Book Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

[Please Note: I listened to this book on CD, and the reader, Jayne Entwhistle, was really good.]

It took two recommendations to get me to read this book because I was put off by the sacharin sweetness of the title and feared it would be a book about middle aged (or older) women concluding that life is wonderful because they've overcome everything that makes it difficult. Well, it wasn't about middle aged people at all and I had it all wrong.

The heroine of this book is a hilarious eleven-year-old girl named Flavia de Luce, who lives in an enormous country house in the English countryside. (Her bedroom is the size of a dirigible hangar.) Her passion in life is chemistry, and I do mean PASSION! It is poetry to her. Her mother died in a climbing accident in Tibet, so she lives with her two older sisters and her emotionally absent father, who spends all of his time pursuing a stamp collection.

Early one morning Flavia discovers a dying man in the cucumber patch of their garden. Her father is later arrested for the man's death, but Flavia is always two steps ahead of the police is trying to find out what really happened. Flavia suspects her father may have done it (she heard them arguing the evening before), but she wants to figure it all out.

I enjoyed this book so much that I only let it end because I knew there were two other volumes waiting in the wings with the same characters by the same author.

It is a little difficult to believe that an 11-year-old could have so much wisdom, knowledge, wit, and understanding - but it isn't beyond the realm of possibility. It's possible that Flavia is an unrecognized genius, I suppose. But the fact that she's 11 makes it easier for her to get into and out of dangerous places with ease. She's not above acting 11 (or younger) if throwing a fit is required to obtain access or information, for example.

I highly recommend this book and look forward to reading the other books in the series. I have great respect for Alan Bradley!!! He must be a fascinating person to know.

After listening to my library copy on CD, I bought the book, too, in regular book form. It's just that good!

Have a Nice Day

I am old enough to remember the 1970s, when I aged from 6 to 16. Those were my formative years. I remember hippies and hippie vans, polluted rivers, litter, "All in the Family," "The Waltons," and happy faces.

You remember happy faces, don't you? They were as ubiquitous as peace signs. Yellow circles with big, elongated eyes and upturned smiles. (Wal-Mart has co-opted a variation of the happy face in its advertising, but it isn't quite the same. Emoticons have also brought back the happy face in a miniscule format.)

Anyway, I remember happy faces and store clerks (all store clerks) saying thank you and have a nice day. They don't say thank you anymore (in fact, I usually find myself thanking them), and they rarely say have a nice day. They usually just kind of shrug and turn their attention to the next customer in line. (Am I sounding like an old bitty, or what? I know I am, but it's true!)

Back then, it was good to be known as nice, but somewhere along the line people began disparaging the adjective. Nice went from meaning 'kind, thoughtful and sensitive to the needs of others' to meaning 'ordinary and unassertive.' Nice people became synonymous with doormats, and who wanted to be a doormat?

Now we've gotten 180 degrees out of phase with 'nice' often meaning its opposite, 'not nice.' (Think seagulls in famous "Finding Nemo" scene.) 'Ni-ice," on the other hand, means very nice.

I started thinking about this because today I realized that my view of how to experience a day is out of whack. To this point in my adult life (certainly since becoming a mother), I have regarded one 24-hour period as a commodity to be properly used rather than enjoyed.

For some reason, this makes me think of a story I read in our local paper in 2002 by Bruce Northam, a National Geographic travel writer. I wrote most of the story down in my quote book:

My father and I walk together a lot. Last summer we undertook a 180 mile trek across Wales, coast-to-coast along Offa's Dyke - the grand earthwork project conceived in the eighth century by King Offa of Mercia to separate England from Wales. Our walk was a celebration of sorts.

A year earlier, my father, who was then 70, had undergone open heart bypass and back surgery. Now we were walking together atop the long, curving ridge- boundary of Brecon Beacons National Park. En route we befriended Erica, a Welsh woman who was clearly oblivious to the beck and call of stress.

At dusk the three of us encountered an elderly lady and her beagle hiking toward us. Teetering along on a walking stick, she wore a motoring cap and held a bunch of wildflowers. I said "hello" and asked her where she was going. She replied in Welsh,

"Rydw I yna yn barod." We looked to Erica for a translation.

"She said, 'I'm already there.'" (Cheryl's side note: ISN'T THAT THE BEST?)

They continued their placid conversation in Welsh until the old woman resumed her walk. As she faded into the distance, I declared my envy for her simple philosophy.

"Let's catch up with her. There's something else I'd like to ask her."

We spun around and caught up with her. She walked a few more steps along the trail, traded her flowers to the other hand, and raised an eyebrow. Erica translated my question,

"What's the secret to a long and happy life?"

The old woman and I scrutinized each other for an instant, beings from different eras and opposite sides of an ocean. She directed her answer to Erica.

"Moments." There was a quiet pause. Then the old woman smiled, squinted at my father, and spoke slowly,

"Moments are all we get. A true walker understands this."

After a silent minute, we all clutched hands with the old woman, then we waved good-bye as she trudged off with eternal poise and bearing. As we turned to continue on our way, my father and I exchanged smiles.

Moments. They are all we get.

