ALMOST FORGOT!

FAVORITE BOOKS READ IN 2013

FICTION: (In no particular order)

1.  The Round House – Louise Erdrich

            A winner of the National Book Award, this story set on a present-day Indian reservation is as good and painful a story as I've found in a long time. I think it is the best of all I've read of her books. 

2.  The Testament of Mary - Colm Toibin

             Jesus's mother, Mary, reflects on the events surrounding the crucifixion of her son, who she knows is not the son of God.

3.   Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

             A book of twists and turns that will keep you glued to your seat until you've read the last page.

4.    Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner

              1972's amazing book of discovery - personal, historical, and geographical.  It is a lovely, lovely read.

5.     The Good Lord Bird - James McBride

              Has Old John Brown ever been so deliciously portrayed?  You'll laugh, cry, gasp, and re-read.  

NON-FICTION: (In no particular order)

1.      The Man in the Sharkskin Suit - Lucette Lagnado

               What happens to an Egyptian Jewish family when the nation of Israel is born.

2.       1940: FDR, Wilkie, Lindbergh, Hitler - the Election Amid the Storm - Susan Dunn.

                I was too little to know this when it was happening, but reading it was a real eye-opener and, surprisingly, a very interesting book for those of us (moi!) who are not political or a historian.

3.       Blood and Thunder - Epic Story of Kit Carson - Hampton Sides

                Kit Carson's role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the civil war.  But more than that, it's the conquest of the whole west - extending way out here to California -- in places I've walked all of my life.

4.       Crossing Cairo - Ruth Sohn

                 Review from my blog:  I heard her talk about this book at a book fair and knew that I had to read it.  What I appreciated is her ability to see events, people, culture, and locations through the eyes of an expat, a mother, a rabbi, a female and a scholar -- and still have every last word be interesting!  Most importantly, I think, is that it has set me to thinking about how I interpret news from the middle east, especially that which comes via TV. 

5.       Deadly Indifference - Michael Brown

                Under-Secretary of Homeland Security (under Bush) lucidly explains (and not with excuses) what turned out to be a very inadequate federal response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and a good description of just what FEMA is and isn't.

HEEBIE-JEEBIES?

Have you ever had the heebie-jeebies?

Now I don't go looking for trouble, but there are a few things that certainly give me the heebie-jeebies.

The first and most irrational one happens to be a leftover from my teen years.  I think I've even mentioned it in an older blog.  It is simply seeing a swimming pool without water in it.  I will spare you the reason why it gives me the heebie-jeebies, and forcing myself to walk in my own swimming pool when it was drained for repairs many years ago really never made the irrationality go away, although I thought it would.  But it just kind of "tempered" it.  I don't have many occasions anymore to see empty swimming pools, but I have to admit two things: if I saw one I'm sure I wouldn't faint or anything like that, and if I had any say so in the matter, I probably wouldn't look at it in the first place if I had to walk by it.

I know.  It's crazy, but not incapacitating!

The second thing that gives me the heebie-jeebies is not going to be good PR for California.  I do not like to be caught at a red light when I am driving under a freeway overpass.  I think this nervousness came from one of the old SoCal earthquakes - either the Sylmar quake in 1971 or the Northridge quake in 1994.  An overpass collapsed on a car.  Of course all the newspapers ran pictures of it.  I am not ordinarily fearful of earthquakes (except in Turkey, because our apartment building was not very substantial).  The slight chance of being injured in one here in California doesn't give me any particular fear, but when I am driving and see that I am going to be caught at a stoplight while I'm having to wait under a freeway overpass -- well, what I experience is a good case of the heebie-jeebies.  No yelling, no thrashing about, but I tell you I am always ready, at first shake, to jump out of my car and run for my life!  Man! I don't like that!

And the final thing that makes me nervous is driving on the freeway beside a semi-truck.  We have way too many truck-car accidents here on our freeways.  The car rarely wins.  Just today as I drove down the onramp onto the 60 freeway, I had to merge into the traffic lane next to a big red semi.  At least it was a pretty, clean bright red - not that it mattered, but since I was to merge at the speed of traffic it took a little maneuvering to end up away from that semi as fast as I could manage it!

