This is Not New York.

I'm headed to Anderson Bookstore's Young Adult Literature conference outside Chicago tomorrow. I got my itinerary yesterday at 7:40 pm, which seemed a little late to me, and my publicist* asked, could I get myself to the airport tomorrow, or did they need to send a car for me?

I understand that these questions make sense in Manhattan, where plenty of people don't bother owning their own vehicles, and where getting to the airport by public transportation is a big pain in the neck. But this is Bristol, honey. I'm not sure exactly how one "sends a car." Do we have taxis? Anywhere? We have some buses that run downtown, and out to the hospital and the Bass Pro Shop on one edge and the Wal-Mart on the other. I don't think the buses go to the airport; I know they don't go to my farm.

I'd already had to explain to the folks in New York that my local airport was Tri-Cities, which meant it sat equidistant between Bristol, Johnson City, and Kingsport, which gave us enough population to support a regional airport. Then my publicist's assistant expressed surprise that I couldn't get direct flights to Chicago from Bristol. Well, no, I told her. You can fly direct to Charlotte or Atlanta, your choice. Even when I'm flying from Bristol to Nashville I go though Atlanta. Were I to fly from Bristol to Knoxville (not that anyone ever would) I would o it through Atlanta. Or Charlotte. My choice.

The plus side is that the far-away airport parking costs $8 per day and is only 10 feet farther from the terminal than the close airport parking ($12 per day). Also it takes 5 minutes to go through security, or 7 if the person in front of you has never flown before and doesn't know they have to take off their shoes and get rid of the extra-large tube of toothpaste they put in their carry-on. It's a friendly sort of airport. Once when we ended up driving back from the Atlanta airport in a rental car (long story), I went to take the rental back to the Bristol airport and forgot to fill it up with gas. The clerk handed the keys back to me. "Honey," he said, "Drive down to the Citgo, fill it up, and bring it back. Otherwise it's going to cost you an extra eighty bucks."

If I really needed a way to get to the airport tomorrow, I'd just call a friend. Someone would take me no problem, in the same way that I've taken people or picked them up when needed. But I'll be taking the surviving dog to the kennel anyhow, and stopping at the bank for some traveling money, and then maybe swinging through the Pal's drive-thru for a big iced tea. I wish the folks in Manhattan would visit sometimes. I'd love for them to understand how we live around here.

*For those of you wondering how I got a publicist, the answer is that when you are published by mainstream publishers they have them in-house, and assign each author one. They're really ramping up the publicity for The War That Saved My Life, which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Duck Feet For Dinner

Yesterday afternoon, through a confluence of coincidences, I found myself in the Asian grocery in Kingsport looking for tamarind paste.

Kingsport is a neighboring city. I had an errand there, which is rare, and it happened to take me very near an Asian grocery store, which is something we don't have in Bristol. And that morning via email I'd gotten a recipe for homemade pad thai that promised me I really did need a bunch of odd ingredients. "Fish sauce" is pretty clear. What's a tamarind?

The Asian grocery smacked me upside the head with how many things humans can eat that I'd never heard of or considered eating before. They had packets of what looked like minnows, eyes and all, freeze-dried. I still can't imagine what you do with those. Toss 'em on a salad? Fish croutons?

I consider myself an adventurous eater. More than once I've had the checkout clerk at Food City hold up something from the produce section and ask, "Ma'am? What is this?" (Of course, one of those times it was parsley, but still.) I've been to some odd places--I recall a shabeen in South Africa where our guide, walking us through the buffet, tried hard to explain the concept of mealie pap, the basis of many South Africa meals. "That's grits," I said, looking at it. "Don't worry. We get it."

"Ah," the guide said, "Okay, to go on the mealie pap this is lamb curry, and this is vegetables, and this is--ah, this is a local delicacy. I don't think you'd like it." He does not say you white people but he thinks it pretty loud.

"What is it?" I asked, peering down at little white rings in a soupy gravy. Calamari?

