My Californian/Frenchie Inspiration

I just finished a book! Quite an accomplishment since I think this is the first book I've finished since my daughter was born...
Amidst the diapers, move and the craziness of this past year, Julia was the perfect vehicle in order feel whisked away to a land of fine wine, food, and sights, (also known as France).

For some reason, I always felt that I should read a biography or autobiography or at least want to. Everyone around me was into Gandhi, Jackie O or George Bush. However, I couldn't find anybody I deemed interesting enough or funny enough to sit down and actually learn about - Enter Julia Child.

Prior to the Julia movie, I only knew of her through cooking shows on PBS. She would stand over her food with a hunched posture and a honking voice. I would have never known that she stood over 6' tall, played basketball in college, was fluent in French, hailed from California, traveled around the world as a government employee, deeply in love with her husband, Paul, and ultimately had fallen in love with France and its food. She was a self-made woman, which for her time, was quite a feat.

An aspect that I most admired about her was her love of life. Hosting wild dinner parties, making the best of every situation (especially since the government would plop her and her husband anywhere), and doing everything to the endth degree made her life a real story.

One of my favorite parts in this book included a time she prepared a beautiful dish for a friend and it tasted awful. She talks about choking down the meal but offering no excuses. She says, "Don't apologize for a bad meal...just move on!"



She was a confident yet humble woman who also emanated goofiness offering several onomatopoeia's in her work. And like all good stories must come to an end, her story is a beautiful dose of life's realities - its successes, difficulties, brevity, and ultimately, trying to embrace the Joie de Vivre! A truly beautiful work and a great read. I'd loan it to you but I think I'll hold on to it so I can read it again!

By the way, this was my first attempt at Julia recipe - Une Tarte aux Cerises! mmm YUM! The first of many....


And here are some pictures in France of the food that probably inspired Julia :)

au marché!

une quiche par madame magnifique

un chocolat chaud

les Bûches de Noël

Isn't that just Rand-y

I don't know how or why but I felt inspired to read Ayn Rand this past Summer. Due to the length of Atlas Shrugged, my Summer read soon turned into a Fall indulgence. And while it wasn't a gripping read, the journey did prove insightful and thought-provoking as Rand expands upon the conflicting philosophies of objectivism (ultimately, capitalism) and its adversary (socialism).

What struck me the most while reading this was my reoccurring thought of, "why hadn't I read her work before?" In school, I was required to read Thomas More's, Utopia, and Upton Sinclair's, The Jungle, - warning of big business and the need for a bigger government to organize the people. And then there was George Orwell's, 1984, and Aldous Huxley's, Brave New World, that warned people of an absolute power ruling absolutely - i.e. the government. However, it wasn't until I read Rand that I realized that she warned of an over-arching governmental power but she also provided an alternative - the thought that the power of the individual through free thought and open markets will be the solution. Isn't that the sort of place where the "American Dream" is born?

What is fascinating to note is that Rand is herself, the epitome of the American Dream. She was born in Russia in 1905 and eventually found herself extremely opposed to the collectivism of the Russian culture. In her teens she observed a couple revolutions and the ultimate victory for the Communist party. In 1925 she came to the U.S. to visit some relatives, obtained extensions on her visa and became a U.S. citizen in 1931. After living in the U.S. for a while, Rand was able to develop her philosophy of objectivism as illustrated in several of her literary works.

And now, back to Atlas Shrugged - Here are my favorite quotes:

" '...this is the kind of place where one employs nothing but aristocrats for the lousiest kinds of jobs.' 'They're all aristocrats, that's true,' said Wyatt, 'because they know that there's no such thing as a lousy job - only lousy men who don't care to do it.'" (661)

"...man is a being of volitional consciousness" (926)

"The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." (928)

"...and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay..." (933)

She speaks to the roots of American culture - hard work, power of the individual, production and freedom. These are aspects that are becoming limited day by day now. And while it looks like I'm all on board for Rand and her philosophies, I will admit that I don't like how her "morality" seems so relative, she doesn't believe in a higher calling (i.e. faith in God), and let's face it, anything in it's extreme is just too much - her philosophies have the propensity of being extremely selfish. Does that make her book any less fascinating? Heck no. For those of you that want a view into the power of the individual self-starter and to see in what environment "American Dreams" can be made, relish in this book. Although...make sure you have some time to read it.

In other news: looks like Atlas Shrugged, the movie, will be coming out sometime in 2011; I'd recommend reading it before then!

Shop Class is MY Soulcraft!

It's hard to read a book about work when I'm unemployed, but I must admit, it was well worth it - "Shop Class as Soulcraft," by Mathew Crawford, was an eye-opening read. I love books that allow me to view society in a different way, and this book was definitely one of them. Being a certified teacher, I have fallen victim to hoping my students become a doctor or a lawyer - heck, I wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer! Yet as I've gotten older, I've realized more that it doesn't matter what you call yourself, it ultimately matters what you enjoy doing. And by "do" I mean, what are you getting out of your career pursuits? Is it fulfilling? rewarding? Are the rewards measurable by more than your paycheck? Crawford expands the mind by tackling what careers bring real rewards - the answer may be surprising for any "climb-the-ladder" American.

