Holden, Bitches, State of the/our Union, 4, Staying Strong, and Cream: A week in small paragraphs

J.D. Salinger died yesterday.  Author of THE bible of dissaffectation, Catcher in the Rye, Salinger will probably get more ink about his being a recluse than of someone who was able to brilliantly capture in Holden the coming culture shift among youth--so much so that it still resonates today.  I know why we are all fascinated with his backing away from celebrity, but I wish we were all just happy with his contribution to culture and let that be the overriding story.

Elizabeth Edwards  is getting a bit of a beating in a new book by Andrew Young, depicting her as an angry, obsessive bitch.  Well, let's see--if I was dying of inoperable/incurable cancer, my husband was cheating on me, siring other children and so called friends were in on it, using it and hiding it...I'd be royally pissed off too. I'd say and do things I wasn't proud of.  As for the Youngs, you can't be that involved in something so miserably wrong and then whine if it bites you in the ass.  Well, I guess you can...then I guess you can write a book about it to make money off said misery of others.  Unless no one buys the book.  I won't.  I would just like us all not to--just to say, "Enough!  We are better than this and we've got real problems to focus on." 

In any relationship there comes a time when one of the people has to hold up their hand during a fight and say, let's just re-focus here on what is really the basis of the disagreement and solve for that...all of this other stuff is silly and it's getting in the way of our moving forward.  In my relationship, the person that does that is my husband--he keeps the state of our union on an even keel.  On Wednesday night, during the State of the Union, President Obama was that person as well.  Although, he could take a few lessons from my hubby in being a bit more direct, a bit more intense in a good way.  President Obama was good about taking responsibility  for his mistakes, but I would have liked him to call others out a bit more directly as well.  And for those of you in the that building the other night:   sneers and rude, whispered asides don't play well on TV...I'm just saying...a bunch of you looked like petulant little boys.

4 lbs.  Thank you NutriSystem.  Except for the meatloaf with mashed potatoes 'gravy'...seriously?  Somethign went horribly, horribly wrong in your tasting kitchen.

Hubby is in LA for the next week with his Mom who is fighting cancer.  As per usual, she is amazing.  The kiddies are missing their Dad who never travels without them, so a learning experience for all of us.  I have to remember that their extreme reaction to this is not about me.  It was especially hard when they wanted to stop watching their :30 minutes of TV to actually talk to him on the phone...something they don't do with me since they 'have to' do it a lot when I'm on the road.   And, I didn't pause the show quick enough so we had to rewind and watch the last few minutes of "Modern Marvel" on the potato.  Who knew!?  Stay strong B & D, we love you!

Finally, to put it all in perspective:  On the way to school my Son loves to listen to classic rock.  We had been listening to Cream and the "Tales of Brave Ulysses" until I just couldn't take it anymore.  I flicked it off to his dismay.  "Mom", he said, ovbiously dissapointed that I was missing the point here, "It's rock AND history!"

Yup.  I had forgotten that.  I'll do better next time.

Ahhh, Beautiful Words

Last night we were out to dinner (Guero's on Congress, always good for a nosh and a walk) and our daughter ordered "smacked up avacados".  Now I realize that guacamole is the better title for this concoction for a number of reasons, but I have to say I liked what she came up with. It's honest and it's fun to say--food should be fun to order and if I had my choice I think I'd rather order Smacked Up Avacados than guacamole.

Thinking about this last night as I got ready for bed, I fired up the trusty iPhone and looked on Amazon.com's Listmania service (totally awesome if you are wondering) and yes, someone else had put together a list of books on the origins of words, phrases, etc. And, I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I had read at least two of the 19 books, and with a quick glance, I know that quite a few others will soon be gracing our shelves.

The first one I had read was The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.  It is about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary and is, as one reviewer said, a "well told yarn".  It was astounding and oddly pleasureable (for me anyway) to realize through the reading of the book that something like the dictionary was only completed with the help of someone who was certifiably mad. Mad, I say!

