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Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 08:53 pm
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http://www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2009/comments_11/chicka_chicka_123.html 
Chicka, Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Martin Jr. is the follow up to Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom, a book I haven't read but Harriet has. This book is as the title suggests, a counting book. The numbers 1 to 100 are represented with most of the emphasis being on the numbers 1 to 20.
For reasons unknown to me, the numbers decide to climb into an apple tree. Some climb just for the fun of climbing and some are after the apples. The zero, wants in on the fun but can't figure out how to participate.
The numbers are thwarted at the end by bees, thus bringing the number counting to a reverse. There's a trick though, the ten doesn't come down. Is he stuck? Is he immune to bees? The 10's disappearance is the zeros chance to come to rescue.
It's a cute book with predictable rhymes. What I like most about it are Lois Ehlert's bright illustrations. She also wrote and illustrated Eating the Alphabet.
books | childrens | Bill Martin Jr. | Lois Ehlert | 2004
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Yes and No
I get some gifts even "over the year" already but often ran through town on 23.12
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...I like Poetry
Long Walks on the Beach
And poking dead things with a stick.
Click here to see and buy it.
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 ...was posted on Eat Liver a week or so back. |
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Hmmm
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Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 11:14 am
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...wonder if Bacon County Sheriff is an elected position or if you have to apply.
Dark highway. Middle of nowhere. Flashing blue and red lights chase you from behind. You pull to the side of the road and roll your window down.
A man wearing mirrored shades walks up to the side of your car. He rests his thumbs on his gun belt and arches his shoulders, stretching. His badge catches the reflected light of the spotlight shining on the back of your car.
Hi, y'all, I'm Puff McMarkerson, Bacon County Sheriff. Do you have any idea how fast you were going.
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...by Doomsday's smooth shaven giant erectness, his superiorly muscled buttocks, and his lack of testicles. :)
Needless to say KEN! rocks.
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At mother's
Originally uploaded by mojosmom.
This was taken sometime back in the '80s.
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The funny thing about this so-called Black Friday of yrs is that the term – in reference to the day after Thanksgiving (as opposed to the Fisk/Gould scandal of 1869) – has been around since the mid-60s, but I’ve never really heard it used until the last couple of years.
That may be because it started in Philadelphia and took until 2000 to see widespread national usage (source: Wikipedia). And okay, I’ve been out of the country since 1996. Still, I do have Internet, so it seems like it’s only just recently caught on to the point where the media uses it like crazy.
That’s why when I hear the term ‘Black Friday’, I don’t think about shopping bargains or overcrowded malls. I think of Boris Karloff.
See also: Steely Dan and Megadeth.
Paint it black,
This is dFCurrent Mood:  awake Current Music: Jon Wayne, "Apple Schnapps" |
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So, it's my birthday on December 11th, and it's a Friday, so going out for some drinks seems like a good idea to me. Anyone on for it?
I went to the Church (was Keatings) the last couple of years. There again, or has anyone better suggestions?Current Mood:  cheerful Current Music: Earworm: Regina Spektor - EET |
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We checked out of this beautiful lodge by 8 AM and made our way along the crater edge to one of the ways down. The Ngorongoro Crater is part of the N-Conservation Area.It is the world's largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera. The Crater, which formed when a giant volcano exploded and collapsed on itself some two to three million years ago, is 610 m (2,001 ft) deep and its floor covers 260 km² (102 square miles).
Aside from herds of zebra, gazelle, and wildebeest, the crater is home to the rhinoceros, lion, leopard, and buffalo.
We saw serval but not all. here a small selection:
       
It was a beautifull day. We saw so much and the cheetah was very special. She was directly besides the car and very shy. just because it was the only place arround with some shade she stayed. But she stood up several times. Cheetas are soooo beautifull.
After we ate our packed lunch (the one our cook made was far better than this from the lodge) we left for Nainikanoka. Here we slept not far from the houses of the ranger families in our tent again.
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I had hoped to have a new poem up today but I didn't quite finish it. So I went looking through my archive for something to share and came across some poems that were cut from my book Hugging the Rock. If you've read the book you may remember a pivotal time for Rachel, the main character, when she goes grocery shopping with her dad. In an early version of the book I had this poem of Rachel shopping with her mom to show the differences. But in the end it was too much of a flashback and didn't add anything new to the story.
