Two for the Price of One

Tey, Josephine. The Daughter of Time. New York: Scribner, 1995.

(The book was originally published in 1951.)

Bob: What's that you're reading?

Emily: The Daughter of Time. It's this month's book for the Connecticut mystery book club.

Bob: Have you ever read it?

Emily: No.

Bob: Oh, it's a great book! It's one of the best mysteries ever written. Such a wonderful premise, a convalescent solving a hundreds-year-old mystery.

Bob's not the first person I know to feel thus. I can't tell you how many people have recommended this book to me over the past 20+ or so years. He may not be right about its being one of the best mysteries ever written. He and I are not the fairest judges of that, since "mystery" is a very small piece of each of our "genres most read" pies. But he's absolutely right about the premise being a wonderful one.

If "mystery" takes up a small piece of my pie, then "historical fiction" takes up a tiny sliver. That's probably why I've been meaning to read this one for so long but have never gotten around to it until now. I mistakenly thought it was set in 15th-century England. Blink, and the fluttering of your lashes might accidentally blow away the "mystery cum historical fiction" thread resting on top of my pie. Despite recommendations from those who've never failed me, I wasn't keen on reading something from that genre. My readers' advisors know better than I, and I should've locked my noisy biases in a soundproof closet and listened to said advisors instead.

The book, which is not set in Medieval England, is superb. It's actually set in mid-20th-century England, where our "hero" Inspector Alan Grant is in the hospital, recuperating from a bad fall. Not only is the premise a good one, but Tey had a great sense of humor, and it's very funny in places. You can see what I mean from this description of how Grant landed in a hospital bed:

Grant was bed-borne, and a charge on The Midget [one of the nurses who attends him and who, despite her diminutive size, has no problem, apparently, tossing about mattresses and maneuvering the injured bodies of men who are, like Grant, 6'+ tall] and The Amazon [his other nurse, taken to heavy breathing at the slightest exertion] because he had fallen through a trap door. This, of course, was the absolute in humiliation; compared with which the heavings of The Amazon and the light slingings of The Midget were a mere corollary. To fall through a trap-door was the ultimate in absurdity; pantomimic, bathetic, grotesque. (12)

Grant lies in his hospital bed, his sharp mind used to being put to work solving crimes, with nothing better to do than to stare at the ceiling and to try to forget his humiliation. He's disdainful of the books kind souls have brought him to read and is the sort of patient you can easily imagine is driving the poor nurses nuts. That is, until his friend Marta decides to give him something to do.

Marta determines that he needs to spend his time solving some sort of old, unsolved mystery, some classic event that has always posed a puzzle. The next time she visits, she brings an envelope stuffed with copies of portraits. Grant becomes fixated on Richard III, England's notorious murderer, long assumed to have killed his two young nephews in order to grab the throne.

Grant can't see a murderer in the portrait he's given, and so he begins his intellectual quest to discover what he can about the man and the murders of the young Princes Richard and Edward (interestingly enough, bearing the names of their uncle and his brother who fathered them). He starts with standard history texts -- not the least bit enlightening -- and moves on to other works. Eventually, he pairs up with a young American friend of Marta's, and, together, they dig deeper and deeper to see what they can find.

Tey's novel is fascinating on so many levels. First of all, I (like most of the book's characters) only had vague recollections of the story of the two princes, although I do know that by the time I was learning about them, they were more of a mystery than they seem to have been to the characters in Tey's book. It seems to have been a commonly accepted notion in her day that the hunch-backed Richard III (so popularized by Shakespeare) smothered the boys, who were imprisoned in The Tower. I seem to recall being presented with an unsolved disappearance that may or may not have been a murder instigated by their uncle. Reading the book, I wondered how much of an influence Tey had had on the story. She was certainly no Shakespeare, but still, Shakespeare proves how easily history can be influenced by popular culture.

That leads me to the whole subject of history and fiction. What Grant discovers, of course, is that "history" can be written by those who would prefer the masses to believe a fiction. Tey points out, for comparison to the history of Richard III, other "historic events" people have taken as gospel that have proven themselves to be grossly exaggerated and false. She also points out how reluctant people are to accept challenges to these inaccuracies when they are raised, noting that they're more likely to blame the contemporary messenger digging up evidence rather than the messenger who may have had something to gain by garbling the account in the first place back when the event occurred.

I also couldn't help thinking about the whole weird concept of royalty and family. I know it's been addressed since the beginning of time, but imagine having the power to execute your brother or sister. You get mad; you kill your brother. Anyone else in your kingdom would be hanged or beheaded for murder, but you can get away with that old, proverbial murder. Despite my life-long fascination with family dynamics and psychology, I'd never really considered all the implications of that (another whole blog post in and of itself) until reading this book.

I do have one, very minor, complaint to launch against this excellent read and its writer. As is so often the case when English writers try to portray Americans (especially back in pre-television/Internet, etc. days), Grant's American partner in crime-solving's dialogue is a little off kilter. For instance, at one point, he (Carradine) says,

"Goldarn it, what did I do with it? Here we are." (p. 118)

Okay, maybe I know nothing about 1951. Maybe Americans really did say "goldarn it" all the time back then. I find it hard to believe, however. I happen to have read plenty of American novels written around that time, and I don't think I've ever come across a character who said, "Goldarn it." Perhaps, I've heard it uttered in some play or movie from that era, written by someone trying to portray an ignorant and/or naïve Southerner or Kansan in some sort of exaggerated fashion that's completely inaccurate, but certainly no "blue blood" Northeasterner, which Carradine was, would use such language. He also (again, unless times have changed dramatically since 1951, and maybe they have) wouldn't quickly have gone from "goldarn it" to,

"The sainted More makes me sick at the stomach but I'll listen." (p. 119)

He surely would have told us,

"The sainted More makes me sick to my stomach but I'll listen." (He also would've stuck a comma in before the conjunction, being properly American bred and educated, but he's being polite and adhering to the consistency of British rules of grammar in this British publication, so we'll leave him alone.)

But you've heard me complain before about Americans trying to write England and the English trying to write America. I'm very hard to please when it comes to that, and it's truly a minor irritation in this otherwise flawless story. I'm so very glad I finally read this one (thank you, John, for choosing it). If you've been meaning to get around to it yourself, I promise you won't be disappointed when you do.

I missed posting on last month's mystery book choice, so here it is as well:

Grafton, Sue. T is for Trespass. New York: G.P. Putnam, 2007.

A near-eternity ago, when Sue Grafton had only written something like six books, I read the first two. I liked them well enough, but I wasn't as in to the mystery genre back then, feeling it was enough that I'd already committed myself to reading every Linda Barnes mystery as she published it (she was less prolific. Even so, I eventually abandoned her as well), and so I didn't continue with the series. I've been meaning to pick her back up for years, so I was very happy when this one was chosen for the CT mystery book club.

What made it even better was that I started reading this one while I was in California. Grafton's Kinsey Millhone lives and works in Santa Teresa, which is a very thinly disguised Santa Barbara. Since I happened to be in Santa Barbara, I was easily able to imagine much of what Kinsey describes in her telling of the story.

This is the tale of a true sociopath who happens to move into Kinsey's neighborhood to provide nursing care for its resident grouchy old man. Kinsey suspects something isn't quite right from the get-go, and, of course, her instincts prove her to be correct. By the time she figures out what's happening, the reader is already well aware of the psychotic qualities of the home care nurse, because interspersed with Kinsey's first-person accounts are third-person accounts that give us this creepy sociopath's story. This could have been an awkward technique, could have made the book seem disjointed, but Grafton did it well, and it worked for me.

This was a good, solid mystery/thriller (although not of the whodunit sort, since we know who the "bad guy" is from the get-go). Typically, I prefer mysteries in which I'm trying to figure out the puzzle of who killed The Body, but I really liked this one. That's a credit to Grafton's writing and the endearing character she's created in Kinsey (I like my private investigators to be endearing. I also like female p.i.'s, because they tend to be so outnumbered by males in the genre).