Now these last two situations are rational, as opposed to the irrational fear of an empty swimming pool. Nevertheless, there is no way that I can control either of those from occurring like I do when I opt not to look at the pool.

This morning, with Jerry by my side as I merged onto the 60, I asked him if anything gave him "the willies" - another good set of words for "heebie-jeebie."  Good old placid Jerry.  "Nope," he said, "not that I can think of."

Ah...... I should be lucky enough to go through life not thinking of disasters and things like that.  Que sera, sera is his mantra. Fatalism, I calls it!  No use trying to change myself at this stage of the game.  I guess I'm one of those "set in their ways" oldsters.  At least these quirks aren't debilitating.  They sure don't keep me off the freeway.  (And it's age that keeps me out of the swimming pool!)

WHAT MAKES MOTHER'S DAY?

As I recall the story, there was a lady who wanted very much to honor her mother, and did so by suggesting to someone, somewhere, that a day in May be set aside as Mother's Day, in which children were to specifically honor or memorialize their mother with a written note or letter.  Within a few years she was fit to be tied, because the original thought was commercialized and publicized by the suggestion of present-giving, non-personal gift cards and the like. 

I have before mentioned that my family was not very observant of events, other than Christmas, Easter and birthdays.  I can't remember ever giving my mother a present, but my father always gave her one from "all of us."  If we asked what she wanted, she always said, "Just a hand-made card."  She wasn't hard to please, but even from a child's viewpoint it never seemed like a very good a Mother's Day present to me.

In thinking about the impact of Mother's Day in my life, I am always drawn back to something my mother put in a handwritten note to us, her three kids, and attached to her holographic will.  Her last sentence, written before she headed to the hospital for heart surgery (from which she would not survive) was this: "So, at the moment I shall end this.  Just want you all to know how much I enjoyed being your Mom, and wish you long happy healthy lives.  Love always, Mother."

I have often felt deficient in the "mother" department, but if I think of this note from my mom – and especially I always do on Mother's Day, I realize that regardless of what a brat I might have been, or my too-far-apart phone calls, or not always being the peacemaker my mother expected of me, or not coming up to the standard she wanted for me, what I did do, by doing nothing more than being her child, still made my mother enjoy being a mother. 

So in a sense, without my knowing it, what I did and what I became, and who I was still was enough to make her enjoy being a mother.  And it was a gift I didn't know of until she was gone.

I remember my mother today with really warm thoughts.  She was a genuinely good, kind person; I don't think she had a mean bone in her body.  She set a great example for her daughters in the way she lived her life.  That sometimes we fell short was not her fault, and she never, ever, intentionally made us feel guilty.  (We were quite able to do that ourselves, thank you.)

And so for me, I think I have already received the best gift possible for this and for every Mother's Day – and that is being able to say to my kids – Sean, Erin, Bryn and Kerry - while I'm still alive to say exactly what my mother did: " I have enjoyed being your Mom!" And that is better than receiving a handmade card, roses, See's Candy, a Barnes and Noble Gift Card, or a cashmere sweater for Mother's Day.  Being able to still put my arms around you is enough! 

OLDER & FITTER?

In my whole life I have never signed up for ANYTHING that even hinted at athletics or exercise.  As a child I was thought to have a heart condition and the whole of my childhood was governed by not playing active games.  By the time I figured out I wasn't going to die, I didn't know how to play volleyball, basketball, kickball, baseball, and frankly, just wasn't interested. 

I substituted reading for my "sport" and never missed not knowing running around making sweat!.  I always said my exercise was accomplished by curling up on the couch making my eyeballs go back and forth across the written page.  Ahhhhh.  Such satisfaction!

