Arizona, Day 1

Yesterday, as we juggled piles of luggage, two carseats, and huge crowds of people seeking a spring break, I began writing in my head. There were four pairs of shoes to remove at the long line in security (yes, a one-year old must have her shoes x-rayed now), and a bit of a pause as a woman with white gloves inspected my purse.

--Ah, she said, pulling out a bottle of hand-sanitizer. Yes, you have to have a baggy.

--A baggy?

--Yes. Do you want to go back out and get a baggy?

I gawked at the long security line. Elspeth, perched on my hip, kicked her sock feet.

--Well, I'll just throw this out then, said the woman. Next time, don't forget your baggy!

Standing in my sock feet, I felt as though I were in kindergarten. Take off your shoes; don't forget your baggy.

The plane from PA to Chicago was packed. We arrived in snowy, cold Chicago late and ran through the airport. As we panted at the gate, a very sleepy Merry burst into tears.

The flight from Chicago to Pheonix was jammed with people, and most of those people seemed to be having a much better time than we were. Behind us sat two young women, one of whom was about to be married and was quite voluble. Seating about the plane was a positive gaggle of bridesmaids who joined said bride in the aisle for drinks and stimulating conversation.

Holding a writhing, screaming Elspeth, I listened to the uninterrupted--and I do mean, no-breath--conversation behind me. The wedding women sounded as if they had memorized sitcom scripts, and the bride held court, regaling her b.maids with endless and varied information about parties and drinking and old boyfriends while sipping beer (ordered from the very attentive bald flight attendant).

Merry slept in a hump on the arm of my seat; Elspeth breastfed and then screamed almost constantly propped up on the other. Both girls were crusted over with evidence of messy colds. Add to this that I had almost completely lost my voice and could barely order a drink or say thank you for peanuts. Yes, I felt rather like an alien with four antennae in that plane full of chatter and beer and shiny, sparkly bridesmaids. Please let this flight end.

And unfortunately the women lowered their voices conspiratorially any time they got to any juicy tidbit that might have compensated for the endless potato-starchy-prattle that they subjected the rest of us to. The best line I heard was delivered by the bride who said, "So guess what my grandmother served at Thanksgiving. Okay. She served stuffing, but she sliced it. Have you ever heard of slicing stuffing? Omigod."

I could tell you about the many endless things we did after our flight landed--I could tell you how Merry and Elspeth and I wandered up and down dirty white flights of stairs in the parking garage--but I will end with this beautiful picture: both girls asleep at the hotel and Martin and I scarfing down a sandwich over the sink in the bathroom before dropping into bed ourselves.

And today, the west pulled at our spirits as we opened ourselves gladly to the expanse of the brilliant sky.

We ran down narrow trails in the Little Painted Desert, where our shadows were far away and tall. If we jumped high enough, would we ever come down? Would our shadows rise and stripe canyons, buttes, mesas until we met the sun?

The sun is strong, and the land is wide and the roads long and straight. Buttes rise up around us; cacti grow like trees; first, second and third mesa glow in the setting sun.

What is it about the west that makes you feel as if you could give away all you own, buy a beat-up old pickup, and disappear into the warm expanse? Reinvention. The idea gets into your blood, and suddenly anything seems possible. The sky, the land, everything is so wide and startling that you feel as if you are flying, even when you are standing small and firm on the ground.

Pictures tomorrow.

Goin West, Yee Ha!

Well, we're takin these headcolds and gittin outta town.

Fact is, I sure shouldn't be wastin my time writin right now, seein as I have me a buncha packin. Sure fired up about it, though. Yippe kiyeh!

Heat! Sun! Open blue skies! Make sure to bring along your sunglasses. Music to my ears.

We are truly boarding a plane this afternoon and skimming our way through the clouds accompanied by the wails of our sinused-plugged children. We're headed for Arizona, where we plan to see my sister and her lovely family down at the Hopi Reservation, where the land expands for miles and miles, orange and brown and beautiful. Where the skies are so deep they make you dizzy. We also plan to take in the scenery at Sadona, the Grand Canyon. . .Oh, the West is the Best!

-Well, to all those of you who have been sweating like skinny wax tapers in the inferno this week, have a lovely break.

I know I plan to. More from. . .ARIZONA later. Wa-hoo!

