WSBG reviews The Inheritance of Loss and Climbing the Mango Trees

This month we went to India. Had two quite different experiences there. The people who climbed mango trees were rather well off and quite westernized. Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey is a series of mildly charming stories about growing up in those circumstances. I found it mildly boring. (Maybe I just find living completely tidy lives kinda boring, and maybe it’s mostly envy that motivates my critique.)

Here’s a short description from Publishers Weekly:

The celebrated actress and author of several books on Indian cooking turns her attention to her own childhood in Delhi and Kampur. Born in 1933 as one of six children of a prosperous businessman, Jaffrey grew up as part of a huge “joint family” of aunts, uncles and cousins—often 40 at dinner—under the benign but strict thumb of Babaji, her grandfather and imperious family patriarch. It was a privileged and cosmopolitan family, influenced by Hindu, Muslim and British traditions, and though these were not easy years in India, a British ally in WWII and soon to go though the agony of partition (the separation and formation of Muslim Pakistan), Jaffrey’s graceful prose and sure powers of description paint a vivid landscape of an almost enchanted childhood. Her family and friends, the bittersweet sorrows of puberty, the sensual sounds and smells of the monsoon rain, all are remembered with love and care, but nowhere is her writing more evocative than when she details the food of her childhood, which she does often and at length.

The parts of the book I enjoyed most were the parts that described experiences when India and Pakistan were partitioned.

The book didn’t rock any other WSBG member’s world, either, though they enjoyed reading it more than I did. A bonus is the collection of family recipes at the end of the book. I’m sure they are quite fine and tasty.

The people who inherited a lot of loss made for one helluva book. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai fairly brought us to our knees. Here’s a blurb from the New Yorker:

Desai’s second novel is set in the nineteen-eighties in the northeast corner of India, where the borders of several Himalayan states—Bhutan and Sikkim, Nepal and Tibet—meet. At the head of the novel’s teeming cast is Jemubhai Patel, a Cambridge-educated judge who has retired from serving a country he finds “too messy for justice.” He lives in an isolated house with his cook, his orphaned seventeen-year-old granddaughter, and a red setter, whose company Jemubhai prefers to that of human beings. The tranquillity of his existence is contrasted with the life of the cook’s son, working in grimy Manhattan restaurants, and with his granddaughter’s affair with a Nepali tutor involved in an insurgency that irrevocably alters Jemubhai’s life. Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.

We were collectively stunned by the beauty of her writing. So many times we found ourselves just savoring phrases, sentences, paragraphs. And the portraits are so vivid, this was one of those books we felt transported by, we could hear and see and smell the story. Gawd, we live such sheltered, protected lives here in the beautiful northwest corner of the U.S. Let us not forget our experience is rare and privileged and do what we can to share what we have with others across the world.

I found it very curious that Inheritance of Loss only rates 3 stars on Amazon, while Climbing the Mango Tree has 4.5 stars?!? I highly doubt those readers would pass the WSBG entrance exam.

holy carp, i just got an award

So the mailman just dropped off a heavy envelope, return address was Portland Parks and Rec, Urban Forestry Dept.

I opened it to find I had received an award about 16 years ago. It was a “Nine Year Service Award” from the Portland Urban Forestry Office, awarded in 1992. For nine years of commitment as a citizen who “truly speaks for the trees.” Is that cool?!

Guess it’s been sitting around somewhere all these years. Signed by Bill Naito, Mike Lindberg and Charles Jordan. Brings back memories.

Prolly the last thing I expected to arrive in the mail today. But I’ll take it! And add it to my wall of fame, nearly doubling its size!

Bye, I’m off to talk to the trees…

Purging doesn’t mean putting stuff out in the yard.

Quote of the day from hubbikins: “It doesn’t count as cleaning the basement when you just put the stuff you purge out in the yard.”

Okay, okay, he has a point. It is beginning to look a little, oh, I don’t know, maybe one of those houses where the property is full of every-car-every-person-related-to-a-person-in-the-house-drove-until-it-died-there, every-appliance-the-family-rescued-from-the-side-of-the-road-hoping-some-part-of-it-would-work-but-none-did look. There are several remarkably large rolls of bubble wrap lying around out there we planned to use to insulate the greenhouse, for example. And some shelves in the side yard. And, oh yeah, that chair on the part of the ramp Blaine doesn’t need. And an entire porch full of bird-related stuff. And the old stove covered in the blue tarp. Gives “yard debris” a whole new meaning.

Okay, this is not what I had in mind. Not at all. I’ll get right on it.

But you should see how clean and organized the basement is! Here are some photos of my part, beginning with the grocery store in the basement:
And two views of the holiday zone below:

Now I’ll show you what Ric’s part looks like:

You can’t even walk through it. Just so you know, this is what the rest of the basement looked like too until I purged. If only I had taken “before” photos. But I didn’t, so just trust me. It was horrid.

