Jenyfer Matthews

The children’s school held a carnival at a local, family-owned, old fashioned amusement park called Stricker’s Grove this past Friday. Generally speaking, I am not a huge fan of amusement park rides (or crowds or lines) so I haven’t gone out of my way to take the children to amusement parks. After I looked at this one on the website, I decided to make an exception: the ticket prices were very reasonable and included food and unlimited rides. Also, the park itself was small scale. The children only *think* they like amusement park rides – I figured this would let them try them out in a fairly controlled way.

(Note: there are amusement parks in Cairo but I have avoided them for a number of reasons, one of which is my lack of faith in the maintenance of the rides!)

I admit that there was an element of nostalgia involved in my decision to buy the tickets as well. I can remember my own elementary school having carnival nights at a small amusement park called Pontchartrain Beach in New Orleans and how much I always enjoyed them. I was pleased that my own children could have such an experience as well.

The park was as cute as I imagined it would be with only one main walkway off of which all the rides were located. I remember Pontchartrain Beach as being bigger, but then again I was much smaller myself! The children did not notice or complain about the size of the park at all – they were completely focused on the rides!

The first ride we all went on was the Ferris wheel. The operator did not make a great first impression. First he forgot to clamp the bar down on the first riders, and then when we yelled to alert him, he nearly ripped off his own arm when he threw the wheel in reverse suddenly while simultaneously reaching toward the car. Yikes! Some people actually got out of line when he did that. Not us though- we are thrill seekers I tell you!

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The ride went smoothly after the rocky start – everyone exited with all their limbs and I never heard any blood curdling screams from there that evening so I assume the operator got his act together!

There was a nice assortment of rides as well – something for all ages and tolerance levels. My children, of course, were most interested in the fastest, highest, and most thrilling rides of course. There were two wooden roller coasters. We started with the smaller one first, named the Teddy Bear.

The Teddy Bear was a beginner roller coaster, but it was more than enough for me. It did one trip around its track – no loops at all – and it was done. So was I. What can I say – I am a total wimp.

This sort of thing is much more my speed:

My son was not content to restrict himself to the Teddy Bear however, he wanted to go on the Tornado. I was there with my friend and her two teenagers so I could have just skipped the Tornado myself, but n-o-o-o-o-o. My son started trash talking about how his mommy was scared of the roller coaster and I could not let that pass. I also told myself that it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that was crucial for me to experience so I could use it sometime in my writing.

My son and my friend’s son got in the very first car. My friend and her daughter got in a car behind them. All the other seats filled up quickly so I ended up sitting with a little boy in the last car. I told the boy and his two friends ahead of me not to be alarmed if I screamed. They told me it was okay – girls do that sometimes! They then gave me details on what to expect and also admitted they might scream too. Chatting with them was the best part of the ride!

Did I mention I wasn’t a roller coaster person? I regretted getting on the ride almost as soon as we started out. We had seat belts and safety bars and I still came several inches up off the seat when we rushed over the highest curve. I did not get a thrill out of the ride – I was petrified! I am not sure why exactly it bothered me so much. It doesn’t bother me at all to go down a mountain luge track on a plastic sled at high speeds but I hated the roller coaster. If I am going to be going so fast, I guess I want to have more control over the vehicle I’m in!

After the roller coaster, my son ran off with my daughter and her friend and I stuck to more sedate rides for a while, like the swings and the carousel.

Is this not the most tormented looking horse you have ever seen?

After the riding the roller coaster, this is pretty much what I saw of my children for the rest of the night:

My friend and I were remembering carnivals from our youths and the rides we used to like. It was nostalgia that deluded us into thinking that we would enjoy a spin on the Electric Rainbow ourselves.

I think if it had stayed at this angle we would have been fine. However, this is just the beginning.

I took the above picture from the swings and I watched it tilt nearly perpendicular to the ground while we were waiting in line so I really ought to have known better. I am truly surprised that it wasn’t covered in vomit. (There were, however, splats all over the sidewalk outside of the ride). My friend and I got on the ride and my children scampered on right after us. They were thrilled to see us on the ride that they had been enjoying so much all evening.

I had a fond memory of this ride and should have left it at that. I did not hate the ride this time, I endured it. I survived it. I celebrated when it stopped. While my children ran shrieking with joy off to the next ride, my friend and I found a nearby bench and tried to shake off the spins. She never did recover – she ended up being sick and leaving early. It’s hell getting old.

