On Pumpkin Pie November 20, 2009

I’m not sure when Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday, but bits and pieces from my childhood point to its being favored above all other holidays, even Christmas.  I’ve always been a girl who’s loved to eat, so a holiday centered around so much food is right up my alley.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the focus on gratitude and colored leaves and the big movie releases, too.  Basically, I love everything about Thanksgiving (though I could do without the football and the Black Friday shopping), but the food is probably the best part.  Namely, the pumpkin pie.  I don’t know how I ended up loving pumpkin pie so much, but I just can’t get enough of it.  You know those half pies that Publix sells?  Well, I have eaten the whole half pie in one sitting (more than once).  Truth be told, I could probably polish off an entire pie, but I’ve never tried.

 

About a month ago, we were chatting with C & M before church began one Sunday.  It came out that Clark Kent was heading to the States for two weeks and would be home over Thanksgiving.  ”No, I’m not going.  It’s too expensive.”  I guess they felt a little sorry for me because by the time the kids were released to go to their activities and the grown-ups turned to greet their neighbors, C & M invited me to their home for Thanksgiving (except not on Thursday since that’s choir practice).  It was sweet and they were earnest, so how could I not graciously accept their invitation?  They seemed genuinely excited, too, as they had never had Thanksgiving (why would they?).

 

After church, C scooted over to discus the traditional fare and I volunteered to take care of the sweet potatoes (after my green bean casserole was nixed – how can an entire family not like green beans but love brussel sprouts?) and the dessert.  The American, after all, should be in charge of a pumpkiny Thanksgiving dessert (because these guys over here just don’t do pumpkin – such a shame).

 

So, for much of October I fretted over Thanksgiving dessert.  Linda had been indulging in a piece of Cheesecake Factory pumpkin cheesecake over the past few weeks (available seasonally at Barnes and Noble) and so cheesecake was on my mind.  I had grand visions of wowing my hosts and their two kids with a beautiful pumpkin cheesecake.  But I had two problems: I didn’t have a spring form pan as mine sits tightly packed in Uncle Bob’s nor have I ever made a proper cheesecake before.  The spring form pan was easy enough to borrow, but boy, oh boy, was it hard to settle on the recipe I would use.  Many hours (many hours) later, I finally decided to trust Martha Stewart and made the test pumpkin cheesecake just in time for Clark Kent’s and my fake Thanksgiving two weekends ago.

 

That Friday afternoon when I made the cheesecake reminded me of when I went ice skating for the first time in my entire life with Dana back in junior high.  The Cutting Edge had just come out and I was 90% sure that when I stepped onto the ice, I was going to be the next bit thing, a natural born ice sktaer.  Like, I was probably going to skate just about as good as Kristi Yamaguchi.  I was 13 and in the 8th grade and I just knew that I was going to discover some natural ice skating talent.  I don’t think anyone will be surprised to know that I could barely get around the rink once.  Anyway, I thought (with all my heart) that I would be the one who could make cheesecakes perfectly upon her first try (like, Martha Stewart perfect).  I followed each step super carefully and camped out in front of the oven and just knew that the surface of my first cheesecake would remained uncracked.  But, I was wrong and this cavernous guy reared its ugly head upon cooling:

With some homemade whipped cream (that was really divine), the cheesecake was pretty good.  It wasn’t heavenly like the Cheesecake Factory’s cheesecake, but it certainly was nice having a piece of autumn each night for a week:

But this wasn’t the recipe that would wow my hosts for of fake Thanksgiving.  I felt super pressured to present perfection – I’m the American and it’s MY holiday, so I better deliver awesomeness.  I decided that I just couldn’t try another cheesecake (mostly because cheesecake was really stressing me out and also because 5 blocks of cream cheese really add up).  Thankfully, my friend Kate sent me this Martha Stewart recipe for an EASY pumpkin pie in a shortbread press-in crust (because who really wants to mess with making pie crust?  Not this girl!).

 

Last weekend was my test run.  I wanted to be sure to make it before CK took off for the States.  It was a solid hit, cracks and all:

This was my first pumpkin pie (last year I made pumpkin cheesecake bars that were completely awesome!) and I just couldn’t have been happier with how it turned out (though when I make it for fake Thanksgiving next week, I will up the spices).

I think that I just may have found my recipe (as in my tried and true, go-to recipe) for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  Though I’m sad I won’t be bringing green bean casserole to C & M’s, I’m totally thrilled that I’ll be taking this pie.  It wowed me, and even if it doesn’t wow them, I’m going to be happy.

My trip to Netherfield November 19, 2009

Since we arrived in Reading, going to Basildon Park has been on the list of things to do.  It’s a National Trust property in Berkshire County and there’s nothing too spectacular about it except that it was used as Netherfield Park in the 2005 production of Pride and Prejudice.  Naturally, having something to do with Jane Austen meant that we needed to go.

But, it took us more than a year to get there.  It’s not easily accessible by public transportation and so we waited, patiently, for an invitation from someone – which came last month.   A couple from our Bible study group invited us out for a late morning trip to Basildon and for lunch in the tea room there.

Can you even begin to imagine how excited I was?  I was going to have tea at Netherfield!  The Friday night before our big outing was spent watching the 2005 Pride and Prejudice and I do think that even my sweet Clark Kent was excited about it.

That Saturday in late October was one of those famous autumn rainy days England is infamous for.  I loved the weather and the rain did not disappointment me.  As we all were walking in from the car park, CK piped up with, “Maybe we’ll all catch a cold and have to stay a few days!”  Oh.My.Goodness!  Did I marry the most perfect man in the whole world?  YES, I did!  (For those of you who might not be familiar with P&P, Jane Bennet visits Netherfield and has to ride through a rain storm in order to get there.  She comes down with a cold and has to stay at Netherfield for a bit.)

We all trekked up hill through a wooded area to get to the house on the top of the hill.  When we came out of the woods and made our way to the road, catching our first glimpse of the house, all of us were horrified (even Tony and Tanya’s two little girls).  This is what was waiting for us:

 

Basildon Park under construction

In my silly, make-believe world, what I expected to find was this:

 

The Bennets at the Netherfield Ball

The green plastic was distracting and disappointing and I tried my best to smile and move on.  There was, after all, an exhibit on Pride and Prejudice and tea to look forward to, right?  So, we checked out the exhibit first.

Photographs weren’t allowed inside the (very small) exhibit and I did not care.  I was happy to break the no-photos-rule because of all the unexpected green plastic.  And this is what I have to share:

 

Items used in the Netherfield Ball scenes

self explanatory

 

Autographed letter from Darcy to his sister (penned at Netherfield Park)

The other parts of the exhibit included a looped video of all the P&P scenes set in Basildon Park, call sheets from the days spent filming at Basildon Park, and a video detailing how Basildon Park was transformed into Netherfield.

Photography was not allowed inside the house and as there were workers in every room whose purpose was to prevent people from taking pictures, I figured I had better follow the rules.  The P&P soundtrack was playing in the rooms as we (somewhat quickly) walked through.  I was a bit disappointed again because the octagonal drawing room featured in the movie, did not look like this:

In real life, the room drips with the color red.  For the movie, they brought in columns and new carpets and had false walls and just generally made the room look nothing like it does at Basildon Park.  Sigh….

Soon, we had seen all that there was to see inside the house and it was time to visit the tea room.  The English are a little too liberal with the use of “Tea Room.”  Basically, I would have used the word Cafeteria.  Another sigh….  We spent entirely too much on our hot lunches, though they were good, and for the ultimate splurge, we decided to split this huge cookie.

 

our huge, and disappointing, cookie

Before deciding to buy it, we confirmed that it was a shortbread cookie.  Imagine our great disappointment when we took our first bite: it was a very not-extraordinary sugar cookie.  Another BIG sigh….

We were home by 2 pm and then the sun came out.  Typical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A healthy dose of pure magic just because November 18, 2009

The trip to London came about quickly.  I found the London William Fitzsimmons date just two weeks before the show and with only mulling it over for about 30 minutes, I purchased the tickets.  That’s about as spontaneous as I’ve been in, oh, a really long time.  Sweet Clark Kent was immediately on board and so I worked a morning shift and shortly after 1 pm last Thursday, we were London bound.

Of course we listened to William Fitzsimmons en route.

I kept trying to remember the special occasion we were celebrating, but there wasn’t one.  In the entire (almost) 16 months we’ve been married, we haven’t ever done something special just because.  There has always been a reason: Linda visiting or the summer birthday and anniversary extravaganzas.  We have done some amazing things and have taken some amazing trips, but always because of something specific.  This, however, was just because.  It was absolutely delightful!

So, we had a few hours to kill before our 5 pm dinner reservations.  Our first stop?  The Hummingbird Bakery, an American style bakery that I’ve been anxious to try since March.  I was hoping that there would be some pumpkin flavored goodies, but we were there on a Thursday and the Sunday special was pumpkin and chocolate cupcakes.  Oh, well.

I ordered the day’s special, rhubarb with cream cheese icing, and a standard pink vanilla cupcake while CK went with a massive piece of of chocolate cake.  The vanilla cupcake was completely underwhelming and I could easily make a better cupcake (and have).  BUT, the rhubarb cream cheese cupcake was amazing.  I don’t even like cream cheese icing, but I could not get enough of it.  Overall, the bakery wasn’t stellar, but that one little cupcake sure was.  (Oh, and CK’s cake wasn’t all that amazing either.)

The Hummingbird Bakery was on Portobello Road … and guess what was right down the road?

Cath Kidston!  I have Kate to thank for introducing me to Cath Kidston and I also have my sweet husband to thank for being endlessly patient with me as I took my time selecting my treat.   It is definitely a fun store and as Linda said after visiting the website, “I’ll take one of everything!”  Realistically, though, I chose the gadget case over everything and I absolutely love it!  My camera has lived in bubble wrap for more than a year, so it was about time to upgrade.

After our Portobello Road stroll, it was time to hop across town to a crazy-busy shopping district where we had just under an hour to kill before our dinner reservation.  CK noticed a place of interest on the map in the Underground station, and so we set off to find FDR.  I was especially excitied about seeing the statue as I have recently finished reading Eleanor Roosevelt’s book, On My Own, in which she mentions traveling to London shortly after her husband’s death to be present for the unveiling of the statue.  There was a bit of controversy surrounding the statue to honor FDR: William Churchill argued that the architect should depict a seated FDR since he was wheelchair bound after contracting polio.  However, when the statue was unveiled to reveal a stately and standing FDR, Eleanor was happy with the architect’s choice.

