Book Review: Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley

I have been focusing on the greening of cleaning over at my family blog this week; indeed, cleaning house has very much been a prominent topic in my mind for some time now.

I think in some ways it was the emergence of Spring and the change in attitude that comes with that; the quickening of the spirit, the surge in energy, the need to throw open the windows and see sheer white curtains billow, to let the sunshine in.

Of course, that sunshine then illuminates the dirt, the clutter; and one is inspired to clean, to free up one's space, within and without; to begin anew.

However, if I am being honest about the true source of my newfound passion for keeping clean and tidy, I would be remiss if I did not credit Ellen at Everyday Crafty Goodness for introducing me to the phenomenon that is the Flylady.

The Flylady is, in her own words, part cheerleader and part drill sergeant, and she is on a mission to save us from our own clutter, a condition she calls CHAOS: Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. This refers to the fly-off-the-handle crisis cleaning we do when visitors are unexpectedly on their way. I think we've all been there.

Her website is a treasure trove of inspiration and motivation, but for me, the most important service the Flylady supplies is an option to receive daily emails, reminding you to declutter, to plan out your meals, to do zone cleanings. It provides the little extra push I need to do all the little things I have been meaning to do.

And yay, Marla Cilley (aka Flylady) has written a book titled Sink Reflections, gathering all her optimism and advice in one brightly colored pink paperback. Let's start with the title.

The Flylady's first task for you is to shine your sink. Physically scrub the bejesus out of your kitchen sink and then buff it up to a high shine. Why? She wants it to be your beacon of clean and shiny hope, to start you off on your way.

"When you get up [in the] morning, your sink will greet you and a smile will come across your lovely face. I can't be there to give you a big hug,but I know how good it feels to see yourself reflected in your kitchen sink. So each morning this is my gift to you."

Yes, it is a little corny. She is like a very affectionate aunt. And at first the notion of shining your sink seems silly. But eventually I was worn down by her enthusiastic admonitions by email, and I went and shined my sink. And, yes, it felt darn good. And it made the whole kitchen look cleaner.

Here it is today:

Shiny!

Step two is to get dressed to lace-up shoes. Again, this seems nonsensical. I am an at-home mom, I bake a lot, I garden. I am a filthy mess at the end of the day. Why should I get dressed?

I'll tell you why. If the UPS man drops off a package, or if some guy runs out of gas and knocks on my door, I'm not embarrassed by what a sight I am. If I suddenly need to leave the house, I can leave right away. And most importantly, because getting dressed to shoes makes me feel better about myself, and ready for the day.

Step three is a before bed ritual: pick out your clothes for tomorrow, and get a good night's rest. The Flylady scores again: My tomorrow morning goes a lot more smoothly when I follow this step. (It helps that the Flylady reminds me to turn off the computer and go to bed each night. )

The Flylady program starts with the premise that we have become paralyzed by our need for perfection, that the knowledge that the mess in our houses is so immense that we don't know where to begin.

"This mess is so big
and so deep and so tall,
We can not pick it up.
There is no way at all!"
-Dr. Seuss
"The Cat in the Hat"

Well, she 's going to tell us where to begin. Enter the"Babysteps", a progression of daily habits that enable you to take control of your life. Steps one through three I have covered above. After you've internalized these, you are ordered to start digging your way out of your clutter, through a series of "27 item flings", "5 minute room rescues", and 15 minute decluttering sessions. (A chirpy reminder that "You can do anything for 15 minutes!" often greets me when I check my Inbox.)

After the clutter is under control, the Flylady has a system of zone cleaning that ensures that every part of your house will undergo a seriously thorough cleaning at least once a month, and a more general surface cleaning once a week. Everything is broken up into quick tasks that take fifteen minutes at most, so you are never overwhelmed.

It seems like voodoo magic, but it works. It just takes commitment, and time. The emails definitely help keep you going, as do mantras like:

• "Your house did not get messy in a day, and it won't get clean in a day either."


• "Stop whining cold turkey."


• "Your dryer is not a laundry basket."


• "You can't change anyone but you."


• "Set the example in love and quit being a martyr."

When I started receiving the emails, I would open and read and delete them. I don't even know why I signed up, initially. Then one Monday morning, the Flylady asked me to wash out my bathroom trash can. I deleted the email. But then I felt bad. She's so nice, she's so positive, she has dedicated her life to trying to help people be comfortable in their own homes. How long could it really take to wash out my bathroom trash can? The thought rankled the back of my brain all day. Finally I heaved myself up and washed out the damn bathroom trash can. And man, it was dirty. It's funny how you don't notice those details because you see them every day, and it just becomes white noise. But just like the kitchen sink, it made the whole room look better. The Flylady is good for that.

Unless you are some sort of weird Martha Stewart drone, I am going to hazard a guess that you don't get everything done, all the time. Marla Cilley is like a very helpful neighbor. She is a little over the top, but I am willing to overlook that, because her program really does work. Don't believe me? Go shine your sink, and see how much better you feel.

Honey, I Have a Headache

We experienced this thing I like to call rain on Monday, which knocked out our power, and I was held hostage by my three year old daughter. After scrubbing "washable" marker off 98% of her surface area, I read so many Little Critter books that I should be considered for sainthood.

I am blaming Mercer Mayer and his Little Critter for the crippling headache I have suffered for the past 48 hours. It comes and goes, but definitely staring at the computer screen is not helpful. So, in my virtual absense, I am directing you to a little game I like to play.

It's called the Literature Map- the "tourist map of literature". Basically you enter the name of an author and it maps out similar authors.

It's the bees' knees of booknerd cartography. Have fun.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom

This was my mother, sometime in the early 1970s, in her native Vietnam. She was about 36 years old- she was always sketchy about her age, but also proud of being "so old" (and not looking it).

They don't celebrate birthdays, apparently, in Vietnam as we do here; nor is age such an important part of one's identity. Simply put, there are the young and the old; the young are to be envied, and the old to be respected.

Marriage, in Vietnam at that time, was also not as we find it here in the US of A. If a man showed his preference for you, and you lived together, you were considered married. Marriage was not a legal state, as it is here.

My mother found herself married at a reasonably young age and bore three children. Her only daughter died young, of cancer.

Her husband left her. I do not know the reason. I do know that this left her in a state of disgrace in her village, a mother without a husband. She was shamed into leaving her children with her sister, who was respectably married, so that they would grow up in a proper family. She was told to go and work in the city, to pay for the upbringing of these two remaining children, my half-brothers.

Somewhere around this point on the timeline, my mother met my father, stationed in Saigon. I know nothing of their courtship. I know that my mother thought my father was "so handsome". I remember my father saying that when he first saw my mother, she was wielding a machete. The place? The year? The circumstance?

I don't know. It is so frustrating.

I know that my father pledged that he would bring her to this country and they would be married here. What was that like for her, the waiting? Did she trust in his word? Did she continually hope? I would have guessed that she would have little trust in men, or their promises.

