Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Okay, I admit it.



I've been having a pretty fun time in New York. From escapades in Central Park to appearing on the Big Idea (CNBC) to a round-up of the day at the classy restaurant "Moda" (at Flatotel New York), it hasn't been too bad at all.

Just now we came back from a carriage ride in New York. A majestic steed, white with a dappled back (named Whitey), deigned to pull us through the picteresque (though somewhat rutted) paths of Central Park as my mom yakked away with the driver.

Tomorrow I'm going on another lark at the New York Book Expo. I'm also doing an article for the Time For Kids Reporter's Talent Contest about the Expo, which required a lengthy outline (which I did on casually decorated Flatotel notepads).

I'll deign to post the article on the blog as soon as it's strained, tamed, and maimed to the same standards as any intellectual's treatise. I haven't even begun--you'll excuse me, because the Book Expo hasn't, either.

Speaking of media, etc., I appeared on CNBC's Big Idea show just this morning. It's airing Thursday night, starting ten pm Eastern Time, so if any of you guys have a networth of at least--okay, I'm kidding. I henceforth command you lowly peons to WATCH IT!

That is, if you have cable.

I don't.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Thrice-Told Tales of the Big Apple

Having sadly neglected my blogging duty, I again take keyboard in hand and proceed to tell this audience of today's events.

I was invited to the "Big Idea" program on CNBC recently. Today we boarded the plane at a pitiful seven AM to charge through the clouds at New York City. This is my fourth time in the Big Apple and I must admit, I hope to no offense, that I did not anticipate the plane journey with much happiness. Neither did I feel particularly reasured when we took off, leaving bloomingly bright Seattle-Tacoma Airport behind us.

It is currently, I believe, seventy something degrees in the humid weather, but no hot weather is pleasant with the sound of a suburb sprinkler replaced by honking horns, the smell of a summer's freshly cut grass forfeited for the exhaust of a limo. And, of course, overshadowing all of these petty complaints, no summer day, not even one bedecked in cookies and cream, silks and satins, could be as pleasant without my sister, and my dad alongside us.

Speaking of Adrianna, my older sister, I came up with this the other day (believe it was Monday)--

"The woodpecker is to tree as Adrianna is to me."

This quite accurately represents sibling rivalry, although how do you like this one:

"The woodpecker is to tree as Republicans are to democracy."

Okay, a little bit offensive, and probably not true (in some cases.) But what else rhymes with "tree"?

In any case, back to business. Speaking of which, we're in the business room in our "cosmopolitan and contemporary" NYC hotel, Flatotel. My mom pronounces it "Flotel". While it's seven nineteen PM right now, it's four nineteen in Seattle, I think.

More updates later.

ADORA

Thursday, May 24, 2007

The war in Iraq was a mindless invasion.

George Bush cited "weapons of mass destruction" as a major reason for invading Iraq. However, India, China, Pakistan, and North Korea all harbor weapons of mass destruction, and, while we might sometimes act less than chivalrous to the leaders of these nations, I don't recall an invasion (not that we should invade yet another country, of course.) As it turned out, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at all.

Soldiers have been dying in Iraq at an alarming rate. Lives are being lost for a war that was begun on the magic carpet of a president's suspicion. According to an Associated Press count, of Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007, at least 3,431 members of the U.S. military have died in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003.

The war has costed us $400 billion, not mentioning fallen soldiers and the civilians killed in suicide bombings. This number is bound to grow as we continue along the winding, seemingly never-ending path of the Iraq War. A gravelly road. The Bush Administration implied Saddam Hussein, former ruler of Iraq, had ties to al-Qaeda, and that overthrowing him and his administration would lead to democratic rule in the Middle East, decreasing terrorist attacks and terrorism over all. However, CIA and US State Department reports didn't find anything to support an operation connection between Hussein and al-Qaeda.

I believe the war has been a combined catastrophe of hopelessness and hurdles, mindlessness and mistakes. Everyday the radio blares another casualty of war, another son or sister, father, mother. People all around the world look at America as the prodigal country, the gambler of blood, so that the term "Mission Accomplished" is, alas, "Mission Gone Wrong."

