"We believe it to be one of the strongest lists in recent memory...a span of styles and themes that make this an outstandingly rich fictional mix."*

In short:

Persepolis/Persepolis 2 – Marjane Satrapi.
The first book was wonderful. The second, not so much; she seemed like she was merely capitalizing on the success of the first.

Little Bee – Chris Cleave.
This novel will stick with me for a long time. Little Bee is an enigmatic yet strong character. The story was almost fable-like in its execution, or maybe that’s how I dealt with how disturbing it was.

Harm Done – Ruth Rendell.
The Water’s Lovely – Ruth Rendell.
Rendell is a master. Her mysteries are never about the actual mystery but about being a human.

Dark Places – Gillian Flynn.
Totally unpredictable, unlike Sharp Objects (or maybe I am just not the brightest bulb…). Her character development is much stronger, too, even if the writing is somewhat scattered at times. There ARE unexplained parts, but nothing too nagging. A very satisfying read.

And you know what makes me craziest about this: Longlist announced for Man Booker Prize 2009?
A.S. Byatt’s novel, The Children’s Book, isn’t even available in the States till October.
Bet we could get our hands on the new Dan Brown though.
Sheesh.

**************

*James Naughtie, chair of the Man Booker prize judges (I just wanted to use his name, I admit it.)

The fundamental job of a toddler is to rule the universe.

Oh for pete’s sake, people, I am BUSY. What do you want from me?

Oh. You hadn’t even noticed I was absent?
My bad.
Sorry.
Nothing to see here, move along.

I am no longer editing dissertations. Which also means I no longer have a babysitter two days a week. This is better for everyone, trust me. (Except, you know, people who read my blog. Because I am no longer in front of my computer all day twice a week.) Most clients pay a lot of lip service to the concept of me working only 16 hours a week, on 2 consecutive weekdays, but in reality I was emailed and called all hours of the day and night, including weekends, and I found myself snarling at my children and ignoring my family to get work done – most of which was probably underappreciated. I was stiffed by one client, and fired by another because she was not my priority, and I had had it.

My dear beloved babysitter was making a two-bus trek across town twice a week because she loves me and she loves my boys, but now, if something crops up, I can always take them to her house and she’ll watch them whenever I need her. So I can, you know, go get a massage or whatever. (Ha. Like that’s likely. In fact, H just asked if I really needed to pay her to watch Q on Terzo’s first morning of preschool. Since the other option is my MIL, who is getting elderly and doesn’t like to watch Q if he’s awake, and since it’s not likely he’ll sleep from 830 am till noon, that option is not an option.)

The two older boys started school, and Terzo starts next Monday (I will cry even if his incessant chattering makes my ears feel like they’re bleeding), and then I will be home alone with one small child for half the day and two small children the other half of the day and oh, what shall I do with all my free time? Perhaps I will blog more consistently. If you’re very very lucky.

Because now that I no longer have to spend my evenings correcting bad grammar, I actually have some time for both my WordTwist addiction and my book addiction. I have been reading. Lots of cool stuff. So brace yourself.

That is all.

Wait, no it's not:
P.S. I think my children have sucked all my funny out. Along with my snarky and my smart. I am not deluding myself when I say I used to be quite a bit more clever. Now I am all, "Insert Blog Post A into Blog Reader B..."
Someday the funny will return.

*****
*Lawrence Kutner

“At least you'll never be a vegetable - even artichokes have hearts.”

In the good old days (read: pre-kids), I would take 5 or 6 books on vacation with me, and read 4 or 5 of them. What I was reading on vacation often required much more consideration than what I was wearing (although I must say, the little shift dress I picked up on a whim at Target the day before we left? PERFECT beach dress. Cool, comfy, and cute enough to go out for dinner or sit around on the deck with cocktails.).

I took 6 books with me this past vacation:
The second 39 Clues book, One False Note
A Ruth Rendell mystery, The Water’s Lovely, which I was already halfway through.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
The latest Charlaine Harris/Sookie Stackhouse novel
Swimming by Nicola Keegan
And Under the Banner of Heaven which I was also already halfway through.

I managed to finish the 39 Clues book one afternoon while the boys were in New Haven with H.
I managed about half of the newest Sookie one evening down the shore, when all the other adults fell asleep.

And that is it.

Man, vacation is not what it used to be.

Even my knitting took a vacation – I got lots done on the Hogwarts scarf while in the car (8 hours to CT, another 5 (DON’T ASK) down to Stone Harbor, then almost 8 back here), but otherwise, after one ridiculous day when 1) I thought I would get to sit on my beach chair and knit, and 2) said knitting got covered in sand, I gave up.

I spent one evening leafing through all the magazines in the beach house; Mrs S reads all sorts of good stuff and gets great catalogues as well. So, of course, I now have a list of other books I have to read….

What I’m reading now:
Little Bee - Chris Cleave. This book was almost too cutesy about itself; the flapcopy reads:
“We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.
It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:”
And then it goes on to a VERY brief admission that there are two women characters in this book and they meet at one point and then at another. And that is all.
But now that I am drawn into the book (100 pages in), I don’t care. It’s charming and wrenching and beautiful; I might be in love.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. This reminds me VERY much of my all-time favorite childhood book (and one of my just plain favorite books ever), Roller Skates. Calpurnia might be almost as wonderful as Lucinda Wyman.

Plenty: One man, one woman, and a raucous year of eating locally, from the originators of the 100-Mile Diet. The guy is a great writer; it’s a really intriguing topic, and so far, I recommend it.

What I got from the library but may not get to:
A Great and Terrible Beauty. I am not sure I am really in the mood for more vampires just now.
The Scenic Route. This was one of the magazine lists and I jotted it down, but I just happened to see it at the library yesterday. Eh. Seems more like a poor (wo)man’s Eat, Love, Pray, but I could be wrong.

What I bought today (oh, let me go off on a tangent and sing the praises of Half Price Books’ clearance shelves. I almost never even look at the regular priced stuff anymore unless I am looking for something VERY specific. Nevertheless, I did almost buy Ayelet Waldman’s Bad Mother – I don’t care if she is a train wreck, she’s a fine writer; and Gil McNeil’s The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club, which might be one of the most delightful and comforting books I have read in a long time and which reminded me very much of my beloved Hens Dancing):

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem. Because Lethem is a genius, and I need to reread this. I almost put it back, but then I opened it randomly waiting in line, and laughed out loud at the lines I read. Sold.
HomeLand - Sam Lipsyte. Um, why did I buy this? Looks good but can’t remember exactly how or why it crossed my radar.
City of Thieves - MUST get past gross revenge scene to appreciate the rest of this beautiful and haunting little novel.
Geek Love - Katherine Dunn. Ok, ok, I’ll try this AGAIN.
With Bold Knife and Fork - MFK Fisher. Always fun to read about food, from a master.

And what I ordered yesterday:
Knitalong. Because I need to make my little nephew a purple Meathead Hat.

And also, these dance sneakers.
Because I appear to be taking this gym/zumba thing seriously.
If I start wearing off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, someone slap me.


**********
*Amélie Poulain, whoever the heck that is

"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."*

**************
*Anne Morrow Lindbergh

NAGA~ BERSA~ATJ

Quick, quick, like a bunny...

Damn these kids. Primo has me unscrambling anagrams for his 39 Clues fixation.
Anyone know Russian geography better than I do?
And now I have to read the dang things. Grrr.

If you are a Raffaella Barker fan(Hens Dancing, Summertime) (and I am), you will like Gil McNeil's The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club. However, looking at that now I've typed it, I have no idea where they got that title.

Has anyone read Chris Cleave's Little Bee? Should I read it?

