Happygiving

This is a happy season--or at least it's supposed to be. There's food and family and Christmas is less than a month away. These things can all mean stress along with happiness, so it's nice to have a list of ways to stay chipper. With Thanksgiving just two days ago, recalling happy moments should be easy to do.

1. Visit a retreat center. I consider my parents’ house a retreat. First, it’s in Wisconsin. Second, the food rocks. Third, there’s no traffic. Fourth, sweatpants all dayyyyyyyyy.
2. Write out your holiday shopping list. Done-ish. I wrote down who I need to buy for and some preliminary ideas for them.
3. Use only reusable things - don't throw anything away. Pretty much my life. Paper products are used sparingly at the Naw. We throw out banana peels and tea bags (after steeping them several times).
4. Organize a family reunion. Hmmmm...can't say I'm organizing one, but I attended Thanksgiving dinner and have a reunion in my tentative summer plans.
5. Vote. I exercised my right to vote for my favorite dancer on Dancing With the Stars this month...and she won!
6. Get a psychic reading. Instead of paying someone to tell me vague things about myself, I instead read several self-reflection books on birth order, creativity, and financial personalities this month.
7. Visit a nursery of newborns. OH HOW I WISH. Teenagers are great and all, but sometimes I want to work with someone a little cuter who doesn’t sass back.
8. Update your knowledge of your chosen field. Check. I read about writing and reading all the time. I even get in a little human services reading every now and then.
9. Have a brainstorming session. Check. Brainstormed blog ideas for the next year, ways to use pureed pumpkin, and dinner ideas.
10. Support a local artist. I consider myself lucky to be friends with several self-identified artists and they always have my support. Someday it might be monetary (like when I commission a family portrait), but for now they'll have to be happy with emotional support.
11. Think about the nature of war and warriors. This is kind of second nature to humans in 2013, so much that we don't really think about war. War just is. And then there’s Storage Wars.
12. Bake a cake. I baked a cinnamon roll cake a few weekends ago, then ate basically the entire thing.
13. Winterize your home. Candles: check. Blankets: check. Doubling up on socks: check. Flannel sheets: check.
14. Play the blindfold smell game. I play the What Are the Downstairs Neighbors Cooking Tonight game whenever I get home from work. Usually I like that game, unless it turns into the When is the Last Time the Neighbors and/or We Took Out the Garbage game.
15. Get dressed up and go out. I wore nice jeans to my anniversary dinner and to a MercyWorks event. More likely I will get dressed down and stay in with a bottle of wine.
16. Sell something in your house. I have little to nothing that anyone would want to pay money for. I donate or recycle.
17. Have a slumber party. With the amount of houseguests we get, it’s always a slumber party at the Naw. This week was slumber party time at my parents' house.
18. Subscribe to a magazine. I tried to do this. I looked up a few magazines that I thought I would be interested in, but mostly I just want magazines with great pictures that I can use for arts and crafts, and I can't justify a subscription for that. Then I found Byliner. It’s online, which means better environmentally, and the price is right.
19. Make a fool of yourself. Daily.
20. Attend a play or musical. Jesus and I wanted to see Wicked, but both of us are unwilling to pay $100+ for the ticket. Maybe next time it’s in town.
21. Hangout in an airport. Check. Spent time there waiting for my Van Galder bus before Thanksgiving.
22. Look through a book of photos on one subject. When I do this it’s usually photos of Rome or food or babies.
23. Go house hunting. Ha. Like I want to hunt out someplace better than the Naw? Trick question, there is no better place.
24. Take a siesta. I am an awful napper, but if an afternoon break of several hours was culturally a thing, I think I could learn how.
25. Enjoy each and every morsel of food. On the whole I do this.
26. Start reading a long novel. Ok.
27. Eat salad with chopsticks. I can’t even eat Asian food with chopsticks.
28. Listen to music using headphones. A requirement on the bus. I’d rather not hear all the ringtones, phone conversations, and snoring.
29. Don’t kill anything (animals, ideas…). I don't? I guess for one day I'm supposed to allow myself all the crazy ideas I can think of. I'm not an idea squelcher by nature, so this is easy.
30. Know when to quit. According to Epstein, sometimes you can’t stay happy doing what you are doing--and that’s when it’s time to quit. When things aren't fun anymore, when they are more stressful that what they are worth, it's time to try something different.
    
    
    
    

Thanks.