Friday, May 18, 2007

I do love "dw" words immensely, though, at the moment, I can only think of two, "dwelling" and "dwindling", both of which I use quite a bit. The word "dwelling" seems to conjure in mind an image of a a moss-covered cottage, hidden by the thorns of long-long ago, and "dwindling"--well, dwindling food supplies, perhaps, and a warehouse riddled by a trillionaire's greed. Speaking of conjured images, today we did a project in class focusing on writing about a time in which we imagined ourseves as something else when we looked at something. I looked at a map and immediately imagined myself as a cartographer shut up in a tower drawing with a feather pen on a sheet of vellum. (As a cartographer, this is rather heavy on animal products. Adrianna would cringe.) I copied and pasted mine into here (by the way, it's third person. "She" is myself):
She looked at the map inquisitively and an image came into her mind, a sage of sorts bent over a sheet of fine vellum like that of the days of the lore of gods, a sheet like that from the days when maps were drawn by hand by sages in sepulchers. She was the sage, in a robe crinkled with the use of an eon, layered in a film of dust like sand on a mussel’s shell. She wielded a pen of ink from a river of thought, thoughts so sharp that a sword of Hephaestus’s make could not compare. Slowly the Mongols crept across the wrinkled vellum border; slowly the ink filtered through so Luxembourg, Andorra, lived; the blue Danube waltzed its way across in ink of blue jay-blue; the pilgrims inched across to Plymouth Rock, and slowly, Lewis and Clark made their way past the prairie dogs. New Lands of centuries; deserts of millenniums; names upon the sepia vellum in a spidery script. The map was spread across the table, the table’s wood fine but insignificant to the wise, with jaded minds; all the lands and all the men that maps had turned to mimes. The map progressed like a sage’s action, not so quick as thought, and, quick as a sage’s action, the sage turned to face a weather-beaten table marked by a day of scratches, faces she knew to be of no recent renown, and the map upon the wall that had conjured the magic.

We forced our teacher to write one as well. Hers was quite funny; the image sprouted from a flawless flower planter, exploring a world of TV microwaved popcorn dinners and stark banality. In class, I won the Review Quiz for the third time in the row. At the moment we are studying the Civil War and its many characters. My favorite, so far, is General Winfield Scott, otherwise known (my preferred title for the man) as Fuss n' Feathers. His name is of much debate in our classroom. We are unsure of whether it is spelled Winifred or Winfield, having seen it spelled both ways. We went on a walk today after dinner, with our mom, dad, and Adrianna, and played a merry game of Tag in the "safer" boundaries of Nike Park (namely, the playground). Adrianna, disobedient soul she is, brought her bike despite protests, and was forced to lug it back down (mostly rocky terrain, and too dark for pleasant riding). It was sunset, beautiful in its piercing red (though as we trudged back, grinning soldiers from a warfield looking forward to rewards, it was much later, dusk), red like the strawberry popsicles we licked triumphantly back home. Sadly, the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, a slow journey through picteresque landscape on train, will soon be closed down ("why doesn't King County buy it and make it a commuter train?" our dad says, pounding his fist upon the table in a fit of intellectual rage), to make way for a highway. In any case, it's ten thirty seven PM.

Monday, May 14, 2007

The weather is getting somewhat better. The clouds, in the morning, broke up to reveal a beautifully bright sky of velvety shimmers that seemed as fragile as dandelion seeds in the wind. Thankfully, the blue sky held. After eating a lunch of pasta, salmon, and black cherry juice, we set off on an expedition for the awe-inspiring, ballad-worthy, Nike Park. A fearsome place full of rough bushes and thorns, we found ourselves soon in the midst of a hopeless labyrinth deep in the tangles of the forest chasm looking onto multiple layers of rapidly--too rapidly for us poor travelers’ tastes--falling onto the ground below. We hiked about a bit, and, after finding our legs substantially stung, our faces whipped and weather-beaten (as much weather-beaten as faces could get under the canopies of trees), we found ourselves at a fence with barbed wire set in a jaunty pattern atop the wiring. Adrianna made dark suggestions we ought to go back, while our mother obstinately pushed forth. Finally, a combination of both led us out into a neighborhood we recognized for trick-or-treating, and, shamefully, we realized we were only a little bit away from Nike Park. The fearsome forest had not been so large as we thought. Ah! My dreams of glory in the ballads of old, floating away like a battered newspaper in a gale. Oh, I suppose it would not be pleasant for some spelunkers in a new civilization to find our bones, the forgotten fodder of a cold case, lost in some forest.
I grudgingly suppose.
Now, I enter, no doubt this word shall strike dread into the hearts of some-- Technology. Recently I have installed the "Microsoft One Note" software on my computer. A most wondrous thing, one can write on it, rather like the application "Paint" but with templates and notebook lines. And as to my new email, the reason I give for this seemingly wanton charge into the fiery depths of new email accounts, good Marshal of the Joust, is that my old account has one thousand two hundred and fifty three emails in it (mostly Doctor Dictionary "words of the day"), and the new email gives me a lot--a lot--of storage space. Most irritating, however, one must receive permissions this and permissions that from adults, every single time you try to sign in, so attempting to send the urgent "yeah, maybe, no, I don't recall, okay," message isn't going to work unless you have your parents' permission and their credit card number, Mr. President. Not only did this indignity make sore my already ruffled mind, I was approached with the ever-present, never-comforting dilemma of breaking internet connections. Internet connection is difficult with a wireless card--one must choose from the unencrypted Linksys, the mysterious Edward, or the unreliable pack-of-numbers connection nobody on the planet has--or ever shall--care to remember, except the makers themselves. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...this is the way of the earth in some ways, perhaps, and there is no escaping it.
In any case, enough of tales of heroism in the depths of fearsome forests. I have a compulsive feeling in my stomach I need some ice cream. And my mother, no doubt, has a compulsive feeling I need to get to bed.

