Because last night my gear shift broke apart.  No, broke is not the right word.  More like my gear shift catapulted apart.  A catapulter leaves the ground to fly through the air.  The handle sprung off the gear shift and flew through the air, scattering the button and the screw along the way.

Of course I was in the parking lot at Mangia Pizza with Andrea in the car reversing out of a spot when this happened.

Left to right: button, gear shift, handle. Background: Hairspray.

So there I am, stuck in reverse with my gearshift in pieces, and Andrea laughing so hard she’s almost crying.  I can’t blame her — the way my gear shift simply scattered itself was downright comical.

In between bouts of laughter, I located the screw that had popped over to my door and figured out how the pieces all fit back together.  I stuck the screw in the hole where it goes (no jokes, please), and of course the screw is too short for me to use my fingers, my nails aren’t long enough to use as a screwdriver, and I don’t have a screwdriver with me.

At this point, my adrenaline-fuled mind is thinking, “Must move car.  What do I have that might fit where the screw fits?”

The instrument I lit upon to fix my car was… drumroll, please…

A pair of tweezers.  I simply stuck the prongs of a pair of tweezers into the hole.  The prongs provided enough tension to prevent the tweezers from falling out.  It worked like.  A.  Charm.

That’s right, folks; this lady used her lady wiles and lady tools to MacGyver herself and her trusty companion out of harm’s way.  I fixed my car in the absolute least masculine way possible, and of that fact I am very proud.

See the shiny metal thing sticking out horizontally from the gearshift? Tweezers.

Andrea said I needed to send this to There, I Fixed It.  I suppose I shall.

Blair and Schex flew in from Albuquerque to surprise Blair’s mom, so I got to see them too!  I drove out to Plano at 10:30 at night after Chris and Greg left and we caught up for a few hours.  Yayness!

I fully expect to blog much more now that I have received a wonderful shiny camera for Christmas.  YAY!  I have been severely missing having a camera since my last one broke.  I have a shiny Sony SteadyShot DSC-S2100.  I really like it.  I spent an entire evening just fiddling with the settings and learning about my camera.  Here is the first good picture I took with it:

Of course the first thing I took a picture of is my dog. Gotta document the cute, right?

Another amazing Christmas gift I received is a welded Deathly Hallows symbol.  My dad welded it with creative input from my sister. In case you don’t know, the Deathly Hallows are from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and have their origin in an old wizarding take called “The Tale of the Three Brothers.”  Read about it; it’s a pretty neat tale even if you don’t know or don’t care about Harry Potter.  The vertical line represents the Elder Wand, the triangle represents the Cloak of Invisibility, and the circle represents the Resurrection Stone.  Together, the three objects make the Deathly Hallows, and the person who possesses all three objects is the master of Death.  Dorky aside, but I hope it helps you appreciate the awesomeness.

The Deathly Hallows symbol

I’m trying to figure out how to display it.  My sister suggested a clear acrylic frame, but those look kind of tacky.  She also suggested a shadowbox.  That might look cool.  Maybe I’ll just take the thing to Hobby Lobby and see what works.

Andrew gave me an amazing gift.  The CD player in my car broke several months ago, so I was stuck with the radio.  Since the car is where I listen to most of my music, this was a major bummer.  I mentioned it in passing a few times, and then, surprise! Andrew bought me a replacement.  Except the one he bought me ALSO has an iPod input!  This is AMAZING because now I can listen to CDs AND I can go nuts on podcasts, which I have been doing.  This awesome gift will truly keep on giving.

Not to mention that my awesome mom and sister took me shopping to buy teaching clothes, so I got a whole new wardrobe of gorgeous, teacher-appropriate shirts, cardigans, and pants.  So.  Good.

I seriously don’t know how this Christmas was the anomalous Christmas of epically awesome gifts and way more parties than I’ve ever been to on a Christmas break, but it was.  Clinksies to that!

I’m in Flower Mound right now for Thanksgiving.  I drove up Wednesday, leaving Austin at 1.  BIG mistake.  I should have left at 8 a.m. like I’d originally planned on doing, but I slept instead.  I think I needed it, though, so that’s okay.  Yesterday Mom, Dad, and I went to Uncle Paul’s for Thanksgiving and had a great dinner with about 10 people.

