The No Ruts Reading Challenge - Reviews

Thank you all for joining! I have no idea what to expect from my first hosted challenge, except I hope it's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to adding some unique titles to my own reading list, for sure! Hopefully you'll do the same and enjoy what you find here.


(You can join anytime, so feel free to sign up here if you're interested in participating.)

Here's a McLinky for you to add your No Ruts reviews. Please add your blog name and title of the book you're reviewing, and then the link to THE SPECIFIC POST on your blog with the review of your book. (If you're not a blogger, it would be great if you post a link to your goodreads review if possible).


Like this:


Jessica (Desperado Penguin) - Title of Book
url of your blog post.


Looking forward to reading your reviews!

The No Ruts Reading Challenge: A Season of Adventurous Reading

Yes, I know - I admitted defeat in my own personal challenge just yesterday. This challenge isn't just for me, it's also for you, my wonderful readers.


I got a lot out of my personal challenge and I think the primary reason for it was this: I tried new things. Reading 50 books in a year, which is kind of an arbitrary number anyway, is all well and good, but far more meaningful to me was the fact that I really got out of my comfort zone with authors and genres.


So I thought it might be fun to try a similar, but slightly scaled-back, challenge with other readers and bloggers, and what better way to do that than to host a challenge? So here it is:

The rules are simple:

Challenge runs from June 1 to September 1, 2010. Feel free to join in any time.


Bronze Level – Read two fiction books: one by an author you’ve never tried before, and one from a genre you’ve never tried before.



Silver Level – Bronze challenge PLUS read a book you weren’t planning to read because someone has given a bad review to. “Someone” can be a friend, a newspaper, a blogger, or a reviewer on a book website. If you read a review that made you think twice about reading the book, and you read the book anyway … it counts.


Gold Level – Bronze and silver challenges PLUS read a book by someone whose viewpoint/fundamental premise you disagree with. For examples: If you’re a Democrat, read some Ann Coulter. Subject does not have to be controversial, book can be any genre. If you think poetry should rhyme and read something by T.S. Eliot … it counts. If you think graphic novels are moronic – get someone in a bookstore to recommend one and read it.


You can include books you read for other challenges, books of any length - no rules other than those stated above.
 
If you'd like to join in, please go ahead and grab the graphic above, which was graciously designed for the challenge by the very talented Cindy at Media Medley.
 
Sign up below using the McLinky, this format "Your name (Your blog name)."  Also, leave a comment to let others know your plans!
 
You can post your reviews HERE  as you finish books. If you don't have a blog, no worries - link to your goodreads review, or just post a comment with your thoughts.
 
That's it! Painless, no? Fun, yes.

When Failure Actually Is An Option

Dear Reader,

With one week to go, it is apparent that I have failed  in my personal reading challenge. Over the past nine months, I invested considerable time reading and (okay, not as much time) blogging, and it was all for naught.


Or was it?


My self-imposed rules forced me to try new authors I might not have read otherwise. Would I have read Help! A Bear Is Eating Me! if I had not challenged myself? Realistically, I would never have found it in the first place if I hadn't gone looking for something new and different.


I read more than I would have otherwise. I could try to sound all highbrow here about how wonderful it was to have the TV off more (it was) and how much more intelligent I've become (I have). But the truth of the matter is, all the reading lead me to some new interests that have truly engaged me (genealogy, bird-watching*), and somehow, the simple act of doing things made me want to do more things (taking up needlepoint again after a 10-year hiatus).


I remembered how much I love writing. And knowing that even one person read what I wrote and enjoyed it - you know, someone who isn't a relative and didn't go to high school with - it's actually the fulfillment of my childhood dream. I won't tell you it's all I ever wanted** but oh, how I love writing and being read.


So I'm taking the pressure of myself but I do think I'll keep reading, and writing. Hope you'll keep reading with me.

*Finding birdwatching interesting isn't the same thing as being an actual bird-watcher. Just so we're clear on that.
**I want lots of stuff, be serious.

Genealogy, Through The Eyes Of A Child

Illustration by Emma. Wordless Wednesday.

