Reading and writing (thankfully no arithmetic)

My book club met this week to discuss the book I didn't like. This was the one I was worried about because the author was attending the meeting. Things got even more interesting when we started talking about the book and discovered that no one had really liked it. The good thing was that the author was invited to come about a half hour or so into our meeting, which allowed us to talk freely about the book without worrying about hurting her feelings. And despite our overall negative impression, it was interesting to hear her talk about the writing process and how she created the characters. So it could have been much worse. But I don't think the moderators (former public-library coworkers of mine) will stage another local author meet-and-greet event any time too soon--or at least not one whose book they haven't actually read at the time of the invitation. Oops.

At the meeting they announced that they're also trying to put together a group for National Novel Writing Month, which is pretty much what it sounds like--people attempt to write a novel in one month, November (which only has 30 days--seems kind of crappy to pick a short month). In theory I like the idea. In practice I don't think I have it in me. But I have decided to sign up for the food and travel writing class. That's about the level of commitment I can handle right now.

Millions of peaches (but no peaches for me)

In planning my birthday-present trip to Michigan, I had very few criteria in mind. I wanted to stay in some sort of bed and breakfast, preferably one with a shady front porch where I could sit and read. I wanted to eat plenty of baked goods. And I wanted to pick some sort of fruit.

Suburban girl that I am, I've always had this romantic image of fruit picking. Blueberries for Sal was one of my favorite books as a kid. As a suburban girl, I'm also pretty fuzzy on the actual mechanics, although I have a feeling that being out in a field in the middle of August is probably not quite as much fun as I'm picturing. I was also a little vague on the type of fruit to be picked--strawberry season is definitely over; cherries had all but disappeared from the farmer's market. Blueberries, perhaps?

This past weekend was the long-awaited trip. On Saturday afternoon we took a vineyard tour at the Fenn Valley Winery, but alas, grape-picking was not part of the tour. After much tasting and buying, we headed back down the highway toward our bed and breakfast and were immediately confronted by an array of homemade signs advertising "U-Pick Peaches." It seemed like fate. I've been eating peaches obsessively for weeks. And peaches grow on trees, much like apples, the only fruit I've actually retrieved from its native habitat. Something I already knew how to do--an added bonus!

We followed the signs down a meandering lane, past orchards full of trees, and parked our car in the gravel lot. We approached the tent and were handed an empty bushel bag. Remembering a recommendation from one of the vendors at our local farmer's market, we inquired about the availability of Red Haven peaches.

No Red Havens, the man with the bag told us. And, in fact, today we would be doing our picking from a crate.

I may be a suburban girl, but even I know that peaches don't grow in crates. And in my admittedly limited understanding, selecting your fruit from a container is not called "picking"; it's called "grocery shopping."

So we left Michigan peach-free. I had hoped to stumble across another U-Pick place or at least a roadside stand on our way out of town, but it wasn't to be.

However, the rest of my criteria were amply met. We stayed in a really lovely old Victorian house with a huge wraparound porch. With a swing, no less. I spent several very happy hours reading there after our fruitless fruit quest. I also drank my coffee out there both mornings.

The B&B also featured a communal cookie jar, stocked every morning with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and conveniently located next to the staircase up to our room. On Saturday night I actually ate cookies and drank tea while sitting in a hot bath. You can't get much better than that.

So in every way but one, it was a perfect weekend. And yesterday on my lunch hour I stopped by the Federal Plaza farmer's market for my weekly peach fix. They taste almost as good as if I'd picked them myself. And at least I didn't have to strain my back retrieving them from a crate.

More than a typo?

Our invitation to M. Defarge's brother's wedding came in the mail today. Whoever addressed the envelope misspelled his last name. I realize that it may not have been the bride who made the error, but come on. He has the same name as the groom. Am I the only one who sees cause for concern here?

That's what they all say

I freely admit that I'm not at my best in the morning. In fact, when my alarm goes off at 5:30 for work, I rarely open my eyes between my bed and the shower. Generally it works out for me. Not so, apparently, this morning.

On my way out the bedroom door I turned back to double-check that I'd shut off my alarm clock instead of just hitting snooze. M. Defarge gets up an hour later than I do, so I try to be conscientious of that. Today I checked the alarm (which was off) and then turned around, face first into the side of the door.

You know how everything is worse at 5:30 in the morning? I knew I'd done some damage, so I naturally assumed the worst and started howling. Only then did I take off for the bathroom, where I soon discovered that while I had given myself a fat lip, it wasn't really that bad. Nose and teeth intact, not even that much blood.

Of course, then my inner drama queen kicked in. M. Defarge handed me a tissue with which to blot the minimal bleeding from my lip. About that time, I started to think I'd better put my head down. Always a slippery slope for me. While he looked on lamely from the doorway, I progressed from fine to dizzy to nauseated and sweating to lying prostrate on the floor. Pretty impressive, even for me. Within about five minutes I was convinced that the blow had somehow triggered a full-on case of the stomach flu.

Lucky for him, when I think I'm going to be sick I demand complete solitude. He went back to the bedroom and I lay on the bathroom floor long enough to realize that, in fact, I wasn't sick after all. So at around 6 I picked myself up off the floor, got some ice for my lip, took a shower, and went to work. Today was the beginning of new student orientation, but luckily I didn't have to present, and hopefully I'll look normal again by the time the parents come through on Wednesday.

In the movies, battered women always tell the ER doctors that they walked into a door. Naturally, I assume the converse must be true as well--at least that's what I'm going to tell anyone who asks.

