Bread ladies love lemon zest

Photograph: Ben in Garden of Edith at Sunset

She doesn't trust the temperature gauge that registers on either the oven or the free standing thermometer. Instead she sits on a stool directly in front of the oven window and peers at the rising scones. She is sitting on her stool sometime near ten pm with a wine glass of sparkling something. "It's the Challa bread that is the most fun to watch," she tells me. "It doubles in size and twists over itself. I can't really be the official town "bread lady" if I'm not connected to the bread I make."  She sent us home- after we took the telescope out to the field to marvel at the craters on the moon waxing moon- with fresh cranberry scones. "It's the lemon zest that will get you," she says as our pupils painfully constrict after coming inside from night sky gazing. "They just don't do the fresh lemon zest at Starbucks, you know? That's the difference between the bread lady and a major chain."

And indeed, my perfect scone was delicious this morning.


Big news: twosmallmonsters will be retiring tonight. Too many stories making it take forever to load, too many broken links, and project ideas that fell flat with their little failure haunting me. The beauty of websites (that cannot be replicated in life and thus should be taken advantage of!) is that you can always start anew. I fought this notion over the last three years with the belief that I should struggle through the hard, messy times of a website just like you do in life. But then, life is exhausting enough so f*ck it.


So without further adeu:


https://astringofstories.blogspot.com



Goodbye my love, www.twosmallmonsters.com. You have played a huge, beautiful, part of my life. Thank you for following and please join me in a new stage of life. 

*I apologize to my mother and Agnes for my strong language :o) 

Sierra Buttes

Early October last year Ben is behind the wheel as we weave and zoom through a mountainous road in the Sierra Mountains on the eastern boarder of California. Ian is shot gun and three of us sit in the back of a Jeep Cherokee rental. Our bare knees knock into one another like a six marble pendulum with each sharp curve. There are many. "My grandmother always said you should really watch out for girls with perfectly shaven knees", one of the girls in the backseat tells me when I apologize for my fuzzy patella which is really only observable in direct sunlight. "You can really see what kind of priorities she has in life when she spends all day shaving bony, impossible curves."

We eventually park the Jeep in a state park and settle on a trail (after one of us gets a little green from the ride) with ambitions of hiking. Conquering. Enjoying nature. The trail is titled "Sierra Buttes Trail" which Rachel mistakenly calls the "Sierra Butts Trail" at least three times before one of us gigglers has mercy and corrects her. "Bee-aoooots." It is exactly what we wanted: deserted, peaceful, gorgeous, and ambitious. But like everything in life, exactly what you want always bites you back.

I suddenly become Susan from the movie Parent Trap clapping my hands to threaten cougars or bears. I do this in everyday life as well: become louder when suspect of a threat. There is no one but us for miles and miles. In that day alone we encountered all of four other people: one being the grandmother of Robbie who we stayed with in a beautiful wooden cottage on a mountain pass in Nevada City. Here we are alone and not only that, we are alone and our lungs are burning. We hike with sixty second rest breaks... something like 1000 foot climb over the span of only a few miles is exhausting on a Midwestern out of shape body. By the time we reach the top of the mountain (with kid-you-not eight sets of stairs to the fire look out tower), we are drenched and exhausted. But liberated.

Kind of. The view is amazing- something out of a Sound of Music on one side with lush greens and pine trees as far as the eye can see. Just below us, through the metal mesh balcony on which we stand, is a drop off of at least 1500 feet straight down. The view is so terrifying I feel my bladder almost lose control multiple times. For a while I sit on the stairs with my power bar while my friend sit (literally) above a mountain drop. I am so lame, I think to myself. I really set the bar for the definition of scaredy cat.

I think of that clapping though: to ward off danger. The equivalent in the city is that I laugh loudly or talk about strange things. Should we reminisce about David Bowie or Christopher Walken anyone? I am terrified so easily: sickness, loss, bears, the planet, war, etc. As I shuddered with another worry this weekend, an email came to me from a very wise friend with comfort and a reminder.

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthains 4:16-18 Thank you Emily

Initiating Change

Kelly started it.
She was the one who initiated the year of change. I dragged my feet, afraid of being uncomfortable and not afraid enough of being stagnant. I currently have the luxury- the choice to change- as compared to those whose lives are swallowed up by events that force them to change. Everyone experiences the imposed change sometime in their life: the move, the disappointment with planned expectations, the sickness or disability, the loss, etc. And there are few too many things that are worse than an imposition of change that you didn't expect and certainly were not ready for.

