March Book Report: Americanah

I had listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talks, heard interviews with her on NPR, and was otherwise aware of her work before I picked up Americanah.  I finally read the novel in preparation for a faculty book group meeting next month.  I figured that I would like it but despite my familiarity and enjoyment of Adichie’s ideas and other works, I wasn’t at all prepared for the brilliance of this book, which I absorbed and keep thinking about.

It is indeed brilliant, with both the hard shine of cogent social and political criticism of the United States, England, and Nigeria, and the radiant humor and joy of life that the both the author-narrator and her primary characters demonstrate.  I loved this book.

The opening scenes of the novel happen in New Jersey, as the center of the story,  Ifemelu, makes the short journey from the mostly white, liberal, privileged enclave of Princeton to Trenton, where she travels to have her hair braided.  It’s just 13 miles away but rather a world apart and the juxtaposition serves as the central contrast in the novel.  The book is one-part story and one-part conversation about race and ethnicity in America and England as compared to life in Nigeria, where Ifemelu grew up aware of being Nigerian but not aware of having a race. 

Her arrival and 15 year experience in the United States makes Ifemelu aware of race and identity in a whole new way.  The experience is both alienating and informative and Adichie’s reflections here are both uncomfortable and absorbing.   The reader also sees England through the eyes of Obinze, Ifemelu’s high school boyfriend, also an immigrant in a new place finding his way through racial and class confusion.

Though the criticisms are sticking and real, Adichie also shows her affection for these places that make up her characters’ worlds and also her own.  As the author and observer, she seems to move easily between these places, even while Ifemelu and Obinze struggle to do the same.  Adichie understands their journey and it shows.  I loved this book for both the story at the heart of it and the often biting but always thoughtful criticism that ran throughout.  That’s the essential talent of Adichie’s writing: the ability to ask the reader to critically examine her nation without being cruel or hopeless in that lens.  This book has lingered with me long past my reading of the last lines.  I look forward to reading it again and again, the highest complement I can pay a book.

Food Friday: Lemon Curd

Spring Break gives me the luxury of some unscheduled time.  I used some of mine to make things, including homemade lemon curd.

I followed this Simply Recipes version, altering mine to use just a tablespoon of lemon zest, which I left in the finished curd.  I’ve made lemon curb before and know that I should never stop whisking, but a strainer is a good idea if this is your first time.  I poured the finished lemon curd into small preserve jars.  

The recipe makes a cup and a half, enough to give one jar away and still have some of your own to enjoy.  We ate it with homemade scones and a cup of tea.  It looked and tasted like Spring.  That's happy!

Pretty Packages

 T celebrates a birthday this week and at Sassafras House, birthdays mean presents.

That’s happy!

Amaryllis Tuesday: March 27

Just in time for Spring's sunshine and light, the amaryllis has bloomed with a splendid and showy flower.

It’s the first thing I see when I come downstairs in the morning and it’s a reminder that Spring is at hand.

So very lovely and such a treat each day.  Spring, you charm me.

The Impatient Month

I have a memory from when I was in the fourth grade and a reporter for the local weekly newspaper was on the campus of my elementary school.  He encouraged a group of girls to make a pile from the leaves which had fallen from the trees that surrounded the playground field.  We made piles and threw the leaves; the reporter made our picture and it was printed in the newspaper.

It is my first memory of seasonal change as a thing of beauty.  That’s not to say that I missed the loveliness around me growing up in California, just that I mostly assumed it would always be there.  In California, weather was rarely an inconvenience  and I took that ease for granted.  My first year of four distinct seasons came when I moved to Tennessee.  There, I learned that rainstorms could last for more than a couple of hours and I needed an actual Winter coat.  I vividly remember the splendor of both the autumn leaves in the woods that first Fall and a few months later, the beauty of yellow daffodils in that first southern Spring.  In the five years that I lived in Nashville, I became a convert to the splendor of seasons.  I learned that Spring is that much sweeter when it follows Winter.

I’ve been thinking of that this month especially.  March in New Jersey has a tendency to try my patience.  I see the stark beauty of Winter and enjoy the first month or two of cold weather.  But there comes a point, usually toward the end of February, when I grow weary of the struggle that is the Winter season.  In Winter’s cold, there’s no popping outside without a plan.  Some mornings, wrangling a coat, gloves, scarf, and hat is just tiresome.  It makes me feel burdened and weary.  When that happens, I long for the ease of warmer days.

