The Love of a good nook

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a nook.” Or something like that.

I finally took the plunge and bought a nook. For those of you who think a nook is a pacifier—it sort of is, but not for infants. Actually, it’s an ebook reader from Barnes & Noble. As a writer, I held off, thinking that I would injure my own chances of future publication by purchasing the devil’s device—like Eve taking the pretty apple and suddenly finding herself outside the garden in the dead of winter, barefoot and pregnant, with nothing but a hairy husband and a snakeskin robe.

You see, I dream of someday holding a real hardback book in my hands, my words and thoughts on paper made from actual trees that gave their lives just to see my plotline play out in a four-hundred page masterpiece. Obviously, a nook cannot give me the same rush, even if my book was downloaded by millions of people. (Okay, maybe it would be really cool, but without the sacrificial death of trees, what does it really mean?)

On one hand I feel like a traitor to the print market—on the other hand I feel like a kid with a new toy. A toy that can hold up to fifteen hundred books. Yes! You heard me right. Fifteen hundred books. An awesome amount of fun in a little hand-held device. (I’m not even going to compare it to the GameBoy that my kids were so infatuated with at one time. That would be sacribooklegious.)



Thirteen hundred and twenty five books sit on the shelves of my “literal hardcopy library,” not counting the boxes of old paperbacks and children’s books in the attic. It’s taken me almost thirty years to collect this many. So, it may take a little while to read 1500 more on my nook. But I’m willing to try.

Some of you may think I’ve gone to the dark side. But you couldn’t be more wrong. When the screams of thousands of stories pierced my soul, begging to be released from the Barnes & Noble ebook store, I could do nothing less than purchase my own nook and set a few voices free. In fact, I immediately downloaded the complete KJV for only 99¢ just to even things out. After all, the Bible does have 66 books.

The other reason I finally gave in to the mass nook advertisement emails from Barnes & Noble was the thought of physically moving all of my hardbacks from the bookcases in my office next week. New carpet will be installed upstairs and I have to empty the room. That’s a lot of books to lug downstairs and then back up again. Sure it gives me an opportunity to do my yearly dust jacket dusting, but it also gives me muscle spasms and allows my chiropractor to make an easy forty bucks. Forty bucks I could have spent on ebooks that don’t weigh anything at all.



I’ll probably still be tempted to buy certain novels in hardback from time to time, but maybe the nook will pacify me enough to slow the flow. It is getting rather dangerous in here with books stacked in crooked piles on top of my bookcases. I feel like I’m walking in Sam’s Club with pallets of canned beans hanging over my head, praying the earth doesn’t shift and send an avalanche down upon me. My tombstone would read: “Who said Words can’t hurt ya?”

Hoarders Anonymous

This past weekend my daughter and I went through every closet in the house, as well as the attic over the garage, to find clothes to donate to the Lupus Foundation. I just did this sorting and giving away about two years ago, and low and behold there was probably triple the amount of clothes to be hauled away this time. How is that possible? Last time I did it alone—which may account for the smaller donation. This time, my daughter—the enforcer—stood beside me making sure I didn’t snatch something back out of the pile and return it to the closet or attic box.

My name is Barbara and I am a hoarder.

I never thought of myself as such. In fact, I have made fun of the old lady on the news that never threw a newspaper away in her lifetime and has to have her home condemned because it’s a fire hazard. Of course, I wouldn’t collect old newspapers. That’s just silly.

But I probably have every toy my children ever owned, resting comfortably in boxes in the attic just in case my futuristic grandchildren are too poor to have toys of their own or the government bans toys because they cause children to use their imaginations. I have boxes of empty frames of various sizes and shapes, also stored in the attic. And yet I can never find one I like when I have a photo to display. I have multiple boxes of children’s books packed and waiting for that library expansion I have planned if my husband ever lets me knock the wall out between my office and my daughter’s bedroom.

Mostly I had clothes. Clothes I wore when I first got married. Clothes I wore when I was pregnant. Clothes I wore after I had children. Clothes I wore after I lost weight. Clothes I wore after I gained back the weight. Clothes I wore after I lost weight again. Clothes I wore after I gained back weight again. Clothes I know I would once again fit into if I just lost a few pounds!

My daughter is much more no-nonsense than I am. She pried my fingers from the lapel of a 1980’s shoulder-padded, turquoise blue, two-piece suit and threw it into the pile of discarded items as though it were nothing more than lint from the dryer. And then did the same to a dozen others while I watched in shock and a little awe. I tried to tell her they would come back in style someday, retro is cool, but she just pursed her lips in that condescending way she has and told me to back away from the pile.

I’m confused by the clothes I see in stores today. So much appears to be castoffs from someone’s attic box of 1970’s fashion. And I need to throw my collection away?! Won’t we be hitting the 80’s again pretty soon? Those shoulder pads and pleats are sure to be some hot young designer’s ticket to fame any day now, and all my retro suits are gone with the wind. I hope they find an owner who will appreciate them and love them like I did.

Letting go of things is hard. At least for me. I remember the cost of the item and how long it was before we could afford such things. I associate a time and place, perhaps an occasion with the item. I make it personal. They’re not just a pair of pink cowboy boots my daughter wore when she was a toddler. They are pink boots she picked out herself when we took a trip to the Black Hills when she was fifteen months old. She pranced around in the hotel room in nothing but her boots, cowgirl hat, and diaper like she was a super model on a runway. It’s not just a box of old books. They’re books I read to my children every night before they went to sleep, books I read to them before naps in the afternoon, books I read to them in the car on trips, books I read to them when they were sick with Chicken pox or the flu, books I listened to them read word by word and helped them sound things out when they got stuck, books I read to them even when they knew how to read themselves because they begged me to.

The truck came and went, taking our clothes with them. I didn’t give them anything we couldn’t replace or live without. Just stuff we no longer wear. My attic is still filled with toys, books, frames, and memorabilia. Someday someone may have to go through it all and make the decision to keep it, give it away, or toss it—but I’m pretty sure it won’t be me.

Martha Versus Reality

School is officially out for summer and now the real fun begins. Not actual fun, but the fun of having children under foot twenty-four hours a day. Now don’t come down on me because I’m baring my soul and telling it like it is. I know many of you would like to have year round school, but you’re too afraid to admit it.

It’s not that I don’t like children. I liked my own children, and we built a fence around the yard to keep other people’s children away. It’s just that kids don’t know how to entertain themselves anymore. As parents, or just random neighborhood adults, we are expected to entertain these miniature individuals from the moment they step off the bus till that blessed day they step back on when school starts up again in September.

My mom was from that generation of parents that pushed their kids outside and said, “Go play until I call you for dinner.” Sometimes she let us back in for lunch. Other days we grazed on grapes, peaches or cherries, depending on the season. Of course in Minnesota children would just starve to death cause nothing grows in peoples yards except rhubarb.

I tried that with my kids. After all, we built a fence to keep them safe. All they had to do was stay in it and play. They even had a dog, and a cool fort with a slide and swing. What more did they need to be entertained for a few short hours while I cleaned the house and watched General Hospital? Apparently—ME. They couldn’t stay outside for ten minutes without running in with some feeble excuse. “I need a drink.” (There was a perfectly good hose right outside the door.) “I have to get my action figures.” (Dozens of plastic creatures were already buried in the sandbox.) “I’m hungry.” (That was totally a habit.) “I have to go to the bathroom.” (If you’d quit drinking so much you wouldn’t need to keep peeing! And besides—there’s bushes right over there.)
There are actually some mothers who innocently, and with great expectations, plan craft making days for their children. I know—it sounds delusional but they have a radical leader and her name is Martha Stewart. I actually saw that crazy woman on TV the other day explaining how to make a beautiful craft tabletop for children to work at. Like they would really sit at a table longer than it takes you to write down the building instructions! What a waste of time. Martha Stewart always has these awesome ideas to teach children how to be creative, make beautiful crafts, and bake cookies too pretty to eat. It may have worked with her fellow prison inmates, but without mandated incarceration, kids will not stay in the same room for two minutes to do anything except make a mess and walk away. But if you enjoy doing your child's homework, science projects, and chores, you will probably enjoy making their crafts for them too.

Another way some parents try to entertain their children for the summer is to take them on special field trips. They plan day trips to the zoo, the Science Museum, or a park. Some actually take their kids shopping. What a nightmare! Have you ever been to the grocery store with children? Turn your back for one second and you have a cart full of Captain Crunch and Gummy bears, they’ve run the cart into some old lady’s motorized chair, and there’s a spill on aisle 8 that you know they had something to do with.

Bringing kids to the Mall is an option you might want to consider. Kids get lost at the mall all the time. You could have hours of unfettered browsing before security relentlessly tracks you down and returns them. I’d practice making relieved, ecstatic faces in a mirror before trying this though. You know what happened to the dad that went gambling at the casino and left his kids at the mall all day. You don’t want to be featured on the evening news. They always find a way to make parents look bad.

My kids are grown up now, so I don’t have to think of ways to survive the summer. This information is all for you. I’m a sharing kind of person. Just one experienced parent giving free advice and encouragement to those willing to listen. Or you can listen to Martha and build that table. Good luck!

