What Alice Forgot

My book club read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarity.  Last year we read Still Alice which was another novel written about a woman named Alice who lost her memory.  What are the chances?  This Alice had a concussion and lost all memory of the past ten years including the births of her three children.  Can you imagine something like that happening?  You wake up from hitting your head at the gym and wake up, not pregnant anymore, but the mother of three children?  The book is set in a suburb of Sydney but it took me a long time to figure that out.  With the kindergarten room mothers and the lines at school to pick up the kids it seemed Moriarty was writing about life in these United States.  Helicoptering parents are universal I guess.  The moral of the story is to pay close attention to what really  matters.  Don't get swept up by the business of parenthood and the competition with other parents.  Stay true to yourself and your beliefs.  Do it now.  Don't wait to get knocked on the head to make it happen.  We had a great discussion in my book club about this book.  Moriarity is a big writer in Australia and one of the only writers ever to have three best sellers on the New York Times best seller list.

Appreciating Good Directions

I appreciate a good set of directions.  Back in the years before children but after college graduation I took a technical writing class at the University of Minnesota.  I toyed with the idea of becoming a technical writer for a time.  "Use the active voice," said the instructor. I struggled with using the active voice that until I realized he meant to write the directions to sound like a recipe.  Recipes I can write.  This weekend I got a good set of directions with my platform bed and it was a breeze, no, more than a breeze, it was a Zen experience to put the bed together.  Carrying all the wood upstairs wasn't a load of fun but putting it together was because the instructions were well written.  Using a screw driver, an Allen wrench and keeping my magnifying glasses on my head, I was calm and relaxed and happy while I worked.  No doubt the writer of these instructions actually had the experience of  putting this bed together.  The mattress feeds much more comfortable than my old mattress.  My back was unusually sore on Monday though but I hope that was from all the carrying, bending and stooping I did while following the directions and not from the new mattress.  Now, when I sleep, it's quiet.  I can turn over without listening to my old brass bed frame creak and squeak in complaint. 

One Day

Dexter and Emma.  Emma and Dexter.  These are the two characters in One Day by David Nicholls.  I chose this book because I had just finished another book by him (Us) that I liked better than this one.  Dexter is not a likable character.  He drinks too much.  He is lazy and impulsive and hedonistic; not to mention selfish.   Maybe he has ADHD.  Sometimes the worst characters make for good stories.  The book took hours and hours to read and 95% of the time I did not like Dexter.  Much of the time I didn't like Emma either because she liked Dexter.  Their relationship is outlines over 20 years and is updated on Saint Swithin's Day (July 15) from 1988 to 2008.  Their relationship is on and off mostly because Dexter is such a stupid jerk.  I never thought it would happen but in the last few pages, I came to like Dexter.  Good story to be able to change my mind like that.

I Don't Want To Go To Heaven If I Can't Get In

As I choose a locker at the gym tonight I smile at a lady who is also choosing a locker.  I think I've seen her before but I'm not sure.  Music plays over the loud speaker.  A voice sings: I don't want to go to heaven if I can't get in.  "What the hell does that mean?" she asks me.   I tell her I like songs more for their peppiness and their music and how they make me feel; not so much about the words.  I told her that when my offspring was younger I was really concerned about the lyrics of Marilyn Manson.  I lost sleep over Marilyn Manson and his crazy lyrics.  Eventually I came to see him as a huckster.  Nastiness was his schtick. Manson was pretending to be awful so he could have more money in his pocket; not because he actually believed the lyrics he was singing.  In private life he probably drinks whole milk and eats only organic carrots.  But it wasn't until I reread the lyrics of my own favorite songs when I was a teenager that I quit worrying about silly Marilyn Manson.  Music doesn't touch my soul because of the words that are sung and the poetry of the lyrics.  Music is more primal than words.  She told me that when she was in high school her boyfriend said he could imagine his Grandmother singing, "One Toke Over The Line."  She told him no, that song was about marijuana.  We laugh and exchange looks while not really looking at each in that health club locker room sort of way.  We don't want to see each other in our underwear so eyes above the neck at all costs!  I tell her I was a huge Rod Stewart fan. Huge fan.  But his lyrics are horribly misogynistic and sexist and totes terrible.  What ever!  His music moved me.  I liked him.  Rod was my man!  That raspy voice. Those tight pants.  That swinging the microphone stand around.  The mandolin!  When he sings, "Woooo!"  My heart goes pitter pat.

