The Memory Keeper's Daugher by Kim Edwards

This is one of those books I have consistently taken off the shelf at Borders and then put back. I couldn't commit to it. But when my friend Lisa gave it to me for free I figured, why not?

I can't really describe what made me put it back on the shelf for the past year or so. I've done the same thing with Water for Elephants. I even really liked the cover! I am more than half way through and while it's an ok book, it's not keeping me awake at night with anticipation.

It does, however, give an ethical dilemma that is an interesting topic for conversation. Here's a little synopsis: A doctor and his wife are pregnant in the mid 1960s. She births a healthy son and then follows a tiny daughter with Downs syndrome. The doctor gives the baby girl to the nurse, a woman named Caroline, to bring it to an institution as he doesn't believe she will live very long. He lies to his wife saying the baby girl dies. Caroline can't let herself leave the infant at the home and instead raises her herself. So the book follows the lives of each family with each child.

Throughout the entire book Norah, the doctor's wife, grieves for the lost daughter. I sort of want to slap her and tell her to get over it and pay attention to her husband and son. Does that sound really cold of me? Well, I don't care. She needs to have some therapy or something to deal with it. She's so pathetic for most of the book that I want to literally take her shoulders and shake her.

I have learned a bit about children with Downs and how their parents had to fight to let them in the public school system. My mother worked with a Downs syndrome boy for 7 years one-on-one in the public school system here. He grew up to live in a group home and have a part time job at the local grocery store. People in the 1960s and 70s didn't expect anything from children with this disease...we have come far as a society in our acceptance of them -- though probably not far enough.

Anyway. I'm not done yet so maybe my opinion will change. Maybe not.

Unleash your wallet

I read this post on Recession Wire and completely saw myself in Sara Clemence.

It's a challenge to be frugal, and when you learn you can live your life a certain way you feel a sense of accomplishment. I have never sent my laundry out, mind you, but when I worked at the Portland Press Herald I was making more money than I ever had in my life and I actually felt rich. Sure I didn't have to drive to work and lived in a small apartment, but I could buy normal stuff like a pair of jeans without thinking twice about it.

I have lived my life in frugal measurements. I have never (except for the aforementioned stint at the PPH) had enough money that I didn't have to worry. Even now that I've bought a house, I have no clue what my taxes and bills are going to be for the year. So I'm again living frugally.

I go through stints when I just want to SPEND MONEY, even though I don't particularly like shopping. I just want to buy stuff that I want with reckless abandon. I usually don't but I'm not going to lie, I do indulge myself every once in a while. (And by indulge I mean pay someone to paint my toe nails, get a facial, or a really good eyebrow wax). I prefer to save my money. I really like to travel and I will plan well in advance to do so.

When I was in grad school my boyfriend and I had a "fun fund" where we would put our spare change. When we got about $30 or so in it we'd treat ourselves to dinner at a restaurant. Nothing huge but when you don't have money and really want to do something, the "fun fund" was there to help. It was also fun to go to Commerce Bank and change in the change. You even get to guess how much it is and if you're close you win a prize! I got a red "C" bank once. Then I gave it to a kid. I'm a really good guesser.

This economy has not really helped me become frugal -- because I have always been frugal. My parents are frugal. I have never not had a job since the age of 18. Perhaps that has shown me the value of a dollar -- but it was more expectations from my parents than a lousy economy.

The Maine Edge

I like alternative newspapers, I really do. And I know some people who work for The Maine Edge and I think they're swell. Their paper, however, is confused. It doesn't know what it wants to cover for news.


On one hand they want to be local. I get that. But they use AP stories and celebrity news to fill their pages. Which I don't get. You either need to be a local paper or a non-local paper. Having both is weird. Here is an example....

In the Edge Style section they have four stories:
1. The Frugal Edge about berry picking in Maine.
2. Ask Todd Parker - the Dear Abby of The Edge.
3. The Cooking Edge about Sunday brunch.
4. Dolce & Gabbana, Armani open Milan menswear.

