six cats in the yard

After waffling for several days about whether or not to make the trip to Florence for the Ginsberg annual OCF trip, I felt good enough to be gung-ho about sleeping on the ground while being 9 months pregnant. I pulled together emergency numbers (just in case) for Eugene hospitals and checked with my doctor and midwife that there were no obvious signs of impending labor (not that it couldn’t happen at the drop of a hat at this point), made sure that Leigh had all the same numbers and managed to get on the road with a lot of energy. By the time I got to the site that night at 6:30, however, and set up the tent and the air mattress by myself (Leigh couldn’t make it until the next night), I was ready for the inevitable 2-hour nap!

It was so nice to spend the night under the stars with the pine smell and the cool coastal breeze as a remedy for the insufferably hot Gorge weather that’s been a little overwhelming the last week or so. The first night I managed to say hi to Stephanie & her brother’s crew and that was about it before I hit the tent and actually slept pretty damn well for having to struggle to get my big fat belly and ass off the ground to get up to pee at least 3 or 4 times that night. 

I felt good enough the next morning to contemplate spending a few hours wandering around the always colorful Country Fair. For those of you who have never been or never heard of it, it’s basically a giant hippie fest that’s been going on for almost 40 years. There used to be a lot more nudity and a lot stronger smells of the Ganja, but nowadays they bill it as “family fare”. However, if you are part of a family that gets shocked and easily offended by nudity and some raunchy costumes, you will not be very happy. When I was growing up, a lot of people in town (usually from Springfield) would go to twitter and turn red at the spectacle of naked men and women. Ah well. There’s a ton of good food (Ritta’s burritos all the way), lively and friendly attitude, and beautiful, artistic displays of individuality. Highly recommend a trip. Plus the crafts and clothes are unique if not expensive.

The only thing I bought besides a lot of food and lemonade, was a painted belly:

I had two very respectable looking men stop me and ask quite politely if they could take my picture. I also got a lot of thumbs up and very joyful looks. I saw one woman pointing at me and telling her friend that that was going to be one happy baby, she could tell just from the sunflower on my expanding belly. And, the funniest thing was when a mother and father pointed me out to their 5 or 6-year-old son to tell him that the first time he’d come to the fair he’d been about as old as the baby in my belly. The little boy looked a little skeptical and unsure as to what to do with the information. But his parents looked so thrilled to be able to be telling him this that I couldn’t help but laugh with them. It was a celebration for me of the growing being I am carrying, but it was also nice to know that my act of “exposure” brought some amount of joy and happy amusement to others.

After going through a mild dry season with no movies the last couple of months, mostly because it’s hard to see anything with Leigh having to commute and get home too late to do much but grunt a greeting and eat dinner, we actually watched 4 movies this past week. One was even seen in the theater! 

We rented three movies this past weekend and I have to say that all three were very much worth seeing.

1. Persepolis is an animated movie based on the life of an Iranian woman who grew up smack in the middle of the Revolution in Iran when the Shah was overthrown. It has some dreamy aspects intermingled with the harsh reality that she lived where relatives were executed for being revolutionaries and where she and her parents had to risk their lives to do the right thing or to express themselves as individuals. I was very impressed with the movie, mostly because, in the beginning it really hit me how idealistic her parents were about the possibility for change once the Shah was deposed, yet I knew (although only vaguely) what their family was really in for once he was gone and the new regime was in place. They had such freedoms, according to the movie, while he was in office and so strongly believed that freedom would reign when he gave up the ghost. It just made me realize, too, how the same thing seemed to happen, again to my limited knowledge, in Afghanistan between the Soviet and the Taliban rule. It reminded me somewhat of my experience in high school when I read Handmade’s Tale. I refused for the longest time to read it because I felt like it could really happen (and I still strongly believe it could)…there are dissimilarities obviously between the story of the handmade and the real life brutality of Iran and Afghanistan, but I fear the radicals, no matter what religion or other belief base they come from. Not to say that we should just accept a faulty system of government that oppresses people because the next one might be worse, but it really gave me something to think about….Sometimes the next one *is* worse, so what kind of choice does that leave us or anyone living under that faulty system?

2. 10 Items or Less is much lighter fare. It’s an independent movie that I first saw mentioned in the previews for King of California (another very good indie film with Michael Douglas that I highly recommend, even though I’m not a huge MD fan). It’s basically about Morgan Freeman (not necessarily playing himself, but playing an actor who hasn’t worked in 4 years) who is “researching” a role in an indie film as a grocery store manager. He ends up being left behind at the store and has to rely on one of the clerks to give him a ride home. It may not sound all that fascinating, but it’s a quirky “short road trip” kind of movie where there’s not a lot of action, but there’s a lot of humanity and conversation and potential life changes.

3. The Proposition. I’ve wanted to see this since I first heard Nick Cave talking about it. I am a peripheral fan of his since I was in Ireland. By that I mean, that I have heard very little by him, don’t know much about him, but I have good associations and think he’s pretty intriguing. He wrote and, I think, directed/produced this movie about an psychotic outlaw in the early years of the settling of Australia by the British. I have no idea if this story is based in fact or just a conglomeration or even just straight from Cave’s mind, but it was good. If you hate Westerns, you probably don’t want to see it. But I *love* them and this was one of the best. Mostly because the characters seemed so complex and were trying to made tough decisions, and really they were screwed either way. But it was beautifully filmed, the music was terrific, the acting and the writing was outstanding. Probably no big surprises, but it was the journey not the destination that made it worth seeing. Curious to know what the Australian viewpoint on this movie is (emily? chuck?)

