sold

Twenty-eight dollars cash or forty-two in credit? Decisions, decisions.
We said good-bye to a few juvenile readers, duplicate copies of Choke and Eargon and opted for credit.

Last week, craigslist introduced us to the new owners of the too-large chair, a couple from Renton. He liked the chime and the miniature tea set on the table behind.

I collected a lil'somthin from Gypsy Trader for clothes I don't remember. They're not a clothing store anymore, lost most their business when the Fremont bridge was closed. So now they do some home decor, but mostly, it's about the cafe.

We're considering separating ourselves from a too-small sleeping bag and have taken steps towards letting go of a couple dozen albums. Classics like TSOL's- Revenge, The Ventures'- Walk Don't Run, and No Nuclear War by Peter Tosh.

I really shouldn't talk about it, should not re sort the box headed for Goodwill.

I'm organizing, cleaning, possibly inventorying. Making sense of, plans for the next phase of Seattle life. The books aren't shelved alphabetically, but for now, there's a clear distinction between the short stories, medical science, and history.

And speaking of books and history, seems like a good time to post another well-intentioned yet incomplete booklist that's been kicking around the draft file for months.


NORA--
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
New Buffalo: Journals from a Taos Commune, Arthur Kopecky;
Ironweed, William Kennedy
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
13 Stories, Eudora Welty
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Between, Georgia Joshilyn Jackson
Lies My Teacher Told Me, James Loewen
Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer


BRAD--
The Bear Comes Home, Rafi Zabor
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac Mccarthy
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
Dreams of My Father: Stories of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama
Founding Brothers, the Revolutionary Generation, Joseph Ellis
Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler


ASLIN--
The Black Stallion, Walter Farley
Ivy and Bean, Barrows & Blackwell;
A Dog Called Kitty, Bill Wallace
Sixth Grade Secrets, Louis Sacher
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'engle
Calvin and Hobbes;
School Rumble
Tithe, A Modern Fairytale, Holly Black


UKIAH--
The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze?
Stuck in Neutral, Terry Trueman
Shredderman, Wendelin Van Draanen
The Library Card, Jerry Spinelli
Eldest, Christopher Paolini
Greatest Mysteries of the Unexplained, Holland & Doncaster
Java for Dummies, Barry Burd
Megatokyo, Fred Gallagher


shared by multiple owlhouse residents--
Appetite for Life, Julia Child
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
Fat Kid Rules the World, K.L. Going
Collected Stories of Carson McCullers
The King's Fifth, Scott O'Dell
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney
Eragon, Christopher Paolini
Full Metal Alchemist
Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo, Greg Leitich Smith

In case you're looking for Holiday gift suggestions, we recommend most of the above.

elf + elf =

Fool.

Yesterday, after a very wet hike near Olallie State Park, we made tea and settled in for some arithmetic from the Wayside School.

After experimenting with our own spelling/algebra rules, we solved the first chapter, including:

1. stays + say = trust
2. dell + ewe = woods
3. seed + iced = spice
   

(each letter represents a different number between 0 and 9)

in the dark

A triathlete, photochoreographer and Gillian Welsh share a common bond. Each was introduced to a group of teens as part of the Orem Public Library's Teen Read Hidden Treasure program. Ukiah and Aslin agree, the triathlete was, um, a really, like, um, bad, kind of like, um, not good public speaker. Aside from that, we've been really impressed with the library. The library's four wings are set over a green courtyard, with an enclosed bridge joining A/B with C/D. There's a stage for readings and a magical glass window along the west wall. An open design highlights the geometric steel beam architecture. Shelved in the 941.5s- a few Disney and Calvin and Hobbes books. No manga. No librarians familiar with manga. It's a first in the dozens of libraries we've visited. Thoughtfully confused, Ukiah settled in with a Tin Tin collection.






Across 7 continually busy lanes of traffic, the natural foods store is not an easy walk from the library. Tofu dogs, fruit, snacks and kombucha. We carried our short list into a darkened store. Is this a first time power-outage at Harvest Fresh, or just another example of the deficient management/organization we've recognized at every visit to the store. It's a 100 degrees out, way too hot for kick-ball, and no one's moving to insulate the open freezers. Brad stressed, knowing the speciality cheese has about a 20 minute life span in the warmer temperature. He fights the urge to find cardboard and cover the meat cooler and we all wonder why five employees, management included, stand chatting about chocolate in the supplement section. At the register, the cashier asks us the prices of each item.
Cookies- $3.23; Nectarines- $.99/pound, Grapefruit- 2/$1, Hot Dog Buns- $2.69. We run up and down the isles, the floor staff thinks about sweeping. No one greets customers at the door with a pen and paper and request that they record prices.
"$28.63. Does that sound right to you, for what you bought?" Our cashier works with a little calculator and apologizes for the lack of receipt. "If you have any problems with what you buy... I don't know. Bring it back maybe."
We did get a complimentary Utah Truffle on our way out the door. Milk chocolate mint.