One thing I found interesting is that Grafton chose to set the book in 1987. That's around the same time I read those first two books, and it's a clever ploy on her part (I'm assuming here that all her books are set back in time), because she doesn't have to worry about aging Kinsey as the years go by, or keeping her forever young, even though she's been around since the 1980s, the way so many other mystery writers do. However, doing so can lead to problems. Grafton is good (an excellent writer, really), but I'm pretty sure there were a few mistakes in which Kinsey makes references to things that didn't exist in 1987. It wasn't enough to distract me, though. In fact, I can't even remember exactly what they were.

I know I say this about almost every author we read for the book club, but I must read more in the series. I really might this time, though, as I have an ARC for S is for Silence, and I just picked up at a book swap party O is for Outlaw and P is for Peril. I'm planning on doing something really weird: reading them backwards. Anyone have copies of Q and R they'd like to give me?

Final Once Upon a Challenge Post

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. London: Bigelow, Smith, & Co., 1909.

Well, would you look at that? I actually managed to complete a challenge on time. This is the final book I read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge. I went on Quest the Third to be completed by June 22 (five books plus this play). Onto my review:

As far as fairy tales go? Perfection. I have nothing more to say.

Once Upon A Time Challenge Post V

Carroll, Lewis. Notes by Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice: Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. New York: Signet, 1963.

In his Introduction to this, now classic in its own right, edition of Carroll's two classic children's stories, Gardner quotes G.K. Chesterton (writing in 1932, Carroll's 100th birthday year):

'Poor, poor, little Alice!' bemoaned G.K. 'She has not only been caught and made to do lessons; she has been forced to inflict lessons on others. Alice is now not only a schoolgirl but a schoolmistress. The holiday is over, and [Charles] Dodgson [a.k.a. Lewis Carroll] is again a don. There will be lots and lots of examination papers with questions like, (1) What do you know of the following: mimsy, gimble, haddocks' eyes, treacle-wells, beautiful soup? (2) Record all the moves in the chess game in Through the Looking Glass and give diagram. (3) Outline the practical policy of the White Knight for dealing with the social problem of green whiskers. (4) Distinguish between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.' (i.)

(One more reason to admire) Chesterton, I'm sure, back when he wrote that, thought he was being facetious -- although not completely so. He was right about the Alice books becoming part of the canon of children's literature, and, as such, being turned into something completely disagreeable, instead of the great fun that they are. Thank God I was never forced to study Carroll's masterpieces when I was in school, never had to endure their ruination in that way. Sad to say, Chesterton probably got it absolutely right with his facetious questions (I can see unimaginative teachers of today reading that Introduction and jotting them down for their own exams), judging from the types of textbook and quiz questions I remember destroying the likes of Saki, Mark Twain, and Charlotte Brontë when I was in school. I'm almost tempted to do an online search for "Lewis Carroll's Alice and study questions," but I'm afraid the results would be too depressing.

Now, having said all that, I will say that reading this annotated edition with all its wonderful notes and explanations, which some might argue add a prosaic element that puts a damper on the poetic whimsy (and I wouldn't necessarily disagree), actually made the works even more fun for me. True, it might be more enjoyable just to read "Jabberwocky" without all the definitions and explanations, to puzzle out one's own meaning. True, also, that some of the notes on the logic actually confused me (someone whose only success ever, as far as standardized testing is concerned, was on the old logic section of the GRE) more than Lewis's characters did. And, of course, to read so often in the notes about all of Carroll's "child-friends" can't help but add a certain sort of creepiness to the tales for 21st-century readers. No matter how innocent Gardner (and many more recent scholars) would have us believe Charles Dodgson was, that he was a product of his era, fascinated with little girls and their beauty, not lusting after them in Humbert-Humbert fashion, I'm sorry, but befriending only young girls (not boys) and wanting to sketch and photograph them nude just doesn't sit well with this reader.

Still, Gardner's notes add a certain charm and fascination in and of themselves (especially now that they're 50+ years -- the hardcover edition of the book was originally published in 1960 -- old, a bit antiquated in their own right). He definitely helps to clarify some concepts, and he defines many words that would be completely lost on contemporary readers (especially American ones). Also, it's interesting to note how much more has evolved in our culture since Gardner decided to help enlighten us. It's hard, for instance, for someone my age, who doesn't remember an era when Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit," the anthem to drug use, didn't exist, to accept the fact that Gardner couldn't have noted it when addressing works influenced by Alice, because it would be seven years before its release, and it would be another eleven years before the release of the anti-drug Y.A. classic based on lyrics from the song, Go Ask Alice.

What I remember about this book from my childhood (for some reason, with the exception of some illustrated Disney versions, the hardcover of this annotated edition is the only one of the original I think we had in the house when I was a child. I can remember just skipping all the "annoying notes" when I read it as a child. When I was in high school -- an "adult" reader now -- I read it notes and all for the first time) was that I preferred Through the Looking Glass to Alice in Wonderland. I hate to say it, but there was a part of me that thought Alice was a bit silly, particularly so when in Wonderland.

Reading the two this go-round, I still prefer Looking Glass. I don't know if it's because Wonderland has become a story that is practically a cliché at this point, with the Queen of Hearts constantly yelling "Off with his/her head!" and the grinning Cheshire Cat, whereas Looking Glass ("Jabberwocky" and all) is still quite fresh or if it's more than that. I suspect the latter. Looking Glass is more complicated and clever. This isn't to say that Wonderland isn't chock full of brilliant wordplay and nonsense (boy, do I love wordplay, and Carroll was certainly a Master, someone to bow down to in his ability to arrange and rearrange words and their meanings to tickle the funny bone. Don't tell me math and English don't mix. This mathematician proved, without a doubt, that the two walk around beautifully, hand-in-hand), but (just like the little girl Alice Liddell, by the time the second book was published), Looking Glass's wordplay and nonsense seems a little more mature, so does the way the story plays with logic. You need look no further than the games featured in each: the characters in Wonderland are playing croquet, a fairly straightforward game. Those inside the looking glass play chess, a far more sophisticated pastime. Then again, my preference, then and now, may have nothing to do with maturity and sophistication. Perhaps I just prefer an imaginary world (a dreamland, if you will) entered through a mirror (and all that that entails) to one entered falling down a rabbit hole.

I didn't find Alice silly this go-round, the way I found her as a child. Actually, I like the brave way she stands up to the crazy characters and the way she defends herself and her understanding of concepts, even when she's completely confused. I also found there are certain characters I'd forgotten whom I just adored this go-round, like the Dormouse (probably envy on my part more than anything else, because there have been many nights in my life when I so wished I could "sleep when I breathe") and the Gryphon (how on earth could I have forgotten the Gryphon?) -- so perfect in being so much like all those annoying people in life who pooh-pooh and disdain our precious obsessions.

I was happy to have read this book so soon after reading the Terry Pratchett I also read for this challenge. Pratchett owes much to Carroll, both writing parody and satire with a healthy dose of nonsense, while playing with math, logic, and science. I couldn't help wondering what "The Annotated Collected Works of Terry Pratchett" might look like (besides, of course, taking up more room on the bookshelf than the old Encyclopaedia Britannica used to do). I am sure there is much when I read Pratchett that goes over my head, just as there would be much in the Alice books that would do so without Gardner's helpful notes. And speaking of influences, I also couldn't help thinking it's about time for another read of The Phantom Tollbooth, a modern classic that certainly owes much to Alice. This year marks its 50th anniversary, definitely a good year to read it.

Another thing I noted while reading this book is how influenced my childhood was not only by the Alice stories, but also by the illustrations. When I was a child, we had an oversized coloring book full of John Tenniel's Alice illustrations. My mother, once my older sisters had colored them (I think I was too young at the time to have colored them well enough, although I do remember coloring), mounted and shellacked some of them and hung them on our bedroom walls and also in the kitchen, if I remember correctly. I especially remember the one of the White Knight (I'm not sure why. Maybe he hung in my bedroom, or maybe, like Alice, he just impressed me most). His style, even if I'd never seen the Alice illustrations, would have been extremely familiar to me nonetheless, as we also had large collections of old Punch cartoons in our house growing up, many of which were his.

