Skip to main content

Why Apostrophes Matter

Mallory has recently been obsessed with caterpillars. Every day she's out scouring the yard for another caterpillar to put in her caterpillar bucket (the scene of many untimely caterpillar deaths, sadly, because she insists on leaving them there overnight and I always forget to go release them so they won't get too cold. Or hot. Or whatever problem they have with the bucket that causes them to die overnight. Anyway.). A few days ago she looked up from her caterpillar observing and said: "Mommy, are caterpillars gods?"

"Gods?" I repeated blankly.

"Yeah, you know, gods," she said.

I stopped to think. I imagined a Caterpillar on a cloud hurling lightning bolts, like Zeus. I imagined a Caterpillar in a manger. I imagined a Caterpillar sitting Buddha-like on a mushroom a la Lewis Carroll. What I could not imagine was why Mallory was asking this particular, peculiar question.

"I'm not sure what you mean," I finally said.

"You know, did God make them," she said.

"Oh! Are caterpillars God's," I said.

"Yeah. So are they?"

"Yes. Certainly they are."

Aren't they?




Just Finished Reading

The Ha-Ha by Dave King. This book is about a disabled Vietnam vet who gets a new lease on life, as they say, when he has to temporarily take care of a friend's little boy. Very well-written and sad.

Triangle by Katharine Weber. A novel based on the Triangle Factory Fire of 1910. For some reason I love to read about tragedies like that one. (I read The Circus Fire, however, mere days before going to see Sesame Street Live last year and got really freaked out by the crush of people as we were trying to leave.) This book was really, really lovely; I wish it had been longer.

Speak Softly, She Can Hear by Pam Lewis. A psychological thriller, if you're into that kind of thing. After a certain point I couldn't put this book down. A good weekend read.

The Effect of Living Backwards by Heidi Julavits. An excellent book, although it had a really conviluted plot which I'm still not sure I understood. I'm reading another book by Julavits now which is also very good.

(Ick, I need to find more adjectives. It was really good! It was very good! What a good book! Trust me, these books are much better than my reviews of them!)

Comments

aimee said…
How do you find all these catapillars? We can never find them. Noah does have a thing about roly-polys though. Loves them. And yes, I do belive catapillars are God's. Funny Mallory!
H Noble said…
How in the world do you have time to do all this reading?!
Holly
Anonymous said…
Better that you wished it were longer than if you had wished it were shorter.

Thanks for reading Triangle.

Popular posts from this blog

Whew

When they called Pennsylvania, I knew. When they called Ohio, I knew for sure. But I still got chills up and down my spine when they called it for good. And I have tears in my eyes every time I think of his speech. Last night, I attempted to explain to Mallory why this was such a big deal. (This was after a rather undignified few minutes during which she, Phoebe and I danced around the living room chanting Go-bama, Go-bama!) I tried to explain that not so many years ago, black people couldn't even vote, much less become president. She looked at me in great perplexity. She didn't get it. She didn't get racial prejudice. And now...well, it's not that I believe for a second that she and Phoebe will grow up in a world where prejudice doesn't exist. But they do live in a country where, for one election, it was transcended. This is their world now, and their history being made, and I...I'm just elated.

Crafty Update

I've made a whopping total of two things this summer. A puppy for Phoebe's birthday: And a cell phone case for me: The case needs a bit of tweaking; I'm not happy with the strap. But it was way easier than making a stuffed animal, I'll tell you that much. The girls were on etsy with me last night looking at crochet patterns. Now I have a list of requests a mile long. I'm not sure when I'll have time to get to these new projects, but I'll keep you posted. Because I know you care.

File under: stupid problems to have

I'm going to see Wicked (the musical) in May with my sister- and mother-in-law. I'm excited; I like musicals. In anticipation, I downloaded the soundtrack a few days ago and have been listening to it continually on my ipod ever since. I read Wicked (the book) back when it first came out, but didn't remember much of the plot. So in order to understand what happens in the gaps between the songs in the musical, I turned to wikipedia for a plot summary. Then I clicked over to the synposis of the book to see how it differed from the musical. Reading about the book made me realize that I had pretty much forgotten all of the book. In fact, to be honest, what I remember about the book was that I found it a bit dull. A bit long. A bit too much about the politics of an imaginary country. A bit too full of unsympathetic characters. And then, I remember, I read the author's next book (a retelling of the Cinderella story) and didn't like it much at all. So I never even cons