When Genealogy Meets Reality TV: The Blackest Sheep, Part 2

After discovering where my great-grandfather Wenzel Herman was definitely not buried, I made it my business to find out first, why he inspired so much animosity among those who knew him, and second, when and where he died and was buried.

Since I had exhausted cemeteries to look in, Wisconsin death records and indexed obituaries, and the post-1930 censuses are not yet available, I decided to poke around my local library for some clues. It's hard for me to leave my house to spend extended periods at the library, but the King County Library System has very kindly put several genealogy databases online for my at-home, oddball-hour researching pleasure.

I thought for sure there must be an obituary somewhere for Wenzel, so I started with the Newspaper Archive Database, and simply entered Wenzel Herman into the search box.

Several hits immediately came up, all from the Oshkosh NorthWestern newspaper. From the newspaper I was able to construct the following series of events, all in 1939:

March 22: Death of Emily Frank, daughter of Wenzel's second wife, Clara Herman, by her first marriage. As far as I can work out from the obituary and census records, this was Clara's only child.
April 11: Wenzel Herman pleads guilty to one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor girl and is sentenced to six months in prison.
July 5: Clara Herman dies "after a long illness."
July 6: Wenzel Herman is granted early release from County Jail to attend his wife Clara's funeral, apparently having been well-behaved whilst in prison.

If there is a Blacker Sheep than Wenzel on my family tree, I don't want to know.  Still, I was curious if court records might reveal anything further, possibly earlier brushes with the law or something that might give me a bit more insight into why my great-grandmother Hulda divorced him years before Clara had the misfortune of marrying him.

Also, I don't have a single photo of the man, and I'm kind of curious to know what he looks like. Might there be a mug shot, I wondered?

I contacted someone on Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness and inquired if she could check the courthouse for me. I was very upfront about what records I was looking for and what Wenzel was arrested for, figuring it might make someone uncomfortable and they should have the right to decline - it's a favor for a stranger after all.

The woman who replied was happy to assist and even eager to learn something new. Unfortunately, when she checked with the courthouse, she was told that the trial records prior to 1959 had been destroyed by the county as they were "of limited genealogical value." 

Yes, well, maybe in other families, but for mine? It's kind of a bummer, Winnebago County.

She did offer a very helpful suggestion, though - she directed me to the Green Bay Area Research Center, which houses, among other things, divorce decrees from about the time Hulda would have divorced Wenzel. For $5.00 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope, I got my answer: Hulda was granted a divorce on the grounds of non-support and since she "did not know Wenzel's whereabouts."

The date of the divorce was just a few days before she remarried in a Catholic church, listing Wenzel as "deceased."*  So, after all that, where did Wenzel go? His wife was gone and his son wanted nothing to do with him. But I could not turn up a Wisconsin death record or an obituary anywhere for him.

I reflected back on what my grandmother had originally told me, that Wenzel had gone to Illinois because his wife had family there. I had discarded that as incorrect, since Clara's family was clearly in the Neenah, Wisconsin area, where she was. But, since I was out of other ideas, I ran a quick Google search for an Illinois death record database, and found what I was looking for almost immediately: An index entry for Wenzel Herman, 1946.
I mailed in the paperwork and $8 check, and two weeks later, I had a death certificate for Wenzel Herman, including his correct parents' names and birthdate (the year was off but the month and day were correct). The person who provided the information was his third wife, Bessie. It listed a cemetery in Chicago, so I once again got on the phone, but this woman was not as helpful as the woman at Oak Hill, simply confirmed that Wenzel was indeed buried there but providing no further information.

I went to FindAGrave and created an entry for Wenzel, then posted a request for a picture of his headstone. It took only a day or two for a very nice gentleman to get to the cemetery, locate the grave and discover that Wenzel was buried there, but even though his third wife outlived him by 13 years, in all that time, no one put a marker on his grave - and she was buried not with Wenzel but with her first husband.

The man that helped me with this turned out to be a Chicago police officer*, and he also took a picture of the grave of Bessie Herman. I set up a findagrave entry for her as well and he added the picture of her grave marker (unlike Wenzel, Bessie has a very nice one).

