Citizen Beta

So far many of my cityscape images have been of brightly colored buildings which we have a lot of around here but lest we start to seem like carnival city this is a slightly sleeker image for you. Here you see some dinosaurs and visitors lounging in the reflection of the natural history museum. We are very much into dinos right now: L reads lots of books about them and has added paleontologist to road engineer when asked what she wants to be when she grows up.

I worked very hard to make her some polymer clay dinosaurs the other day and was pretty proud of my first attempts. When I asked her if she wanted to make some more with me she said no because I burnt the T-Rex and is that any way to treat a king?

Now that it is the mid-80’s instead of the high-90’s it is beginning to feel like Autumn around here. Conventional wisdom tells us that it doesn’t really cool down until after the State Fair because what fun is a carnival ride unless your thighs are melting to the seats? There is just about a week of the Fair left so mild weather should be right around the corner.

I am craving the cool weather. I am longing for long-sleeves, I am dreaming about sweaters. I am giddy to dress the girls in ribbed tights and cardigans. All summer I have scoured thrift stores in search of fall and winter clothing for A and L and I am ready to bring out my finds. Mostly I am excited to be able to play outside without feeling like the sun has landed on top of my bare head (we, too, are a mile high city). Trips to the zoo, the park, even walks around the block are so much more pleasant when it is not 96 degrees in the shade.

I used to love summer best. My birthday is at the end of July and would punctuate the middle of summer: over a month since school got out and just about a month until it would start up again. I loved to sit out in the sun with a book, warming my skin (and, I admit bleaching my hair with that “sun-in” crap or barring that, peroxide). I loved the laziness of summer. I loved the long long days of summer, the relaxed attitude of summer, the cold-beer-in-the-hand feel of summer…But, now I have kids and summer is kind of a pain in the ass. Where I live it can be too hot to enjoy the outdoors. Kids get overheated, refuse to drink water, rebel against sunscreen, fling off hats. On the other hand, while it can get really cold here, it never gets inconveniently cold. I have learned that the zoo is most fun in cold weather because you often have the place to yourself. The same goes for parks and playgrounds. I am learning to appreciate the quiet and calm of the winter. And, I do prefer dressing in layers.

So, bring on the Fall! Let’s fling open our closets and greet those sweaters, polish up those boots, drag out the long, dark blue jeans, get ready for black tights under skirts and handmade scarves by our bestest friends. I am ready to pack up L and A’s stripey shorts and tank tops, sandals and sundresses in favor of vintage button down shirts, corduroy jackets, leggings and rain boots. I am ready for very long novels and English Breakfast tea, a new season of America’s Next Top Model (oh, lord, I can’t help myself), flannel sheets and chenille gloves, lit candles and casserole dinners, building forts with dining room chairs while the wind whistles and blows the soot in the chimney up up up to the wintry, silvery haze of the city.

Hey!  It is not all gloomy and doomy books around here.  Read about how I am unloading all my baby stuff over at Dotmoms.

Last night I got an email from T at Bookreporter saying he’d like the review on Sebastian Faulks Engleby today or tomorrow. I said I would try to bust it out, having started it and put it aside for two others I was writing for them. He had forgotten about those two others so said I could go back to the original deadline. But, after getting the email last night I started working on the review again and one word kept coming to mind to describe the book and its narrator: creepy. And, I thought, I have read an awful lot of creepy books lately.

Here is a round-up:

Sharp Objects: Boy, is this deliciously creepy! A journalist named Camille, who spent most of her life carving words into her skin, is sent back to her oppressive hometown to cover the story of the murder of two little girls. While there she has to deal with her creepy mom and step-dad and her hyper-sexual and sometimes very ill 13 year old sister. She also gets involved with a cute cop who is investigating the crimes. This book is strange and fun and scary and sort of reminds me of a David Lynch film, if, you know, he made a film with a linear narrative.

