Imma give up

I just requested this from the library: .

126 people waiting, for a total of 26 copies. Buzz, buzz..

Never wanna let you go...

Nancy Pearl's rule of thumb is, Give a book 50 pages. If it hasn't got you by then, abandon it. If you are over the age of 50, however (and your reading days getting shorter and shorter, agh!), number of pages to give a book = your age-50. I live by this rule and have no complaints. Check out what the good folks at GoodReads have to say: What makes you give up on a book?

Vacation, gotta get away...

A friend is going on vacation to the beach. She needs reccs for some books - and we are not talking drugstore romance novels here, people. This woman is seriously smart, and seriously interested in good contemporary fiction. And she came to ME. No pressure, though. Here's the list I sent her.
Mr Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore – Robin Sloan. This is kind of light but utterly charming and smart in a techie way. If you like it, then check out Scarlett Thomas’s PopCo as well. Same sort of quirky vibe.

May We Be Forgiven – AM Homes/The Dinner – Herman Koch; I read these one right after the other. I enjoy pairing books like wine, and these two complement each other very nicely. Homes is an especially adept writer & I am now plowing through other books of hers.

The Bartender’s Tale - Ivan Doig. Doig is a great storyteller. His writing is blunt and at times even clumsy, but you become completely invested in his characters’ lives. I also loved his The Whistling Season.

Bereft – Chris Wolmersley. Just a beautifully written & deceptively quiet book. Thank you to my Aussie friends for referring me to this....

Mudbound/When She Woke - Hilary Jordan. Both of these are very intense (When She Woke is a modern-day retelling of The Scarlet Letter), and completely different. Other than Jordan’s skill, you wouldn’t think the same author had written both. Neither is a happy read, but satisfying in many ways nonetheless.

Neither of these is new, but I read/reread them recently and remembered how much I liked and was impressed by them:
Skippy Dies – Paul Murray. This was one of my favorite books of 2011. It kept another friend occupied for a month while she hiked Nepal, so it's got that going for it...

Behind the Scenes at the Museum – Kate Atkinson. Atkinson writes layered, interwoven, complex novels. This is probably my favorite book of hers. I have her newest, Life After Life on deck.

Happy reading, and enjoy the sand in your toes. And your swimsuit. And your sandwich.

Ice, ice, baby...

Some of you who know me on Facebook have read this. Those of you who haven't? Enjoy.
++++++++++++

Stepping out onto the ice in full hockey gear for the first time is an amazing and humbling experience. I felt, even without the cheering hordes the Penguins enjoy, like a freaking gladiator entering the arena to the roars of the bloodthirsty crowd. OK, so I have an over-active imagination...maybe it's the feeling an accomplished actor has stepping onto the stage (I wouldn't know) or a teacher standing before a brand new and eager class (I wouldn't know - I have always been a behind the scenes kind of gal). But whatever it's comparable to, it is amazing.

And that was for a scrimmage in a learn-to-play class - imagine the thrill stepping onto the ice at the Consol Energy Center, knowing you can mix it up with the best of them.

Buying hockey gear alone was an eye-opening experience. You don't realize as a mere spectator all the crap that a player lugs around the ice with her. Gloves, elbow pads, chest protector, jersey, padded shorts, shin guards, hockey socks, skates, mouthguard, helmet with face mask, stick - you are covered pretty much head to toe in padding. I didn't have time to go buy the chest and shoulder pads, or the shorts, so I made do with some UnderArmour running pants, and the only jersey I had was a San Jose Sharks one, and I didn't want to antagonize any Pens fans there - I shouldn't have worried, the guy wearing the Islanders jersey would have drawn them - so I wore a grey polarfleece. I was the only person not entirely and properly outfitted, despite it being an "instructional" class. Oh well, time enough to go shop before the next class. I borrowed H's shinguards and my brother's elbow pads and I had my new skates from Christmas, freshly sharpened at the pro shop.I intend to go buy the shorts this weekend; my brother has some shoulder pads in his old hockey bag down in the basement that I can make work. Everyone else had matching jerseys and socks - red, green, striped - I am leaning toward grey myself. Understated and elegant.

Free skate first. I sort of skated around and watched other people until one of the coaches came over and asked if I needed help with anything. First goal - the hockey stop. He showed me how to glide and then dig my blade edge in, to come to that ice-spraying halt inches from the boards.Practice, practice, practice.

