Saturday, August 6: Rich Summer Continues!

     We need rain, badly, but might get some tonight––of course we had planned to go see "Comedy of Errors" at Fort Knox––but the rest of the summer is rich, full, and lovely. We had a wonderful five days on Taylor Pond, courtesy of the California Whites, and enjoyed stunning weather except for a hazy afternoon when we went to see the unabashedly fun "Ghostbusters 2". Much fun in the sun, the water, and with family:

Last Sunday A and I returned home, sighing a bit, and settled into our quieter but wonderful life here. I read Ta-Nehisi Coates's amazing piece Between the World and Me, worked on an experimental tank top with the Sorbetto pattern (nearly done), and actually managed to pull off a leisurely summer knitting group meeting with Dawn and Jen on our patio, breezes, a lovely rhubarb-cornmeal tart, and lots of fun talk and knitting! And. . . banjo lessons! And . . . . some monumental salads! 

We've also gotten my beloved Corolla up to the dealership for a major (okay, overdue) spa treatment of $2k proportions (but we hope that holds her for a few years!), I attended a good one day PBE conference in Brewer with Heather, put on by the State, and I finished my second of four PBE classes with a perfect score (booyah!) but, more importantly, a sense of how to do research at the graduate level and some rich topics for investigation. Hmmmmm. 

Lyle is pondering next steps, and Nate is pondering the end of his incredible, intensive, powerful, crazy, exhausting summer apprenticeship at Williamstown Theater Festival, and is due home in about two weeks. I plan/hope to finish some projects (tank, checkbook cover, and inherited sweater, I'm looking at you three!), repair my SUP and use it, do some writing course planning for school, hike some, see more friends, and do some summery stuff I can't do otherwise. Mostly, I want to continue to love and appreciate this time, soaking it in. Onwards, gently and with awareness! 

ETA: WOOT! WOOT! A sewing victory!

I rarely have these. . . . at least beyond quilts and pj pants! I am slow, often reluctant, overly cautious, or downright dense about sewing, especially adapting patterns to fit my particular self. However, the free Sorbetto tank pattern (linked above) was a success! I am so late to that party that the blog's comments are closed, even for this summer's Sorbetto sewing party, but I am so tickled that I'm sharing anyway: 

AND will sport that product to church tomorrow! 

A couple quick remarks: using parchment paper for my cutting-out pattern version was great, and much easier than trying to adapt the standard-paper model I pieced together from the pdf. That was a hint from the online community. Thank you!

Another trick that delights me is this idea of how to make my own bias-tape: here's the link, and thank you to "Creative Daisy" who showed the way and saved me from ordering a limited gadget. I liked making that tape for the neck and arm holes so much that I decided to use it on the hem (1" size) too--also to add a bit of length and give more heft to weight the front pleat a bit. I really enjoy it, and I'm delighted to think that, with this tutorial as well, I can do a much better job on the edges of future quilts, as well! 

The learning! The learning! The learning! I really loved it! 

Tuesday, July 26: Some Seriously Wonderful Things in My Summer

1. Spending empty nest time with my beloved. Nothing spectacular, and maybe a few too many nights that the Sox blow an awesome lead and lose, but our time together makes me smile. My chosen grown-up. He's a keeper.

2. The weather! It has been hot, sunny, lovely, changeable. . . with just enough rain to keep things green. Just enough. We could use a full night of rain once a week, but oh my this has been a lovely summer.  Tomorrow we're off to the lake house on Waterview Drive for four days, and I hope hope hope hope hope it will continue!

3. Reading. I have set my mind to gorging on books, and it's been a pleasure. Below is a screen shot of my "My Books" page on goodreads, and that doesn't include my recent audiobooks (a re-listen of Georgette Heyer's The Quiet Gentleman and the first three Harry Potters!)  which have also been wonderful.

I haven't loved them all, and I didn't finish them all, but the luxury of having a big stack that I can jump into at will––at will, I say!––is a delight.

