My husband found out last year that as the child of Portuguese citizens he is entitled to Portuguese citizenship himself. He’s looking into it. If he did get Portuguese citizenship, then the kids and I could get it, too, and then we could find ourselves a nice little home base in Portugal and use it as a launching pad for trips all over Europe. Wouldn’t that be great? I’m not holding my breath, mind you, but I am loving the dream.
At my last eye appointment, the doctor said that my eyes had gotten better. This was hard for me to believe, because my vision had gotten noticeably worse. Having thought about it since, I think I understand the seeming discrepancy. Her way of measuring “better” is in terms of how far apart the layers of the retina are, and apparently mine had gotten closer, so yay for that. That will help prevent future vision loss, but it says nothing about what might have happened to my vision while the layers were farther apart. I was certain that I’d lost some visual acuity, so I scheduled an appointment with an optometrist, hoping that new glasses might help. The optometrist verified that my vision has gotten worse, though it’s still good enough for driving, thankfully. However, glasses can’t fix it. 🙁
I told my husband that if we ever win a jackpot of $1,000,000 or more, I will tell a certain someone at work where to stick it. I’m so confrontation-averse that it would be difficult, but if I had a million bucks in my pocket, I think I could manage. The word “dumb-ass” would definitely have to be involved.
Two of the books of Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain were on the Top 100 Children’s Books. If I’d had any say in the list, I’d have included the entire series as a single item (ditto the Harry Potter and Ramona books). But, I am glad that having #2 and #5 on the list inspired me to read the entire series, because all of the books were good.
What I admire most about these books is that they never dawdle. The characters move from scene to scene so fast that you’d think the story would feel rushed, or that the settings and characters would seem poorly described, but that never happens. Readers are never given any more or any less than exactly what they need, and the pacing is consequently perfect.
The Book of Three, A-: This first book of the series introduces the main characters, which include the assistant pig-keeper Taran, the oracular pig Hen Wen, Princess Eilonwy, the bard Fflewddur Fflam, the beastly-but-good Gurgi, Prince Gwydion, and the dwarf Doli, as well as the evil that they must fight: the Horned King and his master, the sorcerer Arawn. I struggled to get into this book at first (I mean, an oracular pig?), but my persistence paid off in the end, especially since the following three books are even better.
The Black Cauldron, A: In this second book, the characters attempt to find and destroy the black cauldron, in order to keep it from Arawn, who uses its magic to create armies of undead warriors. The cauldron is neither easily acquired nor easily destroyed, and the companions will face a difficult journey that will require many a sacrifice. The Disney adaptation of this book takes more than a few liberties with the story, but it’s entertaining in its own right.
The Castle of Llyr, A: Eilonwy goes to another kingdom to learn how to be a proper princess, but is kidnapped. Her friends race to the rescue.
Taran Wanderer, A: This was my favorite of the series. Taran seeks to find out who his parents are, traveling from place to place, learning new trades, making new friends, and growing up along the way.
The High King, A-: The High King is a wonderful end to the series in that it brings back all of the characters from the previous four books so that they can fight their last battle against evil. The book’s ending is bittersweet, though. Not all of their stories ended happily, and even for the main characters the ending was not as bright as I might have wished. While probably my least favorite of the five, it’s still worth reading (unlike certain other series-ending books I can think of!).
I kept all five books. If I should be so lucky as to have enough time, I will read them again someday.
In The Violin Conspiracy, high schooler Ray McMillian wants to play the violin, but his mother wants him to get his GED and quit school early so that he can get a job. Learning on a school rental instrument, and without any private lessons, he nonetheless learns to play well enough to get a scholarship. His grandmother gives him an heirloom violin, which turns out to be a Stradivarius valued at over 10 millions dollars. Everyone in his family wants their share, and (disgustingly) the family that had once enslaved his ancestors sues him, claiming that the violin belongs to them. Then, just as Ray’s getting ready for a major competition, the violin gets stolen. Who stole it, and how?
This was in many ways an enjoyable book, but I gave it a B- grade because it wasn’t entirely satisfactory. There’s a lot about the story, including the resolution of the mystery, that doesn’t ring true, and the writing is not at all times the best. But the biggest problem is the way in which the book is billed. It’s sold as a mystery, but it’s more of a diatribe against systemic racism in America and in the classical music community. If that’s the book the author needed and wanted to write, then that’s exactly the book that he should have written, and I’m all for it. I had signed on for a mystery, though, and as a mystery it left me feeling disappointed.
What The Violin Conspiracy excels in is making one’s heart bleed. OMG, is it ever painful watching that young man struggle to get any kind of support for his dream of playing the violin. There probably aren’t many books detailing the kinds of barriers that young black classical musicians face in school and in the classical music world, and sometimes even at home. So I think The Violin Conspiracy is an important book in that regard. Just don’t read it for the mystery.