I'll end by saying I had fantastic dreams on the nights when I read this book right before falling asleep. Carroll certainly seemed to have a direct connection to the Land of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (despite the fact it didn't yet exist when he was writing). Of course, a good Jungian would tell you that he just knew exactly how to tap into the collective unconscious. I prefer to think of it as another land, a Wonderland, full of disappearing cats, disagreeable queens, and Humpty Dumpty himself. I wouldn't want to live there, but it's a great place to visit.

Once Upon a Time Challenge Post IV

Turgeon, Carolyn. Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009.

This one had so much imaginative promise, and I'd read some positive blog posts at some point. I should have at least liked it, if not loved it. But no. I was to experience no happily ever after, no infatuation even. I flat out just didn't like it.

It probably didn't help matters much that I read the Grimm brothers' "Cinderella" just before I read this. Did you know there is no fairy godmother in that version? There is no pumpkin coach. There are no footmen. Nothing happens at midnight. In fact, the slipper isn't even glass. It's golden.

Okay, this wouldn't really be a problem in and of itself. After all, the Walt Disney retelling of the Cinderella story is probably as much of a legend (if not more so) to us 21st-century Americans as the Grimms' version was to 19th-century Europeans. A novel that's the story of a fairy godmother who only showed up in the old tale recently (relatively speaking) could still have been brilliant -- especially a beautiful fairy who made the mistake of falling in love with the prince herself and who's been banished to New York City, where she is now an elderly woman working in a second-hand bookstore.

The problem, uneven writing notwithstanding (and I should be the last to complain about uneven writing, since my writing often resembles a dirt road just after the winter thaw. Nonetheless, I complain, blaming the editor, of course, not Turgeon. Turgeon is capable of writing beautiful prose. She just needed someone to come along and smooth some of the bumps that crept in from time to time), was that, throughout most of the book, I didn't find Lil, our fairy godmother, the least bit sympathetic. She becomes much more so at the end, but by then, it's way too late. Again, that could've been fine. I've read plenty of books I've enjoyed whose characters were unsympathetic. The problem is that I suspected Lil wasn't meant to be unsympathetic. If I'd suspected that, I could have gone with it, but I'm pretty sure the author wanted us to sympathize with her, and I just couldn't.

I did sympathize with other characters, like Veronica, the young woman Lil meets and believes has been sent for her redemption. In fact, I loved Veronica. I'd like to read a whole book about Veronica, who could've stepped right out of the pages of a Francesca Lia Block novel. The book was too much Lil and not enough Veronica.

Having said all this, I will note that I'm really glad I didn't abandon the book. I was sorely tempted to do so, and if I hadn't chosen to read it for the Once Upon a Time challenge, I'm sure I would have. Had I not read it to the end, you'd be reading here about how so much of the book didn't make sense, how I thought Turgeon was being purposefully elusive to give the book a dreamy quality and how she'd failed, filling her story with too many question marks that kept the rational mind hopping and that drowned out the dreamy, magical-thinking mind. The ending -- a shocker that I didn't see coming at all -- definitely explained everything and verified that Turgeon does, indeed, have a wonderful imagination. She's also extremely clever. She just didn't meld the two well enough in this book.

Really, the book should have worked for me. I'm sad that it didn't. I'd love to know what others think of it.

Once Upon a Time Challenge Post III

Pratchett, Terry. Mort. New York: HarperTorch, 2008. (The book was originally published in 1987)

(Just in case you didn't catch this from the title of my post, this is another one that I read for the Once Upon a Time Challenge, which is quickly drawing to a close, and I've got two more books to finish.)

People generally define what Terry Pratchett writes as fantasy, and, really, that makes sense. After all, his books take place in an imaginary world, a planet known as Discworld. It's a flat planet that balances atop four elephants who travel through space, balanced themselves atop a giant turtle. What could be more fantastic than that? The planet is inhabited by wizards, witches, dragons, etc. Such characters living in such a place certainly sounds like fantasy. Perhaps fantasy in the hands of Bugs Bunny, but fantasy nonetheless.

I'm going to argue, though, that saying Pratchett writes fantasy is like saying Jonathan Swift wrote fantasy. Let's face it: Gulliver certainly traveled to places that don't exist, dealing with such fantastic elements as tiny people, but critics don't tend to describe Swift as one of fantasy's founding fathers. No, he's known for being a great satirist and father of one of English language's best parodies. I'm inclined to say that Pratchett is England's greatest living satirist, writing fabulous parodies. He's also bucket loads of fun.

Pratchett is a relatively recent discovery for me, so I haven't made too many trips to Discworld yet, but I'm eager to explore all it has to offer. Happily, I have lots to look forward to, as he's been a prolific writer. (I say "been" because, sadly, he is suffering from early-onset Alzheimers, so who knows how much he'll be able to produce in the coming years?). I'm sure he's not everyone's cup of tea, because a reader has to be willing to trust him when he does things like provide scientific explanations that are too difficult to follow. He also likes to litter his novels with footnotes, which I know some people hate (and I understand that, having read a novel or two that embraced this technique, taking it way too seriously), but he's the master of the appropriately placed (and often hilarious) footnote. Also, they're footnotes, not endnotes: no having to flip to the back of the book.

He creates wacky plots in order to skewer everything from science to religion to politics. Mostly, however, he's focused on just plain skewering human nature, sometimes blatantly, sometimes so subtlety, you can't blink or you might miss something brilliant. I have yet to read a book of his that didn't make me laugh out loud at least once.

This one, the fourth Discworld novel he wrote (and the first of those to feature Death as a main character), is no exception. The "Mort" of the title is a young man whose father decides it's about time for him to become an apprentice. Who better for a young man named Mort to apprentice to than Death himself? The trouble is, Mort's just a little too human for the job and can't quite embrace his duties fully. Soon we find he's done something that just might change history -- and not for the better, no matter how it might seem, judging from the characters involved. Luckily, history seems to be a little more flexible than we tend to assume it is (well, when written by the "right" sorts of historians, that is. Pratchett would probably note today that Sarah Palin's "history," for instance, seems to be quite flexible) on our own planet. So, for that matter, is Death, who proves he can sometimes be a bit flexible (and also feel a bit sorry for himself).

But that's all I'm going to tell you, except that this is classic Pratchett. If you've never read him, this would be a great place to start. If you have read him, but haven't read this one, you won't be disappointed.

Music Monday/Lyric Lundi

It's been ages since I had a Music Monday post. Maybe it's time to bring back the tradition now that it's summer. The summers of my youth have a soundtrack (it's vinyl, not an eight-track tape, because I had a record player) that features these catchy summer tunes that we listened to over and over again on long summer afternoons playing Crazy Eights or Monopoly, or at slumber parties, dancing while trying to stay up all night. They feature such artists in my very young days as Bobby Sherman, David Cassidy, Simon and Garfunkel, and Three Dog Night. When I began to get a little older, these were replaced with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Queen, David Bowie, and The Police.

Every so often, a new song comes along right around this time of year that takes me back to those days of riding around in a car with the windows down waiting for the big song of the summer to come on. When it came on, you'd blast the radio (which never shook the streets the way car stereos do today when people blast them), and sing along, and anyone driving by would know how cool you were. You never really had to wait very long for this exciting moment, even where I lived. One of our three favorite pop stations would be playing it at least once an hour. Sometimes, if you got really, really lucky, you'd hear it on one station and then switch to another one in time to catch it again, before going home to listen to it over and over on the record player. You know what kind of song I mean. It's the one that the cutest couple on American Bandstand announced they liked because it "has a good beat, and you can dance to it."

This summer, that song is by Foster the People. I first heard about them on NPR (sixteen-year-old me can't believe that, these days, you can hear about such cool bands on NPR). They played "Pumped Up Kicks," and there I was, tempted to roll down the window, blast the radio, and sing at the top of my lungs. Oh, and sixteen-year-old me, if she'd seen this video, would have thought these guys were so-o-o-o cute! (Actually, 47-year-old me thinks they're cute, too, but in a very different way.)

Forget that the lyrics completely contradict the happy sound of the music. Crank it up, everybody, and let's hit the dance floor.

