Sparkling Squirrel Year

Bright Acid for the Dragon Days

2012-01-25T22:32:00.001-06:00

Happy Year of the Dragon!
The moon is growing again, Janet is another year older, and the most depressing day of the year is past*, which means that it is time to announce the new resolution.
Through 2012, the year of the dragon, I will be exploring acid.
If I have learned one thing from watching too much food-television (and we don't even have cable!) this last year, it is that acid brightens everything. I've learned that many things are out of balance, a state which could simply be corrected by the addition of acid.
So I'm going to learn to cook with acid correctly. I have a small flock of vinegar bottles (fourteen? maybe fourteen different kinds of vinegar is a large flock) to help me do it. I'll be writing about vinegar. And citrus (definitely going to get some yuzu, meyer lemons and key limes in the mix). And making pickles. And drinking coffee and wine (okay, I do that anyway).
Beyond that, I'm open. Exploring wit? Acid-washing my jeans as they become to big? Teaching the pH scale? I might be doing cool color change experiments like the Williams sisters, but I probably won't be wearing acid-brights.** I probably won't listen to much acid music and I'm not going to be taking any drug-induced trips.
Anyway, the resolution is acid. Suggest related activities at your leisure.
Many thanks to the Mister who not only gave me a collection of vinegars for Christmas, but suggested the theme unprompted. It's a little scary, and a lot romantic, how well he know me.

*Some study years ago determined that Jan. 24 was the most depressing day of the year. It happened to be a good friend's birthday, so the factoid has stuck. As it happened, three friends had beloved pets die yesterday and two of my colleagues are out of town at funerals of close family members, so it was largely a downer of a day.
**Right after I typed that (this post has been four days in the making) I opened the protective eye wear cabinet in the lab and all of the goggles were in neon colors. It made my day.

The Other Resolutions

2012-01-19T09:11:00.003-06:00

While my fun resolution (or theme for the year) garners attention on this blog, I do have "normal" resolutions as well.
Every year I resolve to read 50 books. I usually come close, but usually don't know if I've actually succeeded. In 2011 I read more than 60. I'll post the list once I figure out how to add pages (which will involve having time at home to devote to learning new technology steps, so don't count on it anytime soon).
In 2012, I plan to read at least 50 books.
I will read a book a month with a friend as part of the continuing STIR project (Portugeese novel up for February).
I plan to return to my pre-pregnancy weight by my birthday.
I will exercise, as exercise (in addition to the daily commuting walking) at least once a week.
I will write at least one hand-written piece of correspondence each month.
The Mister is trying to better manage our food supply, cook more with local and interesting products and eat more whole grains. I'm heartily with him on all of these.
In 2012, I also have a few possibly impossibly paradoxical ambitions:
I want to be more social without being a social coordinator.
I want to want to not bring any work home, teach as well and research better than I have, and leave work earlier.
I want to stress less about convention and perception while having a cleaner house, looking sharper and being a more in-touch friend and correspondent.

Beyond that, I'm going to brighten with acid, but you'll need to wait for Janet's birthday/lunar New Year to learn about that.

Noodle Making

2012-01-14T16:13:00.007-06:00

My parents have a hand crank pasta machine that hasn't been out of the basement for years.
Late in December, the Mister and I combined the snails Santa left in Mister Splashy Pants' stocking with a fresh Oregon black truffle to create a special "present" dish for M+D . Along with the mushrooms, shallots, wine and cream, and accompaniments of crusty bread, creamed spinach and braised fennel, I thought the dish needed homemade pasta.
With mom watching and actively thinking I was crazy, I noted how they can make pasta (with time to plate) in 30 minutes on "The Next Iron Chef", pulled out Mom's Marcella Hazan*, and made some pasta. Dad helped me crank it out. Mom took these photos**.

It was great. The escargot and truffles may have been better on angel hair rather than the fettuccine, but overall it was great.
So great that my parents pulled out the noodle machine last night and the Mister and I are talking of buying one (someday***). So great that I wondered how a whole noodle year passed without me making these noodles and so great that I came home and made ravioli a week later. So great that I think you should try and see the magic that can happen with eggs and flour and a little time. Let me know how it works.

*The Classic Italian Cookbook.
**The Mister took some on our camera as well. It just seems that M+D are better organized (and have flashier phones) than we are.
***But if you see one at a garage sale or have one from a wedding gift you never use, we'll take it.

If thinking were writing . . .

2012-01-12T12:22:00.008-06:00

. . then I would have written these posts long ago.
Lessons from Jane Austen Light I: 16 is too young. A comparison of the ages of heroines in Jane Austen novels and the derivatives and a tribute to my requited-but-unfulfilled love at 16 (who turned 40 on Monday) and our right-for-us spouses.
Lessons from JAL II: "I guess being sarcastic isn't necessarily modern." Like Amateur Reader, I laughed when a 21st century character in Jane Austen in Boca suddenly realized this from reading Pride and Prejudice. But then I found myself surprised by the sarcasm in Thorne Smith's Night Life of the Gods and Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, both written in 1932, as if I expected 1932 life everywhere to be like Richard Peck's A Long Way from Chicago (1999) and A Year Down Yonder (2001 Newberry Award Winner) which take place in 1932. With thanks to Jenny, AR and VJ for the books and suggestions.
Lessons from JAL III: And I'm Pretty, Too! If a whole bunch of heroines [list here] can suddenly realize that they are pretty as they turn 40*, I can, too.
Star Books I Short reviews of the star books I read last spring [list goes here].
The Next Star on the Shelf Comparisons of the books I've read simply because they have had star in the title [list goes here].
Judging Books by Their Covers Discussions of books I selected because their spines intrigued me at the library [list goes here].
Not Quite Stars Report from looking at the moon and planets every night with a two year old.
Glowing Stars Adorable images of my sons in their space pjs.
Sledding Stars Video of my family sledding
Noodles! I made homemade noodles! Just a year late.
Ravioli! I made homemade ravioli for the first time. Also a year late. There are images on my friend's facebook page. I know because I am now also on facebook (Ack!). There will be images here someday.
Star Cookies I baked with my students and Dianthus baked with both grandmas and it was all good fun. I also bought the ingredients to make Zimmsterne but didn't bake them.
Star Anise Cider It's actually pretty good.
STIR Reports What we read this year, what's coming up.

Of course, if thinking were writing my assignments would also be written, which means that I would have time to actually write the above posts rather than just summarize my intentions (and if thinking were cleaning who knows what I would accomplish?) and, alas, that is not the case.
Let me know what you'd like to learn more about.
*Yes, a series of books full of women suddenly realizing they were pretty initially caused me to gag more than the streak of gorgeous heroines I had been reading about. Then they were inspiring and now I'm pretty as a result.

Guest Star: Quilts from my MiL

2012-01-07T14:09:00.003-06:00

From Guest Star Prairie Quilter:
The big star is a replica of a quilt from Kentucky made around 1870. I call it My Kentucky Star. The multi star quilt is "My Williamsburg Stars". It is a replica of a quilt I saw in the museum in Williamsburg when we were there two years ago.

Note from SpSq: These are but a small sampling of Prairie Quilter's fabulous star quilts.
Thanks for sharing, Prairie Quilter!

Black-eyed Peas and Stars

2011-12-31T10:57:00.002-06:00

Tonight I'm going to see the old year out looking at the Milky Way from the Smoky Hills of Kansas*.
Tomorrow, I'll be introducing the in-laws to the all-important lucky legumes of the New Year: black-eyed peas.
Wishing you a 2012 filled with laughter, learning and good luck. Don't forget to eat the black-eyed peas, lentils, tamales, sauerkraut, apples and honey, dumplings. or whatever it is that brings you good fortune.
*Themed resolutions run through the Chinese New Year or Janet's birthday, so I technically have more time to observe the constellations, but I will have few chances as good as a winter night on the ranch.

What's in your stocking? and the dangers of tradition

2011-12-24T08:43:00.004-06:00

It's Christmas Eve morning and I sit here drinking coffee with eggnog in a Christmas mug. I don't particularly like the flavor of coffee with eggnog. But coffee with eggnog is part of Christmastime for me and, it turns out, I miss it if I don't have it.
My parents and I are traditionalists. This is a somewhat of a problem because we are not particular about what traditions we follow. We pick them up as we go along and add them, at least temporarily, to what we do. It's not like we've been drinking coffee with eggnog for generations. While we've always had eggnog around, we probably didn't start drinking it in coffee until Starbucks started selling eggnog lattes. And the rest of my family has moved on. They are back to black coffee in the morning and spiked eggnog, with freshly grated nutmeg, late at night. But eggnog coffee is a Christmas tradition I'm not yet willing to part with.
This is a problem among tradition scavengers. While I was growing up, my nuclear family picked up St. Lucia Day, St. Nicholas Day, yule logs (both cake and in the fire), roasting chestnuts, dim sum, kumquats, pizelles, rosettes, fruitcake, pralines, stollen, panetonne, Christmas crackers on New Years, Mexican Christmas Eve salad, flaming German drinks and a plethora of good luck charms, just for starters. My brother recently called asking my mother for the family's traditional Christmas breakfast strata recipe while the Mister, who is on his ninth holiday season around my family, doesn't know what a strata is and wonders why we are not having the German lunch meats for breakfast he thinks are traditional in my family. How is my mother to know that Christmas will still be Christmas without kumquats, but not without fried oysters?
One year Santa inadvertently left toothbrushes in our stockings. My brother and I have anxiously awaited them ever since. Santa's helper has informed me that Santa knows of no such tradition and everyone knows that toothbrushes come in Easter baskets. But to me, the toothbrushes are part of the stocking formula (orange, nuts, chocolate, lottery ticket, socks, book, music, something goofy, toothbrush and maybe an apple) giving to all good boys and girls (and sometimes a cat) of any age.
There's more to write, but typing a blog post is definitely not a Christmas tradition. So I must be off.
What's in your stocking?
Merry Christmas to those of you celebrating.

Willa Cather can write!

2011-12-19T11:44:00.004-06:00

Every once in a while I read a "classic" and surprisingly I'm surprised at how well written it is. I just read Willa Cather's My Antonia. It's great. Not a lot happens. There is a weird framing device that I want to discuss with Amateur Reader (the first person narrator of the introduction never explicitly appears again. Who is it?). There are long descriptions of prairie summers and winters (I've lived through prairie summers and winters. Cather knows what she is writing about.) Sixteen-year-old Mister hated it. I can see why. It's not a book for everyone.

But My Antonia is fabulously written.

And somehow I'm surprised.

What classics have wowed you?

I planted bulbs yesterday

2011-12-15T14:50:00.003-06:00

These newly planted bulbs may raise questions for many of you.
The horticultural: "Really? In December? Will they develop roots?" [A: It depends on the weather.]
The practical: "Did you really have your grades in from your Tuesday night final?" [A. No. Who are you kidding?]
The personal wonder: "You planted bulbs on Wednesday? But you're not going to leave until Saturday, right? Isn't that two days too early?" [A: Why yes, come to think of it, it is.]
The follow up: "Does this mean that things have changed in your life?" [A: No, this means that I plan on composting tomorrow. I'm still cranky and stressed and have unattainable lists and unrealistic expectations. But I still love the holidays.]

Juno's: Associations and Extensions

2011-12-04T14:20:00.004-06:00

If your book club(s) have been anything like my past book club, most of the interesting conversation is only tangentially associated with the book. We found ourselves discussing travel, other books and memories the book triggered.
Here's the place to post thoughts triggered by Juno's Daughters but not actually about Juno's Daughters.
JD reminded my mother and me of A Valley in Italy because of similar parenting styles. However, A Valley in Italy was memoir (note to SalSis-- JD is not!) and the author had not suffered the consequences of her laissez faire parenting, or grown, as Jenny had (or at least she did not think that her daughter running off to Paris and getting married at 17 while she [the mother] was pregnant in her 3rd or 4th child-producing relationship was suffering a consequence of her parenting style).
One friend was reminded of a multi-day party we attend every summer with a band and a gathering of wanna-be-hippie types (note to Mom and Prairie Quilter-- we do not run around naked at such party, nor do we indulge in toothpicked brownies [but we are aging enough that the food is typically excellent]).
I was reminded of Prospero's Books (based on The Tempest), Feast of Love (based on A Midsummer's Night Dream, but I did not know MSND well enough to recognize it), 10 Things I Hate About You (the Heath Ledger movie, based on Taming of the Shrew), Snow Falling on Cedars (takes place in the same part of the world, but in a very very different time and under very very different circumstances) and various travels to islands (in Puget Sound and in Scotland).

And then the mice grow up and fly . . .

2011-12-02T16:17:00.004-06:00

My good friend Debbie is back in Haiti running ecological workshops at the moment. Her blog, Zwazo Yo explains what she's been up to and just how badly help is needed (people are taught in schools that mice morph into bats the way that caterpillars become butterflies, which makes it more difficult to explain how bats are beneficial insectivores).
Talk to Debbie if you'd like to donate water-testing kits, binoculars, teaching materials or money to pay for lunch for the people benefiting from her efforts.

Juno's Questions for Other Readers

2011-11-30T08:49:00.003-06:00

E-mail me the questions you'd like to ask the other readers of Juno's Daughters and I will add them here.

Do you think your response to the book would be different if you had a different set of familial relationships? (e.g. I have no sisters, am the mother of 2 boys, and both my parents [married to each other] have been a stable and positive force in my life. Some aspects of the book just felt bizzaro to me, but might not have if I had a trying relationship with a sister or my mother was younger and struggling alone as I was growing up).

Juno's Questions FOR the Author

2011-11-30T08:47:00.004-06:00

E-mail me your questions for Lise Saffran, author of Juno's Daughters, and I will post them here.

What was your relationship with The Tempest before you started Juno's Daughters? Had you been wanting to work with Shakespeare or The Tempest in particular? [SpSq note: this is partially already answered in a comment on the "Overall Impressions" post].
In novels about novelists there is always this moment when the characters take on lives of their own, outside of the writer's control. Is this a reality for you? As you were writing JD were there times when you felt you were just recording actions of characters rather than manipulating words?
Did you consider making Lilly 18 so there would have been less of an "ick" factor?
My cover blurb mentions that Juno's daughter is part "Led Zeppelin" anthem. I'm not a big Zeppelin fan, so I missed the references. Can you elucidate?
How do you balance your other job, writing at the creation stage, writing at the editing, revising and promoting stage, being part of your family and being "yourself" (i.e. someone neither defined by her occupations or family roles).

Juno's "Final Reflection" Questions from the Author

2011-11-30T08:45:00.002-06:00

Comment on the questions posed by author Lise Saffran's after completing Juno's Daughters:

1) What was your first impression of Jenny and Lilly's "competition" over Trinculo? Did your feelings about it change as the book progressed and the stakes became higher?

2) Do you think Jenny was right to go see Monroe without Lilly? Do you think she had closure after meeting with him? Do you think he'd changed from the monster he was when she left him? (What about their meeting hinted at his maturation, or his lack of maturation?)

3) Were you satisfied with the end of the novel? Discuss in particular the significance of Jenny and Frankie's conversation about Monroe, and Frankie's quotation of Love's Labour's Lost. How is the last paragraph especially relevant to the theme or themes of the book?

4) How did you feel about the elements of "artifice" in the novel (the middle-chapter-as-play, the previously-mentioned changing character names) by the time you got to the end? What effect did you think those elements had on your reading of the novel?

Juno's "While Reading" Questions From the Author

2011-11-30T08:40:00.003-06:00

Comment with answers to Lise Saffran's questions to be considered while reading Juno's Daughters:
) How much do you believe that Jenny's own relationship with her sister and her mother play into her parenting? Similarly, what do you think of Jenny's approach to parenting and does your opinion change as you move through the book?

2) Think about the depiction of small-town, hippie life on San Juan Island—what about the dynamic of its residents do you find endearing? Do anything about their life seem claustrophobic or limiting? Would you wish to live in a place like this?

3) How do you find yourself reacting to the fact that the visiting actors are known (at least until the end) by the names of the roles they play in The Tempest? Do you find it distracting, or does it serve to underscore the insider/outsider dynamic of island life?

4) If you were unfamiliar with The Tempest, are you finding that the novel gives you enough of the play as you go along to understand the interplay between the two stories? If you were familiar with The Tempest, were you expecting Juno's Daughter's to more directly echo the plot of the play?

Juno's Overall Impressions

2011-11-30T08:39:00.001-06:00

Comment on any general thoughts on Juno's Daughters here.