I feel kind of strange and awful being the person who "owns" her online memorial, given the facts of how we are connected. I want to somehow apologize to her, and to Clara's family, all of them, from Wenzel's family, all of us. I want to tell them that Wenzel's only son was a truly decent man, and his children and grandchildren are also truly decent people - quirky, yes, but decent.

I also feel sort of guilty: now I know why my grandfather wouldn't talk about his father, and why he turned Wenzel away when he came to the house. I'm sure my grandfather didn't want me dredging all this up, after he hid it away from us all so well, and for so long. But on the other hand, having the knowledge gave me a much deeper understanding of my grandfather, and a much greater pride in him (as though that were possible) for having been such a warm and loving man after having experienced such loss and shame. 

*Wishful thinking?
**Wenzel, if you can read this, they're still keeping an eye on you.

When Genealogy Meets Reality TV: The Blackest Sheep

Since my husband and I are both genealogy geeks*, we frequently discuss our latest discoveries or roadblocks at the dinner table.

In case you are wondering: Nine-year-old girls do not find genealogy interesting, even their own.

So I decided to liven things up for her with a contest, something along the lines of what would happen if Who Do You Think You Are? runs out of actual celebrities and goes the reality-tv route. Whose tree has The Blackest Sheep?

Not to spoil the ending, but I won, and it's probably the one time any of his descendants was ever proud to be connected to The Blackest Sheep, Wenzel Herman. I'll take life's little victories where I can get them, I'm not proud - how could I be? 

Wenzel was my maternal grandfather's father, and my mother and her sisters never knew much about him. As a child, I asked my grandmother about Wenzel, and was told: Wenzel and my great-grandmother divorced, Wenzel remarried, and eventually he moved to Illinois because his wife had family there. She related a story about how Wenzel once showed up at the door, wanting to see my grandfather (his only child), and my grandfather sent him away. Wenzel left, looking sad, and was never seen again.

This tale sounds rather hard-hearted and isn't in keeping with my grandfather's character: He was a very loving man. So I always wondered about it, and then I started to research.

The first item I found was a census record, using an on-line search: in 1930, Wenzel lived in Neenah, Wisconsin, with his second wife, Clara. Since 1930 is the last available census, I could go no further with census records.

I searched the area libraries and although there was no obituary for Wenzel in the Oshkosh library's on-line index, or in the nearby Appleton library, there was an entry for Mrs Wenzel Herman, who died in 1939.  I ordered a copy of her obituary through the library service and discovered that Wenzel was listed as one of her survivors, and she was buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Neenah.

The Oak Hill cemetery also has an online index, and I found Clara buried there, but again, no listing for Wenzel.

I called the cemetery thinking perhaps Wenzel might have been buried with Clara but for some reason he was not included in the index. The woman who answered the phone was friendly as could be when I explained what I was looking for, and went to pull Clara's card from the file.

"Was your great-grandfather's name Wenzel, by any chance?" she asked when she returned.

"Yes! Is he buried there?" I asked.Oh Yes! She shoots, she scores!

"No," she replied, "He's not here - someone made sure of that."

*lengthy pause*

"I've never seen anything like this, actually."

Attached to the Clara's card was a notarized letter from her brother, Alfred Klein, which read: "I, Alfred Klein, lawful owner of cemetery block xyz at Neenah Cemetery, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, hereby order S.E. Kurtz, caretaker of said cemetery, not to bury Wenzel Herman, husband of my deceased sister Clara, on said cemetery lot." The letter was signed and dated less than three weeks after Clara's death.


She kindly offered to send me a copy of the letter, which I received a week later and added to my Wenzel file. So now I know a few things:

• Wenzel had two marriages that ended badly (first to my great-grandmother, and then to Clara Klein).
• He was still living in 1939.
• He was not buried with either of his wives (as I have been to my great-grandmother's grave).
• My grandfather was not the only man who didn't like Wenzel.

A picture has formed, and it isn't a pretty one. My next research will focus on trying to answer two questions:

1. Where is Wenzel buried?
2. What on earth did he do to that prompted Mr. Klein to send that letter?

Here is what I found.

*Sorry, dear, but it's true: You married a geek.

