Month End

Thanksgiving was good.

I saw family.

Too much food and coffee was consumed.

Board games were played.

The guilty party was Professor Plum in the Theatre with the Candlestick. (Yes, theatre. I have no idea what weird version of Clue I purchased.)

Martinis were consumed at Jake’s, and people watching in Saginaw proved to be quite entertaining.

Shopping malls were avoided but a ‘50s jacket was purchased from a vintage store.

Re-reading of A Christmas Carol occurred.

This week will be crazy. Stacy will be stressed and will not be blogging until much later this week.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is, quite possibly, my favorite holiday. I like the chilly (and often snowy) weather, the time with family, the rich foods, the holiday excitement, and the general expectation that life as usual can rightfully be interrupted for a day so one can spend time with those we call family, whether they are technically family or friends who are as close as family.

As much as I love the holiday, I’m not very good at being thankful. Like a true American, I live in a state of moody entitlement. Contentment is for other people. People who have it together. Ones who have completed their PhDs, found the perfect spouse at the proper age, and learned how to balance friends, family, and career. You know, imaginary people, or at least a microscopic portion of the population.

During the holidays, I just get caught up in the moment, which is generally a good thing, but only if a bit of reflection is in there too. So as I look forward to the meal with the family, decorating the Christmas tree with my mom on Black Friday, and hanging out at Jake’s with the Future Mayor, it is time to pause a moment.

I’m grateful for my family. For parents who are simple, content, and giving. I’m grateful that my mother is quirky and quotable; it makes for good blogging material. I’m grateful that my father is kind and gentle. I’m grateful for a sister who is considerate and a good listener. I’m grateful for an amazing extended family as well.

I’m grateful for a good job that allows me to live comfortably and buy cute boots. A few weeks ago, I was pretty anxious on this topic due to some company changes, but I think (hope?) all may be settled. I do like my job and appreciate my coworkers and the flexibility of our office.

I’m grateful for my church, which is both Biblically grounded and intellectual. I’m grateful for its eclectic membership and its focus on social justice.

I’m grateful for my home. For having enough space for me, but also enough room for house guests.

I’m grateful for time. As a single gal, I do have enough of it, and it gives me plenty of freedom. I’m also grateful for singleness . . . some of the time.

I’m grateful for health and also for being able to afford healthy, high quality food and a gym membership.

I’m grateful for beauty in nature, literature, and art. And for beauty in the form of men, which makes the world a more pleasant place.

I’m grateful for creativity and the desire to create, which makes my life more interesting and fulfilling.

I’m grateful for my cat, who keeps me company and entertains me. I’m grateful that he is happy in our new apartment as he always seemed ill-adjusted in the previous one. When I see him running down the stairs at top speed, or stretching out across the carpet belly up, or looking outdoors, I know he’s content.

I’m grateful for grace, both in the big spiritual matters and the everyday things.

I’m grateful for restlessness, and that it gives me motivation to move forward and try new things.

I’m grateful for seasons and all their beauty.

I’m grateful for books and all they bring to my life and all the places they take me.

I’m grateful for the city where I grew up, that it is not a suburban refuge where one can ignore the existence of poverty or decay.

I’m grateful for the city where I currently live, for its bookstores and restaurants and fun shops.

I’m grateful for travel and that I can discover new parts of the world.

What are you thankful for? What are you most looking forward to this Thanksgiving?

Friday Flashback: Teen Magazines

About the Friday flashback series: All about resurrecting the fashion fads, books, TV shows, movies, and songs that played a role in various years of my life.

I have always been a magazine junkie. Full-fledged, in need of a 12 step plan junkie. These days, I read an odd mix of things. My newest thing is travel magazines. I especially like Lonely Planet, though I must confess at times it irritates me. This is because it is based out of England, so it’ll have these “inexpensive weekend getaways,” and when you live in the States, skipping off to Cornwall for the weekend really isn’t an inexpensive option. For fashion magazines, I prefer Marie Claire as they have the perfect mix of fashion and good articles, but I throw in the occasional InStyle for variety. For cooking magazines, I’m pretty fickle. I’ll have a one night stand with anything: Cooking Light, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit (RIP, Gourmet). I’ll read beading magazines (BeadStyle, Stringing) literary magazines (Tin House, Paris Review), fitness magazines (Self), and Sojourners (faith and politics mag). You get the point by now, I assume, and are probably wondering about the state of my bank accounts.

My sister is the same way. Her house is always littered with a bewildering array of magazines: fashion, lifestyle, cooking, celeb gossip. I’m not really sure where we get our fondness for this glossy potpourri. Our parents subscribed to absolutely nothing while we were growing up. Throughout my childhood, there was a stack of Time magazines from the seventies stacked neatly on a shelf in the basement, proof that there was once a magazine subscription for the household. I think my mother finally got rid of them in the nineties, which is a shame since that’s about the time they would have moved from being dated to being historical curiosities.

