Conversational Gems from the Marmot House

Number 1
I was at my sister's house having dinner earlier this week. Pasta puttanesca. The adults and Tuey were at the table eating. The girls were in the backyard playing. Madame 4-yr-old burst through the back door, full of joy, something cupped in her hand.

Madame: Look what I have!

Marmot Dad: Oh, look at you. You have a nice worm there. And it's still alive and wiggly.

Madame: Yeah. Even though it's cut in half.

Number 2
Last night at Tuey's birthday party, the girls were opening Tuey's presents for him. Madame 4-yr-old opened a toy farm set.

Madame (to Tuey): Oh, Tuey, you've always wanted one of these! (pause) And so have I.

Marmot Dad: You've always wanted one of these?

Madame: Yes. For hundred and hundreds of years.

Then she proceeded to set up a little farm that Tuey was strictly prohibited from playing with. Fortunately, Tuey didn't care, because by that point his entire purpose in life had become to wedge his fat bottom into the empty box that his new sippy cup and bowl had come in.

Tuey wedging himself into a box.

Number 3
We had delightful cupcakes with chocolate ganache for Tuey's birthday. Tuey made a horrible mess and sneezed chocolate during his bath because he'd pushed cake so far up his nose. Madame 3-yr-old is also a pretty crack messmaker and she got chocolate on Marmot Dad's new pants.

Marmot Dad: Aaagh, these kids. They make me nervous.

Sister: They make you nervous?

Marmot Dad: Yes. They run around destroying things and getting chocolate on my beautiful lady pants.

And NOW I'm done commenting on the lady pants.

Wardrobe Malfunctions (Not That Kind)

I've had crazy, hectic mornings almost every day this week. I blame this on the construction crews who are replacing the sidewalks on my street. They start their work very early in the morning, sometimes before I would like to be awake. If it's dark outside and it's still 58 degrees in the house (and it is at 6:30 in the morning), it's still time for sleeping, not for ripping out my sidewalk with a Bobcat. (They leave that little Bobcat--the machine, clearly, not the animal--right outside my house every night and I'm sorely tempted to climb inside and pretend to drive it like I used to do with the tank at the park where my brother played t-ball when we were little.) The early work disrupts my morning routine.

Tuesday was one of the worst mornings. I knew I had to move my car before the cement truck came and squashed it, so I was trying to be fast and get out of the house earlier than usual. The shirt I wanted to wear had holes under the arms that I didn't notice until I was dressed. The only other shirt I had ironed has French cuffs, and I don't own cuff links. I thought that perhaps earrings could replace cuff links. I was mistaken. I went tearing through my house looking for something to use as cuff links and discovered a bottle of apple juice I'd been given that had ribbons tied around the neck. I pulled the ribbons off and tied up my cuffs and it was lovely. (Later that day, my sister mocked my beribboned cuffs, even though her husband was wearing lady pants at the time.) I dressed and then decided that I hated the shoes I was wearing, so I took them off and replaced them with boots (replacing shoes with boots is always a good idea), but I was still wearing bulky socks that scrunched up in my boots. There was no time, though, because I could see the cement truck bearing down on my little fuel-efficient car! There would be no match! My car would be destroyed! And the construction workers would say mean things to me and laugh at my French cuffs! So I stuffed knee-high stockings in my pocket, grabbed a piece of bread for breakfast, and saved my car from imminent destruction.

Yesterday morning was a challenge, too. I couldn't find anything to wear, so I decided to sew up the holes in the shirt I couldn't wear Tuesday. Not a problem, because I have a sewing machine. The sewing machine's not set up in the new house, though. It's been sitting in the spare bedroom on the floor. I only have one table and it was far away. In another room. At least 15 feet from where I was standing. So, I decided to sew on the floor. Sewing on the floor is really hard. It seems like it will be okay, even though it takes a little contortionism to get the machine threaded. It seems like using your hand to control the treadle will be fine. But then you discover it's impossible to work a treadle, push down a reverse lever, and guide a piece of fabric at the same time.

It's kind of a miracle that I've lived this long without setting myself on fire.

Sources of Joy

Source #1
Today is Tooey's birthday. He's one-year-old. The story of how he got his name will be coming shortly. It's a good one.

Tooey and his sisters the night he was born. (I love Madame 3-yr-old's little clasped hands. And that red jacket is a source of joy, too. I think I must have been wandering the streets naked before I found it at my favorite thrift store in Indiana. I wear it all the time. Madame 4-yr-old had a similar jacket for a while and we used to wear them together and be best friends.)

Source #2
Tiny pies.

Mom gave me these mini pie pans for Christmas. So fantastic.

Source #3
I was walking up to my house after work and I was thinking about something, probably either world events or the marital status of the Keebler Elves (isn't there one commercial with a woman in the Keebler Elf tree?). I walked up onto my porch and I checked my first mailbox (I have two, which doesn't make the post office happy, but it's not my fault). Nothing. I checked the second mailbox. Nothing. I thought to myself (and I do remember that I thought this exact thought), "Of course there's no mail, because NO ONE LOVES ME." Then I opened my screen door and out fell a package! I gave the package a little hug and I did a little package-receiving dance. There are few things that make me as happy as a present on the porch. In one of my houses, I made my roommates have a moment of silent concentration on walks--a moment when we could all concentrate on the idea of a present on the porch, so that one would be waiting when we got home. I took my package inside and it was books from my NJBrother. Good brother!