Hm. One of these things clearly doesn't belong here. How many Mainers really CARE about Italian fashion happening overseas? And on the same page as blueberries and brunch? It confused me.

If you are going to add pages to your publication, make the content useful to your readers. Why just stick some AP story in there to fill up space? Instead of Dolce & Gabbana how about a story on local fashion, resale shops, or even a Maine designer? Dolce schmoltce I say.

I am not an avid reader of The Edge for this reason. I don't like surprises -- and I'm constantly surprised with their content. The writers that they have on staff know how to cover local stuff -- stick with them and worry about quality, not quantity.

5 reasons why the Bangor Daily News website sucks

I need to take a moment to complain about the Bangor Daily News website. I do not like it. In fact, I think it's terrible. My reasons are simple and based on common sense:


1. Color. Is this sagey, pale green a new color for them? Because throughout my 31 years of life I have associated the BDN with a dark, pine green color. That used to be their color...and now I'm confused about this lame green on their website.

2. Logo. Why isn't the Bangor Daily News logo on the site? The content in the newspaper is what is on the site...so why brand it differently if you aren't offering different content?

3. Drop down menus. This is my BIGGEST pet peeve and could be fixed easily and SHOULD be fixed. The top tabs, which include News, Business, Sports, Outdoors etc. have unreadable drop down topics. The text is hidden UNDERNEATH the photos and text below it. It is so frustrating and makes the BDN website look so unprofessional. Someone fix it PLEASE!

4. Blogs. The old BDN website used to showcase their blogs clearly. Now I have no idea where they are. The blog logos used to be right on the home page where a simple click would bring you right to them. Now I think they are hidden somewhere in the Lifestyle drop down menu, but as you read in #3, the menu items can't be read.

5. Original content. Is there any? And if not why? The Portland Press Herald puts breaking news up on their home page -- stuff you can't find in the daily paper and won't be able to read about until tomorrow. They also highlight their blogs appropriately.

These are simple, common sense issues. I'm sure more people than just little ol' me are also frustrated with the site. What surprises me is that they MUST know about the drop down menu issue and have done nothing to fix it! Why are they satisfied with just being sort of ok when they could be great?

Finally!

I have put Barbara Walters behind me. She really lost my interest in the end there. The book was so L O N G ! And I'm not opposed to long books per se. This one just dragged. Perhaps if she wasn't so conversational it wouldn't have seemed so drawn out.

Anyway. On to something new. And thanks to my friend Lisa I have a whole bunch of books to choose from! When I figure out what's next I'll let you know. I usually like to find some good beach reading but with all this rain it doesn't look like I'll be going to the beach anytime soon.

How sad.

Marjane Satrapi

I liked Marjane Satrapi's comic-book-novel Persepolis so much that I went right ahead and read Persepolis 2 this weekend as well.

For an Iranian family, the Satrapis were very liberal and forward thinking. So much so that they sent their only daughter, Marji, to Vienna when she was 14 years old to study and finish school. This was in the 1980s. At 18, homeless and sick, Satrapi returns to Iran and her family, but time has changed everything...especially Marji herself.

I don't want to give too much away so I'm going to keep it short. I will say that
I loved reading about her story and the history of Iran through illustrations. It wasn't at all juvenile. I would suggest this book to anyone who maybe needs a break and wants to ingest something a little different.

Just another reason why I love Nordstoms

The classiest department store in the country (according to moi) just made me love them more. They are carrying a new brand of jeans for normal curvy women like me! CJ by Cookie Johnson. Cookie (Magic's wife) and Michael Glasser (designer of super skinny jean brands Seven For All Mankind and Citizens of Humanity) have teamed up to make jeans for NORMAL SIZED PEOPLE.

This is good news for me since I am not (and have never been) the size of an anorexic tween. I'm not obese. I have hips. A butt. CURVES. And, gasp, I want my jeans to fit, look flattering, and not show my butt crack. You'd think this was too much to ask for!

This article in The Wall Street Journal covers it all and, if you are a normal sized 8 girl like me who can never find cool jeans that fit, I suggest you read it. Then drive to the Natick Mall and get yourself a pair.