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Monday, February 27, 2006

a day in the life

I was researching something completely unrelated to parenting (XM radio, which we just got; can't decide yet if I love it or not) when I happened upon a two-year-old article in the SF Chronicle containing the following sentences:

"Sandy Montag doesn't worry now when he takes his young children on a long drive in his SUV. He has a new toy that most parents will understand -- an in-car digital satellite television system.

With hundreds of channels of entertainment, from the Disney Channel to HBO, to keep them occupied, they're silent. "It's like you don't even have them. You can baby-sit and drive at the same time,'' Montag said." --"Satellite TV in the car, on the move", SF Chronicle, 11/10/2003

Is it just me, or is that just so wrong, on so many levels? I dunno, maybe I'm not "most parents". First you have the children's father talking about baby-sitting them, as if he's some clueless teenaged boy stuck in a vehicle with some young people and no idea at all what to do with them. This father revels in his children's silence, expressing relief that it's like he doesn't even have them when he can shut them up with the Disney channel (or... HBO? How old are these children exactly?) while he shuttles them from one place to another.

I really hope for their sakes that his children haven't read this article; don't you? Whoopee! it's so nice to know that Daddy's happiest when he can pretend he doesn't have us! Their poor little psyches.

I'll grant that having children in the car for extended periods can occasionally be a source of some high-magnitude stress. Are we some kind of freaks, though, in that generally some of our more pleasant times when we're on trips happen in the car on the way there and back? There's no computer, no DVD player (ahem); there aren't any bedrooms to disappear into. There are just these four people who enjoy each other and who frankly are the most important people in the world to each other. We're together, we're comfortable, we can talk at length about whatever crosses our minds, or listen to music and discuss it, we can watch the scenery go by while we listen to stories on tape that become as much a part of our memories as our destinations do. It's -- it's actually -- fun.

I started out this post feeling a kind of disgust for a father who had so distanced himself from his children that he felt the need to spend thousands of dollars on a system for his vehicle to serve as an opiate for those little aliens in the backseat who might otherwise, who knows, talk to him. Somehow, though, I wind up pitying him. How much he misses.

********************(when I use these asterisks it means I can't think of a clever segue but I'm about to talk about something unrelated to the above. Pretend I just wrote something scintillating and witty that will weave this post into a coherent whole, will you? thanks.)***************

We had the kind of day today that makes up for every bit of sibling rivalry and yelling and arguing I've dealt with (and dealt out, to be fair) in at least the past... three months? :) I feel a need to record it, so that when I'm having the kind of parenting day that drives me to the brink of, say, spending thousands of dollars for a digital satellite tv system for my car (so that I could toss the kids in, crack the windows, shut the doors, and flee for an hour or so, of course), I can pull up this entry and remind myself that really life is bliss. There was not an argument all day long (not even one spat! I am not kidding!). The kids did their chores without complaint. We had a fantastic and fun and productive school day, which included the following (ooh, a list!):

• C created a set of "acts" wherein she dressed up in costumes and did brief one-girl shows as: the Statue of Liberty (Jenn, your silver bolero has found a use. Hope you don't mind), Paul Revere (never were the colonists warned more cutely), a caveman (bearing a fearsome whiffle ball bat as a club), and Ben Franklin (carrying a kite and a key).
  
• T devised a series of "inventions". There was a time a few years ago when he did this with almost all his free time, but it had been a while, so it was really nice to see him at it again. Pacifists would, um, not like these inventions. However, he may have a brilliant future in the Department of Defense. Stay tuned.
  
• C read two entire American Girl books in one day and wrote a (painfully cute) summary for each.
  
• T wrote a report on a book about blue whales that surprised me with its excellence. All of a sudden the boy who would devise the shortest sentences possible so as to fit an entire paragraph on a single line of his journal, if possible, is writing coherent, lengthy (for him) treatises on the migratory patterns of ocean mammals.
  
