Book Review: How To Be A Good Creature

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     A friend gave this book to me.  The cover and title told her I'd like it.  She was right.  

Sy Montgomery takes my general love for animals and runs away with it.  An environmental reporter, naturalist and adventurer, she can only be described as captivated by all creatures, whether they be personal pets or subjects of scientific study.   Thirteen of the animals she lived with or studied and the lessons she learned from them are included here.  This isn't a terribly deep book, but I love reading about her love for the animals and knowing I'm not the only person who is sometimes irrational about a non-human companion.  The only thing that bothered me is she is sometimes guilty of anthropomorphism.  She even touches on that briefly, and notes that it can be difficult to draw that line.  I feel the same way, but her greater enthusiasm for the creatures around her I think pushed her over the edge occasionally.  That's not a deal killer for me.  I still enjoyed the book and have already thought of some friends I need to gift it to.

The Desert is Trying to Kill Me

This abandoned house and truck sit on a small parcel of land near the industrial center of my town.  It was once a homestead and farm.  You can see the Sagebrush and Rabbitbrush have reclaimed what used to be.

Rabbitbrush, starting to come into it's fuzzy glory.

I live in Utah’s high desert.  I love living here. The mountains, red rocks and sagebrush plains all make me very happy.  Its the most beautiful landscape on the planet in my eyes, especially in the fall. Too bad Utah tries to kill me (or at least pay dearly for living here) every year. We have a plant called Rabbitbrush which is very pretty to look at.  Dusty green/blue stems lead up to fluffy mustard yellow flowers blooming prettily right now. It grows everywhere the land hasn’t been plowed or paved into submission.  It's one of those bits of nature that just won't be tamed. My dogs love to rub on it. It also makes my eyes swell and itch. My head fills with fluids till my ears buzz and I feel like I may drown in the gunk. My joints ache and I can't sleep. Yay! Allergies!

Sagebrush smells dusky and rich. It is never prettier than
in the fall.

And then there’s the Sagebrush.  Another high desert plant I love which doesn’t love me back.  Sage also blooms right now, and grows alongside Rabbit Brush. I love the way it smells, especially after a little rain. It’s tiny silvery leaves and woody stems distinguish it from Rabbitbrush. And Sage is tough. Good luck trying to get rid of this stuff. Some of my neighbors have given up and incorporated it into the landscape around their houses. It looks pretty cool. There's a lot to admire about this scrubby little brush. Too bad the tiny chartreuse flowers are also suffocating. They stuff my nose and give me flu-like symptoms that, on a bad year, no allergy pills can touch. I am grateful I don't also have asthma like my sister. She really suffers through autumn in Utah.

I’ve gotten used to spending the end of September with buzzing ears, a hoarse voice, creaking joints and itchy eyes, living as near a humidifier as possible.  I do my best to go about my life, and keep loving the desert plants. They're some of the coolest life on earth. After all, you have to be TOUGH to bloom in the desert. One might think the desert would love me back and stop making me suffer for appreciating its prettiest time of year. Wishful thinking. I guess I should consider the amazing allergy inducing pollen one more inspiring defense mechanism of the Sage and Rabbitbrush.  I can’t plow them or pave them if I can’t breath.

My dogs love to snuggle up right up under the brush.  I think they like the scent, too.  Too bad for me
they then bring the pollen home.

The Email - A Micro-story

I was recently looking for a book in my old boxes of teaching supplies.  I haven't taught for almost 16 years but I still have a few boxes of my favorite resources and digging through them is always fun for me.  As usual, I not only found the particular item I was looking for, I also found a little unexpected something - this time a book of writing prompts I had occasionally used with my fourth graders.  It brought back good memories as I thumbed through it.  I read one prompt " You just received an email message from ___ and it said ___" and a lightening bolt zipped around my brain.  A little story unravelled faster than it took me to read the rest of the page.  I laughed a little, but then stopped.  I haven't written anything for quite a while, but I liked this idea.  I decided to write it down.  I call it a micro-story because it is very short.  I still like it.

