Trendy But Casual

Back in the COIC

The COIC = The City of Iowa City.

And that's Herky, the mascot, for those of you unfamiliar with Hawkeye lore.

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m typing this post in the Java House coffee shop in downtown Iowa City – conscious that the phrase “downtown Iowa City” makes it seem a grander and more sprawling place than it is. I’m here for the next week to teach at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, to earn some money and hopefully to read some good work.

Iowa City is in sluggish summer mode right now, the campus quite deserted. The Iowa House hotel, where I’m staying, is a university-run venture in the Iowa Memorial Union, its cafes and offices closed, a dust-blown construction site outside. The building looks west over the river, towards the hospitals and big houses, and south over a small park – more of a sports field – where the sprinklers already seem defeated by browning grass. Beyond it, through gaps in the pine trees, I can spot the red-brick crenellations of the ugly building that houses the English department, where every Wednesday I used to read submissions for the Iowa Review.

My room has neither a western or southern view, by the way: it looks into the angular concrete void in the middle of the building, and if I don’t keep my blinds closed everyone else can see into my room.

It’s ten years since TM and I left Iowa City, Tom driving a huge moving truck that one of my students, the very able Joyce Turner, had to back out of our long driveway. I think it may be eight years since I was last here. Some of my friends are still here, all with children now that they didn’t have eight years ago. Many of my friends have moved on, and it’s strange to wander the grid of leafy streets, thinking of the houses where Becky and Brandon lived, or Sarah and Bob, or Tracy and Corbin, or Gallaudet and David … And our house, too, of course, on Governor Street, which looks much scruffier these days.

The big tree outside where the cardinals nested is gone now, damaged by the big tornado that crumbled the sorority house on the opposite corner. There's a satellite dish in its place now. I stood there for sometime gazing at the house, by the way, before realizing there was a youth on the porch, lolling in the hammock.

Some things change – new people, new restaurants, a ton of new construction along the highway – and some stay the same, like Prairie Lights Book Store and the gloomy caverns of the Java House. Atlas is still here, and I plan to have a mojito there some time; the sushi place where Sarah Rogers marched us weekly for early half-price dinners has gone. John's Grocery is still here, thank god.

There are some places, e.g. the Foxhead, that I’m content to gaze upon rather than enter again, even though the smoking laws have changed and they no longer pose an immediate risk of lung cancer.

Iowa City is still a real American college town, to the point of parody, almost. Sheets pinned up in windows, barbeques and bicycles in front yards, porches a jumble of found furniture. On Saturday morning I walked past one porch where an earnest guy was playing guitar, and the girl with him started singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

The Farmers’ Market is twice as big as it used to be, spilling out of the parking lot into the street now. Most of the Amish sellers are gone, replaced by sturdy young people in headscarves selling organic this and vintage that. The guy at the baked-goods stand we used to frequent remembered me – that I was a New Zealander, that we’d moved to New Orleans, that we worked at Tulane! – and promised to put some brownies aside for me next Saturday, because he’d sold out. I’d forgotten my Iowa ways, and thought the market wouldn’t open until ten AM. It opens at seven.

Among the growers selling rhubarb and kale and asparagus, there are new stands schilling organic coffee, wine, cheese, or salsa. And, reassuringly, there are still stands offering Iowa’s number one meat product, pork.

 

This week I’m teaching every afternoon, so will be spending most mornings here in the Java House, I suspect, drinking iced tea and working on my book. Some evenings I have friends to see, and I’ll have manuscripts to read as well. There are c. 1000 TV channels available on my hotel set, which I will try to resist.

Hopefully here in the COIC I can leave the stress of the past month behind me, all the racing around, the festival appearances, the marking, the bad news and nasty letters, the axes of deadlines swirling around my head. By the time here, my Rome book will be finished, and I'll be in a good frame of mind to take up the residency at the Brecht House in Denmark.

Happy to see there's a little bit of Louisiana here in Iowa City this week, too.

