2010 September

Pulling a The David Cook, Not a John C. Mayer, for Crossing the Finish Line

September 30, 2010 By The Well Read Hostess 7 Comments

When I grow up and am 34 and freaking adorable, I want to be Aunt Becky.

When I grow up and walk the walk and live my life the way I say I want to live my life and not get bogged down in the muck and the mire and the bloody details of it all and am really a grown up, I want to be my friend D. Although maybe without the cancer. The recurring ovarian cancer. For my feelings about this complete with expletives, click HERE. As you might imagine, many of the words I use to describe my feelings on the subject begin with the letter “F.” Some begin with “S.” Mostly, however, they begin with “F.”

Aunt Becky pulled a John C. Mayer, and then she pulled a The David Cook, but because Aunt Becky is Good People, and, as she would say, Full of the Awesome, she’s challenged her pranksters (Aunt Becky is Full of the Awesome and also full of The Lingo)…are you still with me? Never mind…hang in there… to pull a The David Cook for charity - in my case Crossing the Finish Line.

Crossing the Finish Line is, in its own – or rather Crossing the Finish Line’s own words, “Crossing the Finish Line helps families and their loved ones confront cancer hardships together through respite travel experiences which strengthen the healing force of their bonds and create immeasurable joy amidst devastating crisis. Our cancer patients are our “Sailors” and their respites are “excursions.”

In case you are wondering why I keep repeating the name of the charity, Crossing the Finish Line, you need to back up, and go read again more carefully. It’s critical info, people. Plus, Crosssing the Finish Line is an organization with a mission worthy of repetition. Yo.

Founder of Crossing the Finish Line, Marci Shankweiler, and her husband Pete, were able to spend a short time away together during his cancer treatment and after his passing Marci fulfilled her dream of extending that opportunity for escape and rejuvenation and togetherness to other patients after completing their treatment cycles through the Crossing the Finish Line organization.

Through generous donations of time, resources, and energy, Crossing the Finish Line sends families away on much needed and well deserved vacations, at no expense to them, during and after cancer treatments to spend time together away from the yuck and blech and ick and just plain ugh that is cancer. Although I think the Crossing the Finish Line brochure words it a little differently.

It’s not experimental treatment, it’s not Oprah-style extravaganza of “A New House and All Your Debts Paid and Your Kids Going to Harvard for FREE foreVAHHHH,” but for my friend D. and her husband, the chance to get away, provided by Crossing the Finish Line, gave her the “gift of time” as well as the “wonderful gift of kindness from others, by sending my family away for an all expense paid respite to focus on myself and my family after a year long battle with doctors appointments, surgeries and chemo away from the day to day at home.“ And sometimes, that’s more important than anything else.

D. has written a book for Crossing the Finish Line, and speaks for them regularly, all the while insisting this is totally NOT ABOUT HER, so yeah, it’s NOT ABOUT HER, it’s about Crossing the Finish Line, and the book is to help explain to kids what the organization does for families during such a difficult time. If you know someone who might be able to use it, contact Amber at Crossing the Finish Line.

Away We Go - Crossing the Finish Line

Know someone toughing it out through cancer treatment? Let them know what Crossing the Finish Line can do for them.

Extra change jingling around in your pockets? Crossing the Finish Line will put it to good use.

Your house in Florida not getting enough use? Karma beckons. So does Crossing the Finish Line. So do I.

Filed Under: Bloggers Like Us, Facts of Life, Keeping it Real, Synecdoche Tagged With: Also, Aunt Becky, Crossing the Finish Line, John C. Mayer, Pulling a The David Cook for Charity

13 Ways of Looking at A Newspaper

September 27, 2010 By The Well Read Hostess 4 Comments

You know how sometimes you go see a movie that’s been adapted from a book you’d previously read and you go, “Huh. It was good, but I liked the book better”?

Tom Rachman’s novel, The Imperfectionists, has been (rather famously) picked up by Brad Pitt (hence the “rather famously”) to be adapted into a film. After I finished reading it last night I had a thought I have never once had before after reading a literary work. Namely, “That’s going to be a much better movie than a novel.”

I’ve read novels that were clearly written to be adapted into film, but this was something else altogether. I lay awake for about two hours trying to figure out that “altogether” was, and I think I got it. I also revised my initial reaction, because while I do think it’s going to be a better movie than novel, it’s an entirely worthwhile read.