Review: Sex Dungeon for Sale! by Patrick Wensink

Sex Dungeon for Sale! isn't what you think (and by the way, shame on you for thinking it). It's a collection of short stories; the title story concerns a real estate agent trying to sell a house with a *cough* unique selling point.

The author, Patrick Wensink, contacted me on goodreads, suggesting I might like it because I had also reviewed (and oddly enough, rather enjoyed) a similar book by the same publisher, Help! A Bear is Eating Me!. I have to commend Mr. Wensink for having an effective marketing strategy, as his personal pitch did lead me to buy a copy of the book, but I would suggest that his method may be a bit too labor-intensive for the book to ever reach the New York Times bestseller list.

Although I think, given the subject matter, that may not actually be the author's goal here.

SDFS! contains 12 short stories, several of which are only two or three pages long, covering a surreal assortment of subjects including:

• "My son thinks he's French," about a mysterious beret-wearing, croissant-eating toddler

• "Wash, Rinse, Repeat, " which concerns a washing machine released onto the market with a "Kill" cycle

• "Jesus Toast," about a woman whose gift is seeing images of religious figures and dead celebrities in food, and makes her living auctioning off the items

Each of the stories has an interesting, surreal spark of an idea, many of which I thought a good graphic artist could make into an excellent, if somewhat nauseating, Far Side style cartoon. For example, one of the stories, "You can't blow yourself to smithereens on an empty stomach," envisions a young suicide bomber at breakfast with his parents. Not quite enough to carry a short story, but a good illustration and I could see it on the cover of a magazine*.

In other cases, I felt like the story would do well if the idea were expanded with better character development and narrative. One of the longest stories, "Pandemic Jones," concerned a plot to overthrow the government by sending in people infected with deadly diseases. Great idea, except that the story throws in a number of elements that don't quite jibe: the narrator starts off working for a pharmaceutical company, at the end it turns out he's a homeland security spy, which could have worked if the narration was less disjointed, but instead the surprise twist ending (I think), left me confused. Actually, the whole thing kind of confused me.

The writing, particularly the dialogue, fell flat; inadequately developed, all the characters sounded like the same person, with the same terse style as the descriptive sections. I had difficulty visualizing the scenes, as not much time was spent developing the settings.

Wensink can turn a memorable phrase, without question. In "The Many Lives of James Brown's Capes," a military commander takes exhorts his troops with the statement, "I trained a whole Serbian death squad to Cats. But if you guys don't want to be the best ..." Arresting, to be sure. Unfortunately, it crosses the line into poor taste without really serving much purpose in so doing.

In general, I found the stories to be weird for the sake of being weird, without entertaining or illuminating me quite enough along the way. This made me start nitpicking about things, like in "Pandemic Jones" when they plan to spread whooping cough as part of a plan to sell a drug that cures it - great idea, except that children are routinely vaccinated against whooping cough.

I think Mr. Wensink has potential: lots of clever and unique ideas, and I look forward to seeing more of them when his execution has more finesse.

Inner Pedant typo count: 5 (site for cite, Rivera for Riviera, malitia for militia, effect for affect, and Ronald Regan instead of Reagan).

*Although probably not The New Yorker.

Lineated Woodpecker, Monkey River, Belize

I'm speechless... Wordless Wednesday!

Review: Bright Lights, Big Ass, by Jen Lancaster

When I read Bitter Is The New Black, which is hands down one of the funniest books I've ever read, I decided Jen Lancaster was going to be my BFF. I can handle it, honestly. For example, she made me snort loudly with laughter as I read her book at the hair salon, but she also gives me the chutzpah to not really care what the other snooty patrons think. Haven't they got anything better to do than stare at someone enjoying a good book under the dryer? Apparently not. And despite my granola-crunching liberal tendencies, I can handle her Fox News leanings, as long as I get invited to the slumber party with her and Ann Coulter. 

Unfortunately, although Bright Lights, Big Ass is a very funny book, I'm starting to wonder if Jen and I are going to be best friends forever. The book's full title is Bright Lights, Big Ass: A self-indulgent, surly ex-sorority-girl's guide to why it often sucks in the city, or, who are these idiots and Why do they all live next door to me? which (when I finished gasping for air) led me to the idea that the book was filled with observations on urban life. This is true, but not really the main focus, which is all about Jen: All Jen, All The Time.  