The Sowness of Sows, the Goodness of Things

Error Detected! Caution: Exit now, or next week, you will:

Nurse an iron head cold that falls upon you like an armor-clad elephant.
Your family will also catch said head colds.
Your children's eyes will crust over with viral conjunctivitis.
You will receive disappointing news.
Your 1-year old will fall down the stairs, belly-flop fully clothed into your shower, suck the coating off an ibuprofen from a childproof bottle.
Your husband will be insanely busy and thus absent.
You will wear pajamas all week.
You will fall hopelessly behind in all housework.

What would you like to do?
1. Run away
2. Endure the week
3. Hibernate (recommended)
4. Check yourself into institution

I choose-----number two! Big surprise!

And yet, even when weeks go as they do sometimes, and even when--every time I glance in the mirror I see an unkempt, messy face looking back at me--even when things are "not ideal," a week is better lived than not. Near the end of winter, hibernation often feels like it would have been a great idea. What better option than to curl up and cover yourself over with leaves like a perennial mulched and waiting for spring?

Tonight found me first singing harmony with Dora the Explorer's mailbox as I folded clothes with one hand and held runny baby Elspeth with the other. I managed to shout Spanish commands at a gate on the TV along with Merry who has resided in high state on the couch for the last week or so. Later I scooped up macaroni and cheese while singing Chicago's If You Leave Me Now. Merry held her milk glass in the air. "Cheers!" she said. "Cheers to getting out of the house tomorrow!" Elspeth, puffy red eyes and all, did her best to toast with her orange plastic sippy cup. So, no, it hasn't been a week of culture and sophistication. It has been a week of dirty tissues, sticky faces, and unpleasant snufflings and snorts during the night. But the week is almost over.

But hibernation? No. I wouldn't have missed the lovely occasional brightnessess in a week of homebound sickness. Strong coffee, for instance. Lots of strong coffee, which is now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, good for you. Hurrah! Like dark chocolate, another wonderful thing that is good for me!

Sickness equals good reading times with the girls. Merry is reading #95 of the Boxcar Children series, which is truly an abomination. Outfits are catalogued in great detail ("Violet was wearing a flour sack paired cunningly with an umbrella as a hat. . .), as are meal choices ("Benny ordered a grilled fishhead on rye with ketchup and fried rat tongue"). But it is nice to snuggle beside her in bed and read.

Elspeth has slept a great deal, and when she is awake she just wants to snuggle.

And I am inherently worthwhile, even in my pyjamas.

Reading Saint Francis and the Sow reminds me of this. I do not feel like a sow, though I do suckle Elspeth regularly. However, if Saint Francis found beauty and spirituality in a sow, I think my chances are pretty good overall.
_____________________________
image from www.wikipedia.org
______________________________
Saint Francis and the Sow
Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessing of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and
blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of the sow.

--read and enjoyed from A Child's Anthology of Poetry, Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword, 1995

February Makes Me Quetch; Oh, for the Open-Tide!

Translation:
Febuary makes me groan; oh, for the young springtime!

Open-tide literally is translated as "early spring, the time when buds open" (Sperling 105).

Isn't that lovely?

But take care, while tripping giddily through such springtime finery, not to pluck and devour the pissabed!

That's sheer fadoodle! Or, sheer nonsense! (Good guesses, M & kjr.)

--Source of poplollies: Poplollies & Bellibones / A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Kelz Sperling, Konecky & Konecky 1981*

GUESS: What does PISSABED mean? Guess below; answers in tomorrow's daily Poplolly.

*Click on S. Kelz, above, for source for picture and NPR interview.
Source of "redbud" picture: Autumnridgenursery.com

Hot Cuppa, Wot?

STRIP JACK NAKED. This was the name of the card game our British neighbor in Dhaka taught my sister and me, aged six and eight. In the afternoon, Heather and I would run through the sweet smell of frangipani trees, squeeze through the hedge, and visit the old British granny-lady. She fed us biscuits and taught us how to cross-stitch, and if the first title of the card-game was too racy, we could always call it BEAT THE OLD LADY TO BED if we preferred.

Later in Kenya we had another lovely British neighbor who was soft and smelled wonderful and called us "Lovey."

