Ten Things

You've probably seen this on Facebook: "Like this and I'll give you a number!" with a list of X things you may not have known about the person. Well, if I'm going to do that sort of thing, I like to bring it to the blog instead. So, ten things about me that I may not have shared before:

Source.

1. I have a pair of tennis balls in my living room. They're for rolling my feet over after I run or other times when they feel less-than-great. These tennis balls have never seen a racquet.

2. I started watching tennis during the MLB strike in 94-95. Until that year, I couldn't get enough of baseball. Now, I can't even remember why I liked it so much.

3. I see people reading books on the bus or the train that are either on my to-read list or my have-read list and I'm desperate to start talking to them about it. Sometimes I manage to refrain.

4. I have a vase full of dried flowers on my dining room table. My sister thinks this is morbid.

5. Chadwick and I decided when we got married that The Lord of the Rings complete boxed set would be the first DVDs we would buy, once all three movies were out (we got married right after Fellowship of the Ring came out in theatres). It's been 12 years and we own a couple of DVDs because other people have bought them for us. We have still never bought any ourselves.

6. On our second viewing of Fellowship of the Ring in the theatre, Chad and I sat in front of three teenage girls. At the end, one of them said, "I liked the blonde. What was his name? Nicholas?" I doubled over in laughter because I thought that was more socially acceptable than dumping popcorn over her head.

7. I almost became a member of Team "If You Haven't Read The Book, You Don't Deserve To See The Movie" that day. I still feel that way when I see people on the interwebs raving about Harry Potter and it's painfully obvious they've never so much as laid eyes on the books.

8. I failed at being a vegetarian because I lack imagination when it comes to food.

9. When I see children misbehaving in public, I have to run around a corner or open a book in front of my face or something so the kid can't see me laugh. I'm afraid that sometimes the poor parent sees me and misconstrues my reaction as disapproval. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

10. I'm a serious fan of musicals but do not necessarily think that the originator of a role is the bar by which all others are judged. Well, that's not entirely true. I do think that, because I also think the originator's performance gives subsequent performers something to build on and it's almost inevitable that the originator's performance will be surpassed sooner or later. You won't find me in the "the original actor is always the best" club.

What's something the internet may not know about you? Please share!

Happy? Not so much.

You know, we like to stick "happy" in front of commemorative days. I've no real objection to that, since I'd like everyone's days to be happy. But when I see "Happy Veterans Day" or "Happy Remembrance Day"... well, that's a bit rough. Some occasions are meant to be solemn, and words have power. Of all holidays, Remembrance Day is not one for celebration.

Source.

Thank a veteran, post pictures of your grandad in uniform on Facebook (if I had one of either of my grandfathers, I'd post them), stop and remember: absolutely, these are appropriate things for today. But please think before you say, "Happy Veteran's Day!" Is that really the sentiment you're trying to get across? If so, go ahead. If not, there are other ways to show that you believe this day to be different from most.

Because I believe this poem to be perennially appropriate, and because I fear there are many who still haven't heard it, I share it for you again. You can read more about it at the Arlington National Cemetery website.

In Flanders Fields 

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) 

Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields.

(In case you love my Remembrance Day posts and can't get enough of them, here are some other thoughts from 2008, 2009, and 2010.)

NaNoWriMo Eve

Some may call it Halloween, but we know what the real holiday is on October 31st, don't we?

So! Before heading over to our friendly neighbourhood nerdy store that hosts the local NaNoWriMo kickoff every year, we got into costume. Normally, we don't bother with costumes, but this year wasn't normal! This year, I had Über-Hyper NaNo Brain for about three days before the kickoff, so I channeled that energy into rummaging through our closet and a local thrift store to turn us from Chadwick and Su into my favourite bit of Les Misérables fanfiction:

Éponine and Enjolras. No, I'm not so good at acting sad, especially when I'm
über-happy about getting Chadwick to dress up as Enjolras.

In case you're new around here, I'm a bit of a Les Mis fan. So when it came time for rummaging through the closet for low-cost and earth-friendly costume options, Éponine was the first one I thought of. And I wasn't about to miss the chance at talking my husband into dressing up as my favourite male character. Well, apart from Valjean, but really? Éponine and Valjean? That's too much weird. Anyway, I borrowed the hat, and bought my blouse and Chad's red sweater at a thrift store. Everything else is stuff we already owned. Oh, I did buy that gold ribbon-y stuff at Walmart.

Result:

"Let us NaNo facing our foes! Make them read while we can!"

Éponine guarding the bicycles, presumably before the revolution began.

What did you do for NaNoWriMo Eve?

Seen on my Ride - Kinda

I'm all obsessed with NaNoWriMo right now. It starts in about 31 hours. I can't believe I'm even updating, but here I am!

I was going to do this really fun post about my #SeenOnMyRide Twitter updates, but I can only find three. I thought I had way more than that.

I really thought I was posting these every day. Nope...

