Category: Life Talk

Life Talk

Thrills

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I follow USBSF (United States Bobsled & Skeleton Federation) on Twitter. For a few years when I was a teenager, my dad and I spent almost every winter’s weekend volunteering at various sporting events – mostly sliding (bobsled, luge, skeleton) in Lake Placid. I learned to love the sports then, especially skeleton. My favorite event was the one where I had the job of cleaning the sliders’ shoes before they went down the track – any debris attached to their spikes could interfere with their starting run, and slow them down or even throw them off. I was so nervous at first that I wasn’t going to do it properly, but I soon got the hang of it, and LOVED it – being there at the start with them, feeling all professional, like I was really an important part of things!

(Usually I got stuck with parking lot duty. Important, but boring.)

I even got to clean Jimmy Shea’s shoes that competition – now that’s not something everyone can say!

As you know, I’m a figure skater. But there is something thrilling about the sliding sports. One of my dreams is to someday go down a track on a skeleton sled. I’ve seen it with my own eyes – I’ve heard the whoosh of the runners biting into the ice – I’ve felt the excitement build at the start of the track as the sliders prepare themselves and then take off – I’ve been at the bottom when they come in, still buzzed from the adrenaline rush. And yes, I’ve seen enough crashes to know how dangerous it can be. I don’t really care. I still want to try someday, just once.

I remembered that again today when USBSF mentioned about the sleds sounding like bullets going down the track in St Moritz. I replied to them, saying I wanted to experience that someday. They said? Absolutely must try sometime!

I don’t look like your typical thrill-seeker, and there’s a lot of things I won’t try – I’m not even a big fan of roller coasters. But I don’t know, something about skeleton, it just makes me want to throw off my inhibitions and toss caution to the wind.

(I also want to do this someday, but both my father and husband panic every time I mention it –

photo courtesy of callaurbanski.com
– so I don’t talk about it much anymore.)
Do you have anything on your bucket list that seems out-of-character to people who know you? What do you think it says about us as people, our desire to seek thrills? If I ever do get that chance to ride a skeleton sled, who’s coming with me? It’ll be AWESOME!
humor, Life Talk

To Sleep, Perchance …

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I haven’t been doing anything terribly interesting this week, writing-wise or life-wise. However, apparently my subconscious is doing its best to make up for my dull life by WILD dreams.

The first night wasn’t so great – it was actually more of a nightmare. Trapped on an abandoned cruise ship with a serial killer, me against him, (apparently I was a detective) me trying to catch him but feeling uneasily certain he was toying with me. Thankfully I woke up before the final confrontation. The overall tone of that dream was dark and creepy, even more than the events in it. Took several cups of tea that morning before I felt normal again!

The dream returned in a lighter fashion the next few nights – the cruise ship wasn’t deserted, and it had more of a Peter Wimsey feel – still serious, but not creepy, and this time, I always had the upper hand over the killer. One night it wasn’t even a murderer I was after, but a jewel thief.

Then last night – oh, I have no idea where this one came from, but I do most earnestly hope it returns, because FUN – my dream was a veritable sci-fi television mashup.

Started out in a green clearing, trees all around. All kinds of characters from sci-fi tv were waiting for their assignments from a platform at one end of the clearing (and no, I don’t remember any of them clearly). I ended up being sent on a quest with Chakotay (from Star Trek: Voyager) and Mal (Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly). Now, I was myself – Louise – and had no idea why I was tagging along, but dudes, I was not complaining. Both Mal and Chakotay (naturally) wanted to be in charge, but since we’d only been given a direction to go in, no actual specifics as to what our quest was (bad planning, Management), there weren’t too many problems at first.

Then we ran into a friend I know in real life, except something was weird about her, and then, as we were chatting, she told me that she’d downloaded her consciousness into an android’s body because she’d been afraid of getting fat, and droids’ bodies never change. And then she ended up coming along with us because she had nothing better to do.

