Enthusiasm--Polly Shulman

The Jane Austen fad is still going strong, with mixed progeny. This Austen inspired tale shines, and shouldn't be overlooked in the crush.

"There is little more likely to exasperate a person of sense than finding herself tied by affection and habit to an Enthusiast. I speak from bitter experience."

So starts narrator Julie Lefkowitz's tale of friendship and romantic adventures. Julie has the quiet reserve and good sense, and her best friend Ashleigh is the Enthusiast. Ashleigh's latest craze is the works of Jane Austen. Julie actually introduced her to them, but Ashleigh is the one who seizes long skirts, formal speech, and a mastery of 18th century ballroom dance as the outlet for her energies. Her mania leads her and Julie to attempt to crash the local prep school's Founder's Day dance (where else will one have the chance to dance a quadrille?) where they make the acquaintance of roommates Parr and Ned. Ashleigh declares her affections for Parr, who is the Mysterious Stranger Julie has seen around town and developed a crush on, and tries to push Julie into the arms of Ned, who while very nice is not interested.

Shulman does a great job of mixing in Austen achetypes with teen romance, and really has the rituals of young love and intellectuals down. This is a book about yearning and the struggle to find yourself and your place in the world. These are good kids--no "Gossip Girl" style antics here. And as someone with Enthusiasms herself, I love bouncey, cheerful, unabashed and ridiculous Ashleigh. It's a delightful tale for someone looking for a teen romance that's not racy, and perhaps like Joan Bauer, Jane Austen, and some of the other YA books I've mentioned here.

I Has Diploma. I Can Has Job?

I came home from working this morning in Children's to find...MY DIPLOMA! "Oh, they can't take that away, they can't take that away from me..." I have already had my first academic failure dream earlier this month (unlike many librarians, I have had real academic failure in my life so I don't have random anxiety dreams about forgetting to go to class) --that my advisor called me up and said, "Hey, I know I passed you on this paper but I just read it and it's CRAP! You have to rewrite it!"

I'm strangely happy. I apparently get a raise to the librarian rate at my main part-time job. It was a good week in library science, mostly, so this just caps it. My mom thought I should go out for dinner, but I am unsure how to celebrate.

CSA, Week 14--Same Old, Same Old

Pecans
Popcorn
Sweet corn--I need to make corn fritters, and I can't figure out what else to do. Once upon a time I made an excellent corn stew, but I have no clue where that recipe is.
Tomatoes
Green Bell Pepper--SuperC let me have hers, because she and her husband do not like them. They are HUGE.
Sweet Dumpling Squash--A sweeter variety of acorn squash, with a lovely yellow and green speckly skin.
Pie pumpkin--It is lovely, and I had composed a poem about it, but I forgot it. Silly Kerry.

Blitzkreig Book Reviews: The Children Are Manipulative Little Shits Edition

A quick round up of some cool books I've turned up in the course of the weeding project. I've got two presentations to set up based on the books I've encountered--one for good books for book report and another titled "I Read This When I Was Young!" with selections from all the staff.

Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren by Barbara Park--I don't get the parents who are up in arms about Junie's boisterous nature and poor grammar. It's all good fun, people. Even little kids deserve some escapism in their reading. However, check out the smoothest piece of friendship manipulation since Frances got her tea set back from Thelma as Junie convinces Lucille that mutual crush Warren could not possibly be interested in a clod like her. Miss M. and I both like Junie as we were bouncy, goofy girls when we were young.

Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth by E.L. Koingsburg--Apparently, when you're the new kid in town it's the best time to be all mysterious and find someone to bend to your will. Elizabeth is a good girl who encounters Jennifer, new girl who claims witchcraft powers. She's certainly mysterious and spooky, and she offers to train Elizabeth, thereby setting up a fun series of challenges as she leads the credulous Elizabeth through hell. Elizabeth is slow on the uptake, but when she finally figures shit out and calls Jennifer on her bullshit, it is great. And then makes her be her friend.

The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald--I loved this series as a kid, and I was laughing out loud rereading this at the Diner on Clifton. I got involved in a huge discussion with an old lady about it. J.D. is the youngest boy in a Catholic family in Mormon dominated Utah. His older brother Tom, aka The Great Brain, is the sort of kid we call pure Irish in my family--always got the angles covered, living a bit outside the rules, looking to make a buck. He's the craftiest kid in town but doesn't do too bad by others as he embarks on his schemes, which range from selling chances to check out the first indoor toilet in town, giving the crippled kid his self-esteem back and the ability to do all his chores, and saving kids lost in a cave. Tom's hero status is always tarnished by his venial nature and his willingness to exploit the easily duped J.D. Ha! I love a bad boy!

Neighbor Update

My neighbors have been crafting large paper mache sculptures for their Burning Man of The East festival that they are holding at some campground in the area.