FDR in Grosvenor Square

Finally, 5 pm rolled around and it was time to dine in style at Auberge Restaurant, a French restaurant in a great little alley off a main shopping drag.  I had a really nice pork dinner with potatoes and spinach.  And, I can’t believe I’m about to put this in writing, but: I enjoyed the spinach more than the potatoes.  Now, I LOVE potatoes so that just means the spinach was absolutely amazing.  It was.  CK ordered a very generous pot of mussels cooked in a coconut sauce.  Oh, and his mussels came with fries.

We shared creme brule for dessert and then were off, in the rain, to London’s Bush Hall.  We arrived at 7 pm, just as I had tried to plan, in time to camp out 5th and 6th in line, still in the rain, until the doors opened at 7:30 (thankfully, they were prompt.  It was raining, afterall).

See Matt? He's fifth in line!

The venue far exceeded my expectations.  It was BEAUTIFUL and intimate and perfect and all good things.

Doesn't the pink make it look magical?

The crowd was great.  Being the kind of person who is easily annoyed, I didn’t get annoyed with anyone the entire night!  This is a pretty unbelievable thing for me (just ask CK).  We had a great seat at a table right in front of the stage.  Concert goers crowded in front of the stage and sat in front of us, cross legged, and the concert was still perfect.  It was a special night.

Laura Jansen

Laura Jansen was the “support” and she took the stage a bit late, at about 8:20.  The highlight of her set was her cover of Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody.”  I wish it was available on iTunes, but there are several YouTube videos of her performing it (search it out sometime – after you’ve finished this very long post of mine!).  I had to delete all the videos and pictures (except the one above) of Laura because my camera’s card filled up way quicker than I expected.  Anyway, on to the main event…

He was simply amazing to hear and see live.  He played the first third of his set solo and I just am in awe of his guitar playing.  Laura joined him on stage at the keyboard and he had two other band members on percussion and banjo/mandolin duty.  I was a bit disappointed, at first, when I realized that the stage was set for a full band.  I just wanted it to be Bill and his guitar.  But, oh, I was not disappointed at all.  Going into the concert, I had two WISHES: that he’d play “Everything Has Changed” and that Laura would come on stage to sing backing vocals on “I Don’t Feel It Anymore (Song of the Sparrow).”  The fact that he played “Afterall” was a huge bonus AND I was absolutely delighted when he went right into “Everything Has Changed.”  So, I offer you some video footage of the highlight of the night for me.  It’s pure magic (unfortunate feed back and all):

The part that gets me every time, no matter how many times I’ve listened to “Everything Has Changed,” is when he sings, “Oh, father, can’t you see the pieces that have fallen on the ground when you and mom decided nothing could be saved inside this house?”  Every time.  Hearing him sing that live still took my breath away and just “got” me.  It is one of those heartbreakingly beautiful lyrics that I have a hard time shaking.  (In case you want to hear/see it yourself, it’s at 5 min, 52 sec in the above video.)

For those of you who don’t know William Fitzsimmons (and I realize that’s probably just about everyone I know), the short story is: he’s the youngest of two sons born to blind parents.  His parents divorced when he was young and it had a profound and devastating effect on him – so much so that he wrote an entire album about it.  In a horrible twist of fate, he ended up getting divorced too (and from what I can gather from lyrics and his pretty open concert small talk, his divorce was his fault due to infidelity) – which also had a profound and devastating effect on him, so much so that he wrote another whole album about it.  His musical peers have dubbed his music “divorce rock” and he is a bit self-deprecating and makes fun of the depressing nature of his music from the stage.  A lot.   But, it’s honest and gut wrenching and maybe I love it so much because I’m a child of divorce, too.  I’m sad for him though – truly sad.  Divorce is tragic, no matter the circumstances, but I think his divorce is *that* much more tragic.  If you listen to his first album, it’s easy to see: he didn’t want to end up like his father.  And, he hasn’t really.  His most recent album (written in the wake of his own divorce) does have hope scattered throughout and he even talks about the power of forgiveness from the stage.

Anyway, the concert was amazing.  I loved every minute of it, but as it got closer and closer to 10:30, I was getting more and more anxious.  You see, we’re slaves to the public transportation here.  We had to make sure we left enough time to travel on the Underground back to Paddington to catch our train back to Reading.  So, we dipped out after the “last” song and made our way through the thick crowd.  It really wasn’t his last song as he did a two song encore (we only stayed for most of the first song of the encore and stood at the back of the room – which was kind of neat), but we had to go!

We had the Underground car to ourselves and made it back to Paddington just in time to catch the 11 pm train back to Reading.  Even though we had a pretty not awesome train ride home (complete with a 30 minute stop due to “technical problems” and having no seats for part of the journey), it was still a day of pure magic.  And, I’m eternally grateful for my little camera because we can relive the concert for years to come!

