Ella was Cleopatra for Halloween. I had to talk her out of the French maid costume. I took this while she was getting ready for the parade at school. Maybe not the best photo for showing off her outfit, but I was fascinated by those vocabulary words. What's the theme? Can you use them all in a paragraph?
OK, so where am I at with the reading thing? It feels like I slowed right down over the summer, thanks to a couple of books I had trouble getting through.
A while back I read the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians book, and declared it ok, but maybe a bit too scary for Ella. This summer she picked up the first one and was instantly hooked - to the extent of having a Percy Jackson themed birthday party. I somehow end up reading most of what she reads (although not usually the Betty and Veronica comics), so I made my way through the series. Not bad. I mean, you know, I enjoyed them enough to keep reading even if I didn't LOL like Ella did.
I bought these two with a gift certificate from Michael's mom. I knew nothing about either, but they looked interesting in the bookstore.
Red Earth and Pouring Rain: I wish I could tell you what it was about. I think it was about India. And Indian storytelling. It was Epic.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles: Clearly I read too much kid lit, because I couldn't tell you what this one was about either. I seem to be losing my ability to understand novels for grownups. I enjoyed it more than the monkey typing book, but I don't know why. Less Epic, perhaps?
Ahh, comfort food. This is The Book of My Life. My father first read it to me when I was nine. I have no idea how many times I've read it since, but it had been a while since I'd read it from start to finish. I'd forgotten what an anxious book it is, but I guess rabbits have a lot to be anxious about. And Adams sure knows his wildflowers. If the rabbits somehow were also wizards, I might be able to get Ella to read it.
I just couldn't get through the start of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. It was trying too hard in that not-as-good-as-Douglas-Adams-seemed-when-I-was-seventeen way. Then Lizabeth mentioned she was enjoying this, so I got Nick to give it to me as a thank-you for acting in his senior thesis movie. (There are clips on YouTube, but they're too excrutiating for me to watch, so I won't share). Anyway, I thought I was finally getting a grown-up book I could understand, but it turned out to be another book for the young people. The protagonist is a girl who discovers she's a witch. Really, by now most children shouldn't be surprised when they find they have paranormal powers, because it is clearly very common. But guess what - I enjoyed it! And I'm going to give it to Ella to read.
Well, this was cheery. Ever want to completely lose faith in the human race? I mean, he tries to put a positive spin on the power of collective moral action, but he has to keep coming back to the fact that slavery is brutal. It was a synthesis, and not carefully written in places, but if you know nothing about slavery, this isn't a bad place to start. Did you know, for example, that the word slave comes from the word Slav? Because before Europeans discovered they could use Africans on their sugar plantations, they used, literally, Slavs. Then once the Ottoman Turks cut off trade through the Black Sea end of the Mediterranean, Europe had to look West to get East. Hence Columbus and all that came after. I didn't pick it out, someone else did, then he got a grant and time off to write, so I filled in leading the book group discussion.
I have not been able to finish this despite trying for months. It is just so...oh, I don't know: Serious Spanish Language Literature. Do you know what I mean? I stopped during the part where he starts listing how all the women die, a paragraph for each one. Maybe I'm just too lowbrow. Only, lots of lowbrow stuff annoys me - all that chicklit with headless women on the covers (that's Michael's pet peeve actually, I just stole it from him because it sounds good). No wonder I read kids' books. The difference between good and evil is so much clearer when you're nine years old.
Matt made pumpkin soup. From, apparently, a big-ass pumpkin (not a big ass-pumpkin, 'cause those don't exist). I forgot to take my camera, so here's yet another phone photo.
Note to Kiwis: in America, there is only one kind of pumpkin. They are large, orange, and suitable for making jack-o-lanterns. All the things that we call pumpkins and make soup out of? Winter Squash: Or, un-American Pumpkin.
In other soup news, Michael and I are trying to make a big pot of something every week. It's that time of year. So far I've made winter squash soup, chili, and on Saturday, black bean soup. Next week? Rutabagas! (which NZers call swede). It's root vegetable time. Thank you Sarah for the big red soup pot, because it really works.
Birthday cake #1 was made by a student:
Birthday cake #2 was made by Michael:
In Michael's defense, the cake is notorious for falling apart. In the recipie, his mother included a caveat: "The cake is actually quite easy to make, I'm just forewarning you of potential problems." It was moist and chocolately and delicious. It also had us rolling on the kitchen floor laughing as Michael tried to frost it and large chunks of cake came away.
All sorts of reflections on the purpose and meaning of my life as I hit what I hope is the half-way mark. Maybe I'll write about them next week, because right now I have to finish a lesson plan, dash to the store, pick up Ella from school, run in the gym while she takes karate class, come home to make/eat dinner, and then watch Survivor before bath and bed.
A colleague found this unlikely pair roaming collarless on her way to work. It was like a Disney buddy movie waiting to happen. She put them in the conference room, where they proceeded to chew up several copies of Pride and Prejudice. We couldn't let them go to the pound for the night, so they came home with me. Luckily I have an awesome husband, who, when presented with stray dogs, proceeds to line them up with the two non-strays we already have and makes them all sit for treats. The owners have now been located, but I miss the little Jack Russell girl who spent the night snuggled under my covers.
I believe myself to be a very organized person. I've got 3-ring binders for each course I teach with everything in plastic sheet protectors, in/out boxes, detailed lesson plans for each week with bell ringers and exit slips, I use my datebook religiously. But look at my damn desk: It is a mess. How does this happen every day? It is the same with the house. I can visualize organization, but can't quite achieve the full expression of the pose.
About that coffee cup. I love it. I think Dunkin Donuts is genius. It makes me feel warm and happy. I'm just not prepared to spend $2.04 every morning for the feeling. So I buy a cup, then when I'm finished I take it home and wash it, then the next morning I fill it up with home-pressed coffee. It makes me just as happy. When the little fold-over tab on the top breaks, I buy another cup of coffee. Soon I will have saved enough to pay for Ella to go to college for a week.
Best Friend in the Universe arrived early to help make the "Pin The Wings on The Pegasus:"
And the birthday cake was blue and trying to look like a brick, just like in Percy Jackson:
Yay for the reprise of soup club. Michael made Chickpea and Kale Soup with Parmesan. It had a delicate tomato-y broth with bay leaves and vegetables.
I completely forgot until last week that this August was the 20th anniversary of me coming to the United States. I never dreamed I was going to stay here this long. My Kiwi identity was pretty strong and I expected I'd be back in 5 years, at most. But here I am on my second American husband, with an American daughter, and yes, American citizenship. As the grandmother of my first American husband used to say "what are you gonna do?" It is what it is.
ps. I don't have a non-American husband.
In the Spring, the garden is all orderly and full of promise. By Autumn, it's usually a jungly mess. One of the big life lessons of gardening is that the control we have over the world is tenuous at best. A two week vacation is bad enough - what do you think your carefully tended beds will look like after the apocalypse? But we get up every morning and give it our best shot anyway.
This season things were made worse by the blight. The same fungus that killed off all the Irish potatoes in the 1840s struck Northeast America this year. Potatoes and tomatoes are both in the nightshade family, and get the same illnesses. With the wet summer, there wasn't much we could do about the wind-borne disease. You can't even compost the plants and the city wants them separated out from other waste.