I searched for #SeenOnMyRun, too, but my last post with that hashtag was a year ago. I wonder what it is that I'm really posting when I think I'm posting these things?

Teaser Tuesday #38

Source: Goodreads.

Ctrl Alt Delete: Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life. Your Future Depends On It, Mitch Joel

It wasn't too long ago that mobile carriers didn't care about data. Their major concerns used to be voice usage and churn. But Cisco is now predicting that mobile data use worldwide is poised to grow to more than twenty times the current usage by 2015.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

If You Crochet Yourself a Bike Seat...

It just happened that last week (or maybe two weeks ago; I've lost all sense of time) I got the bus two days in a row. I also saw a couple of my former professors on the bus on those days, which was lovely.

One of those professors is fairly well known in Austin for his Bus Tweets. I started following him because of the Bus Tweets, in fact, long before I signed up for his class. So when I saw him on the bus, I thought, "Oh, good! Bus Tweets!" and went to check them once I got to the office.

And then this happened:

I don't know if it still counts as "yarnbombed" when I had to do it myself, but this is what it looks like:

Or did look like, until I spent two months sitting on it. It's a bit more...
 stretched, now.

Before the crocheted seat, it was tie-dyed duct tape, which wore out so that I had to replace it and all I had was boring silver. The yarn seat keeps it looking pretty and protects my legs from being scratched to bits by evil sharp duct tape edges. So you can understand why my bike is more famous than I am-- it's been a bit eye-catching for a while.

Anyway. I guess now I know what route to avoid if I don't want to show up in Bus Tweets.

Teaser Tuesday #37

Source: Goodreads.

Les Miserables, Victor Hugo

"Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged."



(Much like this unabridged version of the book that I'm reading.)

So, this is not a normal Teaser Tuesday, partly because I'm pretty sure I've done Les Miserables before, but mostly because I want to announce:

I am nearly done with this book!

Wow, can Victor Hugo ever write. And write, and write, and write some more. (Spoiler alert-- well, kinda. Just see the musical, okay?) Valjean escapes through the sewers with Marius? Cue four chapters on the history of the Paris sewers. That's what this book is like. Please don't misunderstand me: I love it. (Mostly. I could have lived without the Battle of Waterloo.) This book is fantastic, but wow, think of how many NaNoWriMos Victor Hugo would have had to taken on just one book if they'd had that sort of thing in his day.

And just for the record, the sewer scene was tense. As was the post-sewer scene. And then then three chapters leading up to Javert committing suicide? (What? I warned you! Watch the movie, for goodness' sakes.) Agonizing. I had to put it away for a couple of days to recover after that.

Anyway. My Kindle says I'm 96% done. Maybe after a couple of more weeks of reading it on the train on the way home (about 20 minutes every day) I'll have it finished.

Esther

Picking up where we left off with the names: it's Grandma Walton, known as Esther to... well, hardly anybody on The Waltons, because she's Grandma.

Grandma Walton. Source.

Esther
Might mean "star" in Persian, or could be from the goddess Ishtar. Currently the 242nd most popular name in the US; peaked at #27 in 1896, probably because of President Cleveland's daughter. Worldwide, Esther is the 47th most popular name in Denmark, and is much lower everywhere else.

Famous Esthers: Queen Esther of the Old Testament; Esther Cleveland; Esther Williams (swimmer/actress).

Fictional Esthers: Grandma Esther Walton (of course!), Esther Smith, Meet Me In St. Louis

There are many others, but that's all I've heard of. Do you know any Esthers?

Source: Behind the Name

"I've never seen anybody use it!"

Wednesday used to be my day for writing about life without a car, and my enjoyment (or otherwise!) of the local public transit, car sharing, and bike lane network. I've kind of gotten away from that, but for your reading pleasure: A post about the local train.

We moved apartments last month, away from one that was great apart from its location on the very eastern edge of town to one more in the middle of things. Our new apartment is close enough to a train station for me to take the train to work now, which I've appreciated. Since I work part-time, I leave at 2 PM and can usually get a seat on the train with no problem for the ride home. Going to work, though, is another story.

The trains are packed full at peak times. Packed. As in, some days I can't even get close enough to a bar to hang onto because of all the people in the way. The evenings are worse than the mornings, I discovered last week, but the mornings are pretty bad (and look to get worse now that schools and universities are back in session).

This was a little field trip we took with our interns from
work last summer. Middle of the day, many seats filled,
bike racks occupied even before we got on
(at the second stop on the line!).

I'm not too disgruntled about this. The train is doing exactly what it's meant to do-- move a lot of people quickly. If a couple of routes a day are full, great. That's exactly what the transit system needs to justify expanding service.

But it took a while to build up to this. When I first moved to Austin in 2010, the train had been operational for about four months and the great joke going around was that the train cost millions of dollars and three people were riding it.

