Citizen Beta

Many months ago my mother lent me a thick paperback copy of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. I am a fast reader, very fast in fact, but this book took me a long time to read. Sometimes it felt like a chore. And the funny thing is, this book is very good. Written in the early 1920’s it is the story of a young man named Clyde Griffiths who kills his pregnant ex-girlfriend (though she believes he plans on marrying her) in order to be with a rich and beautiful girl who probably has no intention of actually marrying him. The copy I have ran 856 pages and a lot of sounded like this:

“So, by virtue of such mental prestidigitation and tergiversation, inspired and and animated as it was by his desire for Sondra, his inability to face the facts in connection with Roberta, he achieved the much-coveted privilege of again seeing her, over one week-end at least, an in such a setting as never before in his life had he been privileged to witness.” Yep..I actually read about 12 or 15 other books while I was reading this one. I already feel a little lonely without it.

But as plodding as the book sometimes is linguistically, the story is so compelling it is hard to walk away from. There was an introduction that I read before I began the novel so I knew about the murder and Clyde ending up on death row (though I didn’t know his fate). The third part of the book, which picks up right after the murder and is about the man-hunt, investigation and trial, is awesome. It moves at brisker pace with clearer language and finally after so many hundreds of pages introduces some new characters. This book was based on a true crime and is the basis for the Elizabeth Taylor movie, “A Place in the Sun,” which I really want to watch now!

In other news: Spring is in full force here, complete with the seasonal winds we deal with around here. But the bluster is tempered with the fact that the garden is in and the hens are laying a lot and I am winding up this term. I get a few weeks off and then will be ready to greet a whole new bunch of students (and hopefully see some old students in different classes). School is out in a month for L, too and instead of rushing about all summer or doing a summer camp we will be relaxing and seeing where our fancy takes us. I may put her in a week long science camp as she really wants to do one but it will depend on time and money and otherwise we have lots of adventures and projects planned.

Speaking of projects. Check out this little “ballerina cat” I knit for a 3 year old birthday present. I was finishing it up minutes before the party so it has no arms, no ballet slippers but my girls loved it so I hoped the birthday girl would too. Plus, it used up a bit of this blue and green yarn I had around. Right now I am knitting a sweater that is taking me almost as long as the Dreiser book (and it is actually a sweater vest—no sleeves!) and learning to knit cables on a dish cloth pattern.

Below are some recent reviews and here is a link to an interesting conversation about unschooling.  I don’t think it would work for us and I have many serious questions about it though I have thought a lot about more traditional homeschooling. What do you think?

REVIEWS:

Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book One, The Mysterious Howling by MaryRose Wood

Exodus and Emancipation by Kenneth Chelst (page 16)

In the spirit of SouleMama’s Friday moment:

Right now I am striving for a nice balance of quality and quantity.  This time last year I was freelancing for more publications but making less money and stressing about pitching ideas.  I am now focusing on two publications mainly and getting paid more (and as these are generally book reviews, author interview and an occasional piece of straight-forward journalism I have no ideas to pitch: I only have to say yea or nay to the assignments).

I am only teaching two classes but feel like I am devoting a good amount of energy to each and thus the semester is going well.  So well in fact it is almost done. 

All this allows me plenty of time for my most recent obsessions: knitting, baking bread, and knitting.

Here are some links to recent work and some photos of recent projects.  What are you keeping busy with as the lion days of March give way to the lambs? 

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro

Ghosts and Lightning by Trevor Byrne 

The American Girl by Monika Fagerholm

The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley

Dear Dumb Diary #9: That’s What Friends Aren’t For  and interview with author Jim Benton

Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes by Sabuda and Reinhart

Though the weather here is still quite warm we are starting to do more indoor, crafty type things around the house.  Also, we are eating a lot of butternut squash.  A favorite cold-weather past time here is homemade dough.  And,  today I started to learn to knit!  What do you turn to when the weather turns cool?

click images to enlarge

…and a bottle.

In my garden right now: eight tomato plants, four pepper plants, two cucumber plants, four squash plants

four basil plants (plus other herbs like mint, chocolate mint, lemon thyme, lemon verbena, curry, marjoram)

two broccoli plants, one cauliflower plant, one strawberry plant, three pumpkin plants, various flowers including begonias, marigolds, petunias and geraniums

Ready to plant today: black-eyed susans, eggplant

How does your garden grow?

…to Silver City.

…and sky

The chickens are doing well.  Very well.

I actually took this one in June of 2007 but the bike is still there so it counts…

I realize this is not a very good shot but I think it captures some of the strangeness (perhaps creepiness?) of the city.  Last week while driving around I saw this dude in a Chewbacca suit on the corner of a busy intersection.  His sign reads “9.99 for Anything.”  He wasn’t, as far as I could tell, working for anyone but himself.  What a Wookie!

(as always, click on an image for better quality)  

                                               Indeed it is!

Our original plan, when we got our chicks last spring, was to have three or four. We thought four would be good, one for each member of the family to name. But at the feedstore that day we were overwhelmed with excitement and also the realization that these tiny three-day-olds were so fragile and one or two may not make it. So we got five, joking, unfunnily, that the fifth one would be called “Insurance.” All five grew up to be beautiful chickens and it turned out that four were pullets (young hens) and one a cockeral (young rooster). Despite the near constant crowing once that boy hit puberty, we were proud of him.

We would have given him away but he was L’s chick, the one she named for herself and so like a boy named Sue, he was our roo named L and it was funny and we kept him. Then one recent day, things went awry. Dan went in to get something from the chicken run and the rooster attacked him. I was watching and there was nothing I could do to help and I laughed in that horrible nervous way like when you see a kid wreck hard on their bike and you know you shouldn’t laugh because it is not funny at all. It was not funny at all. But, Dan hardly ever had need to be in the coop so we thought we would just see what happened.

What happened was that damn bird attacked me two days later. I don’t remember what I was doing, probably feeding the bastard and he just suddenly was on me. Sortof wrapped around my leg and pecking and scratching and thank god I had long pants on and he followed me out of the run into the yard. The dog looked on greedily but also stood back. I put a chair between the rooster and myself and that pissed him off even more. I tried to corral him back inside the gate but he was angry and just kept coming at me. I kept thinking of the Junie B. Jones book that L loves that talks about mean roosters pecking peoples heads to nubs and that is why farmers always wear hats. Or maybe I thought of that later, when I was safely inside the house and the rooster back with his flock inside the run.

We decided, that night, the roo had to go. It wasn’t safe: he usually loved me and if he was attacking me it wasn’t a good sign. Plus, now I was scared of him and that sucked. We put an ad on Craigslist and broke the news to L. She wailed and keened for days like an Irish mourner (which in fact she sort of was). She loved him and her heart was breaking she told us and for days and days she devised ways to keep him but in the end a nice couple with a couple of acres and hens with no rooster came and got him and I’ll be damned if that sucker didn’t just let that guys grab him and shove him in a box with no protest. It was meant to be.

The heartache continues and there are some tears from time to time but as much as we miss him, the chickens and three of the four humans are much happier and safer. And, as if to thank us for getting rid of that horny guy, I found the first eggs today.

EGGS! What we have been waiting for. I had stopped obsessively checking for eggs, thought it would never happen and today there were four, FOUR beauties out there waiting for me, tiny and bluish-green (greenish-blue?) It is amazing and lovely and I cannot stop smiling today.

Here are some other things making me happy right now (a purse I hand sewed for L’s friend;a thrift shop sweater; homemade gingerbread; President Elect Obama).

What is making you smile today?