June 25, 2009
Oh, Banff. How I loved you. Your mountains! Your lakes! Your forests! Your colorful money and your lack of Internet access!
(The view about halfway up the hike between Lakes Louise and Agnes. This is Louise.)
Frankly, I am not thrilled to be back home. After this:
(The Devil’s Gap, view from boat on Lake Minnewanka)
Or these:
(Bighorn sheep at Lake Minnewanka)
But I am, and I will deal with it. Meanwhile I want to see your pictures of nature from your summer travels or local adventures, okay? Okay.
*Of course when hiking from Lake Louise to Lake Agnes, I could not get John Prine’s song, “Lake Marie,” out of my head. (And the wind was blowing, especially through my hair.)
March 25, 2009
We had some incredibly gorgeous and life-giving spring weather last week. Windows were open. Porches were sat upon. Spring cleaning plans were made. And then…another dump of freezing cold and snow. Boo. I’m so over it. I have things to do, people! And I can’t possibly be expected to do them when it’s so gray. Bah.
On the up side, I just found out that Story of a Girl made the International Reading Association’s Young Adult Choices list, which is pretty great. Thank you, IRA! And I got my first fanmail for a foreign edition – a girl in Belgium wrote to me about the French translation. Between that and the IRA, I’m feeling very international today. If only I could be in a foreign country right now. A warm one.
Over at the Teen Fiction Cafe, we’re blogging about fashion this week. Today I posted about my love/hate relationship with What Not to Wear.
It is now time to curl up with some tea and a movie.
January 25, 2009
January is/has been full of busy-ness and hard work. Which also means it’s been full of opportunity, but right now all that opportunity is manifesting in work. That seems to be the key step between opportunity and accomplishment. I have this feeling all of 2009 is going to look like that: opportunity, hard work, and not much space in between. Accomplishment remains to be seen and judged.
Curious about: What is the combination of meteorological factors that makes one snow storm consist of tiny, fast flakes and another consist of slow, fat ones? I have seen some alarmingly giant flakes sail by the window today.
Multitasking accomplishment of the week: Thanks to the wonders of technology, last night I was able to watch figure skating on our big TV, and watch The Lost Weekend on my laptop during the commercials. I haven’t seen that since way before my father died. The movie struck me as even sadder this time, if that’s possible.
From my CD archives: During the last push on this revision, I’ve had the following five CDs on rotation, over and over and over and over – the soundtrack of Man in the Moon (completely instrumental, James Newton Howard); The Story Angel in the House and The Story Grace in Gravity; Sam Phillips Fan Dance; and Badly Drawn Boy-Have You Fed the Fish?
Stay warm…
January 6, 2009
Alan Gratz’s new book, The Brooklyn Nine, got love from Kirkus. Hurrah!
Hurrah to Mitali Perkins, whose Secret Keeper comes out next week. If you are lucky enough to be in the Bay Area, you can meet her and hear her read at Not Your Mother’s Book Club. Lucky!
Speaking of NYMBC, they picked Sweethearts as one of their favorites of the year. Hurrah!
A hurrah of sympathy to the unidentified man hanging naked from a ski lift. Hurrah for hopes of remaining unidentified.
In related hanging-upside-down news, hurrah for not being 5′7″ and 110 lbs so that this doesn’t happen to me.
Finally: snow is pretty and all, but not when you live at the top of seven blocks of hills. If this keeps up, I do believe I’ll be soon laying out some cash for studded snow tires. Hurrah.
December 26, 2008
We stayed in bed and in pajamas most of the day. Exchanged booky gifts—complete Hart Crane, J.M. Coetzee essays, Jhumpa Lahiri’s latest collection, and the Christopher Plummer memoir (Santa reads my blog!). And some non-booky things like Yaktrax for both of us, pjs, and some very meaningful family memorabilia from my mom and my aunt – more on that later. We walked two miles to our Christmas dinner with a backpack full of fresh-baked bread we could smell all the way there. Wine, fireplace, kittens, conversation, good food, card game. Blizzard-like storm. We were ready to walk the two miles home, but our friend insisted on driving us at least part way (we were not hard to convince). When his truck couldn’t get up the hill into our neighborhood we got out and walked the last few blocks in the bright, powdery, silent snow. Then I slept for like 12 hours. I hope you all enjoyed the holiday, even if your plans were thwarted by weather. And for those of you who are sad it’s over – remember, you can keep celebrating until Epiphany on January 6!
Obligatory pictures of snow:
December 19, 2008
1. Another gift idea. For me. I love biographies and memoirs about and by people who were mostly famous in the 1940s-1960s. For example, Patty Duke’s Call Me Anna, or one my all-time favorites, Saroyan: A Biography, by Lawrence Lee and Barry Gifford. That one was great because it’s about a literary life but also Hollywood, gambling, drinking, estranged fathers, and the American immigrant experience. Anyway, is Christopher Plummer going to go on tour? Pretty please?
2. Personally, I’d be happy find $20 or a slice of bacon in a book around my house. Most often the unusual objects in books here are socks and olive pits, both of which my darling husband will resort to when he can’t find a book mark.
3. What it looks like here right now for the brave and outdoorsy types. Sometimes G. and I are made to feel like freaks for not engaging in outdoor winter sports when we live in the perfect place for them. But winter sports involve several of the things I’m most afraid of: driving in the snow, losing control, my feet hurting, finding myself in a situation that forces me to live on the frozen flesh of others and my own urine, falling off of mountains, and, most of all: looking like an uncoordinated idiot.
