Pakistan

But I digress…

When my sister and I were kidlets, Saturday nights would find us accompanying our parents to a neighboring home, where the adults would play bridge for hours.  Well, this family’s house was a salute to the bland tones of beige (yawn) and sort of a tannish color (double, NAY! TRIPLE YAWN).  And other than a rather large set of ornately carved wooden salad servers – hung on the wall as an art piece – there was NOTHING interesting going on in this house.  Anyway, courtesy of these long nights in Neutralville, here is what beige means for me:  NO CREATIVITY HERE.  NO INDEPENDENT THINKING HERE.  LET’S PLEASE MOVE ON.

But I digress.  Our current book basket is filled with the work of wildly independent, creative thinkers.  Not a beige tone in the lot.

No Beige Here:  “The Adventures of Miss Petitfour” (book 1), written by ridiculously gifted Anne Michaels, charming illustrations by Emma Block.  This is a collection of short stories concerning Miss Petitfour and her 16 cats, but for us, this book is about the glorification of words.  Words we know but forget to use. (Example:  Miss Petitfour and team enter a FESTOONING competition, not a mere “decorating” competition.)  And the cats names!  Our favorite is Purrsia.  PURRSIA.  This might be the first book we have ever read spurred on solely by the author’s mastery of fanciful vocabulary.  I was thinking feline adventures might hold little appeal for my son, but when I asked him if he thought we should order book number 2, he immediately scribbled “YES”.

No Beige Here:  “The Boy Whose Head was Filled with Stars (A Life of Edwin Hubble)”, written by Isabelle Marinov, illustrated by Deborah Marcero.  Lately, my son and I have been comparing photos sent from the Hubble Space Telescope (launched 1990) and the JWST (launched 2021).  So, a BIG YES to a book about Edwin Hubble (1889 – 1953).  INSIDER SCOOP:  Hubble’s father did not want him to study astronomy.  WHOA.  REALLY?  INTERESTING.  Was he concerned that astronomy would not provide a steady income?  Was it for religious reasons?  Hmmm.  Anyway, Hubble acquiesced and taught high school, coaching a basketball team until his father died, then Hubble scrambled back to astronomy. 

And we learned that he “only” managed this: TWO NOTEWORTHY DISCOVERIES:
1) the universe is so much bigger than we thought (even during his studies, the brightest scholars thought the universe was “limited” to the Milky Way).
2) The universe is getting bigger all the time. 

The book concludes with a focused reflection from the author:  
“It is this cosmic perspective that I’ve tried to convey through Edwin’s story, a perspective that is lost on so many of our world’s leaders.  Planet Earth is nothing more than an infinitesimal fraction of a mote of dust in the vast cosmic tapestry.  Maybe one day, this realization will help us overcome our narrowness of perspective, which lies at the root of so many of our earthly problems?”

No Beige Here:  “Old School”, by Gordon Korman.  Oh, we do love Korman’s books (I think we have read “Schooled” 5 times).  In this book, middle schoolers experience becoming united for a cause, find surprising connections with senior citizens, and among other things, they learn about WWII code breakers/shuffleboard/the pleasures of a restorative cup of tea.  This was a thought provoking story that we looked forward to reading every night.   And my son learned the double meaning of the term, “old school”.

No Beige Here:  Reporting in on our around the world tour – 

We are still LOVING this unit, brought to us by the Lonely Planet Kids, “The Travel Book”  .  Since last post, we have journeyed around the Arabian peninsula,  (took a Wikipedia detour to learn where vast supplies of oil actually come from – not dinosaurs as we were thinking, but ancient fossilized mini marine life)(as loads of people know, just not us), have studied the STANS:  Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (we learned that “stan” means “land of”).  We are now heading toward Australia and Oceania.

Favorite new things we’ve learned:

Pakistan:  Jingle Trucks  (definitely NO BEIGE here!)

Jordan:   Royal Desert Forces (police) ride camels

Nepal:  We love this country’s flag (the 2 triangles symbolize the Himalayan mountains, and the 2 major religions – Hinduism and Buddhism)

Qatar:   Best in the good will category:  Qatar created the largest flag in 2013, then had it recycled into 200,000 book bags for school children distributed around 60 countries

Easy story problem from the Local Diner!  There’s a new Saturday night special at the Local Diner!  Date night calls for a bit of sophistication, so the diner is now serving table-side tossed salads!  Oh, the glamour!  What prompted this was that the diner’s chef’s cousin’s brother-in-law,  Mr. Hank, has gotten into whittling and has carved up a dozen pairs of wooden salad servers, which he is selling for $20 per set.  They are just gorgeous.  The diner bought them all,  6 to use for the table-side service and 6 to sell on a trial basis.  If they sell well, the diner will order more.

