A Meme for A Monday

Bridget Magnus over at Short Woman tagged me to do the following meme:

So here’s the rules of the Meme:
1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Since my computer is surrounded by books,* I reached out at random with my eyes closed and got How To Talk To Birds and other uncommon ways of enjoying nature the year round, by Richard C. Davis. And I found:

"I don't believe it's an urge to kill or even possess but to know and absorb the beauty of the animal. If a deer were to stand still so that a hunter might admire it in a way a botanist might admire a flower, there might be little deer-killing. Most hunters aren't bloodthirsty or even vain of their reputations as hunters."

* there is a shelf of books I haven't read yet above the monitor, another taking up the window seat, and a bookcase behind me.

And I'm going to tag:
Deja Pseu at Une femme d'un certain age
Cuppa at Brown Betty Brew
Chancy at Driftwood Inspiration
Kenju at IMAGINE WHAT I'M LEAVING OUT
and Autumn's Mom

Image courtesy John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

What I've Learned So Far

Deja Pseu over at Une femme d'un certain age has tagged me for a meme. Lessons in Hindsight So, this is the advise I would give to my 20 year old self if I could go back in time.

1. People walking down the street are too busy worrying about their own lives to give much thought to you. There is no need to be so damned self-conscious.

2. It came to pass. Whether it is good or bad, it will most likely pass. So enjoy the good stuff while it is here and relax about the rest of it. By the time that child is 35, she will have learned to tie her shoes. And she won't be living with you and available for the random hug.

3. There is no one road to happiness. Perhaps you'll do it the standard way, perhaps you won't. The same for your kids. The well marked path may be much more boring.

4. Question authority. About everything Trust your own experience. If your experience isn't the same as what you're told it should be, the problem may not be you. It may well be the advice.

5. If you've tried to do something twice and it hasn't worked, you need to try something else. Sometimes anything else would work.

6. Trust yourself. You really do know what you are feeling and whether you like someone or not and when you are hungry. You are who you are and that's good. You are supposed to get angry when people do cruel things. You are supposed to feel sad when you lose something or someone you value. You are supposed to come first once in a while. You are supposed to get older and have gray hair. And you are supposed to be round.

7. Laugh. A lot. Laughter heals a wondrous lot of problems. And it leaves nicer lines on your face.

8. Sometimes if you just hang in there long enough, the person who is driving you crazy will leave. When that happens, you've won. There you still are in the situation you love and there they are, gone.

9, Sometimes if you hang in there waiting for them to leave, they don't. The trick is to figure out which time this is and just how crazy the person is driving you.

10, You reap what you sow. Be kind. Be honest. Look for the good in people.

11. Diets make you fatter. All of them. Always. The more you go on, the fatter you get.

I'm not going to tag people on this one. If you want to do it, feel free. Let me know so I can see what wisdom you have gleaned over the years.

Two Women in a Garden by Kasimir Malevich

Christmas Meme

This one came from Scarlett, who started this meme herself just for us, and calls it “12 of my favorite things”. Here are her rules:

Please share 12 of your favorite Christmas things: they can be memories, traditions, songs, presents, beliefs, whatever it is about this season that you love.

I'm supposed to send it to 12 people, but I'm just going to open it up to anyone who wants to continue it.