I lived my young and middle aged life before LA Fitness or Pilates came into being.  To be honest, what one doesn't have, one doesn't miss.  And then, one starts into old age and begins  having little niggling physical things go on with my body.  That was when I realized I probably did need a little conditioning.  I walked for a while, shocked that I rather enjoyed it, but after the scare that I had last December thinking I was going to need dialysis or a kidney transplant, I stopped walking because I felt so punk.  It turned out to be a side-effect of a pill, and once I stopped taking that pill, I became my old self again, kidney and all.  However, I just never quite got my enthusiasm for exercise back. So when Riverside County arranged to hold a "50 and Fit" exercise class on the premises of Country Village, where we live, I suggested to Jerry that we participate.  The goal, set specifically for seniors, is to work toward Muscle, Flexibility and Balance.  The sessions are three times a week, no cost, everything provided!  We've now been twice and like it enough to continue.

But I do have some observations to share.

As we walked in the door we were handed a resistance band.  We vaguely knew how they would be used.  The leader said they would be used in the exercises to build muscle mass through resistance.  The fact that mine had about the resistance of a rubber band made me question what kind of muscle it was going to do any good on.  I was originally thinking of Popeye-sized muscles, but obviously that was not going to happen if I didn't get a stronger band.  But at the same time, I must admit that I thought I looked pretty darn fit stretching that band by holding it with my fingers!  It made me laugh.  I was hopeful that all those people behind me could see that I was already fit.  (I did ask for a stronger band at the second session!)

Next, the leader had us put the bands away and led us in an exercise that I'll describe as stepping left and right in a rhythmic pace, left and right: STEP! STEP! STEP! CLAP! STEP! STEP! STEP! CLAP! – back and forth many many times.  But I laughed at this too, because anyone looking at me would think I had no sense of rhythm at all..  I could not stay in step with any body else, and often I was at a dead stop, giggling at how stupid I was.

But there was a good reason for my difficulty.  First of all, our leader faces us, so her right is our left.  If she would face the same direction that we are, we would all be together.  Many of the people were confused about which way they were to move and people were going every which direction.  But I found myself at odds with both of them – like someone marching to a different drummer.  I burst out laughing again at how stupid I felt, but for good reason: The leader has music to accompany our efforts, but the beat of the piece accompanying this exercise was different than the beat she set for our movement. So I DID have a different drummer, and with a tiny bit of musical training in my background, I positively could not ignore the beat of the music that my fine hearings aids piped into my ears!  I was not out of step at all; everyone else was!

The leader of the exercise group, a youngish woman who actually is one of the employees of our complex's management company, appears to have never exercised before but has had a short course in how to lead a "50 and Fit" group.  Her spirit is willing….but you know the rest of that old saw.  She is fairly unsure of what all these exercises are to accomplish; she herself watches and follows a DVD that is playing on a table beside her.  She does – and then we do - whatever exercise the DVD instructor is doing.  Sweetly and earnestly she follows the rules, so I expect she will get better as she gets more experience. 

I really would prefer a trainer like some of those physical therapists who worked with me to get my "frozen shoulder" back to normal, but we can't always have what we want. And besides, I think to myself, if we had a "REAL" trainer, I would probably then have to truly exercise, which I think I still hate.  So I've made my peace with my silly efforts and lots of laughs, and have to assume that what I am doing now is a whole lot better than finding another book to read.

I do, however, honestly hope that by the time she gets us working on getting our gluteus maximus muscles back into shape, her skills will be honed and we will see some good results.  Have you ever looked at your behind in a three way mirror?  I'm telling you, there is nothing left except muscles, all resting!  It's worse than the flabby underarms we get as we age, but perhaps for us women, not quite as bad as losing what we held up years ago in a perky bra. 

Sadly and realistically, I'm really under no illusion that I will come out of this "50 and Fit" a new me, but in the meantime what it does is get me off the computer for an hour, give me an hour laughing with Jerry, and make me recognize that I really am not in too bad a shape for an old broad.

SLOW SUMMER DAYS - CROQUET, BADMINTON & HORSESHOES

It's been a long time since I've played croquet.  It's pretty passe', now, I'd guess, although if one noses around on the internet it's possible to find some hard-core croquet players still wielding those mallets.

