Nom de Plume

It’s one thing to get into character. It’s another thing altogether to get so far into character that one becomes an annoying whining mass of self-centered twenty-something maleness.

Steve picked this up and tossed it down five pages in, while I managed to stay the course for 50. Then I decided that indecision is less a trait of the main character and more the inability of the story to start.

Steve and I didn’t have anything planned for Thanksgiving, but today I decided that I really needed to do the full-on dinner. Which led to a major shopping expedition this afternoon and the subsequent realization that the turkey is still completely frozen. Which in turn led to a frantic a9 search on quick methods to defrost. And that was how I got sucked into the world of the Christian Work-at-Home Mom (that’s CWATM to you folks).

It’s a different world. I found it hard to relate, although I’m sure that as women, we have a lot in common. As far as I can tell, the main difference is that they’ve embraced the fact that their partners are never going to do the barest modicum of housework or cooking and I’m still having temper tantrums about it. And let’s face it: I stumbled on this treasure trove looking for advice on how to defrost a turkey.

In any case, this led me to the CWATHHSM, or the Christian Work-at-Home Homeschooling Mom. One hears a lot about homeschooling these days, and did you know they’re taking the blogging world by storm? Yep, and it’s all at
www.homeschoolblogger.com.

Now that’s a different world.

Here’s where we insert a politically correct statement about accepting different beliefs, which is actually true. Or at least truer than many rabidly liberal people in the Pacific Northwest. Also, throw in another statement about how we understand that people homeschool for different reasons. Some of the posts were pretty scary though, especially considering that they are forming young minds.

Like:

… kids are just all caught up in their latest cirriculum …

About the homeschool. All is going well. At least I’m proud to say that the goals that we have set for the boys are being accomplished. My 9 yr old had formed bad habits in his writing scruture, so we have him doing alot of extra writing, consistently. And I see noticable results. All the copy work and handwriting practiice is working!

I am a homeschool mom of two boys. Their favorite thing to do is cook and bake.

Iv’e worked all weekend getting lession plans, etc ready for this coming week. I have a few things left to get but for the most part, I’m ready!! Hubby has been really good at helping out and looking though things with me. He wants to be a TEAM this time around. One thing he wanted to do different this time was make our own Science curriculum. I will be taking Genesis and breaking it up and studying little by little. Light, animals… so on. This all has kept be very busy but I’m getting excited thinking about spending so much time with the kids and watching there minds grow.

A hardy welcome

Thanks for visiting our web blog. Ash, Josh, Emma, Moll, Gwen, & myself will be blogging every couple of days. The children will inform you on the happening of the last day or two. We want this to be communication between friends & family we do not get to see. Click on comments and say high.

Following on the tail of Alphabet of Thorn, I grabbed this other McKillip title when I saw it on the shelf. It wasn’t nearly as good. Really, don’t bother with this one. It lacked a spark.

Max Tivoli was born old and grows younger as he ages. He starts out a wizened old man, descends through a dignified looking middle age into his thirties, then his twenties, and finally appears as a child as an old man.

In his aged youth, he falls in love with his downstairs neighbor, a girl his own age — though of course, she appears as a normal 15-year old while he looks 55. Later on, he encounters Alice again when they are both in their thirties, and of course, at this intersection, they look like the same age. Interspersed with the history of his past is a recounting of his present, in which he is living with a woman and her son who resembles him in age.

Unfortunately, this is one of those books that I lost interest in. Although it is well-written and nicely evocative of turn-of-the-century (20th, that is — one feels compelled to clarify these days) San Francisco, it ultimately became a little tiresome in its sprawl and leisurely pace. To give you an idea of how much interest I lost, put it this way: I had just discovered that the boy in his present is actually his son — and I had zero interest in finding out the story.

I ordered this a while ago, thinking it would provide insipiration for the trashy novel and give me some ideas for background setting. Alas, it mainly makes me unhappy with my lot in life, but that’s another story altogether.

Strangely enough, I pulled this off the shelf this week to read/goggle at the pictures. Then, when Elizabeth and I saw P&P last night, immediately recognized Pemberley as one of the places described in the book. Indeed, on glancing back, it was definitely Chatsworth. The black and white entrance hall to Pemberley resembled another picture in the book — Syon House — but when I went back, I wasn’t sure.

But anyway, in terms of the book — good read, lots of history, stunning pictures. Though more pictures would have been welcome.

In his words: “I’m the round green guy.”

Elizabeth and I went to a 10 o’clock show last night, which of course meant that I wasn’t home until 1 and consequently overslept this morning. And the sad thing was that it wasn’t worth it. P&P, the latest blockbuster movie, was not just bad, but terrible.

To be fair, P&P is hard to cram into 2 hours without losing a lot of its essence. And there were a couple of good scenes. Elizabeth and Darcy crackled in that one scene in which they are dancing and she takes him to task for not talking. Judi Dench as Lady Catherine de Bourgh was fabulous. However, the rest of the movie was pretty bad — not because of the quality of acting, but because of the execrable script.

First of all, the screenwriter obviously had no knowledge of the historical period he or she was writing about; there were glaring errors in every single scene. Clothing, manners, speech — none were immune to his/her ignorance. Among other things, Elizabeth apparently liked to loll about and wander the moors in her nightrail and dressing gown.

And then there were the dialogue changes. “I have no money and no prospects. I’m frightened, Lizzie. Don’t you dare judge me!” cries Charlotte on informing Elizabeth that she is to wed Mr. Collins.

Seriously, who smoked some crack and came up with THAT?

It’s too bad the script was so bad because it was obviously a lavish production that recalled the last BBC production (the one with the delectable Colin Firth as Darcy). But if you need to watch P&P, rent that one instead.