• We made a really pleasant rainy-day trip to the library where we checked out stacks of books and only ONE movie. Nice change, that was.
  
• Both children set up "offices" in their rooms, using Sterilite tubs and an assortment of official-looking oddments including a flag consisting of a colored scrap of paper taped to a suction-cup arrow so as to stay upright. They were governors. It's funny, because when my brother and I were similar ages, we did the same thing, although I think we were just lowly office workers.
  
• my son vacuumed his bedroom and enjoyed it. It's a miracle. He likes folding laundry, too! No, you may not borrow him. He's, uh, needed at home.
  

*************************

Not to end on a low note or anything, but T could use your prayers. He's having a hard time right now; three of his very dear friends are moving away in the space of the next few months. I've always envied him a little, having a network of close Christian friends living nearby, but in the space of about two years, most of them have or will have moved elsewhere. Two of these coming up are hitting him particularly hard. Not that the friends who remain aren't wonderful -- but he's feeling the loss, a lot, right now, and I can't fix it for him. So... you know. Just in case you were short on things to pray about. thanks.

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Open Letters

Dear Elizabeth:

While I must say that I really do appreciate your special brand of feline affection, with all the textbook purring and paw-patting and lap-snuggling you dish out, I must ask: was it truly necessary to suspend yourself in mid-air from your two claws, dug into the tender flesh of the upper inner part of my left arm, when I went to put you down the other night? The bruises look hideous, and feel worse. I'm just wondering.

P.S. I'm sorry I yelled "You beast!!" at you. I didn't really mean it. It was just... the pain. You understand.

**********************

Dear Mary:

You are the overachiever of cats, I must say. Litter-trained from day one, never using the closet instead except for those early horrible days when you were in heat, perfect blend of condescending affection and haughty back-turning, good gopher-catcher (back when you were allowed outside, that is), never running onto the highway to break all our hearts. Thank you for all of these. However. When you've used the litterbox, is it really necessary to attempt to bury your good deed by scratching and clawing at every neighboring resonating surface? It's surprising how loud your claws can be against a wooden cabinet at 3:30 a.m., it really is. And the litter in the box truly is the only thing that's going to actually move.*

Please think on this.

Love,
the humans who sleep in the room next to your litter-room

*Yes, I know the toilet paper moves too. We're trying to forget that, though, aren't we?

***********************

To the person with the drooping handlebar mustache:

Thanks so much for ruining our dinner last night. It's really no fun to go to a restaurant and spend $50 for dinner if we're going to have, you know, peace and quiet for the whole 45 minutes or so that we're there. Who wants that? Everyone who dines out really wants a loud-mouthed, intoxicated, swaggering jerk to go around to nearly every table, pummeling strangers' shoulders, telling raucous jokes in a voice that would shatter concrete. You certainly took care of this for us, and for everyone else as well. Great job.

P.S. No more beer for you.

P.P.S. You are so not funny.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

reality check

Denise is one of those people who says what I so often feel, only miles better. She's been going through a rough spot emotionally, and she's in my prayers. She also put up this "reality check" meme today. I needed a little humiliation (who doesn't?) and, well, you know me and memes.

How many overdue library books do you currently have? None. I think the family altogether might have about a dollar in fines. Or maybe we're still caught up on fines.

When was the last time you changed your cat's litter box? Today. We only have the one, for two cats, and if we don't keep it relatively clean they start using corners of the kids' rooms instead. It hadn't been changed since early Friday morning when we left for our beach weekend, so it really needed it today.

******Edit********
Oh wait, do you mean fully CHANGED? Because we have this schmancy litterbox where you take it apart and it basically sifts everything out of the litter and then you put it back together and the litter's pretty much clean, if you have good hard-clumping litter. When I think of changing it, I think of doing that, which we usually do every other day or so. We actually dispose of the old litter and put in fresh new litter once a month or so.
*******************

How many things do you currently have in your house that you borrowed more than a week ago and have not returned? Um, about a dozen? I don't know, off the top of my head I can think of a book of Bach chorales and a James Galway flute CD that I borrowed from my music teacher in high school. Do I win some sort of slacker prize for that? We also have some DVDs borrowed from one of T's friends. I can't think of anything else offhand but I know there must be more.