Continuing my quest to read all of the Top 100 Children’s Books, I read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. In short, the story is about three anthropomorphic animals (Mole, Ratty, and Badger) who become friends and help another animal (Mr. Toad) when he gets himself into trouble. This story was, I was once told, my father’s favorite book as a child, and he used to own (and perhaps still does) multiple copies of it. I happen to own an old copy of it myself, passed down to me from my aunt when I was a child. Strangely, though, I had never read the book, or at least not that I recalled. So it was certainly high time for me to do so. I bought a used soft-cover printing for convenience of reading.
It was a nice, clean copy. Inside, there was a lovely inscription, written to a child from (perhaps) an aunt and uncle. It said, “Enjoy sauntering with Mole, Ratty, and the Badger as they chat on many an important topic.” Also inside (just barely visible in the picture) was a Christmas card from the same people. It made a handy bookmark.
The book looked as though it had not been read, which struck me as sad. I wasn’t being judgmental (how hypocritical would that be!), just wistful. I’ve tried to pass down my love for certain books to my children, and I’ve often failed. In any event, the book was in near-perfect condition, so it was quite a shock when I got to page 94.
Quelle horreur! A page was missing from the book!
The timing of the missing page couldn’t have been worse worse. Toad had gotten himself into a pickle, and how could the reader know what happened if they couldn’t read the next page? I had that other copy to fall back on, so I simply went to my bookshelf, pulled down the book, and found the relevant section. No cliffhanger for me (whew!). But nobody wants a book with a missing page, so whoever ripped that page out, whether purposefully or by accident, had dealt the book a fatal blow. That’s too bad.
There was a small bright side, though. One of my failings as a reader is that I often overlook chapter headings. The empty space where the page ought to have been caused me to focus on the heading of the next chapter: Piper at the Gates of Dawn. It’s a great title, isn’t it? And I knew I’d heard it before, so I Googled it. What I found is that it’s also the name of Pink Floyd’s first studio album (no wonder it sounded familiar!). As the Wikipedia article states, “The album title was derived from chapter seven of Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel The Wind in the Willows, a favourite of [Syd] Barrett’s.”
I listened to the album. In it I could hear echoes of other bands of the day (The Beatles, The Moody Blues, etc.) as well as hints of what the band would someday become. Through the magic of YouTube, whose mysterious algorithms are notorious for sending the unwary down infinite rabbit holes, I spent an enjoyable part of a day wandering through a labyrinth of Pink Floyd songs from several different albums. As for that fabled chapter of the book, it was also very enjoyable, definitely worth reading if you haven’t already.
After finishing the book, I gave it an A- grade. It’s been months since, and I forget exactly what made me add the minus. It was most likely the feeling, which has persisted even as details of the story have faded, that there was a distinct and slightly unwelcoming “British bachelor” vibe to it. Some people have called the novel a “gay manifesto.” I wouldn’t go that far, but I do think you could read into the text that the author preferred the company of other men exclusively.
Anyway, the feeling of invading a men’s-only space didn’t ruin the story for me, and I would still recommend the book. What it comes down to is that, like most books that are marketed to children, it’s best to read it when you’re a child, while you’re still young enough to take it at face value. As a child, you’ll see nothing but some amiable animals being great friends and going on adventures together. If you come to it late, as I did, then you’ll just have to accept that your reading experience may be a little different.
If you need to survive in outer space without a spacesuit, you should not hold your breath. Having a lot of air in your lungs will cause your lungs to explode. Ouch! So let out as much air as you can before you exit your space vehicle. You will pass out within a few seconds from lack of oxygen to the brain, but if you’re revived within a few minutes, you might survive. Good luck!
I’m not as good at reading music as I thought I was. I have always been proud of how well I sight-read music, and I still am. But, apparently my brain translates notes on the staff directly into notes on the piano without any intermediary step of naming the notes. I never look at a D on the staff, for example, and think, “That is a D.” I simply play it. Nevertheless, I’m pretty quick to name the notes on the treble clef, probably thanks to my years of playing flute, which uses the treble clef exclusively. However, on the bass clef, I find myself falling back on “All Cows Eat Grass” and “Good Boys Deserve Fudge Always” to help me name the notes. That’s a little embarrassing after a lifetime of playing the piano!
My daughter recently turned 13. It’s hard to believe that it was over 13 years ago that my little girl was ushered into this world by a snowstorm, and yet I cannot imagine life without her.