My father returned to this country to find all his belongings gone, sold, and no room for him in his mother's and stepfather's house. Somehow he found a place to stay, a job. He saved money for some amount of time- again, the anger of not knowing how long- and secured the papers needed to bring my mother here. She boarded a plane, missed her connection in Los Angeles- what happened then? What was that like, to be in such an alien place, speaking virtually none of the language? How did she get to the East Coast?

Somehow, she did.

Somehow, this woman survived in a culture of fear, of violence, of war. She saw things, as a child, that no one should ever have to see. Never. I really don't even like to think about it. But the images are horrific and vivid; they skitter on the periphery of my memory, along with the strange, blank tone of voice that she would use when speaking of them.

She was so proud of her third-grade education; no other girl in her village made it so far in school. She was the smart one.

When there was nothing to eat, she swam across the river and stole two fish from the village there, swimming back with the fish balanced precariously on her head. She was brave and wild.

She put her faith and trust in a young American- barely more than a boy, more than a decade younger than herself- and travelled here, alone, to a land of peace and freedom, half a world away.

I don't know that she found freedom or peace here. Where she was once imprisoned by violence and gender bias, she know found herself shunned for her ethnicity, her lack of education, her heavy accent.

She had not understood how far America was, had not known just how big the world was, had not realized that she would not be able to ever see her family, her children that she had left behind. She lived in a constant state of guilt and worry.

My father worked long hours at multiple jobs. She had few friends. She was often alone.

Then I was born, and nearly seven years later, my brother. We misunderstood her, were embarassed by her. We did not see how fortunate we were, in comparison to her other children. I think she was often angered by that.

She was not perfect. Growing up where she did, when she did, a culture and a time so vastly different to my own, she had issues and neuroses I can't even begin to tease out or understand. She had a hot temper. She was prone to violent outbursts. She was incredibly fearful and overprotective. She understood our problems and issues and hopes as little as we understood hers.

Guess what- turns out I am not perfect either. Hopefully this is a fatal flaw that my children will overlook in me.

"Endeavor to be patient in bearing the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort soever they be; for thou thyself also hast many failings which must be borne with by others."
-Thomas A Kempis

I wish that I had asked more questions.

I wish that I had said some things, and left other things unsaid.

I wish you could be here, that my children could remember you, that you could see how special they are.

So much of who I am, I am because of you. The good and the bad.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I miss you.

Book Review of sorts: What Color is Your Parachute?

First, a little background: why I would choose to read Richard Nelson Bolles' What Color is Your Parachute? when I'm not actively looking for a job?

• I am 31 years old;


• I have no college degree;


• I have not held a real job in over a decade ( I am choosing not to count babysitting, occasional tailoring, helping out at the tux store, or "housewife")


• My last real job was a photography shop, where I learned all sorts of useful things that have been rendered nearly, if not completely, obsolete by the takeover of digital;


• Therefore I have no truly marketable skills.

I have two more years before my youngest will be in school full-time, and at that point I will need to go full-time as well. What can I do to make myself more hireable before then? What am I good at? And given the choice, what sort of job should I look for?

What Color is My Parachute? delves into these questions and gives solid, concrete guidelines for searching for a job. It outlines ways to ferret out what skills you have, what skills you like to use (and where those two distinctions overlap), how to stand out in a crowd of resumes, the etiquette of job interviews. It stresses the importance of looking for the job that fits your life, even if you have to find a job "for now" to cover your bills. In fact, this book is so useful for your day-to-day pounding the pavement how-tos of the job hunt, that it proved to be less practical for my needs, which are more hypothetical. Definitely I will refer to this book when I have a start date looming in the near future, and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a job, or considering a career change. That's hardly new advice, of course; that's how it wound up in my hands. However, since I can't apply many of the applications to my current situation, I can't give any sort of "it worked for me" testimonial.

What I can do is offer up the part of the book that lingered in mind days and weeks after reading it, so much so that I took the time to copy it down (hopefully accurately). It carries a distinct Christian flavor, which I'm not sure about, but the philosophy is sound.

What stuck with me was the concept that we should all be seeking out our Mission in life, and perform it with enthusiasm. Bolles points out that the word enthusiasm has its roots in the Greek entheos, which translates as "God in us". Mission is defined in our trusty Webster's dictionary as "a continuing task or responsiblity that one is destined or fitted to do or specially called on to undertake".

Bolles then goes on to clarify:

Your first mission here on Earth is one which you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and it is, to seek to stand hour by hour in the conscious presence of God, the One from whom your Mission is derived. The Missioner before the Mission.

Second, once you have begun doing that in an earnest way, your second Mission here on Earth is also one which you share with the rest of the human race, but it is no less your individual Mission for the fact that it is shared: and it is, to do what you can, moment by moment, day by day, step by step, to make this world a better place...

Third, once you have begun doing that in a serious way, your third Mission here on Earth is one that is uniquely yours, and that is:

a) to exercise that Talent which you particularly came to Earth to use- your greatest gift, which you most delight to use,

b) in the place(s) or setting(s) which God has caused to appeal to you the most,

c) and for those purposes which God most needs to have done in the world.

Tweak the word "God" as needed to suit your views.

Am I living out my Mission in the job I hold now, as wife and mother and human being? I try.

• I try to find time every day to find beauty in the world, to find good in people, and to share these things with others.


• I try to only perform actions that are consistent with my beliefs.


• I try to use my influence as a mother to shape my children's ideals and morals, because they will fall back on these in adulthood.


• I try to step back to allow them to form their own molds, not just conform to mine.

For now, this is my most important work, helping my kids develop into the adults they will become, so that they can exert their own influence and help improve this world we share. What work will I find when all my kids are in school, and they rely less on my guidance?

I don't know. I don't know. For now, if it's OK with you, I'm focusing on today.

I know that many people feel that I am spoiled, that most people don't have that luxury, to focus on today. I don't know that it's a luxury. More and more, I think that maybe it's a necessity.

We know nothing of tomorrow;
our business is to be good and happy today.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

It was a Dark and Stormy Night: Best of the Worst

"The most wasted of days is that in which one has not laughed."
-Sebastian Chamfort

I did not get much reading done these past few days, what with Zooey and all. Mostly I flicked through magazines, the literary equivalent of fast food.

Today is a gorgeous day, 72 degrees by noontime, and I am not about to waste it; I'll spend the afternoon taking pictures and weeding the vegetable plot.

But for now, I could use a good laugh. And when I need a good laugh, I turn to the winners of the annual Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest: in which awards are given to the very worst opening sentences for novels thankfully unwritten.

