Old-fashioned

After a weekend filled with the usual struggles over electronic devices, it was delightful - and disorienting? - to have the kids read out loud to each other after dinner, as they took turns doing dishes. Then we all played a few rounds of their sudden new favorite, charades. I half expected someone to demand I fry up some apples 'n' onions and roast some potatoes over the open fire. (Instead, the two minors retreated to play a little Minecraft before bed, so all was right with the world once again).

Anyhow. I say this so that tomorrow or next week when I feel like shipping Silas off to military school I will remember that he is at heart a good kid, and capable of behaving with kindness and generosity toward others, even his sister. Despite any momentary evidence that he is not.

This weekend, as we were driving up into the mountains to go skiing, Si was in one of his testier moods. Not at all in a bad way - just determined to marshal the argument against us. " 'An idler is not somebody who is lazy. An idler is someone who wants to enjoy their life and enjoy lots of freedom in their life. Idlers raise children who are more independent and do more for themselves,' " he read to us in an instructional tone from his new book, Unbored. "I'm an Idler. That's what I am. See?"

"That's really good that you're able to be aware of yourself like that," I said. "But it's also good to look around and pay attention to what you give up if that's how you really want to live life."

And I wish I could have been a more Zen parent and left it at that, but of course we got into a pointed discussion about how idle hands are a Devil's workshop, et cetera et cetera, and how b) we're the most idle parents of anyone in your acquaintance, and 3) that's great if you want to be idle but don't expect to have a big nice house in the Preserve or be taking any fancy vacations with that lifestyle.

"But if that's who you are and what you want to be," I finished with a panting return to cheerfulness, "Then that's great! It's good to know that. But also understand what you'll have to give up."

Pant pant pant.

A rare moment of togetherness on the slopes.

Skiing was fine. The snow is terrible. I came straight home and apologized to all the trees and perennials in my care: looks like it's going to be a water-restricted summer, friends. Meanwhile, it was at least freakishly warm and brilliantly sunny. Lately I've been skiing with Silas and his cousin while Mike does Helen duty (which isn't the exercise in gritted-teeth patience that it once was, either), so for the first time since the nineties I've actually been having the sort of ski day that people mean when they say they want to go skiing. Every now and then I get left behind, and Silas did say something about boring it is to ski with me because he always has to stop and wait - but, you know, wind in my hair (or streaming over my helmet), aching legs. exhilaration, etc. It was nice.

What I'm reading this week

I'm trying to make this a weekly thing. A feature, if you will. A way of bringing you, my blog readership, into the world I (occasionally) care about most: my reading life. Also a way of bringing my reading life out of the deep untalked-of basement where it currently resides.

It's a bit of a slow week to start off on: I have been desultorily reading a biography of Robespierre, the infamous career guillotiner of the French Revolution, and a paperback mystery, Thus Was Adonis Murdered, which is so deliciously snarky and clever that it took me five nights of bedtime reading to get through the first chapter, after which I sighed, dithered, and decided to save it for a time when I can really get a foothold in it. Oh, and also the Reference Grammar of the Cheyenne Language, which I have on loan from a university library and which I will have to send back in a body bag. It's a typewritten manuscript "bound" with two facing sets of staples, which unstapled themselves the other day when I was trying my honest best to understand what fourth person is (first, second, third person I get; fourth person is...I think...a person or object not connected in any way to the speaker or the listener. I can repeat this til I'm blue in the face but I will never get it.) (So: I am trying to learn Cheyenne, or learn about it. This endeavor and my ambivalence about it are the subject of another post.)

It's the kind of bedside reading pile that I heft onto myself during that glorious end-of-the-day reading period and then march through dutifully, one page of each, like I'm eating raw celery. I do rather enjoy this, but after a while I get weary of watery crunch.

So yesterday I sat down with the library website and requested five novels.

They're from the upcoming March Tournament of Books and unfortunately they were all on hold, which not only means I still don't have a good juicy chunk of reading material to look forward to all day, it also means I'm in on-hold limbo and can't properly start anything, because the minute I do I'm going to get a notice from the library that I have five books sitting on the hold shelf and they're all on hold to someone else besides, so I can't even renew.

(This just in: I checked my hold list, and I have five books waiting for me at the library. Sweeeeet!)

I'm also listening to Blue Nights as I drive back and forth to work. Blue Nights is by Joan Didion. Blue Nights is the memoir centered on the death of her daughter at age 39. Blue Nights is the book that is often said to be about the death of her daughter but is really about mortality, about aging, about what we do with what we've done in the world when we come to the end of everything and are still hanging on. It's also, disconcertingly, about celebrity, or, perhaps, Celebrities Joan Didion has Known. Names Joan Didion can drop.