Thankful

2011-11-24T18:00:00.007-06:00

In keeping with the theme of the year-- which random thing can go wrong this week?-- I am thankful that Dianthus is over the cradle cap that led to long locks falling out with chunks of scalp, I am thankful, that, much to everyone's surprise, I don't have strep* and I'm thankful that the Mister doesn't need to program or grade so he can rest his aching wrist for a few days.
It makes me sad that gratitude can so quickly turn into boasting or maudlin sentimentality, but I'll risk it and point out that I am grateful for my family, my full life of plenty, and you, my friends.

*A lingering cold turned into a throat so-sore-I-can't-eat-soup, sinus-too-painful-to-think misery on Tuesday. I went to the famed Convenient Care Clinic. Upon looking at my throat, the nurse and the lab tech both thought it was strep, and even the doctor, with negative results in hand, was surprised at how red my throat was. I was given antibiotics for a sinus infection, and feel much better-- I'm back at lingering cold level, which is still annoying but a vast improvement.
All of these photos were taken in Oklahoma, by the way, which can have lovely autumn trees and weather.
And, no, I don't know why Dianthus started crawling into the cat carrier, but he has done it several times now.

Final STIR Books of the Year

2011-11-21T09:18:00.002-06:00

Many of you are involved in the Juno's Daughter read-a-long. I'll be posting the questions from the author and you can respond in the comments. I'll also be compiling questions you have for either Lise Saffran or the other readers (there are now 16 of us, including what I think is a nice touch: my mother, my mother-in-law and my ex-boyfriend's mother).
Lindsey and I have not yet figured out how to discuss The Reluctant Fundamentalist but will soon. The short novel builds tension really well and it is a highly recommended, slightly disturbing, thought-provoking read.
The November selections is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot which is the best popular science made personal I've read in a long time (and I've actually read quite a bit of it recently). Highly recommended for my many biologist friends, but I'll also be recommending it for both of my parents.
For another group I'm involved with, I'm coordinating the discussion of Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, which I am also happy to recommend.

That Kind of Person

2011-11-14T12:49:00.005-06:00

Two weeks ago, I was spending Friday evening sitting on the back porch with my parents, sipping red wine as Aster cooed in the bouncy seat and Dianthus dug in the sandbox. The sun had warmed the flagstones, the sky was brilliant blue and every time the Mister popped out to join the conversation, the tantalizing aroma of roasting chicken wafted out. I opened a second bottle of wine long before we finished the first. I had decided that the first wine would go perfectly with the roast chicken, so I wanted to save it for dinner, and I thought we might all like a second glass before dinner.

My mother was surprised by this gesture. We aren't the kind of people to open two bottles of wine, and certainly not the second before the first is gone.
I mentioned that, just for one evening, I wanted to pretend that I was the kind of person who spent Friday evenings sipping just the wine I wanted in the sunlight.
And, for a moment I was.
At that moment, I also thought that I should blog about the moment. How to be that kind of person: do that thing. While I might never fully pick up the associated stereotypes, by definition, I can be the kind of person that does X just by doing X, whether or not I think I'm that kind of person. In my mind, I'm not the kind of person that watches reality television or drives a mini-van. In truth, I am. Apparently, by the same logic, I am also the kind of person who attends crazy, expensive underground supper club foodie dinners*, bakes elaborate fig-frosting cakes, and, for at least a moment, I was the kind of person who opens the bottle of wine she wants while lounging in the autumn light.
Neither bottle was finished that night, by the way. Four adults who started sipping wine right at five drank a total of a little over a bottle's worth (about 2 glasses each). The toddler acted up at dinner. The three month old started crying. The young parents fell into a heap in bed as soon as they could (at 39, I still consider myself a young parent). It didn't last long because the baby, snotty-nosed with crud he'd picked up from his brother, started crying inconsolably every two hours.
Sometime around 4 am the Mister stumbled into our room, turned on the light and handed me a pair of pliers, saying he needed help extracting a toothpick from his foot. I was unfazed by his request. Partly because I was still partially asleep, partially because I couldn't open one of my eyes because it was gunked shut with pink-eye, and largely because I had stepped on the same pile of toothpicks in the middle of the afternoon. One had wedged itself a full inch into my shoe and it had taken me two pairs of pliers and taking apart the layers of my new shoes to remove it.
So I'm the kind of person who lets her toddler play with toothpicks and not pick them up. And the kind of person who impales herself on a toothpick and tells her family about it but doesn't pick up the rest of the pile. But I am not the kind of person that can pull out a wooden toothpick from her husband's foot in the middle of the night, although not for lack of trying. It turns out that pointed wooden cocktail toothpicks, (blue in this case), are very sharp, but they splinter easily. Any pressure with the pliers (or the needle-nose pliers, or the tweezers) further fractured the toothpick into little bits.

In the morning (real morning, not 4 am morning), we sent the Mister off to the Convenient Care Clinic. My parents were concerned about sending him there (I didn't have the best experience when they disregarded my black widow bite symptoms), but I convinced them that the doctor was unlikely to tell the Mister that he didn't have a toothpick in his foot.

Hours (literally) later the Mister returned home. Even with superior tweezers, the doctor also had splintering trouble, and eventually had to just cut out the three quarter inch piece of toothpick. She also gave the Mister a prescription for antibiotics.

Sunday night, after my parents were gone, the Mister was itchy and I told him he looked pink. He told me it was the lighting.

I was worried enough that the next day I e-mailed the lobster-red Mister that he should call his doctor and he was worried enough that he did. His doctor sent him back to the Convenient Care Clinic, but he wasn't there when Aster and I walked by to sit in the waiting room with him. So when daycare called telling me to come pick up feverish Dianthus, I sobbed that I would, just as soon as I found out what was wrong with my husband and where the car with the car seat was.

The Mister returned from the pharmacy with a different antibiotic, still red and itchy and woozy from the shot they had given him to counteract his allergic reaction to penicillin (amoxicillin in this case). I picked up Dianthus and his bag of Halloween treats.

We suffered through a long afternoon and yes, I am the kind of person who will let her sick two-year old dress up as a Hawaiian Firefighter to go trick-or-treating**. But I am also the kind of person that will take him to only one house.

Dianthus puked all over the Mister in the middle of the night. I effectively lost a week of work with him home all day. The Mister, Aster and I eventually became sick with this new crud. The Mister's toothpick hole is healing without infection.

And, two weeks later, I am the kind of person who thinks it is funny.

Surely, the kind of person who sips wine in the Friday evening sunlight and sends her son to daycare with homemade pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting does not leave sharp toothpicks lying around her house or lack clean pants because the few things that fit her current post-pregnancy size were all peed upon during coughing fits. But maybe they are.

*Someday I am going to blog about the Test Kitchen Oklahoma, the “Underground Supper Club” to which I “belong” but probably not any time soon. You can check out the menu of the dinner I ate on Oct. 2 on their website (logging in just requires an e-mail, nothing more).

**Click for comparison of Dianthus as another young punk and a black cat. The Hawaiian Firefighter resulted from his pink Hawaiian shorts and Fireman's Hat being his two favorite pieces of apparel at the moment.

Aster's first earthquake

2011-11-06T15:03:00.002-06:00

Aster (and Dianthus) slept through their first earthquake yesterday. Registering 5.6 on the Richter scale, the tremblor (really a word?) centered 120 miles away, was enough to rattle our house. At one end of the house, the doors and the washing machine started rattling and I could feel something amiss, for much longer than I would have expected. At the other end of the house, the Mister didn't directly feel it, but came down the hall to ask me why the mirror (hanging loosely over a door) would have been shaking so loudly.
Since we had been discussing a smaller quake that occurred in the same place earlier yesterday, I immediately realized what it was. If we hadn't have had that conversation, I probably would have guessed some weird sheer winds; Western Oklahoma is not a place one expects earthquakes (the only other earthquake I have consciously experienced was in Colorado, another place one does not expect earthquakes, on a Christmas Day. We heard what felt and sounded like a sonic boom. My brother, the PhD geophysicist, declared that it mus have been Santa returning to the North Pole.).
Strange days, and I still haven't written about the toothpicks.

Discuss Juno's Daughter with the author

2011-11-02T12:42:00.005-05:00

Lise Saffran, (biography here), author of the September STIR selection, Juno's Daughters, stopped by this blog last week and wanted to join our discussion of her book. I'm contacting her to figure out how it can be done, but know of three readers for that book: Tracy is expecting twins soon and is officially resting in bed to prevent them from emerging sooner rather than later, Beth had a baby two weeks ago, and I'll post the story of my last week after I grade ("no blogging until grading is done") but you can look forward to fevers, jack-o-lanterns, red wine, feet impaled upon toothpicks and an allergy to penicillin, before we even mention work or parents.
Since published novelists* don't stop by Sparkling Squirrel Year every day, I'd like to encourage more of you to read Juno's Daughters and join the conversation.
Let me know if you're interested.

*And every so often I'm disturbed because I have no friends of some profession (usually chefs and novelists) but then I think of the oddball occupations that occupy my universe; a Mars geologist, a massage therapist specializing in repetitive stress injuries from playing stringed instruments, a PR person for insects, a studier of snail snot, and more plant ecologists than you could shake bigbluestem at; and all the wonderfully oddball people that occupy the more traditional occupations in my universe, and realize how lucky I am to have all of you. Thanks.

And it scares away monsters, too

2011-10-25T09:28:00.004-05:00

I designed* and pieced this quilt top in January 2008, several months before its recipient was born. Summer 2010 I gave up and asked my mother-in-law** to do the actual quilting. She came up with this fabulous star pattern just for me, brought the quilt to our new house and proceeded to show me how to finish it by binding it by hand (thanks so much prairie quilter!). Then the quilt sat in my house for a few months and sometime about a year ago, when its recipient was 2 1/2, I actually mailed it.
According to her mother, the recipient loves it and says it keeps away crocodiles or some other monsters.

I present it to you now because it is star year.

*In this case, I designed by combining several published ideas and selecting fabrics. No individual element is original from me.

**Prairie Quilter machine quilts professionally and obviously does a great job. Let me know if you need contact information.

In the sundae sun room

2011-10-25T09:25:00.001-05:00

Why we need to have ice cream parties.

Special occasion junkie

2011-10-13T10:45:00.002-05:00

A genuine question: how do those of you who never entertain motivate yourselves to clean your house?
I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only do I enjoy planning events, I need them for my sanity (and for the state of my house).
My mental health has been a bit tenuous as of late, which, while certainly unpleasant, is not unusual. [I write this to remind other recent mothers that there is a lot of room between debilitating postpartum depression and some sort of smooth even happiness. Most of us fall in the middle, even those of us lucky enough to have great husbands, healthy children and supportive families. We should banish the added layer of guilt that we feel for having it so relatively easy and yet still feeling the need to cry.] How do I keep it together enough to throw ice cream parties, bake Lady Baltimore cakes and get very excited about upcoming fall break travels to see turning leaves?
Well, by baking cakes, throwing parties and planning trips. That and reading novels.

One of the young women I hired to help clean before last Sunday's sundae party asked, "What, exactly, is this [the party] for?" I was a bit taken aback. If one has a sundae parlor attached to the back of one's house, should one need an additional reason to throw an ice cream party?

When botanists were rock stars

2011-10-05T08:54:00.002-05:00

I've read a great deal about Luther Burbank while preparing for my Economically Important Plants Class*. Burbank (1849-1926), the "Wizard of Santa Rosa", was a plant breeder responsible for russet ("Burbank") potatoes, shasta daisies, white blackberries, stoneless plums and a thousand other specialty plants. Self-taught and some sort of crazy, Burbank was a popular sensation. The Carnegie foundation sent a post-doc (George Harrison Shull, one of the first breeders of hybrid corn and the founder of the journal Genetics) to observe him, both sides of the Scopes Monkey Trial asked him for expert testimony, he was given a professorship at Standford, Swami Paramahansa Yoganda dedicated Autobiography of a Yogi to him, and he went camping (or at least was invited to go camping) with his peers seen here, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, every year. Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera both painted him. People bought subscriptions in advance for multi-volume books of his life and works. In 1906 Burbank, a childless bachelor semi-reclusive yet self-promoting plant breeder wrote The Training of the Human Plant, a book about raising children. It was a best seller. It is still quoted today.
His letters allegedly help change federal policy posthumously, 'cause Fiorello LaGuardia wouldn't vote against the wishes of the man he considered, "the outstanding American of his time."
I don't quite get this sensation.
I pretty sure my congressman wouldn't read a book by a plant breeder on plant breeding, much less consider him an expert on other policies.
I doubt any congressman could name a current plant breeder.
Heck, I can't name a current plant breeder and I work in this field.
How times have changed.

In related news, I was a panelist at the Oklahoma Women in Science Conference yesterday (see pg. 21 for everyone's favorite fire-twirling plant ecologist and her sons). Four young women asked for my autograph. Seriously.
Botanists, rock stars, almost the same thing.

*Jane S. Smith's The Garden of Invention is a very readable biography that doesn't shy away from Burbank's oddities, poor financial decision making and the scientific and practical consequences of his work. Mendel in the Kitchen: A Scientist's View of Genetically Modified Foods by Nina Fedoroff and Nancy Marie Brown is an excellent look at the science of transgenic organisms and points out just how "dangerous" and "unnatural" some of Burbank's "traditional plant breeding" was. The Training of the Human Plant is available through the Library of Congress (there is a special Burbank collection there) and is quacky but delightful. Who am I to argue against the idea that children need sunshine, both literally and of love?

STIR some more

2011-10-03T09:34:00.002-05:00

If you read Juno's Daughters, let me know so that Tracy and I can include you in the discussion. If you haven't read Juno's Daughters, I think it is worth doing and I will tell you why later.
Lindsey and I just selected The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (amazon link here) for the October book. This short ( <200 pg.) award winning novel is, again, outside of what I "normally" read, but the reviews are excellent and I'm excited to gain another perspective. Lindsey has recently read her way around the world and is not an American, so although she and I have similar taste in books (we first bonded over Anne of Green Gables and children's fantasy), I'm sure she'll bring some different ideas to reading this one. Please join us.
And on some entirely other notes, The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde is lots of fun. Many of you would enjoy it. Some of you should definitely read The Zygote Chronicles by Suzanne Finnamore as Finnamore's phrases are fabulous in general and truly excellent at describing some of the craziness of pregnancy, I'm just not sure when one should read such a book. I read it quickly while breastfeeding and had to shake my head several times, "Lady, if you think pregnancy makes you crazy, wait until you have a baby. Or a baby and a toddler."

Lady Baltimore and the Monarchs

2011-09-27T10:16:00.004-05:00

Neither the Mister nor I recall exactly when or why he asked for a Lady Baltimore cake for his birthday. Almost certainly it had to do with birthdays and birthday cake being a big deal to me (and not to him*) and my pestering him for what sort of cake he'd like so I could do something special for him. He must have replied Lady Baltimore just to shut me up, because, since he didn't know what one is, he couldn't have longed for it.
Readers with long memories know I didn't bake him one last year. This year I had dried figs in reserve and my mother was here to help amuse Dianthus and Aster, so I went all out Lady Baltimore: separating a dozen eggs, pulling out the candy thermometer and toasting the pecans. The result, a nice textured almond-scented white cake with fig-pecan-raisin-cooked frosting-filling was much more tasty than it sounds. Still, it is never going to replace chocolate.
I teach on Tuesday nights so we had his birthday dinner on Sunday and I gave him most of his presents over caramelized peach french toast this morning. He thinks I'm crazy. Be that as it may, I like birthdays and I like him. He should know it.
Happy Birthday Mister!
In other news, monarchs are migrating through. Having done research on the gorgeous butterflies, they are the first thing I think of when I hear the word "monarch". I realize this is not universal, and I now love the thought that some of you envision kings and queens parading south when I mention the monarch migration. I saw 20 fly over the neighbors house in one breast-feeding session on Sunday. For the phenology record, the Mississippi Kites arrived the second weekend in May this year and left the week after Labor Day.

*I have been shown photos of the childhood birthday celebrations of the Mister and his brother by parents-in-law a bit defensive when I suggested earlier that birthdays were not a big deal in their family. I should clarify that there are big deals and big deals and adult birthdays in my family are big deals. Even if there is not a physical gift, there are wrapped presents and banging or pots and pans and off-key singing and cake and calls from the rest of the family and special breakfasts and special dinners and often a trip to the coast or the mountains. By mentioning these big deals I am in no way suggesting that families without such to-do do not sufficiently celebrate birthdays. I just happen to like the to-do (for adults. Perhaps surprisingly, I'll try to keep my sons' birthdays low-key for as long as possible).

