Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of Second Honeymoon, by Joanna Trollope
This book was a disappointment in that it was merely brain candy. The only thing I got from it is that I don’t quite understand why Trollope is so popular. Fine, she writes well, but I didn’t care for her characters. This was the story of a family of self-absorbed and selfish individuals. After a while, I started wondering why I was supposed to care what they wanted – and they all wanted something, usually in the form of capitulation by other family members. How boring!
So let’s see what’s wrong with the Boyd family. Edie wants her adult children to each be about 20 years younger than they are and can’t deal with the fact that the baby of the family finally left home. Her husband, Russell, feels she should be shifting her attention back to him now. This actually makes sense, though it’s easier said than done, obviously, and Edie appears to have zero interest in Russell as anything other than a sperm donor and emergency-back-up parent to her children. Oldest child Matt wants his girlfriend, Ruth, to read his mind about his financial situation, since he won’t discuss it with her and stupidly breaks up with her over information he never shared. Middle child Rosa loses her job and wants some support from those around her, which makes sense except that she’s somewhat demanding, which is off-putting. And youngest child Ben wants to live with his girlfriend and no one else, but instead lives with her and her mother. Man up, Ben! There’s also a sad-sack adult orphan whom Edie sort of adopts, and his problem is that he isn’t even together enough to want anything.
Finally, there’s a cat, Arsie, who wants a warm place to nap. Arsie makes sense, which most of the people seem to recognize. And therefore this book is SAFE for animal lovers. But I don’t recommend it.
However, one interesting thing Trollope did after the acknowledgements was to recommend other books. Of those I’d already read, about half were good and half were bombs. I have subsequently read a few of the other books, and the 50/50 split remains. Their reviews are forthcoming.
Random Thoughts on a Sunday
I only have about 10 book reviews ready to post, but I felt like doing something else today. So here goes!
Political yard signs. People, the election is over. Pick up your yard signs and put them away. If you still have yard signs out, you are either gloating or whining. Neither is pretty. Please, go outside, gather up your yard signs, and rake or plant tulip bulbs or something. The election is over. If you want to have Obama-Biden signs out for the inauguration, you can put them back out in mid-January. If you keep them out until then, they will fade and look pathetic, and you don’t want that. Furthermore, Santa doesn’t visit people with political yard signs still out from a November 4 election. He’s making his list right now, and I am helping him. So please, I’m begging you, for yourselves, your neighbors, and especially me: pull up your yard signs and put them away. Unless you are in an area with a run-off election, it is too late for anyone to vote for your candidates. Your yard signs have served their purpose. Let’s all move along now, and put the yard signs away. Thank you!
And who am I to be telling you what to do? I’m me, and this is my blog. If you disagree with me, go get your own blog. It’s easy. I’ll even tell you how to do it. Or, just leave your yard sign up in defiance of my decree. I don’t really care.
Here is something that will make you laugh. Who knew that Star Trek, Monty Python, and YouTube could blend so hilariously? Well, someone figured it out. Here is the proof:
My mom’s pumpkin cookie recipe. Need something to take to Thanksgiving? Will there be kids there? Make these, and everyone will love you. This recipe is weirdly pulled over from my recipe software.
Soft Pumpkin Cookies
1/2 cup butter – softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup pumpkin – solid pack
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream butter and sugar in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla, beat until fluffy. Combine flour and dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture alternating with pumpkin. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheets. Smooth tops. Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
Cool and ice with buttercream icing.
Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of The Accidental, by Ali Smith
This intriguing book took a while to pull me in, in part because Smith used four distinct narrators – and counting the prologue and final chapter, she used five – and began with the weakest one. But this story of how each member of a nuclear family responds to a stranger in their midst did eventually capture my imagination, to the point where I continued thinking about the several days after I finished reading it. (The back cover blurb referencing a “startling, wonderfully enigmatic conclusion” is quite accurate.)
In the story, a young woman named Amber enters the summer home of the Smart family: Eve, Michael, teenaged Magnus, and 12-year-old Astrid. Eve thinks Amber is yet another student Michael is messing around with on the side; Michael thinks she’s a business associate of Eve’s; Magnus thinks with his hormones; and Astrid is simply in over her head. What does Amber want, and why is she there? Why is she accepted so blindly by the Smarts? These and other questions may or may not be answered, but it’s an interesting journey regardless. As for the outcome, the ending almost made me reread the entire book. But I didn’t — not yet, at least. I do recommend the book, but please be patient at the beginning. It’s worth it, but you may spend a number of pages wondering about that.