When I was a kid, my family was lucky enough to move into a house in 1945 that not only had not only a big back yard but also a big side yard AND a vacant lot next door.  We also lived in a town where lots of our relatives lived too, and at least during most of the year, Sundays would find a whole bunch of "us" playing some kind of a game outside.

Children were not the reason our folks bought the various games.  To be honest with you, my sister was a poor loser in anything and it was just easier to let the adults play and the kids watch.  When the adults were finished, there usually was a row over picking out the color of the mallet and ball you wanted to play with, and then there was often an argument at every wicket about "not being fair" .... the only way a game could be be played without tearing your hair out is if my sister got to win every hole.  As I said, she was a poor loser and a great tantrum thrower, so these games didn't last very long.

But while we kids were entertaining ourselves in the back yard, my mother and all her sisters were playing a game of badminton on the side yard.  Dad strung up the badminton net from the side of the house to a tall post set in a tire on the other side of the yard.  The women who weren't "up" sat in folding chairs at the side of the game and refereed and gossiped, I imagine, until their turn at badminton came up, and when it did they tried their best to hit the daylights out of that "bird," the term they used for the "shuttlecock."

All the while my dad and the brothers-in-law would be playing horseshoes in the vacant lot, which my dad also owned.  Most of the time it didn't take very long before us kids gave up on croquet and came out to watch the men throwing those horseshoes.  We didn't care about badminton, but we sure liked horseshoes.  If we waited long enough, we always got to try our hand at trying to throw a "ringer" - but of course our tossing line had to be moved  up very close to the stake, because those horseshoes were H-E-A-V-Y for us little girls.

When the afternoon games were over, the family always sat around in the backyard cooking off with bottles of beer, and lemonade for us kids.

My mom had a big family:  Uncle Sam and Aunt Marie (her sister), Uncle Bert and Aunt Betty (her brother), Uncle Hugh and Aunt Betty (her brother), Aunt Margie, her sister, and then there was my Uncle Bill, (really not an uncle but my dad's best friend.)  Often times my dad ended up either barbecuing dinner outside for everyone, or he made a big pancake dinner for everyone.

Dad was a good and willing cook.  His own dad died when he was 8.  His mom had to take a full-time job, and his older sister was studying for nursing school, so often dad was the one who put some food on the table in the evening.  He dropped out of school in 8th grade and his first job was at a restaurant.  Then later on he did some mining in California - and since he enjoyed cooking and mother didn't, he took over whenever company came.  In those days pancakes were made from scratch - that is, no pancake mix or Bisquick existed yet.  His pancakes were to die for, and he had the pleasure of remembering, even when he was in his 90s, of how much everyone in the family relished his big pancake suppers.

The family also quite often had poker parties on Saturday night, maybe once a month.  The babies would be put down to bed in one of the bedrooms.  The dining room table is where the group sat, and my sis and I would sit on the floor at the end of that table and nearest to the bedrooms so we could hear if any little tykes needed attention.  We understood that poker was an adult game (the chips in our family were pennies.)  But we listened to what was going on and devised our own game that we called REKOP, which was "Poker" backwards.  Sitting down on the floor, we managed to get through our own game without our parents being any the wiser (or so we thought.)

About the time I turned 14 or so, my dad had an outdoor patio built out in the corner of the back yard.  He did it so that Ginnie Lou and I would be able to bring our friends to our house for fun, instead of going out somewhere.  The patio, however, took a chunk out of our croquet course.  Eventually dad built a triplex on the vacant lot; a fence was put in which meant the horseshoes went by the wayside, and TV inside replaced the games on the outside.  My dad and his pancakes were the one constant as our society left the "old times" and moved into "the age of TV."  My cousin Shirlee and I are the last ones left who remember those "old times" and we agree that we were really lucky to have experienced that tiny snippit of life that was full of croquet mallets, balls, shuttlecocks, and horseshoes.