And then the whistle blew and we drilled - skating exercises first - crossovers, frontwards and backwards, speed drills, stopping drills. One of the coaches told me to slow down and just concentrate on getting the form right, and the speed would come - that helped a lot. Then they broke out the pucks and we did 2-on-1 drills and shooting skills. It quickly became apparent that I was among the worst skaters. Or maybe I just felt that way. But there were a few instances when one of the guys would very obviously scootch his friend forward to skate with me so he didn't have to. Annoying, but I couldn't really blame them - I know I am not any good. That is why I am taking this class, right?

Then - scrimmage.

The coach selected 6 captains who then selected their teams. Despite the fact that I KNEW I was going to be picked last, it still bugged me a bit. It felt very junior high. I had to remind myself that I had signed up for a hockey skills introductory class, and if the other people were not ok with that, that was their problem, not mine. I was trying really hard, I am an ok skater, and I can only get better, right? After chatting with some of the other people, I felt better. I also realized I was probably a little self-conscious because I wasn't wearing full hockey gear - sometimes you DO want to look like everyone else (I'm talking to you, Mom) - being a tad oversensitive and maybe a little defensive. After that I just tried to relax, hung out with the friendly faces, and played as hard as I could. Turns out I am not an offensive player - not a shock there. But I can be an obstruction just fine, even if the guy bearing down on me at full speed outweighs me by fifty pounds. I feel like my poke check was quite competent, too.

I was one of about half a dozen women - several of the others apparently play on a women's team in Mt Lebo, but one of the women was the one who had told me about the class at the public skating session last Friday. Her name is Sonja, she's been skating for about a year, and she plays a very deliberate and thought-out game. She's not fast but every move is focused. There was an older guy decked out in Pens regalia who was very friendly, a sloppy but fast player, and another guy whose name I forget, a grad student at CMU, who was playing because his lab partner (one of the other women) talked him into it. He's a better skater than I am, but had no clear idea about zones and which positions shift where depending on the location of the puck. Together with a skilled, experienced young guy in some Slavic-looking jersey who directed us around the ice like a conductor, only with his hockey stick rather than a baton, we rotated through scrimmages for an hour. We played till about 11:15, when the rain started coming down harder, and other guys arrived for the 11:30 pick up game.

I was tired, pretty happy, and already looking forward to next week. I have plans to take H out for dinner Saturday night, and then skating at one of the public sessions, so I can practice my hockey stop and crossovers. Who wants to go see a nice movie when you can be out in 10-degree weather?

I love you guys, and I love this blog, and I love reading.
But I need to take a little hiatus.
Too much going on in real life (nothing bad, not at all, just busybusyBUSY), and I am neglecting this.
I don't want to put it out there unless I am doing my best, and I can't with this forum right now.

It's not permanent, I swear.

And two tips for you before I go:
1) Read Skippy Dies by Paul Murray.
2) Buy stock in Lego before I do my Christmas shopping.

You're welcome.
Love to you all.
See you soon.

There is no trick, only treat.

From left to right: Terzo as Jack Skywalker. You've never heard of him because Terzo made him up, and he apparently wears blue Christmas socks with fisherman sandals and has powdered sugar all over his sweatpants and it's ALL GOOD. Seg as Anakin Skywalker, but Clone Wars Anakin. Whatever THAT distinction means. Primo as Plo Koon. He's a Jedi. I thought I was going to have to make the mask (swim goggles and a repsirator topped with a raw turkey?) but I bought a cheap mask. Just as well, since Primo took it off approximately every fifteen seconds.


Yoda fell asleep in the car on the way home from his brothers' soccer games and slept through trick or treating. We fobbed him off with some fruit roll-ups and a few snack bags of pretzels, and he was good with that.



Happy Halloween!

Books I'm reading or have read, summed up in one telling line...

Room - Emma Donoghue.
“I’ve seen enough of Outside. I’m tired and I want to go back to Room.”

All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost - Lan Samantha Chang.
“For each of us, he understood, is born into our own time and eventually the things we held as the center of the world, dearly, unforgivingly, must fade.”

Little Heathens: Hard times and high spirits on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression - Mildred Armstrong Kalish.
“For us children, building character, developing a sense of responsibility, and above all, improving one’s mind constituted the essential focus of our lives.”

