My Weirdness This Week, and Shaun Tan's Gem

My toe is sore today.  Actually it’s been sore for a couple of days because I dropped a glass on it the other night.  I knew it the moment I set the glass down on the corner of my desk.  Actually thought to myself, ‘Don’t put it there.  You’ll knock it over.’  Pah on that inner voice.  I set the glass on the corner of my desk so that I could close the curtain to the right, and turn on the lamp to the left.  As I simultaneously pulled my hand gracefully away from the lamp switch and started to sit down in my chair, I caught the top edge of the glass with my hand and tipped it toward myself.  The contents of the glass splattered first against me (spraying in a sort of arc behind me), then after the glass hit my foot, it spun and sprayed more liquid around in front of me, before bouncing onto the tile and breaking.  

While I screamed ow ow ow ow standing in a glassy puddle on one foot, my lovely Partner got towels and brooms and ice.  I’ll be fine.  It was actually sort of funny.  Did I mention that it was a glass of wine?  Wine that I’d taken barely a sip out of before the spectacular spraying of wine all over the room?  Did I mention that it miraculously missed the computer on its track to soak the tile as well as a towel that has been wedged under the thousand-pound filing cabinet for the last year to keep the metal cabinet from scraping the tile?  Or that there is no way to remove this towel from under the cabinet without emptying the files out of it?  

The living room now has the lingering aroma (thankfully pleasant) of a 2005 Australian Shiraz Cabernet that I really liked and was disappointed to have dropped on my foot.  

Perhaps the fumes led to the next weirdness, which was measuring out a level teaspoon of salt to put in my tea yesterday morning.  No, I realized my mistake before I drank the tea, thank you very much.  

All of this should not, however, cause you to doubt my next enthusiastic endorsement.  We came across Shaun Tan’s The Arrival in the juvenile fiction section of the library last week.  I guess you’d call it a graphic novel, in that there are no words, only pictures.  Don’t assume though that the pictures and its location in the library make it kids’ stuff.  The word that comes to my lips anytime I try to describe it is ‘beautiful.’  

The Arrival tells the story of one man’s journey from his home country to make a new life, first for himself, and later for his family in a magical fictionalized world.  Each page, each panel is filled with magic.  You will choke up when the main character holds the hands of his wife and daughter before boarding the boat.  You will understand the awe, the frustration, the loneliness, the fear, the hope that immigrants must have felt when stepping off the boat at Ellis Island more than a century ago.  The pages are filled with fantastical elements meant to illustrate the foreignness, the exoticness, the seeming magic of this new place.  Also embedded in the pages is the generosity of the shared immigrant experience, the way in which one person helps another through the initial confusion, how each person has a different story that led him or her to this place at this time.  The pictures are shaped with subtle details, small beauties and wonders that you will linger over.  

While perfectly appropriate for young people, it should not be overlooked by adults, who will understand the complex choices we sometimes make to care for our families, who might see reflected, if not one’s own experience, then perhaps that of a parent or grandparent.  A great book to share in any language.

If you enjoyed The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, you’ll love this book.  (And if you’ve never read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you should go find that one too.)  

Pic-less, sort of

My digital camera is broken.  I have procrastinated the fixing of it for no good reason.  

I could chat you up about all of the stuff I’ve been making.  I finished Sonar X5’s Ravenclaw-ish socks.  Started a pair of ballet slippers for me.  And have worked nearly a foot of the red mohair scarf.  I’ve recently decimated the mending pile, made a pair of shorts (also for Sonar X5), and will today cut fabric on a dress for me (Simplicity 3877, the sleeveless v-neck style).  

But there is nothing more boring than crafty chat with no pictures.  I can tell you about the fabulous floral print for the dress, with it’s splashy combination of orange and red and hot pink, but without a picture to catch your attention, to show you just how yummy it is, well…  *sigh*  It’s not even any fun to write about without the pictures.  

Ok, so, actually, I do have a picture of the fabric (and my reading stack from last October).  You may have seen it before.  Halloween costumes must have intervened.  

This fabric came from Hawaii, purchased by my grandmother, and shared begrudgingly a few years ago.  

I will take 12 pattern pieces, cut no fewer than 30 separate bits of fabric, and magically assemble them into a smoking hot dress to wear—well, perhaps to the grocery store or the library?  I hope I have enough fabric.

Now, I just need to clean the drying fennel blossoms off the sewing table.  Either that or make a fennel-scented dress. 

Licorice anyone?

The Woodshed

I spent all day yesterday overdoing things in fine fashion. A grand and gluttonous lasagna was had, as well as fresh bread, fresh granola, and an icy coke to top off my spicy crab rolls at lunch. We continued today by constructing a decadent key-lime pie, complete with towering meringue. It’s still cooling, so I’ll have to let you know about that one later.

I do confess that the excess of rich and lovely food has done a lot to improve my mood. Not to mention the minor clearing of the sinuses affected by the spiciness of all. Though I still fell into a deep, coma-like sleep on the couch at 8:00.

Many thanks to the beautiful C’s, who in their infinite wisdom have reminded me that I have been missing music and baby animals in my life. I have to wonder whether CM intended the berry marinade for one of the wee ones? ;) I will turn on some Steve Earle and macerate some blueberries, just to be ready.