I think we all know who's getting the best Christmas present this year.

Life Imitates Art

Yesterday I was at my sister’s house when Marmot Dad came home. He walked through the door and, very pleased with himself, tossed a bag to my sister. He had purchased himself some pants at D.I.

Marmot Dad: Here. Look at these. I got some great pants.

Sister (looking at pants): Did you try these on?

Marmot Dad: Yeah, they’re great.

Sister: Well, don’t take the tags off. I don’t think these pants are quite right.

MBC: What’s wrong with them?

Sister: I think these are women’s pants.

A visual inspection confirms that Marmot Dad has purchased some size 18 St. John’s Bay khaki pants.

MBC (also inspecting pants): These ARE women’s pants!

Marmot Dad: They were in the MEN’S section!

Sister: They came from DI. People with limited skill sets sort those clothes. Didn’t you think it was odd that the tag says size 18? Men’s pants don’t come in sizes like that.

Marmot Dad: Well, I noticed, but I thought they must have used European sizes. (With uplifted chin.) I thought maybe these pants came from the Continent.

Marmot Dad tries the pants on.

Marmot Dad: They look alright, don’t they? You can’t tell that they’re women’s pants.

Sister: I don’t know. You look a little more (pause) shapely in the rear than usual.

Sheepdog Hater, Part 2

I got brought to task for not finishing my post about the Sheepdog Hater. In fact, Rebekah called me AT WORK yesterday morning, asked if I knew who was calling without revealing her identity (of COURSE, I did--LIBRARIAN), and demanded that I email her the details immediately. And it sounded a little bit like she might have sequestered herself in a phone booth to make the call in a top secret kind of way. And that after she talked to me she was going to call Batman to let him know about some trouble in Gotham City.

I didn't finish the post, though, because

A. Sheepdogs are more interesting than Sheepdog HATERS.

B. I'm not sure I want to go where I was going with that post anymore. I adopted a new policy about a year ago that no one except a rather small handful of people get the inside scoop on my social life. Everyone else, family included, are treated like paparazzi--I only refute false reports. I don't provide information. Occasionally, I throw my parents a bone and tell them about a young man who's in the picture, when my mom gets a certain tone in her voice that suggests I'm going to die alone with cats chewing on me.

But I like Rebekah and she sent me an email saying that she is "making a delicious chocolate and pecan pie this weekend that will make you cry," and I want to make sure I get in on that action. So, here's the rest. I was looking good and there, right in front of me, was a boy I don't want to date, and I thought, "Maybe I should re-enter the dating world. Maybe this is a sign." And I started thinking about a book I read a while back, Around the World in 80 Dates, about a woman who worked for Lonely Planet and took off on a trip around the world, getting set up with people her friends and her friends' friends knew. So, I'm just sayin', if you know anyone . . . But you don't. I know that I'm just going to get excuses. Further along in Rebekah's email, she said, "I was going to set you up with this guy in our office, but he is a moron and would only infuriate you."

So, there you go. No lovin' for me, because none of you know anyone single and normal. It's always, "So, Marmot Dad wanted to set you up with his co-worker but then we found out that he's the dictator of a small Fascist prinicipality, and we know that's not really your scene" or "We met this guy you might like. The good news is that he has a job. The bad news is that he's employed as an arms dealer. Don't judge." Still, my sister knows British people, and even if they deny it, there has to be a secret British network that keeps track of book-reading, British boys residing in Utah that she could hook me up with. There HAS to be.

The Book Review

In no particular order, here are my favorite books I read in the last 12 months. Sadly, I didn't read anything this year that I thought was extra super life-alteringly fantastic. If you did, let me know. Or even if you just read something you think I should try, leave a comment.

Two for the Road: Jane Stern and Michael Stern: Nonfiction
The authors of Road Food travel the country looking for bbq, mashed potatoes, pie, and other comfort foods in cafeterias and diners off the beaten path. They share their adventures in eating and divulge their best recipes and tips (restaurants with plastic animals on the roof or pictures of Jesus as part of the décor always have the best food). I'm a sucker for memoirs with recipes.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Barbara Kingsolver: Nonfiction
The author and her family moved from Arizona to a farm in Virginia, where they lived for one year eating only what they produced themselves or what they could find locally produced (mostly). Interspersed with tales of raising turkeys and growing asparagus are short essays from Kingsolver’s husband about agriculture and ecology and recipes and meal plans from Kingsolver’s older daughter. PACKED with information that will send you off to your local farmers' market. Read it with The Tightwad Gazette for maximum lifestyle impact.

Just Listen: Sarah Dessen: YA Fiction
The most recent from YA author Sarah Dessen. I love Sarah Dessen's later books, especially This Lullaby and The Truth About Forever. Just Listen is about a high schooler who's estranged from her best friend (and, consequently the entire school) because of an incident at a party during the summer. She comes back into her own after Owen, another outsider at her school, befriends her. Lots of similarities between this one and Laurie Halse Anderson's brilliant YA novel Speak. If you care, this one does have brief strong language. (I know that because of my notes.)

