The Other Boleyn Girl review

If my World History teachers would have found textbooks that were half as engaging as The Other Boleyn Girl, I would have aced he subject. Phillipa Gregory does a fantastic job of taking a very complex and potentially confusing period in Britain's history and completely sucking the reader in. I've never been able to follow the Tudor line until now, and it's because for the first time I can see them as people (or characters) instead of just names across a page. If only textbook writers could make history this compelling....

The novel follows Mary Boleyn, Queen Anne's younger sister, who at the age of about fourteen becomes King Henry VIII's second mistress. Although she is married already, her family (sister Anne included, as well as brother George) schemes to make her the king's favorite in hopes that she will provide him with the male heir that his wife, Katherine, has failed to do. Mary has two children, but when they are stripped from her, she falls out of love with king and court, leaving the opening for Anne, the more ambitious of the two, to step in. Obviously, Anne wins the king and displaces Katherine as queen.

The characterizations of the principals were beautifully done. The Boleyn sisters, Mary and Anne, remained sympathetic throughout the novel despite their wavering between petty courtier machinations and their desires for deeper meaning in their lives. I was never able to see Anne Boleyn as more than a conniving b***h, who stole the queenship, and she mostly was, but Gregory gives her some real heart and emotion. Anne experiences real love at one point and it is stolen from her because of her gender, her inability to decide her own destiny. Who wouldn't become a harpy after that? Mary is little more than a pawn for the majority of the novel, but manages to rise above the intrigue of the court at last in sharp contrast to her sister.

King Henry is given depth as well. Instead of just a fat, gluttonous tyrant, Gregory shows glimpses of him as a doting husband and father to his legitimate wife. Although he did have his mistresses, he did have a very high regard for Katherine, and even for Anne until she overstepped her bounds. He is a classic example of how 'absolute power corrupts absolutely.'

I listened to the audio of The Other Boleyn Girl and Ruthie Henshall's narration was lovely to hear. She kept the characters distinct and moved the story along as well as any bard of old.

I give this novel 4.75 out of 5 stars and recommend it as a great summer read.

The Liberation of My Head

Back in October I posted about having to get my hair done for a wedding. Reading back through it, I'm kind of laughing at myself. I had an almost identical experience this weekend, with a much different outcome!

I've been wanting to cut my hair for a while now - mostly out of a need for change, but also because my scalp has really been bugging me. It doesn't like being trussed up and usually responds by itching and being generally annoying. A few months ago, I had a minor meltdown and cut my dreds halfway, to about chin length. They had just gotten too heavy and I was sick of them being on my neck. It was a cute compromise and I was okay with it for a while.

Then another wedding came up, ironically, another of my husband's cousins. I made an appointment for Friday to see the loctician I finally found locally. Now, this appointment was a huge inconvenience, but I wanted to get my hair done - it was looking pretty shabby, I'll admit, and has been extra irritating because of the heat. I had told her I wanted to cut it, but she was trying to talk me out of it. Well, Friday came, I spent and extra hour of driving time (just try to calculate the gas costs on top of that!) and got there to learn that she was 45 minutes behind schedule. Now I'm not one of these prima donna types, but I did have a very small window to see her before I had to be home to get my son from the school bus. So I couldn't wait. And I couldn't reschedule for Saturday because I had to work in the morning. I was a little pissed off if for no other reason that they could call to confirm, but couldn't call to save me the trip?

Before I continue, let me just state that while I had issues relaxing my hair when I first decided to wear it natural, I'm pretty much over that. The relaxers had dried out my scalp and hair. But wearing the locs for the past almost-three years had done pretty much the same! It's sort of the same way that I stopped using antiperspirant for an all-natural deodorant and ended up having major burns under my arms from the natural product, but that's another post.