Once Upon a Time Challenge Post II

Selected tales from: Grimm, Wilhelm and Jacob. Stern, James, ed. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon, 1976, 1944.

Sexton, Anne. Transformations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1971.

I hadn't planned to read Anne Sexton's Transformations for the Once Upon a Time Challenge. I was just interested in reading something by her because I never had. When I got this book (the only Anne Sexton on the shelf at the library the day I was there, grabbed by me without really looking at it, because I had not had much change for the parking meter out front and had very little time for browsing), I discovered it was perfect for the challenge. As Kurt Vonnegut tells us in his wonderful Foreword, Sexton, in this collection, was, "...retelling many of the Grimms' fairy tales in poetry." (p. ix)

I had planned, possibly, to read The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, but it's a huge work, and I've discovered it's a bit like reading The Bible: fascinating, but a little goes a long way. It's best to read it slowly, throughout a year, say, than to try to read it all at once. So instead, after reading half a dozen or so in order, I decided, for the purposes of this challenge, just to read the seventeen tales on which Sexton based her poems.

Most of her poems are based on tales with which we're all familiar: Cinderella, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, etc. However, there were some here, like Iron Hans and The White Snake with which I was not so familiar. The poet's retelling of these tales are anything but magical (that is, if you ignore her magical abilities with imagery and choosing and putting together words). Just as many of the original stories are very dark, so are Sexton's. Her updated versions mimic the old in that they do dance around the issues. She doesn't come right out and say, "I'm talking about feminism here," anymore than the brothers Grimm announced, "We're talking about sex here." She doesn't tell you she's talking about the abuse of women, the abuse of children, about how all those on the margins of society are ignored or silenced. She doesn't have to: you know she's talking about all that and more.

She's also talking about pain, anger, confusion, and, sometimes, a lack of redemption. No, you are not always going to be rescued. And, as a matter of fact, sometimes when your knight in shining armor does appear, he is even worse than what you suffered before he came along. These are disturbing poems but powerful ones. Sexton wanted her readers to think, and, I suspect, to understand her pain (she suffered from mental illness herself and could be considered one of those on the margins of her society). She succeeded in making this reader do so.

Reading the fairy tales was interesting, too. Sexton was right. So many of the tales are about women who had to give up things in order to be deserving of men (or as punishment for daring to flirt with men they shouldn't have): their hands, their voices, their hair, their fun. In fairness to these age-old tales, men often had to sacrifice and are punished in awful ways, too. Typically, though, those are male animals or peasants. Rarely do kings and princes sacrifice, and bad kings and princes are often rewarded in ways that only the most saintly of the female characters are. Also, that "reward" depends on your idea of "happily ever after".

I like Sexton's wry take on the standard fairy tale ending, epitomized here in the final lines of her The White Snake,

So, of course,

they were placed in a box

and painted identically blue

and thus passed their days

living happily ever after --

a kind of coffin,

a kind of blue funk,

Is it not? (p. 15)

Wow, huh? If you like that, you're bound to like this exemplary collection.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (TBR Challenge Book 9)

Wroblewski, David. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. New York: Ecco. 2008.

I wonder if anyone even remembers that I came up with a TBR challenge and then extended it when I found I couldn't keep to it. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't remember, but I'm here to tell you today that I'm slowly, but surely, still reading books from the list. I'm trying to make some sense of this one, so I thought I'd get my post up on it, even though I have plenty of others waiting for posts.

You see, I was ever so disappointed with this book, and I can't quite put my finger on exactly why. It isn't that Wroblewski can't write. Write he most definitely can. It isn't that it was boring or that I lost interest or that the characters just didn't seem believable or real. All those ingredients were there. I hope that the problem isn't that I'm such a stickler when it comes to editorial detail that I couldn't get past the fact that Edgar's birthday couldn't possibly have been in the month and year noted (I won't tell you why, in case you haven't read the book, but suffice it to say that the events leading up to his birth would've made it impossible). I mean, I would hope I'd be able to forgive an author (and his editor) for such an error (especially since I've asked others who've read the book, and none of them noticed that error) or at least embrace the notion of poetic license, miraculously-short-full-term pregnancies and all.

I'm pretty sure I would have if other aspects of the book hadn't bothered me, but once I realized I wasn't loving the book, like all mistaken loves that turn out to be mere infatuations, that small flaw grew all out of proportion. By the time I finished the book and was trying to figure out why I hadn't liked it more than I did, I was all too eager to think, "I should've known from the beginning I wasn't gonna like it. After all, Edgar's birth date was impossible."

Let's pretend, though, that I'm not quite so superficial. That might help us to see that my real problem with the book has nothing to do with birth dates. My real problem is the whole Hamlet connection. That's what just really didn't work for me. I'm realizing that it's not really that I'm such a stickler for detail; it's that I seem to desire extremes. The Hamlet theme here was neither subtle enough (come on, did the names really have to be so obvious?) nor faithful enough to the original (Ophelia was not named Ophelia or anything that sounded like Ophelia. But, then, when I figured out who Ophelia was, my reaction again was, "Oh, come on. Please!" That doesn't mean, however, the lump wasn't in my throat when "Hamlet" discovers she's dead).

I almost felt as if Wroblewski had been writing this great, imaginative story and suddenly found himself thinking, "Uh-oh. This is too much like Hamlet. What am I gonna do about that? Hmmm, well, let's just make it a reworking of Hamlet while throwing in some original twists and turns to make it a little more subtle." I know that's not what he did. It's obvious by the end that he studied Hamlet inside out and backwards, but the connections he chose to make and those he chose not to make just didn't work for me.

Still, I finished the book, and I didn't have to do that. After all, we all know that everyone dies in Hamlet, which means I could pretty much figure out how this book would end. The fact I read it to the bitter end says something. I can't quite dismiss the book or say I didn't like it. All I can do is repeat myself: I was ever so disappointed.

I Promise to Stop This Nonsense and Write a Real Post Soon

I mean, it's ridiculous to be doing nothing but posting pictures of shoes when I've got so much other stuff to post. Still, nothing makes my heart go pitter pat quite as much as a nice pair of shoes, and Jimmy Choo (because, you know, we not-by-choice unemployed gals can skip right off and buy a pair of Jimmy Choos anytime we like) sends me these emails I'm drawn to the way most men are drawn to Victoria Secret catalogues. These emails prove that, well, I spoke too hastily in my last post: some shoe designers out there do have a clue, and I could never compete with them.

Today happened to be a "pre-fall" email (yes, four days after Memorial Day, and it's already time to look at fall shoes. One can never be too prepared, you know), and I thought, "Well, I won't be at all interested in this." I don't know about where you are, but, although it's absolutely beautiful today, we just suffered through a brutal heat wave that left me so miserable and lethargic, I found myself wondering if I'd ever again have the desire to soak in a hot bath.

Oh, how wrong could I be about my interest level? I took one look and could feel the little nip in the air. Is it any wonder when you compare the offerings in my last post to what's below that I so much prefer the cool breezes of fall over the sweltering summer heat? Look at the difference between what I can put on my feet. Actually, that first pair could be worn in the summer, surely?

Seriously?

I mean seriously?! Maybe I ought to be a shoe designer when I grow up since, quite obviously, the world seems to be full of designers who haven't a clue what they're doing. I'd fit right in.

Ah-yeah! California 2011 (Part Three)

Gary is the older brother I wanted and never had. Life is funny that way. When you're a kid, you never think you will eventually have a life in which people step in and become second mothers and fathers (or maybe surrogate mothers and fathers, if one or the other was MIA, or your biological parents weren't so hot) or the twin sister you never had (I wanted one of those, too). No, even when you're lucky enough to have a younger brother who is the. best. brother. ever. (yes, I dare you to argue that point with me. How many sisters can honestly say their brothers were their best friends growing up?), we wish we had an older brother (and a twin sister). Of course, I never envisioned an older brother who would do things like drag me up the stairs by my hair (like a friend of mine's older brother did when we were in elementary school) or step on my hand with a thick-heeled boot when I refused to give him a cigarette (like one of my teenage friend's older brother did. I was surprised he didn't break any bones and very impressed that her only response was a calm, "you bastard"). No, my older brother (besides bringing cute friends over to the house. Isn't that the main reason girls want older brothers?) would share great books with me, teach me all kinds of cool stuff, tease me but never stoop to cruelty, and be protective (but not overly so) of me. It's best to wait for that sort of brother to come along outside the nuclear family unit. When we arrived at his house, after another beautiful and easy drive (I imagine, like everywhere, one can take a long drive in California that isn't beautiful, but based on my experiences, I haven't yet found that drive), he reminded me that it had been two years since we've seen each other. Nonetheless, we easily picked up right where we'd left off, as if we still see each other every day.

