Books to read in 2008

I love to read. It is probably my favorite hobby and serves so many purposes for me, from getting distraction from my worries to learning about something or someone I am interested in to just being able appreciate an author’s writing style. I read a lot. I read mostly fiction, with some memoirs, nonfiction and autobiographies thrown in. I have a Books to Read list that has over 300 books on it, though I have started using the Amazon Wishlist function for this and have added several dozen additional books there. I know I will never come close to reading everything that I want to read and that makes me sad. However, I am determined to do the best I can and in fact I have considered learning to speed read so that I can fit more in! We'll have to see about that. The hardest thing is that intriguing new books come out all the time, so I am adding way more to my To Read lists than I am actually finishing. I read 29 books in 2007 and I am very proud of that. When I lived in Boston and commuted by subway, I had lots of built in reading time in my daily schedule, up to 90 minutes a day sometimes. I used to fly through books, it was great. When I moved to Las Vegas, suddenly that built in reading time wasn't there anymore since it is a driving city and I found that I wasn't reading at all. Slowly over about 2 years, I learned to work it back in and have read lots of wonderful books. I will post my 2006 and 2007 lists of books read soon. I like to keep track as I am a listmaker and it gives me a great sense of accomplishment. It also allows me to read back over it and remember all of the great books I read, which over time I may slowly forget if I didn't have them written down.

.

Here are the books I plan on reading in 2008:

All The King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (book club) - just finished this and it was wonderful!

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (book club)

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Song of Susannah: The Dark Tower VI by Stephen King - currently reading this one

The Dark Tower: The Dark Tower VII by Stephen King

The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas

Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Dave’s Way by Dave Thomas

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

.

Hardcovers I may suck it up and buy so I can read them this year:

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

.

I would love some recommendations, if anyone has a favorite book they'd like to mention...

Desiderata of Happiness

I first encountered The Desiderata of Happiness about 10 years ago in a framed print on the wall of a doctor's office. It really spoke to me and I refer back to it often when I am in need of a little perspective. I find it so gentle and wise, it hangs on the wall next to my bed so it is always there for the times when I just need a little something to bring some peace to my mind.

The Desiderata of Happiness by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Comment by The Man:

"Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit."

Have you met your husband?

Post Secret

One of my favorite things to do on Sundays is to check out the new additions to PostSecret. PostSecret is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."
A new set of secrets is posted every Sunday. I think it is just such a
cool thing, it allows people to share their secrets with the world,
without actually sharing them with anyone since it is always
anonymous. I think the release of the secrets out into the world, instead of holding them inside can be incredibly freeing and I am often really moved by what I see on the site. Some secrets are goofy, some are tragic and some are just downright
disturbing, but I think they do help a lot of people to not feel alone
for inevitably, someone sends in a secret that could have been yours.
You can find more info about it here. Collections of secrets have even been published into books, I believe there are 4 at this point. Here is a video trailer for the site which includes a video montage of secrets set to the gorgeous song Breathe Me by Sia, along with Frank, the founder, talking a bit about the project as a whole.

Comment by The Man: This is a great site and of the same ilk as that 'Found' site...if you can post the link I'm sure people would enjoy it. Both offer that voyeuristic experience into the deep, dark private worlds of total strangers. And come on, who doesn't get a thrill from that?

Van Gogh in Oregon

Growing up in New Hampshire, forests are a given. They are everywhere, covering the mountains and surrounding the towns. My parents still live in the house that we moved into when I was two years old, and their property is on the edge of, and in fact includes, some beautiful forest. I spent a lot of time during my childhood hiking in those woods, building forts and hiding out. Green is one of my favorite colors, I don't think it's a coincidence.

