Pictures of My Mother

At Thanksgiving, my aunt came to Virginia from Texas and brought with her the photos my grandmother had had of my mother. She thought I might like them.

Most of them I don't recall seeing. I scanned them, printed them out, and made an album of them and gave them to my brother for Christmas so he would have them, too. I have the originals but I wanted to put some of them here so they would be in my blog. I have my blog bound into a book every three or four months.

Mom hated to have her picture taken, so I doubt she would like to have these photos where everyone can see them, but she isn't around and I want them memorialized here.

So without further ado, photos of my mom:

Mom with her China doll that my grandfather gave her.

I am not sure, but I suspect Mom is pregnant in this picture.

My mother, my brother, my father, and me at the Grand Canyon in 1976.

My grandmother holding my mother when she was a baby.

Mom around age 6 or 7.

My grandfather holding his newborn daughter.

My mother in her Girl Scout uniform.

My mother and my father, taken in 1996, four years before my mother died.

Mom around age 10.

Mom in 1966, bringing home my brother.

Mom's high school photo.

As you can see, my mother had loads of freckles. She told me once that when she was young, someone told her that early morning dew could rid one of freckles. She spent a summer getting up very early, before everyone else, and going outside to rub her face in the grass in hopes of ridding herself of her freckles. Finally, my grandmother caught her and put a stop to it. As you can see, the folk remedy did not work, although the freckles became less apparent as my mother aged. She was very skilled with make-up.

Also, up until about 1993, my mother's hair was black. Then the gray started showing and she dyed it that burnt orange color you see in one photo. When I remember her, I always remember her with black hair.

Books: Daughter of Smoke & Bone series

Daughter of Smoke & Bone
By Laini Taylor
Copyright 2011
418 pages

Days of Blood & Starlight
By Laini Taylor
Copyright 2012
513 pages

Dreams of Gods & Monsters
By Laini Taylor
Copyright 2014
613 pages


This is a trilogy by Laini Taylor that I recently finished. I read the first one in September and I've read the last two since Christmas, as they were presents from a friend.

While these are long, fat books, they read quickly.

There may be spoilers in this, so don't read it if you don't want to know anything about the series.

Basic premise: a race of humanoids who are called angels and a race of chimera, also called demons, live on a planet named Ertz. At one time there were portals through to earth, but those were lost to time. However, the chimera found a way into Earth and went back and forth between the planets. The angels and chimera were constantly at war.

Our heroine is Karou, who initially starts out as a very far-out young woman who loves art and lives in Prague. She was raised by the chimera who live in Earth, and frequently runs errands for them. She has a bit of super strength, stealth, and speed, and has been trained in many types of fighting. Her main errand is to collect teeth and take them to Brimstone, who is described very much like the archetypical devil.

However, the ways in and out of the world that Brimstone has created have been found out by angels, and they are destroyed. Karou attempts to find Brimstone but instead is confronted by an angel, Akiva, who means to kill her but finds something about her reminds him of an old love.

For he had once been in love with a chimera, but she was killed.

As the story unfolds over the books, we learn that chimera are revived many, many times, brought back to life magically into new bodies and sent forth to fight. Angels are bred by one man with many concubines, so that they are all half-brothers and sisters trained only to fight. They aren't allowed to have a life or anything, just fight chimera.

It's a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing. Akiva realizes Karou is his love of 18 years ago, only she was remade as a baby and then raised up by Brimstone, instead of being instantly put back into a body to fight. This was to hide her from the head Chimera wolf-like dude, who wanted her for his mate.

Akiva and Karou feel like they have a destiny to stop this long, long war between angels and chimera. The story revolves around their efforts to accomplish this, although like any story, they go the long way around. Of course, it takes a lot of convincing to have angels and demons on the same side, I suppose.

And as with any romance, whether it's fantasy or main stream literature, the characters have trouble being together and finding their true love.

The last book was what I expected except the author brought in a MacGuffin character whom I could have done without. I thought that took away from the story and ultimately added nothing, really.

