100 Books in One Year - The Island of Doctor Moreau

Did it really take me six months to read Lorna Doone?! I'm blaming it on the small font size. ;)

Anyway, not only did I finally finish Lorna Doone since I last updated this sorely neglected blog, but I also read The Island of Doctor Moreau. Good stuff.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - 173 pages. Started 12-4-12, Finished 1-5-13
Persuasion by Jane Austen - 238 pages. Started 1-6-13, Finished 1-31-13
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - 65 pages. Started 2-1-13, Finished 2-10-13
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmoore - 378 pages. Started 2-11-13, Finished 8-2-13
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells - 90 pages. Started 8-3-13, Finished 8-9-13
Jailhouse Stories: Memories of a Small-Town Sheriff by Neil Haugerud - 223 pages. Started 8-10-13

Number of Books Read: 5
Number of Pages Read: 944

(You can find the original post of this challenge here.)

100 Books in One Year - Update

You can find the original post of this challenge here.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - 173 pages, finished 1-5-13
Persuasion by Jane Austen - 238 pages, finished 1-31-13
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - 65 pages, finished 2-10-13
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmoore - 378 pages


Number of Books Read: 3
Number of Pages Read: 476

100 Books in One Year - 2013

Sometime last year I ran across a book reading challenge in which you try to read 100 books in a year starting on your birthday. Well, since I was in the middle of a book on my last birthday, I've decided to modify the rules of the challenge to start at the New Year. I just realized that I actually started a book a day or two after my birthday (Dec 6) so I can follow the real rules of the challenge. I really doubt I'll be able to read 100 books in a year since I tend to choose books that are somewhat long, but that's why it's a challenge, right?

Here is my list of books and I'll update it as I finish a book. The titles that are crossed out are the ones I have finished, and the title not crossed out is the book I am currently reading. I'll also include the page count and date I finished, just for fun.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - 173 pages, finished 1-5-13
Persuasion by Jane Austen - 238 pages, finished 1-31-13
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells - 65 pages, finished 2-10-13
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmoore - 378 pages


Number of Books Read: 3
Number of Pages Read: 476

No, I'm Not Sorry

My mother-in-law, Linda, teaches piano. Every January she holds an After-Christmas Party for her students and their families where the students perform a few Christmas songs. Nothing fancy or truly a recital, just a fun time to socialize, eat lots of holiday food and listen to the kids play.

My sister-in-law Marie and I often help with the set up and stay during the party to help with coffee and punch, and keep the food table stocked. Marie and I have both played piano since early grade school, and while I'm not too shabby, Marie is much better than I. So it never fails that Marie and I are asked to play at the piano parties as well. While that is a great compliment, and I would like to share my favorite pieces, I am always hesitant to play at the piano parties; I'm don't want it to seem like I'm showing off or up-staging the students, and each year I dread being asked to play.

But this year the realization hit me: There is no reason for me to be ashamed or apologetic of my musical ability.

I have been playing piano more than twice as long as most of these kids have been alive (oh God, that makes me feel old), and while I was taking lessons I practiced more diligently than 98% percent of these students do. Don't get me wrong, no orchestra will ever request me to be their concert pianist, nor will I be offered any record deals. But I have worked hard to be able to play as well as I do, and there is nothing wrong with displaying the results of such hard work and dedication. Besides, I have fun playing piano. Perhaps me playing at the piano parties will show the students the results of hard work, and actually practicing.

(Side-note: Why does it seem that today's piano students believe that they should be able to simply sit down at a piano and automatically know how to play? What? Work? Yes, you really do need to practice. Unless your last name is Mozart or Tsung, the presumption that you can just sit down and perfectly sight-read a Rachmaninoff concerto is absurd. And I can guarantee that Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and little Tsung practice.)

(Continuing the tangent: If a student truly does want to learn how to play the piano, then they need to suck it up and practice. If a student is just taking lessons because their parent is making them and they really do not like nor want to play piano, then perhaps it is time for the parent to relent and allow their child to take up another hobby that they do enjoy. Just my honest opinion.)