  • How much did the diner pay for 12 sets of salad servers?
    A)  $120     B)  $144     C)  $200     D)  $240
  • If the diner sells the sets of the remaining salad servers for $30 each, how many more sets of salad servers can they order from the profit?
    A)  3 sets     B)  9 sets     C)  12 sets     D)  1,000 sets
    (answers at bottom of post)

No Beige Here:  Orchestral Offerings – Three rambunctious, bold, imaginative pieces:

Bamboula, composed by New Orleans native, Louis Moreau Gottschalk in 1848.  First of all, the name:  a bamboula is a type of rum barrel drum as well as being a word one would want to say over and over.  This is a longish piano piece, but as we are getting used to it, we love it.  This is the exact recording we listen to – 

Cantina Band, composed by John Williams in 1977 for Star Wars IV.  Inventive, toe tapping, the ultimate quirky background music for the ultimate quirky bar scene –

The Wild Bears, composed in 1907  by Sir Edward Elgar as part of his “The Wand of Youth” suite.  This enchanting short piece transports us into the middle of a children’s raucous hide-and-seek activity.  The chaotic conclusion is perfection.  No beige here –

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers:  D)  $240 and A)  3 sets)

Meanwhile…

city book

Around the world in perhaps 150 days – my son and I are working our way through Lonely Planet’s “The Cities Book” (thoughtful Christmas gift from sister –  Lonely Planet books are so A+).  There is a two page spread for each of the 200 cities showcased , and we are managing one or two destinations per evening.  Ten categories define each city, but alas, most are of little interest to my son, so here is how we are using this book:
1- we find the city on the globe.  I am dismayed to report that there are several cities of significant population that I have previously never heard of, like Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (5 million) or Lahore, Pakistan (almost 9 million).  For shame!  So I learn along with my son and I just keep appreciating the opportunity.

globe

2- we find out how old the city is.  (eye-opener)
3- we read about the location’s “weaknesses” (beastly hot/spotty electricity/toxic smog levels)(always worth a side conversation).
4- we read about the city’s exports.  If the city produces enough of something to supply the city residents and the product is good enough to export, like coffee, oil, silks, and Siamese cats (!!!), we want to know about it.
And lastly, I should mention this book is quite large and weighs a lot.  I let my son guess how much it weighed.  He guessed 10 pounds, my husband guessed 2 pounds, I guessed 40 pounds (and ta-da! the book weighed in at 7.5 pounds on the cooking scale).  “The Cities Book” can be our new go-to device for pressing flowers or flattening out a curled document.

president book

Meanwhile, back in the USA – we are pretty much loving every page of Ken Jennings’ “Junior Genius Guide to U.S. Presidents”.  Frankly, we are planning on reading everything this super clever author publishes (we have read “Maphead” and his “Junior Genius Guide to Greek Mythology”).  We like to know quirky info like:
– James K. Polk accomplished all of his campaign goals in his first term!  Commendable, but at what cost?  (He quit after one term and died three months later.)  Jennings suggests that Polk’s time was spent “working, not having fun, working more”.  (It would be so interesting to get a glimpse of the family dynamics of his childhood.) (It looks like mirth and relaxation were not encouraged.)
– James Garfield came from the most economically deprived upbringing. He was 19 before he ever heard a piano!  He was 23 before he tasted a banana!
– Woodrow Wilson was the only president (so far) to earn a PhD.

herbs

Meanwhile, back at the ranch – Farmer Brown has all the seed catalogs out, anticipating planting a large herb garden once the winter frosts have passed.  He wants to purchase 40 heirloom seed packets at $4 per packet from the “It’s About Thyme” company and 25 seed packets at $5 each from the “To Bee or Not To Bee Heirloom Seed Company”.  If Farmer Brown budgeted $250 for his herb garden, will he have enough money buy all the seed packets? (answer at bottom of post)

NY Phil

Well, listen to this!   I have recently enlisted the assistance of personal trainer “Brute” (not his real name – smirk).  Brute promised that I could work out to my choice of music.  Yay!  So I said, “classical” and was met with the most puzzled expression.  (Seriously?)  To make it simple, I said I would be happy to listen to any recordings by the New York Philharmonic, to which Brute responded, “Hmmm, I have never heard of that band.”. (Seriously?) AAAAAAACK.  See? This is what happens when school systems are forced to cut funding from the music curriculum.  My son selected three pieces that he decided even a new classical music listener could love, and I found a recording of each by the New York Philharmonic:

  • “Mars”, from “The Planets” by Gustav Holst, composed around 1916.  The standard by which all scary aggressive music must be judged:

  • “The Radetzky March” , composed by Johann Strauss, Sr, in 1848, commissioned to commemorate Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz’s victory at the Battle of Custoza (Oh yeah, the Battle of Custoza)(?????).  This is just the dandiest of marches, maybe THE BEST MARCH EVER:

  • “Masquerade”, a waltz composed  in 1941 by Aram Khachaturian (as incidental music for a play of the same name).  Delicious, dark, depraved.  Yikes, it is all here:

Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answer: NO)