I’ve been feeling kind of truculent lately, so let’s see if a list of five things I can’t stand will get it out of my system.
Let me begin with drivers behind me–when I’m up front at a stoplight, waiting to turn left at an unprotected left turn–honking for me to go ahead and make the turn already. Continue reading
(Image from dailypositivequotes.com)
I’ve always said that if I were religious, I’d probably be Catholic, because I love rituals. One day long ago, I was watching Oprah (before it seemed to become all about makeovers and giving away cars), as she talked about keeping a journal in which to write things you appreciate every day. I jumped on it. Continue reading
We have five pets. One dog (a sweet female labradoodle named Koda), two cats (striped female Sassy and black male Freddy) and two leopard geckos. But the geckos are irrelevant for this story. And most stories, for that matter. I’m not a fan of reptile pets. Continue reading
Posted in Neither Here Nor There
Tagged animals, cat-dog friendships, cats, dog trimming, dogs, labradoodles, pets
And now for something completely different.
In the 1960’s, Australian public school was still very much based on the system for preparing future factory workers from the Industrial Revolution onward, churning out good little citizens who didn’t question authority, followed instructions and didn’t make waves. Continue reading
Just a picture I took around Monterey Bay, California, years ago.
Posted in Nature, Neither Here Nor There, Photography, Vacations
Tagged photography, seals, wildlife america
Well, I’ll wait with the scathing post. I was cleaning up the slides I’d scanned a while ago. I used to have slides instead of photos. So I saw them even less than photos. That’s one of the things I love about a blog. I can see my favorite pictures and share them with whoever is interested.
Anyway, I didn’t clean my slides very well before scanning them, so I was doing that in Photoshop last night. Amazing!
Posted in Nature, Neither Here Nor There, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Mount Snowdon, nature, photography, Snowdonia, travel, Wales
Photo: wildgoo.com
I’m going prematurely senile. I know, most people my age joke that little joke, only half joking. And doctors on TV say that it’s okay, just brain farts, nothing to worry about. I talk to my doctor about it, and he asks me what day it is, who the president is, and tells me to start counting in threes backwards from 100. When it becomes clear that I can still do that, he, too, tells me it’s okay, just brain farts, and there’s nothing to worry about. I hope so, but Continue reading
Photo: zazzle.com
My mother-in-law got her first breakfast in bed when she was almost eighty years old. She was staying with us on Mother’s Day weekend, and when T and the kids made breakfast in bed for me, they also did it for T’s mom. She was very pleasantly surprised, and that’s when I learned this was a first for her.
I was shocked.
T will never hear the end of it, and Continue reading
Posted in Neither Here Nor There
Tagged breakfast in bed, culture, Holidays, mother's day, Opinion, social
And now for something completely different. Click here for some beautiful photos from Rumania that put our recession into perspective.
Posted in Employment, Neither Here Nor There, Travel
Tagged photography Romania, poverty Romania, Romania
I did say of the previous book spine poem that it was the first installment, during this national poetry month. But as some of you may have noticed, I have a hard time following up on stuff. (I wasn’t always like that; I blame it on menopause.) Book spine poetry also turns out to be harder than I thought. Continue reading
Posted in Books, Creative writing, Language, Neither Here Nor There
Tagged book spine poetry, books, Creative writing, gedichten, poems, poetry
Here’s another Neither Here Nor There post.
I just felt like doing another list.
1. Being Dutch and marrying a South Texan whom I met in Scotland. Continue reading
Okay, this is neither here nor there. Or it’s both. It has nothing to do with being an immigrant, though. Just with being a 51-year-old user of modern technology. Every now and then there’s this technology moment that blows my mind. The younger you are, the less you will understand this, but my contemporaries will. Continue reading
Posted in Music, Neither Here Nor There, Technology
Tagged BDA Deventer, De Steile Trap, Linton Kwesi Johnson, music, smartphones, technology
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
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