From The New York Times

This article from today's NY Times makes me laugh. It's about real estate brokers putting playing matchmaker for clients. Genevieve has been working a subtle campaign to get me to consider moving back east since she left and she could put this in her arsenal. It's funny, because when I went to visit her last week I was bowled over by all the cute men reading on the train as we went into the city, which was something she hadn't personally noticed.

Seaside--Scarlett Thomas

This is a great mystery with one annoying romance subplot that had me rolling my eyes. Anyway it's winter in Torquay. Laura and Alex Carter are identical twins, and now one has killed herself. However, it's a bit up in the air which one is dead. Lily Pascale is a literature lecturer with a sideline in murder investigations who takes the case on because she really doesn't want to apply for the promotion she's being pushed into that will trap her in academia. (Can't blame her. I'd rather investigate murders myself.) The case begins to develop twists--which girl is dead, was she actually murdered and another murder, of course.

This is the third novel in this tart noir series. In my opinion, the first book was good, the second I could not get into and this is actually very good. Thomas has obviously got a checklist of classic noir points (and even references noir in the characters' conversations!) that she's working into the story and it's all good and done skillfully. The pace and plotting are excellent and I'd look for the series in the future. Lily is pretty level-headed and not angsty and annoying. I found her romance with the secretive Jack to be utter ridiculous and over the top (in love? puh-lease! they don't even know each other!), but cast your mind back to the days of film noir and recall that sort of crap was always going on. In short, recommended.

Hand Made Modern--Todd Oldham with Julia Szabo

I took this out of the library because I've been putting a lot of though into my house these days and I like modern furniture. This projects are really cool. The instructions are inspiring. However, 90% are completely beyond my meager skills. I think I could make the ribbon pillow without too much puzzlement and crying. So for me this is fantasy, but those with advanced carpentry skills might see it as a how-to book.

Skinny--Robert Burch

I bought this book at the Unique to sell--it was an impulse purchase on the grounds that it looked like it might be a forgotten favorite that might go for big money on ebay. I'm glad I read it--it is a deliciously unsentimental story. Skinny is an illiterate 12 year old orphan, the son of a sharecropper and a long dead wife, who is now living and working in a hotel in a small unnamed North Carolina town. Miss Bessie is the proprietor and she's love to adopt him, but a young single woman isn't an approved guardian. So Skinny faces the prospect of moving to the orphanage 40 miles away in the mountains. But then engineer Daddy Rabbit arrives on a job and it looks like Skinny might be able to form the family he so dearly wants....

It's a great character study of Skinny, so proud and enterprising and loyal. It's an unusual book in that the ending is so quietly sad. I don't find a lot of books like this for children anymore. And note to self--stay away from men named "Daddy Rabbit."

As Promised, Some Book Reviews

I have a backload of these to publish, and then I'll rundown my holiday fun for those of you who haven't heard all the details yet.

Happy Birthday

Why yes, I am a Capricorn! Couldn't you tell?

I am 31 today, which is just....old. It seems very officially "getting up there."

I am not planning to go out to dinner or have cake or whatnot. Although I might go get veggie korma at Saffron Patch if I take Gimlet and Sidecar to Petsmart tonight. I was planning to get a caramel fudge brownie ice cream cone from Mitchell's though. That's it. I have to work all this week, which sucks.

Merry Christmas

I accidently gave the woman who cut my hair and waxed my eyebrows tonight a $45 tip.

I wouldn't mind so much, except the whole session took 20 minutes.

Ah, well. I hope she has a good Christmas with it.

Investments

So, I've decided to invest* most of my tax refund in a laptop come February. I realized recently that the computer setup in the basement (another thing I was incredibly passive about) isn't working for me. 1) The desk isn't long enough to accommodate a friendly cat and the monitor and keyboard, not to mention any reference materials when I am writing or doing homework, 2) the basement is incredibly cold, even with Genevieve's heater and 3) I am so tired of trying to work in WordPerfect 8 and saving to rtf and emailing back and forth and 4) I want Excel at home so I can do my budget.

I came to the conclusion that I have to do this when I was trying to write my paper. So, aside from the wrist-slitting agony of that chore there was a distinct discomfort at trying to do it in the frigid basement with kitties wanting attention and I finally snapped and realized something--I'm sabotaging myself. No, I don't care to do my homework, but frankly I am making it just 1000% harder on myself trying to get stuff done without using the proper tools in a crappy environment. What am I trying to prove? Why do everything the hardest way possible? Do I enjoy millstones? Why is the idea of investing in myself so hard for me to wrap my head around? Well, I do know why--that's what I spent $200 on therapy co-pays for.