Thanksgiving always gets me thinking about what I’m thankful for.  That is the point, after all.  But the things I’m most thankful for, friends and family, are too personal to put on the Internet, and other things I am continually grateful for, like my education, don’t really change from year to year, so I’m going to pick a few specific things that are new since Thanksgiving last year.

Getting my life figured out. For most of the three years between graduating from college and now, figuring out what to do with my life was a deeply upsetting struggle. Finally this summer, after evaluating what I wanted in life and where my talents lie, I decided to get my teaching certification and become a high school English teacher.  I knew this was the right step when instead of feeling like it was a chore to get my applications done, like it had always felt when I applied for other jobs, I was excited and motivated to get my application materials completed and turned in.  And as soon as I made that decision, a weight lifted from my shoulders, I felt happier and more secure of my place in the world, and other parts of my life started falling into place.  It was pretty miraculous.

New friends. Although Blair and Schex and Brandan and Ian have all married (yay) and moved away and potluck has now disbanded (saddest of sad faces), out of the blue the gaping friend hole they left was filled when their friend from high school, Nathan, moved to Austin, quickly became a close friend of mine, and introduced me to other new and wonderful people, like Andrew and Steve.  Additionally, all three of them are teachers, and can give me invaluable advice for my next life step.  I have learned through this experience that change, though hard and often sad, can yield new and positive life events.  Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.  (Although I never really figured out if new friends were silver and old friends were gold, or if new friends were gold and old friends were silver.  Maybe I just don’t like assigning comparative monetary value to my friends.)  Also on this list are Annette (I think we met around Christmas last year, right?) and Vanessa, who’s been a friend for about a month.  Yay friends!

Henry, a.k.a. Flop Dog, a.k.a. Bear Rug Dog Mop, a.k.a. Henri. I am so thankful for this little doggie that it blows my mind every day.  He was the best $90 (plus considerable medical expenses) that I ever spent.  He’s a bright spot in my life every single day.  I was born to be a dog owner, and I love that I got to rescue this little guy and be his doggie mommy.  Although I got him a year and a half ago, only in the last year has he really figured out that he has a secure home and loving owner.  He now approaches people to get petted, he isn’t scared of guys anymore, and he’s all-around friendlier, comfier, and happier than he was a year ago.  He’s a wonderful little companion.

There you have it, folks.  Three things that have changed in the last year that I am grateful for.  As for the people I am continually grateful for, you know who you are.  I love you all.  I hope that goes without saying.

I feel like a huge cheeseball right now.

Nathan’s jambalaya is, to put it mildly (har har), extremely spicy.  The last time he made it, several people couldn’t eat it because it was so spicy.  So this time around, he said that people could make special requests of him.  However, there was a catch.  And then that catch snowballed into an epic Terrible Harry Potter Poetry email jam.

Nathan:

If you do have a special request for jambalaya night, your reply must be a “reply to all” and must be in poetry. See below:

My name is Christine, I don’t wanna be mean,
But Nathan your food, it’s too hot of sorts.
It is not my fault, that your culinary assault,
Hurts like a boiling brew from Hogwarts.

Christine:

Christine in the hood.  The jamba better be good.
Jotto, a request, you should fill at my behest:
Since the theme (Harry Potter) to me is so dear,
Can you make your magnficent brew, butterbeer?

-My name ain’t Lynn, you darn Slytherin.

Jameson:

Cacker, my friend, you know I can.
I’ll brew up some buttahbeer because you’re such a huge fan.
I’ll stop by HEB and get some soda of the cream variety
So we can celebrate HP with the utmost accuracy and piety.

Steve:

There once was a dude named Steve,
That he could not attend he was peeved,
For playoff football will make this poor guy bawl,
A time-turner’s all that he needs.

Vanessa:

I want to ride the poetry wagon…
I’m so excited to see “How To Train Your Dragon”!!!
Oh crap! What I meant to say was Harry Potter 7?
Oh Lord…now my cheeks are starting to redden.

Truth be told, I have only read books 1 through page 50 of book 2?
Obviously a swift beating from Harry’s wand is due
I’m a poser when it comes to this wizardry knowledge
Christine~where can I enroll in a Hogwarts College?

Annette:

Because my schedule is so dense
I am very much on the fence
About whether I’ll attend the party.
So Mr. Nathan, please feel free
To make the jambalaya so spicy
That any unfortunate attendee
Will later cry when they pee.

