Thursday, April 24, 2008

Teen Reading List Treasure

Last week I happened to see a small notice at the bottom of the weekly Illinois State Librarian newsletter about the latest annual Read for a Lifetime teen reading list. Just to see what is recommended for teens these days, I checked the list and was astounded to see that I have read 6 of the 25 books fairly recently as a card-carrying adult. And I've been wanting to read most of the others. So, this list is definitely not limited to "young adult" books, thank heaven!

After I saw a few of my favorites there, like Persepolis and A Thousand Splendid Suns, I decided to read the whole list myself. First up - the graphic novel version of The 9/11 Commission Report. After I saw how thick the original version was, I couldn't bring myself to wade through the 567 pages, but the 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon was another matter. I couldn't say it was enjoyable to read, but I was fascinated by the presentation and appalled at the conclusions drawn.

Next up - The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite authors. If you saw the movie, Smoke Signals, it was adapted from his book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. The Absolutely True book is from my library's teen collection and when the teen librarian saw that I was reading it, she raved that it was the "funniest and saddest" book she had read in a long time.

The list even has a book about Lincoln, so that was the clincher. Stay tuned as I read my way through the list, blogging all the way.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Marlee Matlin TV Movie Tonight

I just saw that CBS has a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie tonight, Sweet Nothing in My Ear, about a couple arguing "about having surgery for their deaf son." Jeff Daniels and Marlee Matlin star in this adaptation of a play by Stephen Sachs - and be prepared for lots of weepy commercials for Hallmark cards. In my family, we always try to make plans for the women to get together to watch these. Let's blog about it later!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Life Stories


Just finished Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, a memoir by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. She spent summers on her grandparents' farm, where food was plentiful and came from your own work on your own land.

I always like to read accounts of a hard life from my own comfy bed! This was similar to listening to an old-timer's stories of walking to school five miles in 10-below weather - uphill both ways. My mother-in-law has a million of these stories. Fortunately, her granddaughter thought to get one of those memory books with questions to answer about how your life was lived. Most of the stories are written down there - good material for a book someday.

Here's one: One summer day on her homestead farm in North Dakota around 1915 when she was barely grown, M was sent to retrieve a food scale lent to a neighbor a few miles away. She rode a horse bareback to get the scale and began to ride home carrying the scale. Along the way, the horse was startled and reared, throwing M and the scale to the ground. She knew she was seriously injured, because she was in pain and couldn't stand. The horse calmed down and began to browse the prairie grass next to a nearby fence. M managed to grab the scale and crawl to the fence where she finally was able to get to the top rail so that she could call the horse and shift herself onto its back. Then she slowly rode home with the scale. When she got to her farmyard, white-faced and slumped on the horse, her mother got her into the house. No doctor was sent for, and she spent several weeks in bed. Eventually, she was able to go back to her farm chores where she was sorely needed. Since there were no boys in the family, and she was the oldest and ablest girl, M was her father's main helper with the cattle and horses. For the rest of her life, she remained in robust health, and is still living today at age 108.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Earthquake!

Got up this morning as usual and decided to check my e-mail before heading to work. What do you know - a message from #1 son saying that he was up watching a DVD around 4:30 am (!) and noticed his building shaking. Not a semi on his street - it was an honest-to-gosh earthquake! Several miles away, we were dead to the world and didn't notice a thing.

Even though we Midwesterners like to think that quakes only happen to people on the west coast (who probably deserve them - after all, they don't have tornadoes or hurricanes), they happen to us, too. The first earthquake recorded in Chicago was more than 200 years ago.

This has been an exciting week in this town. First, a wild cougar is shot to death in a city neighborhood full of kids and pets, then a 5.2 earthquake. Can't wait to see what's next!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Plastic, Plastic, Plastic

I'm remembering the movie, The Graduate, when somebody gives career advice to Dustin Hoffman as the new college grad, "Just one word. Plastics." (see it on YouTube here).

Environmentalist daughter just dropped off some Ecobags to use for produce when shopping. Another way to eliminate the ubiquitous plastic bags that make their way even into "green" stores like Whole Foods.

But here's the question: how can I stop depending on plastic bags for things like wet garbage, drippy spinach leaves from the produce mister at the store, etc..

How did people in the olden days dispose of wet, smelly garbage not fit for the compost pile? What do you do with vegetables or fruits that need to stay in the fridge for days or weeks, but are too large or bulky for airtight containers (most of which are also plastic but reusable)? Readers, what do you know about this?