But to be fair, and I am after all, a fair person, he’s putting his energy into setting up his new Sprinter truck with all those new bins and shelves he ordered from Sweden! Yes, Sweden. Ric doesn’t abide just any old shelves and bins, he wants that northern European design esthetic.
It’s looking pretty danged organized if I do say so myself!!!

The Stairwell Hygienist

So it started this way: one day several years ago while walking up the four flights of stairs to our office in the Gregory Building (sadly, the only exercise I get some days), I noticed a scattering of white bits on the stairs next to one landing. Hmm, I thought. That looks familiar. What ARE those?

I looked more closely. I’ve seen those before. Where? Not in stairwells. Now up close. Omigod. They can’t be. Oh yes they do be. Nail clippings. For real. 10 of them. I counted. They were either fingernails of a very large man or toenails of a man on the smaller side. Yes, they were definitely male. I could tell, and not just because no woman I’ve ever met in my entire lifespan would do her nail hygiene in a stairwell and leave the detritus behind.

So of course the first thing I did when I got in the office was share my observation with my sister coworkers. They took a field trip to confirm the sighting, and yes, I was right on all counts, and the collective opinion was that they were toenails. We were collectively offended. So I made a sign: toenail-sign

Well, of course, that didn’t really last because no self-respecting fancy office building is going to tolerate having a “No toenails” sign in its stairwell, is it? What? You don’t think it should tolerate dead toenails in its stairwell for weeks on end either? Hmmm… interesting point.

Eventually, the stairwells get cleaned, so eventually the toenails get swept off to the landfill. But more always come back. We watch for them and keep one another posted.

Things were humming right along, then one day a new sighting: dental floss! The stairwell hygienist is uppin his game! From foot to mouth! Wow! We are impressed!

None of us has ever sighted the stairwell hygienist in the act. We do try. We take that stairwell every chance we get, and not always to get exercise. We really do wonder who this guy is. Not that we really want to meet a person who chooses such a location to perform increasing numbers of personal hygiene actions, especially in an unattended stairwell. But we’d like to know his identity. It’s not like we’re going to collect a specimen and send it off for DNA testing, or anything, but we are curious…

So the other day, a new much more serious looking dental cleansing apparatus appeared! He’s escalating! I’ve heard about this. You know, they start with animal torture, then move on to humans. And there’s never any going back. We’re becoming afraid, and steeling ourselves each time we prepare to enter the stairwell. Soon I fear we’ll need to walk it in pairs.

So we’re taking nominations on what will appear next. What do you think? Beard trimmings? Nose hairs? Profuse phlegm? Something more sinister??? Please advise, we need time to prepare…

Next: outing the guy on the third floor who comes up to the fourth floor every morning to totally foul the air in the men’s bathroom. He probably thinks we don’t notice. But we are watching…

So very much to think about today…

Twenty nine years ago today my sweet son was born. I’ve been thinking a lot about that day this morning. The fear, the not knowing what was happening, the not understanding what people were saying to me… then the short moment of magic looking into the eyes of my newborn son, already named after my beloved granddad. I saw all of eternity in those eyes. It was something I had never felt, or imagined feeling.

Then he was taken from me, to another hospital across town, to a neonatal intensive care unit. I’m not entirely sure I even knew NICUs existed. In many many ways, I entered a new world that day. Not just the world of motherhood. But the world of families with unforeseen children. The first time I heard the word spina bifida and myelomeningocele spoken aloud. In my heart of hearts I somehow knew this was my last chance at being a mother. Don’t tell a mother her only child might not make it. She will do anything to make it not so.

I still get to be in Blaine’s presence pretty much every day of my life. We still share a lot of ourselves with one another. What an honor for me. What a privilege. He is the sweetest soul I have ever known. The most empathetic human being I believe exists.

I have so very much to think about today…

Scored a laptop!

So I went to the Macforce garage sale.  Was second in line.  That’s cuz I thought it opened at 9 a.m., but guess what.  It opened at 10 a.m.  So an extra hour of waiting in line time.

Early enough to get a laptop.  Hope it was a good deal.  I saw the 17 inch that used to be Ben’s but the $2499 price tag sent me to the 15 inch model with the $1299 price.  Hope I made a good decision.  Still about three months left on the warranty, during which I can go for Apple Care if I want to.

The next post I write will come from that machine, I’m guessing.  Got a bag for it for $9. Sweet.  If you didn’t go to the sale yet, you’re too late.  Most stuff gone by the time I left.

Oh, and one more thing.  I learned you do not even want to try to act like you’re going to cut in line when I’ve been waiting at the front for an extra hour.  Seriously. Do not even try. I will break your balls and shame you into moving back.  And everyone around me will secretly cheer.

Note to self: the phrase is bust your balls, Marie, not break your balls. Try to remember that!