In this, March taunts me.  I am ready for sunlight and warmth.  The lengthening days are a tease; I want daffodils-a-plenty. Over the weekend, T and I went on a Saturday adventure.  There were subtle signs of Spring everywhere, or at least the sunlight made it seem that this was the case.  At home, I wait for the last of the snow to melt, sure that daffodil, tulip, and hosta bulbs lie waiting to bloom underneath the snow.  

I know my patience will be rewarded and that Spring will soon show itself in this flower bed.  In the meantime, I wait for the beauty to arrive.  That’s happy!  

Real Life Conversations with KO: Free Trade edition

The backstory:   I haven’t been a regular shopper at Cost Plus World Market since I lived in California more than 30 years ago (and the store was still called Cost Plus).  When one opened in my corner of New Jersey, I was very excited about it and went on opening weekend.  I texted my sister about my excitement.

Me: Cost Plus opens today.  I am v. excited.  Show mama the cheaply produced imported goods!

KO:  Enjoy them now before the trade war starts.

Oh, the comforts of the dismal science.  

Nor’easter, Round 4

With the regularity of a Netflix series dropping a new episode every week or so, we have had 4 Nor’easter storms in the last 4 weeks.  Today’s storm had the nerve to roll in just as the Spring Equinox arrived and while we are on Spring Break.  We’ve not yet finished the clean up from Nor’easter number 3, so it’s safe to say that I am not amused.  Additionally, I have decided that it’s time for Spring clothes, a decision that Mother Nature thinks I should regret.  

JT and I enjoyed all our favorite snow day routines: late morning luxurious breakfast (crepes with bananas, strawberries, and nutella), an afternoon movie, homemade supper (and tonite he tried an adult beverage…..he’s not much of a fan, it turns out).  Shoveling is saved for tomorrow, because tonight there are books to read and movies to watch.  And tomorrow promises temperatures north of 40 degrees.  These days, we’re happy to let Mother Nature do at least some of the work for us.  Begrudgingly, we acknowledge that the snow is lovely to behold.

But at this point in March, daffodils would be a more welcome sight.  We'll know to appreciate them when they arrive.

Amaryllis Tuesday: March 20

On Sunday afternoon, as the sunlight poured in the southern window, the amaryllis flower began to open.

With each day since, a little more of the flower emerged.

It’s not quite complete, though I should have a flower in the next few days.  That’s good news because the weather forecast  for tomorrow calls for a fourth Nor-easter and another 8-12 inches of snow.  I am weary of Winter, especially today, the first day of Spring.  Time may be on my side, but it doesn’t quite feel that way in today’s chill.  The amaryllis will help me to hold on to the warm prospects coming our way.  

Hillbilly Prep

Saturday and Sunday we had two days of sunshine in a row and the entire town shot outdoors to cope with the mess in our yards.  Loads of tree branches had come down in the snowstorm 10 days prior and had lingered there while we waited for the foot of snow to melt.  

Most of the snow had melted by Saturday and the time was nigh.

There is no love lost between me and the wife half of the family to my immediate west.  They moved here from New York in 2011, replacing a neighbor whom I loved, and they’ve never matched up to the former owner.  I like the kids, I exchange pleasantries with the husband, I am charmed by their chickens, and I don’t mind their aggressive barking dog.  But the housewife with the ever-changing hair color is never friendly (and once called the town inspector on me), so I am an icy cold polite.  On Saturday, her husband was in the backyard with a gutter cleaning crew while I was collecting branches and moving tree limbs out of the yard and into the driveway.  We exchanged pleasantries over the fence and spoke about the storm and weather, as neighbors do.  We compared notes on tree damage and basement sump pumps.  Then he mentioned that the family intended to sell their house and move to Tennessee.  I mentioned that I had lived there some years ago and had always loved the place;  I wished them good luck.

Once inside my house, I shared the news with T, who knows how I feel about the wife.  We made some jokes about New Yorkers in Tennessee and then let the matter drop.  The next day, my neighbor was once again in the yard, this time lighting a fire in his fire pit in order to burn branches and dry leaves.  This is both distinctly illegal and unwise, given the close proximity of the fire to both my house and his, but there is no accounting for common sense.  As the smoke poured into my yard and he pushed leaves to the fire with his leaf blower, T and I shook our heads.

Then, with the quiet sarcasm that I love so damned much, T offered, “He’s going to make a fine hillbilly.”  

Internet, she’s mine.

Focus on the Not Normal

It’s nearly impossible to keep pace with the insane political developments  coming out of the Trump White House.  It’s tempting to shout about all of it; all of it is horrifying.  I’ve certainly been guilty of that.  It’s tempting to throw up your hands and laugh hysterically about some of it, and I certainly have been guilty of that as well.  But I’ve come to believe that we need to separate the wheat from the chaff and focus on the Trump actions and developments that are not normal.  

