<p>Great stories all, that was a treat for the work break.
I’ve always loved loved loved the story about Henry “Box” Brown as well.
You know I’ve always though the lesson to be learned from his story is that sometimes the simplest solution (and most obvious) is the best but it sure sounds like your son took
it up a notch, I’ll bet there are a few teachers still telling that tale to friends.
Thanks for the good hearty laugh. Well back to work.</p>
<p>That story sounds like the scene in “Anansi Boys” where Fat Charlie’s father convinces him that all American schoolkids dress up as their favorite President on President’s Day. Poor Fat Charlie goes to school dressed as President Taft! How do you even do that?</p>
<p>Greeny I never read “Anansasi boys” but American gods is one of my all time favorites. </p>
<p>The rest of our thanksgiving was kind of perfect. Friday we did a big walk with the kids. Ate leftovers. Took grandma to the movies. The young people were story book “can this possibly be my teenager” levels of nice to the old people. The gf asked me about how empty nest I was feeling which kind of gave me a chance to ask her for her impressions of how the school year is going for baby Switters. She says well, and he seems to be doing thoughtful work. We drove them back early Saturday morning because they both had huge amounts of work. I feel pretty good about things all together.</p>
<p>why is that every GF prefer you than their own family!?!?!?!
I mean I sort of know why but but but </p>
<p>did poodle come with you?</p>
<p>G
I haven’t read the book either but puzzled what kid have to go to school on the President’s day, and looked up. it is a story based in London?
for the NYC system, it is a week long midwinter vacation combined for Lincoln and Washington.
Good time to do junior year college visit, bad time for small children with nowhere to go, great $$$ time for indoor winter camp venue for working parents.
as trade off (and complicating holiday choices) we don’t have long nice “Easter” vacation.
I don’t have to worry about that anymore, I guess.</p>
<p>I looooooooved February vacation and miss it terribly. What a great time to travel – as long as you don’t get snowed in somewhere. That happened to me on my 40th birthday, ended up leaving a couple of days late but how glorious was New Mexico when we landed!</p>
<p>Bears, I think you’re right that there are NO American kids who go to school on President’s Day but the story was written by a Brit so they get to be creative. The story travels a bit back and forth from London, to Florida, to the Caribbean. </p>
<p>I didn’t actually read it, but listened to it on an unabridged CD. (switters, the local library carries it). Highly recommended! It’s read by an Afro-Caribbean-British comedian with the lovely name of Lenny Henry. He did the voice of the shrunken head in the Harry Potter movie with Sirius Black. He’s just wonderful with the voices, especially the elderly Caribbean women. You’ll end up downloading both “Yellow Bird” and “Under the Boardwalk” to your music library afterwards as well.</p>
<p>email reply!!!
but noooo no detail of his stay (yet)
but youtube attachment here to share.
[Snickers</a> the Porcupine and his favorite food. - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)
don’t ask me why.</p>
<p>Poodle did come. Other dogs stayed home w sister in law who uses our house. Gf doesn’t prefer us, she just couldn’t go home, too far, too expensive. She worships her parents.</p>
<p>Switters…There can be no better reference than a girl who “worships her parents”…she sounds like a keeper! I wish I had had my son’s friend come to visit to hear how he is doing from another perspective. This semester has been a black hole in terms of knowing about his art …no updates on his website so perhaps over winter break he will share some stuff. </p>
<p>I am close to empty nest…only me and D and the cat…H in Uruguay and my parents back home in MO. Weirdly quiet while she studied and I worked last night. I am going to find those books since I looked at my bedside table and saw a stack of finished books except for Isabel Allende’s Zorro which I am halfway through (spanish version) but found it boring. I read easily in spanish but I really am only following the story and not getting pleasure from the structure or sound of the language…so if the story isn’t riveting I get bored quickly…do you know what I mean? Bears, do you find that you can zone out when reading English but not in Japanese? Zorro is good for putting me to sleep but I miss having a really good book to look forward to when I am on my own. I am ready for more recommendations…what is everyone reading right now?</p>
<p>fammom!! WISH!! I can read spanish
“One hundred years of solitude”
I am still trying to figure out what is it this is so good. I have peeked Japanese version friend’s kid was reading and it ain’t doing justice. Means English translation isn’t doing that either if you know where to look?
