Girl Detective

A farmer friend of mine once shared her theory that humans–farmer or not–feel an urgency around the summer solstice that corresponds to the rhythm of the earth to get the crops planted in the ground, and then again at the autumn equinox to gather the harvest before the fall.

Everyone I talk to lately feels harried and overscheduled, and I am no exception. I’m hoping that this means we are simply creatures of the earth, and once the equinox passes, and our harvests (physical or metaphorical) are in, things will feel less hectic.

Every so often a meme goes around the blogosphere that asks about favorite books. Not only does this often yield non-illuminating answers (people who name only classics, or don’t say why they chose a title), but the lengthy entries are a reminder that the word meme is made up of me and me. While they can be fun to write, they are usually less fun to read.

Some recent disappointing books have gotten me thinking about books I haven’t loved, and perhaps have even hated. And hated books, I thought, are possibly more interesting than favorite ones.

This is not a meme, but a question: what is one book you hated, and why?

I hated Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I disliked the main character, who did not grow or develop over the course of the narrative. I disliked how long it was, and how much time I felt I’d wasted by the time it was over. I disliked it even more when I found it had gotten numerous positive reviews, and was selected by the New York Times as a best book of 2005.

At six months old, our son Drake refused rice cereal, veggies AND fruit, presaging the years since of picky eating. Twice I tried to make my own baby food. Twice he refused it, and I was stuck with veggie puree and tons of dishes. Forget it, I thought. He can eat out of jars.

When baby Guppy was waking frequently in the night after four months, I offered him a tiny amount of rice cereal. He slurped it down. This is going great, I thought. Then he was up with gas all night. I tried again after six months. He became constipated. So I mixed in a little prune juice, which caused gas. What to feed him, then? I unearthed my two baby food cookbooks, Mommy Made and Daddy Too by Martha and David Kimmel, and First Foods by Annabel Karmel.

Both books say cooking for kids is easy. As I found before, it’s not the cooking that’s hard, it’s the cleanup. The Karmel book is particularly bad for dirty-dish intensive recipes. While it’s pretty with lots of glossy photos, the more I spend time with it, the more I dislike it. Page 35 shows 12 panels of brightly colored infant purees. But they repeat three of the photos twice, identifying them as different foods, e.g., the same photo for carrots and sweet potato. Additionally, the Karmel book does not give details on what foods to introduce when. It simply recommends avoiding common allergens early.

The Kimmel book give details on what to introduce and when, but it’s not clear that the recommendations are from the American Academy of Pediatrics. And the website in the book is no longer owned by the authors. The Kimmel book swears that fresh baby food is far superior to jarred. I’m not completely convinced, especially because even conventional baby food doesn’t contain additives these days, and there are at least three readily available organic brands to choose among. Yet once again, I’ve been swayed into cooking my own baby food. I baked sweet potatoes and bananas, and steamed peaches and pears. Then I pureed them, and froze them in tablespoon dollops. I was reminded that sweet potatoes should be riced or put through a food mill; putting them in the food processor makes them gluey, which the Kimmel book doesn’t caution against. Guppy is mostly rewarding my efforts by being a good eater, but he doesn’t seem to mind the jarred stuff, either. And we’re still having bouts of tummy trouble.

Most of my 3yo Drake’s friends stopped napping every day a while ago. Drake, though, continued to nap nearly every day. One day I even wondered whether he was doing it out of habit, but then we skipped a day and he melted down that night. Still needs it, I noted. And within the last two months, I finally managed to get both Drake and his baby brother Guppy to take afternoon naps about the same time.

Then a few weeks ago it was getting close to nap time and Drake said, “I’m really tired. I want to go up for my nap.”

I picked my jaw off the floor, rushed him up for his nap, and he fell asleep almost immediately.

And that was the last real nap he took.

Since then, I put him in his room, and instead of napping he gets out books and “reads” them. While I could put a lock on his book closet door, that feels terribly wrong. How can I, in good conscience, stop him from doing what I usually do every day?

When I’ve told my friends that he’s stopped napping, they ask if he does “quiet time.” I grimace. Drake’s version of quiet time is reciting books from memory, singing loudly, kicking the wall by his bed, saying “mom, mom, mom” into the monitor until I go up and ask what he wants, or, last week, shouting the ABCs while stomping along on the floor till the walls shook, while I crossed my fingers that baby Guppy wouldn’t wake from his nap. Currently, he’s doing something (banging on the wall with a book?) that is loud enough to register on Guppy’s monitor, the next room over.

