The Conversation in Books
My book shelves are filled with books I have yet to read and my Amazon wish list and Goodreads “to be read” list both sport a huge number of books. Not infrequently, however, someone I love speaks of a book they are reading. Their tone of voice and facial expression tell of their delight with the book and reveal how it has touched them in some way. Immediately, my curiosity is aroused, and so I set aside the long list of books calling to me to see what has called them.
When August was reading Redwall, his enthusiasm piqued my interest, so I read the first book in the series. When Taylor was reading Harriet the Spy, I wanted to re-read it, and after Anna Mae read Pegeen, the second in a series by Hilda Van Stockum, I borrowed it. I read The Body Ecology Diet after Jennie Lou found it, and I read the Faith Club based on Ashley’s comments. When Ginger described the wonders of Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom, I bought and read it. Every time I talk to Andrea, I leave eager to read the books currently on her bed-side stand, and Culley’s pleasure with the audio production of The Subtle Knife had me running home to download it.
I know that books serve as a conversation; I learned this back when I was in school. Writers of any merit are conversing both with earlier writers as well as with their audience of readers. Anyone who has been in a book club or shared a book with another person recognizes the way in which books evoke conversations among readers. For me, the conversation moves beyond this, however, for I’ve found that reading books that appeal to people I love also serves as a window in their hearts and minds because it seems clear that the book’s appeal is likely a reflection of their thinking and values.
That’s why when Raleigh spoke about enjoying The Shack, I immediately bought and read it. I knew the book was Christian fiction and that the spiritual ideology was likely to differ from my own, but I wasn’t reading it to find support for my own practice. I was more interested in the tale that evoked my son’s satisfaction with this book. I wanted to know him through a story he loved.
I wasn’t disappointed. I found a window into the nature of his faith and the manner in which love and forgiveness serve as his underpinnings. Though Raleigh and I have not spoken directly about this book, I feel like we’ve had a conversation because we’ve read the same words on the page and we’ve each responded these words. As I read The Shack, I was able to consider where our thinking was likely to have connected and where it might have diverged in response to William Paul Young’s story, just as I wondered about Jennie Lou’s and Taylor’s thoughts when I read The Body Ecology Diet and Harriet the Spy.
The conversation offered by books is far reaching, rich, and deeply satisfying. It’s always worth it to put aside a book on my list to pick up one enjoyed by my dear ones.
For the past several years, Cindy and I have headed out before dawn on the day after Thanksgiving to hit the big sales. This is the first year that I’ve heard them called “Black Friday,” but apparently that name has long been in use and refers to the fact that this is the day that retail businesses finally get their accounts in the black after running in the red for the entire year. Christmas sales make or break such businesses, and we jumped into the midst of the bedlam that helps make their day!!
Getting up early is not the hard part. I wake up easily and surprisingly so does Cindy though she is not exactly functioning in top order at that time of the day, being the night owl that she is. BUT she’ll do almost anything to get a deal, and the deals at these sales are phenomenal! We donned hats to cover our sleep bent hair and vests to be warm but not too hot in the stores and jumped into her truck to go. I drove because her night vision is poor and the sun had yet to rise. She nudged me along to faster speeds: “Snails don’t make good door busters,” she cajoled as I poked along at 35 miles an hour. So I stepped on the gas, and we screamed into the parking lot at the Junction just as they were opening the doors to Gottschalks at 5am and BUST the door with 100 or so other folks.
We have learned to avoid Wal Mart where at least 1000 people are shoving through the doors (and if you read the news where a man was sadly trampled to death in NYC this year as the doors opened). No, I can’t handle that scene at all. The closest we’ve come was the year we pushed through with a huge crowd at Staples because we were after electronic equipment for Cindy’s mom. This year was very mellow, however, by comparison, though there was a rush of adrenaline as we skipped through the aisles in different directions to get the super deals we’d circled in the sale paper.
The thing I like about this kind of shopping is that it’s purposeful. On Wednesday night, we carefully circled the things we wanted to buy and planned the order in which we would go to the stores related to our highest priority and the best deals. In each store, we went different ways to grab the things we’d circled, and we met back at the check-out stand. I’m good at this kind of shopping because there is NO perusing all the possibilities, which drives me simply nuts. The purpose is just to get in and get out!!!
This year we made out like bandits! We got every deal we were after and were on our way home before 7:00 am. When we got home, we did online Black Friday shopping which happens from 2am to 11am across the country. We shopped from our respective computers, eating cinnamon toast and drinking tea as we called back and forth to each other to ask questions and confirm choices.
By 8:20, we fell back into bed to sleep for a couple of hours, having happily completed a major chunk of our Christmas shopping.
The lovely Andrea attracted the most amazing array of people to a Thanksgiving table that dissected her living room. A burgundy stripped cloth and red napkins invited guests to gather at length for the feast.