If I can make it I’ll be late
Because I dance from six to eight.
And I (alas) must drive in lieu
Of the powder of the Floo.

So hence my following verse
Will focus on the cobbler.
I’ll be straightforward and terse
And declare you must bother
To save me some, or I’ll curse,
And your hides will be fodder.
Of my wrath nothing is worse.
(Except the Cowboys’ roster!)

Nathan:

This Poetry Wagon that you ride, is it a Conestoga in style?
I can keep this pioneer metaphor going for a while.
If Harry is the sheriff of a nerdy wild west,
he’ll have his trusty stallion Hedwig ready to endure any test.

I have much to learn about these films, you could even call me naive.
But when it comes to all things nerdy I shall need no reprieve,
There’s no doubt that I am nerdy, look at my bookshelf and my glasses,
and my knowledge when it comes to all the woodwinds and the brasses.

But I am clueless when it comes to this here series of books.
Which is why I’ll be the quiet one, the hipster dude who cooks.
I know that the dude from Love Actually plays a character named Snape.
Are you going to judge me if I choose to wear a cape?

Christine:

Tomorrow you shall receive an education fine
Based on all the nerdy knowledge that is mine.
Plot points you’ll learn for the necessity
To understand movie 7 of HP.

This evening I shall spend in analysis and review
I might even build a poster or two.
One for the good guys, one for the bad,
Although the line’s not always so clear (that’s why HP is so rad!).

Jameson:

What Cacker says about the unclear line is right.
Is wizard Hans Gruber evil or is he just?
And Ron Weasley, where’s he in this fight?
He’s a ginger kid, so surely act loathsome he must?

Of these questions and more you’ll be enlightened
So come eat jambalaya, drink butterbeer, and be merry.
You’ll leave Nathan’s with your belly full and your smile brightened
Because this night will be legen . . . wait for it . . . DARY!

Annette:

Here’s your chance to shout “hooray!”
As I reenter the poetic fray…
Really bad rhymes are my guilty vice
And I feel that in sheer quantity,
My first cameo now doesn’t suffice.

You know, the Jambalaya, cobbler, and butterbeer
Will likely conspire to make one feel quite queer.
I can already foresee the stomach irritation
That will arise from this solemn celebration.
But fear not! Cast aside your trepidation,
For when your intestine painfully thrums,
I’ll step from my shiny white car, bearing Tums.

Yesterday, the lovely Vanessa went to the little deli downstairs in our office building and came back with a Taverna salad.  Murphy’s Deli is usually pretty gross, but this Taverna salad was DELICIOUS.

Murphy’s Taverna salad, according to the label:

• cucumber
• onion
• tomato
• kalamata olives
• feta cheese
• black pepper
• oregano

I decided to recreate it myself because I am trying to get more vegetables and this salad looked easy.  I made some modifications, and my Taverna salad is way better.

Christine’s Taverna salad:

• 1 whole cucumber
• 1/3 to 1/2 large tomato
• 1/3 to 1/2 red onion
• 1 tablespoon feta cheese
• salt to taste
• black pepper to taste
• oregano to taste
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

Mince, stir, and chill!  None of these measurements are exact because I started with small amounts and added to taste.  Obviously you can use whatever proportions of veggies or spices that you want.  I was surprised at how much oregano makes the flavors of the vegetables blend and pop.

Modifications from original recipe:

• used red onions instead of white onion
• left out olives
• added salt

This would also be great with black olives, corn, or dill.  Maybe I’ll try those ingredients next time!

Check out this little lady:

And these guys (make sure to look at the cowboys’ faces):

But the best part was when Andrea saw a dog across the road who looked very similar to Milton, and when she got closer she realized the owner was the woman from whom she bought Milton, and the dog was actually Milton’s father!  She kept trying to get a picture of father and son together, but Milton was apparently going through his rebellious teenage years, because he kept growling at Dear Old Dad.  Eventually she snapped these pics.

Milton’s on the left:

And the family from the front (Milton’s on the left):

So crazy!  All the dogs made me wish I had dressed up Henry.  Next year this won’t be topical anymore, but I wish I’d thought of it:

(Disclaimer: This dog, who Andrew christened “Antoine Dogson”, came from the Intarwebs, not Dogtoberfest.)