Apparently, that notion took hold and refuses to die, despite standing-room-only trains for most of the day. Just this week, a visitor to the office told me, "You know, I've never seen anybody on that train." He said this minutes after I had pried myself out of the crowd to get off the train and head to the office.

I told him, "You must not be looking at it right." He was kind enough to believe, after I described my daily ride, that the train is indeed full for most routes of the day.

It's funny to me how long people can hang on to something that we heard once. It seems obvious enough to me that train ridership would increase gradually over time, and I'm not surprised to hear that there weren't thousands of people crowding all the platforms the day the train began service. But that's changed now (okay, we're still not up to thousands-- the train doesn't have that much capacity), so maybe after a couple more years I'll stop hearing about how there's "nobody" riding the trains.

Or maybe not. Texans do love their traditions, after all.

Are there any pithy but untrue statements that you hear a lot? Or is there an idea you're hanging on to that you may need to let go of?

Teaser Thursday #36

Run to Overcome, Meb Keflezighi


Who could ever have guessed that six years later we'd both be marathoners and that I would beat him on the way to a silver medal in the Athens Games?

A typical marathon buildup week starts on Monday--an easy day--with a single 10- to 12-mile run.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Parlez-vous français? (Not so much.)

I was having fond reminiscences earlier about my French class, which was two years ago now. In so many ways, that was the worst class ever-- I think I ended with a C- (I took it pass/fail, so I don't really know), it took up so much of my time when I was trying to survive a difficult linguistics class, not embarrass myself in creative writing, and apply to grad school, all at the same time. And I don't even want to talk about what NaNoWriMo was like that year (although it was the time of the infamous "it's like being on drugs" quote-- come to think of it, some drugs might have helped) (just kidding: Please don't do drugs just because I said it would help).

Even through all that, it was my favourite of my four semesters at UT. Mostly, it was because of my creative writing class, which I loved. LOVED. Our instructor was amazing, and most of the class genuinely liked one another (or if they didn't, they were all very good actors!). And it was full of crazy-good writers. I spent the entire semester feeling inferior, but not really, because my classmates wouldn't let me feel that way for long. I thought more than one of my classmates from creative writing had guest blogged for me here before, but no, just one of them has. But even without them being willing to hang out around Cheekyness, they were still a great group. Incidentally, the class was entirely juniors and seniors, so I got to see about half of them graduate this past spring when I went to the English department graduation. Such a treat to recognise so many names.

This is French enough, right? To my great regret, we never
watched Phantom or Les Misérables in French.

Where was I? Right, French. The other big contributor to my loving that semester so much was French. Why? Because it was a challenge that I just couldn't overcome. I spent the entire semester frantically treading French water, trying to keep my head up enough to take a breath every now and then. I was hopelessly bad at it, the more so because I wasn't trying that hard due to the whole pass/fail thing and having five other classes that I did want to make good grades in. However, French Teacher is 1) Really good at teaching; 2) An all-around nice guy; and 3) The same age as me. The first two made me want to work harder in the class, because I felt bad for wasting his time and also because he's already perfected the art of gentle suggestion-- he'd mention in passing that I maybe should spent a little bit more time with vocabulary, and 20 minutes later I'd be in the library slaving over a list of French words. (Okay, it helps that I'm quite impressionable.)

The third bit, us being the same age, was just a help in making the class more enjoyable. There were a couple other non-trads in the room, but for some reason French Teacher and I were the ones pulling out all the same pop culture references and agreeing on all the cool hangout spots in town. For example, one day he asked (by way of talking about how accents affect your understanding), "How many of you have seen Trainspotting?" I raised my hand, but no one else did. He looked at me, grinned, said, "Okay, generation gap," and moved on. Repeat once a week for the entire semester, and you can see how the two of us struck up a friendship before the semester was out.

For all that the class nearly killed me, it was totally worth it and I can look back on it in fondness for this reason: It was hard. It was a struggle. For once in my life, I ran into something that brought me to tears of frustration on a regular basis and yet I stuck to it, gaining as my reward the very thing I was after: I know the basis of French pronunciation and grammar so I can at least have a stab at French words now. And as a bonus, I also learned about prioritization and that it's okay not to be able to do everything, two little nuggets of knowledge that are coming in handy in grad school.

TL;DR: Wow, that was long. Guess I needed to empty my brain. When was a time in your life that you felt like you were struggling for no purpose? (Bet everybody else's are a bit more substantial than French class.) What did you learn? What would you do differently if you had that time to do over again?

Are You Going to Finish That? (A Post About Reading)

A few minutes ago, I set a book aside unfinished. It will go back to the library the next time I go.

From time to time, a conversation will arise on Facebook (sometimes on Twitter, but I usually see it on Facebook) about abandoning a book after starting. The discussion generally splits about 50/50, with one half declaring they don't finish books that aren't interesting, and the other half insisting that they cannot walk away, even when the book is boring.

Really?

When pressed, I've seen people answer, "I like to finish what I start."

