Merry Christmas!

Hope you're having a lovely day, wherever you are.  We're here:

Edmonds, Washington (waiting for the ferry to Kingston).

Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings, etc.

Cheers!

Best Books of 2013*

* meaning, best books that I actually read in 2013.

Funny, funny, I am writing this post while I am *supposed* to be grading final papers.  Yup.  Which is *exactly* the situation that led to my previous best books post (of 2011) right here.

I just finished -- just this morning in fact, while I should have been grading -- Joyce Carol Oates' The Accursed.



Loved it!  It's a big huge old-fashioned Gothic novel/vampire story, set in Princeton with this terrific "historian" narrator who is an interesting figure in his own right and is assembling a history of a purported real Curse in Princeton surrounding its most prominent families.  Characters include Jack London, Woodrow Wilson, and Upton Sinclair.  Note to my close personal friend, JCO (see here for proof): cut the Upton Sinclair parts.  They are definitely the weak link.  But otherwise, seriously, terrific.  Unexpected stuff cropping up, all kinds of curious historical-ish footnotes, and fun with naughty vamps.

Next up, following up on the gothic and ghostly, Vera Brosgol: Anya's Ghost

I stumbled onto this book while Jake and I were shopping at Million Year Picnic, the best comics store in Cambridge.   It grabbed my attention, reminding me of David B's work (see the terrific Epileptic, which I have taught before) and also Marjane Satrapi (see Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, which was a Common Text for all our First Year students a few years back).  Anya's story surprised me, with a ghost that at first appears knowable and benign, but turns out to be more menacing.  It's a story about a teenage daughter of Russian immigrants, and is filled with all those 1.5-gen immigrant issues.  The book came out through First Second Press (I see now, upon checking, back in 2011), one of my favorite publishers of beautiful graphic work.  Lovely and charming in images and story.  And also creepy.

Continuing with the theme of the creepy and the curious, I give you Michelle Tea: Mermaid in Chelsea Creek


I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up this one.  It actually showed up at the house due to our subscription to McMullens, which is McSweeney's publication line for children's books.  This was the first of their Young Adult offerings, and it's terrific.  There are serious curiosities, a couple of girls trying to figure out the world, and pigeons.  Someone compared the strange world of Chelsea (an actual town here in Massachusetts) to Narnia, and I thought that was apt; I felt the same kind of curiosity and fascination with Tea's Chelsea as I remember having with Lewis's Narnia when I was a kid. I don't want to spoil one moment of the delightful surprises here, so I won't say more, except for this: expect the unexpected.  Also, this is book one of a trilogy.  I had *no idea* that was the case when I started this, and I was somewhat furious when I realized, about 10 pages from the end "whaaa?  There is no way she's gonna resolve all this....ah! she's NOT going to resolve all this!"  I hate when this happens.  So if you start this, know that it's a trilogy and that the next installment won't be out until sometime in 2014.  I cannot wait.

And speaking of trilogies that have left me hanging for the next installment, I enjoyed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.



I picked this up on my visit to Powells in Portland last summer, as it was on someone's favorites list. One look at that creepy cover and it ought to be obvious to you why I went for it.  But it's more than the cover -- the whole book is filled with weird old black and white photos, some found, some created, that illustrate and sometimes move the story along.  It's another fantasy world here, this one with a troupe of curious oddball children and more than a few superpowers involved.  I liked it a lot, but once again, fell into the trap of book-that's-first-in-a-trilogy-but-I-didn't-know-when-I-started-it.  So again, we wait, this time til January 2014 to find out more.

 Speaking of creepy schools, and revisiting the year in comics reading, my new favorite is Morning Glories (Nick Spenser and Joe Eisma):
 
It's set in a high school for precocious young high-schoolers, but it's not at all what it seems.  If you watched the first season of Heroes (I know, seems like forever ago, but it was only 2006) and liked following Claire's exploits as she discovered that she wasn't just your normal high school cheerleader, you might like this, too.  The first book knocked my socks off.  And then it all just kept getting more complicated.  I have to say, I am not entirely convinced that they're going to be able to resolve all the stuff they've put in motion, but I'm very intrigued to see what happens next.  I just finished Volume 5 (I think 6 will be out soon).  Jake found this for me -- maybe even for Christmas last year? -- at the Harvard Book store, I believe, where it was a staff pick.  Good stuff if you're into off-kilter superhero/high school characters in comic books.