Good call on the plan to grill, power's out at the house too. Not on scale with New York's aging infrastructure, but it seems a sub-surface explosion is to blame here too.

The drive to a BYU men's soccer game put us back in air conditioned comfort. Less comfortable were the Cascade Surge who ran a defense-only game from the kick-off. I'm no fan of a 2-3-5 line-up, and it clearly wasn't working for the Salem, Oregon team. The Cougars scored early, ensuring my support of the visiting underdog. In front of me, the family of a home-town mid-fielder adhered to the University standard as stated before the game. "Sportsmanship" on the part of the fans kept foul language out of the stands, replaced by yells of "What the Dickens?" and "Oh my Goodness." Until a particularly unfavorable call by the Hispanic referee. "Are you even watching, Carlos?!" And from across the stands, "Go back to where you came from." I put my powerful evil eye to work and am kicking myself for not letting my well-practiced wicked words answer the dim-witted "what?" of the fan below me. Final score, 2-0 and no moral victory.


After an hour recapping game highlights and processing the ignorance of certain fans, we joined the monster crowd at Barnes and Noble. A spot-on Professor Snape headed the line, powered face looking fabulously sallow after untold hours of waiting. Past the lightening scared-foreheads, in and out of wand range, we headed round to the back of the building with the rest of the gold wrist-banded "PP"-ers. Troops of fans read, snacked and sought victory in impromptu Potter-trivia challenges. By a quarter after midnight, the first books made their way around to us at the end of the line. The "I'm gonna read you all the last page...." joke got old but didn't end, even with line-waiting friends told the pranksters to "stop being gay." Bystanders observations that Walmart had no line did little to convince the B-and-N crowd to abandon the company of their fellow fans. Tortured not by care of Harry's final Hogwarts days but by the ambiance of sitting in the dark by a dumpster, the kids took turns walking to the front, reporting on those who now held the book.
"An old lady was too busy laughing to worry about trapping me between her and a moving truck..."
1:25am and Lia had the Deathly Hallows in hand.

Across the parking lot, readers lined up at Sconecutters 24-hour "scones and fries" drive-thru. I think we'll make strawberry scones this weekend.

A few months of reading

A version of this book list, has been sitting in a draft file, waiting patiently to be linked to the larger world.

It's a source of debate, but the L and A homestead library likely outweighs the Wolf oven that baked this morning's cinnamon rolls. A collection of bird books, 10 feet of well-used cook books, a growing department of construction/engineering/design titles and double-shelved rows of fiction indicate many things. Most importantly, it looks as though a visit to Ruidoso Downs will result in the quadrupling of our own must read book list. (Proper inspiration to bring this list to light!)


nora-
Little House on a Small Planet, Shay Salomon
How to be Good and A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby
The Distinguished Guest, Sue Miller
Women in the Material World, Faith D'Aluisio & Peter Menzel
The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along with Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs), Keith Delvin
Total Yoga, Tara Fraser
Waxwings, Jonathan Raban
Jesus Land, Julia Scheeres
The Homework Myth: Why Our Children Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, Alfie Kohn
Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis
Healing Wise, Susan Weed

brad-
Snobbery, Joseph Epstein
Fish Lips, Andy Lochrie
Bait and Switch and Nickled and Dimed Barbara Ehrenreich
Global Woman: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy, Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild
Assassination Vacation, Sara Vowell
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain
Time and Again, Jack Finney
Dark Imaginings, Robert Boyer


ukiah-
Rolling Stone
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy, Restaurant At the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe & Everything, and So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish; Douglas Adams
Antarctica, Peter Lerangis
Abarat, Clive Barker
Dark Lord of Derkholm, Diana Wynne Jones


aslin-
Pinky Pyeand Ginger Pye, Eleanor Estes
Stone Soup magazine
The Cat Lady, Damien Graves
Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
Witch,Elizabeth Lenhard
BFG and The Witches, Roald Dahl


Enjoyed by two or more members of the owlhouse-
Criminal, Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
The Giver, Lois Lowry
Milkweed, Jerry Spinelli
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, Christopher Moore
NeverWhere, Neil Gaiman
Sisters Grimm #01: The Fairy-Tale Detectives, Michael Buckley
Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
The Squirrel Mother, Megan Kelso
Let's Go Roadtripping USA on a Budget
Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
Ishmael, Daniel Quinn
Sagas of the Canadian West, Frank Anderson


This trip's earlier reads have not been linked, but selections will be personally reviewed upon request!

