verbatim

Silver White Winters That Melt into Springs*

*As Mark pointed out last time, this is the last line of "My Favorite Things," but that doesn't mean that this will be the last list of my favorite things. I'll just have to think of some clever new way of presenting them. 

1. Here are some truly heart-wrenching problems posted on Twitter and illustrated with stock photography.

2. Speaking of stock photos, here's an ode to them (via Fritinancy).

3. A Boston Herald reporter's video camera was lost after the Boston Marathon bombing; it was returned to her 3 weeks later. Let's watch. 

4. You may have heard that Abercrombie & Fitch refuses to make XL-sized women's clothing because the CEO says he only wants the best-looking people to wear his clothes. They also destroy all irregular clothing from their factories rather than donate it to the needy as other clothing manufacturers do—AF doesn't want "just anyone" wearing their logo. Here's how one guy gave them a "brand readjustment." (Another suggestion, from Seth, is that all us parents of teens start wearing AF clothing—nothing will make it seem uncool faster than that!)

5. I already posted this article on Facebook a while back—I think it was written just for me! If you are as fascinated as I am by the names and identities of all those NPR voices, here's the mothership. My first stop was reference librarian Kee Malesky (for spelling and male/female revelation), and my biggest surprise was Audie Cornish (spoiler: she's not pale and blonde). My two favorite correspondents, judged solely by voice, are Wade Goodwyn (just love the cadence of his speech) and Eleanor Beardsley (with her glorious Southern drawl coupled with perfect French).

6. Old Spock battles New Spock in the greatest car commercial ever. This is so awesome, even if it didn't feature my cousin. LLAP!

7. I saw this on Mother's Day. Which parent would you ask...?

8. And speaking of Mother's Day, here we are celebrating:

Books

Last Friday Barbara invited me to the library's annual author luncheon, which this year featured William Landay, author of Defending Jacob (which I reviewed here) and Randy Susan Meyers, author of The Comfort of Lies. Both are extremely pleasant and engaging speakers, which I guess is why they do these things! I know that some authors are painfully shy and can't bear the thought of trying to entertain a crowd (even a crowd of library lovers).

The Comfort of Lies is another book that I likely wouldn't have read if I hadn't been going to this event. I liked it, though. It tells the story of three women: Juliette is married to Nathan. They have two kids and a seemingly wonderful life. Nathan, however, is having an affair with a young woman named Tia. When Tia tells him she is pregnant, he breaks off their relationship and tells her to "take care of it." She decides to have the baby (a girl), but then gives her up for adoption. The baby is adopted by Caroline and Peter, who have been unable to conceive on their own. Peter is smitten with his new daughter, but Caroline much prefers working in her lab and interacting with her colleagues than playing dolls and baking cookies. She wonders if she's cut out for motherhood at all. Juliette eventually finds out about the baby and ... well, the plot gets a little bit less believeable at that point, but the characters seemed quite real to me. There's obviously no way it can end happily for everyone—particularly Tia, who still loves Nathan and regrets giving away her baby. So, not a feel-good book by any means, but an interestingly intricate web of relationships and, as the title suggests, the lies that the people in these relationships tell each other and themselves.

Next I'm reading Autobiography of Us by Aria Beth Sloss, for book group.

Chance Meeting

A few weeks ago I had a really nice copyediting project. It’s a memoir called A Thousand Hills to Heaven, written by a man named Josh Ruxin, who goes with his wife Alissa to Rwanda to help set up new health clinics, revamp the farming system, etc., as part of the UN’s Millennium Villages project. While there, Josh and Alissa not only have three kids but also decide to start a gourmet restaurant, in large part to help create jobs. The restaurant is called Heaven, and it soon becomes one of the top restaurants in all of Africa, let alone Rwanda. The book is lovely, mostly because pretty much the only thing any of us Americans know about Rwanda is the genocide, and we aren't aware of how much healing has already gone on and continues to go on there. The government is remarkably un-corrupt, and is doing everything it can to help raise the people out of poverty and become self-sufficient. Those who managed to escape from the genocide fled to neighboring countries where they got good educations, and many came back to make their lives in Rwanda. So you have all the makings of a rebirth, with just a little help from international foundations. Ruxin points out throughout that you haven’t done a thing if you haven’t prepared people to continue your projects once you leave—the old “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime” thing. So all of the projects he works on are meant to continue on long after he’s moved on. It was a beautiful and inspiring and fascinating book.

