Blades of Steel

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Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m attempting to redeem my childhood failures through my kids, okay?  Okay?  That is, we’ve started them in skating lessons.

See? Not so bad.  Learning to ice skate is something I longed and yearned to do as a child, but my family never lived in a town with a rink.  So, who am I to pass up getting my kids to learn this sport when we now live 5 minutes away from a rink?

The Salt Lake City Sports Complex has two big ice sheets that were built for Olympic hockey games back in ’01.  They have children’s group skating lessons there taught by Official US Figure Skating People, namely, amazingly fit 18 year old girls who could probably skate on the head of a pin.  All at once.

Eleanor is in the “Snowplow Sam” course, designed for preschoolers.  Their main task is to learn how to stand up by themselves after falling down.  Sometimes they “march” from foot to foot, but mainly it’s all about the falling.

Jeffrey is in the “Basic One” course.  The kids in this class actually scoot around the ice a bit.  Jeffrey even engages in the occasional game of “Red Light, Green Light,” when he isn’t chewing on his gloves.

Both children really enjoy the skating.  Jeffrey has NO FEAR — it doesn’t phase him one bit when he falls, he just gets right back up and keeps scooting.  He idolizes the hockey players who practice on the sheet next door, which makes Mommy nervous. 

Eleanor gets a bit more shaky on the ice, but she loves doing it anyway.  Rather, she especially loves putting on the layers of stretchy pants and knitted gloves which we set aside for skating sessions.  It’s all about the clothes, people.

For years, I’ve had a fantasy of having whole-family outings on the ice.  Brian can handle himself pretty well on the ice, so that leaves just William and myself to figure it out.  I’m going to predict that William will learn to skate before I do (and keep in mind that they don’t let kids on the ice until they are 3). 

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I made a feeble attempt at skating during a public skate event last Saturday, and Chaos Ensued.  Let’s just say that I fell down and couldn’t figure out how to get up.  With skates on, my bent knee came up to my ears, and my wimpy legs couldn’t push hard enough to get me into a standing position.  Or rather, my wimpy brain was afraid my wimpy legs would cause me to fall foward onto my face.  (Hey, falling on my behind is one thing, falling on my face quite another.)  After kneeling feebly on the ice for a few minutes, one of those 9-year-old wunderkind skaters — a little Asian girl with an Official Figure Skating Jacket — came over and told me how to do it.  And thus ended my skating session for the day.

So: squats first, then skating.  You hear that, legs?

Fun in the . . . Brrr

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One of the things I promised myself when we planned to move back to Salt Lake is that I would get the family to participate more in winter sports.  I love sledding, sure, and backyard snowplay is positively excellent behind our house, but I felt that we needed something more — specifically something that engages the grown-ups.  Brian and I  — especially I — tend to turn in to big, galumphing atrophied bears during the wintertime.  This behavior was a tad more excusable in Pittsburgh — Brian was a time-crunched med student, I was nursing newborns, and while we did get bits of snow in western Pennsylvania, it never stuck around for more than a couple of days.  The city didn’t have much by was of winter sports facilities, and the high humidity and ice storms made spending more than twenty minutes at a time outdoors akin to taking a mudbath in a refrigerator. 

But in Salt Lake — ahh, nice winter!  Nice winter!  It gets into the 50s in the daytime, there’s plentiful snow (seriously, I haven’t seen grass since November), pretty mountains for exploring, and all kinds of state-of-the-art rinks and luges and what-have-yous left over from the 2002 Winter Olympics.

BUT — we’re still living on the cheap nowadays.  So instead of pitching in for lift tickets, we do this:

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Whee!  That’s Brian and Jeffrey about to sled down a dry creekbed on Little Mountain, my favorite scary/extreme sledding spot up Emigration Canyon.  (There are gentle slopes, too.)  We took this trip on New Year’s Day.  Jeffrey had NO FEAR — he marched straight up to the tallest hill and took off — while Eleanor was content to just go about a quarter of the way up with me and slowly drift down on her penguin tube.  She yelled “I’m having fuuuuuuun!” all the way down.

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My family and Brian’s came along with us on the trip, which was very fun.  Afterwards we went back to Retro Acres for hot chili, corn bread, and outrageously thick Spanish-style hot chocolate with homemade churros.  (Mmmm!  Deep fried blissss!)

March of the Snowasaurs

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When the snow is a few days old it becomes nice and wet — perfect for building things out of snow.  Brian has always enjoyed making whimsical snow creatures — I remember him building hearts and Easter Island heads for me when we were first dating — and this year, he’s making dinosaurs.  Hence the cool spiky Stegasaurus on our front lawn.  Alas, the icicles were removed by our children a few days later, so it now looks like some other kind of -saur.  I still love the snowy guy anyway.  Brian is especially proud of the fact that the dinosaur looks as if he is munching on our shrubs.

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Brian just finished this T-Rex last night, created in honor of the first full sentences Jeffrey wrote by himself at school: “I am T rex. I am smiling at you.”  We are quite proud of Mr. Rex; you can’t quite tell in this picture, but the icicle claws are slightly curved — they were formed by water dripping down some leaves.  This sculpture is positioned in our yard in such a way that he looks as if he’s just about to chase the steg-less stegasaur, who, owing to some warm weather, looks rather dismayed about the loss of his spiky stegs.  But that’s natural selection for you.

Edit 1/11/09:

Brian made a THIRD snowasaur just this afternoon, mere minutes after I had finished writing the above blather.  It’s a triceratops (a request from Jeffrey), and looks mega-awesome.  It’s ready to kick some major T-Rex tail:

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Holiday Roundup

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It’s almost 2009, but not quite — that means I can still blog about Christmas stuff, right?  There are a few things I wanted to get down before I forget all about them . . .

  • Candlelight Christmas — this is an event at the This is the Place Heritage Park (aka “Olde Tyme Pioneer Village”).  It’s actually a funny name — due to the various fire codes around the historic buildings, no actual candles are used, but it was still fun.  They had a live nativity in the stable, and Eleanor’s eyes were enormous when I lifted her up to see Mary and Joseph.  I’m afraid she believes that she has witnessed the real thing, but is that so terrible for a three year old?
     
    There was also a 13 year old shepherd boy hovering around a campfire nearby.  When we arrived, Jeffrey marched directly up to him and said, “Tell me the story of Jesus!” He later said the same thing to the lady who taught us the Virginia Reel in the schoolhouse.  Ahh yes, the ever-treacherous Virginia Reel — Jeffrey and I danced it together, but it was difficult for Jeffrey to figure out how to do a do-si-do.  Therefore, he became so entangled in my legs that I fell down on the floor right in the middle of it.  The kicker?  Brian had been sizing up the camera to take a picture of us, and hit the button just as I fell.  Instead of a cute picture of some mother-and-son hoedown, there’s a picture of me sprawled on the floor next to a potbellied stove.  Oh, and I would have posted it here, but darn if I didn’t delete it. 
  • Jeffrey’s Nativity Play — this is done by the Primary in our ward the Sunday before Christmas, and boooooy is it adorable!  Check it out:

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            So sweet, eh?  Jeffrey is in the crowd of shepherds on the risers.  He’s got his face to the side (just above the woman who’s conducting the music), so you really can’t see it too well, but this is the best shot we could get what with sitting in the back of the cultural hall and all.  It was the Cutest Christmas Pageant Ever!

  • Carolling Party — on the 14th, we hosted a carolling party at our house.  I have mentioned it earlier on this blog, but I forgot a crucial detail — namely, what happened when certain members of our party decided to do some door-to-door singing.  First of all, most of the people who could sing well couldn’t come with us, owing to a lack of enthusiasm over taking newborns into the cold and whatnot.  So the group consisted of three men and myself.  Two of the men were energetic singers, but not adept at singing on key.  The third man could sing tunefully enough but couldn’t remember the words to anything, and then there was me, who kept doubling over in laughter halfway through every carol, realizing how terrible we sounded.  We were also trailed by half a dozen little kids, including Jeffrey, who somehow got carolling confused with trick-or-treating and insisted on wearing his Roman centurion’s helmet and a cape.  Jeffrey also took along an empty wrapping paper tube and used it to “conduct” the carolling from the front steps of various homes.

Oh, you can just imagine how our neighbors responded to that.  I have never seen such looks of bewilderment in my life.  But it was great; I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

There Went Santa Claus

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A grand Christmas was had by all in the Casa Camisas family.  For the first time in ages, we were able to celebrate with just our little family on Christmas morning.  It was wonderful.

The kids slept in, as is their habit — actually, I had a bad dream on Christmas Eve and was therefore the first to wake.  Once everyone was up, however, the children were so excited!  It was loads of fun to lead them into the library, where Santa had left their treats.

Jeffrey saw his Lego “troll wagon” set right away — he’d been talking about wanting one for weeks.  He immediately opened it onto the coffee table and insisted on putting it together right then.

Eleanor found her baby doll sitting in its little dolly highchair, and gently picked it up.  She immediately christened the doll “Allelujiah” and spent the next several minutes cuddling with it on the couch.  Every now and then she would look up at me shyly and murmur, “Mommy, it’s just what I wanted, it’s just what I wanted.”

We gave William a “Bilibo,” this odd little rocking/climbing toy, but he wasn’t interested in it nearly as much as the candy cane he found in his stocking.  He fished it out and held it high, squawking until we opened it for him.  While his big brother and sister enjoyed their new toys, he marched around the room in a happy stupor, crunching noisily on his sweet.

That’s the best memory of this Christmas — a quiet, old-fashioned one full of delighted children.  There were some other good bits, too — the gasp of surprise and glee when Jeffrey unwrapped his Playmobil set of Romans.  Eleanor tucking Allelujiah into her doll crib and singing a lullaby.  My parents later brought over their new Rockband set, and Jeffrey managed to get a great score on a Beastie Boys song just by babbling incoherently into the microphone.  But it was that morning that Brian and I treasure the most — just us, just quiet, full of peace and love.

Christmas Is Upon Us

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There’s a song that all of third graders at Jeffrey’s school learn every Christmas, called “Christmas Is Upon Us.”  It goes like this:

Christmas is upon us, our favorite time of year

We wish you happy holidays and peace throughout the year.

When you pass us by, you can hear us cry:

At this moment in the song, various groups of children chant little phrases like “I make the toys, for all the girls and boys!” or “Mommy, Daddy, I looooove you,” or “I’m made of snow, and I’m melllllting.” 

This song has been taught to the third grade for over fifty years — at least– and everybody in the neighborhood knows it.  What’s been funny is that Brian, who attended the same school for a few years in childhood, has realized that he remembers this song, as well. Then we mentioned it to his mom, and she remembers learning it at the same school when she was a child. 

For the most part, it definitely sums up the feeling around Retro Acres.  Christmas is definitely falling, descending, sitting, squashing, upon us.  It’s great fun, if it is a little exhausting.  Here are a few brief glimpses on various holiday things we’ve done:

  • Once again, we were able to perform a shadow puppet show for the ward christmas party.  The good news is that nobody around here has seen one before, so we can recycle all our old scripts and puppets from shows of yore.  The bad news is that our somewhat rigid activities director needed some convincing to allow us to perform.  But everybody enjoyed it.  However, I think the real stars of the evening were the “Shuffling Sisters Ballet” — a group of ladies-over-sixty dancing to “The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy.”  Don’t worry, there were no unitards.  Just good silliness.
  • Eleanor’s preschool had a morning of “music sharing” — not a performance, but a time when parents were allowed to participate in the class music time.  Eleanor was thrilled to have me join her for circle time and singing, and William was rather enthusiastic about the program as well, and did his toddler darndest to participate.  The best part was when Ms. Susan, the music teacher, passed around wooden Nativity figures to the children.  She didn’t see William holding out his hands at first, so he was stuck with the only piece left in the basket — a little green block representing the manger.  The children were supposed to take turns putting their figures on a little cloth while we sang a song, and I was worried that William wouldn’t want to give up his manger.  Little did I need to worry — he marched right up and slammed that manger down like a quarterback spiking a football.  It bounced off the cloth a ways.  What an enthusiastic little guy!
  • There’s a family in our ward who host an open house for everybody each Christmas, and it’s now become an official ward acitivity.  The flyers for the event said, “Come for treats, friends, and . . . The Tree!”  Well, I wondered upon reading that.  It must be some tree.  And it WAS — when my kids saw it, they all held still and just stared for a good ten minutes.  It was actually three big trees lashed together . . . with big rainbow lights . . . covered thickly with spray-on flocking and hung with icicle tinsel.  But that’s not all — under the tree was an enormous Christmas village, complete with a running train and animatronic skaters and sledders and whatnot.  More flocking had been sprayed on the ground to make snow.  Whoa.  That tree was a good nine or ten feet across. 
  • Lastly, last Sunday we hosted a caroling party here at Retro Acres.  Brian and I had tremendous fun picking out a variety of little known carols to sing, and I even spent time looking up how to cook a real, actual figgy pudding.  Know what?  It turned out pretty well, quite yummy.  It was a cake batter made with pureed figs, that is steamed in a pot of boiling water instead of baked in an oven.  You end up with a very moist, dense cake, like a high-class Fig Newton.

Still to come: a party with the residents tonight (which we may skip, as it’s snowing hard); a candy-making/ice-skating party with Brian’s family; Jeffrey’s nativity pageant; cookie making with my mom and sister; hosting dinner for fourteen on Christmas Eve.  And then: peace on earth!

No. 9, No. 9, No. 9, No. 9

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As of today, Brian and I have been married for nine years.  Nine!  Brian gave me a handmade ceramic vase to celebrate the occasion, because he looked up that the ninth anniversary is the “pottery” anniversary.  I find this especially amusing, since he’s never bothered before to observe the other official anniversary gift patterns.

Apparently #10 is the “tin” anniversary.  What, was that list made when Queen Victoria was alive and merchant tinkers still roamed the land?

We spent the evening at a very nice restaurant called The Paris Bistro, and spent part of our meal trying to remember all our past anniversaries.

Know what?  They’re starting to blur.  We can’t quite remember them all.  Here’s what we got:

  • First: stayed at a B&B in Provo, since Brian’s brother’s mission farewell was the following morning.
  • Second: can’t quite remember.  We may have spent it apart, since I flew home to Utah early that year, in order to get cheap airfare, and Brian had to stay behind and finish the semester.
  • Third: Jeffrey was a newborn.  I think we may have traded babysitting with another family, and rushed out to get Thai food.
  • Fourth: can’t remember.  Jeffrey was one.  We do know we stayed in Pittsburgh for Christmas that year.
  • Fifth: We were expecting Eleanor then, and stayed in a B&B in Salt Lake called Wildflowers.  I think we may have eaten dinner at Tucci’s, an Italian restaurant we frequented while dating.  We realized that Tucci’s seemed far more fancy back then, when we were starving undergrads, than it does now.
  • Sixth: Eleanor was a newborn, Jeff was three.  We visited Brian’s siblings in NYC, and they watched the kids for a few hours while we grabbed dinner together in the city.
  • Seventh: Can’t remember.  This may have been the year that my mother guilted Brian and I into seeing Beauty and the Beast at the Pioneer Theatre on our anniversary with the whole family instead of going off on our own, because that was the only night convenient to her.  (Hey, the play was fun anyway.)
  • Eighth: Brian’s parents gave us an early Christmas present — a gift card to Magleby’s, a cute restaurant in Provo.  It was an enormous amount of food, and we can’t remember if we saw a movie afterwards or not. 

So, as you can see, senility is already beginning to set in.  (We blame grad school.)

Favorite Youth Literature of 2008: Fiction

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It’s that time of year again!  The time for list-makin’! 

2008 was a particularly strong year for youth literature, and I simply cannot include every single good book of the year on this list — although you will notice that it’s rather longish. My criteria and extra-scientific selection process goes something along this wise:

1. Do I frequently mentally refer to the book?

2. Do I often talk about it with everyone I meet?

2. Do I secretly wish to own a copy of the book?

If the answer to all three are “yes,” then it’s on the list.  So here we go:

 

 

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BEST COSTUMES:  The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner.  This tale of the French Revolution is a charmer — it has action, romance, magic, and clothes, clothes, clothes.  There’s a character who has his flower beds replanted each day to match the color of his shoes, there’s a Greek mythology-themed costume ball, and a stylish villain who, when he isn’t making the heroine swoon, tells the time via a Grim Reaper-adorned pocket watch.  If you like sweeping period romances like The Scarlet Pimpernel, then this book’s for you.  Love it.

 

 

 

penderwicks-on-gardam-street1I WISH I COULD LIVE WITH THEM FOR A WHILE: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall.  In this funny, clever 21st-century riff on Little Women, the four Penderwicks sisters learn about truth, honor, Latin, football, cats, duckies, True Love, and melodramatic Aztecs.  This is one of those rare sequels that surpasses its predecessor.

 

 

 

airmanBEST VILLAIN WITH AN INADVERTENTLY HILARIOUS NAME: Airman by Eoin Colfer.  Imagine tossing Batman, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Jules Verne in a blender, and then throwing in a princess and Victorian aircraft for spice.  It’s a perfect alternate-history action/adventure pageturner, but the bad guy is named Bonvilain, which propells it into the category of Awesome.

 

 

 

a-curse-dark-as-goldBEST RETELLING OF A FAIRY TALE: A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.  It’s “Rumplestiltskin” reset in early 19th-century England, revolving around a mysteriously cursed wool mill.  The level of suspence is up to the hilt in this baby, propelling it out of the realm of folklore into a full-bodied ghost story.  Bonus points: the inclusion of British folk magic.  That stuff’s always interesting.

 

 

impossibleOH MY GOSH THAT SCENE WAS HOT: Impossible by Nancy Werlin.  Twilight fans, take heed: if you took all four novels of that saga and boiled out all the angst, you’d end up with the taut romantic thriller that is Impossible.  This tale of young adults facing down a supernatural curse and falling for each other in the process is smokin’.  Oh, and it’s based on the ballad “Scarborough Fair.”  Need I say more?

 

 

hunger-gamesMOST LIKELY TO BE MADE INTO A FILM: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  A dystopian future society where teenagers are forced to fight to the death on reality TV?  A fiesty young lass named Katniss is thrown into the fray with naught but her hardscrabble thirst for survival, a boy who is totally in love with her, and her mad archery skillz.  Can’t wait for the sequel!

 

 

knife-of-never-letting-goTOTALLY IN LOVE WITH THE PROTAGONIST: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.  It’s science fiction with a strong literary bent.  It concerns a world of men who were infected with a virus that enables them to hear each others’ thoughts.  And then a series of events leads to a major war, chase across wild terrain, betrayals, love, etc. etc.  Todd Hewitt is the young lad caught up in the whole mess, and his rough-shod voice is just heartbreakingly real.

 

 

 

 

dragonfly-poolTHE NOVEL IN WHICH I’D LIKE TO TAKE A VACATION: The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson.  The fictional country of Bergania, when it isn’t overrun with Nazis, is just the place I’d like to visit, if I had the chance.  Young English girl Tilly takes a trip there in 1939 with a very hilarious school chums as part of a folk dance competition, and ends up befriending and rescuing Bergania’s young prince from the clutches of said Nazis.  Folks, this book has everything — including a high-class cheese tasting and a Mongolian dog — and is probably my favorite historical fiction of the year.

 

 

gracelingBEST KICK-BUTT PROTAGONIST: Graceling by Kristin Cashore.  Katsa is the character I’d least like to meet in a dark alley . . . if she were a villain.  This old-school fantasy tale of a girl with super-lethal superpowers is one heckuva rollercoaster ride, complete with creepy villain, a gold-jewelry-bedecked hottie of a love interest, a fight to the death with a mountain lion, and as much sword fightin’ as your heart could possibly desire.

 

 

 

tender-morselsBEST RETELLING OF A FAIRY TALE, PT. 2: Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan.  Actually . . . this book was published as adult fiction in Australia.  It’s a very, very dark retelling of “Snow-White and Rose-Red,” broadened and deepened in such a way that it touches on nearly every aspect of human life.  Death, sex, violence, family, love, ethics, you name it, it’s here.  Amazing stuff, but as a warning: the first few chapters are designed to show you the darkest aspects of human behavior, and features scenes of abuse and rape.  It’s handled deftly, but you ought to know it’s there.  This ain’t no Disneyfied fairy tale, but draws on the earthy fears and hopes that are the DNA of all folklore.

 

 

skimFOR WHEN YOU WANT TO WEAR ALL BLACK: Skim by Mariko Tamaki, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki.  Whoa, you think you were a troubled teen?  Kimberly “Skim” Cameron is an overweight, half-Japanese, Wiccan, Goth, possibly lesbian, and rather depressed and lonely girl.  Her reaction when a teen suicide rocks her high school is pitch-perfect in its depiction of adolsecent angst and isolation.  Give this one to the Bell Jar set.  Bonus points: the gorgeous illustrations for this graphic novel combine, like its heroine, both western and Japanese art styles, and made the list of the New York Times  Best Illustrated books of the year. 

 

 

nationMOST LIKELY TO BE TOLD BY A RETIRED PIRATE: Nation by Terry Pratchett.  In an alternate version of the 19th century, a tsunami hits a chain of South Pacific islands, leaving an island boy and a shipwrecked English girl as the only survivors.  Their work to rebuild a life together leads to a tale that asks hard questions about the nature of  civilization, racism, society, and much more.  Oh, and it’s chock full of life-risking adventures, ghosts, sharks, supernatural wonders, and the standard brilliant Pratchett-isms.  You think your life is hard?  The protagonist of this book can see death.  It just makes you want to sit on a tar-barrel and say “Arrrg.”

 

 

diamond-of-drury-laneBEST SUPPORTING CAST: The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding.  Yes, this tale of the intrepid spitfire Cat Royal — a foundling who inhabits the Drury Lane Theatre, circa the 1780s, is one humdinger of a mystery tale.  But what makes it superb are all the secondary characters: London street thugs, aristocrats who sneak off to boxing matches, a political cartoonist known as Captain Sparkle, and — I kid you not — a former African slave who is also a violin prodigy.  Bonus points: a glossary of 18th-century street slang in the back.

 

princess-benTHE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PRINCESSES: Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.  When young Benevolence, or Ben’s parents are killed by invaders, along with the king, she is next in line for the throne, and under the thumb of the imperious Queen Sophia, who is determined to turn her into a — horrors! — “proper princess.”  Ben’s rebellion against this idea leads to her imprisonment in a castle tower with a secret room, in which she learns all about magic.  But is her lack of interest in politics threatening her country’s stability?  Ben’s development into adulthood is a fairy tale that keeps you guessing.  As an added perk, it’s written in an arch 19th-century prose style, and it just beautiful.

 

 

13-clocksBEST READ-ALOUD: The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber.  This is a reissue, published decades ago, but is hands-down our favorite book to read at bedtime, on vacation, when stuck in traffic, whenever.  Ages before The Princess Bride poked fun at fairy tales, Thurber’s small masterpiece was doing it in high style.  This book has all that is required in a good story: a princess, a prince, an evil duke, spies, enchanted treasure, and a whimsical, magical middleman called the Gollux, who wears “an indescribable hat.”  Best for adults are the hilarious one-liners (“I’ve sent eleven guards to kill the prince!”  “But sire, the prince is as strong as ten men!” “Well, then that leaves one guard to finish him off!”)  Be sure to find the 2008 edition, which preserves Marc Simont’s gorgeous full-color illustrations.

 

 

adoration-of-jenna-foxBEST BOOK WHOSE PLOT I CANNOT SUMMARIZE: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson.  See . . . if I say anything about the plot, it will TOTALLY ruin the reading experience for you.  Let’s just say it’s one of the better depictions of an amnesia patient piecing together her life, that it’s set roughly 100 years from now, deals with bioethics, and will make you say AHHH! about halfway through.  This one’s a great way to get a deep philosophical discussion about the mind/body problem. 

 

every-soul-a-star1MOST ADORABLE NINTH GRADERS EVER: Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass.  Three teens with completely different backgrounds are drawn together under various circumstances to view a total solar eclipse.  There’s brainy Ally, popular pretty-girl Bree, and artistic but withdrawn Jack.  Mass stays far away from the usual stereotypes so pervasive in youth media.  Bree’s popular, but she isn’t a “mean girl,” and Ally isn’t so much nerdy/socially inept as she is lonely and charmingly unself-concious.  The unlikely but deep friendship that forms between the three kids is as real and magnificent as the eclipse itself — and by the way, you’ll learn scads about astronomy from this book as well.  Did you know that there are Muslims who travel the world to be present at eclipses, in order to pray for the sun’s return?  Cool, huh?

 

 

into-the-darkCOULD PROBABLY TAKE NANCY DREW DOWN IN A FIGHT: Into the Dark by Peter Abrahams.  The adventures of intrepid detective Ingrid Levin-Hill continue in the third Echo Falls mystery.  This time, her eccentric-but-beloved Grampy has been accused of murder.  Can Ingrid clear his name?  Ingrid is the kind of female protagonist I always love to see: she’s smart and talented, but also prone to the various insecurities that usually plague 13-year-olds.  In other words, a real girl.  Abrahams usually takes elements from familiar children’s stories to enrich his Echo Falls stories; “Hansel and Gretel” is the theme of Into the Dark, to wonderfully spine-tingling effect.

 

 

suite-scarlettBEST FLUFFY BEACH READ: Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson.  The Martin family runs a boutique hotel in New York City, but it’s fallen hard times — so much that the four Martin children are called upon to help keep it afloat.  Scarlett is assigned to care for the elegant Empire Suite, and finds her life turned upside-down when the wealthy, eccentric “Auntie Mame”-ish Mrs. Amberson becomes her first client.  What I especially liked here are the fun girly details: a crush on an aspiring actor, red Chanel lipstick, a wacky appearance on a morning television program, and the Dior dress of your dreams.

 

 

graveyard-book

PROBABLY MY FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  You know how The Jungle Book is about an orphaned boy raised by animals?  Well, this book is about a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard.  It seems creepy — and many parts of this book are, purposely so — but the characters are full of such warmth, humor, and personality that you can’t help but love ’em.  There’s a heapin’ helpin’ of danger and excitement — you can’t help it in a book where the vampire, the mummy, and the werewolf are the good guys — as well as a dash of eye-misting pathos.  Gaiman uses a variety of folkloric motifs that make the chapters especially rich and vibrant.  I can’t wait for my kids to be old enough to share it with them!

Oy to the World

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 . . . is the name of a song played by KlezMore, the BYU klezmer band.  Klezmer is a kind of Jewish folk music, the oompah-oompah kind that one usually associates with Fiddler on the Roof.  Yes, it’s kind of weird to hear a klezmer version of a Christmas carol, but that’s the kind of thing that BYU does best.

Brian’s brother, Peter, plays the clarinet for KlezMore, and once a year they hold a barn dance down south of Provo to celebrate Hanukkah.  Or, well . . . to celebrate it as much as a bunch of Mormons possibly can.

This was the second year that Brian and I have managed to meander down for the event, and it took quite the bundle of preparations.  We were going to spend the night with Brian’s parents, so I packed up everyone’s clothes.  The dance also had a potluck snack table, and so I had to make something to bring.  Reading up a little bit on Jewish cooking, I decided to make a noodle kugel.

What?  Oh, yes — a noodle kugel, otherwise known as “the dish whose name Brian can never pronounce correctly.”  During the course of the evening, he referred to it as “noodle kiggel,” “noodle kugilia,” and “noodaFRUINLEVEN, LADY!”

Here’s what a noodle kugel actually is:

Cooked egg noodles, with butter, cottage cheese, and raisins, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and baked for about half an hour.

It smelled SO GOOD while it was baking; I was very proud.  When it came out of the oven, I popped it, the kids, the luggage, and various whatnots into the car, and we went to get Brian from work. . .

 . . . but he was running late . . .

. . . and we had to get dinner at the drive through . . .

. . . then drive in rush-hour traffic . . .

. . . and then we had to settle the kids in at Grandma’s . . .

. . . Brian then announced that he had to finish up a 15-minute report for work on the computer . . .

. . . the program he needed wouldn’t work . . .

. . . and it took us a long time to get to the barn . . .

SO, by the time we actually reached the dance, the noodle kugel looked less lucious and more like the Casserole That Time Forgot.  And then it was discovered the there were no eating utensils at the potluck table.  Ah, well.  I squeezed the pan o’ kugel between a couple of cheese balls, and went off to dance.

Here’s the most important aspect of Jewish folk dancing: standing in a circle.  It seems simple, and YET it is an incredibly difficult task for a group of adults of various ages to accomplish, especially when a large percentage of these adults are BYU students on first dates, who do not wish to be separated, and yet do not quite feel comfortable holding hands for extended amounts of time. 

However, stand in a circle we eventually did, and then came the shuffling, the hopping, the twirling and whirling.  The first dance was fast and made me dizzy.  The second dance was slow and gave me many opportunities to observe the room while doing my schmaltzy steps.

There were many girls who felt insecure about shuffle-stepping.

There were many boys doing big thundering steps, to show off their manliness.

There was a man in his 50s standing at the food table, picking up my casserole dish and sniffing it suspiciously.

“IT’S A NOODLE KUGEL!” I shouted across the room.

“MAZEL TOV!” someone shouted in response.

Then came the somewhat faster third dance, in which the men and women took turns dancing in the middle of the room.  Nobody quite knew how to do Jewish folk dancing solo.  Both genders chose a dance style that used a lot of arm-waving.  Then we all held hands in a circle again — we were finally getting used to the concept — and snaked about the room once more. 

After much foot-stomping, arm-waving, and shouts of “HEY!” the dance came to an end.  A bit winded, I meanered over to the water cooler for a drink, and Lo!  I found that somebody had ACTUALLY EATEN A SERVING OF THE KUGEL!

Not only was I amazed, I was curious.  How did they consume it without a fork or spoon?  Did they use a cracker?  Or just nibble via the fingers?

Twinkle, Twinkle

brookeshelf3 Comments

“Mommy, look!  It looks like a candy house!”

“Look at the sparkles, Mommy!”

My neighborhood is resplendent with Christmas lights, wreaths and garlands.  Even the lamposts are decorated with red ribbons, lights, and a sprig of plastic pine.  It’s a nice change from our neighborhood in Pittsburgh, where few of our neighbors put up any lights — a habit I presume is formed not from a lack of Yuletide spirit (although, granted, there were some Jewish families on the block) but simply because our 1930s cottages simply lacked good outdoor access to electricity.

Now we live in Twinkletown.  However, given that we are on the East Bench, it’s an austere, tasteful Twinkletown.  There are no blow-up nylon balloon Santas, animatronic reindeer, or hard plastic snowmen.  There’s one — just one — house on the block with a row of electric candy canes, but it’s very small.  Nothing blinks.

Therefore, I didn’t feel bad at all about investing in only three little strings of white lights to run along the roof of our porch.  No muss, no fuss.  The hooks were already there, we just had to hang the lights on them.  In my theory, Christmas light displays shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to set up.  But I was concerned that my kids wouldn’t feel the same way.

I grew up on Army posts, where there were rules about how many lights could be put on residential quarters.  No lawn ornaments, and only a few strings of lights.  There’s no room for the Electric Light Parade in the Army.  But as a little kid, I always kind of longed for something more — something rainbowy to drape over our trees and bushes, to transform our practical-yet-mundane quarters into a fairyland. 

So I was worried that my kids would be disappointed with our tiny amount of twink.  But I needn’t have worried.

“Mommm!  Come see the lights that Daddy put up!”  Eleanor cheered and twirled as Jeffrey proudly displayed Brian’s work.  William clapped his little hands.  And I remembered that any amount of twinkle is special, no matter how small.  It’s our house; it’s special to our kids.

Last night I drove Jeffrey home from a Christmas party, and I pointed out lights from the windows.  We passed the candy cane house.

“Jeffrey, look!  Does that house look like it’s made out of candy?”

“Yeah, Mom!  It looks yummy!”

Then we turned the corner to our home, and I noticed that a third of the lights had somehow gone out.  I winced as I pulled into the driveway.

“Mommy, do you know what our house looks like?”

“No, Jeffrey.  What?”

“I think it looks like the way it did on Christmas night.”

I puzzled over this for a moment.  Does he realize that our house didn’t exist in ancient Bethlehem?

“Jeffrey, do you mean that our house looks like a stable?”

“No Mom,” he whispered.  “I think it looks like the sky full of stars on Christmas night.”

He fluttered his fingers in the air to demonstrate, and I think my heart fluttered, too.