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Kale is the New Zucchini

We all know the health benefits of kale, the dark green leafy vegetable that belongs to the cabbage family. I have grown kale in my garden for the last couple of summers, but my husband and I are almost the only people I know who actually eat the stuff.

Kale is amazingly hardy and grows abundantly without much attention. If you cut it, it just grows back - like leaf lettuce. So, once the kale is ready in July, I go out with a couple of plastic grocery store bags, cramming them full of only the very biggest kale leaves from the two half rows I planted, and repeat every two weeks until AFTER the last frost, which is supposed to make the leaves even more tasty. A bag or two of kale leaves, after washing, stripping the stems, and cooking to wilt in just the water left on the leaves, gives you enough kale to fill most of a quart-size ziplock bag for the freezer. I've still got half a dozen of these bags in my freezer now, and I just planted kale again - only one half row this year.

I try to convince others in my family of the benefits of kale, but can only get one daughter to take a little bunch once in awhile for her great minestrone soup. Just like gardeners with tons of zucchini in August and September will thrust a bag of free veggies (!) on friend and foe alike, I want to do the same with kale, BUT..... Zucchini is fairly tasteless on its own and can even be used for muffins and quick breads. Kale, on the other hand, has a "robust" taste - not for the timid - and has to stand mostly on its own. Here's the formula (note that I don't say "recipe") for some good potato-kale soup, similar to Caldo Verde:

1. Saute a bunch of chopped onions and 1-2 minced garlic cloves with some leftover small ham cubes (or in olive oil) in a soup pot until wilted.

2. Peel 3 large or 4 small all purpose potatoes and cut into small chunks.

3. Throw the potatoes into the pot and add a quart or so of some kind of stock.

4. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are almost soft.

5. Add 1 1/2 - 2 cups of chopped cooked kale and simmer another 10 minutes.

6. Season to taste and serve. This is good topped with grated parmesan cheese.

Does anyone have any other good recipes for kale? I'm desperately interested!

Friday, April 4, 2008

Trip to Bountiful

Last night we went to a performance of the Horton Foote play, Trip to Bountiful. I've loved that story every since I saw the movie version with Geraldine Page some years back. One of my sisters even got me a cd of the movie soundtrack autographed by the music composer, bless her!

So, the Goodman Theatre in town put on a series this year: the complete Horton Foote plays. A friend at work knew I wanted to see Bountiful, which had gotten rave reviews, but is almost at the end of its run. She gave me an Internet code for half-price tickets if you log on to buy after 10am on the day of performance. I got two tickets and off we went, up to the back of the mezzanine, but still excellent seats.

The mean ol' daughter-in-law was played by the playwright's daughter, Hallie Foote, and she was good at being bad. Since I knew the story, I wasn't expecting to be surprised by anything, but Lois Smith as Momma/Miz Watts built the character up to the final scene that left me in tears. I know I've been thinking about my mother-in-law who is now in a nursing home at a very great age. She often asks when she can "go home." Sometimes she means her old apartment in our 2-flat, but sometimes she means the homestead farm in North Dakota where she grew up. Seeing Miz Watts walking around her old broken down Texas farmhouse in Bountiful for the last time, saying goodbye to the place where she felt really alive and loved was just ...too much. Sometimes you're glad to be sad.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Slackers on Film and Slacker Theory

Today at work I had to come up with a theme of materials related to the film we were showing. The film was (wince) Knocked Up, so I decided to see what else was available on slackers. Then I remembered how Extreme English said she really laughed at Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Apparently slackers have been a very rich source of comedy!

The Free Dictionary had a nice slacker film list to add to what I already found. So, if you're in the mood, try one of these:
Wayne's World
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Breakfast Club
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
School of Rock
Back to the Future
The Simpsons
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

I also like the Free Dictionary's description of slacker theory:
managing to survive by doing things at the last possible moment improves intellect as a compensatory way to cope, fashioning a wily yet lazy person. Similarly, a disorganized lifestyle may be superior to an organized one from the pragmatic perspective that a slacker will adapt to disorderliness by improving skills at memorization and at effortlessly rummaging, whereas actively organizing would require serious effort.

If that's the case, I was definitely a slacker all through school daze. Interesting how I've reformed and become a professional organizer of information - a librarian!