Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

My Dream Biographer, Libraries & Comfort Food

Today's blogs....

Blog City – Day 129

Prompt: If you could have any author, living or dead, write your biography who would you choose?

Margaret Atwood comes to mind first off. I enjoy her novels and poetry and she has a style that blends her poetic prose that I appreciate. She can take a mediocre life and breath life into it. Leave the readers with a sense that this person (me, as it is my biography) is a real, authentic person making her way in this world like everyone else.

I would love some one on one time time talking with her. Margaret Atwood is an Canadian author I have liked sense I read her novels back in high school. Her stories are relatable - everyday people facing possible situations. When I read Surfacing, I was able to connect to the characters and could see one of my friends as having the same 'not wanting her boyfriend to see her makeup - less' aspect. I read Edible Woman when I was dating a guy that was slowing 'eating' me away like the character in the story. Cat's Eye looked at girl's friendships and it was also so relatable. The Handmaid's Tale was errie but also wonderful. I have not read anything of her's I have not enjoyed.

30 Day Blogging Challenge

OPINION THURSDAY
In the modern era, do you think libraries have lost their relevance? Do you have any special library moments that you remember?

I LOVE libraries. I love books. I love holding books, smelling books, reading books. There is so much more to books than the words. Ereaders are wonderful devises but I do not have one. I am not sure I really want one. I like physically holding the book and all it encompasses.

Libraries are ways of holding all those wonderful books. A quiet place to go and read, write or just be surrounded by books.
I really like going into old libraries, their old architecture. I often visit the libraries in small towns to see what they have to offer. We have a great library system here in Waterloo Region. Satellite libraries can have books 'shipped' out to whatever branch is closest to you.

Going to the library as a child was a place of wonder. All those books and with one little card I could borrow them and take them home for a couple of weeks. I could easily spend hours there. New Liskeard did not have a bookstore in town. There were books sold in a the department stores. but not a huge selection. We could take the town bus and travel to the Cobalt Highway Bookshop which was divine, but I could not go there on my own. The library I could go there on my own. Nobody ever bothered me at the library. Those kids that were into teasing me were not into going to the library and if they did go, there were rules about being quiet and parents around to get them.

Welcome To My Reality - Week Twenty - Nine

1. What is your favourite comfort food and why?

Favourite comfort foods. Rice pudding and biscuits - both made by my grandmother. Tim Horton home-style biscuits come close to my Grandmother's biscuits. Unfortunately Gramzie's recipes stayed with her as she did not write any of the recipes down.

I used to loved watching her make up a batch of biscuits or bread. Kneading it and leaving it covered to rise then punching it make down to be kneaded again. When the bread was ready she would round off the loaves into pans and thrust them back into the wood stove. That was the secret ingredient - the wood stove. The woman was a genius cooking on that huge monstrosity, but she handled it like a pro.

Biscuits were cut out with a can reserved for that purpose and while we waited for everything to cook the smell of fresh baking bread and biscuits filled the air. Our stomachs were rumbling before too long.

Fresh out of the oven we dived in.

Gramzie could never understand why we would eat the biscuits without butter, but they did not need any. They were sooo good.
With the bread we would fight over who got the crusts. If you got lucky to get one you had better butter it and take a bite before someone steals it. For good measure, it was always a good idea to lick across the bread to dissuade anyone from still swiping it.

The two worst family members for fighting over the bread when my mother's older brother and sister. I remember watching siblings in their sixties squabbling over one end piece of buttered bread. It was a sight to see. My aunt's grandchildren looked on with open mouths, shocked at seeing their grandmother fighting so feisty with my uncle. They had been told to be on their best behaviour and they were great, but seeing the adults misbehave was rather comical. They weren't sure what to make of it.