If you love Jen and her humor, you won't necessarily think this is a bad thing, because in a lot of ways, the book is so funny that you just won't care. But after a while, for me, there wasn't enough story holding it together, and the humor became a bit repetitious and, finally, grating.

BLBA covers the period of Lancaster's life from when Bitter is the New Black was sold to a publisher to the period it was actually published: She knew she could sell her writing, but had to earn a living in the meantime. Thus, she takes a series of temp jobs to earn money, but also devotes a portion of her time to her writing (presumably BLBA). That is as much narrative as there is - she drifts along, and so does the book. Sometimes we're discussing her temp jobs; other times, Rachael Ray; and then there are the neighbors of the title, who do (finally) get their own chapter toward the end.

Lancaster is at her best when describing her often hilarious interactions with others: A particular favorite scene was when a Monkey Woman berated her on the bus because she was reading an Ann Coulter book: "Normally I'm all for a rousing political discussion, but only with people I'm entirely sure won't fling poo at me." I'm on the polar opposite end of the political spectrum, but I can so relate.  

I loved the descriptions of the temping jobs, especially the young boss, Jimmy Neutron, whose gets rid of her for being so good at his job. ("2:55 pm, Explain to Jimmy that he should avoid using made-up words like 'mandation' when asking donors for money.") My inner pedant especially enjoyed this chapter, as it described Lancaster's editing prowess, and yet contained two typos.* 

Now, to be fair to Lancaster, the book is clearly described as a collection of essays on the back cover: No story was really promised, and if I'd bothered to read the back cover**, I might have had a different reaction. But it still felt a bit thrown-together, particularly Lancaster's tendency to rely too much on a few verbal tricks to get laughs, one of which was so simple an amateur like me could employ it: Yay, me! Another was beginning a sentence as a question and answering the question with the second half. And that? Gets annoying after a while.


Still, BFF's are nothing if not forgiving, and since Jen Lancaster can still make me snort in public places, I'll just see BLBA as a rough patch in our relationship. She has a new book out on reality tv, My Fair Lazy, and since I'm too lazy to try to keep up with reality tv, I'm going to give it a shot.

* I choose to believe that it was a little joke, rather than believe that having some temp spending fifteen minutes running a spellcheck is too much of an investment for the publishing industry these days.
**The front cover was really long, so I figured it covered all the salient points.

Life Skills: Note-Taking

I realized the other day that I need to carry a notebook around. Ideas always come when you're not looking for them, and for me, if I don't write something down right away ... it's gone and never coming back, and the only thing I would remember is that I had this great idea and then forgot it.

I know I'm not unique in this: I once read that Roald Dahl got the idea for a book while his car was stalled on the side of the road, and since he had nothing to write it down on, he wrote it with his finger in the layer of dirt on his car: ELEVATOR.

Dude, I can so relate - and since I let my daughter wash my car the other day (fun on a budget!), even that option is closed to me, at least in the near-term.

I've been writing things down on the backs of the receipts that seem to accumulate in my wallet*, but I have come to fear the day I ever need to return something because I will probably give away the idea that would have won me a Pulitzer Prize because I optimistically bought a size 10 without trying it on and then got it home and remembered, "Oh, Yeah, it’s been a few years since that was actually my size."

I suppose I could have picked up a plain little notebook at an Office Supply Store, but is it really possible to think great thoughts in an average-looking notebook?

So I wandered over to etsy, where I found the most brilliant little notebook:

Don't you just love it? It's made out of recycled blank paper (for my brilliant thoughts) and the cover is from a 1950's Bobbsey Twins book. I used to have a book with the exact same cover.

Looking around some more (if some is good, more is better), I found this little notebook made with the same technique:

If I knew a birdwatcher, I would totally give it to them. Despite the fact that nearly half the photos taken on our recent Belize adventure were of birds**, I believe it is well established that I am not a birdwatcher***. But I think it's adorable, so I might use it for my note-taking.

* I have no idea where they come from. I think that like pennies, they breed at night while I sleep.
** Taken with my husband's camera.
** The correct term is "birder," but I'm still not one.