How many checks have you bounced this month? None. We've never had a check actually bounce, but maybe five times in our marriage, our bank has covered checks for us and fined us for the privilege. Also, we have a line of credit for overdraft protection, but it's usually at its limit from other stuff.

When was the last time you said something unkind to someone? I bit my daughter's head off today when she stuck her finger in a pitcher of dyed hummingbird-food syrup and then wiped it on her jeans. A capital offense, no? Anytime you want with that Mother of the Year Award.

How many people are you holding a grudge against? I think... three. Two of those grudges are about twenty years old.

How many loads of laundry are waiting to be done? I'd say six. This is not usual; I caught us up completely while T was gone on the fire. Usually there are more like twelve or fifteen.

When was the last time you changed your sheets? Um... about three weeks ago.

When was your last mammogram? Never had one.

How many days' worth of dishes are in your sink? Hmm. Well, I have some miscellaneous stuff sitting by the sink like placemats, water bottles, and a few pans I picked up at a yard sale over the weekend. But our daily dishes are in the dishwasher. Which, come to think of it, I'll have to remember to start before I go to bed.

How many articles of clothing are lying on your bedroom floor? No way I could count them without actually going through and gathering them up one by one. And that's after I just picked up about half a dozen things (not counting the handful of socks) from my side of the bed and put them in the hamper.

How many of your bills are currently past due? I was going to say none, and then I remembered that we have an outstanding dental bill. The dentist has been my mom's boss for over twenty years, and when we got the work done (um, four years ago or so) the plan was for me to work off the bill in web design work. That never happened, through no real fault of my own. One of these days -- maybe if T gets another fire this year -- we'll just pay it off.

When was your last dental appointment? Probably three years ago. Maybe five.

How many points do you have on your driver's license? None, thanks to traffic school.

When was the last time you scrubbed your toilet? Probably, ugh, two weeks. And that's certainly not the longest it's ever gone. I should get in the habit of doing it whenever I change the litterbox.

Have you ever said you'd pray for someone but knew you wouldn't? Ouch. Unfortunately yes. Well, to clarify, I didn't know at the time that I wouldn't, but sometimes it just slips my mind and I move on without doing it.

What's the oldest thing in your fridge and how old is it? This is a bad time to answer this question, because I cleaned out the fridge while T was gone last week. At that time there were several containers in there whose contents were unidentifiable and whose age was unknown. Probably I'd guess Mesozoic or Pleistocene. ;)

When was the last time you read your Bible? Ouch again. Um. We kept not doing our family reading while T was gone, and we didn't do it over the weekend even though we should have. I'd say two weeks ago tomorrow, when I did my last chapter summary. Although I looked up some verses in our Bible program for a couple of discussions. Still. OW.

When was the last time you backed up your important files and photos? I backed up my photos at the beginning of this month. Before that it had been since last July. I've never backed up the rest of everything.

How many bags/containers of snack foods do you have in your house? Bad time to ask this; T always comes home with a grocery bag full of this stuff from fires. (let's see, can I possibly squeeze that concept into a few more answers? I don't think I've mentioned it often enough. DID YOU KNOW THAT MY BELOVED, HARDWORKING HUSBAND WAS AWAY IN ARIZONA FOR A WEEK, WORKING TELECOM FOR FIRE SUPPRESSION TEAMS? YOU DIDN'T? WOW! WELL, HE WAS!)

Do you know where your keys are? They're in my purse.