In addition to Culley, Huck and Nell, the extended family who counted among the guests included Cindy and I, Uncle John and Lee, Uncle Andy and Aunt Connie. Andrea’s friend Russell, who was her roommate when she and Culley connected, was there with his family, Michelle, Griffin, and Holly. Also from the Portland set but now living in Madison WI came Meg with her daughter Niamh (pronounced Neve). Meg’s sister is currently living in Berkeley, and she came up from the Bay Area with three friends from France: Marie, Mathew, and Paul (I think that was his name). Another of Andrea’s friends, William, came from Sacramento with a cousin and her boyfriend from North Carolina as well as a Nepalese woman (whose name I can’t spell or pronounce).
This cosmopolitan mix joined in preparing a delicious variety of food, including the traditional turkey and stuffing (from Erin’s & Meg’s mother’s recipe). There was also a roasted ham, roasted purple potatoes and carrots, mashed potatoes and gravy, mashed sweet potatoes, and a salad with raddichio, greens, sliced apple, celery, pistachios and a cheese that I can’t remember. Added to this was our saurekraut and jello salad and dinner rolls. There were bottles of wine from Italy, France, and California along with pitchers of delicious well water with floating lemons.
Then came dessert: homemade apple and pumpkin pie (prepared exquisitely by Michelle), almond torte (by Connie), choclate mousse, brownies (by Cindy), vanilla ice cream and whipped cream accompanied by rich dark coffee and piping hot tea.
In true Andrea tradition, the meal was savored as folks sat at the table eating slowly and talking, talking, talking. Two hours at the table with marvelous food and this diverse, congenial company made for a memorable Thanksgiving feast.
On Thanksgiving morning, I joined the ten Tippetts for a bike ride on the old railroad grade in Tuolumne City. It was a spectacular day with billowing clouds topping off a blue sky above the river canyon. We weren’t the only ones who thought a jaunt on this trail would be fun; there wasn’t a vacant place in the parking area at the trail head.
The bike riders took off with unbelievable energy while Jennie Lou walked, carrying Clare in a backpack, and I pushed Mary Autumn in the stroller. The kids riding ahead of us took every opportunity for a quick jaunt off trail or a jump over a berm. There were stops for tree climbing and rock climbing and Toyon berry fights. Mike and I did some plant identification, and JL and I chatted up a storm as we walked.
Here are two pictures: The first is when the advance party stopped and waited for us stragglers and the second is when bikes were abandoned for tree climbing. In a few days, I’ll post a Piccassa slide show with pictures from the entire weekend, including more from the bi
ke ride.
Thanksgiving is a feast day, so it involves LOTS of cooking. Around the country, kitchens are alive with mixing bowls, rolling pins, and chopping boards, and the heat from many stoves is surely competing with furnaces and wood heaters. At my son’s house, they’ve been working on pie making for two days.
At our house, we started cooking last night after what was a short but rather intense week of work for both of us. We only had to make 4 dishes to take to dinner at Culley’s, but it was enough to use almost every piece of cooking paraphernalia we own and conclude with a mountain of dishes in the sink.
Before I describe our creations, let me preface by saying that Cindy and I fall somewhere near the lower 10th percentile in the bell curve of cooking expertise. We each have our specialties, but beyond one or two dishes, we are not particularly skillful OR creative in the kitchen. That said, I have to say I think we did a swell job of cooking last night.
We each prepared a traditional dish from our childhood Thanksgivings. For me, that is the version of sauerkraut that my Polish grandma made and for Cindy it is a fruity Jello-Cool Whip concoction. These dishes came together with minimal effort. The Jello has to be made in stages which Cindy worked on in between doing the tedious aspect of her day’s work: entering the jobs on the work web-sites. Meanwhile, the kitchen filled with the smell of sauteing onion, pungent sauerkraut being rinsed in the sink, and the nutty aroma of roasting caraway seeds as I fixed my dish.
After finishing the sauerkraut, I moved on to the artichoke dip. This dish is NOT in our repertoire. Our theory is that Andrea assigned it to us so we would branch out a little. When I said I didn’t know how to make it, she said, “But you know how to use the World Wide Web.”
Point well taken I thought. So I went to the WWW and found a gazillion recipes for artichoke dip, most of which called for gobs of mayonnaise. Not being a fan of mayonnaise, I was appalled and called her back and said, “Is this for REAL?!!!”
“Yes,” she replied, “Get over it!”
I found one that called for half sour cream (low-fat) and half mayonnaise which felt a tad more friendly to my overloaded cholesterol bloodstream. I stood with assembled ingredients last night and re-read the instructions which called for a food processor. Cindy has one, but I’d never used it, so I interrupted her work for a lesson and volunteered to wash the many parts of the contraption in exchange for her expertise. In short order, she took over chopping the hearts.
The instructions also called for transferring the appetizer, once cooked, into a chafing dish with some kind of warming device. I called Andrea again to determine exactly what chafing dish meant and if it was necessary. “NO,” said she, laughing kindly at the question. “Just bring it in the casserole dish you cook it in.”
When my part was done, I washed dishes while Cindy started the brownies. Andrea said that brownies would be a good addition to pie and that’s another of Cindy’s regular contributions to family dinners so we were happy with this assignment.