All in all, though, good reads and very helpful for recovering from my upper respiratory infection. I will look up this author again.

5 stars for books 1 & 2
4 stars for book 3

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

Food meme Stolen from Book Mama, who stole it from Jenefur.  

Thanks to The Gal Herself for the suggestion!

 

Answers in BLUE.

01. CHEESE or CHOCOLATE? 

02. BLUEBERRIES or STRAWBERRIES?
03. COFFEE or TEA? 

04. CORN MUFFIN or ENGLISH MUFFIN?
05. PANCAKES or FRENCH TOAST?
06. YOGURT or CREAM CHEESE? 

07. RICE or PASTA?
08. CAKE or PIE?
09. GROUND BEEF or GROUND TURKEY?
10. HOT DOGS or HAMBURGERS?
11. JELLY or MARMALADE?
12. AMERICAN CHEESE or SWISS CHEESE?
13. DIET SODA or NO SODA?
14. LEMONADE or ICED TEA?
15. CHERRIES or GRAPES?
16. CHOCOLATE QUIK or STRAWBERRY QUIK?
17. WAFFLES or PANCAKES?
18. WHITE BREAD or WHOLE-GRAIN/WHEAT BREAD?
19. PEAS or CARROTS?
20. PUDDING or FRUIT-FLAVORED GELATIN?
21. COLD CEREAL or HOT CEREAL?
22. KETCHUP or MUSTARD?
23. MUSTARD or MAYONNAISE? 

24. MAYONNAISE or KETCHUP?
25. BLACK OLIVES or GREEN OLIVES? Neither.

26. ONION or GARLIC? Neither.
27. PLAIN BARBECUE or BARBECUE WITH SAUCE? Neither.
28. SCRAMBLED EGGS or FRIED EGGS?
29. EGGS or EGG REPLACEMENTS?
30. MEAT or VEGETABLES?
31. CHINESE TAKE-OUT or PIZZA?
32. SUSHI or DELI SANDWICH?
33. WHITE CLAM CHOWDER or RED CLAM CHOWDER? Neither.
34. KEY LIME PIE or LEMON MERANGUE PIE?
35. PIE & ICE CREAM or CAKE & ICE CREAM?
36. WHIPPED CREAM or CAKE FROSTING?
37. HONEY or MAPLE SYRUP?

Saturday 9: Sultans of Swing

Saturday 9: Sultans of Swing (1978)

Unfamiliar with this week's song? Hear it here.

(Great song! One of my favorites.)
 
1) The song begins by mentioning how it feels to shiver on a rainy night. As you answer these questions, is it chilly ... or rainy ... or dark?

A. It is daybreak on Saturday morning. I can make out the dim outline of trees through dark and fog. I believe it is raining. However, I noticed the thermometer said 50 degrees, which is warm for this part of the nation at this time of year.

2) The lyrics describe a bar at closing time, when the owner announces, "Goodnight, now, it's time to go home." Can you recall a time when you lingered until you closed the joint?

A. I have not done this since I was a teenager.

3) This song was written years before it was recorded, back in the days before Dire Straits was a success. Composer/lead singer/lead guitarist Mark Knopfler recalls that, when he was working on "Sultans of Swing," he was worried about paying his gas bill. Is anything troubling you this Saturday?

A. My husband's ankle hurt him in the night. He's out of the cast but in a walking boot and he's supposed to be wearing compression stuff. His skin is flaking all over the house. I feel like I'm breathing him in with every breathe. I just had my cleaning help in earlier in the week, too. Sigh. Plus I am way behind on my bookkeeping for our various businesses and I need to get that done because of the taxes but I seem to be spending more time taking care of him - and trying to get over some upper respiratory crap myself - and the bookwork is not getting done.

4) When this song was popular, Sam often played it on the jukebox because, well, who doesn't like Dire Straits? 40 years later, both that  jukebox and the bar it was in are gone. Have you recently been in a restaurant or bar that has a jukebox?