So maybe it's these two exquisite ladies that put the anglophile in me, or maybe it's tea, or maybe it's the BBC.

Tea! Tea cozies! John Cleese! Spot of milk or slice of lemon! Wedgewood! Hyacinth Bucket! Marmite! Judi Dench! Egg cups! Wellies! Wot?

If any of these things make your heart beat faster, you might be a bit of an anglophile yourself.

One glance at my Netflix queue reveals a striking similarity in all the vicarious lives I indulge through TV or film. Hmmm. All set in U.K. For some intense weeks I lived with Judi Dench (or maybe I WAS Judi Dench?) as I took in the entire series, including the bonus, of As Time Goes By. The music for this sitcom is atrocious, but the script writing is clever. Also, I enjoyed looking at Dame J.D.'s tea mugs, her smart London townhouse, and the richly furnished country estate (complete with eccentric locals). As I sat comatose in front of the TV, I was actually touring London on foot; I suddenly loved runny poached eggs; everything I said was witty and well-pronounced as I poured from a tray with an endless supply of duty-free liquors from Heathrow airport.

If Henry James and T.S. Eliot could switch nationalities, why can't I? If they could, just on whim, began writing colour, centre, theatre, and wot-ho, why can't I?

Actually, I do not want to trade in passports. Though American tourists are generally embarrassing in foreign countries (super LOUD), the charm of living vicariously in a hay-topped cottage (with hollyhocks in the front yard) without any of the reality is too great a temptation.

I am ashamed at the sheer commercial nature of the following. Nonetheless, here are some of my favorite anglophile pleasures:


BISCUITS: Marie biscuits, for their crisp texture and perfect tea-dipping properties; digestive biscuits of any kind, especially if they're coated in chocolate.

CANDY: Smarties, rattling happily in a cardboard tube. Cadbury's bars in golden wrappers.

CLOTHES: Knee socks (with shorts); wildly clashing patterns worn together

*See all sources for pictures listed below.

TEA: A six cup teapot, warmed with a swirl of boiling water. Twinings English Breakfast is the tastiest tea (beyond actual East African tea) I can locate in America. Do not overbrew to a soup. Nor do you want a weak cuppa that pales hideously at the first drop of milk. And use a tea cozy so the pot lasts, and lasts, and lasts, through all the courses of your tea. Cozies are extremely hard to find; in fact, an import store, a trip overseas, or your own sewing machine may be your only affordable options. And of course, use a cup and saucer unless you're busy or on the run. And then a beaker is okay.

Scones, yes. Clotted cream, Devonshire, absolootely. A dollop of marmalade.

Best BBC TV SERIES:
Jeeves and Wooster, Monarch of the Glen (Scottish), Ballykissangel (Irish), As Time Goes By, Father Ted (Irish--in small doses), Waiting for God, Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, Yes Prime Minister

Best BBC DRAMAS:
Of course, Pride & Prejudice, North and South (rivals P & P), Wives and Daughters
*
Pretty-Good BBC DRAMAS: Daniel Deronda, The Way We Live Now (David Suchet goes nasty for this leading role)--these are both based on Anthony Trollope Novels

Not-so-hot BBC DRAMAS: He Knew He Was Right (acting is good but as title suggests, not worth three-four hours).

BRITISH THINGS I HATE: Marmite, Vegemite, poached eggs, kippers for breakfast

BEST MYSTERY SERIES: Poirot (charming voice and narcissistic but polite manner); Cadfield (a monk-detective in Middle Ages--top marks for writing); Midsomer Murders are at first promising but the sheer number of murders is ridiculous

BRITISH THINGS I NEVER USE BUT WISH I DID: A slotted toast tray; egg cups; heated radiator covers in the bathroom for damp towels

Here I listed Music, Plays, and Movies, but that was just a waste of space. The answers are obvious. U2, Oscar Wilde, and just about anything BBC.

BRITISH FIXTURES I WISH AMERICA WOULD ADOPT: Real pubs, warm beer, the BBC, red post boxes, the metro to everywhere, Heathrow Airport, teatime, British Airways, Margaret Thatcher

BOOKS: Too many to mention. My favorite still has to be Austen, and my biggest surprise would be when I actually fell asleep reading Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. I rather thought I was going to love it.


