After nearly finishing this novel, I can’t help but focus on the treatment of women.  This, more than race or wealth is something I relate to and find myself drawn into.  Now, I can’t say I’m neglected or used, but I find it easy to judge history as belittling of women’s lives and work. 

Somewhere during the story one of the characters says something about how the white men’s world or riches is built on the backs of black men. I’d like to take that one step further and say that in the end, the world is built on the backs of women, here, black women in particular.  Milkman, the character looking for his own wealth, which will be attained without work or industry, feels trapped by his lifestyle as the son of a rich man with little responsibility or need of anything.  Yet when he ruins the one chance at love for one of his sisters, the other sister reminds him that his whole life had been made easier by the women in his world. His mother and sisters, completely unthanked and nearly unthought of, have washed his clothes, made his bed, fed him, cleaned after him and made his life one of ease.  Meanwhile, they suffer boredom, hatred for those they support, and lives with no real purpose.

Morrison manages to show men having lives they do not love, and the racial oppression they feel daily, while still showing us the burden those lives put on the women around them.  I often wonder how they stood it.  How would you spend your day knowing there would never be enjoyment or freedom of anything really–your life was laid out for you, expectations as the guide, and with no real choices to be made.  Of course Pilate lived as she wanted, making moonshine and supporting her daughter and granddaughter as she saw fit.  What did this get her?  She seems happy, but she has no respect from her brother or anyone in her community. Even the nephew she cares for and  loves steals from her when he sees a chance at freedom.  In fact, he steals more from her than a bag he thinks contains gold–he robs her of her granddaughter by using her and leaving her to die of unrequited love. 

Toni Morrison has written The Bluest Eye, Sula, and The Beloved, among others. She’s won the Pulitzer Prize and The Nobel Prize for literature.  Each time I read one of her novels I find the best of stories, with multiple layers and lines that readers can find self and real life in.  I have really enjoyed this one and am almost dreading finishing.  Some authors can make me wish the story would go on forever.

As some of you may know, I ride the bus to Salt Lake every workday, and then walk about 4 city blocks to my office.  With stoplights and all, it usually takes anywhere between 10-15 minutes.  I sort of worried, when I started, about walking in a city in the dark and about how it would be when it got snowy, and worse; freezing.  So far, so good. I’ve had wind, snow, rabid hot sun, chil temperatures, mud from construction, and puddles, but everything works out.  Today I got off the bus all bundled up in my wool coat, hat knitted by Channi, scarf around my face and snow boots, and this little wind hit me in the face and it was so fresh after the stale bus air and very chill, and it just felt good. All the way, I was just thinking how fun it was to be stomping in the snow, and it reminded me of when my family lived on a little farm in Tumalo, Oregon. We kids walked a ways to the bus stop.  Sometimes we’d stomp through the fields because it was shorter, even if it was snowing.  We’d meet our friends somewhere along the way, and there would be this gang of us all marching toward the main road on White Rock Loop.  One friend in particular, Denny, comes to mind. He was a couple of years older than me, but we came to be good friends.  A few years after high school he was killed in a car accident as he drove home one Christmas to visit his family. 

Well, I got to thinking about how fun that seemed–to start the day every morning with this walk with friends. I know at the time I didn’t enjoy it–pretty sure I complained a bunch.  Why didn’t my mom drive me?  I don’t know, but now I’m glad she didn’t.  The thing is, it just got me realizing how many moments of our day are routine, boring, irritating, but that we should be enjoying as part of our life.  How many hours did I waste hating that trek to school?  What does it matter now?  Should I dread January and February when it is going to be a pretty frigid walk to work, both ways in the dark?  No.  I’m going to remember how good that cold wind felt on my face this morning and try to rethink how I feel about my whole day.  What seems like a chore now might someday be something I wish I could do again. 

I know, I know, I’m a bit maudlin today.  Feel a bit teary thinking maybe I haven’t been appreciative enough for things in my life.  Well, not today. I’m going to get a lot of work done on this very short workday, and go home for a four day vacation with my whole family around me.  It’s going to be a great new year!

What a great weekend.  I did nothing.  Well, I started reading ‘A Portrait of Dorian Grey’.  The introduction was amazing.  I cannot believe Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labor for being gay.  Sometimes the world is shocking and wrong–at least technically that can’t happen in America now.  I haven’t really looked forward to the book, but from the first page I was sort of hooked.  I should have known the author of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ would have something to say I was interested in, right?  I’m about halfway through my bus ride reading, ‘Song of Solomon’ by Toni Morrison.  It’s funny, but I started that book twice before and just didn’t keep reading for whatever reason. Now I’m looking forward to my bus rides because it’s wonderful.  Of course.  How talented can you be?  Read any Toni Morrison and you’ll see.