If there’s one thing I don’t like to do, it’s cleaning up after Christmas, but I have finally started on the task. I broke down all the shipping and wrapping boxes. I also got everything out of the bedroom that had been shoved in there to make room for my parents when they came to visit. Next task [sigh]: taking down the Christmas tree.
Having gotten a table set up so that my parents could have somewhere to eat during our Christmas celebration, it seemed a shame not to use it again, so we did a puzzle on it. We had lots of puzzles to choose from. The kids chose one with a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle in autumn, and it was a surprisingly difficult puzzle. Even the castle parts were hard, never mind the foliage, mountains, and sky. We all worked on it, though, and we were all together when the final piece was put in place by Marshall, who had earned the right through his diligent work on certain patternless parts of the image.
Livia recently brought home a stuffed “animal” in the shape of a mushroom, a Christmas gift from a school friend. She named the mushroom Amanita. Amanita didn’t like the way our household was run, I guess, because she started campaigning for the position of “Spiritual and Physical Leader of the Family.” Campaign posters showed up all over the house. Her campaign was successful, and she won in a landslide. Amanita is now our leader.
It’s still arguably a “man’s world,” but I thought we had established that women live in it, too, and that they also like many of the same things that men do. I guess I was wrong. If we had in fact sorted all that out, there would be no need for The New York Times to run an article about the fact that (shocker!) not just men are watching Amazon Prime’s TV show Reacher.
And I want to be grateful to the article for pointing out the obvious, but even it gets things wrong. In attempting to dispel assumptions about who watches the show and why, it makes its own equally wrong assumptions. “Common wisdom when it comes to Jack Reacher’s popularity is that men want to be him and women want to be with him. But I’ll venture that some women want to be him, too. Or at least, they want some of his freedom,” writes the article’s author.
So there are only two possible reasons why a person might want to watch the show, either to be him or to be with him? Geez. Use some imagination. I can think of a lot of reasons why a person might want to watch the show, not the least of which is “it’s there and it doesn’t suck.”
But let’s stick to the ones that I know best: my own. Neither Reacher’s beefiness nor his lifestyle appeal to me. I was drawn to the TV show initially because of the character’s originator, author Lee Child. Child publish his first novel when he was in his 40s, and I find that sort of “late bloomer” story to be both interesting and reassuring. I was also curious how the show compared to the 2012 movie adaptation starring Tom Cruise.
Those were the things that got me into Season 1. In Season 2, I particularly like the found-family aspect. I also enjoy watching good guys kick bad guys’ asses. The characters in this season do what’s right because it’s right and to avenge their fallen comrades, and if they get a little murdery sometimes, well, the bad guys have it coming. Moral clarity is appealing, even (or perhaps especially) when it’s drenched in blood. Ironically, if anyone had asked me why Reacher Season 2 is so popular, I would have told them that it was that, and apparently I would have been wrong.
So I wrote this post as a reminder to myself (though you’re welcome to it, too) that assumptions are bad. When it comes to a TV show, it’s no big deal. But there are times when making assumptions can do real harm. We should never assume that we see the world in the same way that other people do, or that we understand anyone else’s motives except our own.
My Uncle John died shortly before Christmas. He was a bit of a strange guy, but he had a good heart and a wonderful storytelling manner. My Aunt Gayle died a couple of days ago. She was kind and smart, and she reminded me of my grandmother. She had a way about her that put other people at ease, and all of her siblings looked to her when they needed advice. I didn’t know either my uncle or aunt well, but they were part of my world, always there, even if I didn’t see them often. Now they are gone, and I’m sad, but I feel especially sorry for my dad. It’s hard enough to lose one sibling, doubly hard to lose two so close together.
For the first time since I started my job back in 1995, I did not get a year-end raise. It wasn’t my fault. The company froze salaries and also slashed Christmas bonuses (ouch!). They announced these unfortunate things long before annual reviews began, and since then, I’ve had to grit my teeth every time the media gush over how great the economy is and how wages are up, etc. Clearly the media aren’t painting an accurate picture. The economy is uncertain, and while wages may be up for some, they’re not up for all, and may even be down for some.
My review went well, though. My boss and I had a nice chitchat. She values my work, and that means a lot to me. This upcoming year will present some new challenges, including three issues that aren’t what I’m used to, but I’m not worried. With nearly 30 years of this type of work under my belt, I’m sure I can handle whatever they throw at me.
What’s harder to face is the fact that this job–this way of life–is disappearing. Not all at once, but it’s happening. I’d be a fool to think otherwise. I just need this job to last another six years or so. Let me get my kids through high school, that’s all I ask. Everything else can be worried about later.
It’s a strange thing why the brain keeps some things. Like I don’t know why my brain has all the words to ‘The Brady Bunch’ theme song, but it deleted everything about triangles.