GROCERY SHOPPING WITH MOM
At the grocery store
mom stops to talk to everyone.
She scoops up new babies
sings them lullabies
nuzzles their peach fuzz heads.
In the produce aisle she spouts advice
races off to give her coupons to the old man in the wheelchair
then slips a quarter into the rocket ship
for a skinny kid in a baseball cap.
She tosses boxes of cereal
into the cart
then dances away
chasing a guy blowing a harmonica.
I put four boxes back on the shelf
and trail after her.
In the pet food aisle
mom talks fast
her hands pointing everywhere
and nowhere
until the guy smiles
cups the harmonica
close to his mouth
and plays a sweet tune.
The guy tucks a bag of dog food
under one arm
and they both walk off
still talking.
My mom marches beside him
right through the checkout stand
and out the door
and never once looks back at me.
I wait over an hour
watching the ice cream melt
and drip onto the loaf of bread
and a jar of pickles
wondering what is
in me
that makes me
so invisible
to her.
--- Susan Taylor Brown
All Rights Reserved
The round-up is at Becky's Book Reviews today.
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Trying to Explain a Drop in Infant Mortality
By Erik Eckholm
Full article with pictures and links at NY Times
MADISON, Wis. — Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely.
Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy.
As she cradled her 2-month-old daughter recently, she described the fear and isolation she had experienced during her first two pregnancies, and the more embracing help she found 100 miles away with her third. In Madison, county nurses made frequent home visits, and she got more help from her new church.
The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence among blacks of very premature births.
( Read more... )
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Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 08:01 am
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Work still exciting
Running behind on LJ but will managed to catch up this weekend despite having a lovely anniversary weekend planned with Grom.
(We didn't really have an anniversary date so I made one up *lol*) |
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It was a great holiday. I got to talk with relatives, and I also got about three pages longhand of a piece of the novel that means I can move forward somewhat. And it started with a simple twist the bot gave me in our nano channel last night:
What happens if your main character wakes up as the other gender?
So yeah, things have just gotten interesting.
Hope your thanksgiving was great!
Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.
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Happy Thanksgiving to everybody who celebrates!
I spent mine with my Boy, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) miss_arel, and narsilion, piro2247 and the rest of the family. It was very nice, and there was lots of good food and conversation. Added on top of a night out with tavern_wench1 last night for food and drinks and lots of laughing hysterically about the absurdities of our current writing projects (and also surreptitious giggling about the two mid-life-crisis junkies at the table next to us and the MySpace addict 21-ers at the bar on the other side), and I'm feeling full of the thankfulness. Grateful for Boy, grateful for awesome friends, grateful for fantastic family, grateful for kitties, grateful for job... all in all very happy. ♥
...And now I really need to go try to catch up on my writing. ;)
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Christian turned one month old yesterday. WOW.
I haven't fallen off the planet, but it's really busy with two kids. I'm having a difficult time managing the kids, the housework, and internet time. But, I'm getting better. :) One of these days I will update my livejournal, and tell all you lovely folks about how the new fridge leaks all over the floor randomly every few days, or how our washing machine broke when Christian was just four days old (and he then promptly vomited on every single article of clothing that he and I own, plus all his blankets and receiving blankets), and how it finally got fixed (and upgraded!) nearly two weeks later (when, meanwhile, I had either been washing delicates in the bathtub or borrowing my mom's or MIL's washing machine), or how David got rear-ended last week (third friggin wreck this year for us... what is going on??).
Or, maybe I'll just keep it happy, and tell you all about how Tommy is simply the best Big Brother ever. And offer you anecdotes such as how he likes to count the stairs as he comes down them, but he likes you to count with him. And if you don't, he'll just stand at the top of the stairs and say "One.... one.... one.... onnnnnnnnnne..... oooooooooonnnnnnnee......" and never actually come down the stairs.
Yup.
To all my friends in the States...
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
And to all my friends who are not in the states... Happy Random Day in the Middle of the Week!
(I'm going to try and brave Black Friday tomorrow... with two kids! Wish me luck - and pray for me!)Current Mood:  thankful |
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Or, “If you play ‘Thanksgiving’ backwards, it says ‘Lucifer smokes yr bananas’.”
