For the Birds

Today was a beautiful spring day. We spent the morning and early afternoon with my parents and family and then returned home so that I could tend to laundry and other lovely domestic responsibilities. K wanted to play outside, so I decided it might be a good day to do a little yard work. I have a small flower garden on the side, that tries to thrive every year, and I will admit, I'm a tad neglectful when it comes to weeding.

However, K and I went full force in cleaning up the garden and seeing the little plants that were already making an appearance.Now, I think someone might have buried a bird or something in my garden, because there were these wings sticking straight up ... and let's be frank, I am not the type that was going to dig in and find out exactly what was lying underneath the dirt. I think I'll leave that for a day when my husband is outside doing yard work, too. Because ... as I have told him numerous times, when he said I do, the one thing he signed up for was dealing with all dead animals (since we've lived in this house that means he's had to deal with one dead rabbit we found on the side of our house and one dead mouse we found in our basement our first winter.)

Then I walked around the corner of the house just to do a quick look at everything else and I realized we had left our wreath from the fall still up by the front door. (Okay, I am going to blame our horrendous winter for the fact that yes, it was our autumnal wreath that was still up, not even a Christmas one.) So, I thought, today might be a good day to take down the wreath and fully embrace spring.

What in the h-e-double hockey sticks was I thinking?? I walked up the stairs and went to remove the wreath. Then bam! my life flashed before my eyes as this bird flew out of the wreath and dive-bombed toward my head. I ran faster than Flash Gordon screaming around my house (yes, I am sure all my neighbors who have company over because it is Easter, really enjoyed the entertainment) and told K to get on the deck in the back of the house. My heart was racing but I realized I needed to get the rest of the yard work done that I had committed to completing. So, after calming down, I returned to my side garden.

What couldn't have been more than 20 minutes passed, and I decided to bring our yard waste bin back into the garage ... I looked up at the front door. The bird had returned. She (or he) looked straight at me. I scuttled quickly to the garage and decided I had had enough of outside time for the day. D kept telling me I need to go take care of it ... and I kept trying to convince him that I think I might actually be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder ... because need I remind him ... IT FLEW DIRECTLY AT MY HEAD!

So, he looked out the front door, and the bird is still there. We think she (or he) probably has a nest in our wreath ... and because we are saps ... we'll, I guess we've decided that at least for now, we have a new resident at our address. But man, this day really did go to the birds!

Aging, Gracefully?

Maybe it's the few extra gray hairs that I've been spotting, or that  the sleep wrinkles in my face seem to be taking a little longer to disappear. Whatever it is, I feel like I'm aging more than ever. So, I decided to up the ante on taking care of my skin. I'm being more diligent with my daily moisturizer in the morning and I've implemented a new night time regime with lots of potions and creams.

We'll see how long I stick to it ... as I tend to go full force at the beginning, but then all the extra work, if I don't see quick results, doesn't seem worth it in the end. (hmmm, maybe that's my problem with the whole exercise thing ...)

Now, the big debate is do I try to cover up the gray hair? Granted, I don't have a lot ... but I do notice them. I haven't colored my hair since I was pregnant with O, and since my hair was short then I think all my hair is healthy and natural right now ... so do I destroy it with color ... or do I accept that I could go gray gracefully? Can I go gray gracefully?  I'm not sure. Clearly I'm having issues with sleep wrinkles in the morning ... and I'm not even anyway near 40 ... how am I going to handle it when I hit the big 4 - 0?

A Study in Race, Science and Art

This morning on the bus, I finished reading Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Yes, it's another book that I will be able to remove off the list.

This is the second book of Zadie Smith's that I have read and I would highly recommend her work to anyone who wants an interesting perspective on how ethnicity, race, politics and raw human emotion color our lives. In this book, she examines race and politics at many levels. The two first characters we meet are a white Englishman and a Bengali Muslim who are best friends. The story follows their families as both men wed, (the white Englishman to a black Jamaican). It explores how their children reflect the changing time and the way that newer generations view their racial backgrounds.

