SAUSALITO ART CAR

(More) Recent Reads

Some of these books I read back in November; I wish I'd reflected on them then.
My responses probably aren't as specific now as they may have been earlier.

Blessings, Anna Quindlen. This book wasn't particilarly complex in the sense that it had only a small cast of characters and a pretty singular story line; however, it was sweet, tense, heartwarming, and heartwrenching all at the same time. A 24-year-old with no family and a recent criminal record is hired as the caretaker at the Blessings Estate. He works for the aged widow who gives him a chance, although she's not necessarily a woman with an open mind or an easy manner. Ultimately, (early on) they're thrown together to secretly raise an orphaned baby left on the doorstep. This is the story of how they grapple with their own weaknesses, stories, prejudices, strengths, and abilities to give and receive love or trust. I read this story quickly and was moved by Quindlen's ability to tell the story without sentimentality and without sugarcoating the implications (and outcome) of a tricky situation.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket. I read this in a couple of hours for my Mormon Book Club (again, I call it this since I'm the only participant not in a ward!). It's a kids' book (maybe age 8?); it's also been made into a movie (which I've seen) starring Jim Carey. Kids probably like that it's not sweet and sappy. In fact, the "author," Lemony Snicket, warns readers that bad things happen in this book and it's not for the faint of heart--orphaned kids, evil guardian, etc. (Doesn't every kid want to be warned they might not like something and then be tempted to test their ability to endure?) The story's interesting array of characters--kids with special abilities and skills, angular and bushy-browed greedy guardian, creepy acting troupe--and quick-paced plot make it appealing. The narrator's voice (Lemony Snicket) is also appealing. For instance, he often offers plainer definitions of unfamiliar words he's used that make it sound more like he's in cahoots with the young reader rather than condescending to them (a delightfully sneaky teaching method!).

The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. This book is powerful, particularly in two regards: 1) Plath described a young woman's descent into insanity with what seems like eerie precision. Knowing that this was published posthumously, and, knowing the details of Plath's suicide, this book is a sad step toward understanding the demons that haunted this writer (well, this human being, really); 2) Plath's writing itself, the story and descriptions of depression and confusion and listlessness and despondency was strong enough to evoke a sort of morbid cloud around me (a reader) in the minutes, hours, and days I lived between pages. (For the record, the film Lost in Translation's mood evoked a similar effect on me--one where I'm sad and grey and blue for the unfulfilled characters for hours after finishing it.)

Freakonomics, Stephen D. Levitt and Steven J. Dubner. My Aunt Laurie recommended this one; I just finished it last night. What an innovative, rigorous approach to grappling with interesting questions and conventional-wisdom-defying answers as attempted by an award-winning self-described "rogue economist." Levitt fearlessly takes into account biggies (like race, nature/nurture, politics, parenting) in unconventional but critical, analytical ways. My favorite chapters had to do with to what extent genetics and socioeconomic status seem to play into a child's intelligence and chance for success (rather than good parenting). I think the whole book, the whole approach, is fascinating and I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to jiggle their thinking. Sample chapter titles: Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms? and How Is The Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, Maureen Corrigan. While similar to the focus of So Many Books, So Little Time, a book I mentioned in an earlier blog, Corrigan's portrayal of her life as an avid reader is a little less lippy, a little more academic. In fact, at times it's so academic I thought the title should've been more formal; this title doesn't really seem to get to the meat of her focus. Corrigan is a lit professor at Georgetown as well as NPR's Fresh Air book critic, and this memoir focuses on, specifically, how the feminist movement and the detective genre have shaped her reading experiences. She is quite the scholar, and when I finished the book, not only did I have a greater apprecation for the historical and cultural contexts of a number of classics I've read, but I had a brand new list of about 25 books I'd never considered before.

Moo, Jane Smiley. I read this as the December selection for my Marin City Library Book Club. I'm a fan of A Thousand Acres (her novel about a modern farm family, which retells the story of Shakespeare's King Lear), and am impressed once again with Smiley's ability to skillfully write a long and detailed book. At times, it seemed there were too many characters, but she managed to tell a complex and (usually) interesting tell-tale story in Moo of academia set in the midwest. For the most part, her book was funny and poignant. Not, however, as funny and poignant as another clever book about academia, The Straight Man by Richard Russo (mentioned in an earlier blog), and not as well-titled either. (Moo? Whatever...)

Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin. Maupin is a well-known SF writer. This is the compelling fictional story of actress Cadence Roth. Cadence is punchy, thoughtful, talented, lonely, loved-- and also a dwarf--and she is trying to maintain her dignity while attempting to ignite her acting career, which has had but one stellar (yet anonymous) role. Maybe the Moon is the penetrating story of a woman in a career and in a world that is unable to overlook her differentness.

Middlemarch, George Eliot. The 800 page gorilla. But I mean that in a good way. George Eliot is my new hero. I can't believe she wrote this over a hundred years ago, and I can't believe she did it without Microsoft Word. She deserves every ounce of respect she's got (which is immeasurable): Middlemarch is a brilliant, warm, reflective, funny, complicated exploration of English society--but, actually, most importantly, of human nature--with round characters and smart plot. This book was revolutionary in that it was the first British book to convey the thoughts and feelings of characters (and, yes, even women!) rather than simply conveying their actions, as British books, up until this point, did. (I understand the Russian writers were doing this already, but I have some reading in that area ahead of me to catch up on before I can confirm.) What a talented writer with real ideas. This was the January selection for my Marin City Library Book Club, and it inspired our most engaging discussion yet.

The Same River Twice, Chris Offutt. I read an essay by Offutt in The Eleventh Draft, a collection of essays about writing by graduates of the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop, that I loved so much I knew I had to read more of him. Offutt is a Kentucky native, who in this memoir, writes of his life as a sort of aimless vagabond while simultaneously writing of falling in love with his wife and the birth of their son. This is beautiful, meaningful, brilliant writing. I loved it.

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson. I'm running out of steam on this blog, so I'll be quick: This book is wonderful. I swiped it from Mick's dad (Mike) when I was in Tacoma in November, since it had been recommended to me by Mick's uncle, Mike's brother, Rod. (Follow that?) I DEVOURED this book. It made me want to make a long trek, made me want to write. Bryson is cheeky (sarcastic but not cynical), smart, and thoughtful in his rendering of his attempt(s) to walk the Appalacian Trail one summer, a trail that extends 2,100 miles from north Georgia to Maine.

ICE CREAM IN SAUSALITO

This is a late entry--from back in December when Kai and Dana visited. Here the kids play on the boardwalk after pizza and coffees at Cafe Trieste with Grandad Mike's cousin Kevin, his wife, Mary, and two of their kids: Ian (with fiance Jessica) and Kyle. Mary, Kevin and Kyle were all down from Olympia for the holidays; Mary's from San Jose. Ian and Jessica live in San Francisco; we're excited to attend their wedding in SF (the Presidio?) in September.

(Sorry, but we didn't we think to take pix of the adults! Have to start doing that...)

They gave us a call on their way south from Napa where they'd spent a couple days in wine country, so we hooked up here for some tasty fun after our morning at the Discovery Museum.

Article in the Oakland Tribune
Referring to gingerbread house activity
shown in bottom entry of December 30, below

A house is not a home, its delicious

Oakland Tribune, Dec 24, 2005 by Angela Hill, STAFF WRITER

BERKELEY -- Who knew heavy construction could be such a sweet, sweet profession?

It certainly was a tasty trade in the case of the house that Aubrey and Tibor and Caitlyn and Dane and a whole bunch of other little kids built Wednesday during the gingerbread-house-building party at Habitot Childrens Museum in Berkeley.

Sure, more construction supplies were consumed than installed. But thats what happens when the raw material is sugar, the joists are Twizzlers, the mortar is a super-sticky frosting and the spice- drop parapets are simply sumptuous.

Without hesitation, highly skilled 5-year-old Dane -- clearly a gingerbread journeyman from Hansel-and-Gretel Local Yum Yum Yum -- developed a consistent rhythm: Eat an M&M doorknob, stick one on. Eat a Gummi Bear gutter, stick one on.

Hey little dude, you just swallowed a Jelly Belly soffit!

I made them eat a healthy breakfast first, but Im not sure it helped, said Danes mom, Anjie Reynolds. The family had come all the way from Sausalito for the build. Gingerbread house kits were sold out of all the stores right now, so we heard about this and decided we had to come. Its better than trying to build a house at home.

Here, a whole community of boys and girls from all over the Bay Area helped out on one big edible edifice, the kid equivalent of an Amish barn-raising. The underlying structural integrity of the building was provided by the folks at Habitot, who had pre-fabbed the walls, gables and roof of the 2-foot cube of a gingerbread house, and set it up on a kid-sized foundation.

[Advertisement]

Then the exterior decorators arrived. The scene seemed something from The Wiggles, the Food Channel and HGTV. And as architecture goes, this was a little more Frank Lloyd Wrong than Wright. Maybe candy colonial. Or perhaps Spanish-modern confection. And the ornamentation, rather piecemeal. Plenty of form, but questionable function. No windows or doors per se. More of an abstract Jackson Pollack sort of thing. Almost a bejeweled, or be-candied look, if you will.