As you may have noticed, I’m not big on Thanksgiving as a holiday (and yet I've managed to get three [3] posts out of it). But I would be if it was more like Halloween.
Which, evidently, it used to be, according to Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing:
Before Halloween became the holiday it now is in the United States, children would dress up in masks on the final Thursday in November and go door to door for treats (think: fruit!), or scramble for pennies. The tradition was known as Thanksgiving Masking.
Click the pic for more pics.
I also rather like this excerpt from the Encyclopedia.com entry on Thanksgiving history in America:
Progressive era reformers regarded child begging on Thanksgiving as immoral and thought children who engaged in it should be arrested. Why were parents not able to control their offspring? the New York Times in 1903 wanted to know. (30) The newspaper castigated parents who allowed children to demand treats or money as indecent.(31) The police tried to enforce a ban against begging. In response to complaints from the public, the clergy, school superintendents, and classroom teachers issued warnings. The New York Times in November of 1930 worried that demanding coins could teach children to become professional beggars and blackmailers and that children were annoying the public.(32) Begging, decided the paper, was a "malicious influence on the morals of children of the city.
Wow. My kind of holiday.
Naturally, The Authorities eventually stamped out the practice, clearing the way for Thanksgiving to become a much more moral celebration of God, gluttony and football.
Still, it's an interesting slice of obscure American history.
Thanks for nothing,
This is dFCurrent Mood:  impressed Current Music: Roky Erickson, "Anthem (I Promise)" |
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Halloween -- because it is a day to pretend, a day to believe, and it was my dad's favorite holiday, so I am sure that affects me to some point.
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For years now, my parents have been hosting our extended family for Thanksgiving. The house is crowded with my parents, my grandmother, my brother's & sister's families, and my aunt's family. There's lots of laughter, some stressing as we get the food ready, the Macy's parade and excited shrieks of the children as background noise. Wine...always wine, spontaneous hugs, candid photos, and naps on the couch. I love Thanksgiving, and I think it's probably my favorite holiday. Comfort food and family...what more could you ask for?
Each year, each family who attends brings a dish or two, so that my mother has less to worry about as she prepares. This year, my contribution was glazed carrots. Simple. Sweet. A no-recipe recipe. And so very, very delicous. ( Click here for instructions ) Current Mood: cheerful |
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Nov. 26th, 2009 @ 09:41 pm
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Ate a mighty vegetarian feast at my friend E.'s house, from which I am still recovering. At 6:42 we went outside to watch the space station and the shuttle fly over. They were bright and easy to see, and it was COOL.
Home now. |
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I'm thankful for Thanksgiving. It has always been my favorite holiday. Even when I was a kid, Thanksgiving trumped Christmas.
It's a day centered around getting together and eating. It's a day for taking stock of what's good in your life. As Americans, we spend too much on "the pursuit of happiness" (thanks, George Carlin) and not enough on just being happy with what we have.
I'm thankful for waking up this morning next to the warm snuggliness of the woman I love. I'm thankful that she's always in my heart and I in hers, even when we're miles apart.
I'm thankful for my legs and my heart for getting me through the 5-mile race I ran this morning and the half-marathon I did less than 2 weeks ago. I'm thankful for the health and psychology that allows to overcome physical obstacles and meet my goals.
I'm thankful for the bounty from our CSA and our farmers market that rosepurr turned into a fabulous feast today and that has filled my belly for all these months.
I'm thankful for my job, which has been secure throughout this economic downturn and still has been the best job I've ever had.
I'm thankful for our cats, who entertain me and are great company.
I'm thankful for books and reading and great writing. They inspire and entertain me. They motivate me and raise my will when it's at its ebb.
I'm thankful for having the good taste to appreciate these things and the discipline to pursue them and keep them close.
I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.