Pajama wise, the world is all good. I’ve finished 8 pairs, so all the nieces and nephews are done and I just have my kids to finish up.  Easy as pie, right?  They all turned out cute I think.  Also, little B will be visiting from Oregon on Christmas Eve, so I’ll get to see him open them.  How fun will that be.  My sis, A, is holding out again, wanting us all to trek out to her place for our traditional Christmas Eve at my Dad’s.  I won’t say how I feel about that; just that unfortunately, I don’t get to see her kids try on the pj’s. I hope they all fit!  Christmas Eve is a day off for me and I’m sort of planning on taking off the day before to finish up some shopping, baking, and sewing.  I made two double batches of caramel corn this weekend, and a new fudge recipe.  It wasn’t very good. Well, at least not as good as my regular stuff.  The fam seems to be chowing down on it though.

I might have mentioned I am crocheting a ’snuggie’ for Jude. You know the blanket with arms in it so you can read and do SO MANY THINGS while staying warm?  It’s huge and has taken forever, but I just need to finish the arm I am on and do the other and it is done! He is soooooo excited. I think it’s funny that he wanted one, but whatever! I’ll be glad to finish. It’s basically just double crochets over and over and over, and a bit boring. 

Yesterday I was in the bedroom crocheting on the ’snuggie’ and heard the kids playing CatchPhrase and ran out to play with them.  K came out to. It was really fun, but then we added a little zig. You had to describe the word as if it had been used in commission of a felony. It was hilarious.  The first word I got was ‘hatchet murder’ so how easy was that?  Then it just went downhill. We could barely play we were laughing so hard.  My cheeks hurt.  So we named it ‘Inappropriate Catch Phrase’ and are really looking forward to our next session.

Anyway, I brought Caramel Corn to work to share around.  Carried a huge bowl all the way up on the bus. How dedicated is that? 

K called me on the way to work.  His father was sent in an ambulance from Idaho Falls, ID to University of Utah Hospital here in Salt Lake last night. He’s got a huge bulge in a major artery in one leg, and they are going to have to operate today to correct it.  If it explodes, he would likely bleed out and die, so it is a rush thing. K is at the hospital with his sister now, although Father is with the surgeon and they haven’t seen him yet.  I’m sure they will be here all day.  I hope he’ll be fine.

So I get to the back of the book, and there is an Afterword, which lays out the known facts about Wilson, effectively explaining  what was made up.  All that complaining for nothing!  Oh well.  It was surprising to find out that Elizabeth’s son basically took care of Wilson after she lost her income and was older.  I guess she did raise him, as she was nanny, lady’s maid, and everything else at various times.  It was a nice ending, even if the rest is not absolutely true. Enough of the story could easily fit, given some of the facts. 

It’s my Friday by the way, and I am really looking forward to the weekend.  Finishing up a few Christmas things, including pajamas, stockings, etc.  It will be nice.  My mom is sick so I’ll go see her tonight.  Hopefully I can cheer her up, if Chantel hasn’t already done so with her visits the last couple of days.  There aren’t really any movies I’m dying to see until Christmas.  Looks like the family is voting for Sherlock Holmes on Christmas, although I’d like to see It’s Complicated.  We’ll see.

Yes, I know they are short, but I still generally love reading quotes. I have some from The Foundation for A Better Life sent to my inbox daily.  In a way they sometimes make me feel good, or inspire me.  I also find it fun to read the way people think about things.  I guess I should follow with a bunch of my favorite quotes to prove my point, right?

One of my favorites, and the one I wish I took more to heart is this; 

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”
—Nora Roberts

And one probably more suited to this site;

“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”

Erasmus

The fun thing is, there are a gazillion quotes, and one that speaks to me might mean nothing to someone else.  Perhaps it’s a bit like the story of The Bible–one book, tens of thousands of Christian religions.  What’s fun is to find which people or what they say mean something to me. 

Anyway, if interested in fun quotes on a variety of ‘up’ topics, go to Values.com, and they will send them to your email. This is not a religiously affiliated site at all, it’s a privately funded foundation dedicated to spreading good news. They are responsible for the billboards and commercials you see with one word and then a person that exemplifies it.  Like the one on ‘Optimism’ with Michael J. Fox.  Just for fun.

I’m within a few pages of finishing ‘Lady’s Maid’ by Margaret Forester.  It is the story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her maid, ‘Wilson’.  There was such a maid, and Forester, author of a biography about the poet, decided to explore the possible life story of Wilson.  Now I just wonder what this story is based on and if the relationship between the two, and the treatment of Wilson by Elizabeth is in any way true. 

It was pretty much a downer. Wilson came from a poor family that pretty much was used up and spent mostly miserable lives serving others, Wilson included.  She may have been happy as the poet’s servant to begin with, but the truth is, this relationship, as stated was something of slavery.  Elizabeth could dictate marriage, the keeping of children, and anything else she wanted to for her maid.  I can’t imagine such a situation.