Thank you. Two of the most simple, yet most effective words in any language. We all have lots to be thankful for, both material things and intangibles (which are usually absolute necessities). Take a minute and think: what makes my day(s)? Who helps me, who has made me into who I am, what things do I have that get me from morning to night? I'm guessing it won't take you long to come up with a nice list. Like this one:

1. A bed. Not just my bed at the Naw, not even just a bed--but feeling welcome at so many places and knowing I have a place to go wherever I might find myself.
2. My health. My appetite.
3. A good hair day. These aren't always guaranteed with hair like mine, so when they come around (like today!) I'm all about it.
4. Going back for seconds and thirds.
5. Football, even when it doesn't end how I want it to.
6. Not having to shop today or tomorrow. (Except for food!)
7. Lists that don't go on too long.

The Brass Teapot

What's better than a genie in a lamp? Money in a teapot. When John and Alice discover a magical brass teapot at an antique store, they think all their financial worries will be gone. John is a struggling telemarketer and Alice can't find a job with her art history degree, but all they have to do is hurt themselves and the teapot "pays" them cash. Eventually, they learn that emotional pain works just as well as physical--and that the teapot will pay up when other people get hurt.

If you see this getting out of hand fairly quickly, congratulations, you're right.

From full Brazilian waxes to dental work the "old fashioned way," Alice and John know a lot of ways to feel pain. They start attending MMA fights, visiting delivery rooms, and frequenting skate parks. They get dirty in the bedroom. Then they get personal and start sharing secrets--their own and those of their friends.

I'm willing to suspend a lot of disbelief when I'm home alone on a Saturday night, so I got past the "yeah right" phase pretty quickly, and started thinking about what I would do with such a teapot. It's hard not to think about the benefits, but at what cost? It's one thing to purposely stub my toe on the coffee table, but would I hold my hand inches above the stove for a few hundred bucks?

Critical reception for The Brass Teapot was mixed, but I found it entertaining. The dark humor could have been way more dark or way more slapstick-y, but the movie stuck to an even mixture of carefree spending/money-throwing montages sprinkled with mildly graphic violence and borderline heartbreak. The acting was solid, the writing felt natural, and the soundtrack fit the movie's every emotional up and down.

Projects

I'm always working on something. Less frequently, I finish something (like printing out all my pictures and putting them into albums OR finally recycling my old and broken laptop--pats on the back for finishing those projects!), but mostly I'm "in process" with projects. I define "projects" loosely--actual arts and crafts, house improvements, recipe testings, self-improvement/self-reflection projects, or just plain old reading from my official Books to Read list. Here's some of what I'm working on right now:

Poems: I read a poem a day. Sometimes I like them, sometimes they confuse me, sometimes I have to make the poem a part of my world so I write it down in my Poems Enjoyed journal.

Duolingo: I finished my Spanish class last month and couldn't fit the next session in my schedule, but I still have my book and I downloaded this app to keep practicing--I might not advance too far, but I hope to keep up my current level of semi-comprehension.

Mayo: I love mayonnaise. I'm not a fan of the ingredient lists on most jars. Solution? Find a homemade recipe that I like and go crazy with sandwiches/salads/carb-heavy foods.

Horchata: Another pipe dream recipe that might become reality with the right combination of free time, craving, and gumption.

Candles: We have a lot of candles. We also have a lot of candle leftovers. I want to melt old candles down and make new ones, using up some of our random jars. I think all I really need are new wicks.

byliner.com: Wow so many stories must get subscription to keep reading.

Mattress: Long story short, I need a new one. Shopping around isn't my favorite thing to do, so I'm holding off for a sign from the universe about how to proceed. (Again, "in process" is the key phrase.)

Two Rivers: My current read, a loaner from Becca, recommended by her mom/her mom's book club. It's an intricate story of past and present mistakes that reveals itself in slow layers, like peeling back wallpapers and paint jobs from a room you haven't been in before.

My Hair: Always a project in process, my hair is currently two very different colors. I'm growing out my bleach job and trying to train my bangs. It's also the longest it's been in my entire life.

Christmas Presents: Gotta get 'em.


This is plenty for me to work on for the rest of the year, give or take a few more books on my reading list. And of course, this blog is my ultimate project right now. She's like my 5 year old child, always changing/growing/re-evaluating who she is and how she presents herself. Ok, so a pretty advanced 5 year old. My pet project nonetheless. My short term project is to pack for Thanksgiving and bring my appetite up to speed. JK, my appetite is SO READY.