[Posted for LJ Idol Season 6 - Free Topic - The Giving of Thanks]Current Mood: thankful |
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 The Emperor's Children
Claire Messud
431 pages
Marina, Danielle, and Julius were classmates at Brown University and are all now approaching 30, and making their way in New York City. Marina is the daughter of Murray Thwaite, a famous journalist. She has been working on her first book for many years, and has never held a "real job." She lives with her parents, having recently moved back home after ending a long-term relationship. Julius is a gay freelance writer who lives lives in a squalid apartment and finds work through a temp agency while waiting for his next writing assignments. Danielle produces television programs, and is the only one with a steady income. The Emperor's Children follows these three over the course of a year. While they rarely cross paths in their day-to-day lives, the bonds of friendship are strong and they do call on each other for help and support. Another key figure in this story is Frederick "Bootie" Tubb, Murray's nephew, who has dropped out of university, and came to New York hoping to find himself and make a living. Murray provides Bootie a place to live, and takes him on as his secretary. Danielle is instrumental in finding Marina a job with a magazine startup, and Marina offers both Julius and Bootie the chance to write an article for the inaugural issue. Julius meets romantic interest David through one of his temp jobs, and begins to move in very different social circles. All of the young people look up to Murray as a role model of the successful and wealthy writer. Meanwhile, Murray is dealing with a bit of a mid-life crisis, and struggles to control everyone around him.
Messud draws an intriguing portrait of a certain social class. The characters in this novel are are shallow, superficial, and materialistic. It was difficult to care much about any of them, but I still found myself oddly drawn to their stories -- like watching an impending train wreck. But this book takes place in 2001 (and remember, in New York City). So of course September 11 was like the elephant in the room the entire time I was reading this book. On several instances, characters discussed events planned for September, which I just knew wouldn't turn out as planned. I was curious how Messud would address this pivotal event in the novel. After finishing the book I was left wondering if setting the novel in 2001 was just an afterthought, a convenient way to tie up the plot. The year is casually thrown into the text about 50 pages in. September 11 occurs 60 pages from the end of the book, and while it understandably changes the characters' lives, it was an all-too-easy way to catalyze certain events and bring the novel to a close. While this was a light read and somewhat pleasurable, it wasn't quite my thing. (  )
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And here's your host, ME!!
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I think it’s an emo… because he looks like a cutter to me! ;P |
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I'm with the family in Corvallis at my brother's house. It's just the four of us for dinner, so it'll be a mellow night. Stayed exactly to my program yesterday except for missing fruit at lunch and have my plans set for today too.
Hope all are well! |
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I hope that those of you who traveled have managed to do so safely. And to those who hosted, I hope everyone behaved for you. ;) Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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My mom brought a pumpkin she grew in her garden with her on the airplane so we could make fresh pie. It's just now coming out of the oven.
What are other people doing?Current Music: Jesus The Missing Years - John Prine |
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'I ought to tell you at the beginning that I am not quite normal having had a violent experience at the age of nine' Jessica Vye's 'violent experience' colours her schooldays and her reaction to the world around her- a confining world of Order Marks, wartime restrictions, viyella dresses, nicely-restrained essays and dusty tea shops. For Jessica she has been told that she is 'beyond all possible doubt', a born writer. With her inability to conform, her absolute compulsion to tell the truth and her dedication to accurately noting her experiences, she knows this anyway. But what she doesn't know is that the experiences that sustain and enrich her burgeoning talent will one day lead to a new- and entirely unexpected- reality.
I have had this TBR for so long, it was certainly time I got round to reading it. Why I left it so long I have no idea, it's lovely!! This is such a charming little book. The narrator is a young girl, who is convinced she is a writer. She is a wonderfully eccentric character, full of life, wit and enthusiasm. Hampered by an unimmaginative teacher, war time and the constraits of a curate's chaotic household, Jessica begins to grow and move toward her ultimate goal. Often hilarious, it is a small gem.
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1001 Noisy Cameras had a link to a Japanese website where someone had put up photos and mp3 sounds of the shutter click of a Leica X1 camera. The link was through Google Translate so I was reading the English translation of the original Japanese. The captions accompanying the photos read like poetry:Click a solid sense of comfort
State of the pop-up flash. Gently pushing and popping
Components on the eyelet, is like with a wound to prevent
I pressed the button ISO body |
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I am thankful for a great many things today - family, friends, health, ability to be home writing - but I wanted to speak specifically to a single recent experience.
Earlier this week I went on a retreat with a few writer friends and a few writer/artists strangers who are now friends. We gathered at the beach mostly with solitary intentions and yet, it seemed, the magic of where we were and the creative energy of those gathered had other ideas.
