Prayers Answered

I will now sing the praises of Marty's Auto Shop. I pass on only what was passed to me: word-of-mouth praise for a repair shop that does good work at a fair price. A co-worker told me that her family has all their auto repair done by Marty's, at 9700 Gravois in Affton, right next to the viaduct a block west of MacKenzie. So when my car needed a new timing belt put in, I did some price-shopping and Marty's came in with the best quote. Today I picked my car up. It was done on time; it's in fabulous condition; and the price was what they quoted to me. An awesome job!

I am so thankful not to have to put up with the MetroBus system any more. I think a few more days of that would have finished me off. MetroBus, I'm sorry to say, is not a good deal. For $2.75 you can get a ride anywhere in the bi-state metro area, plus a multi-use transfer good for about 3 hours, but this deal doesn't seem so hot when you're standing at the corner of Lindell and Grand at 11:05 p.m. waiting for a 10:45 bus in bitterly cold wind.

It took me two and a quarter hours to get home from Grand Center on Tuesday night, thanks to a combination of no-shows, schedule-bendingly late buses, friendly MetroLink light rail personnel having no knowledge of bus schedules, and one uncommonly friendly bus driver who went the extra mile (or 5 or 6) to accommodate the only other passenger, who was in a hurry to go back in the direction I was coming from. 2.25 hours to cover a distance my car can handle in under 20 minutes. That's just sad. And much of it (the waiting-in-the-wind bits especially) was uncomfortable, tedious, and scary.

Tuesday was my big bus day. I made 2 and a half round trips by MetroBus that day, which kept me out of the house for all but about one hour between 9-ish in the morning and a quarter past midnight. Some of the buses did not follow the route advertised on the TripFinder website. Some of the stops were not located where TripFinder said to look for them. And none of the buses after about 5 p.m. were less than 15 minutes late. I waited 25 minutes for one bus before giving it up as a bad job and walking several blocks to try to catch a different bus (whose route I had noted as a fallback), only to find that one running 20 minutes late as well.

Wednesday, while waiting for one particular bus, I discovered a bus-related corollary to Murphy's Law: If you're waiting for a particular bus, two other buses will pass in each direction, possibly more than once, before your bus appears. I bummed rides when I could. I walked my cat to the vet (!) for her vaccination appointment. Any trip I couldn't make on foot, I made by bus - often spending more time at the bus stop than actually riding a bus. I couldn't live that way if my time was actually valuable.

So today, I took my last bus rides (for now) to Marty's to pick up my car. I am so glad it's back. It purrs like a kitten. It runs better than it has since before the first time I had the belts replaced back at 50,000 miles -- which is one of the reasons Marty's one the bidding war against the repair shop I used the last time (they also quoted $50 higher than Marty's did). And so I hand over to you what was handed to me: the praises of Marty's, who have so marvelously delivered me from the long cold hello of public transit.

Four Book Reviews

Hate That Cat
by Sharon Creech
Recommended Ages: 10+

This sequel to Love That Dog is another short novel in the form of poetry. Made up entirely of the poems Jack writes for his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, during the course of a school year, this book shows us another year of a bright, sensitive boy's life: his joys and heartaches, the questions he turns over in his head, his growing appreciation of poetry and mastery of poetic techniques. And because Jack is constantly inspired by certain poems by T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and others, the book also includes those poems in a helpful appendix.

What happens in the story? It has something to do with a boy coming to terms with the loss of his beloved dog and learning to appreciate cats -- even the nasty black cat in the neighborhood. It has something to do with the boy's struggle to understand what it is like for his mother to be deaf. But it mainly has to do with how he grows to understand what poetry is for, and why even little everyday things can become objects of unforgettable beauty.

Sharon Creech communicates all this to us with touching sensitivity, yet in the simple, unguarded language of a young schoolboy. Adults and children alike will enjoy this warmhearted little book.

Into the Wild
by Sarah Beth Durst
Recommended Ages: 12+

Jon Krakauer has written a nonfiction book under this title, and it's a good book. It was made into a movie in 2007, and it tells the story of a well-brought-up young man who went "back to nature," only to starve to death in the Alaskan bush. I read it years ago and thought it was an excellent piece of feature journalism. But that's not this book.

Into the Wild is also the title of the first book in Erin Hunter's Warriors series, which I have yet to read. It has something to do with a house cat who runs away and joins a clan of wild cats. That's also not this book.

This book is about a different kind of wilderness. "The wild" here means the world of folklore and fairy tales, a world with its own rules of nature, its own will, even a kind of consciousness of its own. Until 500 years ago, "The Wild" compelled its immortal inhabitants to live out their stories from start to finish; and each time a story ended, the people in it started over with their memories wiped of whatever they had learned along the way.

