One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 60

(This photo of my dad, which I don't think anyone in our family has seen before, was taken when he was about 39 years old, right around the time he married my mom.)

#60– “Put a pillow at your back.”

This one of one hundred things my mom taught me a million times just joined the list yesterday. It’s funny how things trigger memories. I was rearranging the 6 pillows in my living room chair (my office), and the memory just popped up like a cartoon caption bubble! “Put a pillow at your back!”

There’s so much irony in this lesson that I hardly know where to begin. Let’s see, there’s the dearth of pillows in my childhood home, the fact that I am a “pillow pig,” the infectious aspects of pillow hogging - oh well, I’ll just dive in and see where this memory leads me.

I’ve heard that people who survived the Nazi concentration camps were prone to obesity later in life.  Pillows were few and far between in our house, and usually homemade and virtually flat. As a result, pillows are important to me -  a measure of opulence and a source of solace. When most little girls were dreaming of marrying prince charming, I dreamed of owning as many pillows as I wanted –pillows in every room of every size, shape and color, pillows to burn. I remember when the zillion pillows on your bed trend first surfaced. I would stare dreamy-eyed at the pictures in Better Homes and Gardens.

I have lots of pillows, shop rather obsessively for them (FYI, Garden Ridge and Tuesday Morning are the best sources), and keep Goodwill well stocked in cast-offs. Let's see, I have 12 pillows in my living room, 6 in the Cowboy Room (masculine bedroom), and12 in the Frou-Frou room (feminine bedroom). My hubby put his foot down on too many pillows in the master bedroom and the lounge (where he spends his leisure time). Also, no pillows in the bathrooms or kitchen. He can be so unreasonable sometimes! Click on Read More Below...

Life by Keith Richards

Keith Richards' begins his autobiography, Life, with “Believe it or not, I haven’t forgotten any of it.” then goes on for 576 pages (23 hrs - audio version) to prove it.

When in Life, Richards talked about the process of writing the Rolling Stones music, I forgot that he was a horrendous heroin addict. I even forgot that Johnny Depp was reading the audio version (I listened to it on my iPod), and I felt myself falling into the book, comfortably. I’ve seen this same phenomenon in other musicians’ biographies (e.g., Jimi Hendricks and Eric Clapton). They’re adept, exacting and soulful about their music, but complete morons when it comes to managing their lives and relationships. But even the horror of Richards' life was irrationally compelling. I found myself strangely interested in his vivid, albeit macabre, descriptions of his drug use. I know, just stay with me here.

If you’ve any interest in the Rolling Stones, this is an admittedly one-sided yet seemingly thorough and absolutely entertaining chronicle. And you might enjoy Life if you’re simply interested in music history or trivia. For example, the Rolling Stones never wanted to be a rock and roll band; they wanted to play Chicago blues. Or that Veronica Bennett of the 60s hit girl group the Ronettes (Be My Baby) was a major fox and Keith's first serious crush, but she married famous music producer Phil Spector who was apparently a complete a-hole. Or that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones would exchange music when one or the other (usually the Stones) got writer’s block. I loved Richards' story about he and Mick Jagger cutting out newspaper and magazine headlines, tossing them on the floor, and then grabbing them randomly for song lyrics. Click on Read More Below…

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 59

#59– “Make sure you have plenty of beds for family.”

 (Happy 10th Birthday Sweet Granddaughter Syd)

I’m not sure why, but it galls me when I have to admit that I’ve adopted one of my mother’s particularly weird idiosyncrasies.  Do you ever wonder why nasty words like gall, which is a “tumor-like growth of burrowing insect larvae,” and “the greenish, profoundly bitter-tasting fluid in bile ducts,” aren’t profanity? I didn’t think so, but back to beds and mom’s idiosyncrasies.

My mom’s genetic makeup evidently included a “not enough beds” code. Perhaps it evolved from generations of bed sharing by too many kids. I don’t know, but whatever the reason, we had beds all over our house. They were in the bedroom like normal homes, but each of our bedrooms contained at least two full-sized beds. There were also beds on the porch, beds in the living room, and even beds on the front yard. All predicated on mom’s eternal hope that all her chicks (kids) would come home with family in tow.

Let’s see, if everyone was home at the same time, which would be mom’s five kids, their five husbands/wives (total, not each), and their fourteen kids (total, not each) – that would be 24 people (not counting mom). If everyone slept two to a bed, that’s 12 beds. So mom’s logic wasn’t really that off I guess. However, (1) No doubt to mom’s dismay, I don’t think all 24 of us were ever in mom’s house at one time, and (2) That’s probably a good thing, as parricide (killing a close relative – my new word) would have undoubtedly occurred.

