my books - The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East (2006) by Sandy Tolan

Here is a bio page from Sandy Tolan's own website. There is all kinds of other, interesting information on the sidebar of that page.

Here is a NPR piece (All Things Considered, 2006) where Sandy Tolan talks about his book. On that same page, near the bottom, is another link to the original Fresh Air documentary from 1998 (basis of the book).

The Lemon Tree was 11 audible hours and was read by the author. He was very, very good. If you like NPR, you will love his voice/style.

The oldest and I listened to this book, in the car, on the way to and from Charleston, SC.

We both enjoyed it very much. We both learned a lot.

The book weaves the historical events and also follows the lives of two individuals and their families:
Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian (male),
Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, an Israeli (female).

The book starts in 1967 when Bashir knocks on the gate of his former home and Dalia answers the door. The lemon tree (if you are wondering about the title) was planted in the backyard of this home by Bashir's family.

The book then goes back in time to early life in Palestine and also life in Bulgaria (for Dalia's family) and the whole sequence of events that rolled into present day Israel. Presidents Carter and Clinton, all those peace summits, and the cast of characters from the PLO and surrounding countries in the Middle East are all in there. And the happenings of both families are in there too.

There is a LOT of data. We frequently stopped the CD and talked about various points. It was very much an intellectual read. It was a great discussion read.

I am almost 52, oldest is 23. We have little active memory of most of the events in Palestine/Israel. I of course remembered more (first hand) than the oldest. But I did not remember a lot.  All kinds of things came back to me as we listened. Oldest has been keeping up on current events in that area more since we finished the book.

And we realized, listening, that we have (mostly) heard the pro-Israeli side of things. We did not realize that Israel has done some really nasty things over the years.

Neither one of us realized that Jewish people were moving into Palestine prior to WWI (yes I,  not II).

We knew nothing about the lives of Jews in Bulgaria during WWII.

We loved this book. But again, it is an intellectual read in NPR documentary style.

my books - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Wiki noted:

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World). The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov.

The book's publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history, never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed. The editor of Novy Mir, Aleksandr Tvardovsky, wrote a short introduction for the issue, titled "Instead of a Foreword", to prepare the journal's readers for what they were about to experience.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was specifically mentioned in the Nobel Prize presentation speech when the Nobel Committee awarded Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970.

Often considered the most powerful indictment of the USSR's Gulag ever made, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich forced Western intellectuals to acknowledge their sins of omission in regards to the Soviet human rights record. A decade later at a US-Soviet summit, a human rights agenda was created as a topic of concern. It appeared on the Independent newspaper's poll of the Top 100 books, which surveyed more than 25,000 people.

There is a list of the main characters included in the Wiki page (linked above). Yes, the names are foreign and the list might be helpful. Here is another list of characters from Sparknotes.



Here is the SparkNotes Context section which gives (more) background on Solzhenitsyn.



So yes, I listened to a book which takes place in a (assumed to be) Siberian Russian Labor Camp.

This book was far less graphic than All Quiet on the Western Front.

It was also far less graphic (from what I understand) than Unbroken, which I skipped when one of my book groups read it.

One Day in the Life isn't really graphic at all. There is almost no blood. They are not getting up and beating everyone, everyday (not at all).

The story is exactly what the title says - the book starts when Ivan gets up (one random day) and ends when he goes to bed. It is simply about daily life in a labor camp.





The audio addition I used was just over 5 hours (one of my shortest ever) and was read by Richard Brown.

I went to Audible.com and pulled up all of the books narrated by Richard Brown and listened to a clip of each one. I suspect he has a British accent (I am terrible at placing accents) as I listen to the other clips. But it seems he changed it up a bit for One Day in the Life. If someone had told me he was raised in Russia but then moved to England, I would have believed it.I could not find a site that told me for sure, there are several Richard Browns.  I sent a suggestion in to Audible that they add a biography section on their Audible narrators to the site.

While it is not graphic, I guess it is not really easy listening either. They are freezing and wish they had more food. It is an intellectual read of sorts because it is a translation and because it is a non-popular topic.

I did enjoy the book in an intellectual, different culture, way. I would not have liked to listen to 20 hours of this story line, but 5 hours was an interesting read.  And it is probably a book that everyone should read. I plan to work my way through (any of) the Pulitzer and Nobel (that I have missed) at some point in the future.