1. The year that Richard had just turned 12 and Julie was a week away from 10, I bought them new bicycles. I put cards on the tree with hints, which led to hints, which led to hints. They followed their hints around the house and finally out to the garage, where they were so busy looking for another hint or a wrapped box that they didn't see the two bikes until I gave them a few verbal hints.
2. For years Christmas dinner was curry. When we returned to California from Fairbanks, we had Christmas with my parents, which was a traditional meal. So, we had curry on Boxing Day (December 26).
3. When Julie moved out and was dating Ted, they went to his parents for Christmas, and Richard and Kathy and I went to visit Julie and Ted for Boxing Day -- and, of course, had curry.
4. One year in Fairbanks, a friend of mine spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with us. The two of us sat up all night listening to music and making snacks and talking. Finally it was so late that I realized that I couldn't stay up till the usual time for opening presents, and if I went to bed right then it would be noon before I was willing to get up again. So, we woke the kids, opened presents, and had breakfast before I went to bed.
5. When the kids were very young and I was going to college, I put them in the stroller Christmas Eve and went out to see if there were any cut price trees. The lot owner helped me pick out the nicest tree that would fit in my apartment and then wouldn't let me pay for it.
6. When the kids were younger than that, I used to hold Christmas on December 27 so I could get them presents on the 26th -- they were too young to know the difference and I could get them much better presents at the after Christmas sales.
7. When I was about 14 Daddy had a pair of diamond and ruby ear rings made and froze them in an ice cube. Then, before we started opening presents, he brought a glass of orange juice with that ice cube in it to my mother. She had to be told to look in her glass, since she was paying attention to us kids open our presents.
8. For my 12th Christmas I received a wood burning kit and a paint-by-numbers kit, which was a good thing because that day I broke my ankle with the skates I'd received. Daddy was home with scarlatina, and so the two of us wiled away the hours of our convalescence painting and burning wood together. Since I couldn't go out, I couldn't get home late, and since I couldn't do chores, I couldn't get in trouble for that, either. It was probably the best time Daddy and I ever spent under the same roof.
9. I used to love going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, even after I became an atheist. But then the Catholic Church stopped doing Latin mass, and I never bothered to go back. There was something about the Latin, the singing, the incense -- it really made me feel connected to the time in my childhood when I went to Catholic boarding school and began every morning with mass.
10. These days, Mama and Aunt Flo are living on fixed incomes and helping my niece Kristie out more than they should, so they tend to skimp on their own nutrition. Julie, Ted, Richard, Kathy, and I get together and send them a box of steaks. They enjoy them for months.
11. The year that Mama was engaged to Daddy and Aunt Flo was engaged to Uncle Wes, when I was nine, unknown to each other, the two men bought Mama and Aunt Flo the same satin lounging set -- one was red and one was blue.
12. Before my father died, we would always travel from where ever in California we were living that year to Modesto, where my parents had grown up. We would stay with my father's mother, and spend part of Christmas day with her and part with my mother's parents. I was the only child in the family at the time, and most of the presents under the trees at both houses were for me. I was the center of attention and I loved it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Tree © Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com

Splotchy's Story Meme

Tagged by Bitty , I herewith keep Splotchy's Story Meme alive and well. To quote kona, "Each tagged person needs to add to the story and then tag others. Them's the rules and I don't make 'em." Bitty backtracked to Splotchy and discovered a request that we link to those who go before us. Well, that makes sense. So she did and so will I.

Now, on with the story:

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen. (Splotchy)

I was used to the house being quite cold in the mornings, as the night log usually burns out around one AM when I am dreaming cozily under my covers, not normally waking to put a new one on until morning. I was surprised because on the rare occasions that it actually had reached sub-freezing temperatures in the house, I had awakened in the night to restart the fire. I would have been worried about the pipes before P-Day, but there hadn’t been running water in two years and that was one of the few advantages to being dependent on rainwater, no pipes. (Freida Bee)

The nightmares began during the following spring. The apple trees came to life in my dreams. At first the trees spoke and I thought they were amusing. That changed when the messages arrived. Lately, their anger was directed at me. (mathman6293)

I turned and stared out the kitchen window, past the frosty-lidded cistern to the orchard beyond. My trees, my beautiful fruit trees, stood leafless and dark. I wished with all my heart that this was just a normal winter thing, but it wasn’t.

"Why are you blaming me, guys? You know I love you. You watched me go out and vote that last time, in the ice-storm. It’s not like I didn’t try!”