The Imperfectionists is a work of literature, it’s not just fiction. It has great literary merit. Rachman can write. Unlike other literary novels, however, The Imperfectionists…how do I say this without sounding like an ass or a moron or both because I’m either hugely stupid and oblivious and naive or just plain wrong or obnoxiously arrogant but OK, here goes deep breath…has no point. It has no theme, no message.

But, and this is the crucial point, that’s OK. And this is why it will work so well as a movie. Rachman has written an imagist novel. The work consists of vignettes and sketches that may cover a day, a week, a month but are functionally freeze-frame snapshots of character and mood and tone and setting. Petals on a wet, black bough. A red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare.

Which all means, to me anyway, that The Imperfectionists is a bit of a masterpiece. Because right now, today, book closed and a few miles away on the floor next to my bed, I can see everyone of those people, the newsroom, the cafes in Rome, the looks on faces, the piercing stares, the breath-catching pain and shock at the recognition of the voice at the other end of the phone, the hotel room, the old lady granny underpants, the dusty paintings in the villa, all of it.

Read it. You’ll see it, too.

Filed Under: Mama Like, On the Nightstand, Virtually Well Read Tagged With: book reviews, Brad Pitt, Ezra Pound, H.D., imagism, The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman, Wallace Stevens, william Carlos williams

A Little Learning is a Dangerous Thing

September 23, 2010 By The Well Read Hostess 7 Comments

Tonight is back to school night.

Not for my kids, for me.

Me the teacher. Not me the parent.

I already did me the parent back to school night.

I don’t, although here it occurs to me that perhaps as usual I should have since long ago, make much of a secret about the fact that back to school night as me the teacher not me the parent is one of my least favorite days of the school year.

It’s not that I don’t like meeting the parents or I object to having to do the dog and pony bit and the wearing of the heels and the lipstick and the brushing of the hair and yes I know that normal people often do these things as a matter of course all the time. It’s the fatigue factor. Back to school night as me the teacher not me the parent is, simply, exhausting. It is, in hours, such a long day. In terms of mental energy, it extends beyond exhausting and into Geneva Convention territory definitions of brutality. And I know I’m not alone in this. It’s hard on the parents, as well.

Back to School Night Fact Sheet from a Self-Proclaimed and Probably Full of Crap Expert

When we say that we really like your kids, we actually mean it, but we are hyper-aware that we sound insincere and like we say that no matter what.

Except for that one kid, the one who told us the first day of school that he’d heard we are a)mean b)unfair c)not as good a teacher as Mrs. X who taught his older brother or d)announced three times already that he was bored and asked twice if it was “naptime” yet.

Teachers forget that parents get nervous going “back to school.” We are not on a power trip. We don’t feel like we know something you don’t. We love being in school, and it is so easy for us to forget that, for lots of people, school brings back memories of discomfort and anxiety. Breathe easy. We know you are grownups. You will not be tested on this. There will be no math.

We want to do right by you and your kids. If we have kids of our own, we know how important it is that you trust that your kids are in good hands.

Tonight is not a night to tell us why your kid is special, a problem, a pain in the butt, or deserving of this, that or the other accomodation. There is a time for that, but this isn’t it.

We’re nervous, too. Remember, we chose to work with kids, not adults for a reason.

My husband will probably call me a few times tonight to ask me questions like, “Do you know where the keys are?” and “Does the permission slip for cello lessons have to be in tomorrow or Monday?” I won’t be answering my phone because I’ll be paying attention to you. Know what I mean?

The reason learning works, when it works, is that kids grab hold of something that excites them. When they are younger – and sometimes when they are older – what excites them is often what people around them get excited about and for which they show their enthusiasm. We all know that lots of what happens in school, and life, is necessary and maybe not what we’d choose to do with our time, but lots of it is worth getting excited about, too. Go home and let them see that you saw something that you think is worth getting excited about.

Finally, it’s entirely possible that I might not get around to the hair and lipstick. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think your kids are pretty spectacular and that I’m grateful that you trust me with them.

Filed Under: Facts of Life, What I Know About Your Teenager That You Don't Tagged With: back to school night, dog and pony show, stress