Blog Posts for Author

The View from the Back Seat

aninnymou — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:08:03 -0700

"Susan, is it Sunday?" "No, honey, it's Monday.""Then WHY is it sunny?"A

No Time to Wave Goodbye

aninnymou — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:32:18 -0700

I also just finished, from the same trip to the library as "The Calligrapher's Daughter," "No Time to Wave Goodbye," by Jacquelyn Mitchard. It was good to catch up with the Cappadora family and to follow the puzzle of the new novel, but the reason I'm blogging was because of a comical typo in it regarding two VERY old ladies: "two-hundred-year-old ladies."I would ...

Eugenia Kim's "The Calligrapher's Daughter"

aninnymou — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:16:13 -0700

I've been trying to read more fiction lately and so, at the library two days ago, checked out "The Calligrapher's Daughter." The title had caught my eye here on Red Room because my father did calligraphy until diabetic neuropathy forced him to give it up, making me a calligrapher's daughter, so when I saw the book in the library, I picked it right up.The book was wonderful, so much ...

Waiting and Waiting and Waiting

aninnymou — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:46:12 -0800

In San Francisco today, then Saturday evening, back to KidThree.FriendM, a friend of KidThree's since before she was hurt, came to stay for a few days after her mother kicked her out. This girl comes from a family not quite so complex as KidThree's; she has bounced around between this parent and then the other parent's lover and a guardian somewhere else and a grandmother down the freeway; and, ...

My Strangely Bifurcated (and Trifurcated) Life

aninnymou — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:11:53 -0800

This is a peculiar life I'm living these days, living in two different places in two different ways. It's weird. When I go from one place to the other, which I do every four days, it's like traveling through some science fiction portal to another world, if not another time.In the one life, I drive a van and never have to worry about whether or not I have enough money to put gas in the tank. ...

Dead Teen Walking

aninnymou — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:17:03 -0800

One of the pictures KidThree has in her room is of a friend who was murdered in 06/08. The murdered teen was trying to get disentangled from gang life, had changed schools, was on a sports team, and giving life his all. Because of all that, he was murdered by other gang members--they crashed a party he was attending and shot him in the head.And now another young man is going to die, only ...

Leave Hansel & Gretel Alone

aninnymou — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:53:27 -0800

Honest to goodness, I just watched a show on PBS where the 'super characters' changed the witch's house from Hansel & Gretel from gingerbread and candy to fruits and vegetables. The change in construction made the witch happy, so she didn't try to eat the children and Gretel didn't have to push her into that oven.Personally, I think a little evil is just fine for kids. They LIKE it. ...

The Block I Grew Up On

aninnymou — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:46:21 -0800

My parents still live in the house I grew up in. Some of the neighbors from those days are still there, but most aren't. The street that house is on has only ten houses on the one side, eight on the other. The block was just that, only one block long. The street began as a right angle turn from another street and ended at the cross street at the other end--it didn't continue across. The ...

A Barely Tangible Link

aninnymou — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:49:12 -0800

When I first heard about the Chilean earthquake (over the radio, while driving), the first thing I thought was, "is CousinC alright?" The thing is, I don't know CousinC at all, having met him only once when I was barely a teenager and he was a cherry-cheeked young man visiting his California sister and getting dragged to see the various relatives. He didn't speak English and I ...

Car Conversations

aninnymou — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:24:48 -0800

Driving back from dropping the older pair at their schools, I was entertained mightily by BoyTwo and his incessant questions:Does rain have eyes?Why are all the people in houses? Don't they want to splash in PUDDLES?What is One Plus?How do you spell tub? Tee You Bee. Not that way, with an A!!Poor BoyTwo, so distressed by A's stubborn refusal to help spell tub. I ...