Family Funk

Dreary Early Sun Over KCMO Skyline Wed 08 Jun 2011

I can’t seem to shake this funk I’m in. All motivation for any activity has evaporated from me. I could blame it on the heat, but that would be a lie, since I’ve felt wonky from back in May when the lows at night were still in the 40s. I have many hobby and home projects I could be planning and prepping, but the minute I get home, I just wilt.

Terry tries to make me smile in many gracious and loving ways, and it helps me get through the evening. He makes fresh sun tea for me and greets me at the door with a tall glass of it. He grills and smokes the most amazing cuts of meat. He creates delectable appetizers, salads and side dishes, all ready and waiting for me the minute I get home. And even though he’s chronically ill, he manages to keep the house in tip-top shape, despite Apollo’s ability to shed three or four times his weight in fur.

I complained about cloudy skies, yet when the clouds disappear and the sun bakes the Midwest to a toasty 100 degrees in early June, I can’t be bothered to drag up the telescope and attempt to see the supernova in M51 (near Ursa Major). I can’t justify staying up late (and by late I mean past 9:30 p.m.), waiting for the sky to darken, since I must be up by 5:00 a.m.

I forgot to buy a birthday card for my daughter, who turns twenty-two this Sunday. Not that she’d be home to receive said card. She’s traveling, again, to Boston next week. In fact, she’s on a plane Sunday (her birthday). It’s been five or six years since Rachelle has actually been home (or even in the same state as me) to celebrate her birthday. She tends to travel routinely on her birthday. Last year, she turned twenty-one while studying abroad in Germany.

I opted to stay home this weekend and not travel like the rest of my father’s family to Ohio for my youngest cousin’s wedding. My dad is on the road now, heading east, while his brother is on the road, heading west from Virginia. The impromptu Andrea family reunion will converge upon Ohio this evening and continue throughout the weekend.

Next week, my mom is scheduled for surgery, for which I’m taking a day off to transport her to and from the hospital. At least she has finally found a blood pressure medicine that has few side effects. The following day is my aunt’s birthday, another one I routinely forget but this year I will get a birthday card and I will send it to her. I even put it on my calendar with double reminders to text me on my cell phone.

And a week from this Sunday, is Father’s Day. I’ve reminded the ‘adult’ children to get their cards and gifts in the mail soon. I just hope my dad makes it back from Ohio in time to celebrate, not that we need an excuse to take him out to dinner.

My son and his wife are prepping for their interviews. More on that after the fact, as I don’t want to jinx anything.

I used the word (or contraction of two words to be precise) ‘can’t’ many times in this post, something I usually avoid vehemently. I strongly believe that ‘can’t’ never did anything. Perhaps if I purge ‘can’t’ from my system, I’ll also free myself from this funkiness.

One can hope.

Book Review: The Winds of Khalakovo by Beaulieu

The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P. Beaulieu

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Prince Nikandr Iaroslov, of the Duchy of Khalakovo, one of the mountainous islands of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya, harbors many secrets. He contracted a fatal wasting disease, as has his sister Victania, for which he desperately seeks a cure. His lover, Rehada, is a native Aramahn, scorned as the ‘Landless’ by the ‘Landed’ citizens of the duchy. Rehada, in turn, harbors secrets of hate and revenge for the murder of her infant daughter by the Landed. Scorning her peaceful Aramahn heritage, she joins the splinter terrorist sect called the Maharraht, seeking to secretly strike back at the invaders The Aramahn work with the Landed, setting an example of peaceful coexistence, unconditional love and all-encompassing forgiveness, while the Maharraht strive for action, sabotage, subterfuge and lethal violence to rid the islands of the hated Landed.

Princess Atiana Radieva, of the Duchy of Vostroma, arrives with the rest of her family to seal the arranged marriage with Prince Nikandr, becoming the third and final side of this love/hate triangle. She and her two sisters grew up with Nikandr, teasing him and their brother, Borund, relentlessly and sometimes cruelly. Nikandr dreads leaving Rehada, has little hope of forging any emotional connection to Atiana, and fears what will happen should the Vostromans discover his disease. As with most arranged marriages among aristocracy, all is not romance and roses, political influence shifts hands, trade concessions secure Khalakovon natural resources for the Vostromans, all to strengthen these two Duchies as the islands are wracked by years of famine and blight. The starving peasants care little for the political posturing, seething with unrest and starting to riot over scant rations.

