T - 25 days and T-14 days

3 1/2 weeks until my due date, March 4. Desired date of delivery: Feb 19, just over 2 weeks early. Seems unlikely. I went to the dr yesterday and absolutely nothing has started to happen.

Physical discomforts as almost 37 weeks pregnant:

• Varicosity, multiple locations


• Leg cramps (sometimes severe) in the middle of the night


• Insomnia


• Contributing to the above, middle of the night bathroom trips


• And associated with the above, lots of bathroom trips during the day and reduced ability to "pee in a stream"


• Gas


• Weight gain, not from baby, making me feel chubby


• Physical awkwardness, lumbering around


• Swollen ankles


• Sleepiness all the time


• Ligament tenderness

Well, it's now Feb 19th. No sign of baby Sportacus yet, but when I went to the dr last Friday, I had progressed to 1 cm, 50 % effaced. I have another dr appt this Friday. I feel ready. Last week, I washed all the baby stuff. Yesterday, we got the "baby's room" (our closet) all ready. This consisted of cleaning out the closet, vacuuming, moving the laundry and a bunch of other stuff, and putting the baby basket in its spot. We also got the whole house cleaned up and vacuumed (my new vacuum is so great), and I packed my suitcase. I am ready to go to the hospital. Now, if my water would break or if contractions would start.

Additional physical ailments at 38 weeks:

The baby seems to have settled lower, so there is a lot more pressure in the pelvic area, not to mention more stress on the bladder. The ligament pain has increased--yesterday, I could hardly hobble around the house and turning over in bed has gotten really difficult. I don't know that I will be at the gym again, and with the weather so cold, that leaves me confined to the house for the most part. I feel so so big. I am carrying the baby straight out this time around--my belly looks like a big basketball.

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Getting Ready for Baby Sportacus

The due date is 2 1/2 weeks away. I still haven't packed my bag to take to the hospital, but we are slowly getting ready for the arrival of baby Sportacus.

As an aside, I love the name Sportacus. T dubbed the baby with this name when we found out he was a boy and it stuck. With MJ, we kind of called her Lucy in utero and with T, we called him Joey. But, we didn't regularly refer to them with these names. Not like now. I hope the name stickes past his birth.

The last few days, I have washed tiny little undershirts and jammies, gotten out the baby car seat and washed its cover too, and located the baby basket. We have a Moses kind of basket that AJ's mom gave us before MJ was born that our babies have slept in the first 2-3 months. Sportacus will be no different in that regard, but he will probably be sleeping in our closet since we don't have an extra bedroom this time around. I don't want to put him in with T until he is sleeping through the night pretty well, so our closet will double as a nursery. So different than when MJ was born and we spent a lot of time getting her room set up and getting all the supplies we thought she needed.

I bought newborn diapers (so amazingly tiny), breast pads, and jumbo Always at the store a couple of days ago. I quickly forget how much I had to focus on controlling bodily fluids right after my babies was born, but it's all coming back to me now.

I have been thinking about all the scenarios of when the baby could come and am trying to plan for all possibilities. I have a list with lots of phone numbers, and hope that it won't be hard to find somewhere for MJ and T to go when we are heading to the hospital. I have talked to AJ multiple times about how to get a hold of him at work. And I have been feeling bad that we don't have any family close by to help out with this part and to visit us in the hospital.

We took the hospital tour on Tuesday. That was a relief. Now, we know where to park and go in and where the labor and delivery area is. And we have seen it with our own eyes which makes me feel calmer about it. Looking at the hospital materials with the pictures of newborns, I had a shock of reality that this baby really is coming very soon and I got a little emotional. I am ready, I think, to have him join our family, to see what he looks like, and to start to get clues to his personality.

I haven't cooked any meals to freeze for quick prepartion. Nice idea, but that's just not going to happen. I did buy some chicken nuggets and orange chicken at Costco. Does that count for anything? One of my favorite things with a newborn is getting to read so much with all the nursing you have to do. I have a pretty good book list. I have a couple of library books I want to get through, and I ordered a few more to our branch. I should pull out all the books I want to read that I have laying around the house.
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Nine Parts of Desire

This was our book selection for the month. It was a fairly interesting read, but I thought Geraldine Brooks tried to cover too many topics, to the exclusion of depth in any one given area. I was interested to read a bit about the history of Mohammed and his wives. And to see where some of the Muslim customs surrounding women come from. One woman in our group pointed out how similar she saw Mohammed and Joseph Smith. Looking back, it would have been interesting to delve into that a bit.

One chapter was on veiling. This is an area I am interested in. It seems to me that veiling is linked with fundamentalism and nationalism and with other tendencies that supress women. I know that there is dispute over this. Many women feel that veiling protects and empowers them. This might be. I think that there should be standards of modesty, but have issues with extremes. There were many Indian women in our neighborhood in NYC who wore brightly colored head scarves and beautiful and loose fitting saris, and I thought they were modest without being so compelled into narrow standards of dress.

I have a major problem with the idea that women are caretakers of men's chastity and sexual desires and that they need to veil in order to protect men from illicit sexual thoughts or acts. Why can't we focus more on how men need to control their thoughts and how parents and other adults need to teach boys that they need not be subject to every passing thought? Veiling seems to be for the benefit of men, rather than for women. At least, this is my perception, which is admittedly mostly ignorant and from a Western perspective.

I thought a bit about how religion is used as a means of social control for women. And for general human behavior too. It seems like it is used less as a way to proscribe gender roles for men--Brooks talks about how certain admonitions in the Koran which seem to apply equally to men and women, or those that center on men's behaviors, are not enforced among men. I thought about our church and how the pulpit is used (not in malicious ways) to circumscribe appropriate female behavior, leading, at times, those who do not fit the molds of appropriate gendered behavior to feel guilty or smothered.

One of Brooks' points is that a great deal of Islamic traditions surrounding gender--which vary greatly from country to country and from locality to locality--are not based in Koranic teachings but are most a cultural artifact of Islam. It makes me wonder what things we do in the church are similarly cultural and not based in any eternal truths. (I personally think there might be a lot.)
The feeling that I most had after reading the book was the desire to dive in and learn some more, and hopefully from Islamic women, not a Western, self-labelled secularist, who might have an ax to grind. That's not to say that she didn't have some interesting and valuable observations and conclusions in her book. She did. I would like to broaden my understanding by looking at a variety of souces. I just put a few more books on Islam, gender roles, and women on my list to read.
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Nature's Body: Gender In The Making Of Modern Science

I only got to read one chapter of this before I had to return to the library, but I picked a great one. In chapter 2, Londa Schiebinger traces the genesis of the mammalia label to the mid-18th century taxonomist Carl Linneaus. Although mammary glands are one shared characteristic of this group, Schiebinger makes the case that they are not the most prominent unifying characteristic and that Linneaus' choice to use this label as a taxonomic device was based in the cultural context of the time.

Most upper class western European women during this time period utilized wet nurses to feed their infants. But, a social movement was underfoot to reconnect women to the domestic sphere. By connecting a group of animals to humans through the mammal label by virtue of their ability to produce milk for their young, nursing is seen as "natural" and connected women to the animal kingdom.

So, science and scientific evidence have also been mustered to define gender roles and promote gender ideology. Not too suprising, but this chapter made me rethink something as basic as the animal classification system that I learned about in 1st grade. To me, there was no other way to sort mammals into their own unique category and the idea that something like this name could have been politically motivated and culturally structured was novel.

