juliloquy

putting the "tic" in pedantic

Have I raved yet about Shmoo's pre-K? It's part of our local public school. (Thank you, Frederick County taxpayers!) Shmoo is in the afternoon class with 19 other kids. The teacher and teacher's aide are fantastic. They have taught my child some punctuation marks and he loves it (period = stop sign, comma = take a breath, quotation marks = talking marks, and exclamation point = excitement mark). They have terrific catchy songs, practice positive behavior reinforcement, and teach sign language. The majority of kids are reading by the end of the year. Shmoo loves being around kids his age.

The school also has a once-a-week program for two- and three-year-olds, too, which parents and siblings attend. They give 5th graders a chance to be assistants for the little ones. It's so well organized, age appropriate, and perfect for getting families involved in schools.

Shmoo's class get to bring "baggie books" home: books from the school library packaged in zip bags with a reading log sheet to complete. Of course, Shmoo is all over that, too.

The books he has been bringing home most often are in the Sweet Pickles series. Do you know these books? I guess I'm a little too old to have been exposed to them in early classroom, since they first came out in 1977. (Probably took several years for them to make their way to small-town ND, too, like "Sesame Street," which I never saw as a little kid.)

Anyway, these books are bizarre. I guess I'm spoiled by the fabulous books we have access to at the public library (thanks again, Frederick County taxpayers!), but imho Sweet Pickles feature ugly illustrations, flat text, and flatter plot lines. I guess their point is to teach some sort of emotional intelligence or something. I don't know. Anyway, thanks to the amazing internets, you too can experience the books. I found this YouTube video of a guy reading a Sweet Pickles book as he drinks a beer. (Now that's more like it. Maybe I can figure out a drinking game to go along with the books!) You probably don't want to play this video in front of the kids, however, as the guy throws in a few swears. Enjoy!

HOPE

I'm so happy to remove from my office door the cynical Bush quote about thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people [I give him the benefit of the doubt and believe he misspoke, but still] and replace it with this:

[Click through to see full size.]

too excited to focus on work today

We have never had to wait to vote at our polling place. At most, we've seen a crowd of about 4 people voting in any of the elections in the past 4.5 years. This morning we arrived at the fire station before 7:30 and the line stretched around the corner. One neighbor brought a folding chair and we joked that he could make some money by renting it out today.

We told Shmoo that we'd see our neighbor - Mrs. Price - who owns the other half of our twin home. She is a poll worker. When we got to the front of the line, we saw that her grandson, Mustafa, was with her, also as a poll worker. He was an awkward 13-year-old when we moved into our house in 2003. Now he's hulking and handsome. I get choked up when I think how he must feel; his first presidential election is such an exciting one. (Mine was 1988, which was not so exciting, although I was into it and made a homemade "I Like Mike" sign.) I also get choked up seeing pictures of politicians voting. High-profile people standing up to be counted just like the rest of us. I love the look of that poll worker, perhaps a school teacher or retired librarian, doing her job next to the young man who seems to be equal parts skeptical and in awe of the VP candidate in front of him. OK, I'm just going to post it in case the link doesn't work for you. It's from philly.com.

Our kids were squirmy and impatient, but it was great to chat with people we usually just greet in passing. Our total wait was at least a half hour. Afterwards we caught the 52 bus and passed 3 other long-lined polling places.

And now I just have to sit on my hands until the results come in.

out of da Shmoo

A coupla things.

At Shmooie's school recently the teachers asked kids what they want to be when they grow up. Shmoo thought about it, then got a big smile on his face and said: "I want to make donuts!" I'm so proud. (So you see the obsession has continued. I look forward to the family discount.)

_____

Last week we were walking back from the park, the kids in the urban minivan. As we crossed the street, someone turned left and blasted right by us, a few mere feet from the stroller. Before I could censor myself* I said "Shit!"

The car didn't hit us and as I regained my composure I wondered whether Shmoo had noticed the new vocab word. He didn't say anything for a long while. Then he chuckled and said "Silly Mommy. You're supposed to say 'shoo' for flies, not cars." I laughed along with him—heh heh heh Shmoo, you're so right. Silly Mommy.Whew.

*We're not big swearers. I admire the artfulness with which others swear, but it's not us. We are in fact the Flanders family, you know, with our usage of words such as piggers and bunsers. I did go through a bit of a cussing phase when I was in Bulgaria, however, because I was nostalgic for American swearing.

Djibouti call

I may currently be a woman of routine, home by 7:30 every night to put the baby to bed and pack a lunch for the preschooler, but there was a time when I could hop on a train and be in Istanbul in 12 hours or less. These days, my only travel to new places has been through books (and of course blogs like Andrea's and Holly's). I read when the Jonester (sorry! another nickname!) nurses, so I’ve been logging lots of page-miles in the past 10 months.

After I read What Is the What I felt like I had learned a lot about Sudan, where I had previously known next to nothing. So I have decided to make it a life goal to read a book about every country. This is where you come in.

The list below contains, off the top of my head, some of the countries about which I’ve read. Most of these books are novels, but I feel they’ve given me a sense of the culture of these places. If you will, please recommend books that you have loved that are set in other countries. Know the great Nauruan novel? Togolese tome? Panamanian Pulp? Enlighten me.