**********
*This is the one I totally cannot get. I THINK they are all Russian cities, but possibly not...is this cheating?

"They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead."

For you, a smattering of bookish thoughts.
I can barely form a coherent sentence these days: who has time to think straight? You’ll have to make do with this for the moment.

I caved and bought the newest Sookie Stackhouse; I couldn’t wait for it from the library. I haven’t started it though. It’s sitting tantalizingly on my nightstand. (Yes, since you ask, I was also the sort of child who hoarded her Halloween candy until her brothers’ candy was all gone.) I also bought the third Harper Connelly (and read it in an evening) and the first Lily Bard book, which also waits on my nightstand.

I borrowed a few anthologies from the library with Sookie stories in them: “One Word Answer” from Bite, which gives some of Hadley’s backstory, and “Dracula Night” from Many Bloody Returns. It was pleasant to have a Sookie fix while I steeled myself to spending twenty bucks on the hardcover Dead and Gone. (Eventually, I used one of the boys’ Easter B&N giftcards from their grandmother instead. Because THAT is the kind of mother I am.)

Richard Russo has a new book out; as I haven’t managed to slog through Bridge of Sighs, I doubt I will be running out to spend 30 dollars on the newest. I love love love his earlier books, but his last two were spotty at best. Philippa Gregory tackles the Plantagenets: The White Queen is released in late August. A Touch of Dead, billed as “Sookie Stackhouse: The complete stories” is released in October, as is the next Harper Connnelly book. And of course, A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book has an October release (finally!) here in the States.

Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven sat on my TBR pile for well over a year, but once I picked it up and started it (why is it you need to be in a certain mood to want to read and to enjoy certain books?), I couldn’t put it down. Fascinating stuff. Fundies are crazy, no matter which religion they are affiliated with.

I just started Ruth Rendell’s The Water’s Lovely. It’s one of those books that you THINK you have twigged from the beginning, but as it’s Ruth Rendell, I am quite sure I do not. I am sure I will enjoy the ride.

Jacqueline Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (thanks for the recc, Jess!), Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty, and Maggie Sefton’s Knit One, Kill Two wait for me at the library. My local branch is closed for 18 months for renovations, so I have been going to the next closest, in a kind of dicey, economically challenged neighborhood. At first I was a bit nervous, but the building is positively lovely (high ceilings, lots of marble and warm, rich wood), and the staff are incredibly sweet and totally happy that the East Liberty patrons are coming there for the duration. H doesn’t want me to take the kids there, as the neighborhood is somewhat well known for its gunfire and other crime, but I am happy enough to point out that the microbrewery where he picks up two growlers a week is only two blocks away from the library, and the middle-class minivanned people who buy beer there don’t let the thought of gunfire stop THEM.

And there you have it.

30 days till school starts.

************
*Cole Sear, "The Sixth Sense"

"It’s all this mistaken notion that if we avoid everything, we’ll avoid risk."

In the past week of summer vacation, I have permitted the following activities:

My eight-year-old stayed at home to play computer games while I and the three Littlers walked a block up to the little neighborhood market to buy cheese for dinner sandwiches that night.

My eight-year-old and six-year-old walked to the vending machines at the pool from the playground sort of next to the pool, to buy treats for themselves and their brothers after swim lessons. Then they went back again because Seg punched the wrong numbers into the vending machines and wound up with peanut butter crackers instead of a bag of Skittles. My friend M and I stayed at the playground, chatting and watching our Littlers play in the dirt and run around.

The three older boys roasted marshmallows and flung wood onto the fire, and traipsed around the woods collecting feathers and walnuts and leaves, and slept outside in a tent. I sat on a porch swing next to the fire with a bottle of Straub’s and my friend A and talked (when I wasn't bogarting their burnt marshmallows).

The two older boys and their friend rode their bicycles and scooter around and around the block and up and down the alley playing some sort of tag they made up involving Harry Potter and much loud casting of spells (their extremely common use of the Cruciatus curse might give me pause for concern...)

The three older boys ate popsicles on the front porch while I put the baby down for a nap upstairs.

The two older boys took my coupons and went and retrieved items I needed in other aisles of the grocery store while I waited for the damn fishman to give me my order.

The two older boys continued playing a game in the van (windows down but vehicle locked, of course, parked DIRECTLY in front of the coffee shop and with several people we knew sitting at the tables out front) while I ran into the coffee shop to pick up a (pre-called/ordered) latte.

None of these sound completely crazy, do they?

I mean, really REALLY beyond-the-pale crazy?

Because they are activities that have been a little tough for me. A little tough on my over-protective, overactive mothering instincts. Activities that frankly fly in the face of the helicopter parenting most of us practice (or are expected to practice) these days. While the boys were on the porch, I envisioned – I dunno – Jack the Ripper? White slavers? A slavering pedophile in a panel van looking for his puppy?

Yes, we live in the city, which means I lock my doors and car at night. I will not allow my children to play in the actual street. I am cordial but distant with strangers walking up and down the street.

But *I* grew up riding my bike where I pleased, and was pretty much left to my own devices most of the summer, and a lot of the rest of the year. (Remember this post?)

We kids ran up and down and IN the street, and we built treehouses in the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac (which incidentally backed up onto a major freeway, separated from our street by a cinder block wall and little else). We played hockey and kickball in the street ("CAR!"), and I was allowed to walk not only to my friend Roseann’s house at the end of the street, but to my friend Stacie’s house, across the previously mentioned highway (there was an overpass). I was permitted to walk down the street the other way to the pond, to fish and skate and to hang out with my friend Stephanie. I was permitted to ride my bike anywhere I could pedal it, which often included the 7-11, the movie theatre, and the ice cream store (all roughly within a mile radius).

In addition, I was sent away every single summer for weeks at a time to camp (and loved every blessed minute of it), where I had a large posse of friends I didn’t see the rest of the year; we ran around in the woods (sometimes in the middle of the night), canoed and kayaked and played in the creek; we climbed all over a ropes course and in the trees like monkeys; we camped outside, built large fires, learned to shoot a bow-and-arrow and a BB gun, and swam miles in the freezing cold pool at 5am to earn meaningless badges.

I was not only permitted but EXPECTED to walk the two long blocks to the bus stop and take a public bus three miles home from school in the winter months, when my mother didn’t drive due to snow (my older brother was with me most days, and this didn't start till I was in second grade). (One memorable snowy day, when my brother was not in school for some reason or another, I fell asleep and missed my stop. The bus driver turned around at the end of the route and drove me to my doorstep.)

I was a Free Range Kid.

Before the days of 24-hours-a-day news channels trumpeting every single missing child (and even some not really missing), before the days of Stranger Danger programs and the prominence of organized sports, before the days of your kids’ friends all living in the ‘burbs to which you must drive, I think most of us my age (39ish) were.

After reading Lenore Skenazy’s wonderful and reassuring book Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, I feel like a new convert.

Lenore Skenazy is passionate about her cause: Giving children — and their parents – freedom. For the kids, it’s the freedom to play outside without grown-ups, to make mistakes, to climb trees, to walk to school alone, to frolic. For their parents, it’s giving them the confidence to let go of irrational fears that make them to want to place their children under lock and key or 24/7 surveillance. Or both. (from Picket Fence Post.)

The zeal with which I am now actively trying to develop my children’s independence must necessarily (and wisely) be tempered by a number of factors. For example:

- Their ages –would I send the three-year-old to the vending machine alone? I WOULD NOT.

- By their personalities and common sense - Would I leave the six-year-old home alone for half an hour? I actually might, since my six-year-old is the most responsible of all my children – it might depend on where I was going, and how he felt about it.