So, quite irked, I got my son, carted both kids to the beauty supply store, came home and chopped my dreds right off. I cleaned up the sides and back with the clippers I use for my son and husband, and evened out the top to make it a little longer. Then I relaxed it just a little (didn't leave the straightener in for the whole time) to soften the curls. My head feels lighter and cooler, and I look about ten years younger according to a neighbor. I feel pretty darned cute and I think I looked great for the wedding.

I don't know what I'll do with it in the next few months. I may keep it short and relaxed, or I may let it grow out. I plan to maintain it myself because I just have no patience, time or money for having to deal with days like last Friday. Is it me or do these weddings seem to have an adverse effect on me? Perhaps we should just start staying home!

10 Things I (Re) Learned About Camping

I consider myself a veteran camper. I camped as a child and my husband and I have been at it through the entire ten years we’ve been together. And yet, the first camping trip of each season inevitably reminds me of some things:

1. When your mother-in-law tells you that it’s going to be below 40 overnight, pack accordingly. Teenage-esque rebellion should be reserved for your own mother.

2. When you check the weather forecast, pay attention to the overnight temperatures. Then, when you learn it will be below 40, don’t pack short pajamas. You will freeze.

3. Obnoxious neighbors from other campsites are even more annoying than obnoxious neighbors at home.

4. Drinking 16 ounces of tea, followed by wine…not a good idea if you are afraid of the dark and don’t like to whiz in the woods.

5. A full bladder, cold and loud music make the night seem very long.

6. Forgetting things like food, lanterns and tent poles make for very amusing anecdotes, but aren’t all that funny in the moment.

7. Raccoons are not remotely afraid of people.

8. It’s harder to find the clean socks you’re looking for in your pack when you have to pee really badly.

9. A whole day of outdoors and fresh air is better than Benadryl for getting kids to sleep.

10. Open spaces make it much easier to get along with people.

On Going Green...ish

Our family has tried for a long time to be friendly to the environment, but I've been making more of an effort the past couple of weeks to do more. I'm quite proud of myself today.

We've had reusable shopping bags for ages. Unfortunately, they tend to sit in the closet because we always forget to use them. I always kept 2 in my car for those last minute jaunts to the supermarket, and sometimes I even remember to bring the into the store, but last week, I put a couple more in the car for the big shopping trips. So today when I went shopping, I was half done filling my cart when I realized that I had, once again, forgotten the bags in the car. Usually I would just leave them there and promise to do better the following week. But today I was determined! I finished my shopping, explained to the person at customer service that I had forgotten my bags in the car, and then left my full cart so I could go get the bags. I am very pleased to say that I got out of the store with only 1 plastic bag (for the meat). Yay!

I also got some environmentally friendly dryer sheets and dishwashing liquid to add to the Method products I bought two weeks ago. Method has a great tub & tile cleaner, by the way - just as good as Soft Scrub, which I also like a lot.

On the downside of my 'going green' dream, I also tried a Tom's deodorant. My armpits look like they somehow got sunburned. Aluminum-laden anti-perspirants have never given me a reaction, but the all-natural, healthy one did. If I had a dollar for every irony of my life, I wouldn't need to find a job.

Karate and Dance

I’m not one of those moms who has to have their kids in everything, but I do think it’s important to let them try different things that they show an interest in. So MM has been taking dance since September and both kids recently tried karate. We’ll be looking for a new activity come summer.

I had a few reasons for putting MM in dance this year. She wasn’t going to be able to go to school as much and I wanted something for her to do that would have her around other kids. Dance was about half the cost of her preschool, and it turns out that a few of the girls from dance will be starting at the same kindergarten next year, so that worked out well. She had also expressed an interest in taking dance. She’s a very girly-girl and is very much into princesses and twirling, etc. It was only when she got into actual dance classes and discovered there was oh-no-work! involved that she cooled to that idea. This is also a good thing. Why not test the waters even if they’re not the right ones? Now she really doesn’t want to continue, but we’re committed until the end of May, after her recital. I hate having to make her do something she doesn’t want to, but they’re good lessons to learn: finish what you start and be careful of the choices you make. The last reason for enrolling her in dance was because I was hoping to help the extreme turn in of her legs, but since she’s no longer falling over her feet, I see no reason to pursue that further.

