10.31.2009

The Brakebills Library

This one's for you, Gretchen . . .

I spent several hours during this week's snowstorm reading Lev Grossman's new novel, The Magicians. A large chunk of the action takes place at Brakebills, a sort of college-level Hogwarts. Although I think that all libraries are magical places (cue to loud groaning), the Brakebills Library--which I envisioned as looking rather like the Long Room in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin (yes, I have been there, so I know whereof I speak)--literally has its own brand of magic:

...some of the books had actually become migratory. In the nineteenth century Brakebills had appointed a librarian with a highly Romantic imagination who had envisioned a mobile library in which the books fluttered from shelf to shelf like birds, reorganizing themselves spontaneously under their own power in response to searches. For the first few months the effect was said to have been quite dramatic. A painting of the scene survived as a mural behind the circulation desk, with enormous atlases soaring around the place like condors.

But the system turned out to be totally impractical. The wear and tear on the spines alone was too costly, and the books were horribly disobedient. The librarian had imagined that he could summon a given book to perch on his hand just by shouting out its call number, but in actuality they just too willful, and some were actively predatory. The librarian was swiftly deposed, and his successor set about domesticating the books again, but even now there were stragglers, notably in Swiss History and Architecture 300-1399, that stubbornly flapped around near the ceiling. Once in a while an entire sub-sub-category that had long been thought safely dormant would take wing with an indescribable papery susurrus.

It's hard not to love the idea of disobedient books. Or the word susurrus.

10.29.2009

October Snow

You may have heard that we're having a bit of snow out West. How bad is it? Well, my neighbor Holly, who has teenagers, commented as she was shoveling her driveway for about the thirteenth time in the last 24 hours, "This is the first time we've ever had two [school] snow days in a row this early in the season!"

The streets don't get plowed (see below), but the paved trails in the open space areas do, which enabled me to walk Hana on Ralston Creek Trail this morning and take a few pictures.




No tennis for us today

10.25.2009

Letting Go of "Home"

My family moved twice while I was in grades 1-8, so I attended three Catholic elementary schools. Making new friends isn't easy when you are gawky, shy, bookish, and "four-eyed." (Those cat-eyed glasses did me no favors.)

When I had children, I vowed that they were going to stay in the same house from the moment they entered first grade through high school graduation. We bought a house in an excellent school district the summer before Pat and Ali started first grade (1988) and remained there until we left for Belgium in 2007. We'd managed to stay put not only until the kids were out of high school, but until they were out of college.

For most of the past three years, while we were in Belgium and then Colorado, we rented our house to a young couple from Germany. When Carolin and Ranier told us over the summer that they were being transferred to California, we decided, despite the horrific real estate market in the Detroit metro area, to put the house up for sale.

The house itself isn't anything architecturally special—it's a big 1970s Colonial typical of the northern Detroit suburbs. However, it backs to a huge, rolling commons area where the neighborhood children ran back and forth on summer evenings like a herd of antelope. During the winter, they all sledded down a hill that I could see from my kitchen windows. Patrick first tried snowboarding—with a cheap snowboard that he strapped on over his boots—on that hill; he and Alison also tried to get our dogs to sit on the toboggan with them (fat chance!) as they glided down the gentle slope. (Merlin and Hana also showed no interest in pulling the toboggan up the hill.)

Although the previous owners had not been big gardeners, we added a flower and vegetable plot at one of the lot's back corners. (The other corner held two identical playhouses on stilts, one for Patrick and one for Alison. Sharing has never been an option for those two.) One spring, when my next-door neighbor Sue and I had three friends between us who were suffering from breast cancer, we channeled our anxiety and fear into creating a shared, peaceful, shade garden in the narrow space between our houses.

We closed on the sale of the house last Thursday.

10.19.2009

Color Season, Colorado-Style

Fall is beautiful but monochromatic in Colorado: the aspens turn gold. Period. Maples and other hardwoods, the autumn showstoppers of the Midwest, are rare.

However, while hiking at Meyer Ranch Park last week, we glanced at the grasslands bordering the trailhead and realized that all the colors we associate with fall were right in front of us. They just happened to be at ground level. (Click on the picture for the full effect.)