As for animals, this book is SAFE for animal lovers. There is an unspecified dead thing that gets Astrid’s attention, some unpleasant facts about bees are revealed, and a few fleeting odds and ends, nothing more.
Vacation Chronicle – Phoenix, AZ (Days 8-12)
Phoenix is where Dave and I start separate vacations. He attends a seminar on scouting minor league baseball players for rotisserie leagues, and I … entertain myself, usually with the computer and a bunch of books, sometimes by driving off hither and yon. This year, a messy cold that popped up about 5 minutes after we entered the city limits kept me close to the hotel, which had been my plan anyway.
I have mixed feelings about Phoenix. It’s very sprawling, and while I like the nearby mountains, getting to them is a pain. We’ve had some good times there, but it’s mostly Dave’s thing. This time, he saw several games of the Arizona Fall League, a developmental league for minor league baseball players. I went to one with him, and it was so poorly played it was laughable. Seriously, people around us were laughing, too. We did find a couple of good restaurants. For example, at Babbo’s Italian Restaurant in Surprise, we had a good, reasonably priced dinner before heading to the ballpark. We also returned to the Tortilla Factory in Scottsdale. And we always enjoy visiting Roaring Fork , also in Scottsdale. One thing about Scottsdale, though – we’re used to seeing a lively street scene, and there was almost no one out. Signs of a recession, I guess, and too bad for some charming shops and restaurants that relied upon people having disposable income.
But mostly I sniffled, took cold medication, wrote about 10 blog posts for the future, and read books. It was a low-key ending to a wonderful trip. We have a couple of short trips planned around the holidays, but otherwise that’s it until sometime next year.
In a few days, I’ll return to posting book reviews for animal lovers, which is the primary purpose of this blog.
Vacation Chronicle – Winslow, AZ (Days 6-8)
Let’s say you’re planning a car trip from Santa Fe to Phoenix. And let’s say that you and your partner are neither one big on driving for hours and hours and hours. And let’s say that you examine the various routes to uncover a decent place to stay the night, where you can also get a good meal. Then you very well might find yourself in the dusty small town of Winslow, Arizona. Yes, there’s that Eagles song, which is mildly amusing. There’s even a statue, as you can see below. (All pictures in this post can be enlarged by clicking on them.)
But the real reason to stay in Winslow is La Posada. What is La Posada, you ask? Read on.
Where we stayed. You’ve probably never heard of Allan Affeldt, who is a genius/historic preservationist. I think he should receive a MacArthur Genius Award, quite frankly. In 1997, Affeldt purchased a decrepit hotel located both in the middle of nowhere and about 20 yards from the Santa Fe railway. The railway folks had been using the place for storage and office space, but Affeldt learned that it had once been an elegant hotel, designed for the Fred Harvey Company in 1929 by renowned architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter. So Affeldt set about raising funds to restore the place. And that is La Posada . This was our second time staying there, and we loved it! Once again, we had a Jacuzzi room with a king bed, probably the most comfortable bed we had during the entire trip. The air circulation system muffles the train noise, by the way. La Posada’s revitalized beauty is an endorsement of the entire concept of historic preservation. Affeldt’s wife, artist Tina Mion, has displayed her work throughout the hotel. I love some of her paintings, although not all of them. Overall, her work adds to the charm, though here I’m going to pitch the designs of our friend Chris Shea , an artist whose medium is various metals. I would love to see what he’d do at La Posada.
Where we ate. We had two breakfasts and two dinners at The Turquoise Room at La Posada. The food was excellent, absolutely splendid, and the service was friendly and attentive without being obtrusive. On Wednesday, driving through Holbrook, AZ, we stumbled across a small Mexican restaurant called Romo’s , where we each ordered a single, unadorned beef enchilada. This was a find, a small gem of a restaurant that we almost didn’t enter. There are times when, on the road, swinging into a fast food place in order to refuel and get going again makes sense. There are other times when that constitutes a missed opportunity. If in Holbrook, skip the fast food and hit the little Mexican places. Seriously. And we had similar luck at La Sierra, in Payson.
