Upon arriving at the parking lot full of canines waiting for obedience class, Marley bounds from the car and commences smelling crotches, dribbling pee and flinging drool. It’s a dog party and he’s the birthday boy. As the author states, “So many genitals, so little time.” p60
Marley is having a little trouble adjusting to thunder storms. He has actually torn-up the garage trying to escape during the last storm. So he is hauled off to the vet to see what can be done. While there the vet suggests he be neutered and author Grogain thinks, “For the sake of future generations, we must contain this genetic mistake at all costs!” p74
Our own Reba was a little hard to maintain at times. She needed a lot of exercise, so I would run with her, take her out to the bike trails for exercise and let her swim in the Wolf River after thrown sticks.
One Saturday morning I had entered into a race at Shelby Farms and we all decided to pile in the car and go. Pete agreed to go down to Patriot Lake while I ran and we would meet after the race for a picnic brunch. I was feeling really good about this race, in a pack of moderate runners and nearing the end of the 5k when I hear some commotion in the back of our pack. Little barking and little yelps and before I knew it Reba was at my side panting away. One guy in the group hollered about the Park’s leash law and I steered Reba to the outer side where I saw Pete coming up fast.
Apparently Pete was giving her a little heel training and thought her good enough to not need the leash. They were alone on the east hill over looking the road below when Reba spotted me. He said she turned and looked at him with a malicious smile and then bolted.
I remembered this incident after reading, “If I towered over him and barked stern orders, he would obey, sometimes even eagerly. But his default setting was stuck on eternal incorrigibility.” p96
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Marley and Me (notes)
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Sunrise Over Lake Como!
After all the excitement yesterday, I rose this morning with a flutter in my heart. I'm going to enjoy being a columnist. Such big fancy word.
I wanted to thank Dr. Joan Atkinson for all the faith, grace and kindness she has shown me and countless others who have been lucky enough to take one of her master courses in children's/YA lit. From her first class, we had to read new books and write reviews and/or journal entries weekly. This is when I got the idea to do this for newspapers.
The best way to let people know about a good book is to just tell them about it, but what if they don't get the chance to come in your library to chat? How do you reach them? You write an article for the paper, not necessarily a review, one person reads and likes said book(s) then they tell a friend. Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth.
I also want to thank my new mentor Margaret Rogers. It is so nice to have a boss that encourages you to develop as a librarian. To expand the definition of my duties and change the way people perceive this job. We are hardly a stuffy group of folks!
I'm so psyched!
Time for more coffee and my new favorite book, Marley and Me.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Cold Comfort Farm (copy)
January is typically a time to organize, de-clutter and start anew in one’s life. Why? I have a sneaky suspicion it’s all those Christmas gifts.
My theory, after Christmas we organize just to make room for these new toys. Our recent gifts sit around the home in places of honor while older stuff is moved to the closet, which is shuffled to the garage, which is relegated to the shed, which is demoted to the lean-to, which is tossed to the curb.
At first I picked up Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons because my holiday guests praised it so. Imagine my surprise as this parody on the dreary lives of ignorant country folk points out a basic human condition; we organize in order to be more civilized.
Author Gibbons wrote this funny little book in 1932 because she was tired of authors like Mary Webb portraying country folk as suffering from inner demons caused by ignorance. What if someone like herself, young smart and full of manners, visited the farm and began to tidy it up? Would they become more civilized and in turn more successful?
Young Flora, the heroine of Cold Comfort Farm, is actually Stella Gibbons herself. We first meet Flora, living with a friend, Mrs. Smiling, and worrying about her future. Flora’s parents have died and left her with a meager 100 lbs a year. Although Flora has received her education from the finest of British schools she lacks basic job skills. When Mrs. Smiling mentions she could learn secretarial skills, Flora remains unimpressed
Flora’s solution is to live off distant relatives. This passage from Flora’s mouth is priceless, “there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one's friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one's relatives."
I do love Flora and her quest to tidy the country folk of Cold Comfort Farm. She has her work cut out. For example, 60 year old Adam is more at home with the cows than people. Elfin, wispy and young, spends her days amongst the fields and woods dreaming of romance. Aunt Ada Doom is confined by a self-imposed exile all because she witnessed something “nasty in the woodshed” as a child.
Flora, through a selfish need to be more comfortable, changes twelve characters lives by the end of the book. Not only that, she secures better living conditions for the cows, Pointless, Aimless, Feckless and Graceless. One has to wonder as they read this tickling tale, is she tidying or taking over?
Sunday, January 22, 2006
9 Patch Quilt of Amish Living
Patch 1: Valuing the Process/Product
When doing work both process and product are of equal value
Patch 2: Living in Time
No rushing to get tasks done, just living in the moment of the task.