CHILDREN: If you have children and are just a teeny bit of an anglophile yourself, I would strongly recommend The Naughty Little Sister series; Shirley Hughes' Alfie books and charming illustrations (click on 'Hughes' above for website); Kipper the Dog DVDS. All of these celebrate story and character without imposing didactic morals on children. Thank goodness.

And for the very young: Helen Oxenbury's "Pippo" stories. Elspeth (1) loves the bold pictures, the simple story, and the charm of the characters. I love how English it all is.

Cheerio, and toodle-pip!

***Sources for pictures (in order): www.bbcamerica.com; www.englishteastore.com; www.amazon.com; www.egglamania.org; www.wikipedia.org; www.liverpoolmuseums.org; amazon.com; www.ratherjolly.com

Don't be Thrunch and Spuddle; Thrip and Squiddle

Translation:
Don't be angry and make a mountain out of a molehill; snap your fingers and waste time with an idle chat.

(or: Let down your hair, man.)

Fancy fadoodle? Me, too.

--Source of poplollies: Poplollies & Bellibones / A Celebration of Lost Words by Susan Kelz Sperling, Konecky & Konecky 1981*

GUESS: What does FADOODLE mean? Guess below; answers in tomorrow's Poplolly.

*Click on S. Kelz, above, for source for picture and NPR interview.

Miss Vanderbilt--Ahem--There's a Dog Paw in My Pudding

**see photo source below I wonder how many wives could resist rising up in unholy protest if husbands suddenly took to wrapping their heads up in wire and head rags, greasing their faces, tying up their own chins, putting on oiled mittens for the night.--Vanderbilt 513

Amy Vanderbilt is a good read. If you've run out of Jane Austen, consider a nightcap--settle into a good chapter of New Complete Book of Etiquette / The Guide to Gracious Living.

Ms. Vanderbilt is side-splitting (not generally an acceptable mannerism) for several reasons:

1. She often writes tongue-in-cheek (but only in private; tongues should not reside in cheeks in the public domain).

2. This historical edition of Etiquette, this interminable commentary on correctness, all 706 pages (excluding the index), is an archaic catalog of the many graces our modern society blithely deposited in a waste can. And this is hilarious, because I am me and you are you. We only remember manners like Amy's in some past great aunt or in the blue flickers of a British sitcom.

3. The minutia is astounding and worth remark. Jane Austen, yes, but here the minutia is broken down in instructional chapters. My manners have slipped, yes, but just how many disappeared? For example, I can choose from a list of topics, from pages 212-220, read, and master The Social Pleasantries:

"Gifts of Love" * A Guide to Tactful Conversation *
When to Use a First Name * If You Cannot Remember Names *
Personal Questions--What Are They? * Dangerous Topics of Conversation * How to Parry Direct Questions * That Word "Lady" * How about "Miss!"?

And so on. I wish I could delight you with the entire list.

And egad! I certainly encourage good manners. Suddenly, as when you look at your dirty house in spring sunlight, I have viewed our table manners and shuddered. "When we come back from vacation," I warned at dinner tonight, "We are lodging a frontal attack!"

I talk with my mouth full, keep my knife in my right hand at all times, and point with my silverware. I am up and down from the table like a wind-up toy. Martin leaves his napkin on the table for the duration, sprinkles crumbs like Hansel, and occasionally brings along reading material (not for group edification, mind you). Merry eats many no-no things with her fingers and groans about soup for the third time in a week. And Elspeth is our crowning glory. She kicks up her feet into her food, which resides temptingly on the bare tabletop. She casts all things to the ground while grunting and smiling. She stuffs vegetables into the unreachable crevices of her highchair.

Every woman should change for dinner, if only into a clean house dress. Dinner is the high point of the day, the forerunner--it is to be hoped--of a free evening. Every little girl should be clean and in fresh clothes, even if they are just clean pajamas and bathrobe for nursery supper, every night, so that the idea of changing for dinner is inculcated at the earliest possible time. . .[she goes on]. . .Fresh grooming for evening is one of the criteria of gentility. --Vanderbilt 183

Scene: Evening. Mother and children lying exhausted on couch. Husband Martin sets the table and cooks dinner. Wife requests a cup of tea but receives none. Dinner is ready. The lovely family enters grandly (no bagpipes) for this "forerunner of a free evening:" Elspeth is still in pajamas from the morning. Merry is stained by tomato soup (did we brush her hair this morning?) and her face is crusty. And I, that paragon of gentility, have already showered and am clad in my biggest, softest, smelliest red bathrobe. Hair freshly brushed? No. Make-up? Heck, no. Heels? Try slippers.