There was less than an hour left to the carnival when my friend departed so I decided to just let the children continue riding while I strolled and took pictures. Then the children found me and tried to get me to ride the big roller coaster with them again. I was *almost* foolish enough to go along with them but then I thought about it: if I didn’t like the roller coaster in broad daylight, I knew I would truly hate it in the dark. I suggested that we try the Tilt-a-Whirl instead.

The children agreed, though they did say they thought it was a boring ride because their car didn’t spin much the one time they had tried it. It certainly spins a lot with Mom in the car. It was kind of fun at first – at least until it wasn’t. I should have known it wasn’t a good idea when a child stopped outside the fence for the ride and vomited just after he’d exited. We spun and we spun and we spun some more. By the time we finally stopped, I was more than ready to get off. My son exited in a hurry as well – and ran straight for the bathroom.

He was never actually sick (probably because he had been too busy with the rides to eat anything) but that was the end of the fun for him. And of course suddenly it was all my fault that he’d been riding the big, fast rides all night. He’d wanted to go on the carousel and the train but he couldn’t find me anywhere. I’m guessing that the lesson he should have taken from this – stop while you are ahead – will be entirely missed.

Both children have already asked to go to King’s Island. They might end up going sometime but it won’t be with me!

It has been a while since I’ve talked about what I’ve been reading – time to catch up!

It wasn’t always easy to find recent releases when I was in Cairo. Mostly I relied on the used book store, friends, or found books – several of my neighbors used to just leave piles of books in the stairwell when they were finished with them. It may sound a bit odd but I’ve read some wonderful books I might otherwise have passed over simply because I picked them up on the stairs on my way home!

I like history but it never really occurs to me to read a non-fiction book on a history topic. Give me a historical novel however and I gobble it up. Obviously, the accuracy of the historical research in a novel is going to vary by author but since I’m reading a novel instead of an encyclopedia, I can live with an impressionistic presentation wrapped inside a story. If the story or characters are intriguing enough and I feel like I want to know more, I might even do some research of my own.

A friend gave me a copy of Gone With the Wind a couple of summers ago and once I got into it, I really enjoyed it. It started off a bit slow, but in hindsight I realize that was only because Margaret Mitchell was painting a picture of what the South was like before the changes the civil war brought with it. Scarlett O’Hara wasn’t a very nice or sympathetic character but she was compelling and you have to give her credit for being a survivor. I think what I liked best about the story was that it wasn’t about the various battles that took place, but instead focused on what it was like back home, just trying to get by.

This fall I found the Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus in the stairwell. Another really long book – the paperback edition I adopted was nearly 1000 pages long. I admit hesitated to start it – reading a book like that is a commitment, especially since I generally limit my reading time to just before bed. It sat on my nightstand for a while before I took the plunge – and then was immediately sucked in. The story is told from the perspective of an old woman living in a nursing home in first person and from the very beginning I loved Lucy’s down-home voice. She was telling her own story, but in the process also had to tell the story of her husband, his mother, their family maid (and former slave), and various other people around their small town. Lucy was 15 when she married her husband, a Civil War veteran, who was already in his 50s and the time period the story covers is post civil war until about the 1950s. (At least I think that is right – I gave the book to a friend who expressed interest just after I finished it!) It is a fascinating presentation of post-war society and race relations. Is it entirely accurate? Probably not, but it seemed reasonable and plausible to me. Every fact is tainted by someone’s perception and interpretation in the process of relaying it after all (with the possible exception of math!)

My sister gave me a copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett for Christmas. When I say that I didn’t have much access to new books in Cairo, maybe you’ll believe me when I admit I had never even heard of this tremendously successful bestseller. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading it and that was probably for the best because I am often disappointed by books / movies which get too much hype. I started this book blind and I loved it. Set during the beginning of the Civil Rights Era in Jackson, Mississippi and told from the perspective of three different women, one white college educated young woman and two African American maids, it was a not only compelling enough that I carried the hardback edition back and forth to the children’s tennis lessons but it was also a wonderful follow-up to the Last Living Confederate Widow Tells All, picking up in time where that book left off. I loved hearing the stories from each of the three different main characters and also that it focused on such a small but personal aspect of race relations at the time: the black maids and the white women they worked for.

