Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

Modern Tales for our Life and Times
by James Finn Garner

This is a silly collection of fairy tales updated for a more politically correct world. An example from the updated story of Snow White:

Her nickname was Snow White, indicative of the discriminatory notions of associating pleasant or attractive qualities with light, and unpleasant or unattractive qualties with darkness. Thus, at an early age, Snow White was an unwitting if fortunate target for this type of colorist thinking.

It’s a fluffy and fun, if quick, read.

Calendar Girls

4/5 stars

This fun and touching film is based on a true story. The women of the Rylstone Women’s Institute in North Yorkshire decide to have a fundraiser to benefit the hospital where Annie’s husband spent much of his last weeks. But their usual calendar of the sites of North Yorkshire generally does a woeful business, so they decide instead to make a pin-up style calendar. The catch? These are ordinary women, not the young, hot girls usually seen in such calendars.

Definitely recommended. Fun, funny, and even touching, though not sappy. It’s even more fun to think that this was based on a true story.

The New World of Mr. Tompkins

by George Gamow and Russell Stannard

In the 1940s Gamow wrote a series of stories about a bank worker, Mr. Tompkins, and his attempts to understand relativity and quantum theories. While attending public lectures at a local university, Mr. Tompkins falls asleep and finds himself in relativity land where the cosmic speed limit is not the speed of light, but a measly 20 mph — slow enough for the effects of relativity to be viewed in everyday life. During another lecture, he finds himself in a quantum jungle where a buzzing fly is dispersed into a probability cloud, as electrons are due to the uncertainty principle.

This volume is an update of Gamow’s original stories. Stannard has updated facts to match the current state of research, and has added a few new chapters to Mr. Tompkins’ adventures to introduce readers to new developments (such as “atom smashers”).

It was fun to read, though I wonder if a lay person would really understand the stories, especially the chapters containing the professor’s lectures. I had to dig deep, back to undergrad physics, to understand everything. The illustrations, though, may serve to fill the gap for some readers, and perhaps full understanding is not necessary, but more important is the feel for relativity and quantum theories that is presented.

I’d like to look up an original volume someday.

Briar Rose

by Jane Yolen

Becca’s grandmother, “Gemma”, has always told the story of Sleeping Beauty (or Briar Rose). It’s her story. While Becca’s sisters, twins Sylvia and Shana, tire of the story, Becca never does.

On her deathbed, Gemma makes Becca promise to seek out her castle. Among the things Gemma kept at the nursing home was a wooden box with papers and photos that none of the family knew existed. These provide the clues for Becca to track down her Gemma’s past. It leads her to New York State and eventually Poland. There she finds a man who knew her Gemma during the war. And he knows why Gemma calls herself sleeping beauty.

This book was very engaging. At no point did Becca’s search become tedious, and I found myself getting quite excited when she finally finds out her Gemma’s true story (I was annoyed that my Mom wanted us to leave for lunch just as I got to that part).

New Year’s Eve

Andrew and I flew home today, getting home at about 11 PM. We stayed up to see the ball drop, and then went to bed. We are such exciting people 🙂

The Mall of America

Mom and Dad worked, so I dragged Andrew to the Mall of America. I was still living in Bloomington when “The Mall” first opened. Now, to me, any mall smaller than The Mall seems just small. I still like going each time I go home, so I can see what cool stores are still there, which ones have opened since I last was there, and which have disappeared. Fortunately, one of my favorite stores, The Afternoon, was not only still there, but had expanded. Another cool store had opened, Torrid. It’s a gothy-type clothing store for real women. While it’s not really my style now, I would have killed for a store like that when I was in high school.

Andrew, of course, was bored out of his mind, but at least he now knows why I think all other malls are small.

In the evening, we went out to dinner with Mom and Dad to Pannekoeken Huis. This was a chain that had almost completely gone under. All the corporately-owned stores were raided by the IRS several years ago. Most of the restaurants closed, though Dad said there were a couple franchises that stayed open. However, none were terribly convenient to my parents’ house. Then a couple years ago, and Embers/Pannekoeken opened in Bloomington, and it seemed that we could again get our Pannekoeken fix satesfied locally. However, they tore that building down over the past year and put in a “high class” Dairy Queen. Then Dad said he found new Huises opening up around the Twin Cities.
Yay!

