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In our library when I was growing up we had a book called Suzuki Beane by Sandra Scoppettone and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh. It was a funny, black-and-white picture book published in 1961 about a young girl (the titular Suzuki) from a beatnik family. She becomes best friends with a rich boy, but discovers that her “cool” parents can be just as intolerant and judgemental as her friend’s snooty family. The book is written in very hip beatnik-esque argot, all in typewriter lower-case, and as a kid I loved it. (Yeah, yeah, so my family were a bunch of hippies. I read Robert Crumb when I was 6, too.)
Remembering all this, I looked up the book on the web wanting to find out more about it. It turns out that it was written as a parody of Kay Thompson’s Eloise books, and, like that series, was actually aimed at adults. In retrospect, some of the satirical swipes at poetry readings and society gatherings probably went right over my head at the time (just like the subject matter of the aforementioned Robert Crumb comics, which were speedily taken out of my hands. My family wasn’t that hippyish).
Scoppettone is still writing books, but now specializes in mystery novels, no longer listing Suzuki Beane in her bibliography. In fact, she has actually sold the rights to the book to actor/writer David Teague, who has created a “new, updated” version called (ewww) The Crazy World of America’s Baby Beatnik Suzuki Beane™. The pictures make Suzuki look cute and adorable, which the original definitely wasn’t. He’s also developing a Suzuki Beane animated cartoon. Ick. How to destroy a childhood icon.
Meanwhile, copies of the original Suzuki Beane are tough to get a hold of these days. The family copy of the book is pretty battered-up (sorry, Mom, my bad); unfortunately, used hardbacks go for over $100 US on abebooks. I guess I won’t be replacing that book anytime soon!
Jon and Midori fooling around with effects in PhotoBooth
Midori returned to Vancouver this afternoon. What can we say about a young woman who would voluntarily give up the second last week of summer vacation and her birthday celebrations with friends and close family, and instead dub herself “Play Therapist” and fly across the continent to stimulate a fairly-immobile recovering cousin?
Midori gave Jon what he desperately needed: a peer to play with, a cousin to look up to, and a non-parent to interact with. Given the summer proximity, we were all getting a little crispy when she arrived, so her presence alone made a big difference. And she was a great guest to boot. We felt kind of bad that we were such boring hosts and couldn’t offer her more entertainment. She even was a good running buddy too, for at least one run. Sorry about the Ontario humidity, Meech.
And a huge thank you!
Saying goodbye at YYZ
Sooo, guess Jon’s recovery was going a bit too swimmingly: Over the last two days we’ve been getting a bit concerned over the bottom couple of inches of Jon’s surgery scar, which was getting very red and swelling a bit. Mind you, with someone’s busy, busy hands constantly trying to scratch at it we weren’t too surprised. Last night, though, after taking off the bandaid we were concerned enough to call the orthopedic resident at Sick Kids; the scar was more inflamed, dark red and weeping. He said if it was worse tomorrow, go to emergency, which we did this morning.
We figured emergency would be crowded and slow (as usual), so Midori and I peeled off to HMV to get her birthday prezzie (count ’em, two DVDs!); when we got back 45 minutes later we were surprised to find that Jon had already gone through triage and had been seen by the orthopedic resident.
Turns out it was an abscess along the stitches; quite common, and nothing to be too alarmed about (though they were glad we came in, as abscesses can get considerably worse). The resident had demonstrated how the abscess was filled with fluid—by swooping down on Jon and squeezing the abscess until it burst! Jon, not unreasonably, had replied “Ow! That hurt!” A prescription for antibiotics later and we were out within one hour, by far the quickest emergency visit we’ve ever had.
Officially Jon is allowed to do light physiotherapy in the pool (where he is buoyant) as of Sunday, but given the hot and humid weather Friday, we jumped the gun. It wasn’t quite as refreshing as it might have been; since we knew Jon wouldn’t be moving around much, Grandpa had boosted the heat and the pool was somewhere just over 30° C (88° F).
Jon did very well with gentle kicking and with some stepping exercises, and showed no discomfort, just eagerness to get back to action. We’ll try to keep this up as often as we can at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.
Meanwhile, we held a birthday party for Midori, who turned 14 on Friday. Laura baked a chocolate cake and Grandma and Grandpa treated us to Swiss Chalet.
We had 1 + 4 candles, perfect to represent 14. When Midori voiced a complaint, Patti scrounged up two more candles, Santa and Mrs. Claus. Now the cake isn’t perfect because it’s surreal. Whine, whine.
As you can imagine, being cooped-up with your parents for an entire summer is enough to send you screaming into the backyard.
So it’s a good thing that Midori is here for a week, hanging out with Jon and generally adding variety to our lives. It took him a day to get in a social mood, which included the aforementioned tantrum in our backyard, hollering at the top of his lungs. That was just withdrawal from the coccoon of electronics that he’d started to barricade himself behind.
Now he and Midori are as thick as thieves, playing Uno, Smartmouth, Hiss, as well as playing computer games and the like together. No creative writing as of yet, but his spelling and reading are coming back to full strength.
Midori is brought to us by David and Tara & Tamiko and Eduardo. Thanks all!
Headline on BBC News Online:
TV ‘can numb pain for children’.