Same As It Never Was - Claire Scovell Lazebnik.
“’It’s like you’re a mom now.’
‘Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.’”

A Guide to Quality, Taste, and Style - Tim Gunn.
“Clothes do not exist to humiliate their owners. Please do not force garments into performing psychological tasks for which they are not designed. “

Library run

Chi Chi Chi, le le le, viva los mineros de Chile!

"All 33 miners have been rescued. All 6 rescue workers have reached the surface. The mine is clear."

The Countess by Rebecca Johns

Rebecca Johns's new novel comes out today.
Link here.
Go buy it. And if you live in Chicago, go to her reading, because I don't and I can't. And I am sorely disappointed.

Sulzer Library, Lincoln Ave. 7 p.m. Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Buy her a drink for me, wouldja? (But no blood...)

O Canada...

I packed six books for a week of vacation, and read four. Whew, that was close.

What I packed:
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – Phillip Pullman
The Lonely Polygamist – Brady Udall
Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel
Up from the Blue – Susan Henderson
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell

What I read:

While Under the Banner of Heaven was a terrific book about fundamental Mormonism, and I love Jon Krakauer and have read everything he's written, because he’s a compelling writer and a meticulous researcher, there’s no denying that Heaven was condemning of its subjects. But I thought Lonely Polygamist dealt with what we consider fringe elements in a matter-of-fact, enlightening, and empathetic way. I never thought I could sympathize with, let alone like, a polygamist man, but I did Golden. And it ultimately helped me make sense of sense how someone you might perceive as normal would wound up where he did, with five wives, 30 children, and a lifestyle that makes his head – and ours - spin. The book made me think about something I thought I had concrete opinions on in a totally different way, and that is never, ever a bad trait in a novel. Udall's Lonely Polygamist was unlike anything I have ever read before. And, honestly, polygamy isn't that far off my long-held fervor for a nice commune.

The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – Phillip Pullman. Jesus/Christ is part of the Myths series which authors include AS Byatt, Margaret Atwood, and Salley Vickers, all great company, retelling myths with a contemporary twist. But this one: Yawn. The intricate and lush writing I expect from Pullman, due to his His Dark Materials trilogy and his Victorian melodramas, is absent in this book. I appreciate that he wrote it in the almost childlike style to mimic the style of the Biblical parables and tales he is riffing on, but it’s boring. And splitting the character of Jesus Christ into twin brothers is certainly an interesting concept but the execution is superficial. There were many gaps, missing details, and inconsistencies -- but of course, many of these are the same missing bits that bother me in the actual Gospels. It felt to me that Pullman wrote this as an exercise, to piss off the church, which he has already proficiently and thoroughly pissed off previously.
The best take on this little book comes from Christopher Hitchens’ otherwise ho-hum review in the New York Times: "It is an attempt by an experienced storyteller to show how even the best-plotted stories can get too far out of hand."

Up from the Blue – Susan Henderson.
In the interest of full disclosure, Sue is a friend. I knew her first as the wife of a college friend whose band I often went to see play, and in recent years, I was lucky enough to reconnect with her. Sue and her husband are one of those couples who seem to have it all together – they are both insanely talented and also insanely nice. A solid debut novel garnering excellent reviews could not have happened to a more deserving writer, in my humble opinion. I enjoyed the book, and it took hardly any time at all for me to stop reading it as Susan’s voice and start feeling Tillie’s. In addition, I really enjoyed the way the time period resonated with me, as a child growing up in the late seventies/early eighties. I did agree with this reviewer on Amazon, about the adult Tillie and her lack of perspective: “What felt missing in this novel was an adult voice - a narration that went beyond superficial story telling.” Adult Tillie was just the same as child Tillie; and we all know that attributes one can forgive in a child can be exhausting, exasperating, and unattractive in an adult. But I really felt the child Tillie, and her agony and curiosity and petulance. I cared deeply about her -- but not at all about adult Tillie.

Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann. See my review from a week or so ago. I am still thinking about this book. That powerful.

Next up: the two books I didn't get to, and A Visit from the Goon Squad. But since I am no longer on vacation, it may take some time.

Also, I have two words for you: Nanaimo bars. You will thank me. Or maybe not. Depending on how much weight you put on...

"You must move forward."