Under the Banner of Heaven: This is some creepy non-fiction exploring the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints. It is not a new book, but one I had been wanting to read for a long time and my aunt recently lent it to me. It is very timely as the trial of Warren Jeffs just ended the other day. This is the story of some really depraved people who have created a religious niche for themselves where their perversions and crimes are often protected and hidden. Fascinating and very well written.

The Road: McCarthy is one of those authors you are supposed to read because he is a Great American Novelist or whatever which is precisely why I have never read anything by him before. But, I am glad I gave this one a try. It is a creepy tale of a father and son adrift in a post-apocalyptic world trying to survive by scavenging and avoiding roaming cannibals. Okay, that sounds really cheesy but in fact it is poetic and frightening and original and it has really haunted me and I may have to read it again. Is there a word for something that is at once more hopeful and more depressing than “bittersweet”?

Heart Shaped Box: This horror novel is creepy in a much more traditional way than the others. Joe Hill owes a huge debt to Stephan King: he has borrowed much in the way of style and theme from him. Jude Coyne is an aging rock star who has a thing for young Goth girls and collecting violent or scary ephemera. He buys a ghost from an on-line auction and the ghost arrives, but not quite as promised. I liked this book because I think horror books, done right can be a lot of fun. Hill’s style is very visual, it sometimes felt like he was writing for the movie version of the book. I am not sure if that is what he was doing or if that is just part of the post-modern style of writing because authors, like the rest of us, are influenced by our media saturated world. Still, I was able to get such a visual picture of the action, it was, especially the first third of the book, pretty scary and creepy. I was even willing to overlook some of the flaws of the book because it was so creepy and fun.

Besides Engleby I recently read Isabella Moon which while a ghost story of sorts, isn’t really creepy. I will link to those reviews when they are published at Bookreporter.

November is Jewish Book Month and so I have four books I will be reviewing for a local publication and thus will end my creepy book spree. But Halloween will be here before you know it…Any scary books you recommend?

This is my new favorite website/blog.

Also, I am working on my catalog at Library Thing (thanks, Kara) but haven’t had much time to enter anything except these recently read or random titles. I think I am going to create one for the girls, too.

We three daughters of mothers…

And, now, just me.

There are people who maybe should just stay here because leaving seems to open them up to sadness or tragedy. Or maybe it is all just accidents waiting to happen or something beyond explanation. But, two women, one broad shouldered and one broad hipped, are gone and I wish they were still here to gaze out at the mountains of Taos or wander through the messy brush of the bosque.

Two wishes: that I’d gone to that party to say goodbye and that I had tried to find her when I thought of her the other day.

We daughters of mothers and now only me, a mother myself.

Another motel sign…

This was supposed to be a post about books because in the last five weeks I have read a lot but not written about any of them here as I like to do.

I have read and reviewed: The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman, Spook Country by William Gibson, Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler by Wade Rouse, Engleby by Sabestian Faulk, and Caspian Rain by Gina Nahai (not all of these are published yet). On my own I have read the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The World Without Us, Come to Me. See, I have been reading a lot.

But, this week has been so shit-ass I cannot even take joy in re-hashing, reviewing or discussing any of those (and several of them were very good). It is not the horrible cold that I have had for a week: copious amounts of snot pouring from my face as I try to get students to “think critically about the terms ‘east’ and ‘west’ and why we use them and what they really mean and assumptions behind them.” No, there were two things this week that made this cold seem like a welcome diversion.