With all that said, if I am asked to play a piece or two at the After-Christmas Party, I will pull up the bench and have fun playing.

But I have chosen an Christmas song that none of the students are learning! :)

this sure feels like a step backward

Luke's final semester of college begins tomorrow. This is very exciting because he has worked very hard and is very ready to be done, but there is a lot of work to be done in order for him to graduate and commission. His classes are going to be demanding and difficult. This semester Luke wanted a dedicated study space where he can spread out his books and papers, make phone calls, and not be distracted or be distracting.

The best work space has been the dining room table. But since it is the dining room table, Luke had to pack up all his books, papers, laptop, etc to make room for every meal. Another disadvantage of the dining room table is its proximity to the piano room, where Linda teaches piano lessons. The lessons distract Luke's concentration and Luke's phone calls distract the lesson. In addition, when siblings have lessons on the same day, one does homework at the dining room table while the other has a lesson. Now there is competition for space, not to mention the awkwardness. Other times the parents accompany the student and do their own work at the dining room table. Again, competition for space, but there's also the danger of Luke and the parent ending up in a conversation which prevents any and all hope of studying.

The family room is also inconvenient. It is still close to the piano room and does not block the noise from piano lessons. There is no large work space; Luke sits in an arm chair with his laptop on his lap. That basement successfully blocks piano lessons, but there isn't much of a work space there either, and Luke again ends up in a chair or on the sofa with his laptop.

Since this final semester is going to require a lot of focus, organization, and dedication, we decided to clean out the mountain of boxes from the future kitchenette space in the basement and bring my computer desk that has been in my dad's dining room since 2004. It would be the perfect study space: plenty of work room, lots of light, fully separated from piano lessons, and Luke can leave books and papers out for as long as he wants.

Moving the boxes and sorting through the things, junk and stuff took just under a week. It was a good purging project that sent unusable junk to the garbage, unused things to Goodwill, and relocated personal stuff to a new home in the storage room.

Today we moved in the desk. I know my dad is very happy to see it out of his house, and to have full use of his own dining room again. I also am glad that it can once again be put to good use, and I know Luke will appreciate his new study area.

But I am struggling with being happy for Luke and sad for myself. We have been discussing more seriously about what needs to happen to a) build our house this year or b) move into an apartment while it is being constructed. Luke has said very plainly that "we are moving out this year." Which is great, obviously I'm all for it. But today a very large piece of furniture was brought into our temporary living arrangement, which I can't help but feel further solidifies the permanence of living in my in-laws' basement.

dreaming of a white winter

Last year I started to tinker with the idea of taking up cross-country skiing. It seems like a good winter sport to get me out of the house and enjoy the winter scenery. Baylor Park actually rents skis for $5/day, so I couldn't ask for a more affordable way to test out the sport and see if it's for me. But I never "got around to it" last winter.


*shrug* There's always next year.


Today is December 29th, and there is no snow in Minnesota. Oh, we got about 3 inches on Thanksgiving, but that all melted in less than a week. Since then the daytime temperatures have been consistently above 40*F, with a few 50* days last week. This is a Minnesota winter?? This is a stark contrast to last year when we had at least 2 feet of snow by now, and near record snowfalls by the time winter was said and done. There was a dusting of snow on my birthday, so that was nice because my birthday never feels like my birthday if there is no snow. But there has been nary a flake since.


Which brings me to my dilemma. This year I am even more interested in taking up cross-country skiing, and there are some really good deals on skis through Craigslist, but with this unusually snow-less winter, it appears I have missed my chance.

lest we should forget

Today is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Everyone can remember exactly where they were on that day. I decided I should write down my memories of that day for posterity and all that, but I never dreamed of how difficult it would actually be. I wasn't in New York City or Washington D.C., or even watching the news, so why should I find this a trying task?

Perhaps that in recent days leading up to today news footage has resurfaced - which I have been watching - the memorial in New York has opened to the public, authorities have been tirelessly working to prevent another attack that has been been threatened on the anniversary. In short, all the emotions of that day are in the forefront of the collective mind of America.