So, last night Andy and I went out for my belated birthday dinner, to Mistral as usual, and had a splendid meal, also as usual. At the table next to us were two women, and every so often the older woman would reach across the table and clasp the younger woman’s hand, and they were both just beaming. They must have caught me smiling at them, because the older woman explained to us, “My daughter just surprised me by flying in from Africa for Mother’s Day!” The daughter had arranged to have the mom taken to Mistral by a friend, then she showed up with flowers and the friend left. Best Mother’s Day gift ever, huh?

We got to talking, and—you guessed it—the daughter had flown in from Rwanda, where she is working for a year to help institute new systems for prenatal care. She knew the Ruxins, and she and her mother had in fact eaten at Heaven when her mother visited her! We were both so excited to have had this serendipitous meeting. Just a month ago I would’ve nodded and smiled politely while thinking, “Rwanda? Yikes.” I have such a new perspective now.

Snowflakes That Stay on My Nose and Eyelashes

These are a few of my favorite things:

1. The Dropkick Murphys are played a lot in Boston anyhow, but especially right after the Boston Marathon bombing. I only just learned that the lyrics to "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" come from Woody Guthrie! Really!

2. If you have just about had it with this week, try watching this for a bit. (via CopyCurmudgeon)

3. A couple weeks ago, the Associate Press's Twitter feed was hacked, and a bogus tweet about a White House explosion went out to the millions. I didn't see the tweet until after I'd already heard about the hacking, but lots of eagle-eyed editors suspected it was phony because it didn't follow AP style. (For you non-editors out there, all journalists follow the style manual put out by the AP, whereas book editors, like me, generally follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes, there are differences.)

4. This is positively brilliant—how to avoid saying the wrong thing to someone who is ill or in trouble or suffering in any way. (via Scott)

5. Shit My Students Write is a new Tumblr blog that is hilarious.

6. The amazing John Green defines every acronym ever.

7. If you are an "I Love Lucy" fan, this is such a treat: Someone in the studio audience back in 1951 shot a clip of an episode being filmed, so we finally get to see everything in color! (When Julie is home sick or on school vacation, she loves to watch "I Love Lucy." She still hasn't seen the Vitameatavegamin one or the candy factory one, though.)

8. Apparently "slash" (the word, not the symbol) is now being used in a new way (scroll about halfway down). I keep forgetting to ask Steph if she's seen it.

9. A few years ago Dave Barry wrote a wonderful piece about getting his first colonoscopy. Here's how it begins:

OK. You turned 50. You know you're supposed to get a colonoscopy. But you haven't. Here are your reasons:

1. You've been busy.

2. You don't have a history of cancer in your family.

3. You haven't noticed any problems.

4. You don't want a doctor to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your butt.

Let's examine these reasons one at a time. No, wait, let's not. Because you and I both know that the only real reason is No. 4.

This was apropos reading for me today, since I joined the colonoscopy club this morning. As everyone had told me, the prep was a bazillion times worse than the actual procedure, which I slept through. I am very glad it's over! 

 

Milestones

I mentioned that Pete turned 14 a couple of weeks ago, which is of course impossible because he's still 4 in my mind. He's just a really tall 4-year-old.

Even more impossible: I turned 51 the following week, even though I can't imagine I'm older than 27, 28 max.

My Dad turned 85 yesterday, and my niece 25 a couple days before that. Where do the years go?

Perhaps just as inconceivable is the fact that I launched this blog more than 9 years ago (d'oh, forgot my own blogiversary in March!), and here I still am. And, much more importantly, here you still are, tuning in to see what I cooked or read or thought about the world. Some of you leave comments here or on Facebook, some email to check up on me if I've been away too long, some challenge me to games of Words With Friends, some just plain show up, and I appreciate every one of you more than I can say. 

Disturbing Book and Movie Week

After all the recent stress, you'd think that I'd have gravitated toward some fluff to entertain me, but you'd be wrong.

People kept telling me to read Defending Jacob by William Landay, not necessarily because they thought it was such a great book but because it's about a boy Pete's age and it takes place in my neighborhood. I really was determined not to read it, mostly because it's in fact about a boy Pete's age who is murdered in my neighborhood, possibly by another boy Pete's age! Thanks, but no thanks. At one point I half-heartedly suggested it to my book group members, all of whom are also moms of 14-year-old boys (Pete's pals), and they understandably looked at me like I was nuts.

To start with, it's not my favorite genre at all—a legal thriller. But more importantly, do I really need to read about a kid who gets stabbed at Cold Spring Park, where we've been a million times for our summer farmers' market, soccer practices, etc.? (Answer: NO) 

But then Barbara invited me to the annual library luncheon, where Landay will be speaking, and I thought it might be boring if I hadn't read it. Or rude of me. So I did. 

