World Read Aloud Day
Today, March 7th is World Read Aloud Day!
World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.Lit World is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading the written word! (According to LitWorld's website, there are 793 million illiterate people in the world. ) Find out more about LitWorld, register to be part of the worldwide read aloud, donate, get involved--and most importantly READ and spread the written word!
What better way to celebrate World Read Aloud Day than by Buddy Reading...and, it just so happens some wonderful reader posted a read-aloud of NOT NORMAN, A GOLDFISH STORY on U-Tube. So, get cozy, grab a buddy and READ!
NOT NORMAN, A GOLDFISH STORY, Buddy Read-Aloud: If the hyperlink doesn't click, cut and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE_bId4fr28
And here's a little ditty to celebrate the day (Get ready to channel Karen Carpenter's version of Sing!):
Read/Read a Book/Read out loud/Read out looooong/
Don't worry that you're not good enough for anyone else to hear/
Just read/Read a Book!
Sampai Jumpa, Nanti, Jakarta
Last Jakarta News Note March 1, 2012
Seven years ago today I arrived in Jakarta to begin my Indonesian adventure. Curtis was already here, having arrived mid-January to begin his new position on the “BP Indonesia New Wells Delivery” Team. The next day we were handed the keys to our freshly painted, curtained, empty new house. Having signed up for a 3-year assignment (which morphed into 4 years seconds after Curtis said yes), we’d chosen a house quickly on our look-see trip in December. We weren’t buying it so what did it really matter we told ourselves. Settling into a new country, new customs, new people and language was an experience I wanted to capture and share, so I began writing Jakarta News that 1st day. As happens, different became familiar; unusual, customary; awkward, comfortable; Jl Pejaten Barat 1, No. 11, Kavling 5 became HOME. So, it’s been a while since my next-to-the-last Jakarta News posting.
Yesterday, a day shy of seven years later, I turned the keys back to the landlord, pulled the door closed and said goodbye to our Jakarta home.
Along with the house came staff: a housekeeper, Rusnati and her husband, Rohemon. “Try them out,” the HR rep told us. “At least while you get settled anyway.” There were several people in our garage that day, all brown, quiet, shy… some older, some in uniform, one hugely pregnant young woman. I recall wondering if she was, in fact, our maid, and if so, if she was going to expect to have her baby in our house and what I’d think about it…
Rusnati (not the pregnant one) stayed when the others left and so identified herself as our housekeeper. She didn’t speak much, nor did I, as I assumed she couldn’t speak English. Speaking wasn’t much of an issue at that point as the house was empty but for our suitcases, a rented bed, borrowed lamp and boxes for tables.
Every time I wandering into the garage or out those first few days, Rohemon was sitting in the garage. I’d smile; he’d smile. But we didn’t exchange words and I was clueless as to exactly what he was going to do, or when he’d begin doing in. After a few days later, our company-assigned driver, Aan, who did speak English (extremely well) set me straight. "Rohemon would," Aan explained, "clean up the garden—if he had scissors and a broom..."
Clean Rohemon did, and plant and prune and nurture. Having won the battle for ownership, Rohemon’ s pond now gurgles pleasantly as water tumbles down the waterfall where the fat rat drank. The orange and white pond fish, which replaced the monster ikan lele, which replaced the bobble headed goldfish, and the soap suds-poisoned fish and saltwater-suffocated fish before them are plump and fluttery. We’ve hatch a few batches of babies. And the few remaining ikan lele, descendants of the nasty, spotty monster fish that once lurked in the shadows, only darting out to terrorize their pond mates, are as tame and friendly as the rest. (Proof that it is nurture vs nature?) At last report, Chris’s blue-tongued lizard family was still romping about—even the one Joy’s dalmatian, Cale,mangled. And Andrea’s turtle still takes the occasional dip in the pond.
After the packers pulled away, while Rohemon swept the grass one last time, Rusnati, Curtis and I wandered through the rooms, straighten the curtains, checking cupboards, turning on fans and off lights.
Even empty, the once white-washed rooms, pulse with color, life, memories of parties and people, visitors, adventures, achievements. Rusnati’s two older daughters graduated college, as did Max and Lexi; Rusnati’s younger daughter, naughty Andrea, who it was feared wouldn’t be allowed into middle school because she wasn’t doing well, is now a computer ace with a paid high-school internship; Aan’s oldest son also graduated from Uni and is now a videographer traveling throughout Indonesia (including filming SBY, Indonesia’s President); Aan’s daughter is in her last semester in Uni, and his youngest son, Izwan, is top student in a multilingual honor school. Izwan is going to Singapore with his school this spring—the first in his family to hold a passport and travel out of the country!