I should admit that the beds on the porch and front yard were mostly about the heat of summer and no air conditioning. Central air wasn’t common in our neck of the woods, and the “swamp cooler” wasn’t turned on unless it was so hot the pavement was still liquid at midnight. Click on Read More Below...

Feliz Navidad

Click on the green arrow below...

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Brilliant Holiday Gift Ideas!

Stumped for ideas for holiday gifts  - I have the perfect solution!

I recommend that you give a generous holiday gift to one or more of the below organizations in honor of family and/or friends. I did and it felt GREAT!

The Arc of the Capital Area provides critical services for children and adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities (autism, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome). One of their programs is Arc of the Arts, in which their clients create amazing works of art. Click here to check out the really cool stuff they are selling that would also make super holiday gifts. Click here to make a donation.

Austin Community Steelband teaches  "at promise" kids to play Steelpan to instill self-esteem and to preserve the cultural music of Trinidad. Need some special music for an event? These kids and their music will fill your heart with joy! This is a "shoe-string" organization that really needs your help. Click here to make a donation.

El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission provides medical, human and education services to working-poor Latinos in south Austin. Their comprehensive services help primarily immigrant families integrate well into our community. Click here to make a donation.

Catholic Charities of Central Texas provides health, human services and social justice advocacy in a 25 county area. I particularly like their vision of "a more just and caring society." Check them ouT and then Click Here to make a donation.

The Center for Child Protection provides protective and healing services for children who are suspected victims of sexual and physical abuse, and children who have witnessed a violent crime. Click here to make a donation.

Sustainable Food Center envisions a food secure community where all children and adults grow, share and prepare healthy, local food. These are the folks that do the Farmers' Markets, but they do much, much more. They are cultivating generations of healthy kids in Austin, and that is important. Click here to make a donation.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 58

#58– “Never pull the skin on your face.”

(My sisters left to right are Gloria Sidney, Dorothy Belle and Vienna Mae – all of whom are on the far side of 70 and the short side of 80! We may all need a neck job, but the skin on our faces looks dang good.)

Us Wade gals are genetically blessed when it comes to skin. I say this not in reference to my skin, but rather in reference to the skin of my mother (right up until the day she died at the age of 98) and my three older sisters, all of whom are still kicking and have complexions that look younger than their years. Or perhaps it is simply because of mom’s #58, “Never pull the skin on your face,” which she taught us a million times.

Mother knew that mean ole’ Mr. Gravity needed absolutely no help when it came to the pulling of skin. Honestly, you’d think that some genius would have solved this problem by now. Why we didn’t push our daughters into medical research seems ridiculously illogical at this point in my life!

I just got off the phone with a friend. We were contemplating the creation of a really low budget fat farm, like $10/day. A place that doesn’t mess around when it comes to “helping” you lose weight - sort of a “Super 8” of spas. Here’s how it would work. You sign an irrevocable contract stating how much weight you want to lose. Then you are locked in a bare-bones room with only water to drink, no food. Then, no matter how much you beg and cuss, they won’t let you out until you drop the weight. I honestly think there may be a market for this. I know that’s the only thing that would work for me anyway – affordable, effective, bada-boom. 

So back to #58 and our skin.  I brought up the affordable spa thing because our face, our weight, our hair, the way we dress – in a word, vanity, is such a dominant theme in most of our lives, and which also has some pretty scary religious implications! I looked up vanity and found a smorgasbord of reference, none of them good. Click on Read More Below...

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson couldn’t write a bad book if offered a considerable sum of money to do so. Oh wait, I actually think that may have happen. The only book of his that I really didn’t cotton to, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, was comparatively lame. Speaking of which…ever wonder where the phrase “cotton to” came from? I didn’t think so, but of course that will not stop me from edifying you on the etymology. Briefly (please, no need to thank me), cotton was a very soft and “likable” fiber, so by the 17th century cotton evolved to “taking a liking to.”

At this point you’re probably wondering what etymology has to do with Bill Bryson’s latest book, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, and the answer is simple. Everything! In At Home Bryson tracks the etymology (I’m practicing using my new word) of various rooms and features of houses, and the stuff commonly found in them. Specifically he is writing about his home, a former Church of England rectory built in the 19th century. In the process we learn useless minutia such as why cabinet refers both to the advisors to a President and a box full of medicine and cosmetics on the wall of a bathroom, and why toilet water refers both to perfume and the contents of the commode.

In the hands of just about anyone else the topic could be stupefyingly dull, but Bill Bryson can describe drying paint and have you hanging on his every word and laughing yourself to tears. At least that is my opinion, but not everyone agrees, especially with regard to At Home. My husband said he found it dry.

