Misc. pix

I'm still playing with my latest toy--and over a month after Christmas. That's our local Barnesandignoble. It's located in a former movie theater, the Loma Star, that was an independent bookstore in it's median stage, hence "Bookstar". The neon is very pretty, though it needs maintenance. It is also proof of two things. 1. There are people on Point Loma outside of our household who read. And not just adult books! 2. A bookstore can survive without a coffee bar. Besides, there's a good local coffeeshop just nextdoor. But they are not open late.



Not a literacy game. Cute though, eh?

the great big bird feeder

There is a large sweet gum tree right next to our balcony. It has just about lost all its leaves, though there are still some green. I've been figuring it will provide welcome shade if we still live here this summer. But something extraordinary happened this weekend. The sweet gum turned into a giant bird feeder. Finches descended on those pointy round pods that are so unpleasant to step on in bare feet. Goldfinches, house martins, juncos, birds, birds, birds. The goldfinches alight right on the pods and hang there pecking at the pods. The (slightly) larger birds sit on the branches to peck. Mourning doves sit on the ground below awaiting fallen seeds. I can sit in a recliner and watch all though the sliding glass doors! W00t.

the latest family addition

There he is, baby Jake. He came a little early, and is still a little jaundiced, but he looks to be a happy boy. I am Great Aunt Elizabeth to Jake, though he gets a few years before he's expected to say that. I've already tendered an invitation that he and his sister Gabriella come visit me in say ten years so I can get to work corrupting them as their crazy old Great Auntie. I had a great ime corrupting their mother many moons ago. Should be a fun role to play with them!

Best reads of 2005

The stated goal of my main other blog, Biblioblather was to maintain better track of my reading. I am THILLED to report that after 44 years of steady reading, I finally found a method of tracking authors, titles, and opinions. There is no searchable database, it's true, but I am very proud in any case. This from a woman who has retained a Pensees Livres from a trip to France in 1971, (thank you Google, and Le Monde for confirming the date, as one of my main memories of that trip was Nixon devaluing the dollar--OUCH!). I managed to enter three titles in that Livres Pensees before losing track/motivation, but those three entrees have been a precious ideal.

Skimming over a year's worth of blog posts for my favorite reads was kind of surreal. I have written in journals/blank books/notebooks much of my life, but never in date order. Whenever I want to write something, I just pick up one of the floating notebooks and start jotting. So they are a very motley array, except the one known as "the divorce journal", which my lawyer advised me to keep as an accurate record of events. I try never to look in it as it is very sad, but I was happy to find it last year before a court visit. Over the years, you do forget, thank goodness!

But it didn't take ten years for me to forget about some of the things I read this year. A few titles were complete mysteries. I decided not to go look up subject headings or reviews, trusting myself to have remembered and written more if it was good. After all, doesn't "forgettable" say it all?

Now I must thank Blogger and Open WorldCat (whose praises I am determined to never stop singing) for finally making it a reality: I know what I read last year!

My absolute favorite fiction read of the year was The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. I felt like I was in New York in 1941, on top of the Empire State Building watching for Luftwaffe. I spent a week completely swept away in this book. Very little of the other fiction I read made much of an impact. I did enjoy Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, though it was a bit over the top. Engaging, if not deep. The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan is relatively short interior novel that spans over twenty years. Spare, elegant--all those things that distinguish good prose. It is set in Owego, NY, which I have driven through countless times. Driving and cars are themes. Long drives in upstate New York were a major motif in my childhood. So this book resonated. It also changed forever the way I think about the incarcerated and their families.

I also want to mention a children's book (more a tween book to my mind) Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Chlodenko. I picked it up because I had loved another Chlodenko title, Notes from a Liar and Her Dog, plus there's the family history tie-in: this book is about a kid who lives at Alcatraz, and my grandfather was born and grew up at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where Capone was incarcerated briefly. Besides all that, it's a really good book.

This was a really big year for nonfiction for me. I try to mix up my reading, usually 3 fiction titles to one nonfiction or biography. I do subscribe to the idea that fiction is true, and nonfiction merely attempts truth. However, I have to mention Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton, which I need to reread. I will also mention, without link (because this post has taken me DAYS to write, the Popol Vuh, The Pine Barrens by John McPhee, and Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. For anyone reading along at home, this should give you plenty of crunchy thoughts to mull over.

For 2006, I have a few reading resolutions. I want to take in some poetry. It's been a long while since I made a true effort. Right now, I am reading Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. Only a year?, I think to myself. I am also determined to fulfill my promise to the LISnews Book Club to read The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. I have had a request in for it from two library system's since September. Since I found the Open Worldcat record, cataloguing should not be an issue. I don't know what gives. But I will read it!

Little Tokyo on New Year's Day

OK, you heard about the rain on the Rose Bowl Parade. Well, here's Em and Matt in front of some unidentified Japanese trees in Little Tokyo in L.A. before the first downpour. We had a great time. We are thinking of going again next year. There was no traffic on the freeways coming or going.

Little Tokyo is crammed with stores selling Japanese books, clothing, housewares, food, you name it. Among our favorite purchases: little Japanese lanterns strung on Christmas lights; teeny mushroom-shaped Pocky candy; a Hello Kitty draincover; an all-metal (read unbreakable) jigger; a My Neighbor Totoro stuffed charm for the Prius; manga; Japanese grammar books; and a Japanese children's book that Em hopes to translate.

We had lunch at an excellent restaurant. The best gyoza we'd ever had plus incredible sushi. Here's Em and Matt outside the restaurant: