This is a book I picked up on a whim while at Tower Books in Sacramento.
The title caught my eye, as did the cover picture, of a little mop-haired
girl roaring like a lion; the words “National Bestseller” (Oh, really?
I’d never seen it before.) and “Reading Group Guide” did not.

It’s the author’s memoir of her own childhood in Africa–first in
Rhodesia, and later in Malawi and Zambia. Her parents were farmers;
tobacco, mostly, but also cattle. They were members of the white upper
class in Rhodesia, before it became Zimbabwe; later they were simply
members of the white minority wherever they lived.

It was a hard life, both before and after Zimbabwe came to be; I don’t
suppose the life of a farmer is easy in any country, and it was worsened
by circumstances; Fuller’s mother gave birth to five children, of whom
only two lived to adulthood. The second child, a boy, died of meningitis
at an early age; the fourth, a girl, drowned in a duckpond when she was
two years old (and that was a hard section to read, let me tell you); the
fifth was stillborn.

It was a hard life, and as the Fullers had little money and were white
besides, they could only farm the worst land. They stayed, despite the
death of their children, despite tedium, despite alcoholism, because they
loved Africa. Alexandra has married an American and moved to the United
States, but her parents are there still.

This is a poignant book, and is filled with all kinds of fascinating
details about life in Africa; Fuller neither preaches nor moralizes,
trusting that her story will speak for itself, which it does. I didn’t
enjoy it that much, however, for I didn’t like her family all that much,
and it’s not a happy story. Also, it was marred by a self-consciously
literary tone (at one point, the African morning clutters into the room,
which is jarring, though perhaps), and by a too-narrow focus on the
author’s own life. More background on the recent history of Africa and
the countries in which she lived would have been helpful, even if it was
information she didn’t have growing up.

Still, I’m not sorry I read it; it forms an interesting contrast to
several other books I’ll be reviewing in the next couple of days.

Recently a knitting friend of mine died after a mercifully short bout of
cancer, naming me in her will to inherit her spinning wheels and anything
of her books and yarn stash that I wanted. What a gruesome task. I’d
known her for years from our monthly knitting group meetings, workshops
and conferences we attended together. I still can’t believe she’s gone.

However, she left me this stuff to enjoy, read and use, not to pine over
or treasure as a relic so after a week or two of avoiding the pile in my
fiber room, I dug in. This was one of the few books she had that I hadn’t
managed to collect myself and I gobbled it right up in a couple sittings.

It’s not a pattern book exactly though it has some patterns in it. It’s
essentially a compilation of oral histories about the knitting tradition
in the fishing communities of the eastern coast of Britain. Sweaters
called “ganseys” were knit by the women of the communities for their
menfolk in the fishing industry and to sell on commission for a pittance
to dealers as a means of getting some income to stretch out the little
money they had to live on. The sweaters were traditionally made of a 5
ply fine wool in dark, navy blue with knit/purl patterning on them,
usually only from the chest up since the stomach area was covered by
heavy overalls worn to keep the seawater out. They were often knit with
three quarter length sleeves to prevent the saltwater and wool from
irritating and infecting the wrists. And each knitter had a distinctive
pattern she knit or each community had its own set of patterns that
defined it.

There are several books on this subject that talk of much the same thing
in Cornwall. What makes Pearson’s book so special is that he went into
the archives of the historical societies of the small towns and got
photos of the fishermen, the women on the quay knitting and the children
knitting on the sleeves or plain bottoms to help with the family income.
There are old photos of women gutting and packing herring after the
boats have come in and the same women sitting on the empty barrels
waiting for the catch, knitting. Pearson sought out the old people in the
towns and villages to see if they had specimens left from those knitters
and then copiously copied the patterns and took pictures of them. And he
points out that these women were not engaged in some charming folk
activity but were pushing starvation back from the hearth. The kids in
the pictures often have a pinched, hungry look about them.

It’s an interesting book filled with marvelous pictures and inspiring
stories.