- And by MY common sense: Would I drive my twelve-year-old to the local mall, along with a friend, and leave them in charge of three younger siblings, including a three-year-old? Boy, for all my zeal and independence-building, I sure would not. (I have an eight-year-old and a three-year-old. I would not trust them at a large public shopping mall with anyone but me, and sometimes I even wonder about me.)

Skenazy allowed her then-nine-year-old to ride the subway alone. For this feat of mothering confidence, she was interviewed all over national TV and vilified by lots and lots of plastic talking heads in the media. She discusses this reaction in her book, and she then goes on to discuss why we have become such a fearful and overprotective society. She backs up her strong opinions with solid empirical evidence, citing, among others, David Finkelhor, head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, and several prominent NY pediatricians (her own included). She cites numbers at a dizzying speed, debunking many of our long-held and weirdly cherished beliefs re: stranger kidnapping, online predators, cell phone use by children, and the need for toilet locks (I personally gave up toilet locks when I couldn't get one open at an, er, critical moment. Thank God we have two bathrooms). Her tone is friendly but firm; her writing style would seem most at home in a mommy blog (I don’t think that’s an insult, is it?).

I may be a little bit in love with her and her ideas, and if we lived in the same city, I would so find her and make her be my (enabling and supportive) mommy friend.

Would I let my nine-year-old ride the subway alone? Perhaps, if he’d grown up in NYC and was used to riding the subway with me and it was daytime and he didn’t have to switch trains...see how it goes? You have to use your parenting instincts and skills to make the best decision for you and for your child.

But you also must stretch a little, take a few chances – let them spread their wings and attempt a solo flight. Because eventually (dear God, I hope and pray) they grow up and move out and must do their own laundry, and believe it or not, little Junior needs to know how to turn on the stove and live in his own place and ride the subway to work at some point.

*******************
*Lenore Skenazy

"I shall gather myself into myself again..." *

I don’t like you.

Actually, I do, but it may seem like I don’t.

While I do indeed have several lovely and fun friends who go out and drink with me, or knit with me, or just hang out with me, I usually prefer to be by myself. I don’t require company to go get a beer, or to eat dinner out, or to see a movie, or to go shopping for yarn or clothes or books.
I really enjoy being alone.
The people for whom I forsake this aloneness are very few.
And I generally don’t do it for long, if I can help it.

Fortunately my husband is not too different, and we have our own separate lives (in addition to our mostly pleasant life together, that is, with our beloved, if demanding and perpetually going, children). I go out to browse a bookstore or the yarn shop, or to get a cup of coffee by myself, or run or swim for a long, solitary, fulfilling, time on a regular basis. We have separate bedrooms, and have for years. We both like our space, and our solitude.
I more than like it – I require it.

It’s not my fault. I get skittish and short and cranky if I am with other people for too long. Especially if I am with other people in a smallish space, and especially especially if there are other people there whom I don’t care for.

I have always regarded this as a personality flaw. Obviously, there is something fundamentally wrong with a person who so often disdains the company of the very nice, funny, smart people whom I am lucky enough to call my friends. I know I am VERY lucky that they put up with me and this oddity of personality. (Perhaps this is because many of my friends share this quirk to some degree?)

But, again, I can’t help it. My brain is wired this way. I need chunks of time to be by myself, to recharge my batteries, so I can venture out into polite society again.

And – again – I always thought of this somewhat shamefully, as a giant pointer to everything else that is screwed up in my weird brain. Until my dear friend A lent me her copy of Anneli Rufus’ Party of One – The Loner’s Manifesto.

Oh my God, the revelations.
The chapter on the emotional wrench of mandatory participation in family holidays.
The pages on eating alone. On enjoying eating alone.
The commiseration about how one can adore one’s children but at the same time need to be away from them, away from their constant, never-ending demands.
This simple explanation of what I go through just about every day:
“…time shared, even with true friends, often requires loners to put in extra time alone, overtime, to recharge. It is a matter of energy: As a rule, loners have less for the social machinery, the talk and sympathy. Our fuel runs out. That is what nonloners don’t understand about us, what they cannot see. We do not choose to have such tiny fuel tanks. These can be quite inconvenient. They are why we seem rude, when we are, why we seem bored and often are. Spaced-out and often are. Running on empty.
Not heartless. Not unappreciative. Not fools. We know the rest of the world has big tanks. We know they don’t know.”

And this:
“They [nonloners] do not understand that what we have to give is not always what others have to give…being friends with a loner requires patience and the wisdom that distance does not mean dislike.”

I have disentangled myself from several friends over the years who don’t get it. Who don’t understand why I don’t want to spend hours chatting on the phone, or seeing them every day. That I value their friendship and their time and all the things they can offer me (and selflessly do), but need some space. (Let’s not even venture into the thorny arena of my spotty and convoluted love life and ex-boy/girlfriends.)

Rufus explores the existence of the loner in film, in art, in literature. She delves into the plight of the loner forced to work in an office environment (cubicles ARE the devil’s handiwork). She examines the friendships and romantic relationships of the loner. She even discusses the miracle of the Internet, the boon of loners everywhere. (It’s much easier to find other loners online. Hi there! I’ll be going now…)

I read half of this book this afternoon, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
I may be sick, but there are other sickos just like me out there.

Reading this book was as good as therapy.

It’s ok to want to be alone.
It’s ok to enjoy your dear friends and then hole up for some solitude.
It’s ok.

Or at least – ha! irony! – I am not alone.

***********
"The Crystal Gazer," Sara Teasdale

I got nothing, people. Go look up your own quotes.

I am too fucking tired, and too thoroughly fed up, to exert any effort right now. Sorry.
I am probably just sick of all the screaming and crying and and whining and yelling - and that's just me.
Or maybe I am bitter that *I* am not going to BlogHer. Not like it matters. Not like any of the cool people would want to hang out with me, or even know who the hell I am. I should just shut up and go read another book. Since I seem to be channeling my inner junior-high-schooler ANYWAY.

Oh, GOOD.
The baby just wandered downstairs without any diaper.
And a poopy butt.
Fabulous.
God, I just fucking LOVE my life.

Go read Amalah: her book reviews made me laugh so hard I nearly peed myself.

They also made me feel marginally better.
Marginally.

"If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting."

Hey, all you peeps who make fun of me because of my Twilight thang?

And I retort by insisting I am channeling my inner thirteen-year-old?

Well, now I am channeling my inner nine-year-old:
Penguin to Release Last Green Gables Book in its Entirety

I don't think I could be any more excited if Marilla made me a dress with puffed sleeves and decided to rename me Cordelia.

"There is something very special about being away from your parents for the first time, sleeping under the stars, hiking and canoeing."*

Am on book 6 of the Sookie books. Can I tell you how pleased I was that Harris shakes it up a bit, and the series is about Sookie and her life, not just about her love affair with a vampire? Not that there’s anything wrong with women who love vampires. A friend mentioned the repetitive sentence structure of the Sookie books, but I must say I haven’t noticed. I HAVE noticed how funny they are, and how nailbitingly fast-paced they are. They are this summer’s perfect read.

I also went a leetle nuts at Persephone Press’s website (more complete post re: this later, with photos of the pretty, pretty books), but suffice it now to say that I started Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s The Home-Maker and am liking it immensely. I can decisively diagnose Evangeline Knapp with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and think she (and her family) would benefit greatly by regular, daily intake of 200mg of Zoloft. And maybe Ativan as needed. But then where would the novel be? Hmmm. What‘s more important, people, easing a person’s pain or maintaining an entertaining novel? Heck of a question….