So this is the thing. There’s froth and then there’s literary fiction. Sometimes you’ll have literary froth, and sometimes you’ll have frothy literature. Unfortunately, sometimes you have a book that purports to be literary, but the writer simply doesn’t have the ability to carry it off. And that, my friends, is Stone Heart in a nutshell.

Chisako and her lover are found murdered. Her husand, who has disappeared with the children, is the primary suspect. It seems cut and dried, but it’s not — because the story is told through the voice of Miss Saito, a woman whose acknowledgement of the truth is hampered by many things: her narrowed life caring for bedridden father; her need for — and lack of — intimacy; the legacy of surviving Japanese internment camps during World War II.

If I had to characterize this novel, I would say it’s slow and seeping. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but it was powerful. Saito is probably one of the most vivid and disturbing characters I’ve encountered in a long while.

Like Harry Potter for grownups.

Nepenthe is an orphan who was taken in by the libarians of a magic kingdom. At sixteen, she is gifted at deciphering dead languages; when confronted from a manuscript of a language whose written alphabet resembles thorns, she becomes enmeshed in its mystery. At the same time, a new queen is taking over the kingdom and danger threatens. And of course, the destinies of both Nepenthe and the queen are interwoven.

I don’t want to give too much away, because I would highly recommend reading this simply for the language and sprightly imagination McKillip displays, but I have to say that the ending was a little too neatly tied up.

My parents, like every couple from the 70s, had a copy of The Joy of Sex in the drawer of their bedside table. We lived in Lagos at the time; I was seven and when they were out on their endless circuit of diplomatic cocktail parties and dinners, I used to sneak it out and look at the pictures. How traumatic would it have been if they actually wrote the book and posed for the pictures? Put it this way: I’d still be in therapy.

This situation is at the heart of Meg Wolitzer’s book The Position. It’s 1975 and Paul and Roz Mellow write a book, pose for the pictures, and casually stick it in the bookshelf in the den. Michael, the second oldest of their four children finds it, and makes his siblings look at it. What follows is the story of the entire Mellow family and the impact that book had.

Overall, I enjoyed this — but I have to say that it fell short of Wolitzer’s previous novel, The Wife. There are some absolutely stunning scenes, some fabulous characters. Wolitzer is a master of slow exposition. At the same time, it was a little self-conscious at times, a little overdone in the cracks between her amazing characters and the lives they lead.

On a side note that I feel compelled to add: One of my pet peeves is when a writer replaces the stalwart, utilitarian word “because” in favor of a floating, ethereal “for” — and she does so consistently, almost dogmatically. To my ears, it ends up sounding amateurish, which is a shame because she is so obviously not.

Samantha Joyce is an idealistic, love-challenged healthcare advisor to a senator. At the tender age of 26, she’s not really sure how she managed to snag such a great job on Capitol Hill, and her earnestness is bumbling though heart-warming. In the midst of working far too hard, she falls for Aaron, a speechwriter for the opposing camp (the dreaded Republicans). He’s a jerk. Somehow, she manages to keep her sanity despite her inability to keep pet fish alive. And of course, the right guy is under her nose from the very beginning. This was a fun, fresh novel that kept me up late finishing it.

It’s here! It’s here!

Mom: So what are you doing?

Me: Pulling up the carpeting in the office.

Mom: How’s the rest of the house? Are you done with the bathroom, or the kitchen, or the bedroom?

Me: (hysterical laughter)

Well, I would post a picture of the two cups worth of dirt I found under the carpeting I pulled up, but the SIM card in my digital camera is being recalcitrant.

Two cups, though! Of pure unadulterated DIRT in a room that’s 10 x 11!

Not, you understand, that the floors are in much better shape than the carpet was. Someone painted them a pale blue and then drizzled putty or caulk or something in Pollack-esque swirls. Still, there’s something I rather like about the starkness of the worn floors.

Prednisone is a steroid, so it should come as no surprise that Harry has been much more pugnacious of late. He barks at everything now: Steve, squirrels, other dogs barking. He even barks at nothing. We’ll be in the living room and all of a sudden he’ll start looking at some blank spot and barking his silly little head off. Perhaps we have ghosts that only he can see?

Really, he’s doing so much better. He has a lot of energy, and that makes me happy. Still, I can’t help but wonder how much of this is the side effect from the medication. In a way, he doesn’t even seem like himself. It’s not that he isn’t his loving little self (he is), but he is so much more aggressive than he’s ever been before. It isn’t bad, just different. (And of course, Harry’s aggressive is most dogs’ mellow.)

Steve has found a new hobby; I am a sailing widow.

Our neighbor Geoff is on a sailing team and they needed additional crew members. So Steve started sailing, and the boys just took off for a race in Gig Harbor.

My plan for the day is to pull up the icky blue carpet in the office. This is the same carpet that was throughout the house. The wood floor in this room is painted a light blue, or at least that’s what shows up when you pull up a corner. Heaven knows what condition the floors are in, but it’s still preferable to the carpeting. So one more cup of coffee, and I’m on it. Wish me luck.

You’ll be glad to know that Harry has been his perky little self recently. Oh, he’s not 100 percent: he can’t play the way he used to, he is still a bit unsteady on his feet at times. But ultimately, he’s back to being a happy doglet who likes trompling around Seward Park and is full of tail-wagging affection.

I bought a new car today.

Not the Volvo — I ended up not liking it — but the Mazda 3 hatchback wagon.

From a storage unit company’s sign on Rainier Ave. in Seattle, WA:

Free storage to all Katrina victims!