The Wee Free Men - Book 11

First an update on Howl's Moving Castle.  My husband and I watched the movie.  While the animation was amazing, they almost completely re-wrote the plot.  It was, as R said, 'trippy.'  It didn't make sense and it went really heavy handed on the love story which I actually thought was well done in the book, in that I liked its understated quality.  The director went for a darker, steampunk atmosphere and the only humor was Billy Crystal miscast as Calcipher, the fire demon.

Then I moved on to my second March Magics book, The Wee Free Men. 

I found this book pure pleasure. Unfortunately, I didn't read it as fast I should have.  I'm just in a really low read period right now for some reason.  So again because I was reading it in such short bits at night right before I conked out I would get confused about what was going on.  Still, I highly enjoyed it as I slowly read it.  Pratchett is so funny.  The girl who is the main character is a 9 year old, wise for her years, Tiffany Aching.  She lives on the 'Chalk'  in some Scottish type landscape, where her family runs a dairy.  Tiffany is good at making cheese.  Her beloved Granny Aching was a renown shepherdess who smoked a pipe, seldom talked and had two amazing sheep dogs, Thunder and Lightning.  Certain strange, magical (and humorous) encounters happen to Tiffany and then suddenly her little brother goes missing and she must be the one to get him back.  Off she goes on a crazy adventure of slapstick comedy and self-discovery to get him back, with the help of a toad and an army of the Wee Free Men. 

This book was a blend of fairy tale and Monty Python-esque humor.  R is now on a Pratchett jag.  We even started watching (but got interrupted) the BBC 3 episode mini-series The Color of Magic.  It seemed really good with a great cast of actors, so hopefully we'll finish watching it at some point.

I'm glad I finally read a Terry Pratchett book.  I will probably read more in the future, even though, truth be told, fantasy still isn't my genre.

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

Howl's Moving Castle - Book 10

I joined a book challenge called March Magics.  Each March apparently a group of book bloggers vote to see which fantasy novels they'll read in March.  This March, Howl's Moving Castle was one of the winners.  I'd heard about the movie from my kids who are big Hayao Miyazaki fans.  Also, I've been following on and off the book blog called Howling Frog Books for a while and I know she is a big Diana Wynne Jones fan.  So I thought I'd give Howl's Moving Castle a whirl.

This is a young adult fantasy, very clean, set in a magical world where witches and wizards abound.  Sophie is the main character.  She is the oldest of three sisters, and being the oldest means you won't be successful apparently.  Or this is an adage of this particular world (this grated on me from the beginning because forever I've been reading studies that the oldest is often the most successful in term so birth order, but never mind).  Her father dies and her step mother, Fanny, decides it is time for the girls to go off and learn a trade to support themselves.  One goes off to become a nice witch's apprentice and the other goes off to a bakery.  I got the two sisters confused a lot because they actually change places to fool everyone and I never figured out exactly who was who.  But anyway, Sophie stays behind to run the hat shoppe with Fanny.  Sophie is good at trimming hats and winds up staying in the shop all the time and becoming rather reclusive and intimidated by the world, though a bit bored.  Fanny goes out a lot and Sophie feels a little imposed upon.  In the meantime there is the moving castle that flits from place to place in the region and all the girls are frightened of it because they told that the Wizard Howl likes to capture girls and eat their hearts.

One day the Witch of the Waste comes into the shop and for some reason incomprehensible to Sophie turns her into a old woman of 90.  She's still Sophie underneath though.  Sophie wanders away from the shop and thus her adventures begin for she winds up taking refuge in Howl's moving castle. 

It wasn't a good reading week for me. This is about a 6th grade level book and should have been an easy read.  However, I always wound up reading after getting to bed a little too late and falling asleep within minutes.  The plot is just one fantastic, madcap thing happening after another and I just didn't keep track and couldn't make the connections I ought to have been making with all the characters and all the hints about what was really going on.   One of the problems might have been I read it on my Kindle.  There's this one very important spell that's like a riddle the author kept referring to throughout the book, but since I couldn't flip back to the actual spell which was like a 12 line poem, I couldn't refresh my memory on it.

R started reading the book after me but he loves fantasy and he also would listen to it on audible on the way to and from work, so he finished before me and he enjoyed it more than I did.  Tonight though we plan to watch the movie.  Maybe with R's guidance and the movie I will finally get what was going on.

This is my problem with fantasy though.  I just can't stay engaged enough in it to get all the quirky details about this whole other universe of reality.  It's bizarre to say, but fantasy actually bores me for the most part.  There are exceptions.  I loved the Half Magic books when I was little and I loved books by Zilpha Keating Snyder in junior high, which often have a magical element to them.  In adulthood I loved C. S. Lewis' Til We Have Faces.  But on the whole I just am not a Harry Potter/Tolkien person, even though I love folktales and fairy tales, but I think more for what they say about the culture and history rather than the actual magic.