How we entertained ourselves. On our previous trip to Winslow, we saw a nearby meteor crater and part of the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert National Park . This time, we visited the nearby Little Painted Desert County Park, which is part of the Navajo nation and has no website.
We also returned to the Painted Desert/Petrified Forest National Park.
I think the biggest surprise, however, was the Homolovi Ruins State Park , which was much more interesting and had more to look at than we expected. One thing I particularly liked was that they allowed us to pick up and examine pottery shards on the provision that we put them back.
When we left the area the next day, we took Route 87 down to Phoenix, which gave us a great view of the mountains as we dropped down from the Mogollon Rim into the hills of the southern portion of the state. It always feels weird to me to visit Arizona without going to the Grand Canyon or Sedona, where we’ve spend quite a bit of time, but we truly enjoyed ourselves in Winslow.
Next up: Phoenix, Arizona.
Vacation Chronicle – Santa Fe, NM (Days 3-6)
Just over a year ago, Dave’s neighbor, Bonnie, and her partner, Pat, moved to Santa Fe. Since we’d never seen Santa Fe and now knew people there who could tell us a bit about the place, we decided to visit Santa Fe last year. We enjoyed it so much that we returned this year.
Where we stayed. We tend to stick with what works. Although it doesn’t generate the enthusiasm we have for Albuquerque’s Adobe Nido, Santa Fe’s Pueblo Bonito is comfortable and close to the Plaza, with a decent breakfast and friendly and informative hosts, one of whom we find quite amusing. The rooms are quirkily decorated and fairly large, much moreso than the pictures indicate, plus we like having the option of building a fire. We’ve stayed in the Taos and San Felipe rooms, both of which we’d recommend. The bottom line is that very best thing about Pueblo Bonito is that it’s within walking distance of the Plaza. Everything else is a bonus.
Where we ate. Bonnie and Pat had been wanting to eat at Casa Sena for some time, so that’s where the four of us had dinner the first night. It was very expensive, but it was glorious, too. If you can afford it, definitely check it out. In the current recession (I don’t care what the economists say, I’ve been around long enough to know a recession when I see one), restaurants are hurting, but Casa Sena seemed to be doing well enough for a Saturday night. The next day, we had lunch at La Fonda, in La Plazuela . I love, love, love this dining room! The food is very good, but really, I just wanted to sit in this space. This picture is from their website and captures part of the magic of the space, but you really have to get close to the handpainted window panes to get the complete feel of the place.
That evening, despite being advised by a source who will remain unnamed that “any self-respecting chef would throw out patrons who showed up wearing light jeans” – which became our new catchphrase for the remainder of the trip – we visited Santacafe, another excellent restaurant. (And guess what? Practically everyone there was clad in light jeans, although the staff mostly wore dark jeans. Maybe it’s got something to do with the recession and the fact that people are cutting way back on restaurant meals. Or maybe some self-respecting chefs don’t care what their guests wear as long as they enjoy – and pay for – the food. Or something like that.) If you ever go there, take a slow walk into the bar and look around. I won’t spoil the surprise. On Monday, lunch was at the Atomic Grill, on the patio even though it was a bit chilly, and dinner was at a Santa Fe institution, The Shed , which we love for its good food, casual atmosphere (we wore light jeans!), and low prices.
How we entertained ourselves. Aside from bad jokes about light jeans? On Sunday, we visited two museums. I didn’t expect to enjoy The Palace of the Governors as much as I did, but it was pretty interesting. We were also fortunate enough to arrive just as one of the docents began her tour. Apparently museum management wants the docents to reduce the time they spend walking people through the place, but I think that would be a huge mistake. Our docent was delightful! Next, we visited The Museum of Fine Arts, right next door, which we also recommend.
Santa Fe museums are closed on Mondays, so we declared Monday our hiking day. We started out at the Randall Davey Audubon Center , which was a great little walk through an area with lots of birds, obviously. I’m not a bird-watcher as such, but we heard an awful lot of them. I recommend this walk to anyone who wants to get outdoors in the Santa Fe area. Next, we went to the Santa Fe Canyon, then ate lunch and drove north up toward Taos. The first three photos below are from the Audubon walk, and the fourth is from our drive north.
You should be able to click on these photos to make them larger.
Tuesday, we drove (and drove and drove), heading down I-25 to I-40, into Arizona for the next leg of our trip. It was a scenic drive, but it was also pretty damned long.
Next up: Winslow, Arizona.
