Mailbox Monday

It was another slow book week at Casa K. but that's okay. It was a slow motivation week here as well so I'm no closer to any of my reading goals.

This week, the first book to arrive in my mailbox was the gorgeously jacketed Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz. This came from Hyperion and amazon has this to say about it:

Julie Metz's life changes forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapses on the kitchen floor and dies in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old is the young widow in a bucolic small town. And this is only the beginning. Seven months after Henry's death, just when Julie thinks she is emerging from the worst of it, comes the rest of it: She discovers that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.

"He loved you so much." That's what everyone keeps telling her. It's true that he loved Julie and their six-year-old daughter ebulliently and devotedly, but as she starts to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life without Henry in it, she learns that Henry had been unfaithful throughout their twelve years of marriage. The most damaging affair was ongoing--a tumultuous relationship that ended only with Henry's death. For Julie, the only thing to do was to get at the real truth--to strip away the veneer of "perfection" that was her life and confront each of the women beneath the veneer.

Perfection is the story of Julie Metz's journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and her young daughter. It is the story of coming to terms with painful truths, of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood. It is a story of rebirth and happiness--if not perfection.

Next into my mailbox (well, balanced nicely on my shoes in the garage since the UPS folks seem to like making me hunt for their deliveries instead of propping them easily at the front door) came Men With Balls by Drew Magary. Isn't the cover hysterical? Yes, I've been living with a former frat boy for way too long. What can I say? This book was a contest win from Sandie over at Booksie's Blog. And she's got another giveaway going on right now for anyone interested. I'd post the description of this one but you'd probably all wonder why I was tickled enough to enter the giveaway and we can't have you questioning my shred of sanity now can we?! Suffice it to say, it should make me laugh, I hope.

Review: Jantsen's Gift by Pam Cope with Aimee Molloy

To an outsider, Pam Cope's life looked pretty darn perfect until her 15 year old son collapsed and died unexpectedly. This devastating blow sent Pam into a downward spiral that she couldn't pull out of and which made a mockery of her previous life. Her husband held their family together, waiting for the day that Pam decided to face life again. And that day did eventually come, but her priorities had shifted. She knew that she needed to honor Jantsen's memory and to make a difference in the world. This awakening gelled on a trip to Vietnam that she, husband Randy, and daughter Crista took to visit an orphanage started by a friend and to try and escape some of the suffocating grief they felt at home. Not only did the Copes come home determined to adopt the little boy they met in Vietnam who was an immediate part of their hearts, but they had found a purpose for some of the money collected in Jantsen's name after his death: to care for and make a difference in the lives of children who had few others to care for or about them. This wasn't the end of the grief at losing Jantsen or a cure-all for their family but it became a guiding principle that helped them get over the hurdles still in their path (Randy's chance to grieve properly, disappointments over the dispersal of some of the funds, the challenges of starting a non-profit, etc.). Their story is still a work in process. Jantsen's absence will always be a gaping hole but the creation of their foundation Touch a Life is a testament to the great love they bore their son and continue to bear for children of the world.

Each chapter after Jantsen's death starts with the recounting of a short letter to Jantsen from the journal Pam continues to keep years after his death. Cope and Molloy have juxtaposed the grief of losing a child with the admirable and inspiring story of one family who has taken that sorrow and channeled it into something beautiful and full of grace. This is not an easy book to read, dealing as it does with the loss of a child and the horrible conditions, including slavery in which other children continue to live even today. But it is ultimately a hopeful book. If such a sad event can lead to even the smallest spark of hope, it will not be dismissed as simply another tragedy to avoid in conversation. It's hard to critique the writing when the topic is so very personal (I wept copiously as I read) but there were a few bits in the book that made me roll my eyes or wish the narrative line would speed up. These bits were not overwhelming though and so didn't overpower my general feeling about the book which was that this was a moving book that deserves a wide audience. Inspiring and heart breaking, I hope the publicity from the book makes it possible for more children to be saved. Jantsen's life might have been a gift to the Cope family but his family's gift will be an enduring one to the wider world.

