The Journal of Edith May Jones

Well, Hello There, Friends New and Old[er]

2008-05-17T02:52:49Z

bluesgirly had a Friending Frenzy yesterday, and I picked up 34 additions to my Friends List. Thirty-four! I haven't checked, but I think that's more than I started with, in total! I'm feeling pleased and shy, talking to a bunch of new folk. Hi, all!

I've seen some of my new friends post an introductory letter and it seems like a good idea, even if some of my established friends include my husband and my mother-in-law, who was the one who got me to join LJ in the first place. Thanks, mom! I invite both old friends and new to skip this intro at their whim.

If I could have my way, my life would revolve around books, family, taking photos with a much better camera than the one I have, tweaking them with highly cool photo software, eating out for all meals, and sleeping in. I'd travel a lot, starting with Africa, and including all the places that the family would like to see. And I'd have a new set of sheets every day of the week - I like linens. It really doesn't take a lot to make me happy. My husband can do it with a smile and the words "Hey, beautiful"; or a good book can do it with a turn of phrase.

Life, though, as it is, makes me pretty damned content. I have a lot of time to read, a halfway decent camera, and there's lots of downloadable software for tweaking photos! I have a new laptop which has had me wondering lately what I need with people if I have a nice computer :D, and working part-time only means that I get a fair chance to nap. We eat meals in but they're usually cooked by my teenaged son, who's an excellent cook, and my husband smiles and tells me I'm beautiful a lot. I have three terrific children whom I'm proud of.

Diana is 18, she's leaving for university in the fall, which means I'm old enough to have given birth to a child who's old enough to move off to university. Ordinarily I honestly don't have problems with my age or aging, but this one's hitting me kind of hard. Diana's hard work, determination, gregariousness, and beauty should take her far in life. James is 16, sports-mad, plans to be a chef, and has his first girlfriend; his good cheer keeps the household happy. Aislinn will be 10 in a few weeks; she's brilliant and witty and as stubborn as both of her parents combined. John and I both think that we've done a good job of raising our kids. We also have a German Shepherd and a lizard who are something less than family but something more than pets.

I struggle, sometimes daily, sometimes monthly, with bipolar disorder; it's my bugbear and I despise it. Weight is another issue, but so much less so now that my parents are pretty much out of my life - which is another matter altogether. In my journal I talk a lot about books, about work, and about small things that happen that have made me laugh, and as I'm a new dog owner [we've had DJ for 2 months], I talk a lot about him, too.

And that's me and mine. Welcome to my journal! I look forward to getting to know everyone!

The Friday Five

2008-05-16T20:55:38Z

Copied from <lj user="jadis">. Answer and repost in your own journal!

1. What's your favorite rainy day activity?
Reading, of course! Reading is also my favourite snowy day activity, windy day activity, sunny day activity....you get the idea.

2. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Should Eliza Doolittle have kicked Henry Higgins squarely in the junk?
Hell, no! And ruin a sexy love story? And a great musical while you're at it? No way!

3. Thunderstorms...scary or cool?
Totally cool. Where I live in Ontario, we get more thunderstorms than anywhere else in the world, and I love them. Occasionally there will be a blast of thunder so loud that I get momentarily freaked, but it's only transitory and then I'm back to enjoyment. I especially like laying awake at night and listening to them, and watching the bedroom come alight from the lightning flashes.

4. Do you regularly watch the weather on TV?
I only rarely watch TV, so no.

5. Did you like Ben & Jerry's Rainforest Crunch ice cream? Why don't they make that anymore?
I've only had Ben & Jerry's once, and that was in the States, Charleston, SC, to be specific, and I had some delicious chocolate flavour. They didn't start importing into Canadian ice cream freezers until after I discovered that I'm seriously allergic to ice cream, so I haven't had it since. I know I'm missing out. <i>Really</i>missing Hagen-Das [how DO you spell that?!].

Vets

2008-05-16T14:51:42Z

DJ the German Shepherd is a whole year old now - hit the milestone last week. We need to take him to the vet's to get his rabies shot and we'd also like him to have a well-dog one year check up.

The problem: we don't have a vet. And I don't know what we're looking for. Obviously someone who can handle a German Shepherd who doesn't like strangers, but beyond that, what do I need to ask the receptionist beyond "how much do you charge for a rabies shot and a well-dog checkup?"

All advice appreciated.

Writer's Block: Three dishes I could live on

2008-05-15T12:39:20Z

What three dishes could you live on for the rest of your life?

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Now this one is NOT easy! The first thing that popped into my head was snow crab, so I am going to go with my instinct on that. It can stay on the list! A plate full of seasoned, rare steak, and mushrooms, all prepared the way my husband makes them [he's a genius with steak and mushrooms] - that would be number two. I think I should have a dessert to finish. Ooh - it would be the Colossal Caramel Fudge Cheesecake that they offer at Swiss Chalet - graham crust, layer of crumbly fudge, pecans on top, the whole thing just delectable.