This past Saturday, Westerfeld spoke at the Texas Book Festival about his latest book, Behemoth, the sequel to Leviathan.  The Texas Book Festival is basically like Austin City Limits Festival for books.  One weekend in October all sorts of authors come and give talks on their books.  This year The Onion was there, Holly Black, Meg Cabot (author of The Princess Diaries), Karl Rove, and a bunch of others were there.  Authors give talks, answer questions, and sign books afterward.  Unfortunately I only got to see Scott Westerfeld, but he was my top author there, so that worked out.

Westerfeld spoke in the sanctuary of the United Methodist Church on 12th and Lavaca.  The place was PACKED.   This guy is a New  York Times-bestselling author several times over, so I was not surprised, but it was really neat to be in a room with so many other people who have read the same books I have.  He made a fantastic slideshow to go along with his talk.

He opened with the story of how he came up with the idea for Uglies.  His friend moved from New York to LA, both very important but very different American cities.  Eventually the time came for him to go to the dentist for a checkup.  At the dentist’s office, the dentist leaned over him in the chair, made some faces, and said, “I’d like to see you in my office.”  The friend was understandably nervous — no one likes to be called to the office at school, work, or a medical establishment.  He sat down across the desk from the dentist and she said, “What is your five-year plan for your teeth?”  Taken aback, he said, “Five-year plan…for my teeth?”  She said, “You have a coffee-drinking New Yorker’s teeth.  Look around you.  You’re in LA now.  You should have Tom Cruise’s teeth.”  He said, “I’ll think about it.”  He emailed this amusing story to friends, including Westerfeld, who thought, “What if life really was like that, and you were required to have Tom Cruises’s teeth?  What kind of society would require you to be perfect?  Why would they require physical perfection?  And what if you were required to get radical plastic surgery when you turn, say, 16?”  That became the premise of the Uglies trilogy, which became New York Times bestsellers and are FANTASTIC books that you should read.

Of course, as an Uglies fan, I was in fits of joy (quiet, pew-located, sitting-still fits of joy).  It also struck me how the most everyday things can inspire such incredible stories.  No one reading Uglies would ever imagine its roots were in an LA doctor’s office and a reference to Tom Cruise’s teeth, but they were!  That dentist has NO idea what she’s done.  Probably a good thing, as she’d want royalties.

The success of Uglies basically gave Westerfeld license to do anything he wanted with his next creation.  The result of this creative freedom was Leviathan, a steampunk (the wiki on steampunk is great; read it) novel set during World War I — an alternate World War I.  Not just historical events are alternate.  Technology is alternate — Charles Darwin discovered DNA and The Origin of Species is a how-to manual of genetic manipulation.  The result is that in 1914 engineers have created these huge beasts-machines as war weapons.  One is “the Leviathan, a massive and famous air-beast, which is mainly modelled after a whale, but is actually a massive ecosystem” (from the wiki).

The main characters in Leviathan are Prince Aleksander of Hohenburg, who is the fictional son of Archduke Ferdinand (Ferdinand didn’t have a son named Aleksander), and Deryn Sharp, a girl who dresses as a boy so she can enlist in the British Army.  Westerfeld was fascinated with the fact that the deaths of only two people, the Archduke and his wife, snowballed into a worldwide conflict that killed millions of people.  “When a parent dies,” he said, “it’s like the world is broken.  Can you imagine what is must be like for Ferdinand and Sophie’s children, to have their personal family tragedy actually break the world?”  And that’s how he decided Aleksander would tell the story.  Similarly, in his studies of previous wars (can you tell this guy is a history and technology geek?  I love it!), he kept encountering stories of women who wanted to enlist in the armed forces, so they disguised themselves as men.  One woman in the Civil War kept up the guise so well that years in, she went to her fellow soldiers and said, “You have known me as a brave, honorable soldier, have you not?  Well guess what.  I’m a woman!  We’re just as good as you; you should let us vote!”  And they sent her to the mental hospital.  Le sigh.  So he decided that would make a great character — a girl who has to keep the secret of her gender at peril to her life.

The other aspect of Leviathan that makes it unique is that it is illustrated.  Nowadays, as children get older and graduate to more mature books, they say, “This looks boring.  There are no pictures!”  And the well-meaning adults say, “That’s because you use your imagination!”  (Like Belle tells Gaston in Beauty and the Beast!)  But that hasn’t always been true.  It used to be normal for adult books to have illustrations.  To make his point, he put up an illustration of Louisa Musgrove falling off the rock in Persuasion by Jane Austen.  I DIED — did he really use Jane Austen?   He has no idea how happy that made me.  I think this is the exact image he used.  I’ve seen this image before; I think it’s fairly famous in the world of Austen illustrations.