Anahita's Woven Riddle: Meghan Nuttall Sayres: YA Fiction
In 19th century Iran, 15-year-old Anahita weaves a riddle into her marriage rug to test her suitors' wit and find a suitable husband. Have a copy of Rumi's poems handy while you read.

More Home Cooking: Laurie Colwin: Nonfiction
I read this one (and More Home Cooking) frequently. Laurie Colwin is a delightful essayist. I don't always like her recipes, but I love her writing. It's one of the books I curl up with when I'm sick or tired or sad. A book of food essays from various writers called Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant was just published and includes her essay of the same title.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Kim Edwards: Fiction
A doctor in the 1950s delivers his own twin son and daughter. The daughter, Phoebe, suffers from Down's Syndrome, so the doctor gives her to the nurse to take to a group home and tells his wife that the baby died at birth. Instead of leaving the baby, the nurse takes Phoebe to another city and raises her as her own. The story follows the lives of both children. This book was so well-written but it did drag toward the end. If you don't mind the pacing of books like Gilead, you'll enjoy this one.

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You: Ally Carter: YA Fiction
Fun, light, high school spy book with a protagonist you won't want to throttle for being an obnoxious teenager (sometimes a problem in contemporary YA lit). Can't wait for the sequel that's coming out next week.

Keturah and Lord Death: Martine Leavitt: YA Fiction
When Keturah becomes lost in the woods and meets Lord Death, she's given a one day reprieve to find her true love and escape Death's claim on her. Old fashioned structure and style. Very satisfying fairy tale.

Nineteen Minutes: Jodi Picoult: Fiction
Seventeen-year-old Peter Houghton walks into Sterling High one March morning and, in 19 minutes, kills 10 people and wounds many more. Alex Cormier, the judge on the case, struggles to remain objective, although her daughter, Josie, was injured in the incident when she passed out next to her murdered boyfriend. Chapters alternate between the present and the past, where Josie and Peter were childhood friends, to examine the crime and its causes from the perspectives of the shooter and the victims. Jodi Picoult is such a talented writer. She's able to write about things in really thought-provoking ways without bludgeoning a point (or even explicitly making one at all). Read with Shooter by Walter Dean Myers and Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian. Also, not for Grandma.

Kabul Beauty School: Deborah Rodriguez: Nonfiction
Deborah Rodriguez, a hairdresser from Holland, Michigan, joined a humanitarian mission to Afghanistan in 2002. Initially, no one knew how her skills as a hairdresser could benefit a war-torn country, but she soon discovered that the beauty industry was one of the few professions open and empowering to Afghan women. After her initial trip to Afghanistan, Rodriguez returned with the help of corporate sponsors to assist in running a beauty school and became the close friend and confidante of the women in her classes. Read this one with A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. It's hard to keep in mind that this is a story of contemporary life in Afghanistan. It seems unreal. Probably don't let your grandma read this one. PG-13.

Runners-Up
Pride and Prejudice--I know! I'd just gotten home from London, though, and had to read lots of Jane Austen and everything we had in the library about Westminster Abbey and spend all my free time thinking about how I could live in Bath without being a beggar. It's SUCH a romantic book even though Mr. Darcy's badly behaved.

All Creatures Great and Small--Especially good if you're planning to move to Norway and be a vet's wife (which I wasn't at the time I read it--apparently, sometimes things just line up serendipitously for you if you're living right).

Secrets of Peaches--YA readalike for Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; sequel to Peaches.

The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie--One of Jaclyn Moriarty's YA epistolary novels. New one coming out this week! Hurray! I like The Year of Secret Assignments better, but this one is cleaner and still amuses.

The New Policeman--YA fantasy from the UK, where it won the Whitbread and Guardian Children's Book Awards

Read What I Tell You to Read

I keep a list of almost everything I read each year. I do this partly because I like to make lists and it's nice to go back and remember what I read, and I do it partly because my job includes Readers Advisory service, which means recommending books to patrons.

Before I was a librarian, I never really thought about "objectionable content" in books. Even after I started working in libraries, I was working in a jail library, and inmates NEVER fussed at me for giving them books that they couldn't read aloud to groups of preschoolers and nuns.* (In fact, inmates gave me a lot less grief in most areas of my job than the general public does now.) I tend to forget anything objectionable in the books I read. I come by this honestly. When I was about 10-years-old, my mom gave me a Dean Koontz book to read. She told me it was great. I read it all. It was far too old for me. I was scandalized. (I was also scandalized when, at about that same age, I saw my first performance of Romeo and Juliet and I understood all the double entendres and told my mom, shocked, "This is PG-13!") When I reminded my mom of some scenes in the book, she said, "Hmmm. I don't remember that. But didn't you love the dog? I just loved that dog!"

So, now that I work in a public library, I scribble little notes next to the titles of books I read. Notes like language, edgy, never recommend to anyone, and try to convince everyone in the world to read. Because now I know that when a patron asks for a "good" book that doesn't necessarily mean an interesting, well-written book. Depending on the patron, it might mean a terribly-written, didactic, and completely unoriginal book that can be mangled for use as a bad analogy in a Sunday School class at a later date. These patrons generally come to the reference desk and gush about a certain local author who I cannot stand and then ask me if I've read said author and if I don't find her books so fantastic. Librarians have a set response for these women. "Oh, no, I never have, but she's very popular with a lot of our patrons." Tactful, see?