The completed house was donated to a worthy cause: My tummy. No, actually to a local family shelter.

Four-year-old Caitlyn of El Cerrito is an experienced gingerbread house builder. I did one before, she said. But that was with my cousin Eli, so that doesnt count.

c2005 ANG Newspapers. Cannot be used or repurposed without prior written permission.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Northern California Rainy Mess
Photo of Mill Valley exit, just one exit north of our exit on 101. This is less than a mile from our apartment. It's also parallel to (and representative of the condition of) my favorite running trail.

Residents in other parts of Northern California certainly have more to write about, but I might as well jot down some info on our area. Donahue, the main street through Marin City (our less glamourous section of Sausalito) was completely flooded on Sunday, as were several 101 exits; also, the bay trail I run every week was covered several inches deep for at least a half mile.

It was amazing that Kai and Dana left town just before all this happened--they missed Saturday's heavy rains, and they made it through the Siskiyous just before the pass was closed with accidents and whiteouts. Yup, they made it safely home to the heaviest rains Astoria's seen in thirty years...

Down From Astoria

Kai, Dana, Barritt, Indi, and Jude left rainy Astoria December 26th around 9pm, traveled south through the rainy night, and ended up in rainy Sausalito at 8am on the 27th. After we gave them a tour of our apartment (this lasted about three minutes since they pretty much looked at two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a common kitchen/living room/dining room), we exchanged little gifts and the cousins played indoors the rest of the day while the adults made lattes and sat around. Although it rained hard and the wind howled all night long, we woke up to a clear day on Wednesday--a perfect day to spend at the Bay Area Discovery Museum (BADM).

We took our time getting started, and ended up at the BADM around 11. It was the busiest Mick and I had seen it (holiday crowd, of course), so we parked in a far-off muddy lot with a gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Converting part of old Fort Baker into an expansive indoor/outdoor children's museum was a brilliant idea.

For the next three hours, the cousins painted, sculpted, dug for treasure, jumped on "lilly pads," dressed in career clothes, ate turkey sandwiches, and harassed seagulls.


(First six photos:)
*Kids and GG Bridge
*Barrit, Indi and Aubrey in career clothes at Berenstain Bears exhibit
*Dane building the "city" full of structures Grandad would be proud of (Barritt and Indi built these with him)
*Barritt and Indi paint and squeegee the artroom windows




*Rolling balls and stamping animal prints in the sand/wax






*Jude and blocks







*Kai pays tribute to Donnie Darko








*Running the pipes at Fort Baker







Will post more on the visit soon...

Thanks for the Hello Kitty makeup, Aunt Cindy

What a break between quarters should be

After Mick's first day back to school second quarter, he came home and said he felt just the way he thought he should feel while sitting in his first day of classes: refreshed and ready. Many of his classmates had spent that first break flying home and busily visiting relatives, which was great, of course, but they came back not quite refreshed or ready for school.

We stayed home that break, though, and Mick slept, rode his bike, played with the kids, and even took a getaway with me to a B&B while his mom watched the kids. We had a low stress, low expectation week, and Mick said he wanted to feel as good on the first day of any future quarter as he felt that first day of second quarter.

As a result, we've purposefully spent this break with minimal plans. We've gone a few places locally, but with no hard schedule, and we've kept a carefree pace with friends and visiting relatives (blog soon to come). We've spent a couple of days lounging around in pajamas, Mick's been able to stay up late and get up late, we've watched a number of movies, played Sudoku, and made lots of egg nog lattes.

Third quarter is reputably the most difficult quarter of dental school at Pacific. It sounds like Mick will need to feel as ready as possible for it (more 120 hour "work" weeks). The kids and I are already getting used to the idea that we might not see much of him until his next break in March.

HOLIDAY ART
by aubrey and dane

Christmas Eve
We sat down for the traditional Thai Thigh Christmas Eve dinner (ha) for our first Christmas in California. The kids set the table, and, on a whim, we all chose to wear nice clothes for the meal. Our neighbors, Melanie and Greg (Greg's the one who offered to help us move up three flights of stairs all day when we moved here in June just because he had nothing else going on that day), gave us sugar cookies with frosting and edible stickers as well as a non-dairy homemade chocolate mousse pie, which we ate for dessert.