Javelina are not pigs

Even with no sleeping bags to pack away and a dishwasher for breakfast dishes, we struggle to get out the door early. Today we managed to make our way to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum shortly after their 8:30 opening. On the road, we've bypassed a dozen zoos and a series of museums highlighted in our travel books, budgeting instead for the essentials- food, Disneyland, a transmission... Having hiked, camped, driven and played in the desert, we'd have skipped the museum, satisfied with our Sonora experience. If it weren't for the insistence of EVERYONE we've talked to in Tucson, "Oh, you really have to go..." we'd have missed the javelinas.

In the gift shop at Joshua Tree, Aslin took a seat on the floor, getting comfortable in front of the book shelf. From the counter, the staff watched. We left before the binding broke and before she finished the story. Today, after meeting a couple javelina families, she finished Don't Call Me Pig.

"Javelina aren't pigs. They're more closely related to rodents. They are herbivores and can eat prickly-pear without scraping off the thorns. If anything threatens them they make a loud noise and show their sharp teeth. They stick together and stand their ground. The grown-ups weigh 30-40 pounds. Today they were sleeping in the shade. When they woke up, they made sounds like donkeys." -Aslin

The humming birds, maybe 15 types, were amazing but too fast for our little camera. (A Blue Throat's heart beats 1260/minute!) The barn own in the raptor flight exhibit was trained to model. Or bribed by the dead mouse the trainer held by the tail.



The fox rests while the coyotes pace and studies the horizon. (The people rubberneck and make kissy sounds to call them either way.) Their habitats are not nearly as smelly as the bob cat's. Should we need to reestablish our campaign to drive the squirrels from the attic, I'll be in touch with the museum for a donation of used soil.


Models of volcanic activity, fossil replicas, the age of shallow seas. Time capsules of every era are displayed. A very english docent talked us through the early human inhabitants of the area including a hands on lesson of their tools for the hunt. A good-size reproduction of the desert caves opens to a mock mine. Splinters of raw malachite, azurite and pyrite are among the treasures we're encouraged to sift from the "mine-dump" site.


Down the road from the museum, the service at Benny's was lousy. The grilled cheese and onions rings not bad. The new friends who invited us over for travel stories and tether ball, great.

Quote Archive

2008

February 21
"I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory."


--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.


The Poets at the Breakfast Table


February 9
"We must move past indecision to action... If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."


--Martin Luther King, Jr.,

"CONSCIENCE AND THE VIETNAM WAR" (1968)


January 21
"Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce. It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce.."



Mike dangerous pig-headed Huckabee


January 2
"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech."

Martin Farquhar Tupper



2007
December 2
"Let me tell you, if you suspect a ghost is sitting next to your pillow, the ghost will always be there; if you imagine a god, a god will look after you from above."

Mrs. Lu
House Fire by Yiyun Li


November 13
"For the record, I'm not a communist...There's nothing left to do but get dressed and get the Hey out of here."

Dawn, HC. Our new neighbor.

September 25
If you give in to intimidation, you'll go on being intimidated.

Aung San Suu Kyi


September 6
"By idolizing those whom we honor, we do a disservice both to them and to ourselves...We fail to recognize that we could go and do likewise."

Charles V. Willie


August 12
"...Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade....where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."
Chief Joseph,
Nez Perce

August 3
"With the advent of industrial farming and the green revolution, organic farming was relegated to the status of "quaint" or "old-fashioned" - something practiced by hippies on communes, certainly not by serious farmers."
David Suzuki

July 24
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform."
Susan B Anthony

July 9
“The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers"
Ruth Benedict

June 23
"I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught."
Georgia O'Keeffe

June 10
"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." -
Lao Tzu

May 24
“But with dogs, we do have “bad dog.” Bad dog exists. “Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!” The dog is saying, “Who are you to judge me? You human beings who’ve had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!”

“Well, if you put it that way, I think you’ve got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.” - Eddie Izzard

May 14
"Not only should you have known, congressmen, congresswomen and senators. You could have known.

