Author Archives: caseykins

The New Girl

Posted on April 25, 2014 by caseykins

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I started my new job on Monday.  It is a scant 1.6 miles from home, and I took my bike 3 days this week.  It’s all uphill in the morning, which is kicking my butt.  I’m SO SORE.  But the ride home in the evening is glorious, zipping downhill in the gold light of afternoon through the tree-lined village of Claremont.

It’s funny with this new job.  I knew the scope of my life would shrink to something local and quaint.  I knew I would love working with everyone there.  They have been so welcoming.   Still, I didn’t realize how much I would miss Brian now that we are not just a phone call away from each other.  I am spending so much more time alone.  My eccentricities abound.  I zip into work on my vintage-style beach cruiser with a crate on the back, and then proceed to take notes in all the meetings with my fountain pen.  I say “yay” in meetings.   I am more vintage than corporate.

But I’m head over heels in love with Scripps already, and it hasn’t even been a full week.   The orange blossomed lined campus, the vast rose garden kept for cutting, the stained glass windowed library, and the massively friendly staff all say I can ride out being the new girl.

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Of Vacations

Posted on April 22, 2014 by caseykins

In the last two weeks I finished two jobs, went on vacation, helped engineer a wedding, and then started a new job.  Which is basically to say that this is a cheater post.  Please enjoy these photos of Monterey until I can get it together and return you to regular programming.

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2 Book Reviews: Shannon Hale’s Latest

Posted on April 10, 2014 by caseykins

Shannon Hale

Dangerous

Okay, I’m going to just warn you right now.  This is a bit spoilery.  I kept enough of the twists, turns, and secrets quiet that you’ll still enjoy the book a bunch if you haven’t read it, but there are a few things in there that maybe you wouldn’t want to know ahead of time, and I thought you might want to be forewarned.

I originally ordered the book through The King’s English bookstore.  I’m a gigantic Shannon Hale fan and she promised to sign everything coming from the King’s English on her website a few weeks ago.  She’s was on a huge tour, though, (possibly without much time to go sign a billion books at the local bookstore), and I’m a few states away.  The picture of the book cover was so shinny and purple.  It taunted me.  Other people were reading it, I just knew it.  I was glad I had a nice signed hardback in the mail, but I was going crazy.  So I bought it twice – Kindle instant gratification for the win.  I spent the rest of that Sunday buried in it.

There was so much that I liked about Dangerous.  There are scads of amazing things to laugh at, from Dad’s terrible puns, to the fact that the main character’s name is Maisy Danger Brown, to the nicknames she gives her false arm.  It’s a kick-ass story, (the sort of thing I love) with a superhero twist.  I can already tell that it’s going to be one of those things that I re-read over and over again.  It was well worth every penny of buying it twice.

Now to the critique part: While I loved everything about the book once the story really got rolling, it did take a bit for me to buy it all.  Hale says on her website that it’s meant to be a modern-day superhero story, but it felt more to me like the very near future.  I had a hard time suspending my disbelief at first and falling into the world.  Even now I find some of it  hard to swallow.  Does a woman really take five children into space for winning a camp relay without any parental waivers or permissions, or any advance notice to the kids?  Maisy’s parents accept her mutated powers story, agree to move to Florida, and destroy their middle class life almost without pausing for reflection.  It also was strange to me that Maisy’s mom suddenly had a back story where she was part of a band of Mexican freedom fighters.  Cool, yes, but totally out of left field.  I found some of it more believable after hearing characters explain later, but it still gave me pause as I was reading through it all the first time.  Some of my disbelief could also be my own unfamiliarity with the comic book genre, I’m willing to admit that.  If a comic book were suddenly a novel, this book is it.

It was Maisy herself that pulled me through the whole thing and eventually left me devouring her story like I was starving.  She is one spitfire of a girl, full of flaws but with a kind heart.  I thought Hale’s choice not to have Maisy kill any of her team mates (despite their desire to kill her) was admirable and telling about the kind of superhero Maisy will become.  She goes from being the sort of girl you wish was your best friend, to being the girl you cheer for, to being the kind of girl you want protecting your universe.

I should have known Hale’s feminist tendencies enough to realize that the climax of the story would hardly rest on the back of Maisy’s complicated relationship with Wilder.  Still, it blindsided me in the best possible way to realize that he was not a real problem at all in the scheme of things.  The climax was so much bigger and impossible than I had considered.  It was very well done; thrilling and scary at the same time.