Sorry; that was a piss-poor Joan Didion imitation (although well within the spirit of the book, which felt in places like a just passable Joan Didion imitation. In other places it was harrowingly beautiful.)

At first the celebrity stuff irritated me. Does she really think the lunch she packs for her kindergartener is so much better than every other lunch packed ever, just because she's famous and had a house just down the beach from Dick Wood? Okay, fine; she didn't say that; she just quoted her husband saying that, and he's entitled to think that, because he's married to her. Still. Irrrritating. The only two non-celebrities named in the book are relatives of hers. Everyone else, if they are anointed with a name, it is because they are Famous.

Later I decided it was just part of her style: celebrities are like brand names, which she also uses a lot. To set the scene? To make a point? And if to make a point, is a point about...existence? Or just that her crowd was a crowd that could afford to wear Coco Chanel suits?

Later still I wondered if it wasn't a sort of demonstration of how little it all means in the end: all of these famous, beautiful people, wearing expensive, beautiful clothes, doing beautiful, legendary things - and they all still get old and die and are forgotten. Except that an awful lot of them skip the getting old part, which seems to possibly be hinting at something more: all this precocity, all this devoted attention, all this sass and vim, and still they are unbearably unhappy.

Anyhow. It was very beautiful, it didn't make me cry very much, and I'm rather glad to be done with it.

Piercing

Sunday morning I took Helen to get her ears pierced. This is a desire that came on her suddenly: Tuesday morning at 11:32, apparently. I got home from work and she had the computer on, open to the webpage for Claire's, which is apparently where everybody gets their ears pierced. I'd never actually heard of Claire's.

"It's right in the mall," she said. "By JC Penny. You go up the escalator, Maddie says. Angelina says it doesn't hurt at all."

No one really likes the paparazzi in the morning

"I'll need to do a little research," I said, buying some time so I could take off my coat. Also because while I am fine with her getting her ears pierced - this was clearly an event that would be coming, as we have a girl, and particularly as we have Helen - I needed to consider the bribery possibilities of the event before I let it disappear over the waterfall of missed opportunity. Did ear piercing need to be a Reward Event?

I ultimately decided no. Helen is not really my need-to-be-bribed child, anyway. So bright and early  Sunday morning we put on our nice clothes and drove to the mall. As we got ready, I was a tiny bit reminded of a former colleague who said that she understood the fairy tale archetypes of replacement and obsolescence when she had a teenage daughter. "They're blossoming just as you're hitting menopause," she said. "It really feels like you're being replaced." Not that Helen or I are doing either of these, just yet. But they are on the horizon.

Originally, for example, I was going to wear my "not actually pajamas" clothes, but then I started imagining myself standing in the overlit mall shop next to some pretty young thing wearing her work outfit and Helen in her coordinated "I'm getting my ears pierced FINALLY" outfit, so I put on a non-pilly sweater and newer slacks and my boots and a necklace and makeup (makeup!).

"You look tired," Helen said in the spirit of helpfulness. "You have those black things under your eyes."

"Bags," I said. "Those are called bags."

So Helen, me and my eye bags headed off to the mall. We got there about ten minutes before anything opened and wandered around looking at the puppies, smelling the cookies, looking at the goods. I tried my best not to be actively hating the mall. It helped that it was early morning and the sun was streaming in the windows; it didn't feel like the day the shooter would come bursting out of the food court firing on everyone. I could imagine that the other people there were just, like us, running a few routine and irritating errands, instead of living their fullest and best lives under the artificial lights of the House of Mammon.

I still offered up a little prayer that neither of my children will grow up to be teenagers whose favorite hangout is the mall.

Finally our store opened and I followed Helen in. The pretty young thing was very sweet and encouraging. "Have you been waiting for this a long time?" she asked Helen, who nodded happily. I signed the waivers, we picked out the earrings, Helen held the comfort bear and the deed was done. A person who occasionally gets hysterical in doctor's offices about potential shots sat calmly and happily through two ear piercings.

It made me realize, or maybe remember, that kids can bring themselves to do just about anything, so long as it's their idea. If it's something I impose, or that I'm taking too much charge of, they're much more likely to fall apart. This might actually be something of a Parenting Truth, one which I'd better pay attention to.

Cheers to the New Year

The kids are back in school; the schedule has filled up like a bucket under a leak: life is back in session. So, without further ado:

1. I'm going to post weekly here, and on Facebook; I'm going to learn how to network.
2. This will probably involve improving my reach out and follow through skills;
3. Which will benefit from working with more calmness and focus and not getting distracted by every yahoo news story that flits across my screen. Not having yahoo news on my screen as much will also help.
4. Also it would help if I polish my game just a smidge: you know, think of stimulating questions to ask people. And then ask them.
5. I'll also reach out formally: I got a gift certificate to the Lighthouse Writing Workshop. I'm going to use it.
6. Related: we ended up with three museum memberships after the craziness of the holidays. I'm going to make sure we use them.
7. But I don't want to only do city outings: I'm going to get myself and the kids into nature at least once a month.
8. I'm also going to be stronger, or at least not so piddly. More work with the free weights! And also squat lifts. These only hurt my brain a little bit.
9. Since the body is only as strong as the spirit within, I'm going to nourish my spirit by making at least as much effort to see my friends as I make to have my kids see theirs.
10. Finally, words to live by: Be kind. Reach out. Listen. 