I have a buttload of books waiting for me at the library across town (my regular branch is closed for renovations) but as I am depending on my not-so-reliable-in-this-arena husband to pick them up and bring them home, it may be a few days before I actually lay eyes on them. In the stack: Lenore Sken’s Free Range Kids and Penni Russon’s Undine, and the Kim Harrison novels which were mentioned in the same Salon article that turned me on to Sookie.

I sent my oldest off to camp today. It is not sleepaway camp, but it is a real honest-to-God, in the woods, archery and swimming and arts & crafts sort of camp. I think I may have been more excited than he was. I spent 8 summers at sleepaway camp (yeah, my mom didn’t like me much), and one of the single most joyful moments of my Facebook experience (and, oh, there are many), was reconnecting with my camp friends. The girls I met there each summer carried me through my year (which looking back now = odd, since reconnecting with my old high school friends via FB has also been wonderful. But then I guess we have all grown up a bit…)
Regardless, I am thrilled for my boy. (Although, I admit to some neurosis re: summer camp - shocked, you say? Ha. - have you read Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved? Excellent book, but a horrible thing happens to a beloved child at summer camp. I wake up in a cold sweat every now and then, thinking about it. But I am SURE Primo will be fine. He will be more than fine, he will have an awesome time.)

The rest of us will go to the playground to meet up with some other friends, and then zumba class at noon. Which, oh my God, is going to KILL me. Especially since I do not appear to be getting any thinner AT ALL. I just saw photos from last weekend when my husband’s Irish cousins were in town , and I AM A PORKER. I am not a small-boned person, but my frame is too small to be hefting around this weight, I merely look bloated, not healthy and pleasingly plump.

Anyhoo, then I have some sewing to do, and some packages to pack up to mail, and then I have to figure out what to feed this family for dinner. Because, oh, man, am I sick to death of chicken.

***************
*Jami Gertz

"...for your information not all vampires can take care of themselves." - Sookie Stackhouse

Dudes, I'd write a blog post but I am too busy gobbling down Sookie Stackhouse books. Am currently on number 4, and hey, guess what? My grocery store has all of them so I bought Books 5 and 6 and just sorta, yes, I admit it, put them on my grocery bill. Along with the doughnuts and milk and carrots and diapers...it's like, sorta, my bonus. Right? Right.

"Well, me don't swim too tough so me don't go in the water too deep."

There is NO better litmus test for an excellent book than: Does it cause one to ignore and/or neglect one’s offspring?

I am halfway through the second novel (Living Dead in Dallas) in Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series (yes, the one that HBO series “True Blood” is based on (but I have never seen it nor do I intend to because the vampires are NOT hot)). (The first book is Dead before Dark.)

Yesterday evening, after a nerve-wracking afternoon at the pool, I came home, put the baby in bed, ordered a pizza for the boys, poured myself a double rum-and-Coke, and sat on the couch reading until I finally had to put the Pokemon players to bed at 10 before my husband got home.

Sookie Stackhouse is everything Bella Swan is not: independent, strong, able to stand on her own two feet. (And did I mention NOT wildly annoying?) Also? Fully capable of denying her vampire boyfriend utter control over her and her life. If Bill Compton took a part out of Sookie’s car so she couldn’t go somewhere he deemed unsafe, I would bet, vampire or no, Bill would suffer for it.

Even better, Bill gets this. He admires it. He likes Sookie’s intelligence, self-sufficiency, and vigor. He thinks it’s HOT.

Now, seriously, I think Edward gets sort of a bad rap. It’s not HIS fault Bella’s blood smells like baco, er….his “own personal brand of heroin.” That scent could just as easily have belonged to a competent, determined, and self-sufficient young woman. I would bet Edward would rather have a Sookie Stackhouse of his own.

You know, if he couldn’t have me.

***************
*Bob Marley

"[T]he reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters."*

The summer reading begins.

I have no idea why I feel like I have so much more time to read in the summer; I probably have even less, what with all four boys home all day long, and keeping them busy and entertained (not to mention clean, clothed, and fed). But I often tackle bigger books, or books I have wanted to read for a while, or go on jags of, say, mystery novels featuring the same detective, or a bunch of different novels about one particular time in history or historical figure.

However, this first novel, Jean Heglund's Into the Forest, is a one-off, recommended by a school mom friend who used to be one of my closest friends; which is to say, while she may not spend lots of time with me now, we once not only worked together but socialized a lot and so she knows me rather well, even still. Because this book is right up my alley. Set in the near-ish future, modern civilization has deteriorated to a much more primitive society; there is no longer phone service, electricity or its attendant machinery, access to and/or practice of modern medicine, or much of anything that makes the 21st century what we expect. Two sisters, living rurally with their parents, are the heroines of the novel, if heroine is a word one can use in this context. Think Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, only not quite so godawfully bleak. But close. Awfully damn close. There’s a lot more revealed about what’s happened to society in this novel, and there’s much more plot, but the feel is the same. It’s not as desolate and shattering as The Road, but it is ultimately as horrifying.

I am concurrently reading Philip Henshaw’s The Northern Clemency, [UPDATED: Hensher, NOT Henshaw; I apologize to Mr Hensher, but my criticism still stands.] which is this giant sprawling novel that meander sit sway through several families and their lives during several particular timeframes. So far, so good, but I find the proofreading errors maddening. I suppose it’s not Henshaw’s fault that his editor didn’t catch the homonym misspellings, or the mixing-up of similar character names, but it’s truly distracting, and takes away from the importance and prestige of being a Booker finalist.

I also just started Jose Saramago’s Blindness, am only about thirty pages in.

I thoroughly enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl (I must see the movie now), and have several of her other novels waiting for me (on my pretty new bookshelves), probably The Boleyn Inheritance up next. I also have Emma Brown, Charlotte Bronte’s unfinished manuscript, used as the jumping off point for Clare Boylan’s own novel, sitting around, and also Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge.

Jennifer Weiner has a new novel coming out in July, a friend just sent me The Brothers K with a note simply saying, “Read this,” I have three books winging their way (or sailing and that’s what’s taking so long?) across the Atlantic from Persephone Press (more on those later), and I think I may send to the Land of the Frozen North for the newest AS Byatt instead of patiently waiting for it to emigrate to the States.

Ok, so, this summer, who’s reading what at the beach, or in your backyard, or at the pool? Big fat novels, long-planned-on classics, or celebrity gossip mags with delicious photos of RPatz? Do tell.

**************
*Jose Saramago

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."*

I probably don't rave about blogs I enjoy nearly often enough. I really like Crooked House - it's funny, smart, and Stephany and I share an adoration of the printed word. Um, like, maybe, an unhealthy obsession...also, she turned me on to the beauty of paper-cut artwork. Also also, you want to check out the links on her left sidebar, under "Take a Look"...fun stuff.

But, most importantly, Stephany just had her baby (also, was she early? Because I thought I had another month....must go finish, ahem, baby gifts, furiously fast...)

Congratulations on the birth of your little girl, Stephany! (Looking forward to seeing photos, if you are so inclined.)

Congratulations to your husband and to the baby's big brother!

And Sylvie, welcome to the world, little one. You were anxiously awaited and are lovingly welcomed by a sort-of-stranger hundreds of miles away; don't let that freak you out : )

P.S. I am glad your mother did not name you Renesmee.

************
*Carl Sandburg

Spit shine your shoes, Mabel, we're going dancing with Lord Stanley!

We love you, Penguins...
(and Sid the Kid, youngest captain to ever win the Cup, and all-around class act!)

Oh, yes, we do!
(And not just cuz you're 1) freaking adorable with your little beard, your floppy hair, and your cute French accent - oh, yeah, and your awesome goalie skillz! and 2) you scored two freaking goals! Clutch, baby!)


