A winner

Not too many books make me go "wow" after I flip the last page, but The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney did just that.

The book was a suprise winner of the 2006 Book of the Year at the Costa Awards, Britain's most prestigious book awards.

The story revolves around the murder of a French trapper in Canada's Northern Territory in the 1870s. He is discovered by a neighbor, Mrs. Ross, who soon realizes that she has not seen her teenage son, Francis, since just before the time the trapper was killed. Because the town is a Company town (as in the Hudson Bay Company), two representatives are sent to investigate. Mrs. Ross is nervous about the disappearance of her son, but her husband won't go look for him. With the help of a mysterious stranger, she sets out to find him. Trouble is, the stranger is also a suspect. She doesn't know if she can trust him, but he's her only way to find her son. And one of the company men is following their trail. And then there's the mysterious bone carving that brings a once-famous journalist and tracker back to the area, a man with a connection to the local magistrate's family.

There are a lot of subplots involved in this book, and the narrative jumps from different points of view -- Mrs. Ross' narration is the only one in first-person -- so this isn't a light read. But Penney weaves these points of view and stories with skill and beauty. And her descriptions of the Canadian wilderness remind me of Tony Hillerman, author of the the Navajo cop series, and how he makes the landscape of the Southwest a part of the story and his characters. Penney does the same with the frozen forests and plains of the north. The amazing thing is, the British author has never been there. In fact, she was until just a few years ago, agoraphobic. She had to train herself to be able to take the short bus ride to the library to research the book.

Part msytery, part adventure, part romance, this was just an amazing book. Penney is reportedly at work on another book. I'll be looking for that one.

Back to work (not)

I had hoped to get a good day's worth of yardwork done today, but I guess my body had other ideas. No sooner had I got started trimming some grass and pulling some weeds on the hill when I felt a sharp twinge in my back. Crap.

I did get quite a bit done so far today, but not as much as I wanted. I've had to do a lot of resting in between. I got some trimming done, planted the two little mums and the pansies I bought last night, and got the backyard partly mowed. Partly because some of it is so thick I had to raise it up so the mower wouldn't choke and quit. I'll go out in a bit and lower the mower again and finish it off, now that it's cooling down and there's more shade in the back. Maybe I'll get the front yard too, since it's pretty small, and the grass isn't as thick. But the west side is getting awful overgrown, especially on the hill, and I won't be able to get to that until Wednesday. Man, I hope the grass stops growing so darn fast soon.

Messages from Nature

A group of bluejays has been trying to tell me something this week. I think it's something along the lines of "HEY, WHERE'S THE BIRDSEED?!?" Nature is so subtle.

The squirrels are showing up in the yard more frequntly and in greater numbers, the bluejays are hanging out in the empty tray feeder, and I hear a chorus of chickadees and nuthatches. The autmnul equinox is tomorrow, but fall has already arrived here. So, in a bit, I'll be going out to give my birdfeeders a good cleaning, and maybe tonight before heading home from work at the hotline, I'll pick up a big sack of black oil sunflower seed. I might also get some flowers -- there's pansies out now and mums, of course. The mums up front are fine, but the ones I planted on the hill last year have almost been decimated by the grasshoppers. The aster is amazing, though -- I noticed last night it seems to have exploded in blooms this week!

Otherwise today, I'm catching up on some cleaning around the house. I'll go in to work from 5 to 10, and then I'm off tomorrow. That will probably be yardwork day, especially if I get the flowers. But I need to do some weeding, too.

I'm thinking more about another pet. Yesterday, during my lunch break, I went out to my vet's office. She also runs a non-profit animal refuge. They specialize in wildlife rehabilitation, but also have dogs and cats for adoption. There were a bunch of cute kittens, most of whom were going to be picked up later in the day for transport to shelters in the Denver area, where they're more likely to be adopted. There was one, though, who was real sweet. Poor thing had been hit by a car and has lost the use of its left front paw, which will soon be amputated, I was told. He kept coming up to the kennel bars, though, sticking his good paw out to catch my fingers, and he liked having his ears scratched. There were also a couple of adult cats they showed me. They're brother and sister, but, oops, also mother and father to a kitten. Their previous owner had been told they were both female. The one kitten they had was adopted several weeks ago, but is not yet old enough to leave its mother. They're part Siamese and both really beautiful cats, but also long-hair. Mom says she doesn't do so well with long-hair cats with her allergies, but they did say at the vets' it's not the length of the hair, but how clean the cats are. The vet's head nurse told me she has cat allergies and has had no problem around them.