So do I, but I reserve the sentiment for things like deep cleaning my living room or projects at work, not a book I started of my own accord and am under no obligation to finish. I've never signed a contract with an author to the effect that if I start reading one of her books, I absolutely will read every word.

Someone once told me, during such a conversation, that she was relieved to know that I don't finish books if they don't interest me, because that makes her feel like it's okay for her to do the same.

What?

Look at all these books waiting to be read!
From hhsara on stock.xchng.

(I can't remember who it was. Maybe she'll come along and identify herself. I have it narrowed down to about four people, but I don't know which one it was.)

If you're waiting for the permission of a voracious reader to abandon a book that bores you when you're reading for enjoyment (for school or work is obviously a different story), then here you are: You have permission to set a book aside. Really. Life is too short and there are too many books for you to force your way through a book you'd rather not read. Put it back on your to-read list if you think you may come back to it someday. (I've done that with Les Misérables, which I am now close to finishing about nine years after my first try, and Catch-22, which I think is on my list to try again over Christmas break.) Or just put it down. Return it to the library. Pass it on to someone who might like it. Take it to a secondhand bookstore. Let it go.

It doesn't surprise me that the "I must finish a book" crowd among my friends is almost the same as the "I don't read a lot" crowd. There are a few exceptions. Not many. I can't think of anything that would kill my reading joy faster than forcing myself through a book I didn't like.

What about you? Are you a must-finisher or a forget-this-er? Do you have a threshold, like the 50-page test, to decide where to stop?

Teaser Tuesday #35

Source: Goodreads

Ten Miles Past Normal, Frances O'Roark Dowell

I decide I like being part of a group where nobody gets locked out, no matter how lame they are.

We're playing some old song, something by Radiohead, a song I've never heard before in my life and have no idea how to play, but after about thirty seconds I realize it doesn't matter, because no one can hear me.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

What Do You Do?

A few weeks ago, a friend who I see a lot on social media but haven't seen in person for many years asked, "So what is it you do? I've just realised I don't know."

Saw this on Google+. Joked that I need to do
this, with Google+, Pinterest, Flickr, LinkedIn,
and Reddit on the other hand.

I was a bit horrified.

In case you don't know, I do the social media and communications for BikeTexas, the statewide bicycle and pedestrian advocacy group. While I don't make a big deal out of this on my personal social media pages, I do mention it from time to time (as most people do with their jobs), and until that moment I had considered myself to be an above average social media user. But a friend who knows me in real life? Had no idea I was a social media manager? It's moments like that that tell me it's time to step up my game.

So, up I stepped. I've filled my Feedly with social media news. I joined Google+ and LinkedIn groups. I started reading all the articles I can get my hands on about best practises. I still think I'm an above average social media user, but now I have the additional fun of being a bit of a snob when I see other brands making mistakes that a few milliseconds of Google searching will tell you not to make.

So what? Well, this is why I haven't been blogging. My summer off from grad school turned into a summer of learning how to be a great social media manager, or at least a shade-above-mediocre one. But I have missed spilling my thoughts on here. Good news-- classes start back next week! I'll have a lot more to talk about and a lot less time to write it down, if the last two semesters are anything to go by.

Are we connected? If not, why not? I'm on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest! (My Facebook is still private. I'm more fun on those other networks, anyway.) Let's be friends!

Has someone ever made an innocent comment to you that turned into a call to action?

Teaser Tuesday #34

Source: Goodreads.

Lost in a Good Book, Japer Fforde

"I got a card from London saying they were fit and well," she replied, "but they said they needed a jar of piccalilli and a torque wrench."

The mammoth ignored her, sucked up the entire contents of the ornamental pond in one go and clumsily trampled the garden furniture to matchwood.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Zebulon

Happy Independence Day to all my US readers! For everyone else: Happy Thursday!

I'm kicking off my series of names from The Waltons with Grandpa, also known (occasionally) as Zeublon, or Zeb.

Actor Will Geer as Zebulon Walton
in Zeb's final episode. Will Geer died
before the next season began filming.
 Source.

Behind the Name says this spelling is a variant of Zebulun, the Biblical 10th son of Jacob and hence one of the 12 tribes of Israel. The name means "exaltation," so named because Leah (Jacob's unloved wife) hoped her husband would honor her for giving birth to six sons. (If you don't know the rest of Leah's story: Yeah, not so much.)

I personally favour the shortened version, Zeb, which is what Grandma Walton calls Grandpa on the rare occasion she doesn't call him "Old Fool" or some other cute nickname. The name has never ranked in the top 1000 in the US, which is a bummer.

Famous Zebuluns: Zebulun Pike, the guy for whom Pike's Peak is named.

Fictional Zebulun/Zebulons: Just Grandpa Walton, so far as I can tell.

My Zebuluns: Not so much.

Do you know any Zebuluns? Did I miss anyone obvious?

Sources:
Behind the Name
Baby Name Wizard

I Promised Myself I Would Stay Out of This. Oh, Well...

I’m not really into politics, public controversies make me itch, and heated disagreements in the comments sections all over the internet make me despair for the future of the human race. And don’t even get me started on most trending topics on Twitter.

And yet, for all that, I’ve decided to put my two cents into this little contretemps. You may have noticed that Texas has been in the news a bit this last week, which is of course due to our warm climate, abundant tourist spots, and friendly people. Oh, and maybe because of an abortion bill in the Texas Legislature.

There was a time, for about 30 seconds 10 days ago, when I thought that maybe Texas’ governing body was going to have a sensible discussion about this bill and its realities for Texas. I thought that just maybe some sort of agreement could be reached that perhaps neither side would regard as perfect, but that we could all move forward with. Maybe this time.

Texas Tribune's photo of the Texas
Capitol Rotunda during the debate/
filibuster on June 25.

Yeah. That nice fantasy didn’t last long. The debate has broken down to people trading insults—in person and on the internet—and it isn’t limited to protesters on both sides. Our legislators and our members of Congress are trading barbs on Twitter, and it’s not pretty. I don’t know how everyone else feels about this, but I was hoping for a bit more dignity from elected officials than using the same name-calling on social media that the protesters are using. (I don’t care who started it. I don’t even believe that someone “started it”. Everyone’s doing it, and the whole “I didn’t go negative first!” thing is hardly a good defence. You can always stop yourself.)

I imagine this will end the way the party in power in Texas wants it to end—the bill will become law, and we’ll all get to see what happens next. But there are unintended consequences of this debacle debate: Friends becoming not-friends (I can’t be the only one thinking of culling my Facebook list right now), some elected officials becoming superstars, others losing their seats in the next election over this one issue regardless of how much they’ve served their districts otherwise, and who knows what else. How long will those side effects stick around?

Seriously, I’m tired of our laws, of our nation, being a zero-sum game. Can we please get our act together? Maybe find a better way? Or at least refrain from showing off how horrible people can be just because they disagree?

(You'll notice I didn't give you my opinion here. That's because—and I know I'm in the minority here—I believe my readers can come to their own conclusions without a blogger ranting at them. Incidentally, that comment section down there? Keep it clean and civil, or be deleted.)

Teaser Tuesday #33

Image source: Goodreads.

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

"Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract himself to fit the diameter of the escape."

"If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all right, I am sure of getting you out of the grave."




For some reason, I had this on my Goodreads list as Read. I don't know why; I can only presume I was having hallucinations the day when I added it to Goodreads. I've been chipping away at it slowly for the last several years, but it's not done yet.

I came back to it this time partly out of an acknowledgement that it is hard to claim to be a huge Les Mis fan and not have read the book. However, being as this is an old, well-known story that has spawned countless adaptations, I'm not at all in the club that says that you can't be a "real" fan of Les Mis unless you've read the book. I've been a "real" fan since I was about 10, I can promise you, and yet I'm still working my way through the book. If you want to be a fan of the movie/musical/soundtrack without ever fighting your way through Hugo's prose, go right ahead!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Waltons

I've pretty much come to the end of my favourite names and my character names in my series about names. So, I've been wanting to jump into the many, many characters from one of my favourite TV shows of all time, The Waltons. But first (as is my wont), a little discussion.

This picture is a shot from the end of the theme song sequence, except it's flipped around
backwards. Back row, l to r: Zeb (Grandpa), Esther (Grandma), Erin, Olivia (Mama), Jim-Bob;
Front row, l to r: Jason, John Sr (Daddy), Mary Ellen, John-Boy, Elizabeth, Ben. All those names
coming soon to a blog near you. Source.

The Waltons was still in its original run when I was tiny, but I was much too young to remember it. And unlike its two-generations-earlier counterpart, Little House on the Prairie, it was never picked up for reruns by our local PBS. As a result, I've not seen that many episodes of this show that I love so much. But, it is one of those shows that's easy to slip in and out of, so apart from wondering about the timing of the episode I'm watching, I just go with it when I'm able to see the odd episode.

This is obviously John-Boy's story. Earl Hamner Jr. wrote it that way, since it was really his own life story. Sometimes, though, the "our world revolves around John-Boy" bit is too much for me, so I'm kind of glad that he was written out of the show for a while (even though it was for WWII), because some of the other characters got their chance to grow and become important. The seasons with a mostly-women cast are really quite powerful, showing how life on Walton's Mountain carried on without men, as indeed it had to do around the world during WWII.

Jason is my favourite Walton, maybe because he was a little bit different from the others. The family didn't fuss over him like John-Boy but he didn't make scenes, like Ben or Jim-Bob. He just got on with being the sweet older brother of the family, quietly making his mark. According to IMDB, Jason's being a musician was written into the show specifically for Jon Walmsley, the actor, because he was a musician himself (and still is).

