It's a big world, and this is who we're rooting for

Wild goings-on in Ohio

Spider in the Silk Floss Tree

Natural History

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unfolds a plan of her devising,
A thin premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all that journey down through space,
In cool descent and loyal hearted,
She spins a ladder to the place
From where she started.

Thus I, gone forth as spiders do
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken thread to you
For my returning.

-- E.B. White

Where I'm going

Yesterday, as I was driving around, driving around, driving around, I heard the story on NPR, on NPR, on NPR of the one Israeli soldier, held captive for five years, five years, five years who was released in return for one thousand, one thousand, one thousand Palestinian prisoners. Gilad Shalit was the Israeli's name, name, name, but there was no name, no name, no name for the thousand Palestinians, Palestinians, Palestinians. I thought about, thought about, thought about this as I drove around, drove around, drove around, wondering what the cost of an Israeli soldier, Israeli soldier, Israeli soldier was in comparison to a Palestinian, a Palestinian, a Palestinian and there was no sense, no sense, no sense to it. And then an expert spoke of drones, of drones, of drones, of how expensive they are and how many people, how many people, how many people they kill, they kill, they kill and how many countries and what countries develop them, develop them, develop them. And I thought it's madness, it's madness, it's madness.


I'm going where the love is, where the love is, where the love is.


Where I'm going is here.

I bought the biggest pumpkin in the lot yesterday:

I decorated the house completely:

INSIDE

AND OUTSIDE:

I think I went over and above, frankly:

Oliver said, Mom I really wish you were the kind of mom who went CRAZY about Halloween. You know, like the mom on Modern Family.

Sigh.

This is what I looked like after that:

If I could have, I would have bitten him right in the neck.

Claudia

This is my niece, Claudia, when she was about two years old. She had gotten into my sister's powder and was caught in the act. I'm busy cleaning up my desk and the million papers and photos that I have squirreled away. I'd forgotten about this and thought I'd share it and brighten your day, too.

I feel like a ghost today

transparent, nothing to say.

Woooo Hoooo.

Bob and Johnny

Remember me to one who lives there,
She once was a true love of mine.

Giveaway Winners and other business

Drum roll, please!

The winner of the UPrinting giveaway is the lovely Radish King!

Please email me at elsophie AT gmail DOT com to claim your prize.

Don't despair if you didn't win, because you still have a chance to win a $100 Visa card in the Don'tFretTheSweat campaign. Unilever is running this sweepstakes and has a lot of interesting information about adolescents and -- sweating. I'm serious! Leave a comment here for a chance to win. You have until November 4th!

What I'm doing

One way to OPEN your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this BEFORE? What if I knew I would NEVER see it again?"

-- Rachel Carson

Saturday Book Round-up

When I'm not obsessively watching the back seasons of the television show Breaking Bad, I have my usual stack of books being read and books soon to be read and books that I wish I would read but know that I won't. I periodically get emails from friends asking for book recommendations -- most of these are very old friends who knew me when I literally read at least six novels a month -- I'm hard put to get through two a month these days, but I'm pretty excited about what I'm reading and what I'm about to read.

Books I'm Currently Reading


A Good Hard Look: A Novel by Ann Napolitano

This book is a fictionalized account of the writer Flannery O'Connor and the inhabitants of the small town of Milledgeville, Georgia. I have no idea if it's based on a true story or not, but the novel is well written and a tad on the sensational side which makes it verge on escape literature. I've always been an admirer of O'Connor's weirdness, and this book delivers.

Eat the Document by Dana Spiota

This novel is beautifully written, telling the story of the radical underground movements of the 1970s and the consequences of them in the 1990s. I find the weaving between the two time periods a bit confusing, but that could be because I'm reading other books simultaneously.

Books I'm Waiting to Read, So Excited About Them I Can Hardly Stand It


The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

After reading The English Patient and then the rest of Ondaatje's novels and poetry and memoir, I was convinced that were I to meet him, we would fall madly in love and perhaps run off to Ceylon together. When I went to hear him read -- once in New York and once in Los Angeles -- I sat in the audience rapt and mesmerized. I have great and perhaps unrealistic hopes for this new novel.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

I loved Middlesex and it's been a long time since Eugenides published a book. I find him to be a charming writer, able to weave weirdness and the banal together in novel ways.

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

Last week I went to the downtown public library and listened to Enright read from her latest novel. She was fantastic -- dry and witty, simply dressed with shiny chartreuse pumps. Her appearance  was in direct contrast to the steamy passages that she read. The novel is about adultery, and I won't say more.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.

-- Roald Dahl

Giveaway Round-up

For a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card in the Don'tFretTheSweat campaign,  leave a comment HERE. This giveaway goes on until November 4th.

Leave a comment HERE and win 250 flyers for your small business or personal use! I'll be picking a winner on Monday!

How We Do It - Part V in an ongoing series

I wake each morning in the cracks between dark and dawn, the first thought wispy peaceful intention threaded with dread, pushed away and vanquished by the thin band of light that angles through tangled rubbery leaves draped over the wooden fence and through the glass, along the wrinkled sheet and down the bed, spilling over. I wake to breath, to hope, to fear and trembling, the weight of the past and the future eclipsed. Is she alive? How will we do it? How will I?  The questions are the light; they reach across the hall and into rooms, the answers could go anywhere, and I can't explain how it is to tamp it all down, make like a stream, unruffled and quiet.


The beginning is near.