I turned with a sigh and went to the phone to give Zaius a call. Perhaps The Good Doctor had made some incremental progress on his Long-Shot-Theory. (TCR)

Unfortunately, the phone was dead. Not from the inclement frigid weather, but because I didn't pay the phone bill and my service was shut off. "Oh well, I'll use the cell phone," I said aloud to no one but myself. As fate would have it, the cell phone battery was completely drained. I never even heard the thing chirping during the night to remind me to charge it. Being somewhat annoyed by all this, I went back to the kitchen, grabbed an ice pick and began chipping away at the rock-solid apple sauce when suddenly there was a very loud knock on my door which startled me. (kona)

In my surprise, I dropped the applesauce; no one but me had been on the property since Cordelia had died, not even Zaius. The frozen jar smashed into my big toe, which was inadequately protected by a worn green handknit slipper, one of Cordelia’s last gifts to me. Blood gushed from the crushed digit as the knocking escalated into insistent pounding. I moved from room to room in a frenzy, limping yet rushing, knocking over stacks of books and papers, blood documenting my every move. Where were my glasses? I had to have my glasses to see out the peephole. It hadn’t been prudent to fling open a door in welcome since the Winter Cleansings of 2018, just after the internet was shut down. Where did I put them? Just as I spotted the spectacles beside the fireplace, the pounding stopped, replaced by a most inhuman howl. (Bitty)

Quickly I put on my spectacles and looked out the peephole. Well, of course the howling had been inhuman -- the creature who had been pounding on the door was far from human. Yes, indeed, just about as far from human as you can get! Who would have thought that the spiders would have returned before the spring thaw? And, yet, there they were. Great big and hairy, like taranculas on steroids! The one at the door, the dozens lined up behind her. I wondered if the applesauce would hold them until we could round up some flies for them to eat? And, how nice that they had arrived in time to weave their lovely webs around the house and heat us up. And to think, that I had been frightened when I first heard the knocking and the howling. (Maya's Granny)

And I tag (Julie).

Seven Random or Weird ThingsAbout The Great & WondrousMe

Marianne, over at Busha Full of Grace tagged me for a meme which looks like fun.

1. When I lived in Fairbanks I made brandied fruit, which consisted of a bottle of the best brandy, and then add one pound of fruit and one pound of sugar as each fruit becomes ready during the summer. Come Christmas, it was potent and wonderful and I gave quarts of it as presents.
2. The other thing I did with fruit when I lived in Fairbanks was work a deal with the produce manager at Safeway to buy the fruit he was throwing away as overripe for $.25 (25 cents) a box. What he didn't realize, as an Alaskan, was that he was throwing the fruit away before it was actually ripe. I took it home and let it ripen and we ate it and I canned it. Best fruit in town, almost free. Some of it went into the brandied fruit.
3. When I was 11 I wanted to be a lighthouse keeper. I now know that the solitude would be too much -- but, oh, the view!
4. Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite comic strip of all time.
5. My favorite books when I was very little were The Mother West Wind books, by Thornton Burgess.
6. My first exposure to the idea of racial equality came when I was 12 and reading Andre Norton* books. It was just assumed in her books that people were equal and it made so much sense.
7. I really love the idea of horses, and that they have agreed to live with us and let us ride them and be tame. But, they are so big that I don't like getting too close to them and I can't figure out what to do on their backs. I do love them, though. Just not up close.

And I'm tagging:
1. Gawilli at Back in The Day
2. Chancy at Driftwood Inspiration
3. Kenju at Imagine What I'm Leaving Out
4. Joy at Joy of Six
5. Rain at Rainy Day Thoughts
6. Cherry at Cherry Extract
7. Tabor at One Day at a Time

The Rules are as follows:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

* Andre Norton is a woman science fiction writer, real name Alice Mary Norton, who started writing juvenile science fiction when mostly who read that was boys and they wouldn't read anything written by a woman.

Names Meme

Julie did this recently, and it looked like fun.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & first car) - Tricksy Corvair

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) - Black Cherry Vanilla Oatmeal Raisin.

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) - L WAR

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) - Purple Cat

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) - Warli

6. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) - The Turquoise Pepsi

7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) - Percy Roland

8. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) - Seawell Seattle (I couldn't remember the name of my fifth grade teacher, so I took my sixth.)

9. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, favorite flower) - Christmas Buttercup

10. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”) - Watermelon Nightie

11. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) - Malt O' Meal Sycamore

12. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”) - Reading Rain Tour

13. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) - Joycelyn Oakland

14. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Louise Charles

Wanna play?

10-20-30 Virus

I found this at Julie's blog, Thinking About.

She added 40, since she is now over 40; since I am over 60, I'll go that high. The idea is to identify what you were doing 10 etc. years ago.

Ten Years Ago - 1997 I was working for Catholic Community Service providing parenting skills coaching and training to families whose children were in foster care or at risk. Maya was new and life had a special meaning that it hadn't had before.

Twenty Years Ago - 1987 I was working in Stockton, just before I moved to Sacramento. In May Julie had said something that made me realize that I had made a major mistake in not making sure my kids knew their fathers, and I spent the summer working to correct that. Julie's father, who had misunderstood me when I told him she was his, was overjoyed to come and meet her. Richard's father, who had known all along, never did come through with more than a few letters and phone calls.

Thirty Years Ago - 1977 I was in Campbell, having moved back from Fairbanks in 1975. It was not a good year for us. I was director of education for a Montessori school system owned by a man who I'm pretty certain was bipolar. He dipped into the bank account all the time, so that on pay day everyone who distributed checks made sure their own was cashed (not deposited. Cashed.) before handing out the rest and who was always suggesting things like borrowing money from the Mafia (which caused me to picture shadowy figures knee capping teachers because the payments were overdue). Richard was suffering in a junior high from Hell, the neighbors were involved in high drama which they brought into our house on occasion. This is where I said, to the tall, strong, mean-as-spit wife beater as he tried to bring his fight into my living room, "I don't care who is married to whom. I pay the rent in this house, which makes it my roof. You need to get out, leaving your wife with me, because I have called the police."

Forty Years Ago - 1967 The kids and I were in Berkeley. I was finishing college, my life consisted of kids and school and learning and love. I've never been happier as an adult.

Fifty Years Ago - 1957 I was attending Hillsdale High School (the first of two) in San Mateo, California and my best friend was Kate. The next year I went to live with my great-aunt Julie, and met Jack and Michael and Jane and Robert. 1957, the only bright light was Kate. Things got really better in Modesto.

Sixty Years Ago - 1947 I was five years old. It was the last year that we lived in the trailer, moving from one place in California to the next. It was the last year of my father's life. It was the last year of unquestioned security.

Family Traditions

I really like Paula Poundstone, so when I heard that she was going to be on Craig Ferguson last night, I set the DVR to record it.




Paula and Craig got to talking about family history, and she was telling him that her adopted daughter had been assigned a family tree, and told she could use Paula's, since she doesn't know her own. And after Paula told her the little bit she did know about her family, her daughter said that was pretty boring and so they made one up.


In the course of this Paula mentioned that she has some Cherokee on her mother's side and some German on her father's. She said that this had not made any difference in her life at all, although that whenever they smoke the peace pipe they always follow it with wiener schnitzel.

Which piece of nonsense made me wonder what other bi-cultural family traditions we could make up? So, I've created a new meme. The rules are:
1. Post the rules.
2. You have to choose two different heritages that you (or an ancestor) really do have. They can be nationalities, races, religions, regions, or even political parties.
3. Make up a silly tradition (or as many as you want) that reflects them.
4. Do as many as there are mixes in your family.
5. Name five people to follow; inform them in the comments section of their blogs.

My mother's father was from the South and her mother was from New England and so:
Sunday supper was New England clam chowder and sweet tea.
They attended the Southern Transcendentalist Church.
Mama has a cousin who is a famous author named Tennessee Dickinson.
One branch of the family is a group of bootlegging Quakers.
Uncle Hiram, the whaler, was famous for his call, "Thar she blows, y'all!"

My father's mother was from the South and his father's family from England, and so:
On Christmas they would have jambalaya and plum pudding.
Every afternoon Grandma served tea and hush puppies.
When things go wrong, we try to keep a stiff upper lip while swooning.

