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Thursday, December 30, 2010

A Short Essay on Why I Live in a Small Town


Wednesday, December 22, 2010

10:35 A.M.--I pull a filling in my mouth out with a caramel
10:40 A.M.--I call my local dentist on the outside chance I can get an emergency appointment.
10:42 A.M.--I have an 11 A.M. appointment which I grab because meanwhile my principal has just walked through my door and grants me immediate permission. The Christmas dance at 11 allows me this kid-free/no sub time.
10:45 A.M.--Another teacher relieves me of my students.
10:50 A.M.--I arrive ten minutes early at the dentist office greeted by three friendly faces, the dentist's wife, and the dentist's daughter home from college and am ushered right in.
11:05 A.M.--I emerge from the dentist's office--hole filled. No deadening. No pain. Pleasant chitchat with the dentist about the history of the procedure he used to mend me. Asked about my daughter (whom he's met once) by name. Laughed a bit. Commented that I should do ads for this practice.
11:08 A.M.--Back at the dance.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Christmas Day 2010--Almost Bethlehem

Animals and "manger" in Gaston, OregonAn "innkeeper" with no more room for baby alpacas coming this spring. An internet plea for adoptive parents! Virtuallly FREE to a good home!!
After much correspondence we meet Pat and her daughter Giselle. Oh so lovely.
Rosehip (Rosie) settles in for the long "flight" into Idaho--Once we got going they all "kooshed" into a fluffy lump and relaxed, as did Mugsy on my lap/sciatic nerve.
SNOW! SNOW!!! SNOW!!!! ARE WE IN BOLIVIA????????




Direct quote from Obama: "SAAAAAAYYYY WWWHHHHAAAAATTTTT?????"
STAY TUNED FOR THE UP CLOSE SHOTS AND INTERVIEWS WITH ROSIE, ARISTOTLE, THOREAU, AND EMERSON.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

'Twas the Night Before Scout Camp"

We're busying our pre-Christmas wacko selves by doing an 8 part writing assignment based on Christmas (a direct violation of the First Amendment, I am aware) topics. We wrote a rebus letter to Santa Claus, described a food that shows up only during the holiday, and a few others. The most challenging part of this assignment has to be the 20couplet poem after the fashion of "A Visit From St. Nick." I read a smashing poem about an elk hunt today. But my favorite related in-my-face story came from a young lad who described something that happened at Scout camp last summer. The leaders had put together what they called a "John Colter Relay" which involved racing around the lake there at Camp Barlett and having to accomplish scout-related tasks at different checkpoints all the while being conscious that they were in a race. At one point the scouts had to stretch a rope across a fire pit and build a fire underneath it. The object was to be the first to burn through the rope. This kid's troop was cruising! They were neck to neck with a Utah troop! Home Stretch time!! At the peak moment when their fire was leaping right up to burn that rope, a punk from the sinister Utah competitors sashayed over, squatted, and passed gas right on the fire!! You may be as surprised as I was to learn that it distinguished the fire!!!! I had so totally believed that gas would have the opposite effect! Needless to say one fart story in 7th grade opens up to two three four and then TEN good gassers retellings. I was laughing so so hard.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Robin


I've known Robin since I was ten and she was eight. Her father was the high school librarian and also served unofficially as an extraordinary historian of all things Brrrrrr Lake. She fell right in the middle of a large batch of kids and tells stories of ALL nine members of the family piling into the front of a pickup and heading out across the state to visit grandparents! Obviously this was pre-seatbelt days. Clown car???!!!! "She's TOUCHING me!!" Robin and I played sports together and attended summer girls' camp. Now in our 50's our paths cross again--we serve together in our church's young women's program. I really need to sit down and interview her because just the few facts I've gathered about her take my breath away. Most recently she showed up at our door with fresh hamburger--lots of it. Their cow had stumbled and lamed itself coming up the hill from getting a drink, so they'd had to butcher it!!! Not take it down to the market--BUTCHER it!!! Right there. Right now. I know Robin's house burned to the ground a few years back, and the community rallied to put up a new log house for them. But the rest of the story is that that house was her husband's family's original ancestral dwelling. Rustic. Robin's two daughters didn't know indoor plumbing until they were...wait for it...wait for it--14!!!!! That meant they were carrying water from a pump, heating it on a woodstove for dishes, and bathing in a galvanized tub!!!!! Am I going to run out of exclmation points????? Robin and Tim are quite the couple. They are employed by a sheep rancher and spend long months living in a sheep camp in the summer way far away from all things civiilized.
They also spend days and days and days on horses "escorting" those wooly lambs to and fro across the valley. When you look up "work ethic" in the dictionary be prepared to see THEM! They embody the principles of thrift, industry, no frills living. I stand totally in awe of them. Last night I watched Robin in action yet again, this time...playing the violin in an orchestra. A true Renaissance woman. If things "go down", I am planning to sprint down the road to Robin's house and know that if ANYONE is going to survive whatever an apocalypse might send our way, she will!!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Dressed to the 9's For Christmas