When we first moved in, our voices echoed in the high-ceiling-ed rooms. I’d tilted back my head and yodeled once and Rusnati had come running, fearing the worst. Over the years, I yodeled many more times. Curtis hollered back, which always made Rusnati shake her head and laugh. Earlier today, when I was gone for a bit, Rusnati let out a yodel. She told me about it later, laughing about how the packers ran in from the garage to see what was wrong.
Last evening, after turning over the keys, Rusnati and I sat on the front steps as we have grown to work together, side-by-side, with a plant between us. The street cats, Ochie, Aan's pet, and a new younger one who looks like Ochie and is also learning to yowl for attention, lounged on the porch steps, taking turns nibbling snacks. (We left several full containers of food. Warjo, our pool man and relief gardener--the only one of us who'd return tomorrow--had promised to feed the cats, and the fish, and water the plants, too, until the new tenants moved in.) The sun was low, the call-to-prayer a low background chorus. Rusnati and I didn't say much, but not because we couldn't communicate; we speak the same language now, our own Pigeon Indo-English-Sign blend, a language of like minds, common goals, kindred spirits.
We’ll be in Jakarta a few more weeks, while Curtis wraps up his job. Then we’ll say farewell to our Jakarta Life. We’ll say it the Indonesian way: not “goodbye” but “sampai jumpa, nanti!, Until then…”
First Love!
What Inspires: First Love! And they ask: "Are you ever going to try writing a 'real' book" . . .
“The prime function of the children’s book writer is to write a book that is so absorbing, exciting, funny, fast and beautiful that the child will fall in love with it. And that first love affair between the young child and the young book will lead hopefully to other loves for other books and when that happens the battle is probably won. The child will have found a crock of gold. He will also have gained something that will help to carry him most marvelously through the tangles of his later years.”
Notable children’s books by Roald Dahl include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, The Twits, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The BFG, The Gremlins, The Enormous Crocodile, Esio Trot, Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine, and Danny, the Champion of the World.
I’m reading a collection of Dahl's adult short stories now—beautiful writing at its most irreverent, racy, scary, creepy, often horrific. No crock: pure gold!
DUCK, ALL YOU NORMANS!
What inspires: True Life Adventure! Nothing so fun as watching a classroom of toddlers romp! For them, life filled with wonder, so exciting & fresh! Every moment is a new adventure--
But, life in a pre-school classroom holds danger, too. . . Especially if you're the new fish in the classroom . . .
A few weeks back, my friend Sherri shared how one day her grandson George's preschool teacher asked the class what their empty fishtank needed. George hollered out "A Fish!"
I knew right then what they really needed-first and fast: Not Norman, A Goldfish Story!
Today I recieved a note from Sherri. She had good news and bad news: The good news was George likes my book (yes!)
The bad news:
"They had to replace their fish at school because a little girl threw a toy in the tank and conked the fish on the head. The next day he was belly up."
I'm Not Going To...and You Can't Make Me!
What inspires: Saying NO!
It's usual to begin a new year with a resolutions. Lists of things we "must do" and "have to" and "will do" lists. It's also usual, and expected, that we will break those resolutions (If we're honest, don't we make some specifically so we can break them?) We are barely into the 2nd month of the year, it's FULL MOON Time, and I've already broken mine...
So instead of more Do lists, how about a couple of Don't Do lists? Here are two : the first a quit-pussy footing-around-and-get-after-it list called "Twenty-Five Things Writers Should Stop Doing..." specifically for us writers by novelist, screenwriter and self-proclaimed "Freelance Pe-monkey" Chuck Wendig.
And for everyone: the list that inspired Chuck to "cobble" his list: 30 Things to Stop Doing to Yourself
Just say no! 
Reading them inspired me to begin my own No List. Item #1: NO MORE BEATING YOURSELF UP!
ONE DAY I WENT RAMBLING is on the way
I'm thrilled to holler out: My new picture book , ONE DAY I WENT RAMBLING, is on the way! It's coming to bookstores on April Fool's Day!
Illustrated by the creative goddess, Terri Murphy, with whom I partnered to create DANCE, Y'ALL, DANCE (also published by Bright Sky Press) ONE DAY I WENT RAMBLING stars Zane, a boy who finds fun and adventure within found objects.