Guest Stars In the Asteraceae

2011-09-25T08:40:00.000-05:00

Guest Star Molly writes about a plant in the "Star Family"*:

Right now in San Diego County one of the most prominent shrubs is Broom Baccharis (Baccharis sarothroides), a native plant that makes me smile. I only became aware of it two weeks ago, at a gathering of beginning birders in a gorgeous local park called Mission Trails. Before then I had begun to take a gloomy view that invasives would completely take over all disturbed areas in this county. Now this plant has become the new vocabulary word that, once known, is suddenly everywhere: interspersed with rust-colored, fading blooms of buckwheat in the state parks; tucked in among the exotic landscaping in my neighbors' yards; clinging to the resurfaced roadside slopes of I-15. This tenacious plant is a member of the Asteraceae, although at a distance it looks like some sort of strange juniper. The leaves are reduced and close to the stem, while the swollen white buds casually resemble fleshy cones. Yet, once open, the flowers reveal their ancestry immediately. I seriously doubt this will mark me as a sophisticated plantswoman, but I do enjoy this plant tremendously. Hurray for Fall blooming asters!

Hurray for guest stars like Molly!

* The Asteraceae, while literally the star family, is better know as the Daisy, Aster, or Sunflower Family, or the composites.

Star Anise Guest Haiku

2011-09-23T08:29:00.004-05:00

Before I present this Haiku from guest star SalSis, I'll note that I like star anise, in moderation (although I have ruined several stir fries by overwhelming them with Chinese Five Spice) and have poached pears in red wine and star anise recently to wild acclaim (by me). I'll also note that somehow I have three jars of star anise in my cupboard, so nobody need give me any in my stocking.
Salsis, however, has had more traumatic experiences with star anise, as she pointed out when the star theme was first revealed and now submits this poem:

The taste and odor of star anise forever changed by a bad batch of apples

Star anise you make me puke,

The smell of you and taste.

Batch of apple crisp gone wrong.

You're a star, SalSis. Thank you. And may all your apple crisps be star anise-free this season.

Less like a rock star

2011-09-17T15:42:00.006-05:00

Dianthus had beautiful crazy curly locks this summer. Then we asked his grandma to cut them. It was time (long curls I adore: a two-year old with tangles I'd rather avoid). The transition did not phase Dianthus, but it nearly made me cry. As the Mister put it, "He looks good. He just doesn't look like Dianthus". I then realized that he looks exactly like My Brother at two, (except for the hair color*, the eye color and the skin tone)**, less like a rock star and more like a little boy.

Aster, meanwhile, maintains his rock star hair as he awaits the return of Celtic-Punk.
*The curly locks removed from Dianthus matched that of The Mister's stashed in his baby book, and more red bits have been revealed with the cut. The baby book photo of The Mister at two weeks bore striking resemblance to Aster, although the Mister's parents don't remember him looking like Aster.
**I was born the week before my brother turned two, so this is clearly a false or planted memory.

More STIR

2011-09-15T21:32:00.002-05:00

Juno's Daughters by Lise Saffran is the September STIR selection. Tracy has finished it and I'm just starting, but this 2011 literary novel looks good and is yet another STIR selection sure to be unlike the previous.
Janet and I finally discussed (briefly, it was right when Dianthus arrived home and Aster awakened) The Heart of the Matter and agreed, while there was much not to like about the characters in the book, there was much to like about the writing. We opine that more people should read Graham Greene and talk to us about his books. The Heart of the Matter has a lot of heft and a lot of plot. Neither Janet nor I exactly remembers Travels with My Aunt, but we both remember it being well-written and lots of fun.
Jennifer and I have yet to talk about The Secret Eleanor. I enjoyed reading it but find it hard to recommend as it seemed to be trying to do lots of things-- history, romance, literary historical romance, troubled relationships among siblings-- and I can think of books that do any one of them better.
What have you been reading?

My Brother is a star . .

2011-09-11T13:19:00.004-05:00

. . for many reasons. At the moment he's a star because even though he is a publishing maniac hot shot scientist, has two very busy daughters, is planning a trip to the US soon, and is on crutches in a multi-story house, he sent me this photo to guest star on my blog.
This close-up of an Ohio Star is for the quilt my mother made him. The quilt contains about 15 such stars and, in my memory, is more of a royal blue than this image shows. The quilt is bright and beautiful. It was hand-quilted over a period of time, mostly in 1978-79 when we lived in Fort Worth.
Thanks MB.
Other readers take note! You, too, can be a guest star.

Guest Stars: Your chance to shine!

2011-09-01T12:31:00.004-05:00

I think Janet was joking when she suggested that I could save time by having someone ghost write my blog. None the less, she wins some Lucky magazines (if she wants them) because ghost writers are a great idea, except that I'm calling them guest stars and I'll try to keep blogging and they will sign their names (so they really won't be ghost writers at all).
I want all of you to be guest stars this fall.
All you need to do is write or photograph something star related and send it to my plant nerd e-mail.
Ideas:
two sentences to two paragraphs about your personal hero (a star)
a photograph of a star quilt you made or someone made for you
a description of how you entered space science (yes, Ad Astra, that's for you)
an image of a star plant (starflowers, asters, stellaria, shooting stars . . .)
a review of star media (Starman, Star Wars, Star Trek . . . )
thoughts on how well you fit your zodiac sign

Read Sparkling Squirrel this fall for great guest stars!

Oh, and check out Wuthering Expectations for Jane Austen music in response to Austen in August!

Where does one buy time?

2011-08-27T12:14:00.001-05:00

Read on for your chance to win Lucky (old issues of the magazine, which are better than Star, the magazine).
This semester brings more work responsibilities, and more pay, than I had planned for (I had planned for few of the former and none of the latter, as was the case when Dianthus was Aster's age). Except for the one evening class I am teaching, most of the work can be done at home (except for the greenhouse management, herbarium management, advising, committee meetings and creation of a plant collection, all of which I tend to ignore when making plans), but home is where I need to be available to feed, change and walk cranky baby on a moment's notice, where I'd really like to take a nap, where I need to spend time with Dianthus in the evenings and where I have a regular home life (laundry, garden, house, bills and husband) to attend to.
So, like working mothers everywhere (and, quite frankly, most anyone else I know), I need more time. They say that time equals money. I have more income than I expected. I'm willing to use some to buy time; I just don't know how to shop for it.
Win old issues of Lucky, the Magazine of Shopping and Style, by recommending reasonable time savers for my life. Keep in mind that I live in a small town in Western Oklahoma; local services do not good options for take-out Thai food, babysitting pools or diaper services. The best suggestions will not be too costly on the environment or the pocket book.
Some ideas I've considered so far:
Hire someone to clean: Good idea, but the time gained is near zero-- it's not like I'm scrubbing the tub when I could be developing curricula.
Quit clipping coupons: time saved 5 min./week. Money spent- probably nothing. It's not like I use most of the coupons I clip.
Sub-contract my work: fortunately, my work responsibilities are not

Aaaah. I've been trying to post this for two weeks. I'm just going to give up adding anything and post it now. Easy dinner ideas count as good ideas.

Also, if you are underemployed or have vacation or a weekend and would like to spend some time in Western Oklahoma, are willing to spend some of that time walking a baby and/or playing with a toddler, talk to me to find out if I can buy you a plane ticket and get you here.

Wherein Star beats Lucky and Lucky beats Star

2011-08-18T12:16:00.003-05:00

Star by Danielle Steel is better than Jackie Collin's Lucky.
Considering how little I appreciated Lucky, (which I reviewed almost three years ago to the day) that's not saying much. Star, my very first Danielle Steel and selected only because the title fits my theme, is full of one-dimensional characters, way, way way too much ethereal beauty, heavy-handed drama and repetitive descriptions. At page 300 I almost gave it up because we'd already had rape, murder, love at first sight, fleeting stardom, marriage to the wrong person and two wars and I really didn't care how much more these two characters were going to have to go through to get together (because of course they were). It turns out it required an Academy Award, an illegitimate child, false accusations of murder, and Kennedy's assassination, among other things. Star is probably exactly what I would have expected of Danielle Steel if I hadn't read the much-worse Lucky first. Having read Lucky, my expectations were so low that Star was surprisingly good; still for crazy romantic drama, (based on having read one book each) Barbara Delinsky is much better than Danielle Steel.
Lucky the magazine way out-classes Star the magazine. Neither are exactly my cup of tea. But my baby is awake, I'll have to tell you why later. . . .

Austen Light for August

2011-08-12T10:58:00.004-05:00

It's hot. School is re-starting. Your to-be-read pile is huge and deep. What to do? Skip the pile and read Jane Austen in Boca or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or watch Clueless or Bridgett Jones's Diary and join us for the Austen (Light) in August* discussion.
There is no formal STIR selection for August (which is probably good, as I am still trying to coordinate discussions of Secret Eleanor and The Heart of the Matter with Jennifer and Janet). I have found myself reading a great deal of "chick lit" of late (including Jane Austen in Boca, Jane Austen in Scarsdale [both by Paula Marantz Cohen], Cotillion [Georgette Heyer], Second Thyme Around [Katie Fforde] and Persuasion [Jane Austen]) and have loved it.
So, find yourself something that was inspired by Jane Austen and read it. Very highly recommended are the Paula Marantz Cohen's retellings of P+P and Persuasion (Jane Austen in Boca and Jane Austen in Scarsdale, respectively). Both are hilarious in their own right (dealing with Jewish widows looking for husbands and the sad times of a high school guidance counselor) and as clever re-makes of Austen's plots (an accident in Lyme is replaced with Lyme disease, for instance). Amateur Reader, not normally big into chick lit, says good things about them here . Highly recommended are the regency romances of Georgette Heyer (not directly retellings of Austen, but some of the best representatives of a whole genre inspired by Austen, raych reviews one here), I Capture the Castle (by Dodie Smith, which directly references both Jane Austen and Jane Eyre), and Bridget Jones's Diary (movie and book version reference P+P quite differently). I haven't read P+P and Zombies or any of the Elizabeth and Darcy mysteries, but if they might be your thing, read away. Of course, if you're not up for reading a whole book (after all this is Austen Light) watch Clueless or the A+E version of Emma or the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma or Bridget Jones or any of the (some fantastic, some less so) movie versions of P+P (the six hour BBC version with Colin Firth is by far the best, and makes the casting of Bridget Jones make sense).
If, perchance, you are contemplating joining the Austen (Light) in August discussions but have not read Pride and Prejudice, by all means, read it. (Nobody is stopping you from reading Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park or Emma, either). Remember, as you do so, that Austen is not taking all her characters seriously, you do not need to either.

*Nothing intended about Faulkner's Light in August. If you read it, I'll find someone for you to discuss it with, but it won't be me.

Dianthus and his unnamed brother

2011-08-05T11:16:00.006-05:00

Dianthus a day before his life changed and when his mother left for the hospital:

Dianthus's life-changer who doesn't yet have a blog name pictured below. If he'd turned out female, I had picked out Stella in keeping with this year's theme, or Arachne. We have considered the alternative spellings of his name, AnDru Mykall, or just sticking with Rutherford, but neither feels quite right. Suggestions for the cute little guy's name?

Dianthus learns that good things happen, even after the baby has come home: grandparents and birthdays.

Oh, and here's the molting image that makes this earlier post make sense. It was really weird that four days before giving birth, the skin on both of my hands started peeling off.

Laboring On and On

2011-07-29T21:20:00.003-05:00

I assumed that my failure to answer "How long were you in labor?" with Dianthus was because he was induced and I spent an extra day in the hospital with "unproductive" contractions. This time, I was sure, it would happen "naturally" and I would be able to answer the question definitively.
That's hardly the case.
It turns out that I'm really not sure what counts when people ask about labor. The process is much less well defined than I imagined.
I'm fairly certain I wouldn't count the contractions I had on Wednesday that made me tell everyone Thursday that the baby would arrive over the weekend. And I wouldn't say I was in labor 3 a.m. Thursday when contractions dragged me from bed and prevented me from falling back asleep**. 3 a.m. Friday morning I was awakened again by contractions and one could fairly say that I was in labor, because I didn't stop having contractions until RuthRob emerged. Of course, one could fairly say that I wasn't in labor because they weren't painful contractions coming at even intervals. Then again, if one goes with contractions at regular short intervals defining labor, I may never have been in it, or my mother or mother-in-law if I correctly understand their stories.
My water broke sometime Friday afternoon. I realized it about 7 p.m. (yes, it is possible for the amniotic membranes to rupture without one realizing it). I was in the hospital about 8, cervix dilated 3-4 cm, but so far back in my body that it took 3 nurses to find it. At that time, lying down and strapped to 7 cords (monitors for fetal heart rate, contractions, blood pressure and my heart rate, an IV and blow up cuffs on each leg to prevent blood clots), my contractions eased up considerably-- was I in labor? Or was it not until 1:30 a.m. when the contractions (strengthened by pitocin) made me gasp each time. Or 3:30, when I was measured at 6-7 cm? Or 4:15 or so when I told the Mister to get the nurses because I was about to push the baby out? Or 4:56 when the doctor told me I could go ahead and push so RuthRob could emerge at 4:57*?
So, depending how you count, I was in labor 48, 24, 12, 9, 5, 3, or 1 1/2 hours, or 1 push.
I'm genuinely curious-- those of you who ask or have been asked this question, what do you count?
In any case, one week ago and 2 years ago, I was in labor, of sorts. Happy one week to RuthRob and two years to sweet Dianthus.

*For a long time I thought that labor was the same as pushing, so was absolutely in awe of women who had 12 hour labors.

**Which is when I finished Heart of the Matter, by the way. If you read the June or July STIR books, please let me know.

The Black Widow Bite Was Worse

2011-07-23T12:19:00.002-05:00

Labor was not fun, and not pushing because I was suddenly ready and the doctor wasn't here when my body was ready for pushing was torturous, but altogether, bringing Dianthus's little brother out this morning was less painful than the black widow bite.
Anyway, our second son emerged right about 5 a.m. this morning. He weighs 7 lbs. 6.9 oz. and is sleeping soundly at the moment. The rest of us are all okay, too.

And that was before I started molting

2011-07-21T09:36:00.000-05:00

Contrary the impression one may have gleaned from earlier posts (like this about early physical symptoms and my recent self-description as weepy and irritable), I have been generally healthy throughout this pregnancy. Queasiness subsided at the end of the first trimester, my weight gain and blood pressure have been good, my ankles have not swollen, and RuthRob has always demonstrated good growth, kicks and heart rate, despite phantom heart holes and whatever caused her brain ventricles to swell. Still I remain surprised at how very different this pregnancy feels compared to my pregnancy with Dianthus and how many uncomfortable and irritating symptoms I've encountered that turn out to be "normal".
So, at the risk of making SalSis squirmy again, here's a further list of issues I've encountered with pregnancy, reported in order to help you grasp the huge range of what's normal and healthy:
Pain in the butt: Fortunately, it was only for a week, but there were a few evenings when every change in position led to acute pain in the rear end. Turns out RuthRob just hit my sciatic nerve for a while. Had to convince my doctor that I was being literal when I asked about it, but she eventually laughed and told me it's normal and should go away.
Red patch of not-zits: I'm not even totally sure if the red, sorta-flaky, sometimes rash-like patch of skin that's been on my face since March is actually pregnancy related, but red patches, zits, and dry patches are all listed as "common" in pregnancy so the combination very well could be.
Varicose veins where one doesn't want them: Okay, I'm not sure where one would want varicose veins, and I'm fortunate not to have hemorrhoids or visible varicose veins on the legs, but it was still startling to find little black bumps on sensitive skin I don't ordinarily see. V.v.s are considered common in pregnancy.
Fatigue to the point that I watch Wheel of Fortune every day.
Yeast infection: I've never been diagnosed with a yeast infection before this week. Oh my. Boy do those of you who frequently deal with such fire on the crotch have my sympathy. Yeast infections are "very common" any time in pregnancy.
Black widow bite: Unlike all of the above, not mentioned in the pregnancy books. But if there are, on average 2,500 reported black widow bites in the US each year, and about 4 million women are pregnant each year, and if having a black widow bite is independent of pregnancy (and I see no reason why it should not be), there are an average of 30 pregnant women with black widow bites in the US each year. I should be so lucky.
And then there's the molting. (image of the skin peeling off of my hand goes here).

Don't worry, this is the last pregnancy post. Unless I still happen to be pregnant next week.