Crawford is a fellow through the University of VA and owner of his own Motorcycle repair shop. His "must-take-everything-apart-to-know-how-it-works" mentality reminds me of some of the greatest men in my life, my grandpa and my husband. A mind like that should be put to use by several years in upper education and a career at a prestigious think-tank - that would be the best use of intellect, right? He would disagree. Crawford argues for the trade careers to make a comeback as our society continues to look down on such options. He argues that it's only when a plumber is fixing a sewage problem, an electrician is wiring a building, or a repairman is repairing a vehicle that one really practices the full range of problem-solving skills. He gains ground on this point by sharing personal motorcycle repair stories (a modern day Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance if you will...) and quoting academic theories - for example, intrinsic value (inner value) is more deeply gained when not affected by external praise but more so from visual results. If one can observe how one made an impact, then there is a greater chance that he or she will continue excelling in that field. And this brings me to Crawford's crux and best quote in the book,

"...any job that can be scaled up, depersonalized, and made to answer to forces remote from the scene of work is vulnerable to degradation, even to the point of requiring that the person who does the job actively suppress his better judgement."

Beyond the scope of personal job enjoyment, Crawford extends his argument to reach the very way in which we treat the jobs in which we find little value: with depersonalization. I'm left to consider companies that continue to outsource work, wall street's lack of accountability and how people within the government can pass laws that won't affect them. Through the great advancements of technology, we have become less connected to our work - ask anyone in HR, companies are having a hard time finding employees that can keep allegiance to their company. Yet, it isn't just the employees, companies aren't faithful to their employees as they ship their careers away. How more depersonalized can it get when we are put on a hold with a computer asking us to say "yes" or "no" into our phones? It's a dangerous path we're on as workers within the United States - whatever shall we do?

The answer is a bit simple - but people thought that careers in the trades were simple - support trade educational programs within our schools. If one really wants the next generation to have any opportunity in the world, that doesn't mean that we funnel them into college and years worth of educational debt - instead, let's allow more students to experience welding, fixing, repairing, and creating instead of dreaming about an "intellectual career" that may prove to not be as intellectual as one thought. Hats off to Crawford for truly emphasizing what "opportunities" can really mean.

Book Review: "The Way the Crow Flies" by Ann-Marie MacDonald

I seldom read novels, but when this 800 page read was given to me by my book-junkie-mother-in-law with the phrase, "this reminds me of you," I couldn't resist. I began....and then I began again....it's hard to get pumped about a massive book sometimes. It all begins with a young Canadian Air Force Family relocating to Centralia, Canada from a base in Germany. Jack McCarthy is a high ranking military person, (will I ever remember the ranks!?), and Mimi is an Air Force wife and mother of Mike and Madeline. The car is loaded and the family is scurrying along the Canadian countryside in order to arrive at their new duty station. Mike and Madeline hit and tease each other, Mimi yells in French from the front, and Jack offers to pull over and get some ice cream. The set-up is quite surreal but anything seems surreal when it's set back in the 1950's and 60's. The family discusses the Wall, the space race, the possibilities of nuclear disaster, and ultimately, what their neighbor country, the United States, will do about all of it.

They arrive and within a few short days, the moving truck arrives, Mike and Madeline meet the neighbors, and the McCarthy's are hosting parties. Their seasoned military neighbors cause them to drink, sing, dance, and speak German, French and English on a regular basis. I was quite allured by the strength of Mimi, the worldview at that time, and the similar military lifestyle this family was having compared to mine. (minus the country, rank, our lack of kids, and their lack of dogs). It was only a little more than a month ago that we moved from Enid, OK to Kingsville, TX and 6 months before that, we were coming from Overland Park, KS - and while I didn't get a "home" set up in a couple days, I did set one up over the course of a week. My time is improving with experience!

Then, Madeline goes to school and has to stay after with the teacher, Mr. March. To make an 800 page story relatively shorter, Madeline is sexually abused, a classmate of her turns up dead, Jack gets wrapped up in some top-secret defector mission that causes him to lie to his family, Mimi thinks he's having an affair, a neighbor of the McCarthy's is wrongly accused of the murder, and Mike joins the USMC and becomes MIA in the Vietnam war. The book holds the reader captive by the mere fact that you feel as though your witnessing a train derailment - by some supernatural force, I couldn't stop reading. The truth isn't exposed until 20 some years later when Madeline trudges through her inner psyche. It wasn't a fairy tale ending by no means, but it was an entertaining read. And yet, I am left wondering, I hope my mother-in-law was reminded of me just because of the military affiliation verses the "train derailment" aspects.

Lastly, a recurring theme that I savored throughout the read was the uniting hope in winning the space race during this time period. Forget NCAA bracketology or World Cup games, the world was really watching and waiting to see whether the boundaries of humanity could be pushed all the way to landing on the moon. As I relished and imagined what this excitement meant to people 50 some years ago, I was met with the current news that President Obama is cutting funds to NASA - our space program is now dependent on the Russians, or whomever would like to give us a ride to the space station. People that are still alive from the space race period must be having a heart attack today! We've gone from a democratic pride and uniting hope in testing the limits in 1969 to extinguishing a portion of a program that breed households of kids hoping to grow up to be astronauts and explorers. What do kids want to be today? What kinds of dreams are we pushing them to achieve? To be a consultant? An employee of a monster think-tank where at the end of the day, they have nothing to show for their work except a check and a headache from staring at a computer screen? To read more about the new space goals...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7099244.ece

The next book I'm going to delve into is "Shop Class as Soulcraft" by Matthew B. Crawford - his research is geared towards understanding why our inner desires to produce something is in disharmony with the majority of our careers today. This may be the reason why people can be so dissatisfied with their jobs - what do they have to show for it? I have a couple more pages to go in that one before I can give you my complete review. After all, our military relocation hasn't proved too fruitful for my job opportunities - as for now, I will continue reading with a vengeance!