Sure, it was kind of fun and interesting to read a book where the characters shop at my Whole Foods, get takeout from that Chinese place we tried but didn't like, go to JP Licks for ice cream, etc. But the story of an assistant DA who is supposed to be handling a murder case but then is taken off it because his own son is the prime suspect ... too upsetting. 

If you like legal thrillers and don't have a teenage son, you might like it. It's not badly written, and the premise is fascinating, with quite a few plot twists and turns, and some memorable and well-drawn characters. Too close to home for me, though.

So, to lighten things up a bit, we watched Flight. Oh. My. God. Denzel Washington plays a veteran pilot who makes a heroic landing of a plane that is quite literally falling apart in the sky. Everyone agrees that if anyone else had been behind the controls, there wouldn't have been a single survivor (as it was, 2 flight attendants and 4 passengers died, out of a total of 102 "souls" on board, as they kept putting it). The only problem is that the pilot is an alcoholic and a drug addict and was under the influence of any number of substances at the time of the miraculously successful landing. And, as you might expect, that kind of complicates things.

Pete wanted to watch this movie with us, and I'm very glad I decided against it. A few reviews suggested that it would be OK for a teen, but I am here to tell you that it is most definitely not. Some of the scenes were quite gritty and upsetting, but then again, some of them were a little too positive. I won't say that alcohol and drug use are necessarily glamorized, but I could easily see a kid's takeaway being, "If you drink too much, you can do some coke and then you'll be back to normal." 

It's a very interesting premise for a movie, and I do love Denzel, but it was extremely unsettling.

Next week, maybe I'll just reread Harold and the Purple Crayon and watch Oklahoma! a few more times.

Sh-Sh-Sh-Shattered

On Saturday I had just gotten onto Route 128, driving Julie to her soccer game, when suddenly there was a huge THUNK on the roof. I looked up at my sunroof, which was covered in spiderweb-like cracks—completely shattered. I don't know for sure what happened, but I guess a piece of a bridge or maybe a rock fell as I went under an overpass. (On my way back home, I noticed there are quite a few overpasses on that stretch of the highway, although I wasn't aware that I had just gone under one when it happened.) I'm very glad I hadn't slid the sunroof completely open (it was just tilted up) or else the big, heavy thing would have fallen into the car, and possibly on us! I'm also grateful that they make sunroofs (and windshields) out of such strong glass, because otherwise we would have been covered in a million tiny shards.

As luck would have it, I already had an appointment to drop off my car for body work, because I'd had my first-ever fender-bender the previous week, when I clipped the corner of another car as I was pulling into a parking spot (also with Julie, who will probably never want to ride in the car with me again!). My first two insurance claims ever, and both in the same two-week span! There goes the $100 "good driver" savings on my deductible.

Thank heavens no one was hurt in either incident, except for a double case of shattered nerves (mine, not Julie's).

Aftermath

I don't need to tell you anything you've seen on the news fifty times already or can easily Google. Instead I'll tell you what went on here, in my home and in my family, in my heart and in my brain.

For those first few days after the marathon bombing, I don't recall feeling particularly scared or unsafe, even though the suspects had yet to located or even identified. I was mostly thinking about the people who'd been killed, and the many more who'd been injured, and all their families. In fact, on Tuesday, I took the kids out to do some spring shopping at Target and Old Navy, which are located in, of all places, Watertown. It's the next town over—really, we live just about 5 miles from where all the action was about to take place! The next day or two went by as usual; I kept an eye on the news but still didn't really stop to imagine that the bad guys were anywhere nearby. All three kids had dentist appointments and chiropractor appointments; on Thursday Pete turned 14 (!) and Andy met us for lunch at Minado, our favorite place to overindulge.

Then all hell broke loose. We later learned from friends in Watertown that they were awakened in the middle of the night either by a robocall from their Chief of Police telling them to stay inside or by police knocking on their doors so they could evacuate and check their houses from top to bottom. One guy we know was driving home to Watertown at about 2:00 a.m. after some late-night festivities and was stopped and forced out of his Honda at gunpoint. Once he was identified and cleared, the police were extremely polite and apologetic and escorted him safely home. I had no idea any of this was going on; the robocall from my Chief of Police woke me at 7:00 to alert me to the lockdown here. Andy had already left for work an hour earlier, so he was stuck there.