Defining Myself October 2, 2009

This blog post got me thinking today and wondering how I define myself.  One of the first two assignments I ever gave my high school students was to carefully select five nouns and ten adjectives that define and describe them.  The other assignment was to write the story of how they were named.  Both of these assignments always helped me learn the names of my 150 students, and it helped me get to know them a bit better (while trying to assess if everyone had a firm grasp on elementary parts of speech).  I always encouraged them to think beyond the usual: 1. student, 2. son/daughter, 3. brother/sister, 4. friend, and 5. freshman/sophomore.  And, most of them did.  It seemed that most of them jumped at the opportunity to describe themselves as something other than the obvious.

So, how come I struggle with the same task?  In trying to pick five nouns that define me, I come up short.  I can’t use my profession to define me any more; I don’t even feel like a teacher any more.  I can’t use musician any more because my guitar sits in storage and the piano was sold to make room for cats.   I don’t even feel like I can legitimately use the stand-by relationships of sister and aunt to define me.  The truth is, most days I don’t feel like a sister and the only time I ever felt like an aunt is when my nephew lived with Linda.  So, where does that leave me?

Wife – the single most important noun I have ever known.  This time last year, having just three months of marriage behind me, I wrote on my blog, “Three months in and it’s still funny to hear Clark Kent refer to me as his wife.”  But now, it seems the most natural thing in the world.  I say husband in conversation with confidence and it no longer feels foreign.  I don’t know when the shift happened, but even though I’ve only been his wife for fifteen months, it feels as if it could be fifteen years.

Daughter – I will always be my mother’s daughter – both literally and figuratively.  Figuratively in the sense that people who know us both can say, “Oh, boy, you’re your mother’s daughter.”  As I’ve moved more into adulthood (Hello, I’m thirty!  And, married!), I’ve become more and more my own.  I can point to ways that Linda and I differ as clear as night and day.  But there are other ways in which we’re similar.  Being Linda’s daughter has shaped me in many significant ways.

And here’s where I get stumped.  If I were completing my own assignment, I would fail!  Isn’t there anything else?  I guess this is where I get stumped because to call myself anything other than wife and daughter is subjective.   I get self conscious and think, “I can’t call myself a photographer!  I don’t even have a real camera!  I can’t call myself a crafter!  I don’t even have a sewing machine!  Blogger?  Ha!  Reader?  Hardly!”  But, maybe I’m being a bit hard on myself.  So, I’m allowing myself the following descriptions.

Baker – What little girl who had an Easy Bake Oven didn’t love it?  I sure did.  That picture is childhood to me.  That brown mixing bowl?  I can’t even tell you how many things were whisked up in that mixing bowl and whenever I thought about what being a grown-up looked like I thought of a wife and mother in the kitchen baking something for her husband to take to work and for her kids to take to school.  Even in the months leading up to my wedding, I had that picture in my mind – so much so that I requested my shower to be baking themed.  I’m not a great baker; my finished product seldom looks like the photos in the cookbooks or on the blogs, but I try and my sweet husband oooohhhs and aaaahhhhs over everything I try as if Martha Stewart baked it.  That’s good enough for me.  Though I’ll never achieve baking fame or come up with an original amazing recipe, I am still going to call myself a baker.

Chronicler – both in picture and word format.  I won’t go so far as to define myself as a photographer or a blogger, but not because I don’t own a real camera or receive so many hits on my site a day.  I don’t want to define myself as those things because I think chronicler is a better fit.  I photograph homemade pancakes on a Saturday morning and write about a weekend picnic because I want to remember it.  I want to remember it all.  And that’s why I have kept a pen and paper journal, and started an online blog, and take pictures of my meals in restaurants.  Remembering is so important to me.

So, I’m a wife, a daughter, a baker, and a chronicler.  That’s 4/5, an 80%.  I guess I don’t have it all figured out just yet.  After all, I’m only 30.  There’s time to define myself as something else, something more.

Oh, October! October 1, 2009

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree." Emily Bronte

We didn’t get to see fall arrive last year.  We landed in the middle of reds and oranges and kicked through leaves on our first weekend.  There really wasn’t any build up.  I remember being a bit disappointed arriving on campus and seeing the colored leaves and thinking I had already missed the change.  I didn’t miss it all last year, but the dramatic beginnings of change had already happened.   And, for an almost 30 year old who had never experienced a real autumn, I was a bit let down to arrive after it already happened.  The air was already chilly and my favorite tree on campus was already half red.  The evenings were already dark pretty early.  I didn’t really get to experience the coming of autumn.  I didn’t get to usher the new season in with a ceremonious fall drink.  And so, that October an entire year ago I remember thinking, “Well, this isn’t as magical as I had hoped.  Maybe next year will be different.  Better.“

Would you believe that when I saw the first yellowing leaf in early September, I was angry?  Angry, I tell you!  My strong emotions surprised me, she who has always loved the fall and Thanksgiving and orange.  And when more and more colored leaves started popping up on the very tops of the trees that I could see out of our kitchen window, I called CK in the kitchen and said, very upset, “Look at that.  The leaves are already changing!”  I pouted.  I didn’t want it to happen.  I wanted to pause the world.  I mean, it wasn’t even October yet and half the trees around town were no longer the bright green of summer!

But, you can’t pause the world or slow down the seasons.  The leaves continued to change all through September and I started taking more and more pictures of the same tree so that I could have a tangible record of the coming of fall.   I told myself that as soon as October 1 arrived, I would embrace it: the changing leaves, the darker evenings, the cooler days.  For a while in September I began wondering if I had changed.  Did I even like fall any more?  Did I actually prefer *gasp* summer?

Since today is October 1, and I promised, I’m embracing fall: the leaves, the dark, the chill.  And, in a moment today, just like magic, my questions have been answered: Yes, of course, I still like fall.  I dare say that I still love it.  And, no, I wouldn’t say I prefer summer over fall … I actually can’t say I prefer one season over another, which is shocking!  I’m just 9 days shy of having lived here a full year and I have now experienced the coming of each season, the changing of one season into another, and … with this year, I have learned to appreciate each season, to savor the final days of each season, to enjoy the present. I recognize this little lesson as huge growth for me, for I am, and always have been, a person who lives and breathes in extremes.  I love something, or I hate it.

Living in real, definitive four seasons, though, has changed me just a bit.  Living here has made me just a little more mindful of living in the present, a little more aware of the present, and a little more appreciative of the present – instead of always looking to the future or remembering the past.  I’m happy fall has arrived, and I’m happy that I got to witness its arrival this year.

Motherhood: the perfect brownies and the possibility of goth boots September 22, 2009

I love The Smitten Kitchen. Blogger Deb is funny and thoughtful and a fantastic baker.  Not only do I love her recipes, but I love her stories, too.  Back in a post from July she wrote:

Some people find out they’re going to be parents and — you know, after the whole “yay babies!” cheer has simmered down a bit — freak out because they haven’t yet a) traveled the world, b) made their first million, paid off all of their debt and saved up enough for $200 toys for their little snowflake or c) well, grown up yet. But me, I actually had a moment of panic because I hadn’t yet found the perfect yellow layer cake recipe.

But, Deb met the deadline.  She found the perfect yellow layer cake recipe a couple months before her son was born.  Her post reminded me of that episode of Friends where Monica wants to the be the mom known for the best chocolate chip cookies.  Go ahead, watch this 4 minute clip – there are so many things that are funny about it. [Edit: Sadly, the PERFECT clip of Friends that I had originally posted here was removed from YouTube.  Hopefully, you know the episode I am referring to and if not, take my word for it :: it was a good one!]

So, Deb’s story and the Friends episode got me thinking: by the time I have children, what do I want to bake really well?  And it came to me in an instant: brownies.  I love yellow layered cake and chocolate chip cookies just as much as the next American girl, but I adore brownies.  Yes, it was settled, I would be the mom known for her amazing brownies.  So amazing that her kids would miss her brownies nearly as much as they’d miss her when they go off to college.

Now, as luck would have it, another favorite blogger, crafter, and baker of mine posted this entry just a couple of weeks after I got thinking about The Best Brownies ever.  After reading the Black Apple’s description, I was sold:

These are so reliable, so fast, and so good, and they fit my brownie-criteria to a T. I know that people look for different things in their brownie, but these are my top concerns:
-Chewiness
-Soft-ish insides
-Crisp (but not hard) little crust on top and sides

I gave them a try and … guess what?  They were perfect.  In.Every.Way.  She’s right: they’re reliable, fast, so good, chewy and softish, with a crisp upper crust.

The Best Brownie Ever

Please don’t think that I’ve just gone and settled for the first recipe I’ve tried.  After several batches of Chocolate Raspberry Brownies (sans nuts and raspberry topping), Cookie Dough Brownies (which we loved because not only because they were delicious, but the recipe made a lot: 9×13 pan instead of an 8 or 9 in square!), and Cheesecake Brownies (cream cheese makes anything better), I know a little about what I’m looking for.  While all these brownies are stand-outs in their own right, the Black Apple brownies still win.  I feel so accomplished to have my go-to brownie recipe secured.  Sure, it’s not my original recipe, but I have every confidence in the world that our kids will love them.  I might not make batches to send to them when they head off to college (mailing baked goods makes me nervous), but I will make them every time they come home to visit.

So, to me, motherhood means making the perfect brownies.  It also means letting your kids dress themselves and if that means they’ll pair their favorite polka dot shirt with their well worn plaid pants and hand knitted striped socks (because I will know how to knit by the time we have kids), then fantastic! I will proudly take them, in their silly and lovely mismatched outfits, out in public where they can parade around a bookstore.  After all, it’s just an outfit!

I’m glad I tell Clark Kent my thoughts because he holds me accountable.  We sit next to a very lovely couple in church most Sundays.  Both husband and wife hold degrees in Mathematics and are very nerdy (in the best possible way!).  They’ve had us to their home for Sunday lunch and we’ve met and talked with their two (very nice) teenage children.  Their daughter is very shy, soft-spoken, sweet, and when she is in church, she sits between her parents … wearing the most interesting foot wear.  And I mean interesting. I remember the first time I noticed them, I had to do a double-take.  It’s not like you would ever expect a girl like E to wear shoes like that. Like, crazy platform, goth-like, boots – a little bit something like this:

Definitely not something I would ever choose to wear – or want to buy for my daughter to wear.  As we walked home from church the other day, I asked Clark Kent, “What if our daughter wants to wear shoes like E?  What will we do?”  I sounded desperate.  Clark Kent, without missing a beat, said, “We’ll let her and it won’t be a big deal.”  I stared at him, in disbelief.  He then continued, “If we’re going to let our toddler pick out her own clothes, we might as well let our teenager.”  Touche, my dear husband, touche!

