Nom de Plume

In the mid-80s, we lived in Bucharest. My mother was the director of the American Library, a part of the U.S. Information Agency. One day, an American man and his wife waltzed into her office. “My name is Sidney Sheldon,” he said, “and I’m writing a book. Can I take you out to dinner and get some information on how embassies work?”

Now there are two things you have to understand. The first is that my mother’s idea of light reading is the latest installment of the Chronicle of Higher Education, which means that she’d never heard of Sidney Sheldon. The second is that this was Romania under Ceausescu, and there were virtually no places to go out to dinner and actually get something edible. And thus, she blithely did what she always does: invited them to dinner.

We were still living in the diplomat apartment complex at the time, a hulking gray paean to the worst of monolithic socialist architecture. It was before heat became such a problem that the embassy moved all its employees to houses so it could ship in heating oil from Vienna (but I do remember how the elevators always got stuck between floors; fun for a 11-year old who always relied on the–very cute–armed guard to get her out). The apartment was quite modest and very cold; when they arrived, we gathered three space heaters in the dining room to point at our feet. My mother and Sidney Sheldon discussed Embassy hierarchy, while I chattered away to his wife, who grew roses and liked making perfume. When the evening ended, they thanked us and said, “The next time you’re in L.A., you must look us up.”

The next summer, we were on our way to San Diego and we flew through LAX. We had a day to kill, which we were to spend with Father de Souza, a Jesuit priest who had been the president of St. Xavier’s college when my father taught there. “Oh!” exclaimed my mother. “We should call the Sheldons!” She riffled through her address book at a pay phone. They invited us for tea.

Father de Souza pulled up in the monastery’s station wagon, an old, rusted boat of a car. He threw our suitcases in the trunk, tying the hatch down with a length of chord. Armed with directions, we clattered onto the wide, quiet streets of Beverly Hills. The security gate was made of wrought iron with three cameras and a buzzer. Slowly, the gates swung open and we climbed up a winding drive to the biggest house I had every seen.

We drank tea–hot chocolate for me–and ate cookies on cream silk sofas, looking out at the gardens through French doors. Mrs. Sheldon not only gave me a tour of her roses, but also cut a huge bunch for me. I clutched them the rest of the day, and through the hour flight down to San Diego.

A couple of years later, Windmills of the Gods came out. My mother splurged on the hardback, reading it on the plane. And she was outraged. “This is wrong,” she kept saying. “This is beyond wrong!” I tried reading it a couple years after that, and was bored to tears. The writing … well, it was popular fiction, after all.

But I will never forget just how gracious the Sheldons were.

I despise patchouli. Or at least, I always thought I did. But when combined with other scents, it can actually be quite nice. So this is without the lime and spruce of Dave’s soap.

204g oo
218g coil
211g crisco
20g rosehip
27g cocoa butter

1 tb patchouli
1 tb bergamot
1 tb rosewood
2 tb lavender

It’s been a week since I made this, and while the scent seems to be fading, I think it’s going to be a very smooth-feeling soap.

All my essential oils are stored in an old file cabinet in the office, which doubles as a guest room. Dave was here when my new order came in. And every time we went out, Dave riffled through my supplies looking for something that smelled good. “Where’s the patchouli?” he’d ask. Or “Wow, rosewood smells good.” Then he’d dab himself behind the ears. When I said I was making soap, he thrust the spruce and lime at me. “These’ll smell good together.” And thus, a new soap was born.

280g oo
252g palm
252g coil

114g lye
197-295 water

I added some other stuff to the lime/spruce combo, so:

2 tb rosewood
1 tb lime
1 tb bergamot
1 tb spruce
2 tb lavender

It smells divine.

I saw this at the bookstore, and despite having given up on the Bartimaeus Trilogy, thought it sounded interesting. On my hold list at the library it went, and when it came, I found myself riveted. For about three chapters. Basically, one of two orphaned brothers who live with their short-tempered sister in a small English village, falls asleep on a hill and wakes up with dragon vision in which he can see the souls of people. He takes his brother up there, so he can also get a taste of the vision. Then it turns out that there are other dangerous people in the village who have partaken, and the plot heats up. Only not enough to sustain my interest. Like his other novels, the concept was great, the writing fine, and the execution somewhat less than dazzling. Abandoned.