The kids opened up two gifts each before bed (a night-before-Santa-arrives tradition Mick is unfamiliar with, but I'm trying to get him to adjust to): homemade pajamas from Mema and flannel sheets (moose, snowmen) from Grammy. Then the kids set out their half-eaten slices of pie (Santa didn't mind) and a carrot for the reindeer before settling in for bed around 7.

Christmas Day
The kids got up at 8 (very bizarre since they usually get up at 7, but perhaps the midnight bedtime two nights earlier after a visit with the Javadis was catching up with them) and we opened gifts for an hour. The kids came up for air a couple times, but played for the rest of the day with (1) a new house and Calico Critters kittens, and (2) a castle, knights, horses, dragon and troll. We think the kittens spent the bulk of the day bunked up in the castle with a dragon in a party hat patroling the premises. We also listened to Christmas carols and talked about the reason we celebrate the holiday.

Bay Area Freebies

Exploratorium

On the first Wednesday of each month, the Exploratorium offers free admission to the public. We arrived when the museum opened that morning and stayed for three hours. The place was packed, but since we got a good parking spot and expected lots of people, it was exciting anyway.

Dane was fascinated by the "decaying animal" display. Inside a terrarium, a turtle and a white mouse were decaying (at different stages). At a computer terminal, a bird, a mouse, and a rabbit could be viewed during the decaying process at time elapsed rates. Gross but intriguing.

Aubrey wanted to pop the four foot high bubble wall created by a machine. (We saw something similar when we visited the children's museum in Lafayette, LA.)



Habitot

We missed registration for the $15 gingerbread extravaganza held at the Bay Area Discovery Museum (BADM) where we have a membership, which was disappointing since the stores had been out of gingerbread kits for a week before I realized it; however, we were relieved to learn that Berkeley's children's museum (almost past visiting ages for our kids, but not quite) had a free day on December 21st. Mick and I took the kids and they helped decorate a giant community gingerbread house (but mostly they ate the frosting) with about two hundred other kids. Then they comandeered rockets and painted their faces.




Santa Comes to Sausalito

Dane and Aubrey and I walked to downtown Sausalito one evening (about 2 miles) to visit Mr. and Mrs. Claus. We even got to take our own pictures. When it was their turn, they stood facing Santa, and Aubrey belted out "I'd like a Hello Kitty cup please. That's all." Dane said he'd like "a train, a car, and a person." (For the record, Santa came through. Aubrey got her Hello Kitty cup and Dane got a Boco--Thomas the Train character--and a remote control race car and a Lego Spiderman to assemble.) Then they sat on Santa's lap for a picture. When they asked where the reindeer were, Mrs. Claus said parking was pretty tough downtown and that they had to leave them in a field a few miles away. We looked for them on the walk home but didn't see them.

Merry Christmas and
Happy 90th Birthday

GM/Grandmother/Kay/Mimi:

Here are some of my favorite memories:

• Flying solo to Delaware from Germany when I was about 4
• Baths in the old metal wash-basin
• Delicious peanut butter chocolate balls
• Learning to ride my bike without training wheels at your place
• Excellent Christmases on the east coast – playing Atari, watching early MTV
• Getting to walk by myself up to the newsstand in Newark.
• You dressing me up with a “dickie” to go to DC museums
• Cancun reunion
• Nebraska reunion ‘99
• Having a ball at the San Diego reunion
• Christmas Cruise ‘04
• I was working in Juneau when you and GF took your Alaska cruise… here’s the dialogue on the phone when we talked about meeting at your hotel

Me: Hey, I’ve got a friend [Anjie] I’d like to bring along.

GF: Sure, bring him along…

• We spent the time talking and playing "3-13" into the wee hours.

We love and miss you and wish we could all be there to celebrate.

Love, Mick

SURGERY WENT WELL

My mom's neck surgery (screws, plates, rods) was performed this morning by Dr. Newell at Providence in Seattle. Originally Mom and Don had planned to get up at 4 a.m. and drive to Seattle for 5 a.m. prep and 7:30 surgery, but the doctor's office called yesterday and bumped everything back an hour. So I guess surgery got started around 8:30 this morning. It was supposed to last for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, but Don finally called me around 1 p.m. to tell me Mom had just been sent to recovery. Don had been surprised to learn that the doctor had a couple of other surgeries going simultaneously which lengthened the whole process. (Who's heard of that?) Don said Mom probably wouldn't be available for a chat today (surprise, surprise), that she'd probably be in the hospital for a total of just two days, and, yes, he was indeed ready for a nap.

Additional notes: (1) - the doctor said she might have some numbness in the back of her neck because they had to sever some nerves, (2) - a nurse who also works at Harborview and has worked with many neuro patients said it looks like Mom's recovery is 98% on track.