"Cinnabon" Cinnamon Roll Cake

I've been craving cinnamon rolls for several weeks now (and actually have a homemade cinnamon roll recipe bookmarked on my computer, where it haunts me daily), but I don't have the patience for yeast recipes when all I want is a classic sugar/butter fix. Then I found this recipe at work. It's on a piece of printer paper, so I have no idea where it's from or who should get credit for it.

Don't let the lengthy ingredient list scare you--while this is a three part cake: actual cake, cinnamon marble swirl, vanilla glaze--mostly it's just butter and sugar repeating itself in different magical combinations. The measurements for the cinnamon left me with a LOT of marble swirl, which some might like, but I found to be a bit excessive. I baked mine for a solid 30 minutes, and it needed a few extra minutes to firm up.

If by some chance you don't eat it all in one sitting (or your roommates are counting calories and refuse to be seduced by the sugary madness, leaving you to finish an entire cake on your own), just reheat it in the microwave before eating. This cake is perfect in the morning with your coffee, or for lunch, or even as a bedtime snack for those of you who like to enter dreamland via sugar rush/crash.

Ingredients
Cake:
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp butter, melted

Swirl:
1 cup (Yes, that's two sticks) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp cinnamon

Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
5 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla

Directions
With an electric mixer, mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, milk, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl. Once combined well, slowly stir in 4 tbsp melted butter. Pour batter into a greased 9x13 baking pan.

Using the same bowl, mix together two sticks softened butter, brown sugar, remaining flour, and cinnamon until well combined. Drop evenly over cake batter and use a knife to swirl.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in middle (pro tip: insert into cake part, not marble part) comes out nearly clean.

While cake bakes, whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla until smooth. (I again used the same bowl...we're baking a cake, not testing out all of our bowls.) Drizzle over warm cake, serve immediately.

My 2nd Nannyversary

There will be no big celebration for my Nannyversary today. No cake representing two years of laundry, dishes, driving, and homework help. What will greet me at work in a few hours is actual piles of laundry and dishes in the sink, teenagers needing to go here and there, and groceries needing to be bought for the weekend.

Chores don't care how long you've been doing them, they just want to get done...and for the right hourly wage, I'm the gal to do them.

9:10, 11/12/13

It's 11/12/13. I woke up at 9:10. I can only hope that means something magical, despite the fact that I promptly snoozed until 9:19. If today is at least an ounce more magical than yesterday, I'd be content. The sun is out; so far so good.

Yesterday it snowed while it rained. The trees haven't even finished shedding, which meant I shoveled leaves at work. Freshly frozen leaves. It's a poetic image at least.

Today I will bike through temps in the lower 30s while wearing several layers of clothes--as long as there's no snow accumulation I'd much rather bike than take the bus.

I'm not ready to have winter this early, but I don't think winter cares all that much. My only defense is non-stop cups of tea.

The Lover's Dictionary

novel, n. and adj.

How a book can tell the oldest story known to man, but in a new and interesting way.
A love story dressed as dictionary entries: arranged alphabetically, not chronologically.
A relationship constructed with words. Words defined by the relationship.

David Levithan's novel of a modern love story told entirely in dictionary entries is a witty jaunt through one couple's relationship highs and lows. The narrator defines each chosen word with a vignette--a brief illustration, sometimes no more than a sentence, of what the word means to the couple.

I was hooked from the very first entry (aberrant) to the concluding entry (zenith). This novel ranges in depth from fresh and sweet to heartbreaking and bitter--all in the span of the alphabet. It even sent me to the actual dictionary a few times, especially when an entry could only be considered a "definition" in the most abstract sense.

Reading this book made me wish I had thought of this idea. My story would be different, but the unique format intrigues me. This would make a good writing exercise, even a personal self-reflection. A Rachel's Dictionary. We all bring baggage to the words in our lives--what feelings, stories, and memories would you attach to the words in your dictionary?

Half a Life

Half a Life is a study in halves. My copy has only half a book cover, the top half showing its original red binding, its title stamped in gold above the bottom half, featuring the protective shell which carries a few endorsements and the author's name, Darin Strauss, in white type. Most of the chapters (chapter segments?) are mere half pages--paragraphs centered on stark white--and contain half thoughts, either unfinished or unexplained. Reading the memoir only took me about half a day.