The message was brief but she felt dread when she read it.  "I need to talk to you ASAP."

Given the state of their relationship, that could not be a good thing. Oh, there had been good times in the past, but now times were bad.  Very bad.  What communication there had been recently was brief and compulsory.  "We're almost out of toothpaste."  "Did you walk the dog?"  He had not forgiven her.

It wasn't her fault she had gained an admirer.  She had done nothing but go to work.  At first.  Michael had started it.  Charming, just-out-of-college-boy flirting was really fun.  She liked feeling young and fun again.  Being an adult could be SO boring.  But, young and fun led to lunch. Then lunchES.  Then long lunches.  Before she knew it Michael was being punched and shoved and thrown out of her apartment while she yelled.  He yelled back at her.  Lots of yelling.  The yelling did stop after a time.  She wanted to apologize.  She tried a few times but he wasn't having it.  He just glared at her.  She stopped trying.  She felt humiliated.  

He was calm.  He was cold.  There was no more yelling but there was nothing else, either.  For weeks.  Nothing.  Being together was torture.

When she saw the message she knew he had made up his mind.  He knew his next step.  She didn't like it.  She had been happily married. She wasn't with Michael because she was unhappy.  She hadn't wanted a divorce when she started flirting back.  She just got carried away.  It cost her.  The email staring back at her all but confirmed that.  

Suddenly, she sat up straight.  She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.  If she couldn't change his mind, she owed it to him to let go peacefully.  She would be brave, for him.

She hit reply and typed "I'm free this afternoon."  She swallowed hard and hit send.

Book Review: Game of Thrones, book 1

Game of Thrones : Literary Crack

Ohhhh, this book.... 

I had plans to read a handful of other books before year's end but I’ve also had the box set of the first five Game of Thrones books on my nightstand for a year now. I’ve been intimidated. They each clock in at nearly 1,000 pages and I knew enough about them to assume once I got started I wouldn’t want to stop. I was right. I guess those other books will have to wait. 

In an eight (possibly more) book series, I know the first book is just an introduction. This one is a doozy, a tour de force, one character after another, not always clear how they’re going to intersect later, hints at a deeper plot. Martin sets a brisk pace both with action and character introduction as well as mini-cliff hangers at the end of most chapters. It’s like literary crack. Hooked me instantly. In some ways I felt like I was reading the later Harry Potter books for the first time, when I had figured out it was no mere child’s fantasy series. Lots of subplots, perhaps a few extraneous but interesting people, maybe a red herring or two. Usually I’m pretty good at reading between the lines and quickly seeing where a story goes next, but with GOT, there are so many layers to the onion, I can see I’m just getting started. I love a book that keeps me guessing. 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

(Also published on my page at Goodreads.com - username Robyn Ekker and on Instagram - username myfluffypants.)

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December Balloons

For most people, December means Christmas.  It means that for us, too, but here December also means pink balloons and birthday cake.  Both of my daughters were born in December so we celebrate a birthday in the first week, a birthday in the second week and then take a week off before celebrating Christmas.  🎄

Book Review : Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

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FURIOUSLY HAPPY

Wow.  Where do I even start.  I guess with the cover.  Featuring a taxidermied raccoon who seems to be shouting “TA DAAAAAAAA”, this cover had me at hello.  (Does anyone besides me still say that?) I had no idea what the book was about, but with such a great cover I thought I'd probably love it. I did.