So I'm a bit disappointed in myself for not seeming to be able to warm up to the fantasy genre since everyone else in my family is such a fan.  For a long time I didn't care for mysteries either but over the last decade or so I've come to really enjoy them.  So I thought maybe I'd expand into fantasy too, but nope, I just like my historical fiction and memoirs the best.  However, the March Magics challenge also includes a book by Terry Pratchett, Wee Free Men.  That author is my middle son's favorite.  He's read many of his books, so I am going to give that a try next.

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

Dr. Thorne - Book 9

Apparently Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame write a mini-series of Doctor Thorne.

Dr. Thorne is the third book in the Barcetshire series by Anthony Trollope.  While I had read The Warden and Barchester Towers years ago and recently reread them), I'd never read Dr. Thorne.   The novel chronicles the lives of various people living within the diocese of Barcetshire where the cathedral is at Barchester.  This books centers on the Gershams, cousins to the great de Courcy noble family.  Dr. Thorne (distantly related to the Thornes of Ullathorne) serves as a doctor to the Gersham family.  Alas, Squire Gersham has not had an easy time of it.  He spent too much in his early married years running for office in Parliament, a race he lost.  He was not up to his well-loved father's standards.  After losing his race, he spent money on hounds, I guess to be a center of fox hunting?  I didn't really understand that part, but that too didn't go well financially.  And his wife, who is higher in status demanded she live very high, until finally, their financial woes become very burdensome.  Mr Gersham is forced to sell part of his grand estate, Boxall Hill, to an up and coming railroad magnate, Roger Scatcherd.

Scatcherd's sister had a baby out of wedlock. The baby's father was Dr. Thorne's only brother.  Scatcherd in a drunken rage attacks his sister's lover and kills him.  He is sent to prison for manslaughter but only serves six months.  Dr. Thorne winds up taking in the baby and raising her as his beloved niece.  In fact she is like his daughter and the only family he has.  Dr. Thorne and the squire Gersham are good friends and Mary, the niece grows up with the Gersham children.  Squire Gersham has one son Frank and Frank falls in love with Mary.  But the Gersham estate is so embarrassed by debt, Frank must marry someone rich.

I thought the story had a very slow start and because it wasn't holding my interest at first, I found myself getting confused by the story line.  However, I stuck with it and eventually I did get drawn in.  Mary Thorne is an interesting character.  The whole tension between Frank wanting to please his father and yet falling in love with Mary was very moving.  Both Mary and Frank are very likable and you want things to pull through for them.

There are many characters here, Dr. Fillgrave, Dr. Thorne's great rival, Lady Arabella, the squire's wife and main adversary to Mary, Beatrice Gersham, Mary's best friend, Patience Oriel and her brother the parson, Augusta, another sister of Frank's, Lady Scatcherd, Roger Scatcherd and his son Louis.  Other characters from the previous two novels are mentioned as well, Sir Abraham Haphazard, Bishop Proudie, Dr. Omicron Pie.

Though most of the story is about the love between Frank and Mary, the real hero is Dr. Thorne.  He is put in an impossible position of having to be trustee and doctor to an odious person who actually stands in the way of his beloved Mary's happiness.  He struggles to do the right thing.  He must maintain objectivity and silence on something of vast importance to the happiness of those he loves.

Eventually I came to really enjoy the story.  I do think though it didn't have to be quite as long as it is.  It is slow in starting and drags out the plot a bit too long, I thought.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 books in 52 weeks.

Lenten Plans

I have hardly thought about Lent and now it is Ash Wednesday.  The whole thing has been sort of eclipsed in my head because of B's continuing illness and the discovery of high toxic molds in her room. 

So for Lent, we'll be giving up mold!  And I have no idea of how extensive the problem will prove to be.  I have visions of us having to rent another house while this one gets gutted, sprayed and rebuilt.  Please God, no! 

So that's one thing.

Also with the diet.  Since she's already no gluten, no soy, no tree nuts, no cow dairy plus now she's low sugar which means a very limited selection of gluten free grains (brown rice, oats, quinoa) and no potatoes, mushrooms and supposedly no corn or peanut butter.  And only low sugar fruits.  However, the nutritionist did say she could have a small amount of corn tortillas, a small amount of peanut butter and a 1/2 banana in a smoothie once in a while.

So today, Ash Wednesday we are being meat free (eggs, goat cheese and fish).  We'll do that also for Good Friday, but at least for B, I'm not imposing the meat free Fridays.  She's already on a forced fast.  I can make the sacrifice because it's no big deal to me but to her it really is too much.

