SOL 4: Ralphie

The scattering of claws on hardwood floors flies through the house as soon as the garage door opens. Well, you can hardly call them “claws”. They’re more like nails. That dog won’t be taking someone down with them any time soon. I guess in the end there’s no other way for him to “take someone down”. Unless of course he uses his powers to follow them everywhere they go and annoy them more than they thought was possible. He does that a lot. When his Dad’s not home he’s at my heels every second. And I can’t stop him. He’s faster than he looks and can somehow get through my bedroom door even when it’s shut all the way. I guess that’s just more of the “magic” of Ralph. He’s fat but determined… And in love with anyone who is willing to devote some time towards him. Or give him food. He is one greedy little piggy when it comes to food. Any kind of food will do, but he especially appreciates carrots. Oh, does he love his carrots. Throw one down the hall and he’ll be after it with more of that hardwood floor clicking. Again, “magic”. I don’t know how he moves that fast with all the weight attached to him but it doesn’t slow him down one bit, especially when he goes outside. He’s always on the move unless it’s really hot out. That’s when he lays down in the shade. Even on walks when we’re trying to get somewhere. We’re walking, and we’re walking, and we’re walking and then suddenly he’s lying down. He’s got some tricks up his short, stubby little sleeve that’s for sure. And he’s got other tricks as well. With a little bit of prompting and the promise of a treat he will sit, shake, high five, lay down, roll over, and dance. Well, the dancing takes a little bit of imagination from both of us. But imagination never hurt anyone, right? It doesn’t matter anyway. I love him just the same. We all do. Almost anyone who meets him does.

“Oh. Hi Ralphie. I’m writing about you. You don’t know what that means. You don’t know what any of this means. You can’t read, or write, or talk. I don’t think. Can you say dinosaur? I didn’t think so. But that’s okay. Do you want a treat?”

 

Cold Sassy Tree

Here are my thoughts on the book that I read last week. It is a classic about a small Southern town and I hope that you enjoy hearing my thoughts.

Burns, Olive Ann. Cold Sassy Tree. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1984.

                 This week I started reading the book Cold Sassy Tree. Note the word “started”. I originally planned to finish this book but that didn’t end up happening. Because I haven’t gotten too far into the plot of the book, this review will be a small bit of summary but mostly my thoughts on the book and of course the reason that I didn’t finish it. Will Tweedy, is fourteen years old and lived each and every year in the town of Cold Sassy. Most days are simple and never seem to change much; until now. Now meaning when Will’s grandfather marries Ms. Love Simpson, not three weeks after the death of his first wife. Now everyone in Cold Sassy is talking about it and Will is simply caught in the middle. I will start by saying that I really like the plot and idea of this book. It is insightful and complicated but has a slight element of humor as well. I found it well written but thought that it moved a little slow, which brings us to our next order of business. As I mentioned before, I did not finish this book. I think that this is because even though the book is about an inch thick, it is pretty long. The text is small and the chapters are all around ten pages which is a lot of reading if you are trying to make some headway. I haven’t finished this book but keep in mind that this doesn’t mean that I dislike the book. I would recommend it as long as you are willing to stick with it for a little while. Thank you so much for reading and for visiting my blog and I will try to remember to write more when I am finished with this book.

SOL 3: Laughter

             And that’s when we all start laughing. We are laughing so hard that we can’t breathe. Laughing so hard that half of us are coughing and half of us have the hiccups and there is that one person who is somewhere in between. And let me tell you, this is not the first time. It’s happens every so often around 12-something on one of those school days. Typically not the cold ones either because then we are too busy focusing on how cold we are and how cold the tables are and how cold our food is and how cold our friends are and how we are all so focused on being cold that we don’t really talk. That is unless we are creating a beautiful rainbow using our hands which somehow turn some very strange colors. Then we laugh like we do when it’s warm. But anyway, I love lunch with my friends. We somehow always find a way to talk about the strangest things. We have talked about the death of someone’s hamster which is somehow hysterical and the pronunciation of “bro” after hearing the word from a nearby table. We have waved to the little kids in primary and done a sun dance. We always “borrow” food from each other, we always talk about weird things and we always laugh. We laugh when it’s cold and we laugh when it’s warm. And sometimes we laugh when things aren’t even funny. Because sometimes it’s not about what someone says. That’s not what our friendship is. Sometimes, we just think about how long or short we’ve known each other and how well we get along and how we wouldn’t want to let this go. And sometimes, that’s what makes us smile.

Going Bovine & The Opposite of Loneliness

This week for my book review, I am posting my thoughts on both of the books that I recently finished. These books are both incredible, so I couldn’t write about just one or the other. I hope that you enjoy reading my thoughts about them and maybe even get inspired to read one of these fantastic books.
Bray, Libba. Going Bovine. New York: Delacorte, 2009.
                I am starting this review with Going Bovine because if you have looked at my “Books” page (which has all the books that I have read this trimester in the order that I have read them) I started reading this book quite a while ago. I actually started reading it in the beginning of December and didn’t get to finishing it until just now. I am going to start by saying that this is a longer book but is most definitely worth your time. Going Bovine is about a high school kid named Cameron. He is bored and sick of his same old school and same old town. He is starting to think that nothing will ever change for him when he suddenly diagnosed with mad cow disease. At this point his life starts to spin out of control. He starts having hallucinations and sometimes he can’t even control his body anymore. He has given up on living and accepted that he cannot be saved. But while lying in the hospital he is visited by Dulcie, an angel with pink hair. Dulcie tells him that he can be saved by a man called Dr. X, and that he needs to not only save himself, but save the world. This gets him started on the wildest adventure of his life. His only companions are a dwarf that he met in the hospital, a yard gnome that claims to be a god, and the angel who sent him on his quest. And on Cameron’s journey to escape from death, he actually lives for the first time in his life.

