Busy Bees

Soooo... I have extra kids over the summer. Some weeks more than most.

This week has been particularly busy with six kids each day and apparently I'm aiming to lose my mind, outdo myself, misbehave, launch myself into the middle of next week before I know what hits me, earn the right to wear my long weekend drunkypants...

In the last four days we have:

- baked four loaves of quick bread (one plain zucchini, one zucchini and raisin, one zucchini and chocolate chip, one raspberry banana chocolate chip), and a dozen muffins (zucchini chocolate chip)
- gone to the park four times
- gone to the pool once (it's been hovering between 17c/62F—25c/77F all week or we'd've been there more)
- painted pet rocks
- made Rice Krispie squares
- gone to the local independent movie theatre (for the $2 per person 10am matinee of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2)
- eaten two and a half watermelons
- visited the local secondhand bookstore for new reads
- attempted to fly kites (Monday was windy, but apparently not windy enough.)
- cut two boys' hair
- performed science experiments à la Bill Nye [♥]
- cleaned three bathrooms (one of my kidlets was caught not flushing so the punishment was to scrub all the toilets in the house—in the interest of supervision I cleaned the remainder of said bathrooms while he scrubbed away)
- washed and hung seven eight loads of laundry on the line, folded and put them away (with kidlet help)
- gone foraging for food grocery shopping (blessedly alone)
- and (la pièce de résistance) tie dyed shirts

It's all worth it.

The days are gone before I know it, but the kids're busy and content.

And the shirts are marvelous.

Happy summer!

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green - Book Review

Rating: 3.5/5 - Great if you’re in the mood for it, only okay if you’re not.

Title: The Fault in our Stars

Author: John Green

Format: ebook

Published: 2012

Genre: Young Adult

Publisher:  Dutton Books

Landed in my hands: purchased myself


Summary (from Amazon.ca):

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

Review:

Here’s the thing: I found this book to be highly predictable. I reached the 75% mark on Kindle and I knew exactly what was going to happen next. Actually, I predicted how the ending went down. About the only thing I didn’t predict was some of the snappy dialogue.

Why do I think it was predictable? I figure it was because I’ve lived it. (Figuratively, of course.) Having a loved one struggle with cancer allows to you realize that everyone battling cancer has a story of tragedy, one that involves a struggle for meaning in a meaningless world.

Yes, there is that much desperation and sadness walking around you. Yes, there are that many people contemplating the meaning of life, death, and whether a handful more days is worth the torture of having more poison injected into them.

That's the reality of cancer.

And I’ll grant that that’s the strength of this book—bringing identifiability to cancer victims. If readers discover themselves empathizing more with those with the illness, seeing a bit of Hazel or Gus in someone else’s disease-ravaged frame, that might be a good thing. I’m all for the general public learning compassion, and if The Fault In Our Stars brings a bit of humanity to the story of others who could use some compassion, well, good job and rock on, Mr Green.

I was pleased to see he dabbles into the semi-taboo realm of morbid humour that often accompanies terminal illness. It's a quirk that many adopt when dealing with mortality, one that can be off-putting to outsiders. It's well portrayed in the novel, especially a passage late in the narrative, when the teens’ sarcasm bounces back and forth, peppy and realistic, illustrating well the gallows humour that accompanies the situation. As subscriber to gallows humour, I loved it.

But again, though I’ve heard people rave about this book, I found it felt contrived. For example (without getting too spoilery), the dichotomy of Augustus' name—how Hazel splits him into larger than life Augustus and regular, touchable Gus—it was great until the split was forced into the reader's view by another character mentioning it. Then it became clunky. I've always preferred subtlety and trusting your reader is intelligent enough to piece together what you hand them.

Granted, this is a young adult novel, but I don't believe that is an excuse.

Though I’ll give Green props: he’s only included details that are pertinent to the story—nothing appeared random or superfluous to distract from the narrative—and it tied up into a tidy little package with nothing left dangling. Though perhaps that’s where the predictability comes into play. I’m still not entirely sure if it’s because I’ve seen someone battle cancer up close and have realized that these questions of morbid depth are ones that are asked when swimming in terminal waters, or if the story itself was predictable on its own.

Overall, this novel is highly readable, but that snarly predictability is the source of my rating: great if you’re in the mood for it, only okay if you’re not.

African Dwarf Freaks

It occurs to me that it's been a while since I've mentioned our aquarium.

Believe it or not, it's still here, and we're still swimming. Some of them are even original residents (though not all, as we had a hands on lesson in letting an eight year old overfeed a tank and subsequent nitrate wipe out. It's okay though, lesson learned. Just keep swimming—right?).

So. After our levels were balanced again, I took a whack of kidlets (whack = four) to the fish store, and we stupidly came home with—ready for this?

African. Dwarf. Frogs.

Three of them. Why? Oh, because the fish store says they do better in groups.

(Better in groups my arse—UPSALE! There I am, four kids in tow with sucker tattooed on my forehead.)

Yeah, I hardly believe it myself, because these buggers? Barf. They're not exactly high on the aesthetically pleasing scale for pets.

Not only that, but they're kind of stupid. They just sit there.

See him? Yep. There he is... the creeper in the tube. That's his favourite spot.

No, really. He just stares.

Creeper. You can't make this up.

Weird, right? And sometimes he pokes out a bit. But not much.

Occasionally he'll do it a bit more than others. But usually only enough to make you wonder, "WTF is he doing?!"

Of course the answer is probably smelling your soul or eating your dreams something equally unnerving. Weirdo.

And you'll think, "hm. Maybe he's coming out of there..." Nope. No, he's actually going to rest there for the next five minutes, lazily creeping out of the tube, until he eventually realizes he needs air and zips straight up to the surface—

Nah, just kidding. That looks like an action shot, right? Haha—nope! That bastard's decided to dangle himself out of that goddamn tube. Because patience is a freaking virtue or some other after school special lesson he's supposed to be teaching me the kids.

Maybe it's frog anatomy. (Possibly.)

It's not that they're slow (though cognitively it's possible... they can't seem to find their food even when I distract the guppies and tetras and it's right in front of them. Buncha tools).

No, they flit to the surface faster than I've seen any of our fish swim, and then pull a record breaking U-turn and crash nose first into the gravel bottom.

I've come to the conclusion they are not the brightest pet.

Though perhaps one of the creepiest...

"How YOU doin'?"