Finally (for tonight at least), I would be remiss if I didn't mention Davy Rothbarth's My Heart is an Idiot:

 
 We've been big fans of Davy since we saw/heard him at a This American Life event way back in 2003-ish (I think that's when).  We love his magazine, Found, which you will find in our bathroom (or maybe we gave you a copy of it?).  Davy's hilarious and writes terrific essays about the truly bizarre ways he's gotten himself into and out of trouble.  This is a collection of his essays.  I can't recommend all of them, but there are some great standouts, and if you like the personal essay form, and like to hear a voice telling you outright crazy thing that really happened, Davy's the way to go.  My favorite is his essay about his Mom, who is deaf, and how he and his brother dealt with that when they were kids.  And hilarity ensues.  Actually, if you just want to read that chapter, you can read it here.  Warning: you will laugh and cry.

But finally, my absolute favorite of the year:  Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove.

You may recall I previously reviewed Russell's St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, which I absolutely loved.  Vampires is even better.  The title story is great and has a fabulous twist on vampire lore (which I will not reveal, but know that I love it).  But for me, the real standout -- in fact, as far as I'm concerned, a contender for my favorite short story *EVER* -- is "Reeling for the Empire," in which girls are taken from their homes to work in silk mills, and where, in fact, they become silk worms.  I know Alice Munro is all the talk of the short-story lovers, and I will give her her due, but Karen Russell? She is the next great awesome tremendous short story writer.  She's a genius (and I'm not the only one saying that -- she just got a MacArthur "genius grant."  READ THIS BOOK.

Oh wait, bonus round (because I clearly *really* don't want to grade): I have to give a shout-out to my roots: Gothic novels of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries.  C'mon, they're good for you.  And so trashy! This summer, I read Eliza Fenwick's Secresy, or, the Ruin on the Rock, published in 1795, and it was great.  Austen-crazed friends, why not expand your eighteenth-century novel canon and check this one out?  Buy it directly from Broadview Press, the terrific academic publisher that put it out (now in its second edition) because Amazon has been total jerks to them (and other small publishers).  It's wonderful and naughty and features letters to and from various characters and they get up to all sorts of surprising (sometimes naughty) things.  Good stuff.

There you go.  Happy reading.  I now have to go do some unhappy reading in the form of student papers.  Blurgh.

November News Round-Up

I'm just trying to get a November post up before it's December.  Yikes!  Type fast!

LEAVES! LEAVES! LEAVES!
Raking leaves around here is an endless, thankless project.  Thanks to my Mom for doing a ton of it already in the past few days.  I thought it would be worthwhile (and depressing) to keep a tally this year.
Leaf-raking 2013:
11/8: 4 bags
11/18: 13 bags
11/20: 21 bags!
Total (and still, there are leaves everywhere!): 38

Yikes.  And special thanks to Mom, who did most of that raking.

Lucy's Birthday!
She's 6! That's just crazy!  See the Flickr photos for details. For her Birthday, she asked for the following:
+ a broken cell phone
+ something with super-heroes
+ some candy
kid needs to work on aiming a little higher. 

Hockey (aka Skating Lessons)
Lucy has been taking lessons every Saturday for a while now over at the local ice rink.  She wears full hockey gear for this, though she's really just there to learn how to skate.  The larger program's goal, of course, is to teach the kids to skate so they can play hockey (why else, one might ask, would one want to learn?).  She's really enjoying it and getting better every week. Here she is:

I know, it's pretty awesome.  Just ignore the "Redmen" on her jersey.  We try to.  She loves skating, especially when they play "coach tag."

Cinematic Titanic!
Jake and I went to see one of the last performances of Cinematic Titanic, celebrating (well, skewering) bad movies.  The particular bad movie was really horrifyingly spectacularly bad: 1973's The Doll Squad, about an all-female spy team. If you don't know what Cinematic Titanic is, it's the live version descendent of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  If you don't know what Mystery Science Theater 3000 is, then you are likely not the same age as we are, or we likely didn't know you in the period 1992 - 1996.  You could read this recent article from the Globe that covered the show.  It was a nice reunion with friends and culture past.  Also, we had a babysitter.
 