All right, we do all have head colds. But Amy Vanderbilt would point out that is no excuse.

And last night, I gave myself a sharp wake-up call when I tossed a cooked carrot across the table, head of to foot of, mind you.

My great aunt would have di-ed. Actually, it is probably a good thing she has, because our table manners have become worthy of a Berenstein Bear's Book, a TV reality show, a PBS special.

In fact, Fred Rogers surfaced earlier this week as Merry critiqued our table manners and then systematically listed new rules for a new, gentler family dinner.

One, one, one! One, we need to start putting bibs on Elspeth.

Two, we need to start putting napkins on the table.

[Merry goes on--skips four, and continues--]

and seven [two fingers thrust into air]--We need to start behaving at other people's houses,

and number eight, we need to start turning lights on,

and the last one, we need to start picking up Elspeth's food that she throws on the floor.

Then she paused to survey our shocked faces, since we had all suddenly grown pig snouts and were snuffling in main dishes like the parents in Spirited Away. Undisturbed (she had seen it before), she concluded, "The person who wrote Mr. Rogers is very talentive."

Gentle people are often acutely embarrassed by the table manners of those with whom they find themselves eating. A carefully bred wife may suffer much inner torture because her husband--always when manner seem very important--forgetfully leaves his spoon in his cup or absent-mindedly licks his fingers. --Vanderbilt 229

I think I can conduct myself with adequate propriety. My mother certainly pressed upon us all the importance of the placement of the knife, the proper usage of napkins, appropriate dinner time conversation (no bodily details, no fights, no descriptions of illnesses.) And so on. She even let me know what to do when a "foreign matter" entered my mouth, such as a disgusting piece of gristle or fat or bug (and we had those occasionally on our produce growing up in Kenya). But I forgot this one night on a date with Martin as I audibly expectorated a piece of sushi, back onto the artful arrangement of lettuce and beet shreds on my plate. I love sushi. But my taste buds told me something was amiss with this one. Martin, let me tell you, was utterly horrified. Really. In retrospect, I feel I should have brushed up on foreign matter, or foreign bodies as Miss Vanderbilt terms them:

Foreign bodies accidentally taken into the mouth with food--gravel, fish, stones, bird shot--are removed with thumb and forefinger. . .If a gnat gets into a beverage or some other unappetizing creature turns up in or on a diner's food, he fishes it out, unobserved. . .or leaves the drink or dish untouched, depending on the degree of odiousness of the intruder. A gnat or a tiny inchworm on lettuce shouldn't bother anyone, but most fastidious people draw the line at a fly or worse. --Vanderbilt 232

This leaves me in pleasant reflection as I imagine what "or worse" could be. A rat. A human finger. A chicken head. Teeth.

But I am clearly missing the point. Besides, the list above does not constitute polite conversation, in any company.

Forgive me.

GUESS BELOW IN 'COMMENTS': WHAT YEAR WAS THIS EDITION OF VANDERBILT'S NEW COMPLETE BOOK OF ETIQUETTE PUBLISHED? AND DON'T CHEAT. IT'S NOT GOOD MANNERS.

**For more on Amy Vanderbilt, and for the source of her photograph, go to: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9074800/Amy-Vanderbilt (photo: 1956, Brown Brothers).

Slow Down, Read a Book, Chew a Gnat, Post a Comment

Don't miss JL's new book review (see below) on Seth Vikram's book.

And don't forget to share a comment, above--
Guess the date on Miss Vanderbilt's advice on gnats.

AND below--
Slowing Down. . .In our busy world, what slows YOU down?