Resolution

New year, new intentions. Or old intentions (get more work, do more work, earn more money) dressed up in optimistic spring shades, swishing their skirts. Plus some abandoned intentions from last year, of course. My short-story-a-day promise collided with my post-surgery indolence, and that was that. I managed to scrape to 236:

226: ‘Music in the Bone’ by Tomas Mac Siomoin
227: ‘The Colonel’s Daughter’ by Robert Coover (2013)
228: ‘A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit’ by Georgina Hammick (1986)
229: ‘My Heart’ by Semezdin Mehmedinovic (2011)
230: ‘Crazy in the Stir’ by Chester B. Himes (1934)
231: ‘Before the Breakup’ by Balla (2005)
232: ‘The End of the Party’ by Graham Greene (1929)
233: ‘When the Glasses are Lost’ by Zrko Kujundziski (2011)
234: ‘The Face’ by Dragan Radulovic (2007)
235: ‘Sugar Cane’ by Derek Palacio (2013)
236:  ‘Last Summer in Marienbad’ by Kirill Kobrin (2011)

Not quite the 365 I intended, but 236 new stories isn't too bad.

Maybe that was the story of 2013 for me: not quite, but not too bad. We got to travel to Hamburg and Berlin and Rome again, to Monterrey for my nephew's wedding, and to Spain for Tom's birthday. I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, courtesy of a Carnegie Grant, to research Jean Rhys for a play I want to write. In May I went home to New Zealand for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, and we spent Christmas in Tom's hometown of St Louis. I attended the Man Booker Prize in London. We visited friends there, and in Wales, York, and the Cotswolds; we met up with my English cousins in Newcastle, Sheffield, York. With Tom's mother we went back to Whitby and to the Lake District. The Devlin sisters stayed with us (without parents) for the first time. Other firsts: Rievaulx Abbey, Fountains Abbey, Haddon Hall, Bakewell, the top of the Shard. We spent our anniversary in Liverpool, one of our favourite places.

In 2013 we flirted with insolvency; I flirted with cancer; we both got very cosy with the NHS. I escaped the worst colleague ever and a job that pushed me to the edge. We made the happy move to a new job in Sheffield and a flat in an old cutlery factory alongside a noisy little river. In Glasgow I hosted a baby shower for my friend Doris; in Auckland I co-hosted a bridal shower for Martha, now married to my nephew. At the University of Sheffield, Tom took (and survived) a CELTA course in a long, hot July, and I studied Spanish this autumn. We saw more plays than movies. We watched almost all of BREAKING BAD. (The last few episodes have been saved as a new year's treat.)

Two new books published: a YA novel and my first children's book. Two stories commissioned, and a few poems published. A little manuscript fixing and ghostwriting. Too many false starts, conference calls and proposals that went nowhere in particular. Rejections and acceptances. Literary festivals, school visits, and talks via Skype. Interviews with Donna Tartt (phone) and Carlos Ruiz Zafon (in person). Self-doubt, despair, bursts of enthusiasm. Stories and schemes jostling in my head.

Two sparkling friends no longer here: Sarah Mohl and Sarah Doerries. It still feels implausible and wrong to write those words. They're ahead of me now, with my cousin (and godfather) Laly Haddon, and my mother's dear friend Cron Crosby, two towering men who didn't see out 2013.

This year I wasn't planning to make any new resolutions, but today a name swirled into mind: Graham Greene. I'd like to read more of his work, and I'd like to try my hand at writing every day, as he did - though I won't stop mid-sentence when I've reached 500, his usual goal.

So that's my 2014 resolution: Graham Greene. It's all I can manage, given that ongoing resolution - write, work, earn - mentioned above.

Tom Moody and I ended 2013 by getting very dressed up in Mexico. We may not look so well-groomed in 2014, and I will almost certainly not be wearing false eyelashes again at any point. But we'll keep on being happy, and trying to make something of ourselves, in our own haphazard way.

 

The Glamour of International Travel

TMiddy and I are jetsetters. You all know this. Sometimes I wish that this involved things like being invited to someone's villa in Ibiza, or onto someone's yacht anywhere, but it does not. Usually it means that I travel back and forth to Auckland, and TM travels back and forth to St Louis; sometimes, when other people are paying, we go to Germany. And that's about it. True, we were recently in Spain for another category of trip, known as The Holiday We Cannot Afford. But that was for TM's biggest-ever birthday, and absolutely brilliant and worth it in every way, not least because lots of other people came as well, and we got to laugh and eat and drink a lot, and play charades with categories like Tudor Women and Books By Hitler.

Today is a jetsetting day, by which I mean we woke up this morning in Sheffield and now, about seventeen hours later, we're in Dulles airport in Washington DC. We missed our connection to St Louis so we'll be here for some time.