So, without further ado! My favorite winners of 2007:

Danny, the little Grizzly cub, frolicked in the tall grass on this sunny Spring morning, his mother keeping a watchful eye as she chewed on a piece of a hiker they had encountered the day before.
Dave McKenzie
Federal Way, WA

She'd been strangled with a rosary-not a run-of-the-mill rosary like you might get at a Catholic bookstore where Hail Marys are two for a quarter and indulgences are included on the back flap of the May issue of "Nuns and Roses" magazine, but a fancy heirloom rosary with pearls, rubies, and a solid gold cross, a rosary with attitude, the kind of rosary that said, "Get your Jehovah's Witness butt off my front porch."
Mark Schweizer
Hopkinsville, KY

Samson looked in the mirror and, when he saw what a fantastic haircut Delilah had given him, he went weak at the knees.
Neil Prowd
Charnwood, ACT, Australia

Professor Radzinsky wove his fingers together in a tweed-like fabric, pinched his lips together like a blowfish, and began his lecture on simile and metaphor, which are, like, similar to one another, except that similes are almost always preceded by the word 'like' while metaphors are more like words that make you think of something else beside what you are describing.
Wayne McCoy
Gainesville Fl

The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, not even a sharp knife, but a dull one from that set of cheap knives you received as a wedding gift in a faux wooden block; the one you told yourself you'd replace, but in the end, forgot about because your husband ran off with another man, that kind of knife.
Lisa Lindquist
Jackson, MI

She had curves that just wouldn't quit, like on one of those car commercials where a stunt driver slides a sexy new sports car around hairpin turn after hairpin turn while some poor musician, down on his luck and having been forced to sell out his dream of superstardom for a lousy 30-second ad jingle, sings "Zoom, zoom, zoom" in the background.
Amber Dubois
Denver, CO

Her hair was the color of old copper, not green with white streaks like you see on roofs and statues where birds have been messing, but the kind you find on dark pennies from back in the nineteen-forties or fifties after God knows how many thumbs have been rubbing Abe Lincoln's beard.
Michael A. Cowell
Norwalk, CA

There was a pregnant pause-- as pregnant as Judith had just told Darren she was (about seven and a half weeks along), which was why there was a pause in the first place.
Tracy Stapp
Santa Ana, CA

What a pity Dave was too young to have seen "2001: A Space Odyssey," for he might have been able to predict what would happen next, when the ape standing next to the big black slab picked up the tapir bone.
Ann Medlock
Lenah Valley, TAS, Australia

"So that was your Earth emotion 'love'," gasped Zyxwlyxgwr Noopar, third in line to the holo-throne of S-6, as he hosed down his trunk and removed the shallots.
Mike Bollen
Brighton, UK

Racing through space at unimaginable speeds, Capt. Dimwell could only imagine how fast his spaceship was going.
Gary Smith
Florissant, CO

I was in a back alley in Fiji, fighting desperately and silently for my life, fighting desperately for oxygen, clawing at the calm and almost gentle pressure of the fabric held over my face by implacable, ebony thighs when I realized -- he was killing me softly with his sarong.
Karl Scott
Brisbane, Australia

Morty, a dedicated track and field athlete, was disqualified and charged with animal cruelty after giving Viagra to his 20-foot boa constrictor and using the snake to pole vault.
JL Strickland
Valley, AL

His hat fit his head as snugly as a manhole cover does the thing it fits into.
Steve McAllister
Austin, TX

Miles Otterman thought he could get away with carving his initials on the old oak tree in the town square - and he just might have if Sheriff Mitchell hadn't recognized his MO.
Terry Drapes
Taipa, Macau

If you think that the resemblance between the characters in this book and any person living or dead is only coincidental, you're just not trying hard enough.
Janina Eggensperger
Conway, AR

Everything about Randy proclaimed him to be a man's man, though neither in the sense of being the kind of man women are drawn to and men want to be nor in the homosexual sense, rather, in the sense of being a highly efficient and well-compensated valet.
Barbara Lauriat
Oxford, England

Jake entered the small suburban bank, his face as cold and frozen as Theodore Roosevelt's on Mount Rushmore while at the same time his sweaty hands clenched and unclenched nervously in his pockets like one of those fast motion movies of flowers blooming and dying, to open a savings account.
Frank Leggett
Sydney, NSW, Australia

With "Bambi" eyes and an angelic face made for singing "The hills are alive" while traipsing across an Alpine meadow, Heidi Weissbrot seemed as pure as driven snow to older folks around Peach Blossom, but among boys her own age, there was a nasty rumor that her purity was more akin to snow driven to the river in dump trucks after being scraped from roads and parking lots.
Tom Rohde
Minneapolis, MN

The crater of the volcano glowed red against the black sky, looking as if God had taken a drag of His cigar - if He smoked - which of course, He didn't.
Wendy Spoelstra
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

John lay in the morning dew next to his sleeping love as the pink hues of the sun rose over the rolling hills, illuminating a tender scene where for the first time satisfaction had come for a happy couple, who had fought all manner of obstacles to come to this one glorious moment, defiant in the face of Montana's repressive bestiality laws.
Dan Stuart
Burlington, VT

Dane worked the Spyrograph furiously, first red, then green, then red again, and finally blue; the pattern he sought was in there somewhere, and the correct combination would open the doors to a euphoria only known to dogs getting their stomachs scratched and parakeets viewing themselves in the mirror.
Matthew Warnock
Elgin, IL

"I'll have a pack of cigarettes please, no, Marlboro 100's . . . lights please, in a box, yeah, no, wait, give me a soft pack, no, not those, the ones right above them, no, no, right next to those, yeah, wait, make it two packs, no wait, how much are they . . . no, one pack will do me, and a lighter please, no the other one, yeah, that one will be fine," he said quickly.
Shane Spears
Blytheville, AR

Happy Day! A new round of opening lines were submitted by an April 15th deadline, so soon I'll be able to showcase the 2008 Best of the Worst".

Also: this means I have over 11 months to write up my own submissions. Go me in 2009!

A Quick Word of Thanks

Thank you to everyone who took time to email me or post a comment for Zooey yesterday. It meant a lot to me.

Life After Zooey

This morning I was not awakened by a wet nose nudging my hand or hot rancid breath in my face. Instead, the harsh beep-beep-beep of my husband's alarm.

I opened the kitchen door to let the cat in, but no shaggy black-and-grey dog went out.

No one kept me company or kept my feet warm while I packed lunches.

There was no one to give the last of my daughter's cereal to. I had to throw it out.

I did not bother locking the pantry door; no one was going to stick his nose in a cereal box.

When I returned from the bus stop, the front door opened freely. There was no hundred pound bulk laying behind it, ensuring that he would be alerted when I returned.

All my routines lie in disarray. I miss my dog. My companion of thirteen years, who knew me before I was a wife and a mother, who loved me without condition and in spite of all my faults, mistakes, shortcomings and fits of pique, who was such a part of my day to day life that every stupid little action feels incomplete somehow.

He was a Good Dog.

He didn't start out that way. He had a talent for sniffing out things that were new, and utterly, completely destroying them. He was especially good at finding things that were expensive, or had emotional value. Once he ate a wallet containing eighty dollars. And no food item was safe unless locked up in an airtight container, six feet off the ground.