"Goat intestine," the guide said.

He was right. Us white people skipped that one.

Anyway, back at the Asian market, I discovered that some people apparently eat duck feet. My Polish grandma used to make duck blood soup, pouring a quart of sickly sweet coagulating duck blood into the broth--it was the only delicacy of hers I couldn't eat, and that includes blood sausage--but I'd always assumed that, when cooking a duck, you ignored the feet. I was wrong. I looked up "cooking duck feet" on Google when I got home, and the instructions read, "boil until you can easily pull off a toe."

Ducks have toes?

Is any of this worse than Easy Cheez? Or non-dairy creamer? When my daughter and I were at the World Equestrian Games, we ran into a bunch of Australians who couldn't get over creamer. "Creamer," they kept saying, holding their sides with mirth. "Cream-er."

(At the Olympics in the Olympic park the Brits completely ignored a lovely multiethnic food court in favor of queueing for an hour at the World's Largest McDonald's, but I digress. Oh, except to say that this week I learned that McRib sandwiches are made from a ground combination of pork tripe, heart, and stomach. Yummy!)

Meanwhile, back at the grocery, I'd found fish sauce, rice noodles, mung bean spouts and palm sugar, but was drawing a blank at tamarind paste. One aisle of the Asian market had a list of canned sauces: red curry paste, green curry paste, yellow curry paste, thai noodle paste--no tamarind. I was forced to squint at all the cans, looking for the tiny English letters translating the label.

Finally I gave up. I found the sole employee, a man at the back whacking the feet off dead ducks, and asked him for tamarind paste. He obligingly walked down a different aisle and slapped a slightly squishy red-brown packet into my hand. Animal, vegetable, mineral? I've no idea. I hoped this stuff had no relationship with Tamarin monkeys. I bought it, and at home I looked it up. The tamarind is a tropical, mostly African, tree. It grows nuts. Tamarind nuts. Now you know, and so do I.

Banned Books Week: Harry Potter, Jesus, and Why You Can't Tell My Kid What to Read

A few days ago, my daughter and I both stumbled upon one of the most hilariously awful pieces of fan-fiction ever written. Fan-fiction is when someone, usually a teen fan, takes characters or situations that an author invented and either continues their story or writes an alternate version. Examples of this abound on the internet: the most prevalent, so far as I can tell, are Harry Potter versions in which Harry turns out to love a completely new character who very much resembles the author of the fan-fiction piece.

Fan-fiction is usually not copyright infringement because it's not being sold. It's usually awful, because we can't all be J.K. Rowling. It usually has an agenda, even if the agenda is merely, "But I wish Harry Potter would snog me!"

So the piece I stumbled upon--well, I'll just link to it, here--is a version of Harry Potter written for the sort of evangelical Christian who feels that exposure to the real Harry Potter will turn her darlings into actual witches, or, at the very least, away from God. This is my favorite part of chapter one:

Hagrid laughed wisely. "Evolution is a fairytale. You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Yes, I do!" Aunt Petunia screeched.

"Well then prove it!"

Aunt Petunia could only stare at him; and her big mouth hung open dumbly. Here she thought she was so educated; and always demanded that Christians prove what they believed in; but she couldn't even prove her own religion. It was then that Harry knew who the smart one here was!

"Tell me how to get to this heaven place!" Harry cried wistfully, clasping his hands together. Sometimes, the wisdom of little ones is really amazing. We think we grownups know it all; but then God speaks through the mouths of little ones; and shows us how we are all mortals struggling along the path of life. Humility.

"All you have to do is be saved. Do you want to be saved?"

"I do, I do!" Harry squealed, jumping up and down.

"Then pray the sinner's prayer!"

Aunt Petunia tried to stop him; but she was powerless against Harry's pure, innocent, holy energy. Soon, Harry had said the prayer. Hagrid beamed happily.

"You're a Christian now, Harry!" Hagrid cried proudly.