I finished the dishes and as I headed to bed eager to snuggle up with book, the smell of baking chocolate permeated the house. It wasn’t a traditional Thanksgiving aroma– like roasting turkey or baking sweet potatoes– but it was nevertheless a delicious reminder of the feast to come.
Eat joyously and slowly and blessings to ALL!
In preparation for Thanksgiving, the homeschoolers were cooking this week. In my morning shift, the pre-school kids made cornbread muffins while Anna Mae took her first stab at pie dough in preparation for making pumpkin pie. (Read more about her cooking activities on her blog.) Meanwhile at the afternoon shift, Candice was cooking along with more traditional school-work. Both girls share a particular look of concentration that goes with learning.
Thirty-one years ago, my friend Julia and I shared a home. We each had newborn sons, and for the next several years we watched our boys grow until Julia moved to another abode. The two boys, however, retained a lasting friendship, and now they have babies of their own. Last night, we met at Julia’s for a reunion dinner. Here are two pictures: first, the proud Mamas with their grown sons and second, the proud Dads with their children.
What a pleasure to witness my friend Mic debut as conductor of Symphony of the Sierra this weekend.
I first met Mic in the 80s when she was publishing a local literary magazine. As a fledgling writer, I wanted desperately to be published in this magazine. Alas, I was a day late for the magazine was folding, but Mic wrote the kindest of letters explaining that had she continued producing the magazine, she most certainly would have published my piece. Not long after, I met Mic in person at a poetry reading where she performed her signature “act” of soliciting words from the audience and composing a poem on the spot from the words tossed her way. In short order, Mic made an impression on me. I recognized a talented, generous, and creative human being.
Since that time, our paths have crossed numerous times at poetry readings and in writing classes and groups. When Mic was completing an online degree, I facilitated her exams at the college. When I was preparing to publish my book, she lent her photographic expertise to the cover design. Two of my grand-kids have taken music lessons from Mic, and I’ve enjoyed summer performances at the Jamestown Park given by the volunteer band she organized and led.
I was also among the guests at a party that celebrated Mic as the recipient of the prestigious Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation award for commitment to teaching children to play and enjoy music. Mic had received the $10,000 award at Carneige Hall in New York before friends gathered locally to applaud her.
So it was with great pleasure that I attended the Winter Concert of the Symphony of the Sierra and Mic’s debut as conductor. WHOA!! There are not words to describe the manner in which the music infused me with emotion. Always moved by the sound of the violin, I wept through the first piece, a string quartet by Tchaikovsky. From there, the sound took me from poignant to joyous, from foot-tapping to heart-pounding.
Mic had pulled together an unusual array of musicians and melded them into a truly fine orchestra. Watching her conduct with enthusiasm, intelligence, and grace was the frosting on the cake of one terrific afternoon.
Mic is one of my most remarkable friends: creative and gentle and unbelievable compassionate. And she is giving our community a sublime gift as conductor of Symphony of the Sierra.
For as long as I’ve known Cindy, she’s done surveys. I’ve never understood the motivation behind her efforts, but she is a devoted survey-ist. When it’s time to relax around here, it’s not unusual to find her happily working on a survey while I curl up in the recliner reading.
Sometimes she gets paid for doing surveys, anywhere from $2 to $50. Another pay off is the accumulation of points toward gas cards, motel rooms, and other such things. Last summer, we funded a good portion of a trip to Knottsberry Farm with her niece and nephew using rewards from her surveys
Survey work usually involves filling out forms on websites. Sometimes though the work involves live chats and sometimes she answers questions via the phone. Cindy’s survey practices have brought us some interesting products to try out and a few good laughs.
We have tested things like ball point pens, toothpaste, dryer sheets, body wash, shampoo, face lotion, mosquito repellent, and we just got these big boxes of tissue to test just in time for winter. I like testing the products. One of the pens we tested has become my favorite writing implement.
Recently our cats were enlisted to product test. The product is a cat treat called Lickittys. According to the literature accompanying this treat, Cindy was to observe their “catisfaction.” The treat looked like a nipple that the cat is supposed to lick. As you can see in the picture above, it sits on a pedestal with an adhesive back so it sticks to the floor. It has a little plastic top to “help keep the treat fresh when not in use.” The idea is to allow the cat to enjoy the treat in “their natural grazing way.”
Cindy set the treat near our cats’ food bowls so they could do their part. After peering skeptically from a good distance, the cats gave the nipple wide bearth, clearly avoiding it for the entire 3 days they were commissoned to test the product. I don’t know what the reward was for this survey, but in my opinon our laughter alone was worth the effort.
In case you can’t read this sign easily–it says that gas is sold at this station for $1.97 a gallon! An important detail is that date on the picture is 11/19/2008. A year ago, I made 3 financial goals. One of them was that I would only buy gas at the cheapest station in town. It’s kept me on the lookout for the low price. Admittedly, however, it was Cindy who spotted this deal!
I’m headed there this morning.
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