So that's something to think about. I'd still prefer a dog, but with both of us out of the house more often than when Nipper was here, I'm not sure that'd be fair. Some people can get a dog, put it in a kennel out in the backyard and other than giving it the basics are fine with that. Not me. If you don't get a pet as a companion, what's the point in having one?

Soaring away

Today was Lanita's funeral. Even though I hadn't known her all that well, I'm glad I went. There were about 18 of us from the support group, all in our pink shirts sitting together. The women of the Soroptimist Club, which she also belonged to, wore their shirts and sat together as well.

The church was packed. I heard that close to 500 people were ther. And the family -- all eight pews full -- all wore something pink, a blouse, a shirt, a tie. It was actually quite striking. Most everyone wore pink ribbons. And whenever I now hear Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance," I'll probably always have a tear for Lanita and a small prayer that her daughters take its message to heart.

At the gravesite, our group handed out the balloons the others had prepared the night before (I had to work, but it sounds like they had enough hands to make quick work of it). Her daughters released theirs first -- butterfly balloons on which they'd written "I love you, Mom" -- and then everyone else released theirs. Three hundred pink balloons and 41 white ones -- one for each year of her life -- were quickly picked up by the blustery prairie winds of the day to the north. I'm sure it was quite a site from the nearby highway. A few people cheered as the balloons cleared the treetops, and then we all watched silently until they were just specks in the blue clear sky.

There was a luncheon afterwards, and most of us from the group went. We sat together, of course, but that was also appearatnly Lanita's wish. And we felt pretty honored when we were told the family wanted us to get in the food line after them. It was nice they understood the group was like an extended family for her.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day, and time for it to end. Every day is a new beginning, she liked to say, so live life to its fullest.

Birdbrain

Today started out oddly ... and ended oddly.

Today was my first 8-hour weekend shift at the new part-time job, so I got about 7:30 and got some breakfast and puttered around a bit. Then as I was getting ready for a shower, I looked out the bedroom window and saw something moving by the fence. I figured it was just the neighbor's little dog, but I put on my glasses for a better look and saw ... a chicken! It walked along the fence in the neighbor's yard, then around behind my back fence. I had to get a better look to make sure I saw what I thought I saw, so threw on some sweats and went in the backyard. And sure enough, it was a chicken. When it saw me, it went into the trees, but I hear it clucking softly. I told it if it's going to hide from something scary, it should maybe also be quiet, but it didn't heed my warning.

I went to work, which was very quiet and very boring, and when I got home, put all my things away. It was a bit stuffy, so I opened the windows in the dining area and, lo and behold, there was the chicken, in the neighbor's yard again. I just kind of shook my head. He wasn't home, so I couldn't ask him about it. It disappeared pretty quick. For a while.

I was eating dinner (not chicken) and catching up on some stuff on the computer, when I heard some loud clucking and squawking. Looking out the window, I saw the chicken had somehow managed to get on top of a plank of wood my neighbor had leaning up against the fence of his neighbor's dog pen. The three dogs were trotting around anxiously, occasionally stopping and giving the chicken a quizzical look or barking. It looked for awhile like the chicken was just going to hop down into the dog pen, then she'd look like she would hop down to safety. It went back and forth like that for a few minutes, then finally she tried to hop into the tree right in front of her, only the branches weren't big enough to hold her. I saw the chicken hit the ground running, then there were a couple squawks, a couple growling barks, and then silence.

