Unraveled Wednesday: 1/31/24

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers on this last Wednesday in January. I have made progress on the Funfetti Hitchhiker, but I'm still two rows and a bind-off away from completion. Then there is also blocking and baking a matching Funfetti cake for a photo shoot, so I'm sparing you from yet another photo this week of knitting that looks almost like last week. You did convince me that ribbons were a pretty dumb idea (but in the nicest of ways)! Instead, I've compiled a list of other "making" I've been doing this week:

• dinner (every damn night)
• grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch
• the decision to finally buy a new printer
• a monumental effort to clean out the computer desk (which yielded two bags of trash)
• the effort to find out where to recycle old printers (Staples but they weren't happy about it)
• progress on the three NetGalley books I need to finish

And because every blog post needs a photo, I also made a purchase that I hope will serve me well through this year's election nonsense. 

I've already had my fill of political discussions with a few people and I may just resort to carrying this mug around with me. In a foolish move, I sent my "I Just Want to Do Some Knitting and Pretend Trump Is Not President" mug (it was a real thing!) to Goodwill after the 2020 election. I was too busy dancing in the street to remember that he could run for a second term, but I will buy another one if I have to.

I did read a great book last week, The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers. After several failed attempts to read two of Dave Eggers' books (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and A Hologram for the King), I gave up on him, figuring that I just didn't want to read about existential crises. But when I saw that he had won the Newbery Medal for The Eyes and the Impossible I decided that it was worth a try. It certainly was.

Johannes is a dog that lives in a large coastal park and he proclaims that he can run at the speed of light. There are also three bison that live in an enclosure in the park; they are Keepers of the Equilibrium. The bison have tasked Johannes with being The Eyes and reporting back to them what is going on in the park. He is assisted by a squirrel, a raccoon, a pelican, and Bertrand the seagull. Then changes begin to happen and Johannes has some decisions to make. The author warns in his introduction that" ... most crucially, no animals symbolize people. It is a tendency of the human species to see themselves in everything, to assume all living things, animals in particular, are simply corollaries to humans, but in this book, that is not the case." Sorry, Dave, it was hard for me not to apply some symbolism.

Charlotte's Web is one of my favorite books and will always be my benchmark for animal stories. The Eyes and the Impossible doesn't quite reach Charlotte status but it is a darn good book. With a little weirdness, some humor, excellent writing, wonderful characters, and a strong plot, I can't think of any reasons not to read this book. You can treat yourself to terrific narration by Ethan Hawke and listen to the audiobook. The only things you might miss with that are some exceptional illustrations by Shawn Harris that other reviewers have raved about. I'm going to the library as soon as I finish writing this to borrow the hardcover version so I can see the illustrations and read the book again. You should definitely consider doing the same thing. Four and a half stars rounded up.

What are you making and reading this week? 

Unraveled Wednesday: 1/24/24

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers with the Funfetti Hitchhiker, but in an effort to keep from boring you with a photo that looks much the same as the previous week, this one is slightly different. While I've been knitting, I've wondered what it might look like if I laced ribbon through the yarnover rows. 

After seeing this, I'm not sure that ribbon adds anything. First, I'm not sure what I would do with the ends of the ribbon. Maybe just fold them back and tack them down with a few stitches? I only tried light blue and pink ribbons because that's all I had, but there are lots of differently colored speckles in the yarn - purple, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, and hot pink. I think it would detract from the lovely yarn if I used multiple ribbons with all of those colors. So I guess I'm leaning away from ribbon, but if you have any thoughts, please feel free to share them. I have 10 more teeth to go; hopefully, that will happen before next week. 

I spent my reading time last week on two NetGalley books. The first one is The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes. That great sheep on the cover piqued my interest, and the book didn't disappoint. Caoilinn Hughes has written a lovely tale of sisterhood in which three of the orphaned Flattery sisters come together to find their oldest sister Olwen who has disappeared without a word to anyone. Each of the sisters is different and has a distinctive personality and story. Olwen is a fervent geology professor and Maeve is a caterer and cookbook writer. (The descriptions of her food are wonderful!) Rhona is a high-powered political science professor and poor Nell has cobbled together a living from adjunct positions in the United States. I enjoyed reading about several of the sisters more than others, but they each have their ideas of what is important to care about, whether it is environmental cataclysm, sustainability, citizens' assemblies, or philosophy as a way to reach meaningful goals. Each of the sisters has a Ph.D., but Maeve is quick to tell people that hers is an honorary degree. One of the things that I appreciated the most was that each woman and their interactions are written with very few male characters. I don't have anything against the male gender but it's delightfully refreshing to read about four women finding their paths with very little interference or influence from men. This book will be published on April 16, 2024.