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About Alice

Calvin Trillin has been a staff writer at the New Yorker for many years. I read a vivid and touching essay a while back there about his late wife Alice who died in 2001. This book is an expanision of the New Yorker essay and it's a pure delight to read. A reader who sent Trilliin a note of condolence after Alice's death describes her measuring stick for judging her boyfriend: "Will he love me as much as Calvin loves Alice?" And Trillin's affection for Alice shows through on every page.

This and other personal memoir books that so perfectly (it seems) capture a spouse or child through writing make me want to be a better writer so I can preserve the fleeting nature of what my children are like now.

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Caucusing in Minnesota

Tonight, we loaded the kids in the mini-van and headed over to our local high school to caucus for Obama.
We went early, thinking we could potentially avoid some of the crowds, but we sure weren't early enough. There was a lot of traffic, backed all the out of the high school, all the way down the main roads. It took us a good half an hour to get through the traffic and into the parking lot and then we headed in to major chaos inside. The turn-out was phenomenal. The time box on the voting made the entire experience so much more exciting--seeing all of our community merge together to caucus rather than the typical trickle at the local school or church for voting at the polls.

We first had to determine which precinct we were in by looking at badly labeled maps, and then headed to a high school classroom. By the time we got there, it was just about 7, and so the caucus process was starting. The caucus convener for our precinct was an old, short woman with a quiet voice who was reading the by-laws for caucusing. They went on to elect some precinct officials. We didn't stay long enough to participate in the discuss on the democratic platform. I figure all those old-time caucus goers were overwhelmed with all of us newbies to the process.


The room was jam packed--for some reason, two precints were included there. We had to register by signing in with our names and addresses, but there was no need to present any form of ID or proof of residency. I kept wondering how they keep Wisconsinites and Iowans from crossing the border to vote in our caucuses. After we signed in, they gave us a small piece of purple paper which was on ballot. We were to write the name of our candidate there and then put it in a box. That's our ballot? Crazy. I wrote Obama on mine, and MJ wanted to write it down on AJ's. The weird thing was the election workers had no idea how we were to vote for a senate candidate. They told us we were supposed to go somewhere else to vote for the senate. but, out in the hall, they told we needed to vote for them in our precinct room. We decided to take the kids and head out at that point. I wonder if they ran out of real ballots which would have had all of the caucus elections listed.

The good news is that Minnesota has been called for Obama.

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The Invention of Hugo Cabret

I don't have a lot of intellectual energy today. I am tired--sleeping and staying asleep has become more difficult the last few weeks and the countdown is on. T and I haven't left the house today and have been lazily doing not much of anything. But, I did want to write a few notes on what I read last week.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret won the Caldecott Medal this year, so I was surprised to see a 500+ page book when I picked it up from the library last week. It is a book unlike any I have seen. Brian Selznick tells his story through both the use of his text as well as his charcoal-like illustrations. He describes it as "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things. " The illustrations perfectly complement the story--as it unwinds, we learn more about a mysterious old man who sells toys, but who had a previous career as a film maker, and these illustrations are like an old time silent movie.

The story focuses on a boy who lives in a Paris train station and keeps the clocks up and running. He has a talent for all things mechanical, and in the process of the novel, is able to figure out how to fix a complicated automaton that his father was interested in before he died.

That's about all I have in me to say, but here are a couple of links for fun reading associated with this book. One is a review, and one is a post from a friend who is a children's librarian.

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The North Star

I went to bed on Sunday night before I heard about President Hinckley's death. At about 11, AJ came in, and said my name in a loud whisper a couple of times. When I woke up a little bit, he told me the news. I pretty much went right back to sleep, but every time I woke up that night to turn over or go to the bathroom, I thought, "President Hinckley is dead." And I couldn't help but feel a little glad for him.
I was grateful that he did not have to endure a long period of illness and disability where he could not lead the church actively like he has been. Just recently, he spoke to churchwide audiences at both General Conference in October and at the Christmas devotional in December. And, according to people who attended, he spoke at a regional stake conference just a few weeks ago. This contrasts with the long health declines leading up to death of our previous three prophets with whom he was working closely.

I also felt grateful that he could be reunited with his beloved Marjorie. It has been almost 4 years since she died, and whenever he talked about her, you could tell how acutely he missed her. He said this about her in General Conference, October 2004:

My children and I were at her bedside as she slipped peacefully into eternity. As I held her hand and saw mortal life drain from her fingers, I confess I was overcome. Before I married her, she had been the girl of my dreams, to use the words of a song then popular. She was my dear companion for more than two-thirds of a century, my equal before the Lord, really my superior. And now in my old age, she has again become the girl of my dreams.

I don't remember many specifics from President Hinckley's talks. To me, he was more of a on-the-ground prophet, travelling to meet with members throughout the world, and advancing the cause of Zion through specific projects. I remember the electrifying moment when he announced the small temples initiative, which would make the blessings of the temple so much more accessible to the members of the church. Our area here was a recipient of one of these temples. We also lived in New York City when, shortly after 9/11, he announced that he was determined to see a temple built there before he died. In 2004, the New York City temple near Lincoln Center was dedicated. When he became church president in 1995, there were 47 temples. Today there are 124. Those temples stand as a memorial to the life of Gordon B. Hinckley.

A few years back in our New Jersey ward, the primary children performed a song about President Hinckley which was based on various experiences throughout his life. The first verse describes how when camping as a young boy, he noticed that Polaris didn't move through the sky during the course of the night. The chorus continues this theme:

Be constant as the North Star, that shines for you and me
Anchored in the Gospel with pure integrity
Steadfast in your service to God and fellowman
President Hinckley has shown us that we can.

I think that this analogy is a great one for President Hinckley's life of devotion to Lord and to Zion.

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Hibernating

When I took the kids to the library last week, they had a cute bulletin board up showing a big bear (in a scarf and hat...) with the word HIBERNATE defined and emphasized.

HIBERNATE: \ˈhī-bər-ˌnāt\ to pass the winter in a resting state

Then, they had a lot of book suggestions for kids.

That's my kind of winter activity. Even though the NYTimes just reported that exercising in the cold is not detrimental to your health, I don't like going out in the cold. I prefer the gym. And I love to snuggle up with a book.

Last weekend, the weather forecasters said that the temperature wouldn't go above zero for the whole weekend. We decided to make an adventure of it with the kids and planned to stay inside almost the entire weekend. We picked up some pizza for dinner on Friday, and then ate, played games, read books, had some ice cream, and then AJ and the kids camped out in the front room in the tent. Because of my Advanced State, I got a reprieve from sleeping on the floor and spent the rest of the evening blogging and reading. AJ, I think, fell asleep before the kids.

On Saturday, after breakfast, we went to the gym for some exercise, and then just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon at home. We did a few chores, played some more games, and then watched the worst movie ever: Shirley Temple's Stand Up and Cheer. I happily had a book to distract me from giving it my complete attention, but the plot was weird, the characters were weird. The only good thing about it was a few songs with Shirley. We had sushi and dumplings for dinner and the kids went to bed early because they hadn't quite gotten their full allotment of sleep the night before on the floor.

We might make this a tradition every year when it's super cold. It reminded me a little bit of the August before MJ was born when AJ and I decided to take a vacation at home. We turned off the phone and spent the weekend doing fun things at home and around our area. We went to a different ward (and only to sacrament meeting at that). I am trying to remember specific things we did, and I can only recall playing Myst. We probably got take out at the awesome Indian place right by our house. Wow, it's hard to remember what it was like before we had kids.