Harry smiled but then interrogated, "But how do I be a Christian? I don't know how!"

Hagrid grinned widely. "There is only one place to learn that-Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles!"

It's my favorite because it takes talent, really it does, to write this badly. "The wisdom of little ones is really amazing."  Bwwwahahahaha

Now, I would do whatever I could to keep my children, were they at young, impressionable ages, from reading this claptrap. One, because I want them to love reading, and no one can love this dreck. Two, because I want them to believe in evolution AND God. That's just how I roll. Three,  because I don't fear that their faith is so tenuous that the Harry Potter series will cause them to question it or that they would need it constantly reinforced by every piece of fiction they read.

In our house we love Harry Potter. In odd moments this summer my son reread most of the series.

I would guess, however, that viewpoints like the one which caused the woman to write the stuff above (Snopes.com says that it isn't clear whether she's serious or satirical, but I'm pretty sure, given that she's still posting new chapters, that she's serious) are also the ones that drive campaigns for books to be banned. And that's dangerous stuff.

When someone bans a book, they're not saying that they don't want their children reading it. All parents have that right. I myself prevented my kids from reading some of my own books, ones I myself wrote, until I thought they were old enough to handle them. If you think one of my books isn't appropriate for your kid--have at it. Tell them no. But don't lead a campaign to get it banned. When you ban a book, you're saying that you get to decide what is right for all kids--yours, and everyone else's. 

You have the right to believe whatever you like. You have the right to censor your child's reading material. You even have the right to write truly horrific fan-fiction.

You don't have the right to tell my kids what to read.

Anticipating Fred

It's 7:14 am Bristol time as I type this, which means that it's 6:14 am in Wisconsin, where my sister lives. I'm thinking about her pretty much to the exclusion of everything else, wondering what she's doing right this very moment, because, this morning, her son Fred will be born.

Like his older brother Louie (these are my blog names for my nephews: Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Fred. No, those are not their real names. Sheesh.), Fred's coming into the world via c-section, so we've known his birthday for weeks now. I don't actually know what time my sister is going into the hospital, so I don't know what time to expect the phone call, or text, or whatever, that I pray will tell me that Fred is safely into our world.

Some things you can't understand until you've done them. Having a baby is certainly not rare--look around, so many humans--but it's inexplicable. It changes you forever. The morning I went into labor with our firstborn, my husband drove me through these ink-black frosted streets, and every time I saw another car I looked for a glimpse of the person inside. For all of those people, I thought, this was just an ordinary day, but for me and my husband, it was extraordinary. It seemed poignant somehow--everyone else driving off to work, ho hum, when this enormous miracle was just about to occur.

We close our eyes to miracles. We forget how astonishing the world can be. I saw a cookie cake on cakewrecks.com recently (if you're bored of LOLcats but want a laugh, try cakewrecks) that read, "Look! We made a human with our genitals!" and I laughed and laughed, not so much because it was funny, but because the truth of it was so absurd. How can this all work? How can we not be amazed, every day, that it does?

I'll see a photo of Fred today, and in less than two weeks I'll be able to hold him. The other day I tried to tell my son how much I looked forward to holding a tiny baby again, to counting all Fred's fingers and toes, to smell that wonderful sweet spot at the back of his neck. My son, a bit alarmed, thought I was wanting another baby myself. No, that's not it, I told him. I had my babies; I loved my babies. Further babies at this point would be along the lines of a miracle. But so were the first two, and so is Fred, and I can't wait to meet him and revel in his improbably perfect self.

Ten Things on Tuesday

1. My eyes are worse this morning, which I would not have thought possible last night. My allergy appointment is at 10:30 and should be miserable. I've done allergy testing at least 3 times before. I am allergic to nearly everything. The most recent testing I was allergic to 74 out of 75 items; the only thing I wasn't allergic to was dogs.

2. I am allergic to horses, and I don't care.

3. Speaking of, we've now trapped something like 5 skunks from our barn. In the hope that this is all the skunks, I cleaned up the piles of skunk poop last night. Fingers crossed.

