- Awesome packaging? Yes.
- Incredibly dirty reference made alongside my name? Yes.
- Finally a wood polish
that Wonder Boy will let me use? Yes.
Purchase made.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
Month: April 2010
Wonder Boy and I were out shopping yesterday and the phenomenal Park and Vine, the best place to buy household goods, cleaning supplies and gifts for your eco-minded friends. Really, the only thing on our shopping list was trash bags. You have never seen people so loyal to one brand of trash bags as Wonder Boy and I… So, with those in hand, we perused the store for all of the other wonderful things we never knew we needed and then I saw it.
Wonder Boy and I have been cleaning out our attic. We both sort of hoard thing. I don’t mean in that “I need to be on an intervention television show and there are ten dead cats living in my house but I don’t even know it” sort of way. It’s just that we both have things that we Love. I Love chairs and screen-printed posters. Wonder Boy Loves instruments, especially ones that sound funny.
As time goes on, and we accumulate many a new thing, up to the attic it goes. We always assume that someday the perfect place will present itself for whatever the item it is. It rarely does.
We talk and talk about how we really need to curb the behavior and we never do. The fact is, we invest very little money in the things we squire and we like the hunt for junk and so it goes on. After our recent stint in Costa Rica I think we both became acutely aware, or at least I did, that if we were ever to relocate to someplace awesome, we would need to pare down the things.
For the past several nights we have been up in our attic. Hours go buy as we root through boxes, sorting things into garage sale piles, trash heaps and recycle bins. As is to be expected, there have been some dynamite finds.
Just tonight I found a Christmas card sent to me from one of the train engineers from when I worked at a local amusement park. Based on the average age of the engineers back then, I assume he is long since passed, but seeing that card with the old man handwriting scrawled along the bottom made me smile. I loved the group of retired men who spent their summers teaching little kids around the city to love trains.
Also related to my time at the amusement park was a guide written by two girls I worked with preparing me for the transition from an all-girls high school to a co-ed college. The advice… was ridiculous but funny to read through again.
Wonder Boy’s finds were a little more… prolific. I feel some can’t be shared without his explicit permission, but he found his Alf hand puppet, which is pretty awesome, AND he found his prom tux.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
A la High Fidelity, Wonder Boy and I often ask each other to create top five lists. The conversations go something like this:
“The five albums that most influenced you. Go.”
“Your five favorite vacation spots, in no particular order. Go”
Well we just got back from Costa Rica (more on that at a later time) and during the trip we posed several of these lists to each other. There is one in particular I’ve been giving a lot of thought to.
“To someone who has never traveled internationally before, what five pieces of advice would you give them?”
- Be a good representative of your home country and a good guest to the place you are visiting.
- Please don’t assume that everyone will be accommodating to you and your language skills. Learn the following phrases in the native language of the country you area visiting:
- Please and thank you
- Hello and goodbye
- Bathroom
- Check please
- Do you speak English (or whatever your native language is)?
- Leave yourself open to the option of adventure. Do not plan every minute of every day. By having a free afternoon to wander around the city or linger by the ocean, you might meet new people, discover new restaurants or just relax.
- Eat local food. Drink local beer / wine / liquor.
- Talk to as many people as possible, even if they are simply other travelers. These conversations might end up being the most memorable parts of your trip or lead to the biggest adventures you will know.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.
Book Review of “The Long Run” by Leo Furey
Furey writes about an orphanage in Canada in the 1960s run by Catholic brothers. He primarily focuses on about a dozen boys, 3 or so brothers and the story itself is narrated by Aidan Carmichael. This is a strange book to review. I can confidently state that it was a good beach read with an easy, entertaining story but not something that will stick with me over time. I like a book whose story makes a mark, or that introduces ideas that makes me pause and think for a bit. If not that, then what’s the point?
The part of this book that is enjoyable is reading about these ragamuffin boys at the orphanage, which is running on a shoestring budget and trying to keep all of its tenants disciplined and educated. Furey does a great job of making real people out of the characters so you feel you know them. Brother McCan is strict, eccentric and spits everywhere. The brother nicknamed Rags is softhearted and like a sibling. Randall Bradbury, nicknamed Bug, is a smartass with an ailing heart. Willieam Jefferson Neville is nicknamed Blackie because he’s … black. He’s also an American from Harlem and leads the gang-like club of boys focused on in the story.
This is where the book loses me. Furey’s over-reliance on stereotypes throughout the story feels cheap. He drops disturbing facts throughout the tale, as if to say “See! I know what was happening back then!” but does little to explore those facts or integrate them well into the story. He alludes a few times to sexual misconduct at the orphanage between brothers and orphans. Then he comes right out and says it. And each time the story moves right along as if that little nugget was never stated. It left me feeling like Furey was taking easy jabs at the church rather than making any statement about the issue itself.
Overall, don’t spend money on this book but it would be okay to check out from your local library and read on the beach.
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.