But the characters rebelled. They broke free of their roles and their stories. As this story begins in a present-day town in Massachusetts, what is left of the wild is kept under the bed of an ordinary teenage girl named Julie Marchen... ordinary, that is, except that her brother is a talking, upright-walking cat; her grandmother is a reformed witch who manages the Wishing Well Motel; and her hairdresser mother is none other than Rapunzel.

One night, over dinner with the seven dwarfs (an obnoxious lot), Julie loses her cool and swears that she wishes she had a normal family. If you could hear wishes backfiring, the sound of this one would make you hit the deck! For the next morning, Julie wakes up to find her quiet town turned into a disaster area. Somehow, the Wild has escaped, and it's spreading. It begins ruthlessly gobbling up buildings and territory and people, and turning them into characters in its endless stories. And everyone Julie cares about has already vanished into its leafy darkness.

So, ordinary or not, here Julie comes. Mounted on a bicycle, armed with seven-league boots and a backpack full of magic charms, she plunges into the wild, trying to save her family. All too soon, she loses everything she brought in with her except her wits. But even these are put to the test as the narrative rules of fairy lore fight her at every turn. Loved ones, deprived of their memories, turn into monsters and traitors. Negotiations with witches, wizards, griffins, and other beasties go oft awry. Caught up in a story of her own, Julie is at a loss how to escape. Here deprived of her memory, there put to the test by her own heart's desire, she must find true heroism within herself to save her family, her town, and her world from the Wild.

This is more than just an ironic spoof of fairy tales. It is a full-blooded, warm-hearted, dramatically intense adventure across an entire genre of well-known stories, stories we may know a bit differently once we see them from the inside out. If you enjoy behind-the-scenes fantasies about the world of literature and its characters -- a rapidly developing new genre -- you may also enjoy this book, as I did. And so you'll be thrilled to note that its sequel, Out of the Wild, is now in print.

Tunnels
by Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams
Recommended Ages: 12+

Will Burrows is an aptly-named youngster. He loves to dig. It comes naturally to him. Lacking pigment in his skin, hair, and eyes, he is sensitive to light and a bit of a loner. So why shouldn't he while away his spare time tunneling into the soil bordering the town dump? Why shouldn't he build elaborate workings and excavate long-buried artifacts? Nothing makes Will feel better than sharing his discoveries with his father, Dr. Burrows, who runs the town museum and fantasizes about making a huge archaeological discovery.

Just as Will decides to share his secret passion with a friend - his only friend, a tough burly lad named Chester - his father starts keeping his own secrets from Will. While Dr. Burrows pursues a series of strange discoveries, their dysfunctional family begins to fall apart. Finally Will's father disappears altogether, and with a sister he hardly understands and a mother who isn't all there, he has no one to turn to except Chester.

Together they follow their only lead to Dr. Burrows' disappearance -- straight into the ground. It leads them to an underground colony that has survived for centuries, deep beneath London. And the adventure they have there isn't one of those charming romps through a land time forgot. It's a savage struggle for survival against an evil elite called the Styx, who rule the Colony with an iron fist. While Chester rots in a hideous jail, Will makes the astounding discovery that he has a family underground: an adoring grandma, a troublemaking uncle, a younger brother, and a real father he never knew - and who would rather not know him.

But Will can't forget about Dr. Burrows, whom he still thinks of as Dad, and who has been banished to the Deeps far beneath the Colony. Nor can he forget about Chester, who is in deep trouble simply because he trusted Will. Determined to save Chester and reunite with his Dad, Will embarks on a perilous adventure. And if the words "perilous adventure" have become pale and limp through overuse in these reviews, let me emphasize the incredibly serious, deadly awful danger Will and his colonial friends go through.

They run a gauntlet of Styx nasties, ferocious creatures, deadly plagues, bitter betrayals, and crushing losses, while an enemy of I-kid-you-not diabolical cruelty looms always a step behind, if not a step ahead of them. Good people die. Will and the people he cares about really suffer. And by the end Will, his brother, his friend, and his father face an uncertain fate as outcasts in a harsh underworld, knowing they are hunted by a resourceful and merciless enemy. So when I call it a "perilous adventure," I mean it is one of the deepest, darkest places children's fantasy literature is likely to take you. Ever.

Which is also to say, you may enjoy it. You may even love it. I did. I'm utterly hooked. And I'm looking forward to the sequel, Deeper, due to be released next month.