Here are some things I observed along the way today. On the walk from our place to the train station in Sheffield, we saw a smashed wine bottle, a scattering of squashed chips and a shop coathanger (size 14), all strewn in close proximity. The coathanger was broken. A crime scene?

In Manchester airport, without any cash, we dusted off my United Club card and attempted to infiltrate every possible executive club in search of a free breakfast. This was unsuccessful until, after overhearing my plaintive call to the United helpdesk (confirming that we have no access to anything anywhere in the UK other than Heathrow), the desk guy at one club took pity on us and let us in. This was a lesson I learned living in the US. (Thanks, America!) Be polite but be persistent: you may wear someone down. The reward, in Manchester at least, will be free cereal and tea.

When we jetsetted off to Spain last month, we flew with Lufthansa and Swissair. On these airlines, the crew are polite, professional and friendly, and they speak several languages. Today we flew with United. The crew members dealing with those of us in the cheap seats did not smile. Not once. Actually, I was impressed at how resolutely unsmiling they could be for almost nine hours, thrusting polystyrene cup of teas at us, and barking "beef, chicken or vegetarian?" when serving our one meal. No free drinks, of course, or menus, or pleasantries. It could make sense if United were a budget airline, and politeness was one of the dispensed-with frills, but it isn't. This trip cost us a fortune. I'd rather deal with the bare-bones Ryanair: at least they're jolly.

Today's jetsetting highlight, though: a very clear view of Greenland. I've never seen it before. We were passing the southeast corner, I think, so all we could see was a great tumble of rocks, everything jagged and icy, various inlets dotted with trawlers. No towns or houses or rivers in view. I tried to take pictures with my phone, but the clouds and the ice and the frosty sea blurred into one on the screen - Greenland defying technology. A part of me hoped we would have to make some unscheduled stop there, and possibly spend the night.

Here at Dulles we had an hour to make the connection, and most of that was spent queuing in Immigration, or listening to desperate people shout and complain and beg in the security line. Still cash-free, we're spending the five hours until the next flight in the United lounge, watching football on TV, abusing the free house cabernet, and eating a tasty and nutritious free dinner: yoghurt-covered raisins, mini-carrots, greasy cheese squares in plastic wrapping, etc. I think I may have seen a commercial on TV for pizza made with cookie dough, but I may be hallucinating.

This is true jetsetting, FYI. The world of Sheffield - broken glass and coathangers, the pallid smear of cold chips - seems a universe away. By midnight we'll be in snowy St Louis, the home of toasted ravioli. If we're lucky, our bags will be there as well. In my carry-on I have three boxes of mince pies and all our American Christmas cards, and my mother's garnet ring, which I'll wear to my nephew's wedding in Mexico next week. In Tom's carry-on is a copy of The Economist, just pilfered from the United lounge. Please don't judge us because of our glamorous life. 

 

Habits, hobbies, resolutions

Recently TM told me that my hobbies were not actual hobbies. A harsh verdict, I feel. My hobbies are watching TV while lying down (in bed or on sofa); doing jigsaws; and being driven around in cars. What’s wrong with these?

I don’t count reading and writing as hobbies. They’re work. Enjoyable and rewarding work, but still. And they’re more than work, of course, more than hobbies. They’re a necessary part of every day.

My other interests, by the way, include cooking; browsing the marketplace/eating Swedish meatballs at IKEA; looking up Merrill paper dolls and coloring books on Ebay; and turning this year’s Christmas cards into next year’s gift tags. But I don’t know that any of these count as hobbies, really. Especially the IKEA one, as I get to go there so rarely. (We don’t have a car, and anyway, you have to keep the magic alive.)

One of my new year’s resolutions has more to do with work than hobbies. It’s to read a short story every day. A published short story: student work doesn’t count. (Students will understand.) No particular rules to this resolution, though I’m trying to read as much as possible that’s new to me, and I hope to range around in time and country of origin throughout the year.

Not much ranging has been possible so far. Because I’ve been traveling – in the US, hence American spelling here – most of the stories this past week have been found on the New Yorker web site. I’ve been doing research on Jean Rhys at the University of Tulsa library, thanks to a Carnegie Grant. It’s been an enormously productive week, with the added benefit of proximity to Route 66 and fantastic Tex-Mex food. Here is a picture of Tulsa.

