Come and See Me Some Time!

If you happen to be up in the Berkshires. This Saturday, June 23rd. At 7 pm. Which is when I'm reading with my dear, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Mattern and my virtual, frighteningly talented friend Jennifer Niesslein. Jenn M's blog Breed Em and Weep is on some kind of sabbatical, which I completely disapprove of, but you can still go there and read all her stomach-achingly funny posts from before. Jennifer N's book Practically Perfect in Every Way is out now, and there's a fantastic excerpt here. Here's the information about the reading (below) from the site of our hosts, Inkberry, which looks like a wonderful organization. Did you know that I'd written for the New York Times? Me either! But I'm totally psyched about it. Maybe that's what I'll select my reading from! Come if you can. Party at the Holiday Inn!

A reading on Parenthood and the Pursuit of Perfection
North Adams Public Library, 74 Church St., North Adams
Saturday, June 23rd at 7:00 PM
Free
Jennifer Niesslein, Jennifer Mattern, and Catherine Newman will read from their writings on parenthood and the pursuit of perfection. Jennifer Niesslein is the author of Practically Perfect in Every Way: My Misadventures Through the World of Self-Help—And Back (Putnum, May 2007) and the co-founder of Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers. Jennifer Mattern is playwright, freelance writer, and author of the blog Breed ‘Em and Weep, which won best parenting blog in the Weblog Awards in 2006. Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir Waiting for Birdy and the weekly journal Bringing Up Ben & Birdy at BabyCenter.com. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and the anthologies The Bitch in the House, Toddler, I’ts a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons and It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters.

Meanwhile, there are columns on wondertime here and here.

I didn't write a Father's Day post, because I was too busy being a total crab apple, but here's photographic evidence from our friend Pengyew's birthday party on Saturday, taken by the extremely talented Sam Masinter:


Maybe my piece for the Times was about how hunky and delightful Michael manages to be, even with crab apples dropping all around him.

A Gift

So I don't mean to keep on and on about it, but I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I wanted to share something from it that I loved. Have you heard about the book? It describes the year that Barbara Kingsolver and her family tried to eat only local food, most of which they had grown and farmed themselves. But of course I read it as a book about gratitude and parenting, because that's just how I am.

Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus. No matter where I was in the house, that vividly resinous orangey scent woke up my nose whenever anyone peeled one in the kitchen. Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sat cross-legged on the floor one morning in pink pajamas, with bliss lighting her cheeks, I thought: Lucky is the world, to receive this grateful child. Value is not made of money, but a tender balance of expectation and longing. (page 287)

The latest wondertime column is here, and a new one should be up later today.