It's the starkness of the format, and of the writing itself, that creates the environment for the story: 18 years ago (or half the author's life), Strauss hit a bicyclist with his car. She later died. As an 18-year old, he didn't know how to deal with his grief/guilt, or even how to begin naming what he felt as grief, guilt, or any other number of emotions. The book carries on from the time of the accident until present time, where the author has married and become a father.

We don't get a lot of details about Strauss' life during the second, darker, half of his life--what we get are a lot of questions, a lot of pondering, and a lot of realization that sometimes there are no epiphanies, no clean healings, no logical place to put things in our minds. I tried not to put myself in Strauss' place as I read--I don't think he wants his reader to ask "What would I do if that was me?", but rather to look at our own personal baggage and understand that what we have is what we have--now what are you going to do with it? I don't think there's a wrong answer any more than there's a right one.

Before You Know Kindness

Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian is a study of characters, a slow-paced heft of a novel. It takes place largely at Nan Seton's New Hampshire home, a place where she and her grown children and their children gather every summer. Here is the main cast:

Nan herself is a vigorous woman, scheduling daily activities for her family at the club where she is a member.

Her son, John, is a lawyer who recently took up hunting near his home in Vermont.

John's wife, Sara, is a therapist and new mom (again) to Patrick, who is five months.

Willow is John and Sara's daughter. She is ten, and tender.

Spencer is Nan's son-in-law, who also grew up spending his summers in New Hampshire. He now lives in New York City and works for FERAL, an animal rights organization.

He married Catherine, Nan's daughter, a school teacher in the city.

Their daughter is Charlotte, 12 going on 17.

The characters learn what it takes to make a functional family not so functional when one night Charlotte finds John's hunting rifle in the back of his car and shoots her dad in the shoulder, believing him to be the deer that destroyed their summer garden. We also learn that Catherine is not supportive of her husband's animal rights activity in that it causes him to care more for anonymous animals than for his own family. Willow wants badly to tell everyone what really happened the night of the accident. John really only went hunting once, and had the rifle in the car, loaded, because he couldn't get the bullet out and planned on dropping the gun off with a guy on his way back home from New Hampshire. Spencer believes his shoulder injury is punishment for the pre-animal rights summers he spent as a chef, preparing tray after tray of lobster for tourists. And Nan, the matriarch, wants everyone to get along again and stop sharing their feelings all the time so they can get back to hiking, biking, and swimming.

This book had a quiet suspense and an understated humor. It took me several solid chunks of time to get through, but the chapters are short enough that I could dip in here and there as well. Bohjalian used the words phosphorescent, duress, and telegenic enough times in the book for me to make a mental note of it. I don't know if that has anything to do with the quality of the story, but take that for what you will. He did his homework to create an authentic scenario, though I don't know any family who would act quite like the Setons/Seton-McCulloughs did. The ending of the book also seems to work out pretty well for everyone involved, and though the book hasn't been made into a movie it felt a little Lifetime-y at points. On the whole, I'd say give the 50-page test--if you aren't interested in this family drama by then, you probably won't ever be.

Silver Linings of Defeat

After watching that heartbreaking Monday Night Football game, I have to cheer myself up with some small silver linings:

• Everyone around me will be in a good mood tomorrow. Not so much if I still lived in De Pere, or most anywhere in Wisconsin.
• Today marks two years since I was hired as a house manager/nanny.
• I had two dinners today.
• There's still a lot of Halloween candy at work for me to eat.
• Sidenote Silver Lining: today was National Candy Day.
• It's November 4th and I still haven't heard Christmas music anywhere.
• We almost ran out of toilet paper, but Brit and I made an Aldi run this morning before work so now we are set for a while.
• My cold is nearly gone, allowing me uninterrupted sleep.
• I got out of work early today.
• It didn't rain while I was riding my bike.
• I have a new candle and it makes my room smell brand new.
• There are only four more days until the weekend.
• Brit and I also bought a new type of cheese at Aldi: cracked black pepper cheddar.

And on that note I must now go to the kitchen to eat said cheese.

