All Rileyed Up

Nana: Little No Limit, do you like the color pink?

LNL: Yes!

Nana: Do you like hearts?

LNL: Yes!

Nana: Do you like things that are warm?

LNL: Yes!

Nana: Would you like something pink and warm and with hearts on it?

LNL: Yes!

Nana: What do you think it is?

Proudly Beaming LNL: Power tools!

(Note to self: Time to moderate the amount of Handy Manny watching going on in this house)

Little No Limit sits at the table. She is cutting paper, a popular activity for her. She moves to brush a strip of paper off the table and inadvertently knocks her pen down to the floor.

“Uh!” She exclaims. Then she looks at her dad with her lips protruded and anxiety inked all over her big brown eyes and says, “Daddy – pick that up.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “That is not how you talk to Daddy.”

She turns her eyes to Husband, lips protruding even more, maybe even a little tremble, and Husband laughs. “Oh, she just wants a little help.”

He walks over, picks up the pen, and hands it to her. I feel like he might have called her Princess too. She snatches the pen back, and without so much as a thank you, continues cutting paper.

I am about to say something, but Husband chuckled at that moment. Chuckled at this… this… behavior, and then looked at me and said, “Who knew when I married one, I’d get two?”

“That was, uh, so not cool.” At which point, I knocked something on the floor, looked at him, and added, “Pick that up.”

A couple friend of mine and Husband’s call us from time to time to go shopping at Costco. They don’t have a membership, so they tag along when I go and use my membership. Today is one such day.

Friend and I are putting on a little Christmas shindig and we need some supplies so we thought today would be a good day for Costco. I am waiting for her to arrive at my house, which gives me ample time to consider the last time she and I went to Costco.

It wasn’t “she and I” at all. Her husband came with me.

They were throwing a birthday party but she wound up having to work on the day I was planning to go to Costco. Her husband showed up with a list of everything he was supposed to buy. We arrived at Costco, and I asked if he wanted to walk around together, or separate and meet at the DVDs in half an hour. He opted for separating, so I went about my shopping.

About twenty minutes later, he finds me in the fresh veggies, and is like, “Hey! There you are!”

“Wow,” I said. “Did you already get everything?”

“No.” At which point I noticed his cart was empty.

“Dude, did you get… anything?”

At this point, I realized there was a different look in his eyes than I am accustomed to seeing:

Fear. Confusion. Anxiety.

“Where is everything?” he said. “I just keep walking around! This place is crazy!”

Needless to say, I laughed. A lot. Then I helped him find everything he needed (in seriously, like ten minutes flat, and that includes navigating those random customers who push around the big dolly laden with 500 gazillion cans of soda and one thing of water), and then proceeded to ridicule him the rest of the shopping excursion, complete with mimicking.

On that note, I’m looking forward to today’s venture.

The Way of Costco.

Who knew it could be so daunting?

So, for those of you still looking for a good book to buy for your loved ones, here are eleven books by Literary Mama editors and two more that I give the Riley stamp of approval to (it’s kind of a big deal on certain small islands):

1. Mama, PhD: Women Write About Motherhood & Academic Life
Edited by Elrena Evans and Caroline Grant
A literary anthology of deeply-felt personal narratives by women both in and out of the academy, writing about their experiences attempting to reconcile bodies with brains. These essays voice stories of academic women choosing to have, not have, or delay children, and make recommendations on how to make the academy a more family-friendly workplace. Candid, provocative, and sometimes with a wry sense of humor, these essays speak to and offer support for any women attempting to combine work and family.

2. Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined
Edited by Amy Hudock and Andrea J. Buchanan
This unique collection features the best of Literary Mama. It celebrates the voices of the maternally inclined, paves the way for other writer mamas, and honors the difficult and rewarding work women do as they move into motherhood.

3. Peeking Under My Skirt
by Stephanie Hunt
From intimate peeks at marriage to ruminations on candlelight, to an expose of the mayhem surrounding the annual extended family beach trip, Peeking is both lyrical and light-hearted.

4. A Ghost at Heart’s Edge: Stories and Poems of Adoption
Edited by Susan Ito
Fifty short stories and poems reveal the sometimes heartbreaking, often affirming tales of adoption, written by birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees.

5. The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan
Edited by Suzanne Kamata
This collection of short stories is an absorbing look at the Outsider in a nation that does not absorb foreigners easily.

6. Losing Kei
by Suzanne Kamata
Jill Parker is an American painter living in Japan who must choose between freedom and abandoning her child. Told with tenderness, humor, and an insider’s knowledge of Japanese family life; an exceptional expatriate voice.

7. Love You To Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs
Edited by Suzanne Kamata
The first collection of literary writing on raising a child with special needs, Love You to Pieces features families coping with autism, deafness, muscular dystrophy, Down syndrome and more. Here, poets, memoirists, and fiction writers paint beautiful, wrenchingly honest portraits of caring for their children, laying bare the moments of rage, disappointment, and guilt that can color their relationships. Parent-child communication can be a challenge at the best of times, but in this collection we witness the struggles and triumphs of those who speak their own language—or don’t speak at all—and those who love them deeply.

8. Generation
by Sharon Kraus
Generation maps the survival of a traumatic childhood. Kraus masters the toxic fall-out of abusive experiences by rendering them fiercely meaningful, almost as a dance or a biblical drama.

9. Strange Land
by Sharon Kraus
Chronicling the life of a woman embarking on marriage and contemplating motherhood, these poems wrestle with the narrator’s violent childhood and work to reconcile her past with the course of her future.

10. Real Life and Liars
by Kristina Riggle
As a wilted flower child, Mira Zielinski has never been one to follow orders. Not from her husband, not from her boss - not even from her oncologist. Mira has her own idea about handling her newly diagnosed breast cancer, and it does not involve hopping up on the operating table. Her grown children will no doubt object — when she gets around to telling them.

11. The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change
Edited by Shari MacDonald Strong
Exploring the vital connection between motherhood and social change, The Maternal Is Political features forty-four powerful, hard-hitting literary essays by women who are striving to make the world a better place for children and families—both their own and other women’s—in this country and globally.

12. One Bird One Stone: 108 American Zen Stories
By Sean Murphy
Amazing collection of stories and interviews with Zen masters living in America.

13. A Thousand Dollars for a Kiss
by Cindy Bokma
Dark chick lit comedy about what happens when a celeb-obsessed gal ignores everyone in her life to pal around with her favorite music star.

What do you have to do in the next 14 days?

1. Come up with exciting things to keep the kids busy while they’re out of school, like hang gliding off the roof with a couple umbrellas and a baseball bat. Hey, MacGuyver could do it.

2. Send out last minute cards. E-card or otherwise.

3. Buy last minute presents. And keep them hidden from prying eyes.

4. Partake in a White Elephant gift exchange where you wind up with the clown shoes and bow tie that squirts water. Score!

5. Write something for the True North contest.

Whoa, whoa, whoa… wait… what’s the True North contest?

Trust me, you want to enter this (though part of me would prefer it if you didn’t because it would increase my chances of winning).

True North Snacks, nut snacks from Frito-Lay, is sponsoring a contest for everyone to share their True North Story. In 300 words or less. This story should say what keeps you going, what drives you, what you want out of life, that old chest nut (pun intended).

The winning story writer receives twenty-five grand (just imagine how many postcards I could buy with that) and the story will be turned into a 60-minute commercial directed by Helen Hunt and ideally aired during the Oscars 2009 (which will give you TOTAL bragging rights at that Oscar party you usually don’t like attending because all you wind up doing is making fun of the outfits and speculating over movies you haven’t seen).

So what’s My True North Story?

My writing. That really is what I want out of life, to continue to be a writer who pursues her passion with passion, who writes what she loves, who writes words that can change people or move people or, in select instances, cause them to jump up and scream aloud, “Yes, Elvis is the Man!” (or “I’m all shook up”) I am having trouble formulating this story into a compelling string of 300 words, though.

Can you define irony?

Anyhoo, go ahead and check out the site. Seems like a fun thing to enter, and gives you a chance to really ponder the question “What do I want out of life?” and if you ask me, there aren’t enough of us asking ourselves that question these days.

I’ve decided to participate in this:

So here is my wreath and Santa bird feeder, which is a friendly, welcoming accompaniment to my dogs’ angry barking when the doorbell rings:

The Boy’s Christmas count down chain:

My Christmas tree (the lights didn’t do so well on film) - do you see the heart-shaped Elvis ornament?

And next to the tree is our mantle, where we put all the Christmas cards and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care, and blah blah blah:

I love Christmas. There’s lots of little things around the house, but I dunno, I didn’t really think you should see my bathroom and my shelves and my bed and all… there is such a thing as too familiar, you know…

One can get too familiar with vegetables, you know!

On that note, here’s a veggie-full dish I made the other night:

1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cup quinoa (or rice)
1 can packed pumpkin
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 cups broth
1-2 tbls olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic
salt and pepper, to taste

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until clear. Add celery and carrot and saute another 1-2 minutes. Add broth and pumpkin and stir until the mix is free of any lumps. Add quinoa or rice and bring to boil. Once boiling, add garbanzo beans, stir, then put lid on and turn to simmer for 20 minutes (do not take lid off or stir). Turn off heat, stir again, put lid back on, let sit another 10 minutes. Done.

(Psst - you might want to add a few spices to this if your kids are open to it. Mine are not. Husband adds tobasco to his. I add paprika.)