Bring on the grandparents

2011-07-18T08:17:00.002-05:00

Every weekend recently is a long weekend, and generally not in a good way. Dianthus doesn't seem to get that we can't go play when it is over 100 out (and once a week we have an official high of 98 but otherwise it has been over 100 since we returned from May travels). We're in a small town with no mall, no ice rink, no children's museum, no indoor play area, and no shady mountain or lake escapes: once we go to Walmart (which we did on both Saturday and Sunday) we've pretty well exhausted the air conditioned public spaces.
I'm sweaty, irritable, nine-months pregnant and feeling it. The Mister is dealing with an irritable wife, a classically two-year old son and a scorched landscape. He's feeling it.
Fortunately for us, my mother arrives Wednesday, my father arrives the next week and the Mister's parents are hopefully visiting shortly therafter.
Still, I'll admit that as I look towards August with a newborn, a two-year-old and a continued "exceptional" drought, I'm scared.

Why The Mister is Right For Me, Part X to X+2 of N

2011-07-14T12:05:00.005-05:00

x. He follows international women's soccer.

x+1. He's the best at playing bucking bronco with Dianthus.

x+2. He mentioned, quite seriously (and accurately), "I think we're more like Harry and Ginny than Ron and Hermione."

Summer STIR updates and requests

2011-07-14T08:11:00.003-05:00

Jennifer and I are starting to discuss The Secret Eleanor. If you read it, let me know so we can include you in the discussion.
Janet and I are both enjoying Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter. I'm still not sure where it is going, and if I really want to go there, but as Janet points out, the "writing is fabulous. I just love the way he puts things and the details he notes." THofM feels like a book of substance: extremely well written and addressing real issues (colonial politics in wartime, marriage past its prime, and I think we're about to get some spying), without being a chore to read. (I'm reading a large print edition, so the pages turn very quickly, but I imagine I'd be cruising through a normal font as well, and it's only 288 pages long in normal). Let me know if you'd like to join us on it.
I'm accepting recommendations for books to read in labor (as this baby is not going to be induced, I hope I do not have as much sitting around strapped to monitor time as I did with Dianthus, but it wouldn't hurt to have the right book at the ready) and books to read while nursing. The limiting factor of nursing books is that they need to be paperbacks that I can bend in weird ways and hold with one hand (yes, I suppose a Kindle would solve the problem but I have a hard time seeing me pulling out an electronic device at 3 in the morning) and preferably fun and fast-paced. In irritating induced labor with Dianthus, I wanted Endurance, an adventure of people far-worse off than me (and inspiringly hopeful), and during early breastfeeding Lloyd Alexander's Pyridian Chronicles were fabulous. I guess I'm looking for light but not trashy, engaging but can be absorbed in small doses, and generally up-beat.
Ideas?

How sweet that vacuum is!: the pragmatic romantics take on iron and candy

2011-07-08T15:31:00.006-05:00

I'm a romantic. I surround myself with fresh flowers, will willingly pay for delicious food, and soak myself in long, scented baths. I cry at weddings, at happy endings, and sometimes Hallmark commercials. I love stories of Hope, Love, overcoming odds, and the glories of Nature. My parents are romantics, my brother is a romantic, and, cleverly disguised by his geeky exterior, the Mister is a romantic, too.
Yet, when, after we had been dating about a month, the Mister swooned, "You're so pragmatic," I took it as the compliment that had been intended.
I asked for, and received, a simple band for an engagement ring.
After our wedding, we worked and wrote thank-you notes for a week before we spent the first night of our honeymoon in Newark, NJ (and the rest, to the bafflement of local bartenders, in Newfoundland). We're practical as well as romantic.
Still, I am somewhat surprised at how very excited we both are about our anniversary present to each other: a new, super-suction, giant beast of a vacuum cleaner.
Happy six years Sweetie!

Black Widow Bites Lucky Pregnant Woman

2011-07-02T16:20:00.004-05:00

There is just so much good blogging potential in being hospitalized for a black widow bite at 36 weeks pregnant (at the beginning of a holiday weekend, right after my husband and son had left town) that I hate to write about it when I'm not up to the witty post that will do it justice.
But I want your sympathy and I want you to know what's going on, so I'll stick to a basically factual post.
Thursday morning a black widow bit me in my right underarm. I did not notice at the time.
Thursday morning I also brushed a spider off of my stomach (while sitting at my kitchen table) it was black with red on its abdomen, but not what I think a black widow should look like (i.e. no distinct hourglass).
Thursday about noon the Mister and Dianthus headed north to the in-laws for the weekend and I was looking forward to getting some stuff done around the house.
Thursday morning (prior to the bite) I also had a hormonal crying jag and was sweaty because it was over 100 degrees here already. Rutherford Robinia has also been recently putting pressure on my pelvis and abdomen in weird (relative to Dianthus as a fetus) and very uncomfortable ways, although not so much on Thursday morning.
Those last two lines are added to explain why, when I started sweating profusely, having abdominal and back pain and wanting to cry, and saw that the sharp stabbing pain under my arm was a spider bite, I did not immediately seek medical attention-- who wants to be a hypochondriac when you're also pregnant weepy and suddenly alone for the weekend?
But my symptoms exactly matched those of a black widow bite and were not going away and it was lunchtime, so I drove myself to the "convenient care clinic" two blocks away. I described something incorrectly, spoke too coherently, and they must be more used to drug addicts or something, because they paid absolutely no attention to the fact that I was in such pain that I was unable to sit in the waiting room, was sweating everywhere, and probably short of breath-- told me is wasn't a venomous spider and sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics.
I went home, tried to nap, tried to take a shower, tried to cry, tried to use yoga breathing to breathe through the pain, tried to feel if RuthRob was moving and failed miserably on all counts. I thought at the time that whatever I was feeling, it was worse than labor, because at least during labor I knew why my body was in such an uncomfortable state and that the pain would not last forever.
Perhaps a bit foolishly, considering that the pain was in my legs by this time and I wasn't totally sure I could control the gas pedal, I drove myself to my OB's office about two miles away.
She had seen me in good health and good spirits at a check up that morning so everyone in her office immediately knew that something was wrong as I stumbled in in my sweaty state.
They checked RuthRob whose heart was beating just fine, checked with a family doc (my OB is, shockingly, not an expert on venomous spider bites) who agreed that it certainly could be a black widow and that RuthRob and I should be monitored, and had a nurse drive me to the hospital (a block away).
Soon all sorts of testing began (they took blood for cardiac enzymes and ran an EKG-- someone asked later if a heart attack is a common symptom of a black widow bite-- the answer is no, but a heart attack is a common cause of a person sweating uncontrollably with fluctuating pulse and blood pressure, shortness of breath, tight chest and intense pain in the arm) and another super-uncomfortable hour or two ensued as there was absolutely no position that was not painful-- but I kept squirming trying to find the elusive less-painful position, which is not not advised while hooked up to fetal monitors, an IV line and oxygen. The nurses did a fairly good job of trying to keep me talking about other stuff, but later revealed that I was in really bad shape.
Long story a bit shorter-- after fans, oxygen, fluids, time and care have kicked in and I can speak a sentence-- I realized that it's Thursday and not Friday and I do know somebody in town. The nurse called my fabulous secretary who came by, bringing good cheer and good sense and helped me contact my parents who helped me contact the Mister's parents so that the Mister could arrive at their house from a 5 1/2 hour drive with a 23 month old in 100 degree heat to learn that his wife was in the hospital.
The doctor told me that it was a black widow bite, that the toxin is very rarely fatal*, and that most of the things that could make me feel better (antivenom, narcotics, muscle relaxants) are unsafe during pregnancy. I'm told I will be observed overnight, at least, to find out how much my muscles deteriorate, and because most symptoms are likely to reoccur.
A miserable night (but much better than the afternoon) ensued (with the interesting added bonus that was pumped with so many fluids that there is a three hour stretch between 1 and 3 am during which I peed 700-900 mL an hour!). The baby remained great throughout, at least judging by heart rate and movement.
They discharged me in the morning. I returned home and a woozy swollen day ensues. The Mister and Dianthus returned home Friday afternoon.
I still feel suddenly tired, hot and then cold, and weak in spells today, but am much better.
I am to expect such symptoms to fade, but will not be surprised if they persist in spells.

So that's the story. Witty and weird take may come later. In the meantime, stay away from venomous spiders.
*This is supposed to be reassuring, but as I really didn't think that I was going to die once I made it to the hospital, it had somewhat the opposite effect.

Women's World Cup Makes Me Cry

2011-06-27T13:45:00.003-05:00

The Mister and I couldn't conversationally speculate about whether my niece will play soccer for Germany or the US this morning because I was crying so hard. Why? Because we were watching Mexico play England in the Women's World Cup.
The match was tied nil-nil at that time, I have no personal interest in either team, I doubt I've watched a women's soccer match since the Olympics, I hadn't yet heard the story about Maribel Dominguez*, and it's not just because I'm hugely pregnant and weep at the slightest provocation. It's that women's sports make me happy and sad and hopeful and proud, as does truly international competition. Equatorial Guinea has a team playing in Germany right now. My nieces could watch women from Equatorial Guinea play women from Brazil a few miles from their house next week.
In twelve years, the little Lion could be making her first World Cup appearance in a packed stadium playing for either the US or Germany. She probably won't and I certainly wouldn't encourage her, but she could. And even if she doesn't, some other young woman will. This makes me cry,
Thanks to my mother and the thousands of women of her generation who played half-court basketball. Thanks to all the women and men who realized that half a court wasn't good enough. Thanks to those of you who passed Title IX so that I could play soccer and volleyball in high school. Thanks to everyone who doesn't blame women's soccer when men's wrestling is cut to comply with regulations. Thanks to my parents for letting me play organized soccer at age six. Thanks to Kristine Lilly and Mia Hamm and Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe and all the Tiffanys and Abbeys of the world. Thanks to Maribel and Marta and Christelle Jumaria and Sinforosa and all of the women who play sports for the fun of it, without ever having a chance at a "cap", much less being a one-name wonder.
May my niece and I never truly comprehend how much we have to be thankful for.
Go Equatorial Guinea!
*Star of the Mexico team. Known largely for scoring lots of goals for the national team, but also for her heart-string pulling childhood (one of 9 kids in a dirt-floored household, had to sneak out to play football as "Mario") and her enraging failure to play with a second-tier men's team (Mexican officials okayed it, but FIFA in Zurich determined that there must be clear separation between men's and women's football, even in countries where there are no chances for women to play at a high level.)
“The women’s team of Equatorial Guinea are like the Brazil men’s team. The players are idols and greeted like stars after each match. After their last win, it took two hours before we could leave the stadium. There can be nothing else like it in women’s football anywhere in the world.” Marcelo Frigerio, Equatorial Guinea coach
Photo of Christelle and quote from the official FIFA women's world cup pages.

Books neither Star nor STIR

2011-06-23T14:59:00.006-05:00

I have read a few things this spring that are neither about stars nor part of project STIR. Here are a few thoughts (I might claim, as I did here, that I'll write more about those you want to know more about, but the first time that assertion led only to this one review, so I make no promises now).
The Day of the Triffids John Wyndam SalSis and I read this classic (1951) sci-fi novel (which includes horrible plants that take over the world and may or may not be from outer space) together as an antidote to Breath, Eyes, Memory. Triffids first came to my attention as the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question that the Mister and I mocked until we learned that the book is still very-well regarded. Triffids fits in well with "old" apocalyptic sci-fi, like War of the Worlds (discussed on Wuthering Expectations here and the rest of that week) as well a taking a very modern approach to as escalating biological arms race and the consequences for civilization.
Stumbling on Happiness Daniel Gilbert A psychologist presents the experimental research that supports the idea that humans are terrible and deciding what will make us happy in the future. A fun read despite that.
The Elements of Style Strunk and White Mister (harassing me for reading Elements of Style as bedtime pleasure): "I hear that has a gripping plot."
Me: "No, but it's really well written."
And it is!
The Poison Throne, The Crowded Shadows and The Rebel Prince by Celine Kiernan Prompted by raych's glowing reviews (9, 8.5 and 9 caterpillars), I bought the entire Moorehawk Trilogy for the Mister. The Mister was not a big fan (although he did read all 1200 pages in a short while). I liked them considerably more than he did, (although I agreed that Kiernan could have used a better editor), perhaps because adding a few magical elements to an alternative history of Europe doesn't bother me or perhaps because young strong heroines in fantasy novels impress me more than they do him.
Medium Raw Anthony Bourdain I'm actually a little embarrassed by my family fascination with food entertainment, but after the Mister read Medium Raw in a day, I read it, we discussed it, and I passed it on to my mother after I kept quoting Bourdain to her. What I should be embarrassed by is not that I like Anthony Bourdain, or that I watch Top Chef whenever I'm somewhere with cable (pretty much just the Mister's parents' house) or even that I know most of the people that Bourdain mocks, but that the Mister and I returned from vacation and followed Medium Raw up by watching Eric Rippert's PBS food series, Avec Eric, and then becoming consumed by America's Next Food Network Star on hulu. And I can't even mock Next Food Network Star because I've already figured out my "POV"* for my food network show.

"Charlotte Collins is knocked up!: Why I needed to read Pride and Prejudice for the tenth time" was going to be the title of a post I wrote in November, when I first noticed talk of Charlotte's "condition". I read Pride and Prejudice again a few weeks ago and did not have any great plot insights this time, but I still love it, eleven-or-so times later.
I've started (and liked, but somehow dropped) Sea of Poppies and Stolen Lives, but plan to return to both one of these times, after The Secret Eleanor and perhaps some trashy romance or children's lit.

*My point of view would be the plants behind the ingredients. I'm also working on my readings for my fall Economically Important Plants class and keep bringing up food plant tidbits ("modern bananas are all asexually propagated" "despite being an African plant; South America, SE Asia and Central America all grow far more coffee than Africa does") to my tolerant or curious husband. Anyway, if only I were a faster cook, had a less irritating voice on tape, and the camera took off 50 pounds; my show could have potential.

Secret Eleanor and Summer STIR

2011-06-20T13:41:00.002-05:00

The Secret Eleanor by Cecelia Holland is Jennifer's pick for the June/July STIR. A historical novel about Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Secret Eleanor looks to be somewhere between well-documented history and Phillipa Gregory-style romance. I've just started reading it and think it will be a fun read for those of us who enjoy both scandal and history (and whether or want them to be or not, such books are always strikingly educational because they lead me to look things up like "Where is Aquitaine? How about Anju? Which crusade are we talking about?").
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene, a reputed-to-be-great novel from a reputed-to-be-great author from a time (mid-twentieth century) from which I have read very few "classics"* is Janet's July pick.
Juno's Daughters is on with Tracy for September.
August is still open for someone who wants to suggest a book easy to read while breastfeeding, or I might just suggest some YA Fantasy or a classic adventure story (Kidnapped comes to mind).

*At the moment, I can only think of Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby and As I Lay Dying are distinctly earlier and Vonnegut considerable later and many people would not consider Tolkein and Lewis among the "classics".

Insight Insights (or lack thereof)

2011-06-16T14:07:00.009-05:00

Partially because I was reading it just as I learned that Rutherford Robinia* had likely had a stroke in utero, my personal response to April STIR's My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor was muddled. Despite, or perhaps because of, this, the e-mail discussion of the book was some of the best we've had. Thanks to Jenny, Irene and Prairie Quilter for openly sharing thoughts.

A quick re-cap: Jill Bolte Taylor was a research neuroanatomist in her 30s when she has a massive stroke. After eight years she considered herself fully recovered and wrote My Stroke of Insight, a memoir of the experience, a call for compassionate assistance for stroke victims, a piece of inspirational self-help on using the right-side of the brain, a few chapters on brain anatomy and a testament to the wonder and the plasticity of the human brain. The book is short and covers a lot of ground in few pages.

I think the STIR readers unanimously thought the writing was uneven and fit some of the purposes better than others, but most of our comments were about wanting more: more about JBT's personal life, more about the intermediate steps in the recovery process, and more answers to things that Bolte Taylor couldn't possible answer ("if post-stroke enlightenment is comparable to meditative-religious enlightenment [and JBT is fairly convincing that it is], is it really possible to achieve just by desire, rather than major trauma or years of practice?" "would the brain of a stroke-sufferer in her 70s really be as plastic?") which suggests that JBT succeeded.

My Stroke of Insight is highly recommended for anyone who thinks they might become a caregiver for someone following a stroke (and, like many books about motherhood with newborns, I imagine that this book is better to have read before one needs it. If I were a frustrated care-giver, I could see MSoI being inspirational or exceedingly frustrating ['easy for her to say that the brain can completely recover. . .']) and fellow-biologists who know nothing about the human brain and generally recommended overall. If you do read it, I'd happily share more of the thoughts of the STIR readers with you.

In the meantime, take care of your brains.

*At the super-duper sonogram yesterday we learned that RuthRob has completely normal cranial anatomy and had the doctor been seeing me for the first time, would have sent me on my way with an ordinary "looks fine" report. RuthRob is also 5.5 pounds, so of nicely average size (57th percentile).