We had a screen door that was slow to swing shut, and every time someone entered the house, voices would ring out, "Close the door!!!" but it was too late, a streak of black would have charged through the open opportunity and he would run, run, run, in a straight line, gloriously free, an entourage of huffing teenage smokers in his wake, struggling to catch up.

He would wait until there was only one book of matches left, in a household of chainsmokers after 7-11 had closed for the night, and then steal it with glee; waiting until you were close, so close, then show you the matches between his teeth before running past, up the stairs, down the stairs, loving the chase, basking in the attention...

As a pup, at our old house in the city, he would run up to greet the local kids as they walked home from the bus stop. Then he grew to be a gangly giant of a dog, but not understanding the game had changed, he would continue to run up to the gate, barking joyfully. The new crop of kids, not having known the puppy, instead seeing this black beast hurtling towards them, barking furiously, would scream and run past. Zoo thought it was the best fun.

When his water bowl would run dry, he would pick it up and carry it to where you were, drop it at your feet. If you did not fill it right away, he would think you were being particularly obtuse, picking it up again and throwing it down for emphasis, then dramatically licking the empty bowl. "Look," his raised eyebrows would say, "I'm trying to drink water and nothing's happening. 'Cause it's empty." And as soon as you would get up to fill it, he'd snatch it up and walk off with it, just to be a pain. He did that right up to the end.

As he grew older, his penchant for drama grew as well. If I stayed up later than usual, engrossed in a book or a movie, he would heave himself up with an exaggerated sigh. He would try to nudge me up, and failing to elicit a response, he would walk to the doorway, glancing over his shoulder, and harumph loudly, not willing to retire to bed quietly, letting me know that he was disgusted with my careless and disrespectful ways.

If I stayed out of the house for longer than he was accustomed to, he would trot out to the kitchen and somehow finagle the bread from its "secure" position atop the toaster. He would bring it out to the living room and eat a hole through the plastic bag, but leave the bread untouched. When I opened the front door, pushing hard against his bulk, asleep on the other side, he would get up and look at me reproachfully. "Woman, look what you made me do. I had to find emergency provisions in case you never returned."

As the years passed, he grew slower and slower. No more wild runs for the hills. Stairs were taken carefully and only if no other option was available. Once content to allow the children to ride on his back, he would now only let them sit for a moment or two before gently flicking them off and rolling quickly onto his side to discourage any attempts at remount.

He loved to give hugs and kisses, although in his latest years we accepted these hugs and kisses less, squealing and turning away, for he was stinky and gross.

We loved him in spite of his excema, his dreadlocked lion's mane of hair, his foul breath, his horrible flatulence, his warts and lumps, his grumpy and curmudgeonly demeanor.

He was a Good Dog.

Friday afternoon he tried to get up after a long nap and could not. His legs simply did not want to cooperate. Believing he was stiff from lying on the floor, I helped him out the door, but things did not improve. He managed to stumble downhill, but we had to pull him back uphill and into the house on a sled. A lifetime sufferer of Lyme Disease, he had always resented people touching his legs and feet, but this day he allowed himself to be hoisted up. He understood that he could not manage without our help.

And we were beside ourselves with grief, knowing that this night would be our last with him. How is it that we were so ill-prepared?

The next morning was brutal, the waiting, watching the clock tick his last minutes by, hugging him and telling him how much I would miss him, knowing his deaf ears could not hear me. He reassured us, dropping his chin onto our hands, licking our faces, before sighing and laying his head back down. His heart was weak, his breath was labored, he was tired and he had given up. But his face was still cheerful, and he did not want us to be sad.

Those who did not know Zooey will want to mock me, for feeling such a deep chasm of sadness, for taking the time to type out a eulogy for a dog- and such an unattractive and ill-perfumed dog, at that.

I DO NOT CARE. AT ALL.

Because just saying good-bye is not enough. I need everyone to know that he was a Good Dog, he had more character and humor and personality than many people I've known, and I miss him, miss him.

There is a dog shaped hole in my heart and I don't know how long it will take to heal. And for that I make no apology.

If anyone has any good Zooey memories, please please share them with me by posting a comment below. Please.

"I believe I essentially remain what I have almost always been- a narrator, but one with extremely pressing personal needs. I want to introduce, I want to describe, I want to distribute momentos, amulets, I want to break out my wallet and pass around snapshots..."

Molly has reminded me that Zooey loved nothing better than knowing he was in the middle of things, and would deliberately stretch out in exactly the worst possible place to be. She has sent me this photo from the beach:



Thanks, Molly.

My Favorite Song

If I ever build a time machine, I will be traveling to find early 20s Bob Dylan (by which I mean Bob Dylan, in his early 20s), and we will be best friends forever.

Side piece of personal trivia: when I was younger and even more inclined to the dramatic, I mentioned helpfully to my father that I would like this song played at my funeral. To me it is the prettiest and most heart-breaking song ever. My father replied with a swift indignance that he couldn't believe I would be so cruel.

Considering it now, I can see his point, but still: nearly two decades later, it remains my favorite song, woven into the fabric of my being.

So maybe they can still play it, but with the caveat:

Please do not take this personally.
Unless you really ought to.

May 1st is Mother Goose Day!

Aah, Mother Goose.

The very first book that I can recall reading all by myself, a threadbare oversize hardback, in black-and-white checkered cloth.

Cassidy has discovered Mother Goose too; she often chooses it as one of her three bedtime books. It's quite long, of course, so I always read it last, and she is invariably lulled to sleep by the lilting rhythms, an ebbing tide of verse.

I have to disclose, however, a little secret: Even after her breathing has become deep and even, I will continue to read, because I enjoy it; many of the rhymes are fun to chant, dancing trippingly on the tongue; and I know that my boys are yet awake, slowly tumbling into slumber, and I read for them as well. You are never too old to enjoy someone else's reading aloud in the dark, letting the words flow over you, skating seamlessly into your dreams.

How much do you recall of your Mother Goose? I daresay you remember your Jack and Jill and your Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and Mary with her little lamb.

I bet you know this one, too:


There was a little girl who had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead;

When she was good, she was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid.











But I was surprised by all that I had forgotten.

Mother Goose dispensed some sage advice that I think I just skimmed over as a child. Things like-

For every evil under the sun
There is a remedy or there is none.
If there be one, seek till you find it;
If there be none, never mind it.

Then there's some that don't end quite as I had thought:

The was an old woman who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
She gave them some broth without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed.

This ditty has a twist at the end as well:

Oranges and lemons,
say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five fathings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells at Stepney.

I'm sure I don't know,
Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Some may question the merits of this seemingly subversive nonsense. I love it. My kids love it.

This one is Cassidy's favorite right now:

There was a crooked man,
And he walked a crooked mile;
He found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat,
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.

And this is mine:

Goosey, goosey gander,
Whither shall I wonder?
Upstairs and downstairs
And in my lady's chamber.
There I met an old man
Who would not say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

These are the building blocks of a sense of rhythm and flow, an inherent sense of rhyme, and perhaps most importantly, a sense of humor.

