Michael O'Halloran - Book 33

On a whim, I decided to read another Gene Stratton Porter novel.  I've read her Girl of the Limberlost which I loved and last year I read her novel Laddie which I enjoyed as well.  So I downloaded Michael O'Halloran on my kindle and prepared to have a cozy read.  Alas, that did not happen.  This book struck me as bizarre in so many ways.

Set in the city of 'Multiopolis' which is supposed to represent any Midwestern city during the WWI era, Porter tries to to be allegorical, I think.  We follow the lives of 4 couples:  Mickey, the nickname for the title character, and the little lame girl he rescues, Lily Peaches.  Mickey is a 10 year old orphan surviving on the streets of the city by selling papers.  He's a newsie.  Then there's Douglas Bruce and his lady love, Leslie, whose father is an important man in the city but who is unspoiled by her wealth  because she gets ecstatic going out into NATURE and listening to birdsong, mostly the tamarack swamp.  Then there's James Minturn and his rich, society wife who through slavery to her high society role has neglected her children to the point of death of their youngest daughter and thereby has alienated her husband.  And finally there is noble farmer Peter and his wife Nancy who come to Mickey and Peaches' rescue by taking them from the city to the country.

Mickey is supposed to be 10 but he teaches everyone how to be better people because he is a symbol of what the author thinks would fix the world.  I found his long speeches and all the slang and colloquialisms that were supposed to make him cuter, really cloying.  The book was just too didactic and forced for me to buy into it or to feel attached to any of the characters much.  It was, though, a neat glimpse into city life around that era.  I kept picturing Charlie Chaplin's The Kid while reading it.  I noticed that several times the author talked about the evils of immigrants coming in and taking jobs from real Americans.  This era was the height of anti-immigration and isolationism (in reaction to involvement in the first world war).

While there were some charming elements to the novel, it just didn't win me over and I struggled to finish it.  I even agree with the premise that we need more appreciation for the beauty of nature and music in our lives and city living alienates from that.  But the rather heavy-handed, sentimental presentation of these ideas turned me off.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

For more book reviews go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Looking Back on 2017

This seemed like a hard year, you know with Trump in office with all the political ugliness and strain that unleashed.  Then, on a more personal note, Becky getting Hashimoto's has been a real struggle because of her depression and other symptoms.  And another thing happened that I don't feel I can divulge here but which really gave me sorrow.  These things cast a pall over the year.

But good things happened too.  I decided to become more environmentally and politically active.  I stepped out of my usual safe bubble and helped get signatures for a candidate.  I joined the environmental group at my church.  I started a zero waste facebook group for Catholics, I got more involved with helping the homeless in our area.

We didn't take a big family vacation this year, but Rick and I went on a nice long weekend to Staunton for our anniversary, and then we had a surprise trip to Boston while W was getting his kidney out.  Oh and I almost forgot, on inauguration day last January, we took a weekend trip to St. Michael as well.  So that was 3 weekends away this year with Rick.  I really enjoyed those trips.  I mean, the one to Boston had a lot of anxiety and just sitting around hospital rooms, but we also got to eat out one night at a nice restaurant and we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum one afternoon.  So in spite of W's surgery, we still had some fun. We've decided it's time for us to travel more.  Rick even got me a calendar as a little Christmas gift:  a 2018 Let's Travel calendar.

Some first for 2017:

I met Leonie Westenberg, a long time on line friend from Australia!  That was cool.

I made yogurt for the first time.

I saw Man of La Mancha for the first time.  B was in that production and it was very well done.

What else happened?

Dylan turned two this year..  He loves to dance to Barbara Ann and Surfin USA both of which he can request by name.  We broke out the old Signing Time dvds and we are all learning or relearning sign language along with him.  And he's getting potty trained!  His mom is still trying to find her way, but she's such a help to me in terms of housework and now she's driving.  Oh yeah!  We got another car this year.

Sean became my 4th graduate from home school high school.  He attended the Berklee 5 week in the summer, but decided not to audition to the school after all.  He's teaching himself code and has been designing games as a hobby recently.  He's getting really good at playing the harmonica.  He got a job at Chipotle.

Joshua finally got around to taking an accounting class and discovered he liked it.  Something Rick and I had been saying for years.

I started watching lots of homesteading videos and I find them engaging and relaxing.  I love the whole subculture.

I got more involved with actually being a guardian to my sister Eileen.  I found us a new lawyer for her and we even went to court to change our guardianship arrangement.

On more of a downer note, our cat Milky passed away this year.  And when I went camping with the AHG troop at the end of September, I hurt my knee so badly that pretty much all of October hurt!  We are still trying to get B stabilized with her Hashimoto's.  That's an ongoing thing.  Trying to be gluten free and zero waste is an up hill battle due to the fact that I am so crazy busy and not at all naturally inclined to do lots of home cooking. But I'm trying to change things.  I honestly can't wait until I am no longer teaching at the co-op.  It just doesn't fit with me anymore.