In short, I’m obsessed despite the flaws.  I hope there are sequels.  I’m considering giving one of my children the middle name “Danger.”  I’m already waiting for the movie to come out.  I’m sporting the Dangerous temporary tattoo that came with my signed book – tech powers for the win! I’m attempting to convince everyone I know to read it. So get on that, okay?

Ever After High, Book 2 – The Unfairest of Them All

I frankly expected to hate book 1.  I mean, it was commissioned by Mattel to sell a line of children’s dolls.  That was really its sole purpose.  But Shannon Hale signed on to write them.  I couldn’t wrap my head around the dichotomy – would they be good, or would they be bad?  Was it worth spending $12 to find out?  I love everything Shannon’s done, so I ultimately decided to take the chance and spend the money.  I actually enjoyed it.  A lot.

Book 2 came out late last month, and was exactly what it promised to be, with a little social justice thrown in for good measure: When their friend Mattie Hatter is accused of setting the Jabberwocky loose, Raven Queen and Apple White band together to save her from banishment.  It features a bevy of terrible fairy tale puns and a hilarious cast of characters.  The peas porridge banter was especially hilarious: “Some like it cold, you know,” says the Evil Queen, ominously.   While the silly was much appreciated, there was also a little meat there.  The main conundrum of the novel is whether to choose to be a bad person to ensure someone else’s Happily Ever After, or whether it’s okay to choose to be yourself even if it means no one gets a Happily Ever After.  Nicely done.

I wasn’t expecting much more than a silly time from this novel, and it delivered in spades.  I read the kindle version – complete with pink and purple chapter headings.  I was drooling over the actual novels in Barnes and Noble the other day, though.  They’re this pink-and-purple-gasm of frilly inked borders and embossing which made the girl in me want one immediately.  The only thing I was left not loving was that Shannon wrote this book with her husband, Dean, but his name isn’t on the cover.  I wish he got a little more credit than Shannon’s thank you in the back, because I’m sure he deserves it.

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Last Days

Posted on April 7, 2014 by caseykins

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There is a stretch of about three miles on the 57 freeway where the city drops away and there is only a set of rolling hills straddling either side of the freeway that cuts through them.  Someone has decided to pasture cows on the west side of the rushing cars.  You can see them up there on the hills like a small train display; clumped in groups under the scraggly trees, chewing their cud.  They are there in all weathers, and they mostly look as though they like it.  But maybe that is my own projection.  I often think I’d rather be somewhere under a tree in a grassy field than stuck in the gridlock of my commute.

What is remarkable about this stretch is that it seems so incongruous with what comes before and after.  Coming out of the pass to the south is a grand display of concrete; urban suburbanism.  There is even a mall tucked beside the rushing lanes of freeway in an island of macadam parking lot.  To the north, above the beige retaining wall, is a row of housing tract roofs.  It is possible to go from being in the middle of everywhere to being in the middle of nowhere in just a curve of the road.  This stretch of the 57 is proof of that.  It is probably why I’m in love with those hills.

I’m used to tracking the seasons by this stretch of the road.  Right now it is spring and they are all vibrant with green grass.  In just a few months, they will turn golden in the summer scorch.  The gold deepens into brown in the fall.  In winter, when darkness comes early, they become a black silhouette on the inky sky.  And then we spring forward and they emerge from the darkness to become green from the winter rains.

A fire swept through the pass one of my first years at Disney.  I couldn’t get home the regular way that night, and that was before everyone had a smart phone.  I called Brian and had him bring up Google maps on the home computer and direct me back.  It was only mildly successful.  I got there eventually.  They allowed cars through the next morning.  The cow pasture had been saved, but the east side of the hills was black to the concrete barrier where the freeway began.  You can still see black soil under the new growth that is there if you are looking for it, but mostly it is grown over with ever longer blades of grass.

I used to finish my shift at midnight when I worked the Electrical Parade, and I would drive home in that blackness feeling like the hills belonged to me.  Back then, the whole night belonged to me and I to it.  I pressed my foot on the drive pedal and sped home under the stars, alone on the broad concrete road except for the pinpoints of a few headlights far behind me.  My muscles ached from swinging around those heavy costumes, and I was a girl who had worked hard and was going home to her sleeping husband.  In that moment, I was a perfect thing.