Things got hazy after that (I think I was starting to move toward waking up) … I remember a fight between Mal and Chakotay, and then a fight between Mal and my android friend (Mal, apparently, had a lot of anger issues to work out – though the droid friend started the second fight, and would have won it except I tried to pull them apart and accidentally dropped her off the cliff, but we figured she survived because, hey, droid bodies are remarkably resilient), and then just as we were getting close to figuring out what the point was of the quest, what we were after to begin with …

thump thump thump little feet coming up to the bed, “I have to go potty” little voice whispered, and even though Carl got up and I was able to get back to sort-of sleep, the dream was gone.

I most sincerely hope it returns tonight – I want to figure out this quest now (and also, would like to know if I was sent for more than just taking notes and pushing droids off cliffs).

What sort of fun dreams have you been having lately?

Note: I have not watched any sci-fi shows in the last several weeks, and the only sci-fi book I’ve read has been A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which is more science fantasy than science fiction, nor have I been reading/watching anything related to mysterious happenings aboard a cruise ship, so I really, really have no idea where these dreams are coming from. But they are, with the exception of that first nightmare, immensely amusing to me.

figure skating, God, Life Talk, philosophy, writing

Sacred Joy

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On the second-to-last night of 2011, I unexpectedly got the best gift of the year – two free tickets to see Stars on Ice, my favorite show in the world, in Lake Placid, my favorite village in the world. My mother-in-law, already planning on visiting for the holiday, came out a day early so she could baby-sit the littles; the friend who gave us the free tickets had two others she gave to my mother and sister, so Carl and I met Mom and Lis in the village, had dinner together (served by the Slavic version of Basil Fawlty, though he was more harried than rude, but still – Carl was the first to come up with the comparison and it was so apt), and then went to the SHOW.
It was to flip over.
(I know, groan, but come on, you don’t expect me to get a picture of Ryan Bradley mid-back-flip and not come up with an excuse to use it and make a lame pun with.)

Our seats were in the bleachers, but when they did the retakes for tv after the show we were able to sneak down and take the seats of four people who had left. I pulled my camera out of my bag and just started clicking. Kurt Browning was gracious enough to do the majority of his retakes right in front of where we were sitting. My sister and I might have fan-girl squee-ed just a little.

It was a two+ hour drive back to Albany after the show – the weather was hovering between rain and ice through most of the Adirondacks, which meant we had to drive slowly. So what do two people do to keep each other awake on a late-night long drive back home? Well, my sister and I might have done more squee-ing over the likes of Kurt, Ryan, Todd Eldredge, etc, but since it was Carl and I, of course we started talking philosophy.
Philosophy of figure skating? Why, of course! 

Way back in college, I wrote a paper on the debate as to whether figure skating was sport or art. My stupid, stupid English professor gave me a C, not because it was poorly written, but because he didn’t think it was a real issue (note: at the beginning of the semester he told us anything was acceptable as a topic, and cited one of his favorite papers from the previous year, on “Why Blondes Have More Fun). I looked at him and said, “I am a figure skater: trust me, it is an issue.”

He refused to believe me; that is the one and only C I have ever received on any assignment in an English class. And yes, it was close to ten years ago, but IT STILL RANKLES.

Anyway. Carl was asking me about my thoughts on it, and being wiser now, I wasn’t so quick to jump to the defense of figure skating as sport. I told him that I couldn’t really be objective on the matter, because figure skating was so much more to me than anything I could describe.

You see, when I am on the ice, just as when I am writing, I feel I am coming closer to the me I am meant to be (I know this all sounds a little “woo-woo.” Sorry about that), back to the core of who I am, the Louise God intended me to be with all the baggage stripped away. Only skating and writing do that for me – nothing else. It is too close to my heart; I cannot speak objectively about it. Even when I am not skating myself, watching pure, good skating gives me an echo of that. It satisfies me in a way nothing else does, the same way that reading a brilliantly-written book satisfies me even when I am not writing myself.

And I am not a great skater, but when I am on the ice I feel like I am great. I am always pretty sure I look like this:

Joannie Rochette and Sasha Cohen)

Or this:
I want to be Katia Gordeeva when I grow up

And I really look like this:
True story – I got done with this spiral and told my friend who was holding the camera “That was great! My leg was really up there, my head was high, it was an awesome spiral!” She said, “uh-huh,” and handed me the camera. I was shocked to see I had only achieved a straight line – but I suppose I should be thankful at least my head was up and my leg was straight. I don’t always even accomplish that.

