Bloggy goodness...mm, crunchy

If the fact that I'm blogging about it wouldn't disprove the statement, I would say that this idea is too cool for words.

Through a UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) task team on children and HIV/AIDS, five African teenagers are now blogging at Listen to MY Voice about children and HIV/AIDS and other children's rights issues. Pop over and pay them a visit!

The Perilous Gard

The Perilous Gard, by Elizabeth Marie Pope is simply delicious; I loved it through and through. It'sabout a lady-in-waiting of Princess Elizabeth's who is exiled to a mysterious, isolated castle for her little sister's indiscretion. There she quickly becomes entangled in the strange goings-on of the Elvenwood, and is plunged into an ancient and dangerous world straight out of legend.


Kate was a fabulous character who dwells happily outside the confines of that tired stereotypical YA historical/fantasy heroine, and I thought this book's "fairy folk" were marvelous - they're not the kind of fairies you're used to seeing in fantasy novels, and the author doesn't push anything past the bounds of believable or even possible (quite refreshing), but they really are great. Pitch-perfect plotting and pacing, too.

Please, if you haven't read this book already, don't miss it! It's one of the best I've read all year.

Grade: A+

"Out of the ash I rise with my red hair"

Things that are making me happy (and I really need this exercise this week):

Reading Inkheart in the original German

Hair ribbons

Venturing into an Eastern Orthodox bookstore and talking with the booksellers and other patron for more than an hour about the randomest things. We drank black coffee and ate bread from a nearby bakery, in the gorgeous fumes of whatever kind of incense I wanted to try burning and the sounds of Orthodox church music from Africa. And the bookseller called me Rebecca, because he said I reminded him of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

Paper cranes and jasmine tea pearls

Therapeutic baking. Baking is such the best when I'm feeling down because it occupies my hands and thoughts, and it can be creative, but it doesn't have to be difficult. I go into the kitchen and blast music from my laptop and mutter defiantly at the recipe when I don't have apple cider vinegar and swear gratuitously when I spill precious Milo. It always turns out to be at least decent, whatever I'm making, and by the time it emerges from the oven the stirring and measuring and pouring and nice smells have calmed my nerves and distracted me from my woes for a while. God bless muffin tins.

My littlest cousin spinning and leaping around the dining table, stopping only to scoop a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She is a miracle, that girl.

Virgil hasn't shown up yet

I really haven't got it in me to assemble a commentary on a cupcake recipe right now.

I'm going to go take a nap and hope that when I wake up life is a little better and I'm a little less freaked out.

Do you ever feel like a song was written just for you?


(Every blogger should get an occasional emo post, right?)

"Such beautiful hands"

I love this poem. I just love it.

The German phrase means "such beautiful hands." If you don't know what Chernobyl is, take a moment to read about it here first. The title is a relativity term having to do with black holes, so you should read about it as well (here).

Event Horizon
Children of Chernobyl
on a field trip to the woods
of Germany, where my wife meets them

on a path and one approaches,
takes her hand in his
six-fingered hand, and whispers

solche schöne Hände—
How many people can say that
for a minute they knew why they’d lived?

- Franz Wright


I posted another Franz Wright poem last Friday.
The round-up's at The Well-Read Child today.