Missing Notebook

Posted on 08/16/2015 by chick

I think I left my notebook in the cottage where we vacationed. If I did, I can tell you exactly where it was—on the corner of the living room table next to the window that overlooks the lake. I hope I didn’t leave it there, but I was so busy our last morning (packing, cleaning, washing dishes, taking out the trash, carrying bags out to the truck, getting the kids ready to go, etc.) that it’s possible that I did.

On the bright side, the notebook had been empty at the beginning of the vacation. I didn’t do much writing while we were there. But I would be slightly embarrassed for someone to read what little writing there was, since I used the book primarily as a journal and wrote about a family tiff in it.

But that’s not really what bothers me, especially since potential readers would have to learn to read my terrible handwriting first, and that’s hardly worth anyone’s effort. I am most upset about having lost something that I wrote for the kids. We had a ton of fun doing Mad Libs while we were there, and the kids loved the game so much that I created a special one just for them. I had hoped to post it here and include a copy in my annual photo album. That’s a loss.

The notebook might be in this house somewhere. I’ll keep hunting for it, but if I don’t find it soon, I’m going to have to assume that I did leave it behind. That would mean it has since been appropriated for use by someone else or thrown into a recycling bin.

Or maybe it has been hidden away in one of the cottage’s many storage areas. It might be in the desk with the many dozens of abandoned card decks. Or maybe it’s in the closet with the board games so old and unpopular that no one has ever heard of them. Or perhaps it’s in the dusty cupboard with the ancient Christmas audiotapes and forgotten children’s books. What a sad thought it is that my notebook might be in one of those places, where it will be taken out once in a while by curious new guests, then shoved back into the darkness again to sit and sit, summer after summer.

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Done With Darkover

Posted on 08/16/2015 by chick

Once upon a time I decided to continue rereading Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series. It has taken almost 2.5 years to do it, but I’m finally done.

Or at least as done as I intend to be. I did not read every single book. I skipped all the anthologies, most of the co-written works, and all of the ones written by someone other than MZB. I also skipped three non-anthology, MZB-penned books—The World Wreckers, The Forbidden Tower, and Two to Conquer—for the simple reason that I remembered disliking them the first time around, and I thought my opinion unlikely to have changed. I reread Hawkmistress! in 2014 but did not review it (I gave it a B+, which was just good enough for me to keep it as part of my Darkover set). I also read Exile’s Song (Grade: B), The Shadow Matrix (Grade: C+), and Traitor’s Sun (Grade: B), and then gave them away.

And that’s it. I’m glad that I decided to read these books. Not only was it fun to revisit a favorite fictional land, but it also felt good to dispose of some books that I did not need.

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I Guess I Got Lucky

Posted on 08/15/2015 by chick

At a doctor’s appointment this week, the medical assistant asked if my health history had changed. I told her about my surgeries. I wasn’t sure if they needed to know about my knee surgery, and said as much, but she told me that they wanted to hear about any surgery that required anesthesia.

She was interested in my knee surgery on a personal note, too, because she had just had knee surgery herself. Our stories were similar: a knee injury as a teen, a subsequently unstable knee that had to be periodically popped back into place, serious knee problems later in life, and finally, surgery. Where our story differed was that her knee totally disintegrated (as she put it). She was unable to walk and was out of easy options for treatment. So, even though she’s only about 40, her doctor recommended a total knee replacement.

She had an easy recovery and she’s thrilled with her new knee, but she knows she’s probably going to have to do it all over again someday, since knee replacements don’t last forever. She also had to take a few months off from work. She didn’t mention the scars, but I’ve seen how much cutting is involved in that surgery, and it ain’t pretty.

So I guess I got lucky. It’s still hard to think of it that way, but clearly things could have been worse. My knee is still in usable shape, and I still have nonsurgical treatment options available. Assuming I live a long life, knee replacement surgery is almost certainly in my future, but that’s far away and not something I have to deal with today!

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Faith Restored

Posted on 08/14/2015 by chick

I read a few too many less-than-stellar books late last year and early this year. It had a bad effect on me. I didn’t feel like reading at all for a while. But I forced myself to pick up some books, and I’m glad I did. I had my faith in reading restored by these three books.

Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer
Grade: A+

I found a copy of Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer at the library’s used book sale. Though I had never heard of the author, the book sounded interesting. It’s about Sally, an 8-year-old girl who has to stay with an elderly aunt in a spooky, old house while her parents are away on business. Sally discovers that there used to be another girl named Sally living in that house. The Sally of the past had lost her favorite doll, Elizabeth. Connected to her through dreams, the new Sally relives the events that led to the loss of the doll and tries to solve the mystery of what happened to it.

As a doll story, Magic Elizabeth is not an obvious choice for me, but I found that it has the same kind of charm as Gone-Away Lake (not to mention the same illustrator). I like this book now, but I think I would have adored it as a child. Highly recommended for the 8-12 crowd.

On a side note, I was interested to know a little bit more about the author and the book. There was no information about them at Wikipedia, but when I looked the author up, I found her obituary. She died just a couple of years ago. She was well-respected in her community, and though she’s not exactly a household name, her book seems to be a favorite childhood book for many, and it keeps coming back into print.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Grade: A+

This is the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who, when he was a toddler, tumbled out of his house and away from the man who had come to kill him and his family. He finds his way into a graveyard. The graveyard’s tenants (i.e., the Dead), take pity on the orphaned boy and decide to raise him amongst themselves, granting him the freedom of the graveyard. A graveyard is no place for a living boy, but it will be his home until he grows up.

Thanks to Neil Gaiman for writing a book that justifies all the hype that surrounds him. I liked Coraline and Stardust, but they didn’t knock my socks off, and I actually disliked American Gods (sorry!). But The Graveyard Book was inventive, fun, often dark but without being intolerably violent or gross, and it had things to say about the human condition that were worth reading. I wanted to stay in its world so much that I considered rereading it immediately. I have added this book to my library and I will read it again soon.

The Lost Conspiracy (aka Gullstruck Island) by Frances Hardinge
Grade: A

Frances Hardinge is possibly the best wordsmith of the three authors mentioned here. You can tell how meticulously she crafted every sentence of The Lost Conspiracy. Her book was ambitious, and she set a high standard for herself. She met it most of the time, too. But it was a complex story set in a complex world, and there were times when I had difficulty staying focused on it, perhaps because the language was just a little too dense. So, a slight lack of accessibility brought the grade down a notch.

That said, if you like to read fantasy novels, then you know how hard it is to find anything new. Most fantasy novels are so obviously, pathetically derivative (and poorly written, to boot) that it sometimes seems to spoil the whole genre. That is not the case with The Lost Conspiracy. I cannot even begin to say how happy I am to have discovered it and to have the hope that the author’s other books will be as good or better. I fully intend to find out.

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SITY: Baby Frogs

Posted on 07/31/2015 by chick

We’ve seen so many critters around the house this year. Some good, some not so good. Let’s talk about another of the good ones.

All frogs are cute, I think. But baby frogs are especially adorable. If you walk around the upper part of our yard right now, you might surprise a few of them. They’ll hop away as soon as they hear you coming, probably before you get a good look at them. But if you move slowly and look carefully, you might be able to find one hiding among the leaves. They are perfectly camouflaged for this environment. Their skin looks very leafy.

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I see you, Froggy!

That picture provides no scale, though. In the picture below you can see how tiny he is. He’s tinier than a fingertip!

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He’s just an itty-bitty baby!

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SITY: Mystery Poop

Posted on 07/26/2015 by chick

One day we noticed that there were little brown things next to the welcome mat in front of our house. The brown things looked decidedly like turds.

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Is that poop next to our welcome mat?

“Ew!” we said. “Where on earth could this poop be coming from?” So we looked up. And it seemed that the poop was coming from the door surround, which was also covered in poop.

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More Poop

But it didn’t seem likely that anything had perched there. So we looked even higher.

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Is that poop dripping down the shutter?

Yes, it was poop dripping down the shutter, and behind the shutter was this little fellow.