Or this:
SELL that final pose, girl!

But that doesn’t matter. Not really. I do my best skating when I am all alone in a rink, with no one around to make me self-conscious. It’s not a solitary act for most, but like writing, it is for me.
And that – because it is almost sacred to me – is why it brings me such joy to watch it done well. Oh sure, the eye candy is nice, too, but skating is unique and special and wondrous simply because, for me, it is an act of worship.
As is writing.
It’s kind of a nice way to end the year, isn’t it, making those connections and getting an unexpected chance to experience that again?
It makes me want to write more, too, and to remember more of what my writing is – not just a hobby or career, but an essential part of me, one of those elements that makes me me, and something that brings me closer to my best, my purest version of myself.
And that is the last bit of philosophizing you will hear from me until next year. 
Happy New Year’s, friends!

Books, children, fantasy, reading list

The Year of The Author

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I have a hard time keeping track of what books I read in a year. I start out well enough, in January and February, but by March, I’ve completely forgotten about writing down what books I’ve read. Probably because so many of them are re-reads, and it seems silly sometimes to write down that I’ve read Anne of Green Gables for the 500th time.

However, I did realize, recently, that I tend to have a year of an author. For the last few years, there’s been one author that I’ve discovered, either new to me or newly-loved, and I’ve spent the year reading everything I can get my hands on by that author.

First it was Dorothy L Sayers, and spending the year borrowing one Lord Peter book after another from the library. I even read all the Monty Egg stories I could find. Sayers’ writing still enthralls me – I find something new about it to cherish each time I re-read. And Lord Peter himself … I have mentioned before how bitterly I resented Harriet Vane because he fell in love with her, yes? All right then. Nothing more about that really need be said. He is as human and real and swoon-worthy a hero as was ever written.

Then it was Tamora Pierce – first Kel, then Aly, then Beka. Though Pierce’s tendency (as I see it) to sometimes subvert the story in favor of her point irritated me (and still does, though the more I write the more I understand that temptation, and also how easy that is to do without realizing it), I did so appreciate her strong heroines – especially Kel and Beka, who were both quieter and more sensible than many female fantasy protagonists and were not blessed with special gifts that made them stand out; it was their character and determination. I truly do love that.

This past year, it was Diana Wynne Jones. I’d read one or two of her books before last year, but 2011 was the year I fully fell in love. Also, it happened to be the year she died, which left me feeling outraged – I’d finally found out how much I loved her writing, and then she was gone, before I even had a chance to say or think “thank you.” The woman who created Sophie and Howl, Chrestomanci, Cat, and so many others, and wait, what, they just barely sprang to life for me and their creator was gone? Bad timing, Louise and world!

I think I already know what author will dominate 2012 for me – another one who died shortly after I’d finally read one of her books*, though that was a few years ago.

2012 seems a fitting year to immerse myself in this author’s writings, seeing as how it is the 50th anniversary of her most famous work. That work? A Wrinkle in Time, and the author is Madeleine L’Engle.

I’ve mentioned on here recently just how moving I found A Ring of Endless Light. 2011 (well, and 2010) was a year of a lot of personal darkness for me, and the message of hope and encouragement to persevere that rang through Vicky’s experiences was just exactly what I needed, when I needed it. I sobbed my way through the last few pages – and I am not a big crier (I mean, sure I get choked up Every Single Time I read OR watch Sam’s “I can’t carry the Ring, but I can carry you,” bit to Frodo in Return of the King, but who doesn’t? I’m not made of stone, after all).

While we were visiting my MIL for Christmas, I started reading A Circle of Quiet, one of L’Engle’s memoir-ish works. By the time I was a few pages in, I know this was going to be one of those books that picked me up, shook me out, and set me back down again dazed, refreshed, and seeing the world with new eyes – or old eyes that simple had too many scales on them now shaken off.

And I was right. My thinking hasn’t necessarily radically changed on anything, but the book both affirmed and challenged me right where I needed it, helped me shake loose some ideas that have been weighting me down, and filled up the spaces with fresh ones. It also made me laugh, which is grand.

So now I am certain that 2012? Is going to be the year I read everything I can find by L’Engle.