We love you, Penguins, and we'll be true!
(Unlike Marian Hossa, the big loser! Take that, jerk! From my hilarious and awesome friend Allison: "When you change lines at the grocery store because you think the other line is shorter, you always know what will happen, right? Now, that will forever be known as pulling "A Hossa.")


When you're not with us (but in Detroit!), we're blue (except we're not 'cause you won the Cup!)


Oh, Penguins, WE LOVE YOU!!!!

“I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

Or, "I don't want to work, I just wanna play with my books all day..."



My new bookshelves are installed.
Merry Christmas to me!
Easily one of the best Christmas presents I have ever received.
As I expected, the space was perfect for bookshelves, almost as if that was what should have been there from the very start.

Now this can be dealt with:
And now, the fun but difficult part begins: what books belong on these shelves, these shelves in my bedroom - that most intimate of spaces, the shelves closest to my bed and therefore my heart...I foresee some books being relegated to downstairs, even as some of my favorites from downstairs (AS Byatt, Salman Rushdie, Andrea Barrett) are transferred upstairs.

This could keep me entertained for days, if not weeks.
**************

*Anna Quindlen

Mako sharks can swim up to 60mph, and are probably the fastest fish in the ocean.

Reading:

The House at Riverton - by Kate Morton.
Everyone is talking about her other book, The Forgotten Garden, and I have that on hold at the library. But in the meantime, a librarian friend recommended this, her debut novel. What a good read, and would make a truly terrific movie. I recommend it.

The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King. King’s latest installment in the Mary Russell series. As usual, I am finding it slow, and I put it down and pick it up – Kind doesn’t write nailbiters. But it’s lovely, and I know the entire book will come together into a fulfilling reading experience, as the Russell novels do.

Twilight. The first time I read it, I whipped through it. I skimmed tons. The writing isn’t any better, but I can ignore that now since I have the movie running in my head while I am reading.

The Pure in Heart - Susan Hill. Simon Serrailler, Hill’s tall, blonde, and complicated detective, reminds me of a cross between Elizabeth George’s Thomas Lynley, and Val McDermid’s Tony Hill, with a soupcon of Martha Grimes’ Richard Jury thrown in. It verges more on the psychological side of the mystery, much like George, but is slightly more – workaday. Not a police procedural, though. I saw the newest one on the BestSellers’ shelf at the library, but tracked down the oldest one at that location; I am also interested in reading the first one.

I’ve also bought a ton of books – the church book sale is on again, and I traded a bunch of stuff in to Halfprice Books about a month ago. And my built-in bookcases are being installed Monday. So I will have another opportunity to play with, er, sort my books. But for now, I am going to bed with the Susan Hill book and some cherry cordial Hershey Kisses. I swam a little over half a mile this evening; I figure I can eat some chocolate. (See, Jess, I am still talking about books. In fact, I have a post brewing about swimming in novels. It's what i think about as I stroke up and down the pool, slow as a -- snail? Or a slow fish? Can anyone think of a slow fish? Hmmm....)

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men.

Totally stole this idea from Linda over at All and Sundry.

Holiday weekend in 46 words or less:

Alphabetizing, new bikes, hamburgers on the grill, first cherries of the season, Penguins hockey, good friends and drinks on the front porch, sudden thunderstorms, sweaty runs round the reservoir, cherry tart and peanut butter cookies, freshly cut grass, flags and gratitude and memories of my dad


*******
*Minot J. Savage

"There's truth, but no logic." *

“The Fields of Athenry,” that festive and jolly Irish song, is a big bedtime hit round these parts.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling:
Michael, they are taking you away
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So our young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

[Chorus]
Low lie the Fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly.
Our love was on the wing, we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Athenry.

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling:
Nothing matters, Mary, when you’re free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled, they cut me down.
Now you must raise our child with dignity.
[Chorus]

By a lonely harbor wall
She watched the last star falling
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky.
Now she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay.
It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry.

Cheery, yah?

Tonight, Terzo sleepily asks, “What does a prison ship look like? Does it have smokestacks?”

Me (to myself: Please, please shut up so you don’t wake the baby so I will tell you anything you want to hear): Yes. Yes, it does have smokestacks.

T: "How many?"

Me (How the FUCK should I know? so I pluck a not-so random number out of the air (the Titanic, always a compelling topic of conversation here, had 4, but only 3 functioned; ipso facto, my random number choice): Three.

T, perking up a bit [No, no, PLEASE go to sleep]: "So it looks like the Queen Mary?"[And I have no fucking clue, so don't ask me how he knows about the Queen Mary. If it's a ship that sank or had anything to do with a ship that sank (the QM was a Cunard line ship), my guys know ALL about it. But who am I to shut down their morbid fascinations? says the Plague Queen.)

Me: Sure. (And why the hell not?)

T: "Ok, keep singing, but skip some words. I’m tired."

Thank God he didn’t bother asking about lifeboats.

*************
*Rose, in "Titanic"

"You are so bizarre, even for a human."

***********
*Alice Cullen, New Moon

"I like pie!"

Will someone PLEASE tell me what the fuss about this little book is?
It won some serious awards (2007 Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger, as well as being one of Amazon's and Powell's top books of 2009), and the word of mouth is creeping slowly around the Internet. (Should the enthusiastic endorsement of Ian Sampson, author of another tiresome detective novel, have warned me off? Perhaps.)

In fact, if you are one of the bloggers I read who have mentioned this book but still haven’t read it, you might want to leave now (and please come back another day) because this post may sorely disappoint you - there’s almost nothing that disappoints me more than reading a meh review of a book I have long anticipated.


OK, in its corner:
Flavia, the 11-year-old protagonist? Charming and funny and quirky.
Um, also in its corner – I got a kick out of the way the policemen in the book cope with Flavia.
The chemistry bits are very well done, and Flavia's passion for poison is entertaining at the very least.

But I am afraid mostly I have cons:
The mystery was at times unfollowable and also wildly disjointed and unlikely.
The plot was weirdly similar – especially the denouement – to something else I have read, but I can’t put my finger on which book.
The criminals were one-dimensional.
As were most of the supporting players.
And also its main character, charming as she may be (although some of her one-dimensionality is due to the rest of the book's lack of detail).
Even the lovely intrigue of the title did not live up to its potential.

I kept waiting for this book to start. And I like quiet mysteries - they don't all have to be nail-biting psychological thrillers - Josephine Tey's old-fashioned English mysteries are some of my favorite bookks in life. But this just felt - unfinished.

Sweetness reminded me of the first Maisie Dobbbs – I got through it because it was pleasant enough, (and fortunately for Maisie, it did build up to some other fine books) but it read like a YA novel. It was very – surface. Everything in the book – plot, characterization, back story – all very superficially expository. I suppose the author (is some of the fuss because he's a first-time author at age 70?) will reveal more as the series goes along, but I am pretty sure I don't care.

I was so disappointed.

**********
*Primo's latest catchphrase

"...you are utterly absurd."*

I swore I was not doing this meme.
But Eleanor is a rock star in my world.
And she tagged me.
So here we go:

What are your current obsessions?
Jodi Picoult novels, Twilight/Flat Edward, Penguins hockey, cherry cordial Hershey Kisses

Which item from your wardrobe do you wear most often?
My Old Navy sweetheart-cut jeans – comfy, cute, and perfectly faded.

What's for dinner?
God only knows.

What's your greatest fear at the moment?
That we are out of rum. And that H won’t get home till 7pm, as is his wont lately.

What are you listening to?
Seg drumming in the basement, Primo smacking a hockey ball around the yard, and some neighbor playing a lovely concerto

If you were a goddess what would you be?
A goddess? Me? Surely you jest.
I’d be one of the Vestal Virgins and I’d be sacrificed.

What are your favourite holiday spots?
The Jersey shore (Stone Harbor)
New Orleans

What are you reading right now?
The third Traveling Pants book, Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Reading and eating chocolate in bed after everyone else is asleep
Watching Twilight 14 times.

Who or what makes you laugh?
Tina Fey.
Terzo.
My friend A who is sarcastic and funny and does great impressions.
Julia.
Mimi Smartypants

What is your favourite spring thing to do?
Going to the park after school, with snacks, juice boxes, the soccer ball, and the boys. I optimistically bring my knitting AND a book. And everybody is up there, and I get to hang out with all my mom friends.

Where are you planning to travel next?
Oh, sweet Jesus. Who cares as long as it’s not with my children?

What is the best thing you ate or drank lately?
Ate: Panera’s grilled chicken Caesar salad
Drank: That cold Penn Pilsner last Monday night tasted awesome

When was the last time you were tipsy?
I truly can’t remember, which either means it’s such a standard state of affairs that it doesn’t register, OR I have remarkable self-control. (I will bet on A.)

What is your favourite ever film?
"Moonstruck"

What is the biggest lesson you've learned from your children?
That I was not cut out to be a mother.

What song can't you get out of your head?
“We Are the Champions”

What book do you know you should read but refuse to?
There is no book I SHOULD read but refuse to. The books I refuse to read most decidedly do not deserve to be read.

What is your physical abnormality/abnormal physical ability?
All of my fat lives on my stomach so I still look six months pregnant?
I like my feet?
My teeth are naturally so yellow it’s embarrassing?

What is your favourite colour?
Green or grey

****

Edward Cullen, Twilight, Ch. 4, p.82

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.”

So, I read Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.

If it had been my first, I still might not have felt about it the way I did about Handle with Care, mostly because the mother in this one was so despicable. Utterly awful, not just clueless like Charlotte. I hated her, I thought she was immature and manipulative and a BAD mother; I even had issues with her morality. (I am beginning to suspect that Ms. Picoult has issues with her mother.) However – it was still a great read that I had a tough time putting down. I enjoyed the auxiliary characters (Jesse, Julia, even Campbell), or at least was completely engrossed by them; I enjoyed the secondary plots; I liked the dad very much. I actually liked Kate (the sister with cancer) even more than I liked Anna, but it’s possible I didn’t much like her because of a deliberate choice on the author’s part to make her seem weak and waffly, which fed into the plot and may have helped the author develop the issues and conflicts inherent in the plot.

I have Nineteen Minutes and Vanishing Act on request from the library; meanwhile, I am halfway through the third Traveling Pants books and am still completely enchanted with them. They are sweet and charming, and as Gina says, they make me want to hug the book. I used some of my birthday gift certificate to buy the 3rd and 4th ones (I got the first 2 at the thrift store).

I was asked to take Primo to the bookstore also, so he could buy a “totally awesome and cool” book his friend R had, For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever. He has had his nose buried in it since we bought it, except for a brief moment when our backyard neighbor came over to visit and asked if she could see it. That’s right – SHE. He was horrified: “It’s for BOYS!” and he ran away into his room like a 16-year-old in a fit of pique.

I was also forced – forced, I tell you! – to purchase this and this, and this, because my children know I can say No to many things, but almost never to books, especially ones on clearance for three dollars apiece and with a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. Of course, I was forced to take in return the B&N gift cards their grandmother had given them for Easter, since I’d just spent all MY birthday Borders card on THEM.

But that’s only fair, right? Because I still need this and this and this.

*****
*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Chicks love that romantic crap."

We were watching "Shrek" tonight.
As usual, when it is over, we have the conversation about who gets to be which character.
I, of course, being the only female, am Fiona.

Me: "Do I have to be Fiona fat and ugly and green?"
Seg: "Ma, you're not really fat."

***************
*Donkey, "Shrek"

"I hope you haven't been showing off - it's rude."

Shamelessly pimping out my new blog:
Flat Edward.

Flat Edward was a birthday gift from my loony but loving friend P. He's very cool, but he gives me a freaking heart attack every time I walk into whatever room I have moved him to, in futile attempts to prevent said heart attacks.

Yah, I need a life. Get over it. I have.

******
*Esme Cullen, Twilight

"We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by."*

Looky! Thanks to Loretta, I now know this is out, a full SIX MONTHS before it will be released in the States. What, I ask, is the point of THAT? I am about to order it and pay for it in Canadian dollars. (Thank you, VISA.)

**********
*A. S. Byatt

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind...

My name is Babelbabe, and I am a snob.
(hangs head in shame).

Not a people snob (except I don‘t like stupid people). (Sorry, stupid people.)

Not even a food snob – I have been known to indulge in the occasional Pringle “potato” chip (er, should that be “potato” “chip”?) or Sno-Ball.

No, a book snob. I am sure this won’t come as a surprise to most of you.
But usually, I am RIGHT.

Danielle Steele? Check.
Twilight? Check.
John Grisham. Check.

All trash. Badly written trash, for the most part. Formulaic trash.

But.
But today, I stand before you to tell you: I was wrong about Jodi Picoult.

Wrong.
Deep down, to the bone, WRONG. And I am so sorry.

On the recommendation of high school friends (did I ever post about the Every Child Left Behind weekend? I don’t think I did. The name says it all.), I read Jodi Picoult’s Handle with Care.

People, I could NOT put it down. I finished it in 2 days. I can’t recall the last time I did that, the last time I carried a book around the house with me, to read whenever I had a spare moment or two.

I was completely captivated. Picoult’s character development was flawless; I cared so deeply about even the unsympathetic ones, and I was able to at least somewhat comprehend their complicated and conflicted reasoning. Her plotting was intricate without being plodding. The book is clearly intensively and extensively researched, without being all “Look how much *I* know!” There were subtle turns of phrase, and even subtler turns of events, all which delighted and made sense within the story. Perhaps it’s because this is my first Picoult, but the ending blew me away. Her novels may be formulaic, but the formula is executed beautifully and, again, subtly. Subtle is key here. It is what separates Picoult from the other hacks churning out novel after novel after novel.

She may be predictable, but you don’t realize you’re being led by the nose until you’re done and the spell is released.

Dudes, I ignored my children whining for lunch to read this book. (My husband WAS home at the time.) I hid in the bathroom, pretending to take a shower, to finish it.
Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?

Now – I am requesting a few more of Picoult’s books from the library today, and we’ll see if she upholds this standard. Somehow, I suspect that she does. I am looking forward to finding out.

"You say it's your birthday (nananananananana)! It's my birthday, too, yeah!"

The trouble with 39 is that it’s the END of something. You’d think 40 would be more traumatic, but as with the end of my twenties, the -9 birthday is the problem. I feel old. I feel old and wrinkled and grey. When you turn 40, you’re BEGINNING something. Even if it’s another decade, it’s a START. Suddenly you’re young again, you’re “only” 40, to the people who are well into their forties already. I know it’s all in the perception – I KNOW this. But I am having a tough time with 39.
Not that I had a tough time with my birthday, mind you. I had a perfectly lovely birthday.

First of all, people, it was sunny and 70 degrees here on Saturday. B.L.I.S.S. Warm enough to wear a skirt and my Tevas, warm enough to open all the windows and blow the winter fug right out of the house.

Secondly, I was permitted to sleep in till eight. EIGHT. That’s bigtime sleeping in round these parts. (This is also how one knows she is entering her fifth decade, and not, say, her third.)