The character who grew the most (IMO) during the series was the one with the most room to grow-- Elizabeth. Thank goodness this was before the era of artificially advancing children's ages on TV shows, so that Elizabeth really did get to grow up with the show. Sometimes it was forced (there's one Christmas episode when her young cousin asks her to play outside and she answers, "Maybe a few years ago, but I can't now, being a young lady." Even for the 1940s, that's a bit too much self-awareness spoken aloud), but mostly it could just be seen, little by little, as the barefooted cutie tomboy transformed into a proper southern 1940s young woman.

Ultimately, it's a show about a family that comes through one storm after another still standing, which for me makes it worth watching.

Did you watch The Waltons? Do you still watch it? Do you have a favourite character?

Sense and Sensibility

Source: Goodreads.

Somehow, I never read a Jane Austen in high school. The way people talked about them always gave me the impression they were dry and boring, and truthfully I was too busy rereading the Little House series for the 2865th time to notice that there were other books I could be reading.

Rereading is a joy, but it has really cramped my style without me even knowing it.

Anyway! So I've finally become acquainted with Ms. Austen, first with Pride and Prejudice (naturally!) and now it's Sense and Sensibility. And, I love it. Early though this book may have been for Ms. Austen, she obviously used her gifts well--the writing is lovely and the characters are so vivid that I was burning along wanting Elinor to forget social convention and tell them all where they could get off.

Seriously, didn't rich people in the 1800s have anything better to do than sit around and gossip? And be snidely horrible to each other? I mean, obviously we still do that now, but at least it's interrupted from time to time with things like work.

I loved it and am looking forward to reading all the rest of the things that Jane Austen wrote.

Moving Day

I'm not really moving today. Moving day is coming (in four weeks, yikes!), but we're not there yet. However, we are going to be leaving this apartment where we've lived for our first three years in Austin and moving across town to one a little bit closer to the action. We're pretty excited.

I see one of these in my
future. From garann on
stock.xchng.

My friend Jenni over at Talking Hairdryer, though, has just packed up her entire grown-up house, including a husband and three children, and is moving a couple of states. Seeing her document the saga on Facebook has made me grateful that 1) We're only moving across town, and 2) We haven't tried very hard to have a grown-up house. Three adults do not need nearly as much stuff as two adults and three children, thank goodness, and we frequently mutter that even what we have is too much stuff. In other words: Jenni rocks, me not so much.

Godspeed on your new adventure, Jenni.

However! Even though I count myself in the non-rocking club, I don't want to let this opportunity go by without making it into a green living post. Obviously, for the purist, a house move is always going to come with some offenses against Mother Earth, but I'm willing to live with that. Here, then is how we green up our moves:

1. Give stuff away. I've used Facebook, Freecycle, and the local thrift stores to unload all my excess stuff onto unsuspecting victims. I started to use Craigslist this time around, too, but within five seconds of me posting "I'm selling a juicer and breadmaker" on Facebook, I had a taker; no Craigslist required. As we get deeper into our stuff, though, I may still find a need.

Why this is green: Keeps things out of the landfill, gives your stuff a new lease on life, and keeps the recipient from having to get a new thing.

2. Use old newspaper to wrap stuff up. On our last move, we asked our friends if they had any stacks of newspaper sitting around the house waiting for a trip to the recycler, and if they did, we wanted to take it off their hands. I also collected used papers from my office. We ended up not having to get one single free newspaper from anywhere, which is what we'd done in the past. This time around-- well, I'll get to that in just a second.

Why this is green: No need for bubble wrap or similar protective things. In fact, anything fragile enough to need bubble wrap we wrapped up in clothes or towels, anyway. Gave the newspaper another use before it was recycled (and I suspect that some of the stuff we reused would have ended up in the landfill if we hadn't claimed it). No need to get new newspaper from the free racks.

3. Reuse cardboard boxes. U-Haul and their ilk will try to sell you new cardboard boxes, because they want all of your money. Once again, we asked our friends for help and met with quite a few grateful people who were only too happy to give us their boxes that they didn't want. I also got a few from my office, and we got some from the local grocery store. Ask around and get some free, still-useable boxes before you shell out the cash for new ones. Or, if you must shell out cash, look for a service like Ecobox, which sells used boxes.
This time around, we still have most of the boxes from last time. I know this is crazy, but we couldn't immediately find a good place to recycle our boxes and newspaper, so we shoved them into an outdoor, non-climate controlled closet on our balcony where we didn't want to put anything else anyway. So, we're all set.

Why this is green: Saves new materials being used. Keeps older, but still good, stuff in circulation instead of going to the landfill. And please recycle them if you can't find a new home for them when you're done.

4. Get the right moving truck/trailer/whatever to fit the size of your house, and fill it up. Insist that your moving service do the same. The jury is still out for us on what we'll do this time, and we may end up renting a Zipcar (well, Ziptruck) and making multiple trips. Which is not ideal, because that uses more gas, and we're not into that sort of thing. However, for cross-country moves, pack your truck to the gills. It will save you cash and gas if you get the smallest possible truck (which still may not be that small) and use every inch.