I figured this much from “Catcher in the Rye” and such, you have to have to read original text. Then again, how can I ever do that to “War and Peace”??
This is what my kid sent me while ago. (today’s brag)</p>
<p>–I think I could also be a translator if I learn my languages well enough. We translated a Chinese poem in class and I tried to make it my own while staying true enough to the original text. I mean to brag hohohoho, I got applause and great comments and I actually felt good about being in that class and not just because of my vanity. They were really listening to me. We weren’t allowed to use words with the letter “e” to replicate the difficulty of translating into another language (the text we worked with was in english). (prof’s name here ) only reads translations by poets for any book because scholarly translations that are word-for-word never capture the feeling of the original. Thats the fine line, Bbbeeerrrr I farted, to be true to the words and to be true to the emotions.</p>
<p>I am reading now, cough cough, the world’s best seller ever written in the whole universe.
good friend of mine who wants to save me insisted I “need” to have one and read it.
actually, it is so outrageous I started to copy bit by bit every morning as part of my exercise (called “morning pages”, write whatever in your mind three full pages before you do anything else when you get up)
I did not know much about anything so it is totally utterly new and web of words I know (place, person, action) but did not know what it meant are surfacing one by one and I get sense of, cough cough history unveiling.writing is slow and tedious, so repetitive and tiresome. I do only a bit so I have enuff room and time to do “artistic stream of consciousness” part of writing within three pages allocated.
at this rate, I will be done whole book in three years, when my kid would finish school (hope)
Is it a SIGN!?!?!?!?!?!?</p>
<p>I already weighed in on this one, I’m reading the Girl with the Dragon Tatooo (wait a minute, how do you sell that word, or how should I spell it). At any rate, our library’s having a big sale this weekend so I’ll pick up something more “literate” but I’m really enjoying this lovely piece of mysterious crime novel pop junk.</p>
<p>sick of it by now?
local art prof (Pratt) on local radio show (WNYC Brian Lehrer)
I just heard the repeat now, missed it in the morning.
[The</a> Brian Lehrer Show: Art School in Brief - WNYC](<a href=“http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/nov/29/art-school-brief/]The”>http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/nov/29/art-school-brief/)
I haven’t read NYT piece
G?
supposedly said art students make generally more money (not necessary working on art) because they can solve problems. now that’s a good news if all facts are solid.</p>
<p>I am currently in the midst of three books Mistborn The Final Empire by Brian Sanderson, No Two Alike Judith Rich Harris, and Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. Usually I only get to read when I’m up at the barn with Aspie girl. I enjoyed Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and Be Different Adventures of a Free Ranging Aspergian by John Elder Robinson, and finished all of the ‘Game of Thrones’ series – A Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin. I really love my e-Reader, though it makes it a little TOO easy to spend money on books. I’m really enjoying Mistborn. In the queue not read yet are The Bricklayer, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, Under Heaven, Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and Unbroken. I try to ignore the emails from Barnes and Noble with new releases, lol. Too tempting. I better get to work…</p>
<p>Update drama drama for Bears… D1 told me that she is now in an ‘official’ boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with dubious fellow from ahem program that is too old for her and that we haven’t met and that could very well be an axe murderer or something and it makes me crazy to not know more or be able to control the situation but I can’t and D1 therapist agrees ya, could be bad thing but also maybe will turn out okay in the end but I really don’t have a lot of confidence in that and maybe I should just ship her out to california relatives to keep her away from predatory young man with issues just like her I shouldn’t even write this because maybe she’ll see this and then I’ll be in even more trouble and how do I keep from worrying my socks off but she stays out too late and crashes car because meds wore off and oh gosh as you can see it’s terribly worrisome and distracting and once they’re 18 you should be able to turn off the worry button and let it all be. sob. wipes away tear. And and and…what about college???</p>
<p>I am currently reading Bowl of Cherries by Millard Kaufman, a McSweeney’s book. I also have to have a non-fiction for before I go to sleep, which currently is City Room by Arthur Gelb. If I read fiction in bed, I start to fall asleep and lose the gist of the story, so it’s gotta be non-fiction, which is easier to follow if you miss a bit. Refuse to do the e-reader (I need the visceral “book” feeling), so my queue consists of a shelf in the bookcase and stacks on the end table. </p>