Sunday Salon: Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day and I should probably wax eloquent about the three short (but growing at an alarming rate) people who make it possible for me to claim a rose after brunch on this day every year. I'm not really a wax eloquent kind of mother though, more a wax sarcastic mother. Not that I don't tear up at others' beautiful tributes to moms, because I do. But my experience mothering can be more accurately summed up by 7 year old T.'s comment at the yearly brunch this morning: "My favorite thing about Mother's Day is that we go to someplace fancy that has lots of cake." (Said over the remains of *2* slices of death by chocolate fudge cake that made my teeth hurt just to look at.) I think celebrating me was somewhere about 6th on his list of good things about the day. Typical. Of course, I might be a bit worried if I had a smarmy little Eddie Haskell who oozed on about me and my stellar mothering traits when faced with two pieces of the most densely chocolate looking cake on the planet. And really, isn't my job as a mom to help them sever that umbilical cord, becoming individuals in their own rights, no matter how much it might ultimately hurt? I might not be the weepy-eyed, maternal ideal, but I think I do a few things alright on the mom front (we'll ignore for the moment the sheer amount I screw up too). Now, will it be a strike for or against me if I remind them to dig their Mother's Day school projects out of their backpacks and hand them over? I promise not to toss them in the recycle bin, at least not immediately and not when they are looking.

As on other non-Mother's Day Sundays, this post is an opportunity for me to look back at the week just past and take stock. The good, the bad, and the ugly as it were. Reading-wise I've done well so far, having read 8 books for the month of May already (5 in the past week). Review-wise, I haven't written nearly enough, especially given the speed with which I am adding books to the "need to be reviewed" pile. And attitude-wise my week has been in the toilet. I can't quite put my finger on it but I've been short-tempered, vaguely dissatisfied, and mopey. Hmmmm. And you wonder why no one put celebrating me on the top of their favorite things about Mother's Day list! Here's hoping that this coming week accentuates the good, negates the bad, and completely reverses the ugly. I'll have my Mother's Day book store gift card to help start the process.

Don't forget about my Cinco de Mayo giveaway of Robin Hemley's Do-Over. It's not about mothers but fathers are a close second, right? And it is a fun and funny book.

How to know you are winning the poor parenting sweepstakes

Have your youngest tell you his teacher thinks he sweats too much on the playground. When you sarcastically ask him what her solution would be, listen as he tells you without blinking that she wants you to look closely at his clothing and make sure he's not wearing any of it the following day. Then search back in your memory to a day when he wasn't wearing said clothing. Keep searching. Finally light on a day. Now search back and remember when you last saw said clothing in the laundry. Keep searching. Keep searching. We'll wait. Be very glad that he seems to have missed your sarcasm in asking for a solution to the sweating. Wonder when it will be most convenient for Child Services to come and check out you and your spacey, neglectful self so you can try to plan to not be at home (although they would probably be impressed by the lack of dirty clothes around the house--they are all on his back, of course--and by the amount of clean clothing hanging untouched in his closet).

This makes continually forgetting to make a derm appointment for the kid with warts or a second family counseling appointment for all of you messed up wingnuts sort of pale in comparison. As for the dentist...

Cinco de Mayo giveaway

Cinco de Mayo is not the celebration of Mexican Independence. It's actually a regional celebration celebrating the victory of Mexican forces over the French at the Battle of Puebla. Who knew? Certainly not me with all of my Mexican heritage (um, yeah, the amount I can claim is a whopping cero). You've gotta love translation sites that allow the language challenged to sprinkle other languages throughout their posts, don't you? Without the internet, my Spanish is restricted to fading Dora the Explorer phrases (my kids are too old to watch anymore), the rather questionable/risque sentence I learned in high school as a joke and have never managed to shake out of my brain (it starts with "mis pezones" and just gets worse from there but I'm not going to try and spell the rest so you can use your own dirty imagination), and the bare minimum to help me navigate a Mexican restaurant's menu (taco, anyone?). What can I say, I took French and Russian, not Spanish!

Anyway, not one to let a language barrier stop me from celebrating (any excuse for a party), I am hosting a giveaway for the book Do-Over: In which a forty-eight-year-old father of three returns to kindergarten, summer camp, the prom, and other embarrassments by Robin Hemley. I started reading my review copy last night and let me tell you, I've already actually laughed out loud several times and read relevant passages to my long-suffering husband, who sometimes wonders about my reading selections but might actually be willing to read this one himself (if I refrain from reading him all the good parts like when all the funny bits of a movie are shown in the commercials).