WISE WORDS AND WORDS TO THE WISE

I love words.  I love to find new words to add to my repertoire of new ways to say things. I don't much like words that reek with pomposity, but I truly enjoy finding one that makes my brain respond "AH HA!  The latest, which I wrote about in an earlier blog is Mumpsimus.  Haven't used it yet, but the time will come, I'm sure.

I enjoy sitting on the couch early in the morning (like 5 a.m. when Jerry and I get up) having a good cup of coffee and listening to the local early-bird TV commentators struggle through the news.  Apparently they are reading scripts so the errors they make may not all be theirs.  But they do say some funny things:

Last week one of the female anchors, well educated and one would like to think well read, had to talk about a Medical Center with a unique (but not bizarre) name.  It as called the Apogee Medical Center.  That name gives you confidence that they provide the highest level of service.  But she referred to it as the A-PODGE-ie. (you know, of course, that the pronunciation is really AP-o-gee.  I nearly fell on the floor laughing.  I hope someone got her on the right track and that her face won't stay red very much longer.

Another day she got all tangled up in a "when" situation.  She was talking that day at 9 o'clock about something that had happened at 8 o'clock the previous day.  Her description, with much sputtering, came out "Less than an hour ago yesterday." HAHAHHAHAH!

A more recent goof was in a late afternoon broadcast, where the talking head said that traffic would move again "when they "uprighted the jacknife that overturned."   I swiveled my head to look at the TV and said to her "UPRIGHT THE JACKNIFE??????"   She, of course didn't answer!  HAHHAHAH!

Yesterday "the truck was carrying fuel and diesel." And later I must say I don't think the writer of the news was the one who put down what came out of her mouth: "A WHOLE NOTHER BOOK"  This "WHOLE NOTHER" instead of "Another whole" is so commonly said I suppose soon we'll be seeing "Nother" arrive in the OED.

As much as I hate to say it, it does seem like the women make a lot more "off the cuff" goofs than men do.  It may be women dither more, or that they have so much more in the brain to futz with than the men.  Perhaps men are a bit more controlled.

It doesn't bother me; in fact, I get some good laughs out of it and it often softens the irritation at hearing the same events reported over and over and over....and over......and still more over.  You know what I mean.

Learning a new language can give some laughs too.  Back in one of my early blogs I wrote about a friend in Turkey who admitted to using a wrong Turkish word when she went into the little bakkal (a mom-and-pop kind of store in Istanbul).  She wanted bread some and made a big try of informing the bakkal owner (a man) and all his buddies who were talking with him, but she used the wrong Turkish word.  She asked for a large ERKEK instead of a large EKMEK.  When the men all threw themselves on the floor hooting and hollering she realized that she had asked for a big man!

I have a friend who was meeting her Hungarian father-in-law and family for the first time.  She worked hard to learn some basic things about Hungary and a few phrases that she could say that would cause them to be delighted over the new daughter-in-law in the family.  She said she will never live down the fact that the Hungarian word for Strawberries, which her husband had told her were very good there, is very similar to the word for Hemorrhoids - and of course she used the wrong word.

Now I didn't have that kind of problem when we moved to Turkey.  I tried my best to learn Turkish - and got far enough into it to learn that bread (ekmek) can be turned into "breadmaker or baker" by the addition of a little "cu" on the end of ekmek - baker becomes ekmekcu.  Tutun is tobacco; the tobacco seller or maker is handled the same way:  tutuncu.  It's pretty slick.  Which bring me to the picture above.

The fellow in the picture is our driver, Ahmet. He was assigned to us when we arrived in Turkey for a consulting agreement.  He spoke some English, a lot more than we spoke Turkish.  He was quite helpful to me in learning how I should say things.  Now before I go any further, I must say that the beautiful limo you see was NOT the car that was assigned to us.  That was the boss's car and Ahmet had called me to come over to the garage to take a picture of him standing by the car.  Prestige, he wanted.  Ahmet was a nice fellow, and I had no problem with accommodating him.  The car he ultimately drove us around in was just about the size of a little Ford Pinto.  HAHAHHAH  (Joke's on us!)

