Thursday, August 30, 2007

Steve Almond “Not that you Asked” Special Excerpt Booklet (Book Review)

From reading other reviews of this book on LibraryThing and from briefly skimming through the book I did not expect to enjoy it as much as it did. After all the first two essays are about a young adolescent boys early forays into sexual experimentation so I expected mostly prurient humor. I certainly did not expect to laugh out loud several times (as I did). It turned out that the first two essays dealt with a more universal adolescent experience, that of feeling self conscious and in the spotlight. I felt that Almond dealt with these two admittedly mortifying adolescent experiences with intelligence and wit.

I found the third essay “How to write a sex scene to be relatively weak but his essay “Why I crush on Vonnegut which made up bulk of his booklet was his strongest essay out of the five that made up the booklet. It turns out to be a criticism of conventional literary critique and Almond opinions of why Vonnegut remains relevant to readers even though he is not universally loved by critics.

Of course I looked forward to reading the imaginatively titled “Ham for Chanukah” which turned out to be about the effect that the Almond Family’s rather lukewarm and dysfunction holiday celebrations had on the author growing up and why now he is now practicing his Jewish faith with his family with more faithfulness than he experienced growing up.

This is how most of the essays turned out to be. Underlying most of his essays was a commentary of what is was like growing up in the suburbs of California as a member of generation X, which as a generation Xer myself spoke volumes to me. I will definitely read the rest of the book when it is released.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Boundaries? We Don't Need No Stinkin Boundaries!

Sometimes since having kids I feel like I've lost all my privacy. Take two days ago. I get up and get my children out of bed and I'm still in my pajamas. My not-quite-five year old Stacy London in Training grabs my breast and say "Mommy! You have to put on your booby holder so your boobies don't fall down!" What to do, what to do about fondling four year olds.......

Friday, August 24, 2007

My Day So Far

Definitely there are good days and bad days when you are a stay at home mom with two pre-school aged children. Let me illustrate by giving a glimpse of my day:

8:30 My daughter wakes me up. I'm recovering from cold that is threatening to get worse and am worse for the wear.

8:35 I go to get my son. My daughter protests about this.

8:45 I start to make breakfast. My daughter asks for "eggy-loos".

9:00 I serve breakfast. My daughter informs me that eggs are "yucky".

9:30 I check my email.

10:00 *Still* checking email. Because I'm looking for a job as a librarian and apparently won't even be considered if I don't keep up with the profession, I subscribe to several professional blogs and listservs. Where do people find the time to post this stuff!!!!!!!!

10:30 I gather up my daughters supplies to take to preschool open house this afternoon.

10:45 Take out meet for dinner. All that is available is large packages of chicken and ground beef.

11:00 Have bath so I don't frighten daughter's teachers.

11:30 Try to get children into bath. Unfortunately "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast" has just come on so daughter does not comply.

11:50 "Maggie and Ferocious Beast" finished so daughter comes up for bath.

12:10 Kids won't come out of bath.

12:20 Kids finally come out.

12:30 Kids fight for snuggles.

12:40 Go downstairs to make lunch. Daughter requests macaroni and cheese "long on the side"Try to hurry so I can take kids to Target and library depending on when Schwan's man. comes.

12:45 Discover that son has painted dining room floor with lemonade and salt.

12:50 Mop dining room floor. Dining room floor needs vacuuming. Vacuum dining room and living room. Find that daughter has taken out every single Lincoln log.

1:05 Serve lunch. Am told that I used "wrong" macaroni.

1:30 Chicken still frozen solid. Consider buying dinner kit from Schwan's man when he comes.

2:30 Still waiting for Schwan's man. Consider buying nothing from him this month to spite him much to dismay of my children who would like me to buy 1,000 gallons of "Summers Dream" ice cream.

3:00 Schwan's man still not here. Partially thawed chicken for supper it is.....

9:00 P.M. Boys oh boys, here's the Schwan's man!
Here is my a picture of my kids camping in Minnesota. Although it wasn't really a vacation, I can't say our trip wasn't memorable, what with the stomach flu, car troubles, rain, heat waves, and wasp stings.