Stained glass brain by JBT, image found on her website, drjilltaylor.com.

Challenge for my Father-in-Law

2011-06-15T09:45:00.006-05:00

I should make this perfectly clear: I do not believe that men are the same as women, biologically or otherwise, nor should they be.
But a few men have ruffled my feathers recently by suggesting that certain traits are inherently "boy" traits. Perhaps it is because I possess these particular traits (and was not raised as a tomboy) that the issue rankles. I love playing with legos (yes, that is present tense), I have always wanted to spend time outside (except when I did it for a living and gained far greater appreciation of air conditioning, heating and showers), and when compared to the Mister, MB or MBiL, would be the most naturally inclined to work on a ranch.
I don't think I possess these traits because I'm female, nor do I think it is my femaleness that makes me taller than the Mister or worse at math than the Mister (but better than 90% of the graduate school-attending population) or better at baking cakes. They are just part of who I am.
Dianthus currently wants to be outside all the time, follows his grandfathers into the pasture or garden, and is obsessed with trucks and lawn mowers. He also is a big help unloading the dishwasher and is fascinated by kittens, bubbles and hair clips.
His sibling, female or male, will certainly be different at age almost two.
She or he may not like being outside looking at insects, may not want to dig and may not make loud grumbling noises when pushing objects across the floor.
My challenge to my Father-in-Law is to put a cap on her or him, give her or him a dump truck, and take her or him out digging potatoes and bashing musk thistle and give her or him every opportunity to find out.

Upcoming STIR

2011-06-03T15:38:00.001-05:00

I mixed up the June and July book selectors, so it turns out that the official July book has been chosen and June book has not. I'll announce Janet's now and Jennifer's next week and we'll discuss as the books are read.
Janet's book is The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene. Janet and I were in the same book club in Denver over ten years ago. At that time, we read Travels with My Aunt and both very much enjoyed it. Somehow, however, neither of us has ever read any other Graham Greene (and despite him being one of the great and prolific authors of the twentieth century, neither of us could name another book by him). After much discussion of the many things we want to read (which was always the best part of our Denver book club), we settled on The Heart of the Matter because, among other things, it is listed as one of the TIME 100 best novels in English and we were much less likely to pick it up "on our own" than Treasure Island (which was our runner-up choice). Please join us for what we expect to be a great novel.

In other STIR news: soon, very soon, I will post the last of the Lark Rise to Candleford thoughts. Despite all of the issues with it, Marieke and I have found much to discuss in the March book.
The readers of My Stroke of Insight have been discussing it off-blog. I'll summarize once I've heard from everyone.
Many of us have finished Charles and Emma. If you've read it, let me know so that I can e-mail you the discussion questions.

Unexpected Stars, Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Mothers

2011-06-02T14:45:00.006-05:00

One of the many pleasures of staying with my in-laws on "the ranch" in Central Kansas is doing nothing. While here, "nothing" often entails watching food television (for the Mister more than me, but we're both plenty guilty of sitting down to an episode of Top Chef and then staying awhile) and reading children's literature (my MiL was a school librarian for many years). I picked Lost Star: The Story of Amelia Earhart by Patricia Lauber, Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg, and Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech off the shelf for reading over the last three days. I chose the first because it is a "star" book and the latter three because they are Newberry Award Winners or Newberry Honor books.
I was startled to find unexpected themes in these books: families are ruined by alcoholism in three of the four, two of them speak a great deal about constellations, and mothers leave their families in three of the four (or possibly all four depending on which of the Earharts left the other). Since I was expecting a book about a pioneering aviatrix, a book about a dog, a book about middle school quiz bowl and a book about Indian mythology (all of which are accurate except the last), death and dysfunction among mothers shook me quite a bit.
Have you ever discovered yourself quite inadvertently in the middle of themed reading? Was it coincidence or message from the universe?*
All four books are very good, by the way, and all, except the Amelia Earhart book, manage to have happy endings without the unresolvable being resolved (i.e. the dead stay dead and the divorced stay divorced). Walk Two Moons is the only real tear-jerker or the bunch and The View from Saturday a bit too much Slumdog Millionaire**, but I like angst with my sweetness in children's literature, and therefore didn't mind at all.
*I'm fairly certain that this is coincidence; "It will hurt your family if you drink too much and leave them," doesn't strike me as a particularly relevant personal message at the moment.
**Quiz bowl answers relate directly to vignettes of sixth graders lives.

Genetic Gardening Compulsion

2011-05-26T21:59:00.001-05:00

It's the day before a big spring or summer vacation: what are you doing?
a) packing
b) catching up with work before you leave stuff
c) pre-relaxing
d) fixing the sprinkler system, mulching, building a new garden bed, laying soaker hoses or something similar.

If your answer does not include "d" you are probably not genetically related to one side of my family (and frankly, if it is not "all of the above, assuming throwing some sort of get together counts as 'c' " you are probably not my parents). As I was mulching recently (obviously a must before a vacation) I decided that this might be genetic and not cultural because I'm pretty sure that my uncle, who certainly never influenced my vacation planning culturally, would be getting plants in the ground until dark the night before a May vacation, if he had ever abandoned his work and his house during the growing season.

I thought I might post "before" photos of the new garden beds, but I still have a and b to do before I can sleep (which surely counts as c), so I'll just post a photo of the spring vegetable beds a week ago and the result of the crazy-grown-up-shopping we did recently.

Mister Splashy Pants Does Not Like The Storm Shelter

2011-05-25T11:05:00.002-05:00

And I can't say I blame her; it's uncomfortable and the weather radio makes horrible noises. Still, I'm glad we have the little basement that we do. We sheltered in it during a tornado warning for the first time yesterday and fortunately did not need to. While there was a funnel cloud just a few miles from town, in the end the closest of the many destructive tornadoes in the area touched down about twenty miles from here.
Other people in the area were not nearly so lucky. This twister was one of the smaller ones we "watched" live as we were glued to the tv yesterday. Watching the footage is all the more fascinating when one knows that the semi driver walked away.

On Uncles

2011-05-16T10:08:00.002-05:00

My father's brother died last week. I have been struggling to figure out what to say about uncles in general ("they are good to have in ones life"?) or this uncle in particular ("I figured out as an adult that he never really was going to heave me in the Kankakee River when I was five," "I'm still embarrassed that, as a third grader, I got it wrong when he asked me which was bigger 3/4 or 3/5", "he tried to hide his soft side, but I saw him around his grandkids, his dogs, and his turkey, and I know what I nice guy he could be"?) and haven't come up with anything pithy.
I'm very fortunate that my three uncles, very different from each other, have always been part of my life even though I've never lived near any of them. I'm also fortunate (as is everyone in my family) that all three chose fabulous wives. The two that are gone will continue to be much missed, but I must choose to feel lucky for knowing them as long as I did.
I'll add my usual thoughts on the uncertainty of life and celebrating as you go along, but also must remind everyone, but particularly my Brother, my Brother-in-Law, my Father and my Father-in-Law, to take care of yourselves. You are, after all, somebody's cherished uncle.

Birds and Bats and T-shirts

2011-05-16T09:55:00.002-05:00

Stumped about the appropriate gift for someone? Want to support a charity in which you know exactly where the money is going?
Buy a t-shirt for one of the Haitian ecotour guides! Or buy one for yourself.
My friend Debbie (who was working to help teach children about the water quality and ecology of Haiti when the earthquake struck in January 2010) designed the shirts so that the guides will stand out and to remind people that bats and birds persist in the forests of Haiti. She gave Dianthus and his sibling prototype shirts, and Dianthus has been happily wearing his sibling's bright orange shirt to day care, where his teacher commented, "We won't lose him today," just as Debbie hoped.
Debbie leaves for another two weeks in Haiti in two weeks, contact her if you'd like to help out with educational or other supplies.

Son's Stars

2011-05-11T13:27:00.006-05:00

They're winners perhaps because they built tunnels, built a rocking horse, put together a slide, bought him clothes, gave him snacks, took him for walks, let him go on the big boy swings, read him stories, splashed in the bath or talked on the phone. But probably, they are stars to Dianthus because they are his family.
Dianthus was lucky enough to see grandparents in December, January, February, March and April and had a special bonus weekend with his Uncle in April as well.
The winds may blow way too much here, but there is a reason we moved.

Star desserts and signature dishes

2011-05-10T15:36:00.004-05:00

At the end of spring break, Dianthus and I actually baked some peanut butter cookies, rolled and cut into star shapes. They were no better than ordinary round peanut butter cookies (and perhaps a bit worse) but they were stars, which at least allows me to make one tick towards my star resolution.
When the Mister's Parents visited for Easter, I baked a pavlova. I typically think of the strawberry center as being a floral design, but the case could be made that it is really a star pattern. Two star foods on the list.

On a related note, the Mister asked recently what our signature dishes are. We both could name his signature dishes (chicken biriyani and breakfast burritos with fabulous fried taters) but couldn't list mine. There was a time that pavlova was definitely it for me-- I used to demonstrate making pavlova in 4-H speech competitions and wowed numerous parties with the strawberry star, but apparently it is no longer; the Mister had never previously eaten one and I had forgotten my secret recipe.

What's your signature dish? What's mine?

STIRring up religion and science: Charles and Emma

2011-04-29T15:26:00.005-05:00

STIR moves to May with Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman. Charles and Emma is a well-researched biography of the Darwins' marriage, written at the "Young Adult" level. As I am looking things up about it, I am becoming ever more anxious to go home and read it.
The proximate reasons that Molly selected Charles and Emma was that she and I both foresee hectic months (she's moving, among other things), and, among the many thought-provoking books on her shelves, Charles and Emma, with its YA size, seemed the one we would most likely delve into and quickly finish.
I can only speculate on the ultimate reasons that Molly had C&E on her shelf and thought we'd both like to read it in the first place, but imagine these are some of the reasons: the book is a love story about a couple who brought very different ideas, but lots of respect, to their marriage; the book treats science, religion and family life as compatible pursuits; the book has been critically very well received, winning many awards and making lists of "best YA for adults" and the like; and the book starts out with an actual image of Charles Darwin's marriage pro and con list.
I imagine that C&E would be interesting to many of my readers (Beth, Jenny, Prairie Quilter, Chateau, all the bio profs, perhaps even SalSis) and it widely available at libraries (okay, I base this on the fact that it is the first STIR book that I have been able to check out in my town). Let me know if you'd like to join the discussion.

By the way, Jenny and I are starting to discuss April's My Stroke of Insight. If you read it, let me know and I'll loop you into the discussions. Janet is working on the June selection and Tracy has picked Juno's Daughters by Lise Saffran for September.

Deferment of Worry

2011-04-28T13:07:00.004-05:00

Super-duper ultrasound revealed yesterday that Rutherford Robinia's ventricles are normal-sized now (Hooray!). However, it is still clear that something happened and something was amiss in the brain (it's not like the heart hole ), probably some sort of bleed that is now "organizing" (i.e. blood being reabsorbed).
We'll keep monitoring it and, most likely, it will continue not to be a problem pre-birth or at birth. However, there's no real telling what the long-term effects (if any) of (what was most likely) a stroke during fetal development are, so RuthRob's development will be tracked particularly closely, even in absence of other interventions.
He or she, by the way, weighs 2 lb 6 oz, and is starting to get a face that looks more like Dianthus's than a lemur's. RuthRobinia has appropriate numbers of fingers and toes and the doctor thinks it's developmentally significant that RR clasps and unclasps its cute little hands.
Thanks for your continued support.

Rebirth with Rain

2011-04-24T21:13:00.005-05:00

At six o'clock this morning I awakened to the sound of gentle rain. Much as I love sunny spring mornings, I'm not sure I recall any sunny Easter that captured the glory of life and re-birth quite as much as that sound of the first rain in a drought.
Things will grow. We are not abandoned. God is love.

Brain fluid beats heart holes?

2011-04-19T12:56:00.003-05:00

A series of events that has left me longing for my overworked West Virginia OB/GYN who never had quite enough time for me and his other healthy patients:
-I'm old (technically AMA, of "advanced maternal age") so my (generally great) obstetrician schedules an appointment for me with the super-duper sonogram (in Norman, an hour and a half away) and the MFM specialist (maternal fetal medicine), which is now routine for all old mothers.
-I start bleeding and am diagnosed with a subchorionic hemorrhage the week before the appointment (January).
-Super-duper ultrasound reveals a baby growing great, but blood in the uterus which should be tracked (January).
-Return to super-duper ultrasound end of February. Blood is gone. Hooray! Baby is a great size, hooray! But wait, doctor may have seen a hole in Rutherford Robinia's heart. Look again. Baby is uncooperative, can't see anything. Come back in six weeks and we'll check out this possible hole.
-Return to super-duper ultrasound first week of April. Heart is intact. Heart is pumping great. Hooray! But wait, one of the ventricles on Rutherford's brain is enlarged. "Your baby has ventriculomegaly but don't worry, it's not hydrocephalus yet. Do you want to do an MRI?*" "No, okay, come back in three weeks."

Grrrr. It seems that RuthRob could have a brain tumor, a brain hemorrhage, major developmental problems, a fetal infection, or chromosomal abnormalities; or, much more likely, extra fluid in the ventricle in the brain that needs to be shunted after birth; or, much much more likely still, a slightly enlarged ventricle in the brain that will never lead to any observable symptoms.
How the next visit next week could go: Heart still great! Brain normal. Hooray! But wait, what's that? Your child has three tails! Want amnio? No? Okay, come back in three weeks and we'll see how well the wings are developing!

*I'm not exactly sure when a doctor is supposed to offer further diagnostic options, but immediately after alerting someone to the presence of a condition she's never heard of is not the time that she's most likely to make a well-informed decision. Still, I did ask the pertinent question, "Would we do anything differently based on the MRI?" and, the answer being, well, we'd still need to monitor it closely, I think I made the correct choice for us.

Maple babies and the first roses

2011-04-15T10:08:00.002-05:00

We were showered with silver maple seeds Monday (April 11). It was nothing like the crazy shower of seeds last April in West Virginia, but still enough to cover the ground. Roses are starting to bloom here, and our irises along the south wall. Ornamental pears peaked on March 12, red buds were fantastic March 18- April 1 (and still interesting looking for another week). Our flowering dogwood may be in full flower, but it is so sad looking I'm hopeful there is more to come. Crocuses appeared after the daffodils (perhaps because they were newly planted) March 15 (yellow then purple then white) and the tulips (also new) peaked April 1, so that I could combine them with lilacs and new golden euonymous growth in a gorgeous bouquet. Most oaks have leaves and pecans and walnuts have been flowering (big dangling catkins) for a week. Our sad, dry lawn is peppered with prickly lettuce (Lactuca serriola) or a similar plant, shepherd's purse and Tragopogon dubious. It does not surprise me that our "freedom lawn" is a hotbed of broad leaf weeds, but I am surprised that the lactuca seems confined to our yard. What's happening in the spring where you are?

Lone Star Foray the First

2011-04-12T21:08:00.004-05:00

I traveled to Texas over the weekend; deep into Texas, to Junction on I-10 and the Llano River. Driving for a long time and only crossing a small chunk of the map reminded me of a few things about the Lone Star State:

It is a big state.

I have no good sense about the diversity of the state. As an adult, before this weekend I'd flown into Houston for the weekend (my brother's college graduation), spent two days in Fort Worth at an Economic Botany conference, and driven across the panhandle as quickly as possible last July. I have no real sense of coastal Texas, or East Texas, or West Texas or the Hill Country or Big Bend or . . . but I now know what pastures covered in mesquite look like in the spring.

Much as I might mock the flag-waving statriotism of many Texans, that Lone Star flag is a good flag: simple, bold and unsullied with text.

I was at a TORCH workshop, by the way. Should you want to know the state of biodiversity collections digitization, a topic even this plant ethnoecologist finds a bit obscure (but frighteningly fascinating) ask about the conversation among curators, taxonomists and bioinformaticians and the Texas Oklahoma Regional Curators of Herbaria workshop.