Those of us who grow up in New Hampshire think the fall foliage is beautiful, but we see it every year and usually end up having to rake the leaves a week or two later so we don't always feel the same enthusiasm as the leaf peepers who show up every fall. Having moved to the desert, let me just say that I will never take the beautiful greens of spring and summer or the golds and reds of the fall for granted ever again! The desert is beautiful in its own way, but it's hard to feel the same sense of connection to nature when the prevailing colors are gray and brown all year. We don't see much of that pale, electric green of new buds on the trees in the spring or the gorgeous deep green of a well cared for lawn and the bright colors of a blooming garden in the summer or the blinding golds and reds that blanket the countryside in the fall. In fact it seems irresponsible to me for anyone to try and recreate this in the desert, given the fact that water is a scarce resource and the blazing summer sun evaporates it in no time.

I have been saying to friends for a few years now that one of the things I miss most about New England is the color green, so I am really excited that my husband and I will be moving back to NH this summer. I can't wait to go hiking in the forest where I always get such a sense of calm and connection. The woods have always seemed alive to me, buzzing with energy, radiating growth and sustained life. In the wintertime, when the energy is much more gentle, there is still a feeling of resting and renewing. I don't get that same sense from the desert at all, even in the height of summer. Desert plants certainly deserve some respect due to their hardiness and fortitude through the harsh conditions, but it's just not the same for me.

My last trip into the forest was in Portland Oregon on Labor Day. I was visiting my friend Katie and she took me for a hike in Tryon Creek State Park. It was wonderful, my soul really needed it after being in the desert for so long. I took this picture there (click to enlarge):

.

.

.

Then I saw a print of this painting by Vincent Van Gogh this morning on art.com, called Woods and Undergrowth (click to enlarge):

.

.

.

They look to me like they could both be of the same place! Seeing the painting reminded me so much of the photograph which took me right back to what was a wonderful hike in a beautiful place, to cap off an amazing long weekend with my friend. Nice memories to start my Friday!

NV Caucus

So the Nevada caucuses were on Saturday and I was really looking forward to it, partly for the new experience but mostly because I think participating in the politic process is so important and I think this election in particular is crucial. I was born and raised in NH, but went to college in MA, so I only ever voted by absentee ballot as a NH resident during college, assuming my Democratic vote was worth more there than in almost always blue MA. I also liked being able to vote in my small hometown's elections, town meetings, etc primarily to support the schools where my mom is a teacher. So my first experience voting in a booth was in the 2004 presidential election in Nevada. It wasn't even a real booth, but one of the electronic voting machines set a few feet away from the next with a privacy shield on each side of the screen. I voted for John Kerry and remember leaving the voting location that day and thinking that I had just participated in a part of history. I was glad to be voting in a true swing state, it felt like my vote was all the more important. We all know it swung in the opposite direction than I'd hoped, but it was a great feeling to have participated.

So the caucus rolls around and it's being hyped as an opportunity to gather and converse with your neighbors in a town hall style meeting. Really, NV chose a caucus instead of a primary because it wanted to move its date way up and not get its convention delegates stripped like the Democrats in Michigan and Florida. The powers that be wanted to move the date up so that the issues that are important to Nevadans might be given more weight and so we'd get more attention from the candidates than we might have otherwise. I'd say that was a success, the candidates definitely spent a lot of time here in the past year.

The caucus, however, was not a success. Our caucus location was at a middle school about a block from where we live. Registration went from 11 am – noon when the doors were promptly locked. We arrived at about 11:35 only to discover that we had no idea what actual precinct we lived in, which was important since there were 10 precinct groups at the same school. Quick phone calls to parents across the country with internet access eventually got us our precinct number and we then walked to the school’s gym, which was the home to our precinct’s caucus along with 3 others. Basically, we found our precinct area, sat with the Obama supporters within our precinct, got counted and left. There was none of this gathering and conversing with your neighbors business at all. It was so disorganized and poorly managed that I left feeling incredibly discouraged and honestly a little alarmed that official results could come out of a such an event.