Afghanistan: Caravans (Leon Uris), The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

Australia: One for the Road (Tony Horwitz)

China: The Bonesetter’s Daughter (Amy Tan); Spring Moon (Bette Bao Lord)

Colombia: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia-Marquez)

Congo: The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)

England: too many to name

Egypt: Palace Walk (Naguib Mahfouz)

France: Chocolat (Joanne Harris)

India: The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)

Ireland: Trinity (Leon Uris) Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)

Japan: The Lady and the Monk (Pico Iyer), Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

Mexico: Like Water for Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)

Nepal: Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer) OK, that's more about insane mountain climbing culture, so I'd take recommendations for another, too.

Nigeria: Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe): 50 years old this year! Must reread.

Oz: Wicked (Gregory Maguire)

Russia: Fathers and Sons (Ivan Turgenev)

Sudan: What Is the What (Dave Eggers)

Multicountry Eastern Europe: Bury Me Standing (Isabel Fonseca)

I have also read the excellent Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World (Pico Iyer), which covers several countries: North Korea, Argentina, Cuba, Iceland, Bhutan, Vietnam, Paraguay, and Australia.

My sister is sending me Three Cups of Tea, so Pakistan will be checked off the list soon. (Cathy - if you haven't sent it already, don't worry. I can get it from the library.)

OK! *two brisk cheerleader hand claps* Let's go!

Yes We Can

joiner

I finally finished the stupid book. I think I renewed my library copy 3 times. I had only about 50 pages left to go for the past month, but my entire family visited at the end of December; I set it aside and just now got back to it.

My summary? The catch-22 is that I spent hours reading it only to find it was a waste of my time. Too bad I have such a compulsion to finish books.

I read another WWII book in September/early October: In Harm's Way. Now that, my friends, is a book. It's about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, "The Worst Naval Disaster in U.S. History." It criticizes the military somewhat like Catch-22, but it's all true. I was riveted in part because my great uncle, Raymond Koppang, was one of the crew members who died in the disaster. We don't know how he died, but my hope is that he died immediately when the torpedo struck - did not survive to face the shark attacks, hypothermia, dehydration, and other hideous tortures of the open sea. Imagine the awful feeling of learning that life vests don't work after a couple of days because they get waterlogged. The delayed rescue, because of a series of oversights, cost hundreds of lives.

In Harm's Way was the book I was reading when Polly was in the NICU. Great, light fare for the post-partum mom! The nurses approved of HPR's book choice much more. (He would read aloud to the wee Roo.)

Despite my love of books and career in publishing, I have never belonged to a book group. Just haven't been able to commit to the time schedule. But on a recent breeze-through of the library, I noticed the One Book, One Philadelphia selection, What Is the What, right there on the shelf. I'm only on page 14 and I'm already devastated and hooked.

So, two group-y book things in the four months. Too sleepy to make a clever conclusion, so off to bed I go . . .

The Internet was made for this kind of post.

I am 38-and-three-quarters years old. This morning I organized my sock drawer.

For the first time.

Ever.

Why hasn't anyone ever told me how much fun it is to organize a sock drawer? Or if they did, why didn't I believe them? Here was my old system:

a) Throw socks into drawer.
b) When a pair of socks is needed, dig in drawer. Find appropriate pair. Pull them out amid a jumble of tangled tights/leggings. Cram everything back into the drawer and attempt to close it.

Today, I took everything out, set aside the hosiery, then replaced, from left to right: heavy wool socks, medium-weight socks of color, lightweight trouser socks (skin tone), then white athletic socks. I threw out solo stragglers.

For my hosiery (which I rarely wear but am not ready to get rid of) I assembled a white cardboard storage box from Ikea. Leave it to Ikea to sell a box that requires assembly. 11 nuts and bolts. Anyway, I went through all of the hosiery and tossed out mismatched legs.

Mismatched legs in hosiery, you ask? How can that be? Frugal Midwestern secret. If your nylon gets a run in just one leg, cut the offending leg off (of the nylon, smart-ass). Then when it happens on another pair, cut that leg off and wear the two good legs together. This trick really only works if you're brand-loyal, so the halves match. I am not brand-loyal. I'm glad I'm not a celebrity, because it would be very embarrassing if someone were to go through our trash and find the scads of pathetic abandoned one-legged pantyhose (gah - hate that word).

Then Polly-roo needed me, so I haven't done the final step of hosiery in the box and finding a place for the box.

Baby steps in my continuing attempt to get rid of clutter and have a place for everything. Wish me luck.

Tomorrow I'm going to do another day-in-the-life to record a maternity leave day for posterity.

perfect

Holding my baby as the snow falls down.

Also, cat on lap.

gusti gori

I nearly shared a message at Quaker Meeting this past Sunday. It didn't make the cut because I wasn't convinced it was divinely inspired. Also, I wasn't sure whether I should say "ass" (the best translation) at Meeting or go with a more benign term. A blog seems to be the perfect medium for messages that don't quite make the cut on Sunday. And saying the word "ass." So here it is:

HPR told me a joke in Bulgarian. It's a play on words, so I'll have to do some explaining. First, the joke.

Novelist Ivan Vasov and painter Nenko Balkanski are hiking. They reach a scenic spot with views of mountains, forests, and a lake. Vasov looks around, inhales deeply, and says "Gusti gori, Balkanski!" Immediately Balkanski jumps in the lake.

Here's the explanation. Whereas Vasov said "A tangle of woods, the mountains!" the same words, spoken, can mean "Your ass is on fire, Balkanski!"

It's a silly joke, but as I thought about it, it occurred to me that it's a nice yin and yang for environmental activism, and beyond that, how we might conduct our everyday lives. Appreciate your surroundings and get your butt in gear - take action. Action without focus can be futile busywork, and appreciation of beauty without action gets nothing done.

Happy Thanksgiving!