Furiously Happy is about mental illness, a very serious subject.  It’s a great advocate for the mentally ill in all the best ways AND it literally made me laugh out loud every time I sat down to read. Yes, author Jenny Lawson reveals some of the horror that can be mental illness, but she refuses to focus on it.  She’s too busy being furiously happy, her way of living life to the absolute fullest when she manages to beat back the worst of the worst. Lawson is hilariously relatable in her more innocent quirks (like wishing her cats would let her strap a dead raccoon on their backs for a little rodeo action) but is able to stay honestly human and connects while talking about darker moments, too.  In a series of humorous anecdotes featuring Lawson’s, um, unique quirks, Furiously Happy is utterly hilarious to the point I was taking pictures of the text to send my best friends and spouse while I read so they could laugh with me.  It also feels like an amazing, assuring conversation with a friend who struggles in ways it can be hard to understand but is oh so relatable.  So far I’ve gifted it to two friends and there will be many more copies given for Christmas this year.  This is a profane book that discusses sensitive matters, but I love and highly recommend it.  

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So How Do You Spend Your Time?

Hank and the chickens, two of the ways I spend my time.

Last week a neighbor friend happened to be walking in my direction after I dropped my son at school.  We're friends, but we're still getting to know each other.  We were chatting, as one does in such a situation, when he innocently asked "How do you spend your time?"  It was a good question intended to get to know me better.  It wasn't asked in a snarky "why don't you have a job" kind of way that you sometimes read about on blogs written by women.  However, as a stay at home mom of almost 15 years, it's a question that takes me back a little. Most people's default answer is to name their work, say something about how they love or hate it and move on.  I used to say "I chase kids all day", but my kids are in school all day now and have been for some time.  I'm no longer sure how to answer that question in a concise, not too involved manner.  On this day, I flippantly said "well, we have all these dogs and cats and chickens so I spend a lot of time scooping poop".  It was a strange answer, perhaps a little TMI.  I might have sounded sarcastically snappish, which wasn't my intention.  It was definitely too odd for an easy response.  He changed the subject.  Now I feel bad.

It made me think though.  How DO I spend my time?  I have the luxury of being able to craft the life that makes me happy.  I am not stuck in a job I feel I need but that I hate.  I am not even working at my previous job (teaching), which I really liked but would definitely have left me drained and not feeling like I was as good at being a mom as I want to be.  I am able to spend my time doing the things I think are most important for my family and that bring us all happiness.  I do, indeed, spend a lot of time cleaning animal poop but that's a good thing.  Our pets bring all of us joy and we're lucky to have them.  Playing and snuggling with them is fantastic for the whole family.  Cleaning up is the trade we make for the dogs' joyous greetings or warm feet thanks to the cats or fresh eggs from the chickens.  It's a pretty good way to spend my time.

I spend an hour or so most days at lunch with my husband.  He recently merged his company with a much larger one and the transition has been stressful.  When he can, he likes to completely get away from work for a little while.  I have no doubt he has friends who would have lunch with him but being able to spend that time together is great for our marriage.  With three busy kids whose activities are just beginning as he gets home from work, some days this is the only real conversation we have.  Again, I'd say this is a pretty good way to spend my time.

Then there are the kids.  Like all moms, I supervise homework and musical instrument practice.  I chauffeur to dance and swimming and scouts and art.  I ask prying questions of my teen. I nag my middle child about her messy room.   I try to keep all the Pokemon straight so I can converse with my son.  I feed them, whether they like it or not.  Don't even think of asking me to to do something between 4:00 and 8:30 PM Monday through Thursday.  I am busy.  Having the energy and time to be really interested in them and help them explore their interests is the whole point of being a stay at home mom.  This is absolutely a great use of my time.

I also do all the miscellaneous stuff everyone else does.  Dishes and laundry and running the vacuum.  I squeeze in some yoga or take the dogs hiking.  I read.  I languish on Facebook. Sometimes I do a little volunteer work.   I take photos I like to share on Instagram. Occasionally, I'll write a little something.   I'm working my way through an awesome cookbook - The Pollan Family Table.  (This is a big deal for me - I don't care for cooking, but every recipe from the Pollans has been a keeper.  Totally worth the effort.  I'm trying all kinds of new dishes and learning new techniques. I'm kind of excited about it.  Weird.)

So this is how I spend my time.  I feel like my days are full and wonderful and satisfying.  I still don't have a short answer for the "what do you do" question.  I guess I'm lucky that way.

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