Good Eats

Lately, our entire family has been enjoying a little of the sweet life by dipping our spoons into massive amounts of Honey Greek Yogurt. If you've had it, you probably know where I'm coming from when I say, "Om, nom, nom." If you haven't tried it, imagine perfectly sweetened yogurt made from cream instead of skim milk. Yeah. It's godly.



Another little bit of decadence comes in the unassuming form of these lil' fellas.



They're marketed to kids, or the health/environmentally conscious parents of kids, and our kids love them... and so do I! They have a very rich chocolate flavor and the small size makes popping them into your mouth far from sinful (until I pop in my thirtieth bunny).

One afternoon, I tried something a little daring:



Too much of a good thing, I think. Better alone, enjoyed with their respective textures and flavors.

Please note: I have not been paid to advertise either of these products, but if either company would like to send some free samples along as a "thank you," we'd happily accept.

Down on the Farm

We took the girls to a diary farm this weekend, using some free tickets from the university. While there were many aspects of the farm that could be more visitor-friendly, we did get a thorough look at how the farm operates and Leah got to see and touch all kinds of animals. They didn't have pigs or horses, but they had just about everything else. Leah's been to farms before and this time, she started to come out of her shell a bit more. She fed goats and geese, chased chickens, "mothered" some very patient kitties, pet one-week old calves, and even dared to milk a cow.

One of the highlights for me was seeing and hearing the flock of geese and ducks. The tall, "wine-bottles-with-legs" ducks in the background are Indian Runner Ducks. They were less vocal than the big, nosy (beak-y?) geese, but so cool looking. Our guide, a Four-H expert in fowl, said that they are used in rice patties to eat fallen grain so that mice don't have any reason to invade. I thought they looked like rocket ducks, waiting for mission control to give them the green light to blast off.

And yes, even I milked the cow. Throughout our guide's explanation of the milking process, I kept feeling a pang of empathy. They milk the cows twice a day, letting their milk ducts/veins swell between milkings. Yeowtch! There's no way I could last nursing only twice a day. And then there's the fact that the babies are bottle fed from day one. The calves were adorable, but I was saddened that they were separated from their mamas so soon. "It's so the mothers don't get mad later," our guide explained. Yeah, I'd be pissed too. But, thank goodness, I am not a diary cow, or worse (maybe?) a beef cow. Then again, a lot of diary cows get sold for beef when they get too old or too fill-in-the-blank to be bred. A double-whammy. *sigh*

I'll get off this depressing soap-box now and try to end on a brighter note. At the conclusion of our visit, we each picked out a pumpkin from the patch. (Leah picked out one for Natalie.) I kept laughing because Leah kept tripping over pumpkin vines. The overcast sky turned bright blue and the sun felt so good on our shoulders. It was hard to pick the perfect pumpkin, but in the end we came home with four pumpkins who now surround Hector by the front door. Despite my lifelong love of being a little bit different from everybody else, it feels good, deep-down good, to mentally cross off this autumn "task" from the list of trite things a family should do.

My Hip Hometown

O.k., my hometown is far from hip. It's a smallish city in northern Minnesota surrounded by farmland, forest and Native American reservations. Still, it has its finer points that lean towards being kinda cool. It is a college town, it's built around a pretty lake, it's home to many artists and artisans who make neat stuff, and they even have a weekly farmers' market. With roots in the lumber business, I guess they're doing well. Over the past ten years it seems to keep a relative balance of yin and yang: for every Wal-Mart and bank branch, there's a privately owned coffee shop and art gallery.
Every once in a while, it feels like there is a fun, radical uprising and the town oozes the potential to appear in a trendy magazine as a "diamond in the rough" kind of vacation spot. Then, time, the great leveler, quiets that voice and the townsfolk come out of their shells and go back to their favorite chain restaurant to order "the regular."
Hipness in my hometown? It's there if you look for it. I found this nifty robot graffiti downtown. Perhaps his missing lower half is symbolic.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rent?

The public library in my hometown used to lend reproductions of famous paintings. (I know! How cool is that?!) So, my mom, being the crafty, eye-for-home-decor lady she is, would check out a half-dozen different pieces of art every few months. The check out sleeve and ticket were on the back. We had some favorites as well as some that I remember being a bit spooky. Eventually, due to the fact that we may have been the only family in town to actually use this service, the library put the paintings up for sale. Mom snagged a few good ones and, with some hard-earned babysitting cash, I was even able to buy my favorite (a George Stubbs "mini-masterpiece" -- I was a wee bit obsessed with horses. My hand is in the pic to show you just how "mini" it is). My brother got one with a little tiger cub staring at a bumblebee, his ears pricked, his paddy paw raised. Mom would say, "One of these days, that little tiger's gonna catch that bee, just watch!"

Do libraries still do this? And that got me thinking about other sorts of rental /lending services. What I would like is a local toy lending library. Pittsburgh seems to have just what I'm looking for, except that it's... well, it's in Pittsburgh. I've got a variation of it in my own house, storing two thirds of Leah's toys in the closet to be on rotation, but how neat would it be to borrow a couple of toys every week, swap them out for different ones after that, and ballroom dance in all the free space left over in our house!

A smartie-pants on www.whynot.net put forth the idea in terms of a Netflix-style, fee-based system, but I love my library, and I love free stuff. Donated toys and toys purchased with donated or granted dollars could get the lending library up and running. And everything else would run essentially the same as any library loan.