Oh, and today on the way home from church, the van registered the outside temperature as 37 degrees. The kids threw off their coats, and MJ changed into capris and a t-shirt as soon as we got home. Then, AJ took them outside to play ball. MJ insisted that he put on "spring wear" since it's so warm.
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People of the Book

In December, I read a New Yorker article about the rescue of a centuries old, beautifully illuminated Haggadah from the Nazis during WWII. Known as the Sarajevo Haggadah (that's where it turned up in the late 1800's, and that's where it has been since then), specialists believe that it dates from the mid-1300's, with an origen in convivencia Spain, when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in relative harmony.

The author of the New Yorker article, Geraldine Brooks, has also written a fictionalized account of how the Haggadah came from Spain (to Catalonia to Venice to Vienna) to Sarajevo. Her novel centers around a rare book expert--Hanna Heath--who is commissioned to repair the Haggadah's damaged binding. During her work, she discovers clues in the manuscript that have long lingered there and give her brief glimpses of the travels of the book throughout its long life. Brooks intersperes Hanna's work on the Haggadah with the stories of the book in its other locales, linking the physical remants Hanna finds--a wine stain, an insect's wing, and others--to the individuals who were instrumental in making and preserving the Haggadah over time.

Brooks has taken a mysterious sacred manuscript and given it a whole life. Historically, very little is known about this Haggadah--the skeleton facts are that is was rescued from destruction 3 times: during the Inquisition in the 1500's, WWII, and then in the Bosnian war in the 1990's. Brooks has conjured up a whole centuries long life for this book, making its present day existence seem nothing short of miraculous. She makes the Haggadah the star of her novel.

This makes for a fascinating read. Embedded in her story are the rough outlines of the tortured history of the Jews; the idea of a book travelling with them, as a group of people, through one expulsion after another is compelling. I was particularly interested in span of time that the Haggadah was in Venice since we walked through the old Jewish ghetto on our recent trip there.

On a tangent, I think that somehow I got a brand new library copy of this book, with the binding tight, the pages crisp and clean, and the new book smell evident. When I see advertisements for Amazon's new electronic reading tool, the Kindle, I am uninterested. To me, one of the pleasures of reading is the tactile sense of holding a book in my hands, feeling its heft, turning the pages over one by one. It's not hard to see why a book about a book would captivate me.

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Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

By Anthony Doerr. Ehh. The author recounts the year he and his wife spent in Rome with their two small sons. I thought the setting would make it interesting. Not really though. Nothing really resonated with me in it. Didn't really learn much about Rome, didn't really learn much about parenting twins, didn't really learn much about Pope John.

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Book of a Thousand Days

I think this is one of Shannon Hale's best books. I enjoyed it much more than her last two Bayern books. The story--based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale Maid Maleen that I have never heard of--held together well. The characters were developed nicely, despite the diary format. And she captured me in the world of the book. There were no jarring reminders that this was a story written in the 21st century. The characters, their actions, and their language felt authentic. The world of Dashti and Saren felt consistent. And Shannon Hale's writing is beautiful and lyrical.

Some others have commented that this book feels more like historical fiction than fantasy. And I agree. The setting and time Hale creates felt like it was a real historical location in the Asian Steepes. Indeed, Hale's setting was inspired by medieval Mongolia. I was a bit surprised when one truly fantastical element emerged in the story since it felt so centered in earth world.

And although the ending is somewhat predictable, the pathway there isn't, driving the plot all the way to the last page.

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The New Kings of Non-Fiction

My sister M gave me this book for my birthday, with the description that it was like This American Life in print. After all, it's edited by Ira Glass and it does have a similar feel to his radio show.

After reading the first few essays, I would also describe it as the New Yorker in book format. Indeed, several of the essays were originally published in the New Yorker.


Ira Glass has picked out what he considers to be some of the best non-fiction writing around. For the most part, I agree. The majority of the essays were fascinating. I loved the story of the New Jersey teen who was day trading, got into manipulating stock prices for profit and got called up by the SEC.


And the profile of a regular 10-year old boy (also from New Jersey) was so full of funny and endearing details. My favorite was Susan Orlean's description of what it would be like to be married to him:

If Collin Duffy and I were to get married, we would have matching superhero notebooks. We would wear shorts, big sneakers, and long baggy T-shirts depicting famous athletes every day, even in the winter. We would sleep in our clothes. We would both be good at Nintendo Street Fighter II, but Collin would be better than me...

And on it goes. I need to send it to my sister who has an almost 10 year old son to see if she thinks it describes him at all.


The essay on the Manchester United soccer fans was frightening. And so packed with details. The author of the essay, Bill Buford, was right there the whole time with them, as a participant observer, and so you get the insider view. The whole mob mentality and the craziness of their devotion was shocking.


There were a few essays I didn't like as much, but all in all, it was a fun read.


I would have like an updated version of some of the essays. The one on Saddam Hussein ended abruptly towards the beginning of the Iraq war started, so we don't get any extra information about how his ego and vanity suffered in the wake of the prolonged US occupation and his eventual capture and execution. Some of the essays seemed a little dated.
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Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries

I heard Neil de Grasse Tyson on MPR several months ago discussing his general audience astrophysics/astronomy book and finally read it.

General thoughts:

1. Not quite general audience enough for me
   
2. It seems the book is a compilation of essay that he wrote for Natural History magazine, and so there is a lot of repetition
   
3. Because of the above, the sections aren't really cohesive, but come together only in a loosely connected way

There were a few sections of the book that I liked: some bits about the intersection of science and culture, some interesting bits about our solar system's planets, a discussion of asteroid impact on earth and throughout the solar system. The final section on God and science was weak. (There are a lot of interesting questions that arise, though, in the intersection of religion and astrophysics. I wonder how all these questions will ultimately be resolved.)

I didn't love this book. I scanned quite a bit of it. But, I felt a compulsion to finish it. I wanted to get it over with so that I could read some other things. I didn't skip around it it, but read it from front to back. Why couldn't I just set it aside, half-finished? I don't know, but, I couldn't. (I also wonder how that personality trait influenced my finishing what I started in getting an undergrad physics degree. Even in finishing my dissertation.)

It was a little bit satisfying to find that I still some familiarity with his topics, but mostly I wondered why I had spent my undergrad years studying physics--precious little has stuck with me, and that which has is more specific topics (like spectography) rather than any real understanding of large themes and ideas (like the nature of light). I was never cut out to be a physics major. My complete lack of spatial intelligence and my difficulties in big, theoretical thinking are two weaknesses that should have clued me in during those first couple of years.

I have been thinking a little bit about the decision to major in physics. When I was young--in late elementary school--I learned about Sally Ride, the first female astronaut to go to space. I did a report on her and then began aspiring to a career as an astronaut myself. This was until I realized that my physical inner ear weakness and extreme suseceptibility to dizziness would probably disqualify me physically to be an astronaut. But, I remained intrigued with some kind of space-based career. And I was really good at math. I think that perhaps as an idealistic freshman, physics became a substitute for astronaut. I didn't know what I was getting into, and I really should have dropped the major after my 100 level electricity and magnetism class.

Space, and in particular the stars, have always fascinated and mesmerized me. But, I came to realize that I am more interested in their romance, in their mystery, and in the questions they stir in me rather than in understanding how stars are created or what a pulsar is, for example.

Why couldn't I have learned my lesson the first time I read one of Whitman's Leaves of Grass poems and before I spent all that time as an undergraduate studying physics?

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

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Republican Craziness

It wasn't until 9 pm our time that I remembered to check for the Michigan returns. I turned on CNN and was first stunned, and then so amused, that Romney had won the primary there. We watched their coverage with the "best political team on television" for a while, but my main reaction was laughter in disbelief. I thought that Mitt was going to be done after Michigan. Now, we have had three races, and three winners. The Republican field is still wide open. No front runner, no coalescing around any candidate. Really, anything can happen.