The Larabar

Ah--the blanket of paradise-like plastic adorned beautifully with anticipation falls to the "oohs" and "aaaahs" of the assembled audience, followed by awed silence like that in a cathedral. The Holy Grail of sweet tooths, the treasure chest of health advocates, the gourmet chef's dream. The snack for the sweaty commute across inner city, the outdoor lunch on a backyard equestrian dream. Play-doh for the babies not yet graduated from incoherent goos and gahs; wholesome broth for the graybeards.

LARABAR.

Go to www.larabar.com to see more of my reviews and info about Larabar.
To learn more about the nine-year-old author of this review, go to www.adorasvitak.com .

Friday, May 11, 2007

A Chronicling of Events Including Technology

We have been having a very good time. This morning we went to Nike Park again. Our mother was griping about us going down the woody hills, as she didn't want us to get lost again (ah! how sad! my heart bleeds! If only that bounty of treasure-hunting were open without the roadblock of motherly instincts!). In any case, we ended up going down and coming up directly afterwards, obviously finding ourselves with little other choice.

Today we also went to Theno's Dairy. The very name inspires awe and hope in our hearts for the taste of delicious ice cream. Lodged between a church and a construction site, Theno's Dairy is painted a bright red, with a faded, hand-painted sign bearing "Theno's Dairy" in brobdingnagian letters at the front. There is a friendly plastic cow in the front. Theno's Dairy smells of cookies and is pleasantly warm, though the ice cream is chillingly delicious.

Our teacher, who we call Beastie for her growling tendencies , was sick for two days. We have taught meanwhile. Today Adrianna taught a small segment about the history of yoga to our classmate Katie and I. Before she went, I taught Katie and Adrianna how to use Microsoft OneNote and Google Sketch-Up. One Note is basically a notebook on the computer, and Sketchup lets you create buildings by drawing rectangles on the computer, and adding vegetation, pulling it up, etc.

Tomorrow (Saturday) Adrianna rises early for her SYSO (Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras). She and her friend and fellow symphony member Hattie, who lives quite near us, carpool every morning. Even though I'm on strict orders--or at least I'm not supposed to--wake up when Adrianna leaves, I can't help shouting "Goodbye" and waving out the window. Waving is always quite satisfying in my opinion, although disappointing if no one waves back.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

A "Letter to Jamie"

The following is part of our Civil War role playing game. Our family is Confederate middle class in Augusta County, Virginia. "Ezra", my older brother, is played by my sister Adrianna. My character, Caroline-Edwina Lillian Emerson (Carrie), is writing a letter to Jamie, our dashing oldest brother who is a Confederate soldier.

Dear Jamie,

I am doing very well. It is very hot and I know the blood of battle must make it even harder, but the glory is refreshing. I envy you. If I were a boy I would go to fight and drive the Yankees out too.

Father wanted us to donate all of our animals to the war effort. Aunt Alice sent Ezra and me to take the animals to the military post. Ezra likes the pigs, and I like Thunder, the black stallion with the white mane. Ezra, in any case, took action to save the pigs from the soldiers' pot.

Do you remember the abandoned house down in town? Ezra pushed the pigs in through the window of the house. The heaviest we put in a shed. I wished to save Thunder, so we had Robert guard Thunder at a post and then we went off to the military post. It is lodged in a grim old Georgian manor with dark shutters, a dusty interior that smells of dust and solemnity, and it looks like a funeral parlor. Surrounded by the dust and filth of the town it stands out as an immense structure and makes us insignificant humans feel small in comparison. It is not a good feeling.

I would in reality pick Thunder up from the post after coming back from the manor, but I would tell Aunt Alice they had diagnosed him with a leg problem, although he had been at the post all along.

The lieutenant was not a very respectable figure and quite portly. His wife was a sour lady, and wore such a number of pins on her dress that she would have sunken a ship. We handed the horses over.

When we came back out, Robert, a lazy fellow, had, of course, gone to sleep under a tree, as though guarding Thunder had been the least important thing in the world. And, of course, Thunder was nowhere to be seen when we returned from the garrison. A rebellious servant is already an annoyance, but a lazy one is a hindrance. There are a great number of lazy fellows in the world. I wished I could have scolded Robert well but we were forced to be polite to him instead. Ezra's doing. Ezra is so polite I wish I could choke him sometimes; he insists on nodding and bowing in a most sickening way to every single person, even my bosom enemy, Arachina Morton. The girls are gathered around him like leeches on one's skin, and it makes him a perfectly despicable little man. Have you met any pleasant ladies, Jamie? I do think you should devote most of your love to the war.

Again, I cordially command you to defeat Billy Yank!

Your wish-she-were-a-boy sister,

CARRIE