Citizen Beta

I still try to limit the amount of television L watches every week. I avoid letting her watch two days in a row and the limit is 1.5 hours a day. I aim for less than 5 hours a week, which I think is really too much, and usually honestly arrive at somewhere between 2 hours and 7. She has pretty much outgrown Little Bear and likes to watch Arthur. She sometimes likes Curious George. I record all these on the DVR and then have them ready for the afternoons she is allowed to watch. Lately, I have been thinking about buying a movie for her. She has never watched a movie before but I am thinking it might be a good thing to have in my mama bag of tricks: for days she is sick on the couch (or I am) or I really need to get a lot done. It would be nice to be able to put something good on for her that will hold her attention for over an hour. The thing is I really want to avoid anything with dead parents or evil stepparents (Disney, I am taking to you) or annoying, over-stimulating animation. Gosh, what is left? I have narrowed the options down to one (Mary Poppins* because she is sort of familiar with the story and it has good music and a generally upbeat plot) but I am sure I am overlooking some good ones. Any thoughts on a good first movie for a three year old?

It is not urgent, though because what L really likes, and I mean really really likes, is books. Ah, yes, she is her mother’s daughter. She has a huge bookshelf in her room full of books and in the den is the basket full of the library books she checks out each week. She can memorize whole books after just one or two readings. She will go days without playing with any of her toys (although she is doing more and more imaginative play) but spends a great deal of her time reading or being read to.

This past weekend was our public libraries annual children’s book sale. They have thousands of books for 50 cents each. Some are pretty beat up but most are in great shape. I took A in the carrier and 40 dollars and braved the crowds to stock up. I spent $31.00 and got 62 books. 62 BOOKS! This is my third year going to the sale. I never really have particular books in mind (they are not really organized that by author, title or topic, just by reading level) but instead look for certain themes depending on what L is into. Last year it was lions. This year it was submarines, pirates and dance. I did get some books that are too young for L but that A will grow into soon. It was a lot of fun and if the baby hadn’t run out of patience I would’ve gotten a few more. I found some familiar stories and favorite authors and illustrators and new ones as well. We have not even gotten all the way through the pile. (Kara, I thought of you this year as I elbowed out other parents and desperate elementary school teachers. I imagined us once again comparing finds and appreciating how much our kids like books…)

* and yes, I realize this is Disney, too.

Sometimes you are busy with so many little things and you feel they are not adding up to anything altogether and it sucks and just makes you tired. It is just errands and laundry and car registration and phone calls and dentist appointments and such. Then, sometimes you are busy with big things like hiking and playing with friends and big new exciting projects and planning vacations and hugging three year olds and cuddling 6 month olds and watching, impressed, as your husband makes homemade sushi rolls and you are busy, so very busy, but it is really great. I have been that second kind of busy.

But, as always, I have managed to get some reading in.

I just finished We Need to Talk About Kevin and if you think summer reading should be dark and heavy and thought-provoking and scary and strangely beautiful and brutally honest, then this is the book for you! I really don’t want to give anything way but what you’ll learn from the book jacket itself is that 15 year old Kevin just killed a bunch of his schoolmates and his mother is, two years later, writing letters to his father and going over his entire childhood and their difficult relationship. And, while there are some things that bothered me about the book it is, overall, a stunner. [edited to add: okay, now I am a few hours past originally writing this and finishing the book and I can't get it off my mind. I think there were some things the author was getting at but that I can't quite put my finger on them...or maybe I can and I don't like them. Has anyone read this? I'd love to hear what you think].

Before that I read Lullabies for Little Criminals and wow! this one was great, too. I guess I go for that gritty (and slightly romantic) realism and this one was just up my alley. A young girl in Montreal living (most of the time) with her junkie father who had her when he was just 15 years old. They move from one flea bag apartment to another, from one bad situation to another until Baby (yes, that is the young girls name) is flirting with the kind of choices that have just about ruined her father permanently. It is a brutal story in many ways but so completely charming and lovely and interesting too with one of the most likable narrators I have read in a long time.

Previous to those two gloomy guses I read I Capture the Castle which I grabbed off the shelf at the used book store after L and I had picked out a couple books for her (including Max in Love by the awesome Maira Kalman) and I had to find something for me quick quick before she lost her patience or bolted out the door. The title looked familiar so I took and chance, and why oh why didn’t you tell me this book existed before. As much as I love gritty realism with lots of heroin and destitute or insane teenagers I also love Jane Austen and this book captures (intentionally) all the quaintness and manners and brash humility of Austen (and the BrÖnte’s too).