I figure there probably wasn't much chance of a good ending to that. If I'd gone out there to do something, the same thing would have happened -- she would have gone for the cover of the tree. I had left the back gate open after I saw it this evening. Chickens eat grasshoppers after all, and there's still plenty of them around. I'm not sure what I'd do with a chicken though. They probably can't be housetrained, and I'm not sure it's legal to keep them in the city limits anyway.

I'm not sure if the dogs' owners are home. Guess they're in for a surprise.

Grow

There's a new Grow game! I've been trying to figure it out for about an hour now, and think I'm getting close. Of course, I've thought that for about half an hour now.

A dance ends

Not much more than 10 minutes after I posted last night, a 5-year-old girl crawled into the bed her mother was in and kissed her goodnight. And her mother took her last breath.

Lanita always called her e-mails "The Journey of the Dancing Queen," and signed off with a quote like "Work like you don't need money, Love like you've never been hurt, And dance like no one's watching" or"Dance like there is no tomorrow! Each new dawn is a reminder that every day is a new beginning. Live it to the fullest." She was a bit hesitant at first to write about her fight, I remember an early note saying, because she didn't think she was a good writer. And she didn't have perfect grammar and punctuation, but that's not what matters when what you say comes from your heart and soul. Her e-mails were always funny and insightful, and, more recently, heart-wrenching.

Her husband sent out an e-mail briefly describing her last couple of days -- that she'd told them she was being fitted for a halo and had wings and what she was seeing -- and despite his saying that Lanita's writing skills didn't "rub off on him," it was beautiful. I'm sure there will be some very hard days ahead for him and the two girls.

Hopefully, I can go to the funeral. I believe it's going to be Monday, but I'm not sure what time. If it's the morning, I might not be able to, since we're pretty shorthanded at work anymore. But I'll do what I can. The support group will be there, of course, and we've been asked to help at the graveside service, with a balloon launch. There will be 300 pink balloons launched, for breast cancer, of course, and 41 white ones, one for each year of her life.

It sounds like it will be nice, but I hope this is our last funeral for some time.

Keep dancing.

A night off

First two nights on the new job down ... It went well, reallly. There weren't a lot of calls either night, and it didn't take me too long to get the hang of how to fill out the "paperwork" on the computer. Really the important thing is to get the request from the house supervisors or clients to the right people quickly, and that's easy enough. I got a lot of reading done actually, so I'm probably going to have to be making lots of trips to the library. No problem there, and maybe I won't have any overdue books as fast as I'll probalby be reading them!

I haven't been tired out from the extra hours, either. Fell asleep pretty quick and slept good each night. Tonight I even got some of the mowing done. Hopefully, there won't be too much more of that, as it has cooled off quite a bit this week.

It's not all great news, though. One of my support group members, who entered hospice care recently, went into the hospital this week. Only family is allowed to visit, and I understand they have her on a lot of pain meds. It probably won't be much longer. This one will be hard to take because we were diagnosed and joined the group around the same time. She's only a couple years older than me, too. And she was certainly a fighter. It just proved too much for her, though.

Last summer, she went to the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for six weeks of treatment. She kept us updated with frequent e-mails that were full of hope and humor. In one of them she mentioned how at home, before she left, someone she knew commented that she was a "strong woman" facing what she was going through. But she preferred to be thought of as a woman of strength, as in this poem:

A strong woman works out everyday to keep her body in shape…
But a woman of strength builds relationships to keep her soul in shape

A strong woman isn't afraid of anything…
But a woman of strength shows courage in the midst of fear.

A strong woman won't let anyone get the better of her…
But a woman of strength gives the best of herself to everyone.

A strong woman makes mistakes and avoids the same in the future…
A woman of strength realises life's mistakes can also be unexpected blessings, and capitalises on them

A strong woman wears a look of confidence on her face…
But a woman of strength wears grace.

A strong woman has faith that she is strong enough for the journey…
But a woman of strength has faith that it is in the journey that she will become strong.

I think that says it all.

Keeping busy

Today is a day off from the main job, and then I go to my first day of work at the new job.

