GenreJump: Canada

I decided to jump into Canada. I admit it never occurred to me to read about Canada until today when I was standing in front of a display window at Dearborn Heights Public Library where I was giving a presentation. They had a collection of cultural memoires on display and I thought, for some reason, I bet Canada has cultural memoires that would be just fascinating. And the jump was on.

I decided to do my research by asking another librarian to do it for me. First I tried librarians in Vancouver but they’re on strike. Next I tried Toronto Public Library and the convenient little Ask a Librarian online chat service. Here are the titles they recommended:

• Berton, Pierre. My times living with history.
• English, John. Citizen of the world: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
• Mitchell, W.O. Who has seen the Wind.
• Atwood, Margaret. The Edible Woman
• Davies, Robertson. Fifth Business.
• Leacock, Stephen. Sunshine Sketches of a little town.
• Grills, Barry and Brown, Jim. Celine Dion a new day dawns.
• Gillmore, Don and PIerre Turgeon. Canada: a People’s history
• Newlands, Anne. Canadian Art: from it’s beginnings to 200
• Hill, Lawrence. Any Known blood
• Maillet, Antonine. Pelagie

• Atwood, Margaret, et al. Story of a National: Defining Moments in Our History

• Stackhouse, John. Timbit Nation: a hitchiker’s view of Canada

Jen from the Neighborhood

I don’t usually blog about work but today I did something super fun. I directed Governor Jennifer Granholm’s recording of the One State-One Children’s book Big Chickens for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. She did a very nice job and really liked the book.

The Gov lives less than a mile from me.

Crappy Piece of Crap DVD Player

Our Old Girl DVD player recently took the highboard dive off the working mechanisms of life. Seeing that Scott and I are both certified electricians with 15 years of combined experience fixing VCRs and DVD players, we took it apart to see what we could do. Hubby tilted his head to the right and suggested cleaning the lense with isopropyl alcohol and the disc holders with compressed air. I thought that was a smashing suggestion. We put the whole thing back together and it now works decidedly worse than before we opened it up. The disc tray opens only reluctantly and it doesn’t play at all.

“I’m ready to cub it” I said.

What Day Is It?

Today is hubby and mine’s 5th wedding anniversary.

100 Things About Me Installment 3

Installment One

Installment Two

71. I turn into a pumpkin and promptly fall over asleep, wherever I may be, by 10 o’clock every evening.

72. Seriously, I don’t drive after nine because I fall asleep behind the wheel, too.

73. Hubby and I are having an in-home film festival this summer. We just finished Citizen Cane, Godfather 1 and Dog Day Afternoon. On to Annie Hall.

74. The last movie we saw out together was “Freaks” at MSU

75. My current favorite song is “Lover’s Cross” by Jim Croce; I have no idea what it means but last night I listened to it 5 times. I’m enjoying it too much to stop and listen to the lyrics.

76. I can’t remember how to set a table. I’ve been shown numerous times and I’ve looked it up in the Joy of Cooking numerous others. But when I have to actually do it I become strung up with anxiety and guess with my fingers crossed. Don’t tell my Aunt Charlotte. Her kids have been able to set a table since they were 3 1/2.

76. I’m taking a class at the local community college in Photoshop this fall.
77. Recently I walked two blocks in the pouring rain without gear because I thought it would be sexy, back-to-nature, spontaneous. I was wrong. So, so wrong.

78. My GenreJumps have included Westerns, teen lit, Christian fiction, classics, sea novels, adventure stories and old-fashioned science fiction.

79. Someday I’d like to jump into little-old-lady mysteries, fantasy, preschool books and self-help.

80. I’m currently reading Rabbit, Run; Living Without Electricity (about the Amish); and Churchill by Manchester.

81. My favorite gems for jewelry are black pearls, jade and moss agate.

82. Best advice I ever got: Try everything twice. Three times if you don’t like it, just to be sure it isn’t an acquired taste so you don’t miss out.

83. My favorite reference tool is a phone book.

84. My favorite actress is Susan Sarandon.

85. If they make a movie out of Atlas Shrugged, I vote her for Dagney

86. My favorite metropolis is Washington, D.C.

87. Today my Internet connection at work was down for so long I resorted to washing my desk down for the first time since I took the job 16 months ago. The net was down for a really long time.

88. I have three translations of the Quran in the house and three versions of the bible.

89. Yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m. I was cleaning gutters in a downpour with hubby while the basement flooded. You?

90. I make outstanding tomato soup.

91. I’m afraid I’ll kill people if I make jelly by not sealing the jars properly so I have to beg home-made jam off of others. hint.

92. I was the only 5th grader in my elementary school who wouldn’t do a round-off off the balance beam. I would still. not. under any circumstances. do a round-off off the end of a frickin’ balance beam.

93. I once worked as a tele-surveyer (like a telemarketer only we did surveys).

94. I don’t actually, om, care for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

95. I use a green pen for everything so I know my papers wherever they may roam. Plus green has that cheerful thing going.

96. I only owned one pair of jeans ages 13-18. I wore dresses and skirts every day.

97. My father is a latter-life convert to Buddhism

98. Removed to protect the privacy of the SnakeLadyLibrarian.
99. I am a slave to the fashion rule of summer: I don’t wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor Day.

100. I believe in crumple-horned snorkaks

Again with the Amphibians

So, like, I still haven’t looked under the headboard in the guest room and I still haven’t found the frog. Let’s never think about it again, shall we?

Of Rabbits, Friends and Lovers

Hubby and I are usually reading a book together. In fact, our relationship started with a book club for 2. We would read titles on our own and then talk about them. Now, I usually read books aloud for us, although sometimes titles are on cassette or CD. We just finished HP7 and are on to the Rabbit Angstrom series by John Updike, starting with number one: Rabbit, Run. If you’ve never read the series, it is definitely worth your time, even if it leaves you feeling slimey. The Rabbit books were the first ones Scott and I read together so this is a repeat run for us.

 

Rabbit, Run
by John Updike

 

 

GenreJump:Classics: The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I’m not saying she should have stayed, but I can’t be her trumpeter either.

*******

The Awakening is the story of a very privileged woman who decides to leave her husband and children and have brief affairs, sketch, and live off her private wealth. The book doesn’t frame it that way – according to Chopin, the heroine – Edna – is a painfully unfulfilled wife and mother. It’s heralded as an early feminist masterpiece.

Wow. I finished this book 2 months ago and have been waiting to post about what has become the last of my Classics GenreJump because I kept not knowing what I wanted to say. I guess I just found out.

I’m not one to tell other people how to live, but all lives come with responsibilities. Except, apparently, Edna’s. She rejects the obligations that come with family of origin, husband and children and coasts away on personal wealth because she does not feel fulfilled as a wife and mother. Her husband did not mistreat her, but he expected Edna to conform to the social restrictions of their class. The kids she just wasn’t in to.

Now, I’m not saying she shouldn’t have left her husband. Grown people often fight like crazy after sex and decide they never want to see each other again. And she wasn’t so much leaving her husband as she was leaving the role of wife. So, OK, she didn’t want to do that anymore. But she also never TRIED to make things different in the life she had, tried to change things so they would be more to her liking, and in that I would say, honey, in every life you choose in this world you’re going to want to change things. When you passively coast along for years someplace you will inevitably wake up and find yourself in a place where other people have made all the decisions. And that’s on you in your marriage. So for your own personal growth’s sake you might as well correct that problem where you are rather than waiting until it happens again with someone else.

The kids part is harder. I won’t beat her up for it because she’s the one that has to live with it and probably get that knock on the door in 20 years from young men who look strangely familiar (remember that part about her trying to abandon her family of origin? yeah, it totally bites you in the ass).

And so we come to the money part. Chopin writes beautifully. So beautifully you almost miss the part where she totally just said good-bye to her kids. But back to the money. This woman was so wealthy that even after she rejected her family of origin and her husband she had no thought of how to support herself. The money was magically there. There’s something about her being an artist, but even she says her sketching isn’t very good. And not very good work does not mix the fruit salad. I’ll also note that while she left her role as wife and mother she did not leave her social class or situation. One of the first things she did when she moved out was hire a new maid.

So, if I was going to go and get all up into Edna’s business, I’d say: Edna, you didn’t even try. You never had one conversation with your husband about how you felt unfulfilled in the role of wife. You never attempted to work out a solution in the life you had. And even if you were going to leave him, you owed him that much. You owed the kids that much. Besides, what did your husband do when you started pushing the boundaries? He stepped back and let you have your space. You’re not married to a monster.

Oh and Edna, there is no community in this world that comes with no strictures, no mores, no values that won’t sometimes leave you feeling hemmed in. You have to learn how to negotiate for what you want with your primary partner and with your community. Especially seeings how you haven’t left your old community and you’re still going to need references for maids.

Edna, your kids. It hasn’t been that long. You can still change your mind and negotiate for a relationship with them even if as a single woman you can’t raise them.

Oh, and Edna, you can’t in actuality leave your family of origin. It’s just not like that. Might I recommend

The Dance of Intimacy by Harriet Lerner

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I’m still thinking of my next GenreJump. Suggestions welcome.

I Watered Them Every Day for Today

I grew these:

And then I made this fabulous little Italian salad with them:

 

Legend of Hubby

 

On my recent trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes, I told the legend of the dunes to Jim and Joyce, our guests from out of state, who were unfamiliar with it

Long, long ago, before voyageurs paddled canoes down rivers and streams, before mighty lumbermen cleared forests with sharp, shiny axes, before wooden ships carried sailors across great freshwater seas, there was a beautiful forest at the edge of a mighty lake. Lake Michigan.

 

One day there was a terrible forest fire on the Wisconsin side of the lake. A mama bear and her two cubs were forced to shore and finally into the water.

 

“Promise me,” said Mama Bear to her cubs, “That you will swim very, very hard, and never let me out of your site.” The cubs promised and the family began to swim, uncertain of how long it would take them to reach the other side. Mama Bear looked behind her frequently and saw her cubs fighting to keep up with her.

 

Finally, Mama Bear reached the dunes in Michigan. She looked behind her one last time but the cubs were not there. Mama Bear climbed the dunes and lay down to wait for her cubs. Fall came, and then winter. Mama Bear did not leave the shoreline, patiently waiting for her cubs. Years passed, and finally decades.

 

The gods took pity on this strong Mama Bear and brought her cubs to her in the form of North and South Manitou Island, so that at her place of vigil she would always be able to see them.

 

This is the Legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes that I told at breakfast. Later, as we were walking on the shores of Lake Michigan to see Mama Bear, I was telling another story to Hubby: “My church youth group came and climbed the Dunes here when I was 14. It was grueling. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t going to make it back up.”

 

“Well, you could have stopped.”

 

“What was I supposed to do?” I laughed “They were my ride.”

 

“You always have the option of becoming the third cub.”