Over the past four and a half years at my job, lovely co-workers are always leaving (30+ and counting). My workplace is in a constant state of regeneration : microscopically healing the wound of another lost friend and amazing therapist. Like a scab, we clot over a recently emptied desk to make the loss less visible and contained to itself (No one else think of leaving!). Our emotions, however, phase through the inflammatory cycle and we question: What do I look forward to at work now?. Beyond that, I am shuffling between my petty crises (bathroom mirror) and real crises (the cancer that strikes back over and over again in very dear patients). I feel ridiculous when it is the bathroom mirror (which I so badly wanted to hang before the goodbye party but ran out of time!) that is the last straw that sends me into tears.

Faith. Faith to step out of a comfort zone toward something that is real, meaningful, and will result in growth. I believe in God. So why do I not trust my faith more? This is where I sit- in a comfortable -yet very uncomfortable- place that I am scared leave. I am waiting for the Anais Nin quote: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." To nurture the process and anxiety of change, I am watering plants, feeding the cat, reading short stories I loved in college: I am slowing down for a few minutes to process. To fall into a natural rhythm so I can process all that goes on in a busy world. And to think I was briefly thinking of buying an iphone!

I have started a new role in my current job with managerial properties. I psycho-somatic-ly conjured up an ulcer last week as I felt plopped into the middle of someone else's giant to-do list to which I felt no connection. I think it is going to be fine, though. I need to be uncomfortable right now- I need to change and grow and I am fortunate to be able to make that choice. I need to survive a change to build confidence. I am also going to sign up for a creative writing class with a Chicago writing company. And then maybe, just maybe, Ben and I can make some more changes to our family next year. And maybe I wont be terrified of making the biggest change a couple could make.

Fireworks & the Apple Orchard

Fourth of July by Ben
The green little glow stick is my nephew Teo

A crafting delight with my neice Maye
(And homemade strawberry shakes & popcorn for dinner!)

If I had known- when I was six or seven- that climbing the apple tree out in the back orchard after school would later save my life, I don't think I could have understood the gravity of it all. When you are six or seven, sitting in your father's apple tree with your skinny legs dangling over the fruitful limbs that early fall brings, you don't think that you will come back to this place in your adulthood as a refuge when the pain gets intolerable. As you bite into that delightful apple with only simple worries in your growing mind - spelling tests, being caption of the kickball team, avoiding vegetables at dinnertime- you don't know that years later, when you are cycling downward into a spiral of deteriorating health in a hospital room, that you will come back to this perfect moment. I go there, he told me, over and over again. Those apple trees on my father's farm just might save my life. From my front porch where my son parks my wheelchair, I can still see them across the yard and they are glorious.

The importance of applause

Today was a day that I needed reinforcement and inspiration so I forced my group of four patients to each go around the table and share one good thing about the day. Absence of headaches and decreasing back pain, looking forward to grandchildren and having a great lunch: we literally applauded and cheered for each and every one of them and then played Scattegories for the fifty minutes. Sometimes gifts come in very small and lovely packages.

Triangle Head

Define:
Triangle head- the imperative need to cut one's hair after it has overgrown to the point that the sides are bushy and one's head is the "point" of the hair triangle. Very bad news.

Or at least, that is how Jenna and I describe that nasty overgrowth of hair phenomenon.

So I have triangle head right now and an appointment with Suki (a love-terror relationship) tomorrow. I was coloring with one of my sweet ten year old boys today when he drew a stick figure of me with triangle head. I was aghast! In an accurate and perceptive crayon drawing, my little pointy head was flanked by two bushels of stringy (blue) hair jetting away in a perfect isosceles triangle! How horrifying for me and how astute of him. Thankfully, an attack rocket space ship was immediately drawn above my stick figure and flames shot me down.

"The rocket blasted you!" he laughed.
"Thank goodness. That hair was a little out of control!" I said with relief.

