August 16: A Catch-up, Catch-All Celebration!

Well, it's Saturday, Julie left on Thursday, Friday vanished like a dream into a slow starting morning, a few visits with people in the front yard, three hours of work in my classroom (at long last!), errands en route home, a great work-out session with Kiley, then quinoa salad (which I am rocking these days, I must say) with Andy and Nate while we watched the wonderful "Muppets Most Wanted." Yay!

While Julie was up, we packed a lot of action into the five days we had, as has become our habit. We. . . .

picked out materials for three pairs of contrasting jammie pants: Caroline gets green and bright green; I get yellow floral and an aqua small print; Julie gets crazy patchwork and small pink flowers. I hope to cut them all out (most space-intensive part of the project) and then sew on them as time allows. I'm hoping that my new study set up will make it possible to sew for 1/2 hour or 15 minutes as that time becomes free. . . We'll see. We got the flannel at Marden's, and enjoyed the wonderful fabric ladies there.

At the other end of the chic scale, we also spent a day in Belfast and visited the ineffable Fiddlehead Artisan Supply, where I got some fabric for Mom's runner, better fabric to try to make Lyle's dream shirt, and we basically dreamed great dreams. What a lovely store: Julie, veteran of many fabric stores, said it was the nicest one she's been in. I resisted the urge to buy this book so I could make a dress from it that was almost exactly the one in the G'hopper window that stopped me in my tracks last week. . . . It's on my Christmas list, though!

While in Belfast, we went to the nice shoe store and I got a Deerfield Leathers handbag for 20% off--it's heavy leather, smells great, was made in New Hampshire, and . . . well, I just succumbed to the whole event. Lovely. I want to leather treat it and then start the switching over process from my backpacky muppet-haired Bean's bag to this one!

We also went to Bar Harbor, saw Lori, climbed Beech Mountain, went to the Beech Hill Farmstand, and checked out Spruce and Gussy and Salt--I loved S&G, but Salt was pretty pricey, upscale, and minimalist, so didn't really work for me.

A few things on MY "I've always wanted to" list included visiting the Gee's Bend Quilters exhibit at the Penobscot Marine Museum, climbing Great Pond Mountain (Nate and Andy came with us, which was great) and swimming afterwards, finally setting foot in the Courthouse Gallery in our very own Ellsworth, and then of course the mixed experience of Bar Harbor in mid-season madness.

Her last full day, Wednesday, was a chilly, rainy one, and we had already decided to see "The Hundred Foot Journey," (here's a link to the trailer, if you haven't seen it yet; backed by Spielberg and Oprah, it's had a lot of press!) regardless of the weather, so that worked perfectly. It's a fun movie, but not as strong as "Chef"--still, go see it. Much to like!

We ate at the Thai Sana place in Ellsworth that night, and before we knew it, J was off in her car with Scooter the turtle. . . . and I was thinking of how much she needed to move to Portland at least.

What a lovely time. How spoiled we are to have had two kid free weeks! It was great to get out and see some cultural sites, do some hiking, and also do some small-business-boosting shopping. Yay, friend visits and vacationing!

August 12: Vacation with Julie!

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Not a fan. Thrones, Dominations worked; Presumption of Death was carried by the plot; Attenbury Emeralds began to lose any strong Sayers voice, and The Late Scholar is a train wreck that reads like it was rushed to publication without an effective edit. For example, on p. 345 someone says, "We must make emends." I looked it up, and the definition is "Emend means to improve by editing (especially a text)", so I thought, "Okay, this is a scholarly mystery so Paton Walsh was probably using it in a slightly show-offy way to make us think it was a typo but it's really an obscure word that's totally appropriate." HOWEVER: the gentleman in question is NOT discussing editing or improving a written work at all--he really means, "We must make amends." Sloppy work. The whole authorial voice is gone: Peter isn't witty; Harriet isn't controlled and intelligent; the narration isn't understated and insightful. I might need to read a genuine Sayers to get the taste of this one out of my mouth, so to speak. A clear lesson that more is not better. Don't read beyond Presumption of Death.