I would love to see the craziness continue for a while longer. Let's have Huckabee win in S Carolina with a good showing from Thompson. And how about Guiliani in Florida? Then, every card is up in the air on Feb 5.

I would prefer not to see McCain win the Republican nomination, because I think he would be the hardest to beat. And I am ready to have the Dems back in the White House.

And I am really interested in seeing Obama as the D nominee because I like him as a candidate, but also because I think he will be more electable than HRC. I don't want all the vitriol against her to fuel voting for a Republican. And I am leery of extending political legacy for another 4 to 8 years. Plus, I just don't have an emotional connection with her like I do with Obama.

I listened to part of Mitt's speech last night and yuck. I didn't like it at all. And the change in his message for the Michiganites? It sounded like he was running for state legislature. "We'll protect the auto industry" and "we'll save your jobs from getting exported". Really?? Who believes that?

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Vivian Bearing and the Life of the Mind

Vivian Bearing is the starring character in the play W;t, written by Margaret Edson. She is a professor of English literature who specializes in the Holy Sonnets of the 17^th century poet John Donne. As a character, she is tough, arrogant, very smart, driven, methodical--a woman of the mind. In the first scene of the play, she is diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer. Her first reaction upon hearing the news is a determination to compile a bibliography and study through the relevant medical research. Throughout the play, she shows her mastery of the specific vocabulary surrounding her cancer and its treatment. "My only defense is the acquisition of vocabulary." Even when she comes to the hospital in the middle of the night, shaking, delirious, and with a high fever, she is able to tell the nurse, “Fever and neutropenia."

During the course of her illness and treatment, Vivian experiences a transformation. She begins to see that she has neglected kindness and compassion, personal relationships and love in her life, and that in the end, these things seem to be what is truly important in life. In one of the most powerful scenes of the play, towards the end of her life, she says "I thought being extremely smart would take care of it... But, I see that I have been found out."

I have been thinking of Vivian a lot. I like her character. I can relate to her character. I see a lot of my primary characteristics in her. I have always been more of a thinker than a feeler, more in my head than in my heart. I spent the first few hours after we got the "maybe your baby has Down's Syndrome" combing the internet for research, trying to quantify my exact situation with concrete numbers. I face most questions that I deal with in an analytical way. So, when breastfeeding was difficult with MJ and when we needed to come up with a sleep plan for her when she was little, I checked out lots of book from the library, did a lot of research to see what the experts said, and then came up with a plan. Just the fact that I needed a sleep plan for her says a lot about it.

Mental stimulation, the life of my mind, ideas and thoughts are important lifeblood to me. I love going alone to the gym with my book. I love spending time alone at home and will most often read or write or listen to something on NPR. I am definitely an introvert--I always feel somewhat strung out after spending time with a large group of people, compared to AJ who finds energy in larger, noisier group settings. I am not asocial. I just prefer quieter time with friends, talking about interesting things.

At book group, I found it interesting that no one else could really relate to Vivian, at least no one said they did when I asked the question. I have been wondering about why I am this way. My dad is stoic and more a thinker--my mom has always the emotional force in their marriage, while one of the things I found most difficult about my dad is that he didn't connect with me (with all the kids?) in an emotional way. I think that I have inherited some of his stoicism. But, at the same time, being female, I have been socialized much more into emotional kinds of behaviors than my dad. Just supposition here. My mission helped me a lot with empathy and being married and having kids too. But, this is not my default perspective.

In W;t, Vivian has a mentor in graduate school, Evelyn Ashford, who seems to have balanced the life of the mind and the life of the heart. She is a top-notch scholar, able to dissect Donne's poems, but also to see that the clever verbal swordplay and the intellectual brilliance are not the ultimate end. I love the scene early in the play when Vivian recalls a meeting with Dr Ashford about a paper she is writing. It introduces so well the themes of the play. The conversation revolves around the punctuation of Donne's Death Be Not Proud.

Ashford: Nothing but a breath--a comma--separates life from life everlasting. It is very simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It's a comma, a pause.
This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something from this poem, wouldn't you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barriers, not semicolons, just a comma.

Vivian: Life, death...I see. It's a metaphysical conceit. It's wit! I'll go back to the library and rewrite the paper--

Ashford: It is not wit, Miss Bearing. It is truth. The paper's not the point.

Vivian: It isn't?

Ashford: Vivian. You're a bright young woman. Use your intelligence. Don't go back to the library. Go out. Enjoy yourself with your friends. Hmm?

Vivian walks around campus, mulling over this conversation and its implications, but then she returns to the library.

I think part of the reason I was so moved by the play, and by watching the film with Emma Thompson, is that I don't want to exist only with the life of my mind. I see Vivian at the end, dying, understanding what she missed out on in her life, and the strongest feeling I have is that I want to be kinder to my children, that I need to try to understand them and AJ better, that I desire more compassion and empathy.
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hangover

I've been riding on some emotional waves lately. The Obama win last week in Iowa and his victory speech following it were thrilling and electrifying. I've been dreaming a lot about the caucuses and primaries lately. And then my mind has been all wrapped up in Wit. I read it a couple of times and watched it and have been thinking so much about it. It's also been in my dreams a lot and I've been waking up with the lines in my mind and thinking about the themes.

Last night all that emotional energy dissipated. Our book group met to discuss Wit--everything I had been thinking about we talked about--and Obama lost the New Hampshire primary to Hillary. To top it off, I didn't get enough sleep last night.

I feel depressed today...
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Dragon Slippers

This is a young young adult book, or an older children's book I suppose, by a woman, Jessica Day George, I know from our time in New Jersey. I had heard about it before it was published, and then when I saw Shannon Hale's interview with her, I decided it was time to read it.

It was a fun, light read. This is Jessica's first published book, so that's great news for her. She has always been a fantasy freak, and this is one big fairy tale. I thought that her voice as author was a little inconsistent at times, and the writing wasn't as good as some other YA books I've read, but kudos to her for getting it published. There were a lot of fun things about it--I loved the dragon stained glass collection and the way Creel (not my favorite name for a character) used them in her embroidery. And there is a character named Tobin! I have a secret theory that Jessica subconsciously pocketed the name when she got T's birth announcement and then pulled it out to use in her book.

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New Church Time!

One of the best things of turning the calendar over to 2008 is that we now have church at 9:00 rather than 1. I left church to come home around 12:20 today, and reflected on how just last week at this same time, we were hurrying to finish lunch and get the kids into the car. Right now it's 2:10, the same time when last week I was sitting in a just ending sacrament meeting. Now, I am sitting in my comfy clothes, having just eaten nachos for lunch, with a lot of the day still spread out before me. The kids do so much better at this time. It makes for much more pleasant Sunday. I feel a little giddy about it. This contrasts with how bitter and cranky I felt about getting to and attending church for about the first 6 months of last year.
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This made my day

A few days ago, T decided all on his own that he wanted to write a thank you note to Santa. He has been very interested in practicing his letters and has just about gotten to where he can write all of them by himself. He asked me how to spell everything, and save for the 3 s's and the g, he wrote it all himself.

In case you can't tell, it says, "Dear Santa, Thank you for all those wonderful things. Toby." As happy as I am that he is interested in writing letters and is doing a good job of it, I was more excited that he wanted to tell Santa thanks.

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Borgiallo Families: Nicolao and Margarita (Ghiglietti) Trucano, Giuseppe and Caterina (Malano) Trucano, and Martino and Caterina (Reverso) Trucano

I finally made it to the temple this weekend to finish off most of the sealings of the Italian names I have been working on. Unfortunately, AJ didn't come with me because we couldn't find a babysitter. And the night we had planned to go with another couple, something (camping with the scouts in the dead of winter--grr) came up.