I could appreciate the new twist on a fantasy world, using Czarist Russia (and possibly the Cossacks in particular) as a basis for the ruling regime. I didn’t quite grasp the connection from land-locked unforgiving Ukraine or Siberia with a naval-like empire of wind ships, which appeared to be (from the limited descriptions provided by the author) some sort of strange sailing monstrosity with masts on four sides (top, bottom, port and starboard). Landing, even on an eyrie perch, must have been a nightmare, and what happens in an emergency when you need to ‘crash’ land on the sea or land? Masts break and sails rip dramatically, but completely impractical and short-sighted.

The magic system as revealed through the actions of various bit players also did not lend itself to easy understanding. The Aramahn bond with elemental spirits through various semi-precious stones and the Matri (the Duchy matriarchs) manipulate the aether from the cold dark, forcing order upon the world’s winds over the entropy of the natural and spiritual worlds. This, together with a thin skin of worldbuilding left me with nothing but the forward fast pace of the events unfolding to keep my attention. Not even the tragic ending could bring any emotion to the surface for Nikandr, Atiana or Rehada. The growth experienced by these characters failed to convince me to believe the actions they took. Even Rehada’s confession to Atiana lacked conviction. Nikandr’s professed love for the pivotal Nasim, even though Nikandr seemed willing to sacrifice himself for the boy, just didn’t ring true. Much too much ‘telling’ and sparse ‘showing’ prevailed throughout the novel.

Kudos to Brad Beaulieu for providing me with a crash course in Slavic vocabulary, including words he crafted for this world that look and sound like their consonant-heavy guttural Eastern European counterparts.

I doubt I’ll be following the further permutations of Nikandr, Atiana, Nasim or the Flying Cossacks. The pacing kept me wanting to read what happened next, but when I finished, I found I didn’t care what had happened.

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Book Review: A Darkness at Sethanon by Feist

A Darkness at Sethanon by Raymond E. Feist

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The final installment to the Riftwar Saga series contained page-turning action and most of the answers to mysteries and questions posed from earlier in the series, including a surprise twist that posed … more questions. While I enjoyed reading A Darkness at Sethanon, I felt the characters gained less growth this time around, being more reactive to the harsh circumstances thrown at them on their quest to stop Murandamus. The Pug, Tomas and Macros cameo chapters intrigued me the most, providing more background about themselves and the other elves, and more worldbuilding with glimpses of rift space and the end or beginning of the universe.

I enjoyed reading this series and feel it provides a good solid fantasy adventure story.

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First Third of My Summer Reads – June 2011

Just a few of my favorite things . . . thanks to participating in GoodReads groups and as a guest reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com:

SciFi and Fantasy Book Club’s currently-reading book montage

5029 members
Welcome to the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club!

Interim SciFi Czar: Ala
Fantasy Czar: Cindy

Books we’re currently reading

Consider Phlebas
by Iain M. Banks

Start date: June 1, 2011

The Summer Tree
by Guy Gavriel Kay

Start date: June 1, 2011

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Share book reviews and ratings with SciFi and Fantasy Book Club, and even join a book club on Goodreads.

Beyond Reality’s to-read book montage

747 members

Welcome to the Beyond Reality SF&F discussion group on GoodReads. In Beyond Reality, each of our me…

Books we plan to read

The Magicians
by Lev Grossman

Start date: June 1, 2011 *

In the Garden of Iden
by Kage Baker

Start date: June 1, 2011

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Share book reviews and ratings with Beyond Reality, and even join a book club on Goodreads.

Fantasy Book Club’s currently-reading book montage

2950 members

For lovers of Fantasy, monthly book discussions
May read: The Name of the Wind by…

Books we’re currently reading

Leviathan
by Scott WesterfeldStart date: June 1, 2011

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Share book reviews and ratings with Fantasy Book Club, and even join a book club on Goodreads.

