Had a Heart-Warming L'il Experience Today...

[chubbyalaskagriz]

I agree, janie! Ha! (BTW- they're not home-schooled!) But, a lot of Alaskan kids are given "alternative" names, usually inspired by people, places and things of the north-country. I doubt they're the only kids up there named after animals!

Another Alaskan friend's l'il girl has a name I love 'London' after wilderness author Jack London.

[KYHeirloomer]

The one serious disagreement Friend Wife have ever had was over baby names.

If we'd been blessed with a girl, I wanted to name her Valeria Victrix.

I'm a big believer in nymic magic (i.e., the name contains the attributes of the thing ). Valeria Victrix was the last Roman Legion in Britain---the one that stood against chaos.

I figure in today's world a girl needs all the help she can get.

[chubbyalaskagriz]

Cool name, Brook.

BTW- I'm into historical fiction and non-fiction too- we discussed the Alexander Thom books once. Have you read one of last year's Oprah picks "Pillars of the Earth" by Ken Follet? A fantastic thousand-pager English family saga that encompasses the building of Cathederals. It's got war/torture, love/betrayal, murder/mayhem, evil monks and adultering wenches, and every kind of twist and turn imagineable! Quite the page-turning, believable tale!

Also, my two all-time fav works of historical fiction are Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" and James Michener's "Alaska".

Speaking of authors and Alaska, up north, among the finest interesting privileges I enjoyed was to live for a period in buildings that were once temporary homes of both Jack London (Dutch Harbor) and James Michener (Sitka) where they wrote famous tales. In fact, just for the pure sake of amazing interest (something to tell my niece and nephew one day) I penned the first 2 pages of my cookbook in an out-building at the OSI Bunkhouse that was part of the building that Jack London stayed in all those years ago.

[KYHeirloomer]

>It's got war/torture, betrayal, murder/mayhem, evil monks and adultering wenches, <

It's a love story, right?

I think Friend Wife read it. I just don't have much time for fiction, lately. Certainly not those thousand-pager tales.

I used to read fiction incessently. Fooled around with "creative" writing for awhile, too. But there's no money in it.

The two biggest influences on my life were my fifth grade teacher and a friend of the family we called Aunt, even though she wasn't.

Mr. Urgo would let you take any book out of the library you wished. But you had to finish it. He forced me to complete Ivanhoe, for instance. With the result that there was never a book that was too dry for me to finish.

Aunt Hortie was ahead of her time. When women were supposed to have babies and take care of their men, she thought they should be using the brains and talents God gave them. In many respects whe was an Auntie Mame type.

Anyway, at Christmas and for birthdays she had a cute trick. She'd give books, of course. But they'd always be volume 1 or a trilogy or quartet. For instance, one birthday she gave me Zane Gray's Spirit of the Border, and I had to find The Last Trail and Betty Zane for myself.

My first book was dedicated to her. The dedication reads: "To HD, in partial payment of the debt."

[chubbyalaskagriz]

Cool dedication, Brook! VERY nice, indeed.

Your Zane Gray books remind me of A Louis La'Mour I read last winter and loved, his autobiographical: "Education of a Wandering Man".

I always have two marked books at my bedside table- always a cookbook and something else. Right now they are Edna Lewis's "A Taste of Country Cooking" and Armistead Maupin's comedic serial "Twenty-Eight Barbury Lane", which I'm re-reading for the up-teenth time.

[Cook Chatty Cathy]

OK KEV what are you doing in this Avatar? Like you I keep books beside the bed! LOL

[chubbyalaskagriz]

Cathy, this photo was taken in about '93 aboard the "Pacific Princess" which was the same boat used in the old "Love Boat" series! The vessel crusied Mexican waters in winter, and Alaska in the summer...

[KYHeirloomer]

Anyone who grew up watching The Love Boat should never take a cruise; particularly not on Holland-America Lines.

What a disappointment!!!

[chubbyalaskagriz]

I have friends who love cruising, Brook. But me? humpff! If one loves drinking, shopping and dressing-up, then they'll love ocean-liners. But that's not my particular style of travel at all. Not knocking those who enjoy it- it's just not for me.

And for what it's worth- working aboard a cruise ship is worse. Bottom line for an employee of a crusie ship? There's only limited space on a boat, so the company's goal is to have you as a staffer either in your sleep-cabin, or at your work-space all hours you're aboard the vessel... so you work long hours an then are so exhausted sometimes you don't even have the energy to shower before collapsing into your berth! I worked aboard three ships for 2 summers and literally the only time I was aboard deck to see beautiful ocean or land was when I was on the gang-plank using a hand-truck to unload groceries from a fork-lift in the final hours before we set sail.

I loved my 25 year career in kitchens but of all the diverse types of places I've cooked in, I would never work on a cruise ship again. That said- working at Alaskan resorts operated by P&O (Peninsular & Oriental Steam Ships- British parent company of Princess Cruiselines) were my all-time FAV career years!

[jglass]

Hey Brook there was a teller at the bank with the name Valeria. I told Jon the other day I thought it was a lovely name. If my little sister has more kids Im def gonna vote for Valeria if its another girl.
You never hear my first name often..Gwendolyn.