There were three main families that I have been working on and I wanted to just jot a note about them to help me remember where they fit in the family tree.

Maria Domenica Giustat (b. 1840) is a direct ancestor. She was born and married in Salto, Italy. Her mother was from Borgiallo, as was her paternal grandmother, so the Borgiallo line splits into two with her. When I first looked at the Borgiallo microfilms back when we still lived in Pittsburgh, I started with her grandmother, Maria Caterina Trucano Giustat (b. 1787) and quickly found the marriage record of her parents. All of Maria Caterina's work had been done because my dad had access to her marriage and death records in Salto, but I was able to find her siblings and parents. There are still two brothers, Giovanni and Giuseppe, that I need to look for.

Maria Caterina's parents are Nicolao Trucano (b. 1754) and Margarita Ghiglietti. I haven't been able to find Margarita--I don't know where she was born and I haven't run into her surname in the records I've been combing through. But, I found the birth record of Nicolao, giving me the names of his parents--Giuseppe Trucano (b. 1728) and Catarina Malano (b. 1730)--and was able to find their marriage record and 5 of his siblings. My sister A and her husband were able to do some of the work for these sibs.

Back to Maria Domenica (b. 1840): Maria Domenica Giustat's mother Anna Maria Trucano (b. 1821) was born in Borgiallo, but married and died in Salto. Her parents--Martino Trucano (b. 1776) and Caterina Reverso (b. 1784)--were both from Borgiallo, and most of the family's work had been done because they all migrated to Salto. Although the birth dates were not known, there was enough information to estimate birth dates and to submit their names to the temple. I went through all of the birth records in Borgiallo during this time period to fill in the actual birth dates. Most satisfying was find three children who we didn't know about. Two died as infants and the other one either died young or didn't move to Salto.

To connect Maria Domenica Giustat back to me: she is the grandmother of Mable Viano, my grandfather's mother.

I have been trying to figure out a research method that works for me in combing through the microfilms. When I started, I tried to gather a lot of information quickly. Thus, I would look for births for several families in the same time period. And I also started to do a generalized extraction of all Trucano names thinking that I could put the pieces together later. These methods are both workable, but I have decided that for me, it's better to focus on one family and try to put as many pieces together as I can for them, being as through as possible. When I have all of the direct ancestors that I can find, I will start to go back and fill in the other pieces.

I am really grateful to have these microfilms. It's amazing that I can look at the records that were written by priests in the 1700's who had personal contact with my ancestors. It will be even more amazing when I am able to do the research online after the church has completed its massive microfilm scanning project.

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Three Days, Three Movies

After going to see such a disappointing Golden Compass last week, AJ and I have spent the last three nights watching three great, but very different movies.

Thursday we rented Bourne Ultimatum. AJ really wanted to see it when it was in the theaters this summer, but we never quite made it. It is all action, very fast paced (a little too much for me). Matt Damon looks like a bullet with dark circles under his eyes throughout the movie. There were some pretty cool parts. I like the con-artist, scamming aspects better than the chase scenes.

Friday we watched Amazing Grace about the outlawing of slavery and the slave trade in Britain and her colonies. The starring historical figure is William Wilberforce. I wondered how closely the writers stuck to history, but it was a great story and I thought the movie was well done too. I wondered if the woman who became his wife was as interested in his political causes as he was and if she was truly the intellectual equal as portrayed. However, this is what it says in Wilberforce's entry on Wikipedia: "The couple were devoted to each other, and though Barbara showed little interest in Wilberforce's political activities and tended to narrow-minded possessiveness, she was very attentive and supportive in his increasing ill-health." Interesting. I'd like to do some more reading about him. And William Pitt was only 24 when he was elected prime minister. I liked that actor and character.

And last night, we watched Stardust, a whimsical fantasy as AJ described it. It reminded both of us of The Princess Bride, combining drama and humor. It was fun to watch.

We haven't watched movies like this in a long long time. It was Christmas vacation week. Our choices were very much shaped by new releases that were available at Redbox. But, we've been staying up too late and I am feeling it today. Next up will be A Mutual Friend, recommended by my mom--an adaptation of a Dickens book-- and Wit starring Emma Thompson. I need to watch that before book group next week.

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Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way

I have such high hopes for this book. I heard Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on NPR discussing the ideas behind this book with a panel and it sounded so interesting. I took her comments to mean that the book was about the Democratic party's ceding of religion to the right and the need for the left to reclaim religion. It was somewhat about that. But, it was as much a memoir of her Catholic faith and her vision of the application of Catholicism and Christianity in general to policy decisions. The historical perspective and political analysis was shallow, I thought, and I did some scanning. She had some interesting tidbits about women's status in the Catholic church and the rise of personal morality evangelicals.
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The Ghost Map

I read The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World this week. It started out as a gripping recounting of the 1854 outbreak of cholera in London and in its wake, the two men who unraveled the mystery of how cholera spread. Steven Johnson includes fascinating contextual details about the London of the times, including graphic descriptions of the sanitation situation and the early problems of dealing with a large urban center that I had to skip over. YUCK!

I was most intrigued by the story of John Snow, a practicing physician who also pioneered early methods of epidemiology by combining geographical data and the physical spread of cholera compared to the location of water sources----the precursor to our modern day GIS. His battle against the proponents of cholera spread by miasma--the airbourne spread, mostly indicated by foul smelling air--was based in the scientific method. Prior to the 1854 outbreak, he systematically attempted to show how the water supply was responsible by conducting an experiment. He was able to find several individual neighborhoods--thus controlling for poverty, foul smells, and other supposed causes--that had two different suppliers of water. Because residents had no clear idea who provided their water, Snow went door to door collecting samples of water since one company's water had four times the salinity of its competitor. Johnson characterizes him as utilizing skills not as a physician, but as a sociologist and demographer. The logic of his approach to the problem of cholera spread was so clear and perfect. I loved it. To design a study like that!

During the outbreak, he collected data on the deaths, location, and their proximity to the Broad Street pump, the source of the cholera bacteria. He persuaded the local council to remove the handle to the Broad Street pump to prevent the spread of cholera, and then spent time after the outbreak documenting all his analysis.

This map is the lynchpin of Snow's analysis which shows the proximity of the outbreak deaths to the Broad Street pump. Later, he expanded his map to show distances not just as the crow files, but the walking distances to water.

Where the book becomes disappointing is when Johnson deviates from the historical story of the outbreak and starts to draw too many, too far- reaching applications to the modern day. I thought the application to contemporary water problems was fine--cholera has not been eradicated in the world at large and urban centers in developing nations face the same problems that London did in the mid-1800's. But, he went too far. Talk about whether or not the world would turn into a city-planet--what scenarios would cause people to migrate to either the cities or rural areas. I lost interest at the end.

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Other Christmas Stuff

We have had a lot of snow this season. There have been at least 4 good snow drops so far and there is probably about a foot of ground outside. We had a big storm on the 23rd and shovelled out on Christmas Eve. Then, on Christmas day we had more snow. It was lightly snowing for most of the afternoon and was beautiful. I didn't make it outside to take photos, but here is one from our front window. Unfortunately, it is hard to see the falling snow unless you zoom in.

We also had a great time with D and M. They came over in the afternoon bearing dinner deliciousness--funeral potatoes and strawberry dee-light--and we had a great meal. Ham and potatoes, strawberry dessert, I mean salad, (pretzal crust, cream cheese middle, strawberry jello top), rolls, salad, and cranberries. Yum. T insisted on sitting mere millimeters away from D, and he was a good sport about it. We were all lethargic after dinner, but D and M rallied and played some games with the kids. After a sufficient rest, we had derby pie for dessert. And we have been enjoying the leftovers since Tuesday. The kids really grasped onto M's "hamwiches", which are ham and funeral potatoes on a roll. Unfortunately, the potatoes are now gone.