As if deciding which book to read wasn't hard enough ...

... now I'm trying to decide what format to read it in.

My stepson showed up here the other day with an Amazon Kindle, which was quite a relief to me as I'd been concerned that the chiropractic industry was giving kickbacks to the local high schools in return for loading up the kids' backpacks with books - and judging by the size of his backpack, they are paying by the pound.

So I'm checking out his Kindle and developing a wicked case of gadget envy until I inquire, "Can you read library ebooks on it?"

He gives me his best Why Should I Care It's Not Like I'm The One Paying look, and I go off to do some research. Yes, you can check ebooks out of the local library. Unfortunately, you can't read them on a Kindle unless you decide to pony up for the $489 model, which kind of eliminates the whole library-book-money-saving thing.

So I load up his Kindle with free previews of books I think he should read and decide, maybe I should do some more research. After all, the best cure for gadget envy is getting a better gadget. Not that I would attempt to have a gadget duel with a 15-year-old boy. I mean, that would be wrong.*

My good friend Col over at Col Reads has high praise for the iPhone's Kindle app, but that would involve me getting an iPhone and to be honest, someone who has not yet mastered texting should probably not be allowed to carry that much technology in her purse. Not to mention, I work from my house and thus have constant access to my computer, so I can't really justify the ongoing cost of an iPhone, much as I'd like to (and believe me, I've tried). 

Marie over at the Boston Bibliophile has high praise for her Sony eReader, which I've checked out and unfortunately, it didn't do much for me. The Sony does allow library eBooks and I thought it would be The One, but we had a blind date at the demo counter at Borders and we're not heading up the aisle anytime soon. The navigation was not intuitive to me, and I found the type, at least on the two models I saw, didn't look like a page of a book.  

But her post enlightened me on another key point about eReaders: They have accessories!

How has this escaped my notice?

She has an amazing, beautiful eReader cover bought from an etsy seller, who appears to make covers for all the differnt types of eReaders, so when I do finally find one I want to commit to (at least, until our inevitable technical-obsolescence-induced divorce), I can dress it up for every occasion. After surfing around etsy and buying some other fun things that I intend to pass off as things I made myself**, I checked around a bit and discovered many, many eReader accessories, several of which I must have, starting with Barnes and Noble's cute little Alice In Wonderland cover for the Nook.

I'm starting to feel a bit like Muriel in Muriel's Wedding - trying on the wedding dresses without actually having a groom lined up. I haven't checked out the Nook in person yet and now the Kobo is coming. Hopefully one of them will be The One. 


* Because I'd lose.
** I'm creative but hard-pressed to come up with the kind of craft-making time some folks seem to have. 

I Was Lost, But Now Am Found. Thanks, Google.

For the longest time, I didn't really understand blogs. Specifically, how is one supposed to follow them? Checking back daily is, frankly, a lot of work if you have any sort of life, which I (mostly) do. So I did a little research and discovered the wonders of Google Reader, for keeping track of all the blogs I want to read, in one handy place.

But then there's another small matter: how does someone find a blog to follow in the first place? I understand, of course, that one can simply search with Google or Bing, but what does one search for? "Pithy, insightful blog"? 

I think you can imagine how excited I was to discover that it is possible to track, via Google analytics, exactly how people are finding my blog; specifically, what search terms bring folks in for a visit. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, the research creates more questions than it answers. 


I know that other bloggers and webmasters will benefit from the results of my extensive, highly scientific research*. But since I'm a (mostly) nice person, I'd like to also offer my assistance, where possible, to those who surfed in here using any of the following terms. 