All Hallow's Eve

October comes to a close with rain and sinus congestion. I've spent this past week battling a sore throat/cough/runny nose, and unfortunately I'm still dressing up as "Under the Weather" today. This is the cold that won't end, unlike this month and Daylight Savings Time, which are both just about finished. I don't particularly like October--my tan fades, seasonal allergies lurk everywhere, and it's just not summer anymore--but I do like scary movies, candy, seasonal foods like squash and pumpkin, and sweaters. This month's How to be Happy wasn't bad either:

1. Contribute to your favorite cause. My favorite cause is food. My contribution is researching food vendors, trying to stay local, and avoiding processed food-like things. Also eating.
2. Spend a prolonged period of time with someone while doing different things. Most weekends I can be found watching football/reading while Brit does homework/works out and Jesus plays video games/reads Internet articles.
3. Have a conversation with a foreigner. I'm sure this happens more often than I know.
4. Spend the night in a hotel where you live. I would love a stay-cation some day.
5. Role-play characters with someone. Don't we all play characters every day?
6. Start planning someone else's birthday. There are so many birthdays in October!
7. Follow a common stock. When should I start investing in the stock market? Am I old enough yet? Can I buy stock in ice cream?
8. Come up with a business idea. Edible pillows.
9. Watch a sporting event on TV on mute. We like to keep the volume low on football games we don't care about, then immediately fall asleep for the next three hours. 
10. Take a picture of the same tree for three weeks. I dropped the ball on this one. I have noticed that our neighbor's tree has grown considerably in the past two years, though. Its branches now curl up and rest on our porch. We get so many squirrels out there.
11. Fast for a day. I did this on Monday. I didn't plan it, I just had no appetite and felt like I might puke up anything I ate. I ate broth for dinner and NyQuil for dessert.
12. Think of the world as a global village. I have, though not recently.
13. Memorize a poem. I have...though not recently. What I have done recently is start writing down poems I enjoy into one journal. I've found that writing poems out by hand helps me think about wording and line breaks in a new way.
14. Play the trust game. I don't know what this is. Trust falls? I'm not a fan.
15. Conduct a spirited piece of music in your living room. Most recently I conducted Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, 2 of 2. As in the entire CD. Guilty pleasure.
16. Don't wear your glasses/contacts. I can do this for about two minutes before I a) get a headache, or b) walk into something.
17. Attend a talk on a topic of interest. I'm going to a storytelling thing next week!
18. Put away everything you use today. This is essentially my job: put things away. Usually it's not things I've used, but picking up after teenagers.
19. Go dancing. Check. Did this at a wedding a few weeks ago. Also check: laugh at other (old) people dancing.
20. Walk through fallen leaves. The leaves only just started falling, and now they're wet clumpy piles in the gutter.
21. Start an aquarium. Something like this perhaps?
22. Eat leftovers. Every day.
23. Babysit. Nearly every day.
24. Write down significant life moments. Ideally every day.
25. Practice hand-eye coordination. Does dreaming that I was a tennis player count? That happened last night.
26. Give someone a back scratch/rub. You scratch mine, I'll scratch yours.
27. Throw a food-tasting party. Do you mean DINNER, aka all events I've hosted?
28. Take a different route to work. I've played around a bit with my bike route, but I think I found the most efficient way. Of course, I have different routes depending on my after-work activities (library, bank, grocery store, Target).
29. Donate blood. The last time I tried, my iron was too low. :( I was also unemployed and in need of things to make me feel like a productive citizen.
30. Visualize yourself being more creative. I do/am.
31. Dress up as a character. Today I look kinda like this.

Scary Movie Round Up

I'm not a big Halloween person. I've come to appreciate it more as an adult, but as a kid, Halloween was one of the less special holidays we "celebrated." I could play dress up anytime I wanted, so costumes weren't a unique treat, and if I really wanted candy I'm sure we had some somewhere in the house. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate putting on a costume and getting loads of candy from family and neighbors, I just much preferred other holidays to the one relegated to a few short hours at the end of October.

Now, as an adult, I've allowed myself to expand my Halloween festivities to most of the month (largely in part because Jesus refuses to watch anything but scary movies in October). I indulge in illogical fears, blood and gore, and hauntings just for these four weeks. Some of our movie choices are great--they leave us terrified, requiring us to turn on all the lights and watch something non-threatening before we move--other choices makes us laugh with their ridiculous plots, outdated special effects, or over-the-top acting.

Here are a few of my recently watched top choices for scares, in no particular order:

The Awakening (2011)

Florence Cathcart is a hoax exposer in 1920s England. She does not believe in ghosts, just in the every day trickery of con artists. Then Robert Mallory, a boarding school teacher, asks her to come to his school to investigate the recent death of a student, Walter Portman, said to have been frightened to death by the ghost of another child. She goes, intent on revealing the true nature of Walter's death and the true identity of the ghost. While some mysteries are solved easily, others take time to tease themselves out of the woodwork of the ancient school, formerly a private estate. By the end of the movie, Florence's beliefs--about the supernatural, about her own identity--are shaken to the core.

