I am very spoiled. Not the only child kind of spoiled (although I am one those)but travel-spoiled. I read these things about people, mainly celebs, braggin over how many stamps their child/baby/accessory has on their passport before they hits toddler time. My parents didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up and we instead spent a lot of time camping and going to the beach. I think that this was awesome. I still have a fondness for the outdoors, nature, the water, etc. The only thing I have grown to be less fond of is bike riding. That's a whole other story to be honest. I did not get a passport until I was 20. I went to France for a summer and I think that's when it hit me and my parents as to what we'd been missing. After that we took trips together to England and then Ireland a couple of years later. This was all when my Mamaw was still with us and the idea that Europe was still a bombed out shell from WWII was still stuck in her head (probably thanks to my Papaw who had seen it as such in said World War). She was amazed with the fact that they had any buildings still standing. Even funnier was the fact that my Dad had to convince her that we were on a tour of some kind and not just galavanting around England in a rental car left to our own devices. My father would find a tour group of American looking tourists (most tour groups look American until you hear them speak or they are obviously from Asia) and get me or my mother to take a picture of him with the group, the bus or preferably the group and the bus together to show how we traveled in comfort and safety around the wilds of the British Isles.

All this is leading to how many places I've traveled with M since then...In the past year (12 calendar months) M and I have been to Hong Kong, Israel, Uruguay, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Pensacola, Roanoke, NYC, Madison, Louisville, S. Florida and probably a few other places I can't remember right now. I love travelling. I love the adventure of trying to get on a plane and the utter befuddlement that some people still have over getting on a plane and going somewhere. Since I travel in the world of dress code required, I am also amused by the recent flurry of improper airplane attire news. I am not a skimpy dresser (if you know me you know this to be true). I think airline blankets are gross except when stuck in Dulles overnight and in need of a blanket. I also don't think people should expect to get good food on a plane. I often wonder if Greyhound serves snacks on buses. I know that a lot of people still want to see the romance in getting on a plane and jetting off somewhere exotic. You can probably still uphold the illusion if you fly everywhere first class and you are the king of someplace. Some folks say that it's the journey more than the destination, others say it's arriving that is more important than how you get there. I think it's a little of both.

We had options this weekend of going to Rapid City, SD or Asheville, NC. Flights look better for Asheville. I love NC. Always have since I was a somewhat religious teen traveling to Montreat with a bunch of people who I do not keep in touch with anymore. Sometimes I wish I had and I often wonder what they are doing and if they chose a fufilling path in their eyes. Hopefully they get to travel.

So I'm still reading the Girls Gone Mild book. The author has ventured into dangerous territory with me and my chosen career as a librarian. As a librarian, banning books, any books, is a bad idea. Maybe it's some sort of fear of a totalitarian state or references my second favorite line from the film JFK, "Fascism is coming back!"

At any rate, I've always been angry at parents who try to shield everyone from something that goes against a person's or group's beliefs, be they concerned with sexuality, politics, religion, you name it. I had never however, considered students not wanting to read a book because of their own moral beliefs. Notice I didn't say ban...the books that were mentioned were not banned outright from the schools in which they were part of the curriculum. What amazed me about one story related in the book was of a Freshman English class spending time reading a book out loud during class time. Not excerpts, but the whole book. I never had a class like that. Well, maybe in elementary school when we spent 30 minutes a day reading Anne of Green Gables out loud. (I still wonder about the two boys in a class of 15 girls and how their interests were being met by reading Anne of Green Gables.) If I had been put into a situation reading an embarrassing book infront of my entire English class I would have probably been uncomfortable with a lot more things growing up. Books I read in my Freshman English class included Hiroshima, Lord of the Flies, Romeo & Juliet, The Odyssey, Hard Times (ugh) and I want to say I read Alas Babylon as an alternative book. I can think of a few passages that would probably have been a little awkward in each of these. However, we never read an entire book out loud in class. Does this indicate that children are reading less for homework and eschewing true learning for extracurricular activities? I hope not, because that would seem to me like a bigger problem.

