the Typewriter

The Big Hungry Bear

As I'm looking SO happily forward to the Bush administration's rapidly-approaching end, I want to share something upon which I've been reflecting. It's funny (but never surprising) when children's books give me clarity about how our country has failed. One book in particular has done this for me this year: The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear.

 

In case you've never read this book, let me give you a quick summary. There's a mouse. He finds an awesomely plump & juicy strawberry he wants to eat. Just as he's about to enjoy it, the ambiguously informed narrator tells this mouse that he better watch out because there's a big bear that loves strawberries, and he's going to come sniff it out, and (in more or less words) tear the mouse to shreds to get the strawberry...that is, unless he shares half of the strawberry with the narrator. Then he'll be safe.

This reminds me of a commercial I saw a few months ago for a tracking device you can put on your child. The commercial made you feel happy in the beginning - watching all these beautiful, healthy, non-missing children playing on the playground on a sunny day; moms smiling at their kids. Then, one kid disappears while his mom turns his back for one minute. She panics. He's lost! He's kidnapped! He's dead! All of these horrifying thoughts go through your head (especially if you're a parent). Then, intro product. Don't worry! There's a tracking device that can keep you from EVER worrying about your children being lost, kidnapped, or dead! And it's only 3 monthly installments of $15,000. (Not really. I'm just making my point.)

Do you see my problem with this? Why must we live in such a culture of fear? It's what drives us to do INSANE things! Irrational, unnecessary, and untrusting things that we should never do. We are poisoned by fear against each other - more often doubting than trusting the people around us.

I feel like the Bush administration has done to us with the war. It's like they thought to themselves, "Let's tell them there are weapons of mass destruction so they get really afraid. Then we'll look like knights in shining armor." Too bad there weren't any WMDs. (No, I'll never get over that.)

Every time I read this book to my daughter, I feel a pit in my stomach, and I think it's time to retire it. I don't want her growing up being afraid and consuming and supporting unnecessary & potentially harmful things because of that fear. It seems so innocent -- that's why it makes me so angry.

I'm so glad we are only 5 days from glimmer of HOPE. :o)

Hope.

“The struggle, the suffering the pain and everything we tried to do
to create a more perfect union, it was worth it.”
- John Lewis -

Trembling Mountain

How did the Mont Tremblant get its name?

The heritage and origin of the name of this area is rooted in an old Algonquin legend from the early 17th century. The Algonquin natives believed that every life form was composed of a body, a soul and a spirit.

The Algonquins called Tremblant "Manitou-Ewitchi-Saga" - the mountain of the dreaded Manitou. The legend says that the Manitou, proud and protecting God of the wilderness, caused the mountain to tremble in a storm of falling rocks and timber when man violated or infringed upon surrounding environment.

In memory of this legend, the first [EUROPEAN (they forgot to mention that)] settlers to come to the region called the "trembling mountain" Mont Tremblant.

For more information about the area, please visit our history section.

So that's where I am right now. I'm living next to that trembling mountain for a week. This part of Canada is simple, beautiful, and kind. I'm picking up French better than I thought I would -- and I'm proud of how often I'm attempting to speak it to locals instead of chickening out & going with English. Our guest home here (#305 at Club Intrawest) is idyllic with its fireplace, wonderfully comfortable furniture, perfect kitchen (can I bring it home?), whirlpool tub, and front porch with autumn-colored adirondack chairs. On top of those things, our porch looks over our grilling pavilion & personal playground for Avy. (Is it really any wonder we spent our first two days here in Mont-Tremblant?)

Mont-Tremblant is mostly a ski-resort area for winter, but for autumn vacations like ours its great for golf (if you like that kind of thing), its awesome hiking & biking trails, its three quaint little villages, and -- my favorite -- its AMAZING Scandanavian Spa. I don't like the word "spa" because of how America has spoiled the word for me. It always makes me think of an overpriced sterile palace where snobby white people sit in towels while being waiteded on hand-and-foot as they sit in their towel-turbans & mud body masks while sipping bloody maries. Le Scandinave Spa is far from all of that...except there are towels involved. The Scandinavian way is this: spend 15-30 minutes in "heat therapy" (Finnish Sauna, Norwegian Steam Bath, or an outdoor hot tub with a waterfall), then 15-30 minutes in "cold therapy" (one of the 2 cold pools with waterfalls, or the river), then 15-30 minutes in a "relaxation solarium" where you literally sit and do nothing but relax & maybe sleep. And of course, silence is mandatory everywhere. It's an introvert's heaven. (Guilty there.) I topped of my time in this cycle with a 90-minute Swedish massage with Claude. It was pretty much the best day of my life.

Thursday & Friday we spent in Montreal, which is a little less than 2 hrs from here. It might possibly be my new favorite city in the world. But that's for another post on another day...there's so much to tell.

Today (Saturday -- our last day...sniffle, sniffle) we are spending in the villages around here & we will probably ride on the Cabriolet that takes you across the resort village, which is very touristy but still fun. (Fun fact about the resort village: it's built so you can ski the whole thing in winter.) Here's a youtube video of the cabriolet ride (gotta love youtube...).

If you want to look at our trip pictures (just a few of them -- I'm having trouble with my card reader), feel free to check them out.

Canada Trip - October 2008

Trying Something New

Well, I've decided to do just that: try something new. I like TypePad for some of its features (mostly its sidebar abilities, which are stellar), but I decided to go with WordPress for a little "try-it-out" period.