ParaNorman (2012)

Norman Babcock is just a regular kid...who sees and speaks with ghosts on a daily basis. His parents worry for him, his sister thinks he's a freak, and the other kids at school keep their distance, except Neil, the chubby kid who could use a friend as well. When a centuries-old curse threatens his town, Norman is the only one with the power to protect everyone, he just has to get them to believe in his power first. (As an animated film, this one is more cute than scary, but still a fun Halloween watch.)

The Conjuring (2013)

When the Perrons (Roger, Carolyn, and their five daughters) move in to an old farmhouse, they have mixed feelings about its weak plumbing, odd storage places, and creaks and moans. Then stranger stuff begins happening--one daughter takes up banging her head on a bureau while she sleep walks, another finds an imaginary friend who has quite the sordid history, and all of their clocks stop at 3:07 AM. They ask Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators, to examine the house and its quirks. The Warrens find more ghosts than any one house should have, and while this is based on true events, all the curses, haunts, and evil spectres made it a difficult story to follow. Regardless, the movie was full of scares and "oh shit" moments.

Silent Hill (2006)

This movie filled my blood/gore quota for the month and then some. Based on a video game by the same name, and named after a mining town closed down because of fires still burning in the mines, Silent Hill is your classic Haunted Child/Impulsive Parent movie. When the sleepwalking Sharon won't stop screaming "Silent Hill!" in her unconscious state, her mother decides to take her there and get to the root of her condition. It's not long before Sharon gets lost in the abandoned town and her mother has to search for her--finding out that it's not totally abandoned. This movie has some pretty creepy creatures and plenty of gruesome deaths, but it's also a tale of what happens when things get way out of hand and innocence turns to bitterness.

The Novel Cure

Not that it's a bad situation to find myself in, but I recently added several (double-sided) pages to my "To Read" list. I let myself wander around the library the other day instead of grabbing my pre-ordered books and getting out of there like I usually do. (The library is next to the grocery store. When I wander I generally have to go without groceries because I no longer have room to carry them.) What did I end up checking out? The mother of all "To Read" lists.

The Novel Cure, a collaborative effort by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, seeks to match ailment with appropriate book. The authors define "ailment" loosely: they include the usual suspects--common cold, broken heart, anxiety, all manner of fears--but also some strange ones, like "Itchy Feet," "Dictator, Being a," and "Tea, Unable to Find a Cup of." They also include "Reading Ailments" with their own prescribed cures--"Amnesia, reading associated" being cured by keeping a reading journal, for example. Several Ten-Best Lists show up at random, for the ailments that a selection of novels works better for (audiobooks, books for plane/train/hospital journeys, novels for hammocks, novels for bathrooms, novels for laughing, novels for crying...you get the idea).

Altogether, 751 novels show up somewhere as cures to potential ails. I found that I was familiar with quite a few, and have read a good number as well. As for the unfamiliar titles, the intriguing ones found themselves on my ever-growing list--regardless of whether or not I suffer from the ailment they are prescribed to.

The book doesn't list an explicit cure for having too many books to read--that's one problem we should all be grateful to have.

High Fidelity

I don't remember blogging about this book when I read it, so bear with me if I've already reviewed it. Today I watched the movie version of High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, Joan Cusack, and Jack Black (and a smattering of other more-or-less well known celebrities). It follows the book (by Nick Hornby) pretty closely, except one major difference (which I think leads to the other differences): setting.

Hornby's novel is set in London, England. His narrator, Rob Fleming, comes across as a okay bloke. A bit daft, a little underachieving, but likeable. In the movie version, Rob Gordon (I don't know why the name change) lives in Chicago. Here (or in movie world), he is kind of a jackass. He's self-centered and I totally got why his live-in girlfriend, Laura, leaves him (in both book and movie, pretty much right away).

For the rest of the book and movie, both Robs outline their Top Five Break Ups, in chronological order, leading up to the current Laura break up. Eventually the Robs get that they are the common denominators in all of their failed relationships, regardless of who dumped whom and why. Other ladies enter the scene, as do other men, but Rob(s) and Laura still have things to work through.

I liked the book because I like Nick Hornby's writing style. The story itself is okay. The movie works well because Rob, owner of a record shop, also lists many Top Five song lists, and these work their way into the soundtrack, which I thought did both book and movie justice.