4. Hard, consistent, academic work. I am taking course #2 of Univ. of Me/Farmington's four course certificate in Proficiency-based Education, and this course required us to do some of the basics of social science research: a focus group (nerve-wracking but ultimately incredibly worthwhile), an action plan, and. . . . hardest work I've done in a long, long time, a literature review––not like the ones above, but a review of research out there on a certain topic (mine was parental involvement in the PBE reform effort) coupled with my own findings and thoughts and plans for forward movement. It was intense, overwhelming, and exhausting, but when I was done, I had kicked some major social science research butt. I was able to put three solid days into the work (on top of a few weeks of research reading and generalized panic), and when I was done, the prof. asked me if she could use my review as a model of graduate level scholarship and professionalism! Wahoo––aside from the external praise, I simply relished digging so deeply into my. own. work. Suddenly, I could imagine doing a doctorate, and really, really enjoying it. I think I'm done with this class (possibly one other tiny assignment), but man, it was a pleasure on many levels (I'm signed up for class #3 for the fall, so that's a good thing!). Also great to be able to work in my study at my desk--lovely view, and good space to dig in and work hard.

5. Project time! I finished Andy's socks (pic below, I hope),

and after a bit of unsettledness, I've resurrected a cast-off project from my sister and have been enjoying figuring it out. We've lost the pattern, so I've been winging it with pleasure. What a treat to start at the upper yoke of a huge cardigan and just crank up from there! In addition, I have been fiddling with the free Sorbetto tank pattern, digging out some fabric I got for one long ago but never did anything with. I had a lovely time piecing the pattern together while I listened to The Quiet Gentleman, but we're leaving tomorrow for our mini-lake vacation so it will sit. Ah well.

I hope when I come back (it will be August) to continue much that has been good, but to add more hiking--did a lot before my wonderful visit with Julie and my Hebron Friend Reunion, but none since, mostly due to the class; some more sewing (maybe finish the table runner? and the tank? Make a dress?); lots more reading, and more time with my man! I also hope to organize an afternoon visit/tea/knitting session with my school knitting group, as well as some other social events.

Such richness.

July 2, Saturday: In that odd Way Summer Saturdays Are. . .

The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another strong work by Hattemer (her first published book, I think)--interesting characters and a good level of quality writing, but not as absorbing or nuanced as Land of 10,000 Madonnas. Although she drops some plot lines and doesn't develop some potential ideas as fully as they deserve, it's still an original and worthwhile read and an entertaining piece of y.a. writing.

And now for something completely different: Benediction by Kent Haruf
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finished Benediction around 11 pm on June 30 with the cats curled around me as I wept on the couch. It's powerful and sad--but saying that is obvious in the way that saying books about humans' relationships with their dogs are sad: the likelihood is that the dog is going to die. In Benediction, Dad is dying from the start: this is NOT a spoiler--and the power of the novel is in its steady attention to the small things that make life lovely, valuable, and memorable. I think the novel could be 100 pages longer, as I wanted to hear more about Lorraine (I felt that the one misstep in the story is the sudden mention of her own loss, though it might be the subject of another of Haruf's novels), about Frank *of course*, and I just wanted to hang out a bit more with these people.

It's not an easy, fluffy book (Marilynne Robinson's people could talk to these folks easily), but it's memorable and deep and calm, somehow. Recommended for a valuable experience when you feel ready for it.

Weird note: I bought a copy from the EPLibrary book sale (of course). The paperback is gorgeous: great cover, nice feel in the hands. My copy, however, was full of highlighting: probably 1/3 of every page had been highlighted in yellow through the entire story! I'd love to know the reason for that painstaking approach to reading a work of fiction that ended up in a book sale.

Second note: my students often complain about Sandra Cisneros's refusal to use quotation marks around dialogue in House on Mango Street. Well, I chuckled to myself when I noted that Haruf avoids them as well, and also shuns speaker tags like "he said," and "she commented" as well. Fun to note that bridge.



Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Abandoned this one. It was fascinating at first, but then the storyline became 1. too ornate, with complex switching between characters, each of which had a huge backstory, most of which I wasn't terribly interested in (in which most of I was not interested????), 2. too predictable: it's an adventure story, and actually reminded me a lot of LA Meyer's Bloody Jack stories!, and 3. too long!!! I guess that laps back to the first point, but I just felt that the mental work it took for me to ingest the story was greater than the story actually deserved--and so, with a world of stories out there begging to be ingested, I put it back on the "to the book sale!" pile. And so the great cycle continues.

