Gorgeous heart-felt performance. I also love the younger little brother in the background.
The Joy of Doing Laundry
When my five children were growing up, laundry was a never-ending chore. I did at least two loads of wash every day. And whenever a child grew tall enough to reach the bottom of the washing machine, I initiated him/her into the workings of the laundry room and assigned a day of the week for said child to launder his/her own clothes.
Shortly after I returned to teaching, Greg retired. Our children were mostly out on their own, and I was only doing laundry for the two of us. But it really annoyed me if, after a long day of teaching, he’d ask me to find a particular item of his clothing. Usually, it was in the washing machine waiting to be put in the dryer—which was full of dry clothes waiting to be put away.
Suddenly, it occurred to me—he was home all day with nothing in particular to do.
I bought him his own clothes hamper and told him his clothes were now his responsibility.
Not long after I retired, Greg’s strength and balance and mobility waned, and his clothing was once again my responsibility, but without the stress and obligations of a full-time teaching job, laundry became less of a burden and a little bit of a—dare I say it?—a joy.
I have a lot of nice clothes. Most of them date back to when I was teaching (I retired eleven years ago, so they’re not very new or trendy), but they’re still in good condition. In the interest of keeping my closet from being overstuffed, I used to give away 10% of my clothes to Goodwill every year, but then I discovered what happens to clothing given to thrift stores.
I thought I was being virtuous, giving away clothing I really liked. I think the answer is to give clothing directly to people you know need them and want to wear them; that or simply not buy so many clothes for myself. I now only buy a few items a year, as things wear out.
As I sort or fold or hang laundry, I am reminded of the circumstances for which I bought the clothes: a flag t-shirt from Old Navy to wear for a patriotic program at school; a dress for a wedding; something red to wear at church on Reformation Sunday. Good times.
Or I just enjoy the colors. At one time, almost everything I owned was black, because if something was available in twelve colors and I tried every one on, the black one always looked the best on me. One day someone commented that I always wear black, and I realized I needed to put a little color into my wardrobe. I love blue, every shade from navy to royal to turquoise. Back in the 1980s, I had my “season” done. It turns out I’m a “winter.” I should wear black, red (though I look best in burgundy), and jewel tones. I don’t look good in yellow or orange or pastels, so I avoid those, though I looked fine in them when I was young (and weighed about 50 pounds less).
Now it’s your turn. How do you feel about doing the laundry? Do you have a Mount Washmore threatening to take over your home? Do you have to drive everything to the laundromat and spend your day off there? Do you use solar power (maybe an outdoor clothesline) to dry your clothes? (Been there, done that. In Arizona, by the time you hang out all the sheets, the first ones you hung are already dry, so you take them all down again. And they smell so good!) Do you use the dissolvable detergent sheets instead of jug detergent? (Are they good?) Do you iron? (Not if I can get away without it!) Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Three Reviews: Last Night in Montreal, The Book of Delights, and Life as a Teenage Superhero
Last Night in Montreal is a novel by Emily St. John Mandel, whom I mentioned in Friday’s article about authors I’m obsessed with.
When Lilia was a small child, her father kidnapped her in the middle of the night and drove her across the Canadian border into the United States. They spent the next decade driving together, criss-crossing the US over and over, never staying in any one place for long, frequently changing their car, their appearances, and their names, fleeing the investigator undoubtedly following them.
When Lilia was sixteen, her father met someone with whom he wanted to settle down, but Lilia was restless. Life on the road was all she knew; it’s what felt normal and right to her. And so she went off on her own, but checking in regularly with her father and his new wife.
Last Night is a story about secrets and obsession, and about how they destroy lives. Chapters set in the current time alternate with chapters from the past. Questions—such as, why did Lilia’s father take her away?—remain unanswered until the very end of the book. Although everything is wrapped up in the end, this is not a story with a happy ending. It’s a masterfully-written book that will haunt you.
The Book of Delights is a project by Ross Gay, a challenge he gave himself, to spend a year writing a daily essay about something something delightful. The result is a collection of 102 essays.
I wish I could say this book was a delight to read. Some of the essays are nice, and a few are legitimately delightful. The one I like best is #87, “Loitering.”
But my disillusionment with the book came early. Essay #17 was about a very disturbing dream Gay had. If he had just mentioned the disturbing part and moved on, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But he repeated the phrase (including the verb f***ing followed by the person you’d be most ashamed of doing that to) four more times.
