Tuey Tuey Tuey

Tuey was full of amusing conversation today, but every time I tried to catch the funny on video, he stuck his hand in his mouth and became a man of few words. He did recite a little something for me before I stumped him with my question, making the ending of this video clip rather anticlimactic. I thought the grandparents would like to see it anyway.



Tuey also presented me with a lime as an early birthday gift tonight (and invited me to his birthday party where he hopes to receive "a bucket of candy canes and a package of lillypops"), rode his "'cooter" around the driveway, and cried when Marmot Dad took Marmot Babe to the doctor--not because he missed his father or his brother, but because he needed to tell the doctor that he had a "'crape" on his knee and a "hole" on his toe.

He is such a delightful boy. I wish I could carry him around in my pocket and take him out periodically for some cheery conversation.

Garden Harvest Cake

My mom spotted the recipe for this Garden Harvest Cake in the April issue of Cooking Light. It is very fine. I've made it four times in two weeks and no matter what I do to it, it comes out tasting lovely. (Today I almost forgot to add any sugar at all. That may not have been lovely.) It's mostly carrots and zucchini and apples with only a cup of flour to hold the whole thing together.


The magazine calls it Garden Harvest Cake but I call it Garden Harvest Bread, because then I feel so much better about eating it at every meal. And it's much less worrisome to discover that you've eaten half a loaf of bread than half a cake in the short period of time between when you baked it and when you go to bed.

The recipe (and photograph source) are here.

Memorial Day Hiking

Three friends and I went hiking in Zion National Park yesterday. I like hiking. I like being outside and being dwarfed by nature. I think it's good and important to feel small sometimes and to be overwhelmed.




This is Weeping Rock. Our shuttle driver said that the water coming out of the stone is 800-1200 years old. Because of the water, plants or hanging gardens, grow up and down the face of the rock.




This is a view along the river walk between the Temple of Sinawava and the Narrows. We first encountered the young, shirtless Europeans here. I appreciate it when people wear clothes in public. Nobody needs to know anyone else's brand of underwear, but I now know that my fellow hikers were wearing Dolce and Gabbana.




This is the same area and the point at which I began singing "The Dreidel Song" out loud and, when feeling compassionate toward my companions, in my head. Unfortunately, I could only remember the first line of the chorus. Very trying.




This is still on the river walk and the point at which I began taking self portraits. My hat, shirt, and capri pants were all purchased at my favorite rummage sale.




This is the view on the way to the Upper Emerald Pool.




The trail to the Lower Emerald Pool is wet because of the waterfall (a very unimpressive waterfall yesterday) that falls over the trail.




AJ and I stopped here and took a picture to show off my new hiking shoes, but then the picture was at an angle that made our bottom halves look weird. I'll just tell you, though, that I have new hiking shoes. They make me feel like Big Bird when I wear them, but they've got traction like you wouldn't believe.




This is the view from the Court of the Patriarchs. The limestone peaks were named for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by a minister who visited the area at the beginning of the 20th century.


Pretty.

I Gotta Go to Bed Right. Now.

Things I do not care for when glorying in nature in the national parks system:

1. Cell phones
2. Cigarettes
3. Shirtless Europeans

I'll post pictures tomorrow (of the nature, not the Europeans).

Friendship by Tuey

I'm debating whether or not I should blog about my awkward experience today, but I'm not sure it will translate well into the blogoshere and if you can't grasp how truly, truly awkward it was, there's no point in telling the story. Sooo, while I ponder on that, here's friendship as defined by Tuey.

I babysat the marmots last night. Tuey was running around and had been making eyes at the companion I brought as back-up (an extra set of hands is always helpful when wrangling marmots).

Tuey: Aunt! I have a friend.

MBC: Oh, who's your friend?

Tuey: You are my friend, Aunt!

MBC: Oh, good! What do friends do?

Tuey: (think. think. think) Friends spin!

So we spun in circles for a while. Tuey spun for much longer than I did. Apparently, sometimes it's acceptable for one friend to spin while the other friend watches or wanders away to keep an eye on Marmot Babe.

Starch Sandwich

I believe it was the woman who cut my hair when I was a little girl in Kentucky who introduced me to the fried potato sandwich. Heaven bless her. It's good for what ails you.


Nothing whatsoever goes on a fried potato sandwich except for potatoes and, if you're feeling fancy, ketchup. Now that I'm adult, I'm thinking that if I mounded a billion different kinds of vegetables on top of the potatoes it would be even better, but that would not be in keeping with the spirit of the fried potato sandwich.


I bet it would be REALLY delicious topped with some of the frosting from my sister's birthday cupcakes. That would be in the spirit of the sandwich.

Recent Reads

This is a great book.

Two young slaves, thirteen-year-old Isabel and her sister Ruth, are sold to Loyalists at the beginning of the American Revolution and Isabel is willing to align herself with anyone who can secure her freedom.

These books are also good.

When her older sister elopes with a rodeo cowboy, 12-year-old Alice Winston is left as the lone support to help her father, Joe, on the family’s failing horse ranch. Joe's preoccupied with the ranch’s wealthy clients and Alice’s mother suffers from depression and refuses to leave her bedroom, so Alice finds comfort in nightly telephone calls to her English teacher, Mr. Delmar, telling him the stories she wishes were true about her life. It's a lovely coming of age story, but be prepared for a quite bit of strong language.

Marjane Satrapi recounts her Iranian childhood during the Islamic Revolution in a graphic novel that makes a difficult historical event personal and accessible.

Marcelo loves the school he attends for students with disabilities, but his father, Arturo, believes Marcelo is ready to attend a public high school. When Marcelo protests, he and Arturo make a deal—Marcelo will work in the mailroom at Arturo’s law firm over the summer and if Marcelo follows all the rules of the “real world” and successfully completes his job, he'll be allowed to choose the school he attends. Marcelo's narration is reminiscent of the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, but the story's very different, with Marcelo confronting difficult emotions and ethical dilemmas. I thought about this book for days after I read it. Again, quite a lot of strong language.

Toward the end of WWII, Olivia Dunne leaves her graduate studies to marry a farmer in rural Colorado, a man she meets the day of their arranged marriage. Lonely and unable to help on the farm, Olivia befriends two Japanese-American sisters who live at a nearby internment camp, but while she welcomes the friendship of the sisters, Olivia resists developing a relationship with her new husband, viewing the marriage only as a solution to a problem. There's not a lot of action in this story, but the character development of the husband and wife is really well done and moving. And I don't even have to warn you about strong language in this one, because it's nice and clean.

Her Special Day

Marmot Dad and my sister both have birthdays this month, so we've been celebrating. This weekend we celebrated part 1 of Marmot Dad's birthday and discovered that Marmot Babe has some sweet baby dance moves.

Tonight we celebrated my sister's birthday and discovered that the marmots are really pro whiners.

One summer in high school I spent a week with my sister at Penn State where she was in grad school. And I kept a list. Of all the bad things she did. The only thing I remember from the list was that she poked me with a fork. I will now give you a list of the marmots' baddie behavior from tonight's birthday celebration. Most of it revolves around my sister's cupcakes--coconut with cream cheese frosting made with FIVE sticks of butter.

Madame E(6) stole licks of frosting from the cupcakes, whined and cried about her roller blades, and pulled a lemon out of the water pitcher with her hands.

Madame M(4) whined and cried when my sister forgot which cupcake she'd selected and put coconut on it.

[M(4) redeemed herself a little bit by being darling with this conversation:

E(6): Mommy, I know what Daddy got you for your birthday, but I'm not going to tell you what it is!

M(4): I'm not going to tell either! (pause) Because I don't remember what it is.]

Tuey spilled his milk across the table (I think E(6) may have been involved), patted all the unfrosted cupcakes with his grubby hands (and I saw him lick one), and threw a fit when Marmot Dad moved the cupcakes out of his reach.

Marmot Babe made such a terrible mess that Marmot Dad had to pop him in the tub before we could eat cupcakes (prolonging the whining and crying for treats from the other children) and continues to mostly dislike me (a bad habit he developed a few months ago).

All the while my sister was making dinner and protecting her cupcakes and frosting her cupcakes and saying, "It's my special day. My special. day."

More Marmot Sports

Madame E(6) plays t-ball.

Sometimes she is the catcher.

Tuey, Madame M(4), and I sit in the bleachers to cheer.

We're very attentive fans.

Oooh, It's a Big, Long Rant

I've recently developed a laissez faire attitude at work. Circulation staff still unclear on magazine procedures? Oh, well. Events staff still ignore the lovely pictures I draw them to illustrate meeting room set ups? Doesn't matter. Guy who wears the bike helmet still sings Celine Dion songs and discourses on the future of hover boards? I just let it be. It's the unfortunate side effect of having less than six weeks left as an employee. I discovered today, though, that there's one thing I cannot let be. I can never let it be. I will fight it to the end of time. Censorial patrons will never be okay with me.

I got a materials complaint this week from a parent who picked up a book her daughter checked out of the teen collection. The mother skimmed part of the book and discovered a chapter in which teens engage in underage drinking and strip poker. She would like us to throw away the book because the "whole thing is trash." Yeah, I saw that and I wanted to punch something. Possibly someone.

I read part of the book today and it's pretty mild. There's no profanity and no sex and no violence and no adult themes. It's pretty much a fluffy, plotless book that in no way glorifies either of the behaviors the mother objects to. If this is the kind of book she wants us to throw away, she needs to step away from my teen collection right. now. because if she doesn't she's going to find far more scandalous content than underage drinking and her head will explode and the number of complaints she'll have to file will deforest the entire northern hemisphere.

I don't endorse underage drinking or teens playing strip poker, but it's ridiculous to expect a library to be a collection of completely sanitized reads, and underage drinking just strikes me as one of the least offensive scenarios to encounter in teen fiction. Does this mother send her child to public school? Because if that child's school was anything like mine, she can watch some real live underage drinking in the girls' bathroom any old time she wants. And then inhale some second-hand pot and hear about the cheerleaders' sexual exploits from the previous weekend.

If I were a parent, there are things in literature that I would want to steer my children away from at certain ages (or at least be sure to talk to them about), but I hate the attitude that I don't agree with something I read so the book in which I read it has no value for me OR FOR ANYONE ELSE.

Allowing someone to read about an objectionable behavior is not the same as encouraging it. In fact the opposite is often true. Literature is a safe place for teens to experiment with risky behavior and its consequences. I loved teen pregnancy books as a middle schooler and all these years later, still no illegitimate children.

I Feel Old

When our teen volunteers get together, I make them introduce themselves, because otherwise they mostly completely ignore one another (and because even with introductions, I mix up the names of the best friends). So, today as part of introductions, I made them line themselves up by age (tricky, see? they have to talk to one another to figure out the correct order). As I was explaining to them how to arrange themselves (it's surprising how "youngest to oldest" was not clear to them), I said, Okay, for example, if you were born in, um, when were you all born? And you know what they said? 1996! If I'd been a promiscuous high schooler, I could be their mother! AND they're the same age as my oldest niece. And even though she's my oldest niece, she's a baby. But she's old enough to be one of my teen volunteers.

I made the teens play 'N Sync Uno. They'd never heard of 'N Sync.

I Like It

I was catching up on my Prairie Home Companion today, but I never made it through the pas de deux show, because I had to listen to the performances by Anne and Pete Sibley over and over and over again. I'm very fond of a banjo.

Skin Prints

Madame M(4) introduced me to a new art form today. M(4) takes a marker (today it was purple), draws a picture on her legs (she told me that both stars and mermaid scales are good), and then presses a piece of paper against the picture. The marker transfers from her skin to the paper and, voila!, skin prints.

It's nice for my sister that the marmots like doing art projects, because whenever a holiday comes along my sister just presses the children into service and they crank out a steady stream of cards and drawings and now skin prints to send to the grandparents. It's like her own in-house sweatshop. I wish I had little kids to exploit.

Miscommunications

Sometimes I'm not good at listening or hearing or understanding. Recently my friend's wife was in the library. Someone else was helping her at the reference desk, but as she was leaving we were doing the hey, how are you thing.

MBC: Hey, how are you?

Friend's Wife: I was playing softball last night and I missed a throw.

MBC (in head): That's really weird information to be giving me. Do you mean that it's been a long time since you've played? Because I used to go to your games and you never missed the ball.

MBC (out loud, working with what I'm given): Heh, you'll have to play some more.

Then she turned to walk away and I saw her huge black eye and the conversation suddenly made sense. And I realized that she'd just told me she had a black eye and I'd told her she's a bad softball player.

It was not unlike a conversation I had with E and her friend Heather the first week we were roommates when I asked E what she'd studied as an undergrad.

E: Communications (is that right? it suddenly seems wrong)

Heather: And men . . .

MBC (in head): Neither E nor Heather seem like the kind of people who would say that they majored in men, even if they dated every single hour of the day in college, but OK . . .

MBC (out loud): Oh, were you a big dater in college?

E: No.

Because Heather didn't say and men she said and THEN, as in E completed her bachelor's degree and then went onto get her master's and was now beginning her law degree.

"How does your family feel about your big trip?"

Several months ago I came bounding into my sister's kitchen to tell her what fabulous deals I got on my plane tickets to and from the US.

MBC: Do you know what this means?

Correct Answer: It means that you, MBC, are the best traveler in the world. EVER.

Sister: It means that Marmot Babe is going to grow up without his aunt.

My sister, she's got a way with the daggers to my heart. Low blow.

_______

On the phone with Mom several months ago:

Mom: Dad and I are getting our passports.

MBC: Why? Are you coming to play with me in Europe?

Mom: No. We just want to have them in case something terrible happens to you. Then we'll be able to come rescue you if you get in trouble or attend your wedding if you decide to elope.

(They did, truly, get passports. I interpret it as permission to get hitched in Europe.)

_______

On the phone with Dad on Sunday:

Dad: Are you sure you want to go to Europe?

MBC: Yes.

Dad: Are you sure?

MBC: Even if I weren't sure, the library's already posted my position, so I have to go to Europe.

Dad: You don't have to go to Europe. You could come here.

MBC: What would I do there?

Dad: It doesn't matter what you would do here, because whatever it was, you would be safe.

MBC: What if a tornado hit town and sucked me up?

Dad: Well, I'd be here to grab your foot out of the tornado and bring you home safely.


That's how they feel.

I want my Two DOLLARS!

I contacted a travel agent to help plan my week in Greece. Four weeks, five phone calls, and six emails later I still have no travel plans. I have a lot of false hope but no travel arrangements. My travel agent, Matthew, won't return my calls or answer my emails. I talked to one of his colleagues, Joe, who informed me that Matthew has information for me, but neither Joe nor I have managed to convince Matthew to pass on that information yet. In an industry that relies heavily on referrals and commission and in a time when travel has fallen off significantly, doesn't it seem wise for a travel agent to resist enraging his clients? Especially when all he'd have to do to make me happy is to DO HIS JOB. If I think about it too much, my blood pressure starts to rise and I start looking around for that book about making weapons out of common kitchen items. Grrrr.

The Wicked One

I saw Wicked on Saturday and, as promised, the performances were excellent, the costumes were beautiful, the sets were fantastic, and I was extremely impressed with the lighting. I still can't get over the special effect rain. I like Wicked. I do NOT like the fans of Wicked. I watched our usher tell about 15 THOUSAND people to stop taking photographs. I hope that part of the usher's compensation is that she gets to take home one of those flying monkeys as a pet, because she has the worst job in the world. I bet she's been missing the old ladies with the orthopedic shoes who so often frequent the theater this last month. They're less prone to shrieking and texting and wearing shorts and flip flops at the theater.

I think I have a bad attitude about Wicked uberfans for the same reason I have a bad attitude about Twilight (the book) uberfans (and I absolutely recognize that it's an obnoxious, snobby attitude and, particularly as a librarian, I can capably argue the other side). It chafes me a little bit that shows like Wicked gain such huge, obsessive followings, because it seems narrow to me. Wicked is a great theater experience. Go see it if you get the opportunity. But it's not the only great theater experience. Other shows feature talented actors and incredible sets. It's a fun show, but is it really the best. show. ever? The show that's so good that you have to see it every single night it's in your town? Yes, Twilight and The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter all entertain extremely well, but they aren't the only books. I think, especially for teens, it's exciting to be part of a phenomenon, and I would never want to discourage readers from finding the books that make them love to read or theater-goers from finding the productions that make them love the theater, but other books and other shows deserve attention and praise just as much as the bestsellers and box office hits. Maybe more.

Happy May Day!

I'm going to see Wicked tomorrow, even though sometimes musicals trouble me. I find all that bursting into song disconcerting. It shouldn't. I have a mother who bursts into song. Sometimes the music just wells up inside her in the grocery store and can't be contained. Even when we ask her to contain it. And sometimes Madame M(4) sidles up to me with her head titled and her eyes unnaturally doe-y and sings an earnest song about the trials of being a princess. So my own life is not at all song-free, and I anticipate that Wicked will be great. Several people whose judgment I trust have praised it, and all those people trying to sell their kids on the black market for tickets can't be wrong.