A decade ago - December distilled

Here is December 2007 distilled in three blog posts - ten years later, I look back in wonder. The kids were ten years younger - so was I! 

Dec 2007- Deck the Halls! 

The tree glitters, the house is decked with boughs of pine and swaths of ribbon, and there are oranges in the bowl on the table.

My daughter is feeling much better today – – thanks so much for the well wishes.

I have finished the shopping, the cards are sent, the house is fairly clean, the stockings are hung, and it’s still icy, cold, and clear outside. White frost is sparkling on the trees and ground, beckoning Auguste to escape and go for a dash through the woods.

A couple days ago I got a letter from someone who read my book ‘Time for Alexander’. He was quite indignant at the liberties I took with the historical part of the story. I wondered how to reply. (And if I should reply) Finally I sent a note saying that it was a fiction book, and should be taken as thus. (After all, there’s a modern woman zipping through time to interview Alexander the Great and getting mistaken for Persephone – I’d have thought that the fiction part was pretty well established…) I wonder if I did the right thing though. I suppose this means he won’t be reading the rest of the series.

Surreal Holidays

My daughter just looked at me and said, “John Lennon is the only member of the Beatles that’s still alive, right mom?”

So far, my holidays have been surreal.

Today we woke up and the water pipes were frozen. I went into the shed and sure enough, the workers had forgotten to put the insulation back on the pipes. So, several hot towels and newspaper and a hair dryer later, we have water again. I have to go find where the workers put the insulation and tuck it all back in, but it’s cold out there.

The temperatures will rise a little this week, but will plunge again next week. I love the cold when it’s sunny out, and so far we’ve had glorious weather – bright, sunny, and cold.

My daughter is sick – the school called yesterday and sent us into a panic. The school nurse thought she might have menigitis.

So yesterday I’m in church listening to the children’s choir for the private school in Montfort (Gorgeous church, Unesco site) and the cell phone rings, and it’s my husband with the news about my daughter. I leave right in the middle of ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ and sprint for the car. I was with my friend Andrea, so she had to drop me off. We rushed her to the doctor, who reassured me. It’s just a gastirc flu. Causes headaches, muscle aches, and nausea. Poor kid is once again in bed (well, with the TV on, big fluffy pillows, and room service…) I do hate getting scared like that though.

Auguste is escaping again. (he goes through stages) Now he’s learned to climb the stone wall on the right side of our garden. (Strange sight, a dachshund taking a flying leap at the wall, then gripping and scrabbling over it.) It would be funnier if I weren’t so worried he’d get hit by a car once outside the garden. Silly dog.

Gabriele, I got the French version of the Deryni series, I didn’t even check to see if it was in English. It’s by Pocket books, so maybe they have a series in German? I know most of my German friends prefer to read books that are written in English in English. I’m always amazed at how well my German friends speak English.

I wish I came from a country with an educational system that thought learning a foreign language was important…

Twilight of the Books

According to the New Yorker – it is the “Twilight of the Books” time, supported by statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts.

“…In 1982, 56.9 per cent of Americans had read a work of creative literature in the previous twelve months. The proportion fell to fifty-four per cent in 1992, and to 46.7 per cent in 2002. Last month, the N.E.A. released a follow-up report, “To Read or Not to Read,” which showed correlations between the decline of reading and social phenomena as diverse as income disparity, exercise, and voting. In his introduction, the N.E.A. chairman, Dana Gioia, wrote, “Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.””

Book sales have stagnated, even fallen, in the past few years, dropping from “8.27 books per person in 2001 to 7.93 in 2006.”

As a reader, I’m stunned to learn that only 46.7 per cent of Americans have read a work of creative literature (poem, short story, novel) in 2002. (N.E.A. statistics). But the average American’s household budget for books was 126$ in 2005, and the price of books as well as the cost of living having risen, I imagine that the number is even lower today.

What can be done about the death of reading? It’s true that TV and computer games have pushed books aside, but we shouldn’t let this happen without a struggle. What good can come of letting reading be phased out? The army general in me has already made up plans to ban televisision after 8pm, and install reading time instead “Unless there’s a really good film or documentary on,” says the hedonist in me. The army general huffs but usually looses to the hedonist. 

Last week I finished reading the Pullman trilogy (I’d only read the first book – seeing the film made me want to finish the series, and I really enjoyed it.)

Now I’m back in Katherine Kurtz’ Deryni books, because I bought them for my neice, and I thought I’d quick read them before I wrapped them up. (Is this a Christmas faux pas, I wonder? It is, however, a family tradiction…) I am very careful not to fold the pages or crease the spine…lol.

My daughter is actually looking forward to reading Moliere’s “Le Malade Imaginaire” over the holidays. I’m going to read two new mystery books I bought, plus the book I won from Linda Winfree and that I’m looking forward to reading as well.

Back to the article, it says that “Taking the long view, it’s not the neglect of reading that has to be explained but the fact that we read at all. “The act of reading is not natural,” Maryanne Wolf writes in “Proust and the Squid”” Which is interesting.

It also states that, “There’s no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special “reading class,” much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the nineteenth century.”

Anyhow, reading the article in the New Yorker was interesting, here’s a link if you’d like to take a look. I especially liked the replies of the illiterate peasants in a 1930’s study.

Still begging for a pony

My daughter (despite being told that NO she cannot have a horse) is still begging me.

Here are 3 things my kids have asked me for Christmas that they never got:

A flying carpet.

“But Mom, it does so exist! We saw it in that film – Aladin! Don’t you remember?”

Sebastian, 7 yrs. old. Absolutely convinced that there were magic carpets, and that I didn’t want to give him one because I was afraid he’d fall off.

“I promise, I’ll hold on tight! I won’t go too far!”

He kept this up for THREE weeks. I finally gave him the prayer rug my uncle had brought me back from the first Gulf war from Kuwait. Sebi sat on the rug and tried to make it fly for hours. Anyone catching sight of him would have been amazed at how devout this little boy was, kneeling on his prayer rug, facing the open window.

An equine. A little shetland pony. A pony. A donkey. A small horse. A horse.

My daughter has grown from pony to horse, but she still begs. The answer is still No, No, No. NO!

A cell phone.

“But Mom, I can’t keep using the pay phone at the school. There’s always a long line of kids there, and I have to wait to call you. If I don’t have to wait, I can call you sooner, and you won’t have to spend as much time in the car.” (Yes Alex, this was you, darling. You’re in college now, so you can probably catch the mistake.)

Update: This was written in December 2007. In 2011, we bought our daughter a pony. Alex eventually got his cellphone. But Sebi still hasn’t gotten a flying carpet. Sometimes you never get what you want!