Not to mention, a sense of culture and continuity.

I learned to read with Mother Goose. My mother, who immigrated to this country when she was in her thirties, learned to read English with that same Mother Goose that I did, at the same time. I bet my father, and his father, had Mother Goose read to them as young children.

And I do my part, passing on a legacy of generations, reading it to my children, hoping that they will cherish the memory enough to hold onto this book, keep it on their shelf like an old friend, visit now and then. Until they become adults and they read it to their own children, marveling at how the mind plays tricks, how the old becomes new again.

I am Tired of Rain

After the glorious taste of Spring that we have been treated to, my mood has been sullied by two straight days of cold gray rain that will not be wiped away, but rather smears my windshield, forcing me to view a world that is sticky and without shape. I am as morose and sulky as a spoiled child; who, used to receiving a red lollipop every Friday as a just reward for waiting in line to deposit her father's paycheck, finds herself before the teller, and the lollipop jar empty.

I am panicky, I do not deal well with depression, I wrap myself with words my father gathered up like autumn corn and stockpiled in his binder silo. I am self-indulgent. I turn to Rilke.

I will be all right tomorrow.

Fears

I am lying in my bed five flights up, and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. As something that is lost for a long time reappears one morning in its old place, safe and sound, almost newer than when it vanished, just as if someone had been taking care of it--; so, here and there on my blanket, lost feelings out of my childhood lie and are like new. All the lost fears are here again.

The fear that a small woolen thread sticking out of the hem of my blanket may be hard, hard and sharp as a steel needle; the fear that this little button on my night-shirt may be bigger than my head, bigger and heavier; the fear that the breadcrumb which just dropped off my bed may turn into glass, and shatter when it hits the floor, and the sickening worry that when it does, everything will be broken, for ever; the fear that the ragged edge of a letter which was torn open may be something forbidden, which no one ought to see, something indescribably precious, for which no place in the room is safe enough; the fear that if I fell asleep I might swallow the piece of coal lying in front of the stove; the fear that some number may begin to grow in my brain until there is no more room for it inside me; the fear that I may be laying on granite, on gray granite; the fear that I may start screaming, and people will come running to my door and finally force it open, the fear that I might betray myself anf tell everything I dread, and the fear that I might not be able to say anything, because everything is unsayable,--and the other fears...the fears.

I prayed to rediscover my childhood, and it has come back, and I feel that it is just as difficult as it used to be, and that growing older has served no purpose at all.

-Rainer Maria Rilke
Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen! (ORIGINAL VERSION)

I don't care how uncool it is to say so, I will listen to this every so often and it will make me cry.

15 Great Books that Turned Me Into a Dirty Hippie

Oh, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
-Mr. William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream

In honor of Earth Day, my top green influences:

It's Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living by Crissy Trask. Good tips for making changes day-to-day, chock-full of great quotes.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century by Alex Steffen. Social and environmental consciousness on a global scale.

Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life by Ed Begley Jr. Huh- Ed Begley Jr. is smart, funny, and worthy of my respect- who knew?

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. Wonderfully written and wholly inspiring, this book totally altered the way I think about food.

Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets by Deborah Madison and The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution by Alice Waters. Two cookbooks that help to answer the question: What am I to do, exactly, with all this kale and rainbow chard in my produce box?

Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards by Sara B. Stein. Gives us permission to cultivate a wilderness (i.e. not mow the lawn) and valuable information to back it up.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. Made me consider the role nature plays in our lives, as children and as adults; how that fits in with my ideas of spirituality and social responsibility. Also touches on the importance of real freedom in children's lives. I think this is one of my favorite books, ever.

Organic Housekeeping: In Which the Non-Toxic Avenger Shows You How to Improve Your Health and That of Your Family, While You Save Time, Money, and, Perhaps, Your Sanity by Ellen Sandbeck helped me to overcome my chronic germophobia, and save big bucks developing my own homemade cleansers.

Slice of Organic Life , multiple contributors. Maverick loves this book too, particularly the sections specific to poultry-raising. Ways to maintain an organic lifestyle even if your closest connection to nature is your kitchen window. Again, more of a "for beginners" book, but with such pretty pictures that it is totally worth your time.

365 Ways to Save the Earth by Philippe Bourseiller has 365 of the best nature photos ever. You can't help but yearn to save an earth so beautiful.

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes by Sharon Lamb and Buy, Buy Baby: How Consumer Culture Manipulates Parents and Harms Young Minds by Susan Gregory Thomas got me good and mad about the ways marketers use to control my children. Now I've completely rethought what it means to shop and what my dollar supports.

Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic makes me want to build my own house with my own two hands. The incredible photography inspired me to photograph my own Walden, our little patch of wilderness, with hopes of inspiring someone else in turn.

Finally, the book and movie that spurred me into action:

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by our friend Al Gore. Al reminded me that it's OK to be passionate about something, and that considering the environmental implications of my actions does not automatically mean that I have regressed to my 16-year-old self, wearing peasant skirts, smoking cloves, writing letters on behalf of PETA and sporting a Greenpeace sticker on my bookbag.

(No, I totally quit smoking forever ago. This time around, we're all about Heifer International and Defenders of Wildlife. And really, is it my fault peasant skirts are back?)

Week in Review

Books dropped off at local library:

My Life as a Furry Red Monster by Kevin Clash
Financial Peace Planner by Dave Ramsey
Another Thing to Fall by Laura Lippman
Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The Road to Wealth by Suze Orman
What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Nelson Bolles.

Also returned the movie I Am Legend, what a brutal waste of time this was.
Alas, if I had left the room, I would have achieved my stated goal of a book a day.

Luckily, I can cheat by counting all the children's books I read to Cassidy.

April 17th is Poem in Your Pocket Day

The American Academy of Poetry has deemed today "Poem in Your Pocket Day", as part of National Poetry Month.

Whereupon I will share my favorite poem with you:

First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light!

Second Fig
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Also, in the spirit of the day, two poems I can remember my father reciting,

at the slightest provocation:

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn't there

He wasn't there again today

I wish like hell he'd go away.

-William Hughes Mearns

(the last line is supposed to be "I wish, I wish he'd stay away."

I like my dad's version better.)

Chicken in the car.

The car can't go;

That's how you spell Chicago.

-apparently an "old Trini saying", whatever that means.

Quickly! Share your favorite poem, with me or anyone, and mark this day on your calendar for next year...

Mommy, Read to Me

"Mommy, read to me" is a phrase I hear maybe fifty times a day. In addition to the guaranteed three at bedtime, I probably cave and read another fifteen to twenty books daily to my three year old. It's not that I mind. A love of reading is something I definitely want to cultivate in my children. But recently Cassidy has become aware that the letters on the page combine to mean something, that the words stay the same every time it's read. That means a lot of sounding out, and keeping pace with a little finger that indicates each word individually. And I can forget about skipping over things ( I personally hate reading aloud books about dinosaurs, with all their unpronouncable names, and would just pass over all the technical bits. The kids love these books, though, the drier the better).