One of the lovely things about vacation is that I can catch up on my reading. I have been slowly working my way through Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, and, as it is a book that deserves to have time taken with it, it's been slow going. But I lost myself in it the first two days of vacation.
I re-emerged slowly, stunned, dazzled.

While Philippe Petit's walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the World trade Center is the thread running through the book, it is balanced perfectly, like Petit, with the intertwining stories of half a dozen inhabitants of New York City on that hot, muggy day in August 1974.

Additionally, this novel is a love song to New York, and in a strange, roundabout way, a love song to the Towers. McCann writes a postscript about his father-in-law's trip down 57 flights to escape the south tower on September 11, 2001, and this, juxtaposed after the dreamy novel detailing Petit's incredible act of beauty and the ordinary lives touched however delicately by it, choked me up.

"Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change."

dancing with the stars...

Despite photographic evidence to the contrary, my dad was light on his feet. He danced like a dream. It seems he could make anyone look good - when he and my mother danced together, they moved as one - but it was my dad you watched. His long-limbed grace, his poise, the delight shining on his face, his goofy ear-to-ear grin; he made dancing look like something everyone should do, all the time.

It wasn’t until you tried it that you realized how easy he made it look.
When I was very little, I stood on his feet and he swung me around, pretty much carrying me through the steps. But as I got older, he taught me to waltz, and to polka, and to jitterbug. He taught me to stand up straight and move from my hips, and to let the music tell my feet what to do when, and he taught me the sheer joy of dancing with a partner. A touch of the hand on my back, a slight pressure on my waist, or a grasp of my fingers, and the rest of my body, and especially my feet, knew where to go and what to do, in sync with his rhythm. It was magical – it might very well have been magic.

He had a way of shuffling his feet, knees bent, that made him look like he was flowing water, or maybe just gracefully boneless – I saw him move with the same fluidity and grace when he played basketball with me in the driveway.

As a fundamentalist Baptist, I was not permitted to dance in high school. Not for us the slow dancing of prom. My favorite joke for a long time was, “Why don’t Baptists have sex standing up?” The answer, of course, is “Because people will think they are dancing.”

But in my young and wild single days, a friend and I frequented an Irish bar where, every Tuesday evening, people gathered to ceili dance. Ceili is the folk dance of Ireland, and it resembles clogging, or square dancing, or even Highland dancing. Step dancing, the stiff, intricate footwork associated with Michael Flatley and girls in curls and green velvet, is the next step up – you have to know how to do it to do it right. But ceili is a group effort, perfectly suited to beginners; you leap in, usually with a partner, and if you let the old people who know what they’re doing push you around to your proper spot, you pick it up quickly and then it’s a whiz. The music is infectious and you can’t help but move – I find that I assume there’s something seriously wrong with people who can listen to a fiddler play a reel and not move their feet. It’s all I can do to stop myself from dancing, you know, when everyone else is sitting at the table, demurely sipping beer. It’s also very good exercise; I developed calves of steel and remarkable lung capacity.

My second foray into rhythm was when I signed myself up for a zumba class at the gym about a year ago. Zumba is a fusion of Latin dance and hiphop coolness, all disguised as exercise. I am no Britney Spears, it’s true, but I find that if I just lose myself in the thrumming beat and don’t watch myself in the mirror, I don’t feel nearly as awkward as I am sure I look. Sometimes I fantasize about breaking out my moves at some wedding with an insanely cool DJ who has no aversion to playing profanity-laced, innuendo-laden, bass-heavy dance music.

But I learned long ago to leave the wedding reception before the bride’s dance with her father. I didn’t dance with my dad at my wedding – he had been dead for close to eight years by then. My older brother gave me away, filling in my father’s traditional role perfectly fine, but I couldn’t dance with someone else, for the dance that was supposed to be his. And watching another happy bride dance with her dad, however awkward, makes me ache for my dad. Makes me wish ferociously that he had danced with me at my wedding.

My father-in-law dances well enough, he knows the steps; probably a generational thing. But his dancing is studied, and full of effort. You get the impression that he’s talking to himself in his head as he spins and twirls and guides my mother-in-law. My father’s dancing was effortless.
He was in his element.
He looked dancing like I feel swimming.