A. No. I don't think I have seen a jukebox since the 1980s.

5) In 1978, the year "Sultans of Swing" topped the charts, Garfield first appeared in newspapers all around the United States. Over the years, it was revealed that the cartoon cat loved lasagna and hated raisins. What's a food you love? What's one that you hate?

A. I love chocolate. I strongly dislike coconut.

6) One of People magazine's top-selling issues of 1978 featured Carrie Fisher and Darth Vader on the cover. The article celebrated the theatrical re-release of Star Wars and announced that the cast was on board for a sequel. How many Star Wars movies have you seen?

A. I have seen 8 of them, I think. I haven't seen the one that is out now.

7) The most popular movie of 1978 was Grease. What's your favorite song from the Grease soundtrack?

A. Hopelessly Devoted To You

8) In 1978, Yves St. Laurent made fashion news by putting his female runway models in menswear-inspired suits, complete with neckties and pocket squares. Do you know how to tie a windsor knot? Can you fold a handkerchief into a pocket square?

A. No and no. I'm afraid fashion is something that is beyond me. I wear jeans and a nice t-shirt with white sneakers pretty much all the time.

9) Random question: You're visiting a friend. He graciously offers you the use of his super-expensive, brand-new luxury sedan for the duration of your stay. Do you take him up on it? Or do you rent a car instead?

A. Odds are I would have a rented car anyway, if I flew there. Otherwise I would be there in my own vehicle. I doubt I would take him up on it unless circumstances were such that it was my only choice.

 ______________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Thursday Thirteen

The bills are starting to roll in on my husband's ankle fusion surgery. I thought a little breakdown might be interesting.

1. Basic metabolic panel  - $247.00 (labwork)

2. Cutting open his ankle - $2,147.00

3. Cutting his tibia - $1,629.00

4. Each of his pills he had to have (blood pressure meds), cost $3 each.

5. A countersink (?) - $1,559.50

6. A drill bit - $937.50

7. Another drill bit - $912.50

8. A blade (for cutting bone, I suppose) - $314.00

9. Another drill bit - $1,181.50

10. A bone graft augment (?) - $10,793.50

11. An implant screw (x 2)  - $3,629.50 each

12. An implant plate - $7,446.00

13. More implant screws (x 2) - $2,813.00 each

So far the total bill is over $75,000 and more bills come each day for things like the anesthesiologist, the doctor to read his EKG, the person to draw his blood - they bill separately for everything, now, and if that person doesn't partake in your insurance, you're liable for their entire bill.

Fortunately, so far as we can, our insurance is covering most everyone. Even so, we will be out five figures before this is over and done with.

A person should not go bankrupt because they have the misfortune of being sick or having something happen to them. Nor should they have to resort to "GoFundMe" or dances or cake bakes to pay off their hospital bills. Yet this is what happens around here - people really do have dances and things because of their medical expenses, hoping to pick up a couple thousand to keep the wolves of Isengard at bay - I mean, the medical professionals from garnishing your paycheck or taking out a lien on your house.

I don't understand why this is considered acceptable. We're supposedly the wealthiest nation in the world and people have to have cake bakes to pay their medical bills. There is something wrong with that scenario.

_______________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 637th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

The January 7 snow

What was supposed to be, according to Alexa, anyway, 1.68 inches of snow (yes, she was that exacting in her forecast), turned out to be over 3 inches of fluffy slick stuff yesterday.

I missed a chiropractor appointment. I headed out for it and turned around as quickly as I could. I had expected my driveway to be snowy but not the road. It was a sheet of ice with snow on top and my Camry was spinning all over the place. I barely made it back home.

Snow is a pain but it does make the landscape lovely.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. January usually has ample amounts of snowfall in parts of the world. Did you ever make snow cream as a kid?

A. Yes, I think so. But not often.

2. January is one of the months with 31 days. What are you going to do with that extra day?

A. It's not an "extra" day. February 29 is an extra day this year. I will do on January 31 the same thing I do the day before: get up, do laundry, fix meals, do dishes, write something, play guitar, text my friends.

