Horoscope

Today's horoscope told me that I could just get the job done OR I could put in the extra effort to make a resounding and lasting success.

Forgive me.  Some days, I just want to get the job done.

I have noticed that if I get up and move - do some stretches, take a walk - my mood and productivity lifts.  I didn't do that this morning.  And since my oatmeal is waiting as I type, I will put it off until after my second cup of coffee.

Today, I take Stories in the Schools for the Parkland Community Library to the new Fred J. Jaindl Elementary School, named after the late patriarch of the Jaindl Turkey empire.  We are doing stories about Animals around the World, including Bill Martin's Brown, Bear, Brown Bear  (watch and listen to a YouTube of the author reading this book) and Laurie Kreb's We're Sailing to Galapagos.  I have become a big Laurie Krebs fan.  Her picture books are fun to read and always teach something as well - great books for this year's Summer Reading Club theme, One World, Many Stories.

I have a cadre of volunteers to read to, play games with and make crafts with the children at Jaindl School.  The fun begins at 1:30 pm.  So come out of the heat and sail off to the Galapagos with us.  I plan to make this program a resounding success.

Happy Birthday, Mom

I parted with a big bag of fresh picked green beans and a copy of The Soldier's Wife by Margaret LeRoy today as I gave them to my Mom for her 85th birthday.  My Mom is a Mom among Moms.  I think she might stand 5 feet tall if she throws her shoulders back.  I'm about 5'5".  One of my brothers is 6'5".  Every one of my Mom's kids is taller than she is and we all were by the time we were 14.  Tiny as she is, my Mom is a wonder. She is, hands down, the sweetest, happiest person I know, even after bringing nine children into the world, making a home for two Cuban teens, and a couple of foster babies.

The bunch of us got together and gave Mom a Kindle for her birthday.  It was Mariane's idea, but she was urged to action by Heidi and our sister-in-law, Gail.  Mom is thrilled with this new gadget.  She is an old hand at Skypeing, since the youngest of the clan lives in Japan with his wife and two sons.  So, even though she bothers her sons, daughters and grandchildren for help in getting things done, there is no moss growing on my Mom technology wise.  Her cell phone is even nicer than mine!

I didn't forget my Dad today.  I took him my ARC of Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff. I want to read the book myself but I got caught up in Radio Shangri-La by Lisa Napoli which is a slimmer book and has gotten a lot of attention in the enewsletters I read.  I am quite taken by memoirs of people who are younger than I.  Hmmm, just wait til they get to be MY age - or better yet, my mother's age.  They'll have stories to tell then.

At Story FUSION, this past Spring, there was an opportunity for people to record their life stories on DVD.  I think we called it Life Stories.  I was too busy being a volunteer. to take advantage of it.  Next year, I think I'm going to drag my Mom and Dad into the booth and get some of their tales down.  My Dad's a willing raconteur. Telemarketers should know better than to call him, because he will ask them how they feel about religion or politics and before you know it 20 minutes have passed.  He got a call from the Republican party - of which he is a member - while I was there one day and after waiting ten minutes for him to get off the phone I just waved good-bye and left.  He was still giving that man a piece of his mind.  It's a wonder he has any pieces left the way he hands them out left and right.

My Mom on the other hand has trouble getting a word in edgewise.  But as they grow older she has been speaking up.  "Oh we've heard that story a dozen times," she tells my Dad, not that any of us expect that it will make any difference.  And she says it with a smile and he rarely takes offense.

I once went to a talk on How to Be Happy.  There were seven rules and the first one was:  Have Happy Parents.  I got that rule down pat.  Happy Birthday, Mom.  Here's hoping you get to have a bunch more.

Back to work

I am back to work for a few weeks.  I am the lowest person on the Youth Services totem pole, after 22 years of being the Book Queen for Kids and Teens.   Preparing to take programs into the schools this summer has been harrowing, as if after 3 months off, I had forgotten everything I ever learned.  For the past five years, my then assistant planned almost all of our storytimes so maybe my trepidation is understandable.  Or maybe, I just like to fuss.

It's fun to be back.  I have an excuse to visit with my old co-workers/friends and talk to parents and kids I've known for years.  And I catch up with the volunteers who fight chaos and maintain order. 

Here are highlights of this first week.

While I was sorting through all the stuff I need to take to the schools, a girl of about 8 years old got the chance to choose her reading prize from the prize locker.  "Whoa", I heard her say under her breath as she gazed on the small toys, candy and gadgets,  "I could get used to this!"

Two days later, I sat in the Picture Book section, talking to Jean, a volunteer who spends her time making sure the picture books are in order.  First I was attacked by another girl, about the same age, who needed one of those "Mr. Klutz Is Nuts" or "Miss Daisy Is Crazy" books.  I still remembered who that author is!  (Dan Gutman! a fun and prolific author for young chapter book readers and beyond.)  After helping her, I returned to my chair and James, a most amazing reader, came up to me.

"Um, my boomerang is caught in a tree," he announced.  After a few questions, I decided to go see this boomerang.  He was concerned because it was right above a bird's nest.  He was worried about disturbing the birds.

Yep, there it was, too high for me to reach.  "I'll get a broom handle and knock it down," I told him.  So we marched back into the library and I asked permission to borrow a broom.  I chose a long handled duster thingy.  Then off we went again to the lawn to knock the thin white boomerang out of the crab apple tree.

James' older sister, Eugenia, this year's co-valedictorian, found us out there and witnessed the falling of the boomerang.  She plans on going to Cornell to study cognitive science.  Smart girl!

But the best thing of all is watching my excellent replacement, Miss Hannah, answer multiple calls and field questions and jump up from her desk and come back and order teen volunteers about and....I don't have to do all that anymore.  Sigh of relief.  I just mark down the attendance for the morning's programs, make sure I have what I need for the next program, chat with a friend, wave gaily and step into the sunshine.  I LIKE not being in charge.

Motherless Girls

In the last 48 hours (or so) I have finished A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley,  The Penderwicks on Gardam Street and The Penderwicks at Point Mouette both by Jeanne Birdsall.  All three books feature motherless girls.

People who write about children are often told to "get rid of the parents".  This is why books about orphans are so popular.   I guess writers believe that single mothers are more meddlesome than grief stricken fathers will be.  It's very unfair to the mothers, really.  First, they have to be the dead parent, and second, they aren't allowed to have moments of inattention due to grief and juggling work and home.

Fathers are "allowed" to assume that their children will be all right if they are left alone at the vacation cottage for an hour or two.  A mother would be under fire for this lapse in judgment.  It is a burdensome stereotype and fathers should object strenuously!  If mothers must deal with all that emotional pain and still take care of their families, dads can too!!!  They are every bit as capable of dealing with adversity as the female sex.

Enough for my soapbox moment.  The books in question deal with two very different families.  Red Herring is a murder mystery written, I think, for adults although any savvy reader in grades five and up will enjoy Flavia de Luce, the 11-year-old protagonist, a child with a knack for bending the truth and a morbid interest in poison.  Red Herring is the third book in this series and the first one that hints that Flavia and her older sisters ever had anything but acrimonious relations.  It is the book that made me wonder just why Ophelia and Daphne hate Flavia so much.  The other two books made the hate seem like a funny plot device. 

My sisters are my best friends, almost like the Penderwick sisters.  Still I can remember whole stretches of time - weeks, maybe even months - when one pair of us, or another or all four of us disliked each other greatly.   Clothes stealing and snide remarks and contemptuous looks and slammed doors!!!  Is that what the three de Luce sisters are going through?  I am really far more interested in what's going on in that stiff-upper-lip British family than I am in the mysteries that pop up in their little village.

Meanwhile, the Penderwicks are siblings extraordinaire.  They dote on each other and work together to keep their family running.  The three older sisters are devoted to the youngest who depends on all of them for her happiness.  If Birdsall wasn't such a good writer, it would almost be too treacly (as the British might say) to stand.  But she is a good writer and these four girls are just the antidote to world-weariness.  If your child is reading about the Penderwicks, than you can sleep soundly.  The worst person in these books is the overambitious snobby mother of their best friend.  There is the neighbor's colleague who tries to steal a laptop, too.  He's such a minor character - a blip in their wholesome adventures.

I want more of both families, more plotting nasty deLuces, more loving responsible Penderwicks, more more more!  And while I wait for more, I think I'll call my mother since I'm still lucky enough to have one.

Change? WHY??

OK, what is with all these changes that Google/Gmail/Blogger have suddenly decided to make?  This reminds me of New Coke.  Listen up, people.  Change just to change is not good.  I see no purpose or advantage to any of these recent changes.

Individuals can get a new haircut.  Big deal!  Hair grows back. And it's just one person making one change to that one person's personal space.  But online services who change the way their subscribers access information, or the way they collect information ON their subscribers or the way their users can search their sites or post on those sites - all without notice - make those changes for hundreds of thousands of people and I don't like the way that feels.  I feel like a pawn.

Perhaps, it is time for me to research moving off the grid for real.  What say YOU??

The Language of Flowers

I am astonished and a little appalled that I never reviewed The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh on this blog.  I picked it up, along with a white silk rose pin, at Book Expo.  According to the included glossary, a white rose means "a heart unacquainted with love".  I wonder if the publishers knew that or if it was just the most available flower pin.

On Victoria's 18th birthday, she wakes up to the smell of smoke.  Her fellow foster teens have lit her mattress on fire.  It is their farewell gesture.  Now that she is 18 she has three months to find her own apartment and a job before the foster care system cuts her loose.  This is how the book starts.