4. When I talked about mostly hating mission trips, I should have added that I don't hate medical mission trips--the ones where teams of physicians go to developing nations to either give medical care or train local physicians. Correct a child's clubfoot or cleft palate and you don't have to build a long-term relationship or understand her culture to have a profound influence on her life.

5. For all other forms of aid, however: listen first. I recently read about a community in African where several women prostitutes had been killed. What was the answer here? Better law enforcement? Job skills training, so the women could do something else? When asked, the women of the community said that what they needed was a way to keep elephants out of their fields. Elephants were trampling their crops, leaving them so destitute that they resorted to prostitution to feed their children. Accordingly, an aid group raised money to buy fencing materials, and the women themselves built the elephant-proof fence.

6. Back when, I promised to give away my copy of Interrupted to one of the people who left comments on that post. I used a Random Number Generator set between 1 and 4, and the winner is Diane! This amuses me greatly, both because I know her and because her comment was, "Why don't I just borrow the book?" I'll give it to her and she can pass it on however she chooses.

7. I am finally making progress on my to-do list. The freezer has been moved to the basement and the ironing is done (it tells you a lot about my life that after 3 months of no ironing my ironing pile consisted of a few random linen towels, one blouse, and my good napkins). Also, the clipper cord has been replaced, by the same man who sharpens my clipper blades. His name--I'm pretty sure he's making it up--is Will Sharpen, and he does a mail-order clipper repair business worldwide, but also lives about 5 miles from me, so yesterday he showed up in his truck and fixed everything. This means I have functional clippers several weeks before I need to clip the horses, which is amazing. I've also gotten 5 of the 7 horse blankets laundered, just waiting for sunny weather to do the other two.

8. I feel amazing.

9. Except for the eyes.

10. To round out this list, I offer you another quote from the back of my novel, The War That Saved My Life.  This one comes from Karen Cushman. (Get out of town! But it's true.) "You are about to read an astounding novel. I was gobsmacked. Will you cry and rejoice and hold your breath? Absolutely. Will you find the book as exciting, touching, wise, and profound as I did? Yes. Remarkable achievement, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Thank you." (Note: it doesn't get any better than that.)

Eyes of Satan

That's me.

I don't mean I've suddenly become the Prince of Darkness. I mean I look like him--or maybe Voldemort. Anyway, it's the eyes: mine are swollen, chapped, and bright, crimson red. They have been since Friday, and they're only getting worse.

For today, there's not a thing in the world I can do about it. It's allergies, and I would guess that the ragweed is in bloom. The house isn't as pollen-tight as usual, what with the workmen opening windows upstairs, and I'd also guess they've stirred up a fair bit of dust ripping the carpet out, and I'm allergic to dust as well as pollen.

Yes, my husband is an eye doctor, and yes, he gives me drops: two kinds of antihistamines and an anti-inflammatory. They don't see to help at all, or if they do, sheesh. Steroid drops would help--they got me through a bad patch last spring--but they also raised my eye pressure to incipient-glaucoma levels, so I can't take them anymore.

Not only am I returning to my allergy doctor and going back on immunotherapy, I have an appointment for repeat allergy testing tomorrow. Which is part of the problem: I can't take antihistamine pills for three days before the testing.This morning my asthma has decided to kick in, for the first time in weeks, and I'm left wondering if I dare go to yoga class or if anything at all will be too much for me. It's a pathetic way to live, but it's only until tomorrow.

This morning as I was moping about the kitchen, feeling sorry for myself, I remembered how bad my allergies used to be. When I was a child I used to wake up with my eyelids crusted together, stuck. My nose ran so much during ragweed season that I'd get a crack along the side of my nose where the chapped skin broke open, and it would stay there for weeks. I overused most of the medicine available at the time, to the point where it either made my nose run worse, or it knocked me unconscious. (I slept through my high school Baccalaureate Mass.)