Life is a 90 year old cabaret

She demanded that we assemble in the waiting room at 3 o'clock so she could perform a song as a way to thank us for our services over the last three months. Tiny, Jewish, and eighty-six year old Sally* couldn't wait for her moment to shine. Boisterous and lovely, she loved to tell us the story of a date she once had with a rabbi. "The date happened just before I met my husband (sixty some years ago). This rabbi had the hots for me and he asked me out. I was a looker. We went to dinner and guess what I ordered? I ordered ribs!" she said, emphasizing her rebellious choice of pork with large eyes, raised eyebrows and voice, and a jab with her elbow to my side.

We assembled in the waiting room like she had requested. She sat in a chair next to her devoted ninety-two year old husband who was her full time oxygen tank holder. "Is everyone here?" she asked before literally leaping to her feet to perform. Ninety-five pounds of our dear Sally* began her song: a full Liza Minella rendition of "Life is a Cabaret". She danced into the audience, she twirled therapists and our MD, she growled like Liza, and she wouldn't stop singing even after we had applauded twice. Meanwhile her husband chased her around with the oxygen tank so she wouldn't unplug the oxygen tube that was nestled in her nose.

After the performance and a Friday rush to finish up documentation, our doctor came into the office. "Doesn't that make it worth it?" she asked us. After all the seizures, lack of insight, petty little tiffs between people, non-compliance with home exercise programs, and one death this week, we had to agree: our job was worth it.

The Famous Man & the 70 year old lady

I am sitting in a room with three classy older ladies (80+ years of age) and one man (50-60 years of age). The older ladies nudge each other and smile at the man. He is famous and the rumors of his identity have floated around the clinic for weeks. Now there are just the five of us in this little room exercising to Marvin Gay. "Who makes a woman want to move more than Marvin?" they once challenged as we tapped our toes to Grapevine.

They are now watching the famous man carefully. They look like tiny birds on a telephone wire as compared to the famous man in a towering wheelchair. I tease the famous man that he is the guest of honor in our ladies group. I can't tell if he thinks it is funny or horrific as he looks around the room at his exercise peers. But the older ladies are poets, readers, and love the movies, they tell him. They read Chaucer but they also read Dave Eggers.

"Dave Eggers? He is quite contemporary for you," the famous man says. The ladies smile and nod and recite a list of Eggers' literary work by heart. The famous man is pleased with his audience now and he begins to tell tales of his oh-so-famous life in LA and France and New York etc. The older ladies giggle and stare at him star-struck while I continue to try to keep them moving.

"Bicep curl, Ladies and Gent," I encourage, but the famous man holds the attention of the room and I am stuck with half-assed arm curls. Except for Laura, who I call "my girl" because in the context of exercise and battling her disease, she will follow my arm exercise directives to the end of this earth. But I catch her smiling and chirping praises of the famous man. I can hardly feel bitter or second best in this moment. It is just too adorable- my little star struck ladies and the famous man.

Stefanie is Married

I found them giggling upstairs above the hustle and bustle of the ceremony minutes before walking down the aisle: four bridesmaids and a bride sitting in child sized chairs in a children's art classroom. Among colorful pairs of scissors sized for small hands, lovingly used and messy handled paintbrushes, and finger painted windows, I found my dear friend, college roommate, and "womb sista", Stefanie, radiant in her wedding dress. A bad picture could Stefanie not taketh given the gigantic smile she carried throughout the entire day. I joked that my head would be in every picture since I wanted to sit and smell her bouquet of peonies all day. It was a truly glorious wedding with little trinkets of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and a lot of french toast stuffed with strawberry cream cheese and, on the side and plentiful, BACON! Congratulations to Stef and Zach on a most awesome wedding and many many amazing years to come.

revised: links!

You liked bad music- I should have known better

She told me "It's the explosive one: the relationship that is so tumultuous that the good is fantastic and the bad is horrific and there is nothing in between. It's the relationship that is an undertow pushing, pulling, and drowning you in all directions- making you terrified and invigorated all with the same minuscule fraction of the ocean. Those are the relationships that are the best and worst. And then worst. And then the can't believe that even happened worst.

"Because later, when you've miraculously survived after being drilled head first into the sand for the fifteenth time, you finally decide not to go back and play in that water. And the worst part is, you should have seen it the whole time. And it kills you that the only real nostalgia remaining is that you think of him with every crappy pop song that exists on Mix 101.9. And that isn't really you. You hate pop songs. And before him, you never even listened to the Mix."

