2010 Book Review

Word to your mother, here are the books I read this year:

**1/2 The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally, a nice book about photography - but doesn't really offer any technical help, just casual suggestions.  The pictures are cool though!

*1/2 Graceling by Kristin Cashore, a YA fantasy novel that had a really nice thing going for itself and then it just crashed and burned - like the Hindenburg.

**** Olive Kittridge by Elizabeth Strout, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner.  The writing was really, really good - but in a haunting way.  I think this is the first book that I read that I enjoyed the writing more than the story.  Is that possible? 

*****Island by Alistair Macleod.  A collection of short stories.  If I were the kind of girl to get tattoos, I would tattoo quotes from this book all over my body - that is how much I love this book.  It is achingly beautiful. *Caution for those who would like to read it, not every story in the collection is rated with 5 stars.  I can tell you which ones to skip if you want.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher, not even worth half a star.  I can barely remember what the book is about, but I can vividly remember how painfully boring it was to read.  I'm kind of surprised and disappointed I took the time to finish it.

****The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall, a biography about Peter M. Roget (of Roget Thesaurus fame).  I loved this book so much that I even used it in a Relief Society lesson.  This man had a fascinating life/family full of mental diseases, tragedy, depression, etc., and the thing that saved him was making lists.  Proving to me that I've been right all my life in thinking that finding the right word has a preternatural power (and yes, I did just use the thesaurus to find the word preternatural, thank you Peter).

***Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, this was my introduction to Brandon Sanderson and the beginning of my status as a BranSanFan.  It was a little slow getting into it - but still a very awesome book.  Saying that makes me feel like a boy, but it is what it is.

****Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (I told you I was a BranSanFan - had I not started reading him at the end of the year, I would probably have 5 more of his books up here).  NERD ALERT: Yes I do find myself comparing my everyday life to the attitudes, powers, and circumstances of Elantrians, Duladens, and Aons.

1/2 star The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer.  In trying to read all past pulitzers, I stumbled my way through this one.  I would ask you to tell me how this won the prize, but that would mean you would have to read it - and I don't want to make anyone do that.  It gets half a star for somehow managing to trick people into giving it the prize.

*****Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett.  She only uses four words the entire book.  She's a genius.

******The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  Six stars is not a typo.  This book sparkles.

*Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  The one star is in honor of the first two books that preceded this one.  I read this book months ago and I still have nightmares about it.  In my opinion, it goes against everything I believe about literature.  I wrote a dramatic blog post about it right after I read it but never posted it.  Maybe I will soon.

**************************************************These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner.  I think the stars speak for themselves.

Books on 2011's list: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Tinkers by Paul Harding, Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, The Help by Katheryn Stockett, the entire Fancy Nancy series, and the collected works of Brandon Sanderson.

Any suggestions?

A Trip (Halfway) Around the World

I search for tickets to Iceland at least once a day.  Today, in my search for my dream trip, I stumbled upon this treat: tripplanner.airtreks.com  It's a site that you can map out your own trip around the world and then it tells you how much the total cost for flights would be.  The below trip would cost me a total of $7500.  Isn't that amazing?  The only problem is that it wouldn't let me calculate any more cities - and I didn't even make it to Africa or South America.  That, and I would be stuck in Abu Dhabi.

This One is for Ashley!

***SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen the movie, Tangled, you might not want to read this.***

***BORING ALERT:  If you have seen the movie, Tangled, you probably already thought these exact same things and this will be very redundant to you.***

As previously mentioned, I have been nicknamed Rapunzel since I was a little girl.  This has coincidedly made me feel like an outcast in the family.  Everyone else's princess/prince nickname was attached to a beloved movie.  Everyone else had visual representations of themselves, their forest friends, and their future lovers.  I had squat.  Granted, when Sarah was dubbed Thumbelina there was not yet a movie for her.  But she only had to wait 7 short years before she got her awesome representation.  Try waiting 27 years.

This has been my dream all my life - waiting for Disney to make a Rapunzel movie.  I was so excited to go see the movie, we documented much of the process.

Me, buying the ticket.

Kelly's photography skills.

All of our "tangled" hair

After seeing the movie, I've decided that 27 years was well worth the wait.  They must have had to wait that long in order to truly capture the essence of Rapunzel, which makes sense because that essence is me.  I am Rapunzel.  Please note the shocking similarities:

We both have green eyes and the same eyebrows

Rapunzel was obsessed with dreams.  Not only hers, but helping other people achieve their dreams.

I am obsessed with dreams and helping other people achieve their dreams.