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August 5: Lovely, lovely days. . .

Maybe it's because of our late start on vacation, but I feel like I am just now starting to settle into the right vacation groove. Lyle is in CT, Andy is working steadily on various lawn jobs, and Nate is working and looking towards Bates (Aug. 24, babeeeeee!), which leaves me with a nice . . . what do I call a routine that is not a routine but which I am learning to love? summer, I guess. The weather has been lovely, and I have been enjoying the quiet and shady coolness that we get here during the summer afternoons. I've been working on two pairs of pj pants for certain twins whose b'day is coming up, so I've been busy since Saturday, but I do love the ability to organize my days the way I want to organize them!

Then again, the fact that it is August has forced me to look at some things I. Want. To. Get. Done, so today I woke up at 6:15, ran (yay, me! So proud and pleased that I can run pretty much first thing these days!), showered, then got my long-delayed blood test from last year done, came home, and it was 8 am! I have been working steadily with Casey, though not always face-to-face, but we have both been reliable about doing our assigned work, so that's great.

Andy and I have decided that Lyle will take A's Corolla to school with him, mostly because, when we thought about it, it was the solution that left the fewest number of loose ends/questions/stressful details to tie up, so we went with it! Andy will drive the Camry (we owe about $500 on it and then it's all ours!) until he decides it's time for a change OR it dies, so we'll have one less car sitting in the driveway most of the winter, which is great. It's funny how just having that small decision made makes me feel good. My brain doesn't need to keep turning the question over and over, wondering if we can rent, or Sam could drive, or. . . . Yay!

And on Sunday Andy and I drove down to get the truck from Mom's and tied in a visit to see our new nieces at Maine Medical, where they'll be for about a week, probably. They are tiny, but they do look like babies, not fetuses, which is a clear indication that they are much healthier than many of the poor babies in the NICU. What an amazing event in our family. . . wow. Just plain wonderful. I need to decide on a stocking pattern and then get started--maybe while we drive N down to Bates!

Julie arrives for our SECOND child-free visit this summer, which should be great. She's had a tough go recently, with the loss of a neighbor to cancer and a sick Tuffy, so it'll be nice to have her up for a while of heavy vacationing. AND: funny to think that a year ago on Saturday, Nate and I went down to get Camilla from UNE. Wow.

So I could take several more weeks of lovely weather and total control of my time and decisions, but its fleeting quality is partly what makes summer so wonderful. Tonight A and I are going to see "Chef" at Reel Pizza with my Hebron classmate, Jeanne K. . . . more fun! Yay!

August 8: Waiting for Julie!

Julie is en route, expected late, and I've just put together a nice day of bits and pieces, but with a sense of accomplishment. It started as a lovely, cool, sunny, dry day, but *right after* I hung out my two loads of laundry, another batch of thunderstorms with heavy rain rolled in, and since then it's been wet and dark. Zeus is under the table where my feet are or staring out the door. Poor baby.

AND Nate had a fender bender while delivering today: he called and it was nothing dangerous, but I'm sure he's shaken up. Ah, life and its experiences.

Let's see. Today I have:
1. done two loads of laundry.
2. made iced tea.
3. prepped L's room for Julie.
4. weeded and dead-headed all three gardens that I'm in charge of, including the little lily garden by the rock out front. It felt great to do the whole pants-in-socks-and-boots-with-bug-spray prep and head out, removing spent centaurea and rose campion, pulling out ferns, dead-heading daisies, day lilies, and bee balm, and generally tidying things up. I think the big garden by the boat shed needs a major overhaul and mulch (maybe next spring in all our empty-nester spare time?), and we have some other plans as well. Andy and I spent some nice time wandering around the back yard making plans in between the downpours that Ellsworth suddenly specializes in.
5. Then I came in and took a much-needed shower (it is really really pouring now. WOW. White rain).
6. I also ordered the boys three pairs of great "flat cord" pants ($59.95 each) from the Gap as there was a 40% card member offer, AND with my points from the card I spent $79 for the three. YES!
7. Andy and I also finally organized the EZ pass situation and got me a new "tag" and entered my license plate on his/our account. YES! Small steps, but great ones to get done.
8. had a nice catch-up chat with Ginny about all our various doings. Nice to talk to her!