Books that reveal medical research and information through families are interesting, informative, and heartbreaking at the same time. A Fatal Inheritance by Lawrence Ingrassia is no exception. We learn about the research of Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni, beginning in the 1960s when cancer was considered to be caused by very bad luck but very little was known about real causes. Through their research, the doctors discovered Li-Fraumeni syndrome, an alteration in the TP53 gene. This gene provides instructions to make tumor protein 53, which when properly functioning acts to suppress tumors. The author, Lawrence Ingrassia experienced things in a much more personal way. Cancer killed his mother, brother, and sisters, in terrible and tragic ways. Many of the family members had multiple types of cancer, with some of them beginning at very young ages. After genetic testing, the author was found to be one of the few members of his family that did not have the abnormal gene. When Ingrassia's brother Paul (also a fellow journalist) died after having lung, prostate, and pancreatic cancer, Lawrence felt compelled to tell their family's painful story in parallel with that of Drs. Li and Fraumeni.

This is a difficult book to read, mainly because of the incredibly painful family history of the Ingrassia family. But it may also be the best way to learn about genes and cancer so we can always remember that there are real people behind genetic research. It will be published on May 14, 2024. 

What are you making and reading this week? 

Read With Us: It's a New Winter Book

Today's the day we announce a new Read With Us book for winter! You might already be aware of this if you were able to attend the last Zoom discussion for The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, but now everyone will know. Would you like to read a book that has been called "risky yet resoundingly successful"? One with "vigorously expressed and argued social and political ideas"? A Pulitzer Prize finalist in the Fiction category in 1999? Then please join us in reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. 

The reaction when Kym announced this book during the Zoom discussion was quite enthusiastic! I'm anxious to read it again; when I read it in 2000, I only gave it three stars but didn't write a review, so I have no idea what I was thinking about the book 24 years ago. I do remember being so angry at the father in the book that I had to put it down for a while. 

Kym, Carole, and I will be talking about the book, giving additional information, and doing promotional posts throughout February. Discussion day for The Poisonwood Bible is scheduled for Tuesday, March 19, 2024, at 7:00 pm Eastern time, so mark your calendars. We'll ask questions on our blogs that day and then host the always fun, educational, and entertaining Zoom discussion.

The hardcover, Kindle, and audio versions of the book are all available from my library without any wait, and the ebook is available on Hoopla. Prices for the hardcover, paperback, and Kindle versions are reasonably priced at Amazon and I'm sure your local bookseller could order a copy for you if you're lucky enough to have a local bookseller. 

I'm really looking forward to the discussion of The Poisonwood Bible, so I do hope you'll Read With Us!

Barbie

I'm very late to the Barbie movie party, but I finally watched it over the weekend. It was fun, a little weird, over the top, a bit more than I expected, and had one great part that I can't stop thinking about. If you've seen the movie, you probably already guessed that it's America Ferrera's speech. 

"It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.

You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know."

Frustration, honesty, unrealistic expectations, contradictions - this monologue had it all and said it so well. So well, in fact, that it snapped Barbie out of her depression and enabled her to see the solution to the male dominance that Ken has brought to Barbie Land. Obviously, a speech isn't going to solve all the issues in the real world, and I'm willing to bet that men might have their own version of the speech. But I hope that all of you have stopped tying yourselves in knots and have found (or maybe still finding) ways to be yourselves.

Make it a good Monday!

Miracles

I have a busy day today with lots of driving and appointments, but I read an article in the Washington Post the other day that stopped me in my tracks. (I've gifted this article to you, so it should not be behind a paywall.) Some of you may have read it, but I wanted to share just in case you hadn't seen it.

After I started it, I wondered who the author was, and upon checking, I was not surprised to find that it was authored by Anne Lamott. She writes, "My spirits are regularly flattened by the hardships of the world, of our country and of the people I love..." but in this piece, she reminded me about hope and miracles. Whether that is in the form of bigger underwear, Oreos, or quotes from Einstein and Martin Luther King, I hope you've got miracles around you and you're able to see them.

A Gathering of Poetry: January 2024

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry. I came across this poem in the Washington Post Book Club Newsletter last week. The author's debut volume of poetry, A History of Half-Birds, was selected by Maggie Smith for the 2023 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. I can't tell you exactly why I liked this poem so much, but there are quite a few of my grandmothers' characteristics included - collections of roosters in the kitchen, a keyboard that we played our melodies on, and tins of butter cookies. One grandmother's tin actually contained cookies and the other's was filled with sewing supplies. Both were wonderful.