And I never go on to give these patrons that little speech that's raging in the back of my brain that even if you are after uplifting books, there is a world of wonderful literature full of human experience that sheds light on all of the major issues in life--love, betrayal, redemption, fear, faith, family, so many things!--that are not set in a religious community and are not written exclusively by authors from one faith (or of any faith at all). There's a reason that there's a Nobel Prize for literature. Literature is so powerful, but readers will never find the books with the most influence if they never leave the LDS fiction list or even the bestseller list.**

So, I'll just hop down from my soapbox now and you and the rest of the choir can go home, and tomorrow I'll give you my list of favorite books I read this year.

*Just so we're clear, I don't object to readers who want clean books to read. I'm just objecting to a certain kind of poorly-written literature.

**And I recognize the hypocrisy of this post, considering how much time I spend with educators and administrators advocating certain ya books because I can get boys in juvenile detention centers to read those books and those books often speak to the incarcerated boy experience. The same argument could be turned around and used for LDS fiction readers, but I refuse to do it, because Monster by Walter Dean Myers is actually well-written.

Sheepdogs, Part 2

Word on the street is that pictures from the Sheepdog Championships are coming my way today, so let me rhapsodize about the Soldier Hollow Classic this one last time (until next year).

I ate a lamb sausage dinner at the championships. It might seem wrong to watch sheepherding and then eat the competitors, but it's not. It's just what those sheep have coming to them, with their bad attitudes and hoof stomping at the hard-working sheepdogs who have great, endearing names like Pippa and Eddie and Gyp.

Jaran Knive with Eddie

After all the competing (and eating of sheep) is finished, there's an Olympic-style medals ceremony. The sheep are set loose to wander the field, and bagpipers surround the podium while the winning handlers and dogs have medals placed around their necks. Dogs do not care for medals. (I think they'd prefer a nice lamb sausage dinner as their prize. With a little mint jelly on the side. I didn't have mint jelly with my sausage. I had EXCELLENT corn on the cob, which I nibbled while sitting on the edge of my seat thinking, "Oooh, you wicked sheep. You get in that pen. And be nice to Pippa!") Then we stand for the national anthem of the winning dog (seriously).

Bagpipe Band at the Closing Ceremonies

Mmmm, thinking about sheepdogs (and sausages) makes me feel like swooning with joy. Vive la sheepdog.

More sheepdog pictures are here.

Sometimes I Wander From My Intended Topic

This morning when I walked out my front door, there, right in front of my house, was the boy who does not think the idea of sheepdog championships is brilliant. He spoke in church one day, and a friend turned to me and said, "There's your spouse. Pursue him and report back to me next week." So, I dutifully chatted him up at a potluck dinner we were both attending. But after talking to him, I discovered that he used to be a Music Dance Theater major, which sent up a big red flag for me, AND he truly wasn't impressed by sheepdogs AND well, really, I think that's plenty to disdain. (He did get points for being from the Midwest and not mentioning the Dewey Decimal System when he discovered I have an MLS.)

The Sheepdog Hater's presence, practically on my doorstep, coincided with my re-entry into the world with normal hair and contacts. I haven't been able to wear contacts for about six weeks. I was worried it was because I had a mote (or possibly a beam) in my eye, but I just needed a different, softer kind of contact. And around the same time I stopped wearing contacts, I got a haircut at the beauty school that did not necessarily do good things for my appearance. Sometimes I get great haircuts there and sometimes not. Haircuts only cost $8.00 at the beauty school, though, and it's hard to do really bad things to my hair. (I also let people cut my hair with rusty Russian scissors and sometimes I chop it off myself, when I think it's looking like Florence Henderson's hair during her Brady Bunch years.)

Whenever I get my hair cut at the beauty school, an instructor comes over to check it and then s/he gushes about what a great haircut it is. The word sassy gets tossed around a lot when describing my haircuts. I don't actually WANT a sassy haircut, and I think the purpose of the gushing is to assure me that I like the haircut, even if I don't. I'm still going to go home and weep if I hate my hair. And I'll still return to the beauty school a couple of months later. Because, did I mention how the haircut costs $8.00 and they shampoo your hair, which makes me feel like a movie star and lulls me into forgetting that I'm going to have to deal with an 18-year-old hairdresser who wants to chat with me about the fact that the movie Titanic was based on a REAL STORY and will inevitably ask me if I'm married, which I don't think is a normal conversation starter? But my hair's finally grown out from the too-short haircut I got last time.

So I was looking pretty good this morning, is my point, but now I don't have time to finish this post today. We'll continue tomorrow. Maybe.

While you wait for part 2, go read my sister's new blog about the marmots. Hurray for a blogging sister!

21 Things About Me

Yesterday on my friend Rebekah's blog, I discovered her list of 100 things about herself. The listmaker inside of me gave a little scream of glee, and I KNEW what I would be inflicting on you all today. I'd link you to Rebekah's blog so you could see what a rock star she is, but she works in a volatile field (read: she gets death threats), so her blog's top secret at the moment. So, let's talk about me (not that that's different from every other day on this blog).