10.13.2009

Phillies 5, Rockies 4

I don't have a Bucket List.

We're not big baseball fans; it's a slow game that lends itself to daydreaming. I tend to miss most of the exciting plays. Jim prefers sports like soccer, basketball, and hockey.

But the Colorado Rockies made the playoffs, tickets were affordable, and we didn't have to take a day off work to go to the game. (There are benefits to unemployment, we told ourselves.) Neither of us had ever been to a playoff game in any sport. It seemed like the kind of thing one would do if one had a Bucket List.

Which is how we found ourselves at Coors Field yesterday sitting in the upper deck over right field. The Rockies made a dramatic comeback in the eighth inning, but still managed to lose the game when the Phillies came back from the brink in the top of the ninth with two outs and two strikes on the scoreboard.

The fans were equally entertaining. The weather during Sunday night's game had been in the 20s. Although yesterday's weather was warmer and the game started earlier (4 p.m. vs. 8 p.m.), many people showed up at Coors Field looking like they were headed for a camping trip in the high country or a day on the ski slopes. Jim didn't want me to wear my ski pants, but I did have on ski socks, my high-tech ski turtleneck, a hoodie, a ski jacket, a scarf, gloves, and a polar fleece headband. I also brought a fleece blanket. For the record, I didn't need the jacket or gloves during the first half of the game, but by the time darkness fell and the wind picked up, I was feeling snug and smug.

If only I'd a taken a "real" hat that could be turned inside out as a "rally cap," a tradition that I'd never seen until that awful moment in the top of the ninth. The Rockies' relief pitchers needed all the help they could get.

10.07.2009

It's nice to know that I'm "suitable"

From the ding letter in this morning's e-mail:

Although you were identified as a suitable candidate for the position, the Search Committee selected an individual they believe is best suited for the job.

Just not suitable enough, apparently.

10.06.2009

Wilderness Cure

We spent a lot of time last week watching the PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea. I was drawn to the story of Stephen Mather, the first director of the National Park Service, whose "love of the parks was highly personal: he had found that time in nature helped him ward off the bouts of depression to which he was prone."

The description resonated with me. Since our move to Colorado, I always head to the high country—or at least to a spot where I have an unimpeded view of the mountains— when I feel depression lurking. And if I need a big wilderness fix, one of the jewels in Mather's park system is less than two hours away. (RMNP pictures, July 2009)

10.05.2009

Bumper Sticker

Spotted recently:

"Liberals. One per day. One in possession," illustrated by a graphic of a rifle sight with a person in the crosshairs.

Does this mean that the owner of the car—which was parked in a nearby subdivision—views me as prey?

10.03.2009

Postcards From the Edge

When Jim's college roommate, Dave, was in Colorado two weeks ago, he wanted to take the cog railway from Manitou Springs to the summit of Pike's Peak. Snobbish Colorado transplants that we've become, we thought it sounded a titch touristy (God forbid!), but we try to oblige visiting friends and family.

It proved to be the a wise decision: The road to Pike's Peak has no guardrails. Zip, zero, nada. (Note to my brother: No wonder Mom was livid when you and Mike D. swiped the car and drove up Pike's Peak during the debate tournament trip.) It was much easier to enjoy the scenery when none of us had to concentrate on driving, or, in my case, praying that Jim wouldn't launch the car over the edge. (After 18 months on mountain roads, he's become off-handed about switchbacks.)

Curiously, our alma mater was well represented on top of the world. Dave wore a Michigan baseball cap; I had on a UM sweatshirt. Two of the three people in the seats facing us on the train--seats that are reserved, by the way, so it wasn't our Wolverine regalia that caused them to sit with us--were Michigan grads; we chatted about the football team and swapped stories of running the Dexter-Ann Arbor race. And, rather wonderfully, at the summit, there was a little Wolverine theater of the absurd playing out as a guy in a UM t-shirt and cap showed the sights to his pal in a gorilla suit.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/PikeSPeak. Wolverine and gorilla shots courtesy of Dave.