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Christmas 2007

Ahh--I am currently enjoying one of my Christmas presents from this year. AJ's sister E gave me a set of 800 thread count sheets. I am sitting in my bed, in the lap of luxury. I definitely don't want the kids to touch them with their grubby hands, and even felt a little twinge of initial reluctance to let AJ share them.

Christmas was great this year. T didn't wake up until 7:45 and MJ around 8, so it wasn't too early. The kids were so excited and fun, but they really didn't go crazy with presents. We enjoyed a relatively calm morning being together, eating breakfast, and spreading out the presents over the morning.

Fun things from Christmas:

MJ was so concerned about how her good behavior weighed against her bad behavior for the year. "Santa thinks we were really good this year. We must have been really good this year." She seemed to think that they didn't deserve the presents they had gotten. Later she said, "I just keep thinking about all the bad things I did this year." And the next day she talked to me about it again--"why did Santa bring me all those presents when I was bad?" I felt a little bad myself that she was feeling so much guilt. I tried to talk to her about how we all do things that aren't right and then we try to do better. I think that a lie she told a lunch room aide "I am allergic to peanuts" was weighing especially heavy on her mind. It happened recently and kind of ballooned for her as we tried to figure out what actual events transpired and what the cause of the lie was.

Another thing she said. "I didn't even send my note. Santa always picks out just the perfect presents. He knows just the things that we like to do!"

T is really into singing Rudolph this season. My favorite part of his song is "Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say (Yo ho ho),..." A kind of quasi-pirate Santa. Last year, he would gruffly say, "Yo, ho ho! What do you want for Christmas?" And if we didn't answer, he would say, "I SAID, YO HO HO! What do you want for Christmas??" I'm glad that the Yo ho ho carried over to this year.

Both MJ and T got scooters and helmets for Christmas. MJ's is going to take her some time to learn to ride it since it has just two wheels. But, T's has two back wheels and he has been riding it around the house non-stop. Towards the middle of Christmas day, he started taking his scooter everywhere--downstairs to watch a movie and then later, up to his room when he went to bed. He parked it in the doorway of his bedroom when he got into bed, with his helmet hanging off the handlebars. A little bit later, he told AJ that he needed to go the bathroom, and AJ said ok. So, he jumped out of bed, ran over to his scooter, grabbed his helmet to put it on, fumbling with the chin strap, and then scooted over to the bathroom (5 feet from his doorway). Then he parked his scooter in the bathroom doorway and took off his helmet, carefully hanging it on the handlebars. When he was done in the bathroom, he ran back over to the scooter and began to repeat the whole process until AJ told him to get into bed.

He also had a great time dressing up and playing with the awesome cape that Grandma made. It's two sided-one side red and one black so that he can alternate between good and bad roles. When he has the black side out (almost always), it has the look of a magician or a vampire. When he opened it, he swished the new cape from Grandma on and off his shoulders saying "I can fly with this outside in the wind". He got some other dress up accessories. His favorite outfit was to put the neo-prene Batman mask and black cape on, and then use the new foam sword and shield set he got. He has found us a lot more willing to play fight now that he is using foam sword and shield rather than his wood one and now that we have a means of defense: happily, the set came with two swords and two shields so that he can play with another person.

And a blast from the past: when T opened his fleece blanket from Aunt E with his name on it, he said, "I can't bee-lieve it!" This is exactly what MJ said when she opened a princess quilt for her third birthday.
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Advanced Maternal Age All the Way!

When I talked to my dad on my birthday on Sunday, he said that 36 is a great age. Old enough, but young enough. I'm not sure I agree with him. Personally, I think I will come into my own a bit more in my 40's when my kids are older.

Sunday was a great day though. If we had to have church all year at 1 pm, at least it was a year when my birthday fell on a Sunday. I lounged about in bed reading until my family brought me breakfast on one of our Target cafeteria trays--no flower in a vase, but yummy eggs, fruit, and hot chocolate. Then I enjoyed my breakfast in quiet while they went and wrapped presents. They all came back and we opened presents. This year was the best book haul I have had in a very long time. My mom picked out 3 books off my Amazon wish list, including a book to fuel my Lost obsession (season 4 premiers on Jan 31st!) and two books for my book group this year. AJ got my a bio of Virginia Woolf and one of my sisters got me a book edited by Ira Glass (I love This American Life) called The New Kings of Non-Fiction that she read and really liked. Getting books made me so happy. I love new books!

MJ and T each picked me out some jewelry, and although I don't often wear jewelry, I was pretty excited about their presents. I wore some thin silver bangles (I had a set almost identical to them in the 80's) and a black shiny necklace to church on Sunday. MJ picked me out a silver chain with a cubic zirconium pendant that I wore yesterday, but best of all is the big chunky bracelet with big plastic yellow rectangles. AJ said that both of them were going back and forth about what to get me, switching one item for another. But, this item was always T's top choice, and no matter what AJ said, T needed to get that for mommy. I love it. I had it on yesterday with a black top--it looked like I was rooting for the Steelers.

AJ also picked me out some new pj's. I guess my beloved Old Navy pajama pants are headed for the dust bin--I've had them for probably 7 years and I love them. They are so comfy and perfect, but they are starting to fall apart.

My sister with the curliest hair also framed a quote for me: "Life is curly. Don't even try to straighten it out." I agree! For the most part, I've always thought that I've been given curly hair, it's not really made to go straight, and I should take what I have and make the best of it. Three of my sisters that also have curly hair have betrayed their roots by straightening. I refuse to do it. Even in the late 90's when NO ONE was wearing their hair curly, I refused to straighten. And I like the generalization to life too.

AJ was excited that his mom got me a book light--I often lay in bed reading after he's going to sleep, justifying it by saying that it doesn't bother him. But, I'm sure it's not the same as going to sleep with it completely black.

I had to leave for church a little early since I was playing the organ. I was happy that the music chair let me talk her into replacing I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day with Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It's not that I dislike the first (which I somewhat do), but it's that she has a preference for the peaceful, solemn Christmas hymns over the exhuberant, joyous ones (that need a trumpet stop). We didn't sing Hark last year, and she didn't put Far Far Away on the docket this year (she said it's too hard for the congregation to sing). Anyway, at least we got to pair Silent Night with a more upbeat, vigorous song.

I actually liked Gospel Doctrine on Sunday. That was a plus.

And then, despite a lot of snow falling and wind blowing, we made it up to Maple Grove to eat dinner with K and D and family. We had a great time as usual and super good food.

By the time we got home, the kids were really tired out and went straight to sleep.

A good day. Good family time, fun presents, tasty food, and time with good friends.

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Gendered Division of Labor and the Specialization of Roles

Since I am currently not working outside of our home, I have the lion's share of responsibility for all things domestic. I take charge of meals: meal planning, grocery shopping, and making dinner. I do all the laundry, save for folding socks, hanging up shirts, and putting clothes away. I am primarily in charge of tidying up the house and doing the heavier cleaning: vacuuming, bathrooms, etc. I do the day to day maintenance.