Granddad has terrible balance and keeps falling.  He was just in the ER last week.  Now he and Peggy are thinking of moving into a retirement home and thankfully they are looking at ones much closer to us.  Granddad would get upset that we didn't visit him often but to drive to north of Baltimore and back in this area's traffic meant that pretty much the whole day was shot.  Now if they move closer we really can visit more.  So that is a good, late in the year development.

2018 will be my last year of homeschooling (well, 2018-19).  And it will be the year of my 30th wedding anniversary, God willing! (I had to say that just in case I jinx things and we wind up in a car accident or get cancer or something. . . .oops maybe saying that jinxed things!)  Anyway, Rick and I are thinking about taking a grand trip somewhere next fall.  That will be fun to plan.

And we are going to concentrate on fixing up our yard this year.  That is a worthy project that I am looking forward to as well. 

I am ready to ring out the old year and ring in the new!  I plan to roast chestnuts and drink sparkling apple cider and be in bed by 11:00 p.m. 

To Do List

Christmas Day is over.  Today is the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr.  So a blessed day to you all!  I am typing this on my new laptop.  I'm having the usual problems getting used to it.  This Dell seems to require a lot more passwords to things.  Also, I can't figure out how to download my photos from Christmas.  I also got a new phone, but the phone is an Apple.  So basically I switched from Apple to non-Apple for my laptop and from Android to Apple on my phone.  And I am very confused now!

The day after Christmas is always a relief to me.  It was a lovely day and if I knew how, I'd load a little video of Dylan playing with his favorite new toy, a noisy little train that runs around a track.  He was completely entranced by it!  Hannah and Peter were here all day.  This is the first Christmas we've spent with them in 5 years.  So that was nice.  Hannah did much of the cooking which was great because I was feeling fairly flustered about it all.

Sean got a new harmonica, Becky got a banjo ukulele, Sean also got a steel drum.  Lots of music which is always fun. 

It was a rough couple of weeks before Christmas.  Becky and Josh both got the flu really badly.  They are slowly recovering.  Will has been recovering from his surgery, but that is also slow going.

Today:
Clean kitchen (not quite clean from yesterday)
Breakfast for folks
Buy pet food
Envelope stuffing for Family PASS
Call vet to get cat medicine
Read a lot
Clean something else in the house
Research reverse osmosis water filters
Contact subs about getting my books back
Dinner?
Does S work tonight?

I'm sure I'm missing something!

Reading Challenge 2018

By the time 2017 ends, I'll have read 34 books.  I'm finishing up a book by Gene Stratton Porter right now.  I'm finding it kind of bizarre so I'm struggling to finish it.  And also I still, if you can believe it, have about 50 pages to go in City of God by St. Augustine.  I HAVE to finish reading that by the end of the year.  I just gotta.  I'll be so depressed if I don't.  I began the year doing an on line group read of that book and I stalled out in the middle of it and have been trying to finish it ever since.  This year has not been an especially good one for reading.  I spend way too much time on line.  So one of my New Year's resolutions is to curtail the time on line and spend more time reading.  Also, I think 2018 will get easier for reading because I am planning to not continue teaching at the co-op next fall.  So beginning in May this year, I'll have more free time.  And hopefully my 19 year old will finally get his driver's license this Christmas break and eventually my 16 year old will also get her license this year.  This will free me from lots and lots of driving I've been doing.  The older I get, the more draining I find driving to be.

Anyway, Simpler Pastimes alerted me to this 2018 book challenge.  I still plan to try for the 52 Books challenge as well.  I tried to do the bingo challenge hosted there and I do believe I failed in that.  The problem was an awful lot of the categories were fantasty/sci fi related and I just am not a fan of either of those.

1.  A 19th Century Classic - I still have one more book to read by Nathaniel Hawthorne and then I'll have read them all.  So The Marble Faun for this category.

2.  A 20 Century Classic (must have been published at least 50 years ago) - no clue yet.

3.  A Classic by a woman author - perhaps The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.  I think that might be the only Bronte novel I haven't read?

4.  A Classic in Translation - I think I am going to tackle Dostoyevski this year.  I am thinking of trying to listen to the Brothers Karamozov on audio this winter.

5.  A Children's Classic - my son who is recuperating from surgery mentioned that one of his friends came over and read Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg out loud to him while he convalesced.  I thought that was pretty charming!!!  So maybe I'll read Rootabaga Stories for this category.

6.  A Classic Crime Story - no clue yet  (ha ha - no clue!  Get it???)

7.  A Classic Travel or Journey - no idea but I am excited about this one!

8.  A Classic with a Single Word Title - Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

9.  A Classic with a color in the title - I've never read The Red and the Black by Stendhal, so perhaps.

10.  A Classic by an author who is new to me - ????

11.  A Classic that scares you - Long poetry tends to scare me.  What if I tried to read Ovid's Metamorphoses?

12.  Reread a Classic - leaving this one open.

I'm Becoming a Rabbi Sacks Groupie

When the crazy toxic culture we are living in gets me down, I do two things.  1)  Try to find something that gives me comfort and distraction.  Lately it has been watching homesteading youtube channels.  Fouch Family Off Grid, Off Grid with Doug and Stacy, Out of Goshen, Swedish Homestead and Darci Isabella are my current favorites with Justin Rhodes (he's taking a break right now) and Big Family Homestead as close runner ups.  

