Living in a Winter Wonderland

Marty and Buck

It's been flurrying steadily where we live. The temperature has been in the mid-30's by day and 20-25 at night. I prefer a layer of snow to all the gray and brown around us. The evergreen trees give life to the scene as well.


The most-asked question of people who live in Northern rural areas is: what do you do in the winter; how do you survive? This is our first winter in the sticks, but I'll go out on a limb and say: We manage quite well.


Winter is a good time for projects. Last week, we painted our living room a gray-blue tone that's a good foil for our colorful Latin American art. I have years of painting experience, and while my husband doesn't love to do it, he pitches in. He has no choice.


The living room is fairly small, but it has 3 windows and 3 doorways. This means a lot of brush work around the woodwork. We used painter's tape because my hands aren't as steady as they used to be and I don't like edging tools. What we thought would take a day, took a day and a half, most of the time spent in prepping. A small amount of time was lost to the our dog Buck breaking through the barricade and managing to put one paw into the paint pan. This happened when Marty was was gone for 10 minutes. I screamed, and Buck stopped in his tracks. Unfortunately he'd already made some tracks before I could clean his paw. The wood floor in the kitchen area was easy to clean, but the rug we have there wasn't. I'm used to seeing this kind of mayhem on television commercials or silly movies. In retrospect, though, it was funny.

New color

This is me relaxing on the sofa in our new blue room. I have more projects in the pipeline: sewing curtains; doing my son's high school scrapbook (3 years post-graduation); organizing 10 years of photos; plus more things I don't want to do.


Spring, where are you?!

Latest Reads

My local library had a book sale recently, and I couldn't resist picking up a few reads for a few bucks. One book I've wanted to read for a long time but couldn't remember why. The nearly 800-page tome is titled Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell written by Susanna Clarke. Friends, I slogged through it, even though Fantasy isn't one of my favorite genres.

Strange and Norrell are English magicians working during the Napoleonic Era to perfect their craft and raise magic to the status it once held. I admit I found the historical element interesting. I did not appreciate the copious footnotes, a reason I haven't been able to finish Infinite Jest, which I've been reading for 6 years. Maybe because I've read so much classic English literature, this seemed a mash-up of 19th century greats, only not as good. The book was well-received when it was published, and a movie has been made of it. I'd probably enjoy the movie, except that if it's at all like the Tolkein adaptations, the only thing I'd really enjoy is the popcorn.

To break up the monotony of spells, fairies and bad English weather, I read Junot Diaz's latest work This Is How You Lose Her.  If you haven't already read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, what are you waiting for? Diaz's newest collection is a series of short stories, connected by the main character and the theme of love and loss.
What I love about this author is his use of Spanglish, most of which I can understand. He doesn't translate, but the meaning is fairly clear from the context. Because I don't know that many curses and slang words in Spanish (particularly the contemporary Dominican variety), I couldn't translate it but I could feel it.

Prior to reading This Is How You Lose Her, I read Zadie Smith's NW. I found the two books to be very similar, and if I were teaching a Contemporary Novel course, I'd include these as companion pieces. The characters in each are affected by where they grow up; there is liberal use of profanity and sexually explicit behavior; racial and social issues are an undercurrent that profoundly affects the lives of the youngish adults. I found Smith's book to be unbearably bleak and was glad it was short. I highly recommend Diaz's book, which ends with the main character finding in the wreckage of his life, a novel to write.

And now, some Wallace Stegner.

Teach Your Parents Well

After living and working in Peru for a year and a half, my daughter Mariel decided to return to the US. She will be living in North Carolina with her boyfriend, looking for a job that pays (versus volunteering) and figuring out what to do with her life which lies wide open before her. At her age, I was also setting up housekeeping with my boyfriend. Compared to her, I had almost no experience of the world. My daughter's already had a "real" job, back when she first graduated from college. I worked a number of low-paying jobs after I graduated and bummed off friends for a place to stay. It wasn't until I moved to New York (and in with my boyfriend) that I got my first legitimate job.

My eldest son Mark joined us for a visit. It was so nice having them at the house together. If only  20-year old "baby" Harry had been there. He was off in Europe on Spring break from a semester abroad in Denmark. Mark is in his senior year at Columbia University, trying to decide what to do post-graduation.

It's not that I envy my children. I'm delighted they have the choices they have with the tools they need to take them in the direction they want to go. My husband and I (he's "the boyfriend" I mention earlier) provided them with a wee bit of incentive to explore the world and to do what you love, something we were never taught as children.

Now's it's time to learn from our children. We still have a few years ahead of us to explore, create, and give back.

You Never Escape Your Past

Zadie Smith's newest novel, NW, describes the lives of former and current residents of Northwest London, a rather rough neighborhood that leaves its indelible mark on those who grow up there.

I'm a Zadie Smith fan. White Teeth is one of my favorite books, and I also enjoyed On Beauty. NW is more in your face. It's as though Smith is grabbing you by the neck and forcing you to observe ugly, uncomfortable and finally, sad moments because she wants you to know what it's like to come from a background that's nearly impossible to escape.

I wonder what Jamaican Londoners think of this book. Although it wasn't my favorite Zadie Smith book, I appreciated her frank portrayal of living in a place that brands you for life. It's a place that promotes aspiration, but comes back to bite you when you think you've achieved your goal.

I'm now reading Junot Diaz latest book of stories, This Is How You Lose Her.