During the Christmas season, I have taken on most of the Christmas tasks: I have thought through all the kids' presents and done the research to find them, and after getting a "that sounds good" from AJ, ordered them online or purchased them. I have planned the Christmas meal and Christmas week meals and done all the grocery shopping. I got the family photo into a card and ordered it and picked it up. We did collaborate on the writing of the Christmas letter, but I bought a new printer cartridge and printed all the letters and address labels. I personalized the majority of the Christmas cards. AJ set up the tree with the kids and put the lights on the tree. He did most of the tree with them at the beginning of the month. I took take of almost all of the extended family gifts that we gave this year, with the exception of AJ's brother, whose present he ordered and had shipped to his house. I made 5 batches of cranberry salsa to give to all the neighbors and our visiting/home teaching families. AJ has started to deliver them.

And then, in addition to all this, I was in charge of our RS enrichment dinner and program.

I don't think of myself as particularly good at any of these tasks. Although for the most part, I don't mind doing them, but I don't particularly love doing them either. I have done them because they need to be done. When I don't take charge, things slide. We have scrambled eggs for dinner. The house is a mess. This has happened in the past. And this year, we would not have done the same things for Christmas if I didn't do them. And, this is understandable. I stay home. I have all this flexible time that AJ does not. He is working full time.

And the fact is, AJ does do a lot at home, especially with the kids. Every day, I am grateful that he can help get MJ ready for school and onto the bus before he leaves for work. His hours are reasonable--he is almost always home for dinner by 5:30, and he doesn't have to travel a lot. He often puts the kids to bed. MJ and T absolutely love being around their dad and spending time with him.

My problem is not so much what AJ and I do at home . What I have been thinking about lately is how a lot of what I do could fairly easily be done by just about anyone. I could hire someone to clean my house. I could have my groceries delivered. Another person could cook meals for my kids. My domestic skills are, frankly, nothing special. The only thing in the domestic sphere, really, where I feel I could not find a substitute is the things I do with my kids. And that goes for AJ too as a dad. But, I can outsource some of the childcare. It's true. And T has recently started preschool. I can see how things will be quite a bit different when my kids are in school.

At the enrichment dinner last week, we had a conversation at dinner about staying at home as a mother. One person, whose youngest child will be in 1st grade next year, said that she is so tired of people asking her if she will work next year and what she will do with her time. She says that she will do the same thing as she does now. (Obviously, this is not entirely true. Her child will not be there. She will not have to worry at all about what he is doing and taking him with her wherever she goes.) She mentioned going to the grocery store as an example. The shopping will still have to be done. I admit, I often wonder what the days of stay-at-home moms whose kids are all in school look like. I'm sure that good things are done, I just can't really imagine what the rhythms of that life would look like.

The only thing keeping me home right now is my kids--and even then, I daydream about working. I hope to find a part time job with a flexible working arrangement in the near future. I can't imagine choosing to stay home when my kids are in school. I don't really like domestic life. I really don't know what I would do with my time all day. Clean my house? Do my grocery shopping? Add a few volunteer activities? Be the super-involved mom, planning out everything for my kids? I can't think of anything I would like less.

Anyway, back to my problem. My problem is that I don't want to specialize in domestic management. But, it's what I'm doing right now. I resent that the tasks I do on a regular basis--what I am specializing in--could be easily done by many other people. I want to specialize in being the mother of my kids, just as I want the same for AJ as their father. But, I also want to specialize in something else where I can use my human capital built up by many years of education, where I can contribute to my family income. It's what AJ is doing. I see his career stretching out years into the future. The ways that he is learning, the growth and trajectory that he can expect. He is specializing and it is benefitting our family. I am grateful for what he does. I just wish that we could share the domestic and economic spheres more. I don't really want to be in charge of the domestic stuff. I don't really want to be the household manager.

At this point, I am tired of the extended domestic lifting I have been doing. I am tired of doing the dishes and sweeping the floor yet again and doing the Christmas planning. I don't want to bend over to pick up the Uno cards again and all the other stuff on the ground at 30 weeks pregnant. It seems that the things I do at home are seldom recognized, and that within a short time of me doing tasks, the floor is messy again, T has written his name on the wall again, the laundry room floor is messy and dirty. I really dislike that. But, Christmas is around the corner. If the house is messy for Christmas, then I will be cranky. I know that about myself. So I will probably go back to picking up and doing the dishes later tonight. But, I am also going to strategize for how I can find a job. And I am going to finish reviewing that paper for EEPA.

This is all a big jumble. I know that. I just needed to get some thoughts out. I was hoping that it would make me feel better.

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Inkspell

Last week after Enrichment was over, I needed something very easy on the mind to read. I didn't want to read any of the non-fiction that I have on my list right now, just a nice children's/YA fantasy escape kind of book. I picked up Inkspell from the library and then took it with me to Barnes and Noble on the morning after to start reading it while I sipped some hot cocoa. It was the perfect read.

Cornelia Funke is a wonderful writer. She weaves a tale in a beautiful way, developing intriguing characters and scenes, with beautiful words. I don't feel empty after reading her book, as I do with some escape literature. Under each chapter title is a quotation from some other great work of literature, and I loved reading those before starting a chapter. I don't know if she did that in Inkheart as well, since I listened to that one. By the way, as I was reading, I couldn't get Lynn Redgrave's voice out of my head--she was an amazing narrator for Inkheart. I started listening to Inkspell but couldn't get over the jarring new narrator.

Part of the reason why I loved the Inkspell is that it is a book about books. Funke develops the idea--in a fantasy way--of the power of books, of the worlds that books create and take us to, and of the throbbing vitality of words in books. That all resonates with me of course. One of the main characters is a book binder and he and some of the other main characters have a deep reverence and respect for books. There are many great quotations about books--in Inkheart too.

Like, when Meggie was packing for her voyage into Inkworld. "She had thought hard about what book to take. Going without one would have seemed to her like setting off naked." I always think a lot about what kinds of books to take with me when I leave home too. I hate the thought of being somewhere without a book I want to read, and without being able to get my hands on my easily. It bothers me to no end when AJ goes on a business trip, and doesn't take anything to read and then ends up spending $10 on some plot-driven, never-want-to-read-again paperback.

And Mo's description of paper back books. "Books in beach clothes, badly dressed for most occasions, but useful when you're on vacation." I have a great many paper backs on my shelf. Hardbacks: too expensive for me most of the time, but a great sentiment from a bookbinder.

I love the Meggie has a special box for all her favorite books.

But her old friends, the books Meggie had already owned before they had moved in with Elinor, still lived in the box, and when she opened the heavy lid it was almost as if half-forgotten voices met her ears and familiar faces were looking at her. How well worn they all were..."Isn't it odd how much fatter a books gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said when, on Meggie's last birthday, they were looking at all her dear old books again. "As if something were left between the pages each time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar."

I did find the budding romance between Meggie and Farid to be somewhat strange. I couldn't really see their appeal to each other. And I wondered about the Fenoglio-God who is trying to keep Inkworld under control with his writing and words. I have no idea if Funke was making any kind of larger commentary on God and his ability (or not) to control his creations. It was interesting to think about after reading Pullman's Dark Materials.

I also think that playing with death is only bound to get everyone in trouble. Why try to bring Dustfinger back to life? I thought it would have been better to let Farid stay dead. I wonder where she's going with this. I don't know when the third book is supposed to be out, but it's clear this book is a transition with lots of loose ends.
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Christmas Remembered

This is a fun book of Tomie de Paola's personal reminiscences of many Christmases thoughout his life. I heard him interviewed last year on the radio and he was so charming that I decided to read this book. It features of few de Paola-esque drawings to accompany the charming stories. Since I love quite a few of his children's stories, it was fun to read.

He describes a magical Christmas in Santa Fe and attending Las Posadas there. I think it was here that he decided to write a children's book about Las Posadas. Next year, I am going to take MJ and go to a local reenactment.

Compiling a book of family Christmas stories like this would be a neat family project.

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Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal:Building St Peter's

I saw this book when I was in Italy and decided it was worth a read. Although we didn't make it to Rome this trip, I loved seeing the Vatican Museum and St Peter's when we there before. It was one of my favorite things.

The book. Eh. I learned quite a bit. I didn't realize how long it took to build St Peter's, the number of popes that were involved, and Michelangelo's large role in helping the basilica to progress along. I learned about Bernini. And just about the historical context of the times. I didn't realize that Rome was sacked in 1527. And how the church reacted to the Reformation.

But, I felt like Scotti swerved around a lot. There were too many names, too many snapshots of people that I will quickly forget, too much deviation from the story of St Peter's. And none of the main actors was really made memorable. I also wish that more photos of all the things she discussed were included. I'm glad I didn't buy it while I was there.
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Enrichment Dinner Over!

Last night was the annual Christmas enrichment dinner. Thankfully, it is over. I am relieved. These events are always so stressful for me. I was grateful to have two other women whom I delegated quite a bit, so while I oversaw both the dinner and the decorations, they took care of the details. Unfortunately, one is probably moving and the other will have a new baby (with me days away from my delivery) when the next enrichment is scheduled to happen. We need to figure out a way to handle that.

I ended up making three trifles for dessert and my kitchen was a total disaster when I left. I came home a little after 10 to find AJ mostly through the dishes. What a good man. I didn't take photos of my trifle. I dyed the whipped cream for chocolate one pink and sprinkled crushed peppermints on top and throughout. AJ took care of its aesthetic aspect by decorating the top with mint leaves.

The dinner was delicious and I think people enjoyed it. I was in charge of the program. I think it went pretty well. Next year, if I am in still in charge of enrichment, I will find someone else to accompany the musical numbers. I felt like I was doing everything in the program. I had a major problem finding women to say a few words for this part of it. Lots of people had conflicts so they couldn't attend. I ended up speaking a lot. (It made me want to teach.) I enjoyed doing research into Las Posadas and into the origin of the carol Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella. My main thought was about how the Christmas story is not just historical, but the ways that we can be part of the nativity, just like the peregrinos, just like the milkmaids.

But, I'm tired. I had a hard time winding down to sleep last night and then never felt completely settled into slumber all night long. I don't know if it was just the build up, or if it was the chocolate mint trifle I indulged in mere minutes before getting into bed. This morning, I enjoyed some time by myself finishing up Christmas shopping and then sitting at Barnes and Noble sipping Godiva hot chocolate while starting a new book. This afternoon, I tried to work up energy to get my house back together and managed to make some progress.
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The Golden Compass and the Smearing Email Campaign

A few weeks ago, I finished the final volume of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Although the first book has been made into a movie and is coming out next week, the impetus to read them came when AJ found The Golden Compass and brought it to Italy with him. He was so taken with it that we combed Florence to find the second book, in English of course, and then he tried unsucessfully to find the third when we were in Venice. He wanted me to read them too, so I took a break from other stuff to read The Golden Compass, also while in Italy, and then read on The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass on and off since we got home.


Also interesting is the email that has been forwarded around Mormon circles about the forthcoming movie. After being forwarded ad nauseum, I have no idea who the original author was, but here is the complete text:

A kids movie coming out in December starring Nicole Kidman, called The Golden Compass, is based on a series of children's books about killing God (it is anti-Narnia). The hope is to get a lot of kids to see the movie which won't seem too bad - and then get the parents to buy the books for their kids for Christmas. The quotes from the
author sum up his atheist point of view. I hope the movie totally bombs because we choose to not support it.

I have a few problems with this email (and with emails and arguments like this in general). First though, how can I take this seriously when the author can't even properly use apostrophes? "kids movie" should be "kids' movie." Yes, it's a nit-pick, but it bothers me. Another problem I have with the email is the generalization that the books are about the children killing God. Not really true. (I wonder if the author of the email has read the books. And I doubt that the majority of people who are forwarding the email on to all their friends have actually read the books either.) I am bothered about the conspiracy theory statement made in the email. "They" (who are they? Phillip Pullman? The makers of the film? Hollywood?) are trying to convert all children into atheists by using a seeming innocuous movie as a lure in order to get them to consume the hard-core material. To me, it seems unlikely. Pullman has publically denied this sentiment.

But, in general, what bothers me most is that well meaning individuals take this email at face value and make decisions about the movie, the books, Phillip Pullman's motivations, and the general value of these books and ideas based only on the ideas presented in the email. Somehow, the idea that Pullman is an atheist seems to be dangerous--as if nothing good could come from someone who doesn't believe in God. Part of Pullman's critique of The Magesterium in his books is that this dominating church manipulates people into thinking what it wants them to think and that they lose their ability to question and think critically. And ironically, this is what I think some people are not really digging below the surface of the email, but are just unquestioningly accepting what it says.

There was a discussion on my extended family's web site about The Golden Compass and this email. After three women who didn't have any basis for discussion other than the email and some web references to Pullman's atheism, I decided that I had to comment. I had no idea how my family would react. We mostly chit chat about family happenings, and I honestly don't know most of them well enough to predict how they feel about such things--I have basically painted the majority of them (perhaps unfairly) as a conservative, predictable Mormon family. There were two avid readers who piped up, who agreed with what I said, and that made me feel a bit better and not so much of an outlier.

This is what I said there:

Andy and I both just recently read Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy and really enjoyed them. We will go together to see The Golden Compass and are looking
forward to it.

My kids are not old enough to see the movie or even think about reading the books, but if they were 6-10 years older than they are now, I think my approach would be to preview the movie and then make the decision about whether or not to take them.

I have also gotten the emails that have been passed around Mormon circles and I don't really like them. I think that probably most people who have been forwarding them to their friends haven't read the books and are relying on rumor and propaganda to fuel questions about the movies. I have no idea if the movies will be any good, and don't know if I would take my kids, but as for the books, I think that they would be great for an advanced adolescent to read--say 15 or so. I hope that if my kids ever choose to read these books that we can have conversations about the nature of God and religion.

The God and the church that Pullman portrays, to me, are completely unlike any God or church that I believe in. The church he portrays is truly an evil, deceptive, and power-mongering institution. God is a doddering frail angel without any real power. Setting aside the question of whether Pullman's descriptions of God and religion in his books are what he actually believes about God and religion, to me they represent an alternate universe and fantasy. Even if Pullman actually believes his portrayal (and he is an atheist, so this is assuredly not what he believes), I still think there is a lot of redeeming value in them. I found that a lot of the negative things about his church are things that I also find offensive and disagree with. I found a lot that I agreed with him on, and I don't think that the things that I disagreed with him on are too dangerous or too scary to discuss or let my kids think about and talk to us about. But, again, these are not books that I would want my 10 or 12 year old reading, especially the third book.

I am also very suspicious of any kind of conspiracy theory, just by my nature. I don't like the sentiment that Pullman is trying to turn the world into a bunch of atheists and that this movie will be the bait to lure in innocent children. Perhaps that's true, but I personally am doubtful and won't make decisions based on speculation like this.
One more thing--The whole bit about the kids "killing God" is inaccurate. I had heard this before I finished the third book, and this brought to mind them using their knife, viciously attacking God, knowing who they were killing. Instead, they find an
old, frail, about to die angel stuck in a box, and they let him out to try to help him. It turns out that this person is God. They have no idea what they have done. The God that dies is happy to die, and is nothing like the God I believe in. Again, I think such ideas would make for fruitful conversation.

I want to write some more about the books, but I think I will postpone and put in a separate post.

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