Stories like this are sometimes hard for me.  I’m not the type of person that could be a servant. I don’t even like to answer the phone for other people, let alone be their nurse, maid, nanny, and life support all in one.  More than occasionally I found myself wanting to shake Wilson and say, ‘Get on with your own life and care less about this woman! She doesn’t care about you!”  Then I would wonder if anything like this existed.  Does a biographer know a historical person well enough to know that while outwardly championing the downtrodden they could contribute to the decline of someone in their employ?  It seems like an irritation to me.  Is it or isn’t it?  Now I just want to read all about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and try to discover if any of this could really have been in the nature of their relationship.  I will likely finish tonight.  Hopefully with Elizabeth’s death Wilson can take some sort of joy from life and stop trying to earn her master’s devotion.

By the way, for all you pajama watchers…I finished three pair yesterday.  Three! Whoopee! That feels good.  I now have two little nephews to finish and then my kids and I am done.  Finito!  At least I’m better off than last year.  By this time I was taking finals and looking forward to starting the pjs.

What trauma!  Oh my whatever, you have no idea what a hassle this pair of pajamas was!  And I know you’re dying to hear about it, so here goes;   

Last year I made them all with a pattern I didn’t really like. So this year I bought a new one. It’s much better!  So I have my sewing spread out before Thanksgiving and ask Chantel to carefully pack it up and put it back in my sewing closet (previously her closet).  She does.  Well, I unpack it later in the weekend to start, and the back pattern piece is missing!  I tear the place apart, I scream and curse,  and then I sit around pouting.  When it’s evident I will not find it, I go to buy a new one.  I buy it, I get home, I go to get it out, and it’s not in the bag! They’ve charged me for it alright, but evidently I left it there. I call, they can’t find it.  I go and they say, just get another one and you can take it. Well, they are out.  O.U.T. out!  I am not kidding here. The only pajama patterns in the place are the same brand I bought and didn’t like last year! Aargh.  So I say no thanks, and go home to make the pajamas with the pattern I do not like.  Which I do. But this pattern doesn’t go by measurements, but by ’sizes’ which I found out last year DON”T WORK.   I measure and modify, etc, to end up with pajamas that will fit. Well, I don’t think they will.  They just look too small!  Bugger!  The story doesn’t end there though. 

That morning, I’d asked Jude to sweep and mop the floor.  And I’d seen some stuff under the table and asked him to please work on that area again.  Evidently, he did.  But not good enough. As I’m finishing this mutated pair of pajamas, K, who is sitting on the couch in the living room says, “Isn’t that a pattern piece under the table?” And there, beneath my feet is the missing pack pants pajama pattern that caused all the fuss!!  Somehow under Jude’s very efficient sweeping, it had been dislodged, but not picked up. I mean, it was folded up, but still, it’s pretty hard to miss. And I’d like him to explain how he ‘mopped’ under the table without ruining it!  Whatever!!!

Well, my pajama making has been delayed long enough.  Now that I’ve got a couple done I am going to whiz through them this weekend. Unfortunately, or fortunately, looking at the snow outside, I am off to San Diego for business tomorrow, and won’t be home until Friday night. Which means, I only have Saturday and Sunday to get caught up.  Can she do it?!  My energetic self says yes, but my less ambitious half maintains it as highly doubtful.

Wish me luck. And stamina.

Come on, even if you don’ t read books, this is hilarious!  I do resent that Twilight has a bigger slice than Harry Potter, but of course that’s likely due to the fact that it is completely taken in by the ‘Books that are a waste of completely good trees’.  I guess it probably deserves a large part of that!

Somehow they should have shown that Jane Austen was part of what people actually read–although I am finding that now that the various movies are so prevalent, more women I know seem to be watching as opposed to reading.  That, of course, doesn’t make it right!!

If you are interested in more funny graphs, it’s www.graphjam.com.

My entire family read the book “The Road” a few years ago.  Very difficult read as I assume are most of Cormac McCarthy’s books.  He is a man who has said that death is a fact and any writer that does not address it is not serious.  Ouch.  Not my way of thinking at all.  Do we have to dwell on what is evil in life to understand it?  I vote we focus on the positive, the possibilities, and the hope of life as it could or may be.  This is an important work, even I see it. Do I think all important works are as desolate, demeaning and hopeless?  No.

Now it’s coming out as a movie, starring Viggo Mortenson, one of my favorite actors.  Will I see it? I”m thinking not.  I struggled to get images from the book out of my head for a few weeks.  I don’t want to rehash it in a movie that cannot possibly deliver the amazing images McCarthy does with his words. 

The thing that really struck me about the book was that as seen through the eyes of the father, the world is completely explained. The intricate details of a dead world and a dying culture and all humanity are clear.  And yet, there are no dates, no names, no ages, no facts given.  The man and his son are surviving any way they can, driven by the father’s need to protect his son.  What we see and feel is what is important though–not who they were before or any other information about them.   Why they are on the quest to reach the coast is a mystery.  How or whether they manage to keep their humanity when so many other survivors do not  is also unknown.  I guess the reason is love.  Their love keeps them from turning into cannibals and torturers, and nothing else. 

Every time I go to the Movies section online, I see a new add for this.  I hope it does well and makes people think.  I myself will simply allow the book to stand.