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Bat in the Shutter

Obviously this bat could not stay here and continue to poop all over and around our house, but we weren’t about to send the guy packing without providing him with a decent alternative housing option. So my husband started looking up designs for bat houses. He figured he could have a nice one ready for the critter within a couple of weeks.

But perhaps all the picture-taking scared the bat away, because he wasn’t there the next day or for several days afterward. Then we spotted him hanging behind the shutter on the other side of the window. And then he was gone again.

Where he is now we do not know. I worry about the little guy. But I’m also glad that he’s no longer pooping all over my house!

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Returning Again to Darkover

Posted on 07/23/2015 by chick

The Heirs of Hammerfell by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Grade: B+

Advertised as “the first new Darkover novel in five years,” one could expect a lot from this book. Or one could have back in 1989, when it was published. But I reread this book with the expectation that I would not want to keep it. That was actually the plan: read it, review it and explain why it’s not worth keeping, then dump it.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, even though it didn’t compare well with the best Darkover novels. I gave it a B+ because that is the grade that I give books that I enjoy but don’t want to read again.

Here’s what it’s about:

Born into a feuding family, separated early in life, the twins Alastair and Conn each grew up thinking that he was the sole heir to the duchy of Hammerfell. But Hammerfell is no more. Its people and army are scattered, its castle burned to the ground, its former Duke (their father) dead at the hands of their greatest enemy. The twins, now grown, each seek to revive Hammerfell. Together, and apart, they work toward that goal, but they risk being drawn back into the deadly feud that led to Hammerfell’s destruction.

This book had a lot of problems. The psionic powers of Darkover were reduced to something more like magic. The moments of disaster were surprisingly dull. The happy ending was too tidy, and at the very end, it said (slight spoiler ahead):

And everyone in the hills has heard the ballad of the twin Dukes of Hammerfell, and of the old dog who died to save her master in the last battle–but like all true ballads, it has changed a good deal between that day in and this.

But there was no copy of the ballad, at least not that I noticed. It’s possible that the ballad does exist and that it was published in a different book, but shouldn’t it it have been included here?

So I gave the book away, but not without some small twinge of regret. It always pains me to part with a Darkover novel. It’s a necessary pain, though. If I were to keep every book of every series I had ever enjoyed, I would be sleeping outside to make room for all the books!

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Inadvertent Austen Kick

Posted on 07/20/2015 by chick

I recently went on an inadvertent Austen kick. There are so many movies about Jane Austen and her novels these days. Just looking through the small selection of movies at the library, I stumbled upon several of them. They seemed to fit my mood. It was in great contrast to my previous movie kick, which was superhero films, specifically the latest entries in the Thor, Wolverine, and X-Men lines. Incidentally, you wouldn’t think that Austen and the X-Men would had anything in common, but they do, thanks to James McAvoy, who may now be my favorite actor.

Now, the particulars.

  • First was Austenland. That marked the start of the Austen kick, and it ought to have been the end, too, because it was not a good movie. Keri Russell plays a pathetically obsessed Austen fan who spends her life savings to visit a theme park called Austenland. It sounds like a great idea, immersing oneself in Austen, and I see the appeal that place like Austenland could have. But, most of the characters were unbelievable and unlikeable. The film was redeemed somewhat by the ending, when the hero professes his feelings so earnestly that even I would have been tempted to say yes to him and run away to England to be his bride. It’s almost worth seeing just for that ending. Perhaps the book, upon which the movie was based, is better.
  • Bridget Jones next made an appearance, as she does from time to time. She’s always fun to watch, as is Mark Darcy. This is the only film of the four that I had seen before, and the only one that I own.
  • Then there was Becoming Jane, which theorizes about the love affair Austen may have had while young and which some say could have been the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice. It was not quite as witty as I would have liked, but it had some beautiful settings, and the leads, Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy, can both be mesmerizing to watch. It made me cry repeatedly, but in a good way.
  • Last, but not least, was Lost in Austen. The main character is Amanda, who goes through a magic door into the world of Pride and Prejudice, where she lives with the Bennetts as a supposed friend of Elizabeth’s, while Elizabeth enjoys herself in modern-day London. It is mostly about Amanda’s relationships with Elizabeth’s suitors, though Elizabeth does show up late in the movie. The plot does not follow the original, a bold choice that yields mixed results. I thought the actors and actresses did a decent job, but the script was not fantastic, and the happy ending, for which I was grateful (because I like happy endings), failed to take into consideration all of the problems that had been introduced earlier in the film. So it wasn’t super believable, and not something I’d want to watch again, but I enjoyed it while it was playing. It was treated as a single movie on this DVD edition, but I have seen it elsewhere presented as a 4-episode television series.
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A Spring Walk