Fantasy Book Club Series’s currently-reading book montage

300 members

Can’t resist the lure of an epic saga full of fantastic creatures, scintillating sorcery, heroic…

Books we’re currently reading

House of Chains
by Steven Erikson

Start date: May 15, 2011 *

Daughter of the Empire
by Raymond E. Feist

Start date: June 1, 2011

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Share book reviews and ratings with Fantasy Book Club Series, and even join a book club on Goodreads.

* I am not reading these selections.

Anything else I tackle this month can be found on my current-month book shelf at GoodReads.

Dark of the Moon, Light of the City

After weeks of overcast, I couldn’t believe my eyes on the commute home yesterday. A clear blue sky with little to no haze and not a single cloud to be found. Waiting for the sun to set never seemed to take so long as it did last evening. I wasted some time with a quick grocery shopping run on my way home from the Hallmark parking lot. Terry made an awesome salad, which I ate as soon as I got home. He also planned to grill a couple of t-bones we’d purchased last month at the local farmers market in Leavenworth. Even though the charcoal fired up perfectly, the steaks disappointed. It’s been decades since either of us had such a grisly tough steak. We will NOT be purchasing any more meat from that particular local farmer.

I got caught up on Jeopardy and still had an hour to go before sunset. I fed the dogs, did some laundry and watched a rocket reality show hosted by Kari Byron on the Science channel. I ignored most of it (as I do most reality television) and Terry drifted off into his after-supper food coma. I started transferring telescope equipment from the basement to the backyard as soon as the sun set. I left the patio door open so Roxy and Apollo could come visit me if they wanted to. For the most part, they ran along the privacy fence, occasionally barking at evening strollers and/or their dogs.

Just as I attempted to do an easy alignment in the alt/az mounted mode for the ETX-90 and the Autostar, I realized I needed my cell phone for the time (because the Autostar asks for the date and time first when you turn it on). I ran back in the house and got my phone and saw my father had called while I was outside. I admit I was a bit distracted while talking (mostly listening) to him as I attempted to align the telescope. He asked me where Saturn was and I thought it was almost directly overhead. After I hung up, I realized that what I thought was Saturn was actually Arcturus (once I used the Big Dipper’s handle arc to find it among the constellations that I could barely see through the ambient Lansing light pollution). Once I confirmed via the telescope that bright fleck was indeed a star and not Saturn, I drove a ‘spike’ towards Spica and found Saturn in close proximity to another bright star in the constellation Virgo. Here’s what I saw last night facing south from my backyard (well, I saw some of this – except for the view blocked by my tall house, several very tall trees and an electric utility pole in the southwest corner of my yard).

South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

: South Horizon to Zenith on 31 May 2011 at 2215

I attempted several times to align the telescope but failed repeatedly (even the Autostar kept telling me I failed). I could not use Arcturus as one of the two alignment stars because it was so high in the sky I could not use the finder scope. I know, I know, I should have installed my new red-dot finder scope before the first clear night in weeks arrived. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. 😛

I found Saturn and rejoiced in the clear view of it’s rings, using the 26mm and 16mm eyepieces. However, because I couldn’t get the telescope aligned properly, the slewing couldn’t keep up and Saturn drifted out of the field of view rapidly. Then, Saturn drifted behind the electric utility pole and I needed to wait five or ten minutes for the Earth to rotate enough for it to pop out on the other side. My night vision had begun to settle in (since I’d been outside for thirty minutes or so) when my neighbor to the north decided to turn on very bright lights in her second story south facing bedroom, leaving the blinds open. So much light emanated from that room that I could read my star atlas without using my night vision preserving red flashlight. I could have screamed in frustration. What I should have done was grab my camera and take photographs of her through her window and post them in this blog. For crying out loud! Don’t people realize that when you leave your blinds open and turn on every light in the room, it’s like a stage to those outside?!?!? She’s lucky I exercised restraint and left the camera inside.