The second book I had read was The Disheveled Dictionary:  A Curious Caper through our Sumptuous Lexicon by Karen Elizabeth Gordon.   For anyone who loves to have fun with language, this is a book for you.  I knew her as the author of the Transitive Vampire, the only book on the crafting of language I every really understood.  But I loved this book--it's funny and yummy--and useable.  In fact, it helped me put into words the antagonism I have  for the recidivist crepuscular mammalian who has been excavating our garbage.  Her examples will actually leave you laughing, but one must start somewhere.

(If you want to see all of the books on this list, here is the link:  Listmania Books about Words)

In any case, creativity, as they say, is all about hiding your sources.  So I will continue to listen to my daughter and her verbose wit, while we both coninute to love our Smacked Up Avacados.

Rocks, Barns, Beds and Corners. Or, the Top 10 Places to Read on Three Link Ranch

We spent our Christmas Holidays in Oregon on the cattle ranch where I grew up, about 35 miles from Crater Lake outside of Butte Falls (pop. 450).  It is stunning in all seasons, simply one of my favorite places in the world.  Miles from anyone else and surrounded by forest, it is compellingly quiet, enough so that your senses reach out on their own, engaging in the little world that exists in the small circle around you--the sounds, smell and sights, all of which change with the seasons.

Once we were old enough, us five kids all had chores and work to do--ranging from clearing the garden of rocks each spring, to haying to feeding said hay to the cows in winter, to digging irrigation ditches, so on and so forth.  Between that, school, sports and friends, there wasn't a lot of time for ourselves, but what time I had I spent reading.  And that was another thing that changed with the seasons, my secret reading places, of which I will now share my top 10--knowing that every reader probably has their own list to rival my own.  I would love to hear some of them.

10. Below the big field, across the fence, along the creek, under a big oak there would be these groves of low, white flowers among dense grass.  It was soft and soothing--and in the summer, a perfect place to read yourself to sleep, lulled by the dappled light on the pages.  I read Sounder there, as well as my first reading of My Antonia, from which my all-time favorite quote comes from..."Happiness is being dissolved into something complete and great".

9.  The barn.  There is practically nothing more comfortable then a chaise lounge made from hay, especially as it comes with it's own lovely perfume--an earthier, heavier dried grass aroma.  I read Animal Farm there for a reason, although in hindsight, probably not the best idea I've ever had.

8.  The corner behind the wood stove.  Whether it was winter or not, it was strategically important, keeping me literally under the view of my Mom.  If quiet, I could read there for hours without being bothered--which was perfect when I went through my Michner phase.

7.  The Bouncy Tree.  In another field, an old tree bent low enough to scrabble on to it, with one perfect branch as a back rest.  You could read and bounce-away the afternoon and it's where I would read about Satchel Paige, Amelia Earhart and other amazing people.

6.  The hay fields.  When the hay was about yay-high, ready to be cut, you could lay in the middle of it all, nothing but gold and blue around and above you.  No one could ever find me there--except mice and snakes..but they never told.  Perfect for the Little House on the Prairie books.

5.  In bed under the covers (after the generator was off for the night with a flashlight):  Quiet perfection-- for Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. 

4.  The hammock.  duh! This is where I would read anything resembling romance novels--which were few and far between in our library.  But the few Joan Collins books I snuck outside were illuminating to say the least.

3.  Behind the ranch, up a logging road, off a little side road, there is a small, almost octagonal meadow of moss, surrounded by downed trees, all covered with moss. When I was much younger it was my secret emerald forest, and it was perfect for reading Lord of the Rings.

2. My parents room.  For some reason, their bed was always more comfortable and the room was always cooler or warmer, depending on the season. 

1.The Rock.  Way up the logging road behind and above our ranch, there was an outcropping of rocks from which you could see the entire property and then some.  With a pbj, cookies and a jug of water, I spent probably hundreds of afternoons up there, reading everything from Hotel New Hampshire to all five volumes in the Hitchhikers Guide (I especially liked the third book, 'Life, the Universe and Everything'), dreaming of what was out beyond the horizon of trees.

