A Paper-Tweet Vacation

We recently drove from sunny Coastal Texas to chilly-snowy North-Central New Mexico.  We do this sometimes.  Usually in a Eurovan with three children and enough stuff to keep us busy for three months.  The drive both ways was absolutely beautiful.  The Sonars wanted to see snow in New Mexico and they were not disappointed.  The snow season in New Mexico has been spectacular (it’s snowed once more since we left).  We had flurries at Papa and Nana’s house on the northwest side of Albuquerque, and we spent a glorious slippery afternoon tobogganing on the east side of the Sandias. 

I resisted the urge to tweet away the vacation with my phone.  At more leisurely moments though, I could not resist the urge to jot down (on actual paper!) things I might have tweeted at those moments.  And just to make it look like I have nothing to do right now, I thought I’d share them with you. 

 The stunning sunset view from my parents’ porch. North Albuquerque and a portion of the Sandia Mountains at sunset. Please click this thumbnail to make it bigger. It’s worth it.

March 13, 2010

*On the road from Calvert, Texas to Corrales, New Mexico.

*Lost in Waco, home of Dr Pepper. Baylor buildings are pretty. Don’t see any bears.

*Dublin, TX. Heard a rumor they make DP w/cane sugar here. Knights of Pithius sign in the Rotary bldg window. Big shudder.

*Gorman Mills. Peanut elevator!

*Abilene is long and skinny w/ few food choices on the interstate besides truck stops.

*Sweetwater, TX, Sonic. Rattlesnake Roundup this weekend. Apparently we are the only people here not attending.

*Roscoe, TX. Wind turbines on the edge of the highway. Huge and ready to march across the plains. They are crankin!

*Farm the wind from the air and cotton from the soil. Road Radio: Def Leppard.

*Price Daniel Unit TDJC. What does this mean? Road Radio: Bad girlfriend.

*Snyder, TX. Bathroom break. 

*Knitting. Finished a sock at Justiceburg, TX.

*Texas is pretty big. 11 hours on the road and we haven’t left the state yet. #understatement

*Pride Runs Deep in Shallowwater. #roadsigns

*Anton, TX. Pronunciation tips anyone? Ant’n? Ann-tahn?

*Looks like dinner in Clovis, NM. Anyone have a favorite place?

*Prairie dogs are watching cars go by from the edge of the freeway.

*Sudan.

*Tumbleweed!

*Ack!  (Someone nearly ran us off the road there. Happily, a state trooper was there to catch the dangerous passing and the speeding)

*Was that a pull-camper decorated like a dog?

*Ah. We made it to our destination in good time.  To bed now. 

 Sunday March 14

*Someone who shall remain nameless, in an overtired state, might have tried to pee on the ceiling in his sleep.

*Cold front moves in. Sky turns gloomy. Will it snow?

*It’s snowing! We’re bundling up the kids to go look for enough snow to slide in.

*Snow rain sun snow rain sun snow rain sun

*Toboggan at Sandia moutains. Slushy cold snowballs silding mud fluffy snowflakes fun leading to happy tired.

*Altitude change and dry air playing havoc with sinuses.

Monday March 15

*Snow-covered mountain view in the morning sunshine.  Sonar X9 wants to do more sliding. Brisk walk.

*The kids are bringing sand from the driveway to the patio on sock-load at a time.

Tuesday March 16

*Albuquerque has a lot of billboards. #understatement

*Explora! An amazing museum where we can play with everything! Sciencey, puzzley, educationey, geeky.

*Explora! We could come back every day and neither get bored nor play with it all. 

*Explora! There are many things in this museum I’d love to imitate at home. Ex: the stretchy sail room dividers that are adjustibly attached to walls with old stereo jacks. (ok, that one’s too long to be a tweet. Cut me some slack.  I was on vacation.)

*Explora! Gift shop is as awesome as the rest of the museum. I bought brain-teaser puzzles for the drive home.

*Dream food: Little Anita’s chicken tacos or enchiladas.

*A common New Mexico question: red or green?  Come on.  No contest.  Green all the way baby. 