There were 9 delegates (city delegates, I believe) to be won in our precinct. The total number of people who showed up in our precinct was 74. 26 Clinton supporters, 44 Obama supporters and 4 Edwards supporters. Since the Edwards group didn’t have 15% of the total support within the precinct, his group was deemed not viable to earn any delegates at all. The 4 Edwards supporters did have the opportunity to reconsider their vote and join either the Obama or the Clinton groups, but none of them chose to do so. This meant that there were 70 total votes in our precinct, 26 for Clinton and 44 for Obama. The delegates were split based on the percentage of supporters for each candidate, so Obama won 6 delegates (44/70 = 62.857% x 9 delegates = 5.657 rounded up to 6) and Clinton won 3 (26/70 = 37.143 % x 9 delegates = 3.343 rounded down to 3). How this turns into national delegates, I am honestly not sure. Senator Clinton did end up winning the overall NV caucus 51% to 45% for Obama and 4% for Edwards. However in terms of actual delegates to the national convention, Obama came out ahead. How this happened is described nicely here by the Associated Press:

“In Nevada, Obama won 13 delegates and Clintonwon 12, according to an AP analysis of caucus results. Obama won more delegates, despite getting fewer overall votes, because of the proportional manner in which Nevada awards delegates.

In most areas of the state where Clinton got the most votes, the party awarded an even number of delegates, so Obama and Clinton split them evenly. In some rural areas where Obama did better, the party awarded an odd number of delegates, allowing Obama to wind up with the additional delegate.”

Interesting. Also interesting to note, an “Only in Vegas” occurrence where one precinct had a dead tie between Clinton and Obama, and the tie was broken by a draw of the cards. I will be glued to CNN over the next few weeks and can’t wait to see the outcome of this very close, contentious and ultimately crucial primary season.

Comment by The Man: What a nightmare the whole process was. Unorganized, unoffical, underwhelming. Let me vote on my own schedule and then go home, dammit.

Question and Answer

Here is my all-time favorite poem by Charles Bukowski.

"question and answer"

 he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer
 night, running the blade of the knife
 under his fingernails, smiling, thinking
 of all the letters he had received
 telling him that
 the way he lived and wrote about
 that--
 it had kept them going when
 all seemed
 truly
 hopeless.

 putting the blade on the table, he
 flicked it with a finger
 and it whirled
 in a flashing circle
 under the light.

 who the hell is going to save                                
 me? he
 thought.

 as the knife stopped spinning
 the answer came:
 you're going to have to
 save yourself.

 still smiling,
 a: he lit a
 cigarette
 b: he poured
 another
 drink
 c: gave the blade
 another
 spin.

--from The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Eat Your Vegetables

You know those vegetables that were gross when you were young? Things like cauliflower and beets? Well I have discovered in the past year that I love both. I am a low carb eater which means that I eat lots and lots of vegetables. Variety is important as eating the same thing over and over can ruin any diet...er, way of eating. So I have worked these two new favorites into my life and have been very pleased with what they've added to my meals.