Looking at Me

He is just as strange as I am. We both know this but he will still pantomime that I am the weirder of the two. His long fingers swirl in the air and his eyes are even more expressive than when he used them as his only communication. His head sprouts a million follicles of new growth that makes his head suddenly shades of brunette. We resist touching his new hair. It makes him want to karate chop us into pieces. He is a miracle and we love him.

Today he shoves a Lego in my face. (This is after a long finger has randomly poked me on the tip of my nose followed by a giggle). "Hello Jenny," he says, dancing a minuscule yellow Lego piece three inches from my eyeballs. I cross them just to focus. "I am a Lego. I am neither upside down nor rightside up. I'm looking at you." He speaks for the Lego for about thirty seconds until his mom, laughing, puts a hand on his shoulder to reign him back into reality. Every object he and I play with either looks at me or sits on my shoulder. This is my favorite time of the day.

Band of Horses

Emily was aglow amongst the purple little dots that circulated the crowd on Tuesday evening. A light box from the stage tossed out little lavender circles that highlighted faces and architecture of the building to which an audience of teenagers to seniors stood mouthing words to a profound "you are the the ever-living ghost of what once was". Emily, Kelly, Pat, Ben, Eunice and I attended a Band of Horses concert to which we had all eagerly anticipated for months and months. The arrival of the evening brought smiles and enthusiasm to which I wish I could bottle and drink whenever I feel down. Emily jumped and hopped up and down, occasionally clutching at her heart or one of our hands. Two band members stood just a few feet above us singing an acoustic version of my favorite Horses song. I think what I enjoy about Band of Horses is that their songs are little short stories that I can follow in my imagination quite easily. Plus their instrumental interludes are so ethereal and calming- perfect background for writing or good conversations with friends. When Emily sent me the picture above from our evening, I instantly wanted to pull on my hooded sweatshirt, switch on the Christmas lights of my back porch, turn up my Band of Horses CD, and start typing a story.

What I need to do, I said to Ben, is write a short story.
Then nut up and just do it, his wisdom replied.
Thank you, Emily & Band of Horses for kick starting a little imagination again.

Where does your dad live?

Bob and Sally have their three year old twin red head grandchildren visiting this week. Violet- a spunky red head darling- seems to catch me every time I am in my yard or driveway. Our conversations always start with a very profound question: "Where does your Dad live?" Each time I have no idea how to tell a three year old Denver-resident that he lives an hour west of the Chicago-land area. She looks at me with a mix of wonder and confusion. Today I realized that I think she thinks Ben is my dad. Hmmm...

After the awkward Dad issue is cleared up, she runs around my garden with a pretend hose and waters all my plants. "Did you see? I watered this pretty one really good! Did you know that this one (cone flower) has spikes? That could be dangerous!" Maybe tomorrow I will make use of this energy and give her a real hose. She sits in my reading chair under the tree and tells me how nice my tree really is. Do I have a cat? Where is he? Why is he sleeping? Can she go inside and see? Do I have a book we could read under the tree? Could she have some leaves? Did I know that some of the leaves are turning brown? I watch her tiny little body fit perfectly in my favorite reading chair and now I wonder why I didn't go running upstairs to grab my cat Max and a copy of "Where the Wild Things Are" to share. Maybe tomorrow I will go see if Violet wants to come out to play. I'm beginning to think it would be fun.

Miracles

I forget how many miracles I experience in my job as neuro-rehabilitation therapist. I never want to harden or lose sight of what I see on a day to day basis. But today I saw the biggest miracle I think I could ever see: an awakening of a child and a family rallying around their brother/son with smiles and giggles. And a football, orange and blue, sailing between us. There is such a thing as miracles.

Warnings of a Dateline Diet

I was raised on a steady diet of investigation television shows such as 20/20, Dateline, and Unsolved Mysteries. The reports of Barbara Walters and Stone Phillips infiltrated the message that the world is not a safe place into my young and impressionable brain. My parents watched these shows with me and my mom would occasionally have her own little "Life Lessons" commentary as a sidebar to my education regarding the world.* I like to think that I learned important things that make me the street savvy girl I am today. I know not to lay on the top comforter at a hotel and to clean off the television clicker in a hotel as that is the most germy thing in there. I know to avoid chain letters that say they are Oprah Winfrey endorsed. I'd like to think that my investigative television education played a role in my avoidance of ever being slipped a roofie or joining a cult. But...

