First Annual Siskiyou Challenge Fun Run

Ready to run Saturday morning.

Coming 'round the corner at station #2 - in 2nd place!

Coming 'round the corner at station #2 - in 3rd place!

These two maintained their standings and finished in 2nd and 3rd! And it was a middle-schooler who took 1st.

Mick, Sharkles and I were super proud of our runners. They finished a mile (+) in 12:15 and 12:30. Way to go, guys!

DNA Test Not Required

Sent from my pal Karen via her blackberry:

"uh, I think this picture might prove 

better than any dna test that Dane 

is the product of you and Mick. He is 

the perfect embodiment of you both - 

in all the good (yep, and creepy) ways:)" 

Um, thanks? 

Thursday Inspiration

I found one of my favorite poems ever in a box today. The poem was published in The Sun Magazine a long time ago - I have no idea which issue.



Essay on Compassion
RICHARD LEHNERT
--for Stephen Dunn

The cat curled against my wide foot's sole idles himself to sleep.
I tell myself he loves me, past food, warmth, shelter,
past my fingers' rough massage.

I think I know this to be true, but say
I tell myself to prove I'm no sentimental fool,
to leave me one ironic out.

When I cut my hand he lapped blood
where it pooled like cooling grease
but showed me more affection when I cried

for what I thought was loss of what I thought was love;
stared into my eyes, touched my cheek with one dry paw
until I looked away.

The paper tells the story: a giant sea turtle
carried a shipwrecked woman most of two days
before delivering her up to a fishing boat.

How would a biologist dismiss this
as coincidence of instincts, the woman saved
without the turtle caring?

How to explain the turtle's choice,
that it rose beneath the woman twice
before she let herself ride that hard back;

that it didn't dive once in two days;
that as much as we want to say so and do not,
it saved her life because it wanted to?

On every God-road known, compassion's the highest good.
I've never made or saved a life,
but, well-fed in calm salt water and good weather,

that turtle had no stronger thirst that day
than to try on a cast-off human goodness
to see how well it swam.

When this slack-ribbed cat, almost twenty, hearing gone,
gets up to walk his bones across the room, then stops,
seems to slowly reconsider, limps back to where he'd started,

I think it better to assume that when he seems to think
he thinks; that when he seems to love
he loves; that the turtle knew exactly what it did

and what would happen if it didn't.

The Random Update Post

The kids started school! And they love their teachers! And they love their classes!

Mick's going to buy an off-road motorcycle! (Gratuitous exclamation mark there.)

Dane's playing fall soccer at the Y. ("You know what I like about the Y, Mom? They don't keep score...")

Aubrey's taking Gymnastics at the Y and moved up from Hot Shots to Level 2. ("Mom, when do you think I can move up to Level 3?")

Dane's reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret for his first book report. In addition to his written report, he has to think of his book as a movie and imagine how he'd direct it. Then he gets to make a "movie poster" to accompany it. What a cool assignment. There's not as much text in Hugo Cabret as I'd like to see, but (1) it's his first report of the year, (2) the text that's there is thought-provoking, (3) I'll be pushing him to elaborate on his ideas and connections in his book report (that's our agreement), and (4) he has to read another book he started, Heat, as well. That might sound rough, but Dane's still excited.

Aubrey's reading Tom's Midnight Garden for her first book report of the year. She's a quarter of the way into it and enjoying it. I think it holds a special place in her heart because I read it as a kid. (It's my copy.) I'm not sure what her report assignment will be, but today she took a little 3x5 card to school with a synopsis (half copied from the jacket, the rest in her own words -- oh well!) and a picture she drew of Tom.

Mick's reading Consider the Lobster by his current favorite author, David Foster Wallace (RIP). Foster Wallace is masterful in his sentence structure and style, his ideas and connections, and his depth and humor. For all those reasons, Mick smiles a lot when he reads this author.

I'm about to read Auntie Mame for book club, but I'm dying to read Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel, author of the incredible Life of Pi, instead.

I scored 20 points (3rd place - here's how they scored) in Session 1 of my NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Contest. This is a great score and puts me in good standing to advance to the next round - if I score high again on Session 2. Here are the prompts I was given:

• Session 1 - Genre: Comedy. Location: A Dance Club. Object: A Motorcycle.
• Session 2 - Genre: Romantic Comedy. Location: A B&B. Object: A Snow Shovel.

I'll let you wonder what I wrote while I decide whether I'll post my stories.