All of these resolutions depend on a certain level of stability and status quo. 

Finally, my TBR* list for 2013:

Mean Spirit, Linda Hogan

The Ambassadors, Henry James

Shell Shaker, LeAnne Howe

Portable Houses, Irene Rawlings & Mary Abel

Sleight of Hand, Peter S. Beagle

Middlemarch, George Eliot

Backup: St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell

Six books. Twelve months. Can she do it?

*the TBR Challenge is where I pledge (to myself) to read these unread books from my own shelf. The rules are that I have to have had the book on my shelf for over a year - and, well, that's the rule. Most people pledge to read 12 books, but that cramps my reading habits too much and makes me panicky. My former TBR challenges can be found here and here. I will try to post about my books on the third Wednesday of every month, though, as the Super Librarian suggests.

End-of-Year Accounting

First things first:

This year I am

happier - definitely, although I am aware more than ever of how temporary a state this can be;
richer - no home improvement projects embarked upon this year, always a bonus for the wallet;
fatter - probably. I don't really keep track. I've been running the same miles as ever, but my metabolism is slowing down. Also for the first time ever I've been buying half and half on a regular basis (it makes oatmeal so yummy).

Other notes:

My symbolic activity for the year has been building rock walls. A) It's my new hobby: give me a pile of rocks, a loose slope, and a free day, and I'm perfectly happy, and B) it's the best-fit single concept for how I've approached life this year. Let the world do its terrifying thing outside: I'll slather on sunscreen and retreat to the back yard to build some walls, or self-soothe by admiring what I've already built. I'll straighten up after a morning of sorting and shaping and realize that I am what can only be called happy, and it's the best I've felt in weeks. It works against cancer, dumbass politicians, tense elections, kids growing up, mass shootings, global warming, too much baseball - really, anything.

Also, less symbolic: this has been the hobby that has tempted me toward stealing: I don't really covet many possessions of other people, but I do covet their rocks (and they're just lying out there! in the yard! neglected!) So far I have resisted. We did pick up some rocks that had been dumped in a vacant lot by the people doing construction in the lot next door: this felt morally okay. (Silas, in the back seat: "Are they stealing?" Helen, in tones of angry resignation: "YES.")

Report on previous year's activities:

I. Resolutions - verdict 2012

I started the year with these resolutions:

1. Remember birthdays and note them. Especially extended in-law relatives.

Success. That reminds me: Uncle Dick's birthday is approaching soon.

2. Check all investments quarterly; also check credit card balances monthly. Make changes on investments when it seems necessary.

Welllll...this one started off well but tapered off in June.

 

3. Make the phone calls. Last year I had at least three projects in which I had the contacts all lined up, but I never made contact. This year I will make contact. In other words: FOLLOW THROUGH. I’m going to show FOLLOW THROUGH.

Success and not, in equal measures. I managed to make phone calls and follow through enough to write an article for a national publication (go me), but the elation of this was tempered by some notable areas where I did not follow through, both with later writing opportunities for this same publication and for other obligations. I'm almost wondering if what I need to do is strike a balance between following through, which is good for my karma, and just accepting the fact that I am less ambitious and driven than I sometimes wish I was.

4. Hike once a month.

Hiked every month but May. Did count my runs on some months, though (which, since I ran in May, probably means that I "hiked" in May, too).

5. Print out more photos.

Hmm. This is one of those resolutions I forgot until I looked them up just now. So: fail.

 

6. In general: connect more; reach out more. 

Definitely better on this front - I went to a handbag party, a wine party and a jewelry party, three things I would have just turned down without thinking two years ago. I looked up a couple of old friends and took them out for dinner. Tried to get in the habit of emailing people I care about more regularly. We've started having dinner/ drinks with a couple neighborhood families on a monthly basis: this rocks. Even if there's a little too much back room celebrating of new legislative freedoms granted by the people of Colorado among some of the other families.

II. TBR Challenge

A. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, edited by Bernard DeVoto - The highlight was Clark's spelling, of course, but the journey itself across an absolutely unknown (to them) continent was pretty interesting, too.

B. Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose - Provided excellent context for (A), and was enjoyable in its own right.

C. The Ohio Frontier, R. Douglas Hurt - Exhaustive, particularly of public-record-type information, but slightly.

D. Democracy in America, Alexis de Toqueville - I liked this, but it kicked my butt. I ended up reading Little Heathens instead.