Every time I find myself in a questionable situation- even if it is just a solo taxi ride- my brain instantly flashes to what this scene of my life would look like if it was re-enacted for something like Unsolved Mysteries. Every movement I make is narrated by Robert Stack and an impending if not super cheesy soundtrack follows me as my world is suddenly taken over by a B-rate actress and the probability of death. Some of my friends say I have a morbid side to me. I might point my finger to investigative television for that.

So Ben and I joined the masses of "cruisers" a few weeks ago and spent a week at sea bouncing around different islands in the western Caribbean. It was beautiful and we were joined by a group of friends (and my mother) that made the trip absolutely amazing. To get to the cruise ship, Ben and I had to take a car, plane, train, and two shuttle buses.

We caught our last shuttle some time after the sun went down and it was just Ben and I in a little shuttle that we barely met. The man in the van was chattering away with the enthusiasm of a three year old girl and this was very distracting (and fatiguing). It was when he said "Now don't worry, you are safe with me. I realize that this is a strange, barren place we are driving through with no lights or other people around" that I suddenly realized Ben and my surroundings were pretty creepy. We were in the middle of nowhere and Robert Stack began narrating Ben and my situation. I imagined the shuttle van guy to be crazed- perhaps something out of No Country for Old Men- and I envisioned the B-rate actress who played me to have a very bad haircut. Maybe she wasn't even blond. The accuracy of this re-enactment would, of course, be alleged since Ben and I would be too dead to tell the story and ensure historical accuracy. This all happened in a matter of seconds and then our shady, terrible hotel (another story for another time but I will tell you I never took off my socks ever- thank you investigative reporting) appeared on the horizon and we were safe. The B-rate actress disappeared and all was well with the world. At least, for a little while.

*Thanks Mom

Highway from a Skiier's advantage

When I think of skiing, I think of a scenery that stretches mound upon mound of dense, tall earth with caps of snow like icing being poured down a lava cake and freezing part of the way. I get the feeling of being cradled amongst a massive, firm egg crate mattress as I dangle yards above on a little ski lift. I think of Colorado. I do not think of the Wisconsin Dells.

But there we are- Ben, Lisa, Josh, and I- at the top of a hill that is creatively sculpted into something that gives a four or five minute pleasure of moving downward at a fast rate on skis. The sky is darkening and with the sun goes temperatures above 20 degrees. The scenery all day has been fields and fields and the interstate 94 that treads around us. At night, however, I am puzzled by the little beads of light that spread out along the horizon. There is not much out here so where are these tiny little lights coming from? The interstate flashes occassional zips of red tail lights and yellow head light but small blinking lights stay stationary and for a minute I wonder if I am upside down and that they are really stars. For one nanosecond, this exceeds the beauty of a Colorado scenery. And then we jump off the edge with me following three silhouettes through a small wooded path all the way back down to the beginning. But for just one nanosecond. . .

The Purple Blazer

"The People laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die." -Woody Guthrie

I take it for granted that every day I work with people who fight to live. We hate to die.

It was a spontaneous trip for the four of us: Andrea, Margaret, and a woman named Lu who described herself as mousy and weak but came to tears when her daughter-in-law said she was "unable" to prepare dinner one evening. The four of us needed to stretch our legs and bust out of the ordinary dull-drum. Two of the women hadn't been shopping in ages and so we parked the van in the snow and wandered the mall wide eyed looking for pre-holiday inspiration.

It was the pink cashmere button down sweater paired with a frilly olive green top in the J Crew store that drew Lu and I inside. We wandered around, touching fabrics and toying with jewelry that were three sizes longer than my average necklace. I was carried away with some ballerina slippers when I realized Lu was missing. I twirled around looking for Lu and found her stroking a purple velvet blazer.

With a voice far from mousy she said: "I must try this blazer on!"

Andrea and Margaret tell the rest of the story best. They had been looking for us in the store and suddenly heard loud giggling in the dressing room. They joined me, Lu, and a sales woman in front of a three way mirror. Lu was dazzling in her velvet blazer. Her cane was leaning against the wall and she never looked stronger. She turned to and from in admiration of herself as I assembled scarves and accessories around her neck to compliment the plum color. We sat in that dressing room for twenty minutes laughing and admiring and finding the beauty in being a woman. It was the most magical thing I experienced this past holiday season.