I'm all for people standing up for what they believe in and if they don't want to read a certain book out loud or to themselves that offends them, they shouldn't have to read it. (This is why I decided not to finish Palahniuk's Haunted... It didn't get me anywhere, didn't make me a better person and taught me nothing.) People feel the same way about certain tv shows, music or magazines. If people don't like violence and gore, they probably won't watch CSI or think that they're children should play certain video games. If someone is offended by certain types of music they probably won't listen to it. That's all fine and dandy. It's when they start wanting to keep everyone from deciding what they enjoy or enjoying what they decide is good that it starts making me a little angry.

Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shalit. You can read her blog here at Modestly Yours. M had brought me a books review from the local newspaper on it some weeks ago and I reserved it from the library. According to the review I am actually surprised that any library would be allowed to buy this book since the review itself made reference to the fact that the book points out some highly innapropriate links on the ALA website directed at teen sexuality. The books also brings up some things that I have always agreed with but never really considered them as going against society. For example, I am always against co-ed bathrooms. I hate those Bratz dolls that look like hookers. And I do not think that young girls clothing should be something from a Pussycat Dolls video. (See how with it I am since I didn't say Britney Spears?) I also don't think that any of these thoughts make me a conservative in the ugly sense of the word. So to sum it up I think the book's main ideas revolve around girl power without throwing sex in as a necessity. That's not really a bad thing in my book.

The girls on my street who are in middle school seem to represent this ideal in a great and refreshing way. The other day two eighth graders were running aroundthe cul de sac pretending to be at Arlington Park or something since one of them had a hobby horse in her hand and they were running laps. Or they could've been reenacting the Godfather for all I know. I think for the most part that they are being raised well and level-headed considering all the junk that is on tv and the radio these days. "These days" really meaning the last 20 years.

The episodes that Ms. Shalit mentions in her book have been going on since I was in high school in the 90s and before. I can remember weird stuff going on back then and the stuff doesn't seem to change. I just know for a fact that even if I was 13 in 2007 I would never ever want to go to a co-ed sleepover. I think my attitude towards boys would be no different today than it was 19 years ago...thinking they were gross.

I think that looking back I was very lucky to have the friends that I had in high school. I was very lucky to attend a magnet school where most of us didn't have time or the desire to be side-tracked by eighteen year-old boys. Sure there were cute boys, but I never could date any of them because in my opinion knowing someone when they're 13 and squirrely kind of makes a weird first impression no matter what they looked like at 18. Sure sex was on the menu for lots of people that I went to school with, but many of us had fathers who would threaten any sort of bad behavior with discussions involving shotgun use. The shotgun luckily never showed its face and I was much more inclined to study since everyone else was doing it. Positive peer pressure if you like... Maybe dad should have followed me to college.

All of this doesn't mean that I'm going to start having a bunch of babies and covering my hair (although those scarves the Orthodox girls wear are so rockin).

The Renegade Craft Fair was great. My M went with me and he actually bought something (magnets made from airline safety brochures). The recurring themes of items included the following:
buttons
weird stuffed animals
baby clothes
cute stationary
purses (tons of purses)

I bought none of that. I bought a groovy little necklace with an octopus on it. Not an animated octopus, but a shadow of a what a real octopus might look like had they been caught under glass. It's cute, believe me. I also bought a book about weird library patrons and a little wallet to carry business cards. I picked up a lot of business cards from folks I unfortunately can't remember exactly what they were selling and I probably won't buy a knitted critter in the shape of an elephant anytime soon. I also thought that $40 was too expensive for a sock monkey. It's a sock monkey! Not a sock gorilla!

I always feel that there is a lot of the same stuff at these things but I can't quite figure out exactly what is missing in terms of somethin I would rush headlong and pay a bunch of meny for. There was a lovely local artist selling artwork with a Southern flair. Why didn't I think of this? He had cut up a bunch of stuff that was Southern (corn, Hank Williams, pigs) and put them into collages. Very folk art without being preachy or something you see at the House of Blues gift shop. I could sooooo have done that. Charging an arm and a leg for them too and they were really nice. Here is his website. Click on the "About" button to check him and his grooviness out. I dig the hat especially. I dream of having his art one day. It seems to fit my way of thinking.