Thinking Ahead To Spring

I'm trying to look past the blowing snow toward spring.  The time has come for me to think about new chickens.  With only one survivor (now named Chickenson Crusoe) I will order some new egg laying chicks.  Girls only!  I'm not interested in roosters because they are loud and unproductive.  There are so many varieties to choose from.  I think once I retire I will travel more so this might be the last bunch of chickens I will call my own. I would like cold hardy chickens and that means chickens with small combs.  I liked the Buff Orpingtons but found them impossible to tell one apart from the other.  It was impossible to name them until only one was left.  So no more Buff Orpingtons.  I liked the Americaunas I had before.  They had green eggs which were cool and they had very pleasant personalities.  They would jump up on my lap or shoulder and make me feel like a pirate.  They were easier to corral than the Buff Orpingtons.  But I would like to try a new kind too.  So I'm thinking I'll get a mix of Americaunas and Polish.  Why Polish?  Because with their mop of head feathers they look extraordinary and because I am also part Polish.  My third reason is that with feathers blocking their view they should be easier for me to catch and put back in their pen.  My neighbor had a Polish that I chicken sat for many times.  I liked that Polish neighbor and enjoyed caring for her.  Polish and Americaunas are  the plan right now anyway.

Not Me, No Thanks

One of my siblings is doing a polar plunge to raise funds for Special Olympics.  Special O has a fairly good rating for charities but I am not doing a polar plunge; no way, no how.  If I had to picture what hell would be like, it would involve jumping into ice cold water and jumping out of airplanes with a parachute.  I know my sibling will be fine. I know this because she's done it before.  I remember when she was about four years old and I was 12 or 13. We were standing on a dock on Block Lake.  My father and four sisters were standing with out backs to the shore looking out at the lake.  We had long pants and coats on but there was no ice on the lake.  My cousin came running up behind us full speed and pushed her off the dock.  Into the water she went.  She didn't know how to swim.  As I stood there in shock and awe, I could see her blonde curls about 12 inches below the level of the lake.  She turned to the right, walked underwater to the edge of the dock, took another right and walked to shore sputtering. I'll never forget the sight of it.  Once I could see she was safe I started to react by crying.  Some big sister I was!  Frozen in fear I was about as useful as a statue.  My cousin didn't mean any harm.  We didn't hold it against him.  He definitely would have been eligible for Special Olympics if it had been available back then.  We forgave him immediately of course. We were more careful standing on a dock if we knew he was around.  If as a child she could handle that moment with as much poise; she can certainly handle a polar plunge.  

Bel Canto

I'm on an Ann Patchett kick these days to I picked up Bel Canto and read it like I would eat cheese cake.  I parceled it out carefully and enjoyed every single bite.  Bel Canto, translated into English, is beautiful singing.  The story is about an opera singer who is taken hostage with 200 others by South American terrorists.  Most of the others are released after 24 hours but the opera singer and 50 men remain hostage for months.  During those months both the hostages and the hostage takers change.  Their lives and values come into sharper focus because they know they may not survive this situation.  Hidden talents emerge and relationships are formed.  The story is taken from a real life hostage situation that occurred at the Japanese Embassy in Peru.  I think it's odd to read an entire book that pretty much stays within the confines of a single house but that is what happened.  I have a picture of that house in my mind.  I can see the piano, the walled garden, the bedrooms, and the kitchen.  When a book transports me to a place like that, I know I've read a good book.