Chances Are the Chances Are Awfully Good
What Inspires: 2nd Chances! It’s the New Moon and the beginning of the Chinese New Year 4709: Year of the Black Water Dragon!’s Celebration! A 2nd chance to make a fresh start of 2012; a 2nd chance to commit to change. Chinese tradition on New Years’ houses are swept clean. Old thoughts, deeds, misdeeds are brushed out the door. Out with the old; in with the new. New Resolve! New Ideas! New Slate!
Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy Chinese New Year!
The first day of the 2012 Chinese New Year is today—January 23, 2012 in China's time zone. This day is a new moon day, and is the first day of the first Chinese lunar month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar system. But, according to all my Internet research, the first day of the Chinese New Year is Feb. 4th.
The Year of the Water Dragon comes only once every 60 years. 2012 is the year of the Male Water Dragon.
Are you are Dragon? Know a Dragon? Want to be prepared for the Dragon year? Here’s more about the Dragon:
“The Dragon is a legendary creature. It can survive on the ground, in the water, and in the sky. Dragon is mystic, misty, blurred, unreachable and unpredictable animal. When Dragon has attraction relationship with the other animals, Dragon is quite likely to hide its Earth characteristic. When Dragon meets Rat, Dragon will show more Water characteristics. When Dragon meets Rabbit, Dragon will fully support Wood characteristic in the Rabbit. When Dragon meets Chicken, Dragon will turn itself into Metal identity. Dragon is a stranger to Dog. When Dog meets Dragon, Dog will bark and prepare for fighting. Dragon is kind of lonely. It's hard for other animals to build love or romantic relationship with Dragon.” Chinese Forecast website
What does the Year of the Black Dragon mean?
“Dragon contains Earth, Water and Wood. If your Lucky Element is Water, then you will have pretty good luck in 2012. If your Lucky Element is Earth, then you will gain some degree of good luck in 2012. The Dragon is the last year of Wooden Cycle, which is from 2010 to 2012. If your Lucky Element is Wood and you do well in the 2011 Rabbit year, then your luck will continue.”
It’s really all about knowing your “Lucky Element.” But first, you must find your Lucky Element. After finding your Lucky Element, you can click over to see a graph of the rise and fall of your life.
Luck if you've ever been a lady to begin with, Luck be a lady. . . Happy New Year, Take 2!
What's the Use Of Listing?
What Inspires: Lists Last night, on a whim—and desire not to waste a National holiday off—we flew to Bali and checked into Kayana Villas. It was past midnight and raining when we arrived. It's the rainy season, so we weren't surprised by the rain; we brought books, computers, cards, etc. but we were hoping for sunshine. Several times during the night and this morning I woke to the sound of rushing water. Believing it was still raining—pouring—I rolled over and buried my head.
Curtis finally managed to coax me to breakfast. Surprise! Surprise! The big floodlight in the sky was shining full beam. The rushing water/rain sound was the waterfall flowing into our private pool. Hurrah! Over breakfast (huevos rancheros ala Kayana are indescribably “enak” delicious!) we formulated a plan for the day. First item: Pool Time!
A trip or two back, Lexi, my extremely organized daughter, had shared her Trip Packing List with me. She keeps it on her phone, viewable at a touch. Would that I had used it when I was pulling things together for this trip…
I’m a heavy packer. My motto is: if you might need it, bring it! But this trip… this trip we are under serious weight restrictions: only 15 kg each. No exceptions. No paying extra for more. From Bali we’re flying to Moyo, a tiny island off the coast— in a seaplane! Anything over our weight allowance would have to be abandoned at the gate. So I packed predently; changed suitcases to flimsy light-weight duffles; took out all but one pair of shoes, two suits, one book, two bottles of sparkles. In the end, even with the restrictions I managed to bring almost everything I needed. Almost…
See this glorious picture of the pool, the trickling waterfall hidden behind the curtain of green, those inviting, empty lounge chairs?
Me!
Ask yourself: What are the most important items to bring on a tropical island holiday?
Yes, I brought sunscreen-3 kinds!
But, I forgot the most, absolutely most important 3 items: my hat, my sunglasses and my lipstick. Anyone who knows me knows, I do not sit in the sun without my hat, my sunglasses and especially my lipstick (Like Queen E, I am never, never, never am without my lipstick). FYI: Shops in Jakarta Airport Domestic Terminal do not sell lipstick, chapstick, gloss or Crisco.
So, instead of basking in the sun I’m sitting in the shade typing and thinking I need to add 2 New 2012 Resolutions:
#1 MAKE AND MAINTAIN LISTS
# 2 USE THY LISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ENOUGH TO HAVE A LIST; YOU HAVE TO USE IT!