These books were written by different authors, many years apart, but they go together well. If you have some time and are looking for some thought provoking reading, I recommend all three of these novels either individually or read in sequence. Depending on how quickly you read, if you start now you might just have your summer reading list all taken care of!

I am coming to you live from a new laptop. There are no smilies accompanying this announcement because it was an unplanned, unbudgeted event.

My old laptop survived the trip from Cairo to Istanbul in my checked baggage when we left Egypt, and while getting older and slower, was managing to get along just fine (a bit like myself really). I liked it fine, knew my way around it, and was willing to make allowances for what it could and could not do. So why did I end up replacing it? Because my copy of Windows needed to be replaced and spending $$$ to buy a new copy of Windows for an old computer did not make sense for a computer that might only last another year or so.

And when I say it needed to be replaced, I mean that Windows started trying to hold my stored data hostage. Nice.

Between all the doctor visits, my new glasses, and now this new computer I feel a bit sick at all the money that is so rapidly flowing out of our pockets these days. That doesn’t even take into account all my various thrift store finds recently – or the money a Spanish pick-pocket relieved my husband of on a train in Barcelona last month. Guess what I told my children when they asked me for new video games at the electronics store yesterday?

I still have a lot to be grateful for – at least I *could* afford to pay for all of these various expenses as they came up. It’s a good thing my children like pasta though because I see a lot of that in our immediate future.

I am pleased to say that I finally made my way through the proofing of ONE CRAZY SUMMER and all of the digital editions have been updated. Now all that remains to be done is to format the file for print. So far I am on track to have that completed by the end of the month, fingers crossed…

It’s been another run-around-town morning. I dropped the kids at school, went for another appointment with the dermatologist (this time she cut a suspicious mole off my leg), and then to drop off the donations for the tornado victims. Now I have to tend to my son’s new pet.

The children have been asking for a pet for a long time and I have been resisting. I had two cats before I had children and I loved them dearly. The problem was that the cats did not love the children. By the time we were preparing to move to Egypt the situation had gotten so bad that I had to keep one of cats secluded in my bedroom and run a happy-cat phermone plug-in just to keep her from marking all of my things (guess who she blamed for bringing the children into the house??) I was at my wits end with what to do with the cats. They were clearly not happy with us and they were aging to boot – and Egypt does not have very good veterinary care for house pets. I was extremely lucky that at just about the same time a friend from North Carolina wrote me an email and told me her cats had just died and she wanted to adopt two older cats. Is that good timing or what? We went back and forth a few more times to iron out details and then I shipped her two aging cats. It was harder than I would have thought to let them go, but it was for the best. That was nearly six years ago and the cats have been restored to their former spoiled status and are living out their golden years in style. I still get status reports from time to time.

So no more cats. I’ve also vetoed dogs. Not only don’t I want to be stuck with the responsibility of walking a dog several times a day while the children are in school, but can you imagine having a dog with what has been my lifestyle for the last decade? How could I leave a dog for nearly two months every summer? I would go broke with kennel fees and the dog would go nuts. I have friends who bring their dogs with them when they travel but I have enough to keep track of with two children and six suitcases thank-you-very-much.

I have also nixed birds, rodents, and fish. I don’t think that birds belong in cages and there is the same problem with the vacation schedule. Also, who do you think would ultimately be stuck cleaning out the cage / tank? No thanks. I have many better things to do with my time!

Last weekend, my son found a pet that I could find no immediate objection to: a Venus Flytrap. It’s inexpensive, quiet, does not require walking, and eats bugs. What’s not to like? We’ll see how it goes. If there is one pitfall it is the frequency with which my son wants to feed it. If Venus Flytraps can become obese, ours will. It’s a good thing the new pot I found for it it is roomy…

It’s been gray and cold and drizzly almost the entire time I’ve been in Ohio, but I think that spring has *finally* arrived for real because I’ve been struck with an undeniable urge to clean and organize.

I’m hardly a neat freak, but once the level of clutter gets to a certain point I have to clear it up or I can’t think. My bedroom was awash in piles of clothes – items that the children have (already) outgrown, donations for me and the children that didn’t work out for one reason or another, and winter clothes. Today I sorted through everything and made piles for the consignment store and for donation.