We came with no agenda, no speakers, nothing that absolutely had to be done.
Groups of two and three started to form. Individual work turned into freeform group writing fun. Books and art were shared. Gifts were acknowledged, praised. We were validated as professional creatives. Meals stretched for several hours as we lingered over coffee and tea. We sat by the fire and talked long into the night. We laughed (and some of us cried) and took a great many pictures.
Our backgrounds, our journeys to be writers, were of course very different.
Our passion however, was very much the same.
I am so grateful for the time spent with these fabulous and talented women. You have to understand that it isn't because someone took me aside and said a particular thing to me. It isn't because of anything we saw or ate or did. I think it might be because of what they didn't do.
They didn't say "do this." They didn't say "don't do that." They just listened. And accepted.
It rocked my world from the inside out.
Happy Thanksgiving to each of you. Thank you for all the times you read my blog. May your bellies and hearts be full of everything you need.
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For some reason, this image sums up my thoughts on Thanksgiving these days.
Not shooting women with arrows, no. I'm thinking in symbols here. See ...
Oh, the hell with it.
Broken arrow,
This is dFCurrent Mood:  Feh Current Music: Jackie Leven, "Another Man's Rain" |
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As I’ve posted here in the past, the main thing I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving is that we don’t celebrate it here in Hong Kong. Yes. I am the Scrooge of Thanksgivings.
But then I’m an agnostic with historical perspective who doesn’t care for turkey or American football. So there’s not really a lot there to hold my interest.
Still, I suppose it depends on how you go about “celebrating” Thanksgiving.
As this marquee sign for San Francisco’s Market Street Cinema illustrates [via YesButNoButYes].
That’s more like it.
Butter my buns,
This is dFCurrent Mood:  blah Current Music: Neil Young, "Pocahontis" |
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( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )Current Mood:  frustrated Current Music: moonlight - from modern family |
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Bought 21 Nov - charity shop
Another BookCrossing destined book. This is right up to the edge of my chick-lit tolerance and wasn't the best read in the world - I found it a bit manipulative. It follows the stories of several residents of an apartment block in New York and the background setting is done well, however there's quite a lot of telling as well as showing in the actual description of the characters and their doings, which made it a little too undemanding. A decent holiday or travel read.
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Last Sunday I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving, thanks to my very good friend Jill! She writes about it here (and yes, the baby mentioned is Markus!)
Our first thanksgiving, our first "social" outing with Markus, and a year after starting the IVF process. Truly lots and lots to be thanksful for (said with a happiness tear in my eye!)
Happy Thanksgiving all!
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Bought 21 Nov - charity shop
Read out of order because I have BookCrossing plans for this one.
Another tale of falling in love with and buying a house in Marrakech (at first I thought I'd read this already but that was another one a few months back!). Innes is an interiors writer and journalist and this shows in the confident and atmospheric descriptions of the house and Marrackech itself; but she also shows the emotions, good and bad, and the process of buying a wreck and trying to turn it into a palace. Delightful line drawings by her partner, Dan, although I'd have liked a plan of the place at some point in the book.
Nothing new, but a very good read.
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http://www.pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2009/comments_11/the_sun.html 
I'm grateful that my local library cares enough to have current science text books especially in the children's section. Never the less I feel a little sad and nostalgic over the once ninth planet, Pluto.
The Sun by Ralph Winrich was published right around the time that Pluto's fate was in the balance. Eris was spotted in January 2005 and shortly after a number of other small orbiting objects. Pluto being smaller than Eris meant either the solar system had to grow by potentially dozens of new plants or shrink by one. The experts decided to shrink the solar system by one and define a new class of object, the "dwarf planet".
In The Sun then, the solar system has eight planets. For Sean and Harriet it's normal for the solar system to have eight planets and a bunch of dwarf planets. I am still adjusting to the newly adjusted list. I agree that science should adapt as we learn new things but the sentimental side of me thinks Pluto should have been grandfathered in.
The book is part of astronomy books (First Facts Solar System) aimed at children ages 4 to 8. For the younger ones it has lots of wonderful photographs and is an easy to read aloud book. For the ones who can read there is enough variety in the language to teach to increase language skills while teaching science.
books | nonfiction | Ralph Winrich | 2005
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