In fact, several of the essays were ruined for me by the repetition of objectionable words. If use of distasteful words is not your cup of tea, you’d be better off skipping this one.
Life as a Teenage Superhero by John Bucholtz. I’m not particularly into the whole superhero genre, but I loved this book. It is the “Episode 1 Pilot” for the series The Guardian Chronicles.
High school student Corey McGregor notices on returning home from school that his dad’s car is in the driveway. That’s good, because he has some exciting news to tell him. But as he gets closer to the front door, he realizes it is splintered and hanging from one hinge. He enters the house calling and searching for his dad, but no one answers—his dad is not there.
He hears footfalls downstairs and goes to investigate, and finds someone dressed as Shoto, a villain from a comic book he follows. Shoto knows who has taken his father and promises to help, though Cory doesn’t believe he can trust the villain. Shoto leaves and is replaced by Slipstream and Blur, two heroes from the PLH—the Pacific League of Heroes. They promise Cory they’ll protect him and find his father.
They also tell him a secret—his father works for the PLH.
There are more secrets and surprises revealed throughout the fast-paced, action-packed book. Sometimes the bad guys seem undefeatable, and there are tragic setbacks, but comic relief grants us respites, and the ending vindicates Cory. I read this on the Kindle app on my phone at my husband’s physical therapy appointments. Totally worth the read, for readers ages 10-110.
Authors and Fiction Series I’m Addicted To
If you force me to name my favorite author, I’d probably say John Grisham. Whenever he has a new book out, I buy it. I am occasionally disappointed, but not often. His consistent excellence puts him at the top of my list. I prefer his legal dramas; I’m not interested in sports. His characters have flaws, but if they do the wrong thing, it’s usually for a good reason.
I follow several series, always buying the next installment. Sometimes I’ll buy other books by the author, but if it’s not part of the beloved series, I might not have that feeling of investment.
I will always buy the next Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich. These are not great literary masterpieces, but they are funny as heck, and I love the characters. I’ve read several Evanovich offerings not in this series, and they are good, but I’ll usually give them away when I’m done, whereas I can see myself going back and rereading the Plum books again and again.
I will always buy the next Kay Scarpetta book by Patricia Cornwell, even though some of them are very dense, in that the events of a day can take 400 pages to recount. But I still have to have them. I feel like I personally know the characters, and I like being inside Kay’s head as she figures everything out.
I also felt that way about Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries. I love Kinsey and her landlord and his brother and Rosie. I can picture the garage apartment and the neighborhood in Santa Teresa. And when Grafton died in 2017, I mourned that I would never read her Z book.
Other authors that I’ve followed in the past: Michael Crichton—his fiction helps me understand scientific principles. Dan Brown—I love his books’ connections to art and architecture. Anne Tyler—her quirky characters. Jan Karon–the Mitford series. Anne Lamott’s autobiographical nonfiction, until I noticed she keeps telling the same stories over and over.
I like the YA and MG books by these authors: Abigail Johnson, Kelly DeVos, Shonna Slayton, Sara Fujimura, Dusty Bowling, Paul Mosier.
Authors that I want to read more of: Celeste Ng and Emily St. John Mandel—their novels haunt me.
These are the authors who come to mind when I think of my reading addictions, but I’m sure I’ve missed a few.
Now it’s your turn. Who are the authors whose new books you just have to read? What is it about their work that you love? Share in the comments below.
I Love Rattle!
If you are a poet, or if you just like poems, you need to know about Rattle. Rattle is a poetry journal published by the Rattle Foundation, an independent non-profit whose mission is to promote the practice of poetry.
I love Rattle because it is full of poetry of the caliber I aspire to write. That’s not to say that I like every poem, but many of them are so delightful that I will immediately reread them to try to discover what the poet did to make it resonate with me.
