Whether it’s Nook, Kindle or iPad, hardback or paper, library or bookstore — we can never get enough great stories. So as summer starts to wane, we at Fifty is the New share some recent good reads. What we did on our summer vacation, literary style.

Prudence

This summer reminded me of my girlhood, when every Saturday I checked out 11 books (the maximum allowed) from the Pasadena Public Library, and returned them a week later for another near dozen. Two I liked:

Wesley the Owl: a Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and his Girl by Stacey O’Brien. Mandatory reading for animal lovers!

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery: a romp through France’s bourgeoisie told by two razor-sharp wits whose lives collide in a fancy apartment building in the 5th arrondissement.

Connie

Summer for me means sun, sand, sea, and books, lots of books, and though I now live in the mountains I still make time for long, slow days and words that make my heart sing.

I am, for the dozenth time, re-reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This delicious froth of manners and misunderstanding within the Bennett family is a perfect summer distraction from our modern miasma.

I’ve also started Pompeii by Richard Harris, the historical fiction of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Sounds like a potboiler, yes?

Carine

A good book teaches you something you didn’t know before about the world and about yourself.

I have been married to a Frenchman for 22 years, and even wrote a book on the humorous differences between our two cultures, but What French Women Know by Debra Ollivier managed to further explain my husband to me. In addition, it provided revelation on the impulses that drive my approach to relationships. An excellent and entertaining read for anyone trying to decipher failed and successful unions!

Christie

Summer makes me think of places I have visited and long to return to. This year Ireland captured my imagination and I found Benjamin Black (BB). BB is the alarming alter-ego of Irish literary genius John Banville. His uneasy characters include Quirke, a disheveled (inside and out) pathologist, who stumbles and bumbles along until he is able to uncover a single truth. It’s 1950s Dublin, we are spared any DNA search and recovery, these characters have to observe and think. Christine Falls and Elegy for April are recommended.

Melissa

Reading isn’t a seasonal activity for me. Since I am not in school nor do I have children in school, time is not as delineated as it once was. But sometimes I read more obsessively than others. Now is one of those times.

Shantaram by Gregory Roberts was 920 pages of complete obsession. I could not stop reading and so I am told, as with any good addiction when I was done I wanted more. I have never been more enthralled by a book. The story is about love, faraway places, loss, redemption and the mystery of human existence—a gut wrenching, epic literary experience.

Cathy

I get most of my reading done in bed or on airplanes lately, though I long for sun, sand and no sense of time.

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese took me to Ethiopia with a story of twin brothers born of a tragic union. Though filled with detailed medical explanations, the stories of love, family and betrayal were riveting and unexpected.

I’m just sinking my teeth into Blood, Bones & Butter a memoir from Gabrielle Hamilton chef/owner of Prune in NYC. Deelicious!

*****

Got a good book to share? Be sure to add your favorite summer read!

Can Carine gamble on insurance and not get burned?

Recent conversation with my vet:

Me: It’s been at least a year since I asked one of your people to fill out this “Release of Records” form and send it to my insurance company but they never did, so my last claim went unpaid.

(The insurance company needed two years’ worth of records to guard against any sneaky pre-existing conditions.)

Vet: Oh, no. We fill out all forms and fax them in immediately, but all our clients call back three and four times to complain that the insurance companies say they haven’t received it.

Me: So, I guess their thing is to wear us down in the hope that we will eventually abandon or forget the whole thing?

Vet: You know, insurance companies. (Shrug)

In case you’re still reeling over the news that I pay for something as elitist as pet insurance when there are people starving in America, all I can say is, well, yes, I pay for pet insurance. I’ve gone off the pet insurance crack pipe several times over the years, each time, succumbing to the guilt wrought upon me by the sarcastic and smirking voice, which tells me I’m a fool to fork over hard-earned dough to yet another insurance company when they always seem to find an excuse for denying my claims. The last time I got back on the pipe was a year-and-a-half ago when my cat developed a potentially fatal blocked bladder that ended up costing me $1800. That’s U.S. dollars, not Haitian Gourdes! I ran, not walked, to find me another pipe for fear of a recurrence (since the vet practically assured me this would happen). After a year of spending $100/month to cover both my animals, I sent in a claim for what should have been a piece-of-cake incident, which, nevertheless, cost me over $200. The result was the above-noted conversation with my vet. Do I stop inhaling again or keep hoping for miracles? Grrr