Here’s a fascinating article by Clay Shirky about the social dynamics of groups of people, especially as mediated by software. I found it courtesy of Joel on Software.

The July Issue of Ex Libris Reviews is now available for your reading pleasure! Even if you’ve been reading Foothills all month, take a look at Craig Clarke’s reviews.

When you’re spending around twenty hours a day there, your hotel is extremely important. And though it pains me to say it, the Embassy Suites in Sacramento didn’t measure up.

They got all of the big things right. The location is just about perfect: it’s on Capitol Mall right next to the Sacramento River. The state capitol building is about ten blocks away down Capitol Mall, in plain sight from the front of the hotel. Across Capitol Mall is “Old Sacramento”, the historical district, which contains the old waterfront and train station, and also the California State Railroad Museum, which is a truly nifty place. Capitol Mall continues across the river over the Tower Bridge, which is a draw bridge. The center section lifts up between the two towers that give it its name. When I add that our hotel room looked out over the river and the Tower Bridge, you’d think that our joy would be complete.

But the devil is in the details, and the details weren’t right, especially not for a family of five. Now, we expected there to be rough spots–Monterey is a big tourist destination, whereas Sacramento is a seat of government. It would be unreasonable to expect the Embassy Suites in Sacramento to cater to families like the one in Monterey does, and we didn’t expect it. But the following gripes would affect anyone who stays there:

• Extra towels are provided by the poolside. Each time we used the pool, I had to ask for additional towels, because the rack was always empty.
• The normal pillows had down in them. I’m allergic to down, as is Jane; we didn’t feel like experimenting on the children, so we called Housekeeping and requested hypoallergenic pillows. After two hours had gone by, I had to call the Front Desk and complain. In Monterey, by comparison, the Front Desk called us half-an-hour after we’d requested the pillows to make sure that they’d gotten there.
• Embassy Suites provides a very nice complimentary breakfast, which we truly enjoyed in Monterey. The chefs in Sacramento, by contrast, somehow have figured out how to cook bacon so that all of the flavor is removed.
• In fact, the food was a real sticking point. For dinner the first night I ordered a deli sandwich–pastrami and cheese on sourdough. I got a hot pastrami sandwich with mustard on white bread. The next day, Jane ordered a hot pastrami sandwich. She got a pastrami sandwich on grilled bread, but the meat and cheese were cold.
• A remarkably trivial point, but one that seems to illustrate the difference fairly well. In Monterey, the shower had a clothes line in it. Since we were swimming every night, we made great use of this. In Sacramento there was no such thing.

So it’s with regret that I find that I can’t recommend the Embassy Suites in Sacramento.

All that said, we still managed to have a good time.

The kids rushed through the Railroad Museum far more quickly than I’d expected, which was sad; I was thinking that it might take two days, like that Aquarium, but they were done in an hour and a half.

The next day we went to Sutter’s Fort, which turned out to be much better than I’d expected. A bit of background for my non-Californian readers: John Sutter came to California in the 1830’s or so, and built his fort in the middle of what’s now Sacramento. It became the leading trading post in central California during the 1840’s. And then, in 1848, Sutter arranged to build a sawmill some considerable distance away. His man on the spot, John Marshall, found gold in the millrace–and the California Gold Rush was on.

I’ve been to Sutter’s Fort several times, and this was the best visit yet. I expected we’d be through it in half-an-hour, but all this summer they are doing a living history program there. So we spent time listening to a variety of folks doing their jobs in various parts of the fort. The two best were a trapper (equipped with a wide variety of skins) who talked about the fur trade, and the blacksmith, who was demonstrating how to make nails (the fort’s blacksmith made 1500 a day!).

But the real highlight of our stay in Sacramento were visits to a couple of old favorites. A good friend of ours (she reads this blog, and she knows who she is) lived in Sacramento for several years, during which we visited her several times. Among the places she took us were Tower Books, a truly excellent bookstore, and Chevy’s Mexican Restaurant. This was maybe ten years ago, and although Chevy’s is now a well-known chain we’d never previously heard of it. There are Chevy’s in Los Angeles now, and we’ve been to a couple of them, and though we like them, the food has never seemed quite as good as at the Chevy’s by the river in Sacramento a hop, skip, and a jump from where our friend lived. So naturally we went there for dinner our last night in town.