For one thing, some of these developments are a real and genuine threat to our republic and our national interest.  For another, these not normal events are becoming more frequent and to the degree that we do not intervene or criticize them, we are at risk for a republic that will collapse.  

The not normal list is long and getting longer:

- The lies, even about matters on which there is clear evidence.  Not normal.

- A president refusing to release his tax returns. Not normal.

- A president treating the office as a chance to line the pockets of his business interests.  Not normal.

- Presidential family members who have neither been vetted nor received security clearance serving in vital positions, with access to secure information. Not normal.

- Foreign interference in our elections, elections which are the cornerstone of a representative democracy, and a party in control of the White House and Congress absolutely refusing to take action. Not normal.

- A president who makes broad policy pronouncements without consultation with experts or even his advisors or Cabinet members, idiots though some of them are  —— most recently, protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum announced via an all-caps press release and a series of tweets celebrating the ease of winning a trade war.  Not normal.

- The persistent name-calling as a political tool.  Not normal.

- It’s one thing to disagree with the free press but Trump is actively working to create distrust of the press.  Fake news, alternative facts…..call it what you will.   This behavior is a threat to the republic.  Not normal.

- On the same note, Trump’s persistent efforts to discredit American institutions without any facts to support his claims of bias or ineptitude….the Courts, the FBI, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Not normal.

Democrats understand the threats this president has created but they cannot stop Trump on their own.  The future of the republic demands leadership against Trump from a few principled Republicans.  Working together, Democrats and Republicans can place our nation back on firm footing.  But the clock is ticking and though I am typically a political optimist, I fear we are close to the point of permanent and lasting damage to our republic.

Real Life Conversations with JT: Good Thing I am Amused edition

The backstory:  JT has embraced the Spring of his Senior year with a vengeance and is increasingly annoyed when there is schoolwork to be done, as if this is a gravely unreasonable expectation.  He announced an assignment in his European History course and then asked for my help with the project for the time period he and his partner had selected.  Naturally, all of this exchange occurred by text message.

JT:  Time period for Euro project is 1850-1894.  Age of Nationalism and Realism and Age of Progress.  I’ll e-mail you the instructions.

Me:  Great time period.  I look forward to the details.

A few hours passed during which I received and read the assignment, dealt with my son's suggestion that I wouldn't be able to help (note: I majored in History in college and have taught it for more than 20 years) and then I had an idea.

Me:  I think you should do a project on the unification of Italy and Germany.

JT:  Took the words right out of my mouth.

Careful readers know this is exactly the kind of sass I deserve.

Beware the Ides of Sassafras

Last weekend, we turned our clocks forward and, in my mind, that should signal the start of Spring.  I long for the ease of warmer days.  Uncharacteristically, I’m not even looking to be unreasonable here; I’ll settle for temps in the 50s and a little sunshine.  All told, I’ve reached the point in March where I am over Winter.  As is so often the case, however, Winter isn’t quite over us.  I carry on in the chill, increasingly resentful of the need to wrestle with Winter coats, gloves, and scarves.  And don’t get me started on dealing with Winter tights… You’ve served your purpose, Winter, and I appreciate all that you do.  But it is time for you to go.

The time change and consequent sunlight that lasts into the early evening has been a nice tonic for my Winter malaise, though I still feel like Mother Nature is involved in a scheme to test my patience.  My Spring Break begins this Friday, and though temperatures aren’t expected to rise above 40 degrees and there is snow in the forecast for the first week of break, I am thinking of declaring the start of Spring and dressing accordingly.  If I can’t have the actual beauty of the season, I can at least pretend. 

Amaryllis Tuesday: March 13

On Friday afternoon, we’ll start Spring Break.  JT has been counting down the days and I’ll admit that I am also looking forward to a few unscheduled weeks.  In the back of my mind, I believe that Spring Break will bring Spring temperatures, though the forecast is not at all cooperative with this desire.  There may be snow on the ground but the amaryllis is looking prepared to oblige my daydreams of Spring blooms.

Some morning soon I will come downstairs to a flower.  

That’s happy!

Witch Hazel

There was a snowstorm this week, a rather major event that brought us more than a foot of snow.  School was cancelled, which JT celebrated as if he’d never be expected to return to class.