In addition to pet insurance, I also pay $100/month to Pre-paid Legal Service. You got it, insurance against potential future legal bills and access to attorney expertise whenever you need it. I wish I’d had it back in 1997 when my henna tattoo business was hit with a frivolous lawsuit; total outlay: $18,000. It was right after that really fun adventure that I hit the Pre-paid Legal crack pipe and continue to pay it to this day. This means that in 13 years I’ve spent $15,600, hoping to never again be involved in a lawsuit, but sleeping better knowing I’m covered should I should fall prey to Lady Unlucky. But, wait. Over the years, I’ve often walked away uncomfortable with the level of lawyer engagement provided. I was very satisfied with a 15-minute phone conversation, which clarified my rights as a person renting to a nightmare lodger. But more often, it’s been like, Oh, we can’t tell you how to write the terms of this contract, we can only make suggestions. If you would like us to write it for you, we would be happy to do that at 25 percent less than our normal hourly rate. And they’ll represent you in court, but only for a specified number of hours. After that, it’s 25 percent off the normal hourly rate… But isn’t the devil in the legalese? And don’t most disputes that end up in court necessitate months and months of time? I know, I know, I’m making my own case for ditching the service but I just can’t stop thinking about my old aunt who got fed up paying for homeowners insurance after 30 years and said fuck it! Her house burned down the week after she canceled her policy.

In the end, it’s not really addiction that keeps me sucking on that pipe; it’s plain old fear. And the problem with insurers is they’ve got all the insurance while we’ve got all the fear. They’re counting on it.

Updates
1) Today I had a very satisfying and informative conversation with a Pre-paid Legal attorney regarding contractual terms with an overseas corporation. See what I mean?!
2) For various reasons (like the ones mentioned in the piece), I’ve canceled my pet insurance—again. Yeeha!

Prudence shares an easy way to help millions of dogs and cats

Some days I get nothing done. Oh, I cook & clean up, chauffeur & scrub, fluff & fold, but I am not part of the solution to the manifold challenges our world, our society, our country faces.

This changed when my friend Marsha insisted I daily log onto Freekibble.com to help one of the six- to eight-million* dogs and cats languishing in shelters get their daily dose of kibble. I mean, if you are on death row, you still gotta eat, right?

And until we figure out how to stop the pooch & puss overpopulation problem that has as many as four million beasties euthanized annually*, the good folks at Freekibble donate ten kibble chunks per game for every person who plays the website’s super-fun and challenging Bow-Wow Trivia Quiz and Meow Trivia Quiz. The angelic sponsor of Freekibble appropriately named Halo, Purely for Pets®, that markets natural & nutritious pet food and is co-owned by none other than Ellen Degeneres.

So until these homeless shelter animals find “their forever homes,” Freekibble.com helps me get my daily good karma points, no matter how trifling the other parts of my life are.

*Humane Society of the United States statistics

Get a daily dose of uplift, courtesy of Melissa and friends

To keep my cheer flowing year-round, I find great daily joy in two free email subscriptions.

A Daily Poem
Hosted and curated by Garrison Keillor, The Writer’s Almanac can also be heard daily on NPR. I read the poem each morning while the coffee brews.
The Writer’s Almanac >>

A Daily Painting
I also subscribe to a daily painting by a noted Southwestern painter John Farnsworth. Having painted himself into a corner with horses—a subject he’d become known for—John hit a creative wall. To reignite his creativity, John began doing one painting a day and posting it on his website. Every day I am eager to see what John has created. Waiting to see the painting reminds me of the fifty-cent surprise bags we used to get as kids at the Trading Post when on vacation, only better.
A Farnsworth A Day >>

What lurks in the mind of Carine Fabius? Have you seen her?

Several themes have been dancing around inside my head lately. Tiptoeing like a ballerina is the power of art to transform us. A recent New York Times Magazine article on Estonian composer Arvo Pärt described his music as being able to “touch the soul.” It was also described as “…a harmonic stillness that conjures up an alternative to hectic everyday existence;” R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe said that Pärt’s music brings one “to a total meditative state.” The writer said he was surprised at how many of his acquaintances knew of the composer’s work and loved it.

I was similarly delighted to find that so many unusual suspects are fans of Haitian author Edwidge Danticat, whom we recently hosted at our gallery for a signing of her book of essays, Create Dangerously. The response was so enthusiastic I feared having to turn people away. In a world where most people need their culture fed to them in sound bites from celebrities, preferably on television, the author is wildly successful. While her lyrical prose defies conventional storytelling, its simple and gorgeous use of everyday language serves to inspire, horrify and, yes, touch the soul. I like that in a work of art.

I am working on a major exhibition of Haitian art that is scheduled to launch in 2012 and travel to important museums throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe. The Haitian Cultural Foundation (HCF), which hired me to curate the exhibition, believes, like I do, that my beleaguered country’s art and culture should be an integral part of the recovery and reconstruction dialogue. Why?