I took a job teaching 9 credits (3 classes) of Writing at Rogue Community College, Mondays and Wednesdays, 9:30 - 2:30. I start September 27th.

Our Siskiyou Challenge team fell apart when two athletes succumbed to back injury. They're fine now, but our pushing-40 bodies reminded us not to push our luck this time around. Sorry, now you can't ROOT FOR US!

Our back yard is kind of done - at least for this phase. The new fence is up, the ground is mulched, the sprinkler system is up and running, and the lawn's grown in. We now have a drawing/plan of how we'll fill it in over the next couple of years - and my mom is coming down this fall to help me put in a perennial garden and plant some trees. (Right, Mom???)

Mick's amazing grandmother (Mimi) is taking her entire family (23 of us?) on a cruise this Christmas for her 95th birthday - and we're headed to the Bahamas! And... before we board the ship in Baltimore, our little family of 4 is going to hit Washington D.C. for some history tours. (This fall we'll be doing some U.S. History prep!) Added bonus? We'll stay in Mimi's home a few of those days - and Mick's excited to show the kids where he's visited her since he was four. Right now we're in the throes of purchasing plane tickets, acquiring passports, renting cars, reserving tour spots, and arranging to kennel a dog.

The dog! Sharkles is still our fuzziest, lovin'est, happiest little pal in the house.

Hours and Hours of Driving Made Easy

We've been in the car A LOT in the past two weeks. This weekend we drove to San Jose and back for a wedding (7 hours each way) and the previous weekend we drove home from Seattle (9 hours).


But it was great - especially because of THIS book:

We listened to all 7 cds of The Story of the World, Vol. 1 - and we'd listen again.

This is an amazing book, providing an amazing literary and historical base for 9-12 year-olds in terms of a classical education. This book focuses on "The Ancients," basically the beginning of civilization to the fall of the Roman Empire. Greek gods, Old Testament, Christianity, Pyramids and Pharoahs, ancient China, the Americas, and so on.

The idea is that if kids this age are introduced to these major stories and events in narrative form, when they're introduced later in actual text or reference, their minds will already have a grasp on them.

Dane and Aubrey now know the story of Remus and Romulus, of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the world's seven wonders), how mouse hair was used for the finest calligraphy brushes in ancient China, how Greek and Roman gods correlate, and how the tribes of Israel formed.

I'm so excited about this introductory book for my kids. We'll definitely listen again (and perhaps again?) - and I'm already scheming about how to get my hands on the rest of them: Volume 2 The Middle Ages, Volume 3 Early Modern Times, and Volume 4 The Modern Age.

And finally:
The narrator sounds like Jon Lovitz.
Drawback or Bonus? You decide.

Tucked In

Aubrey: When I hug Mommy I get sleepy.
Dane: Me, too...

Lights out.

Drunken Boat Issue 12 Goes LIVE

"DB12 has new and unpublished poems, prose, and hand-written drafts by Pulitzer Prize winning poet Franz Wright; an intermedia/multimedia exploration of "Desire & Interaction," encompassing video, sound art, web art, video games, photography, and more; short short fiction on "Freedom & Belonging" by 22 exciting contemporary authors; and a tribute to 20th century dramatist Eugene O'Neill entitled Celtic Twilight, with essays by over two dozen Irish-American authors and artists. This issue also features 50 new poems, as well as fiction, non-fiction, photo essays, and readings."

Read my short short in this issue here.

Oregon - Washington Road Trip

NORTHBOUND

Day 1

The kids and I left Monday the 23rd for Washington; Mick would fly up and meet us at Sea-Tac a week later. Our first stop was just outside of Grants Pass at this little museum, focusing on Oregon's historic Applegate Trail and the trials early settlers faced as they forged an alternative route to the Oregon Trail.

And of course we had to make our favorite stop at Wildlife Safari to see who was out. This is our first visit where both rhinos were up close and personal.

The hippo was fully out. Usually we just see his mouth sticking up out of the water.

I call this Still Life with Hippo Butt.

First ride ever on a camel.

Dane hooks Teddy up with one of his kind.

GREAT WOLF SURPRISE
Day 2

After an overnight in Albany and a stop at my writer pal Ellen's in Portland, I told the kids we were meeting my friend Michelle and two of her kids at Great Wolf Lodge. They'd barely even heard of the place, but I'd heard enough friends report that it was a super fun family outing that I jumped at the chance for a spiffy little staycation.