(*So, the story about why it took me so long to read anything by L’Engle – when I was very young, I picked up a book from the library called The Door in the Wall, which I thought was going to be exciting, and WAS NOT. I hated it. After that, I always got that book confused with A Wind in the Door, and so transferred my loathing of that darn non-exciting children’s book to anything by L’Engle. Kind of like how I never read anything by Jones for so long because I always saw cats on the covers of her books, and unless Lloyd Alexander is writing it, I have no interest in feline fantasy. It took me until I was an adult to finally brave picking up Wrinkle, at which point I realized it had nothing whatsoever to do with EVIL BORING DOOR BOOK, but it was so very different from what I had been anticipating that I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Same when I finally read Wind, and it really did take me until Vicky and Ring before I could start to better appreciate L’Engle’s beautiful, strange writing. The End.)

figure skating, Life Talk

Christmas is Almost Here

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I wasn’t going to post again before Christmas, but I saw this tonight, and it brought back happy Christmas memories for me, and it made me laugh. How could I not share it with all of you?

Besides, you know, Kurt Browning. When I want my kids to know what amazing skating is really like, I have them watch Brian Boitano, Kristi Yamaguchi, Scott Hamilton, and Kurt Browning. They don’t get any better than this.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh1TaZzWbVc?rel=0]
Merry Christmas, my friends!
fantasy, Life Talk

The Hobbit Trailer

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The Hobbit – next December. I’ve been trying to contain my excitement, given my disappointment over how the LotR trilogy went, but between the casting (Richard Armitage as Thorin could not be more perfect – Martin Freeman IS Bilbo – Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug just makes me want to shriek with delight, etc etc) and now this trailer …

Well, excitement abounds. No containing it anymore.

SQUEE!

Books, children

Favorite Children’s Books

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My girls are 4 and 2 1/2, and I thought I’d share some of their current favorite books, in case there are any parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/close friends who are interested in good books for very small people.

Anything by Beatrix Potter. Their current favorites are the nursery rhyme books: Cecily Parsley and Appley Dapply. They also like The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes, Jemima Puddleduck, and Mrs Tittlemouse (Grace goes around all the time saying “Sank ‘oo, ‘sank ‘oo, mouse*,” in a very credible imitation of pompous Mr Jackson).

White Rabbit’s Color Book. This is one of Grandpa’s stories that he keeps for the littles. Grace asks about it the entire car ride whenever we go and visit (that’s four hours straight, by the way). They love learning about the mixing of colors, and I think they both (especially Grace) identify with the inquisitive White Rabbit.

Along those same lines, The Color Kittens is another favorite. I’ve been slowly increasing our collection of Little Golden Books; this one they like the best so far. We can’t get through a day without one or both of them asking me what color comes from mixing _____ (insert any two colors of choice here), and then correcting me if I get it wrong.

Joy more than Grace loves this Classic Fairy Tales book, another one that Grandpa picked up at the used bookstore and gave us to take home. Carl reads this to them often, and Joy knows most of the stories well enough by now that she can go through it by herself and recite the stories.

Footprints and Shadows is lovely. I found it at a used bookstore and couldn’t believe someone had sold it. The littles love the quiet rhythm of the words, and I get enchanted by the illustrations. It has actually inspired me to attempt more picture books, and I even have a plot simmering in the back of my brain for the next one!

Any of the books in the Stranger in the Woods series are perennial favorites, adored ever since the littles were babies. They are especially fun in the wintertime.

They are both just starting to appreciate the wacky humor of Dr Seuss. Grace loves her ABC book, and I bought Joy One Fish, Two Fish for Christmas, and this is ONE present I’m fairly certain (rap wood) she won’t reject after opening.

Jan Brett is another one whose books the girls love – any and all of them. On Noah’s Ark and The Owl and the Pussycat are their favorites, but now that Christmas is coming, I suspect they will want to read The Gingerbread Baby over and over (and over and over) again.

Grace is still a little young for them, but Joy enjoys Madeline and Babar, and they both like Curious George (although the first time I re-read the first book since I was a kid, last year, I was horrified at it – the Man in the Yellow Hat kidnaps George, and then George gets arrested for accidentally dialing a wrong number because the Man in the Yellow Hat just goes off and leaves him alone and loose in the apartment (AFTER KIDNAPPING HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE) … the whole thing is dreadful. Give me Babar’s communism any day).

Finally, they also both like listening to the CD of the Jesus Storybook Bible (GREAT for long car rides), and even though I find myself choking up at various stories when I try to read it aloud (Abraham and Isaac? BAWL), they also like to have it read to them by Mamma or Papa.

So there you have it! Any books little people in your life adore that I ought to look into adding to our collection?

*that translates to “Thank you, thank you, Mrs Tittlemouse.”

Carl reading Winnie-the-Pooh to Joy when she was about a week old, starting what we hope is a lifetime habit of loving good stories.


1920s, Books, children, families, heroines, Life Talk

Libraries and Death Traps

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Thank you all, again, for your kind words on my last post. You brought a lump to my throat more than once.

We’re still at my parents’ until Tuesday morning; Grandma’s memorial service is Monday. We’re looking forward to having much of the clan gathered together for it. Even though funerals are sad, we always manage to have something of a good time just because we’re together. Some of the aunts and uncles have only met my littles once or twice, so I’m happy (and slightly nervous) to introduce my small people to the larger family.

We also had Joy’s fourth birthday party today; I can’t wait to put pictures up on here from it. It was a woodland butterfly fairy tea party (originally, it was going to be a bird and flower and butterfly theme, but it evolved. These things happen), and even the three men involved (my husband, father, and brother-in-law) wore butterfly wings. O yes, they did. They all love Joy very much. They are also all very secure in their masculinity.

And my sister and I made sure to get them blue wings. Pink might have been carrying things a little too far.

And for a first, Joy only got one book for her birthday (and that from Carl and me). Usually books make up the bulk of her gifts. I’m sure she will get more once she receives her package from Carl’s aunt, a librarian in Maine. She always sends lots of book for birthdays and holidays. We are always very happy to see presents from G-Auntie.

This is the book we got for Joy:

No, wait. Wrong one. This one:

thanks to a recommendation from Rockin Librarian (thank you!). I’m excited to see what stories Joy concocts from the illustrations.

Meanwhile, my mom, sister and I are all sick (watching the two of them trying to tack up sheets and white lights while simultaneously hacking and blowing their noses would have been funny if I weren’t trying to slice vegetables without sneezing into them), and I am starting to go a little bit crazy from not writing at all in the last week plus – not since coming up here last Thursday. Family is more important, hands down, no questions asked and no regrets … but writing is such a part of me that I’m starting to feel starved for it.

And my characters are starting to haunt my dreams. Plus last night I dreamed that I had to scale a rickety ladder and swing from a rope to get into a library’s second story, not to mention crawling along the outside of the roof and breaking through a window (and was I ever pissed when I got inside and saw an escalator that led to main lobby, and I realized the librarian at the desk had sent me up the death trap way for, apparently, a lark, and then the escalators shut down because the library closed and I had to come down the same way and I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO CHECK OUT MY BOOKS), which I think is indication that my subconscious is telling me to not neglect books so much.

Or, you know, it could have been the rum in the tea last night. Whatever.

(Almost worse than the horrific ladder (I have a good head for heights, but I have always always hated ladders, and swinging from a frail rope to try to reach a roof window is not my idea of fun) was that I had found a brand-new, just-discovered Lloyd Alexander book in the children section (downstairs) and when I didn’t get to check my books out, I had to leave it behind. LLOYD ALEXANDER, newly-discovered book!)

I am working on the MG rewrite, but of today, Maia of the 1920s fantasy-adventure has been chatting to me, reminding me, impatiently, that I left her in Grave Danger and she needs a chance to Prove Her Worth. She is most definitely not a helpless heroine, and she doesn’t like being left a victim without a chance to take on the villain herself. So I think I need to get back to her soon. She gets very crabby when left alone for too long.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some rum-and-tea and a box of tissues calling my name.

And some pictures of three men in butterfly wings to upload onto my computer.

families, Life Talk

We Will See You Again

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She went out accompanied by a blaze of northern lights, some of the most brilliant seen around here in ages. Heaven welcoming a gallant soul home with fanfare.