Neighborhood myths

The house next door to us has been empty for possibly a year now, ever since the trainwreck family that had previously inhabited it moved out. After dealing with graffiti on our garage, a random can of red paint spilled near our fence, and having our house pelted with eggs and blown up condoms at Halloween, we weren't really sad to see them go. But we sure missed them when it snowed and no one shoveled, or all summer as the weeds grew ever higher. Not to mention that having a vacant house next door is more than a little creepy.

So it was a pleasant surprise upon returning home from walking the dog today to meet our new neighbor, a young-looking redheaded guy who apparently is just moving in with his wife. I can't remember what he said her name was, but he introduced himself as Thor.

Perhaps it's the fact that I just read American Gods for my book club, but I see the makings of a reality show here--perhaps "The Gods Next Door"?

False alarm

The fall teaching schedules went out today (yes, for the semester that begins in three weeks), and I found out that I won't be teaching in the freshman seminar program. My boss told the department chair, who specifically recommended me, that he thought that me teaching was a great idea, but apparently that didn't translate into me being assigned any sections of the course. I'm not surprised--I've been saying all along that I didn't expect them to say yes--but it seems that I was looking forward to it a lot more than I'd realized.

The good thing, I guess, is that I'm still going to be part of it--I'm part of the trio that's been developing the curriculum, and I'm a guest lecturer during the research skills segment of the course. I'll also probably be doing some of the technology-related sessions as well, since the faculty member who was assigned to teach "my" sections is a technophobe and has already requested backup.

The timing of the announcement was a bit ironic, coming a day after a mini-epiphany that despite my lack of stage presence and tendency to get flustered and ramble, I really do like teaching. I've been doing some faculty technology training for the last two weeks, and even on the days when the sessions didn't go particularly well, I had a real sense of accomplishment that, frankly, I haven't felt much of during this long, boring summer semester. I'll still have opportunities to teach information literacy skills in other people's classes, but I was kind of looking forward to having a regularly-scheduled infusion of good feelings.

I also found out today that, due to a classroom shortage, four sections of a two-day a week math course are apparently meeting in the "annex" area of the library, which, conveniently, is where the bulk of the public computers, as well as the library's only copier/printer, are located. If nothing else, the logistics will keep me too busy to do anything crazy like teach (copier/printer wrangler being my unofficial job title). I'd just prefer to be busy with something that's not so closely akin to Chinese water torture.

Summer Saturday bliss

A perfect Saturday so far:

• Slept in a little, had some homemade granola for breakfast
• Went to the farmer's market and bought sweet corn, green onions, cherry tomatoes, plums, blueberries, and strawberries
• Went to yoga class
  
• Hit the Friends of the Library book sale and bought some art books for work and a couple of novels for myself
• Ate lunch (leftover black-bean/zucchini/portabello mushroom quesadillas) on my back porch
• Took the dog for a long, leisurely walk

Now I'm planning dinner with my farmer's market spoils and will probably cap off the day with some gardening, a little reading in the backyard, and a meal with M. Defarge. I couldn't ask for a much better day, but I have to laugh when I read over my activities--how did I get to be such a yuppie?

Something I've been thinking about

My book club is currently reading a novel by a local author. As a "special event," the author will be attending our meeting at the end of the month. When this was proposed, we laughed a little about how we had to be on our best behavior, lest we discourage a first-time novelist.

I picked up the book with some trepidation, and it proved to be justified. I wasn't particularly impressed. Part of it was probably just that it's not my kind of book--I never would have picked it up had it not been assigned. But I also found the characters one-dimensional, some of the situations cliched, and the writing nothing special. All of which I'd be more than comfortable bringing up at a regular meeting. But I'm not sure what I'd say now. At that last meeting the possibility of the discussion being constrained by the writer's presence did come up, but I think we were all hoping we'd like the book and it wouldn't be a problem.

The whole situation is even more complicated because the author is also a Goodreads member. I do appreciate the fact that the site makes that clear by hyperlinking the author's name to his or her page, but it also makes things a little awkward. It's one thing to make a negative remark about a book to a friend, but it's totally different--at least for me--when there's the possibility of the author reading it. Particularly the author reading it and then coming to a book club meeting and associating me with the comment.

I've been a lot more cautious about the whole thing since a former coworker and friend of a friend had a pretty strange experience with another local author (whose book I fortunately liked and who once commented on a post on this blog)--she wrote a dismissive review of the book, only to have the author come back and challenge her about it, sparking a pretty nasty online exchange. I was really taken aback when I read it.

I have always been interested in writing book reviews for publication, and I know that even the authors reviewed in the New York Times sometimes take offense and write bitter letters to the editor. Anytime you publish something critical, I think it's only fair to have to stand behind your words. But I never really thought about how it applies to a casual forum like this. On the one hand, these "reviews" are posted on the free web, for anyone, including the author, to read. On the other, it just doesn't seem like the criticism should carry the same weight as a "real" review. Either way, I definitely think a lot more before commenting on a book I don't like. I guess it's a good reminder that what's on the Internet isn't really private. But it takes some of the fun out of it, too.

Quote for the day

From his first interview with this implausible son, then purple, Maytree curbed his vision of teaching it to read and love literature, to row, fish, hit and pitch, miter corners, frame walls, sail, and rebuild motors. His sole intended fatherly prohibition--that his son never draw his living from the sea--was superfluous. He seemed incapable even of drawing breath. He was not so much delicate as hopeless, predating vulcanization.

--from The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

(Why do I always relate better to the male perspective when it comes to babies? I just don't find them fully human until they can talk.)