First, beets. I always thought that I didn't like beets. I seem to remember some canned sliced beets on my elementary school lunch tray, but I can honestly say I never tried them. I am guessing that maybe one of my parents doesn't like them and that's why we never had them growing up. I assume that is the reason because my parents are amazing gardeners and my childhood dinner plate was always full of various vegetables, often harvested from the backyard garden or greenhouse that very day. Fast forward to summer 2006 and I am at the Cheesecake Factory with friends and I ordered something called the Market Salad, which much to my dismay, does not seem to be on the menu anymore. It had greens, avocado, red and yellow bell pepper, asparagus, some sort of crumbled cheese (either blue or feta, I can't remember) and beets. I figured I'd just push the beets off to the side and enjoy the rest of my salad. I decided to try one and I couldn't believe my tastebuds, I really liked it! The beets were roasted and served cold. It had a very pleasing texture, smooth but with a bit of bite to it. Not crunch exactly, the closest thing I can think of is maybe cantaloupe, but that's not quite right either. The flavor was very mild, but closer to sweet than savory. Anyway, so started my love affair with beets. Whole Foods is one of my favorite places to eat and often has a cold beet salad in their deli. It has golden and red beets, roasted and cut into large chunks, a few spinach leaves and some cubes of feta all coated in a very light vinaigrette. This became a semi-staple for me during the summer of 2007. I soon realized that it was silly to pay $8.99 a pound for this, when I could easily make it at home. Cooking the beets was intimidating for me at first, I was sure I'd do it all wrong and stain my kitchen and clothing a deep bloody purple in the process. As I do with anything I try to cook for the first time, I googled "roast beets" and found that it was actually suprisingly easy. You just cut off the greens, scrub gently, then wrap the whole thing in foil and put on a baking sheet in the oven at 300+ degrees for 35+ minutes. The baking sheet part is important, as the juices do start to flow as the beet cooks and will inevitably find their way out of the foil. When done, let cool, unwrap and kind of just push the skin off. It's so thin and tender that you can literally just wipe it off with your fingers (though beware of staining!). You now have a nice roasted beet! To recreate Whole Foods' cold salad, I just cut into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with feta and a bit of white balsamic vinegar and voila! Delicious and nutritious. Beets are so different than other vegetables and I bet that if you try them, you will like them. In addition to being roasted and served either warm or cold, I believe they are also often pickled or just shredded while raw and added to salads.

Now, cauliflower. I am a huge fan of cauliflower. I prefer most of my vegetables raw, and raw cauliflower is just delicious to me. I love the texture, crunchy but crumbly at the same time. I often eat it with hummus, though I do enjoy the flavor on its own. I have recently figured out different ways to cook it, because steamed cauliflower is very blah to me. The first way is mashed. Having eaten low carb for many years now, there are lots of low carb substitutes that devotees swear by for some of the old carbby favorites. Mashed cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes is one of the most popular and I never actually tried it until about 2 months ago. I figured there was absolutely no way that it could come close to being a good substitute. Well I was wrong. One night I got inspired to try it as we were having pork chops and I had some cauliflower florets that needed to be used. The method is simple, I just steamed the florets in a covered bowl in the microwave with a splash of water for a few minutes, until very tender. Then I drained the little bit of water, added a little bit of butter, salt, garlic salt and pepper and whipped using our stick blender. They whipped up in 30 seconds and tasted exactly like mashed potatoes! Actually, let me rephrase that, they tasted BETTER than mashed potatoes. There was some sort of extra depth to the flavor that I really liked, though I am having trouble thinking of a way to describe it. Honestly I feel like I could be content never eating mashed potatoes again. Not to mention how much healthier the mashed cauliflower is. Just tonight, I made the Creamy Cheesey Cauliflower Soup recipe from the Cabot Cheese folks in Vermont (who make the best cheddar cheese in the country, in my opinion). It was very good, though I expected it to be thicker and will probably use more cauliflower than I did with the same amount of liquid next time. It actually made me think of clam chowder and I think it would be good with some canned clams and corn in it.

So there you go, if you have always thought you didn't like beets or cauliflower, give one of them a try. I think it's true that tastebuds do mature as we grow up. As adults, we can also have a better appreciation of the nourishment we are gaining from what we eat which makes trying and liking something new and healthy all that more enjoyable.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to step foot on the peak of Mt. Everest, died today in New Zealand at age 88.  Talk about a true adventurer.  There are only so many highest mountains in the world, and along with his Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, he was the first man to stand at the literal top of the world.  I can only imagine what that felt like.  I intend to find out and have just added his book, High Adventure: The True Story of the First Ascent of Everest, to my Amazon wishlist.

Mountain climbers fascinate me, in fact according to an blurb in my hometown newspaper from the mid-80s after I won a contest, I intended to be one when I grew up (as well as an artist and a ballerina).  Alas I ended up none of those things and crunch numbers for a living.  But only for 127 more workdays !  That's another post for another day.  One that I should really get to soon.

Primary Day in N.H.