I was greeted first thing in the morning by this guy standing on my front porch.
My very sweet friend P dropped him off early in the morning, and he was welcomed warmly and stood up in the front hall. Seg is the only one who views him with complete equanimity; he walks by, pats him fondly, and says, “Hi, Ed!” The rest of us had at least smallish heart attacks at least once that day, and the baby eyes him with great trepidation and refuses to let go of my leg within a ten-foot radius.

Edward Cullen isn't sure he likes his new adoptive brothers. For one thing, even for humans they don't smell so good, and for another, they're so LOUD. Plus, Edward doesn't GET hockey.

Seg gave me his card almost immediately: How…odd. Edward is smiling. So is Bella. How very strange. And unlikely.
(Also - the red? He explained, "It's blood." Oh. Kay.)
Inside is – not me and him, as I originally suspected, but me and EDWARD. Oh boy. Perhaps an intervention IS in order. (I told him I’d rather spend eternity with him than Edward, and he beamed.)

The boys had hockey playoffs all day (Team Green lost in the first round. Boo!), and then we went to our favorite diner for burgers and chicken fingers and French fries and milkshakes (the boys) and pie (me and H). THEN we all came home and everybody took a nap (Except the baby and me. Wah! Not fair!)

I was given a ticket to a backyard hockey game between the Winston Animals and the Groveland Stuffers. (Now, I am a Schinkadabonketa fan myself, but apparently they got knocked out in the first round also.) (Don’t ask me, Primo made up all the team names a long time ago. I just root for whom I am told to root for.) Once I put my foot down and told the boys I would watch 6-minute periods, NOT 20-minute periods, they broke out the sticks and their stuffed animals and gave me a rousing spectacle of a hockey game. For the record? The Stuffers won, which isn’t surprising since all the biggest stuffed animals play for the Stuffers.

When the mail came, my high school friend J had sent me a copy of my favorite (so far) Georgette Heyer! Do you know how hard it is to find used Georgette Heyers? Almost impossible. But she bid for The Grand Sophy on eBay and won it, and sent it off to me. How sweet is that?!

Round about what would have been dinnertime (but we were all still too full of pie and milkshake to contemplate more food), I opened my “real” gifts: a gift card to Borders, and a gift certificate to the spa, and this volume, which it must have pained my husband greatly to buy:

After the boys were in bed, I went to my friend E’s, and we sat on her porch and drank cocktails and ate tortilla chips, and talked for hours in the balmy spring air. It was lovely. (When I got home at midnight, Flat E gave me a heart attack again, and I took His Vampireness upstairs to my sewing room, where my deftness with a quilting needle will impress him wildly and make him desire my blood. Like, um, Sleeping Beauty, or something. Yeah.)

When I thanked H for a wonderful birthday, he looked at me like I was nuts. But it was fun and busy and it’s always nice to find out how many people care about me. I got awesome, thoughtful gifts, and lots of Facebook greetings and emails and phone calls, and I felt very loved.

My mom always said her forties were her best decade; I am looking forward to mine. After all, I have a year of being 39 to get my act together.

"The third engineer promised to show me the propeller shaft!" *

I keep dreaming about being on the beach with my children, and watching a rogue wave coming towards us on shore, looming ever closer and ever larger. I watch it begin to crest, craning my neck upward to see the foam at the top. I know it is bigger than any wave I have ever seen before, and I know I cannot possibly run fast enough with my children – or even by myself, for that matter – to outrun it. And yet I try, I MUST try. Every single time, I try, and every single time, I wake up before the wave breaks, before we are all engulfed, just at the moment when I KNOW there is no hope.

Yeah, I don’t need a psychiatrist to tell me what this dream means.

I can’t recall my life ever being this crazy before.
And it’s not like it’s glamour-crazy, jet-setting and polo matches and charity galas and evening gowns.
It’s not like I am running for VP.
It’s not like I am singlehandedly running a Fortune 500 company or engineering buyouts.

I don’t know what it is.
I find it difficult to believe that only one small baby, despite being the fourth, suddenly created this tsunami of activity. Or one eight-year-old and one six-year-old with friends to see and sports to play. Or one small three-year-old who cheerfully goes along for the ride, no matter what the event.

I know this:

I take the boys to school and pick them up from school. I take them to piano lessons. I take them to hockey practices and games, or stay home and watch the younger guys while H takes the older boys to these things. I take all 4 boys to the eldest’s soccer practices and games. I take them to the dentist and the pediatrician. I drop them off at their friends’ houses or pick up their friends to come to our house. I take the little ones to playdates or the toy lending library or the zoo. I go to the library and the post office and the pet store and the pharmacy and the dry cleaners and the office supply store. I call the plumber and the handyman and the pediatrician and the babysitter and the other babysitter and my mother-in-law and the school.

I construct approximately 20 pb&j sandwiches a week and pack ten lunches and fix real food for dinners (that no one eats anyway) and nurse the baby and change a dozen diapers a day and swab down bathrooms and pack away summer clothes and unpack winter clothes (and vice versa) and supervise homework and distribute snacks and grocery shop and give the little guys baths and supervise the older guys’ showers. I clip toenails and clean ears and trim hair. I read Pokemon books and Goodnight Moon and Dr Seuss, each night, every night, at bedtime.

I buy them new underwear and new socks and new backpacks and new sneakers and new gloves and new notebooks, and more socks and more notebooks. I buy H new jeans and new sneakers and new underwear.

I buy storage containers for their dress clothes and new markers to replace dried out ones and Playdoh and more Playdoh and power cords for the computer and lampshades for the new lamps and new running shoes. I buy Christmas and birthday presents and stash them away. I fill Easter baskets and make or buy cupcakes and treats for school parties.

I run the dishwasher and unload the dishwasher and load it up and run it again.

I sort the clean laundry and put it away and gather up all the dirty clothes into another mountain of laundry. I start my day by putting wet laundry in the dryer and another load of dirty clothes into the washer, and I end the day the same way.

I ask Terzo roughly twenty times a day if he needs to pee or poop in the potty. I supervise these attempts and then change his clothes and bathe him when he waits too long and has an accident.

I wipe down the kitchen counters and table and wipe them down again when the boys spill juice on them or smear peanut butter or jam on them. I open yogurts and peel bananas and apples and grill cheese and butter bread.

I wipe out lunchboxes and then pack today’s lunch into them.

On days when I have my babysitter, I edit other people’s papers and format their references and check their spelling and then I invoice them and keep track of who has paid what invoice and whose paper is due when.

I do know that I feel like I never have a moment of unaccounted for time.
I am rarely alone.
And when I am, I should probably be sleeping.
I am not complaining.
I am truly just trying to figure out, where does my time go?
Am I mismanaging my time?
Should I punt the fifteen minutes of yoga every morning, to get more done of...what?
To shower every day instead of the every other day I am averaging now?
I need four hours a week to run, and am not managing to carve that out.
I desperately need a haircut.

H got a promotion that we have been waiting on for a while; I am very pleased and proud of him, but his work hours just got longer. He went from 8- to 9-hour days to 12- to 13-hour days. He leaves even earlier so he can get to the gym to swim. He routinely works Sundays now. This won’t be the case forever, but for the foreseeable future, it is.

He has told me, We have more money coming in now. We will get you help. But I don’t even know where to start. What sort of help do I need? A housecleaner? A gym membership with daycare? A regular babysitter? Swimming lessons and a life preserver?
I have never been in this situation before, and I don’t know what would be most useful and most thrifty.
Suggestions, comments, input?
Help?

*************
*Robin Shelby, "The Poseiden Adventure"

"Excuse me, but what's an Easter?"