The Uncoupling

What would happen if all the women in your town decided to go on a sex strike? Gradually, then suddenly, lovers turn away, wives think up more and more excuses, and sexually active teenagers decide they want to be single in their youth. Would wars stop...or begin? The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer asks its reader to suspend disbelief and allow a certain amount of magical realism for it to tell its tale.

There's a new drama teacher in Stellar Plains, NJ, and she's staging a Greek comedy for the high school's winter play: Lysistrata, the story of a woman who convinces the rest of the women in Greece to go on a sex strike to end The Peloponnesian War. What no one realizes is that the play brings about a spell--a cold spell--that affects the women of this small suburb.

Now solid marriages seem shaky, passionate affairs end as quickly as they started, and everyone seems a little on edge. The book's climax comes on opening/closing night of the play, to be performed only once. It is here, the the high school's theater, where we see the spell's full effects and where some measure of resolution comes.

Altogether, this was a fun and quick read. It reminded me of The Leftovers, another quiet suburb meets magical realism type book. It's a unique take on the importance of relationships and the power of physicality, though things did work out a little too cleanly for me. I wanted a little more push, even if that meant less of a happy ending. My only other critique was the homogeneity of the entire thing, though I guess the author did set her tale in the suburbs of New Jersey for a reason.

The Anthologist

I hesitate to review/recommend this book, at least in October. The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker, is a novel about poetry, and poetry month isn't until April. Still, I enjoyed it, having checked it out without knowing its subject matter.

The narrator of this quick read is a sometimes poet currently trying to write the introduction to an anthology of poetry he has collected. Unfortunately, he's distracted by his girlfriend leaving, his laundry, his finances, the birds outside, and pretty much everything else in his small world. He does take time to teach us things about poetry, and if he gathered together all of his ramblings, he'd have a fine introduction--he'd just have to leave out all the self-deprecating pieces.

Poetry lovers will appreciate the language, the history lessons, and the narrator's own appreciation of the art. Non-poetry lovers will appreciate the story of a man trying to keep his life on track while it seems everything flounders.

How To: Fix a Washing Machine

After getting the go-ahead from our landlord ("Sounds like you guys know more about the machine than most."), Brit and I took to our washer with screwdrivers, pliers, and a hammer tonight to figure out why it wouldn't drain (likely culprit: hair).

Before we got that far, though, we poured ourselves some drinks.

The repair video makes this job seem straightforward enough, but we didn't replace the drain pump. We unhooked all the same stuff, then completely took out the black rubber drain boot to clean it out. I'm getting ahead of myself--making it to the point of unhooking and cleaning out took several hours. First, there was the problem of moving the washing machine out of the laundry room while keeping the dryer (which sits on top of the washer) inside, where it needed to stay connected to the gas line and vent hose. That took several tricky maneuvers and a phone-a-friend to Becca for some extra help in lifting/balancing/shifting.

Then we got down to taking the thing apart. One stripped screw and another phone-a-friend to Jesus for heavy duty pliers later, and we were in. We muscled the clamps off and pulled out the drain. Now, just so everyone is aware, as we disconnected the hoses, residual water leaked out. Not clean, fresh water. Old, musty, dank water. Our work space started to smell like 100-yr old fart. And as we took out the rubber boot, we saw something floating inside. It looked like a rolled up piece of plastic, but upon further inspection (pulling it out with the pliers), we found out what was keeping our washing machine from draining:

One bra cup lining (perhaps from a swimsuit?), several bobby pins...and of course some hair/lint combo clumps. A little gross, but also validating--if the drain had been clean, I don't know what our next course of action would have been. As it was, we spent some time running bleach water through all the hoses we could reach, and thoroughly scrubbed/soaked the drain/drain trap.

Putting it all back together went a little quicker and for our first test run, we threw in all the nasty rags we had just used to mop up fart water. Forty-one minutes later (aka 2 minutes ago) and...success! I just took out a load of clean, fully spun rags from our "new" washer. Brit and I will now curtsy/pat ourselves on the back while you cheer and bravo.

Back to Three/Dirty Clothes

In the past week, the Naw has lost two of its squatters and one of its essential/well-used appliances.

Diego and Becca relocated to their respective apartments and reunited with (Diego)/met for the first time (Becca) their roommates at the beginning of the month. Diego lives closer to Logan Square proper now (closer to us than he was back in his Gold Coast days, but not quite as close as next door) and Becca moved to the alley. Just kidding, but for real she lives the next street over and it takes 30 seconds to get from my bedroom to hers.