Vacation Chronicle – Albuquerque, NM (Days 1-3)
It’s been a rough year: my dad died, my older cat died, my younger cat almost died and required a month of tube-feeding, plus a few other things I’d rather not discuss on the blog. (It’s a blog, not a confession of every single thing that’s gone on in my life.) So I desperately needed a vacation and, thanks to Dave, I was able to take a very nice one. As you can tell from the title of this post, we started in Albuquerque.
Where we stayed. We visited Albuquerque for the first time last year, staying at Adobe Nido , a wonderful little bed-and-breakfast that we fell in love with. In addition to the room and a marvelous breakfast, we were taken with our hosts, Sarah and Rol. As we departed last year, they said something about how people often view Albuquerque as a place to stop en route to Santa Fe, and yet there is much more to it than that. So we decided to stay an extra day this year. Sarah and Rol were their usual gracious selves, and quite enjoyable to talk to. And there was a new addition to the family: Reisa, best described as a giant Chihuahua. (Clearly she’s a mix of Chihuahua and something else, but she looks just like a Chihuahua, only bigger.) Reisa joins Minnie, the resident older dog, who appears to be some sort of terrier mix, and two very large cages of small birds.
Where we ate. Having missed lunch on our travel day, we headed from Adobe Nido to The Flying Star Café . This restaurant serves good, basic food at reasonable prices in a hip atmosphere (which, in my world, means they also sell reading material and have patrons who dress somewhat unconventionally). Dinner that night was at the nice-but-casual Seasons Grill , which was excellent – I’d happily return. Lunch on Day Two was a dud, so I’m not going to discuss it further. Dinner, however, was at Zinc, a sister restaurant to Seasons, and it was simply amazing. The smoked trout and potato pancake appetizer was worth the trip in and of itself.
How we entertained ourselves. Sarah and Rol are right: there is a lot to do in Albuquerque. We spent a morning at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, which traced the state’s history from the big bang to the present in a series of exhibits that encompassed prehistoric life, the presence of precious metals, and the development of the computer. We next wandered through Old Town, checking out several of the stores. We’re not recreational shoppers, but we did buy a couple of small items. We also drove out to the tram that goes up the Sandia Mountains. (I am a complete wimp about this kind of thing, so we didn’t go on the tram, we just looked at it.) The following day, we visited the Petroglyph National Monument before heading up the Turquoise Trail , lunching at The Mine Shaft Tavern , which is a great place for people-watching and a good meal.
Next up: Santa Fe.
November 5, 2008
I live in suburban Washington DC. So I tread carefully when it comes to politics, because I have to live surrounded by people who not only encompass the entire spectrum of beliefs, but who also actually have jobs and support families based on those beliefs. In fact, my favorite neighbor is close to opposite me on just about everything political. However, I haven’t given up my right to speak out or speak up, and I have done plenty of both, just not on this blog – until today.
Yes, this is the political post. It may be my only political post for another 2 or 4 or 8 years. But here it is.
I’m a proud, angry liberal. The last 8 years of deliberate, seemingly malicious, government mismanagement have made me angrier than I ever thought possible. I’m trying to think of some aspect of life in America that has improved since 2000, and I can’t. Bush screwed it up in every possible way, and he’s going to keep screwing it up on his way out the door, destroying environmental and consumer protections that were put in place by not just by Democratic presidents but by his father, by Ronald Reagan, and even by Richard Nixon. Oh, and let’s not talk about the economy, it’s just too depressing. Who was it – Reagan in 84? – who asked if people were better off now than they were 4 years before? That’s a no-brainer now. And let’s not kid ourselves, a McCain/Right-Wing Barbie administration would have been more of the same. They can call themselves “mavericks” all they want, they brought no evidence to the campaign that there would be any improvements.
What’s sad is that they, as the current crew before them, abdicated the cause of conservatism. That’s right, they didn’t even stick with their own alleged beliefs. Let’s see what Tony Fabrizio and Craig Shirley, two conservative pollsters, said on Politico.com : [T]he brilliant conservative theoretician Frank Meyer devised “fusionism” in the 1950s — which brought together the social right, the foreign policy right and the economic right under a philosophy opposed to oppressive government that later evolved into a political movement — a conservative one based on “Freedom.” This culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and all sides understood their end of the bargain. … The Republicans of late, however, decided to trade in the “less government, more freedom” model that had worked so well for Reagan and conservatives. … Rove, Bush and the modern Republicans have treated Americans like crack addicts, giving them tax cuts but also federal boodle, so tax cuts look more like an appeal to downright greed.
