“Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.”

— Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.”
— Sinclair Lewis, 1935

Governor Palin is a big reader, I hear! I’m thinking of sending her a copy of “The Witches,” by Roald Dahl. Because we all need to read more, no?

In honor of the ACLU’s celebration of banned books (an annual tradition since 1982), here are a few of Sarah’s and my favorites…

(These are books that regularly make the “hit list” for stodgy types who want to see books go bye-bye.)

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley?s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O?Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

A note from A.T., re: Snopes and Sarah Palin:

“It did not totally exonerate Palin. Snopes said that list of books was never banned, and Palin never banned books in Alaska. But, what is most notable is that there are confirmed reports from a librarian that Palin questioned her three times about the consequences of book banning. Palin said that was just informational. Palin also fired the librarian in 1997 because the mayor felt she didn’t have the librarian’s “full support”. The librarian was re-instated after one day due to public outcry.”

Hey — do you remember Thursday 13? I have had no time for months. I will make time. If you can make time to read, I can make time to write (smiles).

1) Yeah, the tranquility of fish tanks is all I can say. Tranquility, my foot. The frog is still on a rampage. The guppy had about 412 babies and guess what? They aren’t safe with her. If there was an aquatic child welfare department, mommy guppies would be getting home visits about twice a day.

2) They are bad mommies. (Ha! Someone on the blogs intimated that I am a “bad” parent for having my children at a “bad” school and not “rescuing” them. Honestly? Honestly. Seriously? Seriously. My kids are so damn happy. I’m an okay mom, thanks for asking.)

3) A few more things on which you need updating: The mommy kitty I rescued a while back? (My first week of work, I believe?) She is going to her new home this weekend, after a brief spay-n-shots trip to the vet. Her kittens? Also have been placed. Well, two of them have been placed. The other two have definite-maybe “forever homes,” as we like to say in the adoption world.

4) Work? Month two. Still haven’t found the coffeepot, but I did find the hot water so I can make myself a nice cuppa tea. (I bring my coffee from home in the morning.)

5) The students? They’re great. They are amazing. They are rock stars.

6) Me? I’m exhausted, thanks for asking!

7) All my blogger friends? I miss them and it makes my days off kilter.

8) I MISS THE OLDEN DAYS, WHEN I HAD TIME FOR THURSDAY THIRTEEN.

9) I am finishing up Season Five of the Wire and I cannot tell you how much I have loved this show. Even with the violence, the blood, the guns, I have dealt with it. It is the best damn show I have ever, ever watched, and you are talking to a huge fan of The Sopranos, M*A*S*H, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Six Feet Under, on and on. The Wire is king. Get it on DVD — all five seasons are out now. Watch some of the commentaries, too, so you can get all the players straight — on-camera and off. Such brilliant art.

10) Thanks, SB and MW, for turning me on to this show and insisting I watch it. You were right.

11) I love books. Now reading: “Dough,” a memoir by Mort Zachter about his bakery-owning family and his family’s hidden secrets; “Grace After Midnight,” Felicia “Snoop” Pearson’s memoir (Snoop on the Wire) — such candor and bravery — love and peace to you, girl, you deserve it; “Toy Dance Party,” by Emily Jenkins, with illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky — funny and sweet, appropriate for older and younger kids alike.

12) What’s up with you? How’s life?

13) Happy Thursday!

love,

wm

I love this. I love this so much that I’m going to watch this clip each and every time I have a tough day. He is giving the keynote address to some 20,000-plus educators and fans for the Dallas Independent School District.

Dalton, thank you.

I cry, okay? I’m an emotional person. I cried on my wedding day, I cried both times I gave birth. I cry when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m stressed out, PMS, moved by a piece of music. I cried today in church when my girlfriend made me laugh really hard. I cried because the service was moving. I cry when someone’s mean to me, then I laugh because honestly. Who cares? I don’t cry over stupid comments left on blogs, or people who want to argue politics with me. They’ve got the right to their opinion, lame and ignorant though it may be. And I don’t cry in traffic.

