The woods are full of flowers right now. There are little bluets, bawdy buttercups, and delicate lady’s slippers. For every flower I can name, there is another I can’t. That’s why we have Mystery Flowers.
This pretty purple flower grows along the side of the path in the woods. It seems to like moderately shady areas.
Do you know what it is?
On Sunday, we went to my aunt and uncle’s for a barbecue. It was a beautiful day and the baby birds, eager to see it, were peeking out of the birdhouse. I found out that one of my cousins is getting married this June. Given how difficult it is for gay men to marry in this country, it amuses me that he’s getting married before me. I wonder what else will happen before I get married. Continue reading
I finished reading three of the books that I recently bought.
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Grade: B+
The Westing Game is a mystery. Sixteen people are invited for the reading of a millionaire’s will. The will is a puzzle and whoever solves it will be the heir. The reader is given all of the clues and has the opportunity to solve the puzzle, too. Enjoyable and not nearly as dated as its 1978 copyright suggests, The Westing Game is an excellent choice for a clever child.
The Adventures of Treehorn by Florence Parry Heide
Grade: A-
This book contains two stories about a little boy named Treehorn, who has magical adventures that the adults in his life can’t seem to notice. Both stories are very short. Even together they are barely large enough to justify the publication of a book, though the stories and the Gorey illustrations are very good. I think that a larger collection of such stories would be a joy. Alas, as far as I know, there are only three Treehorn stories in existence. Luckily, they do sell the three in one volume (The Treehorn Trilogy), which I may buy someday. Though I enjoyed The Adventures of Treehorn, this copy is beaten up and heavily tanned, not worth keeping.
The Reptile Room (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Second) by Lemony Snicket
Grade: B+
I didn’t entirely enjoy the first book in this series (The Bad Beginning). I thought the unfortunate events were too mature for a children’s book, but this series is so popular, I began to wonder if I had missed something. I decided to give the series another chance by reading The Reptile Room.
In The Reptile Room, the Baudelaire orphans find a new home with their giddy uncle, a herpetologist who plans to take them on an adventure to Peru, but bad luck isn’t done with the children yet.
I was once again dismayed by the unfortunate events. Of course, kids do need to learn about the awful things that happen in this world, and maybe the nonthreatening environment of a children’s story could make it easier for them to absorb the information. So, I guess I wouldn’t fret if my child read this series, but as an adult who likes happy endings, I wouldn’t specifically recommend it to anyone. I don’t plan to keep this book and I don’t know if I’ll read any more from this series.
I heard a strange sound in the woods today. I was a sound I recognized, but one I hadn’t heard since the so-called gypsy moth infestation of about 20 years ago. It was the sound of caterpillar poops raining down from the treetops. The thought of caterpillar poop in my hair was unsettling, but the questions that it raised bothered me more. You see, I was told that it was gypsy moths that we were fighting all those years ago, and now I’m almost certain that it wasn’t.
That summer there were caterpillars everywhere. There were so many of them, we tried to save the trees by scraping the caterpillars into jars, which we then sealed up and threw away. An interesting thing about caterpillars sealed in a jar—they sort of explode. It’s really disgusting (and gooey and green), but as a means of killing caterpillars, it’s not as bad as you’d think. At least you don’t have to actively squish them.
Having sent so many of those little beasties to Caterpillar Heaven (or Hell), I remember what they looked like, and they didn’t look like this (the gypsy moth caterpillar) but rather like this this (the tent caterpillar).
So we come to Mystery Thing #2. It’s not a true mystery, because I had already come to a conclusion about it before I took this picture, but maybe you can tell me if I’m right or wrong. I think this is a tent caterpillar nest and I think that it is tent caterpillars who are happily chewing their way through the local forests.
Am I right?
Just the other night, I was reading along happily, lost in the magic place that exists between the words on the page and the visions in my head, when a jarring word knocked me back to the real world. The word was crapulous.
Crapulous is a word that just shouldn’t be used. Whatever its true meaning, it sounds like crap and so crap is what I think of when I see it. No more would I want a word like shitterary or poopital or fecessive.
So I beg you, all of you authors out there in the world, let crapulous die!
The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper
Grade: B
The Gate to Women’s Country takes place in a postapocalyptic world. Forced to eke out a rough living in the lands between “desolations” (vast radioactive areas where nothing will grow) the women have decided that the only way for the human race to survive is to curb the militarism of men. The women do the majority of work and make all the rules while the men live in military garrisons just outside the towns. The men meet with the women during scheduled “assignations,” and any boy children that come from those unions must leave Women’s Country at age 5 to live among the men. At 15, the boys are given the choice whether to stay with the men or rejoin the women. Most choose to be warriors, and much of the story focuses on the pain the women suffer when they give up their children, when they are rejected by their teenage sons, and when they lose their warrior men to the battlefield.
In spite of the extreme feminist bent, the bleak assessment of male-female relationships, and the focus on sorrow, I still might have given this book an “A” had the author not gone to Inbred Hick Land about two-thirds of the way through. At page 180, I put the book down in disgust and almost didn’t pick it up again. I stuck to it, though, and having read it all the way through, I think it’s a decent book overall, but I caution potential readers—you may not like what Tepper writes in that section. The men are vile and the women are cruelly mistreated. The images are still with me and they are deeply disturbing.
Sheri S. Tepper writes powerful books. I don’t always like them, but they almost always affect me strongly. That’s why, even though she has written some truly horrendous things, I continue to read her work.
I have several of her books in my library, but I’m not going to read all of them during the GLP. Here’s what I have decided to do with them.
I am grateful for the unexpected.
I was waiting for Faithful Reader to finish work so that we could go out to dinner. I looked outside and noticed that the ground was wet, and yet there was blue sky overhead. The “rainbow alert” started chiming in my head, so I looked for a rainbow, and there it was.
You never know when you’re going to get a rainbow. That’s what makes it so special.
It wasn’t my fault! They were selling books at the library, so what was I to do? Just ignore a whole roomful of cheap books? I’ve heard that some people have that ability, but not I. And so yesterday I came home with a bag o’ books that included the following:
I shouldn’t have bought them. I’m supposed to be getting rid of books, not accumulating more or them.
But it wasn’t a bad haul for $4.50!
There’s a shrub growing near the corner of our driveway. It’s not an attention grabber most of the time, but during the spring it decks itself out with these stunning coral-colored flowers.
Can you guess what kind of shrub it is?
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