The winter clothes will be donated locally and the rest will be donated to a local church that is collecting things to be taken to the tornado victims in the South. I was incredibly fortunate to have a huge outpouring of support for myself and my children when we arrived in Ohio with what little we brought with us when we evacuated Egypt so I’m really happy to be paying it forward by contributing clothes and toiletries to others in need now.

I am also still working on getting all of my books proofed and formatted for paperback. HERE TO STAY is now available in print on Amazon and I’m hoping to have ONE CRAZY SUMMER proofed by the end of the month. I’d like to say it will be formatted but let’s just keep that as a goal instead of a promise!

One thing I have always loved to do is to haunt thrift stores. It is amazing to me what great stuff people give away. I think it is amazing to my family and friends how much pleasure I get from finding something I love in a thrift store. I was nearly giddy last week after getting my daughter two pairs of name-brand jeans for $.37/each.

Given the fact that I still don’t have a very clear idea of where I’ll be living in the near future, I had been trying to restrain myself – to only purchase necessary and useful items of clothing. Then I went to visit a long-time friend who lives in northern Ohio over spring break. She has a collection of colorful vintage water goblets that she used on the table for Easter dinner. It was so pretty and I liked them so much that I decided I’d like to get a few myself. She took me to a local antique mall and here’s what we got:

It looks like a modest start, but I will admit that there are multiples of a couple of these. All in all I ended up with nine.

This second collection is the result of an all day shopping trip I took with the friend that I’ve been staying with – in her 100+ year old house. (See – I never really stood a chance!) It’s funny how now that I’m looking for them, I see these goblets everywhere. Just between you and me, this isn’t even all of them. How could I resist the lone olive green goblet I saw sitting on the shelf at Goodwill for $.50? Or the set of amber goblets I found, with a matching relish tray, at the thrift store for a grand total of $5? The prettier colors are harder to find and cost more of course. My mission now is to try and find a few more in colors I don’t have (dark blue and another purple).

I can only imagine how my grandmother would laugh to see me collecting all the old dishes that she no doubt gladly got rid of.

I went to visit my friend in northern Ohio again this weekend and I could not resist going back to the antique mall, just to look. This time however I was drawn to dishtowels and tablecloths. It’s not a surprise particularly – as a quilter I really am a textile person. And since I have been hand-washing my dishes for the last six years, I deserve some pretty towels to amuse me.

Aren’t these great? Some of them seem to be totally unused – too pretty? Who doesn’t need a dish towel with measures and equivalents printed on it?

This linen apron was obviously well used and yet it is still in fairly good condition. They really don’t make things the way they used to.

I loved this towel the minute I saw it – so wonderfully kitsch. It even has a pocket for a dowel at one end so it can be displayed! Again, it looks unused.

Oh yes, it was a very good year

I won’t bore you with pictures of the tablecloths but they are every bit as much fun. Looking at these items made me start thinking about the evolution of how people dressed a table. My own mother used printed terry cloth tablecloths for a while before she moved to placemats. I suppose people stopped using nice tablecloths when women started working more and didn’t have time for ironing. Dishtowels went out with dishwashers. Kind of a shame really.

I may or may not be able to use the glassware and the linens for their intended purpose in the near future, but if nothing else I can wrap the goblets in the linens for storage and / or transport. See – there is a method to my madness.

And in case you were wondering, Mother’s Day was very satisfying as well. I got flowers, presents, plants, and cards plus a waffle breakfast.

I met my April goal of getting my book HERE TO STAY proofed and formatted for print (it will be available on Amazon any day now, I swear!) and now I have a new goal for May: to do the same for ONE CRAZY SUMMER. Getting the next two books into print format is especially exciting for me because they have never been available in paperback before. I love the ease and flexibility of digital books, but there really is something special about holding your own book in your hand.

What is frustrating is how many typos and errors I continue to find. These books were all first published by a small press – how many different people read them in that process? How can there still be problems? I’d love to blame all the typos on the fact that I needed glasses all this time, but I guess we would all have had to be blind for that to be the case. It’s probably the reverse – reading these books over and over and over again to find the errors is probably what did my eyes in!

This time I’m sneaking up on the typos: I’m reading the book backwards, last chapter first and so on. Keeps me on my toes and I can catch the typos unaware. So far so good. It’s only the 5th – I should reach my goal by the end of the month no problem. (Famous last words!)