*Dry sinus misery. If I don’t drink till my eyeballs float I can hardly breathe. I might be turning into a mummy.

Wednesday March 17

*Happy St. Patrick’s day. Brisk morning walk. Chewy dark beer in the afternoon. Home-cooked corned beef and cabbage by Nana.

*New running shoes and sport sandals for Sonar X9 (he’s training for a team marathon). Shiny shoes are always faster.

*Didn’t get a chance to call bro to wish him a happy birthday until it was late in the evening. I suspect he’s already on a pub crawl.

Thursday March 18

*Another brisk morning walk. Convinced Sonar X5 to come. Sonar X9 ran most of the way.

*New sport sandals for Sonar X5. Not so shiny but easier to shake out the sand than tennies.

*Dan, Sonars X7 and X9 return to the mountain for more sliding. Here on the mesa it’s nearly 70F.

*Sonar X5 and I hang with Nana on the patio and try not to get a sunburn. Only partly successful.

*Delicious pizza dinner and more of that growly dark beer. Love the molassesy undertones. 

Friday March 19

*Rough night w/much sneezing, coughing, and flopping. We are all histy. Time to head home. New Mexico we will miss you!

*On the road by 6am MDT. Hoping to hit our southerly turn at Cline’s Corners before sunrise breaks the horizon.

*Made the turn moments before daybreak, saving us some eyeball splitting.

*Beautiful sunrise over the desert. Orange yellow pink purple blue grey.

*Everyone’s skin feels like paper.

*Snow remains in many shady nooks and crannies along the road.

*Encino, NM is not quite a modern day ghost town, but very very close. Not much more than a speed trap w/ many dilapidated buildings.

*Breakfast in Vaughn, NM. The Conoco store or Penny’s Diner?

*Penny’s was nice. It will fill you up, but don’t expect it to be fast. 

*Eastern New Mexico: big ranches, wide open spaces, cows, easy driving on 285S to Roswell.

*Speed limit: 70mph. My speed: 74mph. The driver who just passed me rapidly: reading a book. #crazy

*Vaughn to Roswell: not much. A few startlingly green alfalfa fields, fewer than a dozen buildings visible from highway, handful of bus stops.

*Subtle shift around mile marker 114. Less cow. More drilling.

*Roswell’s alien kitsch is always fun. Town seems very vibrant compared to many communities.

*Let the tantrums commence. Nearly 1/3 home, three tantrums so far. Good news though, I can mostly breathe through my nose again. 

*Almost halfway. Trying to delay lunch another half hour. Should I bribe them with jellybeans?

*Stop sign in middle of nowhere. Intersection between US Hwy 285 and TX Farm to Market Rd 1776. No traffic. Weird.

*Ft. Stockton one of my fave parts of this drive. Halfway and the wind turbines.

*The turbines stand at the head of the mesas and ridges like forward scouts or sentinels. Sneak up in valleys to ambush unsuspecting passersby.

*A beautiful sand- and chocolate-colored paint horse near the road.

*The scrubby bushes at Ft. Stockton grow steadily on the road to San Antonio, gradually becoming trees.

*A goat standing on the side of the road.  Some dogs on the roof of a building. Not in the same towns.

*Darkness falls as we hit San Antonio. We stop to eat and load up an audio book for the kids. Hoot by Carl Hiassen.

*Kids drop off to sleep one at a time. We do not drop off to sleep. 

*Amazingly, we make it home way before midnight. One more brief tantrum of waking confusion, and we all land in our beds, happy to be home.

*We’ve had a lovely time. Thanks for sharing snippets with me. #love

Off We Go, A Vacation Preparation Checklist

In my pre-vacation procrastination I apparently forgot to post this.  Just pretend that you don’t know we’ve already returned.  