4. Wall-E: GO SEE IT! I don’t like reading reviews before I see movies, unless it’s one that I’m not really planning on seeing and then sometimes a review will push me into seeing it. This movie was one I wanted to see, so I didn’t read any opinions beforehand, except for a small teaser online which stated that the reviewer thought this was the most profound animated movie he’d ever seen. Probably he meant “commercial animated” but he was right. DO NOT expect that your children will like this movie. It is really not for children unless they happen to think very deeply about the world and our place in it. There is very little to keep a child interested, especially the younger ones. The first 1/3 or so of the movie has no or limited dialogue. It’s all about watching the main character, a lone trash compacting robot, go about his daily life. You later realize that he’s probably been doing this for hundreds of years, and he is lonely. The movie is really, to me, a reflection on our impact on the earth and how disconnected we might (and have?) become if we continue living the consumer lives we’re living. I often struggle with that because I don’t always maintain connections that I want to maintain, especially now being out here in Hood River with no close friends. It’s easy to go from work to home to bed with little outside interaction. Buying things to make yourself feel surrounded, loved, connected, whether that’s food items (Slurpee!!) or electronics or whatever. Those things (as you see in the movie) really help to keep us separated. The movie is about finding love, finding connection, finding purpose and realizing how interconnected the human race is with the land and one another. It’s one of those movies like Pleasantville that I saw at a point when I was really open to that kind of message and was able to hear it loud and clear.

Every now and then I will look at the Hood River News website or the paper to find out “what’s happening”. Being new to the town, we don’t know many people, especially outside of my work, and I’ve been so tired the last few months that it’s been easy to be lazy and just stay in. So when I start feeling like we need to get out and meet people or do more community things, I check out the paper. A few weeks ago I noticed there was a corn maze at Rasmussen Farms, a place where, Emily (who knows everyone in the greater Hood River/Dalles area) apparently used to work. When we were looking for u-pick flowers, Emily said to call Rasmussen’s and tell the owner that Emily says hi. The owner warmed up to me after that

I mentioned the corn maze to Leigh and then promptly forgot about it. Last night he surprised me by asking if I wanted to go to corn maze place today, so off we went. Nothing terribly exciting, but it was funny to see all of the work that went into putting together the displays of pumpkins/squash. It made me feel a little like a kid again; it also got me excited to carve our own pumpkins and welcome trick or treaters. Too bad I’ll have time to let the excitement wane before Halloween actually gets here. Maybe we can extend the pumpkin carving out by doing one or two a week until the big day…

One of my favorite things to do when I was little (and still actually) was to go to the library. I think even then I brought home about 20 books with each trip and probably barely got through all of them before they were due back (thank god for “renewals” now.

So when I move to a new place I always get my library card before I do just about anything else. That at register to vote. When I’m feeling stressed or disconnected, I will stop at the library and browse the shelves….often starting at “A” and just winding my way through the letters. I pick up a book that has a good cover (I’m so superficial) and if it’s got a good story that fits my mood, I’ll take it home. I try to find my favorite authors first, but generally I’ve read everything by them (Annie Proulx, Richard Russo, Mark Helprin, to name a few). I usually reject a lot of the chick lit books, and there are a surprising amount of them on the shelves. I tried to read Anita Shreve and just couldn’t get through the first few pages. I tried to read the book by the guy who annoyed Oprah and he was too arrogant. I couldn’t stand Snow Falling on Cedars, either because he seemed to be trying to impress as well and it just didn’t work.

When I was in vet school, I’d go to the Pullman Library and get “teen books” similar to Harry Potter just to completely lose myself in the fantasy. I discovered Phillip Pullman (ironic I guess?) who wrote the book which is coming out as a movie (The Golden Compass) and read through all of that series pretty quickly. There’s not much to it. Maybe it’s because I don’t expect much from them that I can overlook a lot of the simplicity or flatness. But The Golden Compass books seemed to have a lot of dimension.

I recently read the Amulet of Samarkand series by Jonathan Stroud (a book I found when Leigh and I were in Australia a couple of years ago, and only recently I discovered it was a young adult book). I just finished the last book a month or so ago. Would recommend it to anyone who liked the Harry Potter series. It’s not really the same, except that it’s about a boy wizard and the struggle b/t “human” and wizard.

I just haven’t been able to read a lot of non-fiction these days, even though I have several books on my shelf that are non-fiction that I very much want to read: Shake Hands with the Devil (about the Rwandan massacre by UN General who was part of the force on the ground when it happened); Guns, Germs & Steel; the second/third books in the MLK years trilogy by a journalist from Baltimore…and I’m sure I’ve got a few others on the shelf just waiting to be read. I might get away without reading “Bury my heart at wounded knee” b/c now HBO has a movie based on the book (see what happens when you wait long enough; they make everything into a movie for us dullards who can’t make it through the book.

But actually I’m trying to read a couple of books that *are* non-fiction, mostly about nutrition: the new Barbara Kingsolver book about eating locally and a book about “what to eat”, written by a nutritionist who apparently did a lot of research on various types of food (organic milk, soy milk, meats, etc.) to help sort out fact from fiction.

This week, when I started feeling really stressed out from work, I found myself in need of a library fix. I found a great stack of books, including 3 I pilfered from the new book section, and have finished one so far: The first book in the Sally Lockhart trilogy (also by Phillip Pullman). It wasn’t too bad, but now I have to go back to get the 2nd & 3rd books before I can read any of my other books.

I will let you know if any of the other more literary books are any good. And I would absolutely love to hear what other people are reading, esp. books that they might recommend so that I can put them into a list I can look for when I get tired of just wandering and want something more specific.