So, to me, motherhood is also the possibility that my daughter will choose goth boots over the sensible, yet stylish, Clarks that her mother might choose for her; and I’m ok with that now that I am armed with the perfect brownie recipe for her!  After all, they’re just shoes!

On how I’ve come to love audio books. September 17, 2009

For a brief moment in time, I was in charge of a book club.  It was a strange little book club that never really got off the ground, but I was in charge of it – part of my duties as manager of Mad Hatter Tea & Gifts, where I worked my first year out of college.  (Manager sure sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  Don’t be fooled.  I was more or less manager by default: I was the only one of the four of us who worked full time.)  We didn’t read any classics (much to my dismay) and I think it was in this book club that I read my first modern fiction – ever.  Seriously.  (For the first 22 years of my life, I read only classics.  Further, 95% of the books I read were assigned.)  So, in 2001, the year of my book club, I remember reading The Red Tent and The Girl with the Pearl Earring (both books I didn’t care much for no doubt because they weren’t classics – yes, I have been a book snob in my past).

One of the book club’s members was the owner’s best friend, Suzanne.  [As an aside, Suzanne's mom, Susan, was one of the part timers I managed at Mad Hatter.  At over 65, Susan became my best friend in Melbourne that first year I was out of college.  We took a road trip to Miami together, went out for Cuban food regularly, saw George Clooney movies together, and ordered a pizza (and ate the whole thing) while we watched the series finale of Felicity together.]  Anyway, Suzanne didn’t have time to read, but she still wanted to be a part of the book club and so she “read” her books in the car to and from work thanks to audio books.  I was horrified – she wasn’t really reading these books, was she?  Listening wasn’t an acceptable substitution for reading!  You couldn’t make notes in the margins!  You couldn’t slap a Post-It on the page of a favorite passage!  I also hated how Suzanne would actually talk about reading the book.  Like, she used the words read and reading!

The point it: I did not look favorably on audio books.  Until recently…

Life as a library shelver is boring when there aren’t students around using the books.  I mean, it’s really boring.  Students don’t start until the first week of October, so it’s going to be boring for a little while longer.  And, I’m a good worker!  I really am.  I actively look for work to do.  I ask people.  I go to different floors and beg for jobs – silly and menial jobs.  I ask my “floor manager” for work and he always responds the same: he chuckles and walks away from me.  It’s weird, really – the lack of initiative that others take.  If another shelver runs out of books to shelve, she just sits on a kick stool and reads a book.  Or, stands in the 330s and talks to another shelver.  Me?  Well, I find something else to do.  I relabel books (I love doing this), I tape up tatty book spines, I straighten books and straighten signs.  I work.  And most recently, I’ve been working with my iPod in my pocket.

No one has ever told me not to listen to my iPod whilst working.  My good common sense tells me it’s not a good idea, but I still manage to ask people who I see wandering around looking for the folios if I can help them.  So, it’s not hindering my customer service.  I also decided that should I ever get “caught” by my line manager and reprimanded – or just gently told to put my iPod away – I plan on pleading ignorance AND casually replying with, “Oh, I know I shouldn’t listen to my iPod, but I just had to find out what happened next on this audio book I’m listening to.”

And so, I have “read” two books whilst working this month: Robinson Crusoe and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.   Yesterday, I began my third book, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.  And I’ve come to love audio books and I’m sorry that I ever looked down on Suzanne all those years ago.

After my first day listening to Robinson Crusoe, I met Clark Kent at the library’s revolving door and we walked home together.  ”Do you know what Robinson Crusoe is about?”  I asked him fully expecting him to shrug his shoulders.  But, he knew.  I guess I’m the only one who didn’t really know it was about a shipwrecked man.  THE ENTIRE BOOK.   8.5 hours of goat hunting and cave building!  I persevered and I liked the narrator very much and grew very excited during the last 30 minutes of the book – when he finally gets off of the island after (I think) 28 years (or something like that).   I expected greatness.  Afterall, RC is a classic, right?  Oh well, it’s another notch in my Book List (because YES I am counting it as a book I read!).

But then there came The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (narrated by Marc Devine – a free podcast on iTunes and SO worth it!).  Oh, my!  What a gem!  This version was 9.5 hours of sheer delight!  I absolutely fell in love with Huck!  Having been to Hannibal, MO two summers ago, it was fun for me to “read” a Mark Twain book and be able to really picture the landscape.  I can’t say much else about it other than I absolutely LOVED listening/reading this classic!  And, I am definitely a Huck over Tom fan.  Tom Sawyer gets on my last nerve!

I tried to find a version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer with a narrator that I loved as much as Marc Devine – but just couldn’t.  I eventually gave up and just tried to find another book that I probably wouldn’t have chosen to read on my own, but maybe could get behind listening to.  After nearly two weeks of searching iTunes and audible.com (where I had a free book to download), I chose Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.  I just started it yesterday and am thoroughly entranced!  I have already thought several times that as soon as I’m finishing “reading” the book, it’s one I might actually want to read!

And so, 8 years later, I love audio books.