I don’t think this is just a phase. I think he’s given up naps. He goes to sleep faster at night and sleeps longer in the morning to compensate. Now I just need to find a way to get him to be quiet while Guppy naps.

I never knew how tricky pronouns were till I started teaching them to my son Drake, who is now three. At first, he had a lot of trouble with “you” and “me”. Recently, though, he demonstrated how far he’s come. He looked in the mirror while my husband and I held him and said, “Mom is looking at HERself, Dad is looking at HIMself, and I am looking at MYself.” His recent mastery, though, has been shaken by a book he got for his birthday, My First Truck Board Book.

I’ll say “Do you want me to read My First Truck Book?”

He’ll respond, “NO! I want to read MY First Truck Book, Mom!”

Me: “Yes, we’ll read your first truck book.”

Drake: “NO! MY First Truck Book, Mom!”

Me (realizing we’re in Who’s on First-ian territory and that it’s not worth trying to explain that the word “my” is part of the title, and not about actual possession): Sigh. “Ooo-kay.”

What’s funny is how the pronoun of the title is a stumbling block for him, but he’s memorized every single one of the gazillion trucks in the book, e.g., “No, Mom, that’s a track excavator, NOT a front loader!”

My personal favorite truck is the mass excavator, which looks like the Snort from Are You My Mother?.

Wow. That premiere was pretty good, wasn’t it?

A few thoughts. Amanda Peet, with wide eyes and a weird half smile, didn’t exhibit much range, though she did look good in a pretty, Marc Jacobs-y dress. If you took all the lines on Matthew Perry’s forehead, and all the lines on Bradley Whitford’s forehead, and compared them to the suspiciously smooth forehead of Steven Weber, what would you have? Matthew Perry did a great job of not ever acting like Chandler Bing. He did not, though, act as if he were hopped up on painkillers, or move as if he had recently had back surgery.

While I liked the premiere, I refuse to get excited about this show. I remember how much I liked the premiere of The West Wing, and how quickly it degenerated into mawkishness. Studio 60 reminded me pleasantly of Sports Night, Sorkin’s first television show, which was also about television.

My husband and I went on a date last weekend to the new Midtown Global Market (MGM). Based on the City Pages article, we tried food from three different shops. We got a torta from Mannys, a tamale and liquado from La Loma, and a huarache from Los Ocampo. We got a Coke with real sugar from one of the grocers, as well as a can of chipotle chiles that I hadn’t been able to get when shopping at my regular place earlier in the day, and the cut of meat I needed for our next meal. We splurged on a container of Potion #9, a chocolate sauce made with local Hope butter. The woman who sold it to us confessed without guilt that she doesn’t bother putting it on ice cream; she eats it out of the container by the spoonful. We’ve served it over ice cream, but are so determined to get every last bit of chocolate sauce out of the bowl that there’s little to be heard over the furious clinking of spoons. (The bowls are not wide enough to lick, which is the only thing constraining us. So either I need to serve in a wider, shallower bowl, or get out a spatula next time. Such is the compelling nature of this chocolate sauce.)

Visiting the MGM, I was reminded fondly of the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. The MGM has great places both for cooked food and for foodstuffs. I left so full I could hardly move, wondering when we could next go back.

#57 in my book challenge for the year was Bangkok Tattoo, the sequel to Bangkok 8, by John Burdett. While I loved B8 both times I read it, I found Tattoo less deft and engaging. I still whipped through it and could hardly wait to get to the end. But there were myriad bumps along the way: infelicitous sentences, mixed-up characterizations, too much going on, and a narrator who was somehow less present and engaging than he was in the first book. Worst of all, the story centers around that most wretched of cliches, the hooker with the heart of gold. As with B8, the sense of place is wonderful, the cultural divide is lovingly detailed, and Sonchai’s past-life and Buddhist insights make for a singular main character. Yet there were too many traffic-jam talk-radio interludes, a dead-end subplot with Sonchai’s new partner, and more information about other characters that Sonchai is privy to than is believeable.

Bangkok Tattoo is the third sloppy sequel I’ve read recently, after Second Helpings by Meghan McCafferty and Magic Lessons by Justine Larbalestier. All three books were less well plotted than their predecessors, and included a distracting and unnecessary number of details. All three would have benefited from more severe editing and at least one more draft. I suspect they were rushed to publication based on the success of the former books. I found all three disappointing in comparison to the first books, on whose merit I bought them. I will not be buying the third installments without having read them from the library first.

#56 in my book challenge for the year was Persuasion by Jane Austen. I’m slowly working my way through the six major novels by Austen. Persuasion is her last, and was published posthumously. Anne Elliott is a typical Austen heroine in that her father is fiscally irresponsible, she has one vain sister and one self-involved sister, and she becomes involved with a man who is not as good as he seems. Her particulars are interesting, though. She regrets that a family friend talked her out of an engagement in her youth, and the novel does a credible job of maintaining doubt as to whether they will get together. Anne is a sympathetic and likeable character, even as she is maddeningly reticent. There are three women in the novel who aren’t entirely good or bad: Mrs. Russell (the widowed family friend), Mrs. Clay (the possibly widowed friend of Anne’s older sister), and Mrs. Smith (an ailing, poor, widowed school chum of Anne’s). There were three other characters who were also widowed: Anne’s father, Captain Benwick, and Anne’s cousin Mr. Elliott. The novel is much darker than the other Austen novels I’ve read, and dwells much on illness and death. It’s filled with regret, and has sharp judgment rather than gentle humor for its minor characters. In constrast with Price and Prejudice and Emma, this is the work of a more mature, less happy writer.

Toys and books go in and out of favor without notice. Its hard to pick what is going to be a good inducement for 3yo Drake to go up for “nap” time, get his diaper changed, put on clothes, leave the house, or any number of other things that seem pretty basic, yet require lengthy negotiations. I was fairly sure that Mercy Watson Fights Crime, the third book in Kate DiCamillo’s easy reader Mercy Watson series, would be a hit. I was right. It is Drake’s new favorite book, supplanting Dooby Dooby Moo.

Mercy is the pet pig of Mr. and Mrs. Watson. She is very fond of toast with a great deal of butter. One night, she hears the sound of the toaster sliding across the counter. She goes into the kitchen to find out who’s making toast, only to discover a burglar. All the characters from the previous books appear. As usual, Mercy is in good favor at the end with everyone but her neighbor Eugenia, and everyone enjoys Mrs. Watson’s toast. Chris Van Dusen’s retro illustrations perfectly capture the simplicity of the stories, and contribute in no small way to how funny they are, and how endearing Mercy is, even though Eugenia is right–nothing with this pig is as it seems. In this series, DiCamillo has set aside her penchant for the sad and difficult. This book, like its predecessors, is a sweet, silly romp that’s fun to read aloud.

Dooby Dooby Moo is the latest entry in the Click Clack Moo books. Spurred by instigator Duck, the animals enter a talent contest at the fair. Farmer Brown knows something is going on, but he doesn’t figure it out until too late. As always, the humor is sweet, there’s good repetition for the read aloud, and Betsy Lewin’s illustrations are charming and funny. My 3yo Drake loves it, especially the singing phrases of the animals, which include Dooby Dooby Moo, and which we’ve heard many times over the monitor as he “reads” to himself in his room. Less successful are the footnotes in small type. They seem meant to be funny, yet I didn’t find them amusing. They only distracted me from the story, which I found rather slight. Dooby Dooby Moo is good, but my favorites remain Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type and Duck for President.

In which Angela and Vincent are brought back from elimination to make everyone else more anxious. I thought the producers might do something like this, but I talked about it with the group I watch with, I didn’t write about it here. So you can mock me mercilessly and not believe, but I won’t pretend I came up with the idea myself–I loved and remembered it from when The Morning News did it during their Tournament of Books.

The results of PR3’s Zombie Round paralleled that of The Morning News: the former losers were still eliminated. I was surprised that Angela and Vincent didn’t try harder. Both their outfits were not near their best. It’s the people who listen to both Tim Gunn and the judges who do well. Tim told Michael his dress was see through, then Michael used his extra fabric to line the dress. Good listening, Michael! (Can you tell what stage of toddler development we’re in at our house?)

Laura spent the episode exhausted and in tears. She realized, and was worried by, her lack of a previous win. I know many viewers think she’s heartless, but I suspect, as with Jeffrey, that a lot of her surface brashness is just that: surface. Her comment from a few weeks ago, when she admitted she was pregnant again and said she’d just throw the kid on the pile, sounded more like an attempt to cover trepidation with humor than true indifference. Her comments to Angela belittling the win that enabled her to return were tough, but fair. Angela’s win was a team effort. Laura was part of that team, and the final outfit had more of Laura’s aesthetic than Angela’s, as did the Angela’s Audrey Hepburn dress the following week. Angela was at her best when she designed like Laura.

While I agree that Laura’s dress was the best of the bunch, I’m not sure I agreed with the judge’s comments that it was MUCH younger than what she normally did, or that it wasn’t designed for her. That dress, with its empire waist, would have made a stunning maternity dress if she’d put a little give in the belly. Michael’s was elegant and a departure from his usual hip-hop twist, but what was with his model? She looked ready to fall over. Jeffrey and Uli were chastised for doing their same things. And Kayne, poor Kayne, who tried to do something classier, listened to the good advice of Michael, but couldn’t get far enough away from his penchant for glitz and drama. He was a good sport, though, as he was during the recycling challenge. He knew he’d misstepped, and he admitted it. I admire that openness and honesty, even while I agree it was time for him to go. Kayne, goodbye and good luck.

There are four designers left, and I think it’s become a battle for who will be second to Michael. Last week, I felt certain that Laura would be the next eliminated after Kayne; now I think it could be Uli, or even Jeffrey. But I’m going to predict Uli. She is either not listening to the judges, or not able to deviate from her flowing patterned styles. Both Laura and Jeffrey seem more able to adapt to the judges’ advice to do something different.

Check out the kind folks at Blogging Project Runway, who have lots of fun things to read about the episode.

#55 in my book challenge for the year is The Film Snob’s Dictionary by David Kamp and Lawrence Levi. A slim volume packed with definitions of key phrases, films, and people beloved by so-called Film Snobs. The book not-so-gently mocks Film Snobs, and takes pleasure in knocking down some of their sacred cows. It’s a weird conceit, since it’s not a compendium of actual good things, but rather things that some people think are good and that authors sometimes agree with, or sometimes not. For example, there is no Truffaut entry but there is one for Office Space, a film that only snobs “get”. While of dubious utility unless you’re soon to be attending a gathering of Film Snobs, it is clever, entertaining and informative. Its short entries make it an idea bathroom book.

#48 in my movie challenge for the year was our first family movie, Cars. All four of us went! Drake sat on G. Grod’s lap, and I had baby Guppy in the sling, where he mostly slept. Drake was attentive for the first hour, and rather wiggly but OK for the second. Cars was a long movie to pick as his first theater experience, but he did great. He mentioned popcorn several times the next day, and his Lightning McQueen and Sally cereal-box cars have been favorites ever since. I really enjoyed the movie as well. The animation was well done and I liked how the characters looked like the actors who voiced them. I thought it was a sweet story that wasn’t saccharine, and I only wish Owen Wilson could find a live action movie role so good.

If you missed season one of Bones, don’t fret. Most of the stuff from the season two premiere about her family happened in the season one finale, which is recapped here.

Just to be clear. Bones is a good show. By that I mean that if I have to get up to go to the bathroom, I pause the Tivo. I am somewhat bummed if I miss an episode. But I get over it quickly. House, on the other hand, I like a lot. Hugh Laurie is just dandy as the cranky diagnostician. I know lots of people love Grey’s Anatomy, but I only have room in my life for one medical diagnostic show.

I did my annual haunting of Target and Barnes and Noble until the Entertainment Weekly Fall TV issue came out. I read it cover to cover in 24 hours, but am only planning on watching one new show, Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Nothing else stands out for me this season.

In our house, we’ll be setting our Tivo thusly for the major networks this fall: Monday, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; Tuesday: Bones; Wednesday, House and Veronica Mars; Thursday, My Name is Earl and The Office.

I did not think I would sign Drake up for preschool this fall. He just turned three a few weeks ago, and has regressed from any small progress using the toilet. I’ll deal with it in a few months, I thought, or next year. But then not one but two experienced moms waved their hands at my concerns, so I looked into it and was amazingly not penalized for my procrastination and able to sign him up for a program close by.

All weekend we talked about Drake starting school. This morning, as I struggled to get Drake, Guppy and me out the door, Drake was quick to do several things he usually balks at or refuses altogether: turning off the stereo, leaving behind his balloon, putting on a jacket, going out the door, getting in the car, and giving me back my (locked) cell phone. We arrived and met the teacher, who got out a bucket of trucks. Drake didn’t look up when I said goodbye, which I did twice.

When I picked him up, he was happily finishing his snack, and threw away his cup at the teacher’s request. He ran to give me a big hug, then we went home, where I marvelled that perhaps he was far more ready to start preschool than I’d thought.

Then he refused a diaper change, picked at his lunch, spilled his milk all over the kitchen (and Guppy), and is currently not napping, as is usual these last weeks. So things are back to normal. But the morning preschool was a success, so I’ll see how things go next time and beyond.

Twice, I have noticed Ugly Dolls–simply shaped, large-eyed, not-very-plush stuffed toys that come in various bruise-reminiscent colors–at friends’ houses. Both moms said the Ugly Dolls were gifts, and that the toddler recipient was largely immune to their charms. That has also been the case in our house. Our Ugly Doll(s), Bop ‘n’ Beep, gets more attention from me than from Drake. I think the doll is adorable in a jolie/laide kinda way. Drake, though, goes for the more traditional friends, like this giraffe, who was a gift for baby Guppy. My husband G. Grod surmises that the attraction of Ugly Dolls for adults is in their irony and backward cuteness, while toddlers don’t yet have the context to “get” them. I’ll be interested to see if the toddlers gain an appreciation for the Uglies when they’re older. Until then, though, I’ll take the advice of one of my friends: who needs to spend upwards of $13 at Paranoid Parent for a toddler crib pillow when we already have an Ugly Doll?

Three-year-old Drake has a habit of stating a question that he wants us to ask him. I went to get him up the other morning, and he said, “Is my nose itchy, Mom?”

“I don’t know, is your nose itchy, Drake?”

Sigh. “Yeah.”

Or he’ll ask a question that is more of a statement. “Mom, do you need a truck sticker?”

Apparently, that means that I do. I went out the other night, and returned home only to find I’d been out in public with a mass excavator sticker on my back.

He also is very clear sometimes about what kind of attention he wants.

“Mom, will you talk to me about playing with the cars?”

Or he’ll invoke a third party in one of his loveys.

“Mom, will you talk to Daisy about the trucks?”

He’s also getting very direct and demanding. I went into his room to get him up the other morning, and he greeted me with, “Don’t talk to me, Mom! Go back in the hall! Don’t come in my room!”

I covered my mouth to stifle a grin, as well as signal that I wasn’t talking, then backed slowly out of his room.

His capacity for imagination is growing, too. He takes his Ikea plush snake and spreads it out on the couch, and says it’s a car, then sits with his other loveys, asks me to get in the car, and says we’re going to their house, where there’s a pond for the fish and the ducks, and a meadow for his sheep. He says they’re going to play with cars there–do you see a theme, here?

And even though my husband G. Grod doesn’t carry a briefcase, Drake picked up his truck box the other day, clutched it in his fist and announced that he was going to work. I asked him how he was getting there.

“The friends’ car,” he announced matter-of-factly, and with a certain weariness, as if I were stupid for not knowing something so obvious.

#54 in my book challenge for the year is a re-read of one of my favorites from last year, Bangkok 8, in preparation for the sequel, Bangkok Tattoo. I have the mistaken impression that re-reading will help me slow down and savor books. Knowing the ending helps me recognize all the clues are in place, but I think it also abets me in going through a book faster, since I don’t pause to puzzle things out. It’s a Buddhist noir murder mystery about a Thai policeman out to avenge his partner’s death. The atmosphere and sense of place are stunningly well drawn, while the asides about Buddhist practice and Thai culture are fascinating and mind-opening. I’m sure some could argue convincingly that the author goes light on the sex trade and its implications for women. My guilt over enjoying it in spite of its unPCness may lead me to track down a book on prostitution in Asia, Casting Stones.

The weird thing that bothered me about this book was the page numbers. Not only are they in a barely legible font, they’re at the top only on odd pages that don’t start a chapter. I would much prefer to have legible page numbers in the bottom margin on every page.

Another weird thing is that Drake loves to pull this book off the shelf. I don’t know if it’s the bright pink cover, or the snake, or the big number 8, but he goes after this book all the time.

#47 in my movie challenge for the year was the darkly funny Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Robert Downey, Jr. is excellent as a thief who is mistakenly whisked to Hollywood, where he gets tangled up in noirish murder and mayhem. Joining him are his childhood sweetheart (played by Michelle Monaghan. Suggestion: cast an acress Downey’s age, rather than ELEVEN YEARS his junior. Just sayin’.) and his gay agent, played by Val Kilmer. The dialogue is superfast and hilarious. The movie is full of clever asides, and deprecating, self-referential voiceovers. It’s good, not-so-clean fun.