In the name of good humor, I will share with you additional topics of cheer.

First, bless a group of socially and politically active and aware crafters. They’ll just bring you up out of the dumps. Especially when they sprinkle their work liberally with gloom, doom, sarcasm, and insult and are willing to dedicate an entire issue to bacon. Eat it up friends. Then go back and read some of their earlier crafting extravaganzas.

If you just need to get your hormones racing a little bit, take Janet Evanovich at her word and grab a little birthday cake—in the form of a racy novel, that is. A romance novel perhaps, or maybe just jump into a Stephanie Plum novel. If time is of the essence, skip right to the scene with Stephanie and Joe in the backseat of the Uncle Sandor’s Buick in Four to Score. Trust me when I tell you that consummation is underrated compared to Joe standing half-naked in the street holding his gun.

If slightly (and I do mean slightly) higher brow literary entertainment is what you need, how about picking up Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm. I’ve seen the movie, but I’m enjoying the novel for the first time. You read it too and we’ll share reviews.

I’ll save for another day some of my real deep-well, pulling out all of the depressive stops, such as advanced patriarchy bashing, heavy drinking, and painting my toenails orange.

Stacked

From the top:
Clive Barker’s Mister B. Gone
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town on the Prairie
Janet Evanovich’s Plum Lucky
Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men
Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire
James Burkes’ The Pinball Effect: How Renaissance Water Gardens Made the Carburetor Possible
J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Mercer Mayer’s What a Bad Dream
Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Punk Farm on Tour
Lila Prap’s Daddies

Not Pictured:
Fred Rogers’ The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
Alison Hansel’s Charmed Knits
Debbie Stoller’s Son of Stitch and Bitch

This is the stack of books I am reading or will soon read.

HP6 and Little Town are being read to the Sonars a few pages at a time at bedtime. We’ve read all of the HP’s so far, and we started this one back in December sometime. I marvel that I have chosen, as a parent to read such complex and sometimes horrifying books (bone white, dead bodies floating under inky black water, anyone?) to children age 3, 4, and 7, at BEDTIME no less. And I further marvel at the way they sit, completely absorbed and emotionally engaged with these books, yet somehow capable of leaving their feelings in the book when it’s time to sleep (if not when it’s time to play).

The three picture books on the bottom are Sonar X3’s to choose from for a bedtime story. Punk Farm is really fun (“Peace Out Colorado!”). I could add here another picture book that we have recently loved and read at least a dozen times: Woolbur by Leslie Kelakoski (“‘I know!’ said Woolbur. ‘Isn’t it great!”)

Mister B and Plum Lucky are pure escapism for me. I read and loved in a slightly twisted way, a couple of Barker’s books as a teen, and have perused his books for younger readers recently. This is his return to fully adult literature, and I was curious. It’s… ok so far. I am intrigued by the use of Gutenburg’s development of the printing press as a locus for an epic battle between heaven and hell. I accidentally discovered Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books a year or so ago. And while I’m not normally ‘mystery’ kind of reader, I quickly fell in love with this quirky heroine and quickly devoured all twelve novels and two novellas that were available at the time (seriously, I think I read them all in less than three weeks, which is amazing considering the complete lack of free reading time that I have). Plum Lucky is the third of the so-called Between-the-Numbers stories (the regular novels all have a number in the title: One For the Money, Lean Mean Thirteen, etc.) that let’s Stephanie explore the not so down-to-earth potential of her life in the Burg. Really fun, funny, and sexy, even if they are a teensy bit predictable sometimes.

Partner is actually reading No Country right now, but I plan to steal it sometime soon. He’s read a few passages to me, and we’re both taken with the bizarre prose, though it is sometimes challenging to tease the meaning out from the unpunctuated passages. Not for the weak of stomach, this one.

The Pinball Effect is one that I pick up from time to time and read a few passages. It works that way. Letting us all be dilettantes of cultural history. Anyone familiar with Burke’s television show, Connections, will recognize the format here. Burke’s approach to history illuminates the fact that there was a world-wide-web of culture and influence well before the internet was even imagined.

Michael Pollan’s book is another that I want to get to. His writing never fails to remind me why I *want* to eat the way we do most of the time, providing many and varied reasons for thoughtful consumption of food.

In the background of the picture you can also see a tissue box, a pile of pink something, a domed plastic Krispy Kreme cup, and maybe the corner of the backup drive.

The pink something is the sweater I’ve finally sewn together, only to discover that it’s too short for me. I’ve embarked on an epic quest to Make It Fit, which I will blog another day.

The Krispy Kreme donut hole cup, purchased in a moment of weakness embedded in another moment of weakness (donuts, during a rare trip to Walmart), and now devoid of donut holes, is now a micro-greenhouse where we are trying to sprout Banyan seeds. (We like to watch It’s a Big Big World sometimes) Awesome, really, that a tree that big comes from something the size of a poppy seed.

The knitting books will soon be responsible for three small owls and one very large sweater.

And as for Mister Rogers. *happy sigh* Well, let’s just say he holds a special, if not schlocky place in my heart. The fortieth anniversary of Mister Rogers Neighborhood passed last week, and what would have been Fred Rogers’ 80th birthday is coming up next month. See more on this when I talk about Sweater Day.