Rapunzel has a horrible guilt complex that runs against the ability to achieve her dreams. I have a somewhat functional guilt/lazy complex that runs against the ability to achieve my dreams.

All of Rapunzel's hobbies are my hobbies. (Baking pies, reading, knitting, painting, charting stars, playing hide n' seek, singing, dancing, weilding frying pans, taming horses, sidewalk chalk drawing...)

Rapunzel was blonde, and then she became a brunette.  I was blonde and then became a brunette.

Rapunzel dated an ex-con. I dated an ex-con.

Rapunzel's hair glows when she sings and has magical healing powers.  I have been told my hair can get really shiny (If I take consistent showers.  And stand in the right kind of sunlight.).

Rapunzel sure had a rotten birthday in the movie.  I have been known to have unlucky birthdays.

I could list similarities forever (our persuasion skills, our serious promises, our fashion sense, being lost princesses...) but in summary, watching that movie was like watching my life.  It was truly a dream come true.  And now, just like Rapunzel, I will have to find a new dream.

I hope you all have seen the movie - it really is a visually stunning masterpiece and it's funny and it's just good old Disney.  If you haven't seen it, please go see it - and when you do, please raise your arms up in the air and shout out in dedication: This one is for Ashley!  Just like Kelly did.

Come out, Rapunzel!

I don't know when or how the tradition started, but every time someone in our family had a birthday, all the children would hide in my parent's bedroom while Mom and Dad lighted the candles on the cake.  Then my dad would call us out one by one, not by our given names, but by our princess names.

"Come out, Cinderella!"

And Kimmi would giggle and run out. (Kim was the obvious choice for Cinderella, due to her angelic nature and awesome floor scrubbing capabilities.)

"Come out, Sleeping Beauty!"

And Alison would giggle and run out.  (Alison was a good sleeper.)

"Come out, Snow White!"

And Kelly would giggle and run out.  (Kelly was the only one with dark hair.  And she is the fairest of them all.)

"Come out, Rapunzel!"

And I would giggle and run out.  (I had the longest hair.)

"Come out, Prince Charming!"

And Robert would puff out his chest and run out. (The only boy, what can you do?)

"Come out, Thumbelina!"

And Sarah would giggle and run out.  (Sarah was and is so petite.)

"Come out, Jasmine!"

And Ria would giggle and run out. (Maria got to pick her own princess.  She's obviously Dad's favorite.)

"Come out, Aladdin!"

And Morgan would giggle and run out.  (Morgan loved vests.  She would take her shirt off and run around all day just wearing a vest.)

The order pretty much always stayed the same, except if it was your birthday, then you were saved for last.  It might sound like one of the most ridiculous traditions that has ever stuck with a family, but to us it was the only thing that ever made a birthday complete.  There was nothing in the world that matched that mischievous feeling of hiding in the bedroom in pure child-like anticipation, waiting to hear your special name called, watching your siblings leave one by one until all the sudden you were the only one left.  You could hear the whispers and see the shadows flickering off the birthday candle light and just when you thought that maybe they had forgotten to call you...

"Come out, Rapunzel!"

And you would regally walk out with your birthday-princess head held high.  Your fellow royalty would start to sing as they elbowed each other for better positioning around the cake.  You would smile humbly and graciously wait until all three verses of Happy Birthday were complete, then fulfill your royal duties of blowing out the candles and letting them eat cake.  There are rare moments in my life that make me feel as honored or as loved as those Rapunzel moments.

We haven't done this tradition in probably over ten years.  I think I know what I'm going to ask for for my birthday this year.

Hyacinths

Last week I was having a particularly sad day and my sister took me to the Botanical Gardens downtown.  The plants and flowers did much to lift my heart, not to mention all the cute families out for walks and all the newly displayed Christmas decor.  It was a beautiful day in this incredible indian summer we've had.  The thing that did my heart the most good, was turning a corner in the gardens and finding this proverb on display:

This little proverb has saved my heart on many a days.  I first heard it when I worked at the BYU travel office.  My boss, and bestie, Mary would quote it to me as we spent 8 hour days answering angry phones and taping receipts to pieces of paper.  We decided to try and find as many hyacinths for our souls as possible to make each day better.  

This proverb is what made us decide to cut snowflakes in our down time to decorate the office instead of trying to study for an upcoming test.  It's what made me spend a little bit more money to buy Care Bear checks instead of the cheap boring ones.  It is what runs through my head when I talk myself into buying a cute pair of shoes instead of leaving the money in my bank account.  And it is always always what I say to myself as I buy hundreds of dollars worth of plane tickets to visit home or good friends or to see a new place in this beautiful world God has made for us.

Sometimes when I look back on my life, I feel like I've walked through fields and fields of hyacinths.  I am so blessed.  And very very happy.

Keep It Funny

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Back pain.

Back pain who?

Lower back pain!  Isn't that funny?!

     I have read and discussed quite a bit of lower back pain information for the passed two weeks and no matter what the advice is, it always ends with: try to laugh.  Apparently, depression is the absolute worst thing you could do for back pain.  So over the last two weeks as I've laid on my back looking at the ceiling, or stood at my desk until my feet go numb, I've tried to be more sensitive to the humor all around me.  And boy, there is a lot.

For instance: 

~I've noticed how similar my movements have become to pregnant women, especially while getting in and out of cars.  My roommates take turns taking me on long slow walks around the neighborhood to try and help ease the pain.  I like to frequently assure them not to worry, that the baby is coming any day now.  I also like to let everyone know when the baby is kicking especially hard.  These jokes never get old.

~While on a back walk today, Kelly stepped in dog poo.  This is the third time she has stepped in dog poo in my presence in the last month.  Not to mention the time last month she also stepped on a dead bird.  Sometimes during my ceiling staring times, I like to ponder how many times she's stepped in something not in my presence and has failed to mention it to me.  I like to think it's at least twice.

~It is difficult to laugh and walk at the same time, it feels like your spine is a jackhammer slamming up and down against your body.  The consequential pain makes my laugh sound like a jackhammer.  I don't know if that's funny or the fact that no one has notice how weird my laugh sounds.  Which means...that's how my laugh usually sounds....

~I found this book online, which was a small miracle.  There were so many questions I had about back pain that I was just too shy to ask - I didn't dare.

~I developed a vicious rash up and down my back last week.  That was kind of funny.

~Owen Wilson is hilarious.  And Drillbit Taylor is by far the best movie he has ever made. (Drillbit: What's wrong with you guys? Boy: Well, he's fat, he's a dork, and I'm awesome. Drillbit: And by awesome you mean scared, skinny, and lonely.)

~Two of my roommates caught the Cold of Death this week.  The three of us laid around the house doped up on painkillers and cold medicine, unable to move.  It was entertaining.

~An abnormal amount of IB Prufen does a lot of humorous things to your digestive system.  It has kept me laughing all week.

~I think I might have caught the Cold of Death.  Which is funny when you think about trying to breathe when you can't prop yourself up.  And when you try to cough without moving your back.

I think this humor thing is really working, I can already tell that my back is on the mend.

A Poem: God's World

~Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892

Traffic Death Trap

I will be the first to admit that I am not the greatest driver. I will also be the first to admit that I used to talk and text on my phone while driving. But today, I think I've been reformed. On the way to work, my roommate and I were stuck in a traffic jam.

No, not this kind of traffic jam. Although I think I would like to try it (do you notice how it's red, yellow, and green? The flavors change too as you work your way through the jar, although I hope the flavors aren't gravel, exhaust fumes, and gasoline.). Our traffic jam was more like this:

As the passenger, I discovered a very entertaining game as we mosied along. I called it: "Safe or Not Safe." I would label each driver I saw as safe or not safe. It was an exciting game. Keep in mind that we were not in stop and go traffic, just an agonizingly slow crawl, so all the cars were still moving forward. Drivers in neighboring cars were moving forward as they performed many various acts. There was one activity that outnumbered them all. Ill gve u 1 hint:

Aside from texting and talking on the phone (not with an earpiece), people were eating, smoking, reading books and work reports, putting on makeup, playing with their gps, reaching around to their backseat, and many were doing several of these at the same time and EVERYONE was doing them while STILL MOVING! My Safe to Not Safe ratio was approximately 1:7. That's one driver who was choosing to drive as his only activity compared to the next seven drivers who were choosing to drive as their second or third activity. As I considered this ratio, I slowly began to realize that I was in a death trap. A 5 mile per hour death trap, but a death trap none the less.

So this is my public apology to any passing driver (or passenger) that I have ever helped feel nearer to death by my absent-minded driving habits. It is also my public promise that when I drive, I will simply drive.

Mr. T Party

I pity the fool!

I pity the fool who hasn't seen this!

I pity the fool who isn't wearing this!

I pity the fool who has not tried this!

I pity the fool who has not eaten this!

I pity the fool who doesn't know this!

I pity the fool.