Patients Regain Song Before Speech
by Caroline Harper New

So many lengths of catgut can be strung
from a body. Each body could contain hundreds
of orchestras, Mozart insists against my grandmother's skin.
I believe some part of her body still vibrates
beneath all its soft battles and sinews, and Mozart
understands. He is praised for the silence
between his notes. No one knows the reason
for his untimely death, if you can call death
a simple matter of bones, not the thick oil of memory left
on the fridge handle, the kitchen window
where she smashed the gnats. My grandmother
never learned to cook, but she filled her kitchen with hundreds
of roosters, perched in wait for the day she could break
their ceramic silence. Battalions arranged in the bellies
of unused appliances, or riding the spine
of the keyboard I never saw her play. She loved the button
that looped Eine kleine Nachtmusik through plastic speakers.
We loved to pound our own melodies over Mozart's
masterpiece, over her stories. I don't know who to blame
for the silence, so I sing. Can you hear me, Mema?
Mozart is the only one who understands.
Over take-out subs and tins of butter cookies, I hope
he is scribbling down your stories, and when his quill
strikes the words you are trying to speak,
I hope the rooster he plucked it from screams wildly.

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New, Caroline Harper. "Patients Regain Song Before Speech. A History of Half-Birds: Poems. Milkweed Editions, 2024. 

You can read more about the poet here. 

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Thanks for reading and joining us for our monthly Gathering of Poetry. You are more than welcome to add your link below if you would like to share one of your favorite poems. The more the merrier!

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Unraveled Wednesday: 1/17/24

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers with the same old Funfetti Hitchhiker, looking much the same except for the addition of eight or ten teeth. There are four or five inches of snow on the ground and I couldn't bring myself to go out and arrange the Hitchhiker for a photo in the snow. The best picture I could manage was the Hitchhiker in a pile in front of my snow day baking yesterday (two loaves of zucchini bread and one cheese bread to go with chili from the crockpot).

I hope to finish the Funfetti fun soon, but I'm not going to make any promises or even educated guesses. 

I finished two books before I started on the many books I requested from NetGalley over the holidays. Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance and House Love were both three-star books for me. If you'd like to read my reviews for them, you can click on the book title in the Read section in the right-hand sidebar. The first ARC book that I finished for NetGalley was a bit of a mindf**k but in a good way. Fluke, by Atlantic writer Brian Klaas, deals with chance, chaos, and why everything we do matters. In No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy wrote “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” I've considered that on several occasions in my life, but after reading Fluke I may have to consider that luck might not even exist. The author wonders "whether the history of humanity is just an endless, but futile, struggle to impose order, certainty, and rationality onto a world defined by disorder, chance, and chaos.” Klaas opens the book with the story of how Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen to be bombed, and it comes down to the fact that Henry Stimson, US Secretary of War, had visited Kyoto and took that city off the list so Hiroshima was bombed instead. Clouds covered Kokura which had been the target of the second atomic bomb but cleared over Nagasaki at the last possible moment.

The many examples in the book can mess with our views of "everything happens for a reason" and be a bit disconcerting. Klaas writes that "the natural world seems to seesaw between contingency and convergence." "Convergence is the “everything happens for a reason” school of evolutionary biology. Contingency is the “stuff happens” theory." It turns out that very little is in our direct control and that idea is somewhat freeing. Klaas is not recommending that we all just wait in bed for stuff to happen to us because, in a world full of flukes and random occurrences, we can still have an effect: “What you do matters. But it also matters that it's you, and not somebody else, who's doing it.” Fluke provides a readable, interesting way to think about (and maybe even better understand) our infinitely complex world and our role in it. The book will be published January 23, 2024. 

What are you making and reading this week?

Read With Us: It's a Wrap

It's my turn to do the Read With Us wrap-up and I've been considering what I wanted to say about our discussion of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. I did take some notes during our discussion last Tuesday night (although I completely forgot about taking a picture), and I've already patted myself on the back for remembering where I put those notes. 

We're very appreciative that so many of you chose to read the book, join us (even if you didn't have a chance to finish the book), answer the questions we posed, and discuss the book. Read With Us was conceived as a book group, and while there are three of us, book discussions would quickly reach a dead end if just Kym, Carole, and I were the only ones discussing the books. All of you offer new viewpoints, original thoughts, and opinions and we are grateful for that!

Kym opened up the discussion by asking what our guilty reading pleasures might be. Answers ranged from Stephen King, Ellie Griffiths, and Louise Penny to Rosamunde Pilcher. Many people seem to enjoy reading historical fiction as a break from more difficult books. 