Why this is green: One full vehicle making one trip uses less fuel than multiple vehicles and multiple trips. Kind of like only running your dishwasher when it's full.

5. Pack a "first night" kit with all the things you'll need for snacking, eating, showering, sleeping, and getting dressed the next morning.

Why this is green: It's to save at least some of your sanity. Happy people = happier planet.

Are these tips the most obvious things the world has ever seen? Well, of course they are. But they also require some forward thinking and planning ahead, which is why I've written them all down, so you (and I) have them in advance.

What do you do when you move? Did I miss anything important?

Melodie

Well, according to my usual sources, I'm spelling this one wrong. Usually I find a list of variant spellings (see Emilie) but this time? Not so much. So I turned to some unusual sources.

Melodie
Variant of Melody, from the word melody, as in the lead part of the song that everyone remembers. Came to us from Greek via French and Latin. Melody first appeared in the top 1000 girls names in the US in 1942. It's currently the 173rd most popular girls name in the US, but hit its height of popularity (so far) in 1961, when it was #172. My chosen variant Melodie is not in the top 1000 in the US, but was sometime around the 1960s (the source is not very clear, unfortunately).

Famous Melodies: Bit of a problem area. Melodie Howe (author) is the only one I found, and yay, I've heard of her! Melody is slightly more popular with famous people, but I don't really recognise any of their names.

Fictional Melodies: Not so much. Melody, on the other hand... Melody Pond, Doctor Who; Melody, Out of My Mind.

This is kind of what Melodie looks
like in my head. From mokra on
stock.xchng.

My Melodies: I know a couple of Melodys, who I occasional see on Facebook. But Melodie? Nope, just my character, who is Sybil's youngest sister. Melodie is really quite cool, but since Sybil doesn't notice that much (older sisters-- we can be so thoughtless!), neither do the readers. But at least I know. Maybe Melodie will get her own story soon.

Do you know any Melodies or Melodys?


Sources:
Behind the Name
Think Baby Names
Baby Name Facts

Les Misérables: Yes, I Finally Watched It. And Then Watched It Again. And Again.

Well, this post is very late in coming, since I watched Les Miserables the last week of the semester when I was feeling pretty miserable and the movie was there to cheer me up. Yes, I know that's twisted, but whatever.

So! It was fantastic, it was glorious, I loved it, but alas, it was as I feared; the movie just couldn't hold up to seeing it live onstage. I'm a theatre nerd and always will be, so while as a movie it was fantastic, from a Les Mis fan point of view it wasn't the same.

Bwah hah hah! Source.

What did I like? (Please don't moan about spoilers. This story is 150 years old. If you aren't familiar with it at this point, I can't help you.)

1. Hugh Jackman. He was amazing. I didn't even know he could sing (although we have since rented the 1999 Oklahoma! with him as Curly, and I'll say it as often as possible: Wow) before the cast was announced for this movie, so I didn't have any particular expectations, but holy smokes.

2. Hadley Fraser. He had more screen time than I was expecting, but unfortunately that rather ginormous mustache kept me from recognizing him right away. He had something like three minutes of screen time and still poured in more emotion than some of the others did in the entire movie.

3. Colm Wilkinson. Enough said.

4. After the barricade, when all the dead were laid out, Javert pinning his medal onto Gavroche. I didn't even have time to recover from Enjolras falling dead out of the window before I stared sobbing again. That was a nice touch.

5. Samantha Barks. Not only is she spectacular on her own (tee hee), but they went and added in some bits from the book that aren't in the musical, which fleshed out Eponine even more. Perfect.

6. Enjolras. Not Aaron Tveit, necessarily, although he was great. Enjolras is just always going to be my favourite character, and the movie totally did him justice, methinks.

7. Eddie Redmayne. Normally, I'm not wild about Marius, but Eddie Redmayne made him very likable.  Although I have to say in the scene near the end when Valjean is explaining why he has to leave, Marius keeps smiling longer than is appropriate. Dude, serious face while Valjean is talking.

8. Speaking of Marius, he punched Thénardier at the end. I cheered.

9. Did I mention Hugh Jackman? I saw the interviews with him talking about not eating or drinking for 36 hours before shooting the opening scene, so he would look more or less like a corpse. It worked. Way to take one for the team, Hugh. And by "the team," I mean everyone who's ever loved Les Mis.

What didn't I like?

1. They moved the song order around. Gah. That didn't make the movie more interesting/mysterious; it made me more cranky.

2. Okay, I'll say it. Russell Crowe. I don't dislike him quite so fiercely as so many others in the Les Mis fandom do, but I'm a long way from liking him as Javert.

3. The Thénardiers had far too much screen time. What were they doing in the inn during "One Day More?" Just, no.

4. There was a long pause in the singing after "Do You Hear the People Sing" while they were building the barricade and speaking all their lines. When Javert finally burst out with "I can find out the truth!" in song, it was both a shock and a relief. For a movie that was panned by so many for being entirely in song, that was much too long of a gap.