1.  Do not leave behind anything that will be gross when we return.  Trash, food, laundry, science fair experiments. 

a. Take out trash. 

b. Cook, freeze, or give away food that can’t be taken with us. Eat the last four brownies with an enormous glass of milk in an effort to use up the milk.

c. Nibble at everything and begin ingesting absurd amounts of caffeine.

e. Wash and put away clothes.

f. Freshen the aquatic habitats and ask someone to feed the animals while we’re gone.

g. Get distracted cleaning something that hasn’t been cleaned for a while but has no relevance to the trip or the empty house. For example, the toaster.  Stop and clean out the toaster crumbs even if the toaster won’t be used while we’re gone.  Then panic about how little time is left before the children come home from school and we leave. 

2.  Prepare for the return.

a. Make beds ready for sleep, in case we return late.

b. Resist taking a nap in a freshly made bed.

c. Check cupboards for some kind of nonperishable food that the children are willing to eat in case we return late and/or hungry.

3.  Pack.

a. Clothes appropriate for travel and destination. (Snow clothes!!)

b. Convince the children that even though they have worn shorts to school all week, there is no way that they will need shorts where we are going, especially since there is a reasonable expectation of some snow.

c. Ignore the nine year old’s well-reasoned argument that while the high desert does get cold at night at this time of year, the daytime temperatures can often be as much as forty or fifty degrees higher, thus opening up a narrow possibility of short-need. 

d. Travel snacks, drinks, and entertainment.  Be sure there are enough snacks for ten people for ten days even though we are five people traveling to see grandparents with a well-stocked pantry for one week in a place that has stores.

e. Enough knitting and books to keep us busy for five months even though we’re only leaving for one week.

f. Gifts for people we will visit.

g. The cell phone and iPod chargers.

h. Lovies or lap blankets for children who might have to sleep in their seats while we drive over highways that expect snowstorms during our travel.  

4. In the middle of everything, stop and procrastinate for a while. Spend some time reading blogs that I couldn’t care less about.  Googlemap the trip 500 different ways.  Print out four of them even though we know exactly how to get where we’re going and we always go the same way. 

5. Panic about absurd contingencies. 

6. Calm down and plan for more reasonable contingencies.

a. Tell a trusted neighbor that we’ll be gone.

c. Make sure to have emergency contacts on the cell phone AND scribbled on a piece of paper and tucked inside the novel or knitting bag I’m bringing.

7. Spend an hour writing a blog post about getting ready for a trip, even though I haven’t actually done anything on the list.  

8. When the kids come home from school, and while one is finishing the science experiment that involves milk and juices sitting on the counter for a week, convince them that that we do not need to bring an entire drawer full of markers and toys that they cannot play with inside the car.

9. Have a plan to feed everyone a dinner composed of perfectly good food that needs to be eaten, but cave to picking up sandwiches on the way out of town.

10. At the last minute, after the suitcases are in the car, remember that I needed to pack some extra clothes for the youngest child, who is at Grandma’s and will be picked up along the way.  Cram some clothes into a grocery bag, intending to put them in his overnight bag when we get him.  Keep the clothes in this grocery bag all week, and tell him it’s a new kind of disposable suitcase.  [I forgot to do this one, so he wore the same two shirts all week.]

11. Collapse into the driver/passenger seat an hour later than we intended to leave, turn the radio up, roll the windows down, and appreciate the warm sea breeze for a few miles as we drive off to Northern New Mexico.  

 Off we go to grandparents, green chile, (maybe) snow, and fun.  Have a great Spring Break everyone!

I could eat him up

Behind that fringe are the luscious brown eyes of Sonar X7.  Happy birthday kiddo!

The Other February Books

A Book a Week continues. 

Me

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

This is the 2010 Newberry Medal Winner.  Sonar X9 read it last summer, having found it in the library.  At the time, when I asked him about it, he had a hard time describing exactly what it was about.  He was clearly engaged with the story, and it obviously left him with a good feeling.  That kid loves an adventure story or a graphic novel that he can rip through quickly, but he has the sensitivity to really appreciate a book like this one as well.  It’s a smart book, that doesn’t condescend to explain every last detail, that pushes a kid to think about what it happening and puzzle out some meaning.  The book stayed with him and he mentioned things about it here and there.  I’ve wanted to read it since then, but when it won the Newberry, I knew I couldn’t put it off.  I’ve rarely been disappointed by the Newberry choices.  This one was no exception. 