The generous folks at Hatchette are allowing me to offer 5 copies of this entertaining non-fiction book to my readers. Rules are as follows:

US and Canada only.
No PO Boxes.
Earn one entry for commenting on this post.
Earn one entry for following me.
Earn one entry for posting about this giveaway and leaving a link to your post.
Each of the entries must be left in a seperate comment. (Yes, I know, this rule could require you to leave three different comments but it makes my life much easier when plugging the numbers into a random number generator to choose the winners. And since I am the giver and you are the givees, easing my life takes priority over easing yours. After all, I've had to be the one to clean her house in preparation for this giveaway party. ::grin::)
I'll draw the five winners on the only other day in May that has any significance for me: May 27th. (And before anyone mentions Mother's Day, consider that every day is Mother's Day so that doesn't count--you know, mother does the laundry, mother washes the dishes, mother feeds the famished, etc.).

Happy entering. Olé!

Review: A Pigeon and a Boy by Meir Shalev

Having read Shalev's beautiful novel, The Blue Mountain, I was eager to see if A Pigeon and a Boy was as gorgeously rendered as that one was. I have to say that I still find the other more enticing but this has an appealing dream-like cast to it. Two different stories that converge in the narrative, the story opens with a rich American, former member of the Palmach telling of the death of a boy and his symbolic release of a final homing pigeon as he dies in battle to the other tour members and Yair, their Israeli tour guide. From this point onward, the narrative splits into the stories of Yair's life and that of Baby, the young homing pigeon handler who died so many years ago in the fighting. But as the stories diverge, so they must, in the end, converge again. Both stories center on love and its loss: man-woman, mother-son, and friend-friend. Shalev draws Israel before Independence with minute strokes, describing the place and everything in it with a detailed richness that sometimes threatens to overwhelm the reader. His characters are lost and found again in love drawing understanding sympathies from the reader. The tragedies and betrayals, both physical and emotional, that play out in the novel are piercing and yet there is still ultimately a redemptive feel to the novel as a whole: the past melts seamlessly into the present and the present can be made right. I found it initially hard to sink into the book fully but once I made that effort, I was rewarded by a stunning book; one that will stay with me for a long time.

Make-up, skin care, and getting old

If you know me now or have known me a any time over the past, oh say, 38 years, you'll know that I almost never wear make-up. I had to be bullied into it by my mother for my wedding. It's just not my thing. So whenever I do, it is serious cause for comment, as was obvious at the party we went to this weekend. (Does it really make me look all that different? Ok, the red lipstick was out on a limb but other than that, probably not so much.)

Another thing I generally neglect is any sort of skin care regimen. I've spent years knowing that soap in the shower was more than enough time to lavish on my face. But now the beauty industry is playing on the aging thing and given that I thought Matthew Perry (a mere year older than I am) looked old in the movie I took the kids to yesterday, I'd probably have to grudgingly agree that I am aging. So I broke down and bought some skin care stuff. When I remember to use it (and the consistency is rather sketchy, I must admit), the claims it makes just give me the giggles. I mean really.

The eye cream is going to make a visible difference in the black circles under my eyes? Is there really any real measurable difference between the small handbags currently there and the clutch purse they might shrink to, with more diligent application that I am capable of providing?

As for the lotion with sunscreen, well, it's not doing me any good at all since I can't apply it before I go outside for a run or for tennis or anything like that. I've had the sweaty stuff run into my eyes before and let me tell you, I'll choose minor sunburn and premature freckling over agonising blindness any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

And my personal favorite in the trifecta of products guaranteed to give me the skin of a photoshopped model is the deep wrinkle cream. Why not call it spackle and call it a day. I mean seriously. It's not doing one darn thing for my charming laugh lines (ain't euphomisms grand?). Unless of course, they really do mean I'm supposed to spackle it into the gaping chasms before bed, thereby rubbing it into my pillowcase and eventually causing myself a raging case of acne. Yup, mountain ranges of zits would indeed plump up the wrinkles, wouldn't they? With my luck though, they'd cling like mountain goats to the edge of the steep valley, making the wrinkles just that much deeper.

Tell me again why one little pot of this stuff is $40 (keeping in mind that the bare minimum regimen calls for three pots--there's more but I can't begin to imagine what they all are for)? Oh wait, I do know! Once I've finished smoothing very expensive stuff on my unchanging mug, if I have too much left on my fingers, I tend to wipe it off on my cheeks (no, the other ones). I'm going to have the smoothest, softest, most wrinkle-free bottom on the planet. But you're going to have to take my word for it unless the beauty industry would like to use my well-preserved rear in their next set of anti-aging commercials. Good to know some part of me is ready for my close-up, right?!