Well, that wasn't so bad. It was actually a little heartening. Somehow the creator of the meme managed to avoid asking about the really bad stuff at my house. Like: How many archaeological teams would it take to find your piano? at least three. How much time did you spend on the computer today? probably at least five hours total. How often do your kids sit down and do all seven of the school subjects on your list in one day? maybe five times this school year. How long ago did you tell your husband it would be 'just a few more minutes' before you were in bed? twenty-five. How much credit-card debt do you have? I am absolutely not telling.

So now you have something to look down on me about. As if the toilet thing and the thirteen-year CD loan weren't bad enough, right?

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

how I've been spending my time

T's still gone. I always hesitate to just announce in this journal how long he'll be gone when they whisk him away to save the world keep firefighters' radios functioning in a land far, far away; it's the stalkers, you know. Because, as I have mentioned before, I am totally stalker material.

Anyway. He's not home (yet), and as usual when he's gone, our routine has completely fallen one hundred percent to pieces. Not like our routine was ever going to make any Navy captains sit up and take notice, but ehh. I'm surprised we even sleep when he's gone. We've been having a great time, though, overall. The kids have been getting along really well, and I don't think I have yelled a single time since last Thursday and that is really amazing and good, and the weather has been unbeLIEVable. I mean, as in, wearing tank tops and capris and sandals and going for picnics at the park kind of weather. We've been taking full advantage of this; so far the tally is two picnics, one afternoon at Grandpa's, three evening walks, and three hundred photographs taken (many, many of these have been of flowers. Even I am starting to get tired of flower pictures, and it's only February. The neighbor ladies' tulips haven't even come out yet.).

We find that we get a little stir-crazy in the evenings. Or let me rephrase that. Two of us -- the two who may happen to have two X chromosomes, just maybe -- get stir-crazy. The other of us -- the one who may or may not be nine years old -- never gets anything like stir-crazy and would just as soon stay home and set up Playmobile battles on his bedroom floor. However, he's been outvoted a few times this past week. Tonight we went to the valley and bought a few groceries, and I discovered that a decision not to celebrate Valentine's day may be all well and good but it still won't get you a table at a restaurant on the evening of February 14th. We thought initially of Applebees, because with kids that's a really cheap decent place to go, but there was a line out the door, so we went to Panda Express because who'd do fast food Chinese for Valentine's Day? Apparently only about, oh, everyone. We ended up at Carl's Jr., where a large percentage of the clientele seemed to be celebrating a new holiday called Go To A Fast-Food Establishment, Talk Really Loudly, and Use Plenty of Obscene Language Day. I gave out so many level, cool, angry stares that I ran out of them and had to resort to just plain glaring.

Also, while T's been gone, for some reason I've started watching movies. I'm not ordinarily much of a movie person; the majority of my movie time coincides quite purposefully with my laundry-folding time, and hence consists of movies with which I am familiar enough that they won't distract me from actually, you know, folding laundry **cough Jane Austen adaptations cough**. But on Saturday the kids and I went to the video store and rented a stack of movies. We went with the intention of getting movies for them, but thanks to the library and our lack of interest in just about anything put in theaters and aimed at kids these days, we couldn't find much of anything for them that we hadn't seen a dozen times, and we wound up getting just a couple for them and a few for me. So far we've all watched Shrek 2 (C is obsessed with the cat and tells us repeatedly how cute it is when he takes off his hat and makes his eyes all big; fortunately she didn't pick up on the less, er, couth aspects of his characterization) and The Incredibles, which I think I might have liked if I'd cared about comic books in the slightest. But I don't, so I didn't. And by myself I've watched Finding Neverland (WATCH THIS NOW THIS MEANS YOU), Shall We Dance (the recent one with Richard Gere) and 13 Going on 30. I wouldn't bother listing the titles here except that I wanted to humiliate myself by saying that at some point during each of these three movies, I cried. Actual tears going down my face cried. Because I am all cool that way.

Speaking of cool, I'm going to go curl up with a cat, my husband's pre-worn work turtleneck, and a James Herriot book. I am one happening chick, no?