Here's Dane with Kyle, who reminds me SO much of his dad, Brian, who was one of my good pals through junior high, high school, and college.

Here's Aubrey with Jessica, who's a fun little combination of Michelle and Brian. I'm not sure where all the pictures went that Michelle and I took of ourselves in our bathing suits. We took scads of them, of course.

Days 5-12

A BUNCH OF STUFF THAT HAPPENED,
BUT I COULDN'T FIND MY CAMERA
(which was in the towel and goggle bag)

As soon as we left Great Wolf Lodge, we went to my parents house in Puyallup for two nights, where we played trap ball and watched sports and cartoons on TV.

After that, we went to Mick's parents' home in University Place. I dropped the kids off early and drove to Seattle to see my cousin Dani and my grad school pal Robyn, and spend movie night at my best pal Karen's. The next day, I met up with my college roomies ("The Garden Girls") for an impromptu night at Chara's in Seattle. We couldn't believe all six of us -- Maureen and Shelby from Bellingham, Chara in Seattle, and Michael and Jenny from Olympia) could clear our schedules on the spur of the moment to sit around and catch up for a twelve-hour overnight party.


On Sunday, Karen and I saw the interesting movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and then I met up with the kids in University Place.

Aubrey had a raging earache there that night, so I took her in to a clinic in the morning - to discover she had an inner and and outer ear infection. Solution? Antibiotics and ear drops for four days.

And no water.

Which I forgot.

But it's okay, because my girl got to WAKEBOARD when we went out with the Lanes - which never would have happened had I remembered!

Here's Dane with Cole, getting jazzed to try wakeboarding on a choppy but sunny Friday night.

Receiving exceptional coaching from Dad (aka Jeffy).

And encouragement from the Lane kids!

Aubs is ready to give it a go now.

And she's up, too!

Cheryl and Kai huddled up on the boat.
That's Dane behind them.

And Aubrey.
Blue but not blue on blue.

Oh! And somewhere in this week, Karen and I took the kids to an M's game. (And I can't believe I didn't get a shot with Karen in it!)


Am realizing as I post this that I don't have a full family picture and I don't have any pictures of Mick! The next post will have to remedy that - especially because we also spent time in Bellingham with the Camandona-Beans and the Friesens for a big 43rd birthday dinner for Mick, and had a blast.

Wait. Here's one. Mick and Dave after a motorcycle ride. (Mick borrowed our friend Andrew's.) Mick's big huge amazing purchase this decade is going to be his own dirt bike. Coming this Fall.

Yes, those are star pants. 'Nuff said.

Washington and Wakey-Wakey

We'll see you in a week, Pops!

Tomorrow the kids and I head up to Washington for a week of family and friends: Great Wolf Lodge with my friend Michelle and two of her kids, overnights with my parents, overnights with Mick's parents, and a Mariners game with Karen. (Somewhere in there I get an overnight hike with my pal Maureen into the alpine.)

Mick'll fly up to meet us in Seattle on the 31st, where he'll spend his birthday week with us and various good friends. Dinner with some amigos in Bellingham, and, weather-permitting, some wakey-wakey with the Lanes on Lake Sammamish.

Can't wait!

anCay ouYay eepKay aAy ecretSay?

extNay uesdayTay: eatGray olfWay odgeLay ithway ymay idskay.

OoWay OoHay!

*In other news: I ran 27 minutes this morning; I also found out my Flash Fiction short story submission will be judged by September 13th, which means I can forget about it for a while!

Look What Dane's Group Made on Day 2 of his ScienceWorks "Animate It" Camp

A Second-Guesser Gets Philosophical

I keep thinking about the 987-word submission I made to the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge on Sunday.

I keep thinking of it because that's what writers do: a) they obsess about stuff they've sent out, and b) they second-guess the quality of what they sent out.

That said, I re-read my piece this morning and, honestly, I highly, highly doubt that it sustains itself well enough to be considered a "Comedy."

I also doubt that my one-line synopsis does anything very tantalizing.

This is where I get philosophical, though:

*In order to figure out what works, you have to be willing to do some stuff that doesn't work.

And

*You have to be willing to see what you did get out of the work you completed (or drafted).

In my case, I now have a better sense of some elements of comedy: exaggeration, deception, misunderstanding, contrast... very few of which I successfully used.