Daddy's father was from Ireland and his mother from Germany and so:
On St. Patrick's Day they had corned beef and sour kraut and decorated the house with cutout pictures of Leprechauns in Lederhosen.
They used to read Yates while listening to Mozart.
Wedding bouquets consist of Edelweiss and shamrocks.
They would kiss the Blarney Stone on Martin Luther's birthday.

My sister Colleen, a true California girl, married Shafiq, a Palestinian, and so:
At the kids' birthday parties, they played pin the tail on the camel.
On picnics they would have hot dogs and falafel.
They would break their Ramadan fast with vegie pizza.
Five times a day they faced Mecca and repeated their affirmations.

And I name:
Deja Pseu at Dilettante's Progress
Gina on Just Another Day
Autumn's Mom
Cherry at Cherry Extract
Jay at Lassiter Space

Moaning Meme

Julie at Thinking About tagged me for this meme, one for complaining a bit. Nice idea, huh?

5 people who will be annoyed you tagged them.

• Gawilli at Back in The Day
• Naomi at Little Red Hen
• Kate at Hugging Aspens
• Ginnie at Goldendaze Ginnie
• Joy at Joy of Six

4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth.

• George W. Bush
• Dick Cheney
• Saying cruel things to people because "they need to know"
• Crony capitalism

3 things people do that make you want to shake them violently.

• Mistreat children in any way.
• Believe that they earned all of their good fortune and people without their advantages are lazy.
• People who have been insulated from problems by their race and/or social class, giving out prescriptions for social ills that attribute them to individuals and start with "all you have to do to solve this problem is. . ." (Like "Just say no")

2 things you find yourself moaning about.

• How long it is taking me to recover from the combination of unrelated surgery and injury that knocked me for a loop these last couple of years.
• The destructive path of the Cheney/Bush administration, which seems bound to send our Constitution down the shredder and turn the republic created by our founders into the Evil Empire.

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself.

• Although there are a lot of things I don't know, I'm confident I sure as hell know more than the idiots running the asylum.

RULES
• Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it’s all about!
• Be as honest as possible. This is about letting people get to know the real you!
• Try not to insult anyone - unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly!
• Post these rules at the end of every meme

Interviewed by Julie

Julie did this meme, asking for anyone who wanted to do it to let her know in a comment. So, now I'm doing it and asking the same thing.

If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do with your power?
Oh, choices. Choices. If this were a few years ago, I could use it to hang out and watch Maya play, but now she's old enough to have secrets that should be respected, so that would be spying. Maybe I could wear a wire and hang out for a few hours in Karl Rove's office and get the goods on him. And for a few hours in the Oval Office, and then for a few in Cheney's office gathering evidence for a double impeachment. I'm sure that they would do something nefarious any time I was there.

Are there brands you are loyal to?
Pepsi. Best Foods. I would be to Burger King if we had one. Making It Big clothing -- it is made in the U.S. with union labor, they use larger models in their catalogs, it is really pretty, and it is comfortable. I think that most of the clothes I've bought in the last ten years come from there.

And I won't use brands that I have something against, either. Coke made large contributions to Phylis Shafley to defeat the ERA; I haven't had a Coke since. I will admit, I already preferred Pepsi, but I would have changed brands had Pepsi done that. I figure if Coke doesn't support me, I don't need to support Coke. I know, Pepsi may have done something worse that I just don't know about, and my one-woman boycott hasn't hurt Coke one iota. But it makes me feel better.

What do you consider to be the most important quality in a person?
The willingness to take an honest look at themselves and their ideas and change if they don't like what they see. Or when they discover they were wrong.

Is there any food you could eat every day without getting sick of it?
Bing cherries. Watermelon. Tomatoes. San Francisco sourdough French bread and butter -- toasted or not. Black twig apples. Ted's curry.

If you could change one thing about your personality, what would it be?
I would want to be less of a procrastinator. I do it when the task is too easy -- putting it off until the last minute gives me the excitement of being able to make the deadline just barely, to pull it off when most others couldn't. But, it puts pressure on other people, which isn't the best way to add excitement to your work life.