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Strange Ways to Find Me

Kristen posted about her referral stats, and that reminded me that I've been wanting to do the same here. Then T got called out to work overnight (possibly for several nights) and I thought, what better way to put off getting into that empty bed than to sit here doing this? The idea of T being gone always has a tinge of adventure to it, when I think of it from afar. As soon as it actually occurs though, the adventure pretty much goes away and plain old loneliness sets in.

Anyway. These come from my photo blog as well as my main one; the stats are for my entire domain (bwa ha ha!! My domain! Where are my minions? Do I get minions too?). This means that I get a TON of searches for wildflower photos. I hope I've labeled them correctly, or I'll be confusing a lot of poor folks. I also get found by a lot of people who want clapping rhymes, and by even MORE people who want to cheat on their homework. No, you will not find "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh chapter summaries for free" here, or answers to essay questions about Indian in the Cupboard or Izzy, Willy-Nilly or Homecoming or The Phantom Tollbooth or Of Mice and Men. Here's an idea. Go read the book and write your own.

There are also some truly disturbing (and/or disturbed) people out there. Really truly disturbing. Oh my gosh. Sometimes after I read my referral stats I feel the need to go scrub myself with sandpaper and Lava soap in the shower, or something. GO AWAY SCARY GOOGLER, NOTHING TO SEE HERE. And then there are the sad ones -- like Kristen said, there's a person behind each of these things and sometimes I wish I could find the person who searched for, say, "normal O2 saturations" or "prayer to conceive", "how to fall in love again" or "bedtime anxiety", "signs my marriage is falling apart my husband is very distant" or "teased for living in a trailer park" and tell her, it'll be OK, and give her a hug.

This list got really long. This is just a teeny weeny sampling -- the stats go back as long as I've had my blog here at livingdot, which means, what, back till last May?

1. "fly lady homeschooling" -- last I knew you were out of luck on this one.
2. "I'm going crazy pre-menopause" -- oh hon. I am too.
3. "seems to me shania twain has gained unwanted weight" -- oh please. Unwanted for whom? Somebody give that woman a milkshake. Or twelve.
4. "crochet marijuana leaf" -- oh my.
5. "does rachel smell" -- I don't know. Do I? Do I really want to know?
6. "time period of jane austen s the buccaneers" -- That would be rather difficult to pinpoint....
7. "pride and prejudice did it really happen"
8. "tarweed barbie" -- does she come with overalls and a fishing pole, or maybe a dirty face and pigtails? I'd buy that one
9. "free mom se*y legs pictures" -- oh man were YOU disappointed.
10. "cat's urine bleach and ammonia" -- I am not the only one! woo hoo!
11. "blue poppies portraits as in rachels favourite food for friends" -- I am kerflummoxed.
12. "overanalyzing our kids" -- is there a program for this?
13. "darth vader grocery fruit" -- this one was perplexing until I realized they were most likely looking for this.
14. "how to make pinch-pleat drapes" -- I knew I should have put up instructions for those. I meant to, but never did.
15. "real life photo of unicorn" -- um, good luck on that one.
16. "my boring life.com" -- I knew I picked the wrong domain.
17. "ear disorder sharpened hearing telltale heart" -- interesting theory...
18. "civilization III addiction hospitalization" -- dude. I thought the Ts were bad.
19. "stupid things a person does" and "really stupid things a person does" -- you have come to the right place, my friend.
20. "why is housework so depressing" -- it's that 'work' thing, coupled with the 'house' thing, and the 'constantly undoing itself every time you turn around' thing. Search no further; there's your answer.
21. Misspellings like "Luke Skywaker" and "male tranchlas". This is because I post things my kids write, with the original spellings. Who knew that that was the way to make it to the #1 spot in a Google search?
22. "Dickens Pride and Prejudice film adaptations criticism". This is the place to come for criticism of film adaptations, I'll grant you that, but that's one I hadn't heard of.
23. "why is rachel stupid"/"rachel is stupid"/"stupid rachel" -- oh dear. They're onto me.
24. "phrasal adverbs get from pride and prejudice" -- have I ever used the word 'phrasal'? I guess I have now...
25. "is pinch pleat drapes too formal for living room" -- I am the LAST person to ask this question.
26. "quiz Christianese" -- made me chuckle, that one did.
27. "babe in muddy jeans" -- at first, honestly, I saw this and thought of the talking pig. Which would be a more likely thing to find around here than what they were actually looking for...
28. "recipes costco chocolate mousse filling" -- if you find it, do me a favor and email it to me. I am totally not kidding. :)
29. "how do you know a girls is falling in love?"
30. "vasectomy vs. hysterectomy" -- oh, man, are you kidding?
31. "does rachel get things the wrong way around" -- I think so.
32. "tchaikovsky head falling-off hangover" -- words fail.
33. "kiddy crafts for energy" -- wait, to give them energy? do they need those?
34. "weiner in her shoes" -- when I saw this one, honestly, my first thought was -- a hot dog in her shoes? And I thought it was maybe one of the disturbed ones (I finally had to take the high h33ls photo down -- remember, my cute little retro b/w polka-dotted ones? because I got a lot of late-night foreign-country search engine hits for that one, and it started to give me the heebie jeebies. That was my foot they were looking at). Then I remembered this book review and heaved a little sigh of relief.
35. "proof potatoes explode" -- glad I could help.
36. "rachel's pretty feet" -- wrong place again. Definitely.
37. "rachel needs a life" -- as evidenced by the length of this list and the amount of time it represents...