BODEGA BAY CAMPING AND CRABBING

with friends the Javadis and the Michauds

Bodega Bay is about an hour north of our home in Sausalito. After a typical Friday afternoon commute up Highway 101, my friend Shari and I arrived with our kids in the dark around 5pm at our campsite at Doran Beach. Our friend Cyrus was there already with his brood and helped us get up our tents; Mick left school at five with Shari's husband Richard, conveniently arriving around 8 after the work had been done.*

After tinfoil dinners, roasted marshmallows, and dutch-oven- on-a-campfire peach cobbler (our friend Annie's from Idaho and swears that camping is all about the food), Dane and Aubrey had tired themselves out climbing the trees with the Javadi girls and quickly fell asleep in our two-man tent.

Our two-man tent, a brutal-weather shelter from REI (I'm sure it has a more accurately descriptive name for it), was a terrific purchase Mick made at an REI garage sale last year. The tent retails at well over $300--Mick snatched it up for $5. It was missing a pole, which we replaced with the poles of our other (inferior) two-man tent. Upon packing up for the trip, though, we forgot that we usually have the luxury of borrowing Mike and Jan's six-person tent for outings like this. Consequently, the kids and I slept in the two-man tent together (maybe I slept four hours? but, hey, camping's not really about a good sleep, is it?) next to the tent-mansions of our friends (do tents really need two "rooms"?) and Mick slept solo in the Vanagon. (Of course, you can guess who got the best deal there!)

Woke at 6am to the sound of ocean waves beating against the shore, which we'd been hearing off and on all night drifting in and out of sleep. Ate breakfast, packed up, and went crabbing.

Crabbing was, let's see... educational. We had to get the two kids out on a rocky, precarious jetty, tie chicken meat and big rocks up in onion bags, secure ropes around the tops of the bags, and throw the bags down into the water for crabs to decide to cling to (evidently we could've used pet food too). It was sketchy out on the jetty (and chilly) and far from shore, and even though it was a real adventure, we headed back to the beach after an hour and set off toward home so Mick could study the rest of the weekend. Evidently, after several more families arrived, some crabs were caught and cooked, but there was just enough for each person to have a taste. Nobody in the Reynolds van even breathed a word about salty, succulent, melt-in-your-mouth crabmeat the entire way home. We'll be better prepared next time (and maybe we'll just show up to do it in the morning).


*For the record, being married (with kids) to a dental student means stuff like this always happens. I shopped for, packed up, hauled down (three flights), drove, hauled in, set up, fed, sang to sleep, etc., etc., in order for this twelve hour event to happen! Kindly enough, though, Aubrey had stood in the doorway earlier that morning and said, "Mom, how can I help? You shouldn't have to do that alone."

COUSIN TIME AT GRAMMY AND GRANDAD'S

* BARRITT * INDI * JUDE * DANE * AUBREY *

A Trip to Tacoma, November 3-8

(Mike and Jan, feel free to write some highlights from the visit

in the Comments section--I'm sure you'll have a hey-day with that, Jan!)

BALLET and some RESTORATIVE YOGA

Aubrey's ballet lessons with Miss Jessica at the Mill Valley Community Center (MVCC) resumed last night. Afterward, Miss Jessica told me Aubrey was more talkative in this class than in previous classes. I wasn't quite sure what she meant, so she quickly explained. She said this new group was more "rambunctious" than the last, so she decided to have a big talk with them at the beginning to get started off on the right foot. She'd had the girls circle round and told them that since many of them had been in her class before, they should raise their hand if they could remember some of her rules. She told me Aubrey raised her hand immediately and listed off about five of the rules. Ha! (Before every lesson I remind Aubrey to be a good listener and to learn as much as she can from Miss Jessica-- maybe I could lay off a little!)

After Aubrey's class I decided to check the kids into the MVCC's KidzWatch and try a class of my own (since Mick was staying downtown to study all evening anyway--yes, he's still working on dental school stuff about 15 hours a day: school 8-5, lab 5-9, studying at home 'til 1 am...). I have many friends who rave about yoga, so I participated in a Restorative Yoga class, with focus on breathing. I still have a hard time getting used to the idea that something not sweaty, not speedy, not bouncy is a superior form of exercise, but even from the start I liked that it made me slow down, made me think about my posture (I am truly a sloucher--I couldn't even get my back perfectly straight sometimes when I tried) and helped me stretch out this body that I never, hardly ever, stretch. I'm going to try it again next week.