Today is Primary Day in N.H. and I am really excited to see how things turn out. N.H. holds the first primary in the nation, in fact it is written into state law that the primary will be held one week prior to the earliest stated primary date established by any other state. The Iowa caucuses were held last week, however the caucus system doesn't involve voters going into a booth and voting for a specific candidate, but is more of a town hall style meeting where supporters gather in groups to show support for a particular candidate. So N.H. is actually the first state in the nation to have general election style voting in their primary and therefore the results give more weight to what we might expect in the general election. N.H. is my home state and as a liberal, I was pleased to see it reach "blue state" status in the 2006 mid term elections. It is a state full of undeclared, or independent, voters and the kicker in N.H. is that they can choose to vote on either side of the primary, either for the Democrats or for the Republicans. This will show the nation just exactly where these middle of the spectrum voters are leaning which is hugely important as I believe more and more voters, especially young voters, don't like to be pigeon-holed into one party or the other, but instead research each candidate's stance on the issues and vote accordingly based on their priorities. I will admit that I'm a straight ticket Democrat, but as this base of independent voters grows, I think the candidates will do whatever they can to appeal to these mid-spectrum minds. It makes me wonder whether the voting base moving more towards the middle might clear the way for a more than 2 party system in the (probably distant) future. Change is the buzzword of choice among all candidates, perhaps responding to what they sense in voters is a desire for new ideas and a different type of politics that is less partisan and more unified. The system as it is now is so bogged down and inefficient that something needs to happen. Barack Obama is my candidate of choice and as he gains momentum after winning Iowa and having an Election Day eve lead of double digits in N.H., it seems that he has inspired the hope that we aren't doomed to politics as usual forevermore.

A Little Fresh Air

I listen to NPR almost exclusively in my car and the syndicated interview show Fresh Air is far and away my favorite show. It is a radio talk show hosted by the wonderful Terry Gross who is the best interviewer I've ever heard. Her guests are usually writers, people in the film or music industries or other public figures and her interviews always take a very conversational tone. She has a way of asking probing questions without seeming like she's invading the subject's privacy and her guests always seem to really enjoy talking with her. Unfortunately I don't catch the show everyday, as it's on at 2 pm and 6 pm on my NPR station but when I do catch it, I find myself wanting to stay in my car and listen to the entire show. It is available streaming on the NPR.org website here and you can also download podcasts of the show. Take the time to check it out!

2008!

Hello and Happy New Year! This is my first post in my first personal, public blog and it is supposed to debut on 1/1/08 and in typical procrastinator fashion, here I sit at 5:15 pm getting it up and running. I have wanted to do a blog for a long time now. I have stumbled across some great blogs over the past year, some by old friends and some by complete strangers, and have been inspired by them all. I haven't really decided what this blog will be, but as I see it now, I think it will be part personal journal, part archive of all things interesting that I encounter and want to remember (and share!), part place to list and review all the books that I read and mostly just a chronicle of who I am and what I'm thinking about that I can refer back to often and enjoy. Or cringe. Whatever the case may be. I like the idea of putting something out there into the world, that others may happen upon and learn something new or interesting. Connect myself, in a way. I think it will be a great way of keeping my friends and family up to date on what I'm doing and who I am. It'll also be a good chance for me to practice my writing skills, which have gotten quite rusty during my 5 1/2 year accounting career. I want to note that doing this blog is a joint New Year's resolution that I've made with my friend Kent. We reconnected at our 10 year high school reunion in June and both expressed our desire to have a personal blog and agreed that we'd each read each other's so that we know we will at least have 1 reader! I will link to Kent's blog once I know where to find it. I wonder if he's procrastinated on this as much as me? ;) So that's it for now. As is, this blog is still in really rough draft format, I will certainly be updating and polishing it as time goes on...and as I figure out how! I will be introducing myself further very soon and giving more details about who I am, where I am, what I do and what my plans are. It feels great to have this first post done and out there, now I can just start posting whatever I see fit!