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Summer Time! back at it. June 25, 2016

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Heather lent me this one, and I gobbled it down in two days. Megan wasn't a huge fan, and I can see that it might be an acquired taste: I skimmed a goodly amount of the fairy tale part (with no ill effects that I can see) and Granny herself is a difficult character to like, so the first part of the book, when Elsa is 100% pro-Granny, is challenging. However, soon Backman's multi-faceted pictures of human nature develop fully, and his picture of the beauty and pain of life makes the book powerful and moving. I'll admit it: I laughed, I cried! Backman's willingness to reveal the good in all people of all personality types is unusual and refreshing. He seems like he'd be a great friend as well as a wonderful author!

This is a novel for patient readers who love words, grammar (Elsa has a red pen that she uses to edit poorly-written signs), and other people.

'We want to be loved. Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. AT all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.' Doctor Glas, quoted in MGAMTTYSS

"The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living."

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Supported by Ann's glowing reminder, I got this on audio and it romped me into vacation and through quite a bit of cleaning up and various yard chores. Heyer is at her funny, fluffy, rambunctious best in this story of the fearless, dauntless Sophy and her high-handed management of the family she comes to stay with. Predictable, madcap, and completely entertaining. BRAVA!


I stopped posting for a bit: busy and just not feeling it. But: here are two I'd like to share beyond the windows of Goodreads. And: summer. I have to share some summer. It's just lovely.

Friday, May 13: Rainy Peaceful Night!

Whoops! Never posted this . . .  no real reason to except that it's fun to look back on it.

From Friday, May 13: To-do list for a quietish weekend:

--talk to BFF Sat. am while drinking strong coffee
--dig up some pulmonaria and oregano to give to friends; plant chives from friend
--mail great pic of me and friends to friend
--sew a bit?
--go to see "Duck Hunter Shoots Angel" at Penobscot Theater with beloved; find place for dinner beforehand!
--do progress reports
--swim and run
--church
--prep for meeting on Monday!

Saturday, May 21: Spring! Books! Lists! Exchange possibility. . .

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I. Loved. This. Book. Backman's tone is dry and reserved, but his heart is clearly in the right place! Having visited AFS family in Norway, I could visualize the "neighborhood association," which added appeal. This is, in many ways, a small, simple book, but it presents a lot of important ideas about people, community, love, grief, and decency. "A Man Called Ove" is the book I've been recommending to everyone I meet lately. My book hangover is severe, but it's worth it.

*Highly* recommended. Buy a copy (in hardback, even!) to give to someone worthy of it after you finish.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is the first of the two "Books by Swedes from the MDIHS Library Which Don't Involve Perversion Or Murder". Not sure I got the modifiers in the right places, but: both Bivald and Backman are Swedish "every day" writers, and their books leapt off the shelves and into my bookbag.

Unfortunately, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a mess. It's too long, too ornately plotted, too naive, and too dull to succeed, much as its cover, its intent, and its author are appealing. The story of a reclusive young book seller who ends up in a dead-end town in Iowa (?) and whose vision of creating a bookstore ends up rejuvenating the town tackles topics of (wait for them. . . .) bisexuality, homophobia, religious and racial bigotry, economic renewal, risk-taking, alcoholism/addiction, depression. . . . and I think I missed out on a few. While it's possible that one novel could handle all those (Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone springs to mind as a possible contender), TRoBWR reads like the young, inexperienced bookseller actually wrote the text: it's clunky; characters are poorly and awkwardly developed; the letters that supposedly tie the plot together are 1. boring and 2. unconvincing as letters in the first place, and, most damningly, there's a lot about sex in the book but the author is terrible at describing attraction, lust, and/or conversations about them OR encounters involving them.

That said, the idea is charming, and the story of rebirth and redemption is appealing. As I read, I kept imagining an ambitious 14 year old girl, encouraged by voracious reading, filling page after page in a college-ruled notebook: I cheered her on, but I did a lot of skimming and I also wondered who thought her youthful efforts warranted a full-on, published novel?

An understandable attempt in need of a firm editor.

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Well: it's a lovely Saturday morning, and although I have plenty of reading responses to The House on Mango Street waiting in my bookbag, I don't have anything SUPER pressing to do. I started this entry outside in the sunshine, accompanied by the old Zeus who enjoys a lot of sunshine on his old bones, but the bugs are here and the sun was actually too hot!

A few ideas, points, and comments.

