Falling Backwards

Falling Backwards by Jann Arden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So far Jann is providing the reader with very detailed accounts of her childhood.  I am not sure she is going to make it into the singing career part of her life at this rate as I keep looking at the thickness of the book.  I shall keep you updated.


I have been a fan of Jann Arden's music since the release of her first CD in the early 1990's.  Her music has always helped me process life experiences, realize that life is complicated, and that we all hope to have relationships with people we can rely on.  After receiving this book for Christmas, I devoured it.  As stated above, most of the stories in her book range from childhood to the beginning of her music career and do not extend beyond.  While Jann is open about many funny, personal, serious, hard, interesting and joyful experiences, it appears she still retains private information about other aspects of her life.  It was a great read and would recommend it to fans and strangers alike.


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Jann's Website:  http://jannarden.com/

Kiss the Sunset Pig

Kiss the Sunset Pig by Laurie Gough
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Laurie Gough has a traveling spirit and is constantly moving away from a consistent, scheduled, routine life, always trying to find a place she feels is full of the exotic other.  Through her trip in a jeep named Marcia from Southern Ontario to California, she recounts not only her experiences on the road, but spends several chapters flashing back to her international journey's from years gone by.  At first, I did not enjoy her narrative as Gough's voice included a whining edge no matter her life choices.  As the story progressed, her narrative morphed from 'why me' to a courageous link of travel choices I would be hard pressed to make.  Gough demonstrates a consistent decision to avoid tourist traps in her traveling, instead, making choices to sleep in a cave on the beach for 6 days, sleep in a hollowed out tree for 3 nights, and to brave an unknown countries as she continually arrives with few plans or local contacts.  This type of traveling requires a true free spirit, a drive to understand different life experiences, and a trust in the goodness of human relationships.  In the end a good book which I did enjoy and whose stories have added a few places to visit or avoid in my own travel plans.


Best parts:


"Gazing at the faces of the fashion-conscious teens and the heavy-set parents pushing ice-cream-eating kids in strollers I long to see the face of a true eccentric, someone who doesn't belong.  But in this culture of sameness I can't find anyone like that.  That's something I love about outdoor markets, especially those in the developing world or in big cosmopolitan cities: eccentrics are everywhere.  The North American mall is one of the West's less enlightened ideas for only occasionally does the enclosed mall exude a noisy excitement of a meeting place.  Mainly, instead of being colourful, outlandish, and pulsing with life, malls are sterile; they smell like air freshener rather than ripe fruit, spices and sweat; the music is canned instead of live; and the people inside the malls seem bored, more concerned with buying the latest rend marketed at them than engaging in lively conversation." p. 98


"So there was a spark of light in that trip after all, a single moment asking to be remembered.  I see now that the easy road isn't the road to take to find that spark.  If we really want to find true beauty in their world, the road to find it can be full of ache, wrenching hurdles, heartbreak and potholes.  But it's the road we sometimes need, the one I needed to come across that little girl and her family on that forlorn island after the storm." p. 251  


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Laurie Gough's website:  http://www.lauriegough.com/

Oranges for Dessert

Many years ago when I was naive, lacked understanding and knowledge of the amount of work required to complete certain types of work, I had just finished eating a meal at my Aunt Arta and Uncle Kelvin's house.  Arta does not just serve a meal, she coordinates a feast.  Be in Indian food, turkey dinner, a concoction of salads (couscous, greens, etc), or other assortments of themed delights, she is a host of the culinary arts.  At the end of dinner I asked where dessert was (re-read post's first sentence now).  Arta looked at me and said there was none.  I laughed then said of course there was dessert, there was always dessert.  Arta stood up, walked to her fridge, moved her body about, then returned to the table and plunked an unpeeled orange down in front of every person at the table.  I laughed again (re-read first sentence of post again).  I asked her a second time where the REAL dessert was.  She laughed and told me that the orange was dessert, sat down, began to peel her orange.  I remember being confused because at my house growing up we always had dessert and here, in this house, there was none?  How odd.

Over the years, as I have matured, I have come to know that my mother is a baker of delightful goodies and others are cookers of delightful savoury things (caveat: my mother can cook sweet and savoury in all its delights, but she shines while desserting).  Not everyone eats dessert.  Arta is not a dessert person.  I am.  Many jokes and teasings have been made over the years by both of us about dessert, oranges and the like.

Fast-forward to 2012 as I read for my thesis.  I am working within a framework called Serious Leisure Perspective, a series of concepts developed over 40 years by a University of Calgary based sociologist, Robert Stebbins (or as my recent quantitative sociology statistics professor put it this last term, "Old Bobby Stebbins?!  He is a well-known leisure researcher?!?  Really?!?"  Yep, very much so).  Reams and reams of researchers have built on his work about serious leisure and in the 2010's more is being completed.