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Exodus on worship

Tonight, as is customary on Wednesdays, we had our chapter summary Bible study meeting. The group's in Exodus right now; tonight's study was on Exodus 15. I had a hard time elucidating my thoughts on this chapter before the meeting (in other words, I showed up with a half-done homework assignment, which felt so much like high school that I almost thought I should put on a bubble skirt or some British Knights or something, before I went). During the meeting, however, a few things occurred to me. I still didn't do a great job discussing them. I'll blame the sinus infection I have right now, which makes it difficult to do a good job discussing anything. Anyway. I thought I'd have a try at making them clear here, at least.

The first, what, 21 verses of the chapter consist of this song that the Israelites are singing as they walk away from the Red Sea into the desert. It's a long song in praise to the God who had just delivered them in a pretty spectacularly miraculous way from the Egyptians who'd been enslaving them for over four hundred years. It's energetic, it's heartfelt, and I have this mental image of these hundreds of thousands of people all walking along leading their children and their animals, raising their hands and singing together to God. Logistically I'm not sure how well that would work, but doesn't that seem like it would just be the ideal for corporate worship? Nobody ticked off because the songs are too fast or the drums are too loud or these are old FOGEY hymns, nobody rolling her eyes because of the egregious errors in spelling and punctuation on the overhead screen (*ahem* who me?), nobody even really thinking about him or herself, or what would be good for us as individuals. The focus is all on God and on the wonders He has wrought on behalf of His people. Wow. Bummer that that can't happen on a Sunday morning, eh?

Then, of course, a scant three days after this wonderful worship, the people seem to have forgotten all about how great God is, and they start grumbling again (and there's a lot more of that, and worse, coming). And if that isn't just like humans the world over, I don't know what is.

Monday, February 06, 2006

things that are not working out for me right now

• My diet. I ate not one but two large chocolate milkshakes yesterday. Hey, I was sick, it was sick-person food. Right? I felt like a ton of bricks when I went to bed, I'll just say that.

• The darn woodstove. Free heat my eye. For that to mean anything I have to be able to actually light a fire. I think the wood must be wet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Meanwhile it's quite chilly in here. Of course it might help if I changed out of the capri pants and tank top I wore to sleep in last night.

