Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Steve was sweet and let me sleep in this a.m. instead of getting up and taking him to work. He will be here in a bit to pick me up so I can get to the airport by 3:30 to pick up Mary and MJ. I hope she didn't have too bad of a time in Miami. She was changing airlines and that airport is huge. I've walked 20 minutes between gates. A toddler in a stroller and a rolling carry on couldn't be easy to deal with.

Not having to get up at 6 a.m. was heavenly. I didn't even hear Steve leave. Been cleaning and moving things up higher and further back on the dressers and desks. MJ is very tall for not quite two and has the reach of an octopus! He is going to have a field day in this apt. since it certainly is far from toddler proof, even after a morning of closing up and moving things. Bought a car seat, a booster highchair you can strap to a regular chair, a toddler size deck chair, a truck for the beach and a bag of beach toys (pail, bucket, etc.) and diapers. It has been awhile since I've had these things around my house. Can't believe Mary will be 26 next month. But, I do love being a gramma. :-)

There are some writers who just have a style of writing that flows as smoothly as silk. One of them is Janet Taylor Lisle. Afternoon of the Elves was my favorite Lisle book until I finished The Crying Rocks this week. I have heard the Native American legends of how you can hear crying where the mothers leave their handicapped children at birth - it is in the wind that whips up from no where and swirls about you. The Inuit had a similar story in Alaska. The Crying Rocks is the location where the Narragansett women threw their handicapped newborns into the swamp below to die. Their grieving cries causes the hair on your neck to stand on end and your feet to begin running before you brain knows it! When Carlos tells the story to Joelle and tells her she looks like the girls in the Narragansett mural in the library she becomes obsessed with the mural and with finding out more about the tribe and herself. Against his better judgment Carlos takes Joelle to the Crying Rocks and what they see and hear scares them silly. They know that this is more than a story - what Joelle finds in the mud confirms that. When an unexpected death occurs Joelle learns who she is and why she feels as if someone is walking behind her, in her tracks. She discovers who her birth family is and how she came to live with Aunt Mary Louise, who tells her stories of how she arrived on a freight train when she was but 5 years old.

Not surprising - this is a Richard Jackson book from Simon & Schuster. Hardback came out in 2003, but I read it in paperback. The cover illustration of a young girl looking down is very visually appealing. I picked it up for that reason and read it because it is a Lisle book. A must have for all MS collections.