Lydia Schoch

I’ve decided to occasionally begin recommending books on my blog again. This is the first post in what I hope will be a long and interesting series.

This weekend I started reading Orphan #8: A Novel by Kim van Alkemade.

It’s about a preschooler named Rachel Rabinowitz who is orphaned in 1919. She’s separated from her older brother and sent to live at an orphanage run by a doctor who uses the children under his care as test subjects in medical experiments.

No, this isn’t a horror novel.

It’s actually loosely based on real events. A hundred years ago, prisoners, orphans, and the mentally ill were used as test subjects. Some of the experiments were dangerous. Many of them were painful and/or caused longterm health problems.

Rachel grows up and becomes a nurse. She seems to have put her difficult past behind her and moved on to create a happy life for herself as an adult.

One day she recognizes one of her patients. The doctor who once experimented on her is now a sick, old man who is relying on her to look after of him.

How should we treat people who have harmed us terribly? Does it matter if they remember us or even realize what they’ve done?

The ethical questions in this book are what make me love it so much.

There are so many different ways to approach them. I can’t discuss most of them without giving away spoilers, but the storyline really made me think.

I will say that this isn’t a good choice for people who are squeamish. Rachel was purposefully infected with several different diseases while she was under the doctor’s care, and they were described in detail early on in the plot.

Knowing exactly what happened to her early on her life is critical to understanding the woman she became, though. Her character development wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comic strips, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Why I Stopped Hating Coyote Brush via barbsbooks. The most interesting thing about this post to me was the idea of hating a plant. There are plants I avoid (thistles; poison ivy; poison oak). There are plants I only enjoy from afar due to allergies (all sorts of flowers).  I can’t say I’ve ever hated a plant for growing, although this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don’t have a garden. It would definitely be frustrating to watch something you were tending struggle because another plant was stealing water, sunlight, or nutrients from it.

The Whole Reason We Have Holidays. American readers, are you feeling family togetherness today?

Hugging 101. I agree with this 100%.

Is Thanksgiving a Celebration of Binge Eating? via AuthorHelenJ. None of these things have ever crossed my mind at holiday dinners. This is yet another reason why it’s never a good idea to police what other people do or don’t eat, though.

The 1820s in Fashionable Gowns via MimiMatthewsEsq. What I found fascinating about this link was how much we know about dress fashions from nearly 200 years ago. This isn’t something I would have thought about or preserved for future generations. It’s wonderful that there are people in this world who pay attention to this stuff, though!

From Tiny Little Messes:

I generally know better than to go down these paths, but the tricky thing about chronic pain is that it blurs your mind, weakening not just your body but also your psyche, leaving it with just enough strength to follow the path of least resistance, to retreat to the most dimly-lit hiding place.

From It’s Not Rude to Say No:

The nice girl wasn’t created in a vacuum. The nice girl is a walking coping mechanism. From childhood most women are inundated by the media and their community with the notion that they exist to nurture everyone but themselves, that they must serve as stagnant characters propelling the narrative of the lives of others.

What have you been reading? Which plants do you hate? 😀

Last year I shared a few Thanksgiving stories from my American childhood. It was so much fun that thought I’d continue that tradition this year.

I had two pet hamsters growing up named Cherry and Pretty.

The vast majority of the time they lived ordinary hamster lives in their cages and ate ordinary hamster diets: water, seeds, pellets, and the occasional nibble of a fresh vegetable.

Thanksgiving was one of the few exceptions to this rule, though.

You see, we spent years of my childhood living thousands of miles away from our relatives. Birthdays and holidays were almost always spent as a nuclear family. I was mostly accustomed to it, although sometimes I missed having everyone around.

As a child I wondered if my hamsters felt the same way. Could they smell the delicious food my parents were making in the kitchen? Did they miss their hamster siblings? Did they want to join us as the dinner table?

There was only one way to find out.

After the human members of the family had eaten our fill, Cherry and Pretty were invited to the table to nibble on the scraps of meat, cooked vegetables, and mashed potatoes left behind on our plates.

They ate so much that their little cheeks couldn’t hold another bite. This was nothing like their typical dinners!

I’m smiling at the thought of this memory as I think of my family today.

Happy Thanksgiving to my U.S. readers.

If you have a pet, I hope you’ll give him or her a treat.

If you don’t have a pet, pick out a treat for yourself instead.

Ha!

This short film reminds me of the scene in The Magician’s Nephew where Aslan sings Narnia into existence.

A few years ago I wrote a post about what people can do instead of exchanging gifts over the holiday season. It’s proven to be an extremely popular topic for my blog this time of year, so I thought I’d update that list with 5 more suggestions.

6. Bake Cookies. The nice thing about this idea is that there are many ways to include people of all ages and abilities. If someone isn’t physically able to stand and roll out the dough or isn’t old enough yet to use a hot stove, he or she could still decorate the cookies. This is also something that could easily be scaled up or down depending on the group’s attention span. I have recipes that will make a dozen cookies and other recipes that easily make 5 or 6 times that amount.

7.  Take a Hike. Taking a long walk is one of my favourite things to do on holidays if the weather is at all cooperative. This is also something that can be scaled up or down depending on how fit everyone is. I have family members who “hike” on flat, paved roads and others who thrive on terrain as steep and challenging as the Grand Canyon. (I’m somewhere in-between those extremes! 🙂 )

8. Have a Sing-a-Long. My grandparents used to have everyone do this at Christmas when I was a child. We mostly sang traditional Christmas carols like Away in a Manger back then, but any kind of song would work well as long as people know the tune.

