The USS Terror

If you could see my recent reading list, you would know I've been on a disaster kick for the last 9 months or so. I can't get enough. It's science on the fringes - searching for the Northwest Passage, climbing peaks around the world, freediving hundreds of feet in the ocean. It's intense, heartbreaking, and it reminds me to try to stay fit in case I'm ever stranded on K2 during a blizzard.

A sub-obsession from all this is the lost Franklin expedition. Two ships - the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus - departed to explore the Northwest Passage in 1845, with Sir John Franklin in command. Despite a massive search effort championed by Lady Jane Franklin, they were never seen alive again. It is one of the largest maritime disasters in history. One hundred twenty-nine men disappeared.

Credit: National Archives of Canada,

After more than 150 years of searching, we've discovered more of the story. A search party found three burial sites. A few years later, another group discovered a cached note that stated the ships had been trapped in the ice. In the early 1980s the graves were exhumed, lending credence to the idea that the crew died of lead poisoning from their own food supply, thanks to poorly soldered cans. Most dramatically, the Erebus was discovered in 2014.

Today the Arctic Research Foundation released photos and videos of what they believe to be the wreck of the HMS Terror. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt

The news has only been released for a few hours, but it brings up all sorts of questions. Is it possible some of the men tried to sail the Terror home? How did the Terror make it this far?

I've got to shut up now about this, but first here are my recommended books:

Frozen in time: Unlocking the secrets of the Franklin expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. A first-person look at the exhumation of the bodies on Beechey Island and King William Island, complete with photos.

(fiction) The Terror by Dan Simmons. Ultimately a frustrating book, but great if you read it in parallel with Frozen in time.

In the kingdom of ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides. The story of another lost expedition, that of the USS Jeannette. Beautifully written. It humanizes their fight for life, and although a few survived this expedition, it's an easy parallel to the Franklin expedition.

Book Review #3: He Came with the Couch

He Came with the Couch by David Slonim is the unexpected hit of read aloud time. Beats chose this book instead of a book about candy princess fairies. Even Ellie doesn't mind reading it several times in one night.

Image credit books.google.com, until I can get to the library and take my own photo

It's funny. It's quirky. The images look simple but have lots of details for the girls to explore. Beats noticed before any of us that the end paper at the beginning matches the couch, but it changes to the chair on the last page. Nothing makes a kid happier than figuring something out before the adults, so explaining this to us is a ritual that happens every night as well.

The best part? We read it enough that Beats was able to "read" it to us. And she nailed it. It was pretty magical.

I highly recommend this one.

Book Review #2: Honor Girl

This is the first book I have ever read that has made me want a homophobe to read it.

No seriously.

Image credit Goodreads

This graphic memoir is so perfectly natural, so sweet, so heartbreaking, so realistic, I really truly want to see how someone who believes homosexuality is "wrong" would handle it. Maggie Thrash - church kid at a church camp - is shocked when she starts having feelings for another girl. Is this a sign? Is she broken or evil or is this normal? It's everything scary about growing up with a dose of Maybe You're Not Straight, Honey.

I think what I liked most about this memoir is her blossoming feelings aren't the whole story. Yeah, she's worried she's gay, but she is also worried she has hurt another girl's feelings on the rifle range. She's obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. Nothing fits into the traditional "I always knew I was different, I was born this way" narrative and I am so pleased. She doesn't label herself at the end, there's no clear resolution. It's beautifully human and I want to get a beer with her sometime to learn more about where she is now.

Now that I'm a little farther in and some of you have dropped off, here's my camp experience - somehow getting to snuggle in with a gorgeous girl (oh my gosh!), her confessing to me that she likes the ladies (is this happening?), and just as my shirt is about to come off (metaphorically, I'm shy as hell) she follows up with "but it's ok, Jesus has cured me!"

Oh and the art! It's not bad. It's not stunning Art, but it's clear who's who and it doesn't distract from the story. I think it's exactly the right tone.

Overall, I highly recommend it. I read this book two months ago and it's only grown on me in retrospect. And really, it's a graphic novel, it will take you about 30 seconds to read, you can't go wrong.

Also, Thrash has a book coming out next month: We Know It Was You. I'm working on tracking down a copy....

See what I mean?

Day 2, and I already forgot to write in my "daily" blog.

Currently reading: Leaps in the Dark: the making of scientific reputations by John Waller. Waller writes critical re-evaluations of the legends of science, and gives a great perspective on the people involved in scientific breakthroughs. Fascinating stuff.

12/9

An issue I've got with daily blogging is that my best time to write is in the 20 minutes or so between when my bus drops me off and when my shift starts. But at that point, what do I write about? The stuff I did yesterday is, literally, yesterday's news.

Ah well.

Yesterday was heavy rains, flooding and some landslides. The blue line was stopped entirely because a sinkhole opened up. The Columbia River turned to blood. Born-and-raised Oregonians started carrying umbrellas. It's the end times.

I made it to work, stared at a computer for eight hours. Got an unexpected ride home thanks to the end times. Watched TV, ate dinner, helped calm the 5 year old down from the trauma of her toothpaste being too peppermint-y. Went to bed.

Currently reading: The Man Who Tasted Shapes by Richard E Cytowic. A bit dry, but fairly interesting. A precursor to Oliver Sacks.

NaNoWriMo

So I signed up for NaNoWriMo! Fifty thousand words in thirty days.

If I'm as good at that as I am at keeping up with blogging, I should have a whole 10 words written by November 30th!

If you'd like to follow along, I am Lindz L on their site. Happy writing!

Recuperating

Friday I went to my parents' with partner and kids. The kids were armed with water balloons and squirt guns. We didn't stand a chance.

We played with some small firecrackers - sparklers, snakes, smoke bombs. It was great fun until E managed to inhale a crazy amount of smoke from a smoke bomb. I didn't see how she managed to do it, but she got enough in that she was hacking and spitting and almost dry heaving from coughing so hard :( Once she felt better we had a brief conversation about "remember this feeling if you ever want to try smoking cigarettes".

For the actual holiday, I woke up introverted and N woke up sick. I read aloud to him from The White Devil (Justin Evans) and lounged.

Sunday we rallied, wandered downtown into Powell's, then around Hawthorne, where I purchased an adorable tie. Game time we spent at the Blue Room, watched the USA kick some ass at football.

Holiday weekend: successful.