Little No Limit brought this home from school:

Huzzah!

Well, such a fabulous artistic rendering couldn’t go unnoticed and it wasn’t long before both kids were asking for REAL gingerbread men to decorate.

As luck would have it, we went to a birthday party over the weekend and the craft was deorating gingerbread cookies. Or as the package described them, “Gingergread Boys.” (Many jokes about strategically placed gum drops ensued.)

Here is Little No Limit’s gingerbread boy:

Wocka wocka wocka!

And here is The Boy’s gingerbread boy:

I have ears. Like them?

He couldn’t even eat this cookie because it wasn’t gluten free and the icing contained dairy, so I shall be making new cookies at home this week for him to make and consume.

For other children’s artwork, visit Magic Marker Monday, and also check out Our Little Tonginnator’s fabulous angel.

Here’s the list of books I’ll be reading for book club this year. Feel free to join in. I’ll try to post reviews as I read them:

January: “The View From Mount Joy” by Lorna Landvik

February: “Behind The Tortilla Curtain” by T.C. Boyle

March: “Loving Frank” by Nancy Horan

April: “One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd” by Jim Fergus

May: “The Lace Reader” by Brunonia Barry

June: “Ahabs Wife” by Sena Jeter Naslund

July: “The Island” by Victoria Hislop

August: “The Secret Between Us” by Barbara Delinsky

September: “The Life of Freya Stark” by Jane Geniesse

October: “A Gesture Life” by Chang Rae Lee (my choice! I’ll probably read it before October)

*Alternate Books:
“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larson & Reg Keeland
“A Case of Exploding Mangoes” by Mohammed Hamif (also my choice, which I STILL haven’t gotten around to reading)

On another note, look for yours truly in Literary Mama’s Essential Short Story Collection list. Anyone else a Roald Dahl fan?

On a visit to Steph at The Red Clay Diaries today, I was led to this poetry site, Pensieve.

A writer friend of mine says she likes to study and write poetry because it gives her the opportunity to examine words from a completely different persepctive than when you’re writing fiction or nonfiction. I couldn’t agree more. So I decided to participate in Pensieve’s monthly Poetic License. The deadline for submissions was Friday, but it was a fun exercise so I’m posting anyway.

The theme was winter or Christmas and the form was haiku or pensieve. I chose the pensieve, defined as this: “A titled, five-line poem; each line correlates to one of the five senses–sight, sound, scent, taste, touch–and describes the subject (title). The goal is for the reader to take on the poem as his own, being able to ‘experience’ your subject through your words, by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling what you described.”

Tree Decorating

Giggles and gasps as the tree branches receive their wares one by one:
Glittering glass orbs that sparkle in the white lights;
Gingerbread men, baked with vanilla and cinnamon;
Gilded, bumpy angels, a texture little hands can’t resist.
Ghirardelli hot chocolate, to cap the night off.

Sorry guys, but unless you want to read about bra shopping, I suggest you go check Sky Mall Madness: Tourney for the Dumbest Item of All Time. I just honestly can’t believe the Solar Powered Bible has gotten as far as it has. It is absolutely no competition whatsoever for the Day Clock.

So back to my bra shopping. Today I drove to Nordstrom to get a bra because I needed a special style to fit under a dress I am wearing to a Christmas party tonight. And whenever I am looking for something particular and time is of the essence, I go to Nordstrom, because their employees never fail in tending to my every need. They also don’t mind that I suffer the problem of offering too much information:

Me: Hi, I need to buy a bra.

Helpful Sales Woman: Are you looking for anything in particular?

Me: Something to go with this dress (pull it out of bag)

Helpful Sales Woman: Okay. (brings me to rack with special style bras). What’s your size?

Me: Well, it used to be 36B, but they seem to have gotten smaller lately.

Helpful Sales Woman: Oh… kay. So do you want to get a 36C?

Me: Oh no, not the bras. My actual breasts. I think they’re smaller. I think it was all that breastfeeding. (pause). Sorry. You probably didn’t need to know that.

Helpful Sales Woman: (laughs) Not a problem. Why don’t we start with the B and go from there.

As it turns out, I have maintained my same bra size and went home with a bra that went well under my dress, even if it is the strangest looking bra I’ve ever seen. It’s called the U Plunge Bra, and looks exactly as it sounds:

I am not lying when I say that I never in my life thought I would wear such a bra. But this bad boy went right under my dress and out of sight, and completely supports me. Much cooler than uncomfortable adhesive cups. And when you put this bra on, you look EXACTLY like the model in the above picture (snort, chortle, snort, snort).

On that note, I suggest you all head over to where I sent the guys at the start of this email: Sky Mall Madness: Tourney for the Dumbest Item of All Time. It’s uber-hilarious, especially the remarks on The Slanket and 8-Ft Giraffe.