Today is the fourteenth day of January, so I’ve read fourteen short stories.

Stories so far:

1.  ‘In the Penal Colony’ by Kafka (1914; published 1919).

2. ‘Love in the Slump’ by Evelyn Waugh (1932).

3. ‘The Girl Who Left Her Sock on the Floor’ by Deborah Eisenberg (1994).

4. ‘Heaven-Hell’ by Jhumpa Lahiri (2008).

5. ‘The Immortal’ by Jorge Luis Borges (1949).

6. ‘The Lost Order’ by Rivka Galchen (2013).

7. ‘Night Out 1925’ by Jean Rhys (published in 1976 but written much earlier).

8, ‘Creative Writing’ by Edgar Keret (2012).

9: ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’ by George Saunders (2012).

10: ‘Elsie by Starlight’ by John Updike (2004).

11: ‘Paper Losses’ by Lorrie Moore (2006).

12: ‘Starlight’ by Ann Beattie (2011).

13: ‘Bull’ by Mo Yan (2012).

14: ‘Experience’ by Tessa Hadley (2013).

I will not be impudent enough to give reviews of any story or – horror of horrors – assign a star rating. If I were in charge of things in the world, as I so clearly should be, I would force everyone to go cold turkey on star ratings for a while. Just a few months, maybe, so people could take a break from pronouncing their opinions and verdicts and prejudices, and deciding whether they liked something or not, and lying awake at night pondering whether they need to deduct half a star because there aren’t enough special features on a DVD …

But I guess I can share some favorite quotes without violating the review rule. So far: ‘Nothing can happen in England’ (Waugh) and ‘Actually have never been to Europe myself. Dad felt portion sizes there too small’ (Saunders).

Please join me in my story-reading hobby-resolution-thing, even if it’s just for a week or a month. I’ll keep updating my list here. You can send me story suggestions as well, but I may not pay any attention. There are enough short stories in anthologies and collections on our book shelves to keep me busy for several years, and TM keeps Suggesting Things, needless to say.

By the way, during a recent Skype session with a class in Illinois, the librarian told me that my hobbies are quite similar to those of her students – especially being driven around in cars. But she pointed out that this is because they are eighth-graders, and too young to drive themselves.

 

First look at UNBROKEN

If you're wondering why I haven't written a blog post in months, here's the reason: I was writing a novel instead. This is what it's going to look like.

It's a sequel to RUINED - set in New Orleans, with many of the same characters (Rebecca, Anton, Aurelia, etc), and some new ones - the living and the dead! The character depicted on the cover is a ghost named Delphine, and the house she haunts is on Rampart Street.

UNBROKEN will be published in spring 13 in the US, I think. (Certainly in time for Jazz Fest, one of the settings for the novel.)

I've been up to other things, of course, including a number of appearances at the Writers & Readers Week at the International Festival of the Arts in Wellington, and at the Writers & Readers Festival in Auckland. The German-language edition of RANGATIRA will be published in September, so I have various trips to Germany coming up - more on that in another post.

And there WILL be another post soon, I promise, before I get sucked into the vortex of another book.

 

Snow Day

Yesterday, the last day of January, was an anniversary: T. Middy and I met on January 31, 1998, in Birdland on West 44th Street, New York City. I was there for the record company - sitting in the bar, reading the New Yorker, wishing I was somewhere else - and he was with a friend. (This friend was then a boyfriend, now a husband, of a member of the band signed to the label for which I worked. Got that?)

And now here we are, thirteen years and one day later, sitting in a very different bar. The bar of the Hilton across the road from the airport (i.e. "The Airport Hilton") in St Louis, Missouri. In life we're played the cards we're dealt, and the card we've been dealt this week is from the Incredibly Bad Winter Weather pack. We managed to elude bad hands in December, when we got out of London despite a week of snow-related delays at Heathrow, and in January, when we avoided a snowstorm in Denver en route to New Zealand. But today in St Louis, trying to get back to the UK, the good run ended. Our flight to Chicago was cancelled this morning (NB: I no longer know if this spelling of "cancelled" is correct in any country) and we had to plead for another night at the hotel. Weather is whirling through - ice and snow, from the SW to the NE of the country - and nobody is flying anywhere today.

The bar at the Hilton, where we've been sitting with our computers for much of the afternoon, is packed with fellow strandees. Some of them are quite drunk now. A number of them have been working their computers and phones. Others have been working the indoor baseball-cap look, which I still don't understand. Outside it is freezing and foggy and white.