And not everyone becomes as titillated as I at learning that parks arose from a need for more places to bury people. So graveyards were moved from churches to open areas with lots of trees that attracted people. Next thing you know, Charles Darwin is sent about to gather more interesting plants for the cemetery “parks,” which as you know led to a change in how we look at our very existence! Bryson’s diatribe about parks evolved from his exposé on the home garden, or what us “amerkins” call the yard.

The whole issue of dressing rooms and vanities brought up a plethora of puzzling and repugnant stories. For example, Beau Brummell (pictured to the right - who I’ve heard referenced but never really knew who he was) was sort of the Paris Hilton of his time (1800’s). Apparently, he dressed so elegantly that he “attracted a daily audience that included the Prince of Wales, three dukes, a marquis, two earls and others who assembled in his dressing room to watch him bathe, dress and ready himself for a day of looking utterly smashing.” That’s just weird. Click on Read More Below...

From My Garden

The joys of a beautiful organic garden - thanks to my Garden Guru - tomatoes and lettuce - picked today - eaten today:

Jason Minshew and Annie Taylor

JBIRD & COMPANY
jbirdlandscape@gmail.com
512-383-8956
512-799-6723
4018 Clawson Road
Austin, TX  78704

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 57

#57– “Turn the lights off when you leave a room. It saves electricity and helps keep the house cooler.”
(This is my mom’s college graduation photo, which was taken when she was approximately 50 years old and had raised five children. She had also graduated from high school just a few years earlier.)

Our generation is pretty self-righteous about “saving” the environment. Some seem to think this generation invented conservation and environmental consciousness and that environmental heathens are ruining everything. I have a slightly different opinion about that. In the words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and it is us!”

Since the beginning of time everything in our known environment has been evolving, and some of the earth’s characteristics and inhabitants haven’t and won’t survive, probably including us. Which brings me back to mom’s #57, “Turn the lights off when you leave a room. It saves electricity and helps keep the house cooler.”

I suspect that mom had a tiny carbon footprint, as she was religious about recycling and conserving even up till the day she made the ultimate sacrifice and stopped breathing oxygen in and carbon dioxide out. Somewhere along the way I guess I adopted #57 from mom. I am constantly following my hubby around turning off lights, TV’s, radios and anything else that sucks electricity. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not really a very dedicated environmentalist. I just think that we don’t give much credit to the good land stewards and conservationists that have been around for a very long time, like my mom. We didn’t invent this stuff; we’re just looking down the throat of a disaster that has been creeping up on us for a very long time, and now we’re scrambling. This is a good thing. Click on Read More Below...

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

Mary Roach has an amazing curiosity, is a very competent researcher and writer, and is FUNNY (not that dissimilar to Bill Bryson), and these combined elements,  create one hell of a entertaining read. Nearly everyone, including me, went crazy for her first book Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, which was about more than anyone could ever want to know about dead bodies. Then she stumbled into her next book Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife, rebounded pretty good with Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Science And Sex, and now in Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, she’s packed the pages with space travel trivia not ordinarily covered by NASA (or anyone else for that matter).

Roach covers peeing, pooping, farting, barfing, sweating, and sex (acts that significantly rely on gravity, which isn’t readily available in space). She shares much (almost too much) history about the space race between the US and Russia, but since it’s mostly stuff I’d never heard before or have forgotten (“thank you Teflon brain”), it was interesting. She interviewed a wad of ex-astronauts (aren’t they all?) and that was sort of interesting, too.

But the part I liked best was the extraordinary NASA and science focus on trying to help humans function in space. Apparently we’re not meant to go where no man has gone before. The lack of gravity really messes us up, and the length of time it takes to get anywhere is longer than anybody wants to spend with anyone else in a capsule the size of an SUV. Packing for Mars brings to light just how daunting a task this is. As such, I don’t think we’ll need to worry about packing any time soon.

On a final note, I would add that I listened to this book on my iPod and wished I hadn’t. In spite of fascinating factoids, and Mary Roach’s spanking good writing and fab sense of humor, Sandra Burr’s monotone reading of the audible version dang near put me into a coma. Do not listen to Packing for Mars but read it. It’s fun.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 56

(This is the only photo I have of anyone on my dad's side of the family - my namesake, Aunt Sue, and my grandmother Wade, neither of whom I met. Dad had a bunch of brothers too, but no photos of them exist that I'm aware of.)

#56– “Wear white if you want the media to take your picture. They love to photograph people in white.”

Although I’ve always considered this just a mom-ism, now that I’ve thought about it, and done a little research, it makes perfect sense. If you’ve ever watched America’s Next Top Model (guilty confession), you know that they always use a reflective screen to put light on the models faces. I’m assuming that a white shirt has the same effect, and I’ve seen white shirts recommended for photos on the websites of professional photographers.

