Girl Detective

Today’s my birthday. Forty-one, and even though that sounds “old” to me, I don’t feel it. Emotionally, at least–I have some early morning and post-yoga aches that make me humble and remind me to slow down. I also wish my other February birthday friends (so many of them!) health and happiness as this month comes to a close.

I’ve had a lovely day thus far, despite an oncoming cold. We began the day with a family snuggle, then I had my favorite breakfast–two cappuccinos, with a cherry pomegranate toaster pastry AND Stella d’Oro breakfast treats. G and the boys went out so I have time to myself this morning to read, write, journal, use my light box, do yoga and my hand labyrinth, and be amazed by the well wishes pouring in.

I feel very grateful today, for life in general and the specifics–my husband G, our kids 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, our community in Minnesota, family and friends both far and wide, real and virtual, present and absent, and for all who helped in ways big and small during my post-partum depression three years ago, part of my ongoing journey toward balance.

I feel more than a bit stunned by it all, and deer-in-the headlights when I think how impossible it would be to express all the gratitude to all those I feel it for. This quote, by Elizabeth Gilbert from Eat, Pray, Love, helps me feel a little less overwhelmed:

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

I am saying thank you, right now, today, and I’ll try to keep on saying it however I can. Namaste.

Tom Piazza’s City of Refuge, a novel about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, is a contender in this year’s Morning New Tournament of Books. Piazza opens with two quotes, one from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, which this book is an homage to. Like that American classic, City of Refuge tells of a forced US migration, both through the eyes of those experiencing it, and with journalistic interludes that further fill in the details. I thought I knew what happened there. City of Refuge showed me I hardly knew a thing, and more compellingly, helped explain why.

On Monday, though nobody knew it yet, the water had only just begun to rise; it would keep rising until that Thursday, from more than a dozen breaks in the levee system, which let water gush and roll in from Lake Pontchartrain to fill up the bowl of New Orleans.

The novel switches between two families, one black, one white, and their experiences during and after the hurricane. I sometimes thought Piazza gave too much detail, and veered into the didactic, problems I also had with Grapes of Wrath. Like that book, though, this is a chronicle of a national tragedy, and the government ineptitude that made things worse. Like that book, City of Refuge is a novel about social justice. It educates, inspires empathy, and fosters outrage. The writing style wasn’t always to my taste, but the scope and power of the story, and the character of SJ in particular, are such that I’d recommend City of Refuge to almost anyone.

Thorina Rose’s Heartbreak Diet is a comic-book memoir of the breakup of her marriage. Both in words and illustrations, it’s wry, sad and easy to sympathize with. It begins with a simple exchange:

Thorina (holding toddler): Where are you going?
Her husband, X: I’m going running.

Rose illustrates her husband in a runners stretch, with a focus on his ass, in a sly visual dig. Throughout, he’s shown in shadow, and mostly from behind. It’s an effective way to characterize a man on his way out of their marriage. Rose’s art, black and white and shades of grey, is striking and accessible. The story is a pastiche of events, imaginings, advice she receives, and things she does, or tries to do, to get through the unraveling of her marriage. I enjoyed reading about her journey, both in pictures and in words. She narrates her anger, sadness and bewilderment, but her story is never weighed down by them, but buoyed by hope.

I thought this year’s Oscar broadcast was a big improvement over years past, and I enjoyed it a lot. I thought Jackman’s opening number was funny and well done. The later one was over-the-top, which I think even creator Baz Luhrmann knew, since he looked sheepish when Jackman thanked him and the camera panned to him at the end. But anything that features an extended bit from “You’re the One That I Want” is OK in my book.

TV critic Alan Sepinwall has some suggestions for further improvement, like going back to showing the film clips for the nominations and removing more of technical awards. I agree that they should probably remove the sound awards, though cinematography could stay. I also think the shorts should go, both animated and documentary. I know they’re important, but few people see them and the show is too long.

I have a few other ideas, too.

One, have stylists urge their clients to wear color dresses. Light silver, white with silver, off white with silver, light gold, cream, ecru, off white, white, etc. are not colors, they’re neutrals. Do you really want to look neutral? Outlier was Viola Davis in burnished gold. Wow.

Two, have stylists urge their clients to do their hair. Jessica Biel looked like she just got out of bed, plus her no-color dress looked like it threw up on itself. Her later switch to purple didn’t improve things much. And Phillip Seymour Hoffman, I don’t feel bad for you even if the announcer did get your name wrong, because anyone who wears a knit cap indoors deserves what he gets. Your haircut in Doubt looked fabulous.

Third, Reese Witherspoon, wha’ happened? Did you get bitten by brooding, soulless, vapid, teen vampire Robert Pattinson backstage? Your black and blue dress with matching(!) eyeshadow made you look undead, and you’re usually rocking the show.

For more snarky mayhem, visit Go Fug Yourself.

At the Millions, a comparison between the American and UK editions of some of the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books contenders. (Link from Morning News, of course.)

I am actively stifling my urge to go to amazon.co.uk

But I’m going to keep an eye out at Half Price books; often the UK editions will turn up used or as remainders. That’s where I got UK editions of Harry Potter One and Two, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and the lovely HC of Special Topics in Calamity Physics (still unread).

(See how I finagled that? I HAD to go to the UK amazon to get the links for the UK editions. Heh. I did not shop, though. Yet.)

The noir double feature I saw this week of Robert Siodmak’s Criss Cross and The Killers deserves a bit more than the passing mention in yesterday’s post about a week of movies.

The City Pages is being difficult and not providing Rob Nelson’s succinct review of Criss Cross online, so I’ll reprint it:

As an impossibly convoluted thriller stuffed with flashbacks and nihilistic voiceovers, this 1949 film noir from director Robert Siodmak isn’t quite on a par with The Killers, Siodmak’s first collaboration with tough-guy cum patsy Burt Lancaster. But it’s a skillful, brooding, highly entertaining movie nonetheless–and far more potent than Steven Soderbergh’s arty remake The Underneath. In fact, what seemed to be Soderbergh’s most innovative scene–a protracted hospital-room dialogue between the helpless protagonist and his potential assassin–actually pales in comparison to Siodmak’s more straightforwardly intense staging, in which the intersecting bars of the hero’s death bed visually represent both title and plot. Plus, the narration delivered by Lancaster, playing a wayward loser who returns to his duplicitous ex-wife (Yvonne De Carlo) works as a perfect articulation of the genre’s gender-oriented despair: “From the start, it all went one way. It was in the cards, or it was fate, or it was a jinx, or whatever you want to call it.” I’d call it a postwar metaphor for the trauma of vets who, coming home, found that their wives weren’t the compliant homemakers they were before.

Julie Caniglia recommended The Killers over Criss Cross as well. Former acrobat Burt Lancaster is The Swede, a role that made him a star. He’s handsome and tragic in a tank top, a look Siodmak repeated in the later Criss Cross.

This 1946 adaptation of a Hemingway story, which one film critic dubbed the “Citizen Kane of noirs,” is indeed a deft example of Hollywood studio tradition cast with a pall of brooding German Expressionism (director Robert Siodmak began and ended his movie career in Germany). Like Kane, it begins with a death–the murder of the Swede, a small-town gas station attendant (Burt Lancaster, looking hot in a career-launching role)–and then unfolds the increasingly complex “double-cross to end all double-crosses” that led up to it. Basically, the Swede’s $2,500 life insurance payment leads one Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) to uncover the details of a $250,000 caper years earlier. Yes, words like “caper” and “sing” are used freely here; there are also boxing matches, poker games, boarding houses, and small-time cons named Blinky and Dum-Dum. The big-time con Big Jim Colfax asks for a cigarette with his dying breath, and his dame Kitty (Ava Gardner) croons an impromptu, piano-side torch song–making smitten that lovable lug, the Swede. Such elements have long since been chewed into mealy clichés, but in The Killers they’re evergreen.

These worked well as a double feature, and were both well worth renting if you’re a fan of film noir.

Now that the Oscars are done, I want to bring last year’s movie-watching towards an end with links to some of my favorite critics’ Best-of-2008 lists.

The Village Voice’s 2008 critic’s film poll is a good source for some of last year’s films that didn’t get wide distribution.

A.O. Scott’s year-end list is notable for its focus on upbeat films, of which there were many last year, though that might not be obvious by those that won awards.

Richard Roeper went beyond a simple Top Ten to Best, Worst and specific categories.

Roger Ebert’s has a similarly long list.

Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune (like Roeper’s, his list was only available reprinted elsewhere) did a nice, pithy list of big and small, movie and documentary.

Blue Iris is a collection of poems and essays, most previously published, by Mary Oliver, winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. It was this month’s selection for my book group, and because I am a reluctant reader of anything but fiction (a tendency I’m trying to expand out of), I dragged my feet. The book, though, is lovely, both in form and content. Van Gogh’s famous image of irises adorns the covers, and the interior is sprinkled with black and white photos of branches, leaves and flowers.

The poems and essays focus on love and respect for flora, with particular attention to flowers and trees. Oliver’s poetry flows easily, without rhyme, and her essays are infused with the same fluid wordplay.

Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin-flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give the peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

This is a brief, accessible book, especially for those, like me, suspicious of poetry. Oliver quietly contemplates the natural world, and conveys its wonder and beauty.

I’d like to thank the Academy for a shorter, more entertaining Oscar show this year. I’d also like to thank my husband G. Grod for enabling my pre-Oscar movie-watching compulsion. I saw SEVEN movies. In SEVEN days. Talk about indulgence.

G and I watched The Visitor together. It might not have been his pick for the flick to watch on his birthday, but we both enjoyed it. Richard Jenkins is winning in this quiet movie about a lonely man moved into engagement by the people he meets, and the injustice of post-9/11 US immigration laws (or lack thereof). It’s an excellent rental.

Then we did a complete 180, like a U-turn on the Batcycle, and watched The Dark Knight. 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy were difficult about going to bed. I’d wanted to start watching early, since it’s so long. Oh, well, I thought. We’ll just watch part of it. Ha. As if. Two hours and forty-five minutes later… Dark Knight is loud, scary, provocative, in your face–the antithesis of a quiet movie. Thus, I find it kinda perfect for the times. Great plot, character, actors, etc. This WAS one of the best movies of the year, no matter what Oscar said.

Then I hijacked my kids in my Oscar compulsion and we watched Wall E. And were amazed all over again. Animation? I don’t think so. Science that looks like magic? You betcha. Remember all the critics who wondered if kids would like it since there was no dialogue for most of the movie? Watch it with a kid. The kids GET it. They LOVE it. How can you not? Best movie of the year? For me, yep.

Next was The Reader. Woo. Another movie mash-up whiplash. I saw it at St. Anthony Main, not usually my first pick of theaters, and there was an enormous night-before-Oscars line. But the staff did a great job–moved people through efficiently and with smiles, and delayed the starts of movies so no one missed out. As for the movie, I don’t think the world needs another Holocaust movie. Or another movie that shows that people can do horrible things but still be good people. Ooh, look, it’s complicated. However, Winslet is still living in my head in that role. Even though her turn in Revolutionary Road seemed technically better, her role in The Reader has quietly insinuated itself into my head.

Then, after weeks of attempts, I finally made it to the ONE theater in town showing Rachel Getting Married. It was a lot darker, and less funny, than I expected. It felt exactly like attending an often-uncomfortable but still happy wedding weekend. But the performances, especially Hathaway’s, were more than worth it. Hathaway completely embodied her haunted, selfish, struggling ex-junkie, hatchet-hair, slept-in-my-kohl-liner look. She’s played an ingenue before? Coulda fooled me. Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge from Mad Men) was appropriately loving and exhausted as her long-suffering sister. But Debra Winger was the surprise standout for me–so cold and brittle I felt frost-bitten just watching her.

At which point G. Grod thought, “whew, the Oscars are tonight. She’ll stop going out all the time.” Then he looked at the calendar, and said, “D’oh!” Because last night was Take Up Productions noir double feature at the Heights, with Criss Cross, and The Killers.

I blame my friend Kate for my compulsion to mix Dots and popcorn, but thank her for the guilty deliciousness. As for the films, there weren’t a lot of happy endings for Burt Lancaster and his femme fatales, but their pain was our gain. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite manage 3+ hours of movie, and was nodding off by the end. I’m off to look up the ending to The Killers, and rest up for the next double feature, The Blue Dahlia and The Glass Key, in two weeks. The Big Clock is next week. Other than that I’ll try to give G. a break and switch gears back to reading, and transfer my consumption compulsion to the books for the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books.

Often I feel like my life is one long struggle to be less annoying to others. So when someone annoys me, I tend to get righteous. Which is kind of meta annoying, and thus I make it worse. Sigh.

Last night at the movies the person behind me was talking. Not maliciously. Maybe not even consciously. Just saying what came into their head, like, “*gasp* he’s going to kill him!” during a suspenseful scene. But there are manners on both sides–for the talker and for the person bothered by the talking.

Here’s how I wish I would have handled it. Turned after the movie, part of a double feature, and said, “I was distracted by your talking, so I’m going to move. You may be distracting others.”

Not sure the last sentence is necessary.

The fifth installment of the wildly entertaining Scott Pilgrim YA graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, finds our hero battling not one but TWO of girlfriend Ramona Flowers’ evil ex-boyfriends.

Ramona: Is he OK in there?

Kim Pine: C’mon. He’s Scott Pilgrim.

Party Host: A tiny robot is kicking this guy’s ass, if anyone wants to watch.

Scott not only has to battle robots, but deal with Ramona’s reaction after a revelation from teen nutcase Knives Chau. Silliness and sadness ensue. Scott continues to be an endearingly clueless and inept hero. The aura of mystery surrounding Ramona grows both figuratively and literally. And the next book sounds like it will wrap up the series.

O’Malley notes at the end that this is the only book so far he’s gotten in by deadline. I also think it’s the best-done to date–the plot is tight, as is the art. Nothing feels rushed or sloppy. I hope O’Malley can maintain the momentum for a strong ending to this story. Scott deserves a good ending (one I’m thinking won’t have him dating Ramona), even if not a happy one.

News on the upcoming movie, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) with Michael Cera playing Scott: parts of the film may be animated, which should make the fight scenes really interesting, as well as provide some of the wacky whiplash that helps define these books.

Because my children are ignoring me and refusing to get dressed, I’m going to ignore them right back. So much for the high road.

The bracket for the Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books is up! Adjust your reading list priorities accordingly. (I’m reading City of Refuge now, which seems bootless, since it’s up against Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.)

At the WSJ, a bunch of financial experts on what to do with your financial stimulus money. Link from Morning News.

At New York Magazine, Nate Silver statistically predicts the Oscar winners.

A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago will be live-blogging the Oscars.

On last night’s Top Chef, Finnish Stefan wore a T-shirt and hat emblazoned with “Suomi”. According to Wikipedia, Suomi means Finnish or Finland. One of the finalists commented that Fabio’s mohawk meant there had been one in every finale. Season four was Richard. Season Three was Dale. I don’t know who it was for the first two seasons.

On Colicchio’s blog at Bravo, he gives more information to the decisions from last night’s New Orleans finale part 1. It’s brief and insightful, plus divulges the technical term pro chefs use for other chefs’ food they admire.

The reviews were mixed and the running time long, but I wanted to see Australia anyway. I’ve loved all three of Baz Lurhrmann’s previous films, Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge. Even if the movie was a mess, it would be an interesting one.

Like the other Luhrmann films, Australia isn’t distinguished by an original storyline but by its intent to entertain. Prim Englishwoman Lady Ashley goes to Australia to sell her husband’s farm. She gets caught up in a fight with nefarious cattle rivals. She bickers with a handsome cattle driver, Hugh Jackman, only ever named The Drover. She loosens up, then shows up in a beautiful dress*. Jackman shows up shaved and handsome in a tux. Cue the ending, except then the film goes on for another hour to tell another story.

I could sense the director’s passion that spurred his reach to exceed his grasp. I missed the more important role of music from his earlier films, but still appreciated the soundtrack. I’m glad I saw it on a big screen; even though it was flawed, it was a big story (or rather, stories) about a big country. I recognized the film’s flaws, like an unnecessary extra hour of a different story and an unfortunate reliance on the plot point of the noble savage/mystical native who teaches the stupid white people about tolerance and love. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed its 2 hour and 45 minutes. It’s for fans of Luhrmann’s films, and those who love sloppy, old-fashioned sweeping, sometimes weepy, movie magic.

*The red dress she wears, as with a pink one that precedes it, is lovely, but not enough, IMO, to deserve the Oscar for Best Costumes for the entire film.

This Gun for Hire was the first show in Take-Up Productions‘ new film series, “From The Vaults of Universal: Seven Classic Film Noirs”, on Mondays in February and March 2009 at the Heights Theater in Minneapolis. It starred Veronica Lake, in her famous side-parted -do, and introduced Alad Ladd as hitman Raven, who utterly stole the film.

Willard Gates: Raven… how do you feel when you’re doing [indicates murder headlines]…this?
Philip Raven: I feel fine.

From the screenplay by Graham Greene, Raven is in trouble after he’s paid for a hit in marked bills. Not only are the police after him, but so is the man who double-crossed him. Lake becomes involved in the complicated case that involves chemical weapons, spies, blackmail and murder. The plot is much less important than the look, performances, and atmosphere, which melt into a powerful whole.

The noir formula is turned on its head; Ladd is more of an homme fatale, while Lake is the innocent drawn in by her attraction to him. Ladd is best in the first half of the film, when he is inscrutable and unpredictable. Toward the end, his character explains his history, and I found the end manipulatively redemptive.

Next Monday is a double feature, Criss Cross and The Killers. The shows start at 7:30pm, but get there early. The Heights was nearly filled on Monday night, and the shows might sell out. Also, be sure to leave time and money for the Heights’ excellent popcorn, which you can get with real butter.

With Doubt, I saw four Oscar-nominated performances in one film: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, the latter two for Best Supporting Actress.

Doubt is a “did he or didn’t he” tale of Hoffman’s priest in 1955, pre-Vatican II Brooklyn. Streep is the righteous nun, Adams a naive new nun, and Davis a student’s mother. The characters are drawn well and all are sympathetic, though some are also suspicious. Hoffman is good, but he never made my heart rend, as both Sean Penn in Milk and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler did. Streep’s performance, though, is blazing. Adams is consistently strong in her many scenes; she’s really the main character, I think. But Davis is so jaw-droppingly powerful (and definitely heart rending) in her brief time on screen that I can see why she’s a favorite.

A good film, with great performances. It poses tough questions, then respects the viewer enough to leave them unanswered.

My husband G. Grod’s birthday is today. He was only 23 when we started dating, and met my family a few months later when he came with me to my sister’s wedding, which took place on his 24th birthday. He was an excellent date for the wedding–a helpful and calming presence in the midst of my even-more-tightly-wound-than-usual family. My family and I discussed doing something at the wedding to recognize his birthday–a toast, a dance, anything. Then the wedding happened, and we totally forgot.

We forgot his birthday.

Thank goodness for friends Buffy and Ace, who did celebratory shots with him during the bride and groom’s first dance. The next day, he was very gracious about us having forgotten.

That was thirteen years ago. We continued to date, got engaged, married, moved to Minnesota, and had 2 boys, 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy. We’ve done pretty well, I think. Perhaps in part because I’ve never forgotten his birthday since.

February is a big month in our family. My husband G. Grod and usually pick a date somewhere in the middle to celebrate his birthday, my birthday and Valentine’s Day. This year we went to neighborhood gem Restaurant Alma.

Alma has been doing what more and more restaurants finally came around to doing, which is focus on local, sustainable, seasonal foods. It has a small but flexible menu that changes seasonally. You can do a $45 prix fixe for three courses (salad, first and second), or order a la carte.

I started with the bitter greens; G. Grod had the prosciutto. Next I had the beet and farro risotto. For entrees, I chose the arctic char, which was perfectly cooked, and in a lovely winter preparation with potatoes and hollandaise. G. got the duck two ways, both of which were scruptious. For dessert, he had the milk chocolate roulade and I chose the oatmeal stout gingerbread cake.

Each dish was beautifully plated, with an amount of food that left us full but not stuffed. The service was friendly, attentive and helpful. The dishes themselves were a marvelous mix of complementary taste and texture. Alma is a splurge for us, so we don’t go often. But we’ve gone periodically through the years since it opened, and we’ve had lovely meals every time. I appreciate its proximity, food focus, quality AND consistency.

Hailed by many critics as one of the best books of 2008, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle fit nicely into my informal self-teaching Shakespeare unit that began in earnest last year, and shows no sign of stopping. (Kinda like that last sentence. Heh.) I was disappointed when it didn’t earn a slot at The Morning News 2009 Tournament of Books, but decided to read it anyway. I’ll compare it when I do read those candidates. Like the Oscars, sometimes the best works don’t get nominated.

Edgar is a mute boy whose parents own a small dog-raising farm in Wisconsin. His story closely follows Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Edgar is named for his father, who is married to Trudy, and has a ne’er-do-well brother, Claude. Wroblewski departs from a strict homage,though, because the dog farm is more than a metaphor for a kingdom; the dogs are characters in themselves, and some of the most complex, loveliest-drawn I’ve read. Though her passages were few, Edgar’s companion Almondine had some of the most insightful and touching chapters in the book.

Yet he was gone. She knew it most keenly in the diminishment of her own self. In her life, she’d been nourished and sustained by certain things, him being one of them, Trudy another, and Edgar, the third and mot important, but it was really the three of them together, intersecting in her, for each of them powered her heart a different way. (195)

While the book closely follows the events of the play, it’s the character of Edgar, so much more sympathetic than that of Hamlet, and the details of the dog training and personalities that make this book stand on its own, not just as an homage. I was struck by the many similarities between raising dogs and raising boys:

She didn’t think that the lessons of dog training always transferred to people, but it was just the nature of things that if you punished anyone, dog or boy, when they got close to a thing, they’d get it in their head the thing was bad. She’d seen people ruin dogs too many times by forcing them to repeat a trial that scared the dog or even hurt it. Not finding a variation on the same task, not coming at things from a different angle, not making the dog relish whatever it was that had to be done, was a failure of the imagination. (298)

Edgar and his story challenged me to think of some of the events in Hamlet in different ways. More important, and less tangible, was how engaged I was with the book. I’d be doing errands, or away from the house, and I would miss the book. I’d wonder what the people and dogs were doing within the covers. It’s not often a book so inveigles itself into my life.

Oh, how bitter I used to be about Valentine’s Day! Less bitter than I was in the old days, I’ve learned not to wait for someone else to give me what I want or need. It’s important to have pretty, delicious things in life, otherwise we STAY bitter, I think.

Here are a few links to neat items for you, a loved one, or a mom you know, for Valentine’s Day, any other occasion, or to create your own:

Rogue Chocolatier chocolates: Artisan chocolates created from bean to bar in micro-batches in NE Minneapolis. On sale at local shops such as Surdyk’s.

Chocolat Celeste: Truly beautiful chocolates crafted in St. Paul, MN.

Legacy Chocolates: Treasures from neighboring Wisconsin. Try their Potion 9 chocolate sauce over Sonny’s vanilla ice cream. Divine.

B.T. McElrath chocolates: I can’t pick one flavor to recommend: passionfruit, cinnamon/star anise, green tea, dark chocolate truffles. All are eye-rollingly good.

Pretty flowers. No need to buy for Valentine’s Day, when it will cost extra. When you do though, skip the cheap stuff: mums, daisies, carnations, baby’s breath, ferns. Go for just a few beautiful striking blooms, instead.

Bags! I’m going to venture outside of the Twin Cities and recommend Queen Bee Creations in Seattle, carried by Dabble in NE Minneapolis, among other stores. Super cute, well-made non-leather bags, wallets and accessories. Bonus, they just created stylish bike panniers that also have a strap for shoulder carrying!

Local jewelry! Northeast’s Dabble also carries a good selection of locally crafted jewelry, like the lovely, affordable items from Gazelle Beads that I can’t stop buying as gifts.

Shoes! I don’t know anyone who’d turn down a new pair of shoes. Something fancy and impractical, like strappy designer heels from Nordstrom Rack. Or warm, stylish boots to perk up the tail end of winter from Red Wing boots in Minnesota.

Use your imagination. No need to go for broke, especially in this economy; often the lovely little gifts are remembered most.

In the New York Times, Perri Klass on when to keep a sick kid home.

What do we know about the common cold, and about how it is transmitted? Just how infectious is that child whose cough hangs on for weeks? And how about the one with the drippy nose?

My friend Kitty is vindicated, as she said the same thing in the comments for my post on Wellness Remedies.

Also from the New York Times, if you do get a cold, don’t blow your nose. Yes, really.