E. Little Heathens, Mildred Armstrong Kalish - memoir of growing up in rural Iowa during the Depression. Think Farmer Boy crossed with Cheaper By the Dozen. Fun and informative (although my dad, who grew up in rural Iowa a decade later, was suspicious about some of the details, esp. regarding lack of indoor plumbing and electricity).

F. The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen - Sleeper hit of the year, for me. The first two chapters have always put me off, but once I got used to their patrician rhythm this story of a man trying to come to terms with his wife's death by heading into the Himalayas in winter.

G. Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America, Alan Berger. The epigraphs were the best part. The book itself was poorly produced, so that it started falling apart as I read, and the text was both insipid and incoherent ("with drosscape, a new paradigm is cast" - what does this even mean? How do you cast a paradigm? Is it like dice, or a porcelain figurine?). However, luckily I own the book, so that I can comb through the epigraphs and use them as a reading plan.

Reckoning

The holiday is (almost) over, the relatives have gone home, I've started to think a little too panickedly of work issues: must be the eve of the year. Today M. and I sat down and put all the baseball, violin, work and ski events into the calendar, and that pretty much brings us up to July, schedule-wise. Sigh. I'm grateful, of course. How can I not be? But it wears me down.

Christmas Eve fondue.

This week has been a nice respite, however; my parents and sister made the long bleak drive across Kansas (a big shout-out to them - thank you, family!); many other relatives came by, and with just a little before-hand phone coaching and quiet admonitions to self to Calm It The Hell Down, we emerged on the other side of the holiday without any scenes, storming-outs, bitterness, or hurt feelings. That I know of, anyway. And everyone still seems to be speaking to us. So, toasts all round!

Fondue add-ins.

We all went to see the Van Gogh exhibit at the Denver Art Museum - our first foray into Culture as a family since last year's trip to the Theater. It was remarkably successful. The kids listened to the audiotour obediently; they looked at the pictures; when I took a quick spin through the rest of the museum with Mr. Silas he was reasonably attentive, although he kept saying "i don't get it." We were in the contemporary wing, though, so I didn't get most of it either. "Listening to your feelings as you don't get it is basically the point, I think," I told him.

Totally unnecessary additional cookies (eaten with relish by all).

I am starting to taper down my daily feats of eating, mostly because we have eaten all the pies, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, cheesy onions, sticky buns, roasted nuts, candy and so forth that were left in the house in the wake of the festivities; we still have some Christmas cookies, but we should be through with them soon. The wine is a different issue altogether but at least it is bottled.

Stockings are hung.

After everyone left, we went to see the Pompeii exhibit at the nature and science museum. It is spectacular; you walk through the informative but tame front rooms, filled with artifacts and culture and the operations of daily life, and then you hit the floor-to-ceiling video screen showing a video-cam of the city of Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius - starting out with sunny blue skies in the morning, the first eruption at noon, and the gradual destruction of the city in the hours that followed (the sound track! my god! the dogs barking and the babies crying - and then everything not barking or crying anymore, just rattling and wind sounds). Then the room full of plaster casts of people and animals caught in the ash. Coupled with reading about the French Revolution and certain events happening nationally and personally, my mind has been focused lately on mortality and the Sudden End of Everything.

Even Santa waits spellbound for Christmas to arrive.

And so: Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Or, happy new beginnings, again. One of my resolutions - to be posted shortly - is to post more. Likely this will fall by the wayside eventually, but I like writing here and find it useful.

Better just post

It's been a busy coupla weeks. You too, you say? Not any kind of excuse, you say? Sigh. I know it. But still.

First, I went to Spokane for work. I managed to get three hour delays in both directions  -which, sucky, etc, but on the other hand I always overpack in the book department and so I managed to finish one book (Four Souls), get halfway through two others (Parrot & Olivier and Little Heathens), and finish all of the editing I brought along and draft the report article, all while sitting in increasingly uncomfortable airport chairs and borrowing airport Wifi.

Pretty much the moment I stepped off the plane in Denver it was time to go to this:

Run kitty.

And then almost immediately after we drove to this:

Our Christmas tree in its native habitat.

The photos don't really give a sense for how bloody cold it was up there, especially since the day before it was 50 degrees and we were wearing T-shirts (the day before, that is). OUR BODIES ARE NOT READY.

All things considered, though, I'd rather cut a Christmas tree in wintry weather than in shorts and a sun hat.

Nine degrees. NINE.

Luckily you don't have the audio, which is big brother offering a lot of unsolicited advice.

So we hauled our guy home and set him up and also got the outdoor lights up and now it's all lovely and festive. I was hoping to get a photo of the dressed tree in here, too, but - well, I thought I'd better just post.

So Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone.