On reading to your children

The Story of Ferdinand the Bull

by Matt Mason

Dad would come home after too long at work
and I'd sit on his lap to hear
the story of Ferdinand the Bull; every night,
me handing him the red book until I knew
every word, couldn't read,
just recite along with drawings
of a gentle bull, frustrated matadors,
the all-important bee, and flowers—
flowers in meadows and flowers
thrown by the Spanish ladies.
Its lesson, really,
about not being what you're born into
but what you're born to be,
even if that means
not caring about the capes they wave in your face
or the spears they cut into your shoulders.
And Dad, wonderful Dad, came home
after too long at work
and read to me
the same story every night
until I knew every word, couldn't read,
just recite.

'Tis the season to get your read on

It's almost October. Which means November is right around the corner. And then my favorite month: December. Duh. Christmas trees, Christmas cookies, Christmas carols, Christmas sweaters, Christmas presents.
The 'Ber months are always good for my writing, for my reading. Temps have finally dropped to agreeable numbers (I would much rather be cold than hot.) Summer recipes have given way to crockpot meals and soups and stews. Pumpkins and gourds and magnificient fall colors delight the eyes and simmering pans of cinnamon and cloves tickle the nose.
I am more inside the house than out, so let's just say that I get a lot of page work done. Typically, I blog more frequently, write more often, and read with feverish intensity, trying to reach my fifty-book goal before January One arrives. Typically, I re-read several favorites. In October, I reach for Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Fall reminds me of Scout and Jem, who finally find courage to peek into mysterious windows,  and thus begin stalking Boo Radley. ("Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. ...) Fall is when mysterious gifts begin appearing in the knot-hole of a nearby tree standing tall in the Finches sleepy Southern neighborhood: "That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket. Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-hole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time." I won't tell you what the secret and sacred item is; I want you to read the story. I believe strongly that every single human being in the world needs to read To Kill A Mockingbird. It teaches you never to judge books by covers; it teaches you to stand up for what you believe in; it teaches you that you must walk a mile in another person's shoes before you can truly understand him or her. When I still taught high school English, I always began teaching Mockingbird when October arrived. It was fun to tell students that Dill, in the book, is based off Lee's real-life neighborhood pal, Truman Capote, who came to Maycomb, Alabama, several months out of the year to live with his Auntie.
Speaking of Capote, who is my favorite dead writer ...Once mid-November rolls around, I head to A Christmas Memory, which is the most bittersweet short story I have ever read. It makes me smile; it makes me weep. Although it's about a Christmas memory (hence the title), the story opens with this line: "Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. ... A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. ... 'Oh my,' she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, 'it's fruitcake weather!'"
Well, fruitcake. Yes, fruitcake! There's much maligning of the lowly fruitcake, which, to me, is an extraordinary dessert chock full of nuts and diced stained-glass fruits. I love me some fruitcake. My best childhood friend, Michelle, for years sent me a delectable fruitcake each holiday season, all the way from Santa Clara, California, from a beloved recipe her sweet mother-in-law employed in her own sunny kitchen. Probably I wasn't thankful enough; those (fragrant) cakes, dowsed in strong brandy, ceased arriving several seasons ago. I tell you: If you too enjoy fruitcake and reading about imaginative children, you need to get your hands upon Capote's coming-of-age story.
And then there's December, my favorite month. Time to revisit David Sedaris's hysterical Holidays on Ice, which is an accounting of the lovably neurotic essayist's experience working as a department store Christmas elf. This holiday collection of essays opens with this: "I was in a coffee shop looking through the want ads when I read, 'Macy's Herald Square, the largest store in the world, has big opportunities for outgoing, fun-loving people of all shapes and sized who want more than just a holiday job! Working as an elf in Macy's SantaLand means being at the center of the excitement' ... ."
This opening paragraph gives little clue to the hilarity that is forthcoming: "... I am a thirty-three-year-old man applying for a job as an elf. ... I am trying to look on the bright side. ... In order to become an elf I filled out ten pages' worth of forms, took a multiple choice personality test, underwent two interviews, and submitted urine for a drug test. The first interview was general, designed to eliminate the obvious sociopaths. ... I am certain that I failed my drug test. My urine had roaches and stems floating in it, but they still hired me because I am short, five feet five inches. Almost everyone they hired is short. One is a dwarf." Sedaris does not disappoint. When I read him, I have to be at home, alone, so that when I laugh and snort and say lines out loud and gesticulate wildly, no one pulls her kids closer and whispers into their ears: Children, there's something wrong with that woman.
Sedaris does not know this about me, but I will state it here, publicly. If I ever have a terminal illness and death is approaching and hospice nurses are setting up a final life request for me, I am going to tell them (through the wheezing and approaching death rattle), that I must get a chance to Skype with Sedaris. I want him to be talking to me and making me laugh as I go gently into my good night, which, hopefully, will also feature my children and grand children gathered around my hospital bed that's been set up in the hearth room of the family home.
Also on my December reading list is a collection of Christmas poems, essays, and short stories (Capote's Christmas Memory is here, too), selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy (yes, that Caroline Kennedy). The hardcover book, red and dressed up with a silver bow as though it is a present in an of itself, is simply called A Family Christmas. The book contains nine chapters, and though each is rather boringly titled ("Deck the Halls," "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," and "Joy to the World,") there's a nostalgic familiarity within that will lead you to the grocery store, where you will plunk down approximately $200 for holiday baking supplies; you will play Christmas music when you get back from the store to unload your flours and sugars and various chocolate chip pieces.  In addition to reveling in feel-good holiday sentiments, you will also learn what the exact words are to certain Christmas songs -- you know the ones, where only the chorus is obvious and you simply hum along to other parts. For example, I offer this educationally fulfilling musical nugget. (If you start studying now and commit to memory the hard parts, you'll be singing the loudest at church in a few short months.)
                                                           O Come, All Ye Faithful
             (Translated by Frederick Oakeley & William Thomas Brooke; Music by John Francis Wade)

O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold him, Born the King of angels:
O come, let us adore him; O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

      (This is the part you already know. Get ready for the lesson.)

God of God, light of light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin's womb;
Very God, Begotten not created:
O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

       (I know, I know, you already know the last two lines there ... ).

Sing, choirs of angels, Sing in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heav'n above;
Glory to God, In the highest:
O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, Born this happy morning,
Jesus, to thee be glory giv'n;
Word of the Father, Now in flesh appearing:
O come, let us ....
            
          (You know the rest.)

Happy Halloween! Have a blessed Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas!

#12 Reason Having No Money Sucks

I haven't worked since March of this year. I was gainfully employeed as a teacher, and then as a nanny up until my mom died March 25, which is when my world kinda sorta fell apart. Went into Depression Mode and stayed there, under the covers, for about a month. Would climb out and get showered and dressed, but then something would trigger a  memory of my mom ~ big things, like seeing women out in public with their moms; little things, like passing the Little Debbie display at Price Chopper, as my mom loved her some oatmeal creme pies ~ and then I was back to the bed and not brushing my teeth. You know you're at the edge of your sanity when you stop brushing your teeth.
No work? No money. Well, none of my own. Thank God I am married to a wonderful and generous man who is gainfully employed and has allowed me as much grieving time as I needed (and continue to need). Without my own paycheck, though, I feel very much like an adolescent holding her hand out for movie money, or for lunch money to get together with the girls.
Since March, since no paycheck, I have given up lots of material goods, purchases that I never really needed, now that I come to think about it, but sure as hell wanted. I used to buy whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. My generosity soared. Lots of gifts for the children and for friends. Lots of dinners out. I had Olive Garden's menu memorized. Lots of clothing and shoes bought. Daughter wanted a $200 pair of Uggs? Her third pair? OK.
Look: I am not a brat. I did have the money, and I did spend it, but I donated a lot of money, too. I bought food for local food pantries. I paid for dozens of Starbucks purchases for cars that were behind me in line. I bought classroom gifts that students "bought" with good behavior tickets I'd handed out during the week. I took donuts into school, and full-size birthday cakes and gallons of ice cream when a student had a birthday.  And I bought a shit-ton of books; I was a regular at Borders before it closed (I am still sad about this~) and then I turned to Barnes and Noble and, eventually, amazon.com, although I am ashamed to admit that mail-order approach, considering amazon's one BIG reason Borders shut down.
I bought new-release books, both fiction and non-fiction; I bought enormous coffee table books; I bought poetry anthology books, both hardcover and trade fiction; I bought home design books; I bought anyone's memoir or autobiography. I bought cookbooks. I bought little gift books, you've seen 'em, the lilliputian quotation books meant for teachers, or for women, or for mothers. If it was published, I bought it. And if I bought it, read it, and loved it (Garth Stein's Racing in the Rain, for example ~), I bought half a dozen more copies and gave those away.
And now, now that I have no extra money, I have had to stop buying books.
It hurts. My withdrawal from Barnes and Noble is painful: I am an alcoholic who must stay away from the pub.
How to compensate? I go to the library. A lot, like three times a week. Am I reading that many books every week? No, but I am a book junkie; I get my fix by perusing the shelves and carrying as many books to checkout as my arms can hold. Then I bring them home and set them on my dining room table, artfully arranged, and I get a euphoric sense of possibility just having them there. That's what books do for me: they promise a future for me that would be different if I did not have them.
How does anyone NOT read? There's so much to be learned and to be considered, so much to be absorbed.
Books think for me. Wish I'd been the first to claim that. However, attribution goes to Charles Lamb, Essays of Ella, (1823), which I know because I got it out of a book I own called The Quotable Book Lover.
One more quote, before I leave this post:
"Books must be the axe to break the frozen sea inside me." ~ Kafka (1883-1924)

