Christmas Road Trip

I'm happy to report that I made the trip down to Houston to visit Grandpa in good shape. It took me 12 hours all told, a bit longer than I expected, but that included a couple of naps and stops for lunch, filling up the car, stretching a bit... It also included Dallas traffic (who expected stop and go traffic at 2:30 in the afternoon?) I was blessed with great weather, and drove up to the hotel 2 minutes before Mom and Dad did- how's that for timing!?!

I just want to put a plug in for audio books. I listened to two on the way down here- Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia Wrede, and The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper. I've read both of them several times before, but they're great stories, so listening to them was great fun. I find that I do better in the car if I'm familiar with the books already- distractions on the road mean that I tune out sections of the story, which makes it rather difficult if you're not familiar with characters and plot. Both audio books were well presented- Dealing with Dragons had a full cast of actors, the first time I remember hearing a book that way. It was kind of nice to have all the different voices and felt much more like a play. The Dark is Rising was done with a single reader, but you could still get a feel of the different characters by the way he changed his voice, very well done.

And my favorite site on the way down was the sign over the road as I drove across the state line from Oklahoma into Texas... "Santa Claus is coming to town- don't hit him." I'm pleased to say that I didn't.

At Large and At Small

Ever since I read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I have been an Anne Fadiman fan. Ex Libris was no disappointment, and neither is At Large and At Small. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a collection of essays over a variety of topics. She talks in the introduction about the fact that essays are out of vogue, but this made me want to go out and write one, something I haven't done in almost twenty years (ouch!). Her language is great and I found that, at least for me, a dictionary close by was a must.

I've been trying to figure out which essay was my favorite- I liked all of them, but the one I keep coming back to is "Procrustes and the Culture Wars". She discusses four questions about reading, that I have wondered about myself.

Should we read great books because of their literary value or because they provide moral lessons- that is, because they teach us how to live?

Should the life of the writer affect our valuation of the work?

Should a book be demoted if its plot fails to meet standards of behavior that have changed since it was written?

What should you do when a work's language excludes you?

Although these questions can't really be answered completely, Fadiman looks at different sides of these issues, gives great examples, and lets us know her opinions on the questions. I don't know that I agree with everything she presents, but I liked stewing over it a bit.

Expanding Horizons Challenge

I'm happy to report that the semester is done, grades are in, and now I can turn to the really fun stuff! Melissa, over at Book Nut, is hosting a reading challenge that I'm looking forward to. I've been working on my reading list for a while now, but she tells me that I can't officially start until the first of the year :-)

The challenge runs from January through April, and works as follows...

Either read four books by authors in one of the six categories (you can read more than one category, but you must read four books; not two books in one category and two in another) OR read six books, one from each of the six categories. The categories are:

1. African/African-American.
2. Asian/Asian-American (This is not just East Asian -- Chinese, Korean and Japanese -- but also Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and the Central Asian -Stans.)
3. Hispanic/Latin American
4. Indian/Indian-American (Again, books by Indian authors; not books by white authors set in India.)
5. Middle Eastern (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Turkey...)
6. Native Peoples (Can include Native American, Inuit, Polynesian --Maori, Samoan, etc -- Siberian natives and Australian Aborigines.)


I've decided to go the second route and read one out of each category. Here's my preliminary list, always subject to change.

1. African/African-American: So Long a Letter, by Mariama Bo
2. Asian/Asian-American: Happy Birthday or Whatever, by Annie Choi
3. Hispanic/ Latin American: A Simple Habana Melody, by Oscar Hijuelos
4. Indian/Indian-American: The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
5. Middle Eastern: The Saffron Kitchen, by Yasmin Crowther
6. Native Peoples: Potiki, by Patricia Grace

So thanks, Melissa, for hosting and for the good excuse to stretch a little and read some new things that I might not have tried otherwise!

The Golden Name Day

The Golden Name Day, by Jennie D. Lindquist, was highly recommended by a friend- and I quite enjoyed it, although I had some problems with the heroine. It felt like an old-fashioned book, and I suppose it is, a Newberry Honor Book from 1956. In it, Nancy, a nine year-old girl whose mother is in the hospital, goes to the country to live with her grandparents for a year(several uncles, aunts, and cousins live close by.) Nancy's family is most kind, and goes out of their way to make her feel at home and loved. In style and feel, the book reminded me a lot of The Good Master (by Kate Seredy), Understood Betsy (by Dorothy Canfield Fisher), and Strawberry Girl (by Lois Lenski).

The problem that I had with Nancy as a character is that I didn't feel that she really grew up or matured or changed at all over the course of the book. In the other books listed above, the main characters all come to an awareness of their abilities and potential and you really feel like they start to figure out where they fit in the world. Nancy, on the other hand, is a rather needy little girl who still is a rather needy little girl at the end.

My favorite character in the book was Aunt Martha- the coolest and most fun aunt ever- I want to be just like her when I grow up (even though I must admit that I'm not much of a cat person.)

Thanksgiving Eve

Growing up, Thanksgiving was one of my very favorite holidays. My Uncle Bob and his family would always drive down from Utah to S. California to spend it with us, and there were cousins placed just right in age so that we all had a buddy to hang out with.

The weekend was always full of traditions that we looked forward to every year. The ceremony of Dad putting the turkey on the Weber grill, with all of us standing around ooohing and aaahing appropriately... Going on a hike in the local mountains and coming home to the glorious smell of the turkey filling the whole yard... Aunt Judy sneaking bacon when Dad opened the grill to check the meat, and all of us following suit, while he would pretend to be mad... Going around the table before we ate, talking over three things that we were grateful for that year... Leftover pie for breakfast for the next few days... Walks along the beach... Family talent shows... Always lots and lots of fun.

But one of the best traditions was Thanksgiving Eve. This was the night that we baked pies. Not one or two, but usually 12, 15, or sometimes even more. I remember that we were allowed to stay up late to help Mom- she would make the crusts, and I would help with the fillings. (Note that I still can't make pie crusts to save my life, even after many years of trying.) We would set the finished pies out on the picnic table in the back yard to cool, and by the time that the cousins arrived, we'd be tired out and finished, and the table as well as the benches would be overflowing. I also remember that this would be the one night a year that we would be able to watch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, as we waited for the last of the pies to be done- this was always a really big deal.

So tonight, I am baking a pie. One is enough for me this year, the crust is the premade kind that you don't have to roll out, and I still managed to mess it up a bit, but the filling will be glorious (caramel, pecans, and apples, with a cheesecake topping!) I bought the ingredients this morning and could have made it any time today, but somehow, I had to wait until late this evening when the Tonight Show was on before I could put it in the oven. (And it's just not quite the same with David Letterman, but oh, well...)

Having said that, happy Thanksgiving to all!