Fishing for an Electrician

We have a small electrical problem in our house. Two outlets downstairs quit working and another outlet upstairs shuts other outlets off when in use. Probably connected, right? Also our doorbell suddenly quit this winter, for no particular reason other than refusing to sound when the UPS man pushes it and sprints back to his truck like he’s playing a Halloween prank. I guess I’d quit working too if the only action I got was a careless, half-hearted poke once in a blue moon.

Electricity is something we all take pretty much for granted. When something doesn’t work we just look at it like it suddenly grew two heads. I actually threw my hand mixer in the garbage before I realized it was the source of power and not the actual power tool that was broken.

I called an electrician and set up a day for him to come out and fix the problem. He had one of those little fish emblems on his advertisement in the phonebook and I mistakenly believed he could be trusted, like he was one of the chosen twelve or something. He said he’d be here “sometime after ten.” I stayed home and waited all day long, because sometime after ten could mean 10:35 a.m. or it could mean 5:10 p.m. No sign of him or his fishy logo.

A day later he called to inform me (as if I’d forgotten) that he was supposed to be at my house the morning before. Did I still want him to come out? No apology. Nothing. I totally wanted to give him the silent treatment, but he was waiting for my answer so I simply said, “No, I don’t think so,” in a very sarcastic tone and hung up. (I know. Sarcasm is the weak woman’s comeback but I was trying to be good. I wanted to remind him that even Jesus left end time hints as to when he would show up again. Like the sound of the trumpet!) If he didn’t have enough common courtesy to give me a call and let me know he wasn’t coming before I’d wasted a whole day hanging out waiting, I would give my broken outlets to another. Christian fish emblem be damned!

I’m sure the man forgot my name before he hung up the phone, but I felt better. I didn’t yell or throw a hissy fit. I just refused him my business and took back my power. I hate feeling powerless. First my children grew up and decided to do things without even asking me and now an electrician thinks he can play head games with me?! I am the mother of all head games! I decide who fishes or cuts bait! Actually, I don’t think that has anything to do with what I was talking about—but you have to admit that the fish thing is similar.

Today another electrician is supposed to be coming. He only gave me a two-hour window of time to wait. So I am eagerly anticipating his arrival and subsequent fixing of all my problems. Electrical ones anyway. No doubt I’ll have to deal with my need for power with a different kind of professional.

So with a little luck and a lot of bucks, my doorbell should be heralding the arrival of the UPS man in time for the dogs to bark before he can make it back to his truck, and my outlets should be surging with renewed power for mixing up a cake or turning on a fan. All will be as it should in my Western world of plenty.

We're Back!!

Our trip to Hawaii was glorious. Sun, surf, and sand in every crack. I had blissful naps on the beach, consumed fresh cooked shrimp from roadside venders, went to an authentic Luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center – (owned and operated by Mormons), and watched my husband’s skin turn from gleaming white to boiled lobster red in under a week. It was great!

We did the tour of every navel vessel in Pearl Harbor (or so it seemed). Along with the Arizona Memorial we went down into the USS Bowfin submarine and went aboard the Battleship Missouri. After seeing the tiny little bunks those guys slept in I no longer believe normal sized men can be in the navy. They would have to be dwarfs or always sleep curled up like an unborn baby in its mother’s womb.

We visited the Dole Plantation for a taste of pineapple ice cream and took a stroll through some of the most beautiful gardens on earth. Every tree, bush, and plant is adorned with vibrantly colored flowers. The excitement didn’t stop there though. We even got to ride a little Choo choo train around the plantation and then navigate a maze—that seen from the air would look like a giant pineapple. Leon insisted we find every clue in the maze before we could escape. I was ready to sneak through a hole in the shrubbery about halfway through just to be done with it, but you know men...getting to the end equals success and success equals “I won!” (At least to him. I just felt tired and dizzy from going in circles).

We rode the waves in an Outrigger Canoe with two laid-back Hawaiians who seemed totally bored with the whole process. We relaxed aboard a Catamaran on an afternoon sail along the coast of Waikiki where we spotted giant turtles and a school of fish. I think it may have been a Catholic school. They were all in black. We took an early morning climb up the trail to the volcanic crater, Diamond Head. I didn’t fall in and it didn’t erupt. We watched three Chinese men getting a surfing lesson. (I wish I’d gotten a video of that. It was very funny).

One morning we decided to go down to the beach and watch the sun rise over Diamond Head. We were there when “thong man” strutted across the sand at 5:30 in the morning, and plunged into the ocean for his early morning workout. Fifteen minutes later, he slithered out of the water and strode naked and dripping back the way he came, his deeply tanned cheeks gleaming in the sunlight. It was quite a sight. Much more mesmerizing than the rising sun. Not unlike finding myself dreaming that I’m Jane in a Tarzan movie.