Food memoirs: yummy!

Know that FiftyFiftyMe Challenge that I started back in January? Read fifty books and see fifty movies in one year? Well, I'm on schedule to meet that goal in terms of theaters and movie rentals. But the reading? VERY behind. Me, get behind in reading? Say it isn't so. Very unusual. I enjoy reading more than many people enjoy breathing.
The reading was going too slowly; I wasn't enjoying it. Literary fiction? Turns out it's not my thing. I wanted it to be my thing, just like I wanted hot tea to be my thing, thinking that it was cultured and a little Bohemian and literary, but no matter how much I tried, it turns out I just don't like hot tea. Not with honey, not with lemon. Iced tea? Sure, sign me up. Hot tea? No. I've tried, this tea thing, for about five years now. It's not going to happen for me. I accepted the defeat. I have stuck with coffee, which appeals to me in all its forms ~ hot, cold, lukewarm, iced, frozen.
So what's up with the slow-go with the reading? I was trying to be too cultured, thinking that literary books would make me happy, or smarter, or more refined. Turns out refinement and I don't mesh too well. Marilynne Robinson might have won the Pulitzer for fiction (GILEAD) and the Orange Prize for HOME, but her writing makes me want to pull out pieces of my hair. Check out this passage:
  
          An excerpt from HOME (page 69):
   
 "As she considered the prayer she was not yet disconsolate enough to put into words, the unwelcome realization came to her that she loved Jack and yearned for his approval. This was no doubt inevitable, since it was assumed to be true of the whole family, separately and together, excluding in-laws, who might hever have met him or even heard his name, and who could only be a little amazed by the potency of this collective sentiment if by some means they became aware of it. He was the black sheep, the ne'er-do-well, unremarkable in photographs. None of the very few stories that mentioned him suggested the loss of him could have been wholly regrettable. It was the sad privilege of blood relations to love him despite all. Glory was thirteen when he left for college, having been by that time ignored by him for years. And here she was in middle age feeling the fact of his touchy indifference a judgment on her, so it seemed to her, though he had been so grievously at fault, and her intrusions all those years ago, her excesses, whatever he might have called them, were no such think ~ she had defended them in her mind a thousand times and would defend them to his face if the occasion ever arose, which God forbid, God forbid."

AAAARRRRGGGHHHH.
After nine days ~ nine DAYS! ~ of trying to read this damned book, I made it to page 110 and have learned nothing about anything, only that Glory and her brother are sister and brother and he's aloof and she's milquetoast and their father is dying and now they're both in the same home they grew up in. Occasionally Glory makes Jack coffee; sometimes he smokes a cigarette out on the porch.
AAAARRRRGGGHHHH.
  