Before that gem was more gloom and doom and sad romance. I reviewed them here and here.

Right before Kevin I read the latest William Gibson for review but that won’t be published until late in August. Next up, re-read Half-Blood Prince in order to read Deathly Hallows.

I have a gift certificate for $25 to Amazon and I want to order a couple books. Any recommendations?

This door, for some reason, really appealed to me.

So, Whylime had a really interesting post about belonging to a club. Not a chess club or a book club but the kind of club where what you share is often heart-breaking but defining. The kind of club you maybe don’t talk about belonging to in polite company or that you never ever wanted to join in the first place. I hate to admit I have membership in several of these clubs. And, this is the stuff I rarely write about. Because I don’t want to hurt anyone, because it hurts to think about, because the stories are too long and detailed. Because, no one wants to hear your bad luck and horrible news. But, the other night I had insomnia. A. had been in the habit of waking around 3:30 am and she didn’t so I was awake from 3:30 until about 5:30 and I started writing my memoir in my head. But, what my memoir focused on was my father’s death in 1981. I had just turned 9. He had just turned 36.

I belong to the “my parent died when I was a little kid club.”

That is really not so unique. My dad was in his thirties, divorced from my mom (alas, another club) when he was diagnosed with leukemia. Cancer of the blood. There is really not a lot you can do about that one. I mean, when your blood is cancerous…He had chemo and all the rest. He lost his natural afro and his hair grew back in gray waves. He got a bit pudgy. He looked old and tired. I used to sit on the toilet while he shaved to make sure he didn’t cut himself because his blood couldn’t clot and I would have call for help if he passed out or something. Then he just stopped shaving.

The last few months were, as you can imagine pretty awful. He was in Sloane-Kettering in Manhattan and I was staying with one or another of his sisters on Long Island (my younger sister always with a different sister so we were isolated from each other—she didn’t even get brought to my 9^th birthday party). My mom was thousands of miles away with her new husband (several club memberships ensue at this point in the narrative) “getting settled” and trying to “establish a home” for us, I guess for when my dad finally died. Then, I got kicked out of my aunts house and my sister and I stayed with an aunt on my mothers side for two weeks at the end of which my father died. I don’t know when the last time I saw him actually was.

Per Jewish tradition, the funeral was very soon and I wrote the eulogy (my first attempt at writing!) and thus my lifetime membership in the club was ensured.

Next year I will be the age at which my father died. I feel I need to mark it somehow, but I have not decided how quite yet. My husband is 36 and I see him with our two girls and sometimes it freaks me out because 36 is really fucking young, you know?

There are a ton of reasons I rarely talk about this, not in the least because it is very messy and complicated and doesn’t all reflect well on most adult members of my family. My father was a wonderful man and I like to leave it at that and not get bogged down in all the shit.

There are absolutely no perks to belonging to this club. I didn’t cry for a long time after his death so I ended up with bleeding ulcers at age 10 and a lot of therapy. Perhaps some people would consider those perks? Nah. In 5^th grade (just a year after everything) Erica S. and I got in a fight over which was worse; having dad die or never knowing your dad at all. We both had valid points. I guess everyone thinks their club is the best.

as always, click to enlarge for better clarity.

Here is some online reading for you:

I was lucky enough to interview two authors recently. I really enjoy doing interviews and have had, over the past couple years, the opportunity to interview several authors and artists for a few different publications. You can read my interview with The Blood of Flowers author Anita Amirrezvani here. I reviewed Uncommon Arrangements and interviewed Katie Roiphe for Bookreporter as well. I found this book, examining seven unconventional marriages in early 20th century London, to be really interesting and quite lacking in Roiphe’s characteristic controversial feminism.

And, this article by Wayne Gladstone on Jewish comedy is excellent.

Speaking of reading, I am just about done with my last book on the Middle Ages and am ready to move on. I have a couple reviews I am working on, fiction and non-fiction but am planning to pick up some new novels of my choosing very soon.

The sign at the trail head said ¾ mile to the lake but after walking at least a mile we turned around because L was so sleepy. We never saw the lake. We did, however, finally catch glimpse of one of the many woodpeckers that serenaded us in the evening and added to the morning birdsong.

We also heard coyotes howling in the night and lots and lots of gunshots, even though we were firmly in the national forest. Baked beans, toasted marshmallows, strong coffee, bug bites…