Opera!
Jake and Elizabeth and I went to the Opera!  Not just any opera, the Lizzie Borden Opera.  It was a commission by the Boston Lyric Opera about one of my favorite historical figures.  A long time ago, Elizabeth and I spent a night in the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, which is in the actual house where the whole axe thing happened.  None of us had ever been to an opera, but I thought it would be something different, and the whole Lizzie thing had me (plus, mom was in town, so hey, free babysitting and there were no movies we wanted to see!).  Just the week before, Jake and I had gone to see Lysistrata performed by my students, so we were up for some challenging theater.  It was a pretty cool night, though I can't say I'm signing up for more opera.  There was a children's chorus that was wonderfully creepy, providing the opening and the closing -- particularly the closing of children singing "Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her father forty whacks...." and so on.  That part was perfect.  My friend who does scenic design warned me that opera involved a lot of what she calls "park and bark," where a singer moves to a space, then sings her thing, and then moves to the next spot, and then the next singer does the same.  While the staging was really sparse and interesting -- a big, wide, slightly askew linoleum-covered floor, and just a dining room table with four chairs -- I will say that the movement on the stage seemed very odd and I wasn't quite sure what was going on at times.  There were screens showing the words that the characters were singing, which helped a lot, even though it was sung in English.   Lizzie walked onto the stage in the opening with an axe in her hand, and chucked it into the dining room table.  It stayed there throughout the performance, with characters walking around it all along.  Then she busts it out again at the end. Overall, an interesting night, and I'm glad we went. 

First Field Trip (foiled)
Lucy's first ever real school field trip was scheduled for the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  She was really excited, because she was going to get to ride a school bus to it (she has never ridden on a school bus, being a walker, like both her parents before her were).  Both the school bus and the whole field trip concept, as well as the actual destination -- a performance of the Eric Carle Brown Bear, Brown Bear story -- were much anticipated.

Then, on Monday afternoon, the dreaded phone call from the school nurse came: Lucy has a fever and is complaining about her sore throat.  There's some strep going around -- you might want to get her checked out.  Oh no.

Thankfully, our Pedi has evening hours during winter, so we got her in.  The nurses were skeptical (she's at 99 degrees -- not even a fever! -- for how long?).  But they took her culture, and sent us back to the little room, and lo an behold, a few minutes later, they came in, looking surprised: she's positive!  Yargh.  The doctor came in a bit after that asking "what seems to be the trouble?" and when I informed him that she was positive for strep, he seemed *really* disappointed that I knew: "oh, she told you?"  I mean, what, he was going to have me guess?  Anyway, Lucy took the news fine, and heard the doctor say "no school tomorrow," and didn't seem concerned.  She was cool with it when we got home, when we took the meds, when she went to bed.  I was afraid to bring it up.

About an hour after I had put her down, she started crying "mommy!  Mommy!" and I ran up to see her assuming she felt worse.  What's wrong?  "I just remembered I'm going to miss my field trip!"  Oh dear.  Not good.  So we have promised her another trip (with us) to see another play.  So if you hear of any good children's theater, let me know.

I should note that I have vivid memories of missing *my* first field trip, which was supposed to be to the veterinarian, but I couldn't go because I was sick.  I was devastated.  And I never became a vet.

Also, Lucy then missed the *next* day too because her cough was bad.  On schedule for that day: an assembly.  She was really bummed.  Kid's got some school fun days to be made up to her.

Visitors & Thanksgiving!
We have a houseful for Thanksgiving, with my Mom, Brendan, Jennifer, Luke, and James here (hooray!) for a few days, plus a big Thanksgiving dinner (which we celebrated on Friday).

Here's to celebrating Pie-versity:

That's (clockwise from top): Pumpkin, Pecan, Lemon Merigue, Apple, and  Coconut cream (not pictured).

We had a great houseful of kids:

That's: James, Luke, Lucy, Ruth, Woodrow,  Henry, Audrey (not pictured).

Good times!

There's lots more to report, but for now, there you go.  November 2014: a pretty busy & very fun time.

Another fabulous Fall weekend

Well, it's happened again, readers.  We've had another awesome New England/Lowell fall weekend.

On Friday after school, Lucy went to a ukelele lesson with a new teacher.  It went very well and we're all quite pleased.  hooray!