We got there just after five o’clock on Thursday. What we hadn’t realized is that this particular Chevy’s is one of the major happy hour spots in that part of town. It was jammed. (According to our waiter, the only Chevy’s that does more business is in Times Square, NYC.) The hostess estimated 25 minutes for a table. I looked at our three little kids, and said, “You don’t want our kids cluttering up your lobby for twenty-five minutes…can you do anything to get us seated more quickly?” They could, and did. It took some figuring out, but we were seated in five minutes–by a window, with a clear view of the river. The service was outstanding, and the food was every bit as good as we’d remembered; maybe better. We were so pleased that on the way out Jane got a hold of the manager and thanked him warmly.

So: Sutter’s Fort, Tower Books, Chevy’s good; the Sacramento Embassy Suites, mediocre at best.

I have tried to read other books by Marsh with little success. I was
browsing the bookshelf culling the unwanteds for space and put most of
them in the sell back box but this one I hung onto. And it caught me.

Peregrine Jay is directing “MacBeth” at the Dolphin theater in London,
hoping for a smashing success and a long run. The first half of the book
is the telling of his casting of the characters, the initial rehearsals
with blocking and choreographing the swordfight. Everything is perfect,
right down to the reproduction swords and claymore used on stage.
Unfortunately, someone has taken the curse of MacBeth seriously and fake
MacBeth heads made as props for the end scene keep turning up in the
wrong places. And on opening night, the real MacBeth’s head ends up
dripping from the pike as the curtain falls, stunning the cast.

Thank heavens, Inspector Alleyn was in the front row. And thank heavens
the killer confesses since Alleyn is nowhere close to solving the mystery
as the book closes. In fact, I don’t think he had a clue. Which was
exactly my problem with the rest of the novels; they just sort of wander
around. This one just happened to have the wonderful lead up of the play
to catch and hold my attention. And the use of a Maori guy as one of the
witches. But I won’t be buying anymore. Sigh.

I’ve just released version 1.0 of Notebook, my personal notebook application. If you’ve not taken a look at it, you might like to; it’s a great way to manage all of those notes you don’t know where to keep, with links between them. It’s like having a personal website on your desktop, only much easier to edit and maintain.

I’ve just posted Chapters 12 and 13 of my novel Through Darkest Zymurgia!

I’ve received reports that the background color has been coming out bright yellow on some people’s browsers; it’s supposed to be a muted parchment color. So I’ve tweaked the settings a bit, and for now Zymurgia will have a plain white background. So much for atmosphere.

At bedtime, Jane asked James (our almost-four-year-old) whether he enjoyed our vacation or not.

He said he really loved our vacation, and he really loved Australia.

Hmmm. Dad leaves home to go to Australia. James leaves home, why, he must be going to Australia too!

For the record, we drove to Monterey, California, where we spent three days, and then to Sacramento, California, where we spent three days, and then we came home. You can’t drive to Australia.

Monterey was very nice. The Embassy Suites hotel in Monterey isn’t really in Monterey; it’s just over the border in Seaside. But we could see the ocean from our window, and the road that passed in front of the hotel took us to straight to Fisherman’s Wharf, Cannery Row, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I have to hand it to the Monterey Embassy Suites and its staff–they’ve got families all scoped out (and there were lots of families staying there). The breakfast was good every morning, they had a special kid-friendly buffet in the evening (which we didn’t take advantage of), and there was a flier in our rooms telling us about all the local events that would be fun for kids, including the Harry Potter parties the night before.