Art is one of Haiti’s strongest exports; support for its production, exhibition and sale to the outside world is paramount to continued economic stimulation (somebody please throw a million bucks at HCF!). Visual artists, musicians and writers help to elevate the discourse around Haiti by exposing its rich, revelatory culture. Through their creations, artists make obvious our commonality with all human beings. This is the all-important link, which helps us understand that in helping others, we help ourselves.

*

Can-canning around in my head like wild girls are several new developments in my neighborhood. There is a young new guy whose daily garb is straight out of the Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold Columbine massacre closet. Am I wrong to get nervous when I see him? That’s one thing.

Another is the recently restored sign at Gardner Street Elementary School—the one that says Michael Jackson Auditorium, covered up seven years ago at the behest of parents who assumed the singer guilty of child molestation charges before the ink was dry on said charges. If he was guilty before proven guilty, and since he was acquitted five years ago, did his death make him innocent?

And then there is the particularly creepy man hanging from a tree in front a neighbor’s house in preparation for Halloween. He is swathed in gauzy film, and from a distance, he casts a very effective evil chill upon the block. Am I wrong to want to cut the rope?

Finally, there is the Have you seen me? flyer of the month, showing the face of a cute black and white kitty, which, weirdly enough, made me want to dash home, Xerox my face and ask the same question, Have you seen me? I’m the one who believes a year and eight months is too soon to be exhausted over defending Barack Obama; who believes Sarah Palin will never be elected president; who continues to be puzzled by the missing memory of the electorate—jobless or otherwise. I’m the one who believes in the power of art to rebuild a country. Have you seen me?

When Prudence’s life is saved, she wonders, is it merely coincidence or celestial interference?

I am alive today because Eric, a man I never met, saved my life last month.

No, I am not filtering bodily fluids with Eric’s kidneys; nor pumping blood with Eric’s heart. Heaven forbid Eric should have donated any of his organs! After all, he died of AIDS 30 years ago.

But, according to Catherine, my son’s art teacher, Eric’s fingerprints are all over the recent life-saving business—although some may claim a mouse who nobly sacrificed itself, or that a journalist at the Brattleboro Reformer deserve just as much credit.

Perhaps. So, let’s give credit to Eric, the mouse AND the reporter. And my husband. And anyone else who wants to get in on the credit crawl. After all, once you’ve wriggled free from Death’s icy clutches, you feel a little generous.

Let me backtrack.

In Vermont, bedroom windows open in late spring—as the ubiquitous peeper frogs begin their high-pitched mating whistle—and stay open through early fall, when the warmth of Indian summer nights lulls Vermonters to sleep.

This September, however, a sideways-driven rain forced me—for the first time since we moved into our new home in July—to crank shut the double-glazed, tightly fitting windows, which sealed with a satisfying schlup. That night, a headache woke me in the wee hours, and continued for several days, growing worse at night.

About this time, a critter died in the vicinity of our bedroom closet; I could smell it. After taking apart the built-ins and finding no maggot-infested carcass, Tim and I concluded the animal was both small—probably a mouse—and located inside the wall.

The headaches worsened, morphing into dizziness and nausea. The more I tried not to think, “brain tumor,” the more I was sure I had one.

My husband, who reads all six pages of the Brattleboro Reformer while buying his morning coffee at the local deli, brought home an article that caught his eye—fuel companies fined for failing to add a noxious odor to their product; an odor designed to alert customers of a gas leak. “Do you think that horrible smell could be a propane leak and not a dead mouse?” asked Tim, who now also suffered from a headache.

Our propane supplier was quick to send Mike, a uniformed repairman. “Nope,” he announced after inspecting every inch of gas line, our German-made Buterus furnace and the stove. “That smell is a dead mouse.”

Eric must have tapped Mike on the shoulder because, with one foot out the door, he hesitated. “Maybe I’ll just poke around the back here and see if everything’s hooked up right,” he said, disappearing behind the Buterus.

“Aha! Here’s why you are getting headaches,” Mike showed us a valve that normally pumps odorless carbon monoxide (which Mike euphemistically called “venting product”) outside, but instead was pumping it directly into our bedroom. He reconnected the valve to some tubing, double-clamped it, and was gone—taking with him our headaches.

“Vintage Eric!” crowed Catherine, two weeks after the carbon monoxide incident. She clarified, “Haven’t you ever been at your wit’s end, and then suddenly the answer becomes clear?” She calls these moments—the intuitive, sudden knowingness—Eric, after her best friend who died three decades ago. According to Catherine, he often helps her out of a jam.