We talked about characters in Heaven & Earth, and we all felt that even though there were many of them which made it a bit difficult to keep track of them, they served to cross boundaries. We also discussed the communities that the immigrants formed served to put some order in the world along with identifying with others who are like you. This is helpful both culturally and economically. These communities can both work together and be pulled apart, even by a simple act. 

I'm not sure how we segued to this as I neglected to write it down, but we felt that issues can be solved if we can see the humanity in people. Sometimes small gestures or simple kindnesses can work wonders. I think that was evident in the book and is true in our world today.

Many of us agreed that the ending felt rushed. After reading about multiple characters and their detouring storylines, the main story did seem to be quickly wrapped up, so quickly in fact, that several readers wondered if they had missed something. Several people felt that they had enjoyed The Good Lord Bird or Deacon King Kong a bit more, and I would like to read McBride's memoir The Color of Water to find out more about his grandmother. 

If you took part in the Zoom and would like to share some of our discussion highlights in the comments, please feel free to do so. (That might make for a better wrap-up than trying to decipher my fragmented and scribbled notes!) Thanks so much for coming along and for choosing to Read With Us. Stay tuned as we’ll be announcing our spring selection next Tuesday!

The One Where I Air Fry Everything

For Christmas Justin got me an air fryer. I've resisted getting one myself for a long time because I hate the idea of one more slightly large kitchen appliance that is of limited use. He got one for Jess a year ago and based on her frequent use of it, he thought I might find it useful. 

And he was right!

We had a big lunch on Christmas Day but I was anxious to try my air fryer so I made a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches for a late dinner. They were okay but the bread was a little crunchy for my taste. I think a pan on the stove still works better for grilled cheese but there were lots of other things to try.

I had green beans left over from Christmas dinner, so that's what I air-fried next. I dipped them in flour, eggs, then panko bread crumbs and did them in two batches. John ate a few so I finished (and enjoyed) a whole plateful of green beans for dinner one night. 

I was beginning to understand how the air fryer worked and gaining a little confidence, so next I decided it was time to try air-frying some meat. We eat a lot of venison so I was glad to find that it worked well for venison steaks and burgers. 

Next, I moved on to pork chops and brats. John said they were the best pork chops he ever had and I was happy not to have to go out to the grill in freezing weather to cook the brats. 

I also tried some frozen foods, like clam strips and pierogies and both turned out wonderfully.

I have a block of mozzarella in the refrigerator that I intend to use to make air-fried mozzarella sticks sometime this week. The boys are coming over for lunch on Saturday and air-fried catfish filets are on the menu. John and Justin caught these catfish on a fishing trip they took this summer so I'm glad to be able to serve them when they are both around to enjoy them. 

There's one thing I made that I'm not exactly proud of, but at least I can say I tried them - air-fried Twinkies. 

I've never had a real fried Twinkie at a fair so I can't do a comparison, but these were actually pretty good. There is something about the caramelized bits that adds to the taste. I did think about breaking a Kit-Kat bar into long pieces, sticking that in the middle of the Twinkie, and air-frying that concoction, but that sounded like a calorie and fat-laden nightmare that I haven't tried (yet). Plain air-fried Twinkies seem much healthier. :-)

So thanks to Justin for a useful and fun kitchen appliance that I look forward to using more!

Unraveled Wednesday: 1/10/24

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers with a Hitchhiker picture that doesn't look much different than the one I posted last week. It's raining buckets and the wind is picking up outside, so all I have is a gloomy indoor photo. Even my attempt to make it a little more cozy with a candle didn't entirely work. But I've joined the second skein and will keep plugging along, dreaming multicolored Funfetti dreams while I knit. 

I finished two books last week. The first one was While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger. While I applaud Meg Kissinger for all the work and painful emotions that I imagine it must have taken to write her family's memoir of mental illness, I don't think it was an especially intimate portrait. Kissinger and her seven siblings were raised by a mother who was hospitalized for anxiety and depression and a bipolar alcoholic father. The author recounts a lot of family history at the beginning of the book but then steps back to tell the story of how the children grew up with drug abuse, depression, and multiple suicide attempts, but after each crisis "we simply went back to our old routines with no therapy or family discussions. None.” Kissinger became a journalist writing about mental health and with the help and cooperation of her siblings, pieced together their excruciating childhood.

I think this book is most useful for the author and her family. It would have helped me to better understand the author's siblings if she had included some of her interviews with them and their voices. I was left with questions about what roles genetics may have played and how much damage was done by parents who couldn't talk about things. Much of this happened in the 1970s when it was the norm not to discuss mental health. Even though I think many people now are better able to understand that mental health is just as important as physical health, resources are still hard to come by.