He gave us a tour of his fabulous house, which is open and airy -- all white walls and hardwood floors. I like the way his house is arranged. An open kitchen/dining/living room area divides the master bedroom suite from the three rooms on the other side of the house (he's turned them into a guest room, a magnificent library with three walls of built-in bookshelves and comfy leather couches, and a computer room). The views front and back are wonderful. Morro Bay's best feature is Morro Rock, which rises up off the beach in a startling way, and it can be seen beyond Gary's garden (someone needs to tear down his neighbor's house, so he'd have an even better view of it).
In the back yard, he's got wild flowers and hills (in Maine, those would be called "mountains," but in California, they're merely "hills"). Apparently, the cows practically walk on his patio when they come up to graze, but I must have scared them away with my Lancaster County cow smell, because they never appeared while we were there.
Back in 2008, Mom and I had driven down from Monterey to Big Sur and eaten lunch at Sierra Mar, the restaurant at the Post Ranch Inn (an inn where one can only stay if she's won the lottery jackpot but where, if one has planned, she can eat an extravagant lunch for the price of dinner for four at most restaurants in New York City). Gary was the one who'd told us about this place, so I asked him how long a drive it was to Big Sur. He told me two hours, which seemed like a perfectly reasonable day trip to me, so we decided that's where we'd go on Wednesday. We made plans for Mom and me to go to San Simeon on Thursday to see Hearst Castle and to stop at Piedras Blancas beach, which is basically owned by elephant seals (truth be told, I could easily have spent two days just watching elephant seals -- in fact, it's a good thing I don't have a house that overlooks a beach like that. I'd never get anything done -- but I'm not one who likes to impose my idiosyncrasies on others in large doses -- small doses are fine). We dined that night on a delicious dinner made by Gary of a large salad with chicken, fresh bread, and sweet strawberries (ingredients bought at his local farmer's market, which I'd have the pleasure of visiting later). I slept like a baby in that perfect setting.

I got up early the next morning, grabbed Gary's copy of Armistead Maupin's Mary Ann in Autumn and settled down in the library to read (at some point, I got up to spend some time staring out the living room window, contemplating the gorgeous view, and then went back to reading). Eventually, Mom got up, and we enjoyed a breakfast of boiled eggs and buttered sour dough toast (kindly bought by Gary at my request. If any of you ever plans to have me as an overnight guest, that's basically my favorite simple breakfast). Shortly thereafter, we set off for Big Sur.

We didn't get too far before Gary began to worry that the road might be closed due to washouts over the winter. We stopped in Cambria, and, while there, he called to have his fears confirmed, which meant a much longer, and less scenic drive. At this point, he offered skipping the whole thing, but by then, I was bound and determined to get back to Big Sur, a little piece of heaven on earth (I mean, how often do I get there?). Thus, I have only myself to blame for the fact that I was completely exhausted by the time we got home that night (so exhausted, in fact, that I readily agreed to Gary's idea of just having snacks for dinner).

It was so worth the exhaustion, though. Yes, the drive was long and involved some of those winding, curving roads along cliffs that can easily spook me (when they don't remind me of Bugs Bunny cartoons), but Sierra Mar was as wonderful as I remember, and the views from the restaurant are stunning. See what a gorgeous day we had and what I mean about that Pacific blue?
Basically, you eat your lunch on the side of a cliff looking out over all that blue. The only disappointment was the martini Gary and I each ordered. The restaurant was out of Bombay Sapphire gin (who ever heard of such a thing? Especially in a restaurant where you basically spend $30 just to sit down?), and instead of going with my instincts, which was to order the Beefeater, I (always so impressionable) decided to try the organic gin, also offered, once Gary decided to order it. I should have just tasted his. I don't know what those organic producers are growing, but it seemed more like licorice than juniper berries.
We lingered over lunch and then walked down and around The Post Ranch Inn's property. You can look either at the mountains or the sea (my favorite kind of place. Must be all that Scottish blood in me). Then we stopped at Nepenthe to do a little gift shopping. I bought a few things for Bob, as well as some bath salts for myself.

On the way home, we stopped off in Carmel. Okay, if I lived in Carmel and had tons of money, I might easily learn to love shopping. There are so many wonderful shops lining the streets, and not your typical "mall in the village" -- no Limited or Gap in sight. They even had a lovely-looking lingerie store. If we had not been with a male host who was kind enough to indulge things like the wool shop (where Mom bought me a stunning red wool jacket) and a pet store, it would have been my first stop. Once shopping is done in Carmel, one can go get an ice cream (Mom and me) or a lemonade (Gary) and then walk down to the beach to wade in the water. Yet again, I slept like a baby that night, sweet dreams and all.

Thursday morning, we had a change of plans. Mom decided she was very tired and not feeling quite right, so I suggested maybe she needed another day of rest, sleeping and reading. I didn't particularly want to go to San Simeon without her, so my plan was to skip that and just go see the elephant seals. Gary, who had had no interest in going to San Simeon, agreed to join me for the seals (in fact, he agreed to drive). First, the three of us had breakfast at a place he likes, a sort of upscale diner. Feeling particularly adventuresome (oh, who am I kidding? I'm always adventuresome when it comes to food), I ordered the fried green tomato eggs benedict, which may sound a little odd but isn't at all once it hits the taste buds. I loved it.

More clear skies and warm temperatures accompanied us on our drive to the elephant seal beach, and then we were there. Oh my! Gary had promised seals, and he didn't disappoint. There's a long boardwalk above the beach where gawking humans can stand and stare out over the beach that seems to be more seal than sand. Some of them bounce around and spar in the water, but this time of year (as I discovered from reading the signs and talking to a park ranger), they're molting and mostly just lie around and sleep.

Many of them line up by the water's edge, looking like gigantic sardines without their tin boundaries. Others station themselves farther up the beach, either in sardine fashion or solo. Occasionally, they will use their flippers to toss sand up onto their backs.

I was mesmerized (which is probably why I took a total of 24 pictures on the entire trip and got home to discover that 6 of them are of elephant seals). Yes, they've turned sleeping into an enviable art form, but sometimes they get up and drag themselves down to the water to cool off, or up the beach to a different spot (I guess when the riffraff comes to shore and moves into the neighborhood), or they just roll over. It's hard to describe the sounds they make. A cross between a howler monkey and a lion's roar with a little bit of growling and barking dog thrown in is the best I can do, based on other animal sounds I've heard.

Eventually, it was time to drag ourselves away and have some lunch. This we did at Ragged Point, sitting outside, looking down on their gardens. On the way home, we stopped off in Cambria, where I discovered a little wine shop that offered tastings. I'd been in California for a whole week and had yet to taste wine, so I decided this would be a good place to do so. The wine was, for the most part, good, and I bought a bottle for Bob. This was where I proceeded to think I'd lost my camera (because, I, Ms. Epitome of Oh-So-Calm and Efficient, can't be with Gary without having some sort of "crisis"). I'm not a big picture-taker (which you may have guessed by now), and this probably wouldn't have been so devastating if I hadn't just taken all those pictures of the seals. Somehow (I guess because I was in California), I managed not to have a complete meltdown, and, eventually, I discovered it was just tucked away in his car in a place that wasn't obvious.