Okay, I was never a fan of Reagan, but Fabrizio and Shirley accurately make the point that there once was a strong philosophical foundation to conservatism and the Republican party. This foundation was built up painstakingly by people like Meyer, William F. Buckley, George Will, and others, then carried forward for quite a few years. Remember the Contract with America of the mid-1990s? I didn’t agree with it, but it was a campaign of ideas, and I had to respect that effort. But did we hear any discussion of conservative philosophy from McCain or Right-Wing Barbie? No. Their entire focus was on winning. Sorry, folks, but if you want to win my vote, you have to give me a reason. And fear of the unknown is not a reason, especially when I fear continuation of the disastrous known more than anything. McCain gave a gracious concession speech last night. Had he campaigned in the same voice, this might have been a much closer race.
On the flip side, I was thrilled with Barack Obama almost from the beginning. I say “almost” simply because I decided to ignore all presidential campaigning until January of 2008. That’s the earliest I think it should start, and that’s the day I began looking at websites for Democratic candidates. Before I ever watched him on TV or otherwise heard him speak, Obama impressed me with his reasoned positions. And, for the most part, he avoided my pet peeve about Democratic politicians: instead of being prescriptive, he was often (not always) descriptive. Let me explain that. When confronted with a problem, an unfortunate tendency of some Democratic politicians is to prescribe a solution. In other words, instead of saying “lower the level of this type of pollution to 90% by 2012,” they’ll say something like “lower the level of this type of pollution to 90% by 2012, using this technology.” So they prescribe a solution, preventing the marketplace or emerging technologies from offering the possibility of a more efficient, less costly solution. Obama does this sometimes (see biofuels, for example), but Hillary Clinton and some of the other candidates did this with much greater frequency.
Obama has been called slick. I prefer to think of him as calm and even-tempered, which are admirable qualities in a leader. I think that’s a big part of what he’s got going for him. Because my family is from Illinois, I know some of his background in the Illinois state legislature, where he went from being an outsider to being a leader who brokered deals on a regular basis. Some people just know what they’re doing. Between his general demeanor and his positions on the topics that matter most to me, Obama has impressed me pretty consistently.
I’m looking forward to his administration, just as I’m eager to get the horrors of the W administration behind us. I think we chose the right man for the job this time. I think America finally got it right.
As an aside, I just returned from a 2-week vacation. I’ll be blogging about that, and I also have a stockpile of about 8 book reviews that I’ll be posting over the next few weeks. But as anyone familiar with this country might guess, a pre-election vacation in no way insulates a person from the campaigning. Here’s a vignette from that aspect of our trip:
I seldom buy political gear. However, one afternoon in Santa Fe I saw a bumper sticker and my mind snapped. “I have to have a t-shirt with that logo!” And so Dave and I went on a search-and-destroy mission that sent us online, on the phone, to one of the two Santa Fe Obama field offices, and to one of the six (six!) Albuquerque Obama field offices. And I finally found the t-shirt with Obama’s circle logo blended with the New Mexico state flag, as you can see in the photos. I bought two, one for me and one for Dave.
Northern New Mexico was like Obama-land, by the way. It was saturated with yard signs, and even the merchants and restaurants all had them in the windows. In Arizona, McCain’s home state, there was little indication that a presidential race was even happening. Every sign was for the Congressional races. I know enthusiasm doesn’t add anything to the vote count, but I thought this was interesting nonetheless. When we spoke with people, they just assumed we were for Obama. Anyway, Dave and I wore our t-shirts to a party on election night, and they were a big hit.
Next up: vacation stories!
About
This is a picture of Priscilla, who lived to be an old lady cat of 19 1/2 and passed away on July 21, 2008. As Dave put it the next day, she was a great cat. I was privileged to adopt her in 1994, when her first family moved overseas and decided they couldn’t take her along. I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or a real “Rainbow Bridge” or any of that. But love lives on, and so I would like to dedicate this site to Priscilla and my first two cats, Hillary and Rabbit.
Like most blogs, this one includes random thoughts and observations, but its primary purpose is to provide book reviews for animal lovers. Please feel free to add comments or make suggestions of books that are animal-friendly.