Kind of fitting that I spend most of Cinco de Mayo reading a book set in Mexico – however we ate Chinese food for dinner. Go figure.

In other news, Mother’s Day is this weekend. My son apparently has big plans for me. I know this because the little man is very excited and also very bad at keeping secrets. He is desperate to tell me his plans now and I keep shushing him. What a sweetie. I wonder if his gift will live up to all his hype? Undoubtedly

It’s International Star Wars Day – get it? May the 4th? First I’ve heard of it, but I thought it was cute. In the wise words of Yoda: “Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.” I feel like I’ve been working on that all of this year… with mixed results.

This year has gone nothing like I hoped or expected it to. I tried to start it right, by throwing myself a birthday party for a milestone age that I wasn’t particularly thrilled about reaching, but it has pretty much been downhill since then.

Since I’m hanging out in the US right now, I decided to use this time to do all the necessary doctor appointments, one of which was for an eye exam. I’ve never worn glasses, but in the last couple of years I’ve noticed my left eye is definitely weaker than my right. Not only that, but it waters constantly. I thought at first it was allergies but then realized it was more likely eye strain. Duh. I have reading glasses for computer use, but had never gotten in the habit of using them since I can actually see.

The eye doctor did a thorough exam and gave me the verdict: not only glasses, but bifocals. First I have my face peeled off and now this. I think I’d have rather he diagnosed a cataract – at least they could remove that!

I’d more easily accept this if I couldn’t actually see pretty well anyway. I can even read tiny print without (too much) difficulty. My weepy left eye tells another story though so I guess I’ll have to suck it up, like all the rest. At least I don’t have to wear them all the time.

Homeless, precancerous skin damage, bifocals. I love the sunroof in my “new” car, but it does highlight all the white hairs colonizing the top of my head. I’m planning to go to the dentist soon. What’s next, dentures??

May the 4th be with you… because the year is still young…

I made it – I got HERE TO STAY formatted for print by the end of the month, just like I resolved to do. It is beautiful, if I do say so myself. Is it perfect? Probably not – at least not by my standards – but for now I’m going to run with it.

To celebrate this momentous achievement, leave a comment from now til Sunday and you’ll be eligible to win a signed proof copy of HERE TO STAY, winner to be announced on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Our one full day in Chicago, Friday, was a gray, foggy, drippy mess. It didn’t *really* matter because we were planning on going to the Shedd Aquarium anyway. I didn’t get any pictures worth sharing in the aquarium – if you want to know what it is like, you’ll just have to go for yourself. It is totally worth the trip. We spent about three hours wandering around and still didn’t see everything. The only thing I wasn’t so impressed with was the 4D Movie. We saw Planet Earth. First of all, it wasn’t originally produced in 3D so the effects they managed to add-in were unimpressive and blowing some air on our necks, bumping our seats once, and piping in some bubbles did not WOW me into thinking I was in the Arctic. The Jellies exhibit, however, was great and the aquatic show was fun – not to mention all the regular exhibits. Overall, I highly recommend the aquarium.

Saturday morning was somewhat better weather so we took a walk down to Millennium Park to see The Bean – a Chicago landmark. How can you go to Chicago and not get a picture with The Bean? (Unless of course you happen to be in the midst of a nasty dermatological peel and flee from all cameras).

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We started at my friends’ condo near the Museum Campus. Just across the street from their place is a park with these walking leg sculptures.

I think they are made of iron. Kind of strange, huh? They remind me of something out of a Roald Dahl story.

The next big scenic item we saw was Buckingham Fountain. It’s lovely, isn’t it?

I believe these are cherry blossoms, but don’t quote me on that.

Then finally we came to The Bean. Isn’t it amazing?

Even the under side was fantastic.

I can only be grateful that we got to see it on such a lovely clear day.

As you might imagine, I have several pictures of the children pretending to lift the bean. I could have taken pictures for hours with the optical illusions it created.

After walking nearly all the way back to the condo, we stopped for breakfast at Yolk, then my friends went shopping and the children and I did a whirlwind tour of The Field Museum. We didn’t see everything, but we did see dinosaur bones – a must see for any little boy in your company.

And that was the end of our time in Chicago. It might have been better if the weather had been nicer, but I have absolutely nothing to complain about. You get what you get when you visit in April!

Perhaps next time…