Fortunately the weather gods have paid close attention to the calendar and noticed that it’s the first day of spring. We’ve great weather with sun and mild temperatures. So, what’s next*? The sound of me kvetching about the lawn … or the water bill, etc., etc.

Anyway. Enjoy my quiet, meditative mood while it lasts. Happy spring everyone!

*New digs for the blog. Intent was to change the header, but couldn’t resist the new theme.

I suppose it can’t be considered a poison … but really. Aren’t our kids fat enough?

It only takes a couple of clicks to find out what research is discovering about this “harmless” substance.:

“When fructose reaches the liver,” says Dr. William J. Whelan, a biochemist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, “the liver goes bananas and stops everything else to metabolize the fructose.” Eating fructose instead of glucose results in lower circulating insulin and leptin levels, and higher of ghrelin levels after the meal. Since leptin and insulin decrease appetite and ghrelin increases appetite, some researchers suspect that eating large amounts of fructose increases the likelihood of weight gain.

Excessive fructose consumption is also believed to contribute to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

I’ll stick with a good wine. Or maybe water.

So, imagine how pleased I was to discover a new (for me) author whose writing not only delighted me, but created many laugh out loud minutes along with moments of deep enlightenment. In fact, I picked up both her most recent book and a previous one that had just been made into a movie. I should have checked more carefully before purchasing:

“I wish Giovanni would kiss me.”

Compare that to:

“Late afternoon in the summer of 2006, I found myself in a small village in northern VietNam, sitting around a sooty kitchen fire with a number of local women whose language I did not speak, trying to ask them questions about marriage.”

These are the first lines, of the first chapters of Elizabeth Gilbert’s eat, pray, love and Committed.

Eat, pray, love (subtitled; One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia.) is a wonderful, warm adventure told by someone I’d like to get to know. She’s searching, yes, but never did I feel that she was lost. Life is out there to be discovered and she was determined to do just that … through food in Italy, meditation in India and maybe even during a trip to Indonesia to see the medicine man she’d met years earlier in New York. He’d made a prophecy about her visit and was the reason she found herself in Bali. And then she falls in love.

Committed (Subtitled; A skeptic makes peace with marriage.). Perhaps a better subtitle may have been …an author beats the subject of marriage to death. I don’t know about you, but I get pretty ticked off when the hype is wrong. This is not a fun book. It’s, frankly, boring. It reads like a thesis. Oh, there are a couple of interesting things here … seagulls get divorces, for example. And, one line from the author that I actually wrote down: Good marriages are like self-cleaning ovens. I’m not really sure what that means, but it sounds rather clever.

Okay … bottom line. I recommend eat, pray, love, but give Committed a pass.

The Big Burn (subtitled Teddy Roosevelt & the fires that saved America) is the story of a bygone era, when the west was still wild and unsettled. The National Forests created by Roosevelt and being protected by an undermanned Forest Service, were as sorely lacking in rangers as it was in funding. Resented and distrusted, these early protectors of the trees found themselves on their own as hostile outsiders by some and as nonentities by others.

This book also includes the back story … of the changed politics, the crooked Senators and greedy timber barons that set the tone for the inevitable catastrophe. (As an aside, I have to say that Egan’s descriptions of Teddy Roosevelt, brought me closer to this icon than Brinkley did in Wilderness Warrior.) The book truly brought out the political junkie in me.

Roosevelt felt disdain for those in the upper class who chose not to care for the working poor. He disapproved of politicians who talked of war, but sent others off to fight, even though they wouldn’t go themselves. He also supported an inheritance tax, income tax for the rich, and regulations for banks and drugs. None of this concerned the new tenant of the White House in the least, especially the natural reserves. Taft had taken office and just didn’t have the same love of the natural world as TR … in fact, he really didn’t seem to care one way or the other. The 230 million acres set aside by Roosevelt were a puzzlement to Taft and he pretty much chose to ignore providing protection and most of all financial support.

Until the fires … the fires that saved America.

The Big Burn is a chronicle of what is described as the largest fire ever to occur in the United States. It began on August 20, 1910 and lasted most of a week, burning a total of 3.2 million acres of standing timber, along with about a dozen small towns. It’s unknown how many died, estimates running between 100 and 200, with most arriving at a total of 125. This isn’t the first time I’d read about this particular fire; having discovered a small vanity published version among my parent’s books many years ago. It was a pretty amazing story back then, too.

Fire suppression existed mainly to preserve the standing timber, the government tending it as if it was a crop (which it was). Lessons learned in 1910 and as recently as last year tell us that fire is as natural as the changing seasons and in most cases a forest burns naturally every now and then.

The Big Burn tells the story of why it should.

Loved The Liar’s Club, was not impressed with Cherry. Having grown up in a household where alcohol was an issue and a serious problem, The Liar’s Club honestly portrays life as a child sees it watching adults out of control … knowing why but fearing the honesty of recognition. Cherry didn’t impress me. Hate to say it, but the book seemed as adolescent as the main characters.

Ah! But then we get to LIT. This is a wonderful book written with honesty and perception. The insights expressed there couldn’t be related by anyone except someone who’d gone through the struggle of addiction.

Wish it was out there for me to discover again.

So … Merry Christmas to all. Especially to my brother, the only remaining member of my immediate family, and my wonderful children and their spouses. And, some very special greetings to my friends. This is the time of year when we need to remember how important we all are to each other.

Merry Christmas everyone. I love you all!

Special thanks to Pat, Dave and Kendra, Kristen and Tony, Jean and Warren and Brother Dick. I love you guys!

http://namesofthedead.com/story.php?id=3056

Someone loved them and now mourn their passing.