Here are the rules, if you would like to be interviewed:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Thinking Blogger

Last week Kenju at Imagine What I'm Leaving Out honored me by naming Maya's Granny "a blog that makes me think." Of all the honors I could receive, this is very high on the list.

Kenju suggested that her list post the award and a link to a post we feel proud of, which I am doing here. One of the things which made me think when I wrote it was Perspective

My list of blogs that make me think:

Junkfood Science which always makes me think deeply. Sandy Szwarc is so good at examining the reality behind the hype and explaining both the science and how to differentiate between marketing and research that I would like to link to her on a daily basis.

Angry Black Bitch where Sharf-fu displays her bitchitude for the greater glory of the human race.

Brilliant At Breakfast where Jill examines the events of the day with a clear eye.

Echidne of the Snakes a vast reservoir of wisdom and information.

Thinking About where my daughter, J, makes me proud to be her mom.

If those of you who are listed choose to participate, the rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think

2. Link to The Thinking Blog so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

My Literary Family

So, I was visiting Ally Bean at Crazy Dust In My Coffee and she was doing this which she said has meme potential, and I liked it and here it is.

Grandmother - Maria Montessori
Grandfather - Mark Twain
Mother - Andre Norton (a woman who started writing science fiction when most of the readers were male and they wouldn't read the work of a female)
Father - James Thurber
Sister - Peg Bracken
Brother - Terry Pratchett
Aunt - Agatha Christie
Uncle - Walt Kelly
Cousin - Georgette Heyer
Friend of the family - Lynn Johnston

A Book Meme

I was over at Never That Easy the other day, and found this. Since I was indeed reading it, I got tagged.

Look at the list of books below.
*Bold the ones you’ve read.
*Italicize the ones you want to read.
*leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
*If you are reading this, tag you're it.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) do I get points for wish I hadn't read?
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible -- from cover to cover, several times.
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Which gives me, if I am counting correctly, 52 read and seven that I want to read. One thing this tells me is that when I want to read something, I usually go get it and read it right then.

I Am From

I encountered this at Julie's blog. The template is here. Scroll down a little less than half the page to find it.

I am from a rope swing in a tall pine, from running free in orchards and fields, and pomegranate stains on my little white dress.

I am from the small, hand-built, silver trailer filled with love and laughter that traveled the highways of California in the 40s; from a stucco house with a tall cyprus tree and grape arbor on School Street in Stockton; from a boarding school with date palms lining the drive, a home farm where the food was grown and raised, and an infirmary where they gave dark beer to 7 year olds with anemia; from a house in the country with a cherry tree and a dog named Bows and a neighbor who raised fighting cocks outside of Stockton; from a tropical house surrounded by hibiscus hedges, with a maid's house and a banana tree in the back yard in Puerto Rico; from a new project house with a twig of a tree in the front yard and open fields and train tracks to explore outside of Denver; from a standard house-house almost next door to my best friend in El Paso; from a quiet house set back in a large lot with loquat trees and an overgrown yard for children and a dog named Heathcliff and a cat named Miss Pettibone to play in; from a new project house with the standard twiggy tree and a dog named Kal and a bedroom with my own built-by-my-Daddy desk large enough for my typewriter and sewing machine and still lots of room to do home work; from my Great-aunt Julia's peaceful, safe house with the wisteria arbor and the Meyer lemon and orange trees, where I could smell jasmine and hear the song of the resident mocking bird on summer nights and the cedar waxwings feasted on the pyrocantha bushes in the fall; from a variety of dorm rooms and apartments in Berkeley; from an apartment near the Haight Ashbury adorned by the graceful products of the Scots tile manufacturer who had built the house for his daughter in 1903; from small apartments in Berkeley that were graced by Richard and Julie and college texts; from a homestead in Alaska where washing the dishes in the winter involved shooting a hole in the ice and then lowering the bucket for water and once included looking at a moose who was looking in the kitchen window at me; from a log house with moose antlers above the door next to a church and half a block from the library in Fairbanks; from a house in Campbell with a fig tree in the back yard that attracted birds and a cat who loved to lay in the windows and do bird calls; from a few others, and now from a two story apartment on a hillside in Alaska, with bookcases in every room, high ceilings on the bottom story and low, cozy ones on the top, where I can see mountains and forest and eagles from my windows -- shared with two cats.