Geocaching

I went geocaching for the first time yesterday. It's starting to fade away as a trend so I felt like it was safe to try it out. After all those cutesy stories about going geocaching for first dates and family bonding time and romantic proposals I thought for sure it would be fun. But do you know what is really fun? Not going geocaching.

My friend, Tyler, and I were extra adventurous and boated out to some islands on the Columbia. I know what you're thinking, if geocaching doesn't sound exciting enough, try geocaching with a boat on secluded islands. We were practically Huckleberry and Tom rafting the river, out to find some treasure. But do you know what is really exciting? Not going geocaching with a boat on secluded islands.

We'd been on the island three minutes when I looked up and saw Tyler running from the bushes, slapping himself silly with a swarm of mosquitos dancing around him. We ran back to the boat to put on some insect repellent. That'll stop 'em. As we walked back into the heart of the island, I tried to brush off the hundred mosquitos that were still clinging to the back of Tyler's shirt. Ever since my run-in with the West Nile virus a few summers back, I've never trusted another mosquito - I don't care if they just want to hang out on somebody's shirt, they're a bunch of sneaky snakes, the whole lot of them.

The GPS counted down, 25 feet...17 feet...10 feet...go, find your treasure! We looked up from the handy GPS guide to find ourselves in the middle of a handsome blackberry patch. Awesome, cause that's exactly where I would hide a geocache - in the middle of a field of plants known for their wicked thorns and menacing stings. I started searching, I started getting scratched. The bug repellent became useless as soon as all those mosquitos smelled fresh blood. They must have been insane with hunger to have pushed passed the deadly bug spray, because every scratch I got was soon surrounded by two or three swollen bites. If I were in the insect repelling market, I would forget the sissy spray stuff and come up with a pill you could swallow that would not only give off a repelling smell (that only the bugs would smell, of course, and to everyone else it would smell like fresh rain on a meadow of wild flowers) but also turn your blood to poison so that if any bug dared to break past the smell, the second they touched your blood they would explode into pretty little miniature fireworks. Efficient and entertaining, that is my dream but I digress. So after 15 minutes of this geocaching fun, we found an empty torn ziplock bag in a stump that said "Official Geocache Container." Isn't geocaching awesome? You know what's really awesome? Insect repellent pills that turn mosquitos into an explosive fireworks show and not geocaching.

Apparently, Tyler and I are true geocachers because we did not let this stop us. We tried another island. More mosquitos, more thorns, more no geocaches. Another bloodbath for us, another bountiful feast for the little suckers, and a good joke for whoever said they hid a geocache there. This time there wasn't even an empty bag. We got back into the boat. Tyler looked me up and down. My arms and legs were red from the blood and the swelling. I had been transformed from Huckleberry Finn to Quasimodo with a swollen bug bites above my left eye, my right cheek, my upper lip, and a couple behind my ear. "How about let's try one at a park instead of an island," he said chipperly. "Ok!" I said, just as chipper. Do you know what would really be the most chipper thing you could ever say though? "Let's not go geocaching!"

We tried a park. We got to the site of the geocache treasure, it was under a grove of Cottonwood trees. The entire ground was covered with fluffy white cottonwood seeds, like a thin gentle layer of snow. So pretty. Do you know what else is pretty? The blackberry thorns underneath the layer of cottonwood snow. After long minutes of painful searching we still had no geocache treasure and Tyler started to cry (it turns out he's very allergic to cottonwoods and his eyes were burning). Do you know what would really make me cry? Geocaching.

We tried another park. This geocache was called "Message in a Bottle" and we were sure that it was hidden in a bottle by this giant tree. You can hide a lot of things in or around a giant tree. It also is a good hang out spot, so obviously perfect for some geocaching fun. Here are some things and people we found there: beer bottles(some empty, some not), inappropriate trash (as opposed to the appropriate trash like fast food garbage which we also found plenty of), broken glass, old toys, druggies shooting up heroin, white collar workers smoking pot on their lunch breaks, a couple people making out, a couple other people breaking up with dramatic sobs, geese, geese poop, old people holding hands, little kids playing horseshoes, and cigarette butts as numerous as the sands of the sea. Oh, and no geocaches.