I had planned to do some yardwork -- mow and trim some grass, maybe transplant some irises or at least identify which ones to thin out for transplanting later in the week -- but woke up to a cool, cloudy and rainy day. It's only in the 60s as I write this, and will only be in the 70s the rest of the week, so it'll be a good time to do some fall planting. Hope I have some time, because I supsect summer hasn't given us its last yet.

So instead I did some meal planning and cooking ahead for the next week or so, since I'll have some days where I won't be home unitl after 10 p.m. So I've got some sweet & sour chicken made up to take with me for work nights, breaded up some round steak to freeze and use later on for steak fingers and a chicken fried steak, and am trying out a salsa chicken recipe in the crock pot, part of which will be tomorrow night's dinner at work and then the leftovers can be wrapped up in a toritilla for lunch. I bought a roast to throw in the crock pot some morning for dinner, and will use the rest for sandwiches or something else.

See, Mom, I won't starve.

Well, think I'll go take a little nap before I start thinking about getting ready for work.

Getting more done!

I got in a changing mood yesterday, and made some plans to rearrange the dining nook area. I had to work Saturday, so planning was about all I did. But after taking 10 minutes to read the Sunday paper (hey, I had to put the thing together, you think I'm going to actually read it?) I set out on the plan. And no, Mom, this is not the surprise project I'm working on. I think you might like the new arrangement, though. No more having to dodge around cords and legs and feet when we're both seated in there. It seems roomier now. I even hung up a few things on the wall. Not to mentioned vacuumed and swept -- which was needed in all the nooks and crannies.

I went in this afternoon and evening for a bit more training on the second job and met the third hotline assistant. It's a bit overwhelming, all the stuff you have to remember. I guess as long as I get the right people called so the clients can get their help, that's what matters. But then all the calls have to be logged into the computer, and it got a bit confusing knowing whose name to put where ... once I get a night or two under my belt, I'm sure I'll do OK. It's the beginning and not knowing much that has me concerned. They seem like pretty nice people, though, so even if I screw something up, it probably won't be too bad.

I keep dreaming about what to with the extra money, once I pay off a couple debts, do some Christmas shopping and put some in the bank for a rainy day, of course. I'd like to work some more on the kitchen. That all started with the broken faucet. It's one of those pull-out sprayer faucets. It developed a leak and water would drip down the sprayer hose into the cabinet below, and then it developed a crack right on top that shoots out water that gets all over the counter if you hold the faucet wrong. So I originally just wanted to replace that. But then the sink doesn't look all that great. And the countertops and backsplash? Cheap and UGLY. So I went to Home Depot a couple weeks ago and just out of curiosity, did some pricing. And of course, I kept finding more and more I could do -- there was a cabinet unit that would make a nice pantry right where there's room, and it'd be nice to dump the computer table for a built-in workstation ... I should stay out of Home Depot. Good thing I'm pretty happy with the bathroom. Except that faucet needs replacing ...

Two books

Two recent reading choices. I've been meaning to do this, and now the books are overdue, dang it. I keep the library going single-handedly, I think. But I'm avoiding mowing the lawn, so this is convenient.

One Night at the Call Center, by Chetan Bhagat was a good, light read. Not a great book, but a nice, funny, simple read. It takes place at a call center for an American company in India where the twenty-something employees worry about their low pay, possible layoffs, their relationships, bosses who take credit for their work ... not much different from their American counterparts. But it does give some interesting insight into the cultural difficulties they face, in trying to live in a modern world but also honor their parents' more traditional lifestyles, and how they view Americans.

While the call center is down with some technical problems, they skip out of the office for a while to have some fun at a club, then on the drive back get into a bit of a predicament. While wondering if they're going to die, they get a call ... from God. God is very cheerful, maybe a little too cheerful, really. And he leads them to consider their lives and how to change them for the better. It's amusing, but full of stuff you'd read in dozens of self-help manuals (the author even includes a short self-help style quiz at the beginning), and then the book just gets unbelievable. Well, I mean, God calling on your cell phone is pretty spectacular, but I can suspend my disbelief over something like that. It's the anti-American sentiment that gets a bit hard to take, and makes the climax hard to believe. Add to that a prologue and epilogue to make you gag, and this is only a so-so book.

