The Lacuna (by Kat)

Oy.

Just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book "The Lacuna" late last night.

There's a pretty depressing review following the pretty picture. Just a warning. If you're in the mood to read depressing ravings, go through the forest (picture) and come out the other side. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Brrr. Snow!


I usually plunge into Kingsolver's books and emerge a day or two later feeling like a water nymph in the fountain of youth. I usually feel inspired to learn more about both current and historic political events. I usually start checking books out of the library dealing with wolves and other predators, conservation techniques, Nicaraguan refugees, cheese making, Appalachian history, development in arid lands. I can't look at a train without remembering that the conductor has to start applying his brakes just before the engine peaks at the top of the mountain pass. I look at stonewashed jeans and just cringe. I think to myself "a-ha, forgoing this purchase makes a bit of difference."

The Lacuna, however, just beat me down. It took almost a week to read, and at the end I just wanted to head out onto the street and exterminate the knee-jerk "patriotic" Americans who won't stand up for our constitutional rights.

Did you ever see the movie "Easy Rider?" Did you want to hunt down rednecks afterward? This book loaded me with ten times the vitriol, but aimed at people who want to teach creationism in public schools in place of science. People who wear their American flag lapel pins but want gun control. People living in America who think free speech applies to those who share their same values--everyone else should just shut up or move to Russia, they say.

The book ends up describing life in McCarthy era America. Some may see the book as a picture frame filled with troubling scenes of a by-gone era.

I saw it as a mirror.

During that era, the country fell under the spell of a few powerful people who convinced the government that anyone who doubted the direction of the current regime was a communist and should go to prison and/or face the death penalty. The citizens of America didn't protest their right to fair trials. They didn't protest their loss of free speech during the book bans. They didn't do anything when neighbors were hauled off in the middle of the night, under suspicion of communistic sympathies--even though the soviets and the US were allies up until the start of the second world war. As soon as Uncle Sam said boo, people were supposed to go back on everything they knew. AND THEY DID!

After all, getting rid of the commies was "best for the children."

On this side of the mirror, we're willing to put up with the same crap. Different war, different axis and allies. Same government saying you're with us or you're not American. Same government saying that, for the good of the children, we'll dispense with fair trial for anyone we think might be involved in terrorist activities.

Oh, and we won't let you know the evidence against you.

Oh, and of course we have the fight to tap your phone, even if the court says we don't have enough evidence to procure a legal warrant.

Oh, and Seattle's Mayor Nickel spent hundreds of thousands of dollars putting up signs banning guns after both the state and federal government told him that was unconstitutional.

Oh, and just read the paper. You'll see lots of people surrendering their constitutional rights. And calling themselves American at the same time.

The book was a mirror. What I saw was so ugly.

This time it isn't as easy as not buying the stone-washed jeans and learning more about predators.

This time it's figuring out how to combat the notion that laying down and taking it is good for the children.

I'm still crying.

It smells like headache in here (by Kat)

After hauling the box spring up the stairs, screwing the stair treads back into place, and getting a really good night's sleep, I was forced to move into the next phase of the project--the post-demolition phase.

I don't care for the post-demolition phase of any project as much as I do the actual demolition phase. Tearing down is so exciting, so swift, so easy!

Putting back together is slow, monotonous, laborious. Also, I get too caught up in the details. This slows down my ability to get started due to worrying, and then gets me frustrated during the doing because I can't get the details as neat as I'd like them to be.

So, after the treads were screwed back down, I looked through our stash of paint. The only primer I found was oil-based exterior grade. In an attempt to be frugal, I decided to use what we had instead of purchasing a new can of primer that would languish half-empty (or half-full?) under the stairs with the rest of the optimistic/pessimistic paint hoard.

So, paintbrush in hand, I primed every other step. This way, the stairs remain operational. If you remember to skip a step. Humans are good at skipping steps. Cats do not skip stairs. You can supply your own visual here, right? Four cats should reside in your visual, by the way.

Did I mention yet that it's below freezing here? We're past the open window season. Way past.

Oil based exterior grade primer is NASTY on the nose and lungs!!!!

Yesterday, I bought a can of interior grade latex primer. So, do I re-prime the already primed stairs? Only prime the bare wood stairs? Will the topcoat wear differently or have a different appearance over the two different primers?

So what does a headache smell like, folks? It smells like partially primed staircase.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (by Kat)

A few years ago, we bought a new mattress set.
A year previous, we bought a house built in 1910.

Those of you with older homes are already laughing. It's really a pretty common story, isn't it? It's common enough around my town that the furniture store should really post a warning. Of course, they'd sell fewer mattress sets that way, so it probably won't happen anytime soon.

Those of you with newer homes might be feeling lost about now.

I'll let you in on a secret. The staircases in older homes usually lack the headspace needed to get a boxframe larger than a twin-size up to the second floor. So for the past few years the mattress and the boxspring were relegated to separate homes--the mattress in our room, and the boxspring out in the shop, still wrapped up in its protective plastic bag.

My back has been hurting more and more lately, but stopped when I went to visit Bet last week. When I returned home, the stiff neck I've had since August returned. The lower back spasms forced me to walk like someone four times my age. I was angry.... I was in pain.... I took charge....

The stairs suffered my wrath.
The carpet was entirely ripped up. All but the top three stair treads were removed.

There was heaving, pulling, grunting, and sweating.

The treads were replaced, the artwork covered up, and now I have to paint the stairs.
BUT
My neck is no longer stiff, and my back hurts a whole lot less!

Wait, what? Autumn's over? (by Kat)

18 degrees Fahrenheit this morning.

-8 degrees Celsius this morning.

Frost on the chickens' heads.

I demand a recount!!!!

I need a little more autumn to get me through the year. Just a bit more, please?!

I'm going back to bed, huddling under the down comforter, and when I come out it better be autumn!!!

Do you hear me?!!!!!!!

Thanks for not being that guy...(by Kat)

Tonight I was at a large retail store in the big city, about 45 minutes from home.

Just in front of me was a man using a Bluetooth headset. Oblivious to the world around him, he chatted away at great volume, ranting about a woman, chastising the person he was speaking to, complaining about long lines, and just sharing too much information all the way around.

I looked at my husband and thought 'thanks for not being that guy.'

Just in front of chatty guy was a horridly-acting man who filled out his check incorrectly, and then started yelling at the cashier for not taking it. The cashier asked for the man to give him another check, which the register would print up for him, but the man yelled and yelled using his mighty grasp of four letter words.

A manager came to the register, and said they couldn't accept the check as written, and asked him to write a new check, put it on a credit card, or let the register print out the check. The man continued to yell that the cashier was making him look like a (fool), like a (jerk), and that the cashier had a very small (appendage) that was situated in an unexpected place, and so on.

This, in front of his wife and two young daughters. I pitied his wife, I wanted to reach out to her, but then she started in on the cashier as well. Finally, about four men and ten minutes later, the man and him family had been escorted from the store.

I looked at my husband, and this time I said aloud, "thanks for not being that guy."

And to everyone else who speaks kindly (even when frustrated), who loves their neighbor (no matter their ethnicity or skin color), and who takes the time to control themselves, I thank you, too!

And hello people, but does it need to be said that anyone who blames other people for making them look like (appendages) is really good job of it all by themselves!

/rant

Ok, to make up for all that negativity, here's a pretty picture. I love these flowers at the front of my house.