Sweatshirt blankets

Sweatshirt blankets can be found in most university bookstores (these days).

This is the closest link I could find. Cotton/poly blend, heavy, 50 x 60 is a close match.

I am not sure if they are a new thing. We started seeing them when the oldest started undergrad college 5 years ago. I do not remember seeing them when my husband and I were in college (1979-1983). So somewhere in that 25 year time span, sweatshirt blankets were designed and began being marketed.

I think the first one we bought was for my mother's husband - because, in the end, it was very difficult to come up with gift ideas for him.

I put a sweatshirt blanket on my birthday or Christmas list last year. Mine is green and has oldest's undergrad college emblem on it. It lives in my car. I use it ALL THE TIME.

Oldest has a blue one, also from his undergrad school. His lives in his apartment.

Thank goodness I thought to ask him to throw it in the car before he picked me up at the airport last Saturday. I napped with it in the car. I used it under the hotel sheets/blankets, next to my body, each night. I need a room that is pretty cold to sleep well, but then freeze.  It is two fold, I do better if I breathe cold air, I get cold easily.

When oldest and youngest travel with me, they bring a twin size fleece blanket which they use in bed the same way (because they are sleeping in the same cold room, with me).

Sweatshirt blankets would make a very good gift idea for many people. College emblem ones are good in some families. Special ones with a family crest or family name would be another idea.

My books - The Good Earth (1931) by Pearl S. Buck

Wiki wrote:

The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. The best-selling novel in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, it was an influential factor in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. It is the first book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935).

Here is the SparkNotes Context section which does not give away the plot of the book.

All three of my kids had read this book (required reading list the summer before freshman year) before I did.

All three of my kids loved this book. I sent each a text the day I started it. And got three texts back saying how good it was all the way thru.

We all agree that one needs to be an experienced classic book reader (probably) to enjoy this book. Less sophisticated high school readers, in all three of my kids Freshman English classes (for example), did not like it at all.

The story is simple and easy to understand. I personally think the whole book is strong and captivating. There were no weak areas in my opinion.

There were parts which were very sad to youngest (she is a crier, so is my husband, they are quite the pair at movies and plays).  It was not sad to me. It was simply how they lived and what they did and what happened.

The ending was ironic as it is exactly what happened in my mother's family.

Different book, different ending - I was listening to a woman tell about how two of her children were complaining she played (serious) favorites with the third. I listened to what she said and the two were correct, she was not being fair or nice. And she was not setting her children and grandchildren up to have (positive) relationships with each other. I wanted to say to her - you need to read the story of Cain and Able and then read East of Eden. Saying to my grandparents - you need to read The Good Earth - would not have achieved anything because they would not have believed what their son would do after their death, but he was actually raised to do exactly what he did.  Excluding mental illness which is a whole other issue, most of us do what we are raised to do, unless we purposely, mindfully change our path, and the paths of our children.

If you are a true classics lover and have not read this book, time for a visit to the library.

Organic Farmer's Box

We belonged to a CSA (local Organic Farmer) program in 2009.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. 

We paid for the season up front. We got what we got in the box each week (which was way too many starches and peppers). We had to travel to pick up the box.

The "food/organic farmer box/farmer markets" label at the bottom of this post will take you to all posts related to that topic.

The program we belonged to in 2009 did not work well for us.

I joined a new program this week which I think will work for us.



The differences are -

This program is large (regional, and buying from organic farmers across the country rather than one, local farmer). The diversity of products is pretty huge.

There are organic products available through this program that are not offered (organic) in my local stores.

I am emailed a list of what is (to be) included in my box one week in advance and I can change items to better suit my needs (I can delete items, increase volume of items, add other items). So I can plan what I need to put in my box and what I can buy in my local stores.

The box is delivered to my front porch.

My box arrives on Friday afternoon and I normally batch cook/prep over the weekend.

The program runs year round.

I pay for one week at a time. I can drop at any time. I can suspend a week if we are gone.

My books - The Language of Yoga (2005) by Nicolai Bachman

Here is what I originally wrote, months ago:

The same way it was darned well about time I learned to read translations and was exposed to Hemingway and Steinbeck and Dickens, I decided I needed to mature myself with Sanskrit for yoga.