Becca has two brand new roommates, who we are excited to befriend because A) they are not a part of the Mercy Bubble, and B) that's basically our only requirement for making possible friends right now. One of them is a friend of a friend of Brooke's and the other is a friend of Bailey's, small world! (Also Becca, if you are reading this, hope you don't mind I am using your life for fodder.)

Now it's kind of quiet here...but not too quiet. An appropriate amount of quiet for three people living in a three bedroom apartment who aren't coming and going at all hours of the day seven days a week like an apartment filled with people all on different schedules. (I wondered many times what our downstairs neighbors thought of the nearly never-ending parade of people going up and down our steps.)

As for the appliance currently out of commission, I'm talking about our washing machine. Probably the biggest selling point of our apartment (even above the porch, roof hatch, dark wood paneling and pillars, and yes, even the built-in hutch), our in-unit washing machine has seen younger days. This past month we put it through the wringer (haha!) with several extra people's dirty clothes, plus all the dirty linens a tenement-style household has, which is apparently too much for the poor thing.

The machine no longer drains, rinses, or spins, which we found out after several experimental loads. Doubting our landlord would spring for a new machine, Brit and I decided to de-clog the drain this weekend. FYI: this is not a simple task & merely removing all visible screws will not help you accomplish this task. We found the drain and the pump and pretty much saw all the inner workings of the machine, but didn't have the confidence to start unhooking hoses and pulling apart wires, so broken it sits until we try again later this week.

And try we will--we did more research Jesus worked some Google magic and found a repair video featuring our exact machine and what we hope is the exact problem, so now we are set, assuming we can find a time when we are both home and not busy. You'll know we've fixed it when my pile of dirty clothes is no longer the same height (or higher) than my pile of books to read.

The Ethical Butcher

Followers of this blog/my life in general know that I've (in fits and starts) created a personal food culture/philosophy based on books, blogs, movies, personal experience, and how I grew up. I generally stick to only a few food guidelines: real food trumps all non foods (that means I use butter, not margarine) and always check ingredient lists (if I can't pronounce it, it's probably not food). Michael Pollan elaborates on these guidelines--as do many other farmers, chefs, and food activists, the most recent on my radar being Berlin Reed with his book (based on a former blog by the same name) The Ethical Butcher.

If I don't seek out and read books like these, I grow lazy in my quest to eat real food. I cheat with boxed/processed non foods or grab whatever is on the shelves at the grocery store regardless of labels. I feel bad, but not bad enough, until I remember why I started researching, learning, and changing my ways in the first place: if I am to be fully myself, a citizen of the world, I have to let my actions and my dollars show what I believe in/support/want for my life. I can't be frustrated at the rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes in America and then calmly eat my mac'n'cheese knowing full well that my teenage boy metabolism will take care of the extra fat and sodium for me personally, screw everyone else. Even knowing my one small change of grass fed over grain fed beef won't make a tangible difference, how can I say I support local/humane/truly-happy-cow farmers if my support is only in word and not in action?

I hesitated to write this post because I knew I would digress and get soapboxy instead of simply reviewing the book for what it is: one man's personal narrative of how he went from vegetarian to vegan to whole animal butcher to activist/community chef/blogger/writer/food educator/thoughtful omnivore and how he envisions a world where people eat ethically as the norm. In the first half of the book, we get Reed's story. He is honest, yet unapologetic. He doesn't regret his "vegan" tattoo--that's who he was at that point in his life, and it led to where he is now. After telling us who he is, the second half of the book focuses on the reader. Do we know where our food comes from? Are we asking enough questions, demanding food quality from our grocers and butchers? Again, he is honest--finding good, capital F, healthy Food can be overwhelming. What do the labels "natural," "organic," "green," and "sustainable" really mean? He knows that all people can't and won't make all the changes needed to ensure food responsibility the world over, but he encourages his reader to do what they can, based on their abilities, needs, and personal philosophies.

Needless to say, I felt convicted after reading and have been researching local grocers, markets, CSAs, and where the most responsibly-sourced food is located in Chicago. I'm lucky to live in a rather hippie-esque neighborhood, so grassroots, community-based organizations aren't difficult to find. I'm also lucky that I can afford to splurge on happy meat, and that I know my way around a kitchen, so choosing produce over processed tends to be a non-choice for me. Now I need to maintain my philosophy and allow it to evolve with the food landscape in my neighborhood. And I need more people to read this book so we can have lively discussions about where to find good eats.