If you had done your homework, you would have known that many of the real experts in the government... had grave doubts about this part or that part of the administration's case for war."
John Walcott, February, 2007

May 6
Carmen Mills- "It takes serious effort to stop trying to do anything. My current goal is to unitask: If I read, or I walk, that's all I do..."
Little House on a Small Planet, by Shay Salomon

April 24
"Well, I shan't go at any rate," said Alice, "besides, that's not a regular rule: you invented it just now." "It's the oldest rule int he book," said the King.
Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll

April 11
"But why? Why do you need prophets to tell you how you ought to live? Why do you need anyone to tell you how you ought to live?"
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael

March 27
"How we live our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." Annie Dillard

March 1
"U.S. elections are run by marketing professionals, the same people who sell toothpaste and cars." Noam Chomskey, 2005

Confidential

In a closet under the stairs, the remains of this year’s pumpkin harvest are stacked in a lopsided pyramid. I flip the switch, but the light shines only at the top of the stairs, the entrance to the meditation room. In the dark, I choose three. The pile doesn't tumble.


After a half-hour of steaming, and an hour of cooling, the pumpkin is ready to serve its purpose. Pumpkin bread. With a touch of molasses, plenty of clove and cinnamon and an unmeasured mix of baking soda, baking powder and applesauce as an egg replacer, we bake two Big loaves. Enough for desert tonight, breakfast tomorrow.

Here, the communal kitchen means there's always an assortment of quick and tasty stuff for lunch. It also means the bread is gone by the morning. I check both refrigerators, the freezer and a row of lower cupboards, hoping to find some baked breakfast goodness. Nothing. Except that foil covered pie plate in the corner of the counter. Across the top is written…

“This is not for you.
It’s for Krishna.
No peaking. Please.”

Another breakfast of rice and apple.

The contents of the pie plate aren’t the only secret here.

I can't tell you about using the back door to enter a European embassy in the Middle East. Or about crawling under a truck to hide and not openly offend Allah while drinking. I’m not sure if I can tell you about curing cancer with silica, guru "shopping" at age 18, teaching yoga at Folsom prison or working for TV Guide. Brad and I signed confidentiality agreements.

I can tell you that it’s been raining for days, that we’re in a flood plane here, that a flash flood could carry our van away- so we should keep the keys on us, in case we need to move it in a hurry.

The broccoli is harvested, fig tree pruned, compost turned- and now, 35 rose bushes need pruning. In the rain I thought about Alice in Wonderland, counted leaves and sang, “We’re painting the roses red, painting the roses red…Don’t tell the Queen what you have seen…” I’m sure the glowing review I just read for Frank Beddor’s ‘The Looking Glass Wars’ (a new retelling of the classic) prompted my song. I kept humming for hours, stopping occasionally to curse a thorn. “Painting the roses red…” My own little mantra at this Bhakti Yoga center.

Book List

Phase two of our trip, time to clear space for an updated profile.

The friendly folks at Blogger encourage us to share our "favorites". Unfortunately, their space in limited. Maybe we can list 15 books. Divided by the four of us that's 3.7 titles each. And at least one of us struggles with identifing fixed favorites. Instead, we've been recording books, music, movies and other current interests. We reccomend the books that fueled the first leg of our travels…


Aslin
Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great; Judy Blume
Love Ruby Lavender; Deborah Wiles
The Sisters Grimm; Michael Buckley
Azu Manga Daiho volumes 1-4;

Ukiah
Mortal Engines; Philip Reeve
The Merlin Conspiracy; Diana Wynne Jones
Death Note, volumes 1-5; Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
Collin's Japanese Phrase Book; Hulmut Morsback & Kazu Kurebyashi

Brad
Cloud Atlas; David Mitchell
City of Glass: Paul Auster
In a Sunburned Country; Bill Bryson
The Watchman; Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Anansai Boys; Neil Gaiman
Criminal issues 1-2; Ed Brubaker


Nora
Cloud Atlas (Yep, that makes for a double recomendation!)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; John Perkins
Home from the Vinyl Cafe & Vinyl Cafe Diaries; Stuart McLean
Bliss & other stories; Katherine Mansfield
Black Clock #5; Cal Arts MFA program
Sex Wars; Marge Piercy
The Imposter; Paula Sharp
The Tea Ceremony, the uncollected writings of Gina Berriault
Milkweed; Jerry Spinelli

All
Road Trip USA; Jamie Jensen
Volunteer Vacations; Bill McMillon…