So, there is the list...if I close my eyes on a late January afternoon in Austin, I can smell the hay or the pine--or the woodsmoke.  I can feel the moss or the breeze and I can remember what I felt as I read and dreamed in my own perfect corner of the world in Oregon, each of these a building block, some big, some little, to who I am today. 

Thanks Mom and Dad.  It was amazing.

Would You Rather? or Reading your way through the Health Care debate

Last night at dinner (at the great new diner in Austin, "24"), me and the fam were playing one of our usual dinner time games, "Would You Rather?"--the game where either choice is rarely a good one.  Besides being a great peek into where your kids heads are at, for us anyway this game is a fun and effective conversation starter--which, as most parents know, is a toughy.

While the son and I typically go for the "would you rather eat 100 raw oysters or 100 snails"-type questions, my husband and daughter always go for the odd/existential/serious questions, like last night's kicker, "Would you rather be a doctor that has to tell someone their Grandfather died, or be a manager that has to fire 100 people on the same day?"

My daughter picked the doctor and when we asked why, she said in her typical "I'm channeling a very cynical 40-year old" voice, "Doctor.  They say it, they fake cry and they walk away..it's easy."  Maybe I should have said the voice she was channeling was a "very, very, VERY cynical person", or maybe she listens more than we give her credit for because outside of my doctor and my brother-in-law, I'm not a big fan of doctors or the system they work for.  We've been in a lot of offices and hospitals in the last five years and I can easily say that I hate them and the system.  At their/it's best they made me hopelessly hopeful.  At worst?  A quivering mass of sobbing doubt.

Anyway, the question and subsequent conversation reminded me that over the past 7 years or so I've had to do a lot of reading about health care for my job.  And, given the current debate/debacle I went through my books and found what I considered to be the best of the best in terms of giving you a fully rounded picture of the issues we face as our elected leadership try to solve the problem that is our health care system.

First, let's get in the right frame of mind...regardless of how you want it fixed, most Americans want something different--especially the 40 million or so uninsured.  So, I'd recommend, "Sick" by Jonathan Cohn.  I found it a compellingly devastating, yet judicious look at decline of our health care system--each patient story highlighting yet another reason that we all need to take this seriously.

Then we should ground ourselves in the history of what is a very unique system of care here in America..."The Health Care Mess:  How We Got Into It and What It Will Take To Get Out" by Julius Richmond and Rashi Fein.    Taking us from the post-WW II start of health insurance to the 'quest for profits' business it is today, they show the sink holes of a decentralized system and lay out their proposed fix.  For what is admittedly a dry subject, they do a good job of cutting through the fat to the key issues below.

Then, a look at hard reality with "Can We Say No?  The Challenge of Rationing Health Care" by Aaron, Schwartz and Cox.  Using the British system--and their choices--as a foil, this book points out the nature of the choices we as Americans face if we want to keep it from being a financial drain to either business or ourselves.  They don't offer their version of a solution, but I didn't mind knowing that this issue truly will take a combined, collaborative effort to solve (which does not give me hope for this round of health care reform either come to think of it).

Then would come the hardest read for me (I tend to shy away from anything written by economists--it's a personal failing I grapple with)--"Healthy, Wealthy and Wise:  Five Steps to A Better Health Care System" by Coogan, Hubbard and Kessler.  Examining the problem a market perspective, they come to identify root causes of the overall mess that I ultimately understood--it was, for lack of a better term, my 'aha!' moment.  From tax code issues that force price distortion to the fact that there is no one measure of quality of either care or care information, they break it down and offer a solution for each.  Whether their solutions are plausible or even smart I can't say, but the issues they identify are definately part of the problem and should be understood and solved for in the long run if we are truly to create positive change for all.

Finally, I'd wrap it all up on a high note with T.J. Reid's fantastic book, "The Healing of America:  The Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care".  Clear, insightful and often humorous, it shows that we can have a system that puts people, not profits, first without losing sight that this is a business. 

And, if you only have time for one book...Reid's is the one to read:  It gives fact-based and hopeful direction for a better system of care and we should all be armed with that because as Congress plays it's own game of  "Would You Rather" with the future of American health care, you want to be ready with a good answer.