<p>Gmom- if you shipped her out to California, the same thing could happen. Weirdo’s are everywhere. At least she is close and you can keep an eye on things and hopefully meet this guy eventually. I think everyone at one time or another, finds themselves without their socks on.</p>
<p>My mom gave me her old Kindle (she now has an Ipad with a Kindle App). All of the books she has ever purchased are on there. Mostly it’s thrillers and suspense which I don’t go for, so there’s not too much of interest for me. But I did read the whole Dragon Tattoo series and had fun with it. I don’t think I will watch the movies. I like having my own visuals for them and I don’t want to ruin that. </p>
<p>She just bought Then Again…Diane Keaton’s memoir interspersed with her mother’s diaries as a way of approaching their relationship and larger themes of femininity. I’ve started that. I am not too far into it so I have not gotten to the juicy gossip about Woody Allen, Warren Beatty etc yet. Coincidentally S2 is on a Woody Allen kick, watching anything available on demand on Netflix. I keep walking into his room to scenes of Woody and Diane doing their thing. They really were great together. </p>
<p>Altered States by Ann Patchett was a really fun, suspenseful read about strange goings on with fertility research in the rainforest and The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was one of those Oprah Picks style books that pull you in like an ice cream sundae. Easy and sweet.</p>
<p>Gmom, add to the list
<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Its-Kind-Funny-Story-Novel/dp/0786851961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322669182&sr=1-1[/url]”>http://www.amazon.com/Its-Kind-Funny-Story-Novel/dp/0786851961/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322669182&sr=1-1</a>
did I tell you about it?
they made movie out of it, too I think.
It’s young adult book but don’t make you cringe-y (most of the part).
hide it and read at the barn.</p>
<p>So I am googling and amazon-ing many of the books you guys are referencing. Thanks! lots of possibilities but I doubt if I will start on the world’s best seller. I have a copy that Duke gave me at graduation…until then i had pretty much forgotten that it was a methodist u despite the slightly odd yet pretty “chapel” in the center of campus–I just htought it was there for architectural interest, not religion. </p>
<p>Frankly, I htink you never stop worrying and to be sexist worry even more about daughters and their boyfriends. You know all the bad physical and mental things that can happen if daughter is with bad guy and you know their vulnerabilities…not that sons can’t be victims…it’s just that mom’s were once girls and you know from experience how naive, romantic and silly girls are and our husbands know, from experience, how insensitive/cruel/risk taking/ creatures young men can be…this experiencial knowledge then translates into total paranoia when you are looking at the daughter aka “my heart and soul with a driver’s license of her own” spending time with … these potential neanderthal/predatory people called “boyfriends”. Worried with no socks on pretty much captures most moms at one time or another but I think is particularly acute when D dating unknown/unseen young man. G-mom…I feel for you and hope you meet him soon…imagination is far, far worse than reality (usually).</p>
<p>You know, it’s just hard to stay balanced. I DO want her to get out and have a life… but maybe not by spending so much time with someone she met in hospital setting therapy who is apparently just as adrift as she is and four years older to boot. Her regular therapist says to leave it alone… so I’m trying. But what do you do with a kid who bashes your car and then doesn’t say anything, and then when confronted, says she’ll pay for it… but has no job and certainly doesn’t seem to expend ANY energy into finding a job, going to school – or even continuing the DBT. I don’t get it. In the meantime, we are footing the bill for her to cart this guy around and bash the car when she’s driving so late and her ADHD meds have worn off and go do whatever. She’s borrowing money from manga girl and I asked Manga girl how does she expect D1 to pay her back? It’s a long time until her birthday…maybe I should be the one to run away to the california relatives…</p>
<p>G-mom, I feel for you, it must be so scary. Normally I’d say you need to set some ground rules of things she needs to do in order to be able to use the car, etc., but with her special challenges she may just fold up completely if you do that. So maybe listen to the therapist but certainly enforce restrictions on extreme lateness and other transgressions. What a tough spot. I remember reading something a few months ago about a woman who fell for a man in her large therapy group. It was a cautionary tale on how people in that situation tend to look attractive because of the group you’re both in and you eventually “wake up” (hopefully sooner rather than later) to see their flaws and weaknesses for what they truly are. It may have been in a “modern love” column which is every Sunday in the Ny Times. If I can dredge it up, I’ll let you know and you could casually leave it around for D1 to find.</p>