I also wrote an entire story (which might belong in another genre!) that I can now revise, polish and possibly submit somewhere. At the rate I'm writing this summer, I wouldn't have had that at all otherwise.

Final lesson?

*Play and Learn.

Enterpreneurs

The kids are into setting up shop on the sidewalk across the street these days. They've got a big beach umbrella over their heads, an old bench from the front yard as their table, and a stool and a high chair for their seats.

Dane's at "Animate It" camp at ScienceWorks today 'til 1, but Aubrey and Kimmi (neighbor) are selling ears of corn and frozen Otter Pops.

Yesterday it was 95 degrees out and all the neighborhood kids were at the table with Dane and Aubrey, knitting scarves to sell with the warm lemonade.

NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Competition

Genre: A comedy.
Location: A dance club.
Object: A motorcycle.

Twenty-one other writers in my group had the same assignment: to write a story 1,000 words or less using the above guidelines.

There were nineteen other groups,about 450 writers total, each group with a different assignment. Genres ranged from Sci-Fi to Political Satire to Romance to Fantasy to Horror, etc. Locations and Objects ranged from a bakery and a ladder, to a well and a baby carriage, to a typing class and an eyedropper, etc.

We all had exactly 48 hours to write and complete our short stories. This was Round Number 1.

Stories will now be judged and given points within their groups. See How It Works for details.

I have no idea how my story will be judged. It's a little scary to claim you're being funny; there's always the chance you'll flop. And as for plot, characterization, and setting: let's just hope I at least showed up for the right assignment!

I can't post my story here, but if it goes live on their website, I'll provide the link. For now, I'll tell you the title and synopsis I submitted:

"Still Wet" - An unpopular local earns a new reputation.

Oh boy...

P.S. In writing this story, I re-discovered the infinite number of ways there are to write a terrible, no-good, lame-o story.

But it's really fun to write for an audience with an assignment and a deadline. And it's going to be exciting to be given feedback from judges, as well as to read all the other entries. Play and learn.

P.P.S. Leave a comment and tell me: What would you have done with my prompt?

Taking the Siskiyou Challenge

OhmygoshOhmygoshOhmygosh!

It's been six years since I ran my last marathon, a couple since I've jogged religiously, but guess who's running an 11K in six weeks???

That's right. Yours truly.

The Siskiyou Challenge is hitting the town and I'm on a team.

In fact, I'm on a team with some of my favorite people. Mick is riding the road race leg, his bro Kai is running the 5 K leg (and sponsoring it through his Endo practice!) and Kai's bro-in-law Garth is paddling the kayak leg. And a new friend, Mike Jack, is riding the mountain bike leg.

Because Kai's Endo practice is sponsoring the team, I think our logo should be ROOT FOR US! (C'mon, tell me you like that in the comment section.)

So far in my first week of training, I've run 10 minutes, 8 minutes + 17 minutes (one day), 12 minutes, and today, drumroll please... 20 minutes.

I've only got about 45 more minutes to tag on to that last time until I'm at 11k.

Obviously, I've got my work cut out for me!

But I'm hopeful. Training for marathons, into week 4 or so I was up to 7 miles. I'll follow that schedule now.

So come September 25, ROOT FOR US!

**
Oh, and root for Farm to Schools. The $ raised here supports local farmers getting their fresh foods to school lunch rooms. Better for everybody.

A Year In Books

For the past fifteen years I've kept a journal of books I've read. Today I just picked it up to see what I've read in the past twelve months. Here's the list:

9/09 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Steig Larsson - a gripping, page-turning, brutal but well-written murder mystery suspense novel published posthumously. Two more in the series have been released by this smart Scandinavian novelist. Note: this book is not for everyone, nor is the movie. However, I'll say that the movie is one of those rareties, in the sense that it follows the book amazingly well.

10/09 Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson. This is excellent, inspiring nonfiction. Read it.

10/09 Cannery Row, John Steinbeck. Such good writing, such a good story. Steinbeck was a master.

11/09 The Pilot's Wife, Anita Shreve. Oprah's Book Club stuff. I read it in a day. A page-turner, but not necessarily satiating.

11/09 The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula LeGuin. Science Fiction. A book club selection. Ursula LeGuin's so prolific and smart. I'm glad I read this, even if I didn't just love it.

11/09 Gods Behaving Badly. Can't even drum up the writer's name. Awful. Couldn't stand it. A book club selection. A story of modern gods living in London. Blah, blah, blah.