1--I love this quote from Horseradish, the new Lemony Snicket book (haven't actually read the book): If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats. Makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.

2--Fall is my favorite season.

3--I don’t like to turn on lights when I’m not going to stay in a room. I’m always bumping into things and banging up my shins because I’m just running into a room to grab something, without turning on the light.

4--Approximately half of my wardrobe was purchased at thrift stores/rummage sales.

5--When I was a little girl, I made my mom tie a rope around my waist and lead me on walks. My sister was embarrassed to be seen with me, because she thought people would think I was a special child the family kept in the basement. (My sister was a teenager and I was marmot aged.)

6--Elbows creep me out.

7--If I’m on a walk and I get to an intersection and cars are coming, I bend down and pretend to tie my shoe so that the cars won’t stop for me. If I'm not wearing shoes with laces, I pretend there's a rock in my shoe.

8--My favorite color is blue.

9--I don’t like waking up to an alarm clock.

10--Babies in snowsuits make me happy.

11--I won a story contest at my public library in the first grade, and the book I wrote and illustrated is still in that library. You can check it out!

12--I love wearing boots.

13--I still have three of my wisdom teeth.

14--I don’t like making phone calls.

15--My favorite poem is Saint Judas by James Wright.

16--I can’t punctuate. In college I used to send my papers to my sister to correct, and she always had less than flattering things to say about my comma usage. Some of us have a guiding, inner punctuation light that doesn’t necessarily conform to standard punctuation rules.

17--I didn’t learn how to use a curling iron until I was in college.

18--When I decided to learn how to make pie, I made a pie every day for a week, including a chess pie that has gone down in history as the “rice pie,” and which I had to pry away from Emily and beg her to stop eating because she’ll eat terrible food just to keep people from feeling bad.

19--I used to work in a jail.

20—When I was a little girl, I quizzed my mom about whether sisters were closer or parents and children were closer, because I wanted to make sure my sister didn’t grow up and have little children that she (my sister) liked better than she liked me.

21--I think little boys should be required to wear uniforms and all babies should wear hats.

Little school boys in the British Museum last fall. They were everywhere! It was fantastic. Look at those knees!

Being a Domestic Goddess

I finally started using the stove/oven in my new house. I love gas stoves, but they make me nervous. When I cook with them, I tend to throw my doors and windows open and calculate how long it will be before someone visits, in case I pass out from gas poisoning. And then when I clean the oven, I ALWAYS think, "Now this just isn't right to have my head in here like this. Maybe Sylvia was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

First, I made chicken potpie (the recipe from the last Cooking Light magazine), which was one of the most comforting things I have ever eaten. I wanted to curl up in the pan and fall asleep. It has parsnips in it, which, apparently, I love. Why did no one tell me I would love parsnips?! Where were the parsnips, when I was growing up? Mom?

Homemade Chicken Potpie (glass and fork from IKEA)

And I made Aunt Muriel's Apple Cake o' My Dreams, which tastes exactly like fall and makes my house smell like cinnamon and sugar and rainbows and happy thoughts (a very good thing because the default smell setting in my house is The Elderly). I only made half of the apple cake recipe because I can easily eat an entire pan by myself in one sitting. Get thee behind me, apple cake.

Aunt Muriel's Apple Cake

And, I started freezing peaches. I bought boxes of peaches and apples from a local farm stand this weekend. They sell the seconds for $5.00, which is a steal! For $10.00 I get enough fruit to freeze and can for the entire winter.

These are peaches that just came out of boiling water, before I slid the skins off. I think peaches are sooo pretty.

And that, my friends, is how to be a domestic goddess.

The Car is Not My Friend

I got a traffic ticket Saturday. I know! I'm shocked, too. In the many years I've been driving I've NEVER had a ticket for anything. I haven't deserved one, what with being such a cautious, courteous, vocally self-righteous driver. Apparently, I ran a stop sign. The thing is, though, that I'm not sure I did. I mean, I didn't see a stop sign and think, "Hmm, no, I don't think I'll stop at this one." I just can't remember what happened, though. I chose not to share that information with the officer writing up my ticket. It seemed like admitting that I couldn't remember what I'd done 30 seconds previously would be just as alarming to the Law as running a stop sign. Did I really run a stop sign, Officer? How peculiar. I don't recall that at all. Nope, the last 2 minutes are a complete blank. So I have to call the court and find out what I have to do. And then I have to find an AC/DC shirt at D.I. and figure out how to spike my hair up into a mohawk. If I'm going to traffic school, I'm goin' in style.

p.s. Read Kabul Beauty School

WE WON!

Hurray! The family honor is upheld. My team won first place out of twelve teams competing to raise money for an adult literacy organization. We won with the word paradisaical. A Major Newspaper interviewed us and the whole thing was recorded and is available on-demand from a local TV station. (If I'd known, I would have tried harder to fix my hair this morning.) Thank you. Thank you. Kiss. Kiss. I'm a spelling champion. Now if I could just learn how to punctuate . . .

My team and, yes, that's my boss in the bee costume. (He's holding a copy of The Secret Life of Bees.)

Making Babies Cry

My sister and her marmots were in the library yesterday. Madame 3-yr-old wanted The Jungle Book, so I went to find it in the back. Usually I can track down materials the marmots want. I find them Charlotte's Web or The Magic School Bus and I am a hero and my nieces regale strangers with the story of how their aunt found them the one thing they most wanted in life. Yesterday The Jungle Book was checked out, though. I came out of Circulation, and Madame 3-yr-old was standing there with the happiest, most expectant expression on her sweet little face. I told her that the movie was at someone else's house, and she immediately burst into tears. It's a good thing I'm not a children's librarian. I can't handle that much emotional investment in my services. They should probably include dashing little children's dreams on the job description for children's librarians.

Fortunately, Madame 3-yr-old had The Little Mermaid in her hand, and we engaged her in conversation about what a great movie it is--how there's a singing crab and the poor, unfortunate souls look like my sister's toes (they really do)--and she stopped crying. When I was at my sister's house later that night, Madame 3-yr-old was busy being the sea witch. She does this thing where she narrates her own actions in the 3rd person. It's surreal. Her sister had thwarted her at something, so Madame 3-yr-old turned and flounced off, murmuring, "'Well then,' said the sea witch . . ."

I made Tooey cry last night, too. I was getting ready to leave, so I gave everyone hugs and kisses, and Tooey frantically waved good-bye to me. He came and helped me put my shoes on, and he and I hugged some more and he gave me one of those slimy, face-engulfing kisses that babies do. He waved some more. We hugged some more. It was a very long ritual, so I assumed he understand what would come next. The Leaving. As soon as I closed the door behind myself, though, I heard him wail.

Finally, on a different topic, I'm in a charity spelling bee this weekend. I agreed to participate months ago, but now I can't remember how to spell anything. I may bring shame on the family name. I'm going to go watch Spellbound tonight to remind myself that there are worse things than forgetting how to spell. Like being the kids in Spellbound. Or being their parents.

More Non-Self-Sufficiency

I needed to hang a curtain rod this week, so I asked my Friend With A Drill if I could borrow his drill. He agreed and brought it to me at church on Sunday. When he gave the drill to me, my FWAD started explaining about the key and the special handle that I could do something with and some kind of something I should screw somewhere. My eyes started to glaze over and I started thinking about Care Bears and then I think I passed out from boredom for a minute and then my FWAD left me with the drill.

Now, here's the thing. I'm a bright kid, and I can do all kinds of things for myself. I ripped out the carpet mostly by myself in my last house and I love using the power tools in my carpenter friend's shop. I'm also perfectly capable of learning how to use my FWAD's drill, but I didn't want to. I wanted to lie on my couch eating pad thai and read a cooking magazine, while someone else installed the curtain rod. And the way I wanted the conversation with my FWAD to go was like this.

MBC: Hey, do you have a drill I could borrow?

FWAD: Sure. What do you need it for?

MBC: I need to hang a curtain rod.

FWAD: Oh, I can do that for you. And do you need any other tasks done for you? Would you like me to install a natural gas detector, so your gas stove won’t silently poison you while you sleep?

MBC: Why, thank you. That would be so kind of you.

FWAD: By the way, we took a poll in church today, and all the men think that even though you experience road rage and can't drive a stick-shift, you're the loveliest woman we've ever met and, because of that, we'd all like to chip in and pay your rent for the next six months. As a token of our appreciation for your existence, you know?

But I just got the drill. And then I discovered that my FWAD hadn't even given me a drill bit! So I took the drill home and left it lying on the floor, where it was discovered by friends (four women) who came over the next night to eat ice cream and discuss how lovely Anthony Howell is as Roger in Wives and Daughters. Of course, the women were indignant that my FWAD HADN'T done the work himself when he already knew how to use the drill and I didn't, and they called him up and requested his presence at the house to install the curtain rod, which he very kindly did. So, all's well that ends well, but I really could use that natural gas detector.

The Bad Morning

I’ve been reading The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-to-Basics Guide, published by DK, makers of the most beautiful nonfiction books. It has instructions on how to make cheese and raise goats and all kinds of things that I’m interested in even though I live in a rental house in an incorporated city and live the dependent-on-corporate-America life (although I do plan to make my own cheese this year as soon as I get my hands on some rennet).

Today I had the Bad Morning, though, and my plans have changed. Now I’m going to move to Norway and marry Jaran Knive, one of the sheepdog handlers from the championships, and be his wife and he will be a vet (fortunately, that’s what he already does) and I will make cheese and leave my stress-filled, modern existence behind. (Now I just hope that Jaran doesn’t have a wife or an aversion to strangers who want to marry him just because they like his dog, want to go to Norway, and dislike car repairs.)

So, the Bad Morning started because I had to run my car in for an oil change, and the coolant light was on, so I needed a little antifreeze, too. What I thought would cost me an hour of free time and $25.00 turned into THREE AND A HALF hours in two different car repair waiting rooms and over $400.00. In fact, my car’s still across town. I’m going to have to spend my lunch hour walking back to pick it up, at which point the mechanics will probably tell me that I also need a flux capacitator that costs another $50.00, and I won’t even be able to complain, because I know nothing about cars.

So clearly the only option is to sell the car and move to Norway. And don’t start telling me about how they have cars in Norway, too! I’ve had a bad day.

Home Improvements

I borrowed my sister's push mower (non-gas powered, MBC powered) over the weekend and mowed my lawn. The neighborhood was not prepared for this. Everyone who walked by felt the need to comment. A little boy next door came over to stare and kept calling to his dad, "What's she doing? What is that thing?" The dad would then explain that it was a lawn mower even though it didn't look like THEIR lawn mower, because it wasn't gas-powered. Maybe it was my imagination, but it sounded like he said this a little smugly, like he felt bad for me and my lawn mower. Apparently he didn't realize that there's a gas-powered mower in my shed, but I wasn't using it on account of being so busy SAVING THE WORLD with my sister's mower. I imagine that then the dad called to his son, "Come on, boy. Get in the Hummer. We have to go get some more puppies to use as fuel to power our slave ship." Or something like that.

I also didn't use the mower in my shed because I'm a little bit scared of it. It smells like gasoline and I anticipate that it might blow up if I turn it on. Then it might possibly cut off one of my limbs. (I SAW that Oprah where the woman was mowing her lawn and the blade snapped off and stabbed her in the chest and she only survived because she was wearing a bra with gel inserts that slowed down the metal death projectile. I don't have a bra like that.) So what else could I do, really?

Call Fox Network. I've Got a Winner!

Because I'm a city employee, I'm allowed to use the city gym (where the police officers and fire fighters train) for free. It's a pretty nice facility and sometimes I get to watch the police officers practice using tasers on one another. The only real drawback is that the police have TERRIBLE taste in television, and if they're already in the gym exercising when I come in, I have to watch COPS while I work out.

Now before I comment on COPS, let me just say that I appreciate the hard work of police departments across the country and I'm grateful that they do their jobs. Okay, PoliceBrother? Now then, the TV show COPS? TOTAL propaganda. I've been to Russian museums filled with Soviet propaganda from WWII, I've watched the 1950s hygiene videos (But Jimmy, if you don't wash your hands, the Communists have won already. In your HEART.), and I was raised by a mother who's an expert at brainwashing little children. I know my propaganda.

(This is actually a 1931 ad from the New York Times accessed through Ad*Access, but it feels like the 1950s hygiene films to me.)

The thing that really pushes COPS over the edge, propagandawise, is the narrator. He has a very grave voice like the narrators from National Geographic specials. There'll be some high speed chase and the police will pull over and arrest someone, and then the narrator says, "Finally, justice prevails! The criminal has no respect for the law, for fellow drivers, for the Constitution, for the American flag, for veterans of foreign wars, for the last unicorn on earth who he callously ran over with his truck, or for YOU viewers. He kicks puppies and tells old ladies their shoes are ugly. Fortunately, the quick-thinking Officer X, with his speed like a cheetah and wisdom like Yoda, gives that criminal just what he deserves. Now one more criminal is behind bars!"

A really great companion show to COPS would be LIBRARIANS. All the other helping professions have shows--doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers. We could get the same narrator from COPS and he would say things like, "Another ignorant patron is enlightened thanks to the quick thinking of Librarian X with her snarky sense of humor and amazing research skills!"

You'd watch, right?

When Librarians Go Bad

I just got a new assignment at work. In addition to buying the young adult fiction, young adult graphic novels, and the 800s (literature), I now buy the 600s. In theory, the 600s are Technology. To which I say, "Chah! Technology, my foot!"

Here are all the subjects housed in the 600s:
Inventions
Health/Medicine/Excercise
Emergency Preparedness
Cars/Airplanes/Other vehicles
Guns
Pets
Cleaning
Cookbooks/Cooking
Organization
Beauty
Dating/Relationships
Parenting
Business
Carpentry/Woodworking

So, you can see that there might be a problem here, because, except for the cookbooks, I don't care for most of the subjects in the 600s, and they might get neglected. I'm imagining that in a few years, reference interactions at our library might go something like this.

Some poor fool who wants a business book: Your business section looks a little sparse. In fact, the newest books in there are from 2007.

Librarian: Oh yes, that's when MBC took over the 600s. She doesn't believe in the corporate world.

Some poor fool: Well, does she believe in relationships, because that section looks bad too.

Librarian: Well, she believes in relationships, but not in relationship BOOKS. She once tried to read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, because she thought she ought to read it before mocking it, and several people told her it wasn't that bad. But it WAS that bad, and the terrible analogies so upset her that she tried to impale herself with the book to make the bad writing stop.

Some poor fool: Wouldn't it have been easier to just put the book down?

Librarian: Yes. Bad writing impairs judgment, though. She was under the influence of the book.

Some poor fool: And what about pets?

Librarian: Well, you can see that we have wonderful information on sheepdogs.

Some poor fool: But I have a dalmation.

Librarian: Well, that was just poor planning on your part, wasn't it? Why don't you read a nice food memoir? We have plenty of those.

Yep. It's sad days ahead for the businessmen in town. Oh, well.

My Pal, Ralph Stanley

Because my sister feels that she was maligned yesterday (some of us call that the truthful reporting of cold, hard facts), I thought that today I'd write about something wonderful she discovered and shared with me. First, though, you need some background.