We went to Our City Saturday at the Lowell National Historic Park, which this week was featuring a Halloween-themed craft.  Lucy made a really awesome mask, which she's wearing here:

We got to see our very favorite rangers, too.  Don't they look excited there?

Then, we got dressed up to Trick-or-Treat through downtown.  Here goes our little ghost:

After visiting local downtown businesses and filling a bag o' candy (for the second time this week!), we went to the Scarecrow Festival at the gardens of Mill City Grows, some of our favorite urban farmers.

Check out some of the awesome scarecrows featured there:

 Lucy made that little cardboard-and-stick one herself before we went, because she didn't want to show up at a Scarecrow Festival without her own scarecrow.  That would just be embarrassing.

By the way, those two scarecrows are by two of our artist friends, Steve & Ellen Anstey!

Then, Jake took Lucy for her first ice skating lesson!  It was terrifying.  And tremendous!  We'll try to get a link to the video up here soon, but try to imagine, say, 60 small children in hockey helmets, wearing skates and attempting to skate (though they do not yet know how to).  And just let that play in your mind for 40 minutes on repeat.  But she loved it, and she's going back.  Hooray!

Today, Jake raced in his first Cyclocross of the season: Orchard Cross at Applecrest Farm.  It was awesome. Here are some action shots of Jake:

That's him on the far left, number 182.  I know, impressive! Here he is in the great dust bowl:

And one more, jumping back on:

Then we got to check out the apples.  As you can see below, Jake got a bit excited about all the apples and jumped right in:

(no apples or Jakes were harmed in the making of the photo above).

It was a lovely weekend.

Only a few more days of October left.  We're gonna make 'em count.  Apparently there is some large and important sporting event going on involving "our" team, but, despite what you may think based on Jake's Beard, we are not exactly raging fans.  In fact, we went out to a lovely & quiet dinner & a movie during what apparently is now the most famous game of the World Series ever.  Or something like that. Going to movies and non-sports-themed restaurants during such a time is really quite pleasant -- no one else is around!  Instead of worrying about the Sox and their errors and chances and such, we've been spending our free time listening to two recent discoveries:

Welcome to Night Vale: This is an awesome podcast that apparently became very popular a while back, so we're late to the fun, but nonetheless, we're giving it our ringing endorsement.  I listened non-stop to the first eleven episodes on my drive to New York on Friday (more on that later) and now am waiting for Jake to catch up.  It's a great show, with a sort of set-up as a community radio station program broadcasting to the otherworldly desert community of Night Vale.  You should listen.

Our other, quite new, quite local pleasure is The Hadron Gospel Hour, a brand-new series from our friend Rich & company.  They're live-streaming on Sunday nights (right now) and then putting them up afterwards as podcasts.  You can check out the previous one at their site.  So much fun!

Cheers!

Our Little New England Kid

There's an interesting book that I want to read called Far from the Tree that looks at parents how are raising children who are very different from themselves.  In many ways, Lucy is a mini-me, or perhaps a mini-half-and-half of Jake and me.  I identify (sometimes with much worry) with certain traits and preferences she has, some of which make me crazy.  Oops.  But then there are moments when we realize (and I suppose every parent realizes) that she is her own person. 

Lucy is a New England girl.  A Lowell girl. After all, she was born in a hospital with a Dunkin' Donuts in it.  Seriously.  Today, she came home from school and said "The Red Sox won last night! Can I watch the Red Sox tonight?" and we realized that we might need to start paying more attention to some of these kinds of things.  Or not -- maybe she'll keep us up to speed.  We then took her to "Safe Trick or Treat," which means trick-or-treating in the dorms on campus.  We've done this for a few years, and Lucy loves it, but for me, I feel like it might be called "Unsafe trick or treat" because there is a high likelihood that I am going to have multiple awkward interactions with current and former students.  It's not really a bad thing, but it does feel weird to be in their space (and see their dorm rooms and their costumes).  But Lucy loves it.  And there's the candy.

Post-trick-or-treat, we did another very New England thing: we took Lucy to get her ice hockey gear.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Lucy's going to start a learn-to-ice-skate program.  The way to do this is to sign up through the local hockey league.  So for the next 20 Saturdays or so, Lucy's going to be on the ice, in full gear.  She has a helmet, knee/shin/elbow/neck pads, gloves, and of course, skates.  We are *very* excited.  Go Lucy Go!  Get your New England on!