So I'm getting a laptop. Time to throw myself into that research project. I'll be turning to my sister Aces and dingusgirl for tech support. I am always so "analog" as Genevieve puts it--about 5 years behind the current standard with my technology needs. I need something for the internet, to upload my digital pictures to, Excel, Word, and to download music (not, that I do that now, but it sounds like fun. Maybe CD burning capabilities. I want a laptop so I can work upstairs in the dining room and take the setup over to Bela Dubby. That's it. Although the idea of a podcast series on Moby Dick sounds cool too. Who knows where this will lead, this fervent embrace of modern technology!

*To further illustrate my point, I originally used the word "blow" to describe my plan. How telling.

On Sloth! On Sleeping! On, Reading and Eating!

I am well and truly finished and revved up to enjoy my holidays! Look for tons of posts in the next few days as I get ready to review the current Wikipedia scandals and roll in joy like a puppy, read and review, muse on my lack of motivation and self-sabotaging ways, get ready to go to NJ, and in general explode in excitement and enthusiasm. Really. It's a sight to be seen.

Cabbage and Noodles Recipe

In the comments, I was asked for my cabbage and noodles recipe. No suggestions for complementary beverage and entree, or reading material--anything goes well with this, once the weather is so cold.

Noodles
I swear that the egg noodles out here are radically different from the ones I grew up eating. I use Mueller's Hearty Extra Wide Egg Noodles, cooked per package directions. Usually about four or five handfuls--1/3-1/2 the package.

The Cabbage
I use a special pan for this--it's a nonstick wok that my mom bought me at Costco about 10 years ago. It just works best.

Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic, and dice 1 medium yellow onion. Saute in 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil over medium high heat. Slice up half a head of green cabbage, avoiding the toughest part of the stem. When the onions and garlic are just turning a little golden, add the cabbage and push it around for 5-10 minutes, until you think it's limp enough. It's a personal taste issue. Add 1 tablespoon caraway seeds and mix them in, saute for a minute or two. Take off the heat and add the noodles. Cut off a couple of lumps of butter and stir them in with the noodles.

The end!

Good Life Indeed

Lovely things have happened recently:

• The locksmith? Had to drill open the red room door. So I don't feel bad now knowing that professional help was truly needed. And it was only $90 for the house call, door opening and having him put a new cylinder on the front door. That last bit was advised by my mom, since everyone in town could have a key as far as I know and I never changed the locks when I bought the place. And now instead of having to push the front door open with my knee, it opens smoothly. Heavenly.
  
• It was the storm window that was the broken glass I saw, not the wooden window. So I've got that closed up and plasticked along with the other window. And the tiny window in the closet had blown out and was laying on the floor. Thankfully the glass didn't break and that I had the heat in that room shut off. The cats are so happy about having another room, I'm happy that I can get to those books and also drag out my chair that will look great in the living room.
  
• Tom Collins got adopted! He went to a nice couple of young students who were very serious about their new baby and bought him all sorts of toys and a bed and a cat condo. He is going to be their spoiled only cat. I am so glad. They also liked his name and that he was a bit of a snuggle baby. Ticky is well and will go up to Petsmart soon. And that leaves me with only two extra cats. Although Isadora offered me Ticky for free if I want to keep him...
  
• Although I have to come up with 4,000 words analyzing the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act by Friday at 5pm, I'm still in the "Oh, I can do it!" hopeful denial stage, which is so dangerous. But enjoyable.
• And I got mentioned in the PDQ section of the paper today! Strangers read the blog! Holy cow!
• And as of Friday, I am back to book reviews. I've got a stash.
  

Jean Shepard and A Christmas Story

So if you haven't heard, Cleveland has finally gone all a'twitter for A Christmas Story, twenty years after it was filmed down in Tremont and failed at the box office, then (just like Cleveland!) picking up word of mouth and becoming a cult classic. This is actually a good thing, because we need some excitement around here. I mean, last year our downtown Christmas tree fell over and it snowed all winter. The city had a communal case of seasonal depression, and then it hit 95 degrees the first week of June. We are exhausted. We need cheer. And then an out-of-town dude bought the house the movie was filmed in off eBay. And we look around and wondered, "Why the hell didn't someone from here think of that?" Because it is Cleveland. We don't think big like that. And we don't browse for real estate on the 'bay. Ah well.

Right, so all last weekend there were tours of the house and filming sites, 3 showings of the movie at Tower City, actors from the movie visiting, the opening of the stage version of the story and the adoption of many Electric Sex Leg Lamps in windows to show how Cleveland is One Fun Town, a move I heartily approve of. Even Civilization in Tremont has a leg lamp in the window. Looks good. Rallying behind this movie and our new pal who bought the house has brought Cleveland together better than anything in recent memory, including that stupid One City, One Book campaign.