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: A SUITABLE BOY BY VIKRAM SETH

A Suitable Boy

by Vikram Seth
Harper Perennial Modern Classics, Reissued October 2005


Seth was, pre-Boy, perhaps best known for his novel Golden Gates, written entirely in sonnets. A Suitable Boy is quite different, though suffused with poetry, both in the rhymes one family spontaneously generates at the slightest provocation, and in the rhythm and elegance of Seth’s prose. However, this book is most like a Victorian novel in genre. It is HUGE. It has lots of pages. It has nearly as many characters and subplots, complications, major and minor life devastations, and an ending both as final and as inconclusive as anything George Eliot ever produced.

It is set in 1950’s India around the time of Partition. This is not a historical moment that I’m especially familiar with, and I think a bit of prior knowledge would have helped my comprehension of the larger story. The ostensible main plot, however, is fairly universal: Lata, the young heroine, has a devoted mother who is busily trying to marry her off to a suitable boy. Unfortunately, Lata meets and instantly falls in love with an extremely unsuitable boy—for starters, he’s Muslim and she’s Hindu. Enter a couple of other suitors AND everybody’s families AND dashes of religion and politics and other romances of the mostly unsuitable variety, and you’ve got a really long novel. Also a very good one.

Lata is a woman at the cusp of many things, the modern era being but one of them. So, for her, the choice of husband (inasmuch as it is her choice, which brings up another set of issues in the novel) carries a vast weight of symbolism. Will she choose the vulgar but traditional and up-and-coming shoe salesman her mother promotes? Or maintain a balance between tradition and individualism by marrying the witty and educated Hindu poet whom her mother doesn’t like but cannot forbid? Or will she go the truly modern route and marry her Muslim student for love? And by the end, which does the reader, seduced into the mindset(s) of the book’s world, want her to choose, and why?

If you do read this one, please do let me know your thoughts on it. Especially on the ending. You can email me at thelonglets@hotmail.com.


--Reviewed by Jordana who holds and juggles two MAs, two children (one unborn), one biohusband, and many good ideas. Jordana teaches English at a high school in coastal Virginia. See her blogsite carpematrem.wordpress.com.

Slowing Down Your Frantic Inner Chicken

**See photo source below

The old proverb, 'Laugh and grow fat,' is a saying with sound sense behind it. Good temper and merriment certainly aid digestion. Mealtimes should be among the pleasantest occasions of the day. There is no reason why we should not enjoy partaking of the food, as well as take pleasure in the companionship of those who share our table. --from my old 1913 copy of Elementary Physiology and Hygiene by H.W. Conn, PhD, published first in 1906
When I was a child growing up in rural Bangladesh, chicken slaughters were high entertainment. I was six, blond, in a light cotton dress. My sister was eight, brown with the sun and barefoot. At the cook's summons, we left our books and blocks and tore to the back door, where we sat down for the day's best event. THWACK went the axe, off came the head, and we burbled happily as the headless bleeding carcass staggered dizzily about our yard.

Fast forward twenty plus years, and you'll find my family groaning in exstacy as we devour Martin's delectable Thai chicken and basil and sip his spinach-tofu soup. I wish I could say that I had nipped the Thai basil from my own garden, but as my indoor basil growing has proved sad, I bought it at the wonderful Asian Market in the next state over. So while we didn't know from which quarter our Thai basil originated, we did know where the chicken spent its few giddy years. Not in our backyard, but in our own county. The woman who sold us our organically grown, happy chicken lives in the green hills of our countryside, and she is serious about her chickens. Not only do they toddle around eating natural worms in a natural yard, they have a dignified death. Our chicken woman stretches out their necks with her own hands, and then she slices them and lets their blood pour into the soil of her farm. (Queue: Circle of Life). This is glorious, unless you are the chicken, but at least you haven't bitten off your neighbor's beak in desperation, which you might have if you had been "farmed" the industrial way.

But this is not a treatise for organic chickens, nor do I intend to go into industrial farming.

No, this is a happy reflection on SLOW FOOD.

For our chicken was plucked, frozen and much later stuffed with apples and onions and devoured in our dining room. Then we extended its memory by stewing it in a pot with fresh rosemary and oregano (grown indoors), basil (frozen from the summer garden), onions, carrots and celery. O, the smell as it flooded our house was delectable.

I grew up with "slow food." This is because, growing up in Bangladesh and Kenya, food was never fast. First of all, we didn't have one-stop shopping--no, my mother went to the greengrocers, the dryfoods store, the butcher (yes, pigs hanging and all), and bought roses and mangoes and whatever else from hawkers in the parking lot. Once home we had to soak all fresh food in a bleach solution; we 'made' our own drinking water in a chlorine machine, and there were no cans to crack open. We lived out of More with Less.