Breathe, Kathleen. Breathe.
Always the problem solver (i.e. middle child), I made the decision four days ago to read only what truly interests me (as of this summer): food, and the writing of food and food products.
So I threw HOME by famed and acclaimed literary novelist Marilynne Robinson across the floor; I suggested to Millie that she eat the edges off the boring-ass book. She said No. It wasn't her thing, either. She requested something meatier.
I then went to my bookshelves and started looking for books that were about my favorite subject: eating. First up: A HOMEMADE LIFE: stories and recipes from my kitchen table, by Molly Wizenberg, and this, THIS, is what I was received. On page 19.

     "I know there are a million recipes out there for pound cake, and probably berry versions, too, but as you can see, I consider this one to be very important. It accompanied be through crucial times. It's also delicious, and it's my mother's, and more than any of that, it has the lightest, most delicate crumb I've ever seen on a pound cake. In fact, I'm tempted to call it a butter cake instead, because the word pound is too heavy for what is actually going on here. It's rich, yes, but not too much so, and its crumb is fine and tender. The batter is very smooth, and folded gently around fragile berries and scented with fruity liqueur, it bakes up into the kind of cake that you can't help but want to eat outdoors. Preferably on a picnic blanket, with your mother."

Well. I gobbled up Wizenberg's book in one day. ONE DAY. I would have read it straight through, but there was a shower to take and beds to make and laundry to do and groceries to buy and a dog to let in, let out, let in, let out, let in, let out. And it wasn't a short book: At 313 pages, it was, really, over way too soon. I wanted more from this writer who isn't considered literary, but, GUESS WHAT? is readable! I did not have to reread a single paragraph. I got it from the get go. Wizenberg made me laugh. She made me cry. Really, there were tears, because in the middle of the book, she writes about her dad dying in the family's den, and there's skin mottling going on, and hospice nurses involved, and this kind of thing hit way too close to my heart, but I plowed through my tears and kept going.
When I finished A HOMEMADE LIFE, I went back to my bookshelf and grabbed FINDING MARTHA'S PLACE: My Journey Through Sin, Salvation, and Lots of Soul Food, by Martha Hawkins with Marcus Brotherton. Consider these words about lima beans, from the introduction:

     "The lima beans at Martha's Place are cooked with a whole lot of love. When you put them against your lips they feel plump, like you was smooching the back of your baby grandson's knee. The beans are soft and piping warm, straight out of the pot they was cooked in. They're cooked in together with a lot of good country butter, and flavored with salt and pepper and a few kitchen secrets only a handful of folks know. And if you close your eyes and let them, those lima beans will remind you of sitting at home with all the people you love, and on the supper table in front of you is spread a country banquet on a red-checked cloth, and all of your friends are enjoying themselves and diving in and helping themselves and joking together and having a good time. Those lima beans are on my menu because I know how food can become more than just food. It's what a body uses for change. Like crackers and grape juice passed around at church, food can become what centers things when everything has gone astray."

Now THAT's beautiful writing. Why didn't Martha Hawkins win some kind of literary prize?

Summertime, and the livin' is easy ....

Catfish are jumpin' and the river is high (or something like that) ... .
Well.
School is out and that means one thing: I have time to write and read now; I have time to talk to other people about writing and reading; I have time to plompf my butt down on a worn leather chair at my fave bookstore and turn pages in a beloved dreamlike trance. In short: I am free of grading and lesson planning and 5:30 alarms. Free of mothering 110 eighth graders (which is mostly great, but, hey, a gal needs a break).
Free to blog. Which makes me happy.

Rainy days and Tuesdays ...

I'm extremely affected by the weather.
Today the sky is threatening rain and I'm feeling blue. I'd really wanted to head to the pool today to soak up the Vitamin D; also, being at the pool means not having my hand in the Doritos bag.
***
So I went shopping, which always improves the mood. First, I did some Internet therapy, ordering a cute/artsy Chico's top and a beautiful vintage-reproduction tea dress from my favorite Web site ever: www.victoriantradingco.com

Then, I headed over to Kohl's (the real store) and picked up two pairs of sandals. Very cute. Bought a new bag and a busy-print Vera Wang summer dress.

Saw my hairdresser at the appointed 2 p.m. time and sat, scalp burning, under the dryer while my color oxidized. Two and a half hours I was there, total, and when I left the salon the gray clouds dumped a deluge. Yippee! My hair looked salon-styled for an entire four minutes.

Fortunately, I have the newest Elizabeth Berg title to finish reading.
Must make some hot black coffee and curl up in my cuddly chair.