But 2) I also look for wise leaders who can rise above the noise and give a hopeful perspective while cutting through the chaos and pinpointing just what's wrong.  I like Pope Francis and Bishop Barron for this.  But in the last week or so I've become a groupie of Rabbi Sacks.  I had seen or read things by him occasionally, but during Chanukah I started to really focus on him.  He's wonderful.  

Here he is on how the breakdown of marriage puts children at risk.

Here's his TEDx talk on How We Can Face the Future.

Here's a wonderful series he did on prayer.

No Surrender; A Tale of the Rising of La Vendee - Book 32

My reading has slowed way, way down.  It's depressing me.  Anyway, No Surrender; a Tale of the Rising of La Vendee is by G. A. Henty, the English writer of children's historical novels in the late 1800s and around the turn of the last century.  This one was published in 1900, in fact.  According to Wikipedia he wrote 122 books of this sort.

The books are intelligent in that they really delve deep into the historical context they are set in.  However, Henty has a way of using long, stilted, laborious dialogue as a tool for exposition.  It makes for very clunky writing.  The heroes are all brave and noble and everybody sounds exactly alike.   But when you finish reading them, you really feel you've learned the history Henty was presenting.

During the French Revolution, the Republican government made law the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which tried to undermine the power of the Roman Catholic Church by only allowing priests who swore their allegiance to the state to say Mass.  Many priests refused and many were imprisoned and eventually guillotined.  The western area of France near the Atlantic just below Brittany was a very Catholic and traditional area.  They were angered at the attack on the clergy and gave refuge to the nonjuror priests.  When the government tried to draft the peasants into the Republican army, they went into full fledge rebellion.  This book traces the events from the first acts of rebellion through the eventual defeat of the Vendean peasants.

Patsey is from England and has married her French merchant sailor, Jean Martin, whose father runs a successful shipping company.  She brings her favorite younger brother to live with her when she moves to France to be with her new husband.  They live at first in Nantes, but when trouble begins, Jean decides it is safer to move to his country estate in the Bocage, the forests of La Vendee.  Leigh the younger brother moves with them.  The struggle begins and both Jean and Leigh are passionate about fighting on the side of the peasants.  Leigh turns out to be quite a military strategist, even though he is young.

The plot has four or five storylines that move chronologically.  The first is about the exciting beginnings of the revolt and the great peasant general, Cathelineau, who dies in battle and how Leigh shows such courage and precocious military genius.  The second is when Patsey and Jean Martin's father are taken prisoners in Nantes and Jean and Leigh must rescue them.  Then is the long sequence of battle after battle as the peasant army becomes more and more depleted and battle weary until they are being hunted cat and mouse style all over their beloved Vendee.  Then in the wake of the final defeat, Jean is separated from the two others;  Leigh and Patsey must smuggle themselves out of France.  This was quite a difficult feat as the Reign of Terror was at its highest peak.  And finally, they are reunited with Jean Martin and learn how he too made his escape to England.

Chateau d'Angers - I was here almost 40 years ago!

It was an entertaining book.  I've been teaching about the French Revolution to my co-op class and this book made it come alive for me.  Since I've been poring over maps of France, all the geographical references (and there are many) made sense to me.  Way back when I was 18, I actually spent a month in Angers and I don't think I even knew anything about the Vendean Revolt there.  This is a chapter in the French Revolution that doesn't get much attention, except in Catholic history circles.

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Update!

Gee, I have really lost my blogging groove.  I haven't even thought about it.  Time really is flying by at an incredible rate! 

Anyway, the big news around here is that my oldest son is donating a kidney for a colleague at work.  Actually though, his kidney isn't a good match for hers, so he's putting his kidney into the kidney pool, which means she gets one that matches out of the pool.  This is supposed to take place on Tuesday.  The woman was actually going to get her kidney this past Wednesday and then Will would donate one of his on Tuesday, but they briefly called everything off for a day because the kidney they had designated turned out not to be a good match.  But everything is on again now.  Let's pray it stays that way. 

No one ever told me motherhood was going to include worrying about one's heroically generous son giving away a kidney.  I am basically freaked out about it.  Kind of numb really, when I don't feel a horrible sense of anxiety.  Now and again I think, wow!!!

Rick and I are going up on Monday evening and staying until Thursday we think.  If he isn't doing well, we might stay longer.  But he is 25 and he's made plans to stay at his girlfriend's to recuperate for a couple of days after he is released from the hospital on Friday.  Then hopefully he'll be fit enough to fly home.  I really want someone to fly with him though, even though I hope he'll be well on the mend and it is not a long flight.  But you never know around the holidays with weather and flights backing up and being overbooked and such.  I think he needs someone with him.  We'll see what we can arrange once we get up there.

It's supposed to snow tonight!  Winter is really here.  I noticed today that the leaves really are all off the trees.  I kind of like seeing the lacy bare branches.  And noticing all the birds' and squirrels' nests.

Well, must run.  So that's the update.  Please pray for my son, his surgeons and medical team, the recipients of the kidneys in his little circle of kidney donations, and all people who are suffering from kidney disease.