I am sure that many of the emotions of her character reflect her own background growing up in England with a Jamaican mother, but it is that raw honesty that I appreciated. I discovered that the book had been adapted for TV, so I will have to see if it's available for viewing.

She also explores in this book the many passions around religion. It was gripping and the ending took me so completely by surprise, but was so damn satisfying that I smiled as I read the last line. She truly is a brilliant writer and I look forward to reading many more masterpieces in the future.

Laughter Heals the Soul

This weekend, I took in a little improv show. (it was at the Huge theater, which I highly recommend, so if you are in the Minneapolis area, go now, run, don't wait!) It felt good to laugh. I think the joy of seeing shows with other people is that laughter is infectious. So, while I may not have normally laughed on my own if I heard some of the jokes, the laughter of others helped put it in context.

Tonight at dinner, O demonstrated his ability to fake laugh. His whole motive was to get the rest of us to laugh. It worked. His fake laughter make K laugh. Then K decided to fake laugh to make O laugh, which resulted in everyone laughing. It went on for an easy ten minutes. Real laughter interspersed with someone giving an over-exagerated fake laugh to encourage more laughter.

If we all could encourage at least some laughter every day, I think we'd all be in a better place.

To Love and Hate an Author

In my journey to read the 1001 books you should read before you die, I decided to try and knock out all the books by one particular author. Because I enjoyed his work Never Let Me Go ... I decided it would be Kazuo Ishiguro. I decided to read the books in random order, not chronologically, and I think the random order served me well ... because if I had read them in the order he wrote them I think I would have been even more frustrated than I ended up being.

So, the first book I selected was An Artist in the Floating World. Perhaps it was because the book was too heavy for a beach read (and I had brought it on vacation with me) I found it to take forever to muddle through. Well it was written beautifully, the story just didn't work for me. Hearing about the war and how it affected Japan, just hit me wrong. But, perhaps it was also at the same time as all the recent tragedy. Maybe the story was too raw for me considering the current state of affairs. It just didn't resonate with me as the first piece I had read a while ago.

Next, I enjoyed his work Remains of the Day. Granted, I have never seen the movie, but because I knew it starred Anthony Hopkins, I completely pictured him as the main character. I loved this book. It embodies everything about old British charm that makes me wish I had been born a century ago on the English countryside. It was a splendid story about the relationship between staff and their boss and unrequited love. Even when you don't recognize you are in love. It was like a delightful afternoon tea.

Finally, I read his debut novel, A Pale View of Hills. It was a haunting story about a woman just after the war and a friendship she had long ago. It also touched on her relationship with her daughter. I found the story captivating and while the perspective of Japan after the ware was similar as Artist, I found this take much more palatable. Perhaps, it was because it was a women's perspective, or because I related to her as a mother. Whatever the reason, it was a fast and pleasant read.

The last book I read was The Unconsoled. Never has a book frustrated me more. I wanted to yell and scream ad Ishiguro, "What the hell are you having me read?!" The twists and turns of this book are splendidly brilliant, because I think he wants you to relate with the main character who is just as confused and angry as the reader. It's an amazing piece of work, because I have never had so much uncontrolled emotion toward a book. I was so mad. I kept reading the book, hoping at the end I would get the clarity I was so desperately seeking, only to be bitterly disappointed and frustrated. It is truly a book that I loved and hated. And at the end, questioned my own readiness for the book. Perhaps I was not sophisticated or intelligent enough to "get it" in the end and that was why I was left so disappointed.

To end my marathon on all things Ishiguro, I decided to watch the movie based on his book Never Let Me Go. It is a recent movie with hot, young British actors. It didn't stray too much from the book (of course, many elements were cut due to time constraints) but I think it did the book justice at the most basic level. It however, frustrated the heck out of D. He found the subject matter so dark and disturbing. It made me realize, that maybe that is Ishiguro's goal. To make you think, and ponder, and get frustrated ... for that is the work of an artist ... to make you feel.