Scripps College is within biking distance from my small apartment.  I’m so looking forward to speeding though the leafy streets of my New England-ish home town to work every morning.   Still, I will miss many things about my old life.  Those hills will be one of them.  I’ll come and visit.  But we won’t track the seasons side by side as we have for seven years now.  The cows will enjoy themselves without my supervision.

It feels like the end of an era.

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BIKES!

Posted on March 24, 2014 by caseykins

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I am very out of shape, and the reason I know this is because I rode my new vintage-style Schwinn downtown on Sunday and nearly killed myself.  I’m still sore from the effort.  It didn’t help that I had also forgotten to bring any water, a mistake I will not make again.  I am thrilled with the bike, though.  It is everything I wanted: a cruiser with seven speeds and a back tire rack.  It’s a man’s bike; a Schwinn Point Beach; navy blue and cream with white wall tires.  I bought a large wicker crate, which I strapped to the rack with zip ties, and a bell with a navy blue owl on it.  All I need now is a vintage headlight and the bike is perfect.  It’s pretty near to perfection already.  It’s my own physique that needs the work.

I am pretending that downtown is a very long and arduous distance.  Don’t burst my bubble.  Yes I know that it is really only about a mile of extraordinarily flat terrain, and that I’m a drama queen.  Brian and I walk the same route several times a week.  I also know that going to Scripps – up the steep incline that is Indian Hill Boulevard – will be a billion times worse.  I’m working up to that.  I have a few weeks in which I will ride around and hope that the throbbing in my thighs stops before I’m a regular commuter on the thing.  I may take it to my grandfather’s house next weekend, a similar incline on Towne Avenue (which runs parallel to Indian Hill).  I may also think better of it before I get there.  I know I’ll regret it if I decide to do it, but the thought of that zippy, downhill ride back home might win out.

I make fun, but really I’m thrilled about it.  We’ve parked it next to Brian’s car in the garage and every time we go anywhere I give it a little pat.  I’m trying to think of a name for it, as all beloved vehicles should have names.  I’m looking forward to getting in shape as I pedal around Claremont.  I’ve been trolling the web for fancy bike accessories.  The ukulele fits beautifully in the back crate.  There really isn’t a downside.

Except the sore legs.

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So, uh… Why “Caseykins?”

Posted on March 13, 2014 by caseykins

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I’m not really worried about privacy.  My real name is on the sidebar.  I’m open about the fact that I work at Disney and at Chapman.  If someone wanted to find me they probably could – and that doesn’t worry me much.  I don’t think a bona fide stalker wouldn’t be deterred by that stuff anyway.  I know from being the socially acceptable kind of stalker, the internet stalker, that more information is likely to sate than rile.  I’ve never been that private of a person unless we’re talking about my deep, dark secrets; or my internal monologue.  Those are not available from following me around, and they can’t be stolen.  So why an alias?  Well, many reasons.

First of all, my mother used to call my sister and I Caseykins and Codykins when we were growing up.  Her mother had called her Kathykins.  So in the way mothers morph into their own mothers, it’s a name I’ve been given as a birthright.  I started to use it when I felt like I needed an alias on the internet.  I no longer feel the need for anonymity, but there are other reasons to keep it.

I go by Casey E. Hamilton now that I’m married, on my official paperwork (although I answer to Case, Monkey Face, CJ, Hepsula, Cassie and Hey You).  My maiden name is Casey Jean Elderkin.  You see where I’m going with this?  ElderKIN?  I didn’t stop being me when I got married.  I’m the new and improved version of the younger me, and she’s still in there.  I feel like being Caseykins Hamilton is the best of both worlds; a little of married me, a little of maiden me.  So if this is the internet and we all get to be who we want to be, she is it.

There is also the nostalgia of the fact that I have been Caseykins on the internet since the ‘90s.  It doesn’t hold much weight, but my love of others’ history also makes me venerate my own.  You can accuse me of being self idulgent if you want.  I’ll agree with you, even while I can’t help it.

And that’s why Caseykins.

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Book Review: 4 Romance Novels

Posted on March 10, 2014 by caseykins

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I started reading smutty romance novels in February, and then Amazon started to recommend them to me.  Damn Amazon.  I’ve been way more involved in the trashy sort of reading than the intellectual kind lately (and enjoying every minute of it).  They’re all a super quick read, though.  This means that I’ve been blazing through books in record speed, and I have four to do in depth reviews of.  Without further ado:

Girl In The Wild by Beth Orsoff:

What can I say, really?  Southern California working girl goes to Alaska to help the career of her client and boyfriend.  Previously cheating boyfriend does not appreciate/cheats on her again with hot red head.  She ends up with hot Alaskan scientist.  It’s predictable, and yet this one had a few twists.