(Note: There are people out there who seem to think that this was some sort of official martial law scenario. I'm here to say that it didn't feel anything like that. For one thing, there was never an order to stay off the streets, never a warning that we would be arrested or fined or anything like that. It was instead strongly recommended that we "shelter in place" both for our own safety, since there was obviously a violent and desperate man on the loose, and also so that the law enforcement folks could do their job without having to worry about bystanders getting caught in crossfire, or traffic in the way of a chase. It seemed to me an entirely reasonable request. I also know that it wasn't an order because I saw some cars go by my window—not nearly as many as usual, granted—and because I know people who did leave their houses for various reasons. No problem. The streets leading into and out of Watertown were in fact blocked off, for what seem to be pretty obvious reasons. I don't know why people are imagining that this had become some kind of fascist police state nightmare. Every single person I know who had anything to do with the police reported nothing but helpful, understanding, and professional interactions.)

For the rest of the day and evening I followed the news closely, learning what was going on at the same time as everyone else, or perhaps a little sooner because I follow so many Bostonians on Twitter. Being under lockdown, I felt both safe and unsafe. I tried throughout not to let the kids be aware of my unsafe feelings, and it helped immensely to be in touch with friends and family via Twitter and Facebook. And I was very happy when Andy got home in the middle of the afternoon! We had plenty of food in the house and nowhere else we needed to be, so shelter in place we did. (The kids were supposed to go to Fenway with their grandparents that evening, but the game was postponed, as was soccer practice.) And then, finally, it was all over. The last thing I said on Facebook before going to bed was, "A huge THANK YOU to the local and state police for getting the bad guy before my kids' bedtime." 

I say "all over," but of course I mean just the manhunt. At all the Saturday soccer games there was a moment of silence for the 8-year-old boy who died on Monday, since his team is in our league. Not a lot of dry eyes at that moment, I'll tell you. The bomber is right now in the same hospital where dozens of victims are still in critical condition or waking up to a life without legs. Boylston Street is still closed off as a crime scene, and a makeshift memorial has been set up a few blocks away. Ten minutes from now there will be moment of silence, exactly one week after that first bomb went off and rocked our world. Pretty much everyone is back to school and work now, but I imagine it will be a good long while before we feel anything like back to normal. Or maybe we'll all just have to learn a new version of normal.

I'm really proud of Boston. I'm proud that we host the greatest marathon in the world. I'm proud that our world-class police officers worked tirelessly for days and did the job exactly as they were supposed to. I'm proud that our citizens did everything they could to help, from submitting cellphone photos of the bombing to donating blood to housing runners who were stranded in the city to staying indoors when asked. If you're proud of us, too, consider giving a donation to The One Fund to help those who were most affected by this event.

Safe

I'm nowhere near ready to post any kind of coherent thoughts about what happened yesterday, but enough people have contacted me to check in that I figured I should at least let you all know that everyone Chez Verbatim is safe. We were nowhere near the Boston Marathon finish line when the blasts occurred, and we've been able to account for all of our friends who were either running or watching downtown. We are lucky.

This has always been my favorite day to be a Bostonian, and I was just bragging to someone last week from out of state what a day of "good, clean fun" it always is. It's Patriots' Day, so lots of people are off from work; it's public school vacation week, so kids are all out and about; there's always a morning Sox game, so downtown is extra-packed; and the marathon itself is obviously a world-class sporting event that we are proud to host. Over the years I've posted how much we enjoy our short walk down the street to where the runners pass the 16.5-mile mark; sometimes we spot someone we know, but mostly we just cheer on everyone who passes. So, yes, I'm sad and I'm scared, but I'm also furious that our beloved marathon has been forever marred in this way—what will happen next year? It's too much to consider.

Girls in White Dresses with Blue Satin Sashes

A few of my favorite things:

Check out these 8 bizarre sounds you've made without realizing it, and the foreign languages that use them. If you want to do this the fun way, read the text and try to make the sounds yourself before watching the video.

The amazing folks at xkcd have made a poster out of their awesome comic showing every subway system in North America—and attaching them, so you can, say, get from Cleveland Circle in Boston to Cleveland.

I'm not sure I can live if someone doesn't manufacture these Pantone undies.

Here are some photos of famous authors when they were teens.

I've been using the iPhone app Moves for a while now, just for fun. It counts how many steps you walk or run and combines it with a GPS so you can track your travels all day. Every time you arrive somewhere, it marks the spot and then you can either choose from the list of nearby place names (Were you at Starbucks or the bank next door?) or type in your own name for the place (Mom's house). It's not useful for anything other than seeing how much you've walked (and not even in miles, just steps), but it is fun. (This past Monday was my all-time record since I started using it: 5906 steps! I think that's probably about a mile, right?)