I enjoyed sleeping in and our cozy days but it is March and I am ready for Spring.  While we shoveled ourselves out from the storm, I couldn’t help but think about the previous Sunday  That day was sunny and T and I set out for a walk to leave some nuts and peanut butter pine cones for the wildlife along the D & R Canal.  Here and there, when we looked closely, we saw tiny signs of a green Spring.  Most of the blooms will take several more weeks to arrive so the witch hazel in bloom was particularly lovely.

Clocks spring forward tonight; each day brings a little more sunlight.  I’m looking forward to Spring and as I wait for the snow to melt and reveal blooms, I will admire the witch hazel and the promise it brings.  

Snow Days

On the heels of JT and I declaring our own "snow day" last Friday, Mother Nature revealed a certain amount of envy.  A few days later, she sent a Nor’easter that buried New Jersey in snow and bought us two days off from school, yesterday and today.  The day of the expected storm dawned cold, but not frigid, with a temperature just above freezing.  For the the first half of the day, there were cloudy skies and a light rain, but little signs of the massive storm being forecast.   Just when I began to give up the forecast as a bust, the light rain converted to giant, wet, snowflakes.  

Soon after, accumulation began.  By the time the snow had ended, we had more than a foot of heavy, deep, wet snow.  Just after 4pm on the day of the storm, JT and I headed outside to clear a path to the driveway.  We shoveled out to the road but the snow fell as fast as we could shovel and all around us we could hear the cracking noise of tree branches falling.  In our backyard, Old Man tree lost branches.  As darkness descended and the storm would down, the frightening sounds of the branches cracking began to fade, replaced by the noise of plows making their way through town, pushing the snow to the edge of the road (and packing in everyone's driveways).  We got the call we'd be off from school for a second day and I was grateful. 

Thursday dawned sunny, clouds blew past in the morning and melting continued apace, with temps in the 40s.  JT and I went outside to shovel out our cars and move the broken tree limbs to the driveway.  The snow was heavy and it took us about an hour working together to clear the sidewalks and driveway.  By the time we were done, the roads had dried.

This is the second year in a row we've had a March snow of the deep and heavy variety. Our shovels are pretty worn out and we'll need new ones for next year.  It's also clear that I will need a heavy-duty snow blower to replace this kid.

Overdue, Lost, & Now Remembered: On Overlooked Women

I didn’t learn to read until I was 8 years old and in the third grade.  As if I understood that I was a late-bloomer, I embraced books from then on, reading all the time.  I read on the school bus, during recess and lunch, secretly in class when I should have been doing math, walking home from school, floating on an air mattress in the pool, stretched out on the sofa, and in bed by the street light at night.  I read as if to make up for lost time.  I can remember looking at the stacks and stacks of books in the library and thinking with a shivering joy of the books yet to be read. 

I was thrilled on the day that I found a uniform collection of historical American biographies in the Weldon Elementary School Library.  I stood in front of the rows of books and gloried in the happy hours of reading ahead of me.  And then I read about these Americans, in alphabetical order, so that I wouldn’t forget a single one.  From John Adams to Daniel Webster and every person in between, I devoured these books over a two year period, fearful that I wouldn’t finish before I completed 6th grade.  I read quickly and only slowed my pace when the biography was about a woman.

There weren’t very many and they were mostly 20th century women —- Babe Didrikson, Amelia Earhart, and Eleanor Roosevelt stand out in my mind today.  I remember that the Harriet Tubman volume was thin, leaving me many unanswered questions.  For every woman featured in these 1970s-era books, there were more than 10 men.  I know because I counted and felt the unfairness of it.  I felt then that there were women in our past who had done amazing things that I would never learn about.  Now, 40 years later, I realize that for all the stories told there are countless women who never even got the chance to be great.

I thought of all of this when I opened the New York Times this morning to find that they would be writing obituaries for the women they have overlooked in the past 160 years.  It's a fitting choice for International Women's Day, a treat I would have loved as a girl.  I devoured the first 15 stories, grateful for a snow day that permitted the indulgence.  The NYT has promised to tell more women’s stories and I will watch carefully so I don’t miss a single one.  I will direct the children I teach, girls and boys, to these stories.  I will be grateful for amazing women now being remembered.  But I will still wonder at the talents lost to a time when women were always marginalized and excluded.  I will miss what they would have accomplished.  And I will re-double my efforts to ensure it doesn’t continue to happen.

Amaryllis Tuesday: March 6

Every day, the amaryllis stem grows taller and it’s clear that a flower is on its way.  The progress marches us ever-closer to Spring.