Even after her breathing had slowed drastically, her heart remained strong until the end. We always knew her heart was bigger and stronger than most.

Her humor was one of the last things to go when the Alzheimer’s took over. Even when she was in the nursing home and couldn’t even recognize Grandpa, she would try to tease the nurses and aids. They all loved her.

They were married for sixty years. Two days before she finally died, I sat and watched him hold her hand as he told us the only reason he underwent chemo and fought so hard for life through the blood clots last year was so that he could take care of her, make sure her ending was peaceful and dignified, so that he could take care of her to the end. None of his kids could speak at that point, so I managed to choke out that he had done a wonderful job of it. They were an example to us all.

Of eight kids, six managed to make it home to say goodbye, only the one in Australia and the one in Arizona not able to get back. Fully half of the grandkids were able to come. No one fought, no one argued, no one tried to make things difficult for anyone else. Everyone acted as selflessly as human beings can act. Another testimony to the love and respect everyone had for her.

The hospital nurses teared up when their weekend shift ended, knowing they wouldn’t see her again alive.

There was as much laughter as tears around her bedside, as stories were shared and memories were dredged up and old jokes revived. Her fifteen-year-old grandson played his guitar, everyone sang, and her last days were filled with the music and laughter she loved so well.

She has been gone for a long time. Twelve years ago was when she was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, at that point too far advanced to do anything but watch and pray as it slowly disintegrated the woman we all knew. The pneumonia that took her tonight was a release from that living death (twelve years is phenomenally long for Alzheimer’s sufferers – most don’t live more than five years), and our tears were as much joy for her as sorrow.

She is whole again now. She is free. She is rejoicing and laughing with her Lord.

It hurts, still, but this is a clean hurt, one that will heal. The pain of the Alzheimer’s never went away; it would lie dormant for a time, but it was always there lurking in the background. This – already there is a peace growing from the sorrow.

We will miss her. We have missed her for years. But her legacy – the love, the laughter, the strength and faith and joy – she passed that on, not only to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but to all who knew her. I am proud to call myself her granddaughter, and you can be sure my girls will grow up knowing about what an amazing woman their great-grandmother was.

Rest in Peace? Maybe. Personally, I suspect she is singing and dancing right now.

And laughing.

Lois Elnina Bates, May 20, 1929 (I think, but I can’t get a solid year out of anyone right now) – October 24, 2011

families, Life Talk

Grandma

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I know I’ve been MIA here on the blog for a while. I had great plans to write a bunch of posts this past weekend and schedule them to be published for the next couple of weeks.

Until I got the phone call Thursday that my grandmother was in the hospital with pneumonia. My sister and I spent most of that morning on the phone, with the result that she and I got up to my parents’ house Thursday night, while Carl took the littles to his mom’s for the weekend.

I’ve spent the weekend cooking and cleaning so that the aunts and uncles at the hospital have home-cooked food and a place to sleep if they need a break. In between, I’ve been at the hospital myself, or with Grandpa at the nursing home, or making sure my father sleeps and eats (Mom and my sister had to go to a wedding in Vermont this weekend, already planned). And occasionally (FOUR times in two days) being mistaken for my father’s wife. The ones that just mistook me for Mom weren’t so bad; I already knew we looked alike. The one that didn’t even know Mom, and just asked Dad if I was his wife? SO NOT COOL.

Ahem. Irrelevant.

Anyway, Grandma is still in the hospital, but at this point we are just waiting for the end. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s twelve years ago; her body is fading as her mind did, only in a matter of days instead of years. I’m still at my parents’ house, with the littles here with me now, and Mom and Lis back from VT, just still doing what we can for the rest of the family, and praying for Grandma.

Someday soon I’ll have a post on just what a tremendous legacy she is leaving behind. But I think I’ll need more sleep before that happens. Someday soon also I hope to go back to more writing-related posts.

For now, though, blogging is rather obviously low on my priority list. I love all of my friends and readers, but family is coming first right now. Of course!

I’ll be back soon. I’ve not abandoned the blog, or all of you.

Right now though, I’m exactly where I need to be.

Grandma’s senior portrait.