For me, this fascination began in the late eighties when I developed a fondness for Teen magazine as a fifth grader. With its pictures of models in poofy skirted prom dresses, make up tips, and Tampax ads (answering the all-important question of “Will I still be a virgin?”), it seemed to be some scented initiation into the secrets of womanhood, far from the training bras and mom-approved apparel of my existence. A year or two later, I moved away from the bubble gum sweet Teen to the grittier YM (Young & Modern), which my middle school classmates and I felt to be the best magazine. In my early high school years, I liked Seventeen.*

Today when I see teen magazines in the store, they are mostly new to me. YM and Sassy are gone, and in their place are Teen Vogue, Cosmo Girl, and Elle Girl. What is with the baby sister mags? And why have the women’s magazines been teenyboppered with Vanessa Hudgens on the cover of publications that are marketed for adults? Yes, Ms. Hudgens is extremely pretty, but does she have any fans over the age of thirteen? And so I skip over Vanessa’s youth and beauty and move to the cooking or travel magazines. Much like when I was 10, my magazine choices reflect the woman I want to be rather than the woman I am. I read for the world-traveling, highly literate and fashionable foodie that may or may not exist somewhere inside my non-glamorous, home loving body.

What is one of your guilty pleasures?

*I was highly amused when Google Images offered me the cover of a magazine I actually owned back in high school. I remember that picture of a 15-year-old Katherine Heigl, and I remember reading that magazine while gloomily enduring a family "vacation" in Canada.

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Set in General Franco’s Spain, The Shadow of the Wind tells the story of the young book lover, Daniel Sempere and his fascination with the mysterious author, Julian Carax. When Daniel is 10 years old, his father, a bookseller, takes him to the Cemetery of Lost Books for the first time. The Cemetery of Lost Books is a temple of books only known to Barcelona’s bookstore owners and other bibliophiles. It is described as, “A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelves rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive woven with tunnels, steps, platforms, and bridges that presaged an immense library of seemingly impossible geometry.” It houses the first editions of books, preserving them so no book is ever truly lost or forgotten. When one visits the Cemetery of Lost Books for the first time, he or she is allowed to take home one book. Daniel takes home The Shadow of the Wind, a gothic novel by Julian Carax. He has never heard of Carax, but he feels that this book was meant for him.

Daniel reads his new book immediately, and falls under its spell. He recalls a customer from his father’s bookshop once said that no book influences a reader as deeply as the first book that one loves. He knows that The Shadow of the Wind is that book for him, and it will become part of his life and his imagination. Daniel seeks to find out more about the author, Julian Carax, but learns that few people have heard of him. Those who have heard of him tell of the rareness of Carax’s books and of the arsonist who buys or steals copies of the books only to burn them. In his teen years, Daniel intensifies his search for Carax’s story, which he finds to be as dark and gothic as the man’s writing. As Daniel finds himself with dangerous enemies and in love with an unattainable girl, his life begins to take on strange similarities to Carax’s.

This is the type of book that stays in one’s memory for a long time with great characters, a haunting depiction of fascist Spain, the magical Cemetery of Lost Books, a deliciously gothic atmosphere, and a story that will resonate with book lovers. While I find this to be an enjoyable and satisfying book, it’d merit a four-star rating as opposed to a five-star rating. On the downside, some plot points are predictable, and the plot, while complicated, is extremely tidy. But it is still one amazing journey.

Highly recommended. To be read on a cold winter night, while clutching a mug of steaming hot chocolate and huddled under a fleece throw.

Favorite Quote: “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”

Fun Bonus: The Shadow of the Wind walking tour of Barcelona included at the end of the book.

To be reviewed next: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

Book Review: Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

A traveler arrives in the court of Emperor Akbar of Mughal India. He is a storyteller and a deceiver, pursued by men that he wronged, yet he gains the notice of the emperor. He promises Akbar the story of his banished aunt, a woman who would become the enchantress of Florence. This novel divides its time between the story of the enchantress and Akbar’s struggle to figure out what kind of man and emperor he wishes to be. The novel spans from India to Machiavelli’s Florence, and is meticulously researched.