Fingersmith, the anti-Lark Rise

2011-04-05T22:12:00.001-05:00

While Lark Rise to Candleford had no plot (quite irritating if one was expecting one) it did have a point. Those of us who read it are discussing on e-mail exactly what we think that point was (hint to fellow readers who promised me your thoughts) but one idea is that Flora Thompson was trying to de-sensationalize Victorian England. I had the distinct impression that Thompson thought her contemporaries (as she was writing in the late 1930s) had a view of the past overly influenced by sensational novels (Dickens, Collins, Wilde, Stephenson, Bronte) and scences of dramatic, if pastoral, village life (Hardy, for instance, and how I envision Trollope and Elliot). So Thompson set out to write a book that sets people straight. Nothing seedy or unseemly happens in her hamlet in the 1880s. Nothing very good either. In fact, except that pennies are gathered for Victoria's jubilee and bicycles arrive, nothing happens at all. As you'll learn when I combine the conversation about Lark Rise into a cohesive post, despite early warnings, by the end of the third book, Marieke and I were both glad we had devoted some time to reading about nothing in the 1880s and 1890s. But afterward I needed a break from plotlessness. I devoured Fingersmith in a weekend. Sarah Waters' neo-Dickensonian 2002 masterpiece has thieves, orphans, pornagraphy, murder and plot twists galore. Not everybody's thing, but for those of you who like lots to happen, and don't mind if it happens in lots of pages with Victorian language, plenty of coincidences, a few lesbians and a dearth of "good" characters, (I know I'm looking at Beth here, and likely Irene, Jennifer, Janet and many of the rest of you), Fingersmith is a great read. Should you want to know more, Marieke posts about Sarah Waters here and raych reviews Fingersmith here and compares it to The Woman in White here. Oh, and contrary to what the Mister thinks the cover looks like, Fingersmith is not YA or about vampires.

Stroke for STIR

2011-04-04T22:03:00.003-05:00

The April STIR selection is My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. The book is a non-fiction account of brain surgeon's personal experience with a stroke. Jenny chose it partially by elimination; My Stroke of Insight had been on her radar for a while and other books that also had didn't work as well. I vaguely remember hearing the author interviewed on NPR and thought at the time that she and the book sounded fascinating (although I promptly forgot it). Jenny has started and is enjoying the book so far. Certainly, MSoI will be different than Breath, Eyes, Memory or Lark Rise to Candleford. Join us if you're interested.

Lek off for Love

2011-04-01T15:38:00.002-05:00

Some clarification about things you may have received in your e-mail today, the first of April.*

Yes, I know this is twins for the third year in a row, but my choices become more limited every year. I can't plausibly become engaged now. I have quit my job and moved across the country recently; it's not that interesting to do every nine months. Breaking limbs as a result of clumsiness is just too plausible.

I did once put a leek in a toilet as part of an April Fool's joke. It's classic and not a spelling error. Like the twins, it stays.

Lek is a real word for the dance of prairie chickens. "Lek" is both a noun and a verb.

The Mister's family's ranch includes prairie chickens that are lekking right about now (assuming you are reading this at the crack of dawn, central time).

Hand, foot and mouth is, sadly, very real, and both husband and son have had it this week.

Actually, everything whiny about the trip to Kansas is true, except that it was actually a great trip.

Rutherford Robinia is singular.

I became engaged to the archaeologist from the cave April 1, 2003. Some of you have been reading these letters long enough to remember him. He wore leopard print underwear.

Somebody stole an April 1, 2004 idea, and is trying to open a gourmet grilled cheese franchise as part of an NBC reality show. Sadly, he misses the best part-- the chocolate and churros, the aphrodisiac foods and the fantasy of quitting a PhD to start it.

Very sadly, the number of students suddenly aware that they are failing (today, the drop deadline) is not any sort of joke. Yet another one just e-mailed me "willing to do anything" [except, apparently, come to class, study, or turn in homework]. Urgh.

It's sunny and beautifully springy here.

*If you didn't receive the e-mail, and should have, please let me know.

My lilacs smell good

2011-03-26T09:25:00.002-05:00

I'm so glad they are old-fashioned, smell-like-my-grandmas'-houses lilacs*. They just fully opened yesterday.
What's blooming at your place?
I'm off to Kansas for the weekend.
Rock-chalk!

*By reputation. I don't think I ever visited my grandmothers at lilac time.

The World Needs a Spring Break

2011-03-18T11:25:00.003-05:00

Since I have been a professor, spring break has always frustrated me. I expect to simultaneously relax, have lots of active fun, catch up with grading and lesson plans and catch up with household tasks. I never ever accomplish this in a week, and I return to class with a dirty house, a large pile of grading and without having baked fabulous star-shaped cookies.
Still, I spent enough time working non-academic jobs to know just how wonderful spring break is. It's fabulous. Reading the news right now it feels as if everybody could use a week detached from ordinary cares.
Happy Spring Break to those of you lucky enough to have one.
Make some sort of break for yourself for those of you who don't.
(Image from the groundhog party, but I think it captures the essence of what I think spring break should feel like, even if it never does.)

Spaetzle Piggy

2011-03-16T15:58:00.007-05:00

Way back in the year of the noodle (about 6 weeks ago) I did manage to make homemade noodles once. At one fine dinner we ate chicken paprikash, red cabbage and apples, parsnips and carrots, and buttery homemade spätzle. The little German noodles were surprisingly easy, crazy messy, and devoured quickly by Dianthus. They were such a hit that I was sure I'd make them again soon.
I haven't.
Perhaps someday.

What does it mean to be a Haitian novel?

2011-03-16T14:10:00.002-05:00

Every time I describe Breath, Eyes, Memory, I describe it as a contemporary Haitian novel or as a novel by a Haitian American. One side of me recoils at such a description; a novel should be read as a novel regardless of the nationality or ethnicity of the author. On the other hand, there is something different about this book than the many similar Oprah Books dealing with dysfunctional relationships among women. Some of that difference is that B, E, M is better written than many. Much of that difference is that B, E, M is Haitian. I know SalSis would have never chosen B, E, M had it not been Haitian. Prairie Quilter, Beth and I would not have responded as well as we did, all remarking it was good to read something outside of our norm, had B, E, M not been Haitian and somewhat exotic.
The idea of multiple standards and appropriateness of labels is a much greater subject than I have the background or will to take-on here. Since at least my American Ethnic Lit class in college, I've been aware that it is both "unfair" to judge works from other traditions without any idea of the standards of that tradition and "unfair" to read uncritically because the works are different. Neither, "Breath, Eyes, Memory is good for a Haitian novel" or "Breath, Eyes, Memory is good because it is a Haitian novel," sits right with me. Yet. Yet . . .
Yet I still book as being Haitian every time I describe it. What, exactly, do I mean by that? I can explain, to some extent, what I mean by a "Victorian romance" or "science fiction romp". But Haitian? I haven't read any other Haitian novels. I don't know what it means.
Edwidge Danticat (the author) furthers my confusion by adding a "What the . . . ?" afterward to the paperback edition (book originally published in 1994, afterward added in 1999) in which she basically writes "THIS BOOK DOES NOT REPRESENT ALL THE WOMEN OF HAITI" which makes one wonder just how many readers thought it did.
I wanted to write back to Danticat, "Of course not every family is like the one you describe. How absurd that you need to tell us this," but then I think about how many other images I have of modern women in Haiti, and, well, I am left with some general impressions from my friend SalSis and from Mountains Beyond Mountains, but the only Haitians I can envision with names and stories are the women in Breath, Eyes, Memory.
Which brings up the very interesting idea of characters as representations of whole peoples. What obligations to writers and readers have to make sure that fictional characters don't become unwitting ambassadors?
Anybody else envision whole times and places based on a book or two?
Thoughts welcome.
[Raych at books i done read started an interesting discussion on reading more widely. Readers looking to expand the breadth of their reading will find a great bunch of recommendations in the comments.]

Lark Warning

2011-03-10T08:36:00.003-06:00

Lark Rise is well-written and perhaps charming in spots (Marieke and I are discussing that right now), but there is no plot, and possibly no story.
While I'd love to have more people in on the discussion, most of us like something to happen in a book labeled as a novel, and now that I'm far enough into it to know that there is no action, I can't very well recommend joining us (except perhaps for Amateur Reader, who has claimed a few times that he doesn't care much about plot).
As Marieke writes, "I expected there to be a story. With characters, events, and dialogue. With a flow to it. I'm not finding that at all."
You're still most welcome to participate in the discussion, but you have been warned.

March STIR Promo: Lark Rise

2011-03-02T10:19:00.004-06:00

For March, Marieke, my on-line friend in Western Scotland, and I are reading Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson.

In the words of Marieke, "I picked Lark Rise because I saw some episodes of the BBC dramatization and really liked them, because I have it on my bookshelf already, and because it's British and probably somewhat quaint and old-timey, small-villagey and I thought you might like it! Looking forward to it."

Lark Rise to Candleford is actually a combination of three books: Lark Rise (1939), Over to Candleford (1941) and Candleford Green (1943) written about hamlet, town and village life in the 1880s and 1890s. The combination totals about 500 pages, but one could easily read just one of short books and join the conversation*. I've started Lark Rise and have thus far found it to be everything that Marieke expected. It is not, however, updated Jane Austen or Jane Eyre (which I perhaps was expecting just because Marieke first mentioned Lark Rise in conjunction with I Capture the Castle, which is a retelling of Jane Austen and Jane Eyre), it is not Thomas Hardy or Anthony Trollope illuminating the drama in Victorian village life, or even a Laura Ingalls Wilder moved to England (a later expectation after I realized that the books were a fictionalized memoir of growing up in a place long gone by the time of publication).

Let me know if you join us in the reading.

*Marieke and I have yet to figure out the logistics of the conversation, but we will.

STIR 1: Breath, Eyes Overall Impressions

2011-02-24T08:08:00.004-06:00

I'm hoping to have three discussion posts on Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat, the February STIR book. This post will feature overall impressions and I hope that fellow readers will comment with their personal responses, including an answer to the question, "If you own the book, what are you going to do with it now?" The second book will be about Haiti and what it means to be "a Haitian Novel" or "Haitian-American Literature" or part of the "Haitian Diaspora." I'm curious how being Haitian affected your reading of the book, how you responded to the Haiti vs. New York scenes, what other Haitian literature you've read and what in the world is up with the afterward. If you e-mail me your thoughts, I can include them in the main post, if not, you can add them in the comments. If I make it to a third post, it will be about the role of stars, the role of the sky and the role of religion in the book. Again, thoughts welcome in advance.
Breath, Eyes, Memory follows Sophie, a young girl, from her childhood in Haiti with her aunt, to her teen years in New York with her mother, and back to her grandmother in Haiti at a time of personal crisis. While men cause things to happen: they rape, they marry the wrong woman, they govern the country poorly, and they impregnate; the book is about the relationships among the women.
Both SalSis and I found the childhood section to be a fast, breezy read. Many of the descriptions triggered pleasant memories for SalSis, as she has spent time in Haiti, particularly among children. She was excited that she understood the creole, delighted when the descriptions matched children and events she had encountered and curious when details didn't jibe with her experience. I enjoyed this section more just wondering how it compared with the villages where SalSis has spent time.
Everything about B, E, M changes when Sophie hits New York (more on that with the Haiti-New York post) and our reactions did as well. I continued to read quickly (I read the book all one day), partially because the story is compelling and partially because I don't like to leave characters in uncomfortable situations, and the situations are plenty uncomfortable. When I did the math and realized that the member of the older generation who is shockingly pregnant is younger than I am, I cried some and reminded the Mister that if Rutherford is a girl child, she will be treated with great respect.
At that point I think the book became more of a squirm-inducing slog for Salsis, who felt relief at the inevitably unpleasant resolution.
I'm really unsure what I will do with my copy of the book. I won't re-read it, so I won't keep it. It is too well-written not to give to somebody, but most of my friends have limited enough reading time that I have a hard time recommending something that is somewhat painful to read, however well-written.
Thoughts from others?

In the future fig spot . . .

2011-02-17T21:19:00.004-06:00

. . two daffodils are blooming. They're buried among overgrown honeysuckle and vinca, so it's hard to tell just what they are, but they are not any of the little early blooming types (February Gold, Tet a Tet, on any of the cyclamineus types*). We have regular daffodils blooming in mid-February, less than one week after sub-zero temperatures! This means their spot, along the south side of the brick garage, might actually be a great place to grow a fig. The crocus planted in the main** flower bed on the north side of the house aren't even visibly up.

*It seems that the kind people of the Scottish Heritage, USA and the National Junior Horticulture Society sent me to Scotland for a year to be tested on 40 cultivars of Narcissus over a few weeks so that I could return home and name five sixteen years later.
**Main Flower Bed = Future Flower Garden

A big heart for star dads

2011-02-14T12:51:00.002-06:00

Based on the projects hanging on the wall at day care, there is a good chance that Dianthus could come home today with a heart-shaped card saying that he loves his mommy. There is a much much smaller chance that he'll come home with a card saying that he loves his daddy.
Last year at day care Dianthus "made" me a lovely Mother's Day card while Father's Day went unnoticed. In everyday sets of baby socks, you'll find some with "Mommy loves me" made into a pattern. I've never seen any "Daddy loves me" socks mixed in with the stripes and monkeys.
This makes me sad. I understand that children are statistically way more likely to be with their mothers than their fathers (a state of society that also makes me sad), but I hate seeing the huge quantities of love that exists between fathers and their children go unrecognized. Admittedly, the Mister doesn't actually want a card made by one of the day care teachers with Dianthus's scribbles on it, but given that it is the Mister who does 70% of the interacting at daycare, who adjusts his schedule when Dianthus is sick, and brings in the supplies when the diapers and wipes run out; I wish the day care were at least able to acknowledge that he deserves a card as much as I do.
While I can't change the state of society, I can remind those of you who also have star dads to tell them you love them, and can remind those of you who know star fathers (like my brother, the Mister, my FiL and many of my friends' husbands) to let them know how much good fathering is appreciated.
Papa, I love you.
The Mister, Dianthus loves you (and so do I). Thanks for being a great daddy.

Pregnancy Pains for the Non-Pregnant

2011-02-08T20:53:00.008-06:00

As I was checking to make sure I just had some sort of weird three-day excruciating-pain leg cramp, rather than a blood clot in my calf,* The Mister asked if blood clots were a real concern. I pointed out that pregnant women are about five times more likely to have a blood clot than non-pregnant women, and the rates for women who have just given birth are even higher**. The Mister replied, "Pregnancy can be really dangerous and painful, why don't people know this?"

When I suggested that this is known, he corrected that anyone who reads classic literature knows that women died in childbirth in the "old days", but modern pregnancy is more of a humorous inconvenience dominated by strange food cravings than a potentially lethal condition.

So, as my part of my mother's plan to talk about things that we don't talk about***, I offer some thoughts on pregnancy aimed not so much at my friends who might experience this in the near future, but at all of the non-pregnant folks who have to deal with the pregnant.

Pregnancies vary a lot. I've given up trying to commiserate with other pregnant women or women who have been pregnant because it seems sometimes there is nothing in common. Zits? Lovely glowing skin? Creative frenzy? Inability to do a thing? Raging sex drive? Recoiling from even a platonic touch? Super hunger? Aversion to all foodstuffs? Constipation? Diarrhea? I've known women who have had them all, and many who assume that her body's reaction is therefore the norm. Rutherford Robinia (current bun) is doing way different things to my body than Dianthus did, and I'm the same me and they have the same father.

"Morning Sickness" is misnamed. Of the many women I've talked to about early pregnancy queasiness, exactly one vomited regularly in the morning. One threw up twice a day for two months but felt fine and ate full meals immediately afterward. Another couldn't keep anything down anytime for six months. A few have had very specific vomit-triggers (usually a smell) that could occur at any time. Some, like my mother, just didn't feel like eating much and actually lost weight. Several were never much affected. With Dianthus I was frequently queasy, but rarely threw up. With R.R., for December and January, I was actively queasy most mornings and evenings and would have at least one wave of overwhelming "ick" at some point during the day. I threw up two or three times a week. I still can't handle uncooked poultry and many times the idea of cooking (but not eating) is repulsive.

Complications aren't uncommon. Besides the "normal" growing belly, super-sensitive boobs, and fatigue many women have something else going on. This pregnancy I have a subchorionic hematoma (also called subchorionic hemorrhage) which effectively means that I gushed blood for a few terrifying days in early January and then dripped old blood and some nasty clots for four weeks, but Rutherford is unaffected. Hopefully the blood is gone and nothing more will come of it, but there's nothing known to prevent reoccurring bleeding or to prevent it from leading to preterm labor. Subchorionic hematomas occur in 1-2% of pregnancies-- not a high rate, but given that over 4 million babies were born in the US last year, that's somewhere around 50,000 women with this condition last year. Hematomas certainly aren't the only or the worst complication: blood disorders, odd placement of baby, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia are all more common, and all can lead to perfectly healthy babies. Just be aware that there's a real chance that the pregnant woman you're working with is taking daily shots, is on a super restricted diet, is bleeding, is aching or is worrying beyond the norm.