Some well-laid plans run amuck. Exhibit A is our living room project which was supposedly going to be completed by December 9th. Hmmmmm...Twelve honored guests arriving in 5 days. Stay tuned for our next episode when we hear Madhadder say, "The carpet layers are coming when????????" To which Paco responds, "We'll just have to work around it." But then who can complain? This is a project we here at Take Us Or Leave Us Acres have been anticipating for five years.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

"Woof!"

"Move Over, Hallmark" Revisited



He: So _________________ is the one that told me that u liked me, but I always liked u.

She: Seriously? But I am glad she did.

He: IDK she did. Ya. So what am I aloud to do right now? Circle one.
Kiss

Hug

Hold hands

Put my arms around u

She: I want to get over ______________________ for a day, so I'll go out tomorrow. Don't write back."

This intercepted love note carries all the components of a classic, so let's take a moment and analyze it. First of all, nine times out of ten seventh grade romance involves another person--a friend who intercedes for a reluctant party. This can lead to problems, as you might suspect. Third parties become an entity in a relationship that oftentimes knows too much. I've seen third parties move into first place ousting a "best friend" in the triangle. Second, notice the choice of physical contacts. I would put a fifth: "Tell others that we're going together." Now I'm wondering where all this "aloud" touchy feely exchange takes place... Thirdly, all good dead relationships require a certain "grieving period." I respect this young lady's warp-time handling of that. Shows maturity. She's moving on. Incidentally this is the most unlikely of unlikely relationships. I love taking notes.

Blatant Piracy

I kifed this from a blog I read. I'm sure she won't mind--might be flattered. YOU HAVEN'T READ THE UNDERNEATH?????? I'll just pretend you didn't say that.


Out Loud, If You Please: Guest Post by Kathi Appelt

Many of you are probably familiar with Kathi Appelt - her 2008 book, The Underneath, was a Newbery Honor book and a National Book Award Finalist, not to mention garnering rave reviews from all number of review sources (at library conferences, many of the publishers put large star bookmarks in their books for each starred review or honor that book received. When I saw The Underneath at TLA last year, the book could hardly stay closed, it was so full of star bookmarks).

Her newest book, Keeper, has the same lyrical quality as The Underneath and both books seem to me to be ones that are best served by being read aloud. If the words are magical on the page, they're even more so when they're being spoken.

I wrote yesterday about how much I love reading aloud. And it turns out that Kathi shares that same love. Which, after reading her books, doesn't come as much of a surprise to me.


***************************************


I wish that I could say that I had always wanted to write books for kids, but the cold, hard truth is that I never would have thought about it were it not for the arrival of my first son Jacob.

And once he came, was I ever unprepared!!! Being a mom caught me by complete surprise. What was I supposed to do with him? Here I was, an educated woman, but who nevertheless knew very little about raising kids.

I confess that I was never the type to do kid-type activities. Making figures out of Play-Doh? Not me. I squeezed the stuff for therapy.

Hide-and-seek? I hated that game.

All I had left in my bag of tricks so far as entertaining and engaging my little guy was reading. After all, one of the good things about my father was that he read to me when I was very small. I could do that too. At first, since Jacob was born while I was in graduate school, I just read whatever I had to read for school, which at the time meant the Greeks. (I was taking a course in Classical Rhetoric—exciting stuff, I know). And that seemed to be enough until he got to be about five or six months old, and then, well, Aristotle lost his allure.