Patch 3: Celebrating the Ordinary
“The Amish honor the daily practices; work, like objects cared for in the home, can turn into a shining thing.”
Patch 4: Home
Home is truly where the Amish heart and soul resides.
Patch 5: Community
“Recreation and chores aren’t rivals.” The same enthusiasm enters into a quilting bee as harvesting the fields.
Patch 6: Life as Art
The beauty of the process and/or project is the art within the Amish persona and they do it without the artist’s ego.
Patch 7: Limits as Freedom
The Amish know who they are and what they can do. Their religion limits them to certain choices, which in turn allows for contentment when choosing what’s right.
Patch 8: Power of Contrast
Many contrasts like the Amish and their outside neighbors, car versus cart, mule versus tractor, etc. lends a power in knowing you can do things more than one way.
Patch 9: Choice
Choose the essential in life and let the clutter fall by the way side.
Notes from Chapter nine of Plain and Simple by Sue Bender.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The Tidy Life
I started Sue Bender’s Plain and Simple: A Woman’s Journey to the Amish in preparation for this month’s NWCC sponsored Reading Round Table. A book similar to Cold Comfort Farm for its praise of tidy living.
Everyday life is made easier by the fact the Amish keep it simple, plain and tidy. The Amish life is beautiful, unlike the Starkadders of Cold Comfort. The Starkadder clan seems to wallow in their self created mire. It isn’t until Flora’s visit that they start to tidy-up and see little successes.
Plain and Simple begins with Bender finding herself entranced by some Amish quilts which hang as backdrop in a men's suit display. The deep blues, purples, maroons, the simple square patterns, the worn yet vibrant compositions all stir her senses. Who are these people, which turn worn clothes into works of art?
Intrigued she then takes a sabbatical from husband and two kids to spend a year living amongst these artists. Her first thoughts, clean and tidy, each piece of furniture has a place, nothing of show clutters the tables or desks, for this is simple living. She is quick (by chapter 4) to discover their lives, their homes, their land are all canvases in which art emerges.
Note...
I love this passage in P&S:
“Manure is our crucial crop,” Eli joked. “Tractors don’t make manure!” A horse reproduces itself, he explained, and a tractor only makes debt.
What farmer sense and cents!
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Town Mouse Country Mouse
I do love Flora and her quest to tidy the country folk of Cold Comfort Farm. She has the gall to tell the men folk to hush up she is trying to sleep and demand Adam keep the door closed while indoors. She is changing all she can (surroundings and people) to satisfy her own need for civilized living.
Flora decides the room and the water in her wash basin are adequate given her primitive situation, but the curtains have to be cleaned. She then enters the hut of the hired girl Meriam, who has just given birth to her fourth child, and asks if she can wash the curtains in a day or two. Furthermore, Flora takes the opportunity to explain birth control to the obvious information lacking Meriam, before returning to the house.
Is Flora tidying or taking over?
Pointless, Aimless, Feckless and Graceless are the farm’s cows. Which made for a quick chuckle, but I laughed out loud when Graceless dropped a leg on the way to the pasture. I thought the passage about Pointless’ gangrened flank was just alluding to the cow’s soiled nature; poetic license to relate how the animals were unkempt and possibly unwell not actually ill.
I guess poor Pointless is next!
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Back to Cold Comfort Farm
I love the characters of Flora and Mrs. Smiling. Both like things tidy and in order and uncivilized actions of people tend to irk them.
They are such silly snobs!
Mrs. Smiling actually collects brassieres, so odd, and Flora sees work as just not necessary. She would rather mooch off unseen relatives and make a life of tiding up their messes. She, lacking in messes herself, the model of civilized living, is game for the challenge.
Flora does state she wishes to write the next Persuasion by Austen, when she is fifty-three. Filling her time for the next thirty years "collecting material" for the book. So, in essence her job as a material collector sounds very much like a librarian. Cool job!
Speaking of Jane Austen, Cold Comfort language shares the same flourishing style. The conversations between characters is embellished and hautey. This possibly is why I had a hard time settling into a time period.
Monday, January 09, 2006
Year of Magical Thinking (copy)
Would you like to add more books to your life? Maybe read something other than work policies or school assignments? There are so many books out there, ready to entertain and delight you. Why not start the New Year by resolving to read one extra book a month just for fun? A book you might like to share with a friend or read-aloud to a little one.
It is so easy to add more books to your life if you just pick interesting ones. Here is where I would like to help. Let me be your guide to what is on the shelves at your local bookstore or library. Possibly, tempt you with a read aloud for your children or inspire your book club to tougher discussions. Maybe, reacquaint you with a classic or introduce a new author. I read a variety subjects and all types of books.
In honor of the New Year, I would like to suggest Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. A book that grabs grief by the neck, strangles it, and then tries to discern why. From the very first chapter you are thrown into Didion's year of madness from the death of husband John Dunne. A devoted spouse that edits her writing, finishes her sentences, completes her in every way.