• DPChallenge. Remember, the photography contest site with which I was so infatuated for a few months. I can't please those people a-tall now. Every photo I enter scores well below average. I refuse to believe that my photography is that bad; I'm just going to assume that it's just not the dpchallenge style. Presto! Self-respect is rescued. ;) It does kind of suck the fun out of taking pictures if I'm doing it for a bunch of people who are going to hate them, so I think I may give up that site for a while and just take pictures for myself, and maybe the photo blog, where at least if people don't like it they keep their mouths shut about it and don't give me a 3 on a scale from 1 to 10 just to make sure I know how lame I am.

• Blogging. Everything I would write about, I've already covered in extensive (or perhaps I should say excessive) detail -- housework or the lack of it, the kids and how they are or are not getting along, our Bible reading and whether we do or do not (usually the latter) do it every day, etc. I don't think I want to close this down -- where else would I post my books each month? -- but I think I'm just going to have to come to accept that anything over one or two posts a week is going to be the exception.
  

The good news is, though, that everything else is going just fine right now. Rather boring, but just fine. :)

Friday, February 03, 2006

counting down from ten

lifted from Michael again

TEN Random Things You May Not Know About Me:
After two and a half years of online journaling, there's a pretty serious likelihood that if you don't know it already, it's because I don't want to discuss it in a public forum, but let's see if I can come up with anything.

1. Until I was twenty years old I didn't know that "Another One Bites The Dust" was a Queen song.
   
2. I have acne and wrinkles at the same time. This is patently unfair and if anyone had told me this would happen I might have filed an injunction about getting older.
   
3. I smoked a pack of cigarettes in about a week when I was fifteen. Jenn and I were friends with this girl Nicole, and Nicole and I had a fight with Jenn, and Nicole and I were hanging out, and she was a bad little influence. :)
   
4. Up through high school I was really possessive of my friends (and especially my boyfriends). If one's number was busy, I would call the others to see whom s/he was talking to. Even as an adult I sometimes feel a tiny residual twinge of envy when my friends talk about their other friends.
   
5. If I eat Grape-Nuts I measure the serving size with a measuring cup even if I'm not trying to lose weight.
   
6. I can't chew gum anymore because it hurts my jaw too much. This is the same reason I hate going to the dentist.
   
7. If I'm limbered up I can put my feet right next to my ears.
   
8. My hands are the same size as my husband's. They're so large that I usually have to wear men's gloves.
   
9. I live about 300 yards from the very spot where I was born.
   
10. I still have my wisdom teeth, but my twelve-year molars were removed when I was eleven.
    

NINE Places I’ve Visited:

1. Flintstone's Bedrock City (Arizona, summer 1989)
   
2. Chaffee Zoological Gardens, Fresno, CA (often, since babyhood)
   
3. Morro Bay, California (every summer and assorted other times, regularly since 2001 and occasionally in childhood)
   
4. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado (summer 1989)
   
5. Kissimmee, FL (February 2004)
   
6. Great America, back when it was Marriott's Great America, early 80's, when the Demon was the scariest roller coaster they had
   
7. Lick Observatory (most Father's Days since 2000 or so)
   
8. Golden Gate Park (July 2005)
   
9. Yosemite National Park (more times than I could count, since birth)
   

EIGHT Ways to Win My Heart [or at least my affection, or gratitude, or fond remembrance, or... something]:

1. Compliment my photography :)
   
2. Compliment my cooking
   
3. BUY ME A LENS FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY, thank you so much, sweetie
   
4. Give me flowers
   
5. Compliment my children's behavior in a restaurant
   
6. Compliment my children, period. :)
   
7. Let me see an unexpected (but pleasant) personality quirk
   
8. Make me laugh
   

SEVEN Things I Want to Do Before I Die:

1. Learn to keep my house clean enough that I'm not embarrassed when people stop by
   
2. Read the complete works of Dickens in chronological order
   
3. See my adult children living fulfilled, happy, Godly lives
   
4. Wear a size 10 again
   
5. Get a flattering haircut
   
6. Grow old gracefully
   
7. Ride a(nother) rollercoaster; it's been a long time
   

SIX Things I’m Afraid Of:
I try not to dwell on these things or let them eat away at me, but they do pop into my head from time to time.