Like countless others, I remember where I was on September 11, 2001. I had graduated from Crown College in May of that year, had gotten a job at Halla Nursery right out of college and the world was before me. It was about 7:45am on a beautiful Tuesday morning (in the years after my memory said it was a Wednesday but the recent news about the anniversary corrected me) and I was just parking my car at work. I was listening to the KS95 Morning Show and just before I turned off the car the djs said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

Wow, I thought, that's awful. And, just like the djs, I conjectured that it was a disoriented Cessna, that the pilot and his passenger were certainly dead and also a few people in the office. The same thing had happened [decades before at the Sears Tower] in Chicago. So sad. Well, I had to get to work, turned off the car and went to clock in.

I was the cashier in the garden center that day. Mornings are always slow and the normal amount of customers filtered in. I remember one lady, as she was checking out, asked if I had heard what happened. I, somewhat unconcernedly, said that I had heard that a plane (or did I say Cessna?) had run into the World Trade Center. The lady looked at me and said another one hit the other tower.

"Another one?!" I said in disbelief. She repeated that a second plane had hit the other tower.

I continued to look at her puzzled. I said something about how this didn't seem like a coincidence and that it was all very weird. I believe she agreed and went out of the store. I wish I could remember if she was the one who told me that it was in fact not a Cessna but a full size passenger jet. Perhaps she was. I remember that she seemed excited instead of panicked or concerned. Recalling the memory even now it seemed an eager excited. Don't misunderstand me; I believe it was an excitement that comes with being the first to share very important news with someone. I think she, like the rest of the country, wasn't fully aware of what these events truly meant.

After she went out, I was left in the store alone, quite puzzled with new thoughts headed into a new direction: What are the chances that another plane would accidentally hit the building next to one that was already clearly damaged? And besides, how do you miss buildings as large as the World Trade Center? (oh, how eerily ironic those thoughts would turn out to be...) Was this on purpose?

Not much later, Anna, one of the managers, came into the store. She seemed flustered and rushed. She told me a plane crashed into the Pentagon.

"The Pentagon?!" I said, not really understanding. "What's going on?" I asked her. It was then that I realized that something was seriously wrong. My mind was floundering in uncharted waters. Anna didn't have an answer for me - no one did yet - but asked me to change the road sign and handed me a piece of paper with the new thing the sign was to say: Pray for our nation.

I had changed the sign many times before and it was a task that I rather enjoyed. Sometimes the plastic letters didn't stick to the suction cup at the end of the pole and it required a few tries, but it didn't happen all that often and, more often than not, I had no troubles at all. Not that day. The letters wouldn't stick to the suction cup. The letters would fall off the pole as I lifted it up. Then the letters I had managed to slide into the tracks started falling like they were being pried off. I had this bizarre feeling that I was being prevented from putting up that sentence. Prevented by something evil. Before I had a chance to think or even knew what I was doing, I said out loud and forcefully, "Stop it!" I don't know who I thought I was addressing or how I knew that was what I needed to do. All I know is that after that every letter stuck to the pole on the first try and stayed on the sign....

I don't know how much time elapsed. No more customers came to the store. No one was on the roads. No one was calling to ask if we had such-and-such plant. It was strange. I was alone in the garden center listening to the looped mus-ak. I felt oddly isolated. I wanted to know what was going on.

My co-worker, Adam, came into the store to tell me one of the World Trade Center towers fell. "Fell?!" I said stupidly, my imagination flashing a picture of all 100 stories of the tower tipping over like a tree. Ridiculous. "What do you mean 'fell' "? He repeated that the tower collapsed to the ground. I stared. It was such a wild and outlandish proclamation that I didn't believe him. I physically couldn't believe him. It was like someone declaring 2 plus 2 isn't 4, but 17 and explaining how it has always been 17. Adam asserted again that yes, the World Trade Center fell. But how? I mean, of course it was terribly damaged, but it's made of concrete, steel....the elevator shafts and stairwells.... how could its entire support system fail? And besides, the planes would have had to hit at the base of the buildings for one to fall, my logic told me; but they hit high on the buildings. No, this wasn't possible.