I just remembered that I love picnics. September 16, 2009

All I wanted for my 13th birthday was a picnic basket.  Linda came through for me and I got a cute, square, wicker picnic basket complete with a set of pastel picnic dishes.  I even got one of those quintessential red and white check picnic blankets (except mine was a tablecloth).  And for that one glorious summer, we picnicked.  We picnicked on the beach with fried chicken and potato salad.  We picnicked in Grant and brought along homemade ice cream packed in a cooler.  Then, the picnicking seemed to stop.   For the next many years, my picnic basket lived in the “back room” and then the outside storage room.  Then it moved out and lived in the storage closet in my apartment before finally ending up in Uncle Bob’s storage.  (However, though it mostly lived in out of the way and out of sight, it was used on a few very special picnics over the years, this one being the most special.)

Anyway, Clark Kent suggested we take advantage of the last few days of summer (just look at those changing leaves!  I wish they’d stay green until October 1) and head into town to picnic in Forbury Park this past Saturday.  We didn’t have a picnic basket, but we loaded up the backpack with all sorts of goodies (our favorites: fresh jam doughnuts and baguettes from the bakery and brie) and walked into town.  The sky was blue, the sun was out, the park was full, and it was an all round perfect day for a picnic.  We had such a good time, in fact, that we decided to go on another picnic on Monday (we both took the day off!).  We loaded up the backpack again (with all the leftover goodies from Saturday’s picnic) and this time walked into campus and picnicked by the lake.  The sky wasn’t as blue  and the sun wasn’t as bright, but the picnic was every bit as enjoyable.

And so, as long as the weather will allow us to, we’ll be going on a few more picnics.  There’s just something so lovely about the intention of it all – choosing special picnic foods and choosing a special picnic spot and spreading out a special picnic sheet.

13 Months & and a lady detective August 19, 2009

I always thought it was silly for parents to talk about their kids’ ages in months after said kids reached their first birthdays. But, here I am, still thinking about my marriage in terms of months even though we had our first anniversary.  And so, I will allow myself to continuing counting the months until next July just as parents count the months until the kid is twenty-four months.

Today we’re been married for thirteen months!  A whole year and a month.  When I really think about it, I know thirteen months is silly – it’s a drop in the bucket, so to speak, especially when I consider how two very dear friends of mine celebrate their tenth anniversary in just a few days.  Ten years?  Now that is something.  Ten years ago, I stood  as a twenty year old in a light purple dress and the most beautiful (and expensive) shoes I have ever bought hoping I wouldn’t fidget or get light headed, and watched as my dear friends said, “I do.”  They were twenty-two, just two years my senior, but I thought they were so old and wise and as it was the first wedding I had ever been in (I do not count the obligatory flower girl in my aunt’s wedding when I was 7) and the first wedding of someone truly important to me, I tried to imagine what it would be like for me when my turn came.

But, of course, the wedding was just a day.  It was a great day, but it was just one day.  The marriage has been great and I think that is part of the excitement I feel each month when the nineteenth rolls around.  Just as a new mother marks each month of her new baby’s life with excitement and wonder of what new milestones are being reached, as a new bride, I live for the nineteenth of each month – to mark each month with excitement and wonder of what marriage has been – being in this life with my best friend and being known by someone so incredibly well.  It’s exciting to keep adding a month under our marriage belts and I think it will be sad once month twenty-four rolls around and I have to shift into simply counting years.  I bet the same is true for that mother whose kid turns two and then it’s no longer twenty-five or thirty-two months, but just years.

One of the greatest aspects of marriage for me during these last thirteen months has been being known and how quickly it’s happened.  In December, Linda and Matt were in Pound£and (yes, where everything is a pound) and looking at Winnie the Pooh socks for me.  Linda would’ve (rightly) chosen the pink Pooh socks with polka dots, but I unwrapped the “jailhouse” Pooh socks (black and white stripes, you guys!) from Matt on Christmas.  We had  been married just five months that Christmas when Matt picked the socks that weren’t my first choice and while I tease him every time I wear those jailhouse socks, I still love that he got them for me; he had his reasons and he chose them because he had already gotten me a pair of pink Piglet socks and didn’t want to duplicate the colors.  I have since informed him that I can never have too many pink pairs of socks and he understands.  And, he understood enough about me to secretly squirrel enough money away (I am pretty tight with the purse strings) to have enough to secretly go into town when I thought he was in a meeting with his boss.  There he went to the expensive card store and chose THE perfect first anniversary card (a Forever Friends card that was relationship AND occasion specific!) for me!  He also secretly got me a picture frame (as I love picture frames) and my favorite chocolate bars.  He knows me and being known feels great.  He knows that my blog and flickr site are important to me and reads every word I write (which means more than I could ever express).  He knows the look I get on my face when I’m reading a SouleMama blog entry and will ask me what’s new – and he’ll listen and remember!  He asks about what I’m reading and seems genuinely interested in my too-long plot summaries.  And so, those jailhouse socks are a symbol to me – a symbol of how far we have both come in a short thirteen months and it is exciting to think about where we’ll be in thirteen years.