When did Easter become the new Christmas? When I was a kid, we got an Easter basket full of drugstore chocolate, and jelly beans, and these really cool caramel popcorn bunnies. Each kid got a 1-pound chocolate egg, with filling of choice (mine was always coconut cream), from a little candy store in my town called Duffy’s. And we were allowed to EAT all this crap.

Since we (oh so modern parents) limit the sweets my kids eat, a basket full of chocolate would just be taunting them. I would probably find chocolate-smeared wrappers jammed under the couch cushions (like I used to find Twizzler plastic stuffed down the laundry chute before I wised up and hid the Twizzler box).

Honestly, I wouldn’t even have begun this crazy Easter basket tradition, but my next door neighbor’s kids went on and on about their Easter baskets to my wide-eyed boys, so one Saturday-before-Easter night a few years ago, I made emergency baskets for my (then only) two children – fruit snacks, and Teddy grahams, and some stickers.

This year, hockey cards, and stickers, and new socks (yeah, that’s the way I roll, dudes – but seriously, what do these kids do, gnaw on their socks with their razor-sharp teeth?), and some jelly beans and a few pyramids of Toblerone, and some gel pens and mini notebooks (what did we do before the dollar bins at Target?). And so the ridiculous tradition is upheld.

I don’t mind dyeing eggs – especially since we go to our church to do it. Everyone shows up with their hardboiled eggs, and a few parents deal with dye and stickers and crayons and whatever hot new egg-decorating trend, and at the end of the afternoon, everyone goes home with some eggs and leaves some eggs to be hidden for tomorrow’s egg hunt after the service. With any luck, when a child (and it’s ALWAYS one of mine) overturns a dye pot, it’s onto the linoleum floor and easily mopped up. It’s perfect. (We will be leaving all of our eggs as I am the only one round these parts who will eat hard-boiled eggs. And even I won’t touch the ones that have been sitting outside under the bushes and tucked in tree hollows and manhandled by dozens of snotty-nosed toddlers. Hence, my purchase of four dozen medium size cheap (read: NOT free-range organic) eggs.)

As for Easter finery, *I* will be wearing whatever I can jam my fat ass into. Which probably means the same A-line skirt I wore last year, topped with the same green blouse. Or maybe, my new linen camp shirt from Old Navy (why can’t this shirt come in some other decent colors, like black or dark green?)

As for my kids – my children look like homeless people on the best of days. I doubt we will be trimming their overgrown, rockstar hair this evening. I will be happy if I can get them into decent, collared shirts, and their “nice” shoes (read: fashionable sneaker-y type dress shoes) with a minimum of screaming and tantrums.

And even happier if I can get them to keep those clothes on to go to Grandma’s for Easter dinner.

For which I am making a lemon pound cake.

And taking my knitting along. (I am making this. In purple and lime green and turquoise. For a college friend’s first baby.)

Because the only thing more boring than the “12 Days of Christmas” sing-along we are required to participate in on Christmas Eve? The plastic egg hunt for the kids at Easter dinner.

So, happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it.

Happy Passover to the appropriate people (although, really? Happy? What with the plagues and whatnot, happy is not necessarily the greeting I would choose. IS it Happy? Ah, my friend D to the rescue: Hag Sameyach.)

And as I have decided to begin my own Easter tradition, here: have some David Sedaris: Jesus Shaves.

“The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the countless miracles - my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.
A bell, though, that's fucked up.”

"May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen."*

What has been dubbed "The Stanton Heights Tragedy" has been on my mind so much these past few days. New details emerge - horrifically, the 911 dispatcher neglected to mention the suspect had weapons in the house. (Yesterday there was another incident about 6 blocks from me involving a home invasion and the Pittsburgh police and the SWAT team. The poor guys can't catch a break, but I am also telling you criminals out there, now is NOT a good time to be shooting at a police officer in this town.)

All three of the officers were from our neighborhood's zone. It's distinctly possible that one or any of these men responded to my or my neighbors' calls when our vehicles were broken into, or we smelled gas, or someone stole our trashcans (don't ask).

I am doing all I can - holding them in my thoughts and prayers, donating what I can to the families. A friend and I took a cake and some muffins up to the police station yesterday - you know me, my knee-jerk response to just about anything is to bake, and who could use comfort food right now more than the colleagues of the slain officers, who are themselves also always in danger?

**********

Officer Kelly

*******

Officer Mayhle


*********


Officer Sciullo

*************

"To protect and serve."
These men could not have done a finer job. Thank you, and may you rest in peace.


**********
*Litany at the Time of Death,
from the Book of Common Prayer,
The Episcopal Church

The Thin Blue Line

I started several different posts last night, after the family birthday party hullaballoo. The cousins and grandparents departed; Seg, asleep on the couch, not feeling well all through the festivities, was finally tucked up in bed; I settled down with a cup of tea.
What was I reading?
How was the weekend down the shore?
Why after all was the end of nursing my babies so sad?
But my mind kept racing. I almost obsessively clicked on site after site of local news stations and newspapers. I kept returning to this:

Gunman Kills Three Pittsburgh Police Officers

In short, Pittsburgh police were called to a domestic dispute around 7 a.m. Saturday, in Stanton Heights (a quiet, fairly safe little community) and when they arrived, the man inside the house opened fire with an AK-47. In the end, three policeman were dead, two more seriously wounded, and the suspect was captured alive. His mother, holed up in the basement, was safe, as were the rest of the family.

I will save the editorializing.
I am heartsick.
This sort of thing does not happen in Pittsburgh.

But this sort of thing just did.

And three men who were doing their jobs, with dedication and honesty and integrity, are gone from this earth.
They leave behind grieving wives, small children, a fiancee.
Families, friends, colleagues.

A community who weeps for them.

"Take a sad song and make it better..."

My little Segundo is 6 today.

My April Fool's baby.

His was the easiest labor, the easiest delivery, and probably the best story (We were rear-ended at a stoplight on the way to the hospital at 11pm. H was practically dancing with rage in the road, I have never seen him so angry. The poor teenage girls who hit us were too frightened to get out of the car. I just kept timing contractions; they were 7 minutes apart at the stoplight, and by the time I got to the hospital 6 blocks away, they were coming every two minutes. I slept through labor, all night, before he was born at 9am-ish, and when I pushed him out, he was so ready to emerge into this world that he practically hit the far wall.)

He looks like his dad, but with my fair coloring. He is my only baby to stay blond. He has intense blue eyes, and a sharp, pointy nose, and long legs, and he is beautiful.

He is sweet and steady and slowly beginning to feel his way through his world, dealing with his at times overbearing older brother, and his oh-so-charming younger brother. He delights in the baby. He is gentlemanly and kind; the gravitas he displays is beyond his years.

But he can laugh. Oh, he can laugh. He loves potty humor, and silly puns, and stupid knock-knock jokes. He was the only one intent on fooling me today.

He can be stubborn, even downright contrary. But he is merely testing the waters, as any healthy young child should do.

He is smart; his excitement when he figured out he could read was delightful. He is a dedicated artist, and an earnest musician. Watching his piano lessons this past year has been a joy. The way he squares his skinny shoulders and lays his fingers on the keys makes my heart clutch in my chest. He practices just about every morning, not only without complaint, but eagerly.

He will be the son who cares for me in my old age (should I be lucky enough to get that far). He will do it willingly and happily, and I pray I am never ever a burden or embarrassment to him. All I need to put a smile on my face is to picture him running out of school, flying down the steps and slamming into me, into my arms for a hug, with laughter and joy and love.

Oh, how I love him.
Happy Birthday, my sweet darling boy.
The day you were born was one of the happiest of my life.

*************
*"Hey Jude," The Beatles