I do plan to curtail my internet habits.  I'm going to only do necessary communication things on facebook up to 1/2 hour a day. 

I also am going to limit myself to no more than 2 youtube videos a day.  I'm addicted to all these homesteading channels now.

Also, I am going to finish The Light of Christ book by Holy Thursday.  I've been reading it very inconsistently and slowly.  So I plan to be more diligent about that.

I do hope to get to a daily mass a week, adoration once a week and I'm going to try to go to confession at the beginning and at the end of Lent.  Usually I wait til the very last minute to go just before Easter.

My big sacrifice will be doing a deep clean of something every day, since housework is definitely the thing I hate the most.  My inspiration is the 40 Bags in 40 Weeks idea, but instead of bags, it will be 'spots.'  Each day I'm going to find a spot that needs cleaning and clean it to the most thorough degree I can.  Not just maintenance cleaning, but deeper and more thorough.  Today, I tackle the fridge.

Tomorrow R and I are flying to Phoenix, AZ.  I've never been there before.  I don't think he has either.  Last time I went with him to a conference was when I was pregnant with H!  We are flying out in the a.m.  Thankfully, J has Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays off, so he'll be taking care of the dog and ferrying B places in my stead.  So today is also laundry and getting ready for the conference.  I'll have dress every night for dinners and stuff.  Yuck.  But I think during the day while he's in meetings I'll be free to wander around and explore, and just relax and read a lot. 

Have a blessed Lent!

Dog Woes

Ugh I have horrible insomnia.  I actually went to bed early but R worked late and when he got home at 11 I woke and he mentioned that we'd gotten anonymous note from a neighbor complaining about Skipper's barking. 

The body of the letter says:

Please consider this a friendly reminder to please bring your dog inside.  The dog barks for extremely long periods of times, day and night.  The dog appears to be left out in the cold temperatures.  The dog can be heard in the Maymont Neighborhood.
Attached please find the Fairfax County Noise Ordnance statement.
Thank you for your cooperation.

Then they stapled a print out of the ordnance that says no barking from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.  And they took the time to highlight the pertinent parts in yellow highlighter.


Well first of all my dog spends most of his time on our couch.  He is not outside for long periods of time at all.  He is let in and out several times a day for maybe 2 to 10 minutes a pop,  and he does bark to let us know he wants to come in.  And sometimes I'm cooking or in the bathroom or something and don't come immediately.  It might take me a minute or two.

I don't think he is ever out between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. left to bark.  That might have happened a couple of times with R.  I  go to bed usually around 10.  He sometimes stays up and he'll let the dog out late and the dog might start barking.  But again he usually gets the dog pretty quickly.  And that situation only happens occasionally anyway.

I think what might have happened though is when V's friends were here, we had no good place to put the dog.  He does bark a lot.  It is annoying, so while we were entertaining them for like 2 meals a brunch and a dinner, the dog was outside for a while.  Maybe an hour each time?  And that was on a Sunday when people would be home.  Because honestly, hardly anyone ever seems to be home during the day in that neighborhood.

The problem is that our yard is on a hill over the pond which forms a little valley.  I've noticed sound really echoes.  So I think the noise just travels, especially in winter when there are no leaves on the trees to muffle it a bit.  Also, there are two other barking dogs along my side of the street.  Our next door neighbor also has a dog that barks at times, but during the day, I've never heard her bark at night.  And then two house down from them is a family that has a couple of dogs and sometimes they are out and barking as well.  So maybe this anonymous neighbor has lumped all the barking dogs together?  But our geographical position does make our dog's bark the most prominent and the most obvious.

However, given all this, the letter is an exaggeration.  It does not happen for 'extremely long periods of time.' It does not happen 'day and night.'  The dog is not left out in the cold temperatures.  What a lot of bosh.  And I am so pissed that they didn't sign their name or just come talk to us.  Now I'm going to be paranoid when I walk the dog. Who is peeking out there window, spying on me, hating me because of my annoying dog!

Maybe it is the same lady who was scratched by our cat last spring and called animal control on us.  Maybe she's out to get us.

Anyway, the truth is Skipper is a high strung, highly energetic dog, only 9 months and he has a loud, sharp, annoying bark.  It drives me nuts too.  It's been a rough winter.  He's young and hyper and has lots of bad puppy habits.  And it's been muddy or icy and hard to get him enough exercise to help him be calm. 

I think I'm going to have to get one of those sonic collars.  I have to be able to let him out in the backyard some times.  If he isn't allowed to bark to come in or the I'll get cited by some cowardly neighbor, then I have to do something.