3.  What is your favorite magazine?

A. Reader's Digest. It's currently the only one I read. I used to get piles of them but I read them less and less, so I stopped the subscriptions.

4.  If you live to be 99 years old, what would you like your life to be like in that last decade?

A. I don't expect to live that long, but it would be nice to be healthy in body and mind.

5. The great world of Wikipediatells me that scientists claim 99% of all documented species are extinct. Which remaining species in the 1% category would you really like to see extinct?  And which species in the 99% category would you like to bring back?

A. I don't want to see any species extinct. They are all here for a reason. As for what to bring back - the plant that cures cancer that we have eradicated, whatever that is, would be nice.

6. On January 14, 1986 motorists were required for the first time to wear seat belts. Do you always buckle up? Why or why not?

A. I almost always buckle up. I don't buckle up if I'm driving down to the mailbox or over to my mother-in-law's. (My driveway is 1/4 mile long, and while I can see my mother-in-law's house from mine, it's about a 3/4 mile drive.)

7. Why did the cow jump over the moon?

A. Because it could.

9. Have you said anything in the last 24 hours that you regret?

A. Yes.

10. Have you ever written anything on your blog that you wish you could take back?

A. Probably. This thing has been going on for nearly 14 years, so it would be foolhardy to think I've not written something that I later wished I hadn't.

11. Are you the blabber or the blabbee? Tell us your most embarrassing blabbermouth moment.

A. I'm going to plead the 5th on this one.

12. How important is a cell phone in your life?

A. I make calls on it sometimes. Apple says I use it less than 30 minutes a day, and that's mostly texting. If I'm in a doctor's office or something, I might read on it. I don't consider it anything more than a tool.

13. A "cuisine" is typically influenced by and named after geographical regions and cultures. Pretend your blog is a country. What is the name of your cuisine?

A. Blue Country Magic Spaghetti.

14. You are the Blog Paparazzi! Which blogger's real photograph are you most interested in getting?

A. None. If people want to maintain their anonymity, that is their prerogative.

15. Are you always on time or just a tad late?

A. I'm usually a little early.

16. Can you think of a time when you were late for something and it was REALLY a big deal?

A. Yes, but I was in high school and while it was a big deal at the time, it in no way matters at this moment.

17. If you were on your way to work and had five minutes to get there, would you stop in the road to rescue a crossing turtle?

A. Yes.

18. When you are having a really good day, what usually makes it good?

A. I don't feel bad physically, the sun is shining, I have good music playing, and the writing is going well.

19. What is the most annoying Christmas song?

A. None of them are annoying unless it is played a lot.

20. You are Snow White. Which dwarf is your favorite and why?

A. I shall say Grumpy, because I suspect Grumpy and I would understand one another and respect each other's personal space.

__________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Keep Me Warm

Saturday 9: Keep Me Warm (2014)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

Here's our first Saturday 9 of 2020!

1) Are you feeling warm and cozy as you answer these questions?

A. Not particularly. It's damp outside from rain and we tend to keep the house cool. The electric bill is high enough as it is.

2) This time of year is important to college football fans. Are you watching/have you watched any of the Bowl games this year?

A. I watched part of the game with the University of Virginia in it. I went to bed at half-time; it was obvious Virginia was not going to win.

3) Crazy Sam's been cold/flu free so far this winter and credits the Echinacea she takes every morning. Her brother insists she's wasting her money. Do you take any herbal supplements?

A. I take a lot of vitamins, especially B vitamins, but not herbal supplements at the moment. At one time I was drinking tea given to me by an acupuncturist that was an herbal concoction; it tasted like dirt but it seemed to help.

4) In the video for this song, Erin Bowman is singing in front of lights and ornaments. Are you sorry to see the decorations slowly disappear? Or do you think they should all come down right away?