With my night vision ruined, Saturn still behind the utility pole and the dew rapidly drenching all the sensitive optics, I elected to teach myself a couple of constellations and their primary bright stars, hoping my neighbor would turn off her bedroom lights. Using my new Sky & Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas, I found the charts for May and June evenings and studied the constellations Virgo and Leo. I also refreshed my memory of Bootes and Gemini (which I could barely see sinking into the western horizon, basically just the two dominant stars representing the twins’ heads – Pollux and Castor). Saturn was close enough to Porrima (also known as gamma Virginis) to see it through my telescope eyepiece’s field of view at the same time I watched the ringed planet.

The constellation I spent the most time studying lies just to the west of Virgo and contains several bright stars easily visible in from my light polluted back yard.

Denebola and Regulus are both visible soon after the sun sets. I studied Leo for several minutes, fixing the alignment of its stars into the pattern shown above. I returned to Virgo, since Saturn is traversing through that constellation at the moment. The configuration represented in my star atlas differs from those I have found represented on the internet this morning:

After waiting more than fifteen minutes for my neighbor to turn off her bedroom lights, I gave up, packed up the telescope and transferred it and all it’s accessories back down into my basement. Rain and clouds are predicted for the next few days (of course) during the darkest phase of the moon. I could just cry.

Book Review: A Devil in the Details by Stewart

A Devil in the Details by K.A. Stewart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wry urban fantasy is not my normal fantasy subgenre, but I’m not ashamed to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Devil in the Details by K.A. Stewart. I can savor the supernatural (angels, demons, witches, clerics) but please pass on the paranormal (vampires, werewolves, zombies) and that’s just what Jesse James Dawson did.

Check out my guest review at FantastyLiterature.com.

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I Spy the Night Sky

I stepped outside just before 9:00 pm to let the dogs out and shocked myself with the sight of actual stars, something I haven’t seen in weeks (it seems) with the unrelenting cloud cover, rain and thunderstorms plaguing the Heart of America this month. I grabbed my camera and tripod and setup just east of my mailbox, hoping to capture photographic evidence of the overwhelming light pollution saturating my neighborhood.

Bambi Court Due North (from in front of my mailbox)

Not only does everyone on my court leave every outside light on, they feel compelled to illuminate their driveways, fences, sidewalks, trees, boats, etc., etc. The clouds in the above picture are actually illuminated by the glow from the Lansing Correctional Facility (just a half mile north of my neighborhood).

Turning around 180 degrees on the tripod, and flipping the camera 90 degrees to the horizontal, I snapped a shot of my new ‘bright night light’ recently installed at the corner of Bambi Court and Fawn Valley:

New 'Bright Night Light' (Installed at the corner of Fawn Valley & Bambi Court)

Again, the neighbors to my south, on the south side of Fawn Valley, seem to be in competition with the Bambi Court Extreme Illumination Foundation.

I could barely see the handle of the big dipper, so I thought I’d try experimenting with long exposures using the Pentax K100D. There was no wind where I was standing, even though I could see the thin wispy clouds moving casually from west to east across the backdrop of the Big and Little Dippers. I set the camera to Shutter Priority Mode and selected a six second exposure for a half dozen shots of the northwestern, north and northeastern skies. The most dramatic shot, after autocorrecting with basic photo editing software (and I apologize for the greenness of the resulting photo), follows:

Bits of Ursa Minor and Draco (behind the clouds)

I packed up the camera and tripod and thought about heading to bed. I tried to read more from the Backyard Astronomer’s Guide but gave up around ten o’clock. I got up to let the dogs out one final time and, as I always do, I looked up when I stepped outside. I always look up. The clouds had cleared away more and I could clearly see the Big and Little Dippers from my back patio. I grabbed the tripod and camera again for some more experimental shots using an exposure of fifteen seconds. The following two photos show Ursa Minor and Major in one shot:

Ursa Minor and Major (Polaris is at 1 o'clock compared to the tree sillouette bottom center)

And there I will leave you to dream of the stars.

Good night and sleep tight!

My Pseudo-Google Alter-Ego

My husband and I trade salvos across the DMZ of household organization, not constantly, but consistently. I am highly organized virtually, but lack motivation for the more tangible aspects on the home front (I’ll let you translate that however you want). Terry is just highly organized (I will refrain from further labeling or categorizing in the interest of keeping the peace).