The e-stable continues to grow

And I am even more embarrassed.  Our household now has a Wii.  Here’s how it happened:  Ric asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  (Uh, yeah, I’m in my last year of the 50s now!?)

So I’ve been trying to come up with a fitness plan for myself for some time now.  Without a lick of success.  Just can’t get started.  And of course every day of not starting is another day of falling further behind, which makes it even harder to start.  I feel like I need to land on an approach.  So far I’m still freefalling.  No landing strip in sight.

Maybe I’m going at this the wrong way.  I don’t want to pay a big gym membership.  Not really crazy about doing the gym thing anyway.  Guess I mostly want to exercise in private.  In the beginning at least.  I can’t hardly stand to watch my body move now, so don’t really want to subject anyone else to what I fear, to borrow a line from W.C. Fields, would scare horses and small children.

I tried the Curves thing, which is women only, and mostly women of a certain age and shape.  Didn’t work for me. First of all, the loud music made me want to go postal.  Exercise is painful enough when you are as out of shape as I am, so I don’t need the additional pain of earsplitting disco musak.  Or whatever it was they play.  Yuk.

Also, I just found the equipment so, oh, I don’t know, lame.  I mean, I couldn’t get my heart rate up high enough even when I worked it with all my might. I needed something more.  And I kept having this creepy feeling that I was part of some right wing nut case conspiracy.  Or something like that.  So I quit.  It took me so many months of having the fee automatically removed from my checking account before I remembered where the paperwork was so I could actually write the letter to resign.  They don’t make it easy.  I wonder why.

So basically, I don’t trust the membership places so much.  Just feels scammy.

When I started hearing about the Wii Fit, I thought that might be just the thing.  In the privacy of my own home.  Lots of people reported actually doing it and enjoying it.

Well, fuck me.  I overlooked the fact that to do Wii Fit, one must have a Wii.  (Somehow I got the idea it was self-contained or something.)  So guess what I got for my birthday?  A Wii.  And Ric had to really pull some magic to get his hands on one.

So far we haven’t managed to find a Wii fit anywhere.  We’re still working on it.  I’ll keep you posted.

And now I swear we will not be getting any more electronic devices.  Ever.  Well, except my laptop fan went out, and it’s more than 6 years old now and I guess it would cost too much to repair it so I’m thinking about going to the Macforce garage sale tomorrow morning to try to get a new used one.  But that doesn’t really count, does it?  It would be an even swap.

Ric still has in mind getting the new iPhone, and he’s pretty sure when I see his I’ll want one too. But that would come out even too.  I guess I can live with staying even.

Blaine recognized as volunteer extraordinaire!

So Blaine just passed his 5th anniversary being a big help at Free Geek.  He got a certificate and a gift certificate to spend at the FG Thrift Store.

Here’s a photo of Blaine getting the handshake from Luis.

And one of Blaine with the paperwork:

Blaine:  You make us so proud. I know what goes into you getting to Free Geek everyday, how determined you are, how generous and kind you are, and how much better you make the place.  And it’s not just because I’m your mom.  You are such a star!

Prediction:  it may take him the next five years to decide how to spend it.

By the way, have you been to the Thrift Store lately??  Better go!  It’s really got the most amazing computer bargains anywhere!

WSBG reviews Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips

We were really excited by the mainstream press review of this book on Amazon:

Here is a brilliantly imagined novel of the African diaspora by the author of Cambridge  and Higher Ground, among others. It begins in 18th-century Africa as three children–Nash, Martha, and Travis–are sold into slavery. What follows are “their” life stories along with excerpts from the logbook of the slave ship’s captain. Nash returns to Africa as a Christian missionary in the 1830s. Martha is a former slave whom we meet as she lays dying in Denver, having failed to reach California and find her only child, taken from her years before. Travis is reincarnated as an American GI stationed in England in 1943; his story is poignantly told by the British woman he marries. Bold in its design, beautiful in its language, compelling because of its characters, this grand novel of ideas–short-listed for the 1993 Booker Prize–belongs in every fiction collection.

We were so disappointed.  What we imagined and looked forward to reading when we selected the book was not realized.  First, this felt like a collection of short stories or novellas.  Individually the first two were quite strong, though both left us feeling some important things were lacking.  We felt the third was not nearly revealing enough about Travis; we learned very little about him, in fact we barely met him.  The jumping back in forth in time device seemed rather random and artificial.  And we were unsatisfied with the last part that attempted to pull it all together.  Just not good enough.

There were interesting parts, and it was a heartbreaking glimpse into the long lived effects of slavery.  While it was a very accessible book and a very easy read, we ended up feeling it was, dare we say, inconsequential.  Not what we were expecting.  Another instance where I find customer reviews more insightful than the professional reviewers on Amazon.

Don’t think it will find a permanent place in any of our fiction collections. Geez, we can be such a bitchy book group, don’t you think?