A. We always get ours down as quickly as possible, but usually wait until after New Year's Day. They are down now.

5) She sings about socks, a scarf and a sweater. Tell us about your favorite sweater.

A. I don't have a favorite sweater. I have a favorite wrap thingy, but it's a jacket, not a sweater. I call it my "blue thing" although I now own it in about 5 different colors. It looks like this.

6) Erin credits her 8th grade choir teacher for believing in her and giving her a solo. That helped give her the confidence to go into performing professionally. When you were in 8th grade, did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?

A. I have always wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. Of course, I also wanted to be an archeologist or a geologist or a college professor, but even that involved writing. I'd still like to just be a hack, writing ghost books for a series.

7) This song has been used in commercials for McDonald's and Turner Classic Movies. What commercial have you seen recently? Was it on TV or online?

A. The only one that comes to mine is the one with the couple about Verizon. The guy comes in and sings to his wife, "I just got a phone for free, fa la la la la la la la. With no activation fees, fa la la la la la la." They're like a Hallmark Christmas movie couple trapped in a commercial.

8) In 2014, when this song was first released, we lost both Joan Rivers and Robin Williams. What comedian always makes you laugh?

A. George Carlin.

9) Random question -- There are two performers in the trapeze act: the one who flies through the air and the one who catches the flier. Which would you rather be?

A. Oh, let's be brave and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. And while we're at it, let's shoot me out of a cannon, too. May as well go for broke.

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I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

My Niece Reaches Legal Age

Today is my niece's 18th birthday.

She is a senior in high school, active in cheerleading. She dances with a dance troop (clogging is her thing), and she won a lot of beauty pageants when she was younger. Something like 100 of them, I don't know. I lost count.

These are photos of her I swiped from Facebook at some point or another.

I don't see much of her and I've never spent the time with her I wanted to spend. She always had a full schedule of things to do and I generally had no clue about what she was doing until about an hour beforehand, which wasn't much notice, especially if it takes a half-hour to drive to anyplace.

I have managed to attend most of her year-end dance recitals and one or two beauty pageants. But I have missed most of her growing up. I'm the aunt who gives her something at Christmas, and that's about it.

It wasn't the relationship I wanted, but it is the one I ended up with. It saddens me that I don't know much about this child - young woman, now - but it is what it is.

I hope she has a wonderful life. I think she's off to college to become a nurse, though I'm not sure what school she is going to. I hope she is very happy in her choice of profession.

I hope adulthood doesn't weigh her down.

Thursday Thirteen

Things I'd like to achieve/do/accomplish/whatever in 2020:

1. Vote.

2. Play the guitar every day.

3. Finish the 2019 bookkeeping work, and do a better job with keeping up with it for 2020.

4. Write more.

5. Make a new friend.

6. Take a trip.

7. Make better eating choices.

8. Move more.

9. Spend more time outside.

10. Declutter a few drawers.

11. Read more.

12. Rewrite my will.

13. Purchase more local artwork.


_______________
Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 637th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Welcome 2020!

Happy New Year!
Boy, was 2019 something or what? Glad that one is in the books. Time to move on. I wonder what 2020 will bring?

Where's my crystal ball?

:::cue glossy eyes and foggy setting as we drift around to see the future :::

Time for some prognosticating!

In the next year, we'll see some kind of something from North Korea smash into the United States, possibly hitting a big city. Or maybe some non-existent place in Alaska. At any rate, it will certainly put the kibosh on the love-letters between Kim Jong-Un and #45. Will it bring war? Stay tuned.

The economy will begin to erode, but the crash won't occur until after the 2020 elections. You've been warned. Take a look at your portfolio in the next six months and make adjustments.

Medical science will increase its research into pancreatic cancer, not because it's such a deadly cancer, but because it is striking so many public figures. Nobody cares much if it kills your mom or your husband's aunt, but they sure care if it messes with Jeopardy!

We still won't have a viable national health care plan. Things will continue to meander along as they are.