With the prospect of a mostly rainy three-day weekend to look forward to, I’ve decided to de-clutter the front closet. Tonight, Terry and I will inventory all our winter coats and jackets, with an eye towards donating most of them to GoodWill Saturday morning. I also plan to relocate all the orphaned games from when Rachelle and Derek were children, possibly storing them in the closets of their old bedrooms. I can make better use of that shelf for storing kitchen-related items, since our house does not have a pantry (beyond a small cabinet-like area next to the refrigerator). I envision reclaiming some of my counter space and pantry space by storing the crockpot, blender and other small appliances on the shelf in that closet.

Terry also suggested a couple of days ago that we finally work on Rachelle’s ‘green’ bedroom. This is the room I hope to turn into an office/library/reading room. Her ‘purple’ bedroom requires a lot more work, including purchasing a shredder to permanently deal with documents of a sensitive nature that we no longer need to store but can’t really just throw away intact. Once we get that clutter dealt with, we can finish remodeling the room by installing the wood floor. We removed the carpet for Rachelle in both rooms to help ease the symptoms of her asthma and allergies.

When I need to find something at home, I rely heavily on my photographic memory (not audio-graphic, just photographic … if I’ve seen it, I remember it) and my brain’s ability to find the memory with a speed that sometimes rivals an internet search engine (but is slowing as I age, sadly). Terry … just calls me … or yells for me (if I’m within earshot).

While I can remember, almost with install recall, whatever I’ve seen, Terry amazes me with his ability to remember, replicate and improve what he hears. He puts this ability to exceptional use as a rhythm guitarist (because he also possesses impeccable timing) for his band WolfGuard. I hope he’ll get an opportunity to compose a few more originals soon as he’s also a gifted composer. I’m looking forward to their next gig a week from Saturday and hoping they book a few more shows over the summer.

It’s a long-running joke between us that when I receive the phone call that begins with “I can’t find … ” from Terry, my first response is “And you stood in the middle of the room and couldn’t find it …” meaning if it didn’t jump up and bite him, he couldn’t find it. This happened today, but only in reverse. Terry couldn’t find his cell phone (therefore he couldn’t call me to ask where it was and I was too far away to hear him yell). When he did find it, he called me to tell me he couldn’t find it from the middle of the room, but once he moved towards his favorite recliner, he spied it under something, where it had fallen on the floor beside said recliner. Predictably, I laughed. He ended the conversation abruptly, responding to an urgent call of nature, to which I replied, “Yes, please don’t stand in the middle of the room and do that.”

Corner Yard Saga Continues and Other Updates

A little more than a month ago, on the ides of April, one of the early spring thunderstorms took out the streetlight that graced the corner of my yard. At the time, I jumped for joy at the prospect of stargazing with less light pollution than ‘normal’ in my over-illuminated urban area. Ironically, except for a handful of nights, the sky remained overcast for the past six weeks. I began to wonder if I’d been transported against my will to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve completely missed the pre-dawn planetary line-up (Mercury, Mars, Venus and Jupiter), even on ‘clear’ mornings thanks to haze, humidity and wispy clouds just thick enough to obscure the eastern atmosphere.

This week, the power company installed the new streetlight pole and rewired it to the leaning pole in the southwest corner of my yard. That’s the pole they really should have replaced as with the current thunderstorm activity, I predict it will be the next victim. Either the City of Lansing or the power company opted to continue over-illuminating the neighborhood by installing a standard cobra drop-lens fixture instead of the flat-lens cobra luminaire, which is a full-cutoff fixture, is very effective in reducing light pollution, ensuring that light is only directed below the horizontal, rather than directing light outwards and upwards. Not only are the nights getting shorter (and more humid), I now get to look forward to seeing less stars, constellations, planets, galaxies and nebulae. At least the moon has some chance of competing for a few days each month.

I snapped a couple other photos of the state of that corner of the yard, mainly the huge pile of dirt around the base of the new streetlight:

What to do with the dirt? Tamp it? Water it?