Scoop by Rene Gutteridge was much better. In fact, I was well into the book before I began to suspect that maybe I'd picked up something in a genre I would otherwise not have thought about -- Christian fiction. Scoop takes place in a last-place TV news station. There's quite a cast of characters here, from Hugo, the stressed-out news producer who's also dealing with a boss who's younger and ethically challenged, and a troubled family life; an aging news anchor who has an unfortunate Botox incident; Ray, the intrepid reporter who gets attacked on live TV; and a whole bunch more.

What attracted me to this book, obviously, was the setting in a newsroom. Yes, I work in print, but a newsroom is a newsroom, and there was a lot here that's true to life: the clashing personalities, the argument of doing "sexy" stories to sell papers/attract viewers vs. more boring but informative stories, and the absurdity that oddly enough comes with the adrenaline of breaking news. Gutteridge captured that really well.

The main character here is Hayden Hazard, Hugo's new assistant. The story starts 5 years before the main action, at the funeral of Hayden's parents, founders of the family clown business. Yes, I said clowns. The Hazards learn that with their parents' deaths, the family business has been sold, and the close-knit, homeschooled, religious clan must now go make their own ways in the world. Rather than seeing the story through her point of view, however, we see it through just about everyone BUT Hayden's eyes. We get to see her, and how she lives and talks about her faith. And you see how it affects the other characters. It's kind of sneaky way of putting religion in a novel, but it works. It's not preachy, it's not in your face. And Gutteridge acknowledges that organized religion isn't perfect in a scene with Ray at his church.

Everything gets wrapped up rather neatly, no one turns out to be truly bad (even the bad guy makes some very valid points about the state of journalism today) and the mystery is kind of predictable. But Gutteridge has a great writing style that is humorous and contains dead-on satire of the news industry. I read this over my lunch breaks, and I was always sorry when I had to put the book down at the end of the hour.

This is actually the first in "The Occupational Hazards" series, each focusing on one of the Hazard clan. The second one, "Snitch," is centered around Hayden's sister Mack, a Las Vegas undercover cop. I'll look for this one, too, and hope the writing (and non-preachyness) stay consistent.

Getting used to solitude

So I'm alone again, this time for a little over a month, as Mom is on her second big adventure and having fun, it sounds like.

My Labor Day weekend was fairly quiet. I did get quite a bit done, though. I cleaned out my car, which I've been needing to do for a long time, got some mowing done and hacked down a lot of the long-gone sunflower stalks out back with a new garden toy -- er tool: a machete. I'd been looking for one all summer, and the store I'd seen them at in previous years didn't have any until last Saturday. So I got a 22-inch blade, and must admit it was kind of fun once I got the hang of it (swing in an arc, not just one way seemed to work best). For a few minutes there I imagined I was in an Indiana Jones movie or Romancing the Stone ... OK, a bunch of dried-up sunflowers aren't the same as a South American jungle, but it was still a lot of work.

I did some cooking and food prep, too, to make things easier when I get home from work, and especially since I'll be starting this part-time job soon. Got some chicken breasts prepped so that I can take them out of the freezer before I go to work and pop them in the oven or on the grill when I get home, meatballs I can toss in spaghetti or sweet & sour sauce, things like that.

And I started on a small project for the kitchen, but you'll have to wait until I'm done to hear about that.

Tomorrow I have my training for the second job. Mainly, this will be watching some videos, filling out paperwork, etc. I should find out what kind of schedule I'll have, too. Then in the evening, it's time again for my support group meeting. We're putting together some sort of thing to give out during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, but I don't know what it will be yet.

I also need to take a look at the material for the grantwriting course I'm taking through the local university. The class doesn't officially start until next week, and the first week or so is scheduled to just get familiar with the information, so it's no rush. But it's never too early to start I guess.