Recently I was out to dinner with friends. We sat outside at a tapas bar, and an older gentleman played soft, slow Brazilian jazz. The owner of the restaurant, a tall, slim man with a Brooklyn accent I couldn’t quite believe was real, danced with his wife on the little brick patio, and his loose, light stepping made my throat tighten. He danced like my dad. Controlled but free, fluid and graceful and lithe...I longed to ask him to dance with me. He may very well have, but I was more afraid that were we to dance, I would lay my head on his shoulder and weep.

the elusive mazurka bar

I just finished The Baker's Apprentice by Judith Ryan Hendricks. Wynter Morrison makes a return, and now she's co-owner of the Queen Street Bakery, still mixing up delicious-sounding loaves.

Into the mix this time around is thrown a disappearing boyfriend, a mysterious and annoying cake decorator, a bereft apprentice, a foot-dragging ex-husband, and a lovelorn landlord.

The story skips and jumps around a bit, and there are characters I would love to read about in spin-off novels. But the real star, as before, is the bakery. At least for me.

And this time round I was determined to bake a Mazurka bar, the cookie Ellen, the bakery's original owner, is famous for. Turns out the recipe is elusive; according to the blogs and reviews I found, even Hendricks doesn't have one.

So I intend to have a good time trying...I started with this one: from CakeSpy.com, and while it doesn't feature the light, flaky pastry mentioned in the book, it is indeed delicious, especially warmed, with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream. The apricots cut the sweetness of the crust just the perfect little amount, and I shamelessly scrape the almost caramelized bits of butter off the bottom of the pan and pop them into my mouth when no one else is in the kitchen.

However, this one also tantalizes: from Yulinka Cooks. Although there's no oatmeal, and I am pretty sure the mazurka bars in Bread Alone contained oatmeal, I am willing to try them. I am a sucker for dried fruit and nuts.

This recipe, from Feathered Nest, is more similar to the first than the second, but the fruit is fresh and goes on top of the crust rather than between. I have a bowlful of prune plums that might be put to work in this recipe someday soon.

I am still Googling and searching my stash of cookbooks and cooking magazines, to round up more contestants. Anyone want to come help me taste test?

There is no proof, Septimus. The thing that is perfectly obvious is that the note in the margin was a joke to make you all mad.

I am almost done The Baker's Apprentice. It was exactly as I expected. And now I am about to embark on a quest for the Mazurka bar, which the bakery in the novel sells.

Let the Great World Spin is beautifully, carefully written. It is a book with which one must take one's time.

Just started Deliverance this afternoon, and broke out my pretty Persephone Press edition of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.

But in the meantime, I am rereading Tom Stoppard's brilliant play, Arcadia.
This man will always be Septimus Hodge to me.

soapbox post

This annoys the everliving shit out of me.

I was going to write a whole diatribe about why Americans think everything needs to be Americanized, and why the general zeitgeist seems to be that anything remotely European is too foreign and hard for us to cope with, but I am too tired.

I read Let the Right One IN THE ORIGINAL SWEDISH -- well, no, no, I didn't, but I read it ages ago. In the original translation, with the original title, because someone who had seen the original movie raved about it. I liked it well enough. It was a good read.

I will ignore this ridiculous Americanized media tie-in edition, as well as the stupid American remake of the movie.

Just as I will ignore the American remake of the film of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Guess what, America? It's OK to NOT be American. Seriously. The rest of the world has lots to offer, some of it even better than what we have here.

SHEESH.

Everything is never as it seems...

Books I bought today:

The Baker's Apprentice - Judith Ryan Hendricks. I read Bread Alone because I picked it up off a shelf of a vacation rental a couple years ago. I really enjoyed it. It was comfort reading - full of delicious food and you knew it was going to end happily. I didn't know there was a sequel till I stumbled over it today at the bookstore, where I'd gone with Primo to buy the new 39 Clues book, and for Seg, yet another complete sticker book of something Star Wars. Seg offered to give me his saved up money for part of his book, but considering he helped me sort and put away 6 baskets of laundry this morning, quite cheerfully, I got it for him. I like to do little things like that for my Seg; he is such a kind and generous soul himself.

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel. Can't wait to start this one.

I came home with a hankering to finally read Let the Great World Spin, which I bought ages ago, so dug it up and found my copy of Master and Commander in the process, so both are now sitting on my nightstand.

And I am moving through my pile of Persephone Press books; it's the weather, I crave pleasant domestic novels.

****

Just finished Sara Gruen's The Ape House. While I read it straight through in two nights, I won't say it was an especially great book. There are characters I liked, a few I didn't get At. All., and I don't really care about bonobos. As Katya said, "[It's] not that I want anything to happen to them, [I'm] not interested in reading about them." Precisely. But despite all this equivocation, I am glad I read it. I scored it at the library on the New Books display, so that was a bonus, too.

******

Why can I have a book in my house for months or sometimes even years before I am hit with the burning desire to read it RIGHT NOW? See above, Let the Great World Spin. I like to go bookshopping on my own shelves. The price is right.

Nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a Tasty Kake...

It was an oddly blissful week, full of relatives and old friends.

Also, cocktails, lots and lots of laughing, and, um, yes, nostalgic eating of panzarottis and cheese steaks and peanut butter Kandy Kakes. (Can't resist this link to fun facts about Tasty Kakes.)

Lots of other kids for the boys to play with.

Lots of chlorinated water, and plenty of dirt, and tons of Star Wars battles.

Dinners were low-key; having another mother there to assuage my fears that Primo was going to die of malnutrition was wonderful, or maybe it was just the calming effect of the delicious pina coladas she made me. Never mind, the ketchup bottle took pride of place on the table, and the kids ate popsicles all day long, and everyone survived without developing scurvy or rickets.

I haven’t slept that well in years. In fact, why B didn’t come pounding on my door at 8 every morning, I do not know, but I will be eternally, shamefacedly grateful – I slept till TEN on Saturday while she plied my guys with Cheerios and sausage, and how blessed am I to have such a true friend?

The house tumbled with kids all day long, but the cacophony didn’t make me nearly so twitchy as it does at home. Even though I still had to feed and bathe and discipline them (occasionally), the week was relaxing. (The evening sweep of straightening and the preparation of meals goes much more quickly and pleasantly with two sets of hands.)

It does apparently take a village.

The twenty-first century sucks in some ways.

But I can’t hate it too much, because I wouldn’t have been able to resurrect this village of cousins and friends without its technology.

Gulp.

Thank you, Facebook.

You can go home again, but it won't be pretty...

The house is tan now, not mint green.

The huge locust tree out front, the one that constantly dropped branches and that my parents worried would fall on our roof with every storm, is gone. As are the evergreen bushes that shielded the concrete porch's stark lines and sheltered the crocuses my mom planted, that heralded the arrival of spring.

The side yard, where I practiced and practiced and practiced my running roundoffs, and attempted (unsuccessfully) aerials all summer afternoon, is cemented over, with a giant blue truck parked there.
The red monster truck is parked out front. I wonder how the Glowackis and the Hills feel about that. It's pretty butt ugly and takes up way more than its fair share of space.

My dad's garden and wild orange lilies are gone, replaced by a huge dog kennel of chainlink, reaching skyward. Exactly how big is that dog, I wonder? It makes our teeny little chainlink fence, the one that protected us from the neighbors' ferocious terriers - ha - seem like a plaything. We would breathlessly leap the fence to retrieve errant balls, with the doggies yapping loudly at our heels.

There is also a giant, faux-gingerbread-y garden "shed," large and sturdy enough to house a small family. I have no doubt it harbors a loud, exhaust-belching (and wholly unnecessary) riding mower.

Old Lady Weston's house is no longer the spooky, Gothic mansion hulking halfway down the block; its porch boasts pretty hanging baskets and the yard a picket fence. The Rosatis' split-level no longer hosts the biggest collection of gaudy lawn ornaments any of us have ever seen; the Teitzes no longer claim a secret, turquoise pool none of us ever swam in.

I don't even know if the Barneys or the Bobos still live here, but the apartment in which my parents lived for the first three years of their marriage is still there, with its gravel driveway into which my mother flung her engagement ring one angry night.

I wonder when the houses all shrunk.
And when the huge, overreaching mulberry tree was chopped down.
And when our "woods" became a scrub patch on the side of the freeway wall.
I wonder if the kids still play hockey in the cul-de-sac, and if there are blockwide games of Kick-the-Can and jailbreak in the dusk. Or if maybe the children are all holed up in Stacie's basement, playing Atari.

But Peggy still offers up home-baked cookies, and Mr Hill is pottering around his garage.

Some things never change.