12/09 Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Surival in the Arctic, Jennifer Niven. I think I wrote about this on an earlier post. Fascinating story, decent nonfiction writing, brought about plenty of discussion at book club.

1/10 The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon. I love Michael Chabon. Not everyone will agree with me, but: He can do no wrong. He's the master of descriptive writing.

1/10 The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick. Graphic novel for YA or middle grade. This was a wonder-filled book. Loved it.

2/10 Shiloh, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Dane's class read this, so I did, too. Lovely story about a boy who saves a dog from an abusive owner. Set in 50's/60's south.

4/10 The Daykeeper's Grimoire, Christy Raedeke. I wrote about this in an earlier post; my friend Christy's debut YA novel. Read it!

5/10 Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen. I can't recall a thing about this. Not even a main character. Wait... Oh. The 16-year-old girl traveling to Bath with chaperones. Meets good boy, pursued by bad boy. Etc. Still not in love with Jane Austen. I'd like to be. Will keep reading her works.

5/10 The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan. The first in the series of five. Excellent middle grade reading.

5/10 Cheaper By The Dozen, Frank B. Gilbreth. Wrote about this on an earlier post. Didn't do much for me, in the long run, but it's a decent read. Besides, I had to read it for book club AND I was waiting for book 2 in Rick Riordan's series, since Dane and Aubrey and Mick were reading the only copy we own!

6/10 The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan. Book 2. Fabulous.

6/10 The Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan. Book 3. Fabulous.

6/10 The Battle of the Labyrinth, Rick Riordan. Book 4. Fabulous.

6/10 The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan. Book 5. Fabulous.

7/10 The Reader, Bernard Schlenk. I've wanted to read this since I saw a poster for the movie, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. Set post-Holocaust, and taking on difficult themes, this book was excellent. I read it in a day. I'd see the movie.

7/10 The Girl Who Played with Fire, Steig Larsson. Book 2 of 3. Brutal, but good writing. And I'll read the third.

7/10 Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher. Young Adult literature. The premise caught my attention. A boy gets a box of cassette tapes after a girl's suicide, and listens to the 13 reasons she killed herself. Great premise, and the teens that read it probably love it. I just thought the girl felt objectified a few too many times. Possible - and even probable - in real life, but the way it was written made me not want to believe she had to see things the way she did. Which, of course, is part of the brilliant premise of it, right? We're supposed to believe suicidal cases -- the signs are there, and the reasons are real to the victim. (Anybody else read this and had thoughts about it???)

So that's all for my year. Twenty-one books. Looks like I read a lot of YA and Middle Grade novels this year. Some book club selections, too (which didn't always move me). Oh, and I read these three books all year long, whenever I felt like it: The Fourth Genre, Writing Life Stories, and The Eleventh Draft, among other essay and short story collections.

Upon reflection, I didn't really seek out good literature in the past twelve months the way I usually do. I think that'll be my goal in the next twelve: Keep something on hand at all times that I really want to sink my teeth into. (Help me out with that? Suggestions welcome.)

MICK
He's not here to put this together, but I'll throw in that Mick read the Lightning Thief series, too, some Michael Chabon, the Girl with the... series, and lots of David Foster Wallace (his new hero -- Mick loved the 3-inch thick novel, Infinite Jest).

DANE AND AUBREY
These two cats LOVE the Lightning Thief series (wait, they call it the Percy Jackson series). Dane's read it four times this summer -- yup, that's about 1500 pages each time, so 6000 pages total. Aubrey's on book 4 of her second reading. These guys can't get enough of Percy Jackson and Greek mythology.

They've also listened to books 1-5 on CD of The Ranger's Apprentice series. We're waiting for the audio CD of book 6, reserved at the library. I think we're hold 2 of 6...

**
Got a good book suggestion for me? Leave me a comment!

Our Lady of the Lake of the Woods

Me and my girl at our new favorite place. She and Dane and I have been there 5x in the last month. When it's too hot in Ashland (95ish) it's perfect at Lake of the Woods (85ish). We went there with my parents on Thursday and floated around on air mattresses and pedaled against some afternoon wind on a sparkly red paddle boat.

Now Dane's in Washington. My parents drove him north to stay with his other grandparents. He called today in the middle of a ping-pong tournament with Grand-dad.

Have fun, Dane-o. Smooches from all of us. xoxoxo

**
What did YOU love about summer as a kid?