Madison seems to be having success with its Community Car program, and may be well known for its red and yellow bikes project. Then there's programs like Madison Stuff Exchange, Freecycle and the freebies on Craigslist. I wonder what else you can rent/borrow?

Thanks for "lending" me your ear. ;)

Gender Difference? Who Knows?

You’ve heard it all before: the stereotypical little boy is aggressive while the stereotypical little girl is nurturing. If you’ve known any little boys or girls, you probably know as many exceptions to these stereotypes as you do children who fit them. Before we had kids, Matthew and I talked about trying to raise our kids as gender-neutral as we could. Much to the chagrin of our moms and grandmas we even tried to limit the number of pink outfits Leah garnered at baby showers.

These days, Leah likes playing with cars and dinosaurs, she loves to run and wrestle with her dad, and she doesn’t mind getting dirty. Still, when it comes down it, her favorite play time is that spent with her “babies.” She swaddles them, rocks them, feeds them, dresses and undresses them, medicates them, disciplines them, and gives them a special place in her bed when she’s not there herself. Did we push this? Nope. At least I don’t think so.

Just when I start to think there’s nothing to that gender difference hogwash, something like what happened yesterday happens. The girls and I were at the library, playing in the kids’ area after story time. Along with big foam letters, coloring pages, and puzzles, there were a few of these big plastic dinosaurs on the tables. A couple of Leah-age boys came over to the table, each grabbed a dinosaur, and commenced an epic battle between good and evil.

“I’m biting you!” said one little guy in his deepest, meanest voice.
“No, I’m biting you,” said the other boy. “ I have bigger teeth, so I’m winning!”
“Arrrrrrrr,” relented the first one tilting his warrior on its side, day-glow plastic legs already showing sign of rigor mortis.
“Ha-ha!” shouted the victor. “I killed you!”

The carnage over, the boys left and Leah stepped in. She righted the fallen stegosaurus and placed it next to its murderer.

“This one’s the mama one and this one’s the daddy one,” she said grinning with maternal pride.

I just smiled back and said, “okay.” Gender aside, I guess I’m grateful for a child who favors kindness to bloodshed. Who wouldn’t?

What Makes a Good Book Good

I'm right in the middle of Scott Lynch's newest installment in the Gentlemen Bastard sequence, Red Seas Under Red Skies. So far, it's a lot of fun. I know it's premature to review a novel before I've finished it, but there's enough in this so far (and including all the merits of the first book), for me to begin recommending it to others.

I consider myself a picky reader. I can't keep chewing through a book that has errors in logic or continuity, or one in which the characters are either too perfect or simply too poorly created to root for. I won't tout that I could write any better, but I do seem to know what can hold me to a book and take me for a 5-800 page ride.

Based on aspects of Lynch's book, here are some adhesive bits that keep my nose in a book:

1. A kick-ass character- Locke Lamora has charm, talent, wit, stamina, and as many weaknesses. He is balanced by Jean Tannen, and deepened by secrets that the narrator hides from us but hints to just enough to string us along.
2. A sense of time and timing. Fantasy novels, a genre this book fits into only for setting's sake in my opinion, can die from over-description in an attempt to bring the reader into the strange world with every detail at their fingertips. Lynch paints a vivid landscape, but in consumable quantities and with a plan for every detail to be used at another point in the story -- right around the time you've forgotten about it. He also moves the plot along in such a way that I can imagine (as I do throughout the novel) the book as film with clever camera work and transitions.
   
3. A fit sense of humor. I like to laugh. My favorite movies have funny/clever bits in them. Lynch's use of slang and insult within the banter of his characters reminds me of Stephen King's dialog. Matthew even looks up from his computer every once in a while when I laugh out loud at something in this book.
4. Complexity. There are so many twists in this book, baited with chapters of "reminiscence," and compounded with the knowledge that Locke always comes out on top somehow, that I feel that wonderful magic that happens with good books: I have a hard time putting it down. (I am disposed of it now, only to be writing about it.)
5. Engaging language. Lynch writes well, and not just in the aspects I've covered here, but at the chapter, paragraph and sentence level as well. When I'm by myself or just with Natalie on my lap, I sometimes read the pages out loud to hear how the words play out and how the sentence lengths wax and wane. It's not poetry on every line, and thank goodness for that, but there are some parts where I like to reread just because it was worded so cool or so effectively. Inspiring stuff.
   
6. A satisfying ending. I know I haven't finished this one yet, but I hope to have my cheeks drawn back in a smile as I absorb the last few words. Evaluating thousands of stories written by high schoolers, I am all too well versed in endings that attempt to wrap up every creative detail with a rude alarm clock in the morning, or worse, that peter off into nonsense or the ridiculous. The ending of one novel when a sequel is planned is a tricky stunt -- it's like one massive chapter end. It must make sense yet tease the reader into turning another page, staying up another hour, and grabbing another handful of something naughty to eat.

I've read that there may be a film made of The Lies of Locke Lamora. I would agree that it could make a very good film, IF done with as similar a spirit as Lynch may have had while writing it. I don't know who I'd cast as Locke; he's so dynamic in a time when so many actors play the same role. I don't know what I'd cut to make it fit into a watchable length; there's soo many good and essential parts! I don't know what theme the movie would take; the book can be defined by at least half a dozen genres. One thing I do know is that all of these elements and more make for an entertaining way to spend a few hours. Who the heck knew I would be so engrossed in a book with the Library of Congress keyword, "swindling?"

Thanks, Scott! And thanks, Mom, for recommending the first book. :)