(Today some guy in the car behind me shook his fist at me. Know why? I had stopped — safely, thank you, not slamming on the brakes or something stupid — on an extremely narrow street so an elderly woman could get into her car. She had just gotten out of church. She waved at me. I waved back. This infuriated the guy, and his wife. Honestly, I’m gonna cry over that? I think not.)

Anyway. I cry.

But at my home church (Unitarian, all touchy-feely, allegedly), they’re not criers. Or clappers. Or yelling Amen-ers. They’re a reserved lot. In fact, out of all the times I have cried when I’ve been at church (and I’ve been attending this church two years, so there have been several times I have been moved to tears)… well. Here are some numbers for you:

1) Number of times someone has handed me a tissue: Zero. (I forget the kleenex half the time.)

2) Number of times someone has patted me when I’ve been crying: Zero.

3) Number of times someone has asked how I’m doing: One. (And that was my neighbor, who I already knew. She always asks me how I’m doing cuz you know why? She cares a lot. She is a sweet, Nekkid Neighbor, that one.)

4) Number of times anyone at church has introduced themselves to me (anyone who is not the parent of one of my Sunday School students, make that): Zero.

Today I went back to my old church (Baptist, the faith I grew up in), which is really my girlfriend’s church. She moved away from Portland years ago, but was stayed the weekend with us. Fun. FUN FUN FUN. I love her and miss having her here. Phone and e-mails and postcards are not the same.

Classic: The sermon starts, there I go with the waterworks. I closed my eyes, prayed, tried turning off the tears. I felt someone shoving something into my hand, opened my eyes. It’s my girlfriend, giving me a wad of tissues. She was crying, too.

“Here, kleenex!” she says. “Look, they have boxes all over!”

They do. Every other pew.

You think they heard I’d be there today?

My kids now call all their stuff — ie, various trikes, Big Wheels, scooters, bikes, wagons, etc. — their “vehicles.” Very official.

As in: “We spent the evening riding our vehicles with the Nekkid Neighbors.”

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.” — Hal Borland, journalist (1900-1978)

I do not really have any idea at all what that quote means, but I like it. And now, in the spirit of the Chicken Dance…

“I don’t want to be a chicken/
I don’t want to be a duck/
So I shake my butt/
quack quack quack quack”

(my kids’ favorite song. Repeat 10 or 20 times in a row.)

have a super-wonderful day.

wm

…all I want to do is run away with Vixen?

Wish me luck on fulfilling this long-held dream.

wm

Seriously. What happened to my brain? OK, a short list, then I go to work.

* The weather is sunny and HOT here in Portland, Ore. Go figure. What’s next, the smelt running?

* The kids are settling into first-grade and fourth-grade really well. A little too well. My daughter: “I know, Mom. My babies!”

* My babies!!!

* It was our tenth wedding anniversary. We went to the beach. The ocean was right there in our faces. The coast line is changing. Yikes.

* It was our girl’s birthday, so the celebration was for her, too. It’s a cocktail party on the street over here every September, what with the anniversary, the birthday, school starting, the realization that it’s almost fall and all we did all summer was water the garden and watch TV.

* Hockey God: “Did we even go to the beach this summer, other than right now?” Me: “Uhhh…” Wacky Girl: “We went last Easter.”

* We went to Depoe Bay, the “Smallest Harbor in the Universe” and watched the ships come and go. Did not see the whale the lady was trying to point out to us, “There! Past the rocks, about 300 yards…” Approximately 200 whales a year don’t mess with the roadtrip to Alaska, they just kick it at Depoe Bay, then head back to Mexico. Two hundred whales, you think we’d see one. It’s not like they’re tiny. Nope. Did see a large sea lion.

* If you have braces, you cannot eat the following: kettle corn, carmel corn, popcorn, caramel apples, fudge, salt water taffy. My poor kid.

* Also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium and saw crazy fish and seal lions and otters and those adorable little snowy plovers.

* Went for lunch at Gracie’s Sea Hag (in beautiful downtown Depoe Bay) because, you know. It seemed appropriate. They play the Chicken Dance song on bottles and rock out. Our waitress was adorable.

* I gotta stop now or I’ll be late for work. What’s new with you, Internets?

love,

wm