The three drinks to wash it down with? Lactaid skim milk, water, and Diet Pepsi!

100_snapshots - Post # 2

2008-05-15T12:33:14Z

This represents my second post to 100_snapshots - a community that I am very glad I joined! Much fun!

Photographer: Allie Farrell
Number of Photos: 3
Photos Taken: 19 - Within, 25 - Drops, 60 - Red

19. Within
This is a donation jar for my workplace charity:

25. Drops

60. Red
All the red spectacles at my workplace [I work at an optical shop].

Writer's Block: Pick an era, any era

2008-05-12T15:00:39Z

If you had to pick a time period to live in, which would you choose? Why?

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Honestly, I'm pretty happy living when I do. I wouldn't mind a time machine so I could visit other eras, but I wouldn't want to live there. Right now, the garbage truck is picking up our week's garbage in front of our house. That means no refuse and human waste in the streets as it did for so many centuries - or millenia - I don't know how long. This morning I heard an ambulance racing through the main street of the village where I live - and that reminds me that nowadays we're lucky. We don't tend to die in childbirth, or need to have twelve children because only two will survive past infancy, and we don't have the same amount of diseases and have a much longer lifespan that we have ever had in any past era. [Of course, I am speaking of us fortunate Canadians, and not of anywhere else.] I'm sitting with my laptop, in bed, with blankets, my dog, in a nice house. My husband drove to work this morning. My children - two of them are at school, which we pay for with taxes, but not exorbitantly, and our eldest is at work and will be at university in the fall. Our food is refrigerated, or frozen, I'll do the laundry using electrical appliances, and our dishes in a dishwasher. The 21st century in southern Ontario, Canada, seems like the best of all places to be if you are me.

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T00:48:15Z

I've had a good Mother's Day, although it has not been prize-winning. It would have been better if I hadn't had to work, most definitely. It was only a six-hour shift, but it was six hours away from my family, and I really didn't want that today!

Everything else has been lovely, however. James made french toast this morning with his own personal recipe which is so delicious; I have a feeling that it is far, far removed from low-fat; and he and

misterviking conspired to make me a rare steak and sauteed mushrooms for dinner; the steak was unbelievably good but the mushrooms weren't as good this week as they were last week, when they were perfect. Aislinn gave me three pretty rings, brightly coloured, and James has bought me a copy of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea [via computer]; I am looking forward to reading that. I got a nice card from Diana.

And now I feel like my emotions are about to explode so before I explode all over you nice people, let me say Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers and pregnant people [I'm thinking of you, winnowill2 , being a great mum to little not-quite-yet Catherine!], and be kind to your mothers!

Writer's Block: Remembering mom

2008-05-12T00:36:50Z

What's your favorite memory of your mother?

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I feel somehow compelled to answer this, despite the fact that my mum and I hardly ever speak any more, and despite the fact that my memories of my mother are generally not positive ones. But this question has been niggling away at me all day, both at home and at work, so I think I should answer it, even if it's just to get it out of my system.

When I was growing up, I couldn't understand my mother's obsession with material objects and with cleanliness. She was always cleaning the house, I mean all the time that she was awake and not at work, and she had to have the best of everything. My poor dad was always redecorating, and it was highly unusual that we didn't have either a room in the house being redecorated or the yard being re-landscaped, always by my father, and by my brother as he got older. I didn't get involved because I didn't want to spend any more time around my mum than I had to. And I loathed her focus on clean clean clean and own own own.

One morning I saw my mother run her hand, lovingly, across a buffet table that my father had just finished making for her. My dad was a real craftsman, and the finish was as smooth as silk. There was such a look of love on my mother's face; I'd never seen that expression on her face before and I didn't understand why she was looking at a piece of furniture that way, even if it was pretty and new. That mental picture of my mum and the buffet table has always stayed in my head. I was old enough - a young teen - to wonder why she was looking at the table that way, and I started asking questions about her upbringing, etc. I found out that my mother had been raised by two alcoholic parents [MY grandparents????], one of whom had a mistress, and the other of whom was abusive, and who kept their house terribly, and where she couldn't bring her friends home - because her home was a rubbish heap and her parents were drunk. Her goal had been to have a home better than that. Bipolar like me [we didn't know that then], she had gone for overstatement and had become obsessive about it, but this was the cause. It explained so much and helped me explain a lot about my mother that I didn't understand.

Writer's Block: So Sensitive

2008-05-09T23:31:29Z

What are you most sensitive about?

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Such an easy answer! My looks.