I thought for a moment about all the near-misses I’ve had in my life, times when I’ve sent a heartfelt SOS out to the universe. Like the time I was eight months pregnant and my car stalled in the fast lane during rush hour. Out of nowhere, a man in a pick-up truck appeared and pushed my Saab to safety, then disappeared before I could thank him.

There are plenty of other times when, inexplicably, dark curtains parted and help and/or clarity arrived. But what force is afoot when this happens? What brings us the help we need when we need it most? Is it drawn to us—or are we challenged to connect the dots, clues left by our own personal bodhisattva, like Catherine’s Eric, who cares for us from afar?

Maybe the universe is waiting for us to pay attention with our whole selves—to hear, to feel, to smell, to touch and to see—so that we may understand that the solutions and answers we need are always there, folded into everyday life; concealed in the layers of our experiences, like the “coincidence” of the dead mouse odor and the newspaper article about propane. Perhaps, the puzzle pieces themselves are conscious of their role, urging us to snap them together and discover how neatly they all fit together.

And when they don’t fit—when we are rattled or confused, too busy being focused or righteous—to notice what is right there all along, we call this “tragedy.” Tragedies haunt us for a reason. Not only do they make good stories, hit movies and dramas that are performed for hundreds of years—they remind us how, if any one thread is broken, the entire tapestry of life can unravel in an instant.

If government regulators hadn’t done their job and penalized propane companies; if the reporter hadn’t written the story about that penalty action; if, like so many papers nationwide, the Brattleboro Reformer had gone belly up and Tim had never read the story; if Mike the repairman hadn’t gone back for one last peek, and finally, if the mouse hadn’t fallen on his sword inside the wall and sent out a stench; or, maybe Catherine is right. Maybe I am alive today because of a man I never met; a man whose own life ended in tragedy and whose job today is to ensure that yours and mine doesn’t.

Hot fun! With summer just around the corner, here’s what we’re groovin’ on.

Melissa
Having spent much of a very long winter holed up with a cast on my arm, I am reveling in the out of doors. I just returned from a 3-day trip on the Chama River in Georgia O’Keefe country and plan more river time in the next month. This week I am going to hike to a mountain lake high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

Walking, weeding, outdoor concerts and visits to the Farmer’s Market make up my chief summer grooves. Also outdoor dining, morning coffee under the apple tree, Martha’s homemade goat cheese and the most special of all, the return of the hummingbirds!

Prudence
In two words, “rediscovering classics.” Believe me, they’re better the second time around! Jane Eyre, The House of Mirth and The Picture of Dorian Gray read by acclaimed actors and downloaded to my iPod, transport me far away from mundane, everyday tasks that miraculously get done as I hang with Jane, Lily and Dorian. And the best part—these books are online and free to download at Netlibrary.com, as well as many other free book collections available through your local library!

Connie
I am groovin’ on community. This summer I have set my intention to enjoy everything that my town, neighborhood, and Yosemite National Park have to offer.

I am really enjoying my local, organic, fresh eggs and vegetables from Mountain Meadow Ranch and our pretty terrific Farmer’s Market starts on Wednesday nights. I am also teaching Acting 101 at our pretty terrific Yoga Studio, and this Tuesday I’ll run over to Oakhurst to audition for a Melodrama. Now–how’s about that for big fun?

Carine
I’m groovin’ on Mixed Chicks. No, I’m not suddenly into bi-racial women. I’m talking Mixed Chicks Leave-in Conditioner. If you have curly hair, no matter your race or background, this is the one product you need. No more gels. No more frizz. It defines, separates and gives curls weight. Like magic! Now, this does not mean no more bad hair days. That would be miraculous. Besides, that’s what headbands and hats are for.

Christie
It’s super groovy summer! Cool tubing in the hot sun down the Cannon River in Minnesota with Freddy, Kerri Ann and Perry. Note to self, ripples in a shallow river means rocks. The bruises on my bum are beginning to fade. St. Paul band, Cosmoline, are madly groovy. Hard to pick a favorite on their new album, Give Me Back My Pride, but I think I have to go with Suicide Blonde. Next groovefest? San Francisco to see Ms. Clever Cat.

Cathy
My eclectic musical taste has been satisfied by my latest obsession, Pandora, a do-it-yourself online music box. You pick a song, artist or genre, create a “station” and the algorithms are programmed to find songs that are musically similar.

While listening to my Joni Mitchell station, I rediscovered Buffy Saint-Marie! I love the stumble upon nature of Pandora. If I want to know what the “kids” are listening to, hear jazz standards or funk, classical music, reggae or indie folk—it’s all there at my fingertips! Pandora, is rockin’ my world.

What are you groovin’ on?