Adam and I went back to whatever we had been working on (although I don't know how much "work" there was to do - there hadn't been a single customer for hours). At some point I went to the office - lunch? bathroom break? The designers and other managers were sort of gathered together; Craig, one of the designers, was telling them something. He said the other tower had fallen. He had been somewhere with a TV (information!) and described how the towers collapsed, straight down, and how he could hardly believe it. Adam was telling the truth. I stood with the group, listening to Craig's report with the same amazement and incredulity as the others.

I tore myself away and returned to the garden center. I had had enough. There was something tragic, horrific happening, something that affected our country to the core, something that had cruelly plunged us into a new reality. I wanted, craved information. I knew there was a radio stashed in the storage room in the back of the store. Although we weren't supposed to have the radio out, I didn't care; this was different. I don't remember tuning or searching for a news station. Coverage of what was happening seemed to be the only thing on the entire airwaves.

The news anchors were going over the events that had already happened in New York and Washington, discussing various hypotheses of who did this, why, what America would do to find them, etc. Then I finally heard news when it happened: there were reports of yet another plane that had crashed in rural Pennsylvania about 45 minutes southwest of Pittsburgh. I suddenly got cold. Not because of the revelation that there was yet another plane with yet another target, but because of where the plane crashed. One of my friends from college was from a town that was about 45 minutes southwest of Pittsburgh. He was still in Minnesota so I knew he was safe, but what about his family? I listened intently for more details of where the plane went down. The details were slow to come in, there was just too much going on to keep up with everything. I couldn't stand it anymore, pulled out my cell phone and made a personal call to my friend on company time. He had heard of the fourth plane, had called his family, they were all safe. He was clearly agitated and wanted to call his family again, so we cut our call short. At least there was some good news in all of this.

I kept the radio on. My other co-workers would stop in every now and again to listen and stay up-to-date. It was nice to have their brief company - costumers had stopped coming long, long ago and the store was lonely, especially with the grim nature of the news now filling the store.

Finally my shift ended. I was rooming with some college friends in Eden Prairie, but instead of going there, I went to my dad's house in Chaska; his TV - the source of information - was closer. On my way I called my sister Amy. She was at Concordia University in St. Paul and most likely had been watching the news most of the day. I asked her what more she knew, which wasn't much more than what I had already learned. But she described in more detail the footage of the actual events. And she told me that people were jumping from the top of the towers. "What?" The 2 plus 2 is 17 feeling. "How...(horror)...why would they jump?" Either that or burn alive. Dear God. I didn't want to believe her.

I was still on the phone with her when I got to my dad's. I didn't hang up when I turned on the TV. That was my first sight of the horrors of the reality of what everyone else had been watching for hours and hours. The emotions started to kick in. This was real. This was here. It looked like war. The news station was replaying footage taken after both towers had been hit but before they fell. The camera was a fair distance away from the towers, but there was enough detail to see papers and fluttering down. Then I saw it. "Oh my God, that was a person! That was a person!" Among the debris and fluttering papers raining down from the highest floors of the World Trade Center, was the unmistakable form of a human. Falling. Doomed.

I don't remember when I hung up with Amy. I don't remember how long I stayed at my dad's watching the news. I do remember watching the footage of the towers collapsing, like an accordion, and being... gone. I remember watching footage of the second plane hitting the tower, how there was a half-second where it surreally disappeared into the building, then exploded in a spectacular ball of flame. I remember seeing the footage of the airplane-shaped hole in the Pennsylvania field, I could see the outline of the wings, but there was no airplane. I remember learning of the incredible bravery and self-sacrifice of the passengers of that plane, United 93. I remember how quiet the outside was. No airplanes. Everything was grounded. I never realized how often I heard airplanes and never thought anything of them. Now their absence was deafening. But I know I heard one of the military bombers flying high and fast over our country. No one believes that I could hear one since they fly so high. I know there is no way I could have seen one. But I know I heard an airplane when there were supposed to be none.

I remember seeing more American flags flying proudly than I had ever seen before.

And now, just like when I asked my mom where she was when John F. Kennedy was shot, I will be able to answer my kids when they ask where I was on 9-11, and explain to them how reality changed.