After re-booking our flights and returning the rental car (in freezing rain) to Avis nextdoor, we had breakfast here, and discovered the secret of success at the American hotel buffet: stay for a long, long time. The longer you stay, the more you feel able to return to the buffet multiple times. I began with pancakes, blueberries and maple syrup, returned for yoghurt (an amuse bouche), and then got a made-to-order spinach and mushroom omelette. TM had several very greedy courses. We then retired to our room for a three-hour nap, before staggering down to the bar with our laptops, inadvertently leaving our door ajar. (This was discovered by TM mid-afternoon.) Have I spent the time working on worky things, or watching episodes of 30 Rock? Did I reach occasionally for the snack bowl, or did I assiduously pick out and scoff all the wasabi peas and honey-roasted nuts? Did we stick with the free hot drinks or switch to over-priced goblets of wine at a very-pre-dinner hour? You be the judge.

If I hadn't met TM thirteen years ago, I wouldn't be in St Louis now. I can say that with complete certainty. If he hadn't met me, he wouldn't have the spent the past (glorious) month in New Zealand. I have lots of fantastic pictures to post; it's been a very enjoyable, very productive time. I'm talking about NZ here, though I did manage yesterday to get to the Galleria in St Louis, and, as cards go, the Galleria is a good one.

Tomorrow: flying and work, hopefully. What's left of February 1, 2011: a snow day.

 

 

Katrina Revisited: Nine Months Later (6/17/06)

This is not a recovered post, but some photos taken on June 17, 2006, almost nine months after Hurricane Katrina. My nephew was visiting and we drove around the city. These pictures were taken in the Lower Ninth Ward. Nine months later, remember.

 

 

 

 

Katrina Revisited: Still (12/9/05)

[Original post: December 9, 2005]

We're back in New Orleans, living among the rubble and trailers, driving along streets still lined with junk and debris, passing military vehicles, or trucks laden with ladders and wood. It's a (re)construction zone in which many things are still not working (including numerous stop lights and street lights). The street car track is still a dumping ground, decorated with handmade signs announcing businesses that have opened or moved, or advertising mold removal/building services/electrical inspection.

 

 

The first few days back were quite depressing, because we had no electricity, gas or phone service in our place. We've been camping out in the spare room at a friend's house, but after more than three months of relying on the tremendous hospitality and patience of other people, we're eager to get home - like everyone else, pretty much. (And at least we live somewhere that's still standing.) The mood in the city ranges from optimistic to defiant to disbelieving to angry to despairing. People with somewhere to work and somewhere to live, even if those places are new to them or temporary, are trying their best to get back to normal, though it's not clear here what normal is anymore.

There are numerous ironies and irritations to keep us busy: receiving a disconnection notice from MCI, for example, because we haven't paid our bill since the hurricane. We've had no phone service since then, either, but a call to MCI (from somone else's phone) to remind them of this fact was necessary, complete with more than half an hour on hold. We now have a firm commitment - wait for it - that we'll have phone service again by February 28, 2006, at 8 PM. This is good news, because I was hoping to make a call at 9 PM that evening. Thanks, Bell South! Thanks for your stellar customer service, MCI!*

Entergy had also sent us a bill for estimated gas and electricity usage over the last three months. You'd think that this estimate might read ZERO, considering we've had no gas or electricity in this time. But no - it's about $60. It's amazing how much energy you can use when nothing is connected and your neighborhood is in total darkness. So, of course, this meant more time on someone else's phone, calling Entergy to ask them to stop sending bills and start sending trucks. The good news: our gas was turned on this Wednesday, after I agreed to get to the house at 7 am and wait, in the cold and gloom, for someone to show up. He did, at 9 AM (bless him). I've never been so happy to see the burners on the stove light up. And, after more hectoring phone calls and the very welcome intervention of the Entergy gas worker ("Y'all haven't had power since the storm? All they need to do is flick that switch up there"), our electricity returned on Thursday.

Now our house is a little beacon of light in a trashed, still-empty neighborhood. We're moving back today, and hopefully will get a new fridge tomorrow. During the day, workers tear out the insides of houses nearby; at night, the only lights shine from a couple of FEMA trailers parked outside houses and from our little porch. The two schools by us - McMain and Ursuline - are supposed to open in the new year, but until then the only sounds are hammers, drills, and the crash of wood landing on piles in the street. Cartier, our mailman, visits every day. He lost his house, but is rebuilding - he'll be able to move back in the summer. He evacuated to Alabama and then Houston, and right now he's staying with his sister in Algiers.