Posted on 07/19/2015 by chick

Before the caterpillar invasion, I went on a couple of springtime walks. I have often avoided spring walks in the past due to my concern over ticks, but this year I had permethrin-treated clothing. That made me feel a little bit safer. The snow had finally melted and it was a joy to be outside. Here’s what I saw on my first spring walk.

I’ve shown this scene of the quarry top in the winter. Now you can see it in spring. It was mid-April and there were no leaves on the trees yet.

quarry

Top of the Quarry

As I walked around this area, several things grabbed my attention. First, there was a ton of poop on the ground. It was everywhere. I really had to watch my step. Why was there so much here? My guess is that it sat on top of and between layers of snow, and when the snow finally melted, it was left like this. Some of it might have been washed down from above, too.

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Poop!

Second, I saw a pair of butterflies. They were fluttering around me and one of them paused on a rock below me, so I took its picture.

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First Butterfly of the Spring

I researched the markings on the butterfly and have identified it as a mourning cloak. The mourning cloak is a long-lived butterfly. It lives nearly a year (compare that to the luna moth, which lives only about a week!). The mourning cloak overwinters where it lives, rather than migrating somewhere warmer, so it is often the first butterfly seen in the spring.

Third, there is a broken piece of metal sticking out of the rock. I’ve always wondered what it might have been for. Maybe it was a hook. Now it does nothing but cast a fine shadow. Perhaps it should be turned into a sundial.

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Almost a Sundial

I took the long route so that I could visit the pine forest. That area is always boggier, and along the way I saw many flooded spots.

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Flooding Around an Old Rock Wall

I recently read an interesting story about the rock walls of New England. It said that a guy smuggled some merino sheep (prized for their fine wool) out of Europe in the early 1800s and brought them to Vermont, which kick-started a wool boom in the Northeast. Small sheep farms, all with rock wall boundaries, sprung up everywhere.

The story implied that this was how most of New England’s rock walls arose. But when I researched it on-line, other sourced claimed that tilling the land exposed the rocks. The rocks had to be put somewhere, naturally, so the farmers lugged them to the boundaries of their lands and turned them into fences. That sounds reasonable. But this particular area is just a big rock hill, not a great place for farming, so I think the sheep story is more fitting. Plus it’s just more fun.

The flooding was at times a problem during my walk, because parts of the path had become small ponds. The flooding was not a problem for certain plants, though. The peculiar flowers in the picture below were certainly thriving.

flowers

I wasn’t sure what they were at first. It took me a while to find one that was close enough to dry land that I could get a good photograph. This is what they look like closer up.

skunkflowerSeeing it like this you can guess its identity. Notice the spike of leaves coming up? In the early springtime and in a New England swamp, a spike like this would almost have to be skunk cabbage, and so it is. Strangely, the flowers bloom before the leaves come up. Also interesting about this flower is that it supposedly produces its own heat, which is why it can bloom so early. Bizarre. It amazes me the things you find out if you investigate!

Now I will leave you with a cheerful picture of some old beech leaves. Oh, I know I have posted pictures of beech leaves before, at least one, two, three times. I can’t seem to help myself. They’re pretty, often the prettiest things in the woods at the gloomiest times of year. I took this picture because the leaves, in this formation, and with the light shining on them just so, reminded me of strings of Chinese lanterns.

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SITY: First Violet of 2015

Posted on 07/18/2015 by chick

In my yard, the violet season of 2015 began on April 22nd, when the first bud opened.

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First Violet of 2015

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