What Passes For Excitement Around Here

I should lead with answers to some questions I've received on recent posts.

• While Molly is undoubtedly a genius, I may have misrepresented her talents a little. She did write that "story" and came up with the words herself, but we helped with the spelling of almost every word. She knows maybe 20-30 words (and just as many Chinese symbols!), but would not have been able to make "dispatcher" a recognizable word.
• Kids passports arrived in the mail today. Why passports you asked? St. Lucia with my sister's family for the first week of January. And hopefully a visit to Tiff and Eric in upstate New York in 2012 (if I write it then hopefully I'll make it happen).

On with the exciting events of our lives:

1. Beaver attack. A decent-sized tree fell down outside our house on Halloween. Possibly aided by a beaver's gnawing. We axed it into about 4 logs and limbed it. The next two nights the beaver(s) dragged the logs away. A few nights later it(they) took down 4 saplings right outside the back door. The beavers seem to be building a lodge (surely not a dam?!) in the little waterway that separates our "island" from the mainland. None of the lost trees were favourites and our view is quite improved so no major loss (yet).

2. Sleep habits. Zoë has always had sporadic but regular difficulty getting to sleep. For the past few months this has involved temper tantrums, jumping out of bed, raging for 5-60 minutes. This was driving us crazy because there was nothing we could do to calm her down or prevent the problem or help fix it. During our recent visit to Priya and David's they suggested a reward program. Mild skepticism was vastly outweighed by helpless frustration so we gave it a shot. Every night of going to sleep with no tantrum earned her a star and a Melissa & Doug stamp. Six stars meant she earned a night sleeping in Molly and Jacob's room. She succeeded 6 out of the first 7 nights! And in the subsequent two weeks, there have only been one or two minor incidents. A set of six stamps cost $11. So now we're kicking ourselves for not doing something like this earlier! And Priya and David are our new heroes! Problem solved, until the next problem.

3. Books. We seem to have caught up on our tv shows (Downton Abbey, Justified, Mad Men, Treme, and two vampire shows that I'm probably too embarrassed to mention by name). So I've been reading more books.

• The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt. Very rare (for me at least) for a book to garner so many awards and still be a great read. This is old fashioned western. True Grit meets Lonesome Dove. With just enough literary stuff to justify a bunch of masters theses (and apparently enough to satisfy the stuffy bunch who give out awards). The brothers themselves are great, unforgettable characters.
• The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes. Julian Barnes is smarter than you. And he'll smugly remind you of this on every page. That's my usual opinion anyway. I thought his A History of the World contained 2 1/2 brilliant chapters and 8 going-through-the-motions ones. Arthur and George was too clever for its own good too. And Flaubert's Parrot got the throw-across-the-room treatment. So, I'm not a fan but he can write so well that I gave him another chance. And The Sense of An Ending has some really thought-provoking passages and messages about memory and perception and perspective. I can see why it won the Booker. But I can't really recommend it, unless you're into that kind of thing.
• Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon. Loved it. If the crime/detective genre had more books like this I'd be all over them. Great set-up. Imagine Israel lost the 1948 war and the Jews are given a 60 year lease for Sitka, Alaska. That lease is coming to an end so the community is in disarray. And our drunken, detective protagonist is working his last case. It's brilliant and funny.

And if you're looking for book recommendations, my other 2011 great reads were:

• City of Thieves, David Benioff. During the siege of Leningrad, two young men are arrested for looting and face a "choice" of death for treason or completion of an impossible mission - to find a dozen eggs for the army colonel's daughter's wedding cake. Best page-turner I've read in a long time. Just a great story.
• Hunger Games trilogy. Can't wait for the upcoming movie. This isn't just Young Adult Fiction, it's gripping, imaginative, powerful stuff. And yes I do channel my inner Katniss Everdeen every time I'm struggling on a long run.