If you do not know what I am talking about, here are some examples:
Downward Facing Dog - Adho Mukha Svanasana
Extended Side Angle Pose - Utthita Parsvakonasana
Pyramid Pose - Parsvottonasana
Raised Hands Pose - Urdhva Hastasana
Standing Forward Bend - Uttanasana
Standing Straddle Forward Bend - Prasarita

If you are a long time yoga person, you probably know more Sanskrit yoga pose names than I do/should, after all these years. I am embarrassing light/lacking in this area. There are a few names I sort of recognize. There are none that I can came up with and say, on my own. None.

To be very honest, it just sounds like gibberish to me. I suspect I am not a (foreign) language person.

When I am in a yoga class, I rarely look at the instructor. I listen to what the instructor says and I apply it to my own body.

When I am in a class with an instructor who uses mostly Sanskrit, I have to look, because I do not know the words. And that looking sort of moves me out of my own body, off of my own mat. And it (having to look) makes me realize this is an area ready for growth.

I am also an experienced enough yoga person that I really should be thinking in sanskrit as I work through poses in any situation.

Helen very kindly sent me Iyengar's Light on Yoga. I use it often. Great resource of names/poses. But the book does not talk to me. And as you know, in my world, books talk to me. I realized I needed to hear the Sanskrit words to have them really sink into my brain.

That is the first half of this post, written months ago.



Part Two (written last week):

At this same time, I was tired of being in regular yoga classes where the instructors let people look like wadded up tissues in their poses. I do not think that each person needs to be perfect. I know my eyes should be on my own mat. But in classes, one can't help but at least noticing the person who is right in front or beside you, and I was not happy with the instructors who did not help these people. It is (pretty much) ridiculous for a person to have been in yoga classes for YEARS and still not have been helped. And not know they have not been helped. When I see that, this is where my mind goes - what am I doing that is not being corrected/helped either?

So, in the process of wanting more specific help in poses (not necessarily to do harder poses, but to have better positioning in all poses) and thinking that I needed to learn sanskrit, I considered signing up for a 200 level yoga certification class. I was not considering teaching, I was considering the knowledge I would gain. (These classes last many, many months and cost $2000-$3000 for the series.)



If you have been around for a VERY long time, you might remember I signed up for a Master Gardner's Class through the county extension office. And that did not work for me. It turned out that the class did not teach what I wanted to learn. I dropped out (which is very unlike me). And dropping out was the right decision. I signed up with a friend, and she dropped out too (before I did) for the same reason. I remember people in blog land saying they had friends who had done the same thing (when it was not at all what they wanted/thought).

So, as I was thinking about the 200 hour yoga certification class, my Master Gardener Class experience was very much on my mind.



One thing I thought to do was get a leg up on sanskrit. Because part of the 200 hour class requires learning sanskrit. So, I thought - since I know I am not good at it (does not come easily or quickly), I would be smart to get a head start.

I asked around and found The Language of Yoga book which comes with 2 CD's.

I was sorely disappointed. 

The sanskrit I wanted to learn WAS in there/on the CD's. But so was a whole lot of stuff I did not want to know.  A whole lot. And there is no easy way of getting to the parts of the CD with the words I want to learn.  And I realized the class was going to be the same way - I was going to have to learn a whole lot of sanskrit. I was going to have a deadline and a format and I was going to be tested in some way.

And then I realized that the people I was seeing, coming out of 200 level classes, were not so different than anyone else. There were some wadded up tissues in there. And I also realized that there are a lot of different styles of the 500 level instructors who teach the 200 level wanna be's.

By this point, I was pretty sure it was going to be a Master Gardener Class repeat.


I realized two things:
I am an Iyengar girl at heart. I would have to find a program that had that (type of) approach to positioning to really feel like it was a good fit. And it would not need to be a 200 hour certification. It could just be a really good class. (Like my beloved Yoga Lisa who moved to the east coast many years ago).

I might love a 200 hour class, but I would really have to shop around to find the right program (and I am not in a large enough town to do that, would need to be in Chicago or New York or the like for that to work).

I can buy a LOT of private instructor or take a whole lot of workshops for way less than $2000-$3000.


AND


I want to be able to learn things (like sanskrit) at my own pace, not under pressure. And I only want to learn what applies to my own practice, not animals and other sanskrit words. I can do that on my own. It would be better for me to do that on my own.



So, at the end of the day, a $22 book, with CD's included, saved me a lot of time and trouble and expense. I know that was probably not the author's intention, but in the end, that is exactly what happened.