The Good Kind of Stroke

Last week a woman told me she had the "good" kind of stroke. She explained that earlier that year her sister had the "bad" kind that resulted in death. I listened to this woman whose entire left side of her body was paralyzed. She told me about how God had given her a huge gift though after her stroke and she wanted to show me. She wiggled the fingers on her right hand while stomping her right foot and smiled. "I've got this entire right side of my body still working. See how lucky I am?"

I'm not sure how I didn't leave the room with tears streaming down my face because now, when I reflect on that conversation, I start crying.

You bunny, lover, you

If I admit that I never operated a lawn mower before this year, there will be at least one person out there who will make fun of me. One person plus Ben. Go ahead. Make fun. I have a handful of experiences treading up and down our little lawn with a large, ear splitting machine whose engine stirs & sputters so stubbornly that I manage to holler about ten different curse words before it actually begins. Not many other things get me so immediately hot and angry than starting our stupid lawn mower.

So I finally had the mower going and I was walking with it, probably intent on fantasizing about the lawn patterns found on Wrigley field, when suddenly baby bunnies sprayed out from under the mower and into the lawn. It was awful- baby bunnies no larger than chipmunks- scrambling pathetically away from the mower and disappearing into our embarrassingly tall grass. It happened so fast I hardly had a chance to double check that they all still had four limbs. That they were indeed bunnies! I spent the rest of the morning with my neighbor plucking little bunnies out of their hiding spots and shoving them back into their nest.

Except for the bunny with the crooked neck. Hauntingly disfigured perhaps by the mowing incident, he waited for me by my car, on my porch step, in my garden. His head had a severe tilt to the left- continuously in a tilt of wonderment or neck injury- and I worried about his thin little body. He followed me around and I kept shoving him back in his nest. Once, he crawled through the medium sized hole in my door and I found him waiting in my living room by the ladder. I checked that he wasn't holding some kind of weapon, ready to avenge me for his neck injury.

The neighbors worried. Bob, 74, leaned over to whisper into my ear a somewhat threatening: "Don't let the neighbors know you are a bunny lover." Meanwhile, his wife followed my little friend around the yard chanting "hasenpfeffer". The other night ago I heard some rumbling and fighting out in the yard. There were little screams of animals wrestling in the front yard. I woke Ben up asking: "Do you think my sick little bunny is being murdered?" I'm still unclear on the whereabouts of my litlle hasenpfeffer. I will continue to look for him and his permanent inquizitive tilt of the head. Til then, let it be known: I am a bunny lover.

Luv Queen

"I will miss you when you cross over to the other side!" I confided to him. He smirked over his fine motor coordination task and looked at me. We have been practicing forced use of his right hemiplegic hand for almost nine months. I've watched new breath filter through once paralyzed fingers and wrists through this amused gentleman. It was him and I sitting on a bright blue mat sitting next to Glenn (tears streaming down Glenn's face) when Obama was inaugurated. It is he who sings at the drop of the hat & whose musings I find so so funny. The man who I refer to as "The Stoic Swede" is leaving at the end of the month. He dropped another block (blocks being the perfect thick, light object perfect for hemiplegic manipulation practice) and then chuckled.

"That's okay. I will send you messages through baby blocks," he said.

And thus, through our imaginations (zooming for a full 5 minutes) a magical realism character was born. [See: Royal Tennenbaums, Middlesex, Everything is Illuminated, or 100 Years of Solitude] The character who, with no voice (perhaps expressive aphasic? perhaps just unwilling to use his voice?) and only gross motor grasp patterns of shoulder and hand, communicated all his needs, desires, and wishes via baby blocks.


Thus far: Fiction I've read in 2009
* = recommended.

Middle Sex by Jeffrey Eugenides ***
The Lost Virtues of Happiness by JP Morgan *
The Handmaid's Tale by Margarat Atwood *
Killing Yourself to Live: 85% true story by Chuck Klosterman *
The Shack by William P Young
Pride & Predjudice by Jane Austen *
Hedda Gabler by Ibsen
The Beautiful Things Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu *
Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich
The Glass Castle: a memoir by Jeannette Walls*
I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse *

Let's not forget about gardening references!
Square Foot Gardening by Mel BartholPomew *
P Allen Smiths Bringing the Garden Indoors by P Allen Smith *
Creating a Garden for Everyday Living by P Allen Smith *

Kind of a die-hard P Allen Smith fan, I suppose.