There's bad news from Tulane. Of course, the local media is fixated on cuts in sports programs rather than the more drastic academic and administrative changes. I still have a job, it seems, and those of us still employed will be allowed back into our offices soon. Somewhere to use the phone, at least.

My six weeks in New Zealand seem very dream-like right now. Just before I left, Hibiscus Coast was optioned by a film company. Or was it? I'm not sure of anything anymore.

 

 *Our gas went off again on Christmas Eve, which meant we couldn't wash or cook. We did not get phone service back until April 2006.

Katrina Revisited: New Zealand (10/25/05)

[Original post: October 25, 2005]

We're in Auckland right now (my home town) enjoying the spring weather and, of course, getting the obligatory return-to-Auckland cold.

Tonight is the launch party for Hibiscus Coast (at Starkwhite Gallery, 510 Karangahape Road, in case anyone is passing), so I'm in a state of ridiculous anxiety, mainly about the catering arrangements. The theme is apparently confused pan-Asian, so we have Indian and Japanese food, with Chinese decorations.

We heard from Paul, our landlord in New Orleans, the other day: still no electricity or gas at our place. The neighborhood is very quiet, he says, and it seems few people are trying to move back completely right now. Maple Street Books* is open for business again (TM talked to Rhoda yesterday) but customers are still scarce.

I'm sorry we didn't make it back up to Iowa City before we flew out to New Zealand: we left earlier than planned. We're coming back to the US at the end of November.

The book is doing well here so far, and I have been boring my fellow New Zealanders to death talking about myself in various media outlets. Those of you who know me well will realize what a hardship this is for all concerned.

 

*Maple Street Books was TM's employer at the time. He ended up going back to New Orleans in late November, a week before I returned, because he needed to start work (and start getting paid) again. Our house was uninhabitable, so he stayed at the empty home of some friends, Richelle and William.

Katrina Revisited: I Spent Your Money (10/4/05)

[Original post: October 4, 2005]

I thought those of you who sent Target gift cards might want to know how the money was spent. (Don’t worry: I have not decked myself out in head-to-toe Isaac Mizrahi, accessorized with blue-handled Michael Graves kitchen implements.)

Yesterday we drove to the Garan shelter in Marksville to find out what was needed this week, but the shelter had closed the day before. Shelters are consolidating right now, so the evacuees still living there have been dispatched to nearby faux-metropolis Alexandria. Most are staying in the Riverfront Center, which faces the giant levee of the Red River. This is a conference facility that housed 425 evacuees on Sunday; the number went down on Monday as some people moved out, with another 150 new arrivals expected that night. The Red Cross volunteers told us that as more shelters close, they expect to reach their capacity of 850 pretty soon.

It’s a better environment that Garan – i.e. not a factory – but people are still sleeping in a communal room filled with cots and borrowed belongings. The mealtime schedule, posted on a piece of cardboard, includes a special early breakfast for school children. Most people there look bored, or stunned, or simply exhausted. I’ve felt anxious and grumpy enough this month staying at Slowness. If I had to sleep every night in a huge room full of strangers, using communal bathrooms, told when I can eat, standing in line whenever I need to get diapers or tampons or toilet paper, and checked in and out of the building by the National Guard, I’d be more than miserable. Many of these evacuees will not be able to go home for months. Many have nothing to go home to.

For the Garan shelter, we bought five giant bottles of laundry detergent for use in the sole communal washing machine, and one hundred towels.

For the Alexandria shelter, after talking yesterday to the young Red Cross people at the front desk, we bought: a DVD player, a microwave oven, two basketballs, two footballs, two (Halloween-themed) play balls, two long jump ropes, a pump, ten extension cords, four big packs of AA batteries, five towels and, with the leftover money, two big packs of Halloween candy.

As you can tell by the second shopping list, boredom is a major factor there, especially for kids.

All of these things were appreciated so much at the shelters: everything will be put to good use. The volunteer who took the towels from us was nearly skipping with happiness, because that was a dire need at Garan. I’m really, really grateful to those of you who sent Target cards. Thank you so much.