Spring, with blooms, new green leaves, lush grass, and mild breezes.  That’s a lot for one small bulb to promise.  But the promise is there and closer every day.

  

That's happy!

All Bunnies, All the Time

Unrestrained, I’m the sort of women who would likely devote an entire room of her home to her collection of something childish.  At this point, the only thing stopping me is a sense that I don’t want to be known as fully insane added to genuine uncertainty about what would be in the collection…..dolls? stuffed animals?  cats? bunnies?  It’s only indecision that helps me to hold the line.

But I have a soft spot for bunny rabbits and there are quite a few in my world.  It started with this collection of carved wooden bunnies that I acquired when I lived in Nebraska.  I set them out for the month of Easter and still remember when toddler JT would grab one and jam it in his pocket to admire.  

I have an assortment of bunny prints from various Etsy shops.  

Each season, I swap out the one that hangs in my dining room.  For the next few months, these bunnies will cheerfully dance their Springtime celebration.

I have a bunny sculpture.  Or two.

There are bunnies on the front porch, known to me as Flopsy and Mopsy. I am naming inanimate objects....that fact alone should be a warning sign.

There are bunnies in my office, on both the Racey Helps postcards T has given me (and there are a dozen more where these came from) as well as these prints given to me by my friend TO.

Soon enough, there will be backyard bunnies eating their way through my yard, and likely taking a snack from my garden.  I’ll bemoan them when they eat my carrots but most of the time I will be utterly enchanted by them.  Bunnies are cute, they signal the coming of Spring, and otherwise charm me all year around, but especially now as I await the next season with barely contained anticipation.  That’s happy!

March Front Porch

There is a point in February when I grow weary of Winter and eagerly look for evidence of its demise.  This year, the arrival of Easter items in the craft store was that moment when I first began to daydream about warmer, easier days.  For Valentine’s Day, T gave me some Easter items for the front porch.  From then on I was planning the March porch.  My brain knows that there are several more cold weeks to endure but my heart announces Spring on the first day of March.  This year, the month will be filled with Easter bunnies, baskets, eggs, and flowers..  There is an egg wreath on the front door.

And a bunny flag to welcome the lengthening sunlight in our days.

On the table, there’s an Easter basket with speckled eggs and some silk flowers to brighten the day.  Flopsy the iron bunny is there, joined by a new rustic bunny who goes by the name Mopsy.

I was all ready to set things out on March 1.  Then a cold and rainy Nor’easter blew in with three inches of rain and plenty of wind.  Saturday arrived with clearer skies and sunshine and, in the afternoon, as the wind faded, there was time to set out the porch.   March came in like its proverbial lion and the forecast promises more stormy cold in the coming week.  As I wait for some warmth and blooms, my porch will greet me with Spring’s promise.  That’s happy!

Nor’easter Day

At some point in December, JT and I reminisced about snow days from our past, days when school was closed because of snow and we were home together as the storm passed through.  There was sleeping in, card games and TV watching in those days.  We’d play in the snow, JT always lasting longer than me because someone had to go inside and start the hot cocoa.  At night, we’d go for walks in the snowy darkness, to listen to the quiet and celebrate the found time.  Early this Winter, we looked forward to a few last snow days in this, his Senior year.

Mother Nature never cooperated.  Though we had plenty of cold and some snowy weekends, there was never enough weekday snow to give us the day off.  As January transitioned into February, JT and I began to fear we’d not have our last snow day.  We were loathe to give up the transition and so we declared today our very own snow day.

There was a rainy, windy, and wet Nor’easter, but this one didn’t bring snow.  We slept in, went out to lunch, and watched Netflix.  We enjoyed one another’s company and laughed a lot.  I lived in the moment, because that’s what I need to do these days.  The moments were fun and that’s happy!

March 1: Garden Hostas

In the third week of February we had two days of unusual warmth, with temperatures over 70s.  JT and I nearly lost our minds soaking it up.  Then it was gone, replaced by days and days of chilly rains.  But that warmth and the rains that followed set off a chain reaction all over my garden.  The grass is beginning to turn brighter and there are shoots of green everywhere. In my excitement when I discovered the small green shoots, I thought I saw the start of my hostas.  I nearly lost my mind with excitement.

It turns out that wasn’t hostas, a fact I realized when I went outside in the cold to make pictures and looked more closely.  But I did see the daffodil and tulip bulb growth that signals the start of the a warmer season.  These bulbs are planted all around the hosta beds.

The hostas are still quietly underground but they are gearing up for Spring and this weekend's Nor’easter rains will provide some rain to help things out.

I see you, Spring.

That’s happy!