Of course, as one who will do just about anything to avoid having her photo made, this lesson from mom was more about avoiding the camera: 1.  Mom was such a camera-hog that I back-lashed and tend to avoid having my photo made, and 2.  No matter how hard I suck in my stomach, stand tall, and smile my practice-perfected photo-face, I never look as good as I think I do, and that is just more than I care to reconcile.

I’d hoped there was a more sophisticated word than camera-hog for mom’s craving to be photographed, but all of the words I came up with, narcissist, egocentric, etc., really didn’t apply. Mother was not self-centered, she just liked attention and having her picture made.  There’s not even a clever antonym for photophobic, so I’m making up a new one, photobold, which also isn’t clever, but does give me closure. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, someone who tends to use overly long (pretentious) words is sesquipedalian. Click on Read More Below...

American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center By William Langewiesche

Although it is almost impossible to read, write or talk about 9/11 without getting emotional, I think author William Langewiesche does a commendable job in American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center. Essentially, American Ground is about how the debris from the 9/11 tragedy was dealt with. It’s is also an interesting homage to the people that took an intensely delicate and horrible mess apart and took it away, with dignity.

Langewiesche, almost by accident, was the only journalist given unrestricted access to what was called “The Pile” (the collapsed buildings). Other than the well-executed flying of the planes into the twin-towers, there was little about the disaster or cleanup that happened according to any plan or procedure. There are no procedures for how you deal with commercial airliners flying into 110-story buildings full of people, or how to clean up the resulting destruction.

What Langewiesche portrays in this book is sort of like Nietzsche’s observation, "Out of chaos comes order." The organization that emerged from nowhere, with no authority, to run the rescue and a cleanup effort is a testament to the human spirit. It is amazing what we can do when we have to. There was so little organization in the whole clean-up of the destruction that it was a astonishing that it got done at all – much less as safely and fluidly as reported by Langewiesche. Click on Read More Below...

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 55

(Photo is of me in my Halloween costume - Old Lady Gaga)

#55 – “Always carry a handkerchief. It helps distinguish you from the riffraff.”

Many of the things mom taught me were not as much about utility as avoiding the horrors of commonality. Common is an interesting concept. What is common? Well, by mom’s definition, common is someone that doesn’t have the decency to carry a handkerchief. Of course with the advent of tissues, germ science and our “throw-away” society, we now carry disposable handkerchief’s, Kleenex.

As I typed the word Kleenex, it occurred to me that what I really meant was tissue, but some brands become so entrenched in our vocabulary that we use them generically, like Kleenex, Coke, Xerox and Google. Wondering if there was a word for these types of words (my mind works in truly spooky ways), I Googled and found the word, metonymy. Wiki then proceeded to suck me into its black hole as I further explored polysemy, synecdoche and sobriquet (I adore this word, which means nickname) - but back to mom’s hankies and riffraff.

When I was a kid, I spent a good deal of my time playing in my mother’s closet and drawers (chest of drawers, not under drawers). Her huge walk-in closet was my personal wonderland of dresses, hats and shoes, and her drawers (chest of), were a planet to be explored. I remember her dozens of dainty, perfectly ironed and lacy handkerchiefs; the fabric almost transparent with softness, tatted, and embroidered with initials and flowers. Not long ago I stumbled upon one of mom’s handkerchiefs. Now preserved in a picture frame, it hangs in a guest bedroom – an artifact of a particular, and in some ways very civilized generation. Click on Read More Below...

Science, Par Deux

“The mysticism of the religious visionaries of old arose from an intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality.”

Spanish Philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno

Did you know that “metacognition” is thinking about thinking, and that which allows us to outsmart ourselves - like leaving your credit cards at home when you go shopping? I think I should think about thinking more often. According to Walter Michel, Stanford University professor of psychology, metacognition/discipline is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children. Michel says, “Even the most mundane routines of childhood, not snacking before dinner and saving allowance, are sly exercises in cognitive training. Children are learning to outsmart their desires.” My thoughts on this topic could go really, really deep, but I’ll spare you.

Last year United States Geological Survey scientists in Alaska tracked and documented the longest non-stop migratory bird flight ever recorded. A bar-tailed godwit flew non-stop for 8 days at an average of 35 miles per hour, covering 7,250 miles! Well, I guess if you don’t have to stop to pee…. but on to more important matters, ants.

I’ve always said that humans are the fire ants of the universe. Well apparently I’m more right than I realized as humans and ants are eerily similar. For example, some ants get forced into low-status jobs and are prevented from becoming upwardly mobile by other members of their colony. Non-garbage workers who respond aggressively to the odors that linger on the garbage workers’ bodies confine ant garbage workers, to that thankless task. Hmmmm. In some ant species, the females venture out of the nest, seduce males, drag them back into the nest, snip off their genitals, and toss the rest of him out the door. Sound familiar? Some ant species herd and milk other bugs, take slaves, and farm (growing mushrooms). Oh, and by the way, insect poo poo is call frass. I knew you’d want to know that. Click on Read More Below...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM CHATEAU CROUSE (Click on Green Arrow)

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One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 54

#54 – “Put a soft cloth on the arms of your chairs.  It will keep them from getting so worn.”

 This saying brings to mind doilies, ruffles, faded upholstery and chipped furniture.  Because of my mom’s sense of decorating, our family home took on the style of shabby chic when shabby chic wasn’t so cool (Mom would roll over in her grave if she heard me say this!).  You’d have thought that doilies were a status symbol as we had them on practically every surface.  But with mom, I actually think it was about preserving the integrity of the furniture.  In fact she seemed to measure our wealth in furniture.  I wish I had $100 (accounting for inflation) for every time she said, “Those coffee tables are mahogany!  Just feel how heavy they are!”  Then she would always add, “They came from the furniture store in San Angelo!”  Our furniture was pedigreed.

Mom bought furniture to last a lifetime and, sure enough, some of her furniture is still with us.  It’s been divvied out amongst the five of us kids like treasures.  I always wanted mom’s desk, but I ended up with the “girls” bedroom furniture that bedded and clothed four sisters spread over some 60 years.  This furniture now resides in my guest bedroom.  My son Colt has already staked a claim on it “someday.” I was so pleased when he said he wanted it.

Some things should just never go away, like the very distinct fragrance of my childhood home.  It’s a fragrance that lingers like a spirit in that old bedroom suit.  Not always, but often, when I first walk in the door of our house, I get just a fleeting whiff of our old home and am transported back to my childhood.  It is as if the memories have a fragrance that seeps into the wood and, alas, also into the mattress and box springs.  Yes, I know they both need to be replaced and I know it sounds silly, but some of all of us live in that old mattress.  Perhaps I’ll request that mattress be the kindling on my funeral pyre. Click on Read More Below...

The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2010

Every year I look forward to the release of The Best American Science and Nature Writing like a kid waiting for Christmas – well, actually, that and The Best American Medical Writing and The Best American Sports Writing. The only explanation I can give for this seemly incongruous attraction to science, medicine and sports is that I love to learn. The really ridiculous and pitiful thing is that because I retain almost zero of what I read, I am in a constant state of amazement.  Although I’m only on page 225 of The Best American Science and Nature Writing, I couldn’t wait to share with you the things that commanded my attention and stuff I’ve learned (and re-learned) so far.

“The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose,” John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, Geneticist, Oxford and Cambridge (and pretty dapper dude too - photo to right). I love this quote and think that it so elegantly states a fundamental of a Universe that never ceases to astound.

 “The fate of the planet, from an ecological point of view, is being decided by India and China and not by the United States,” Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus, Princeton. It is indeed a strange feeling to be raised in a country of “world dominance,” and then to wake up one day and realize that America has become just another country.

       Meet Elon Musk, raised in a rather average family in South Africa, but who by the age of 10 was reading 8-10 hours a day, and retaining everything he read. Elon dropped out of the Stanford Physics Ph.D. program at the age of 24 to start and then sell a software company for $307 million, then some weeks later started PayPal, which he eventually sold for $1.5 billion, so he could build rockets at his company, SpaceX. Elon wants to go to Mars because he’s fairly certain that humans are going to destroy earth, and he wants to be ready to hop off when necessary. It gets even better - Click on Read More Below...

The Wave by Susan Casey

I should have written my review of The Wave before I researched the author and the book. I would have said that it was one of those books I just wallowed in like a warm comforter on a cold day. I was hypnotized by the topic, impressed by the writing and charmed by the reader (I listened to the audio version). I would also have said that I finished the book feeling rather hopeless, the way that shows on TV about giant meteors make me feel. It may kill us all, but probably not, but you should be scared anyway.  But let’s back up a little.

The Wave is of course about waves – rogue waves, killer waves, tsunamis, just plain ole’ big-ass waves as tall as 5-story buildings - as told from the perspective of scientist, seafarers and surfers. The underlying thread or threat being, global warming may be making waves bigger, or there may have always been huge waves lurking out there, and what difference does it make. Having been raised in the desert, I find the ocean just short of terrifying. Also mom told me that when she was pregnant with me she had a very frightening “boat in a storm” experience, so I’m hard-wired for fear of large bodies of water, which of course meant that I had to read this book. Click on Read More Below...

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 53

#53 – “Add a little milk to bowls of soup right before you serve.  The milk will cool the soup to just the right temperature, and give it a rich flavor and texture.”

This morning, as I often do when I’m trying to decide what to write about, I called my husband on his cell and asked him to give me a number between 52 and 100.  He was in the bedroom; I was in the living room.  “Eighty-seven,” he said, and hung up.  When I saw #87, I smiled.

Back before dairy became the bane of our existence (and ironically just about everyone was thin), whole milk was the standard and served in our home with regularity and in abundance.  In fact, other than water, iced tea and milk were pretty much the only liquids served in our home.    We didn’t have soft drinks, orange juice, alcohol or anything else in a bottle.  I remember with vibrant clarity the first time I saw a pitcher of red Kool Aid at a friend’s home.  I felt as though magic had been performed.  I also felt as though I had been born into the wrong family. Click on Read More Below...

Happy Halloween To My Favorite Little Monsters!

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One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 52

#52 – “Keep your money in your shoes. That way you don’t have to carry a purse.”

Me, Dorothy, Gloria, Honey and Mom (seated) around 1984.

Not all of the one hundred things my mom taught me a million times seem nuggets of brilliance until closer examination.  Mom was a very practical gal. She knew that one should always have some cash on hand (or foot as it were) … Wow I just had an epiphany! I don’t remember my mom carrying a purse! How does a woman not carry a purse, and why did I have to reach the age of 42, OK 62, to remember that she didn’t carry a purse!

Actually, that explains a lot. Now I know why mom’s car looked like a terribly untidy house. She had to carry everything she needed in her car because she didn’t carry a purse! She had makeup, perfume, pens, pencils, jewelry, checkbooks and glasses on the front seat, and a stack of household bills and other paperwork sliding around on the passenger floor - everything women usually carry in their purses. This also explains why my sisters and I have an aversion to purses. 

Dorothy: “Did you see my new purse?”

Me: “Yeah I saw it. It’s small. Really small, but not as small as my new purse!”

Dorothy: “Where’d you get that?”

Me: “I got it at the getting place. Eat your heart out.” Click on Read More Below...

Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself – A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace, by David Lipsky

In 2009 Book Goddesses member (and my personal barometer of “cool”), Loralee Martin, picked one of David Foster Wallace’s books Consider the Lobster as our book-of-the-month selection.  She chose this in remembrance of Wallace who had recently committed suicide.  I enthusiastically agreed, all the while thinking, “Who the hell is David Foster Wallace?”  Turns out if you don’t know of Wallace nor have read his book Infinite Jest, you’re probably from the shallow end of the gene pool or at the very least not well-read.  Time magazine chose Infinite Jest as one of the “All-Time 100 Greatest Novels” covering the period 1923–2006; so of course I had to learn as much about him as quickly as possible.  Fate helped out when David Lipsky, author of Absolutely American and contributing editor to Rolling Stone and a ton of other publications, published his strange but interesting verbatim five-day interview with Wallace, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself.

When I say verbatim, I literally mean verbatim.  Evidently Lipsky took the tape-recorded interviews to a stenographer and said, “transcribe this please;” added a few comments of his own (very few) and voilà the book was born. Don’t get me wrong.  Lipsky is a smart writer and an interesting guy himself, but I couldn’t make out if this book was opportunism (riding on the rubberneckers of Wallace’s suicide – mea culpa) or just a really interesting homage to a brilliant but tortured soul (a description that has become a cliché). Click on Read More Below...

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 51

#51 – “Always use a tablecloth with a bed sheet under it. The cloth gives a warm feeling to the setting, and the extra padding helps keeps the noise down.”

Two very specific memories surface as I ponder #51 of the one hundred things my mom taught me a million times.

(1)  Mom was a Nazi about proper-table-setting, and

(2)  Our house was always very quiet.

I never quite realized how quiet my childhood was until I became quite old (sorry, couldn’t resist). I was the last child in a family of five, and apparently an accident since mom as 40 and dad 60 when I was born. My closest sibling (brother) graduated and left for college when I was in the first grade. I don’t even remember my three sisters living at home. So during my childhood mom and dad were older, my siblings were all married or in college, TV hadn’t really taken hold, we didn’t have dogs, and the radio was only played at low volume, late in the evening while mom and dad played dominos, quietly. It was quiet, too quiet for a kid.

