the girls

I’ve been feeling feisty lately.  The brouhaha over Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten books of 2009 — which had no women authors on it — has left me thinking a lot about women’s place in our cultural conversation.  

And, as I’ve been driving my carpools and snaking the grocery store aisles, I’ve been composing an essay about it — fully aware of the irony that my life as a busy mom was going to make it pretty much impossible for me to ever write that essay.  

But then I remembered I’d already written it.

Or at least, a version of it.

Because last year I wrote the introduction to Kirtsy Takes A Bow — an anthology that goes on sale this week drawn from the fantastic women’s site Kirtsy.  

I went back and read the essay, and it captured a lot of what I’ve been feeling this week.  And so I called up the editor and asked if I could make her a book trailer.  And she said yes.  

And so, two days of obsessive work later, here it is.  Though I couldn’t fit the whole essay into the trailer.  For that, you’ll have to buy the book. 

Publshers Weekly, this one’s for you.  

Kidding.

Guess who this one’s for?  

The girls.

* * * * * * * * 

s i s t e r s

I stumbled on this little moment in our old home movies over the weekend and couldn’t believe how sweet it was.  And so I made this video.

(I’m the little blond sister, by  the way…)

9 great things about my husband

It’s my 9-year wedding anniversary this week.  (Nine years married, fifteen together.) And so, a nine-best ode to my awesome husband.  Here are nine great things about him — though, really, I could go on and on:

9.  The mustache.

8.  The pants. 

7.  The way he is so completely stoked to have a wife who’s a writer.

6.  The way he wrestles with our kids.  And reads to them endlessly.  And plays soldiers.  And takes them to the library. 

5. The way he’s completely exhausted at the end of the day, but he fakes it so well the kids never know.

4.  The way he always wants to help.

3.  The way he always looks for what’s right instead of what’s wrong.

2.  The way he says something funny about every 60 seconds.

1.  The sweet and amazing email he sent me on the morning of our anniversary.  Which I think I’ll just keep to myself.

something we got right

I spoke on a panel last weekend at the Texas Book Festival with the very charming Jancee Dunn, who has a baby.  Fellow panelist and Houston author Gwendolyn Zepeda and I wound up giving her parenting advice.  And while we were talking, I heard myself say something very true.  It can be so easy to second-guess the parenting choices you’ve made — but there is one thing I know for sure we got right: Audiobooks.

As babies, both my kids hated the car.  Like, any time I drove anywhere for the first two years of their lives, they cried.  It was awful.  It made me completely crazy.  ’Cause Houston is a driving town.  If you don’t drive, you just stay in the house.  So that was my choice: total isolation or baby torture.  

Until I discovered quite by accident that my infants found Garrison Keillor’s voice soothing.  Which is not surprising, really, because I myself find it soothing.  One day in the car, I turned on his audiobook Lake Wobegon Summer 1956, and the crying stopped.  

From that moment on, we have never been without an audiobook in the car.

Now, at 4 and 6, my kids are audiobook champs.  They prefer us to read to them, but they’re perfectly happy with audiobooks, too.  It’s how I make dinner every night–them in the living room, playing trains and listening to the Chronicles of Narnia, or Katie Kazoo Switcheroo, or The Magic Treehouse, and me in the kitchen, listening to NPR. 

After all this time, I have some favorites for the 3-and up set.  Here they are, my Top Five kids’ audio books — though they are just as good for grown-ups.

5. The Tale of Despereaux

This story is totally spellbinding — and way better than the movie.  Because, as with so many books, it’s not what happens that really gets you — its how Kate DiCamillo tells the story.  And the voice of the story, the way it reveals itself, is magical.

4. Little House on the Prairie Series

I was raised on the 1970s TV show, so it’s hard not to picture Michael Landon as Pa.  But I’m very glad my kids are starting off with the real thing.  The books are warm and dramatic and very engaging.  My kids love hearing about life in the Olden Days, too.  And Cherry Jones, who narrates, has the most wonderful, buttery voice…

3. The Cricket in Times Square

My son used to be obsessed with this one.  Every time we got in the car, he’d say, “I want Cricket in Times Square by George Seldon!”  And I totally get why:  it just makes you feel good.  The voices are fun and engaging, and the story is sweet-natured.  And children of the ’70s will appreciate that narrator Rene Auberjonois used to star on Benson.

2. Harry Potter, Books 1-3

A little on the scary side at times, so depending on your kids, you might stop at Book One.  But absolutely, completely addictive.  We read the books first together, and then listened to the audiobook of Book 1 on a car trip.  The kids were mesmerized, and so was I.  Shoooowee, that J.K. Rowling can write!

1. James and the Giant Peach (and also pretty much every single thing Roald Dahl ever wrote.  Except The BFG is a bit too scary for little ones…)

What I particularly love about James and the Giant Peach is Jeremy Irons doing the voices of all the insects.  He makes it better than it sounded in your head when you read it as a child–and better than you could do now if you were reading it out loud.  Sorry, but it’s true.  There are so many different insect characters that it can be hard to keep them all straight.  But when Irons reads the book, the Earthworm has a thick, deep, earthwormy voice, and Miss Spider has a prim, spiderly voice.  Not to mention Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker!  It’s beyond great.  I never, ever get tired of listening to this one–and I’ve probably heard it a hundred times by now.  At least.

more décor

Here’s another before and after.

A really awesome mod chair from my grandfather’s building materials company that I snagged from my mom’s garage a few weeks ago:

And now, in my living room, freshly back from the upholsterer’s:

I’ve kinda fallen in love with this chair, but it didn’t happen until after it got its makeover.  When I first brought it to my house, I really couldn’t see past the dust and the broken springs.  But I had a theory that the chair would clean up well, and so, out of loyalty to my grandfather’s excellent 1950s office decor and out of curiosity to see how far a new fabric could take us, I took the plunge.  

Now I am halfway through my reupholstering project.  Two chairs down, two to go.  That’s been a goal this fall: to perk things up a little around here and make our living room feel less like a toy repository.  No major changes.  We still have stacks of books and piles of tin soliders everywhere.  Our coffee table is still a train table.  A dragon castle still sits in front of our fireplace.  We still have the rug my son dumped an entire bottle of tempera paint on and the sofa that got painted with Elmer’s glue.  

I’ve looked at a lot of design sites as I’ve been thinking about how to spruce up our house, and I’ve seen a lot of crisply clean and beautiful spaces.  But whenever I started to feel envious of how orderly or put-together or artfully arranged those houses were, I’d remind myself how much fun we have here.  Our house will never be a showplace, that’s for sure.  But it’s hands-down the best home I could have wished for.

And that makes the redecorating project easy.   I don’t need best.  I am perfectly happy with better.