As I am reading one of his many books titled, Serious Leisure: A Perspective For Our Time, I come across this as a book summary:

"Let us think, for a moment, of the serious leisure perspective as resembling a serving of Bananas Foster.  Serious Leisure [the banana] is the central ingredient in this confection, which however, is greatly enhanced with the complementary ingredients of rum, salt butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, banana liqueur, and vanilla ice cream...All this prepared to perfection in a flambé pan, where the rum serves as fuel for the fire that cooks the bananas, themselves bathed, as they are, in a sauce prepared from the aforementioned ingredients.  In metaphor or in real life, the bananas alone (serious leisure) are insufficient to constitute this dessert.  Rather it needs for its completion and perfection the other ingredients...for an optimal leisure lifestyle.  Such a lifestyle is Bananas Foster, exquisitely prepared.  Serious leisure is enhanced and blended with judicious amounts of appealing [forms of] leisure...Bananas Foster, sans bananas, is just not Bananas Foster.  Every New Orleanian knows that."

As I taunt my Aunt Arta once again about oranges for dessert sans toppings, perhaps I have not grown up that much at all.  Then again, next time we are in the same city perhaps we shall share in the making of Bananas Foster, a New Orleanian dessert I have never tried.

Bananas Foster care of Joy of Desserts and More! blog:

Picture and recipe from Joy of Desserts and More! blog

Bananas Foster   
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
8 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup banana liqueur
9 ounces dark rum

She melted the butter in a skillet, (you could also use a chafing dish), then added the brown sugar. Stir until it melts. Then in went the bananas to saute for about 3 minutes on each side. She sprinkled cinnamon and poured the alcohol over the bananas. Once the alcohol is warm (you can't light cold alcohol), carefully light it with a match or lighter. Gently tilt the flaming sauce to baste the bananas until the flames die out when all the alcohol has burned off. Serve hot immediately, over ice cream.

Twenty Twelve

Another year dawns and I am still alive and well.  This year there will include several milestones.  I leave my 30's in March and enter my 40's, which I hear are the new 20's.  Lucky me.  I want this year to be filled with a completed thesis of which I am proud, another graduation from University, a bit of travel, a bit of good conversation, a large amount of enjoyment.  Other than this, no New Year's resolutions as I want to live in the moment in which I am currently situated rather than looking too far forward or too far back.  The last decade has sped quickly by and I want the next one to be remembered moment by moment, embracing the good, difficult, painful, beautiful, thrilling and divine.  Here is to another year and completing those 39 new things I was to be doing since last March!

Enjoy a recent trip I took for a conference to Lake Louise, Alberta.
Ever capturing moments through a lens.
Enjoy the beginning of twenty-twelve.

Lake Louise, Alberta

The Edge of the Lake

The Sun Sets

Walking the Gobi

Walking the Gobi: A 1,600 Mile-trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair by Helen Thayer


So far I am trying to figure out why anyone would want to walk through a desert.  Barren.  Void.  Empty.  Sandy.  So far I am enjoying the book but as a tourist and a walker I just don't think I would ever make this a life goal as the author has.  I shall keep reading to open my eyes to her perspective.


"The absence of outside distractions caused us to immerse ourselves fully in our environment, which meant that we were ready to respond instantly to any emergency that might rise.  Rather than reading books at night, we used the time to sleep." p. 116


Now that I have read the book I can say that I still don't want to walk to through any desert but I do respect Thayer and her partner Bill as this was an amazing book to read.  The physical challenges, the mind games the desert plays on them, the hospitality of the Mongolians, the craziness of the Chinese border patrol, the idea that one keeps walking and walking and walking even when one's mouth is full of sandy grit.  Incredible story from amazing people!


A poem Thayer left behind in a desert in the centre of a cairn:

Although the harshness of the desert sometimes climbs beyond human endurance, a deep feeling of tranquility floods our senses as we allow ourselves to become part of the earth, wind, sand and dust that surrounds us.  We can never conquer the elements; we can only experience them as a visitor, knowing that after we have passed, the desert will continue its ways both gentle and violent long after we are gone.  It takes time to understand the special freedom that comes when we join hands with Mother Nature and follow her lead.  The increasing weariness and outward struggle is made easier when we are at peace with our surroundings and at one with our Creator.  (p. 179)


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The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Bryson returns to the mid-western states where he grew up and experienced many family vacations on a shoe-string budget.  Looking for the quintessential American town, so far in the book he is disappointed and his tone is on the bitter side.  Bryson does find a few intriguing places and spaces that cause him to wander in wonder.  His life in the UK however is the place where he belongs as he never seems to end the sarcastic comments and critiques of the places he visits all over the American mid-west.


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Dead Grandmother's

All my three grandmothers are now dead.

It is harsh but true.

Never met my maternal grandmother.

Lucky enough to have two paternal grandmothers.

Both paternal g's, very different from each other.

Opposite sides of the spectrum.

I am more like the one who birthed and raised my father, Grandma Billy.

None of them are around to provide me with advice anymore.

Don't worry.

In today's day and age, all you need is a good website or blog to replace a loved one.

(I can't believe I am posting that sentence.  Lightning may hit me as I strike the publish key.)

In particular you may enjoy this blog.

A rollicking good time reminding us of the progress society has made over the past few decades.

Advice as my grandmothers, I am sure, would give me if still here to provide it.

HERSTERIA

And enjoy!

Thank the creator after you have picked yourself off the ground 

when the giggles have moved onto laughter, 

the laughter onto guffaws, 

thence on to crying with sobs of hysteria.

Have a box of kleenex at the ready.