My mom knows every song in the world. Every one. She has a song for any occasion. When I was an angsty adolescent she taught me The Merry Minuet by the Kingston Trio. (She also read us Dorothy Parker poetry when I was in high school. She's a good mama.) When we were little, she sang to us before we went to bed and she sings while she does housework and she sings rounds with us on road trips and she sings in the grocery store (sometimes, we have to rein her in at the grocery store and ask her to please STOP singing).

And, because we're from the South (and I'm talking about having Appalachian roots, not just living there for a while), my siblings and I were raised right and know good biscuits and gravy when we see them AND we know the lyrics to all kinds of good, old Southern songs that are great for belting out in the car while driving around windy, country roads. People sometimes comment that all the songs we learned in childhood are about death and adultery. Those are Southern specialties. In a really good Southern ballad, you get death AND adultery. (The adultery usually comes first and precipitates the death.)

So, this is all to say that I appreciate the Southern music tradition (and old men who say "chur up") and if you have any appreciation for it at all, you will love Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Sweethearts CD, discovered by my crawfish-eating sister.

Some of the best selections on the CD are "Loving You Too Well" with Dolly Parton, "Rank Stranger" with Gail Davies, "Angel Band" (my dad and Madame 4-yr-old are especially fond of this one), and "Farther Along" with Lucinda Williams. Mom, my sister, and I all love "Farther Along." Mom taught it to me in high school, and I sang it to myself almost every day in my wicked geometry class, where half the class spent the entire hour every day making our teacher cry. Every. Day.

An excellent DVD to check out if you do like Clinch Mountain Sweethearts (and what right-thinking person wouldn't?) is Down from the Mountain, a recording of a benefit concert featuring the music and performers from O Brother, Where Art Thou.

And then maybe you should go to Dollywood. But we'll discuss that on another day.

When Babies Go Bad

Yesterday my sister, her kids, and I went to IKEA. We had lunch there first, and I had the meatballs, because that's a nice, normal thing to eat and I consider it part of the IKEA experience (embracing the Swedish culture through little meaty balls of joy and hearty consumerism). My sister, though, decided to have a giant plate of crawfish (or crayfish,if you want to call them that) in all their bright red, nasty antennae, creepy little weird leg things, clawed glory.

We all situated ourselves at the table, and my sister went off to get drinks. I was sitting there peacefully with Baby Tuey, my 11-month-old nephew, while the girls ate their macaroni and cheese. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back, Tuey was waving a crawfish in my face. I yelped a little bit because I consider crawfish (and lobsters) just giant water bugs, and it was surprising for me to see the nicest baby I know brandishing a nasty, dead creature at me. Crawfish sick me out.

Tuey loved them, though. He cried for them until my sister broke off a claw for him and let him wave it around. I think they give him knives and fire to play with at home.

That'll Do, Pete

So much to blog, so much to blog.

I moved into my new house Saturday morning, and I am in LOVE with the kitchen. The whole thing was remodeled in May, and it's so pretty.


The kitchen is mostly set up, but I haven't had a chance to unpack the rest of the house, because Saturday evening I went to Laughin' Night at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival and I spent all of yesterday at the Soldier Hollow Sheepdog Championships.

Border Collie Herding Ducks

Let me just tell you about sheepdogs, and by sheepdogs I mean border collies. They're fantastic. Don't call me this week unless you want to hear all about how smart border collies are and how cute they are when they herd sheep (or ducks) and how you ought to get one and some sheep and start a farm, possibly in Scotland, and invite me over to watch your dog herd sheep. Seriously, they're so great. And when they compete the announcer refers to them as "sheepdog athletes."

Sheepdog Athlete Herding Sheep into the Pen

The competition was four days long, and we attended the last day when only the top 15 dogs were competing in the Double Lift. In the Double Lift, the handler stands at a post and sends the dog (the sheepdog athlete) up the mountain to bring back eight uncollared wild sheep. The dog brings the sheep down through a set of gate posts, leaves the sheep, and goes back up to a different spot to bring down eight collared wild sheep through the gate posts. Then the dog takes all 16 sheep around the right side of the handler and through two more sets of posts before herding them into the shedding ring, a circle marked out on the grass. Once the sheep are in the ring, the handler comes over and helps the dog separate out five of the collared sheep (this is very difficult because the sheep get irate when they're split up) and the two of them herd the five sheep into an 8 x 9 foot pen without ever touching the sheep. A-MA-ZING.

Red Oliver in the Shedding Ring to Separate Collared Sheep from Uncollared Sheep

Sheepdogs respond to voice and whistle commands that are mostly the same worldwide. We were sitting close to the fence, so we could hear the handlers giving the voice commands. Let me just tell you, sheepdog voice commands in a Scottish brogue are the best ever, especially Away to me, girl. Yeah, translate that one into a brogue for yourself and feel the joy overtake you.

The program for the competition has biographies of the dogs and handlers, and one dog, Gyp, was described as "kind to all sheep." That desciption struck me as terribly amusing. I could just imagine Gyp inviting all the sheep in the neighborhood to his birthday party, even the nerdy sheep that no one else wants to play with. Gyp is so kind. He shares. He's a giver.

I have about twelve more things to say about sheepdogs, but I'll save them until I get the pictures of the competition from my friends who remembered to take cameras, unlike me. Now I have to dash off and work on the house and get ready to go to IKEA this afternoon with my sister and her kids.

Seriously, though, people. Sheepdogs.