 Keegan, Marina. The Opposite of Loneliness. New York: Scribner, 2014.
                This is super different than the book that I mentioned above. This is a collection of essays and stories written by a Yale student named Marina Keegan. The first half of the book is fiction and is a selection of stories about happiness, sadness, love, and life in general. Each story is incredibly different and every character feels original. Then there are the essays. Each one is new, different, and interesting. Each is a topic that you would never think to write or read about. Yet they each carry with them a unique attitude and thought. Some are more personal than others, talking about Marina’s car. Yet others can be connected with by anyone like the essay that she wrote about why we care about the whales. This was a wonderful book of short writing pieces, but I would still like to say one more thing just so you are aware. In 2012, five days after Marina’s graduation from Yale, she was killed in a car crash. For me it makes it even more powerful that she ends her essay Song for the Special with the words “Sometime before I die I think I’ll find a microphone and climb to the top of a radio tower. I’ll take a deep breath and close my eyes because it will start to rain right when I reach the top. Hello, I’ll say to outer space, this is my card.”

                         

SOL 2: The Sky

I guess that I have always had a somewhat strange obsession with the sky. It is just that no matter where you are in the world it’s still the same sky. It is the same moon and the same sun as it was yesterday and the day before as well. However, when looking up into the sky during the day or the night, there are too many unanswered questions. Maybe that scares me a little and maybe that’s what I like so much. It is a mystery, one long stretch of wonderment that seems to spin around and around me until I have twice as many unanswered questions as I did before. How this happens is another question entirely. I have often watched clouds turn to blue skies which only turn orange and then into blackness. Yet it is not blackness after all, it is filled with an endless picture of scattered light, the stars. They look almost like someone took a handful of sand and through it into the sky. That is the stars. They are just far off places but they fill me with warmth and a hope that I cannot truly explain. And I am fine without an explanation. It is another unanswered question to add to my long list. I can’t see the stars where I live now. I have tried time and time again but it does nothing for me. All that I can do is think back to those times when there were stars. I saw them out in the bay in Cape Cod. And I saw them in Arches National Park. I even saw them when I lived in Thornton. It didn’t happen very much but every once in a while you could see one or two. And sometimes that was even better than seeing a full sky of them.

Spinning Through the Universe

Frost, Helen. Spinning Through the Universe: A Novel in Verse From Room 214. S.l.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

                This week I read Spinning Through the Universe by Helen Frost. This is a verse novel about a class of fifth grade students and all of the things going on in their lives. It tells of one boy’s struggle with reading; and one girl’s thoughts as her mom fights cancer. While one student loses a cat, another loses something a little bit more. This was an exceptional book that was well written. The poems contained a wide range of topics and styles but all of the writing still felt young. I loved this book because of how real it felt. It seemed like it was a nonfiction book. I found this book to be very touching and it actually made me cry! It has seriously been forever since I have cried over a book so thanks a lot Helen Frost. But actually I loved this book so much and would most definitely recommend it for anyone and everyone. Thank you so much for reading and be sure to read my other book response posts in the future.

SOL 1: The Bay

Here is my first Slice of Life. I wrote it about my experiences at the Bay in Cape Cod. I hope that you enjoy it!
I walk out into the bay. The sand under my feet is soft besides the occasional pebble or shell hidden just below the smooth surface. It is getting cooler as night approaches but it is never really cold in July. At least not in this East Coast haven. I am used to coming here by now. It’s been a while since I was last here but the warm water coming up to my ankles feels the same as it did when I was five. We always come here to find crabs or fish or just run on the sandbars. I don’t have to worry about anything else when I’m here. All of my worries, all of the stress in my life just melts away and into the ocean. I can feel absolute happiness, pure joy simply bubbling up inside me. The sun sets and golden orange light skips along the surfaces of the water and the sand. The tide is starting to come back in, reclaiming the land that it lost in the last short hours. The colonies of snails are soon to be lifted up into the water, followed by the scattered hermit crabs. Every animal has its own plan, its own goal that can be altered by simply picking it up and putting it down somewhere else. It is getting darker every minute and I can start to see the magic that happens when the light leaves the bay. I can see a blue glow on a nearby sandbank when the water laps up. A simple creature that I have seen here before. It looks like clear gelatin but whenever it moves it glows a beautiful blue. It is time to go back. It always has to end. I walk out of the water and put on my shoes. We walk back through the parking lot talking and laughing. I take a final look back. I am going back home tomorrow. For now i just enjoy night time on the cape. There are the sounds of birds and small forest animals. I will be back soon. It always has to end.