1. permanently damaging my child(ren) emotionally
   
2. someone ELSE permanently damaging my children emotionally
   
3. my husband being killed or seriously injured on the job
   
4. something happening to one of my children
   
5. my dad dying, especially my dad dying alone
   
6. centipedes. Really not so much fear as loathing, squirming, shuddering aversion.
   

FIVE Things I Don’t Like:

1. horehound candy
   
2. black licorice
   
3. the media
   
4. the smell of a dairy farm
   
5. getting stuck behind a tourist who speeds up for passing lanes but slows back down to a crawl as soon as the curves start again
   

(that one was easy)

FOUR Ways to Turn Me Off:

1. Tell me about a long dream in minute, numbing detail.
   
2. Fish for compliments.
   
3. Whine.
   
4. Be rude.
   

THREE Things I Do Every Day:

1. eat more than I should
   
2. love people
   
3. use the computer
   

TWO Things That Make Me Happy:

1. holding hands
   
2. taking pictures
   

ONE Thing on My Mind Right Now:

1. It's a mistake to give everyone in the house but me ice cream with Splenda in it. Oh my gosh is it a mistake.
   

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Books for January

Bold indicates first-time read; ratings are out of five.

1. Never Let Me Go -- Kazuo Ishiguro -- 5
   • Amazing, fascinating, engrossing, wonderful book. I could never do it proper justice in a review. It's subtle -- Ishiguro tells you nothing, yet by the end of the book, from dropped hints and reading between the lines, you know everything he wants you to know about what happens in the bizarrely realistic parallel world of this mesmerizing novel. Well, not everything, because things continue to occur to you for days. Weeks. Months, maybe. If you love literary, slightly cerebral books, READ NO SPOILERS, don't even read the book jacket if you can help it, but go get this book ASAP. If you hate it, you can personally send me an email or leave me a comment that says, "you idiot, I totally could not stand that Ishiguro book; where's your brain?" But I bet you won't.
2. The Time Traveler's Wife -- Audrey Niffenegger -- 4
   
   • I loved this book when I read it the first time and I still really liked it on this second reading a couple of years later. This is another novel where you're enjoying the story while you try to figure out what the heck's going on -- which means that it lacks just a bit of punch on re-reading. Alas, even on my first reading I thought it could have used a better editor -- if the author wants to write a book about punk or papermaking, by all means do so, but the long departures into those topics in this novel seemed a bit contrived and out of place; also, the foul language is over-the-top at times and seems largely gratuitous to me. Still, a really good novel, well above average, beautifully written and meticulously thought out, with a truly unique love story (and that's hard to come by these days).
3. Rachel's Holiday -- Marian Keyes -- 3.5
   
   • I think this one, which was a favorite of mine in the past, suffered from two things on this go-round: I read it directly after having read two much more subtle novels, and so I was annoyed by Keyes' rather obvious writing style; and also, I've been a bit re-sensitized (this is a good thing) to excess sexuality and language in novels, and this one has both. So... a good book about addiction and self-worth, still a story with a lot of value and a good amount of humor, but probably not in my top twenty books anymore. For this month, anyway.
4. A Virtuous Woman -- Kaye Gibbons -- 3.5
   
   • I wanted to really like this, and sometimes I almost did really like it, but never as much as I hoped I would. The writer's style is very good -- authentic is a word that comes to mind -- but I had a hard time getting as interested in the characters as it seemed I should. I did like how much they reminded me of my grandparents -- which must be because of the speech patterns and the woman smoker, since they are almost entirely dissimilar in every other way. Interesting.
     

And that's it for January. I also read (with the family) the books of Genesis, Judges, and a goodly portion of Psalms... does that count? :) I think it's THE NIKON -- 2000 pictures in three weeks, that's a lot of shutter-clicking.