A few months ago, she started asking to try karate. Gus had also been mentioning it, so when the opportunity arose, we went for it with some trial classes. It hasn’t been a complete disaster, but it didn’t take long to see that a year commitment would be a waste. By the third lesson, MM was complaining that she didn’t want to go, and Gus was being threatened by the teacher to not be allowed in class. That was the end of that.

I found it interesting and kind of annoying that we had explained in pretty good detail what Gus’s issues are and our concerns about whether he could manage himself in the class. We made it clear that he would probably need extra help, and the school assured us that they had worked with autistic children before with wonderful success. Whatever. The look on their faces when he was running back and forth or when he started talking loudly during meditation told me that they didn’t really get it when told them what they’d be dealing with.

It will be a relief to not have to drag kids off to an activity for a while, especially with the gas prices at $3.75 today. But I’ll be back to it by July when we start swimming. Fortunately, I’ve never had to push them to do that. And maybe by fall there will be a swim class that we can fit into their schedules.

Karate Lessons

Last week my son's school had a health fair. I stopped by because the flyer had mentioned that a karate school would be there. My daughter has been asking about karate lessons for a while, and I thought they might be good for my son who has Aspergers Syndrome (autism spectrum disorder). But my concern has always bee that the schools would all turn out like that school in The Karate Kid. Silly, of course. That was just a movie.

The guy at the fair seemed nice enough and I asked lots of questions about their ability to teach a child with special needs. He said that they do have some autistic students, but at the same time, he said that they tend to ignore inappropriate behavior. The rationale is that they want to reward appropriate behavior and not give attention for misbehaving. But, anyone who has been involved with autistic kids knows that they often need a lot of redirection. So immediately I wondered if my son would be running around the room, being ignored.

I also asked if the school was geared toward competition. That's not really the environment that I want either of my children in. I want them to have fun and gain confidence, even to learn a bit of self defense ( especially my son, who is at risk to become a target for bullies as he ages) but not to become obsessive with tournaments or winning. For one thing, we can't make the financial commitment that the tournament path can often require. Heck, I'm not sure we can afford to have them both enrolled at all. I'm not sure about this because they refused to give me any fees until AFTER my kids had their trial lesson. Then when he gave me the appointment card, there was no address. I'm also not interested in having a child so focused on winning at such a young age. They have plenty of time for that later.

There was a phone number, so I called to get the address so I could get directions online. Three calls and still no one has answered the phone and after 3 days, no one has returned my call. I'm not feeling so great about this place.

I went online to see if I could find anything and I did find a website (originally I had been told there wasn't one). The information I originally wanted about pricing wasn't there, but I saw some other interesting things.

There was a student featured and also a parent featured. Both were being lauded for their intense commitment to their practice and to tournaments! One parent brings his child to lessons every day! I may be overreacting, but that doesn't sound to me like the laid-back vibe that I heard about at the fair.

I'm going to keep the appointment, mostly because I already mentioned it to my kids and if we don't go, there will be major drama. But I don't have a good feeling about it.

I've done something right

It is very gratifying for me to know that I have two kids - five and seven - who can actually appreciate and enjoy April Fools Day without getting bent out of shape at being tricked or without becoming mean in their humor. They actually got me a couple of times! I can't remember the last afternoon I spent laughing so hard.

This is in direct contrast to some other people I've seen today on other sites that can't take a joke to save their clearly miserable lives. And what's worse, not only can they not enjoy the joke, but they feel the need to ruin it for everyone else. That's just more annoying than I can even express. I've gotten tricked a fair few times today and I'm laughing at myself.

It's not about being mean in the trickery. It's about being able to laugh at ourselves and our own silliness or gullibility. It's about lightening up for a day.