Lucky Day!

So today was another "there's so much to like about Lowell!"-kinda day.

We started off with fun at the city's Kids Bike Rodeo.  There was an obstacle course and a safety check.  Also all kinds of free stuff and fun.  Lucy had a great time (and we ate free pizza).  She also picked up some candy, stickers, and other assorted stuff that various groups were giving away.  She loves free stuff.

Then we came home and picked up Carter for HIS adventure at the Dog-a-Palooza event.  Again, awesomeness.  Carter made lots of friends and we met a ton of awesome dogs.

That big guy there is Bosco, and he's currently available for adoption at the Lowell Humane Society.  He is SUCH a sweet dog!

Carter also got lots of free sample of various kinds of dog treats.  Free stuff!

And then, we we came home there was a message waiting for us, to let us know that
LUCY HAD WON A NEW BIKE!

There were about 60 bikes there, donated by various groups.  Lucy's came from Lowell's DPW Street Department.

Wow!  Thanks City of Lowell, for putting on such an awesome event.  And thanks to all the great groups and volunteers who put together the Bike Rodeo and the Dog-a-Palooza.

So long, summer

We just spent a great night at the Lowell Spinners:

Our Spinners lost, but we had a lovely time.  We were *supposed* to have gone to the Kerouac Bobble Head night a while back, but that game got rained out.  So we snatched up raincheck tickets to this one.  It was a really nice, breezy evening, with an earlier start time (6:05) than most evening games (7:05).  Perfect for us.  Lucy started out super-fan full on:

But was pretty tired by the end:

AND we still had to cycle home after all this!  Yes, we rode the tandem-with-tagalong.  It was awesome.

Earlier this weekend, we had some fun in Salem, visiting A&J King Bakery and Peabody Essex Museum.

We also walked around Salem a bit and Lucy enjoyed this fountain:

It's across from East India Marine Hall, and it's pretty neat.  The top layer of cobblestones (where Lucy's walking) are a rough representation of the coastline of Salem in pre-Colonial times, and the lower level (beneath the water) shows the current coastline.  You can see the how the land has changed over time, mostly due to filling projects over many, many years.

Here's Lucy, leaping:

Here's to a great September!

The times they are a changin'

Today is Lucy's last day at Lowell Day Nursery.

She had a slight meltdown this morning before we took her there.  I may have a slight meltdown myself.  It's very strange to be leaving this place we've been going three days a week for more than three years.  Lucy started at Lowell Day Nursery in the summer of 2010, as documented here. 

I can't believe how the time has flown by.  As I drove her there this morning, I realized that the route I take to drive to work is entirely based around being able to drop her off and pick her up.  Also, the school's proximity to the Lowell Beer Works meant that I scheduled a lot of late afternoon "meetings" with colleagues there, because I could usually hang out and have a drink, then go get Lucy and bring her back to join us (as I did yesterday, much to Lucy's delight; she loves their fries & lemonade).

Jake's off picking her up now. She asked if we could have a special dinner with a special dessert -- specifically chocolate pudding.  We will comply with these requests, of course.

More updates later, assuming I don't meltdown in a soggy pile of nostalgia and start singing "Sunrise, Sunset."

FYI, we honored her request:

Also, bonus image:  Here is a picture she brought home from school that had been on the bulletin board.  She announced to us, delightedly: "It's a bunny, faaahting!"

Summer's End is Near

Today we went to Lucy's Kindergarten Orientation.  We're very excited about her lovely new school, and so is she.

We, of course, traversed to school via bike.  We were on the tandem w/ tagalong, and Mary took her kids in the box bike.  We were the awesome bike parade.  When we got back to our place, Jake and Lucy wanted to see if the new mod to the cargo bike meant that all three kids could ride on it.  The answer:

Yes! So they took it for a spin:

Then the kids played for a bit and celebrated the last rush of summer with some popsicles:

So all is well, if crazy, here at the end of August-almost-beginning-of-September-where-did-the-summer-go???

Also, here she is with her new UKELELE!

She's so excited!

As always, I hope to write more again soon.