1. I found this young woman's work and writing to be compassionate and insightful.

2. I found this event to be terrifying, and I plan to make some donations to organizations that support a woman's right to control her body and make her own decisions in response. Staggering. The fact that the anti-choice female governor vetoed the bill is a surreal wrinkle in this whole bizarre situation.

3. On the lighter but still related side, I found this video to be entertaining, though I do think it could've followed up with some pictures of what the men's feet looked like after the day of high heels.

4. I also did some blog reading outside of my usual collection, and I discovered that I have marked preferences for tone and content. I don't mind a chatty style or tone, but I'm not looking for the airy, run-on babbling of a tween mind. Too many exclamation points, run-on sentences, and/or emoticons, and you've lost me. (Not that you probably mind.) In addition, I don't want a blog to be a thinly disguised advertisement: one of my favorite baking blogs went that way for a while, and I am happy to see that the weekly "These are the latest things I think you should buy" posts are gone. Or maybe my grump adblock software deletes them? Anyway: don't market to me, and don't pretend that if you're a professional lifestyler, you understand or have anything helpful to offer the average human mom/woman/wage slave in the world today. Reading about what a professional instagrammer has to say about "squeezing in a workout before a meeting" as directed to a full time mother or average woman in the the world today is staggeringly false.

Honesty is crucial: that idea of prettying up our lives to impress others and pass on the FOMO experience is so. . . . yesterday? so "me before I turned old enough to realize some key truths"? so "reality TV"? Take one look at Mason Dixon Knitting and their wonderful posts featuring sock puppets encouraging people to start or finish a pair of socks and you'll see the power of the InterNET, as Ove (see review above) would call it, in its unvarnished truth. Fun.

Enough, though, as I am sounding like Ove himself. Without Sonja.

5. My life this May has been full of reminders of fortune and joy: family challenges and good news out of bad; some projects at school that are promising to be joyful, impressive, fun, and creative; lovely weather and burgeoning gardens full of flowers; good food and exercise and people.

Onwards!

**ETA: I have been sort of involved in a book exchange on Facebook that involved me sending out one book to someone I sort of know and . . . . receiving no books. That's fine, actually, because I have tons of  books in stacks all over my somewhat bookshelf-free house. BUT: I just was thinking: if some people read this blog because of the book reviews, would some of those readers like a book? So: here's an offer: if you'd like me to send you a book, leave your mailing address in a comment, and I'll send books to the first five people to do so. You can give it away, pass it on, keep it forever--and maybe there won't be any comments so I can keep all my books (umm. . . .), but I'd like to try that. (I considered doing that with a skein of yarn per comments, but that would be truly difficult, I think!). So: comment away, if that seems fun.

Saturday, May 14: Spring Has Sprung!

Gardening and not too many blackflies on this stunning mid-May Saturday! Rain last night and rain due tomorrow, so I got some good weeding, transplanting, and new plants in (or out, as needed). Bike Safety Rodeo at the school next store provided a wonderful backdrop of squeals, cheers, and little kids zooming around like fish in an aquarium. Very nice. Soon A and I are off to dinner and a play--imagine!

In the meantime, some books!


Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading Neil Gaiman makes me think of a darker, modernized Terry Pratchett--he may kill off the people you love, and he does go into a bit of detail about torture, but overall, you can trust him to tell a rip-roaring story and to reward your faith in human nature. Neverwhere (at least the "Author's Preferred Text" version which I read) is an interesting, dark, original tale--much to think about and pay attention to. While there's a lot of Sir Terry in it, I also felt some Patrick Rothfuss overtones, too. In any case: a good read!

Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Many of my incoming 9th graders have read (and liked) this book, and I gave it to my nephews this winter, intending to read it myself, too. Eventually I ended up getting the audio so I could listen to it during my commute, and I liked it. The reader might've been what kept it from being 4 stars, as he was way overstated, and I do like an understated reader. Jacobson traces the boy's trip precisely: I could tell exactly where he was on the island and the towns. It was an odd feeling to be driving by the LL Bean outlet as the book was describing the night he spent sleeping there! I can't decide how I felt about the boy's (I forget his name) mom, who was clearly suffering from unmedicated bipolar disorder: the topic came up subtly, and in a pretty realistic way, I felt, but I also thought the story let the mom off the hook quite a bit. However: the adventure was interesting, the writing solid, and I can see how any middle reader, especially one living in our area, would really enjoy the local adventure of the book. Would make a fun pairing with "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"!

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