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.

Golden, Plaid, Black

Quincy, PJ, Buck

This is how I spent last Saturday night in Derry, NH. Our friends Patty and Jeff generously allowed us to stay at their home while they were away. Had they been there, I might not have been in my pajamas.

Quincy and Buck are good friends. They love chasing each other in open spaces, although Quincy can outrun Buck any day.

We were in the area to see the Ivy League Championships at Harvard where Mark was running the mile. He made it to the final heat but didn't have a good run in that race.

Quincy, I hope you visit us soon. And bring your parents.

A Book of Essays

I've written a book about Costa Rica, but haven't been able to get it published. It consists of essays, letters, and poems. I pitched a book about leukemia, which I know a lot about. It consists of essays, poems, and blog posts. That book is about 2/3 finished, and even though I use a lot of humor, I doubt it will ever be published.

I've written a number of short stories which I've sent nowhere, and many poems, probably enough for a book. I'm in the middle of a story now called "Django Cohen." Don't you wonder what it's about?

Several weeks ago, I had an ah-ha moment. Why don't I write a book combining highlights of my work. It all begins on Playa Gringo. You want to read this melange of stories, essay, poetry, right?

It turns out the books consisting of essays are suddenly of interest. Something about the attention span of today's reader. An essay is usually short, and when it's over, that's it. You don't have to remember characters' names, nicknames and household arrangements like you do in a novel. I've read two articles in The New York Times in the past week that analyze and speculate about this new genre. It's not really "new," of course.

The poems I sprinkle throughout the book will be like breath mints, a pause to refresh before the reader jumps into the next essay. The connection, of course, among the essays, stories, and poems is me. I just have to choose, edit and arrange suitably, and then find an agent.

Just.

A Storm, a Race and Dinner with Friends

Mark texted to say he was running the mile with a rabbit on Friday evening at the Armory track in Manhattan. A runner is the "rabbit" and his or her job is to pace the race so that a better time might result. Mark would be trying to go sub-4:00 in the mile.

A big storm was brewing in the NYC area, a "monster," "the storm of the century" according to the media which was so delighted to be able to report on something people actually wanted to listen to. No milk, no bread, no water, no gas. Yikes!

We were so scared, we jumped in the car with our dog and a day's worth of clothing and meds, water and snacks. We planned to stay with friends in Westchester if need be. The snow began to fall within the first hour of our trip. It got a little worse, but there was only light traffic due to the fleeing of all non-essential humans. A car did spin out in front of us on the Palisades Parkway and hit the guardrail, but we were able to avoid him, and he was able to back up an pull out safely

Mark's race went off with a glitch. Two runners collided and fell down during the first 100 meters so they had to stop the race and start over. Then the officials decided to run the women's 5k race before the restart, which instead of helping the milers, potentially made them lose focus.

The first 400 meters were blazing fast. The rabbit was setting a pace that would easily result in a sub-4 mile. Mark ran his fastest 400m ever, 50.9 seconds. I started to feel woozy but I know one member of the Columbia cheering squad would catch me, or at least pick me up after the race.

They were still on pace at the 800, but it was clear the race had gone out too fast. Mark fell back. The race was won in 4:06 by another Columbia runner. Mark came in 4th. As usual, Mark was philosophical about the race. My husband felt worse than he did. Sub-4 would have been a nice birthday gift for Mark, but he can wait. His birthday is today. We're going to NYC to take him to a steakhouse, a tradition we started a couple of years ago. No snow is predicted.

When we left the Armory there was about 2-3" of wet snow on the ground. It's hard to gauge snow depth in Manhattan though, so we still believed it was too treacherous to drive home. I called Connie and told her we were coming for the night. We had a delicious pasta with pesto sauce and salad, washed down with red wine. Afterwards, we enjoyed Steve's selection of old-time videos which were a hoot and a half. When I'd had enough Petula Clark, I went to bed.

In the morning we discovered that the storm wasn't too serious in NYC. Long Island was hit badly, as was CT, RI and MA. Westchester got about 8", and we arrived in Jville to find maybe 5" of snow.

I was in the Blizzard of '77 in Buffalo, NY. I went to work at 10 am with no media splash about snow. Within 4 hours, the city was buried in a freak blizzard, stranding people at work or in cars. Buses stopped running. The city shut down and had to have food and snow-removal equipment helicoptered in. The National Guard came to help those trapped (who survived), and to ferry sick people to hospitals. I was lucky. I was trapped in the house of a well-off family who was planning a bar mitzvah for their son the next day. There was no bar mitzvah, but there was lots of yummy food, and I had a bedroom to myself. I stayed for a week and watched "Roots" with the family.

Growing up on Long Island, I saw my share of blizzards and hurricanes that made us lose power and wreaked havoc around the area. Of course the weather reports predicting the storm were on TV, and people probably raided the supermarkets for supplies, but media didn't knock us over the head with dire doom and gloom warnings. There were fewer people then, but they seemed more self-reliant..

Happy Birthday to you, Mark.