I liked Stead’s first novel, First Light, but there is something distinctly different, bigger, more profound about When You Reach Me.  When You Reach Me is the story of a kid who finds a note, loses one friend, gains others, and along the way puzzles out a notion of time travel, self-sacrifice, and the way in which relationships must grow and change.  The characters have believable depth and flaws.  I particularly love the mother, who is studying for an appearance on the $25,000 Pyramid every day when she returns from her job as a paralegal. It’s good to see the portrayal of a parent that is engaged with her child but also struggling to be her own person and achieve her own goals.  I could talk about any of the characters in a similar way.  I believe in them.  They are complex, but that complexity is revealed by degrees, in elegant and simple ways.  

The story also has an elegance, though it seems far from simple until the very end.  The main character, Miranda, refers regularly to her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, another time traveling tale. I read A Wrinkle in Time in the third grade.  I remember very little about the story itself, but I remember the feeling that I wasn’t quite understanding the book.  I remember a feeling of flying.  I remember enough to know that this story is quite different and yet similar.  Enough to know that I want to reread it.  One book leads to another book as this book is passed to another person.  Partner is reading it now.  

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

This book was just fun.  I loved Pride and Prejudice when I read it in college, but with a kind of romantic distance.  I appreciated Elizabeth’s wit and marveled at the restraint exercised in a society of manners.  This zombie redaction heightened my appreciation of the original, particularly of the potential for reading humor between the lines.  Grahame-Smith elevates the innuendo even further.  I lost count of the number of ‘ball’ jokes.  He is able to infuse Austen’s work with something else besides zombies, a sense that the characters have actual bodies.  In the novel of manners there is a sense that anything corporal or bodily is just not talked about as if it isn’t there.  I don’t recall once thinking of Elizabeth’s body in any way beyond a holder for a gown or a hand proferred.  There was no sense of her physically.  Graham-Smith though, gives Elizabeth and her sisters bodies that fight and feel.  Oh yes, and they sweat too, though the low word ‘sweat’ does not appear in the pages of the book.  Elizabeth and Darcy at different points suffer from “exercise moisture.”  

Another word that appears rarely in this zombie book is ‘zombie.’  Epithets abound, but my favorite is “manky dreadfuls.”  That should totally be the name of a punk band.  

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is my favorite book so far this year.  A 2007 nominee for the ALA Printz award, this book wrapped itself around me and wouldn’t let go.  Death narrates this story of a German orphan living through World War II with her foster family near Munich.  Leisl is the thief and main character, earning the title when she steals a book from the cemetery at her little brother’s funeral.  Heartbreaking.  Rich.  Nuanced.  Leisl’s best friend is Rudy.  Together they steal books and other things, both for the thrill and to fill the aching need of hunger and privation of the war.  I find myself wanting more boys in stories to be like Rudy.  Or like Marcus and the other boys in When You Reach Me.  A boy who is both trying hard to be what he thinks a boy should be, which is so much more than any stereotype of masculinity.  These boys are trying to be strong and fast, but they’re also full of love, fear, and silliness.  They make mistakes but they know when to do the right thing.  

Death tells us the story of how Leisl—I get hung up on the word here, I want to say ‘survived’ because she is a survivor, but ‘endured’ works well too.  How people live, endure, survive.  Death is most troubled by his job when he has to face those who survive.  The way that survivors react to a death is difficult and painful for Death to endure.  But of coures, he does endure.  Death is eternal.  He reminds us that we know how things end.  They always end in death.  Leisl is human, and her life will end, but she and Death are similar in the ways they learn to cope with their survival.  

I’m rambling here.  This book makes me want to outline essays about the theme of survival, the use of words to control and uplift, the notion of nourishment beyond food, the ways in which lives are balanced against one another, or any number of other things that this rich story would support.  