Back to Morro Bay and Gary's farmers' market -- this one, your standard outdoor market. They had everything you can imagine, even little pesto pizzas and raw milk (which I'm used to buying right off Amish farms here in Lancaster County). I bought some cherries for myself, and my thoughts turned, yet again, to thinking maybe I could live in California. (What is it about good farmers' markets that make me think I could live in a place? Maybe it's the fact that I seem to live in the farmers' market capital of the world right now).

We headed back to the house where Mom had, indeed, had a very relaxing time. She'd immersed herself in Gary's biography of James Thurber and was sitting outside on the patio, reading, when we got home. Shortly thereafter, Gary fixed me a gin and lemonade, which went straight to my head (I guess because it was on top of the wine). Sad to say, that did not stop me from having another one. By the time we headed out to dinner, I really was way too relaxed and tipsy, which, sad to say again, did not stop me from tasting more wine before dinner or drinking it with dinner. That's the most I've drunk, I think, since the last time I had mint juleps with Ms. Musings back in 2007. Needless to say, I don't remember much about that evening, but Mom promises me I didn't embarrass myself. What's a vacation, though, without one good night of letting your hair down and drinking too much (especially less than a month after you've lost your job)?

Because I was on vacation (or because Gary's house is magic. I can't decide which), I slept fine and had no hangover when we got up at 5:00 the next morning to drive back to L.A. Not only is that the most I've drunk since 2007, but it's the most I've ever drunk without suffering a hangover. Gary was up to see us off, and I was quite sad as we drove down the drive that it seemed, a mere minute before, we'd driven up for the first time. I'm sure I will drive up it again, some day, but who knows when?

After an uneventful drive back to LAX, we said "goodbye" to sunny California, as we boarded our plane and headed east. We were welcomed home at midnight by an exhausted Bob, waiting up for us, who was extremely glad to see us. Accompanying him were an overwhelmingly exuberant puppy, and a cat who was, not exactly exuberant, but who showed, in his own way, that he was happy I had returned.

That's it for the California saga. Now we can get back to books (TBR challenge and Once Upon a Time challenge updates, as well as last month's CT mystery book club read, coming soon). But before we do, tell me: who wants to head west with me next time?

Ah-yeah! California 2011 (Part Two)

(This post will likely make more sense if you read this one first. Also, for some reason, I took no pictures during this leg of the trip. You'll just have to use your imaginations.)

When I told people I was going out to California, those who've been to the places I mentioned I'd be visiting informed me that I probably wouldn't like L.A. much, especially Hollywood, described as "dirty" by most, but that I would love Santa Barbara. I had proven such prognostications wrong on my first afternoon in the city (after all, I'm a City Mouse at heart). Dirty? I didn't see it. Besides, what's "dirty" when you're familiar with both New York and Philadelphia? I found Hollywood fascinating and was thrilled to be traveling along streets I've heard of all my life: Hollywood Blvd., Santa Monica Blvd., Rodeo Dr. Despite the fact I know very little about movies and Hollywood, I was able to make plenty of "big screen" connections.

I wasn't exactly skeptical, then, about Santa Barbara, but I wasn't exactly convinced I wouldn't love it, either, as we headed up 101, hugging the magnificent coastline -- does anything get bluer than the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean on a bright, sunny day? -- before heading inland for a while to feast our eyes on hills that provide so many shades of green they could easily rival Crayola's largest box of crayons. (I love the bright yellow flowers of the wild mustard that grows there in contrast to the greens and browns.) The truth of the matter is that I fell somewhere in between loving it and hating it. If someone were to offer me an all-expenses paid visit back to the town, I wouldn't turn it down. However, I don't have any overwhelming desire to return, nor did I spend any time thinking about what it might be like to live there.

Two factors put a bit of a bad taste in our mouths before we'd arrived in town. The first was that, before I got laid off, I had planned work-related meetings with colleagues out there. The second was that we had also planned that, while I was working, Mom would have a little "reunion" of sorts with Kathy and another college friend of theirs. On our last trip to California together, when I was attending a conference up at Asilomar near Monterey, my mother had taken the bus down to Santa Barbara to meet these two, and they'd had a marvelous time. We'd rebooked into the same hotel where they'd stayed, one within walking distance of both downtown and the beach. Needless to say, I would not be having any work meetings. Kathy had been unable to make the trip to Santa Barbara, which was why she had come up to L.A. to visit instead. My mother's other friend, for complicated reasons we still don't quite understand (although both Danny and I have written imaginative stories in our heads at this point) couldn't join us at the last minute. Mom was quite sad about that. All these women are nearing 80, and my mom (rightly) feels a need to seize each chance she gets to see them.

The scenic drive, however, boosted out spirits, and we were quite cheerful by the time we arrived at our hotel. I actually decided it was nice that I'd get to have Sunday through Tuesday alone with Mom. We planned just to enjoy the beach and to do some shopping, and to, otherwise, be quite lazy. I loved our hotel room, which had a real little kitchenette, complete with gas stove. If I hadn't already decided to be lazy, I might have made a trip to the market up the street and bought something to make for dinner. But, well, I'd already decided to be lazy. Besides, during most of this trip, I had a hankering for seafood (especially oysters on the half shell, for some reason, most of which, I discovered, were shipped out there from places like Maine. Not exactly sustainable eating, but oh well, I was on vacation where I was being lazy and doing environmental damage), and since Bob doesn't like seafood, I don't cook it much. I prefer to have others cook it (or prepare it, in the case of raw oysters) for me.

Mom and I settled into our room and then headed out on foot to a restaurant that was recommended by the hotel clerk who told us it was "only three blocks away." I forget that in most places, "blocks" are a tad bit longer than they are in New York where you can count on one city block being 1/20 of a mile (well, if you're walking between numbered streets, that is. If you're walking between numbered avenues, they're twice as long, but I'm typically walking between streets). I think that in Santa Barbara, the blocks are about a mile long, and they disappear into the harbor (then again, maybe we just got a little lost). Needless to say, it took us quite some time to find the restaurant, and we were starving by the time we got there and had to endure the unhappy news that it would be "about a 25-minute wait." What to do in such situations but head to the bar for a martini (me) or a glass of wine (Mom)?

The bar was downstairs and practically empty but quiet compared to the very noisy restaurant. There, we saw splashed across a huge T.V. screen the news that Osama Bin Laden had been captured. The volume was not turned up, though, nor was the closed caption feature turned on, and the CNN scroll didn't make sense. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was something like, "Osama Bin Laden captured. Killed as body on way to Indian Ocean." We couldn't quite believe it, so my mother asked the bar tender. He was a bit of an obnoxious young punk who answered my mother's, "Is this true? They found Bin Laden?" with a shrug of his shoulders and a "yes," begrudgingly sliding our drinks to us. When we'd walked in, he'd told us to hurry, because it was "last call," which I was pretty sure was his idea of a joke, because it wasn't even 8:00 yet. (I later realized, when some other young man came in who looked like he was going to replace our surly server, that maybe he'd meant last call for his shift.) I suppose if Mom and I had been two giggling, scantily-dressed young women, like the ones who came in and sat at the other end of the bar, he might have been more forthcoming, or at least might have shown off for us the way he did for them, tossing around liquor bottles, mixers, and aluminum tumblers, throwing them in the air and catching them behind his back.

We were called back to the restaurant before we'd finished our drinks and headed back up the stairs to a lovely little table outside with a view of the harbor. Here I proceeded to make the big mistake of ignoring my desire for oysters on the half shell and instead ordering the combination raw plate which claimed to be a sampling of raw shell fish but really turned out to be mostly a huge seafood salad with a token oyster and a token clam or two here and there on the side. Luckily, I'd also ordered the clam chowder, which was delicious, and I learned a lesson: stick to the real thing when you see it on the menu instead of being conned by a "sampler" that promises more, which I did throughout the rest of the trip.

We could hear seals barking in the harbor (our waitress was as blasé about them as our bar tender had been about Bin Laden), and I so badly wanted to see one. It was too dark, though, and they didn't come up onto the pier the way I've seen them do in San Francisco, so I soon gave up, and we finished our food and headed back to the hotel, proceeding to get hopelessly lost. This we found extremely amusing and had to stop several times, nearly collapsing on the sidewalk in gales of laughter. Finally, some other tourists we met along the way took pity on us and told us to follow them back to their hotel where we asked the clerk for directions. He gave us a map, and it seemed we were almost there, so we declined the ride the other tourists offered us in their car, and finally found our way back.

The next morning, I was determined to do two things. The first was to replace the contact lens I'd dropped down the sink at Danny's. The second was to do some laundry, because I'd noticed that the hotel had a washer and dryer for its guests (I like being able to wash clothes while on vacation, even when I've packed plenty and have no real need to do so). Replacing the contact lens ended up being a breeze. The first optometrist I called produced a receptionist who was extremely kind and told me she'd gladly replace it for nothing, sympathizing that it would be horrible not to be able to see while on vacation. A phone call to my optometrist in Pennsylvania, a fax with my prescription, a short drive to the office to pick it up, and I soon had replaced my glasses with my contacts (although I hate the way I look in glasses, this was not solely a vanity. I see much better with contacts than I ever have with glasses).

I'd dragged Mom away from all the news about Osama Bin Laden to accompany me on that little expedition (call me un-American, but I was not as riveted by this news as everyone else seemed to be. I was glad he was caught, and I hope it means a little more peace in the world, but I doubt it. I certainly didn't need hours and hours of information and analysis, nor was I too keen on footage of Americans all around the country celebrating the way those in the Middle East had after 9/11), and she was perfectly content to get back to it, while I went about getting a load of laundry in the washer. I then spent a lovely, lazy morning on the bed, reading Kendall's book. When the wash was done, we lunched on some leftovers and then headed out on foot to walk to the center of town for a little shopping. Before we'd even gone one block, though, my mother realized she was really too tired to do this (she's still so young at heart, I often forget she's 79 years old, and we'd had that long, long walk the previous evening). She turned back, and, map in hand, I headed off to the center of town alone.

Did I mention I'm not the best when it comes to reading maps? And that this was a particularly bad map? And that (which you should have gathered from my previous night's adventure) I have a terrible sense of direction? By some miracle, I managed to find the center of town, but it wasn't easy, and I found myself walking through some pretty "iffy" areas, thinking how glad I was that it was daylight, while also thinking that plenty of women have been raped in broad daylight when there are so many abandoned buildings just waiting to be used to obscure such activity.

Once in town, I realized that I didn't really want to go shopping (since we all know I don't really like to shop unless I'm accompanied by certain people like my mother). What I really wanted was a pedicure (something I really do like to the point I'd practically drag Bob to have one with me). I was sure I'd easily be able to find a salon. I did. It was a fancy, "organic" spa (I'm into organic, but, ummm, aren't things like sea weed and mud naturally organic?). I could feel smoothness wrap itself around my body like plastic over hot wax as I walked up to the receptionist who proceeded to completely ignore me in favor of someone on the phone (call me old-fashioned, but I hate that. Customers who've bothered to enter an establishment in person ought always to come first. In fact, people ought to bow down to us, especially when we've just risked life and limb, hiking through Santa Barbara's seedier neighborhoods to get there). Finally, she got off the phone, and I asked if it would be possible to get a pedicure. Obviously, I looked like one of the Beverly Hillbillies, because, despite the fact the place looked and sounded completely empty to me, she was terribly sorry, but they were completely booked through the afternoon. Thank God, really. A pedicure in that place probably would have cost me more than my airline ticket from Philadelphia and back.

It's a funny thing about downtown Santa Barbara. Although it sports a number of tattoo parlors and a sandwich shop on almost every corner, it seems, it doesn't have many salons. Eventually, though, I found a nail salon, the sort of place I'm used to with teenage girls getting speckled blue and black nails and Asian women applying the fancy artwork. I paid for the "full treatment", massage and everything (reasoning that the cost of this probably would've paid for one nail in the other place; thus, I was obviously saving, not spending money). I, and my whitish-pink toenails, left the salon very happy. What is it about a good pedicure that can give one such confidence? I now felt emboldened to find a better, safer way back to the hotel. I studied the map, figured out the best route, and made it back without a hitch.

That evening, we met one of my former colleagues for drinks at a lovely café right on the beach. The weather continued to be as perfect as it had been since our plane landed (clear blue skies, temperatures in the upper seventies), which means the ocean was as blue as ever, as we sat looking out over it. I sipped a margarita (what else does one drink on a beach?) and had a wonderful time discussing all the "ins" and "outs" of publishing (I should be bored with that topic by now, but I never am) with this smart young woman. I was worried Mom might be bored, but she enjoyed listening to us and "learning" so much, as she put it. (She also made me feel good later by telling me how impressed she was by how competent I sounded. That was nice to hear, having recently been laid off, which, no matter what, makes a person feel extremely incompetent). After the margarita, I decided to have (my favorite) an absolutely delicious hot dog, cooked to perfection, juicy without being too greasy served on a nicely toasted, perfect (not so huge, the hot dog got lost. Not so small, the hot dog fell out) bun. This hot dog connoisseur was extremely pleased.

We had another leisurely morning our last day in Santa Barbara. We were meeting another group of former colleagues of mine for lunch and had decided, before that, to head to K-Mart. I wanted a hat, which I'd forgotten to pack and a razor, which I'd also forgotten to pack. Wouldn't you know it? K-Mart, which usually has tons of great hats, had no good hats. I half-heartedly made do with what seemed like the best they had. Meanwhile, they did have some great shoes (1 pair bought) and flip flops (1 pair bought) and skirts (1 bought). Yes, I did go all the way to Santa Barbara to shop at K-Mart (of all places!).

We had another delicious lunch (mushroom and quiche salad) at a little landmark café (what is it about publishing sorts and cafés?) with my colleagues and another great publishing discussion before talk turned to such things as the royal wedding. They all seemed a little shell-shocked, understandably so, given that 21 of their colleagues had recently lost their jobs. I'm hoping everything ends up well for them (which, in my book, means they all find fabulous, rewarding jobs elsewhere and get the recognition they each deserve).

Afterwards, I can't remember exactly why, we went to a drugstore, and, to my surprise, found a perfect hat. This meant going back to K-Mart to return the unsatisfactory one I'd bought. That deed done, we climbed back into the car, and I called my friend Gary to tell him we were hitting the road up the coast to his place in Morro Bay.

Ah-Yeah! California 2011 (Part One)

I just returned from an eight-day trip to California. Actually, I didn't just return. I returned last Friday, but you know, returning from vacation was so terribly draining that I had to spend two days being a total slug, sleeping and reading. Oh, and discovering a cool comic book store I never knew existed in Lancaster in order to get a free comic book on free comic book day (Richie Rich for those of you who are curious. I must go back to that store, but that's a subject for another blog post). Then I had other stuff to catch up on, and it's taken me four days to finish this blog post.

Anyway, back to California. Many of you know that if you enjoy reading my blog, you have my friend Danny to thank for its existence. He was my biggest influence when it came to taking the plunge into the blogosphere (nearly 5 years ago now. Egad!). Danny lives in Los Angeles (which you know if you read his blog. If you don't, why don't you? It's not to be missed), and it had been way too long since I'd last seen him, so I decided to start my western journey in a city I'd never been to see Danny and his family.

My traveling companion was my mother, who moved to L.A. as a teenager and went to Scripps College in Claremont before her family moved to San Francisco. This was the third mother-daughter trip to California she and I have taken. The older my father gets, the less he likes to travel, and he (like so many east coast snobs who've never been there) thinks he hates California and has no desire to go. The older my mother gets, the less she likes to travel alone, so I make the huge sacrifice of being her traveling companion on excursions to California.

I must say, if you are gong to visit L.A. for the first time, you can't pick better hosts than Danny and his wife Kendall. First of all they live in an extraordinarily cool house in the West Adams neighborhood.

The house is so cool that it was once a setting for a movie and has been featured on HGTV. I can't really do it justice by trying to describe it (not the least reason being that I know absolutely nothing about architecture nor how to describe decorative details and types of wood). Suffice it to say that it's a rambling bungalow built in 1909 with inlaid wood floors, built-in details like bookcases and benches to die for, a tiled-tapestried-muraled finished basement with a grand fireplace, and they have been slowly but surely restoring it to its era. Oh, and did I mention the books? Kendall is an autodidact. Not only that, but she inherited her grandmother's books, and Danny has just a few books of his own. This house definitely rivals my own when it comes to books. I felt right at home.