What this means is that a good portion of my day is spent reading children's books aloud, so I thought I'd give them a bit of attention here. I love fishing through the children's room in the library, looking for good new reads. I love reading old childhood favorites aloud. And, as we all know, I love the sound of my own voice.

Keep in mind- reading to kids is a much richer experience for everyone involved (the child in question, the reader, other people in the room listening to Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? for the eighteenth night in a row) if you look for books that flow smoothly, and lend themselves well to dramatic presentation.

For example, Cass has suddenly fallen head over heels for Dr. Seuss and P.D. Eastman. These are a lot of fun to read! I made the "mistake" early on, of incorporating lots of silly voices and singing; now I have to do that every time. This eliminates any chance of pawning off the reading to Daddy or older brothers, becuase "they don't do it right". That's OK. There is nothing better than a kid who wants to hear a story over and over, that's how they learn to read; more importantly, that's how they want to learn to read. Cass "reads" to her plush animals all the time, and sometimes to real animals too.

Even if you don't have pushy, rhyme-addicted kids, I highly recommend reading a Dr. Seuss, any Dr. Seuss, out loud every once in a while. Whether it's to your dog, your houseplants, or your mailman, do it just for a general sense of well-being:

The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you'll go.

You might learn a way to earn a few dollars.
Or how to make doughnuts...
or kangaroo collars.

You can learn to read music
and play a Hut-Zut
if you keep your eyes open.
But not with them shut.

-Dr. Seuss
I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

There- doesn't that feel good?

On the flip side, Cass will want a book because it has a character from one of her TV shows on the cover. Sometimes I would buy them from Scholastic because they're inexpensive, and I want to support the Scholastic program in the classroom. Don't do it! These books are selling a product, and that product is not reading. I know many people say that it doesn't matter what kids read, as long as they're reading, but I whole-heartedly disagree. These books are often nothing but synopses of an episode, the language is overly simplistic, they do not flow well at all, and I don't like reading them. These books should be considered like candy; pretty and fun, OK for once in a while, but really not good for you. Exceptions to this, of course, are character books where the books came first: the Max and Ruby books by Rosemary Wells and H.A. Rey's Curious George spring to mind. I still buy from Scholastic, but I stick to titles I recognize.















Anyway, here's the Top 10 for this week:

1. The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, by Mo Willems
2. BooBoo by Olivier Dunrea
3. David Gets in Trouble, by David Shannon
4. What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz
5. Inside Mouse, Outside Mouse by Lindsay Barrett George
6. Froggy Learns to Swim, by Jonathan London
7. Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman
8. Time to Pee! by Mo Willems
9. Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss
10. Max's Dragon Shirt, by Rosemary Wells

I think I've read Green Eggs and Ham twenty times in five days. But I vividly remember the crushing disappointment I felt as a child when my Uncle George- the only adult in my life that would read to me- refused to read it to me "just one more time". So, I will read it here and there, I will read it anywhere, I just hope she moves on to another book soon.

I am torn between just posting on this site, reviews on books that the kids love, or that I love to read to them, or actually launching another site entirely for kids' books. Thoughts?

Tax Day is Almost Over

Money doesn't talk, it swears.
-Bob Dylan
"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)"

Really, I don't know why I put it off; better to see the bottom of the bank account, I think, and begin planning how best to fill it back up, than to spend two months in agony, dreading the day I have to write out those big checks.

Which is, of course, today.

But now, a tremendous sense of relief. I even, in a fit of goodwill, purchased my husband real Coca-Cola instead of store brand (although if I had bought store brand, he could have had an extra liter for the same price).

I read somewhere recently (wasn't I going to stop saying that?) that you're supposed to aim, shoot, and run towards the enemy. It's not enough to hold them off, you need to make progress.

So, no more putting things off. I swear! I am adding "Run Towards the Enemy" to "What Are You Waiting For? Do It NOW!" on my imaginary wall of motivational signs. Which maybe I will make not-imaginary, now that I'm not using all my free time to obsess over our tax bill.

"Get bent! TAX MAN!!!"
-Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger Than Fiction
Another good movie to put on your Netflix list!

Book Review: This Year I Will...How to finally change a habit, keep a resolution, or make a dream come true

We are our habits, yes? I have lots of bad habits. Unfortunately, most of mine are psychological rather than physical, and not so easily broken. It was not so hard for me to quit smoking, even though I smoked for nearly two decades (that's quite a bit more than half my life, people, ugh, I'm so ashamed). It was also not so hard to make a conscious decision to clean as you go, wake up earlier, or spend an hour every day doing whatever my three-year-old wants to do no matter how mind-numbing it is.

For me, it's much harder to stop being so negative and hyper-critical or stop worrying so much.

Almost impossible to remember that sarcasm is not the same as humor.

(Getting easier, though: write every day, tread lightly on our earth, and find time to be happy.)

How lucky for me that M.J. Ryan wrote a book to aid me in my quests, with the admittedly awkward title This Year I Will...

First off, I feel that this title seems to imply that I have committed to a New Year's resolution, which I have not and never will. But I was so intrigued by the notion that someone had written a whole book about how to change a habit or keep a resolution, that I had to give it a quick read. And it is a quick read, lots of short chapters, not terribly taxing, just perfect for before bed.

As it turns out, This Year I will... is not the piece of fluff that I suspected it would be, but full of good advice and practical information, inspirational quotes (my favorite!) and testimonials.

It is divided into into three major categories:

Section One: Preparing to Change. You have to be committed to the change or you will make wishy-washy excuses not to do it. This will happen in spite of the fact that you are perfectly aware that it will happen. These are the bits I found most pertinent to my situation:

"No Time is the Perfect Time to Begin". I know that I am guilty of thinking, I'll write when all the kids are in school full-time. We'll really start saving money after we pay off this bill. I'll start sewing things to sell in a shop on Etsy after I figure out all the functions on my sewing machine. But the truth is, I can procrastinate like nobody's business. There is always going to be something I can find to fill my time or fritter away money on. So, from now on, it's all about today. Leo on Zen Habits has a sign that reads "Don't Talk. Type." Maybe I should post something that screams, "What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!"

Ryan uses this quote to illustrate her point:

Every successful person I have heard of has done the best he could with the conditions as he found them, and not waited until next year to be better.

-E.W. Howe

I think this is just as apt and much more elegant:

In American lives, there are no second acts.

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

This one is nice too:

Do not delay;

The golden moments fly!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"You Can't Get Fit By Watching Others Exercise." Ryan says that we "confuse reading and thinking with doing"; also that "we're all experts at reading and talking about change and beginners at putting change into action." Ahem. Ok. Guilty as charged. Let's move on.