Quiet Monday with the Fam

The day after Christmas, I was paging through the newspaper and saw a weird item in the Metro Section of the Star Tribune. The headline read, Chimney puts squeeze on Christmas crime caper. Reading further, it seemed that a man had been stuck down a chimney in Minneapolis. At Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore. Hey, wait. I shop at Uncle Hugo’s! I know that place.

Andrew looked up the story in the Pioneer Press, too, and their article had a few more details: Down the Chimney He Fell…

I bring that up because today was our day to go to Uncle Hugo’s. I was worried that they might not be open because of the incident, but my fears were unfounded. Mom came with Andrew and me to look at the adjoining Uncle Edgar’s Bookstore (new and used mysteries). While there, we discovered that while UH has insurance to cover the hole in the chimney the fire department made to get the guy out, they have a $1k deductible. I’m concerned because these small, independent bookstores have been disappearing. I’d hate to see UH go. Andrew and I did our part to help them along, though 🙂

In the evening, we had planned dinner with my brothers and their families, as well as my two Grandmothers. Andrew had previously met Farm Grandma at Wayne’s funeral, so the only person he hadn’t yet met was Grandma Mattson. Frankly I was worried whether or not she would behave, but she did. The evening went quite well. Grandma Mattson had even brought an engagement present for us.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but we are holding a little girl and boy figurine.

Science Museum of Minnesota

Since Andrew hasn’t really done the museum, we thought we’d drag him not only to the IMAX movie, but to the cheesy 3D theater. The last time I went to the 3D theater, they were doing laser shows — I saw a show about the body — but now it’s more like a regular movie, though in 3D. Certainly less cheesy than the show I saw last time, but still cheesy.

The IMAX movie was about Lewis & Clark. Quite good. I was surprised to find out that they only lost one member of the exploration team. Other than that, I mostly enjoyed the scenery.

The traveling exhibit was CSI: Crime Scene Insects. This one was quite interesting — it showed how the insects present at a crime scene can give clues about the time of the crime and whether the crime occurred at a different site. In one bizarre case, a grasshopper was found with a leg missing on the victim. When the suspect was arrested, the leg of a grasshopper was found in the cuff of his pants. The grasshopper leg was shown to belong to the grasshopper found on the victim, thus placing the suspect at the scene during the murder.

Most of the cases were more grizzly — the time of the crime can be determined by the kinds of insects devouring or incubating on the body. In fact, they had part of the exhibit blocked off with warnings that those who are faint of heart should not go in. Of course I went in. They had a couple cases layed out, complete with floor mats made from photos of the scene.

We also got to see the quack medicine display. It’s kind of disappointing to see them behind a railing with no one giving demonstrations. Our trip to The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, where the collection came from, was much more interactive. Of course, it’s better that the collection stayed together, rather than going to the highest bidders, but I can’t help but feel that Minneapolis lost something important when Bob McCoy retired.

Como Conservatory

As a kid, I hated going to the Como Conservatory. I mean, how much fun is it to look at pretty flowers and plants? For a kid, not much. I wanted to run, to play, to go next door and see the animals at the Como Zoo. Well, as an adult, I find that I enjoy it much more than I used to.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures;

Day with Sweetie

We started the day with lunch — that’s always a good start. Since my favorite Minneapolis restaurant, The Mud Pie, closed a couple years ago, we’ve taken The Good Earth as a replacement (though not nearly as good).

After doing a bit of shopping at Target (I wanted to get a neck contour pillow so I could sleep better at my parents’ house), we drove over to St. Paul to show Andrew some of the historic, huge houses on Summit Avenue. There were some shops nearby, so we stopped there, too.

Sweetie had been waiting to hear word of her grandfather, who was in for surgery in Arizona, all day, and it came while we were in those shops. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all good news — he had made it through the surgery, but was not doing well. We went back to Sweetie’s place so she could make arrangements to fly out tomorrow.

Since there was nothing else she could do after making reservations, we went to dinner at Broadway Pizza. The first time either she or I had been there was when I visited this past September. Sweetie liked it so much that it’s become a regular part of her meals. I just wish there had been more I could do…