Mostly, we went to the Aquarium. The concierge set us up with special tickets–good for two day’s admittance at the same price as normal tickets. Given the kids’ capacity for two hours’ worth of excitement a day, that turned out to be an outstanding deal. I’d thought we’d covered most of the Aquarium the first day, and that we were just going back to see some odds and ends. It turns out that they’d added a whole new wing since we were there seven or eight years ago, dedicated to the life of the Outer Bay. It was filled with exquisitely displayed jellyfish, really quite shockingly beautiful (pun not intended), and also a massive tank filled mostly with tuna, along with a couple of sea turtles, a hammerhead shark, and a few other things. It was gorgeous, and Jane and I just stood there wondering at it for at least ten minutes, while David and James kept trying to pull us away.

Do you have any idea how big tuna really are? I think of fish as being rather flat in cross-section, but tuna are big, fat suckers, like scaly dolphins.

On the Monday afternoon, we hired a babysitter from a service with an office at the hotel, and went to walk around Carmel, just the two of us, feeling dreadfully and joyfully extravagant. Carmel has changed a bit, and the neat bookstore in the complex at the top of Ocean Street has gone, but it was fun to walk around the galleries, admiring some things and laughing at others.

On the Tuesday, we did the pretty part of the 17 Mile Drive, from Pacific Grove to Carmel (with David asking, “Where’s our new hotel?” every fifteen minutes), and then headed toward Sacramento. State highway 68 to US 101 north to state highway 156, which passes through the little town of San Juan Bautista, home of the mission of the same name.

I’m not sure I’d ever been to San Juan Bautista before, despite having driven within fifteen miles of it on any number of occasions; but Jane had suggested Mexican food for lunch, and I saw a sign for a place called “Dona Esther’s”. We went, and it was outstanding. I had a shredded beef enchilada and a big tamale, with the best Mexican rice and beans I’ve ever had. It wasn’t a fancy place, and it wasn’t fancy food, but darn it was good. I’d gladly go back. Then we walked over and looked through the Mission, to which I’ll give a mixed review. The grounds and the Mission museum are looking pretty ratty. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of money coming in. But the sanctuary itself was well-maintained and spotless (and beautiful), and there were other signs that the parish is alive and healthy.

And then we drove on to Sacramento. But that’s another post.

Now the story can be told.

It so happens that what was keeping me busy over the last week was being on vacation with my family. (But you were posting anyway! Have laptop, will travel. But that’s a later post.) I have a certain delicacy about announcing to the world at large that my home is going to be unguarded for a week, which is why I didn’t say anything previously.

But anyway, I spent the last week vacationing with my wife and my three little kids. One of the big questions Jane and I had going in was how much we should plan on doing each day; now I know the answer: about two hours worth.

Except for the first day and last day, when we were driving most of the day, our vacation days went pretty much like this:

• The kids wake us about about 6:30 or 7 AM.
• There’s no rush, because most tourist attractions don’t open until 10 AM.
• Around 7:30 or 8 AM we roll down to breakfast, to see what the kids are willing to eat, if anything. We’re staying at an Embassy Suites (it’s the easiest way to ensure we get two adjoining rooms), so breakfast is on the house.
• Then we roll back up to the room until 9:30. The kids watch cartoons or play with the toys they’ve brought along. We read (Harry Potter, mostly).
• At 9:30 we gather everyone together, drive to the desired attraction, and spend the next hour or so telling nearly-four-year-old James to stay with the rest of us.
• By 11:30 or noon, the kids are tired of the attraction; it’s time for lunch.
• We find lunch somewhere.
• Then we go back to the hotel. Almost two-year-old Anne naps, as does James; six-year-old David plays with his toys. Jane reads; Will reads or does some web-surfing.
• Dinner time. We venture out, and find something for dinner.
• After dinner, it’s time to go swimming. By this time in the evening, both boys are manic; swimming tires them out and slows them down.
• Now it’s bed time. Cookies and juice for the kids, followed by stories, and then Jane and retreat into the bedroom. There’s nowhere to sit but on the bed, but at least we don’t need to go to sleep immediately.
• Repeat.

And that’s how pretty much every day went. For the kids it was exciting enough just being away from home, staying at a hotel, and getting to go swimming. The nifty things we planned were mostly secondary. Go figure.