I was already familiar with the works of Jean Shepard before all this happened, because Jean Shepard's books were some of the few in the house when I was growing up. You have to understand, in a move of somewhat lazy but inspired (and appreciated) parenting, after making sure that I knew how to read, my parents gave me free rein over what I did read. On the one hand, they weren't many books in our house, they were kind of chintzy with the funds to buy any (and if I did ask for money for books, that invited scrutiny and I was all about slipping under the radar). The closest library was poorly stocked, open 24 hours a week, and 3/4 mile down a dangerous major road. My parents might have just thought that there was little damage I could do to myself. Ha! I read anything I could get my hands on, and I am perversely grateful for their parenting in the area of intellectual freedom. I would say that was instumental in who I've become, good and bad. And I have to say, the unfettered access to materials regardless of age is a public library right I am willing to stand up and shout about.

One of the few books that I was directed to was the Jean Shepards. It was my dad who gave them to me. Considering that the only other books I remember him giving me to read were The Last Days of the Weinmar Republic and Joe Montana's autobiography, you and understand how Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash made a big impression on me. I am sure I didn't understand them fully, but I understood they were funny and that when read aloud, they were captivating. Something about being able to tell the story was the important part, the connection made with the listener/reader when spoken aloud. That and the self-depreciating humor, the swirl of chaos--it matters not the story but how you tell it. It occurs to me that that's exactly what I do with this blog.

Anyway, a bit of parlance from Shepard made its way into my family's vocabulary. The Bumpuses are the billyjack neighbors with the pack of dogs and the trash strewn yard--the dogs break into the house and steal the turkey at the end of the film. Well, we use the Bumpuses as as a watchword when our behavior starts betraying our less than middle class origins.

"Kerry, take the garbage cans out to the back!"
"Why? It's easier to take the trash out if we keep them in front."
"Dammit, we are not the Bumpuses! Now go do it!"

I may joke about Shambles House here, but I have to confess that I am now the Bumpus family of my street. I even beat the renters and the pot house. Hell, I think I even beat the never-seen family who lived illicitly in the boarded up store front across from Genevieve's old apartment. At least they put up Christmas lights.

I was out shoveling snow yesterday when I looked up at the windows. Now I know that I broke the window on the right when it slammed down as I put in the storm this fall. And the one on the left is in the (still-locked) red room. I recall it had a crack in the glass. Well, I don't know if it's the cold or the wind or what, but now it's completely cracked. I went upstairs and checked through the keyhole.

Crap. I should be ashamed. But after this week, I confess I just find it funny.

And calling a locksmith is now first on the list.

Keeping On The Sunny Side

More things that I am happy/grateful/appreciative about

• When I do my ponytail just right, and I don't look sloppy and my face looks vaguely Eurasian due to my "it crawls across the Caucuses!" blood
• The jackhammer voice who sits two cubes behind me is gone all next week and I will be able to concentrate!
• It was only $18 to get the down comforter cleaned and I prepaid and picked up all other clothes at the same time.
  
• A foodie blog discovering my favorite, cabbage and noodles, although my recipe is better
• And I went to Trader Joe's intending to buy the really good brownies, but asked myself "do I really want a brownie?" before going in. Surprisingly, the answer was no. So I left.
  

Good Things

Genevieve mentioned that all I ever have these days is a litany of woes and that she was a bit worried. It's just that it's easier to overdramatize than be grateful, so I thought I'd highlight some of the good things that are going on:

• Yesterday was French Onion Friday at Susy's Soups, plus they had the Amy wrap, which is the best thing ever. It's a hummus and veggie wrap, but their hummus rocks. It is so thick and beany and smooth.
  
• The album and band that I'm now obsessed with--who doesn't love a trumpet?
• I went back to physical therapy for my arm to decrease the pain this winter and it's really working.
  
• The black wool pants I bought last year still fit and look great. Plus deliciously warm and available again from Banana Republic.
• The cats: Tom Collins is now playing with the new catnip mouse. Ticky is well and no longer afraid of me--he seeks me out and sits on my and lets me pet him.
  
• I figured out the best weatherstripping for the kitchen door to block the draft.
• Prison Break. Ignore the plot holes, gaze upon the intelligent hotness of Wentworth Miller and enjoy the excellent acting and writing.
  
• Bela Dubby has been in business a whole year!
• The Gehring children's bodies may have been found.
  
• Christmas is coming! Play "Back Door Santa!" I know that my season doesn't start until the 16th, but it stretches to January 8th.
• I'm employed, my house is warm and people and cats love me. That's enough.