Anyway, one day he was taking me somewhere  and I was thinking about Turkish words.  I said to him, "Ahmet Bey, the Turkish word for car is araba, is that correct?"  "Yes, Mrs. Title" he replied.  Then thinking that I should be able to add the little suffix on the end of the araba to come up with the the correct name for the driver of a car, I said, "Then, is it correct to say that you are an arabaca?"   He nearly flew through the windshield from putting the brake on so fast, and he pulled over to the side of the road.   In his most authentic and important voice, he said, "Mrs. Title, that is not correct."  He looked totally crestfallen.

YIKES!  "I'm sorry, Ahmet, what is the correct word then?  He swiveled around in the car, looked at me and said, "I am a SHOFER".

Let me tell you that what I most wanted to do was to throw myself down on the floor of the car where he couldn't see me and laugh my head off.  I wouldn't have been laughing at him; I would have been laughing at myself for the whole episode.  It was not his fault that we couldn't think of him as a chauffeur.  He was the age of our kids and had knocked himself out helping us get settled in Turkey.  He was such a lovely fellow and we were SO lucky to have had the experience of him being with us for that time.  He didn't feel like a "servant" to us; he felt like one of our kids. But our error was in not taking his position seriously enough.  Nevertheless, I found it an exceptionally funny happening, but I somehow managed to get myself pulled together and we went on our way.

Words bring all kinds of fun into our lives, often when we are least expecting it.

THE STORY IN THIS BOOK ASTOUNDED ME! WHAT ABOUT YOU?

In and around 1933 a strange confluence of events was taking place.  The western world was watching the changes in Germany as Hitler came to power.  And with that power came a Reestablishment of the Civil Service Law, which rules were designed to enable speedy dismissal of professors with Jewish lineage and others considered politically suspect from all positions in German universities and institutes.  Those professors included the great minds of philosophy, mathematics, science, psychology, physics, economics, medicine, music, architecture, languages and others.  These professions were filled mostly with German Jews, many Nobel Prize winners.  And in 1933 they found themselves without a job.

At the same time, Kemal Ataturk had come to power in Turkey. A visionary, he wanted to modernize Turkey's education system that at the time was mainly working with military and bureaucratic systems;  He knew that big changes would have to be made in the educational system, and he set out to start at the top: dismantle the one major university in Istanbul in that city and select individuals with the highest of academic credentials in disciplines and professions most needed in Turkey.  The Turkish professors weren't going to like it, but Ataturk knew it had to be done.

The catalyst for this confluence of events was in the hands of Hungarian born Frankfurt pathologist Dr. Philipp Schwarz, who was one of the first professors to be fired from his job in Germany. Through a connection – his father-in-law who was a friend of a man who had been called to Turkey by Ataturk to set up a plan for finding and hiring top professionals to staff what would be the new University – Dr. Schwartz set up "The Emergency Assistance Organization for German Scientists."  A comprehensive contract was drawn up that covered all kinds of contingencies – and Turkey extended  invitations to those men and woman who best fit the bill.  Altogether, approximately 300 academicians and 50 technicians and supporting staff went to Turkey.  Including family members, this meant more than 1000 persons. 

Most of you who know me know that I am very interested in both Judaism and things Turkish, having lived in Istanbul for two years and having married into a Jewish family.   I always have an ear (and an eye) open for new stories and new information.  Had it not been for a short interview with the author I watched on BookTV several months ago (filmed sometime before his death in 2011) I would never have known of either this book or this story.  The book was published in 2006, so it's been around a while, but I certainly never heard of it.  It is not another holocaust book.  The author has not only told the story and documented every word of it, but he also has included memoirs and reflections by some of those very scientists and their families.  You will laugh when you read the pitfalls of learning to speak Turkish, and the author includes a very funny story of Ataturk, Shah Reza Pahlavi and one of the dentist emigres over the quality of false teeth he could make. 

Don't pick up this book thinking it is going to be fast read.  It probably is not going to appeal to people who don't have a strong interest in the historical events in that part of the world at that time.  But it is a powerful book, and it shouldn't be kept hidden.