Talk does not cook rice.
-Chinese proverb

Section Two: Getting Into Action. Here we find the advice and motivational skills to get off our butts and get started. I found lots of useful info here; most importantly:

"It's Going to Feel Awkward at First." Ryan points out, "When you first begin to do something new or different, you are not very good at it." Oh. Wait. That's true for everybody? I can't tell you how many things I've abandoned or not even started because I wasn't very good at it or didn't make measurable progress right away. This was the epiphany moment for me, and it's so stupid and little, something you hear all the time. Practice makes perfect. Rome wasn't built in a day.

"Yes, You Can Find the Time." I've been working on this; I get up at 5:45 in the morning and I'll shoot for 5:30 soon now, I'll start getting up at 5:30. I liked the quote:

Time is a created thing. To say "I don't have time" is to say, "I don't want to."

-Lao Tzu

"When You Don't Know What to Do, Channel Someone Who Does." Ryan relates the story of her friend who grew up very shy, and learned to present herself as Katharine Hepburn to pull her through social situations. I was tickled by this because, having grown up painfully shy myself, I will channel Audrey Hepburn to suffer through social situations. However, while Ryan's friend is channelling the traits she sees in Katharine- courageousness, honesty, and generosity- I will physically dress as Audrey and put on a show, so to speak. For me, it is easier to play a role and be remembered as the weirdo who came in costume, than to be myself and be judged on those grounds.

I was also struck by the irony that I have always seen myself as already being too much like Katherine Hepburn- tomboyish, horsey and brash, with perhaps a tendency to talk a bit too loudly. I've always seen it as a Hepburn vs. Hepburn scenario, with Audrey clearly winning out, for who wouldn't want Audrey's poise, simple elegance and delicate beauty? Reading this chapter made me realize that perhaps being compared to Katharine Hepburn- and make no mistake about it, this comparison is only in my own mind!- is maybe not the worst thing in the world.

Section Three: Keeping Going. Now that I've decided I need to change, and made the push to just do it, how do I keep the momentum rolling, day to day, for the rest of my life?

"Don't Let "Them" Bring You Down." Yes, I am continually being teased at home for being a booknerd and a hippie. Really all it took was a mental mindshift for this to stop getting in my way. I quit seeing it as a personal attack and chose to view it as affectionate teasing. Slowly, I realized that's probably what it was from the beginning.

This also applies well to the day-to-day stresses of parenting. If my three year old is whining up a storm at Happy Harry's, because she wants all the toys and coloring books and bubble blowers that are so helpfully lined up right next to the waiting area in the pharmacy, where we have to sit for ten minutes to get antibiotics that she has to have because she is sick, remember, and older women start exchanging pointed glances and muttering about how they would never let a child act like that in public, well, I'm giving myself permission to blithely ignore them. Because M.J. Ryan told me not to let "them" bring me down.

"You Can't Change What You've Done, Only What You're Going To Do." Ha! I think I'll print that out too, and hang it next to my "Do it NOW!" sign. Maybe with this quote for further inspiration:

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

-L.P. Hartley

"Ask for Help from Invisible Hands." Around these parts, we (and by "we", I mean "I") call this "the universe provides" and "the karma effect". Yes, I am vaguely embarassed to publicly admit to such a New Age-y concept, but I can't dismiss it. When I am positive, good things happen. When I am negative, bad things snowball, until I hit bottom and look for help from any quarter. And then something coincidental and wildly unlikely will occur to bail me out.

This has happened to me so many times that even my husband, Mr. Skeptic Meany-Pants, has accepted it as some sort of weird personality defect. As Ryan points out, you don't have to understand or believe. It just happens, and when it does, I like to step back and be grateful for a second. And whenever I can, I try to do something kind to send a little of that positive energy back into the universe.

In summary:

This Year I Will...How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True. Odd title, full of solid advice and positive thinking, nice inspirational quotes, not preachy or touchy-feely, a fast before-bed read, highly enjoyable, now available at your local library. "What are you waiting for? Do it NOW!"

Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
-Joseph Addison

Life is short and we have not too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind.
-Henri Frederick Amiel

I think you're very nice. I think twinkle's a nice word. So's viridian. I knew a woman once who had an imaginary fish.
-Neil Gaiman

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.
-Oliver Edwards

Book Review: America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
-Susan Ertz
Anger in the Sky

OK, technically I have not "read" this book, but holy cow, do we use it. A team of chefs allegedly cooked every recipe in this cookbook a billion different ways, using different techniques, ingredients, and cook times; they then selected the one that is the best combination of flavor and ease, and delivered unto you this holy grail. Thank you, test chefs.

The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is full of pictures (over 1500), including clearly illustrated how-tos. It offers up 1200+ recipes, variations on those recipes, emergency substitutions, and helpful tips. It alerts you to the best equipment- the best slow cooker, the best cookie sheets, whatever. It tells you how long to boil hard-boiled eggs (start raw eggs in cold water- bring to boil- remove pot from heat- steep for 10 minutes) and the best way to cook corn on the cob (add sugar to water to enhance sweetness- hold the salt to prevent toughness)-the sorts of things other cookbooks assume your mother taught you. I have not come across a loser recipe yet. We will regularly flip through because we have a spare chunk of time, select a recipe because we have those particular ingredients on hand, go ahead and make it, and it will be delicious.

Case in point: yesterday, to warm up the house on a rainy Sunday morning, we made monkey bread (I like to call it "monkey bread, monkey bread", in a singsong voice, for no good reason). Here it is in all its golden sticky glory:



And yes, it is super yummy, although a lot of the caramel goodness ran out of the pan (our Bundt has a removable insert, and it leaked through) and smoked up our oven. I now recommend a solid pan for monkey bread, monkey bread; the one William-Sonoma sells is a thing of joy and beauty forever.

The one complaint I have about the Test Kitchen Family Cookbook is that it consists of a binder with rather thin pages, and in our oafish enthusiasm (think frantically flipping pages with oven mitts on) we have ripped a number of pages out of the binder. I've remedied the problem with hole reinforcers, but really, I don't think I should have to bust out the office supplies while making Sunday brunch. I suppose if they made the pages of a heavier stock, it would make the binder heavy and unwieldy. So, another recommendation: if you are not a crazy office supply collector like myself, pick up hole reinforcers if you buy the book. You will need them sooner or later.

In summary: The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Better than The Joy of Cooking. That's right. I said it.

An Oddly Relevent Thought from my Father

UNTIL ONE IS COMMITTED

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do,

or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius,

power and magic in it.

-Goethe

Found in my mass of binders, this one: my father's.
The Issa quote from the previous post also comes from this binder.

Book Rant: Change of Heart

I have mixed feelings about Jodi Picoult.

Everything about her plotlines scream "Ripped from the Headlines!" and "Destined for Bestseller's Lists and Fiesty Book Club Discussions!" Generally I find this kind of sensationalism and guaranteed popularity to be a turn-off. In fact, if more than two people recommend a book to me I will mentally take it off my must-read list. Of course, this is me being a pain and a booksnob and in no way a sign of discerning taste.