I hate my neighbors.  They built ugly pretentious wasteful McMansions on a beautiful orchard.  I had to live with freaking construction noise for 10 years while those ugly homes were being built.  They never clean up their trash.  I walk the dog back there and these people who live in these million dollar homes can't be bothered to clean up the trash on their streets.  My dog has found a dirty menstrual napkin and a used condom on that street where this neighbor probably lives.  Just in the last couple of weeks.  How disgusting is that?  And that's not even mentioning the water bottles and plastic bags, etc I can see washing into the pond.  And they hardly come out of their homes anyway.  They all have their little home security signs out front and their pristine, overly landscaped lawns, yet you hardly ever seen anyone!  I've walked more in their neighborhood then they have!

Ok I am just being petty, but it is 2:58 a.m. and just for the record, my dog is not outside in the cold barking but asleep in his crate, as he has been since 10 p.m.

Things To Do - Monday 3/4/19

Got 2 things in my email this morning:  mold testing results for B and a welcome email from Catholic U for B with all the things we need to do between now and her orientation on 8/23.

First the mold test came back high for two toxic molds.  So that means we need to remediate her room pronto which involves tearing down dry wall, etc, etc.  What a pain!  It's gonna be a huge deal and R and I are going away to Phoenix AZ this weekend.  The first time I've accompanied him to a conference since I was pregnant with H my oldest!  (Went to Houston that time).  We leave Thursday morning and come back Sunday afternoon, but honestly I don't want her sleeping in her room anymore right now!

Things to do:
Make R and B breakfast
Get B to drs appt at 9
Walk dog
Figure out remediation
Get B to math - maybe do quick shopping at H/T
P/U B
Figure out volunteer situation on Sunday when I'm gone - maybe V can step in?
Dinner is some kind of ground beef and brown rice pasta with tomato sauce + roasted Brussel sprouts and salad
B to choir practice by 5:10
S takes my car to class
Also should clean master bath/bedroom
Argh!  I wanted to get my hair cut before I left for Phoenix but I won't have a car tomorrow and it looks like there's no time today.  So darn it, do I wait til Wednesday?

Republican Like Me - Book 8

The title to this book references another book from decades ago, Black Like Me.  I remember being required to read this in high school  It's about a white guy who somehow gets his skin darkened and then goes to live in the south as a Black man in the era just as the Civil Rights movement was starting up.  Ken Stern, the author of Republican Like Me, kind of does the same thing, albeit, it is much easier.  Stern is a solid Democrat.  He's married to a staffer for a Democrat on the Hill.  He worked for NPR for almost a decade as vice president and then CEO.  He lives on Hobart St. NW in Washington DC where at the annual block party they take a pledge to welcome all people, black and white, straight or gay - except Republicans.  That last part is supposed to be a joke, but in actually Stern can't find any Republicans living in his neighborhood.  He realizes he's in a bubble.  So he vows to spend a year like a Republican, doing conservative things and really checking out the people he and all around him see as stereotypes.

This was the edition I read in high school

I admired this author immensely.  He is a great writer and a man of integrity and honesty.  He is able to present the good and the bad of both sides of an issue in a clear and nuanced way.  He's done tons of research and everything is backed up with facts and stats.  Stern attends Trump rallies, goes pig hunting in Texas, visits out of work coal miners in Appalachia, meets James O'Keefe (whom he really dislikes!) at the Right On line conference.  He attends church with evangelicals (he's a non-religious Jew married to a fallen away Catholic).  Stern's open mindedness and willing to give credit where credit is due and to criticize things that are not sound, even if it's a liberal policy, made my trust in the author grow as I read the book.  I don't agree with Stern on many issues.  I am a social conservative and he is not, nevertheless, I felt grateful that such a man exists and was able to write such an insightful and honest book.  He tackles every prickly issue head on as objectively as possible, weighs and examines the opposing approaches and then deftly goes through and explains all the strengths and weaknesses of both arguments.

After his year of "being Republican' Stern does not return to being a Democrat.  Instead he identifies as a Independent. He's angry at the Democratic party for abandoning the middle class, a move that lead to the rise of Trump, who took advantage of that vacuum.  His views on gun control, environmentalism and the media have changed.

Stern ends the book by intoning Lincoln's famous line from his 1st inaugural address, "Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of affection."  The thing that frightens and dismays Stern is that we have grown so intolerant of each other.  With the demise of religion and unions, people are becoming more politically tribal. Wanting to be part of a group and have that 'team' win is instinctive in humans, but bad for democracy.  We have to fight than tendency   But there's hope.  And basically that hope involves getting outside your own bubble and talking to real people, face to face.

I highly recommend this book!  Two thumbs up.  I am going to recommend to the local Better-Angels group for their book club (unless they already know about.  I'm new at Better-Angels and don't really know what they've done in the past).

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