My new WordPress blog, O.K. Critic, is a little different in format and a little more inclined to the art snobs who have started to read my blog. (You know who you are...) So I'm going to try that out for a while and see if I like it better. The content will be similar, so if I find that I like Typepad better, I'm comin' back. If I do come back, will you follow me? Please do! (I'm just glad most of you have Google Reader so you are able to follow all my shenanigans without too much stress on your life.)

So please excuse the (temporary?) move, but I think you'll find it worth-while! Oh, and please feel free to inform me which you like better as I test out WordPress. Thanks, everybody.

An Apology

I know. I know. You don't have to tell me I'm a failure. I already feel the sting of it in my heart! I haven't written in this blog since May 16th. Yikes. That's just totally unacceptable. But I have good excuse! . . . I'm having a baby and I changed jobs this summer.

I actually have been writing quite a bit in my pregnancy blog, but that's a little too personal to share in this public forum. If you know me and want to read it, you can email me about it. But I do want to start writing again in this blog. I have been reading still. I have been listening to music still. I have still been watching movies and my two shows ("The Office" and "Heroes"). So I do have plenty to write about! I just have significantly less time (or at least less focus on things that require sitting).

So here's a promise that I will begin writing again. I imagine I haven't yet lost all of my readers. Most of you just switched over to my pregnancy blog, I know. So not all is lost. Though, I do have to warn you: I may have to broaden my topic horizons so I have more to write about. I admitted to my friend Jeff (author & creator of Movie Hawk) a while ago, I feel a lot of pressure to write "good" entries, and the fear that I cannot has crippled me and kept me from writing in this blog space. But as Jeff assured me in return: it doesn't all have to be perfect. So I must write on.

the Office: TV show or crack cocaine?

I just can't get enough of it. I've actually never taken drugs, but I imagine all addictions have some symptoms in common: you wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night aching for it, you're always telling yourself "I just need one more...", you tell your friends you like it but not how much you like it, it's the last thing you think about before going to bed & the first thing you think about when you wake up...

You get my point.

Okay, so I'm not quite this obsessed with "the Office", but I come pretty close. I never quite got hooked to the British version, though I did love it (I hate David Brent considerably more than I do Michael Scott); but America's version of the BBC's ingenious creation is love at first sight.

If you're in love like I am (and please remember: I do NOT watch TV, so this is a big deal, people!), you should treat yourself to some OUTTAKES, DELETED SCENES, Interviews with Characters, and (my favorite) some Public Service Announcements done by a few characters. Just in case the actual show isn't enough.

Oh, and if you like the show and follow it at all -- please, do yourself a favor and watch the Season Finale for goodness sake.

The Last Day

To close National Poetry Month, here is a favorite of mine. The subject is, I think, a very classy closure. And no one says it as well as Szymboska...

Some Like Poetry
by Wislawa Szymborska

Some--
that means not all.
Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting the schools, where one must,
and the poets themselves, there will be perhaps two in a thousand.

Like--
but one also likes chicken noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue, one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one's point,
one likes to pet a dog.

Poetry--
but what sort of thing is poetry?
More than one shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and clutch on to it,
as to a saving bannister.

A Quarter of a Million

This moves me. The last commercial that moved me as much as this one was Volkswagen's Cabrio advert with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" playing in the background. (In both these cases, the music truly makes the commercial as great as it is.) But seriously - clicking on this link will make at least 2 minutes of your day significantly better than they could have been without it. I've even created a new category for it: Quality of Life.

Idioms for Idiots

I few months ago, I discovered something called the Free Dictionary (by Farlex). There's nothing else I've found that has as good of an Idiom Encyclopedia/Thesaurus as this. I use it often, when the doldrums of the same-old idioms set in.

While before I stated before that it was "as useful as Wikipedia," however, I request your permission to change my tune. The only thing it has over Wiki is the games below. I have left them here on this post (even though I've recinded the rest of the post) because many people have stated it's their favorite part of the day.

Match Up

Match each word in the left column with its synonym on the right. When finished, click Answer to see the results. Good luck!

Free web site content provided by The Free Dictionary

Hangman

Free web site content provided by The Free Dictionary

Have fun, now.

Spoken Poems

It's National Poetry Month! What are you doing to celebrate?

I've celebrated by reading at least one poem a day. In my celebration, I just discovered that the Poetry Foundation's website (an excellent site for poetry-lovers...or just lovers in general) has a respectable archive of audio poetry and Podcasts of poems being read out-loud for those who like hearing it, not just reading it. You don't even have to be a seasoned poetry reader to enjoy this. It's good homegrown fun.

If you're just a beginner or a "seeker" (many of you have mentioned to me that you need a good way to get your "feet whet," as I like to say), try anything from the "Audio Archive" column. Maybe start with Sharon Olds's poem "First Thanksgiving," which is about her daughter coming home for the holiday. (This one is best if you're a mom...Hint, hint, Mom.) Second, you can try "Applesauce" by Ted Kooser -- a feast for the senses, though a little more complex. This is the next rung up on the poetry ladder for you beginners. Then, thirdly, you might be ready for some Love poetry. (If you're not ready, it's okay. You can take a brake. You've done well today.) A fun one on this site is "Misgivings" by William Matthews. (I never met a poet from Yale I didn't like.)

Enjoy this tasty snack today. It's a great treat.

"The only thing more perfect than poems being read out-loud is God Himself reading poems out-loud." -Joyce Munro