The Book of Animal Ignorance
by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
Recommended Ages: 14+

The co-authors of The Book of General Ignorance are back with this tightly-written, riveting account of the most amazing facts about 100 kinds of animals, ranging from your backyard (or even inside your home) to the farthest reaches of the world. Decorated by Ted Dewan's quirky but effective illustrations, the book draws laughs and blushes while it informs.

And boy, does it inform! It explodes a thousand myths. It throws light on secrets of the natural world you would never have dreamed of. Some of them will make you shudder. Some will make you gasp in amazement. You will shake your head at some. And don't forget those laughs and blushes! I would say Sex Ed. was a prerequisite for reading this book, but really, it's like a full-credit course on the Birds & the Bees, with side helpings of komodo dragon, naked mole rat, termite, toad, and penguin, just to name a few.

I do have a few bones to pick with this book. Most of them have to do with typos and layout errors, which I hope were fixed between the Uncorrected Proof I read and the final published edition. My main concern would be the prominence of evolutionary theory in practically every point under discussion.

Evolution isn't just taken as a given; it is touted with evangelical zeal, and sometimes with arguments that do not follow logically, if viewed from an objective, one-step-back perspective. At one point the book even takes a pot-shot at people viewing the mind-blowing "survival adaptations" described in it as a sign of intelligent design. Frankly, after reading 100 chapters filled with examples of such "adaptations," it's hard not to question the likelihood of all these fortuitous features coming together by random chance. Is this an illusion or emotion-driven fallacy? Or is it a sign that evolutionary theory has more to account for before it can be asserted without fanatical bias?

Well, that's my take on it, anyway. I still enjoyed the book, and I am delighted with many of the facts I learned from it. There are facts and then there are facts. Here's one: you can actually learn and be entertained at the same time. As an added bonus, you can also be stimulated to care and to work for the survival of endangered species. Here is a book that does all three things. If you're as ignorant about animals as I am, look it over!

Three Book Reviews

The Name of This Book Is Secret
by Pseudonymous Bosch
Recommended Ages: 10+

In the tradition of Lemony Snicket and N. E. Bode, this is a book whose narrator inserts himself as a character -- and what a character he is! He hopes you won't read his story, but he can't help writing it anyway. He censors out the real names and locations involved in his story, even going as far as replacing a whole chapter with strings of Xes. He incorporates puzzles, codes, and vocab-building exercises into his story. He tries to warn you (tongue in cheek) not to read on, and continuously breaks the "fourth wall" to confide in you as you follow his characters' adventures.

But the characters themselves, and their adventures, are more like those created by Blue Balliett: two (or three) quirky kids who solve a mindblowing mystery together, using non-traditional methods of detection.

Cass is a survival expert who is always prepared for any kind of disaster, often predicting tragedies that never happen. This makes her a bit of a loner. But in spite of her many fears, she is really brave. Brave enough to try to get to solve a local magician's mysterious death all by herself.

She doesn't want Max-Ernest as her partner. Max-Ernest is also a bit of loner, because he talks nonstop. Seriously! Even his parents think there's something wrong with him. Nevertheless, they get pulled into the mystery together. And it's a good thing for Cass, because Max-Ernest has a streak of common sense in him that she lacks, and things quickly become too dangerous for one little girl to handle on her own.

By "things" I mean a chest full of tiny bottles known as the Symphony of Smells; the notebook of a circus-performing magician who could see music and hear smells; the kidnapping of an elementary-school artistic genius who may or may not be a useless prat; a woman whose voice makes your blood run cold; and a beauty spa where a strange cult performs ancient evil rituals in order to stay forever young. At the end of the book, it seems our young detectives are only starting a promising career in thwarting bad guys and uncovering deep, dark secrets.

Are we any closer to guessing who Pseudonymous Bosch is? No. There is an uncomfirmed rumor that he's really Edie Bilmann, but that name means nothing to me and it might be a red herring. But here's a guarantee: if you enjoy a mystery that gives you the creeps, the giggles, and ideas in equal amounts, you'll breeze right through this book and come out hungry for the sequel, titled If You're Reading This, It's Too Late.

I Am the Messenger
by Markus Zusak
Recommended Ages: 14+

Ed Kennedy is a bit of an underachiever. Let's face it: he drives cabs in the same Sydney suburb where he grew up, runs errands for his trash-mouthed Ma, enables his smelly old dog's caffeine addiction, and has a hopeless crush on one of his best friends. His young life seems to have settled into a rut of quiet mediocrity... until the day he single-handedly thwarts a bank robbery. As he goes to prison, the robber tells Ed that he's a dead man. But by then, Ed's former life has begun to unravel.