A quick hop to the bookstore, and our world changed forever. This was back in 1982 and technological changes were sweeping the children’s book industry, allowing for art to be reproduced in ways that it hadn’t before. The array of beautiful books, featuring illustrators like Ruth Heller, Susan Jeffers, David McPhail and the Pinkneys were just landing on shelves, their art simply breathtaking.

I bought a copy of Heller’s Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones, and both Jacob and I fell in love with the rhymes and the illustrations, but mostly . . . and more importantly . . . we fell in love with the activity of reading together.

What I discovered was that if either one of us was tired or fussy, we could pick up a book, sit down together, and reconnect with ourselves and each other in a way that felt completely magical.

When Jacob’s younger brother Cooper arrived two years later, Jake and I were old hands at creating our own “campfire.” Cooper simply joined in. Often, at the end of the day, their father joined us. With the four of us surrounding a book or two or ten, we closed our circle. In fact, I called it “the magic circle” for the sense of safety and enchantment that it offered to our family.

Reading out loud became part of the fabric of our family, and I read on road trips, in airports, at the doctor’s office, wherever. And I also read to the boys until they were well into their teens. It was just what we did together. We graduated from Ruth Heller to Brian Jacques and Gary Paulsen and Lloyd Alexander and Ursula K. LeGuin. We even ventured into J.R.R. Tolkein, followed by T.A. Barron and Philip Pullman. Story was our family glue.

Having experienced this magic, my huge longing is for every child to be read to every day. I have a deep-seated belief that if that were to happen, that if every child were read to every day, by a caring adult, the world as we know would make a shift. It doesn’t even really matter what the books are. The simple act of pulling a child up next to you and reading together sends a significant message of caring.

One of my students at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Tamara Ellis Smith, in her critical thesis, called this act, “The Vibrant Triangle,” in which the three points of the triangle consisted of the child, the adult, and the book, and what makes it vibrant is the reading aloud.

For me, writing a book that calls for oral reading hearkens to my yearning for that vibrant triangle to occur over and over again. And so with all my books, from picture books to my novels for middle graders, I take great care with the three R’s—repetition, resonance, and rhythm—in my prose, reading it out loud to myself over and over again, to make sure that it has that capacity for oral reading, for vibrancy.

It’s important. It matters. There is more at hand than just the story. There’s magic.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

"The Envelope Please..."

"And the winner is...!" I just won a Pillow Tie for my stunning idea (which I can't even remember and which seems to have vaporized off the web) on how I would use one. The rest of the story is that the artist for this fledgling (but not for long! Oprah, Today Show etc. etc. etc.!!! YEAH!!! Well, I should SAY SO!!) venture is my youngest (and most mind-boggling) son--the immortal T.C. Giles. Last spring I let my 7th graders loose on inflatable tie use possibililties. We came up with 50 but have yet to see a penny for our efforts. Are we bitter????? Heck, yeah!





Rise and Shout!!!


I am so going to do some BYU days posts! This was soooooo insparrrrrring...