Now I am lusting after a Boden cashmere cardi, and the big problem is which color I should get it in, and whether I should give in. . . . Lucky for that to be my "big problem."

I think I will head upstairs to read (or should I say "read"?) for a bit in the study, and then I'll look for more small but eminently satisfying things to do.

Happy August. It is good.

August 5: New Books and a New Month!

Well, Goodreads is down right now so I will write here and then hope to post backwards. We'll see.

Finally finished the book Lyle gave me with the words, "You have to read this. It's good and so sad." Indeed Amanda Vaill's Everybody Was So Young is both of those things: good, in terms of being thoughtful and detailed, and sad in that it sketches a time that has been lost, and also the story of a couple who suffered great losses but kept going through their long lives, trying to be good for something. It's the biography of Gerald and Sara Murphy, two Americans born into wealth who became inspirations, friends, supporters, and members of the artistic and literary expatriate community around Paris in the 20s and 30s. The most moving aspect of the book for me, especially in light of Hemingway's 4? 5? wives and the Fitzgeralds' destructive relationship was their love for each other: they supported and cared for each other throughout their lives, anxieties and doubts and tragedies notwithstanding.

Fascinating also to consider what we've lost in turning away from letter writing: how will our biographers recreate our records? The voices from the letters are strong and clear--it's a rare text or email that will meet that level of reflection!

Vaill digs deep and pulls together a variety of sources and information, and her writing is generally effective. There's an occasional sentence like the following: "Such politicization had begun to drive a wedge between some of the Murphys' circle: Dottie Parker, in particular, had stopped speaking to Bob Benchley over "some labor issue," although she claimed it was because "I told her not to make those ingenue eyes at me as she was no longer [an] ingenue," Benchley reported to the Murphys." (283): while the gist of the sentence is clear, the whole "she said/he said" relationship is so convoluted that it would surely have been better to have rewritten the whole thing. However, Vaill's sense of respect for the principals is clear, and makes the book not a People-magazine expose, but a thoughtful evaluation of bonds and relationships, personalities and roles.

A few more dates might've been helpful, but overall, Everybody Was So Young is an excellent book. Students of American literature, take heed!




The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I bought this audiobook from Audible on the rec. of Karen of Cornflower Books, whose taste I generally appreciate. In the long run, however, I found it uneven: in the beginning, it's too sad, with two parallel stories of women who are dealing with the inevitable losses of old age; then it becomes too predictable, with WWi and WWII stories that we've all heard before and miraculously "I knew he was The One" relationships; it winds up with a big helping of "spooky-wooky" "I could feel her spirit near me" intimations and that revelation of the hidden secret that we had no idea had existed from the very beginning of the tale. So. I guess I'd say that there are some interesting/lovely aspects of the story, and the narration is beautifully done. However, my "okay" rating remains. Overall, it became an annoying book.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Nate really likes this one; As usually, I loved the narration and the creativity behind it, but (probably because I listened to it in fits and starts as we shared ipods) it lacked the zest and overall continuity of the best of Pratchett's writing. He does have a strong sense of what makes humans both lovable and annoying/dangerous, and he presents the Auditors as completely lacking those characteristics but slowly developing them. Who knew chocolate could save the world?

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July 28: Books and (Maybe) a Few Pictures!

Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Quinn's idea could go terribly wrong, and it IS hoky: the dog narrates this whodunnit series. However, Quinn's narration as Chet is clever and, for those dog-lovers out there, spot-on: smells sidetrack Chet; he frequently succumbs to naps and misses parts of a story; he has several embarrassing stories involving other dogs, javelinas, and/or irresistible food, etc. I listened to this during a long, slow drive to CT and back and found it really fun: not great literature, but certainly entertaining. The reader got Chet's voice and delivery nicely, and the plot is interesting enough to keep things moving. Recommended for people who know dogs but don't want an overly cutesy involvement with them.