5. Heaven looks suspiciously like 19th-century France.

Are you a Les Mis fan? Did you like the movie?

Teaser Tuesday #32

Source: Goodreads.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Michael Moss

Americans now eat as much as 33 pounds or more of cheese and pseudo-cheese products a year, triple the amount we consumed in the early 1970s.

This deployment of cheese as a food additive has proven to be a windfall for food companies, driving up sales of cheese as well as the products that now use it to increase their allure.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Don't Make Me Come Over There

Sometimes I feel like I spend half my life pleading with people to stop being jerks. Not actual jerks, necessarily, but to stop giving all their mental energy away in worrying about what other people are doing. You know, to live and let live, to mind one's own business, to save your indignation/interference/etc for moments when they are genuinely warranted, and not (for instance) when you don't like someone's shoes.

Seriously, don't be this guy. Source:
MTSOfan on Flickr.

I'm happy to excuse this behaviour in teens and people in their early 20s. They're still figuring out what their life is going to be about and may not have a mentor handy to gently tell them that their life shouldn't be about worrying about what everyone else is doing. It's people my own age doing it that makes me a bit crazy. (And believe me, I say this as someone who spends a lot of time thinking that other people are doing it wrong. I have to fight this impulse as much as anyone else, so let's journey on together, shall we?)

As an example, I'm going to talk about runners. Other people do it, too, but runners are my tribe. And in my years of running, I've lost count of how many times I've heard or read someone say, "Don't ever wear a race t-shirt to the race. You'll look like an ignorant newbie." To which I can only say, "Don't worry so much about what other people are wearing. You sound like everybody's fussy grandmother." There are genuine reasons for not wearing a new anything on race day, but the appearance of it? Don't sweat it. Ignore those people.

Or, heaven help me, doing anything outside of someone's definition of "normal." I can't tell you how many times well-meaning friends have urged Chad and I to buy a car (or, when we had one, to buy a second one) because that's what you're "supposed to do." I don't know why "supposed to"s should run my life, and I suspect the people saying it don't really know, either. So let's not fuss, okay?

I'm sure you all have dozens of similar examples to add to the rantiness. What do you think? Can't we all just get along?

Win The Jane Austen Collection on Kindle!

From The Masquerade Crew blog:

Doma House Publishing presents to you this version of The Complete Works of Jane Austen, which has been designed and formatted specifically for your Amazon Kindle. Unlike other e-book editions, the text and chapters are perfectly set up to match the layout and feel of a physical copy, rather then being haphazardly thrown together for a quick release. 

This edition covers everything including her major works, minor works, unfinished works, and scraps. Also, you can easily navigate through chapters using the linked Table of Contents found at the start of this edition. 

And, it's a giveaway. Yipee! Go to the giveaway post for the usual tweeting, following, and (if you hurry) blogging opportunities to gain entries. Or, just do it here: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Find this book on Amazon.

TBR Challenge: Making Time

Source.

Making Time: Lillian Moller Gilbreth, a Life Beyond "Cheaper by the Dozen", Jane Lancaster

I'm finally getting to a book on my 2013 TBR Challenge list! This is pretty exciting for me, and it was a great start, because the book was fascinating.

First, some background of my own journey with the Gilbreths: I read Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on their Toes in high school and loved them. (I also liked the original movie from the 50s, but I'm still angry that the 2003 remake dared use the same title, the jerks. They kept nothing of the original.) So, when I heard there was a book all about "Mother," I was eager to get my eyes on it.

I realised as I read this that my timing of the Gilbreths' story was off-- most of the children were old enough to be my grandparents' parents, while for some reason as a teenager I thought they were contemporaries with my grandparents. Apparently, everything before 1950 all happened at once, in my teenage mind. Lillian Moller was born 100 years before I was, and I know nothing about my family at that time. So I'm kind of sad about that, now that I think of it.

Anyway, the book. I think for those who aren't interested in knowing more about the behind-the-scenes look at Lillian's life, it may be dry or unbearably long. I was fascinated, though, and progressively more amazed at all the things that the Gilbreths had influence in developing-- the modern kitchen layout, ergonomic office furniture, space shuttles-- I can't believe I've never heard of their influence over so many things, but presumably that's because I'm not an engineering type.

The insights into Lillian's early life were revealing, too-- she rejected the society woman life of the early 1900s for a more strenuous lifestyle. I found her work ethic and drive to be inspiring-- she really took here life's work to heart and didn't waste her time. I wonder if living in the era before television helped, or if she would be just as interested in working today and the TV wouldn't bother her. On the other hand, how much faster could she have worked with the help of a laptop with wi-fi?

I definitely enjoyed the book & recommend it to people who enjoy this sort of in-depth look at one person's life-- and if you're already a fan of the Gilbreths, that will help!