Girl Detective

#42 in my book challenge for the year, and #18 in my summer reading challenge, was Magic Lessons, the second book in Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness trilogy. After re-reading, and again loving, Magic or Madness, I was disappointed in the sequel. It didn’t feel as tight, either in editing (there were many extraneous and unnecessarily repeated sentences) or in plot. Reason Cansino, the 15 year old protagonist, goes back and forth between New York and Sydney and tries to avoid Jason Blake, just as she did in the first. But the introduction of a new character creates more questions than it answers, and I’m not sure that was intended, even while there is more than a little deus ex machina element to him. Some of my dissatisfaction may be unfair–this may be a typical second book in a trilogy, that begins to answer some of the intruguing questions raised in the first part, but doesn’t finish the story. I will certainly read the next book in the series, but I may get it from the library rather than purchasing it, as I did this book, based on the strength of the first.

#43 in my movie challenge for this year was last year’s Proof, directed by John Madden and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal. (There’s another movie by the same name from a while back, which was on that “overlooked movie” list.) I almost skipped this movie, since I felt so busy this week. I told the librarian to put it back in the queue since I didn’t have time to watch it. He shook his head, and told me to rearrange things so I could watch it. After that recommendation, I had to watch it, even though I knew it had gotten mixed reviews. It took a while for me to enjoy it; its origins as a play are quite clear, and some scenes were very stage-y. Additional, Gyllenhaal and Paltrow often sounded stilted, as if they were reading lines. But the story grew on me. Paltrow is the daughter of a mathematician played by Anthony Hopkins. The story jumps back and forth in time as we see their relationship, his madness, and as we try to determine which of them wrote a math proof, and whether she is going crazy, as he had. Uneven, but it finishes strong.

Even before having kids, we found that combining dinner and a movie was difficult, logistically. Either we rushed to an early movie and ate late, or rushed through dinner to a movie. My husband and I had been on two dates since baby Guppy was born in February, and both were movie dates. (#1, and #2). After traveling and a few tough weeks at home, I decided it was time for a dinner date. And if we were going to go to dinner, I figured we might as well go for broke (perhaps literally) to what our favorite food critic has called “the best restaurant in the history of Minneapolis.”

The superlative is well deserved. A few times during dinner I asked my husband if something was wrong, since he looked rather pissed off. “They’re ruining me,” he complained. “This is too good. Nothing will ever be this good again.” It may well have been the best dinner we’ve ever had. We chose the five course tasting menu, supplemented at our server’s suggestion with the foie gras appetizer (because since when is foie gras NOT a good idea?) and with an extra dessert at the food critic’s suggestion. Even if I’d kept a menu, I couldn’t list all the elements of each dish, because there were so many–I’d hazard to guess about ten elements per dish. Yet they didn’t come off as fussy, disjointed or complicated. Each course was a miracle of fusion and balance.

We began with not one but two amuses bouches, a sauteed squash flower stuffed with cheese and a gruyere puff. The courses were soft shell crab in a bright fresh tomato sauce, followed by trout wrapped in serrano ham, then the foie gras, which was garnished with an apricot sauce that demanded for extra bread to wipe the plate clean. The meat courses were a lamb ribeye and a veal tenderloin. The dessert was a peach and plum tart with peach ginger sorbet, which we complemented with a deep chocolate dessert accompanied by a strawberry and mint confection. With our check were four exquisite, delicious petit-fours.

I was reminded that the best meals we’ve eaten have been tasting menus. A la carte menus make sense for average restaurants, or for meals when time is an issue. But when the meal is the focus (and cost is wilfully ignored), a tasting menu showcases the talents of a chef across a variety of ingredients. The effects, as we experienced, can be dazzling both to the eye and to the palate.

As a recovering bookstore junkie, I greatly appreciate both the selection and reserve system at my local library. A recent trip turned up interesting results. Drake enjoyed all three books, but I did not. I think the true mark of a book’s success is if I like to read it, and Drake’s likes to hear it, and we both like to look at it. Since he often insists on hearing books dozens of times, books weak in story or art get very annoying, very fast. Borrowing from the library, rather than buying, allows us the luxury of test driving these books at home, to see which books we both enjoy.

Good: Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes Some Henkes books are particular favorites: Kitten’s First Full Moon, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Sheila Rae the Brave, and Chester’s Way. Some I have actively disliked (Julius, Baby of the World, and A Weekend with Wendell). Others I found only OK (Chrysanthemum and Wemberley Worried). Bailey Goes Camping falls into this last category. The blurbs on the back call it “cozy” and “comfortable”. I found it boring. Bailey’s older brother and sister go camping. He wants to go but is too young, so his mom helps him do camping things at home. The story is simple, the art is deliberately old-fashioned, but I found neither particularly memorable.

Better: Too Big by Claire Masurel, art by Hanako Wakiyama. I’d liked the art from The Best Pet of All (see following) so I decided to give this a try. Charlie is small and brings home a big toy named Tex. No one wants him to take Tex anywhere because of his size, but when Charlie has to go to the doctor, Tex is loyal and ready. I had a few problems with this book. First, I think Tex’s size is supposed to be a contrast with Charlie’s smallness, typical of a kid, but that’s a subtle inference for a child. Second, when Charlie needs to go to the doctor, all his regularly sized toy friends hide. The illustration for this was good, since a child can find them, but why they hide is unclear. Are they afraid of the doctor, and the author didn’t want to make this explicit? Is it so that Charlie finally takes Tex? Without explanation, it seems cruel and arbitrary that his friends hide from him. Finally, while I liked the retro look of the art, the dad had red hair (like Charlie) on several pages, but black hair on another. I found this lack of continuity confusing. Drake, though, liked the book just fine.

Best: The Best Pet of All by David LaRochelle, art by Hanako Wakiyama. We have checked this book out before, and I was reminded that it is a great blend of story and art. A little boy wants a dog; his mother says no. The boy counters that he’d like a dragon. The mom OKs that, little expecting the boy to bring home a dragon. Both are understandably upset with the dragon’s bad manners. The end is charming and funny, and turns on understanding something from the illustration, not just the text. While my husband jokes that he finds the mom “uncomfortably hot” for a storybook, the art is retro yet kid-accessible. While all three books had very good reviews at Amazon, this is the one book of the three that I liked as well as Drake did, and it’s the one book that I will consider adding to our permanent library, though I also like the idea of having old favorites at our public library that we check out and re-read.

#41 in my book challenge for the year, and #17 in my summer reading challenge was Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier, which I re-read as preparation for the more recently published second book in this trilogy. Reason Cansino, a fifteen-year-old Australian girl, has been on the run for all her life with her mother, from her grandmother. When her mother is institutionalized, Reason is returned to the grandmother, who Reason’s mother has warned her is an evil person who believes in magic. In a more conventional novel, Reason would come to terms with her grandmother, and discover that magic isn’t evil and neither is the grandmother. This book, though, takes a darker, more complicated route, and is hugely entertaining because of it. Reason discovers that magic is real, but using and not using magic both have terrible consequences. As Reason struggles to learn more, she must determine who to trust, since most of what she’s been told all her life has been a lie. I raced through this book, and am eager to begin the sequel, Magic Lessons.

#42 in my movie challenge for the year was last year’s Junebug. It is an interesting contrast to The Family Stone, which I found heavy handed. Junebug was not overdetermined; I found it often perplexing. Amy Adams gave a great performance, and it deftly avoided the usual cliches about family and the south. At the end, I had many questions, most about George, the son who brings his new bride to meet the family. George spoke hardly at all, and the few times he did, he often contradicted something he’d said before. A good movie, with much to recommend it, but one I found ultimately unsatisfying.

#40 in my book challenge for the year, and #16 in my summer reading challenge, was The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. Kate gave a reading last weekend, which prompted me to re-read her previous books before picking up her newest one. The Tale of Despereaux won the Newbery award, and it’s a sad, lovely story with beautiful pencil illustrations. Despereaux is a tiny but large-eared mouse, who is exiled from the mice because he won’t conform. He goes on to endure many difficulties as he struggles not only to survive, but to restore both soup and the princess to the kingdom. The book is not only sad, but frequently delves into disturbing portraits of perfidy (which the author exhorts the reader to look up) and evil. One character, Miggery Sow, endures so much that no happy ending can really redeem all that she has suffered. Throughout, the author addresses the reader in the same manner as Charlotte Bronte did in Jane Eyre. I felt this was a way to remind the reader that while dark things are happening, the reader is not alone in the darkness. The contrast of light and dark, and its reflections both in character and in events, is present throughout, as are reminders that this is a story. Despereaux is longer and more complex than DiCamillo’s previous books, Because of Winn Dixie and The Tiger Rising. I don’t think it’s as charming as the former, or as moving as the latter, but it is a compelling story, well told.

#39 in my book challenge for the year, and #15 in my summer reading challenge, was The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. Rob is a young boy whose mother has died, and who has trouble with bullies at school. After he finds a caged tiger in the woods, and befriends Sistine Bailey, he has to decide if his previous coping mechanisms can still work for him. There is a great deal of sadness in the book, for Rob and for other characters as well. Additionally, unlike DiCamillo’s Because of Winn Dixie, the book goes beyond sadness and portrays glimpses into evil–cruelty for its own sake–as well. This is a sad, but ultimately rewarding book, with good emotional insight into difficult circumstances.

Yesterday I was about to wake toddler Drake from his nap. (Within the past year, I’ve had to modify my “never wake the child” rule, because if he napped late, then he stayed up late, so it became a choice between shortening the nap, or pushing back the bedtime.) On the monitor, I heard movement and thought, “He’s waking himself. Perfect timing.” Then I heard a giant thump and a loud wail. With baby Guppy in my arms, I raced up the steps and into his room, where he was getting off the floor next to his bed, blood dripping from his face. “Nosebleed,” I thought. “I can handle this.” I tried to hug him, he rebuffed me, so I went to the hall to get a towel, choosing a dark red one, so he wouldn’t be so alarmed by the blood. I returned, and was trying to calm him and wipe up a bit, when he let out another loud wail, displaying a mouthful of blood. Since he wouldn’t let me near him, and I now wanted help, I put Guppy in his crib, then called my neighbor who said she could be right over. Guppy, of course, had also begun to wail by this point. The neighbor arrived and tended to Guppy, who was happy as long as he was being held. I managed to coax Drake into my arms finally. He said his nose hurt, but not his tongue, so we figured that the blood in the mouth was backwash from the nose. He eventually stopped crying, then let me put him down with a few whimpers here and there. We knew he was OK when he asked me to play cars with him.

I’d been thinking that it would probably be OK to get rid of the monitor in Drake’s room now that he’s almost three, since having one for each boy is cumbersome. He’s a good sleeper and has been in his bed for seven months. But I was glad for the monitor yesterday, since it let me respond to him quickly. The monitor stays, for now.

#38 in my book challenge for the year, and #14 in my summer reading challenge, though it wasn’t on my list, was Because of Winn Dixie by Twin Cities author and transplanted southerner Kate DiCamillo. Kate read for a community event over the weekend from this book, and did an extended Q & A for her audience, mostly kids and their parents. Because of Winn Dixie bucks convention because its the story of a _girl_ and her dog. Like the Littmus Lozenges of the story, Because of Winn Dixie is a mix of elements both sweet and sad. It includes some tragic stuff, like an alcholic absentee mom and a drowned child. Yet the main character, India Opal Buloni, and the reader are able to bear these because the story and its cast of characters are so strongly woven and supportive.

I wondered a few days ago what fate spammers deserve, and I continue to battle spam even after turning off comments. Then I received a forwarded email that warned of the dangers of ball pits, since a little boy died of a heroin overdose after being stuck by a needle from one. I checked Snopes, confirmed it was a fake, but wondered: what Dantean level of hell is reserved for authors of fraudulent dead-child emails?

I tried, and did not entirely fail, to make a salad similar to the club salad from Houston’s. I used this recipe for the honey-mustard dressing. It made far too much even when I halved the amount. I recommend quartering the amount and going light on the honey, and have put my approximations below. Making this salad is based on the assumption that you have leftover chicken tenders in the house; otherwise it would be far too much of a pain to make. Our leftovers were from a recipe for Firecracker Chicken from Cook’s Country. (Sorry no link for the recipe, but it’s from the current issue, August/September 2006.)

Club Salad (serves 2 as a meal)

1 bag or 2 hearts of romaine (about six cups)
2 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
1 hard cooked egg, sliced
1 ripe Haas avocado, sliced
4 chicken tenders

Honey Mustard dressing

1/4 c. olive or other vegetable oil
1 Tbl. cider vinegar
2 Tbl. honey
2 Tbl. dijon mustard
3 Tbl. mayonaise
pinch garlic salt

Whisk all ingredients together in small bowl.

If using bagged lettuce, sort through, then wash and spin dry. Think I’m being paranoid? Think again. If using hearts of romaine, strip off any wilted or brown outer leaves, wash until clean. Spin dry and break into bite-size pieces.

If you have already cooked bacon, crumble it. If you don’t, chop or cut bacon with scissors into small pieces, fry until crisp, remove with slotted spoon to drain on paper towels.

To boil eggs: Poke hole with pushpin or needle in fat end of egg to puncture membrane. Cover eggs with water. Bring to boil. Remove from heat and cover for fifteen minutes. Transfer to ice bath for 5 minutes.

To slice avocado: slice with butter knife in skin, then use spoon to scoop out slices.

Reheat chicken tenders at 350 for five minutes. Remove and chop into 3/4 inch pieces.

Divide romaine between bowls. Top with crumbled bacon, egg, avocado, and chicken. Drizzle with honey mustard dressing. (Do not pre-dress the greens, the dressing is heavy and the salad will quickly become too wet.) Serve immediately.

Toddler will not nap
Five month baby on the move?!
Oh my goddess, help.

The toddler did eventually nap, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing and posting this today.

For more motherhood haikus, visit Haiku of the Day, the site of Kari Anne Roy, author of Haiku Mama. The friend who gave me the book noted, and I agree, that it’s funnier now that I have more than one kid. I’m not sure why; perhaps because illusion and romance have worn off, and a sense of humor has become one of the best survival tools.

A reader, N., wrote that she had finished an outline for a novel, and wondered what next steps to take. I am no expert, just another writer trying to get published. Writing, I suspect, is like just about everything else on the planet. Every person does it differently and has different things that help, or hinder.

I started the manuscript I sent out during National Novel Writing Month in 2002. NaNoWriMo is a contest of sorts, in which writers are challenged to churn out a 50K manuscript in 30 days. Nothing matters except word count. NaNoWriMo was useful for me because I’m terrible at finishing things, so I thrive on arbitrary deadlines (see my book and movie challenges.) I picked a topic, created some characters, and started typing. No outline. No plan. Just a vague idea and a crazy-ass deadline.

After I had the 50K rough draft from NaNoWriMo, I took classes at the Loft Literary Center. I took 3 classes (the same one twice) and got a new draft out of each. The current draft is, I think, the seventh one. The manuscript changed significantly with each draft.

National Novel Writing Month is one way to write a novel. It worked for me in 2002. It did not work for me in 2004. I wrote 50K, but so far I have yet to turn those 50K words into a useable manuscript. Another option is to take classes at the Loft Literary Center. I recommend the longer classes rather than the shorter workshops, since the signal to noise ratio is better. Still another piece of advice I’ve found helpful came from local writer, Kate DiCamillo, who writes 2 pages a day. She says it’s good not only for getting writing done, but also for working through writer’s block.

For more ideas, consult any book on writing. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is useful, if only for the assurance that there’s someone crazier than me out there. Some people swear by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, others by Stephen King’s On Writing, others still by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I recommend checking writing books out of the library rather than purchasing, since what works is so individual. Finally, for any person juggling novel writing and motherhood, I found this helpful (previously noted here):

My advice for young women writers is just do it. Don’t wait for some ideal point in your life when you will finally have “time to write.” No sane person ever has time to write. Don’t clean the bathroom, don’t paint the hall. Write. Claim your time. And remember that a writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing. If you are serious about it, you will realize early on that (particularly if you expect to have children) you can’t take on a high-power career in addition to writing. You probably can’t be a surgeon, and have children, and “write on the side.” (On the other hand, you could marry a surgeon, thereby solving the whole problem.)–Lee Smith

I stopped going to yoga during my first trimester carrying Guppy, since I was so tired all the time. I had the choice between yoga class or a nap; I picked the latter. I returned to my yoga mat yesterday for the first time in about a year; I went to a 90-minute class at my local gym. While my husband thought I might want to take it easy and leave early, I stayed to the end, and was rewarded with a nice, long savasana. I love instructors who don’t skimp on this essential part of the practice. It was a humbling class; I had to do many modifications and rest often. Previously, when I’ve been away from yoga, it took as long to recoup as I’d been away. It is discouraging to think it will take a year to work back to my former practice, which wasn’t any great shakes to begin with. Who knows, though. Perhaps I’ll end up being able to do poses that I could not before. In any case, it was good to be back.

#37 in my book challenge for the year, and #13 in my book challenge for the summer, was Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This was my second reading, and I felt again disappointed that I came to this book so late in life. I wish I would have grown up with it. I find it a fascinating book to compare and contrast with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Both have social commentary, and charismatic, passionate couples. Yet where Austen focuses much on the comedy of manners and witty repartee, Bronte is crammed with literary references and a deeper exploration of emotions and sexuality. Jane Eyre was one of the first books written in part from the perspective of a child. Told in first person, with frequent addresses to the reader, it fits comfortably into the conventions of modern young-adult literature. It birthed the trope of the madwoman in the attic, deployed in modified form in DuMaurier’s Rebecca. I was reminded somewhat of the plot of Susan Howatch’s Glittering Images, a book (and consequent series) with interesting religion, but very problematic treatment of women. Additionally, I was put in mind of the myth of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, though neither of my editions mentioned this connection. I looked up Lilith on Wikipedia (see the section”Lilith as Adam’s first wife” about 2/3 of the way down). Lilith is also mentioned on the Bronteblog as part of a scholarly precis, which notes that Charlotte Bronte referred to Lilith in her later novel, Shirley.

In the wake of turning off comments, yet still having to field spam and edit individual old posts that are attracting said spam, I wonder: to what level of hell would Dante consign the people who create and refine spam? I have no doubt they’d have plenty of company, what with junk-mail creators and telephone solicitors. I might want to reserve a special hell, though, for door-to-door solicitors. I put up a sign, and still the exempt groups brazenly come knocking. Perhaps I should change my sign from “No Solicitors” to “Just Go Away”.

People might get the wrong idea.

Then again, maybe they wouldn’t.

We are trying to “teach” five-month-old Guppy to fall asleep on his own. He did this very well for his first four plus months, and then he learned to roll over. We’d put him in bed on his back, he’d roll over to his tummy, and scream. We’d flip him back, he’d roll over and scream. Lather, rinse, repeat. He was and has been adamant about not learning to roll from his tummy to his back, though that is supposedly (according to the oft-cursed, oft-wrong baby books) easier and learned earlier. So we had a choice–either we keep up the flip-n-scream till he finally fell asleep before he could flip over, or we encourage him to sleep on his tummy, since he’s no longer a newborn and the SIDS risk is lower. The problem with the former option was that even when we did this–because we tried–when he woke in the night, he’d automatically roll to his tummy, so we’d have to go through the flip-n-scream multiple times in a night. After a few nights of that, we decided that we’d all be happier if he learned to sleep on his tummy, with the hope that he’ll eventually learn to roll the other way. But this option is still a lesser of evils, and there’s has been much more crying at nap and bedtime, which puts us all on edge.

I strive to post five times a week, but this week I am feeling thwarted, though perhaps by my own hand. Yesterday we had a friend of Drake’s over for a playdate, while I attempted to do six loads of laundry, mop the kitchen floor, make some progress reading Jane Eyre, and resurrect–and more importantly, de-crustify–the high chair now that Guppy is on the verge of so-called solid foods. Unsurprisingly, I was unable to read or write online, especially since Guppy’s idea of when to wake from his nap differed greatly from mine.

#41 in my movie challenge for the year was Syriana, which I had wanted to see in theaters, and never managed to pull off, since getting to a theater for a movie is much harder these days with two kids. I’m actually glad I didn’t. It’s a complex movie that I needed to do a few rewinds on for dialogue. It’s dark, challenging, and very well done. I’d been warned in advance that it’s hard to keep track of the plot, so I didn’t get too concerned about the details. It’s an impressionistic movie, and by the end, the story was clear in spite of so many details. Clooney’s performance is the anchor, yet the other actors–Chrisopher Plummer, Chris Cooper, Jeffrey Wright, Matt Damon, Alexander Siddig–are all excellent. There is a scene with a young boy, though, that so upset my husband G. Grod that he couldn’t finish the movie, and that still makes we uncomfortable, so if you’re the parent of a young child, you might want to save watching this for a day when you’re feeling emotionally resilient. This is a movie that would benefit from re-watching, yet it’s so bleak (nearly hopeless, I think) that I’m not sure I could bear to do so.