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day! My favorite holiday where you can wear an eyepatch and scowl at people with your good eye.

I am going to the Renegade Craft Fair this Sunday. Wouldn't you like to be my buddy?

I know I have mentioned our wasp issues. I think that this would be an interesting solution. I know my mother ate grasshoppers in Oaxaca and I am a known lover of escargot. But I don't think a wasp cookie would be the best thing to snack on.

M & I had a relaxing weekend in Roanoke. It wasn't full of excitement, but we had a great hike at the Cascade Falls. It was a long uphill walk, but not too rigorous and the scenery was gorgeous. People were actually swimming in the icy water and having snacks on the rocks and even though the falls got progressively crowded as the day went on, the trail was blissfully empty. We made many dog friends and even a parrot made an appearance. The hike itself is near Blacksburg VA and that's where we had a late lunch in the cute little downtown area. We had lunch at a place called Backstreets (no relation to you know what). I thought I ordered a small order of Greek spaghetti but I got a small Greek salad. I think there was a look on the servers face that said "She looks like she needs a salad" and that's what I got. M thinks that there was no such conspiracy.

The downtown area of Roanoke is lovely and cute and still has a lot of potential. We caught memories of Montevideo in the old market building that now houses a food court. I recalled Sydney's market as we wandered past vendors selling interesting jewlery, handmade soaps and exotic squash. There were several cute stores, including a printmaking shop filled with original prints and sassy stationary. There was a really great clothing shop that only had things in size small. Not even a large in sight. I was disheartened because as an employed girl I have money to spend. It was clothes I would love to wear because the clothes had interesting colors and were fashionable without being boring. Stylish I might venture. I took a business card, but only begrudgingly.

It was warm on Saturday so instead of climbing to Mill Mountain Park we drove to the top to take a look at the lovely Mill Mountain Star. The views of downtown were a bit hazy but it offered a great view and we wandered around the top of the mountain for awhile. In the evening we drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway and were almost attacked by a vulture that swooped at our rental car. We also saw some sort of groundhog/prairedog/mystery animal and several deer feeding by the side of the road.

I've finally started reading The Book Thief. I know this is going to end badly...

I hope that the rain we had yesterday knocked the tar out of the wasps that insist on living on the edge of our pool. After M's very creative attempts to thwart their habitat, they remained firmly ensconced in their little nest, doing what ever wasps do. He tried to throw the piece of the pool that we believed they were attached to, into the actual pool only to discover that they were actually attached to the side of the pool. Now that it is past Labor Day this might be a moot point, but it is still kind of warm outside so I hope to get inot the pool a few more times this season. Trees by my office are already starting to turn yellow. I keep having to remind myself that oh yeah, autumn and dreadful winter are their way.

I had a strange call at work yesterday from someone who identified themselves as "Jen Wiz Wise-o-net." I have no idea what this means or who this person was. Obviously she doesn't know who I am or she would realize that I don't return calls from Wizards. Especially ones that abbreviate it!

Usually I don't share my dreams because other people's dreams tend to bore me but I had a crazy dream the other night where I was running around NYC with my friend Sweetie from B'ham and she only had 42 minutes to catch a plane and we were running around the entire isle of Manhattan snapping pictures of her with just about every famous person that lives in the vicinity. It was rather exciting until I realized that I was in a wheelchair and therefore slowing her down a bit, although I seemed to be able to walk and pushed the chair along with my feet. We were also almost robbed by someone hiding in a cemetery behind Washington Irving's gravestone.

Favorite words of the week:
chortle
vainglory (therefore vainglorious is also a fave)

We're headed to Virginia this weekend! Roanoke, which is nowhere near the eponymous Lost Colony, is our destination. It used to be called Big Lick. That creates more interet almost...