The most intriguing figure in this story is not the enchantress but Akbar. He comes across as ridiculous at first, a warrior king who imagines himself to have the soul of a poet. “He did not want hordes. He did not want to pour molten silver into the eyes of his vanquished foes or crush them to death beneath the platform upon which he was eating his dinner.” (Yes, Akbar. Life is rough.) He also seems ridiculously eccentric, as he creates an imaginary wife and then demands that artists paint portraits of Her Royal Imaginariness, and discusses her with his advisors, beginning conversations with statements like, “Birbal, you know, our favorite queen has the misfortune not to exist.” He also sends a series of love letters to Queen Elizabeth at one point. But as the story goes on, and the reader sees Akbar forced to make difficult decisions, one can’t help but love him in all his idealism and eccentricity.

The reviewers on Amazon hated this book. They called it self-indulgent, full of sentences that span a third of a page, and the worst of Rushdie’s novels. Well I must have terrible taste because I loved it. I’ve only read one other Rushdie novel (The Moor’s Last Sigh), which I enjoyed but didn’t love. This I really loved. There aren’t many novels that awe me with their beauty, make me fall in love with their characters, and make me laugh out loud. This is literary fiction at its best.

It’s true that the portrayal of the enchantress and her lookalike servant (called “the Mirror”) is ridiculous, much like that of an over-glamorous heroine in a paranormal novel. Unlike the portrayal of the paranormal heroine, Rushdie doesn’t expect you to take the depiction to heart. He isn’t showing us the enchantress herself; he is showing us how the people viewed the enchantress, and what the stories they told about her revealed about themselves. As enchantress has a mirror (the servant), she also functions as one.

This is ultimately a story about stories, and how stories help us understand the world around us.

Highly recommended. Enjoy with a glass of wine and good piece of dark chocolate.

Favorite Quotes:

“Never make love to a woman who is bad with stained glass,” the emperor said solemnly, giving no indication of humorous intent. “Such a woman is an ignorant shrew.”

“And the Caviar and Potato Curse created a rift between the sisterhood of potato witches which has not been healed to this day.” (I actually have no idea what the potato witches had to do with the story. They appeared for about a page and disappeared as randomly as they appeared.)

To be reviewed tomorrow: The Shadow of the Wind

Books and Butternut Squash

I am 95% better after the longest upper respiratory infection the state of Michigan has ever seen. (Well, second longest. I’m pretty sure some fellow named Buster from Paw Paw had a nastier illness in 2007.) This means I actually left the apartment this weekend, after three weekends in a row of settling on the sofa with a bowl of tea and a beading project in front of me.

And I got to meet two fabulous bloggers! Pictured above is Barrie Summy, blogger and author of the witty tween novel, I So Don’t Do Mysteries. Barrie was in town for a water polo tournament and did a presentation at Aunt Agatha’s, which is an independent mystery bookshop. She’s much like I expected her to be: sweet, funny, and very friendly. Barrie does have a dark side though; she smuggles scissors and suspicious cables on to planes! Don’t travel with her unless you want to attract security! I also met Clair of Bo Fexler, PI. I didn’t have any preconceived notions about Clair, as I’ve only read her blog a couple of times, but she’s a witty lady.

Apart from meeting the lovely ladies, I didn’t do much this weekend, though it was nice to go to church after several weeks of missing service. I also made this this tasty salad from Epicurious, though I substituted butternut squash for the pumpkin. I was a fan, but then squash, lentils, and goat cheese are some of my favorite ingredients ever.

Friday Flashback to the Late Nineties: Spice Girls

About the Friday flashback series: All about resurrecting the fashion fads, books, TV shows, movies, and songs that played a role in various years of my life.

When you go to a Christian college, or at least one similar to the one I attended, you find yourself surrounded by people with fastidious taste in clothes and horrible taste in music. If it was possible to do a statistical study on areas where the worst tastes in music could be found, Christian college campuses might very well top the list. Where else can you find such a high concentration of Steven Curtis Chapman fans? This might not be the reason that dorm walls are made out of cinderblock, but it will make you want to snog the architect that made that decision.

This lack of taste worked out for me just fine because in the late nineties, when I attended Cedarville, I had a fondness for the Spice Girls. I not only liked their music, but I guiltily read every article about them I could, wanting to know how Ginger would next justify making music that was loved mostly by eight-year-olds. And if someone mocked me for my Spice Girls preference, chances were strong that they liked something equally embarrassing. Like Avalon.

I liked Spice Girls then, and to be totally honest, I still like them now, even though I cannot explain the fascination. The songs are lame, and the costumey nature of the band is silly. But their songs make me happy. But maybe it’s nothing more than the fact that the Spice Girls got to play dress up as adults. It’s wish fulfillment for the little girl in me.

In general, I don’t even like pop music. I hate it really. So if you admit to liking Britney Spears or Lady Gaga, I will mock you relentlessly. Then I’ll hope that you never borrow my iPod and find there are Spice Girls songs on it.

What is the most embarrassing thing on your iPod?