The Road and Moving Progress

I haven't been on the computer much lately for two reasons--the first is that I have been reading Cormac McCarthy's book The Road and it has consumed all my free time. It just won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. It is brilliant and wonderfully written, and like the other two of his novels I have read, it comes across spare and laconic, which leaves room to fill in some of the blanks for yourself. There is a hushed feeling to the writing, much like his other books. He doesn't use quotation marks to delineate dialog, and it gives his writing a dream-like quality, which is in sharp contrast to the subject matter. The setting is an apocalyptic North America and the book describes a bleak journey through complete devastation of the Earth and civilization as we know it. Cannibalism, violence, fear, suffering, starvation and death are everywhere, and hope is all but vanished...and not...as McCarthy masterfully handles the perseverance of the human spirit and the power of love without being trite or handing out a happy ending. In another clever move he never actually describes the source of the devastation (nuclear attack? the dying of the sun? global warming? terrorism?) or the exact location of the characters' path...In the end, it doesn't really matter, making this a story that is universal.
So get on your library's waiting list, there is sure to be one...I happily discovered our library has an "Express Books" section where you can get uber-popular reads without the waiting list wait if you can read it and return it within a week.
Oops, didn't mean to turn that into a book review. But there you have it. OK, so back to what you really came here to find out--how are we managing to cram all our belongings into a tiny little apartment? Well, the answer is a little at a time. We found the toaster and the blender today. Also have gotten the phone hooked up. We still have tremendous piles and significant chaos. But it is getting better. The kids love playing there--they are engaged and creative and content. Most of the big furniture is where it is going to go. Lately the kids have been very into school. Maya is reading big chapter books (most recently the All-Of-A-Kind series, which is set in NY in the mid 1900's and is very sweet) and she really wants to finish the new handwriting book she just started today because she is all fired up about learning cursive. Jonah is all about cranking out 15 pages of his math workbooks at a time. It is hard with 4 year olds--his writing is not really good enough to do the kind of math that his little brain is able to do. He loves workbooks so much, so I keep trying to find him dot to dot and maze books or other kindergarten-ish stuff that doesn't require too much writing. We just got Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten math for him and he likes it a lot so far. He has also been having a Puzzle Renaissance--he loves puzzles! And Maya is back to building things--today it was ramps for Jonah's cars, and every time I see her she has different clothes on. Today it was her Laura Ingalls Wilder dress with an old dress of mine overtop that I told her she could cut up for doll clothes. They also "washed" the doll house today, for about an hour actually, and aside from the fact that they used so much water the 2nd floor was dripping onto the first floor, it looked pretty nice.
We went back to the Jewish Children's Museum in Brooklyn this week, and also the main children's branch library. Very much looking forward to seeing more sights here. Also to meeting people. But in the meantime, we are focusing most our efforts on getting moved in and settled. :)