Deregulation by the EPA will increase the smog index. Cases of asthma, COPD, and other breathing-related health concerns will skyrocket.

Mass shootings will occur in 15 different states. Or maybe all of them, except for Rhode Island.

A communications satellite will fall from the sky and hit a major city. It will hit with the force of a small asteroid and level a city block.

Scotland will become independent of the United Kingdom, and join the European Union. Ireland will also attempt this, but fail, leading to bombings and terrorism plots.

A long-dormant volcano in a major metropolitan area will blow its top unexpectedly, killing and wounding thousands.

The discovery that a certain tree in the Amazon provides a cure for Parkinson's disease will cause a pause in deforestation, but only until scientists figure out how to grow the trees in a manmade groves.

Drones will make deliveries in all areas of the country, and be particularly useful in rural areas.

The year will be the hottest on record. Wildfires will reach record numbers in all areas of the world. Glaciers will continue to melt. The ocean level will rise by an inch.

And close to home:

The county will bring in another pollution-maker to its favorite industrial park.

Taxes will remain the same.

We will have three murders in my county; 12 in the nearby city.

Someone will sue the county officials over Freedom of Information Act violations.

The county will make a major land purchase to create another industrial park.

When renovations to the county's courthouse prove too expensive, a new courthouse will be planned. Historic-minded citizens will revolt.

Someone will apply to build a windmill farm on Tinker Mountain.

One of the county's remaining diary farms will shut down.

There will be a major weather event - flood? high winds?

I personally will see lots of deer and turkey, and take a great picture of a bear.

:::the fog is lifted, I can see the future no longer :::


What do you think? Is my crystal ball broken?

(I shouldn't have to say this, but this was all in fun and I have no idea what is going to happen. But everything needs a disclaimer these days. This blog post is not meant to be taken literally.)

Cotton Candy Clouds for New Year's Eve

The sky this morning had the most interesting splotches of light on the clouds. Some of them looked like puffs of cotton candy at a fair.

We have come to it now, the last day of this year, and of this decade, depending on how one counts decades. At any rate, the "teens" of the second millennium are over and the "twenties" are about to begin.

I doubt they will be Roaring '20s like in the 1900s. But we'll see. By 2025, things might be grooving along as well as one could hope. Or we could all be dust on a barren, dead planet.

Moving on.

My major accomplishment of this year, by far, was writing a 100-page magazine at the behest of the county's 250th anniversary committee. I was asked in March and I finished it in mid-October, for the most part, although I was still proofing copies into December.

My next other accomplishment was being published in Artemis and then attending and reading my poetry at a poetry reading at the Blue Ridge Library in September.

I also managed to hit my 36th wedding anniversary, a feat in this day and age, and I've kept my husband clean, fed, and happy while he recovers from an ankle fusion surgery. I do think we need to build him a man space, though. I miss my alone time and having here 24/7 for six weeks has been nerve-wracking. I'm not used to having him around all the time.

What else happened that was noteworthy this year?

Ah, home improvements. We installed new flooring. Well, actually some of the flooring we installed in 2018 had to be removed and reinstalled, and we went ahead and put in hardwood flooring while we were at it. It has worked well and I think the house has less dust.

Also, we lost a lot of trees. The first blue spruce fell over in a windstorm in February, and the others we removed because they were dying. In 2012, I think it was, we had a drought, and we didn't water the trees because these were established trees - they were nearly 30 years old then - and it simply didn't occur to us to do so. As a result, they each caught a fungus that eventually kills the trees. We tried spraying them annually with fungicide but they were too far gone. Then the ash borers came through and took out the ash trees. So we had the blue spruces removed, and a very large ash, and from the looks of it we will have to have the tree people back to remove at least one more ash in the backyard that is too large to simply cut down. I miss my trees although I do enjoy the new views. We plan to plant something back this spring. I want evergreens, so I need to find a hardy type that will weather our changing climate.

One other thing I did was contact my local officials with concerns about Freedom of Information Act notices and their many closed meetings. This led to a flurry of meetings with county staff that were both perplexing and amusing. Some changes were made because I was right but the county still spends far too much time in closed sessions and it is very secretive about things they really have no reason to be so closed-mouth about. That happened in March.

My nephew married and had a baby. We threw him a combination marriage reception/baby shower in late May. The baby's name is Ellie and she's just starting to figure out she can move around. I think she'll be crawling in the next few weeks.

In late June, I developed a blood clot in my leg. I still have a knot there, although the clot is apparently gone and this is now a big varicose vein. It hurts sometimes, still.

We went to Myrtle Beach in September. I bought a cheap electric guitar, which I am enjoying very much. I'd forgotten how much I like to play an electric guitar. This one is very light for an electric guitar.

That brings us fairly current. It was a busy year. What will 2020 have in store, I wonder?

Books: The Overstory

The Overstory: A Novel
By Richard Powers
2018
Kindle Edition
Print length: 502 pages
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize


Since this book won the Pulitzer and many other prizes, I think I'm supposed to have liked it.

I did not.

Maybe it's because I read it on the Kindle - but I think the Kindle helped me to see the failures in the book.

It's a nice book. Lots of pretty writing, and a strong environmental message. Thoreau would be pleased to read it, I think.

I found it tedious. I felt like it needed editing, and it could have lost about five of the nine characters in it. I had a difficult time keeping up with who was whom and why they were doing what they were doing; a circuitous route around the American Chestnut ended poorly and rather stupidly, if you ask me.

Some reviews say the book ended on a positive note, but I didn't see anything positive about it. Mostly the message is this: trees good, people bad. People are going to kill all trees and end life on earth as we know it.

The only way to save it is to make it a big virtual project, like taking the "catch a Pokémon" game and turn it into cleaning up a stream or something.

Ok, then.

Other reviewers thought the characters were well drawn; for the most part, I found them to be caricatures and not characters. They all represented the fringes of society, the people who don't fit into the cogs and run the mainframe of consumerism and capitalism that now drives the mechanisms governments have put in place to create a new species of human doings instead of human beings.

These can be interesting people, those who don't fit into the well-oiled machine, but Powers managed to make them rather uninteresting if not eye-rolling. The only character I liked was Patricia Westerford, a scientist who put forth the initial journal article that trees communicate and their roots intertwine and they protect and feed off of one another. She was belittled for her work and only later recognized as the pioneer in what is now a commonly held scientific theory - that trees and plants have their own ways of communicating.

One thing I've not seen mentioned in other reviews about this book is the treatment of women. Women are given the patriarchal treatment here; they are not heroines or heroes. In fact, of the four main female characters, two die, one is maimed and scarred, and the other is unable to have a child and forced to spend 20 years caring for her husband who has a stroke (and she's a faithless wife, too). The men all trundle off to live other lives until one guy stupidly writes down their escapades as activists and a young nameless woman finds his notes and turns him in. And then only two of them end up jailed.

One young man, a computer whiz, is portrayed as a brilliant mind trapped in a crippled body, and he is unable to understand the beauty of nature except through the lenses of his made-up virtual worlds. He ends up a multi-millionaire, though the author does not treat him especially kindly.

I had a difficult time getting into this book; it was a slog to read. If my book club hadn't been reading it, I would have put it down around a third of the way through and never finished it.

Personally, I would not have missed out on much. I already knew that trees talk to one another, that the forest and the natural world communicate in ways we simply do not yet understand. I have always known this, just as I know that whatever it is we are destroying will be returned in some form that we have yet to imagine. New and different trees, or different, more hardy vegetation, will eventually spring up and overtake our cities. I've seen it. I've been to the remains of local towns that were abandoned, and I've seen their structures overrun by nature's steady progress to retake the ground.

Maybe city dwellers, people who don't think outside of themselves, and folks who've never spent a lot of time in the woods will find this message endearing and take it to heart.

It is a good message.

I just wasn't entranced with the story or the method of storytelling.