Bridge to Terabithia

Rowan’s class is reading this book right now:

And I have shivers.

Did you ever read Katherine Paterson's  Bridge to Terabithia? Published in 1977? I must have read it shortly after it came out, and then it was one of those books I kept on repeat for years afterwards. I’m sure I wrote at least a couple of book reports on it. It was a brutal read even then, tackling class structure, sexism, poverty, death, the cruelty of children and their parents. Rereading it now (because how can I not?) it’s no less brutal. I’m already tearing up and — spoiler alert — Leslie hasn’t even died yet.

(That line is seared into my brain: “Your girl friend’s dead, and Momma thought you was dead, too.” And here I go with the tears.)

Rowan loves this book, and I love him even more for loving it. He loves it despite or because of its brutality, or maybe he doesn’t even notice how rough life is for Jesse and his siblings, his schoolmates, in rural Virginia in the 1970s. Did I notice, then? I must have. I asked him if his teacher has talked about the way that things have changed since the book was written — how boys and girls are, say, generally allowed to play on the same parts of the playground, how people don’t generally snort about “some hippies.”

“No,” he said.

“Do you think life is much different for you that it was for Jess and Leslie?”

He shrugged. His favourite character in the book, he tells me, is the dog. Followed by the cow, Miss Bessie. (My voice recognition software just typed in “Ms. Bessie” and I giggled — because calling anyone “Ms.” in the context of this book would have been a dangerously political act.)

It occurs to me that a kid raised in a Jewish household by two moms would have been dead in the water back then.

And then I wonder if maybe much has really changed. In my privileged, Canadian bubble, absolutely it has. But other days, with other news stories as far away as other countries and on other continents and as close as my backyard, it’s hard to tell.

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Day 26 of #NaBloPoMo, and I have to say I feel like I'm losing steam. Four more days!

Marble cake

Someone turned nine. And requested a marble cake with custard filling to mark the occasion.

Found a devil's food recipe on Epicurious, and we made a double batch — half with the requisite cocoa, half without.

We drizzled the batters into two different pans. This was my favourite part. Very Jackson Pollock-esque.

This was Rowan's favourite part.

Isaac had been in the tub during the cake baking, but he came down all clean and shiny in pajamas and got in on the batter action.

And further in.

And even further. he Had change his pajamas afterwards.

Meanwhile, the cakes  baked. And cooled.

And were stacked one on top of the other with vanilla custard in the middle.  Rachel and her sister made the custard, drawing on their British roots. They assured me that it would hold between the two cakes. And did.

Chocolate icing.

Sprinkle disaster!

The  icing hardened too quickly for the sprinkles to stick. Bah!

So we found some Smarties and got the job done.

There's a huge secret stash of leftover cake in my freezer right now, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood. It's good. Come by.

Schooling the nine-year-olds

You guys, I’m not trying to brag, but it’s true that I totally rock at Ms. Pac-Man. And that’s saying something, because I rock not a bit and never will at any other videogame in the entire world. Except maybe for Tetris, at which I am passable.

I rock at Ms. Pac-Man because I spent four days solid playing it on a bender during my cousin Jason’s bar mitzvah in 1983. My aunt and uncle rented the game as part of the kids’ party in the basement, and I holed up down there like an addict, like my kids and the iPods, just me and the game, working the mazes and eating the pellets until it became muscle memory, the joystick an extension of my mind.

I mention this now because we held Rowan’s birthday party (birthday letter to come at some point soon) recently at a local bowling alley, and lo and behold they had a functional Ms. Pac-Man game. Maybe it was even the same one as my original 1983 model. We had handed all the kids a few quarters when I spied the machine. Two of Rowan’s friends were playing (like total amateurs, it has to be said), when I sidled up to them and said, “If you really want to see someone play that game right, you should watch me.”

And they did. And it was awesome — not only because I still have it, which I do, even if the joystick was creaky. It was awesome not because I passed through about five mazes before conceding defeat, cockily devouring four ghosts on a single power pellet at a time.

It was awesome because I was surrounded by a gaggle of admiring nine-year-old boys, who kept saying things like, “You’re so good!” And “She’s amazing!”

And I can tell you that that is probably going to be the only time in my life that a group of nine-year-old boys is going to gather admiringly around me to admire my skill at anything else, ever.

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NaBloPoMo Day 24!