I have, for most of my life, hated my appearance. My mum was a late-bloomer, and so was I, and it didn't help that I skipped two grades and started highschool when I was 12 instead of 14 so that my body was still a child's when other girls were becoming young women. I was a stick insect then. Other things that didn't help were my extremely poor eyesight which required me to wear glasses with coke-bottle lenses [thank god for the ultra-thin polycarbonites of today!], the braces on my teeth, and the fact that my parents refused to allow me to wear blue jeans, which were basically the school uniform of the 1970s. Add to that a school full of mean-spirited kids, an emotionally-abusive mother, and a sensitive soul, and you have all the makings of a girl totally insecure about her appearance.

The summer before I went to grade 13, I got contact lenses, and got the braces off my teeth. My father's sister talked to my mother and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing, sending me to highschool in homemade clothes, and dragged her to the store and bought me blue jeans - two pair! After that wake-up call, my mother made sure I was dressed stylishly, and bought me makeup and had my hair done nicely. Now I looked good and I knew it. I was 16 and the only problem was that boys wanted to touch me and I just wasn't ready. So even then I hated my appearance.

The only time I have been really happy with my appearance is between my first and second marriage. Randy as hell, slim, beautiful [yes, I can say it about myself], I moved to the big city, and every other weekend and every Tuesday night I had a home to myself. I knew I looked good and I wanted men to notice. In the space of a year and a half I only went home with two of them, and I married the second one.

Now I'm fat, and homely and I hate my looks again. Will the self-torment ever stop? I wonder.

edith_jones @ 2008-05-09T19:16:00

2008-05-09T23:17:18Z

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), 1884, 251 pages.

Genre: adventure, American lit, classic, humour

Basic Overview: Huckleberry Finn, friend of Tom Sawyer, leaves his Missouri home to escape his drunken, abusive father, and heads downriver on the Mississippi, having many adventures along the way. His companion on the journey is Jim, a runaway slave, whom Huck tries his best to protect.

Personal Opinion: I’d had The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on my shelves for a long time – it was a gift – before I decided to read it; I’d always thought of it as American folklore, and being Canadian and disinterested in folklore, it didn’t make a huge impression. You can imagine that I was quite startled to find that it was deeply funny; I had not realized that Mark Twain was a wit. It was necessary for me to go to Wikipedia and find out more about Twain, and what I discovered was a revelation to me.

I didn’t know, for instance that Twain/Clemens was well-known on both sides of the Atlantic, and had been given an honorary doctorate by Oxford University. The book had given me very strong hints that he was anti-slavery; I was right on that count! – but he was also in favour of Labour Unions, anti-vivisectionist, a vegetarian, against organized religion, and had some serious problems with Christianity. He also worked on inventions with Nicola Tesla. What an amazing man, so forward-thinking for his times!

The book I enjoyed very much. Frankly, I could have done without the scenes where Huck and Jim are travelling with the King and the Duke, but that is merely a matter of taste – I preferred it when Huck and Jim are alone, planning things between them, and deepening their friendship. I was incredibly impressed by Twain’s handling of dialect; by the end of the book I feel sure that I could have imitated either Huck or Jim quite accurately, and the colloquialisms added so much humour to the story! And I won’t give anything away here, but I did love the end of the book; it was very satisfying.

I don’t know if I am going to read more of Twain, despite my enjoyment of Huckleberry Finn. I am considering the purchase of The Innocents Abroad, which has been recommended to me, and which is non-fiction; that sounds interesting enough to tempt me. But I will always hold this novel, and Mr. Twain, in deep regard.

Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton, 1955, 200 pages.

Genre: international, fiction

Basic Overview: The novel tells of Pieter van Vlaanderen, lieutenant in the South African police force, beset by illegal temptation, and his struggles with his yearnings, his family, and his faith. The theme of apartheid in general and the treatment of one particular black woman in specific provide a background for this story.

Personal Opinion: I loved this book. I’ve read two previous books by Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country, and Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful, and both of them were inspiring, and prompted me to buy yet another work of Paton’s; neither of them were as moving, to me, as this one was.

Lieutenant van Vlaanderen lives in a South Africa before apartheid was repealed. He is not disgusted by black people as so many Afrikaaners are; he speaks to them as people, and he has popularity in the black community because of his ease of manner. A husband and father of two children, he is married to a simple country-woman who does not share his views. Nella, his wife, is disinterested in sex except occasionally, and the libido of young Pieter van Vlaanderen is a strong one. He is tempted by a young black woman, but under the Morality Act [Act 5 of 1927, to be precise!], a white person having sexual relations with a black person is performing an illegal act, one punishable by a term in jail, and by public loss of reputation.

It is worth noting here that Alan Paton was the founder of the South African Liberal Party. It was begun in 1952, in response to the rise to power of the National Party, which put apartheid into law. Paton held the post of Party President from the founding until 1969, when the party was made illegal and forced to disband. However, Paton spent most of his life, until his retirement, fighting against the restrictions of apartheid. I am sorry to say that he died in 1988, a mere four years before Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa; I am sorry that he missed that. I guess I’m also glad that he can’t see the mess that present-day South Africa is in; its political heyday was far too brief.

Moving away from editorial and back to review [with apologies], I’d say that this is Paton’s strongest, most tautly-written novel. I know that he’s more famous for another novel, but I truly believe that his “minor” novels are better, and I’d like to read the lot, as well as any non-fiction that I can get my hands on. Most of his works are out of print and may take some tracking down. I recommend this book fiercely.

The Whispering Land by Gerald Durrell, 1961, 217 pages.

Genre: animals, non-fiction, British, adventure

Basic Overview: Naturalist and owner of his own zoo on the Channel Island of Jersey, Gerald Durrell, accompanied by his wife Jacquie, make an animal-collecting and filming trip to Argentina, where they encounter seals, penguins, guanacos, peccaries, and rather magnificently do not manage to encounter any vampire bats, despite the author’s baiting the trap with his own big toe.

Personal Opinion: I love Durrell’s books; have since the spring of 1995 when my boyfriend [now my husband] first put Three Singles to Adventure in my unwilling hands and then listened, pleased with his recommendation, as I giggled, laughed out loud, and read to him passages of that book, and then asked for more Durrell when I was done. Over the years I’ve read most of Durrell’s books, bought the ones that John’s collection lacked, and somehow managed to miss this one, despite the fact that I’ve unpacked it onto several bookshelves. I’m glad I finally read it, travelled to Patagonia with him, and met some more of Durrell’s animal friends, most notably Juanita, the baby peccary.

Peccaries are in the pig family, but they’re wild, with hard hooves and sharp tusks, and when young members of them fall ill to pneumonia, they take a lot of looking after, during and after the illness. Sleeping next to them during recovery is Durrell’s style, which is painful and hilarious:

A baby peccary’s tusks and hooves are extremely sharp, and their noses are hard, rubbery, and moist, and to have all these three weapons applied to one’s anatomy when one is trying to drift off into a peaceful sleep is trying....sometimes she would do a sort of porcine tango with her sharp hooves along my stomach and chest....at other times she would become obsessed with the idea that I had, concealed about my person somewhere, a rare delicacy....whatever it was she could make a thorough search with nose, tusks and hooves, grunting shrilly and peevishly when she couldn’t find anything....

I recommend any and all of Durrell’s books to animal lovers, naturalists, those fond of humour, and to those simply looking for a relaxing read. Durrell is perfect for all of you.

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, 1998, 346 pages.

Genre: short stories, poetry, fantasy, British

Basic Overview: Gaiman’s subjects are varied – his stories are about H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional New England town, about Lucifer in Los Angeles, wholesale contract killers, Penthouse magazine, teenage fans of Michael Moorcock and their fantasy lives, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the Holy Grail, to name a few subjects in Gaiman’s anthology.

Personal Opinion: Most of the time I really enjoy Gaiman’s work, and this volume of short stories is no different. I enjoyed all but two of the stories, which is a remarkable percentage, thought that several of them were exceptional, and liked one of them so much that I read it aloud to my husband and to my ten-year old daughter [at separate times. Both of them loved it.].

What I really don’t like about Gaiman is that his ego seems to be increasing at the same rate as his fame. The author question-and-answer period shown on the DVD of the film Mirrormask is unbearable when Gaiman is speaking, [Dave McKean seemed like quite a nice guy] and even in this 1998 volume, I found his pretentious “Where I Got These Short Story Ideas From” prelude to the book extremely annoying and arrogant. It is getting to the point where I will stop reading Gaiman because I dislike the author so much, and thus miss out on his artistic excellence, sad, I admit, but true.

The excellent short story to which I referred in the first paragraph was “We Can Get Them for you Wholesale”, which manages to be so humorous, and end up so spine-tingling, that it is on my list of favourite short stories ever. I also really enjoyed “The Goldfish Bowl and other Short Stories”, which sees Neil Gaiman doing a screenplay of one of his books while staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel; it is quietly spooky, and a superb mood piece. “One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock” was genuinely chilling, really seemed to understand adolescent boys, and ended on a note of uncertainty that I found really artistic. Finally, “Babycakes”, a two-page piece that Gaiman wrote for PETA, genuinely disturbed and disturbs me.

I found Gaiman’s poetry abysmal. After the first three or four poems I gave up, not willing to torture myself further. There was also one short story that I thoroughly disliked, because I have always disliked stories where characters in a story tell another story. This was “Murder Mysteries”, and the character was Lucifer.

Still, if you enjoy fantasy and you like short stories, I’d recommend this book heartily. Not as good as Sandman or Neverwhere but great stories nonetheless. Definitely read them.

Writer's Block: Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

2008-05-07T02:53:11Z

What is one thing you MUST do before you go to bed at night?

Submitted by twink

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Unfortunately, in the land of the bipolar - some of you know it as manic-depressive - the one thing I absolutely must do before I go to bed at night is take my pills. I have discovered, and it's been a horrible discovery to make, that missing even one night of my pills means that my moods are way out of whack for several days.

I find this upsetting on so many levels. I think the thing that I find the most distressing is the knowledge that I am sufficiently mentally ill that I can never miss a dose. I don't want to be this sick. Rationally, I understand that it's a physical illness, and that it's the same as a heart patient always taking their heart medicine, or a diabetic always taking their insulin, but because it's a mental illness, I always feel like I am just one dose of pills away from madness. There are so many "what ifs" that could result in me missing some doses of pills that I always carry extras, as I never want to end up as a crazed madwoman, talking to the birds in my home in the park.

The other thing that bothers me is that I can never just fall asleep at night. I used to fall asleep in front of the TV a lot. John and I would go downstairs and watch TV and I'd get drowsy; he'd tuck me in and I'd spend the night there. That never happens anymore, can never happen again. It's a simple thing, but I miss it. My pills are powerful enough to sedate an elephant, so the option of taking them and then going downstairs and watching a movie isn't available.....so that lovely soporific falling asleep watching TV is gone forever, and it's something I used to love, something I found so comfortable. Now if I feel drowsy watching TV, it's bedtime, game over.

As I've said before, and will say again, mental illness sucks.

Bad Customers, Stupid Customer Service Rep....

2008-05-07T02:40:34Z

Thank you so much to all of you who sent well-wishes to this flu sufferer. It meant a lot. I'm still suffering, but I did get into work today for a six-hour shift, 3 p.m. - 9 p.m. It was terrible! Not only did I feel like crap, but fate had worked hard to send me the worst customers in the universe, and I dealt with some real doozies tonight! And, of course, there was my own stupidity to deal with....

I was sitting at my desk, just sitting, as I was going through one of those "I'm too hot" stages of the flu, and I was sweating and feeling awful, and was just trying to get through it. Wondering how much time was left before I went home, I looked at the time, which is displayed digitally on the phone handset, I was horrified to see that it was only 5:06. Only six minutes had passed since the optician went home?! My god, time must be passing so slowly because I felt so sick. I sat at my desk, taking some ibuprofen, and then getting up and going back to the fridge for some cold water, and looked again at the clock - still 5:06. I am embarrassed to tell you how long it took before I realized that I was looking at the date, not the time. However, it was only 5:33, so time wasn't passing incredibly quickly, anyway!!

Sick

2008-05-05T16:17:40Z

I have the flu. Stomach-ache, ache in every single joint in my body. Thank goodness for books and laptops one can drag into bed, and for soft things to cuddle up to like dogs, teddy bears, pillows, and for soft beds to sleep in. In fact, I think it's time for another nap. Good night!

Doggie Hoe-Down

2008-05-04T14:28:36Z

Apparently, if one's husband plays the harmonica to certain German Shepherds, they sing along by howling, and sometimes by jumping up and trying to remove the harmonica from said husband's mouth. It's a hilarious sight, and both Aislinn and I have been struck down by fits of the giggles!

Writer's Block: Fictional Character

2008-05-04T13:40:43Z

What fictional character do you relate to most and why?

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I had to think about this one, but when the answer came to me, I knew instinctively that it was the right one. It's to Lyman Ward, the [male] narrator of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, which is one of my favourite books, and which won the 1972 Pulitzer. Lyman's elderly and disabled. He has degenerative arthritis which has caused his joints to lock, and he's stuck in a wheelchair. However, he has his house rigged up so he can get around it easily, and he has excellent caregivers, so that he can live independently.

Why do I relate to Lyman Ward? I'm bipolar, which is a disability of sorts. The severity of it kept me from working for several years until I could be stabilized on medication. Lyman's wife Ellen left him, unable to tolerate his anger at the disease, I have often feared [and will probably continue to fear] that eventually my spouse's incredible patience and kindness will dry up and that he'll be gone with the wind. Lyman's son, Rodman, is trying to put his father in a home, not so much for Lyman's sake but so that he, Rodman, will have peace of mind about his father's safety and health. Lyman steadily resists, and goes to great lengths to prove that he can live independently. One of my great fears is that someone in my family will put me in a home and that I will be institutionalized on a long-term basis, and frankly, I'd rather die than face that. It didn't occur to me until I thought about this writer's block question that I identify with Lyman Ward so strongly, but apparently, I do!

The Haunted Hotel

2008-05-04T13:14:50Z

The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins, 1878, 251 pages.

Genre: classic, british, suspense

Basic Overview: English Lord Mountbarry throws over his charming fiancee for the scheming Countess Narona, and after their marriage, calamity ensues. Murder, mysterious disappearances, ghosts, strange revulsions, and the city of Venice feature in this suspense story.

Personal Opinion: The Haunted Hotel was so much unlike the dense, detailed, carefully plotted stories by Wilkie Collins that I have come to know and love so much. It was simplistic, uninteresting, with no character development, an ending you could have guessed a mile off, and with nothing but determination to steer me towards finishing the book. I was really surprised at how the mighty Collins had fallen.
A quick trip to Wikipedia gave me some biographical details that explained the whole thing. Apparently Collins, suffering from rheumatic gout, became addicted to opium in the form of laudanum, and after the death of his closest friend, Charles Dickens, in 1870, Collins became increasingly addicted to the point of suffering paranoid delusions, and believing that he had a doppelganger with him at all times, whom he called "Ghost Wilkie". Wikipedia says that "his novels and novellas of the 1870s and 1880s....are generally regarded as inferior to his previous productions and receive comparatively little critical attention today".

I was really disappointed in this book. Expecting my usual fun Wilkie Collins read, I instead read 251 pages of drivel. Not a good choice, and a waste of my time.

34 / 100
(34.0%)

Not the Jules Verne version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth

2008-05-04T04:07:37Z

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Richard and Nicholas Crane, 1987, 236 pages.

Genre: travel writing, non-fiction, british, adventure

Basic Overview: I received this book through the kindness of cat63 , who sent it to me, overseas, when I evinced an interest in it. Subsequent research has proven to me that it is unavailable for purchase in Canada, so I am doubly grateful for the gift. Thank you!
Journey to the Centre of the Earth is written by two mad Englishmen, cousins, who decide to go off for a few weeks' bicycling to the geographical centre of the earth, which is defined as the place most remote from the open sea in any direction. To get to this isolated spot, which lies in northern China near its borders with Russia [then the USSR] and Mongolia, means that the pair must pedal their bikes through monsoons in Bangladesh, extreme heat in India, altitudes of up to 17,000 feet in Nepal and Tibet, and ride through parts of the Gobi and the Taklamakan deserts in China.

Interesting new words learned: col, burdock, barchan, loess

I started this book twice. The first time I must'nt have been in the mood for travel writing, because I couldn't make headway. The second time I started, I couldn't put it down. Travel-writing is one of my favourite genres, and the more foolish the scheme, the less likely the chance of survival, the more I enjoy it. Richard and Nicholas Crane seemed so badly unprepared, unequipped, and the distance and the obstacles so great, that I was expecting at least major injuries. [Yes, I am a bit ghoulish!]
The two men, both in their early thirties, had unbelievable stamina, physical and emotional strength, courage, and above all else, determination. In a two-day ride, they pedalled up 15,000 feet over a space of 153 km., in Nepal and Tibet, ending up at 17,000 feet. To my mind, this was the most astonishing feat of the book, although cycling the entire Tibetan Plateau at an average of 13,000 feet altitude for 2,300 km. runs a very close second. My admiration is extreme.
I can't say that I ever really got to like either of the Cranes. Despite the fact that they are the ones writing the book, in the first-person, and regularly contribute excerpts from their personal journals which they wrote along the way, somehow they manage to remain walled-off to the reader in a way that other travel writers do not. This fact made my pleasure in the book less complete. There were, however, things about them that I liked, such as their constant craving for sweets, which led to their simple city rating system, much easier to follow than anything ever invented for Fodor or Michelin travel guides: "[Karamay] was a richer city than Urumqi, with better-quality chocolate".
This objection aside, I do plan to read any of the Cranes' books that I can get my hands on, as their writing and their adventures are fascinating. It is a pity that so far I have found that the only travel book available to me in Canada is Nicholas Crane's 1996 Clear Waters Rising, but finding books can often be almost as fun as reading them is!

33 / 100
(33.0%)

Best Customer Name

2008-05-03T23:55:54Z

I genuinely sold glasses, two pair, to a Mr. Richard Head. His family calls him one of the more common abbreviations of Richard, Dick.

Dick Head.

Dickhead.

Seriously.

Mushrooms

2008-05-03T23:53:24Z

The mushrooms that John made to go with the steaks we had for dinner were even better that sumptuous, better than divine. The English language lacks a word to describe them. Cooked in butter in my best skillet [non-electric], they were seasoned with fresh garlic, oregano, onion salt, and pepper - such a simple mixture, but they will remain in my head as the best I have eaten, ever. Yum.

Writer's Block: My First Car

2008-05-03T16:17:02Z

What was your first car?

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My first car was a Dodge Firenze. That may sound sporty, but trust me, it wasn't. It was bought cheaply, with the job of transporting a newborn daughter, and later young daughter and newborn son around, and it did the job just fine, but not with any delusions of elegance. I did like the fact that it was powder blue, and it had a tape player which played endless hours of Raffi, Fred Penner, and Sharon, Lois & Bram - all the children's music that the little ones enjoyed.

Later on, the hatchback trunk refused to stay raised on its own, and we used a golf umbrella to prop it up while unloading groceries. Next in line was its ability to stay running at intersections - oh, the countless times we stalled partway through a crowded Toronto intersection, heart in mouth, horns blaring, it seemed, from every direction. Eventually we had to get rid of her as the repairs and the insurance were getting ridiculous for a car that was barely running and we used our feet and the bus/subway system for a year in the car's memory.

Writer's Block: Hell Hath No Fury

2008-05-03T01:06:41Z

Who was the last person who really made you mad?

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There was a customer in the optical store where I work today - oh, I was ready to pop her one by time she left. Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!

Irritating old woman - you could see that the minute she walked in the store - something beady in her eye and the way she walked. I know I shouldn't jump to conclusions about people, but you get to know what people are going to be like almost as soon as they walk in the door, and this woman had irritation written all over. She had a new prescription with her, and went into detail telling me that she would need the very thin lenses for the people with the very worst eyes. Well, honestly, her eyes weren't all that terrible, but they did rate a high-index lens, so I listened patiently, then said that I knew the lens that she meant and that we could fit her up with just what would be best for her prescription. Blah blah blah, etc. Now she wanted a quote on a pair of glasses. Well, of course, that depends on what frame you choose; we're a middle of the road store, and we sell glasses that range between $79.99 and $249.99. She told me to tell her what the lenses cost and then she'd see what she had left to spend on a frame. Well, it doesn't work that way with a progressive lens, but I did it anyway, and told her it was a ballpark figure, and when all this time had been spent, she told me....

<i>she wasn't going to buy glasses here until we produced her old prescription because she wanted to see if her eyes had improved or gotten worse since the last time she'd been in. </i>

I mean, honestly. couldn't she have asked her optometrist? Opticians are there to dispense glasses, not discuss prescriptions. That's what optometrists are for. She wasn't in our computer, and thought it might have been six years since she got her glasses, which means we'd have to go into storage to find her old file. Really, I wanted to wring her wrinkly old neck.

This has been good. Venting feels nice. And I don't usually feel like strangling customers - only the odd one, here and there.

Lafcadio's Adventures by Andre Gide

2008-05-02T04:05:23Z

Lafcadio's Adventures - A Novel by Andre Gide, first published in English in 1925, 278 pages. Translation of Les Caves du Vatican in 1914. Translated by Dorothy Bussy.

Genre: international, nobel winner, mystery

Basic Overview & Background Information: Andre Gide (1869-1951) was born and died in Paris, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1947, four years before his death at the age of 82. Gay, an atheist, with works published about the need for prison reform and against colonialism, particularly in Africa, Gide's works represent the twentieth century and particularly the post-WWII era's turning away from Victorian values, and the new focus on the different, the new, and for Gide, the unpopular. Gide's ideas were present in his fiction as well, as interested readers will find out in Lafcadio's Adventures. One year after the death of Andre Gide, the Roman Catholic Church put all of Gide's works on their Index of Forbidden Books.

The novel is occasionally about its title character, Lafcadio Wluiki [note: the 'W' and the first 'i' are silent], but the French title, Les Caves du Vatican, is much more apt. 'Cave' can be rendered 'danger' in Latin, and as 'cellar' or more precisely as 'wine cellar' in French; the double pun, which cannot be rendered in English, and which I only noticed due to the kind auspices of the translator, speaks of the kidnapping of the Pope, which may or may not have occurred in this novel, and his imprisonment in the cellars beneath St. Peter's in Rome.

I really enjoyed this novel, not in spite of its bewildering twists and turns, but because of them. The lack of a clear ending mimicked life so much more realistically than the clever summings-up of Hercules Poirot [although I always love them, too!]. In fact, the only person who met with a discernable and clear ending was Amedee Fleurissant, who ended his life being shoved off a train rounding a steep mountain curve, and is not death the only clear ending any of us have in this life? Andre Gide, ever the atheist, would say that it is the only clear ending, end of story; it can be odd being Christian while reading Gide.

One thing I really liked about this book was that after a chapter heading purporting to be about one character or another, very little to do with that character actually occurs in that chapter. The lacks of orthodoxy of the chapter heading, and of other traditional tropes of fiction in general and mystery fiction more specifically, mirrors the literal lack of orthodoxy in the story, wherein villains dress up as priests and cardinals, and extort money from the faithful in the name of extracting the Pope from captivity.