Victoria chooses non-compliance and homelessness.  She finds a neglected piece of land in a public park and she starts a garden.  And she finds a job, just in the nick of starvation, arranging flowers.

I love survival stories.  I can remember planning how I would live on a shopgirl's hourly wage way back in high school, when we rode to school on steam-powered busses.  How I would get food and clothing, where I would live - these were my daydreams.  My teen life was largely free of strife but I come from a large noisy family.  The idea of living alone, even at a subsistence level, was so attractive, especially when I felt put-upon and misunderstood.  So reading about Victoria's struggles to live off the grid was fascinating.

The book alternates between Victoria's struggles after her 18th birthday, and her years as a life-long foster child.  Victoria did something "unforgivable" back then and it haunts her.  And all through it, there are flowers.  Flowers are how she communicates with the vaguely familiar and very handsome flower vendor.  Flowers are how she manages to put her life back in order.

I read this book two months ago and I still think about it.  I put petunias in my front yard instead of impatiens, because of this book.  The former means "your presence soothes me"; the latter means - surprise - "impatience".  Which would YOU want on your lawn?

Diffenbaugh's novel is for the young adult or fully adult set, even though her protagonist barely fits the adult criteria.  Her descriptions of foster life are so jarring that I found them sensational.  I had trouble believing that one child could have had so many bad foster parents. (Note:  I read the ARC.  The published book may be different from my edition.)  Still, Diffenbaugh is a foster parent herself.  I am sure she did her homework.

The book's good points far outweigh my personal quibble.    Read about pain and redemption, hope and forgiveness and learn something in the process.  A good read!

Peonies!  Unfortunately, peonies can mean anger.  Sigh.

I have been interested in the "language" of flowers since reading Nancy Springer's Enola Holmes novel,  The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets.  These novels, written for the teen set but enjoyable for ALL readers, follow the adventures of Sherlock Holmes' much younger sister, Enola.  In The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets, the language of flowers leads Enola to a kidnap victim.

And last year at BEA, I picked up a copy of Forget-Her-Nots by Amy Brecount White.  In this novel for teens, a 14-year-old finds that her understanding of flowers comes with a magical power.  She uses that power before she can control it.

So find out what flowers can say to you - or what someone is trying to tell you through the flowers they give you.  Hope the message is fun!  Petunias, pineapples and poinsettias to you all.

Chess sets and old books

So...anyway, Bill decided to buy a chess set over the internet.  And it came.  Since most of the packages that come to this house are books and those are addressed to me, we were both excited at this substantial box.  Alas, it was NOT the set he ordered, which he tells me, was a standard chess set.  No, they sent him one of the ornamental sets with the kings on thrones and actual knights sitting astride horses - good for looking at, not so good to play with.  No worries, a phone call later the problem was resolved.  But this glitch sent Bill into the attic to look for chess related stuff.

Come into the attic, dearie!

Or wait, maybe it was the storage unit auction that sent him into the attic.  Maybe it was both.

It does not matter.  All you need to know is that yesterday, Bill spent most of the day dragging things out of our attic.  He found years and years and years of Chess Life magazines.   (Our son played competitive chess through  high school and beyond.)

He found his grandmother's personal cookbook which his mother gave to me before we were married.  I have not seen the book since we moved here 25 years ago.

He found several Cricket magazines.  Have I told you how much I adore Cricket magazine?  I do - adore it, I mean.

He found, and here I whoop with joy, my Robert Service books.  I thought I had more but, at least I have Ballads of a Red Cross Man and Ballads of a Bohemian.

Here they sit on my desk chair.

But wait there's more.  He found a set of china; -  (I knew it was there.  I just forgot) - a rack for audio cassettes and a new use for it; a lot of old Time and Smithsonian magazines, now all carted to the recycling bin.  Good-bye, old friends.

There's a desk in the attic, too, and Bill is determined to bring it down.  He found some trading cards and a photo of me when I was seven.  No, I will NOT show it to you!

Also found - finding things is a theme this week!  A marble chess set from Mexico. missing two pieces.  And a copy of Nomadic Furniture 2.

Return with me to the early '70s, folks, when making furniture from cardboard boxes and packing pallets was, as far as I was concerned, the HEIGHT of suavity.  The idea of providing comfort and utility without taking up a lot of space and weight still appeals to me.  I am a sucker for any kind of convertible furniture - sofas that turn into beds; chairs that are really step stools; tables that unfold and collapse.  I am drawn to these things like the proverbial moth to the flame; like hummingbirds to honeysuckle.  I am helpless with awe and desire when confronted with clever and useful multi-purpose domestic design.

Such a good read!

It's been fun, trekking back through some of the stuff in our lives.  Now, I have to concentrate on now and next week when I rejoin the "working" world and present the first Stories in the Schools sessions for the Parkland Community Library.