Why did illustrating novels fall out of fashion?  Why, the advent of the camera.  There used to be illustrators running around who would draw everything we nowadays take pictures of — trials, birthday parties, etc.  The camera basically rendered the illustrating profession useless, so there were no illustrators to illustrate novels.  This meant that novels became text-only.

To make Leviathan look like it could have been published in this alternate 1914, complete with 1914ish illustrations, Westerfeld worked with a Canadian illustrator named Keith Thompson.  His work is incredibly detailed and vibrant.  I am not finding any examples of his work from Leviathan (go figure, copyright much?), but here is a cover for Leviathan he drew that they almost used.  This much better represents his drawing style than the cover they ended up using.

I was in nerd heaven listening to Westerfeld explain how he came up with the ideas for these books and how they were shaped by his different interests in history and war and technology.  Now I need to actually go read Leviathan and Behemoth!  Reading them after hearing from the author how the books came about will be fascinating — it’s not often one gets to read a book with that approach.

So let me get this straight.  They find my address somehow, and it’s definitely specifically my address because they listed my last name on the coupons.  So they got my last name and address correct, but they got my first name very, very wrong.  Huh?!

Oh well, whatever, I’m taking their food anyway.

Speaking of food, I got a Frosty at Wendy’s this evening (I had a chocolate craving, okay?) and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the single most ironic sign ever created:

So buy sugary drinks at a 75% discount to promote a cure for diabetes?  Yeah, THAT’S going to work.  Also, that kid does NOT have diabetes.  (Not yet, anyway.  Let’s give it 30 years.)  If anything, he’s losing teeth to all the sugar in the Frosties and he should be promoting toothbrushes and mouthwash.

“It’s not necessarily about what happens,” I would say back.  “If books were only about what happens, there would never be any new books, as every story is really just a retelling of another story.  What makes stories different from each other is the approach — the historical context, the characters, the comments the author is trying to make, etc., and those are the things that make a book worth rereading.”

“Well, didn’t you catch all that the first time around?” he would say.

“No,” I would reply, “No one can catch everything the first time around, and if you think you can, you’re delusional.”

“I catch everything,” he would say.

“How do you know what you didn’t catch if you don’t reread the book?”  (Of course, I fully admit that I’m relating this conversation in a way where I win the argument, haha.  I do stand by my point, though.)

I’ve had this conversation with other people, and it seems the girls tend to agree with me, the girl, and the boys tend to agree with the guy. I don’t know if it’s a boys-focus-on-doing and girls-focus-on-feeling thing, or if my sample size is too small, or I’ve just befriended girls with the same reading habits as mine.  But it’s a conversation worth having.  What DOES motivate me to reread some books?  I’m obviously not alone — what benefit do I get from reading something I’ve read before?

I started thinking about this because I looked at all the books strewn around my apartment and realized that in the last few weeks, I have started three different books — Emma and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — that I’ve already read repeatedly, yet for some reason I picked them up yet again.  I think sometimes for me it’s a comfort thing.  I’ve read Pride and Prejudice so many times, and it’s so beautiful, that when I pick it up, I automatically feel the world righting itself, not because Elizabethan England is a perfect time, or because the characters are perfect people, but because it is a reminder of brilliance, beauty, and goodness in the world.  A world with Elizabeth Bennet in it cannot be such a bad one.

The real reason I like Pride and Prejudice.

I think I reread books for three main reasons: One, I simply enjoy the story, and knowing what happens doesn’t lessen that.  Two, I want to study the reasons why I enjoy the story.  What about the characters, plot, historical background, prose, etc. makes me want to reread this book?  Three, I want to relive the emotions I felt upon the first reading.  Jane Austen always gives me faith in myself and other people and the characters and plot are woven together flawlessly, and Harry Potter is an imaginative, wonderful world where…well, where the characters and plot are woven together flawlessly.  Both authors make me glad to be alive so I can enjoy what they write.

I’m not really sure if I’ve satisfactorily answered my own question, or if it even matters.  This is America, and I have the right to reread English authors as much as I like.