I had noticed lately that something was up with A’s right leg. She’d been “crawling” for a while in that commando style that newly mobile kids have. First pulling with her arms then eventually pushing with her toes, sometimes getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth only to drop down to her tummy again to move forward. It has been exciting seeing her get from room to room but hard work too as now she can get to cords and light sockets and bowls of dog food. But, like I said, something seemed not right with her leg. At first I thought she was just favoring the left leg, perhaps it was stronger. Her right leg didn’t straighten out the same as the left and instead of pushing off the ball of her foot she was pushing off of the side of her foot—a callous started to form. When she was on her belly, her leg jutted out from her hip and the inside of her knee and foot were flat on the ground, everything at a 90 degree angle. I watched a while more, casually mentioned it to D and to my mom…they looked too and it was decided she needed to be seen by a doctor. Her regular pediatrician was not in this week but I wanted to get her in as soon as possible because the hysterical mom who hides deep in all moms was starting to surface. The news was really not too bad: femoral extraversion. What happens, so they think, is that some kids sortof curl up funny in utero and some muscles don’t flex or develop as they should. It doesn’t tend to be apparent until they start crawling and then you get, as in A’s case, a lopsided crawler. It is nothing we need to act on now, something to watch…if it doesn’t correct itself after she starts crawling, well, then we take a next step, pardon the expression. We are doing some gentle therapy with her, encouraging her to stand, which thankfully, she enjoys, carefully moving her hip and leg into a better position as she crawls around. She is strong and we are confident but, yet, it is something that makes my stomach a bit fluttery.

And then, honestly, the week got even worse.

A little over fifteen years ago, someone gave me a kitten. My big black tom, Davis the Worm, the first pet I had on my own as an adult (besides a half feral Siamese named Anna that I had fed in my first apartment) had died, been murdered by a car, actually. I didn’t plan on getting another cat, was still in mourning for Davis who was sleek and lovely and hyper. But, this tiny kitten arrived in a box, mewing and asking for love—and milk, for she hadn’t been properly weaned. She was a very fuzzy true calico (mostly orange and black with a few stripy patches and white paws) with huge green eyes. Did I mention she was very fuzzy? I named her Bella, because she was: beautiful. Because of the not-quite-weaned thing she has this habit of sucking on my neck or hair and falling asleep. It was very slimy and cute. I had been dating D for a few months when I got Bella and about the same time he got a dog while on a camping trip, Pojo. Pojo and Bella, our first two girls grew up together and lived together, on but sometimes off, for all their lives. Pojo died unexpectedly one day, at age nine, while we were living in Seattle. The cat freaked out just as much as we did. It was awful.

Since being back here, Bella’s health got worse every year. She started getting thinner (and she was never more than 8 pounds to begin with and was about 7 pounds most of her life), started throwing up a lot and showing obvious disdain for the litter box. About 9 months ago she went blind. The vet said it was heart disease and she started taking heart medication and we talked about the fact the prognosis was not good. She would probably, said the vet, have a stroke at some point. She might go in her sleep tomorrow or hang on for years. She told me what to watch for and to be prepared. For months, Bella navigated the world (or, our house, anyway) sightless. It was pretty incredible. She memorized all the rooms and even though she was slightly less confident and playful, seemed happy and fine. Until yesterday.

Yesterday she seemed off all morning. Then, when I went to feed her in the afternoon she couldn’t jump up to reach her bowl. I put her up where she needed to be but she had trouble getting down and then I saw that she was crooked. Her back was arched and her legs stiff. She looked broken. My mom arrived just then and while we were waiting to C to bring L home from her afternoon at the library, we decided to call the vet. They would see us right away. My decision, I knew, was essentially made for me.

Okay, so you see where this is going. Suffice it to say it entails good-byes and tears (mine and a wailing L’s who was there for the whole thing). That last half hour is a bit of a blur but I did snuggle my kitten, old and tired and world-weary and wise, one last time and she sunk her whole body into mine and was so light and so heavy and once and I knew and she knew and I think it was okay.

Me and the girls returned to a quiet house. The dog (our first since Pojo died) was sleeping in the sun outside. The house was at once full of Bella (the bed D had made her after Pojo died, her food, her litter box, clumps of her long hair…) and, now, empty of her. I needed to self-medicate but being a responsible (and breastfeeding) mom my options were limited. I remembered some chocolate kisses and old Hanukah gelt in the freezer and started unwrapping them and shoving them in my mouth. I don’t know how much I ate but I did feel calm enough to read to the girls until D got home. We will slowly gather her things from around the house and put them away. I will donate the rest of her food and litter. I will find my favorite picture of her and frame it with a picture of Pojo because I’d like to imagine them curled up on some couch together, too well-fed and content to miss us at all.

As always click for clarity.