Heartbreak is a real possibility. Miscarriage and infertility are very different griefs, but both lead to a heartbreaking sense of loss. Since my miscarriage in 2007, I've become a big advocate for talking about miscarriage. Somewhere around one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage, yet most parents grieve silently. When I told my colleagues about my miscarriage in 2007, I learned of ten miscarriages among the four women I worked with. While all four women have healthy grown children now, it still saddens me to know they endured that sort of pain (in one case, the pain included losing five babies without any mention of it at work and any support from her husband). While I was bleeding in January, thinking I was having a second miscarriage, I commented to a friend that I had thought that knowing the benefits: the wonder and joy a Dianthus can bring, would make the risk of heartbreak worth taking. At that moment I wasn't so sure.

So basically, I'm suggesting more conversation and more compassion. Nobody needs to know about every churn of somebody else's guts or track the trail of every tear, but I hope that the churning and crying aren't viewed as avoidable weaknesses and don't have to happen in lonely seclusion.

*No Mom, I don't have a blood clot. Yes, I actually went to the doctor and I had an ultrasound to confirm the absence. I didn't tell you about it because you'd just worry. Yes, I do take after some mother and grandmother I'm descended from.

**I'm not making this up, but I am too lazy to go find the source at the moment.

***At different times she's been a big advocate for open discussions about menopause, grief, colonoscopys, mammograms, and the like. Admittedly, she's never been big into discussing these things when they apply to her with me, because we don't do that in our family (see first footnote).

Join the February STIR

2011-02-08T20:31:00.004-06:00

Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat is the February STIR selection. Salsis and I have both finished it and are earnestly discussing it off-blog, however there is still plenty of time to read it this month and join in (or at least better) appreciate our discussion.
Salsis, more usually a reader of escapist sci-fi and true adventure novels, does ecological work in Haiti when she can. She selected this book because it is a contemporary novel by a woman from Haiti and represents whole categories of books (Haitian novels, Oprah selections, women's issues novels) she hasn't explored.
The book is short, compelling, and full of star references*. It is a very fast read, particularly in the early section before things become uncomfortable. Of course (it is an Oprah selection, after all) things do become uncomfortable, sometimes squirmingly so, and there is plenty of dysfunction to go around.
I read Breath, Eyes, Memory one windy day here; Salsis read most of it on her snow day last week. Take a short while to read something different and join our discussion.
Because Salsis has been such a good sport, I'm going to suggest a classic sci-fi work, The Day of the Triffids, as a bonus February book, and English-village-life Lark Rise to Candleford is on for March.

*To the stars in the sky, not celebrities, and I just noticed the stars because that's what I do this year.

Star Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-03T14:43:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year of the Rabbit!

Besides being a time to eat lucky foods (long noodles and sweet beans among them), the lunar new year signifies the time for me to quit procrastinating and name my new resolution.

Following the advice of my trusted advisors, the new resolution is,

Dat-ta-da....

STARS

[Star-like fireworks should follow in your brain.]

Many of you, trained as you are to be critical thinkers, will follow the star-like fireworks with the obvious question, "What does one resolve to do in the Year of Stars?"

That, my friendly readers, is a very good question.

I don't know, but I'm confident we'll figure it out. Part of my confidence comes from the fact that 2004 was the year of pink. Admittedly, it started out as a far more specific resolution to "Lose my fear of pink wine by drinking many styles of it" but I suddenly found myself wearing gaudy pink rings and sending scented notes on pink stationery. "Stars" isn't much more vague than "explore the world of Rodentia through both biological and pop cultural inquiry" or "explore luck" and most long term readers would agree that rodent and luck turned out better than noodles, despite noodles having very specific aims.

So stars . . .
I will learn to read a star chart.

I will bake my favorite star shaped cookies.
I will learn some very basic real astronomy (book suggestions?).

I will read some star books and watch some star movies and listen to star music (again, I'm open to suggestions, take stars as figuratively as desired).

I will figure out ways that I like star anise and star fruit (not two of my favorite foods).

I will think about starting another quilt (but probably not do it).

I'll try to see shooting stars among the prairie ephemerals.

I will wish upon some stars.
Help me here. What would you do in the year of stars? What do you think I'd enjoy trying?

The sparkling star image was found here.

Taking the changes in stride

2011-01-31T21:22:00.001-06:00

Dianthus has not had an easy time of it recently. He's unknowingly expecting a sibling for his second birthday and complications of his mother's pregnancy have reduced her ability to play with him, he has the flu, he had a febrile seizure last night and spent the evening in the emergency room*, the wind is whistling with the Arctic Blast moving into town, and school has already been canceled for tomorrow. Mister Splashy Pants fights back. His mean parents will not let him stand on the kitchen table, change the time on the answering machine, throw food on the floor more than once per meal or climb into the refrigerator. And his eyes are no longer blue.
Yet, somehow Dianthus seems to be doing really well and finds ways to make clicking his tongue the epitome of giggle-fit-inducing hilarity.

*Inclusion in the middle of a humorous list does not, in any way, make this funny. It is another of these extremely worrying things that one wouldn't even think to know can happen, and even if you thought to remember that fevers can cause "benign seizures" it would never occur to you when your child or grandchild suddenly goes limp and seems to stop breathing that it might "just be a febrile convulsion" and won't hurt the child at all.
Images of late December snow in Colorado (it hasn't snowed here yet this season), eating his black-eyed peas (lucky legumes!) on New Year's Day, and eyes of indeterminate color.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Noodle Movie the Third

2011-01-28T10:37:00.003-06:00

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is my kind of children's movie. It's clever, funny, and the scientist gets the girl, who is an even nerdier scientist and happens to be attractive. It's cheesy, silly, and about raining food, but it's also thought provoking (technology is both a cause of big problems and a potential solution) and possibly even heartwarming.

I haven't recently read Judi Barrett's much-beloved 1978 book, but from what I can tell, the movie plot is completely different. Book fans will be advised not to re-read it before watching the movie, which the Mister and I both feel stands well on its own merits.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, with only one spaghetti storm, hardly qualifies as a real noodle media, but our options remain limited. The Mister and I watched Tampopo, Ramen Girl and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in the same week in December. Of the three, CwaCoM will most appeal to most of my readers (Tampopo is wonderful and completely about noodles, but weird Japanese food movies with subtitles attract a more limited audience than smart funny animation in English does.)

A STIRring schedule of reading

2011-01-21T12:21:00.005-06:00

Thanks for the tremendous enthusiasm for reading something new with me. We have a nearly full schedule and the first two books already selected.

Febraury: SalSis Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat (Amazon link)

March: Marieke Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson (Amazon link)

April: Jenny

May: Molly

June: Jennifer

July: Janet

August: open, but must be book that's easy to read while breastfeeding

September: Tracy

October: Lindsey

November: Beth

December: open, or A Christmas Carol

If you haven't signed up, but want to be a book selector, you can still get in on August or December.

However, you needn't be a book selector in order to join me in reading interesting books. I'll post the selections far enough in advance that anyone can join in. The actual format of the discussion will vary with the book and friend (and possibly our technical abilities), but every month there will be room for asking questions and posting comments from anyone in my reading public.

If you have signed up and picked a book, I would like you to share a few lines to describe (very generally, I know you haven't read it yet) and promote the book, (i.e. why did you select it?).

I'm looking forward to a great variety of good books.

Stirring up the books- a chance to join in!

2011-01-18T13:38:00.004-06:00

I hadn't realized that I've been dissatisfied with recent reading until I realized I kept putting off posting about my reading and I read Amateur Reader's last of 2010 post about reading plans. As someone who takes pride in the eclectic (and sometimes random) nature of her reading, I initially took umbrage with the comment, "Too many readers are not following from one book to another but instead flailing about, reading randomly." But then A.R.'s next line, "A little organization - not too much! - would do a world of good," resonated with me. I need a little more organization- not too much- in my reading.
I also have realized that I want to discuss more of the books that I do read and that I want to spend more time connecting with my friends.
This leads us to Project STIR: Squirrel Team Is Reading*
Project STIR requires participation.
Friends will sign up now for a month. I'm aiming for 6-10 friends to sign-up.
If you sign up for a month, you are obliged to pick one book for both of us to read**, read the book, and discuss it with me during your month***. You are under no obligation to read any of the other STIR books.
I will be publishing the schedule as it is formalized, so you can read along with whatever books suit your fancy, whether or not it is your month.
Reserve your month now in the comments!
Let's stir up our reading a bit.

*I wanted an actually clever name. Failing that, I tried to make an acronym with STAR (to fit in with the yet-to-be-revealed theme of 2011), but I realized that not only is "Squirrel Team Are Reading" grammatically incorrect and not clever, it would also cause confusion with posts about stars.
** I will be soon posting a list of books I think I'd like to read, but I welcome suggestions off the list. You do not need to have a book in mind when you sign up for a month, but you do need to choose it early enough that I can get a hold of it and can advertise it for others who want to read along. I'm fairly open as to genre, but official STIR books must be 1) previously unread by my fellow reader and me (or not read recently enough to be remembered) 2) a novel or a short story collection 3) under 500 pages 4) stand alone (can be part of a series, but not incomplete on its own) and 5) not too scary, gory or depressing (I don't generally enjoy being scared and in my current [pregnant] state may veto more depressing things than I otherwise would).
***I'm happy to discuss in writing, in person, or over the phone. You must allow me to post parts of our discussion.

Behind in books

2011-01-12T12:27:00.005-06:00

I've been generally dissatisfied with my reading of the last several months (and very helpful that you will return soon to read how you can help me change this), but I've still been reading. Here are some thoughts from books that haven't compelled me to write a full blog post.
Terry Prachet Equal Rites Are puns ever funny? I think very fondly of The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my all-time favorite books, and answer that of course puns can be funny and clever. So it must not be just the puns that make this discworld novel not sit well with me. In any case, clever and fun, but directing me more away from reading more Terry Prachet than toward.
Elizabeth Forsythe A Woman of Independent Means This is one of the few novels I've read in which I thought plot didn't matter. The book was apparently made into a mini-series and I have no idea how that could have worked well, because, while the book is the saga of one woman's life; the interesting part of the book is not what happens to her, but rather how the character describes the events differently to different people and at different points in her life through her letters that make up the book. Incredible how much suspense can be built up just by wondering if and when the woman is going to realize things can't be as she says they are.

Babies born out of wedlock, revengeful old women, poisonings, hot men, small town gossip, woman pregnant by her best friend who impregnates someone else, secret hideouts, blizzards, accidents at the granite quarry, death, disease, dysfunction: Barbara Delinsky's The Passions of Chelsea Kane has them all. And it's not as bad as it could be, given all that. In fact, I found it to be great page-turning fun, but that still doesn't make it a very good novel.
The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop was given to Dianthus for his first birthday (the main character shares his name and it was a gift from one of his Castle relatives). It's about seven years beyond Dianthus's reading ability, but I very much enjoyed it.

Pad thai at home

2011-01-07T12:59:00.005-06:00

Due to unpleasant circumstances, my mother is paying us an unexpected and very pleasant visit (thanks Mom and Dad!). Once is became clear that M did not need to be a full-time nurse for the time she is here, nay, well before that became clear, our conversation turned to eating. Eating turned to noodles and noodles to unfinished resolutions and on to pad thai and spaetzle and other delicious treats.
Mother was dubious that people (people being Caucasian American cooks living in the middle of the country) make pad thai at home.
What's a noodle resolution good for if it doesn't make one up for the challenge of cooking pad thai at home on short notice, just to demonstrate to one's mother that it can be done, even if one is not well, has never used one's Thai cookbooks, and lives in the a small town in the middle of the country?
We cooked noodles last night and our pad thai ("Phat Thai" in the cookbooks we used) was very good. I'm pleased to report that it is do-able as a weeknight meal and the leftovers are tasty as well.
I followed (mostly) the recipe in Therese Volpe Laursen and Byron Lauresen's From Bali to Bangkok in 30 Minutes. We happen to have rice noodles, tamarind paste, fish sauce, chili powder, chili paste, garlic, brown sugar, green onions, eggs, oil and frozen shrimp on hand, so we only needed to purchase peanuts, chicken, and lime. I forgot the bean sprouts and added radishes and cilantro. I'm fully aware that this doesn't reflect the cupboard status of most Americans in small towns in the middle of the country, but both tamarind paste and fish sauce seem to keep for a long time, so if you'd like to cook SE Asian-inspired food at all, there's no reason not to have them.
The one drawback of our dish was that the noodles I used were a little too wide (wide egg noodle width rather than linguine width) and some of the ends stuck together and never softened properly. The thinly sliced radishes, tossed in at the end with the green onions and cilantro, cooked slightly, so would have been better left at the side or tossed in a minute or two later. The smell of fish sauce also permeates the kitchen, so beware.
What southeast Asian noodle dishes have you tried at home (successfully or not)?

Noodle on into the New Year

2011-01-03T11:02:00.004-06:00

For those of you wondering about the new resolution, note that I work on something closer to a lunar year for my interesting resolutions, so it is still the year of the noodle until the year of the tiger ends.
I have more to write about noodles and far more to make and eat.
In the meantime, suggestions for the 2011 resolution are welcome.
A quick recap:
2010 noodles
2009 legumes
2008 luck
2007 rodents
2004 pink
2003 sparkling wine
(2005 and 2006 were fruit and spices but were very poorly adhered to).

Happy Boxing Day!

2010-12-26T16:58:00.003-06:00

May you pass boxes of goodies to those that can use them, whether you're servant or master.

Ramen Girl: noodle movie and request for growing up films

2010-12-15T09:41:00.005-06:00

Ramen Girl is a mostly unremarkable movie. It was essential watching for me in my noodle year, and it certainly isn't outright bad, but for all of the things the film is trying to do, I can name other films I think do it better.

Tampopo delves deeper into the craziness that is proper ramen preparation. Ramen Girl includes a few elements of food magic, (just the right spirit in the ramen can make people giggle or cry) but not enough to make magical food an essential, if absurd, part of the plot the way it is in Like Water for Chocolate or Simply Irresistible. US-Japanese cultural differences arise, but Lost in Translation handles them much more adeptly. The romance is largely a side note, and there are plenty of better romantic comedies. And if one wants a silly coming of age movie, where a lost young person learns to work hard from a seemingly harsh elder, there are surely many better examples. But I can't think of them at the moment-- please comment with your favorite coming of age (in a profession, through hard work) films.

I should add that despite not being great in any aspect, Ramen Girl did make me want to eat ramen. Amateur Reader has promised earlier that he could advise on Tokyo-style ramen and I am seeing him next week, so I'm hoping for good noodles and perhaps a new pre-Christmas tradition.

Anyone have winter holiday traditions that involve noodles?

Pearl Harbor- 9/11- Kennedy Shot of the 50s?

2010-12-09T08:30:00.003-06:00

On Pearl Harbor day Tuesday, the Mister and I started talking about defining moments of a generation and news that makes everyone stop. Like most other Americans my age, I know where I was when I learned that the Challenger exploded (at school in 8th grade) and when I found out about the world trade center collapsing (listening to NPR, wondering why the news was different then it had been an hour earlier as I prepared to go to biometry class and fly to Washington D.C. that day). Perhaps a bit more personal and local, I returned home from a high school graduation ceremony to learn of the tanks entering Tianamen Square (I studied Chinese and was on my way to China in the summer of 1989) and I learned of the Columbine shootings while at work in Denver. I was at a Model UN competition when Nelson Mandela was released (most of us thought it was a ploy to change the nature of the debate on South Africa) and, along with the rest of my German class, was absolutely shocked at the speed with which the Berlin wall came down once it started to crumble. Perhaps foolishly, I know exactly where I was when I learned of Princes Diana's death (at a cabin, from my brother on the phone, thinking he was telling a joke when he started "have you heard about Princess Diana").
I know where my parents were when Kennedy was shot and think they watched the moon landing. My grandfather spoke to me about Pearl Harbor and the end of the war.
I'm curious, in general, what specific historical events you remember as being a big deal when you learned of them. For those of you older than I am, I'm also wanting to know about specific events in the 1950s. The 60s are full of them (although I'm unsure how much press things like the Cuban Missile Crisis received, nor do I know if any one protest/riot/march felt momentous to a big audience). How about the 50s? Sputnik? Particular space events? MacArthur's dismissal?

Tampopo: The first noodle movie

2010-12-04T11:37:00.002-06:00

After a long week (of mostly good busyness*, but much busyness none the less), the Mister and I relaxed by watching Tampopo last night. I'm sentimentally attached to Tampopo, as the Mister and I watched it together early in our courtship (so early that his loft apartment was clean when we viewed Tampopo together there), but I think that I can safely say that it's well worth watching for noodle lovers and those willing to laugh at a few of the absurdities of Japanese obsessions**. The movie is a string of food-related vignettes interspersed with a mock Western about the revitalization of a ramen shop. At times it is as silly as that sounds, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, even though the characters clearly take noodles very seriously.
Experience viewing Tampopo prepared me for reading Momofuku, David Chan and Peter Meehan's cookbook-memoir about noodle obsessions and starting the Momofuku empire in NYC, last January. The book was a present given to my parents, and I didn't try to cook anything from it, but both the Mister and I were mesmerized by the accounts of soba training and ramen training and flaunting convention as an up and coming chef.

Out of curiosity, has anyone seen Ramen Girl?

*Including being called on Thursday to find out if I wanted my institution included on an NSF grant somebody else is writing. If funded, we would receive money to hire students to do cool research that we would like to do anyway. While participating did require me to run around and acquire signatures and apologize for getting signatures without ample notice, that's all it required of me, and the guy writing the grant was genuinely surprised that I wanted to participate.

**Warning, the subtitles do make it a less good choice for a tired Friday night as one cannot knit to it or fall briefly asleep and catch back up.

Unheard of

2010-11-30T20:47:00.003-06:00

My hall has been decked.
My mantle is a bit minimalist and these images capture the full extent of holiday decorating. It's nothing bright and bowy, but the extraordinary thing is that the decorations exist and they are on display in November.
I'm not quite sure to what the world is coming.

In defense of fruitcake, brussels sprouts and basketweaving

2010-11-22T09:53:00.003-06:00

My mother and several friends get together in early November each year to "fruitcake." The long process of making the toothsome concoctions begins with a raucous group effort of mixing nuts and fruits, followed by the slow baking and at least a month of ripening under wraps.
Other than that they have made a verb out of it, I see nothing more strange about fruitcaking than meeting to make holiday crafts or exchange cookies, yet when my mother excitedly tells others of her cooperative fruitcake making plans, she almost invariably receives a confused, "well, isn't that interesting" type reply, sometimes accompanied by a plea that the fruitcake not end up on his or her unsuspecting doorstep.
I love fruitcake. I don't get fruitcake jokes. Fruitcake would never stay around my place long enough to be tossed at the town park in January. Many of my friends have never tasted a fruitcake, much less received enough of them to regift them the next year (the good ones run $23-$60+ at Collin Street Bakery).
Why would one assume that one wouldn't like something made out of ingredients that one likes? And, even, if one genuinely didn't like fruitcake, why would one assume that other people can't stand something that clearly sells well at $40 a piece?
I don't get it. But then I am also a straight-A student who struggled in her basketweaving class (and yes, some of the time we were weaving underwater) and I convinced The Mister that he likes brussels sprouts well enough that he prepares them on a regular basis. I also like anchovy pizza.
Basketweaving is not easy. Brussels sprouts are not necessarily repulsive*. Some of us like fruitcake.
I wonder what I mock without knowing anything about it.
NASCAR? Corn dogs?

*I ate horrid over-boiled brussels sprouts covered with inordinate amounts of slimey fake butter at the cafeteria at my last institution. I had never had them before (I avoided school lunches growing up and my mom fixed fresh brussel sprouts) and at that point I realized why the Mister thought he hated them when we met.

We, the narrator

2010-11-17T20:44:00.004-06:00

During the Reign of the Queen of Persia is narrated by a young girl in a small town in Ohio in the 1950s. Or her sister. Or her cousins. Possibly the cousins collectively. Possibly all four girls independently; I never could tell. The second page of Joan Chase's novel states, directly enough, "There were four of us then, two his daughters, two his nieces, all of born within two years of each other. Uncle Dan treated the four of us the very same," and then adds, "sometimes we thought we were the same-- same blood, same rights of inheritance."
Clearly, Chase doesn't want us to consider that narrator an individual. All four of the "we" are observed by the narrator. The narrator's not Cecelia, because "we were very conscious of Cecelia." The narrator can't be Jenny, because "we" watch her getting the easy spelling words while Neil saves the hard ones for "us", his daughters. Neil's daughters are Katie and Annie, but neither can be the narrator because "we're" afraid when "Katie and Annie" fight, but we leave them to it. Both of "our" mothers are called "Aunt" throughout. Aunt Grace is married to Neil and Aunt Libby is married to Uncle Dan. "We" just keep telling the story.
This unease about who is telling the story bugs me far more than it should. Apparently, I really appreciate knowing who is relating a personal story. I like to be able to judge the narrator's credibility based on his or her age, experience and bias of relationship to other characters. The indefinite "we" doesn't allow for such judgments.
The Jane Austen Book Club (read last year) used a similar structure. By the end I had to assume that "we", the first person plural narrator, was the club, and that a club could have snarky personal asides. A club with a first person plural personality makes some (very small quantity) of sense.
I finished During the Reign of the Queen of Persia without any good idea as to why Chase used the unusual voice or why she messed with the chronology and overall structure of the book so much. Perhaps the devices, along with the sad ending made DtRotQoP feel like a much weightier book than it really is. I'm not sure. Anyone read it?
Certainly, I have friends who would enjoy reading DtRotQoP, but I also can't think of anyone who should put forth great effort to track it down.

I'd like any thoughts about other works written in first person plural. In particular, other books in which all members of the collective are separately viewed in the third person, thus ruling them out as an individual choosing to represent the collective.

Ideas?

Another Young Punk

2010-10-31T20:52:00.007-05:00

The violet mohawk was the highlight of an otherwise disappointing Halloween. I wore my "witch with a day job" outfit to work on Friday and did not receive a single comment until 5 p.m. (I'm surprised that all-black garb, purple lips, black fingernails and a giant mass of hair isn't worthy of comment, but I'd rather believe that than just that nobody noticed). The grocery store was out of pumpkins so I didn't carve a jack-o-lantern, and I do so love carving jack-o-lanterns. We received a total of 11 trick-or-treaters. Dianthus puked this afternoon long before he was offered any candy. I was entirely out of good ideas for a costume for Dianthus when I remembered the purple hair spray (yes, it is an item I keep on hand). Dianthus's shirt reads, "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Milk." Click here to be reminded how much he has grown in a year.

A Proud Tradition Continues

2010-10-27T21:19:00.006-05:00

Fall Break* means one thing: pretending that we'll catch up on grading! Actually, for the Mister and me, fall break (which is two days here, one day at our previous institution) means traveling to places that people in our demographic don't go, at least not midweek in October, and then pretending that we will somehow catch up on grading when we return. While we were in West Virginia, we spent fall breaks in a rodent-infested cabin at a state park, in Parkersburg (a small city an hour and a half from where we lived), in Pittsburgh, and at a bed and breakfast entirely full of wealthy post middle-aged women from DC and Ohio. While living in Kansas, we went to St. Louis.** Before I met the Mister I spent one fall break with my English ex-boyfriend (then already an ex for several years) among the retirees at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Vermont and another with my college ex (then already an ex for seven years) listening to music with busloads of blue-haired ladies at the Ozark Folk Center.

This past week Dianthus, The Mister and I went to Medicine Park, Oklahoma and stayed in a cobblestone cottage. Despite being built as a tourist town, nothing is going on in Medicine Park on a Thursday in October. The shops are closed, the winery isn't open until dinner and there is not a single place to buy breakfast.
We spent our day in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge and intend to go back.
And yes, rodents were spotted.

*Really it means kids these days have it sooo easy. There was no fall break when I was an undergrad. No siree.

**To be complete, I should mention that we went to Paris for my fall break the first year we were dating. It doesn't fit the pattern quite as well, but people in my demographic (graduate students) certainly didn't jaunt off to Paris for a long weekend. The conversation went something like this:
Mister: We should go someplace over your fall break.
Me: Let's go camping in the Ozarks.
Mister: Okay. Or we could go to Paris.

In which I punt in the Scottish Literature Clishmaclaver and say nice things about Jekyll and Hyde and Wuthering Expectations

2010-10-25T21:19:00.002-05:00

Amateur Reader from Wuthering Expectations is hosting a Scottish Literature Challenge this year (details here). AR is trying to stimulate discussion and conversation about Victorian Scottish Literature. As a big fan of many things in Scotland (gardens, music, oatcakes, an Englishman* I met there . . . ) and discussing books in general, I signed up right away.

I intended to read [linked list inserted here].

Thus far, I have read three Robert Louis Stevenson stories: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Markheim, and The Pavilion on the Links.

It was my first time reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and as "Jekyll and Hyde" has made it into common parlance, I figured I knew the plot. The story opens with characters other than Jekyll or Hyde and I realized with a start that not only did I have no idea what happened to these new characters, I had no idea what was going to happen to Jekyll/Hyde. Knowing that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person is knowing a premise, not a plot.
The story is good, very good, and I can't quite think what I have to say about it.
Most of Hyde's misdeeds happen off-stage, so one must imagine what a man without any conscience has been up to at nights. AR points out that this, "let's Hyde be as decadent as the reader's imagination allows, which is also amusing. The more innocent the reader, the more puzzling the story." I can imagine a time in my life when I would have found Jekyll and Hyde rather silly instead of frightening.
I noticed the role of wine and other transforming potions because AR and friends had mentioned them and likewise thought more about the ch0ice for the story to be mostly revealed in letters after the action has taken place because the subject had been mentioned on Wuthering Expectations.
The story ends abruptly with the end of Dr. Jekyll's letter. It is exactly where Dr. Jekyll's letter should end, but ending the story there didn't sit right with me. Still, any additional resolution outside the letter would have just been plain wrong.

Besides having nothing novel to say about The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, reading it felt like cheating in the Scottish Literature challenge. Stevenson was born in Scotland, but the story is a London story. There is nothing Scottish about it.
I therefore read two other R.L. Stevenson stories from the illustrated classics volume I had checked out of the library. At least one of them, "The Pavilion on the Links", felt remotely Scottish. It takes place in Scotland and the Scottish setting contributes to the story. It's one of those well-crafted stories with a final punch that made me wonder if anything I had just read was as it seemed, but not compelling enough to actually make me go back and re-read it with an informed perspective.

"Markheim" is another London struggle between the good and evil contained within one person. I was pleased to learn that it was written before Jekyll and Hyde. Markheim is an intriguing tale in its own right, but as it relies on a supernatural appearance, it would be a lame follow-up to Jekyll and Hyde, the brilliance of which is that an ordinary man can simultaneously harbor such good and bad intentions.
Thinking about Markheim (1885) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886) made me want to re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and wonder what was going on in the streets of London in the 1880s that so much evil can be found within "ordinary" looking people.

Altogether, I haven't much to contribute to the discussion of Scottish Victorian Literature thus far. I must read some more.

However, I do want to put in a plug for having something like Wuthering Expectations in one's life. Most of my life comprises things I do well or things I need to get done (many items I feel should be listed under the former too often fall under the latter, but this is a fact of life). I don't devote much time to things I am not particularly good at that don't need to get done. In absence of a knitting group, I don't knit. Without good instructors, I don't flail around in aerobics classes. I haven't struggled to keep up with a foreign language in years. But I do read small doses of thoughtful literature appreciationism daily.

Because Amateur Reader is an acquaintance in "real life", I started reading Wuthering Expectations the week it was launched and have been feeling well-read (by proximity) or completely unrefined (I don't read Victorian poetry and don't envision myself starting any time soon**) for three years since. It is great to have something to debate in my mind while washing the dishes ("saying that writing can't be beautiful because it doesn't look good on the page is like saying that a piece of music can't be beautiful because the score appears like almost any other") even if I am a month behind the discussion. I recently dreamed about compiling a list of narrators whose book we were reading as we read a novel. I kept reminding myself to keep track because it wasn't just Vonnegut (Yes, I forgot before I awakened).
Reading the Victorian Literature thoughts of somebody else isn't for everybody, I know, but let this serve as a public service message to do something that is well outside of what you do well or what you need to do.
And thanks for AR for keeping me thinking in a different way.

*It always did make me rather sad that my great Scottish romance was with an Englishman. Said Englishman, however, was in love with Scotland at the time, and my mother has always considered him Scottish, so it almost counts.
**With the exception of Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.

Inaugural Ice Cream Success

2010-10-17T21:17:00.004-05:00

Few people believe it until they see it*, but our house has a room dedicated to the eating of ice cream.*** Today we had our first ice cream party (to which everyone brought additional sweet food, so besides five flavors of ice cream, multiple flavors of soda pop for floats, cherries, hot fudge, coconut, pieces of peanut brittle, crushed pineapple, butterscotch, bananas, and whipped cream, which we provided, homemade angel food cake, chocolate chip cookies, devil's food cake, pumpkin bread, peanut butter cookies, snickerdoodles and store bought brownies were available) in it.

The dean of my college left alerting me that I need to do this again next year and I need to invite him and he will be very disappointed if he finds out that I have such a party without him.

Independently my department chair and former department chair started commenting that weekly ice cream parties for the next four or five years wouldn't be a bad thing.**

Dianthus loved the ice cream and the attention and Mister Splashy Pants stopped by a few times until Dianthus chased her away. Altogether, a successful first party for our new place.

Revisit later in the week for my lack of good thoughts on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

*I know, I know, I should post pictures. Many of the guests today know the former occupants of our house, but none of them knew about the sundae room in back, which is weird to me. If you put in the trouble to build a hardwood bar, find three diner tables, chrome bar stools, coca-cola paraphernalia and set out fifty-some coca-cola and soda glasses, wouldn't you invite all your neighbors back?

**They were joking. Well, they were at least joking about the implied connection to tenure. Nobody thinks a weekly ice cream party would be bad.

***This line revised from the original, in case the comments make no sense.

In which lapses of logic don't bother me

2010-10-12T21:02:00.004-05:00

The Devil in the Junior League by Linda Francis Lee intrigued me because only in a small town library of a certain type would you find such a book beside To Kill a Mockingbird.

Open House by Elizabeth Berg I picked up because the author has the same name as one of my friends, had my friend fully changed her name when she married.*

My Sister-in-Law, who works as a literature professor, once commented that her students had no idea how to pick out books; sometimes they seem to just read randomly. Once past my initial shock that her students apparently read books, I admitted that my reading is far from systematic**. She reminded me that I have, and utilize, many means of acquiring book recommendations: I read book blogs and book reviews, I talk with friends and family members who read, I've been in book clubs and follow others. All true. My "to be read" lists are long and varied (and not stored in any one place), yet as a fuddy duddy who mocks students and authors for their failings in logic, I must admit why I really read some of the books I read.

I picked up Zinnia by Jayne Castle at a library book sale years ago because it had a cover with my second favorite z-flower on it, the author has a cool last name, and it was cheap (probably 25¢). I re-read it recently because wacky as it is (interplanetary exploration, interior design, human prisms for hire for talented psychics to use to focus their talents with, government required matchmaking and deadly carnivorous plants all play a role) this futuristic romance is fun.

Our local library stocks no Jayne Castle, but has a rather extensive collection of Jayne Ann Krentz (same woman, different series). I selected Sweet Starfire because the dust jacket suggested it takes place on a different planet. Indeed, Sweet Starfire is no Zinnia, but it does has interplanetary exploration, murderous carnivorous plants, ghosts of alien races, louts, rogues, tough virgins, social commentary, man-eating insects, and mind controlling extra-alien lizard eggs with the best of them. Jayne is good enough that it makes more sense than it should, but really, my editor self would point out that it couldn't make that much sense.

Apparently, sometimes I can still quiet my inner editor.

*The Devil in the JL and Open H, are both about divorce. TDitJL makes moving on with ones life sound like quite the romp, while OH, an Oprah selection, succeeds in conveying how very pathetic one can feel (and be) when one is suddenly single. I have many friends who would enjoy TDitJL, but I can't think of anyone who needs to read it. The characters in OH felt real enough that I will consider reading more Elizabeth Berg, but if one is going to plot something that is clearly a crazy fantasy, one might as well make it a Zinnia. OH is fine but I can't think of a good reason I'd recommend this over many other fine books.

**I'm fairly sure I actually said "random" but here my editor kicks in and points out that random means far more than lack of uniformity.

Dianthus loves his new present

2010-10-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

While it might be debated whether the new dryer was a present for Dianthus turning 14 months or the Mister turning considerably more years*, there is no doubt as to who thinks it is more fun. He put himself in without any prompting, by the way.

*Or perhaps something for me as an offering to the rain gods. We haven't had a functioning dryer since we moved in and we haven't needed one. I surely don't want the rain to hold off on account me wanting sunny days to hang out clothes.

Dianthus Digs

2010-10-05T21:00:00.004-05:00

At his grandparents' house over Labor Day weekend, Dianthus learned how to dig potatoes.