It begins when a single playing card -- the Ace of Diamonds -- arrives in his mailbox with three street addresses scribbled on it. These addresses, and the clues on the other aces that arrive in their turn, lead Ed into a series of puzzles and challenges. Situations in which he must make a difference to people. Situations where he must put his heart, his conscience, and sometimes even his body at risk. Situations in which he is often mistaken for an angel or a saint, sometimes for a bogeyman, and sometimes hardly noticed at all. Gradually, these situations force Ed to think differently about the way he has lived and will live.

I enjoyed Ed's journey almost to the end. I sensed that Zusak realized that he had written himself into a corner, forcing him to end the book in what I felt was a preposterous cop-out. But I've taken some time to reflect on it, and in a way I guess I can appreciate the cleverness and daring of his solution to what is, when you think about it, a completely preposterous story. It ends up making you think of something you didn't realize the book was about. And it invites you to think preposterous thoughts about your own reality.

Markus Zusak is the Australian author of The Book Thief as well as this book, both of which were Michael L. Printz Award Honor Books.

Ironhand
by Charlie Fletcher
Recommended Ages: 12+

In Stoneheart, a London schoolboy named George Chapman accidentally damaged a carved stone dragon. This rash act plunged him into a hidden world, an "unLondon," in which statues and gargoyles move about and have feelings, and where the humanlike "spits" are at war with the monstrous "taints." George had an opportunity to pay his debt to the city's heart of stone, but instead he chose to go "the hard way." In this book, he begins to find out just how hard that way is going to be.

George is immediately separated from his two best friends in this unLondon of living stone and metal. The Gunner (a bronze statue of a World War I soldier) has been taken captive by a fiendish, lost soul known as the Walker. And now a gargoyle swoops down and carries George away, leaving his other friend Edie vulnerable and alone.

Edie is known as a "glint" because of the way she experiences the painful memories locked in metal and stone. The only thing she has to hang onto is a piece of sea-glass that glows in the presence of evil, such as the Walker and any taints. The Gunner, trapped in a cistern lost beneath the city, knows that the Walker is hunting glints like Edie, destroying them and collecting their heart-stones for his own wicked purposes. The trouble is: How can he warn her before a two-faced statue lures Edie into the Walker's trap? And what can Edie do once the Walker reveals the full horridness of his plan?

And where does all this leave George? It leaves him running, flying, plunging, and scrabbling from one deadly battle to another in a nonstop, adrenaline-fueled flow of furious action like nothing seen in children's literature since, well, Stoneheart. He learns how he must fight three duels to the death, and how the veins of stone and metal spreading up his arm will kill him if he runs from a fight. He makes surprising discoveries about who his friends and enemies are. And he faces his own personal hell in his desperate bid to save the Gunner, who will die if his plinth is empty at turn-o'-day (midnight).

The only thing this book lacks is a resolution of all the trials and adventures in store for George and his friends. But that's all right. It's only the second book in a trilogy, which concludes with Silvertongue, coming out in hardcover this April.

Retrograde Tackiness

Currently shining from the lighted sign at the nearby tacky ELCA church:

LET JESUS TURN YOUR E-F-I-L AROUND

That's what I call "doof" for thought!

Waking Nightmare

In the wee hours this morning, I was awakened by a meow. It sent a chill down my spine, because I didn't immediately recognize the voice as belonging to either of my two cats. There was something different about it: deeper, louder, more mournful than it should have been. I started to wonder whether a strange cat had somehow gotten into the apartment.

It brought to mind a story I had recently heard, the story of a family that didn't realize a raccoon had gotten into their house through the cat-flap. The raccoon had stayed out of sight for several weeks, eating cat food and using the litterbox when no one was looking. Except for the fact that the owner noticed something odd about his cats' droppings, it managed to fly below the radar until the night the raccoon decided to join its new owner in bed. He was awakened by feral hissing and growling, half of it coming from the real cat (which was perched on the owner's chest) and half coming from an unknown shape in the darkness at the foot of the bed. Now I ask you, wouldn't you have been petrified in that position?

It was with such cheerful thoughts that I reluctantly got out of bed to investigate the cause of the inconsolable meowing coming from the living room. With my glasses off and the apartment in darkness - lit mostly through the crack at the bottom of the hall door - I groped my way toward a curled-up cat shape that I took to be Tyrone. I called his name. He turned his face toward me, and I received a shock. I couldn't see much detail, but there was something decidedly not-Tyrone about the face that looked at me in the darkness.

The head was too big, and there was too much white in it for a solidly charcoal-gray cat. And it definitely wasn't Sinead (who does have some white on her face), because she came to me when I called. Tyrone, who would ordinarily have done the same, remained crouched by the front door.

