Peg Kehret Blog

Today I fixed a salad for lunch, and used the white plastic bowl. I have many lovely pottery and china bowls but I chose the old plastic one because it holds, along with my lunch, happy memories.

On one of our motorhome trips I spoke at a school where the staff provided a potluck lunch. I’ve found that most teachers are good cooks, and Carl always loved it when we were invited to share a meal with educators. I don’t recall which school this was, or even what state we were in. I do remember that someone had brought a salad that Carl and I both raved about. When we prepared to leave that day, the teacher who had brought the yummy salad asked if we would like to take the leftover salad with us. Naturally, we accepted. 

She put the salad in a white plastic bowl. I offered to go get a container from the motorhome but she insisted the bowl was “just a cheap old thing” and sent us off with it. Well, that bowl IS a cheap old thing but every time I use it, I remember those happy days of traveling with my husband, talking to hundreds of excited kids, and sharing meals with generous teachers and librarians.

I could happily be a fulltime student. I love to take classes. I like to study, to write papers, to learn new things. I’ve never minded tests. I have studied all my life.

I am currently enrolled in the Green River Community College for a semester of Spanish. I’m looking forward to learning a new language and to practicing it with my grandkids, who are way ahead of me in foreign language skills.

For many years I’ve belonged to a group called L.I.F.E., Learning Is ForEver. These are older folks, like me, who organize and attend classes on a variety of topics. A few years ago, a neurologist and I, both polio survivors, gave a class on polio. The next one that I’m signed up for is a presentation about the Prison Pet Partnership, which teaches women inmates to groom and train service dogs. I wrote about one of their dogs, a seizure-alert dog, in Shelter Dogs: Amazing Stories of Adopted Strays.  I’m also registered for a L.I.F.E. class/concert on harp music.

I’m looking into an animal training institute that uses only positive reinforcement, never punishment. The class that interests me is called Barky Dog Workshop. You will have to ask Lucy why I might want to take that particular one.

Some of my favorite gifts have been small, inexpensive items. On my last birthday, my granddaughter, Brett, sent me a package that contained, among other things, a Whitman College pencil. She is a freshman at Whitman so every time I pick up that pencil I think of her and remember when I visited the campus with her last summer.

About two years ago, my friend, Jenny, attached a leather loop to the handle of my cane. When my hand is through the loop, I can let go of the handle without having the cane fall to the floor. This comes in handy when I’m shopping or if I need to open a door when my other hand is full. Each time the cane dangles from the loop on my wrist, I mentally thank Jenny.

Another friend, Myra, knit me a big orange carrot. It has eyes and green dreadlocks. It hangs from my pencil sharpener and I laugh every time I sharpen a pencil.

The pencil holder on my desk is a coffee mug that looks like tree bark. There’s a yellow smiley face on the front of it. Many years ago, my family went camping on Mother’s Day weekend. My kids were about eight and ten and as we sat around the campfire, cooking our breakfast, they gave me that mug. It was a wonderful Mother’s Day gift and when I look at it I am transported back in time to Deception Pass State Park, and I feel like a young mother again.

My home is filled with small, treasured gifts.  They help to make it a home, rather than merely a house.

It is thundering as I write this, so Lucy is on my lap. I try to reassure and comfort her but she is trembling with fear and looks around wildly each time there’s another clap of thunder. Molly glares out the window as if she is ordering Mother Nature to cut it out.

Lucy’s fear seems unnecessary, even foolish, to those who know that thunder won’t hurt her, but her fear is real and no matter how many times I tell her, “It’s okay,” she clearly doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t know what that loud noise is and, therefore, she’s scared of it.

We humans also fear the unknown. For us it may be a person from a different background or someone of another race. Elderly people sometimes look with suspicion at teens, and people of certain religions view anyone with different beliefs as dangerous. We don’t quake and pant as Lucy does, but we too often back away from unfamiliar people or concepts without giving them a chance. This is one reason why I think it’s important to read widely. Books expose us to fresh viewpoints. With fiction, we meet characters who are unlike the people in our daily lives. With nonfiction we learn about ideas and lifestyles that we wouldn’t ordinarily encounter. The more we are exposed to those unlike ourselves, the less afraid of them we are.

This morning I said farewell to Facebook, partly because it takes too much time and partly because many of my Facebook “friends” were kids who read my books and who don’t always have good judgment about using a social network.

The time part is simple. When I get an e-mail, I read it and reply. When I get a Facebook message I have to go to the Facebook site, log in, wait until the message (which I’ve already read on e-mail) appears, reply, and log out.  Originally I joined Facebook as a way to help my young fans keep track of what I’m doing. The flip side was that my Facebook Inbox was clogged with posts about what they were doing. Fair enough. But, while I loved seeing posts from family and good friends, I found myself inundated with details about people I don’t really know. Yes, I could have said no to requests to be “friends” with people I don’t know but that would have defeated my reason for doing Facebook in the first place.

Most of my young readers are great kids. Some used language that I don’t use and I then deleted them as “friends.” A few play Facebook games using my name that I find insulting, so much so that I won’t repeat them here.