The book is heavy.  Situated in an impoverished neighborhood during WWII, with a labor camp right down the road.  The story itself has few moments of explicit violence, but there is a palpable tension surrounding the story.  We know that people are dying in any number of ways.  We know the fear in which people lived, especially if they’re doing something that could lead instantly to their death if discovered.  Zuzak exploits these tensions exquisitely.  He tells us more than once what is going to happen, but rather than deflating what follows, the tension is heightened, the story driven forward.  We are compelled to read in order to understand how that conclusion comes about.  To learn what happens around that conclusion.  

This is one I will read again and hope that you will read.  You will cry, but it will be the kind of sadness that is deeply thoughtful and cathartic and enriching.  

Sonar X9

Things are so busy around here right now that I haven’t been able to get even a simple thumbs up or down on any of these. I think he loved most of these, though Johnny Texas was compulsory at school and I have no idea whether he liked it.  He was enjoying the novelty of The Inferno but I think was undone by the complexity and has given it up in favor of other pleasures.  

The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell

Tapestry: The Hound of Rowan by Henry H. Neff

Tapestry: The Second Siege by Henry H. Neff

Fergus Crane by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

Johnny Texas by Carol Hoff and Bob Meyers

The Inferno of Dante by Robert Pinsky

What We’re Reading Now

Firmin by Sam Savage

Mossflower by Brian Jacques (out loud)

What We’re Thinking about Reading

In Other Rooms Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

2010 Knitting Olympics

*Edited to fix the time-travel, date error.

Buttercup

I finished my Knitting Olympics project on Friday February 26, 2010.  I worked on this sweater a little bit every day from the Opening Ceremonies until it was finished, except for one sick day.  That’s a sweater in fourteen days for anyone keeping track.  I still can’t quite believe I finished it.  I’m not happy with the bottom hem.  The picture demonstrates that hem’s lack of cooperation in staying-flat.  I am going to pull out the hem, and about an inch of overall length, and knit a smooth hem instead.  The top fits great otherwise, and the pattern was clear and easy to follow.  

Buttercup by Heidi Kirrmaier.  Yarn: Spa by Caron, Ocean Spray colorway (3 skeins).

My 2012 Knitting Olympics project: a Buttercup Sweater made from Caron Spa yarn in Ocean SprayTempest

As a bonus, I also finished my Tempest Cardigan during the Olympic Closing Ceremonies on Sunday February 28.  I didn’t work on this one for much of the Olympics.  When I was sure I’d be able to finish the Buttercup in time, I started working on this one a bit more.  The hem of the button band gave me trouble, and I pulled it out one-and-a-half times.  I had to use a size 8 needle and a very relaxed hand in the bind-off, but after steaming generously, that finally worked.  The bottom band was a piece of cake in comparison.  I had been operating on the notion that I needed ten buttons for this sweater, and managed to squeeze out ten matching buttons from my button stash.  When I looked back at the pattern (always a good idea), I noticed the number “14” sitting there plain as day.  Fourteen.  After briefly considering MIS-matched buttons, I dashed out after the USA-Canada hockey match (a match for the ages folks) and found fourteen lovely green buttons.  

I love this sweater.  It is soft, it fits well, it is so decadent.  Between the two yarns there is wool, silk, and alpaca in this one.  The pattern was well-written (you know, when I remembered to READ it) and easy-to-follow.  

Tempest Cardigan by Weaverknits, Knitty Spring 2008.  Main color is two strands of KnitPicks Gloss Lace (a wool/silk blend), Celery colorway.  Contrasting color is a strand of the Celery and a strand of AlpacaWare fingering weight in Pale Pink.  I used almost every bit of three-and-a-half hanks of celery and three (or was it four?) skeins of the pink alpaca.  A very gracious knitter in Ohio sent me her half skein so that I could finish the second sleeve and button-band.  I will think of this lovely Kelly in Ohio whenever I wear the sweater.  Knitters are awesome.  

A finished Tempest Cardigan in green and pink with green buttonsSonar X9 tried it on and really liked it.  The stripes suit his build.  I may make it for him, with a black and grey-heather blend.  Oh, and much shorter sleeves.  Much shorter.  

Books are coming.  I promise.