Ugly, the Book

Given my recent experience with young adult fiction, my knowledge of Donna Jo Napoli's twistedly re-told fairy tales, and my propensity to see signs in everything recently ("Hey, I found this book with a duckling on the cover at the library bird sale during bird year and I just happened to read it the night before Aster's IEP meeting amidst discussions about delays, disabilities and differences due to pediatric stroke,") I was expecting to find some sort of painful, not-fitting-in growing-up allegory in Ugly.

Napoli's Ugly, however, is a straight re-telling of the ugly duckling, narrated by the bird from before its yolk sac was reabsorbed until it is a year old.  There are no overt messages about special needs, homosexuality, or the cruelty of teenagers, but, as with all re-tellings, I'm sure one could find them there, and I'm certainly not going to advocate for a decrease in empathy and compassion.  Still, ror a North American reader, Ugly does have a pretty extreme twist.

Neither ducklings nor swans.
Kansas, late May, 2015

The bird is born in Tasmania.  It migrates north before the July winter.  I'm a little embarrassed by how much that really did throw me.

Rules to live by

One of the seldom mentioned perks of having annual themes is that it eliminates some decision making.  

Do I take a poor quality picture of the rodent at the Sonoran Desert Museum?  Of course I do.  Rodents are one of my things.

We happen upon The Curious Kumquat in Silver City, New Mexico at lunchtime. They are serving only full sit down meals rather than purveying supplies for a gourmet picnic.  We already ate a full breakfast and don't plan on a full restaurant lunch.  But there is a duck confit salad on the menu.  And a Oaxacan Mole Chicken sandwich, and it is bird year.  So we stay and now I "get" duck confit.  It was fabulous

And while in Tucson, we were at a Mexican grocer and encountered fresh garbonzos for the first time in my life.  Do I know what to do with fresh chick peas?  No.  Should I get them?  A brand new bean?  By all means, I need to try those beans.

Thanks to the Mister's Mother for shelling.  Steamed with salt and pepper, the beans were fine.

The kites are in control

The Mister and I saw one Mississippi kite very early this year, on April 7, but then I didn't see another one again until April 25.  Friday, April 29 there were ten in a tree near the park and today they were all over the place.

Most of the spring we've had a mockingbird singing from atop the pecan tree on the corner of our street.  I've been dismayed the last two days to find that a kite has take over the spot.

I was telling our new vertebrate professor my brief history of kite phenology (a.k.a. they come at finals every year) when he reminded me that they weren't here when he was growing up.

Change happens.

Penguins for Stroke Survivors? Kandu!

This afternoon CHASA (the Children's Hemiplegia and Stroke Association, found at CHASA.org) announced the launch of a new Kandu book.  So just now I was given an opportunity to write about Lucky, a penguin at the Santa Barbara zoo with an orthotic (featured in this great Penguin with a Funky Shoe Video), who became the inspiration for the CHASA mascot, Kandu and to tell you how you could support the workings of CHASA by donating to the Kandu fund.

Bird Year - Pediatric Stroke Awareness Month - and A Penguin with Ankle Support

It all comes together.

Crying through the glowing bird books

I used to not be a weeper.  Really I wasn't.  I'm sure I cried at socially acceptable times, but I made it through lots of sad movies, two teenage break-ups and numerous oral reports without thinking, "I cannot talk about bison or Tasmanian Devils in class because I will blubber.*"

Then something changed.  Then I became the me of now who needs tissue for most movies, many sermons, anything to do with genocide and extinction, and a smattering of seemingly random news and history events (women's soccer, Prague spring, and ski jumpers from countries without snow make me bawl).

So I'm about to write three books that have made me cry recently, and I can think of three directions I could take in writing about them.   1) All three are books whose narrators are "different". One is an autistic 15 year-old in England, one a young girl with Asperger's in Virginia, and one is a 17-year-old in Indiana who probably is bipolar, but refuses to be diagnosed or labeled.  All three are very well written and the successfully transported me into somebody else's head space where I felt uncomfortable (and slightly guilty about being glad I am "normal"), which I could tie into Pediatric Stroke Awareness as I point out how often pediatric stroke survivors have sensory processing and emotional regulation issues and just "think differently" (literally via different pathways) than others. I'd use the books as reminder to be compassionate with teenagers, parents of teenagers, parents of special needs kids, and everyone else.
2) I could rant about compassion for cryers: other forms of emotional outburst are so much better accepted.
3) I could write about the glowing and bird symbols and references.

But I think I will just write them here, recommend with qualification that you read them, and take myself to bed to get a few pages into a "book from the happy section" before I end up crying myself to sleep.

The books are:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
and
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (with characters Violet and Finch)

Happy (or not) reading!

*Yes, I have cried in class talking about these topics.
Oh, and for the record, it was 13 years ago today I that I met the Mister.  He was confused when I brought it up yesterday.

Fly on Campanula

I was on the verge of posting the fly on campanula without any commentary, pediatric stroke, bird or otherwise, when I realized it is the anniversary of my first meeting with the Mister.
Now I'm posting an image of a fly on a campanula (taken in Rocky Mountain National Park last July) with an unrelated statement that I'm glad I met the Mister 13 years ago.

Tomorrow I hope to improve (i.e. start) the "blogging streak" with some actual pediatric stroke information.  For now, fly on campanula.

May Day Streaking

Happy May Day!

At Saguaro National Park, May 15 2016

I am again going to celebrate my favorite month by blogging a streak (20 days this month) to raise awareness for pediatric stroke.

And during this streak for stroke, while I will talk about pediatric stroke, my favorite pediatric stroke survivor, and how CHASA helps families of kids with strokes, I'm going to post pictures of flowers and talk about birds because that's what I do.

Come back often, and in the meantime, celebrate the season!