One of the things I liked most about the book was that the author chose to use a part of Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods" as an epigraph. It struck me as especially appropriate for this sad memoir.

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

The other book was an advance reader copy from NetGalley and it was the perfect book to read during a recent winter storm. The Wedding People by Alison Espach is the story of Phoebe who has reached what she feels is the nadir in her life and Lila who thinks she is at her zenith. These two intersect at the Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island, along with other realistic and interesting characters, and the results are intriguing. This isn't a cutesy wedding story, but rather one about people trying their best, sometimes falling on their faces, and trying again. There is just the right amount of well-placed humor and great dialogue in the author's well-paced plot. I requested the book from NetGalley because I liked the cover and even Espach's acknowledgments were a pleasure to read. See what I mean about The Wedding People being the perfect book? I was not familiar with the author before reading this novel but I was glad to see that she has written others, and I've already started Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance. The Wedding People will be published on July 30, 2024.

What are you making and reading this week?

Read With Us: Time to Discuss!

Today is the discussion day for our Read With Us fall selection, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Kym, Carole, and I are each posting discussion questions on our blogs today, and you are welcome to respond in the comments. I would also encourage you to reply to others' comments if you choose. This is a book discussion, after all, so there are no correct answers or right opinions. I've been looking forward to discussing this book ever since I finished it, and I don't know of a better bunch of people for a book discussion than all of you.

Here are my questions. McBride has said that his inspiration for this novel came from his Orthodox Jewish grandmother, Hudis Shilsky, whom he never knew, and Sy Friend, the director of the Variety Club Camp where McBride worked. Hudis Shilsky led a tragic life and died at the age of 46. Are there themes present in the book that these real-life people may have contributed to? Did McBride “set things right” for his grandmother through the character of Chona? Can you see traces of Sy Friend and the camp he ran in the book?

I'm almost always interested in who or what inspired an author to write their novels, and I'll be glad to share my thoughts about these questions tonight during our Zoom discussion. These questions on our blogs and the Zoom discussion are your chance to express your ideas.

So what do you think? I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

The in-person Zoom discussion will be at 7:00 pm Eastern this evening. You can send me an email (the email address is in the upper right) to RSVP and I will make sure you get an invitation with the Zoom link if you haven't already. I hope to see you there!

Unraveled Wednesday: 1/3/24

I'm joining Kat and fellow Unravelers for the first Unraveled Wednesday in 2024! The year feels fresh and new, but I'm working on a project left over from last year - the Funfetti Hitchhiker. The first picture shows the whole thing but it looks so dull that it almost seems like I took a black and white photo. The second picture shows a closeup of the lovely colorful confetti bits that keep me knitting. 

I'm at 40 teeth and close to adding in the second skein. I hope to finish the Hitchhiker soon(ish) by knitting on it monogamously. I have some ideas for the yarnover rows when I'm done but I'm not sure if they will work or not. My next cast on will be Sarah's lovely design, Hydrophily (ravelry link). I dug through my stash looking for yarn that might work but I have a fairly definite idea of what I want, so I've ordered yarn that I hope will look like what I'm picturing. I want to be finished with this current Hitchhiker so I can cast on when the yarn arrives. It might be as long as four to six weeks before it's dyed and delivered, but I am excited about what I finally chose. 

I only finished one book in the last week, but I feel like I worked hard for this finish. It's not that I don't enjoy long books, but I like them to say something on all those pages. For me, The Bee Sting drifted aimlessly for far too much of its length, especially during the Imelda and Dickie sections. I won't even harp on the lack of punctuation in Imelda's section but I was glad when it was done. I found the ending to be an absurd, far-fetched, disappointing cliffhanger, but there was a big sense of relief at finally finishing the book. It took me eight days to read this but it felt more like 80.

It wasn't all bad. Paul Murray has written an interesting family story that kept me reading until the end. I was glad to read the bits of humor and wittiness as they helped. Stronger editing and a bit of punctuation could have made this a four-star book for me. If I could only figure out what happened at the end, it might even be five stars! 

"We need to take off our masks …. And that's hard, after a lifetime of hiding away, it's existentially hard, take it from me. But once you do it, the world is transformed. Once you take off your mask, it's like all the other masks become transparent, and you can see that beneath our individual quirks and weirdnesses, we're the same. We are the same in being different, in feeling bad about being different. Or to put it another way, we are all different expressions of the same vulnerability and need. That's what binds us together. And once we recognize it, once we see ourselves as a community of difference, the differences themselves no longer define us. That's when we can start to work together and things can change."

What are you making and reading this week?