To some extent, Jodi Picoult is formulaic. All of her novels that I have read are Moral Dilemmas, and the plotlines require a bit beyond your normal "willing suspension of disbelief". She likes multiple narratives that reveal all sides; often the truth is obscured, and you may find yourself sympathetic to an unsympathetic character.

As a result, every time I begin a Jodi Picoult novel, I do so with reservations. And every time I get about halfway through, I look up at the clock and realize that I've been reading for three hours straight, and it is too late to start anything decent for dinner.

On Picoult days, we eat pasta for dinner. With a salad on the side.

I read this book in two three-hour sittings, the second session by solar flashlight (it was the evening of Earth Hour). I woke up the next day tired, with a crick in my neck, and very excited to discuss this book with my non-existing blog readers.

The problem with reviewing Change of Heart is, I do so want everyone to read it and enjoy it as much as I did. But I think that to get the full experience, it's best to walk into it not knowing any relevent plot points.

So I'm not telling you anything about the book's plot or characters. Instead I'll tell you what I thought of it, and what I took away from it. Hence: Book Rant and not Book Review.

Interestingly, I don't really feel the plot or the characters are this novel's greatest strengths. That designation goes to Picoult's ability to force the reader to ask themselves difficult questions. Specifically, the Picoult formula provokes these questions:

• Who do I believe?



• Where do my sympathies lie?



• What would I do in this situation?

The beginning of the novel is highly reminiscent of Stephen King's The Green Mile, almost plagiaristically so. The fact that Picoult refers to this similarity within the dialogue ("Hey, Green Mile," he yelled as he was wheeled off the tier, "how come you didn't save me?") does not excuse it. If you are familiar with The Green Mile (and if you are not, you should definitely put the movie on your Netflix list), then you will be unsurprised that this novel also delves into a bit of mysticism.

Change of Heart relies heavily on Picoult's interpretation of a series of accounts of Jesus' life, called the gnostic gospels. For me, this is what really made the novel worth reading.

A happy digression into the nature of the gnostic gospels:

These scrolls were discovered in 1945 in Upper Egypt. They were found to be contemporaries of the texts we find in the New Testament, and contain many of the same sayings and events of the New Testament gospels, but within a different context.

• So, our first interesting insight: Some editing took place when compiling the works that made up the New Testament. What else was left out? On what criteria were these works selected or not selected? How much of each is true?

Gnosis is a Greek term meaning "knowledge"; at the core of Jesus' message in the Gnostic gospels is man's capacity within their lifetime to achieve self-knowledge, insight, to find God within one's own self. When this insight is achieved, we are the same as Jesus. We are divine.

• Interesting insight #2: This sounds a lot like Buddha finding Enlightment under his lotus tree. I like it when religious and spiritual philosophies overlap like this. It makes everything seem a lot more like an natural conclusion.

Naturally, the Catholic Church dismissed this as heresy. The Church teaches us that God is "other". The nature of original sin ensures that we will always be less than God and the best we can hope for is divine intervention and forgiveness. Jesus, as son of God, was also "other". He was born without original sin to save us.

• Why all this need for "other"? Is it to create a need for guidance, for saving? When we are taught that life is the greatest miracle, doesn't it make sense to examine our own lives for signs of divinity and redemption?

The New Testament was holy propaganda, crafted for the purpose of conversion, as were many of Catholicism's central Holy Days. It is no coincidence that Easter and Christmas fall so near to the summer and winter solstice; all the easier to assimilate those pagans. This was the work of Paul, converting the masses with all the religious fervor of a converted zealot. Paul was not only not one of the twelve apostles chosen by Jesus to be "fishers of men", but did not even know the man. And yet one could argue that he built the Church as we know it today.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John- the personal accounts, or gospels- had not yet been written when Paul was doing all this converting. What did Paul even know about Jesus and his message? How did he hear it? Did the version of Christianity he was preaching dovetail with the actual preachings of Jesus?

And yet, of the 27 books in the New Testament, thirteen of those attribute authorship to Paul!

Why didn't Sister Roseann mention any of this in first-period Religion class?

Please note, I am not knocking Christianity. I was born and raised Catholic. (My mother was a converted Buddhist and was fierce about Catholicism. My father was a practicing Catholic with Buddhist leanings. I like to pick and choose; I think what bother people is that I think I'm allowed to.)

I have a healthy interest in religion, how it affects people, how it is shaped by the culture it is born into, how it evolves over time; to the point where I took a class on The History of Christianity that met twice a week for three hours a class. Much of what I've discussed here is coming from my notes from that class ( I knew it would come in handy someday! Totally worth hanging onto for ten years).

• A quick digression-within-a-digression: Belief and religion are not the same thing. Think about it this way: Religion is like a car. I choose a model based on how I drive, how much, the extent I value safety vs. speed vs. cost. Some people arrive at the same conclusions I do and buy the same car. But ultimately it's just a vehicle to get me where I need to go.

I think it's important to question. I think it's important to know about other religions, other forms of belief. We need to question and do research, if only to force us to clarify what we think we believe, hold that against how we live our life, and adjust either our beliefs or our actions accordingly. If life is our greatest miracle, then we need to really live it.

How do we do that? By not accepting without question the beliefs handed down to us, by our families or our region or our church. We use that as a starting point, as a foundation. We look for evidence. We look at the lives we've lived so far. We think to ourselves, Why am I here? Seriously, all joking aside, how often do we think, Why was I put here, on this earth? But if you don't ask that question- again, with utmost seriousness- then you're not living. You're sleepwalking. Getting through today to get to tomorrow, over and over, until it's over.

As Henry David Thoreau so elegantly puts it:

Always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow,

and dying today.

Another application of this particular idea, I think, is when Jesus says in Matthew 18:3,

Verily I say unto you,

Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Children have no sense of tomorrow and only a vague sense of yesterday. Children are mostly about right now.

When we fix our beliefs firmly in our minds, and consciously apply those beliefs to our actions; when we stop living for tomorrow and instead look at our lives as a series of right nows; when every action consciously reflects what we believe, that's living.

• So now, an interesting line of thought, one that I'm not really going to get into: if everyone lived their lives this way, would we all be better people? If everyone took some time to put their beliefs under intense self-scrutiny, does it necessarily follow that everyone would act in a way that would be commonly thought of as "good"? Are there people who really, at their core, believe in things that are "bad" or "evil"? How much of our lives are coincidence? How much is Fate?

But wait, you say. I didn't sign on for this. I wanted to hear a Jodi Picoult story. Instead I get a dissertation on gnosticism and all this nonsense about the meaning of life and measures of goodness. I'm not sure whether I'm inspired or bored.

And that, dear reader, is exactly what reading "Change of Heart" is like.

Remember our Picoult formula questions?

• Who (or what) do I believe?



• Where do my sympathies lie?



• What would I do in this situation?

I think we would do well to ask ourselves these questions all the time.

I think that if you got this far through my rant, you should definitely read the book.