Nom de Plume

Pam, my mother outlaw, is arriving tomorrow morning. Steve is taking Thursday and Friday off, and I am in a frantic cleaning mode. Argh.

The SavetheInternet.com Coalition launches April 24 to urge Congress to take immediate steps to save the First Amendment of the Internet — a principle called “network neutrality� that ensures that the Web remains open to innovation and progress.

link

Found on Poppy Cedes. Here are the rules: BOLD those you’ve read, ITALICIZE the ones you’ve been meaning to read.

Alcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (totally overrated in my opinion)
Atwood, Margaret–Cat’s Eye
Austen, Jane–Emma
Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters
Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex
Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (we must, we must …. I cursed myself)
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South
Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory
Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics
Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, Geroge–Middlemarch
Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen
Erdrich, Louise–Tracks (not this one, but plenty of others, my fave was The Beet Queen)
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper
Gordimer, Nadine–July’s People
Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
Hamilton, Edith–Mythology This seems like an odd inclusion to me.
Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
Hooks, Bell–Bone Black
Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road
Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona
Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House
Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them) This inclusion is just plain WRONG. The original was written by a man; the rest were written by a whole passel of writers
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy
Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior
Larsen, Nella–Passing
L’Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook
Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger
Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series
McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding
McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts
Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve
Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost
Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji
Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women
Murdoch, Iris–A Severed Head
Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day
Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller’s Wife
Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys And God, was it horrible.
O’Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find
Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time
Picoult, Jodi–My Sister’s Keeper
Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead Even worse than Mulvaneys
Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats
Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea
Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping
Rocha, Sharon–For Laci
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Smith, Zadie–White Teeth
Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle
Steel, Danielle–The House
Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
Tannen, Deborah–You’re Wearing That
Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife’s Tale
Urquhart, Jane–Away
Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
Welty, Eudora–One Writer’s Beginnings
Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One’s Own

The race this weekend is 30 hours long.

30 hours.

I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to spend 30 hours on a sailboat. It’s a good thing Steve likes the rest of the crew. They’re going to be very cozy. I, of course, am going to miss him while he’s gone. He called me at about nine this morning.

“Wanna go on a hot date tonight?”

“Sure,” I said, pleased. I didn’t think he’d want to do anything tonight; he’s a real morning person, can easily be asleep by 8 every night. Okay, okay, he is asleep by 8 every night.

“Okay,” he said. “But we have to make it early. I have an even hotter date at 7:30. With the bed.”

Last year, I wanted to plant masses of bulbs in the front yard. I imagined froths of hyacinths and daffodils poking their heads up spring after spring, tons of tulips for cut flowers. But no. “It’s not in keeping with a Japanese garden,” sniffed Steve in disdain. So I resigned myself to planting five or six bulbs in the ground, and the rest in pots. And we all know that I kill plants when they’re in pots. There’s a reason that Steve calls them Zia’s Torture Chambers.

So what happened this year? Steve “discovered” the joys of bulbs. He planted flat after flat of ‘em. He dragged me to McClendon’s to get the more exotic types of bulbs. He’s even ordered a bunch of them online. And when I complained? “I’m so glad I thought of putting bulbs in the front yard,” he said.

Back by popular demand, the cast of Maguire’s fabulous Wicked appears, at least partially. Elphaba may be gone, but her spirit of the resistance lives on, both in the hearts of the –what do you call them anyway? Ozzians? Ozzites?–and in Liir, the little boy who lived with her. Is he her son? Is he someone else’s? We don’t know and it doesn’t really matter because he is thrust into a role he isn’t sure he wants to take on. I love Gregory Maguire, I loved Wicked, and Son of a Witch deserves a place on everyone’s to read list. The man is a genius.

Getting one is yet another thing on the to-do list that probably isn’t going to be done anytime soon. I want one of these. Aren’t they nifty? They light up. More than that, they’re pretty.

Unfortunately, I think they’re only available in Australia. link

After I read False Impressions, scavenged around for a copy, and sent it to my mother for airplane reading, I got this book from her in the mail. Crossed paths, indeed. Freund follows three early American antiques from the time they are made to their latest sale at auction–and he delivers a tale not just of the pieces itself, but the history of American antiques, the stories of famous antique dealers and buyers, and a crash course in certain aspects of furniture making. Granted, he meandered all over the place, and didn’t often end up where he started (or even in the general vicintity). Even so, this was very fun, very interesting … and very addictive.

Mom left for Iraq last Friday, and we managed to talk for a few minutes before her cell phone cut out. It made me a little teary. Neither one of us is good at the emotional farewells and so on. But she’s there, safe and sound, and I just got this:

A quick note before I address the e-mail (through the slow connection we have here) to say that we arrived safely. The flight over the Atlantic was great (lobster, good wine, fabulous service, great cheeses) and the bag made the transfer to Amman. I don’t have much of an impression of Amman except for light colored flat surfaced buildings spread over hills in the desert air.

On to Baghdad on the C-130. Not an uncomfortable flight except, possibly, for the lack of restrooms (a bucket in the back doesn’t cut it for me) and the landing in Baghdad was smooth.

Unfortunately, we missed our helicopter and no one goton the later helo flight, so we waited for the Rhino. Ate in a good cafeteria, enormous, barbecued pork ribs (o sin!) and fresh salad for me. The Rhino, this armored, lumbering small windowed metal plated bus, convoy came in late and we arrived here about 4:30 a.m. Long day, to say the least, but I made some friends and acquaintances.

The C-130 flight and Rhino was enlivened by Jim Biggus, an FSO of somewhat but not greatly younger years than I, who will be in Kirkuk. (Jim has a splinted finger. Someone broke it when shakinghis hand good by. I joked that this was the difference between State and USIA–I have my shotgun bruise.)

I will be here in Baghdad two or three weeks, it turns out. My “hooch” is much larger than advertised, a good 10 x 15. Functional.

And that’s about it. I’ll sign off and try to do the Pamlico News. Love you both, Me