9. Reminisce. Bring out old home movies or photographs and tell stories about the people who are in them. My extended family does something like this every once in a great while, and I’m surprised every time by the new stories that are uncovered by the right comment or picture.

10. Watch Youtube Videos. My nephew loved showing the adults in the family his favourite Youtube videos when he was younger. I wouldn’t have thought of it myself, but it’s a fun way to get a conversation rolling or take a break from other activities. The cute animal videos alone could keep my family interested for quite a while.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, photographs, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

My Mother Knew How to Eat a Cupcake via mortalstewart. What surprised me the most about this post is how much certain things can differ from one family to the next. It’s truly interesting to see how other people’s families work.

Some Photos from the Cemetery to Bring You Comfort. I actually found all of these photos to be fascinating instead of creepy. How did you react to them?

Back Off. This is exactly how I feel from the end of October to the beginning of December.

All Summer in a Day. If you enjoyed the Ray Bradbury story I recommended last week, The Long Rain, you should definitely check this one out as well.

Privacy, Wherefore Art Thou? via AuthorIzzy. This is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

Coin-Op Cuisine: When the Future Tasted Like a Five-Cent Slice of Pie. I would have loved to have lunch at a Horn & Hardart during its heyday. Wouldn’t you?

From Winter’s Discontent via maskedpimpernel:

It comes a crumbling winter, wild of sky,
A howling in the leaves that sings of bones,
A tempest lashing down that shakes us dry,
And moon so bright it trembles in the stones.

What have you been reading?

Every once in a while my Twitter stream temporarily dries up for no particular reason at all.

I completely understand why people tweet less often on big holidays, after a tragedy, or during a storm that’s large enough to cause blackouts for a few hours or days.

When it happens on a completely ordinary day, though, I wonder what’s going on with everyone. The people I follow on Twitter come from many different time zones and countries. Many of them tend to share my interests in writing, science, and cute rabbit pictures, but they also have a wide variety of other obsessions.

It’s probably heavily influenced by confirmation bias, of course, but an amusing picture still forms in my head every time it happens.

Imagine an old, comfortable pub. Its hardwood floors are heavily scuffed from many years of use. The wooden panels on the walls have weathered the passage of time better, although they’re beginning to show a few, subtle signs of their true age as well.

Everyone currently missing from the online world is sitting around a large, round table eating delicious things like fish and chips. There’s a wide assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, too.

“Lydia!” someone says. “It’s about time you got here.”

“What’s going on here?”

“Our secret Twitter meeting, of course.”

“Since when do we have secret meetings?”

“Oh, it started happening about the first time you noticed how quiet everyone was online that one day. We were hoping you’d figure out where everyone really goes on those days soon.”

And then we’d eat, drink, and laugh the night away. Maybe next time a few more old online friends will string all of the clues together and figure out exactly where it is we’re meeting and how to figure out the date and time in advance.

😉

What funny things do you imagine when you notice something slightly out of the ordinary?

One of the things I admire about photography is how many different messages a good photographer can share with his or her audience.

Take the knife away and this subject is unremarkable. I could walk past her on the street without giving her a second glance.

In this picture, though, she’s terrifying. I don’t know what she’s cooking in her kitchen, and I sure as hell don’t want to find out.

Are you a fan of photography? If so, what is your favourite picture?

Sometimes I give advice on this blog. Today, though, I’m going to ask you for it.

I’ve found myself so settled into a routine that I’ve gotten into a rut. I eat the same kinds of food and do the same sorts of things week in and weekend out. While a routine can be a good thing in smaller doses, it’s high time for me try something new.

To be honest with you, it’s hard to know where to start because one decision leads to another. Before I know it, I’ve repeated the same steps I followed last week even when I’ve tried to switch up a few things for variety’s sake.

How have you gotten yourselves out of a rut in the past?

What should I try?

What shouldn’t I try?

Is there a specific area in life that you find easiest to change when you feel yourself growing restless or bored with what you’ve currently been doing?

Is anyone else feeling this way? Part of me thinks it might be a mild reaction to how little sun Ontario gets this time of year. I do remember having similar responses to long, dark days in the past. If this is the case, the good news is that I only have about five or six more weeks until the winter equinox.

Talk to me!

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, short stories, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

The Surprising Downsides of Being Clever. Fascinating.

Staying Mindful This Autumn via LondonMindful. This is something I struggle with during the cold, dark months of the year. These were helpful tips, though, and I will be using them this autumn and winter.

How Not Drinking Soda Has Changed Me via JamesSabata. I’ve had a similar revelation with sugary foods. Now that I’m not eating them very often, a lot of things I used to like have become unbearably sweet.

DIY Dentistry via nazmaniatweet. My mom accidentally cut her head once when she was a little girl. He father cleaned the wound and then stitched it up. It healed well. I thought about this family story while reading this post. Sometimes humans are a lot tougher than you’d think they would be (although I’m not planning any DIY medical care of my own anytime soon. Haha).

From The Long Rain:

From My Lief Living “Midwestern Nice”:

We should start with what it isn’t. It isn’t the feigned kindness of the South, where people sipping bourbons at cocktail hour reserve the right to boot-heel you when you turn your back. It’s not the abrasive honesty of the Northeast, where everyone speaks, as Don DeLillo once put it, in the same nasally, knowing cynicism. It is genuine, Midwestern Nice.

What have you been reading?