~ Author Bruce Northam ~

Anti-Celeb

Just now, while cleaning the kitchen, I clicked on an Oprah re-run, hoping to overhear a discussion of some interesting topic. Instead, seated next to Oprah in a luxuriously soft leather chair, was Jennifer Anniston. I have nothing against Jennifer Anniston -- I'm sure she's a fine person -- but she epitomizes one of the things I dislike about pop culture -- namely, celebrity worship.

Her hair is very pretty and she has a pleasant face and figure. People loved her in "Friends," a show I never watched. [I tried watching a few times but couldn't relate to the self-absorbed angst and sexual meanderings of the show's characters. My overall impression of the show is that it featured a lot of whining, and Jennifer Anniston's character seemed to whine the most, or maybe that was just her voice.]

When I was in junior high and crazy about a professional baseball player (who shall remain anonymous), I remember asking myself if I would still like him if he were a plumber arriving at our house to fix a clogged drain. I decided that I would still probably think he was cute, yes, but he would lose some of his allure without the uniform, the stats, and, let's be honest, the Porsche and the salary.

I've put other celebrities to the plumber test since then and found that all of them would lose some of their appeal if they weren't famous. The fame is what makes Jennifer Anniston Jennifer Anniston. Without the fame, she would be just a normal person - more attractive than most people, maybe, but no more interesting or insightful.

Jennifer Anniston's stock went up when she married the even more famous Brad Pitt. Her stock went up again when he left her for the even more famous Angelina Jolie.

What is it about human beings that makes us care about people we have never met and will never meet? Why do some people care about the political views of rap 'artists' and other entertainers? I know that many celebrities feel they need to use their God-given celebrity soapboxes to speak out on important issues of the day, but I wish they wouldn't. I also do not want to know details of their personal lives, like whether or not they bikini wax or have hair extensions. I really, really, really do not care.

On the other hand, I find real people fascinating. I was sitting in a doctor's office today, and, while waiting for my son, started chatting with an elderly woman on oxygen sitting nearby. I asked her if she likes to cook (we were watching a cooking show on the Food Network.) 'No, not anymore,' she said. 'Sick of it.' 'Me, too.' The celebrity chef was using ground lamb to make meatballs. 'I used to buy lambs right here in the valley from a farmer, but he's gone now,' she said.

I have a feeling that woman has a story to tell, and it would probably be more interesting and insightful (to me, anyway) than Jennifer Anniston's.

Pictures from Antelope Island, Utah

A tree in a corral at Garr Ranch on Antelope Island. This tree has probably given shade to a lot of grateful animals over the years.

Poppies and iris blooming at the ranch. Loved the contrast!

I've always been a fan of layering mountains. These islands lie north of Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake.

We estimate that we saw about 400 head of buffalo yesterday, many of them babies. We could hear them rumbling and grunting as they made their way north along the water's edge on the east side of the island.

Sunset at the Antelope Island Marina as seen from the causeway. Makes me think of Jimmy Buffet songs.


So much beauty so close to home! Antelope Island is one of my favorite places, but I was eaten alive by mosquitoes last night while taking these photos. I am now covered with baking soda paste from head to toe. Still, I would have to say it was worth it to take a mini vacation for a few hours.

We waited for the sunset, then realized the sunrise would be beautiful there as well, peaking up over the Wasatch Front. Maybe later this summer...

June 1st ...

Ugh! It's been that kind of day, and not because of the events of the day - just the day itself, from the get-go. Kind of a bummer of a day for absolutely no reason.

But how could that be when it's June 1st? Is there any other date on the calendar more full of promise? I don't think so.

It all began when I got out of bed later than I should have - never a good beginning. Behind the 8 ball from the start, I threw on my clothes from yesterday, hastily made the last sack lunch of the school year for Emily, and raced out the door to drive her to school. Forty minutes later, I arrived home, made myself a glass of OJ and two slices of toast. One fell butter-side down to the dirty kitchen floor..maybe that's when this otherwise ordinary Wednesday started to go wrong.

I checked my four usual web sites: email - no happy news there; Facebook - not much news since last night; the family blog - I was the last one to post days ago; Drudgereport.com - totally depressing headlines, such as:

"We are on the verge of a great, great depression"
"Economic Horror as Data Plunges"
"America Dithering As Double Dip Looms"

I came upstairs to get to work, but decided to update my online to-do list first. The list is four columns long! I read somewhere that each item on your to-do list represents a burden you're carrying. The self-help guru who wrote that said the best thing to do is clear the list by getting it all done. The theory is that the fear and dread of a task saps more energy than actually doing it.

I got an hour of work done before the doorbell rang. Our dog, Panda, had escaped from the back yard again and was returned by yet another neighbor.

I made a quick list and went to the store to buy a few groceries, then spent a while talking to a friend. (That was nice.)

The day picked up a little after that. The girls came home from school. Scott came home from work. We went for a drive to enjoy a rare evening of nice weather. I sat down to get back online for work and found that the system is down...no work tonight, which is probably a good thing. Maybe I just needed to BLOG (read: vent).

Two Cows and an Old House Near Woodruff, Utah

Barn and Curious Cow Near Randolph, Utah