I learned that the food at a Mormon Luau is really gross. I should have listened closer when they explained what we were going to eat. A bright-colored fruit salad turned out to be chunks of some kind of raw fish mixed with other unknown elements. After taking an unsuspecting bite of that, I nearly hurled. Then I tried a piece of actual cooked fish…not so good either. Big drink of water before going on to the next item. Deep breath. Purple thing on my plate—supposedly similar to potato. NOT! Okay, the bread can’t be that bad. It looks like a bun, except for the lavender color. Strange taste but edible, thank God. The rest has been mercifully burned from my memory. Definitely should have gone to the Hilton’s Luau where they had lobster and crab. That I would at least have recognized.

I learned that Hawaiians really love Spam. Not the junk mail kind, but the canned meat kind. Weird, huh? We make it in Minnesota, have a little Spam museum to commemorate it, and no one can stand the stuff. But in Hawaii they sell Spam and rice on the McDonalds menu for breakfast. They have Spam-flavored Macadamia nuts in every store. Spam is a delicacy. A young Chinese salesman told us he loves Spam. It is one of his favorite things and he thinks it is very tasty. He didn’t understand our disgust of the strange, jelled, meatloaf, but he’d heard the same sentiments from other mainlanders. Apparently, we don’t know what we’re missing. I’m positive it couldn’t be worse than a Mormon Luau fruit salad.

Hawaiians also love dogs. No—they don’t eat them. I mean they love their pet dogs. They take them to the mall to shop. In the stores. They have them along everywhere. I was in a store and saw a man with his dog in a stroller. Another guy carried his on his chest in an infant sling. Others just brought theirs the normal way—on leashes. Up the escalator. In the stores. In the food court. Didn’t see any cats in strollers though. Dogs reign in Hawaii.

Thanks so much to all my friends who encouraged me to “wear a two-piece bathing suit” cause with all the heavier sunbathers out there (in their imagination) I would feel as thin as Twiggy—right? Guess what? I've never seen so many in shape people. They ran, they walked, they biked, they surfed. I felt like Bette Midler in The First Wives Club. The only heavier woman than myself was a German in a one-piece sharing the hot tub with me at the hotel. In hindsight, I’m still not sure if she was a man or a woman. She had a thick mustache, a unibrow, and arms like wooden posts. Another first for me was wearing thongs. They weren’t nearly as uncomfortable as I recall from childhood. But after viewing “thong man” in the glow of the rising sun, I now call them Flip Flops.

Honolulu is a city of contrasts. The very, very wealthy live there in mansions. A few blocks away cheap, tiny apartments house folks who hang their laundry from the window. One block sports stores like Tiffany’s, Louis Vuittun, Versace, and Ferrari and the next is peppered with homeless people. There are a lot of homeless in Honolulu. We saw them everywhere. In parks. Along the beach in the morning. Crouched on sidewalks. People sitting with shopping carts full of junk or piles of belongings beside them. As if they’re waiting for a bus. I think it would be very easy to become homeless in Hawaii. Someone goes there on vacation and has so much fun catching the waves he doesn’t want to go home. He runs out of money and can’t get a job. He can no longer afford to buy a plane ticket. He starts sleeping on the beach. He learns to survive. Like the man I saw digging through garbage cans in the underground garage of the mall, looking for scraps of food rich tourists threw away. Or maybe those old guys in the park and on the beach are just retired Surfers. Who knows.

In all of this sight seeing, I began to wonder: What did the natives of Oahu do for fun? Besides sell trinkets to wide-eyed tourists and put on fire shows at night? I got my answer when we drove up the coast one day. Families of Hawaiians put up their tents in parks along the beach and spend the day sitting in lounge chairs talking, cooking over open fires, and watching their children play around them. So, maybe they aren’t so different from us—besides liking Spam, taking their dogs to the mall, having the ocean right outside their doors, perfect temperatures every day, and plenty of pineapple, macadamia nuts, and coconuts in their pantry. They probably sit around and imagine what it’s like to live in Minnesota and dream of vacationing here someday. But they never have a good enough reason to make the flight. The seductive pull of the islands keeps them close to home. They have sun, surf, sand, and as much Spam as they can eat. What more could they ask for? Snow?

P.s. The dogs survived the separation from us for the week. My fears were apparently unfounded. They learned to use the doggy door with no mishaps. It was a pleasant homecoming to walk in the door and not find little surprises awaiting us. They’re smarter than I thought☺