattern will be much more apparent.

Anyway, today I'm feeling like there's not much going on in my life that's very blogworthy. I had thought that in my two weeks off, I'd come up with a bunch of exciting new post ideas; instead, I came up with a bunch of weird short story ideas that are fun, but aren't really shareable at the moment.

So, there it is. Life is good, but when reduced to a few lines on a screen, not so interesting. Anyone have a good meme out there?

250 = Random

2008-03-22T17:09:00.008-04:00

1) All credit for the blog's new look goes to the über-gifted Kim of Temporary? Insanity. She's got a fun thing going with her Template Tweakings website; go check it out if you are feeling the need for a spring makeover. Thanks, hon! I love it. I'll figure out how to put my blogroll back on the sidebar eventually....

2) Christian got his braces on this week and played his first lacrosse games today. We had to get him some gear this week in preparation. His new cleats? Men's size 13, thank you very much. They look like Jaredite barges, I'm telling you.

Christian is loving lacrosse and looks very manly trotting around the field in all his armor while brandishing the 6-foot-long defensive stick. Ahh, my little boy. I'd better stop before I start crooning "Sunrise, Sunset."

3) All debate over the next presidential candidate should end now. Why? Because Tess has the perfect platform, set forth in a school assignment for Presidents' Day last month:

Here's the transcription, edited for spelling:

"If I were president I would help the poor people and I would give the poor food and I would give the poor children toys. And I would stop the war."

We're still working on spelling and punctuation, but note her correct use of the subjunctive. Now we just need to get an amendment passed changing the minimum age for a presidential candidate from 35 to 6.

4) I've been waiting for two years for iTunes to acquire Wire's 154. I checked today, and they finally had it! What a fantastic album; I'll have to do a "Music Monday" on it at some point.

5) The pregnancy is progressing miraculously well, I'm thrilled to report. Tomorrow marks the end of Week 28; by this time with both Tess and Daniel, I was on bed rest. Not so this time; I'm getting around with no pain, and while I'm tired, I've had enough brain function to write consistently and to make it to Day 81 (and counting) of the Read the Bible in 90 Days study program I started back on January 2nd.

6) I'm still racking up the rejections as I shop The Holly Place and ZF-360 around. In the meantime, I've been writing short stories and sending them out to various genre periodicals. This has been great fun! (The short story part, not the rejection-of-my-novels part; that part is really lame.) For anyone interested in writing sf/fantasy short stories, you simply must check out Ralan's fabulous website. It has been an invaluable resource for me.

I don't think I'll start another novel anytime soon; the short story groove is working well for me (for the first time in my whole life), and I don't want to commit to anything longer until after we settle into some sort of routine with the new baby. So, you know, that could be this time next year (or the year after), for all I can predict.

I guess that's it for now. I missed you all during my bloggy break; I think I'm back on board for the moment. Oh--and the post title? This is post #250 for me. Wow. Happy Easter!

Talk Amongst Yourselves

2008-03-09T14:51:00.001-04:00

There's a lot going on here; pardon me while I try to attend to it all. I'll see you soon!

Daniel the Prophet

2008-03-06T08:31:00.004-05:00

Daniel (petting Goldberry, our cat): Mama, why is Goldberry a girl?

Me: Because that's how Heavenly Father made her.

Daniel (throwing back head and yelling): Thank you, Heavenly Father!

(pauses, then looks at me): He says, "You're welcome."