Tonight I pull into the drive to be greeted by the what I swear is a 7 foot penis illuminated by the light from the garage and the sweet, sweet smell of spray paint.

Kill me now. I can't make this up.

CSA, Week 13--It's Starting To Peter Out

Spaghetti Squash--I am fundamentally disturbed by foods whose main purpose or use seems to be as a substitute for other foods. Hence my sigh when I recognized this squash. Pasta is pasta and squash is squash and it's not the same thing, understand?
Watermelon--The most tiny wee watermelon yet! 1 pound of tasty goodness!
Tomatoes--I'm making tomato, onion and cucumber salad. Classic.
Grape tomatoes--I might have pasta one night this week. Usually I don't eat pasta, due to the Italian foods rule, but I'm kind of in the mood.
Yellow zucchini
Red and green bell peppers
Garlic
Fresh oregano!--Finally, not basil!
Basil
Eggplant--At the moment, I am roasting the eggplant, half the red pepper, and the garlic. I'm going to smush it together with the oregano and some lemon and tomato paste and hope it will be something dip-like and tasty.
Delicata squash--I have 3 in the house at the moment.

I'm going over to SuperC's tonight to hang out with her and another librarian. We were going to cook, but it would be mean to ravage her kitchen so late.

CSA, Week 12

This week's bag:

Peaches--SuperC confirmed that these were a bit watery. I think I am going to freehand Roasted Peach Pecan Sorbet, based on the Roasted Apricot Sorbet that was awesome, but oh so labor intensive.
Sweet Corn--My corn chowder was a hit at the office.
Purple Cauliflower
Cubbannelle Pepper
Acorn Squash
Yellow Watermelon--Wee baby watermelon! So cute! So sweet!
Tomatoes--I have no idea what to do with all these tomatoes.
Cucumber
Yellow Zucchini

I'm pulling out Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything for ideas. I am fres out.

Blitzkreig Book Reviews: The Please Don't Yell At Me Edition

One thing that fascinates me about the children's collection is how many books we have on emotions and dealing with them. And sensitive family issues. We did not have these when I was little.

Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry by Bebe Moore Campbell, illustrated by E.B. Lewis--Oh, this book is sad and upsetting. When you have to hide from Mommy and call Grandma because while you went school Mommy cycled through her mania and is now screaming and picking fights with the neighbors, and you have to stay out of her way and take care of yourself, it is not good or healthy no matter how Bebe Moore Campbell tries to put a positive spin on it. It's just wrong, but no one will save you.

Why Are You So Sad? by Beth Andrews, illustrated by Nicole Wong--This is a nonfiction coping book about what to do and how to handle it when your parent is depressed. It goes through all the symptoms, worse case scenarios and offers solid tips and strategies for coping. An excellent resource for parents and children in only 32 pages.

A Notable Day

It's a notable day for two reasons:

First, a cashmere sweater emerged from its summer hiding place to be worn this morning. Have we ever seen them so early in the season before? Take that, global warming! It was the pale pink, which is at the point of needing to be replaced for professional wear and the current one demoted to the status of house sweater.

Second, I was hit on at the reference desk tonight at 2nd job, by someone that I am going to call and have coffee with.

Ahem. Details upon request.

CSA, Weeks 10-11

I spent a lot of the weekend transforming produce. I would say it kept pretty well despite my sojourn at hiking camp (which was fun and very healthy.)

Week 10
Cabbage (I did not get this! It was on the list, but not in my bags! I love cabbage--I think it is my top vegetable.)
green pepper (used in green tomato chutney)
sweet banana pepper
yellow summer squash (a yellow and green crookneck, which sounds like a dragon breed. "Honey! Lasso the Bicolored Crookneck! Quick! Before it spits at you!" I've been reading too much Temeraire.)
3 green tomatoes (chutney)
3 red tomatoes (used in salad, BLT, and a notably Fronchy-style tomato and brie sandwich. 1 spoiled after 10 days on the counter before I could eat it. I feel cheated.)
yellow beans
basil
orange honeydew (Tasteless. I had it yesterday breakfast. I needed a BLT to cut the blandness.)

Week 11
Wee baby watermelon! (Again, delicious! I am eating it right now whole drinking Assam tea.)
2 colored bell peppers
white peppers
Delicata winter squash (They gave us a recipe that involves baking it with orange and sugar that I am going to try)
1 pt red and yellow grape tomatoes
1 pt Juliet tomatoes (little smaller than a roma)
cucumber (used in salsa)
beets (I made a dilled cucumber salsa to go with these.)
broccoli

As I have started my 2nd part-time job in a far suburb and will be even more on the go this week, I doubt my ability to keep up with the eating but I am going to try. Things are getting squalid around here--I need to find my pink tormaline ring, and until I do I can't throw anything away.