Somehow Gide manages not to offend. By carefully implying that it is a false Holy Father sitting at the Holy See, and even allowing the reader one brief almost-glimpse of His Holiness, Gide keeps his more traditional readers satisfied that he is not perverting Rome. On the other hand, his less devout readers are treated to the scandal of faux canons and extortion schemes which may or may not be led by the church. The entire work is a careful balancing act which ends with a character poised on the brink of an ethical balancing act of his own.

I certainly recommend Lafcadio's Adventures. I had imagined that Gide was going to be a "difficult" French writer, but he is a delight to read, and I scooted through this book easily. My regret is that my French is only up to reading captions in Paris Match and not to French literature, as I would love to read Gide in his language of origin!

Book Meme!

2008-05-02T03:09:20Z

Swiped from winnowill2"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you own but have not read. I underlined the ones I both own and have read, and put stars next to particular favourites.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment ****
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice****
Jane Eyre****
A Tale of Two Cities****
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife ****
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man****
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere****
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five****
The Scarlet Letter
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion****
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (I was supposed to read this for Latin class in high school. But I didn’t.)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow (No, but I have the Pat Benatar CD by the same name.)
The Hobbit****
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Writer's Block: Smashed

2008-05-02T02:51:43Z

If you had a crowbar and could smash anything in your home or office, what would it be? Why?

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I've never answered one of these before. There's a first time for everything, and the answer came so quickly to my head....

If I could smash anything in my home with a crowbar it would either be the door to my daughter's bedroom or the lock on it. She's 18, and it's not that I suspect that she's doing anything wrong in there, in fact, she's usually studying or reading. But there is a hostility there, almost tangible, around her locked door, that makes me want to breach the door, and leave it open all the time. She doesn't want people in her room, is locked in there most of the time that she is home, and yet complains that she is not part of family life. It's frustrating.

In September she'll be off to university, and I doubt, except for vacations, that she'll ever actually live here as a permanent resident again. Maybe then I'll regret the open door, and wish that she were here, even if it is behind a closed door. Anything to have her home with us, and not away, starting life as an adult on her own.

A Grave Topic

2008-04-30T15:34:43Z

This week, my knee has been simply too bunged up to take the dog out for more than a walk down the street a couple of times a day. However, as it's been rainy, and we had frost one morning, and it's not been seeming pleasant weather at all, I haven't been feeling as guilty as I ordinarily would. I can tell that DJ is restless, but he's going to need to wait a little longer.

Last week we took some absolutely glorious walks, some of them up to the fields north of our village, where there is a fallow cornfield for DJ to run around in, off-leash. I honestly don't know where the farmer lives who owns the fallow field - there are three farms in the area that the field might belong to. Last year the field was obviously used for corn, as there are corn stalks all over the ground, and DJ sees it as an endless supply of sticks to carry in his mouth, which he runs around and around the field in, in ever-narrowing circles, until he is running wildly with me in the middle, wondering how soon I am going to be knocked down! It's a delight to watch him so happy, and always leaves me laughing.

look at all those lovely sticks around to play with!

After a good time in TFOS, we generally head over to the St. George Cemetary - the municipal one. I have a real love of cemetaries, especially old headstones, and always manage to find something of interest in every cemetary I visit [and I try to visit a lot of them - a nice drive the other day gave me lots of possibilities for the summer....]

When we entered the cemetary, the first interesting headstone I saw was

which, if you'll read it carefully, will show you that Edith S. Harris married Leonard Jones, making her Edith Jones! I was very amused to find it the first gravestone in the cemetary; very amused to find an Edith Jones at all. My Edith Jones, my grandmother, was Edith Jones by birth, and is buried some 50 km. away from this site. To add to the amusement further:

it's hard to read if you don't know what you're looking for, but the gravestone behind the Jones one, one the fancy round bit on top, says 'Scott', the name of my grandmother's second husband, and my mother's maiden name. I got a chuckle out of the two of them being so closely linked at this particular cemetary.

I do manage to find humour in cemetaries, how could you not with sights like this:
of course, my question is "for what?" or even "for whom?" For the uninitiated, if any of you who are, this is the engraving on the back of a headstone, to save you the trouble of walking around to the next row on your long search for the Wait family headstone. It's a very considerate idea, one I never would have thought of myself.

Now here's something I didn't like. The fashion these days, in the obituary section of the local newspaper, is to print a photo of the deceased along with the obit. I like this, especially when the photo was taken 40 or 50 years ago, in military uniform, or at the end of nursing training, etc. It makes the obits come alive, and adds a human face to the details. [I always read the obits. My father always said that he checked every morning to make sure he was still above ground.] But this is taking it too far, if you ask me:
I've also never seen a niche in a gravestone for religious statuary, but then again, this may be some cultural custom that is completely non-Canadian and of which I am completely ignorant.

So many graveyards. So little time.