I am from the sequoia, reaching for the stars; the raven, raucous and sly. From back country roads named, by my great-grandfather Herndon, after members of my family, where my great-grandparents lived on the corner of Herndon and Joyce. From my grandfather's house at the corner of Herndon and Nadine with the mixed orchard that included every tree that we knew would grow in California at the time and a vegetable garden and melon patch I harvested with my basket for my meals. From the closet with the kaleidoscope and stereopticon viewer with slides and my Aunt Nadine's outgrown coloring books and crayons.

I am from sharing family stories and laughing easily at ourselves, from Virginia and Roland and Julia. From Hunts and Herndons and Uptons and Adamses. From slave holders and a Union soldier. From soldiers in most of the wars fought in this country since the French and Indian, including the brother of an ancestor who died at Bunker Hill.

From strong women -- two widows, a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law who raised their orphaned grandchild/great grandchild; one who refused to promise to obey when she got married in the 1890s; and another who ran away from home in the early 1900s and worked her way from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific to avoid being married to "a rich old man" her father had picked out.

I am from casual Christians with connections to Dunkards, Puritan ancestors, and free thinkers. A nominally protestant child who attended a Catholic boarding school for two years.

I am from bookworms and wanderers, who started in England and moved, step by step, generation by generation, westward to California and Alaska, by way of England, Massachusetts, Virginia, and roads west; watermelon that tasted like heaven grown from generations of seeds saved by my grandfather; and San Francisco sourdough French bread with salami and cheese picnics.

From Sarah Warren Osborne, who died waiting to be hung for witchcraft in Salem and the Putnams, who accused her; Etta Mace, who learned to read upside down by reading the Bible to her blind great-grandmother; Percy Herndon, who fought in World War I; my mother, who was a widow at 25 and who had newspaper covering the holes in the soles of her shoes when she remarried.

I am from a box of photos and several albums in my mother's closet filled with pictures of both identified and unidentified ancestors and relatives. From suddenly realizing that my sister looked like my grandmother's picture when grandma was 16. From looking at pictures of myself and my parents and seeing how loved I was.

I am also from my own generation -- an atheist with a sister who married a Palestinian from Kuwait and became Muslim and another sister who was once a B'hai missionary in Kotzebue, Alaska. A family that has, after an incredible number of generations of marrying only Colonial descendants from England, finally broken free and discovered diversity with a hey-nonny nonny! Which now includes a grand daughter whose other grands were originally from India, a great nephew who is black, a niece with a wife.

The Movie Meme

Since Jill at Brilliant At Breakfast has tagged me, I am going to have fun with this one.

1. Popcorn or candy?
Oh, popcorn. There is nothing on earth like movie theater popcorn.

2. Name a movie you've been meaning to see forever.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. You did say forever.

3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: Who loses theirs and to whom?
Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive and it goes to Harrison Ford. Not because Jones didn't do a good job, but because I think Ford is hunky. No one said it had to be for artistic reasons.

4. Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe. Which will it be?
I was going to say Scarlet O'Hara's gown made out of the drapes and then remembered the gown I was thinking of was Carol Burnett's with the curtain rod still in it and then decided that's the one I want, that's the one I'll steal.

5. Your favorite film franchise is...
The Lord of the Rings. Indiana Jones. The original Star Wars.

6. Invite five movie people over for dinner. Who are they? Why'd you invite them? What do you feed them?
Harrison Ford because he is just yummy. Alec Guiness because I loved his early British comedies. Humphrey Bogart. Because he was Bogart. Katherine Hepburn because she defined class and beauty and smart womanhood. Mae West because she was such a gutsy broad. I would make my famous curry and a green salad with all the crisp salad things in the world and Plato Cake (the ideal cake, of which all others are mere reflections on the cave wall).

7. What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theater?
I would have to go with a good drawing and quartering.