Didion's year of disbelief begins December 30, 2003. She and John are returning home from a very stressful visit with hospitalized daughter, Quintana. Didion moves quickly to build a fire and start dinner. Her main goal, provide a decent night after the horrible day. She hands John a Scotch and leaves him to forget his daughter's troubles in a new book. As she tosses the salad, John makes a comment about the Scotch. He then raises his hand in a gesture she mistakes as a joke. One minute they are smiling, comfortable, on the edge of relaxation then life ends.
By the third chapter we begin to understand Didion's book title. She magically doesn't believe her husband is dead. Yes, she is there when the heart attack occurs. Yes, she greets the case worker that tells her John is dead. Yes, she even watches as they inter his ashes at St. John, yet still doesn't believe. Where is her shock, her grief, and just where is her husband?
Although, I paint a grim picture, the book does have some lighter moments. It is as intimate as CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed yet not something you want to recommend to a recent widow. Read it if you are in a place where reflection is welcomed, set aside if emotions raw.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Cold Comfort take-1
Love It!
My favorite quote so far is in chapter 1 by Flora:
"I am only nineteen, but I have already observed that whereas there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one's friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one's own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one's relatives."
This is funny! Yet, we could debate on if this quote is still relevant. I think most families aren't that close and the southern "visit" is going the way of the dial phone.
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Geranimal Help!
My first week of work and it was great!
The people I work with are all smart and loads of fun. The work I do is different, but I see little changes occurring to suit my style of librarianism. I've been given an area to do theme displays, more computers in the front are being converted from catalog to regular usage and I've been encourage to help overflow from the back lab. Very exciting!
Now, the collection. I've got to find a way to learn it! The stacks are set up in identical rows and there aren't any cues to help me distinguish one row from the next...other than signage. Yesterday we had a biography question, Million Little Pieces by James Frey, and I hadn't a clue. Normally, I would walk to the biography section and look under FRE, but bios are absorbed into Dewey and could be in more than one number classification. The book deals with his recovery from alcohol and drug usage, but it is also a humorous memoir. Because it deals with two separate recoveries (alcohol/drugs) it could be cataloged within two different areas of 362s. This makes locating it by sight almost impossible, the 360s occupy 3 rows of books.
At this stage of my learning, I truly need geranimals to match row to subject. :-)
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Draft, draft, draft...
I wish someone would pour me a draft!
It is so hard to edit my drafts using blogger.com's word processor. A lot of back and forth (write, read, publish, reread, see mistakes, rewrite, etc.) when...if I could just write in Word then paste, well...
I've started Cold Comfort Farm and I love it! Although, I'm having a hard time placing the story in a certain time period. The book was written in 1932, yet the language sounds so late 1800's or early 1900's. The author claims it is set in the "near future". Explanation Please!
I must read more, ta-ta!
Monday, January 02, 2006
Year of Magical Reading...(draft)
Would you like to add more books to your life? Maybe read something other than work policies or school assignments? There are so many books out there, ready to entertain and delight you. Why not start the new year by resolving to read one extra book a month just for fun? A book you might like to share with a friend or read-aloud to a little one.
It is so easy to add more books to your life if you just pick interesting ones. Here is where I would like to help. Let me be your guide to what is on the shelves at your local bookstore or library. Possibly, tempt you with a read aloud for your children or inspire your book club to tougher discussions. Maybe, reacquaint you with a classic or introduce a new favorite author. I read a variety subjects and all types of books.
In honor of the new year, I would like to suggest Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. A book that grabs grief by the neck, strangles it, and then tries to discern why. From the very first chapter you are thrown into Didion's year of madness from the death of husband John Dunne. A devoted husband that edits her writing, finishes her sentences, completes her in every way.
Didion's year of disbelief begins December 30, 2003. She and John are returning home from a very stressful visit with hospitalized daughter, Quintana. Didion moves quickly to build a fire and start dinner. Her main goal, provide a decent night after the horrible day. She hands John a Scotch and leaves him to forget his daughter's troubles in a new book. As she tosses the salad, John makes a comment about the Scotch. He then raises his hand in a gesture she mistakes as a joke. One minute they are smiling, comfortable, on the edge of relaxation then life ends.
It is in the third chapter we begin to understand Didion's book title. She magically doesn't believe her husband is dead. Yes, she is there when the heart attack occurs. Yes, she greets the case worker that tells her John is dead. Yes, she even watches as they inter his ashes at St. John, yet still doesn't believe. Where is her shock, her grief, and just where is her husband?
Note: You know a book is good if it broaches such a depressing subject yet remains in the top ten NY Times bestsellers list for 12 straight weeks.