• Hands down, the number one search terms that brings people here is "Julie Powell Bondage." I cannot even begin to imagine the disappointment these searchers must experience when they google that phrase and then discover ... a book blog. I'm trying to think of something they might enjoy more. Anyone want to help me out with some photoshopping? 
• "Virtual Girls" Please consider match.com for all your future networking needs.
• "Bear eating penguin." Do bears even eat penguins? I thought sharks ate penguins. I'd try to google the answer but I suspect I'd end up right back here.
• "Penguin deep freezer." Why? Does the bear need to store penguin leftovers? Is Antarctica not cold enough to keep said leftovers fresh for polar bear midnight snacking?
• "Penguin Angus." Are you looking for a penguin named Angus? Don't know him, sorry. Or are you a bear looking for high-quality angus penguin? If the latter, check the freezer section at your local antarctic emporium.
• "Zombie Webkinz and I Want To Be One of Them." Finally, someone I can help. Buy yourself a Webkinz**, and then sometime around Halloween, go to the W Shop and buy your virtual pet a virtual zombie costume. Please note: you cannot actually convert yourself into pixels.

If you surfed in here on any of those search terms, or really, any search term not answered in my blog, please do let me know what you were actually hoping to find, and I'll do my best to help. 




* Hey, I'm sure someone at Google spent a lot of time making all those pretty charts on the analytics page.
**Any Webkinz will do, but the penguins are terribly cute.

When you least expect it ...

If you've been reading along (and I know you have), you know that I am hopelessly behind in my reading challenge and probably on the road to failure, at least to the extent that success or failure is defined in terms of books read in a 12-month period.


But I have been making progress on my genealogical research, and sometimes it's hard to concentrate on a regular ole book when there's so much discovering to be done.


Some time ago, I mentioned that I had started to discover some of the lost history of my father's family. To quickly recount, my grandparents on that side were Latvian Jews, who emigrated to South Africa in the mid-1930s. I won't recount the entire history for you (there is an excellent account here), but suffice it to say, this story does not have a happy ending. My grandmother was relatively lucky: two of her three brothers survived, and one of those brothers' three children also survived. For my grandfather, the outcome was unfathomable: his entire family was destroyed. 


He never spoke of them. 


When I learned from a historian of the town that my grandmother's surviving nephew was still living, I attempted to contact him, only to discover that he did not speak English. Of course, this should not be a surprise, but being American, I blithely assume everyone speaks English until they tell me otherwise. He sent me a stream of seemingly random emails with oddball attachments (example: a powerpoint of some animal-shaped topiaries in Florida) and I sent him a stream of photos and questions, optimistically written in English, which he did not answer. Hint: typing in all caps doesn't help people understand English any better than shouting at them.


Finally, after several months of trying to decide what to do, I looked through his seemingly random attachments, and latched onto the name of someone I thought might help me, and sent a pleading email for help.


An incredibly kind woman replied to me, and generously served as interpreter for us. I gathered up the grim facts, and answered questions in turn, as he had questions for me as well. I cannot say it shed a tremendous amount of light on my history, but it certainly felt good to reach out to this man, and have him reach back in his own way.


Buoyed by my small but hard-won accomplishment, I decided to try my luck with the Latvian State Historical Archives, whose genealogy department the historian recommended to me for my research. So I wrote to them, explaining that I had really very few facts about my grandfather, except I knew his name and approximately when he emigrated, and could they please help me? I mailed it off to Latvia with the thought that when they don't have anything and probably don't even reply to tell me so, well, at least I can say I tried.


I am quite sure you cannot imagine my surprise to receive the following email less than two weeks later:


"In reply to your request please be informed that some information about the family of your grandfather including even pictures of him and some of the family members is available. So it means that the genealogical research is possible."


And then instructions for transferring funds to pay for the research, which will take a year to complete.


Just so you know: It is really hard to type a blog post when you are jumping for joy.


My cousin on that side of the family lives in Johannesburg, and so although we email from time to time, I am a lousy correspondent (as she often reminds me), so we don't communicate nearly enough and she's been on me to set up a Skype account so we can chat. Now I'm all MUST HAVE SKYPE NOW.


Download. Install. Test. Hm ... no sound. 


Shout at computer. Still no sound. 


Read instructions: Ah! It recommends using a microphone.


I have a test call with my friend Tod. He can hear me. He walks me through conference calling. Explains how to set up groups. Skype can do many things, all of which are lost on me at the moment because all I want to do is call my cousin in Johannesburg and it's the middle of the stupid night there! 


I call my friend Charlotte who's all fancy-schmancy with the webcams and shows me that, good gracious, the future has arrived and Hello! You can buy it at Best Buy for about the price of a manicure. I am tempted to call her a young whippersnapper but such is my mood that I refrain. 