8. Choose a female bodyguard: Ripley from Aliens. Mystique from X-Men. Sarah Connor from Terminator 2. The Bride from Kill Bill. Mace from Strange Days.
Ripley it is. She could handle anything.

9. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen in a movie?
I don't know the name of the movie, because I was about five when I saw it, and in 1947 they didn't get all graphic and gory. That may have been what made it so very scary, since I didn't even see it. A man was being chased by a guy driving a tractor and he tripped and the villain drove the discer over him. I saw the discer cutting into the earth, and then my father picked me up and hid my face in his shoulder. I remember that after the movie my parents were really upset that they hadn't known that scene was in there. And I have always remembered it. And, now that I think about it, probably nobody saw the discer get the man, since they only suggested things like that back then, which is what made it so very frightening.

10. Your favorite genre (excluding comedy and drama) is?
Good science fiction/fantasy. The Lord of The Rings. Harry Potter. Silent Running. Labyrinth. The Princess Bride. The Dark Crystal. In this genre, good is few and far between.

11. You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power?
I choose some of my favorite books and, where they are still alive, have the authors do the screenplays. I'm not sure who would do the screenplays for Twain. Cast actors rather than stars.

12. Bonnie or Clyde?
I never saw this movie. Never wanted to see this movie. Don't like aggrandizing violent criminals.

13: Who are you tagging to answer this survey:
Tabor of One Day At A Time; Cuppa of Brown Betty Brew; Donna of Changing Places; Gawilli at Back in the Day; Joy at The Joy of Six; Ms Mama; and Kenju at Just Ask Judy.

Sunday Meme

So, Julie tagged me. Haven't done a meme before, but this certainly gives me something for Sunday, leaving a couple at least started "in the can" which is a good thing this week, as school started here last week and I will be over at the high school recruiting for Teens In Action, and probably fairly tired in the evenings. And not at my desk over lunch, either.

1. Things that scare me:
George W. Bush
Religious fanatics
People who actually believe that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11

2. People who make me laugh:
Julie
Richard
Stephen Colbert
Jon Stewart
Lewis Black
Mark Twain

3. Things I hate the most:
George W. Bush
Politics and the way they work
People who harm children

4. Things I don't understand:
People who don't reflect on their experience
Bigotry of any kind
Hubris

5. Things I'm doing right now:
Drinking grapefruit juice
Blogging
Rubbing Pippin's belly with my toes while he wraps himself around my left foot and purrs

6. Things I want to do before I die:
Write a lot more
Publish
Travel a lot more

7. Things I can do:
Teach anything I can learn
Learn a very wide range of things
Write so that people laugh and cry when I want them to

8. Things I can't do:
Sing well
Draw at all
Dive

10. Things I think you should listen to:
Children when they tell you there is a bear in the yard or a black widow spider on the stairs*
Your conscience
Bird song
Waterfalls
The surf
Whatever makes you laugh really hard

11. Things you should never listen to:
Discouraging words
Hate filled talk
People who don't know you're there

12. Things I'd like to learn:
To draw
To sing
To whistle

13. Favorite foods:
Thanh Long crab
Bing cherries
Watermelon
Jamaican jerk pork
Ripe peaches
Grilled salmon
Mongolian barbecue
Pomegranates
Persimmons

14. Beverages I drink regularly:
Coffee
Pepsi
Grapefruit and pomegranate juice
Hot and Spicy V-8

15. Shows I watched as a kid:
I Love Lucy
Captain Video and his Video Rangers
Hopalong Cassidy
The Lone Ranger
The Cisco Kid (Listened to)

16. People I'm tagging (to do this meme):
Kate
Ted
Pseu

* My sister, Loretta, once told our nephew Elzie to go out and play when he reported a bear in the yard, and then when she went out to hang the wash discovered that there was one, along with her five children and our brother Chuck's four and she had to chase it away with a transitor radio because she didn't know how to shoot the rifle; I once said "Yes, Dear" to Richard when he told me there was a black widow on the stairs and sent him down those stairs to go outside and play and then went down them myself and saw that was one.