I carried a purse in high school, mostly to hold my lunch money and the day's supply of Kleenex. I remember a boy in sophomore biology grabbing my purse in a teasing way, saying he was going to see what was inside. "Don't," I said, but of course he did. It was stuffed full of Kleenex, new and used. "Oh, gross," he said, slapping the purse shut.

"It's not gross," the boy behind him said. "It's just Kleenex. She can't help having allergies."

That was a good little memory for a kind of crummy day. It made me smile. Still does. I don't remember the name of the boy who grabbed my purse, but I do remember the name of the boy who stood up for me, even though, at the time, we were enemies more than friends.

I married him.

He still stands up for me, Satanic eyes and all. Thanks, darling.

Why I (Mostly) Hate Mission Trips

Back a few years ago, prior to a trip to Africa, I stopped by my pharmacy to pick up some anti-malaria pills. Cathy, the pharmacist (our boys played baseball together), gave me a cheery wave and said, "Going to a mission trip?"

"Nope," I said, equally cheerily. "I'm going as a tourist."

Cathy looked perplexed. I live in the Baptist Bible Belt, and mission trips are pretty common here. But I mostly hate mission trips. I'd rather be a tourist any day.

Here's what I do as a tourist: I come into the country because seeing it has value to me. I spend money at hotels and restaurants, which helps the local economy. I hire local guides. I try to understand the country as a whole, not just from the tourist sites--I've been to a one-room school in Costa Rica, a cattle farm in Botswana, several black townships in South Africa--respectfully, seeking to learn and understand.

Here's what I might do on a mission trip: I come into a country because I think I have value to the people there. I spend a lot of money to get there, none of which reaches the local economy. I preach Jesus, probably in English, to people who probably don't speak English, and I build a school or paint a building or perform some other job which could be equally well done by the people who live there. I come to teach, not listen. I don't learn anything about the culture, except that they are poorer than me but still manage (gasp!) to be happy.

It makes me full crazy when church groups of 20 people spend $2000 each to go to a remote place and impose their will on poor people. That's forty thousand dollars which might have been transformative in the lives of those in that hard place, spend hauling a bunch of privileged white folks there to spend a week learning how blessed they are. Amen!

Which is not to say that I think tourism is the only answer. The people and places most in need aren't in vacation hot spots. Rwanda, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Haiti. Not going to those places any time soon.

Which brings me to a "mission trip" I do support. Help One Now, an organization I've loved for a long time, has sent a group of storytellers to Ethiopia, to meet the organization they support there and spread the word. (Believe it or not, one of the women from Duck Dynasty is there. I don't watch DD, so I can't tell you more than that.) You can read about it here and here for starters.  Or here.

Help One Now partners with local leaders in the countries where they work. They find men and women who are already transforming their communities, and fund them. In Ethiopia, as in Haiti, they're working on a simple program of orphan prevention. Several years ago HON told a community leaders that they only wanted to spend their money on orphans, not on poor children still living with their parents. "Come back in a year," they were told, "and all these kids will be orphans, too." Meaning that their parents, unable to feed them, would surrender them to the orphanage.

Yesterday on the Ethiopian trip, the HON storytellers met an HIV-positive widow with 5 young children. Unable to care for them all, she'd put one daughter in an orphanage. Now, with HON's support, she has found a job, gotten a cow to provide milk for the family, been able to start anti-retroviral medicine, and brought her daughter home. Her children are in school and have enough to eat. Her family has been transformed.

In America our societal problems are often complex. Abuse, addiction, mental illness. In developing countries the problems can be simpler to solve--but not easier. If you have no shovel, and no hope of buying a shovel, you can't dig yourself out.

Help One Now is trying to get 300 sponsorships for 150 vulnerable families in Ethiopia. Each sponsorship costs $42/month, or $504 dollars per year. You know, about one-fourth what you might spend on a mission trip to go paint someone's church. Instead you'd keep a family together. How about it?