Now, I will quickly tell you about the latest book I’ve read: Alexander McCall Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  I remember seeing this book for sale in Barnes and Noble and in Target.  It never piqued my interest and I never even wanted to read the back of the book to see what it was all about.  It was chosen for the English Teachers’ Book Club when I taught at Palm Bay High (though I was pretty much one of the most anti-social teachers at PBHS and never went to one book club meeting) and I never picked this book up until the day before we left for Paris, August 4, 2009.  I knew I would finish A Thousand Splendid Suns whilst in Paris and I didn’t want to be stuck on a 7 hour bus ride with nothing to read.  Since I work in a library, I thought I’d be able to find something good to read as my back up book BUT the university library is sorely lacking in good, modern fiction books.  I mean, SORELY!  (Though there are two of the Harry Potter books in CHINESE! on the shelves.)  There was The Other Boleyn Girl, but I just couldn’t bring myself to check it out (for two reasons: the spine was seriously crooked and it was a bit too long to be my easy back up read).  When I came to the P section, I seriously considered a Terry Prachett book, but I kept moving toward the end of the alphabet and found Smith’s book.  At an easy 233 pages, I thought it was worth a try.  Plus, it was set in Africa and that excited me.

I didn’t know what to think of the book at first.  In fact, I was actually thinking that I didn’t like it when I mentioned it to one of my colleagues (we have THE SAME taste in books and find we’re always reading the same books).  Her face lit up and I found out that she loves the series.  The series?  I had no idea there was more than one Ladies’ Detective Agency books and learned through my conversation with this colleague that there are ten books AND a television mini series.  And so I decided to reserve judgment since S liked them so much.

I’m glad I continued reading with an open mind as I turned out to really enjoy the book.  I enjoyed it largely because of its African setting – the people and customs are just fun.  And, fat, thirty-five year old, unassuming, private detective Precious Ramostwe is so likable and lovable.  Our library doesn’t have any other books in the series, otherwise I’d probably check out a couple more, though I probably wouldn’t read all the other nine.  It was enjoyable and I liked the short, staccato-like sentences and story-telling.

Not The Kite Runner August 17, 2009

The weekend before we left for Paris, Matt and I walked into town to go to the library.  We were looking for a simple Paris guide book and I was either going to check out Possession or The Kite Runner.  Fortunately, we got the last Paris guide book on the shelf and then I went off to the fiction department to see if I could find one or both of the books.  I ultimately passed on Possession because the copy on the shelf was very “tatty” (a term I have learnt since arriving in the UK) and not only was the library fresh out of copies of The Kite Runner, there was a long reservations “queue” for their various copies.  

 

We left the Reading Central Library and headed to Oxfam.

 

Oxfam didn’t have The Kite Runner, but there were two copies of A Thousand Splendid Suns (both by Khaled Hosseini).  I had seen the book on amazon and it was on Richard and Judy’s book list (from what I have gathered, R&J host a morning show and recommend books from time to time – kind of like Oprah, but WAY less annoying).  To be honest, I didn’t really ever want to read The Kite Runner.  But, it was just one of those books that kept appearing on EVERYONE’S list on facebook, on amazon, etc.  I actually thought it was too trendy.  I hate following the crowd and wouldn’t touch an Oprah book if you paid me!  [I just read through all the past Oprah picks in fear that I would find several on the list that I have read and loved.  I have only read five books out of all the past 13 years!!  Can you believe she's had that book club since 1996?  Four of the books I read because I had to: Sula, The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and As I Lay Dying (all in college).  I only chose to read The Poisonwood Bible (but, I would like to state for the record, 8 years after she picked it!).]  Anyway, I just didn’t want to read The Kite Runner and I was kind of relieved when I couldn’t find it at the library or Oxfam.  I thought his follow-up A Thousand Splendid Suns would be good enough, if not better simply because it wasn’t The Kite Runner.  Same author, same Afghanistan, same thing – only better.

 

All in all, I liked it very much.  I hated the male character, Rasheed, but I think, especially as a woman, I was supposed to.  I loved the story alternating between the two central women, Mariam and Laila.  I loved not being able to guess what was going to happen; even in the parts where I partially guessed parts of the plot, I was always surprised by the whole story.  I loved not knowing anything about Afghanistan, its history, its people.  Though a work of fiction, I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns with a bit more understanding of the history of Afghanistan (the Soviet rule, the rise of the Taliban, the role of the burqa).   In the postscript included in my copy of the book, Hosseini explains, “A Thousand Splendid Suns is very, very dear to me.  It has been a labor of love, and I hope that it doesn’t sound too pretentious if I say that I think of it as my modest tribute to the great courage, endurance, and resilience of Afghanistan.  I hope that I will engage you, that I will transport you and that the novel will move you and leave you with some sense of compassion and empathy for Afghan women whose suffering has been matched by very few groups in recent world history.”  This reader was engaged and transported and moved and left with some sense of compassion and empathy for Afghan women who she had absolutely no understanding of before having read this book. 

 

I have since began reading a work of non-fiction by Asne Seierstad called The Bookseller of Kabul.  I enjoyed finding out a bit about Afghanistan and so when I came across this book whilst shelving last week, I thought it might be a good follow-up to A Thousand Splendid Suns.  I’m not sure if I’m going to ever get around to reading The Kite Runner (in fact, I was delighted when I brought up A Thousand Splendid Suns to my kindred-spirit-in-choosing-books colleague and discovered that she too chose it over The Kite Runner); for now, I’m content with my choice.  I’m content that I chose to read a book in which the subject was completely foreign and didn’t interest me.  I’m content that I finished the book with a deeper understanding and compassion for another country and its women and culture.  I would recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns.