Category Archives: Spare time – Culture

Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

Seen

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I watched a lot of movies last week (well, a lot of movies for me), mostly on my laptop so I could sit in my comfy chair by the cozy woodstove while I watched.  And, once I started feeling better on Friday, I picked up books again and buzzed through a couple of good ones.  So here’s the brief list of what I watched:

The entire series of “Manor House,” the reality t.v. show about modern people trying to live as servants and masters in an Edwardian manor house in England; all participants were required to live as they would have done in Edwardian times.  I enjoyed the series, but there were a couple of aspects that bothered me.  While some of the participants were heavily featured in the series, others were hardly mentioned, most notably the groom, Tristan.  I would have loved to have heard Tristan’s take on the experiment, and to see more of what his daily duties were.  And to see more of the horses, of course.  In addition to not enough coverage of the groom’s duties, and no coverage of the third housemaid’s life, I also felt like there was something lacking in general in the series.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I finished watching the three DVD set with a sense of wanting more – more footage of what everyone’s duties were, more insights into what people thought of their new lives (apart from the soap opera dramas, which got a bit boring), and more history of people who really did live in Edwardian times in manor houses.  I would have loved some primary sources, photographs and such, to give me more context.

On to a silly movie that I watched:  “Bride and Prejudice.”  As a Jane Austen junkie, I was worried that I’d hate this movie, a modern adaptation of the classic Pride and Prejudice, set in India, but surprisingly I didn’t hate it.  It’s fun and cute, with lots of gorgeous brightly colored clothes.  But some parts of the story don’t translate well to a modern telling:  Mr. Wickham as a hippy-ish backpacking guy who had gotten Mr. Darcy’s sister pregnant – well, that just doesn’t work as well as Mr. Wickham the status and money seeking creep who almost gets away with wreaking the reputation of the youngest Bennett girl.  And I thought the chemistry and conversation between Lalita (Elizabeth) and Will (Mr. Darcy) just weren’t crackling and feisty enough to carry the story.  Not a terrible movie, though, and not a waste of time to watch.

Then I watched “City Island,” a funky, funny, cool, and insightful movie about a part of the Bronx that I never knew existed, and a family that lives there along with their secrets.  If I say too much about the movie, I’ll wreak it for you, so suffice it to say that I definitely enjoyed it and do recommend it.

I started watching “The Secret of Kells” the day after my oral surgery, and had absolutely no patience for it that day; after five minutes of Celtic music and the whispering fairy voice and the animation, I gave up on it in disgust and annoyance and tried something else.  Happily, though, I gave the movie another shot on another day, and really really enjoyed it.  It’s smart, creative animation for grown-ups, well-drawn and conceived and totally engrossing.  Once again, I don’t want to say too much about the movie, since I enjoyed it all the more for knowing nothing about it prior to seeing it.

And, last but not least, “Megamind.”  I love Will Ferrell, which helped me to like this particular movie more than I might have otherwise.  It’s not fabulous, and I don’t like it nearly as well as the conquerable “Despicable Me,” but it was a good way to spend the morning on Friday; “Megamind” was the Family Movie Night choice for Friday night, and I was working the door and knew I’d miss seeing about two-thirds of the movie if I didn’t preview it ahead of movie night.  So it was worth seeing the whole movie, but I don’t think I’d go so far as recommending it.

And next blog post I’ll write about the books that I read…

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Ugh (a potentially boring post about a tooth)

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Here is the tale of my now-departed lower left wisdom tooth, a tale that will probably bore everyone but me, but it’s what I wanted to write about today:

On February 12, I finally figured out that the weird sensation I’d had in my mouth for several days was actually an infected wisdom tooth.  (I’d had a bad cold, and thought that the weird sensation was related to the cold.)  So I called my dentist, she put me on antibiotics and referred me to an oral surgeon for a consult, and within a few days I’d met the oral surgeon.  Nothing urgent, she said, but that wisdom tooth should be removed within the next six months, and I should expect to miss a week of work when it was removed.  Ok, I thought, I can handle this; I looked at the library calendar and talked to the library director, and decided that Friday, April 1, was the perfect day for me to have the surgery.  The current session of storytime for 2’s & 3’s would have just finished, the Lego Expo would be over, and it would be easy to cancel storytimes for two weeks at the beginning of April so that I could fully recuperate.

And then the left side of my face swelled up to freakish proportions, and the dentist had to put me on a much stronger antibiotic.  She also told me, “You know, this infection will never really go away until that tooth is removed.”  Change of plans, quick about face, and I took the first surgery appointment that they offered me, which was a week ago yesterday.  Lots of people offered me advice and stories about their own wisdom tooth removals, but I’ve learned that the only people who were really honest with me were my brother, who said something along the lines of, “Ugh, that was awful when I had my infected wisdom tooth out,” and Jim, who said, “You’re going to hate it.  I was swallowing blood for a week when I had mine out.  It was gross.” 

Everyone else sugarcoated it, and I think that they either have really, really poor memories, or they’ve been brainwashed, or they were lying.  Because this has been a miserable, rotten, yucky, awful week.  The anesthesia knocked me on my rear end Thursday night, and then I learned quite definitively that vicodin and I are not friends.  At all.  Admittedly, I did feel better Friday morning than I had in a while, and I cockily thought that I’d avoided all those nasty problems that come with wisdom tooth removal.  Not so much.

Because I woke up early early in the morning on Sunday with some of the worst pain of my life.  Oh, so bad, so bad.  And then the ibuprofen kicked in, and I thought everything was fine, other than the nasty taste in my mouth.  And then the pain crept in again, and receded again, and then hit with full brutal force again in the wee hours of early Tuesday morning.  I put up with it as long as I could, but finally called the oral surgeon’s office and persuaded the rather snotty young woman who answered the phone that I needed an appointment, today. 

Not surprisingly, the oral surgeon told me that I have the dreaded “dry socket” that she had warned me I was at higher risk for due to my age.  If you haven’t had dry socket, thank your lucky stars.  It’s pure, unadulterated pain, pain that saps the life out of you, leaving you just enough energy to watch a DVD or nap, nothing else.  If you look up “dry socket,” you’ll see all sorts of suggestions for how to avoid it, and I’d just like to make it very clear that I did all of those things – and still got dry socket.  What is dry socket, you ask?  Basically, your body is supposed to produce a nice blood clot to fill in the empty socket where your tooth once was, thus protecting the never-before-exposed bone and nerves.  In dry socket, the blood clot either doesn’t form, or dissipates too early, leaving the bone and nerves open to air and food and hot and cold.  And, as I’ve learned, you also get the nastiest imaginable taste in your mouth, partly from food catching in the socket, and partly from the putrefecation of the blood clot. 

So here it is on Friday, a week and a day since the surgery, and the pain is getting a bit better, a bit, and the taste in my mouth isn’t totally foul (but pretty close), and I’ve done absolutely nothing fun or productive with my time off from work, which feels like a dreadful waste of vacation time that could have been used for better purpose.  Two surgeries in seven months, and my last vacation well over a year ago – not the ideal.

But I do remind myself that I’m damned lucky to have dental insurance, which covered all but $206 of the procedure, and to live in a part of the world where quality dental care is readily available.  With an infection like I’d developed, if I’d lived in a part of the world where health care was hard to come by, I might well not have lived to tell my tale of woe.  And that’s just wrong; the technology is there to cure such things, and everyone deserves to benefit from it.

And now I think I’ll go take another dose of ibuprofen to curb the swell of pain that I feel coming on me.  Maybe I’ll have a mint, too.  Blech.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Snow, round two

It’s official: my back is killing me.  Poor Jim had to go to work today, but the library, like every single school and library in the state, is closed, so I’m home today.  Which means that I get to shovel.  Again. 

Here’s what the snow piles at the end of our driveway look like – one view from inside the front window of our house, and several outdoor views, including a view of the load of heavy road snow that the plow keeps depositing at the base of the telephone pole that’s at the end of our driveway.  The snow piles in our yard are at least ten feet high, which is why shovelling is such a painful chore right now.  (Click on images to enlarge.)

But still, I’d rather be doing this shovelling today than driving in this muck like poor Jim has to do.  And I hear the freezing rain hitting the windows now, so it’s obviously time to go clear the snow before it gets ridiculously heavy.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

Ugh

It’s snowing.  Again.  The roads are terrible.  Again.  And it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.  Again.  By the time tomorrow evening arrives, we might have twenty new inches of snow on top of our already existing three or so feet of snow. 

So, the library closed early today; I had a yucky but ultimately ok ride home; and now that I’ve had a nice carb-laden pancake lunch, it’s time to go outside and shovel – again.  Hopefully I’ll be able to at least get the heavy deep stuff at the end of the driveway shovelled before Jim gets home…though I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to put the snow, since our snowbanks are about two feet higher than my head.  This is getting tiresome, very, very tiresome.  Ugh indeed.

Etc., Spare time - Culture

I’m on Etsy!

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Yes, I have finally bowed to pressure, and I have opened up my own storefront on Etsy.  At the moment I have eight whole items available for sale!  Wow!

Follow the link above, or the exact same link here, to check out my store.  It’s a little amateur looking compared to some of the stores on Etsy, which look totally professional, but after several hours of setting policies and uploading photos and such, I am DONE.  And in case anyone is wondering, I had wanted to name my store “Abby’s Jewelry,” but that name was already taken, so I thought fast and found that “Ophelia’s Jewelry” was still available.  Ophy is very happy to have a store named after her.  Pippa is just as glad that I didn’t choose her name for a jewelry store, since Pippa is a bit of a tom-boy.

Let me know what you think of my new store!

Children's literature, Spare time - Culture

Books I’m Reading…

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These are the books on my to-be-read pile:

Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of a Horse and a Man Who Changed the World by Mim Eichler Rivas ~ Wonder Horse by Emily Arnold McCully just came in to the library, and I got totally intrigued by this story of a black man in the late 1800’s who trained his horse – Jim Key – to do all sorts of things like read, do math, make change, etc.  Wonder Horse is a great book, but it’s a picture book, and I wanted to know more, so I tracked down this adult nonfiction book which the library happily owns.  I’ve read a few pages, and pored over the photographs, and can’t wait to find a little more time to read more.

The Capture by Kathryn Lasky ~ I need to read this one, the first in the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, before Tuesday’s Teen Book Group.  Guess I better get on that, huh?  (Can you tell I’m not too enthusiastic?)

Origami Art: 15 Exquisite Folded Paper Designs from the Origamido Studio by Michael LaFosse ~ Michael came to the library and did a fabulous program in October of 2008, just before he and Richard Alexander moved the Origamido Studio from Hopkinton, MA to Hawaii.  I’ve periodically borrowed his 2003 children’s book on origami from the library (and just bought myself a copy, finally), and thought it would be fun to get one of his sophisticated, adult-oriented books on origami.  Who knows if I’ll be able to do any of the projects, but it’s fun to imagine that I can…

And those are my top three books-to-read at the moment.  I’d love to hear what you’re reading at the start of this new year…

Children's literature, Spare time - Culture

David Macaulay

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Last night I dragged Jim to an author event, part of the annual Concord Festival of Authors.  Though I lived in Concord for years and years, I think that this is the first time I’ve attended an event connected with the festival.  (Funny how we take things for granted when those things are easily available, and only fully appreciate those things when they’re a little harder to access.)

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, the author that we heard speak last night was one of my favorites, David Macaulay.  When I was in graduate school at Simmons a decade ago, the departmental head of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature organized a field trip for a group of us to go down to Rhode Island and visit David Macaulay in his studio.  It was truly one of the highlights of my graduate school career (which is saying something – I loved every minute of grad school), and I have vivid memories of standing in his sunny studio as he pulled out one original drawing after another for us to look at.  It was remarkable to me that he was so willing to yank these drawings out for us to see, and I remember one of my classmates saying something to that end.  To which he replied that the real art, in his opinion, was the finished book, not the drawings made for the finished book.  I love that idea, and I also loved being in the presence of someone so enthusiastic and creative and welcoming.

My one very minor regret about that day ten or so years ago is that I didn’t think to bring my copy of Black and White for him to sign.  Sure, it would have been a little gauche to have brought a book to be signed, but it’s also a cool souvenir and reminder of an exceptional day.  Not that I lost any sleep over not having the book signed, but it would have been nice.

When I saw that Macaulay would be coming to the Concord Free Public Library to give a talk, I almost didn’t bother to sign up, given that life sometimes feels too busy to indulge in things like author talks, but finally I did pre-register, reserving the last two available seats.  And so we went last night, and got to hear David Macualay talk about most (if not all) of his published books in a quick, witty, and engaging talk with accompanying slide show.  I love that he exudes intelligence and creativity, and that’s he’s just a bit kooky, with a dry sense of humor – so dry sometimes that you have to pay excellent attention to everything that he says.  He started by showing us before and after slides from the books that he has recently reworked for publication in the new volume, Built to Last.  I really enjoyed seeing the change from black and white illustrations to color illustrations for Castle and Cathedral (though the woman in line behind me for the book signing didn’t like the change, and Jim isn’t a fan, either), and it was neat to hear his thinking about change of perspective and focus in the new drawings.  At the end of the talk, he gave excellent answers to some rather weak questions – as Jim pointed out, that’s a sign of a good speaker, someone who can take a lousy question and find the nubbin of interesting stuff in there and use that nubbin to formulate an answer. 