So I was enthralled by the chaos and racket in my friends’ home.  I’d go over to their houses, most of which contained multiple kids and dogs, and it felt like some absurd and entertaining circus of humanity, at least compared to my home. Click on Read More Below

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

The thing about critiquing books is that you feel the obligation to be critical. Be that as it may (I love saying that), critiquing House Rules by Jodi Picoult (pronounced pee-koe) is a challenge. I tend to be a little snobbish about what I call “serial writers,” authors publishing one or more books a year. I’ve given up reading Grafton, Grisham, and a few others I’m too pompous to admit, simply because they are so commercially successful. I have an innate aversion to being mainstream.  Jodi Picoult’s books tend to be the exception because she writes exceptionally well about morally provocative topics, i.e., a child who doesn’t want to give her dying sister a kidney (My Sister’s Keeper – a personal favorite), the trauma of a horrific school shooting (Nineteen Minutes – another favorite).

In House Rules, Picoult takes on a typically hot topic. Jacob is an eighteen-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome who is accused of murdering his social worker. There’s a younger brother suffering from lack of attention from a mother struggling to maintain a life for her child with a disability, an incompetent but lovable attorney, a barely there dad who was in fact never there, and the social worker’s asshole boyfriend. I’m not sorry that I read House Rules (Picoult’s books are impossible to dislike), but I did finish it feeling a little angry. Here’s why:

1.     Obviously the book would have only been 50-pages long if someone simply had asked Jacob, “So Jacob, what happened?” But it was irritating that no one did – not the mom, the detective on the case, nor Jacob’s attorney!

2.     How the story would have played out if Jacob had told what happened might have made a more engaging story, i.e., how the law would deal with it, the kids' relationship with their reappearing father, etc.

So read the book? Sure. But if pretty good just isn’t good enough for you, read “My Sister’s Keeper,” or “Nineteen Minutes.” Picoult shines in those two. House Rules left me feeling like it just wasn’t leaving quickly enough.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 50

Photo is of my dad (middle in tie) at the grocery store he owned in Oak Cliff, Dallas, 1930's. My brother said that dad gave food to many, many people during the depression.

#50 - “When mentioning several people in a sentence with yourself, always list yourself last.”  To know if you should use “me” or “I” leave everyone else out of the sentence, and if it sounds right with “me” use “me,” otherwise use “I.”

You’ve heard me say before that mom was all about appearances. Well, she believed with ever fiber of her being that what came out of one’s mouth could make or break one. I may have been born and raised in West Texas where “done went” and “ain’t” are part of the local vernacular and have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but even as a small child I winced when someone said them.  I still do.

Aside from the grammatical and appearances issues, I just think that #50 is a really handy mnemonic.  And “mnemonic” is a word I adore. Mnemonic.  Mnemonic.  I love saying it, but occasions to use mnemonic don’t come up that often. I mean how do you segue from, “How’s work SueAnn?” to “Good. Working too hard.  You know how it is, but let me tell you about my favorite mnemonic.” Click on Read More Below...

Mount Holyoke Frances Perkins Program

Thanks to Very Smart Gal – Lynn Meredith for telling me about the Frances Perkins Program at Mount Holyoke, described on the Mount Holyoke website as a “specially designed program for women of non-traditional age who wish to complete the requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree.”  Since my mom didn’t even graduate from high school until she was over 40 and had five kids, this program has special meaning for me. I virtually grew up on college campuses as mom went on to get her bachelor's and enough hours for several master’s degrees.

I love this description of the Mount Holyoke Frances Perkins Program:

“Recognizing that the quest for knowledge does not end, Mount Holyoke College welcomes women who follow unconventional paths to its gates and through The Frances Perkins Program opens the nation's oldest women's college to students of nontraditional age. Women who have dependents or are veterans are also eligible to apply for admission through this program.”

As you may recall from my August 1 review of Kristin Downey’s book about Mary Frances Perkins, I was astounded that I knew nothing about this Very Smart Gal who was the first woman appointed to a Presidential Cabinet. I am happy to know that someone else recognizes the amazing accomplishments of Frances Perkins, and I am truly inspired by the Frances Perkins Program at Mount Holyoke. 

Thanks Lynn!

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 49

#49 - “Always stick up for your sons/daughters-in-law.”
Even when I was a little kid I noticed that my mom was always very, very nice to her four sons-in-law and one daughter-in-law. Even under the best of circumstances that must have taken a certain commitment. You know how it is. No one is ever as perfect as your perfect child. 

Interestingly, although I noticed how nice mom was to Jack, Carroll, Bill, Cathy and my multitudinous husbands (I’ll bet you’re wondering how multitudinous), I didn’t particularly notice if they deserved her kindness. They could have been horrible and mom wouldn’t have ever said so. Whether she thought it will remain a mystery that she took to her grave. Click on Read More Below...