I first discovered Rattle because of the contests that the Rattle Foundation runs. One is for chapbooks (small books of poems). The prize is $5000, publication, 500 author copies, and distribution to their 7000+ subscribers! Over the years, I’ve entered four different chapbooks, though I haven’t won yet. That won’t stop me from trying. The current contest deadline is January 15, 2024. (Surely you can write 15-30 pages of poetry by then. I’m working on it.) The fee for entering is $30, but for that fee they will also give you a one year subscription to Rattle (or extend your subscription for another year—I have several years racked up now). Rattle is published four times a year, and they choose up to three winners for the annual Chapbook contest. They also publish an annual Young Poets Anthology, made up of 20 poems from poets aged 15 or younger. That means your issue of the journal is usually sent with an accompanying prize-winning chapbook, or the Young Poets Anthology for the year (in June). What a deal!
Rattle also has an annual contest for a single poem. The Rattle Poetry Prize is $15,000. Yes, you read that right. $15,000 for a single poem. Obviously, the competition is great for this award. (I send them all my best poems.) The judges also choose ten finalists who win $500 each, and one of those will receive the $5000 Reader’s Choice Award, which is chosen by votes from subscribers. Again, your $30 entry fee also gets you a year’s subscription or extension. All the winners are published in the Winter issue.
You can sign up to have a free daily poem delivered by email.
You can listen to a two-hour weekly podcast called Rattlecast.
And I haven’t even told you about all the contests.
Have I convinced you yet to check out Rattle? What are you waiting for? What do you have to lose?
Reviews of Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover and The Atlas of Beauty by Mihaela Noroc
Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
I recently found out that Colleen Hoover is a prolific writer of New York Times bestsellers. I’d never read anything by her, so I bought one book, not realizing that she writes romance. (The title should have been a dead giveaway, but somehow I didn’t notice.) I used to read lots of romance when I was younger, but stopped a couple of decades ago, because, really, it’s pornography for women.
If you don’t want to get all hot and bothered, this is not the book for you.
That said, Ugly Love is very well-written, with fully developed characters, an engaging storyline, and a big secret that kept me reading. (Also, lots of graphic sex scenes.)
Tate has moved to San Francisco where she is studying (not sure exactly what, but it seems to be healthcare related) and working part time (in a hospital, doing something unspecified but which involves weekend rotations). Her brother Corbin says she can live with him until she can get her own place, but on the night when she arrives, the apartment door is blocked by a drunk guy trying to get in. Tate calls Corbin (who is a pilot and won’t be home until the morning), and it turns out this drunk is a neighbor and friend of Corbin’s, and he asks her to let him in, promising that he’s harmless.
The drunk guy is Miles, and after he sobers up, Miles and Tate discover they are very attracted to each other. Except Tate is way too busy for a relationship. And so is Miles, who is also a pilot, and often away from home for multiple days at a time. Miles’ personality is also an obstacle—he’s closed off and emotionally distant.
A few months later, Corbin invites Miles to travel to San Diego with him and Tate to celebrate Thanksgiving with their family. During the weekend, both Tate and Miles are painfully aware of their attraction. Miles insists he doesn’t want to date, doesn’t want to like anyone, certainly doesn’t want to fall in love. They come up with a compromise—they’ll have sex, but Miles makes Tate promise never to ask about his past or to think that they have a future together.
The book is structured with chapters narrated in the present from Tate’s point of view, alternating with chapters narrated from Miles’ viewpoint six years ago. Little by little, we learn about the trauma Miles suffered that makes him incapable of commitment. Actually, when I finally knew his whole backstory, I didn’t think there could be a happy ending for these two. There are too many tragic interchanges, too many barriers to a healthy relationship.
However, there is a twist at the end that I didn’t see coming—and that’s all I’ll say, because I don’t want to spoil it for you.
The Atlas of Beauty: women of the world in 500 portraits by Mihaela Noroc
A friend of mine showed me breathtaking photographs on the Facebook page called The Atlas of Beauty. When I saw that there was a book of these photos, I checked it out, expecting it to be very expensive. It turns out the price is quite reasonable, so I bought it.
Noroc is a multilingual resident of Bucharest, Romania. She spent four years traveling through 50 countries to put together this project.
The photos are gorgeously composed and the subjects are diverse. Some of the women are supermodel beautiful; others exemplify inner beauty. Many wear traditional ethnic costumes.
The layouts are interesting as well, with satisfying juxtapositions. Some photos are accompanied with a story about the woman pictured; others with just the location.
Whether you love looking at attractive women or appreciate excellent portrait photography, you will enjoy this book.
Posted in Book reviews
Tagged Colleen Hoover, Mihaela Noroc, The Atlas of Beauty, Ugly Love
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