And, of course, I did have him sign my two books – Black and White and Building the Book Cathedral.  I told him my story of having visited his studio all those years ago, to which he gave me a tired smile and drew a picture of the robber on the endpaper of Black and White.  As is usually the case when I meet an author, the best part of the evening was hearing him speak; the book signing felt, as book signings often do to me, a little intrusive.  Intrusive meaning, of course, that those of us who wait in line with our books are almost a bit whoreish in our desire to meet the author and have the author sign the book that is going to live in our house.  I do love my signed books, but I’m starting to feel that maybe my signed book collection has reached its maximum level.

It was a fun night though, and I’m really grateful that Jim was willing to be my date for it.  It’s good to get out of our regular life pattern and hear someone speak who lives his life in a creative and intelligent way – very inspiring!

Cats Dogs Plants Animals, Spare time - Culture

My new word

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Jim and I played Scrabble tonight – and I had a lousy combo of letters.  Towards the end of the game, I was getting frustrated, and decided to see if I could get away with adding an “t” to an existing word, to create this word (and yes, I presented the definition with the word):

Mewt adj (myut): a cat that cannot meow

Strangely enough, Jim wouldn’t accept the word.  But he did laugh.  The cats, however, were not amused.

Children's book reviews, Spare time - Culture

Currently reading…

Just a quick post tonight, of the books that I’m currently reading:

The Cats of Sanctuary House by Sister Mary Winifred ~ A sweet book (bought at the bargain price of $3.99 at the Concord Bookshop), with snippets about some of the many cats that the Sister has adopted over the years. 

Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha C. Nussbaum ~ Very interesting – well worth reading if you’re worried, like I am, about the direction our educational system is taking.

Halt’s Peril by John Flanagan ~ Yup, I’m addicted to the Ranger’s Apprentice series…this is book 9 in the series, which is the furthest I’ve ever read into a series…

Tiling: Expert Advice to Get the Job Done Right by Sunset Books ~ Ever hopeful, we are.  So the bathroom floor didn’t get started, let alone finished, this August like we had planned.  There’s always this winter, right?

And I really should also review Five Children and It by E. Nesbit before tomorrow’s 5th grade book group…off I go!

Pop culture, Spare time - Culture

Really bad T.V…

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Jim had a gig last night, so I spent most of the evening writing thirty donation request letters for raffle items for the summer reading program – a seemingly easy task, but always remarkably time-consuming. Last night it took four and a half hours, which includes the writing of the letters, printing of the envelopes, and, most importantly, fact-checking on the web, since donation request contact people often change from one year to the next, and larger organizations like the local minor league baseball teams often change donation request procedures from one year to the next.

At any rate, by the time I finished at 8:15 I was ready to do something totally mindless. So I cracked open a growler of Lost Sailor* and turned on the T.V. And watched “The Bachelorette,” a show I’d normally avoid at all costs. Last week when I was home sick and too dizzy to read, I did watch some bad television, but “The Bachelorette” definitely trumps that episode of “Divorce Court” that I saw on Thursday.

So here’s my beef with “The Bachelorette”: the whole premise of the show is what’s wrong with love and marriage in this country in general.  Ali, the bachelorette, had a great home-based date with a nice guy last night, where they cooked dinner together, hung out and relaxed together, and seemed to have a nice happy time together.  But Ali sent this guy home because she wanted “romance” and a “connection,” and if a guy wasn’t going to be “romantic” in this reality T.V. setting, then there was no chance of “romance” in real life. I’d love to take Ali aside and tell her that diamonds and roses aren’t romantic. Romantic is coming home after a long day of work, feeling kinda sick and crummy, and having your sweet husband smile at you and say, “You look awful. Sit down, take a load off, and let me cook dinner for you.” Seriously. Romance is those little, daily thoughtful things that show how much you care about someone. Sure, a big date night here and there is good, and remembering birthdays (hint hint) is also good, but it’s the day to day compassion and love that really count.

But I didn’t see any evidence of that type of romance and caring on last night’s show. There was a lot of testosterone fueled posturing as the guys talked about “being there for Ali,” a girl they hardly know, and there were a lot of fake smiles and strained facial expressions and a whole lot of wine consumption. It was pretty depressing. Luckily, Jim came home before the end of the show and we muted the volume and made fun of the whole silliness. While consuming popcorn and Lost Sailor, of course.

* Please note that I did NOT single-handedly consume said growler. That would just be gross.