Bottom line: I prefer to keep in touch with my real friends on a one-to-one basis, rather than publicly through Facebook. Young fans can send me letters or e-mails. I read all of my mail.

On Saturday night, I attended the Literary Lions dinner, a benefit for the King County Library system. My duty was to spend 1/3 of the dinner time at each of three tables, chatting with the attendees. One of the people I sat with does foster care for the Seattle/King County Humane Society. Well! We had plenty to talk about. He takes in tiny kittens who are too young to be put up for adoption, and cares for them for a week or two, until they can eat by themselves and are ready to be placed in permanent homes.  I foster adult rescued cats who usually arrive scared and distrustful. It takes a long time to rehabilitate them and during those months I get very attached to them. It’s hard to say goodby when they leave.

I am so grateful when the people who adopt these animals keep in touch with me. This week I received updates on Edgar, Gus and Charlie.

Edgar was here the longest, six months, and was the biggest challenge to socialize. When he arrived he was terrified of everything and everyone. It took many weeks to earn his trust and then his love but, once it happened, our bond was strong. Heather, Edgar’s “mom,” sent me a beautiful photo of him and made me laugh with her stories of how Edgar plays with her dog, Lacy.

Gus was here most recently and he stayed four months. The e-mail report from Jackie, who adopted him, had the subject line, “Gus the Magnificent,” and that pretty much was the substance of the whole e-mail. The entire family, including the dog and the grandkids, adores him. Jackie says they do not need a white noise machine because Gus never stops purring.

Both Heather and Jackie invited me to come to visit and I will do that. It’s an added bonus of caring for foster cats: I end up with wonderful new friends.

Charlie was adopted by Mark, who was already a good friend of mine, so I get frequent updates about him. When I  met Mark for breakfast last Sat. I learned that Charlie can tell time. Mark’s neighbor says that every day, exactly half an hour before Mark is due to get home from work, Charlie positions himself in the front window and starts watching for Mark’s truck.

It warms my heart to know that these formerly unwanted cats are now dearly loved companions.

And speaking of dearly loved pets, yesterday was the sixth anniversary of the day Carl and I adopted Lucy. Lucy and I celebrated by staying home together, which is her favorite thing to do. It was snowing. I had a fire in the wood stove and a good book to read - and Lucy on my lap. Come to think of it, that’s my favorite way to spend a day, too.

When a teacher has read one of my books to the class and then has the kids write me letters, I enjoy reading and responding to them, especially when the letters are mailed as a group, not individually. Of course, I always love to get the genuine fan letters written not as a class assignment but because someone truly likes my work.

Recently I’ve been swamped with letters from students (56 of them yesterday) who say they are writing to me as a way to learn the proper way to write a letter. The problem is that they hope for a response and I simply don’t have time to answer them all.

I think there is a better way for teachers to handle this. Why not have the students write to someone who is serving in the armed forces? Or write letters to the elderly in a local nursing home. There are many lonely people who would be pleased to receive a letter from a child. It’s an opportunity to teach compassion, which is even more important than knowing the right way to write a letter.

A young reader told me that she loves my books and wants to read all of them, but currently she is not allowed to read anything else of mine because her teacher thinks she needs variety and therefore must read other authors. This made me sad and angry. I would be just as upset if the teacher had told this child she could not read any more books by Andrew Clements or Lois Lowry or any other author, but had to branch out and read Peg Kehret.

This child is reading for pleasure. We should rejoice and encourage her, not limit her choices. I can assure this teacher that I can not write books as fast as a child can read them. Very soon, this girl would run out of my titles and at that point she would choose a different author. Maybe she’d find another one that she likes. Perhaps then she would be bingeing on Richard Peck or David Patneaude. It doesn’t matter! In the long run, if this student is allowed to choose her own reading material, she will get variety. She would actually get a variety of topics and themes even if she read only one of the authors I’ve mentioned, including me.

I keep a list of all the books I read, jotting the title and author in a spiral notebook. After reading this child’s letter, I looked back through my list to see how often I’d gone on a book binge of reading one author. I found several examples. In Dec., 1993, I read G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton. In the next two months, I read Grafton’s A, B, C, D, E and F titles. Does that mean I didn’t read anything but Sue Grafton mysteries from then on? Of course not. All it did was bring me up to date so that when the H title came out, I was ready to fully enjoy it. There were similar binges when I first discovered Anne Tyler and Alexander McCall Smith.

I don’t think devouring everything by a particular author makes me a less discerning reader. The first time I read one of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels, I laughed out loud. I immediately got the first book in the series and began reading them in order. By the time I reached #10, I was bored with the same old plot devices. I wanted some character growth. I wanted Stephanie to learn from her mistakes. When it didn’t happen, I quit reading the series.

Much as I enjoy bingeing on a favorite author, the books that have stars beside them in my notebook are all, with the exception of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s wonderful series, stand-alone titles. I’m stingy with my stars, giving them only to books that I truly loved. I’ve given two stars in the last six months, to Lottery by Patricia Wood and to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.

I have no problem with assigning specific books that every student in the class is supposed to read, but telling a child she can not read any more books by a particular author is a censorship that I believe is wrong.