It’s the future and we’re running out of natural resources. Never to fear: scientists have discovered to go back in time to a slightly different dimension. The place in question is the Scottish border in the 16th century, peopled by a fierce group of warriors called the Sterkarms. Treaties abound; the Sterkarms are still untrustworthy. Andrea Mitchell is an anthropologist hired to mingle with the Sterkarm and report back to headquarters. She falls in love with one, and must manage her allegiences. Despite the fact that this had a gazillion more battles than I wanted to read, and went on (and on and on), it was not without charm.

Here’ s a little reminder of what the bathroom looked like when we moved in:

This is it now:

The tub, in which I have been spending most of my free time:

We bought the mirror at an antique store about a year ago. The corner cabinet was that unfinished furniture stuff. I’ve stained it, still have to varnish. Steve hates it in the bathroom; he says it looks hulking. Personally, I rather like it, but am thinking about just painting it white. The stain looks amateurish. Which isn’t a surprise because I did it.

And this is the marble thingie separating the hall and the bathroom. There’s another matching piece that’s going in the window as a sill/shelf.

We still need to get hooks/towel racks/other sundry storage, and finish the trim around the door. But for the most part, this is done.

And it feels a little anticlimactic. Sigh.

Otherwise known as what we in my family call girding one’s loins, in fond memory of someone who once got his tongue a little twisted with very amusing results. The bathroom? It’s DONE. I’ve painted. There’s still some minor trim work, but it looks fab. And now, I’m loining my girdle in preparation for Steve’s insistence that we’re adding a second story.

In preparation, he climbed the roof to take pictures of what the views would look like. They start at the southeast and move north, west, and south in order.

And here’s looking down into the backyard:

Aza is 15 and tremendously ugly. But her voice–in a magical kingdom where song is the most important thing of all–soars above the rest. When she is taken to court, she discovers that the new queen has the voice of a toad. On discovering that Aza can throw her voice too, the queen blackmails her into an arrangement whereby Aza sings for her, tricking her people. But the queen also has some darker, more sinister powers–including a mirror that has made her beautiful. How can Aza resist the temptation of being made beautiful–especially with a growing friendship with the prince? This was a nice refreshing tale in which our heroine discovers that beauty is not all.

I can’t remember where I got this author reference. All I can say is that I keep trying to read adult fantasy, and keep going back to the kiddie stuff. This was fine, it was okay, but the prose was so self-consciously dense and it could have ended about 100 pages before it really did. I finished it, and then picked up another one of her novels that came in the same pile from the library. But I didn’t have the strength; I tossed it down 30 pages in.

I’ve been hearing what a great children’s writer Lois Lowry is for a long time, but somehow had confused her with Lois Duncan, a writer I loved when I was a kid. Her novels were creepy, thrumming with tales of possession and the channeling of dead spirits. My particular favorite was a novel about two twin sisters separated at birth where the evil twin astral projects into the good twin’s life. That led to countless nights trying to project my soul up at the ceiling. Alas, I usually just fell asleep.

In any case, I am now the wiser: Lois Lowry is NOT Lois Duncan. However, The Giver was just as creepy–it’s just less Stephen King and more Aldous Huxley. Jonas lives in a Utopian society in which everyone has a role, lives are strictly regimented, and everyone is happy. But at the age of 12, when people find out what they are going to be when they grow up, Jonas is elected the new keeper of memories. And when he starts his course of training–receiving these memories from the previous keeper–he starts to question his own existence and realizes that while his world has gotten rid of flaws, it has also gotten rid of love and meaning. If you have a kid, and he or she hasn’t already read this, run out and get it. This is children’s literature at its finest.

Merge means that you’re supposed to merge, not that I am supposed to slam on my brakes to let you in while you flip me off.

“He stinks,” Dave said, burying his nose in Harry’s fur.

“Yep,” I said. “It’s a pug thing.”

He took a deeper sniff. “No, he really stinks.

“You get used to it.”

Sniff. “No, I mean he REEKS.”

“Then why don’t you stop smelling him?”

“I can’t.”

Charlotte’s excellent Green Meme.

1. What do you for the birds and the bees? According to the report, we need to plant a pollinator garden to counteract the effect pollution, pesticides and habitat destruction are having on birds, bees and insects. Bees, for instance, like yellow, blue and purple flowers. I attempt to do things, but I kill plants. Steve, on the other hand, has a lot of stuff in the garden that qualifies. I think.