Believe me, now that I live in wintry Pennsylvania I take full advantage of cans and frozen food and already-soaked beans. But once and a while it does me good to slow down, to smell bread baking or the slow stewing of a chicken. Kids will slow you down, too--I deboned chicken with one hand and held Elspeth on my hip with the other. She was fascinated at the process, just as I once loved to watch chickens meet their doom. This slowing down is therapuetic, as is kneading bread, brewing wine (so I hear), and toasting your own granola. I absolutely despise fiddly tasks (Pastry chef? No!@#$!), but I love the rhythm of hearty, slow food.

Slow food is like a meditation of sorts. As its scent fills the crevices of my house, I am grateful for journey, the slow origins of the food itself and then for the process of preparing it. Of course one of the best things about slow food is the culmination of all that sensory anticipation, when you sit down with good people and eat that good food. And then the groans! The embarassing cacophony of utter joy!

So slow down. Take some time to thank your food for coming into your mouth. Feed some good people and drink some good wine. The most delicious things take the most time.
So now it's YOUR TURN: How do you slow down in a busy world? Post your comment below and edify us all!

Egg Photo Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Egg_in_straw_nest.jpg

New Book Review

Check out A.S. new book review, below: "What is the What" by Dave Eggers.

E-mail your book, film, or music review to me for publication on this page. We all benefit from the recommendations. My "Must Read" list is growing already. . .

Sesame Street Deserted, Gentrified and Bought by Private Company

This morning Merry has a cold and we are all at home. And so we sat sniffling around the kitchen table eating pancakes and listening to NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. If you've not listened to this hilarious show, a favorite section of ours consists of three stories--one is true, the rest are false. Today's true story recounted Ariel's "Sweet Sixteen Birthday Party" (broadcasted on MTV). Ariel's daddy throws her an immorally lavish bash, exposing himself and his oil fields to publicity; now you can read about the scandal in The Arizona Republic: Ariel's generous papa is on the news for "fraudulently promoting oil and gas investments in Kentucky." Investors feel grumpy about their money being invested in a brand-new BMW for little princess Ariel. But Ariel seems like a typical sixteen year old girl; she believes in the inherent worth of her father and of oil both: "My dad owns his own oil company. He has oil wells all over the world. I love oil. Oil means shoes and cars and purses," Ariel said on the show, which aired Monday. "So it sets me apart from everybody else in this town. . . . It smells like money, Daddy!"

You can find all the endless horror on sweet sixteen birthday parties on the MTV site. Or you can just watch MTV. Or our kids can watch MTV and dream of big bashes of their own.

What is happening to our culture? I know, I know, there are excesses in every culture, historically, all over the world. But the great excesses of our culture, and particularly our youth culture, deeply disturb me. There seems to be a growing sense of entitlement among American youth in general. And the problem goes much deeper than a mere feeling of deservedness. The problem is, our youth do not know what they truly deserve any more.

Children do not deserve cars, or cellphones, or a glittering social life among their peers. They do not deserve to feel comfortable all the time or to even be happy. They should not expect easy answers or facile outcomes. Youth should not feel they are the centre of their culture or the universe in general, nor should they expect an easy flow of material goods. They are not entitled to an easy education; they are not entitled to rewards.

What do our youth deserve? They deserve to be servants. They deserve to work hard and then to realize small but enduring benefits for their work. They deserve a love of learning, brought by discomforting, hard labor. What can we give our children? Not more things. We can give our children good conversation, the wisdom of the aged, knowledge of books. Our children deserve lives based on truth and realities that occasionally make them feel sad or disquieted.

I propose an alternative show to "Sweet Sixteen." Instead of taking in the frills and arsenic-laced whipped cream of excess, we could instead educate ourselves on the realities of an economically and socially torn world: a sixteen- year old orphaned by AIDS, caring for her siblings and grateful for what little education she can receive. A sixteen-year old sold into the sex trade by her desperately poor parents. A sixteen-year old conscripted into military work. A sixteen-year old who is the sole survivor of terrorist attacks in Iraq.