I wonder what type of grass seed the City chose for the patch of yard the snow plow scraped off earlier this year:

I’ll leave you with my final photo of the evening, a bit of flowery brightness to lighten the mood:

At the End of the Rainbow

Tonight wraps up the encore run of ‘A Taste of Victorian Literature‘ lecture and book discussion series with D.H. Lawrence‘s The Rainbow. Join us this evening at the Plaza Branch at 6:30 pm to listen to Andrea Broomfield‘s lecture and discussion the topic questions. Hope to see you there!

The following information provided to the group members as reading aids in e-mailed handouts:

About the Book:

Within weeks of its publication in 1915, The Rainbow was condemned by British authorities. A London court ordered the destruction of all copies seized from its publisher, leaving in the hands of oft-bemused readers fewer than 1,500 copies of the novel that would later be recognized as D.H. Lawrence’s masterpiece.

Its timing proved particularly unfortunate for The Rainbow, whose anti-war heroine sparked public outrage as World War I entered its second year. This fueled the controversy already surrounding the novel, which the National Council for Public Morals had targeted for its potential to demoralize the public through indecent language.

Both the politics and sexuality expressed in the novel are components of an intensely individualistic philosophy that Lawrence sought to articulate in this fictional chronicle that follows three generations of the Brangwen clan. The story begins in 1840 on a farm in the rural midlands of Nottinghamshire and traces one family’s social, geographical, and religious expansion during the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. In a genre style similar to that of the Dutch artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Lawrence depicts the importance of food and drink within the context of everyday people’s lives and the events that matter to them: weddings, holidays, christenings, and funerals.

The central character is Ursula, who is introduced as a young girl. The development of her consciousness becomes the chief occupation of the novel even as she pursues her education and a romance with her first love. Her story is continued in Women in Love (1920).

This novel falls within the broader definition of Victorian literature, though its author is certainly a product of the Victorian age and the events of the novel fall entirely within that timeframe.

About the Author:

D.H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) grew up in poverty in the Nottinghamshire town of Eastwood, which would serve as the setting for his early novels, including The Rainbow. His mother Lydia encouraged his education and their close relationship has been the subject of much critical debate.

Lawrence worked for a few years as a schoolteacher, though his poor health forced him to quit soon after the publication of his first novel, The White Peacock (1911). This debut was populated by idealized versions of friends and family, as Lawrence often created characters inspired by those he knew. His first commercial success was the essentially autobiographical Sons and Lovers (1913).

A prolific writer, Lawrence churned out multiple drafts of The Rainbow amid a stormy romance with Frieda Weekley, the wife of his former teacher and a mother of three. The couple fled to her native Germany and traveled widely, returning to England two years later to marry after her divorce was finalized.

Lawrence began associating at this time with members of the influential Bloomsbury Group, particularly writer Katherine Mansfield and philosopher Bertrand Russell, with whom he fashioned an unsuccessful plan to establish a revolutionary anti-war political party. A string of ill-luck and hardships – including suppression of The Rainbow – followed.

In 1920, the couple continued their travels and Lawrence returned to prolific form, writing several novels, travelogues, translations, scholarly works on literature and psychoanalysis, and poems in the years to come. Malaria nearly killed him while living in Mexico and his health never fully recovered. In 1928, he published his most controversial novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover; unexpurgated editions of the novel were unavailable for more than 30 years.

Lawrence succumbed to tuberculosis in 1930. His ashes are enshrined at Kiowa Ranch near Taos, New Mexico.

Discussion Topics for The Rainbow

Much of The Rainbow focuses on conflicts and tensions that exist between people in romantic relationships. As you read about Tom and Lydia, Anna and Will, Ursula and Winifred, and then Ursula and Anton, consider the degree to which these characters and their struggles touch on your own experiences with romantic love.
How might we use this novel to trace and understand industrialization’s effects on the lives of rural English people in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century?
How is Ursula a product of a transitional age, one that moves from an agrarian-based economy and culture to an industrial economy and culture?
Lawrence wrote that The Rainbow is “like a novel in a foreign language.” What elements strike you as unusual, perhaps difficult to translate or understand?
Although the novel depicts England in the Victorian era (roughly 1840-1905), the novel is in many respects modernist. Lawrence concentrates on the inner consciousness of his characters and relies on symbols to add depth to his plot. Including the rainbow itself, what other symbols does the author rely on to convey meaning?