Danny picked us up at the airport in the Chevy Cruze he'd been loaned specifically for our visit. He has this rather cool gig with GM that involves driving their cars and writing blog posts about them. The Cruze wasn't exactly the car he'd had in mind for our visit (GM having leant him such things as a Corvette in the past), but they had arrived at his house that morning in a Cadillac with standard transmission (if you're thinking, "Cadillac with a stick shift? Umm...didn't Cadillac practically invent automatic transmissions so that wealthy Americans would never have to bother with something so farm-boyish and tractor-like as shifting gears?" you're not alone. Those were my exact thoughts, along with thinking it was somewhat ironic that GM might loan out an automatic Corvette, while offering a standard Cadillac). Anyway, Danny, like many a good late-20th-century Chicagoan who didn't learn to drive until he moved to L.A., doesn't drive stick shift. The Cadillac was taken back, and he was given the Cruze in its place. It proved to be a perfectly fine chariot, but might have been more so for someone who was mechanically inclined enough to figure out how to adjust the passenger seat in order to keep from feeling as though she was going to be propelled through the windshield.

We left the airport and headed to Danny's house. There, I got to meet Kendall for the first time (Danny and I were both telecommuting colleagues who met each other infrequently at company gatherings until we were both laid off from that company. I'd never met his wife) and their two-year-old Charlie.

I was thrilled to meet both, as Danny writes about Kendall on his blog, and some of you may remember how I feel about meeting my male friends' wives. I just knew I'd love her, and I was right (as did my mother. We're convinced we must somehow be related). I'd lived through Danny's blog posts about Charlie's nightmare premature birth and five months in the NICU, and it was such a treat to meet this happy, healthy baby who you can tell is going to grow up to be extremely kind and wise. Charlie has recently learned to say, instead of "yeah" when you ask him if he wants something or wants to do something, "ah-yeah." So, for instance, when we asked him if he wanted to climb aboard his rocking horse, he replied, "Ah-yeah." It's much more expressive, don't you think?

We got the tour of the house and also met Henry and Emma, the two wonderful dogs Danny and Kendall have adopted. Soon afterwards, it was time to go off to dinner at El Cholo, the oldest Mexican restaurant in L.A. (I have not had the guts to step on a scale since returning from this trip). We started with what I'm pretty sure was the best guacamole I've ever had, and the meal just continued to get better from there. We returned home, happy but exhausted, and definitely ready for bed. I tried to coerce Emma and Henry into sleeping with me, but they preferred their own huge mattress nicely laid out for them at the end of the hall.

The next day began with a trip to the farmer's market (which my mother remembered from her days living in L.A.). It's an indoor market (something L.A. has in common with Lancaster, which made me realize I really ought to frequent Lancaster's more often) and breakfast at Du-Par's, a lovely retro diner. I had a delicious plate of eggs and sausage, and Danny let us taste his French toast, which he declares the best he's had. I have to agree: thick bread that is cooked to crispy perfection on the outside while being wonderfully soggy on the inside. That trip to the farmer's market was when I began to suspect that, despite its lack of real seasons, I maybe could live in L.A. (I can't seem to visit anyplace on earth without wondering what it might be like to live there, a curse I've had since I was a child). What a magnificent place to shop for produce, meat, and baked goods, and I was envious that Danny does the majority of his shopping there. Charlie accompanied us on this morning excursion, happily strapped to his father's chest and stomach, when he wasn't happily sitting at the restaurant, throwing sugar packets on the floor (never underestimate the joy of engaging in such activities).

The big treat that day was the Turner Classics Film festival in Hollywood. Danny had asked if we might not be interested in seeing The Parent Trap. Would we! First of all (although I may have), I don't remember ever seeing it on the big screen, and what better big screen is there than the Egyptian Theatre? Secondly, Hayley Mills (who doesn't love Hayley Mills?) was going to be there. She was lovely. Leonard Maltin (someone else I was thrilled to see) interviewed her before the film. One of the most interesting things we learned was that she basically, because she was shipped back off to her English girls' boarding school, had no idea what a big star she was. The only inkling was the fan mail she received.

When the movie ended, we decided to go find the house where my mother and her family had lived. We were extremely disappointed to discover that it has been torn down and replaced with a monstrosity that, although it is a house, looks like an office building. I had so been hoping to knock on the door and get a look inside, but there was no point. Meanwhile, my mother had been describing her life as the daughter of the British Consul General to Danny who would later find all kinds of archival material for us online that filled in some gaps in memory. Then it was time to take my mother to visit her friend Kathy.

Kathy's brother lives in their parents' house in the Los Feliz neighborhood, and Kathy was up visiting him in order to see my mother (they went to college together). This was another fabulous house that I am at a loss to describe, but this photo of Danny and me on the front stoop gives you an idea of the neighborhood.
We had a great time touring it and learning its history. Being the movie ignorant person that I am, all the old stars associated with it went over my head, but Danny knew them, and I am not so ignorant as not to be able to imagine the grand parties held in the huge living room and out back where there, of course, is a swimming pool and an area that, at one time, was a badminton court. They also have an orange, a lemon, and a kumquat tree (off of which I had the best kumquat I've ever tasted. Sour enough, but not too sour as those on the east coast often are).

Danny and I left my mother to spend the night with Kathy and went to meet Kendall and Charlie at Kendall's mother's house. Kendall's mother is Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey whose best known novel is A Woman of Independent Means (a novel I have yet to read, but it's now been moved to page 1 of the TBR tome). I was hoping to meet Betsy, but she was off speaking at the L.A. book festival, so that wasn't to be this trip (nor was I to meet Danny's sixteen-year-old daughter Leah who was at her mom's for the weekend). We'd thought we'd go swimming, but it was really too chilly for that by the time we got there, so we just enjoyed talking and playing with Charlie and eating pizza before heading home to fall into bed again.

Our final day in L.A. was another terrific one. Danny, Charlie, and I got up early (I a little too early, as in my half-awake state, I proceeded to drop one of my contact lenses down the drain. I've worn contacts for 25 years and, although I've feared doing that since the day I got them, I never actually had until that morning). We went off for another delicious breakfast of boiled eggs and assorted breads, this time at a wonderful little Belgian import whose name I don't recall. Coffee was served the way I love it in those cups that are more like little bowls, with no handles, so you wrap your hands around them -- a great way to warm up cold hands when you need to do so. We had planned to go hiking (actually, we'd planned to do that on Saturday, too) but never got around to it before it was time to go pick up Kathy and my mother, so Danny could chauffeur us all to the Getty Museum.

Oh! What a marvelous place the Getty is! Kathy and I took the garden tour -- the garden was designed to be a painting in and of itself, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. I particularly loved the azalea maze, which blossoms in winter. Even without blossoms, it was a wonderful labyrinth of green. I'd love to see it in winter, though.
Then we went inside to look at some of the paintings (yes, I did what I always do -- boring me -- and located the Impressionists) before meeting back up with my mother for a fascinating demonstration on Parisian fashion of the eighteenth century. The fashion designer had a live model who was stunning and looked as though she'd just stepped out of an engraving. Guess what I liked the most. The shoes! (I know, I was quite the boring old me that day.) I would love to have a pair. They looked like mini-upholstered half boots with buckles made out of a beautiful floral pink and green satin cloth.

All-too-soon, it was time for Danny (who, poor boy, was up against deadlines for some freelance writing and editing projects and was still kind enough to put his life on hold to play tour guide and chauffeur) to pick us up. He took Kathy back to her brother's and then drove us to the airport to pick up the Toyota Camry that would be our wheels for the next six days. We sadly left the Hailey-Miller clan, each of our bags now carrying an autographed copy of Kendall's book, and we also had picked up a brand new exclamation for everything "Ah-yeah!" We took to the freeway and headed north to Santa Barbara.