Oh, wait--are we at war? I had forgotten.

And God forbid we impress our youth with the reality of who they are in the world, and what work they must undertake to make our culture, and our world, a better place.

And education--what is that these days other than a product-line? Don't our youth deserve good jobs that will make them loads of money? Isn't success based on our professions, and our paychecks, and how much we are able to afford? What is learning but a means to an end?

Our society will collapse, piece by piece, if we do not give our children what they truly deserve.

I'm not waving the flag of socialism here. I'm not planning to strip my daughters of all their toys and give them sawdust pallets to sleep on. I'm not suggesting labor camps. I am certainly not advocating a loss of childhood. I believe in childhood, and I believe it is full of wonder--and chores, responsibilities, discipline, learning by experience, real conversation and silence and respect.

But I want to give, as much as I am able, a real life to my children. I want them to be unafraid to encounter and react to suffering. I want them to be compassionate and delight in all that is truly and deeply real. I want them to have wonderful imaginations, imaginations that give them faith to believe what is unseen and good.

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What does this have to do with Sesame Street?

I love Sesame Street--it is clever, robust programming. I love the good services that CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) delivers to children all over the US, without advertising and meaningless fillers. To me, CPB is a sign of health in our media morass. NPR is a bright spot in my daily routine and offers true education and responsible perspective.

And in the midst of our wildly disproportionate defense spending, not to mention controversial programs such as "No Child Left Behind" and our immoral health care messes (just to name a few concerns), the House has once again targeted CPB: "On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending." (For a great illustration on government spending, see the Cookie Site).

And who loses? Our children. Again. And so society suffers: the cuts would force the network to "drastically reduce the programming and services public television and public radio can provide to local communities," as well as cutting funding and thus obliterating 'Ready to Learn,' a literacy TV program, and online teaching resource `Ready to Teach' (The Boston Globe 2006).

But don't worry. If our children want good programming, they can always find "Sweet Sixteen" on MTV. MTV doesn't depend on the government for its funding, and guess what? It's doing just fine. Big Bird may have to register for food stamps, but MTV will not suffer. Hey, maybe Big Bird could actually get a beak-job and have his own show.

My sense of unreality grows. As Marvin Gaye put it, WHAT'S GOING ON?

CONTRIBUTOR REVIEW: What is the What by Dave Eggers

What is the What
Dave Eggers
McSweeneys, 2006



Dave Eggers’s “What is the What” follows the first-person account of a “lost boy” from Sudan, who lives in Atlanta at present. The book is nearly nonfiction—based on a real person of the same name—but in building the narrative Eggers played with facts enough to call it a novel; this twist of truth makes the 400+ pages an especially compelling read. Eggers does away with his typically profane style of writing to present Achak raw and gentle, full of faith that eventually gives way to doubt.

In Achak’s bare English, at once formal and poetic, the story of Sudan’s civil war and one man’s life will shatter you.

--Reviewed by Amy Scheer

Besides her day jobs as freelance writer and mother, Amy Scheer is a prolific editorial letter writer. Most recently, her letters have appeared in Newsweek and Time. Amy lives with her composer-husband and two jolly sons in Grand Rapids, MI. Favorite past-times include sipping East African tea.

Feminist Reading of Boneheads, Stegosaurs

As we flipped through Usborne's "First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life," Merry took in the pictures of fast-running, sharp-clawed, dagger-toothed dinosaurs. Meat eaters, made to rip and shred and ingest one another. Merry's mouth gaped. Suddenly she asked,

"Are WE meat?"


I have to admit, I am not a dino-fan. But Merry was rivited as we turned page after page of endless saurases. And then the text began to tickle my funny-bone.

Read the following exerpts with a feminist lens and see if they're not funny:

"Stegosaurs were big and heavy, and could only move slowly. . .Their bodies were almost as big as a bus, but their brains were the size of table-tennis ball." Here you can see the size of a stegosaur's brain compared with its body. (insert picture here of huge animal with teenytiny brain).

And my all-time favorite. Boneheads: "Pachycephalosaurs [had] bony domes on top of their heads. These dinosaurs are sometimes known as boneheads."

(And my favorite line:) "Male boneheads sometimes fought each other."

So the world evolved. But some things never changed.