Monday, December 6, 2010

Ecto


A couple of our household chores fall in the "stand-off" category. "If I just wait long enough..." You'd think bathrooms would be one. No. You might suspect windows. Nope. Garage. Yes. Making the bed. Yes. Refrigerator. Big fat hearty beefy smelly ECTOPLASMIC yes. I tackled ours tonight. What our house has needed sorely lately is a housekeeper instead of a full-time carpenter and a full(and then some) time teacher and lame-o graduate student by night. The clue that our fridge was reaching critical mass was when I opened it and our leftovers (having morphed from food into identities capable of voting Democrat) greeted me by name and inquired about the grandkids. I started with the sourdough start. I always start there. The routine is to remove the lid on the crock and pour the "hooch" down the drain. Dr. Hess (when he gave me the start) said I could drink that, but I choose not to. Then I take a wooden spoon--never metal--and stir the start. I'll leave it on the counter to warm up and then "feed" it tomorrow--equal parts water and flour. I might scare up some pancakes over the holiday, so I'll want to vamp it up a little. Following the start rejuvenation, I began to untangle the fridge. Pretty routine--slowly pry off lids, sniff a little, gag mightily, and then down the garburator it goes. Tonight I found a cumulus cloudlike mass hovering in a yellow Tupperware bowl. I grabbed a plastic fork to prod it a bit. To my utter amazement under the fluffy covering was the grassiest green...spinach hummus...I think! Then in another container lay an egg thing. Gray and cracking, kind of lolling in a black liquid of sorts, but still egg-like. I'm thinking hard-boiled at one time. It galurpled as I emptied it into the sink. Galurpled. We had an inordinate amount of jam containers tonight--residue from Paco's canning frenzy I imagine. Then there were the usuals--brown lettuce in its own au jus, some leftover chicken soup that certainly could never be good for the soul, bread/hockey pucks, carrots you can tie in multiple knots, and a pickle jar sans pickles--just juice. I've thought long and hard over the years as to a solution. An inventory posted on the front where you keep track of what you put in, take out, use up, or replace? Probably Martha, but not us. A weekly sponge out? A bi-annual sponge out? I'm thinking someone out there has to have a plan. Anyone? The true miracle is that I have yet to read in an obituary that the cause of someone's death was "refrigerator related" because it truly is a hazard. Right up there with slppery rugs and dog bites. Speaking of dogs, ours hasn't bitten anyone lately, but tonight (in an attempt to get as far away from the automatic nailgun as caninely possible) climbed up onto my lap here and then took another step up to the computer desk where he plunked his butt right on the keyboard. Everything went sideways! Paco had to fix it. Meanwhile Mugsy is an absolute wreck. He hates all the noise associated with home improvements. Maybe he'd like a snack. Maybe some leftovers...

Friday, December 3, 2010

Pioneer Woman


I was reading a blog satire of Pioneer Woman's appearance on Bobby Flay. This particular blogger has a somewhat unhealthy detestation for PW which I find entertaining sometimes. She dresses Barbie dolls up and stages some really ridiculous farces flinging all manner of mud down Oklahoma way. I was also reading a Forbes interview with PW. Back in the day my daughter-in-law and I were "fans" of PW's blog and were quite faithful. But we petered off. Meanwhile PW has gone on to atract some 6 million readers a month! Wildly popular. She published a New York Times best-selling cookbook and is about to release the story of her romance and subsequent marriage to an over the top wealthy Oklahoma rancher. Some people find her "14 carat phony", and others are appalled at how she exploits her children. I can't imagine that her pristine ranch life hasn't taken a giant cyber step into sheer complication thus interrupting her homeschooling and adding an air of Hollywood to her former intimate homelife. That can't feel good. But then again maybe it does. She must bring in obscene amounts of money from ads. Just thinking on this stuff--what we do for money and how it rocks our boats. Paco and I had a lengthy discussion on how tipped the society is and how forced we all are to tip right along with it at Chick Filet the other night. What if we all took 2011 and restructured our financial base? Stopped being so dependent on spending and devoted more time to study, meditation, and exuding more kindness? We could "cleanse the palate" of our mind and scrape out the plaque in our lives. I remember a month of my life when I ate very very simply and just spent my time walking and talking with some others in the same experience. Our skin became robust! And our hair!!! Try not washing your hair for a month and you won't believe how magnificent it looks when you DO wash it again. I guess I'm just looking around at the world focused on money. Money equals worth. Money equals validity. Money equals security. Money equals happiness. And I'd like to debunk it...Once and for all. Maybe we can turn Provident Heritage Farm into a commune. Attract some anti-materialists. Grow some organic produce. Kumbayah around the fire. Or maybe I can just carve out more time in my day to be reflective. I think that's what I need more than anything. I'm hoping Pioneer Woman hasn't sold out and now has golden handcuffs...

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

I'm Yours


This bongo guy is too cool for school!! I want HIM under MY Christmas tree!!! So hoping he comes with that gnome!! And Jason...hmmm...well, he can come along too. Oh Favorite daughter, kanji interpretation please. I need one of these too: And while we're on the subject, my pageview monitor says I had 1004 visitors to this blog last week. Yeah, right...And Queen Elizabeth wants me to knit her a muff...

"Let Me Be the First to Wish You Merry Christmas This Year!"

Favorite books

  • Me 'n Steve
  • Thundering Sneakers
  • James Herriott's vet books
  • The Count of Monte Cristo
  • Travels with Charley
  • A Walk in the Woods
  • Peace Like a River
  • The Egg and I
  • Mary Poppins
  • Extremly Loud Incredibly Close
  • How Green Was my Valley