2. Household products. Chemical or organic? Household chemicals contribute to indoor and outdoor pollution.
Whatever’s convenient, to be honest. However, my soapmaking has yielded a lot of green stuff to clean with. I use soap scraps and the soaps I don’t like to wash dishes, counters, the bathroom, and so on. Sadly, organic laundry and dishwasher detergents don’t work as well as their chemical counterparts. I keep trying, but end up going back to the polluting kind.

3. Do you junk?
I really hate all the junk mail we get. I’ve taken us off credit card offers, and as much junk mail as possible, but I really don’t think the “remove me from the list” services work all that well. We still get stuff.

4. Air-dry or tumble-dry? Line-drying saves money and stops carbon emissions.
Tumble, all the way. But I hate doing laundry and do my part by doing it as infrequently as possible.

5. Old gadgets. Recycle or toss ‘em? According to the report, we have to find a way not to fill up landfills with electronic objects. Charlotte says, “Here’s my current solution: fill up the cellar instead.” I concur wholeheartedly. I have good intentions.

6. Lightbulbs - incandescent or fluorescent? Fluorescent light bulbs use 70% less power and last ten times as long.I hate to admit this, but incandescent. I hate the light produced by fluorescent bulbs.

7. Meat or veg? Meat production is energy inefficient. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. After about seven years of being a vegetarian, I’m a wholehearted meat eater now. My concession is that I try to buy meat that comes from local sources.

8. Loo paper. Virgin or recycled? The paper industry is the third largest contributor to global warming. If every U.S. household replaced one toilet-paper roll with a roll made from recycled paper, 424,000 trees would be saved. Recycled. Though it’s still bleached and all that. I do wish all those recycled TP companies would skip the bleach.

9. Tap or bottled water? According to Newsweek, it takes a lot of oil to make and ship water bottles, and most end up in landfills. Tap. This whole bottled water craze is one of my pet peeves. First, the materials and transportation that go into it. Second, the fact that most tap water is cleaner. Just get a Nalgene bottle and you’re good to do. And if you must distill, get a Britta. The exception is fizzy mineral water. We usually have a case of that stuff around.

10. Dating - metrosexual or ecosexual? Newsweek says two recyclers are better than one. Dating? What’s that?

Yesterday, Dave ripped out the tub, prepped the subfloor, put in insulation, and added a couple of water shutoffs because we only had one. It’s amazing how fast it goes. Dave’s kind of fun to have around. He was talking to his girlfriend the other night, and saying, “Don’t let the dogs in the bed.” Pause. “No. No dogs in the bed while I’m gone. I know you.” Pause and big sigh. “Okay, just keep him off my pillows. I hate that.” Steve, meanwhile, was laughing out loud because we have this exact same conversation pretty much every day.

But this morning, I asked Steve where Harry was.

Sleeping with Dave, that’s where.

Shamefaced, Dave explained that Harry looked so lonely and pathetic alone on the couch last night that he scooped him up and plonked him on his bed. He was quick to add that Harry’s a bed hog and snores to boot.

Yet Harry stayed there. All night. On the bed.

Reminds me of Steve, saying he hates the dog.

This was one of my lovely bookmooch finds, and I have this to say:

1. The first is the best, by far. Everything else pales in comparison.

2. Anne becomes more irritating the older she grows.

3. Paul Irving is a smarmy little pansy. Davy, on the other hand, rocks.

4. Marilla tells it like it is when it comes to Miss Lavendar.

5. I am really tired of kindred spirits.

6. Gilbert is like no man alive.

7. And finally, as pertains to this particular edition: What happened to the volume where she’s in college? There was a mighty jump there.

Remember the bathroom saga? That has been restarted forty bazillion times? It’s actually going to be finished–within the next week.

Steve’s brother was laid off. He doesn’t seem overly concerned about it, so we’re not either. But Steve flew him out here and is paying him to finish the bathroom for us. The boys have left for Home Depot and it’s going to be a flurry of activity around here. Not only is Dave doing the bathroom, but he’s also replacing my leaking skylight.

For those of you not in Seattle, we were positively deluged with snow a few days ago.

I’ve missed snow, and it has been fun frolicking around in it. However, our street runs downhill and is a solid sheet of ice. I can’t drive my car down it. (We won’t get into the effects of the neighbor running his sump pump into the street.) And, as a result, I’m feeling a little housebound.

In other words, waking up to more snow this morning was NOT a good thing.

What do you mean, play some more?

No, thanks. We need to sleep now.

Another pug movie.