We had reached a point where if we gave up now we would just be miserable failures. We decided to try one more. We walked a couple miles in the 90 degree afternoon sunshine, across the park, under than over than under a bridge, through a jungle, through a golf course, through a parking lot that I believe was built specifically for drug deals, to a pretty little garden path. I stumbled on the path a couple times, either from pure geocaching excitement, or from the fact that I was dying of thirst. In the rush and thrill of it all, we had forgotten to bring water. No matter though because I think the geocacher's motto is "Water is for Wussies" and we were true geocachers, not wussies. We were getting close. The GPS said we were 10 feet away! We looked around...could this be true? No thorny bushes, no mosquitos, no cottonwood trees, no druggies, only mounds and mounds of geocache hope. We stepped off the path, passed a few trees and walked right onto the edge of a thirty foot cliff. Was I scared? No way. You know what would really scare me? Making geocaching a hobby. We decided that it would be best to keep walking on the path, circle below to the rocky river bank and climb up the cliff rather than try climbing down it which would certainly lead to a tragic geocaching death. So we walked the path, circled around to the coordinates and started climbing. For every step we climbed, we slid backwards two. We kept up this strategy for quite some time. Finally we looked at each other and without saying anything, we just let ourselves slide all the way back down to the river's edge. We sat in silence for awhile, watching a bald eagle circle overhead and listening to the sound of distant laughter from children who had never known geocaching dreams. Tyler skipped some rocks and I soaked my burnt, bloody, bitten legs in the freezing water and it felt so good. But do you know what felt even better? Deciding it would be all right to be geocache failures.

This morning I was applying generous amounts of soothing liniment to my aching, itchy body and I discovered a few bites on my rear end that had suddenly flared up. I notified Tyler immediately that it would be a long time before anyone could talk me into geocaching again. He was shocked and begged me not to judge geocaching from that one experience. Fine, I said, I may not have a right to judge it, but do you know who does? My itchy geocaching bum.

Insomnia

Dear 3 o'clock In The Morning,

As much as we've bonded the last few months, I would really like to not see your face tonight. Thank you.

Sincerely,

A. Kitchen

Dogs Say Good Night

All my life I've been singing: I see skies of blue, clouds of white, bright blessed days, the dogs say good night, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. Today I finally realized how ridiculous that was. Maybe I just assumed that it would indeed be a world full of wonder if dogs could actually say good night.

Maybe

Maybe I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning watching two episodes of Celebrity Apprentice...

Maybe I'm starting to like animals and it's making me uncomfortable...

Maybe I have some bbq sauce and peanut butter stuck in my nose from the food fight last night because that's all I can smell today...

Maybe David Hasslehoff's "Hooked On A Feeling" music video is a guilty pleasure of mine...

Maybe if I owned a fancy, fancy camera I wouldn't know what to do with it...

Maybe I have a stack of 20 blank notebooks that I can never seem to get rid of. Maybe I just really like them, okay.

Maybe I'm jealous of Sally...

Maybe I'm getting the sneaky suspicion that delivery boys and gas attendants have an undeniable attraction to me...

Maybe I'm bored.

You look just like...!

Apparently, I look like everyone. I don't mind the frequent "You look just like my friend from high school" when first meeting people and I don't mind the frequent call outs to celebrity look-a-likes, but when a new co-worker the other day told me I looked like Mira Sorvino (one I haven't heard before), I couldn't help but think that this was starting to get a little ridiculous.

I've put together a collection of all the movie stars I've been told I look like and I've discovered a pattern. Basically, it's anyone with small eyes, and at times, a big nose: Mira Sorvino, Rene Zellweger, Pam Beasley aka Jenna Fischer, Juliette Lewis, Helen Hunt, Jennifer Gray aka Baby from Dirty Dancing, Angelica Houston (specifically her character on Witches), Rachel Glenn (Bill Nye the Science Guy's assistant), and Alice from the Honeymooners (I ironically got this one when I was a mere 10 years old).

Sadly, my resemblance to famous faces is not limited to female actresses. No, I have also been told I look like Legolas, the guy from Dawson's Creek, and Tom Hanks (this one I actually discovered for myself, but those who are honest enough agree with me).

And yes, if you were wondering, my Ashley look-a-likes also extend to the animal kingdom. With my jungle eyes and wild hair, I have been told by more than one person that I look like a jungle cat. I decided that looking like a cat wasn't so bad, but when a former roommate of mine eagerly informed me that I looked more like a bulldog than a cat I decided not to share my look-a-like list with her anymore (and I decided I should do something about my droopy cheeks).

So, put all these faces together, and you've got...me! A girl that looks eerily similar to a guy in my friend's ward directory.

Love and Miracle Report

Last year (2009 for anyone who has forgotten) was the year of love and miracles. Some of us worked pretty hard doing everything we could to bring about love and miracles and I was just wondering if anyone would like to report on any outcomes. . .