My husband gets wind of this and starts lecturing me about computer security and (lengthy, acronym-filled technical something-something-something) and all I can do is wait for him to stop talking and ask, Can you pick me up a webcam on the way home?


I didn't get the webcam*  but the next day, over my morning coffee and her dinner, I did get to hear the lovely accented voice of my cousin, and shared the news with her, and she shared the news with my Aunt, and we are all excited at the prospect that we might finally learn our shared history.


Now, I was raised to be wary of things that seem too good to be true, but I have a hard time picturing some Nigerian scammer putting together an email informing me I have won a genealogical lottery jackpot ... because if such a scammer exists, he's smart enough to realize I'd pay far more than $100 (plus bank transfer fees) for this information. So I wired the money to someone I truly hope is the lead researcher at the Latvian State Historical Archives. 


And in 9-12 months, I hope to tell you how it turns out.




* I did, however, get another lecture about the dangers of viruses and could I please be careful what I download?

Social Graces

If you're anything like me, you have read the book Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads, and your copy has names of fellow parents written, sometimes underlined and with angry exclamation points, in the margins next to the descriptions of the various categories of people you will endure in your efforts to secure your child an adequate supply of friends and party invitations in a "top-rated" elementary school in suburban America. 


You probably bought the book just after throwing your first grader a birthday party at some local bouncy-toy place and including among the invitations her entire girl scout troop, thinking, "This is a nice gesture that will be appreciated by children and moms alike." You will be surprised when only two girl scout parents RSVP by the date indicated, and when you send an email to one of the eight parents who have not yet acknowledged the gesture, you will be stunned to, within an hour, receive eight phone calls RSVP-ing, and yes, mostly declining the invitation. 


After two more years of angst, self-esteem struggles, and vain attempts at social acceptance, you too might have an epiphany, and move your child to another school, where she will thrive and you will realize you just don't give a rip about the other parents as long as your child is thriving - but oddly, the other parents at this school are always pleasant and seem to make efforts to include you, even though it can be work for them sometimes because you've taken to sitting at the side of the playground with a book rather than risk further public rejection.


And then, you'll have a second epiphany, and you'll unfriend those few mothers from the first school that friended you on facebook, for reasons you could never really fathom but tended to assume had something to do with wanting you to see pictures of parties you weren't invited to.


When you do this, you will forget, of course, that your child still has some close friends at the school, whose mothers you do consider friends, and that they will continue to invite you to events ... which you'll attend. It will not occur to you that while waiting to be seated for a school play, you will spend a half an hour on line behind your daughter's former Girl Scout troop leader, who will manage to avoid eye contact with any member of your group until you step away to take your child to the rest room, and whose attention will suddenly be diverted immediately upon your return.


Did I say a half hour? My mistake. This person will actually sit behind you for the entire play and yet avoid eye contact for the entire evening ... nor will she hear when your 9-year-old says a chipper hello to her.


It will occur to you when you get home how much effort this took her, and you will be surprised that someone was willing to expend this much effort on your behalf, rather than simply mutter a frosty "hello" and then move on. My teachers growing up often complained that I was bright but somewhat lazy, and I can see now that I've clearly been taking the slacker's way out of these awkward social situations. 


If all of these things have happened to you, take heart. One day, you will take your child to a birthday party, where one of these same moms, standing not five feet away from you, will look away quickly, but not quickly enough that you don't see exactly what she's just done. And you will worry, for a while, because you are going to not one but two parties with this person in the next three weeks, because you have one good friend in common. You will worry about being seated at a formal dinner next to this person, who won't talk to you all evening. You will worry about being at an informal birthday party with this person, who will spend the evening darting to the other side of the room to avoid having to ... what? politely chit-chat for a minute or two? 


But then, when you go pick up your daughter from the birthday party,  the elevator doors will open to let you off, and this other mom will be standing will be standing right in front of them as they open, looking right at you, with no place to pretend to look away to and no time to react or do anything but smile and say, "Hello."


And you will smile back, not because she smiled, but because you really had no idea you were the one with the power.