Never Too Late by Angela Thirkell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cleaning out the shelves, I spotted my vintage copy of this Thirkell and succumbed to its lures (and then also read A Double Affair, the next one in the series). . . . Thirkell is SUCH an acquired taste, but she is truly wonderful when she's at her best. I wish there were movies: the life with butlers and maids is presented as so normal, the mention of leasing out the wing of the big house for a school is so common, and the concern about how to keep the family property intact so frequent that it's hard to realize that these are REALLY RICH PEOPLE! The people in the village who are so gently but snobbishly described as different or as trying hard but not quite making it--they are US! I'd love to see the "actual" landscape that she was describing. It is surely alien to this American, but I do love to visit it.

Plot-wise, not her freshest, as there is a lot of repetition about Edith and her difficulties and George and his. Still, worth a visit.

A Double Affair by Angela Thirkell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As I mentioned in my Never Too Late review, I read this after NTL, and I think I'd over-dosed on the less-energetic Thirkell genre by then: this one felt overwritten and repetitive as a whole, although it does have some nice parts and is, after all, escapist Anglophilic Thirkell, regardless! It "forwards the story" but it's not her best.

Gold by Chris Cleave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wary after the intense experience of reading LIttle Bee, I flirted around the edges of Gold, but ultimately I committed to reading it, and I'm glad I did. Cleave is a skilled and intriguing author, and this novel about the competing demands of family and top level athletic competition is powerful and good. The sport (short track bike racing?) is esoteric, but once I got into the book, it became a backdrop for the deeper questions and issues. Cleaves's characters are unique and sympathetic (I especially liked Tom, the coach, and Jack and Kate's relationship) and the story as a whole is suspenseful and interesting. Recommended.

A few of his riffs on modern culture (usually delivered from Tom's perspective) are really brilliant: he has one about young men who have to post everything on line and who make fun of everything, including themselves, while taking themselves incredibly seriously. Snap.

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July 17: Reading a lot at Julie's!

Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's understandable that after cranking these (and many other offerings!) out at an amazing pace, the quality of JE's writing should flag at times, but this effort was solidly in the "okay" range. Grandma and Lola were pretty funny but not over-the-top ridiculous, and the plot had some coherence, though I wonder how long the Joe/Ranger conflict can continue without making Stephanie clearly unethical and flat-out unfaithful--she's right on the edge now. All in all, an entertaining beach read.

Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage by Molly Wizenberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I like Molly Wizenberg's Orangette blog, and I was delighted to see this book in the Ridgefield Library. I might buy it, because I like a lot of the recipes--both for weird experiments (gin with ground pepper and garlic?) and for plain ol' "that sounds great!" meals (penne alla vodka). The story of the ins and outs of starting the restaurant was engrossing, too, and the progress of her relationship with and understanding of her husband caught my attention as well, though Julie did not find the book interesting at all. One aspect I noted with respect was that she discussed various people who entered their lives through the restaurant process, and it was really hard to tell if they would be friends, foes, betrayers, or loyal supporters: her tone was always level and respectful, an approach that I find difficult in my own life and in much public discourse today.

Recommended (though Julie disagrees!) as an interesting resource and a good story, though I am surprised that it's a NYT bestseller. Doesn't seem jazzy enough. Maybe a lot of people want to open restaurants and find this book, as I do, a good replacement!

Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay: amazing is over-the-top for this little book (booklet, maybe?), but I really liked its zippy format, its straightforward advice, and its clear diction. It was another 25 cent investment at our neighbor's yard sale, and I've shared it with Michael (it is his "I've read one book!" book already) and we both thought it was enlightening and funny.

Anyone who's hoping? trying? to "eat better" should read this book--preferably a copy picked up for 25 cents at a yard sale!

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