The Glass Rainbow: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke

My friend Orlinda Naranjo (The Honorable Judge of the 419^th District Court) once said to me, “You read to learn don’t you?” Although I’d never thought about it, her comment ended up being very insightful, and getting insight into one’s self is always a benchmark on the meandering trail of our lives.  I didn’t learn a thing from The Glass Rainbow. I was however, reminded of how eloquent James Lee Burke can be, which is why I often pick his novels to listen to when the hubby and I are making a road –trip together.  He, and many of my other closest friends, read to “escape” and/or for entertainment.  Don’t get me wrong, I like to be entertained too, but I am highly entertained by real life. Whatever, SueAnn. Just tell us what the book is about and if it’s good.

OK. The Glass Rainbow is Burk’s most recent in a long series of who done it’s,  staring Dave Robicheaux, a rode hard and put up wet detective in New Iberia, Louisiana.  This one is good, one of his best, but not as good as Tin Roof Blowdown. There are the usual suspects, a couple of murders, a family member endangered, twisting plot, depraved characters, yadda, yadda. But in my opinion, there are only three things about this book that make it worth the time: Click on Read More Below...

Gals Graze

(Andrea Ball, Kay Rawlins and Dean Lofton)

Everything I know about Andrea Ball came from her writing in the Austin American-Statesman, and the 50 minutes we spent together at lunch Thursday – oh yes, and her hilarious blog, Real Estate Rumble, where she says she is “a nobody with a husband, two kids and three dogs, and has absolutely no business doing a real estate blog.” Only a skilled writer can make non-profit news anything less than a cure for insomnia. And as the writer for the Charity Chat blog, Andrea’s that gal, and now I see why. Yeah she smart, but it’s more than that, and I think it’s her exceptional honesty that at first seemed almost radical, “When I got your email inviting me to lunch, I thought, ‘who the heck is this person,’” then intensely interesting, “the Statesman got so many press releases from non-profits they had to do something with them, so they landed on my desk and Charity Chat was born,” to inspiring, “one of my babies was born so premature it wasn’t cute or sweet, it was just scary looking.” What you get from Andrea is what she is, and I really like what she is. Kay Rawlins spent 10 years in commercial banking in the UK, then completed her degrees in both childcare and education and business management and owned and ran two successful children's nurseries while also tutoring college students in childcare. Since moving to Austin in 2004, Kay has been involved in many fundraising events for various non-profit organizations, and currently serves on the board of the Center for Child Protection, which is where I met her. Kay and I were pulled together by some mysterious energy force and feel deeply in like, or at least I fell in like and she is gracious. Anyway, she and her husband own the Austin Aztex professional soccer team, where she manages a bunch of young, muscular, and as Kay explains, “extremely polite” men. Is it hot in here or is it just me? Dean Lofton is a new friend about whom I know little, but have staked a Very Smart Gals claim on nevertheless. Actually, you don’t have to know too much about Dean to be impressed. She’s a publicist, a writing instructor (gulp), and married to a Jazz musician, Jeff Lofton. You must check him out at Ruth’s Chris, Thursday nights – tell Bill Andrews [owner] I sent you. As you can see in the photo, she’s also a gorgeous red headed vamp! Dean does a writing workshop called “Writing Your Life As A Woman” she describes as “A class taught in the style of journal writing workshop - guides women to write their stories and discover their voice - gentle encouragement in a non-academic, creative environment - no writing experience necessary." Sounds like wonderful therapy, and it’s got to be fun with Dean the class leader. Go to her link and read the “Contract For Writing Your Life As A Woman©” You’ll see what I mean. 

What a great bunch of Very Smart Gals!

From SueAnn’s Science Desk

Every now and then, because I am intrigued by science, albeit superficially, you’ll have to suffer through my yammering about same. Or just skip over it. So here are a few of the tidbits that got my attention recently:

What the hell is the AAAS? I have no idea, but their hosting a “Women in Science” panel discussion. I detest acronyms, and for the life of me cannot figure out why any organization would use them. They tell you nothing, convey no meaning, and carry no passion.  Let’s see, the American Association of Animal Science? Anal Science? I went to their website and it doesn’t even tell what AAAS means on their homepage! I had to go into their website to find out that they’re the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Thanks for letting me vent.

Researchers have long known that laughter boosts the immune system, lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, and reduces stress, but they are now claiming that it decreases appetite at the same level as a gym workout. Laugh more, eat less. Sounds good to me, these aught to be worth a few calories. "I feel sorry for people who don’t drink, smoke or overeat. Because someday they’re going to be in a hospital bed, dying, and they won’t know why.” (Redd Foxx). "They say animal behavior can warn you when an earthquake is coming. Like the night before that last earthquake hit, our family dog took the car keys and drove to Arizona." (Bob Hope).