I won't hide from you that I was scared. It was the kind of scaredness one feels in nightmares, only this time I was wide awake. What had gotten into my apartment? What had taken possession of my cat?

I approached Tyrone a second time, and chickened out again when he turned the same strange, pale, oversized head toward me in the blurry darkness.

I paced the kitchen for a minute, then came back determined to get to the bottom of this. When I knelt down before the bizarro-Tyrone the third time, I reached for his face...and my fingertips met solid carboard.

The gormless cat had gotten his head stuck inside a Kleenex box, one with a white square of cardboard on the bottom. It was a pretty tight fit, but I got it off in one tug. Then I went to bed laughing -- at myself as well as my cat.

Praying for My Car

My car is sick. It's been hospitalized since yesterday. Time and the car doctor will tell whether it's going to make a recovery.

It's a vexing thing. I'm fresh out of a job, so it comes at a time when I can least afford it. Plus, I had just paid off what I owed for the car, so I was looking forward to driving it for a while "free and clear." And now I'm facing the likelihood of needing to replace the timing belt & water pump (for the second time in six years), if the whole engine isn't shot.

It's early days. The car doctor still hasn't run the tests on which to base a sound diagnosis. But his guess gelled with my guilty suspicion during the couple of weeks when I was concerned, but too busy to have my car looked at. I hope I didn't put it off too long. Early detection is the key to survival, for cars as well as people. All I can do now is pray!

Blood Running Cold

Most of my adult life, my body has generally run hot rather than cold. When other people were pulling on sweaters and complaining about the chill, I felt just fine in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. Climate-controlled rooms, where the temperature was kept at a level most people found comfy, have tended to make me sweat. Suits and robes with numerous layers have often been soaked with sweat by the time I took them off. My life has been a constant, uphill battle against perspiration stains and body odor.

So the apartment where I have lived since last spring is quite a change. Ever since I moved here, I have never felt warm enough. While at home, at least, I am constantly shivering and adding garments I didn't used to wear around the house. Even while paying my highest heating bills ever, I just can't get warm. In spite of the new vinyl windows in my apartment, I am constantly assailed by chills and drafts.

For long and long, my normal state of dress at home has been a pair of shorts, period. That and a single sheet has been enough to keep me warm in bed. Turning off the ceiling fan used to be enough to chase away any nighttime chills. My relief in getting home from a hard day's work never seemed complete until shoes, shirt, and socks came off, and the long slacks were exchanged for a pair of cotton shorts. But now, I have learned what it is like to need socks, a shirt, and ankle-length pants. And a heavy quilt at night.

I've stopped fighting it. I've stopped waiting for my nipples to get in the way of my typing fingers; I put on a shirt before I start working at my computer. I no longer expect the afghan on my couch to keep my feet warm while I read; I drag on a pair of socks, even if I only took them off to let my toes breathe for a bit. I no longer impress my cats with the glory of my well-shaped legs; I wear a pair of sweat-pants or long pajama bottoms whenever I'm in.

I have toyed with the idea of shopping for grown-up-sized footy pajamas. I have considered switching to long-sleeved T-shirts. I have even seriously thought about wearing cotton gloves in bed. It's bloomin' freezing in my bedroom at night.

And, I might add, I don't remember ever living in a place where the hot water took so long to come. Based on how long it takes to warm up my shower in the morning, I would estimate that my building's boiler is located somewhere east of Effingham, Illinois. And until the water in it gets to my faucet, what comes out is effing cold. So I've started another new habit: running water in the tub while standing outside it, on the bathroom rug (because I can't bear the frigid touch of the bare floor beneath my feet). I've forgotten the last time I lived somewhere I couldn't trust the water - even before it warmed up - to be warm enough to stand in while the tub ran. As for running washing-up water in the kitchen sink? I can sometimes read a chapter of a book while it heats up to a grease-cutting temperature.

I've decided to plan more meals that require baking. I think that may help. The higher the oven temperature, the better.

I may invest in one of those pink rubber hot-water bottles that my grandparents used to put in their bed. I haven't seen one of those since I was about six years old.

My winter outdoor ensemble has developed parallel to my indoor wardrobe. I don't go anywhere, these days, without a hat, earmuffs, gloves, and a long scarf knitted in St. Louis Rams colors. (It was the only style of scarf available where I bought it, except for one honoring the Cardinals...and who watches baseball at this time of year?) I guess my new habit of shivering at the slightest draft has spread from my apartment outward. I'll be needing fuzzy boots next.