The island in Alaska that the gal spends her time on is remote and lacking in amenities.  Most of the book involves cold water, walruses, chartered boats, and tagging animals.  It took me a good long time to figure out who the love interest was, too.  Mostly because he was such an asshole.  The author turned it into a Darcy thing with aplomb, though, where he was friendlier among friends.  Add that to the messages about global warming throughout the book and it was an original-ish take on a very old model.

The only problem I had with it was the love interest.  While he ends up a likable guy in the end, some of the things he does in the beginning are outright harassment.  She likes it, even though she says no.  He keeps harassing.  It sent up all sorts of anti-feminist alarms in my head, but didn’t quite kill my enjoyment of the novel.  I left with the impression that, while she maybe wasn’t in a dream relationship at the end, she was in a better one than she had left behind.

I’m not saying it will win a Pulitzer or anything, but it was fun.  If you like the chick lit thing, I bet you will like this too.  It gets four Beach Smut stars.

Out of Play by Nyrae Dawn and Jolene Perry:

This romance novel is shelved in Young Adult, and it also takes place in Alaska.  What’s with all the books about Alaska lately? I promise it was a total accident that I picked this one up at the same time as the other.

Teen angst aside, I really loved this novel.  The plot is simple, but so complex at the same time.  Bad ass hockey star girl meets undercover rock star boy with drug problem.  She is busy being awesome, and taking care of her ailing grandfather while her mother is at work all the time.  He is not so busy trying to get clean before he gets kicked out of the band and/or dies of an overdose.  Her father died a long time ago when a pill-popper ran him off the road.  Gramps is the only one he can open up to, and Gramps has the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.  Druggie folks from the old life are still in touch.  She thinks she has a crush on her best friend, another hockey player.  There is snow machining and lots of hockey, drums, tattoos, making out, cold weather, hot tubs, fancy classic cars, and making out.  Really, what else do you need?

The novel was written by two authors. One wrote the gal and one wrote the guy.  It was nice getting inside both of their heads.  Sometimes I get confused about who is speaking when books are like this, but I was never confused in this one.  Their voices were each so distinct.  This is exactly what I look for in a romance novel.  It gets five Beach Smut stars.

The Selection/The Elite by Kiera Cass:  

The first and second novels of a trilogy (the 3rd doesn’t come out until May), and also Young Adult. Basically, a poor girl gets selected to join a televised contest at the palace.  Winner gets to marry the prince, “Bachelor” style.   There’s a love triangle with a former boyfriend thrown in for good measure.

Despite the adverbs, I found myself enjoying the book a lot.  It’s silly concept is elevated by the real problems the fictional country is facing.  Not only are people starving in the streets because of the rigid caste system (including the main character, America’s family), but there are rebels who are intent on breaking into the palace and possibly assassinating the royal family.  At times, it’s outright scary.  America is spunky and forthright with the prince that she’s only here for the money the government is paying her family for her participation.  When she falls for the prince despite herself, I was definitely rooting for her, and for them.  Balls, dinners, moonlit walks, and fantasy wardrobes are all there for the sort who like that thing.  Yes, I’m totally one of them.

Cass does a good job throughout the novels planting plot seeds and keeping the reader hooked all the way through the series.  It’s only a bit maddening that the novels aren’t really complete – cliff hanger endings all so you’ll read the next post-haste.  I hardly blame her, but I think I would also have been upset about having to wait so long if the third (and last) book wasn’t coming out fairly soon.  I’ll let you decide if that’s a compliment or not.

If you’ve ever worn a “team Peeta” or “team Gale” t-shirt or have an affinity to ball gowns, this book may be for you.  You may want to wait until May, though, so you can devour all three in one sitting.  Five Beach Smut stars, with extra points for multiple novels.

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A Week In Review:

Posted on March 7, 2014 by caseykins

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Having a mini composition book, and a phone that looks like a mini composition book is not as cute and adorable an idea as it may first seem.  I keep thinking the book is the phone and leaving home without essential things.  One of them has to go.  It won’t be the phone.

Cadbury Creme Eggs are out in force.  They are like a perfect, egg-shaped sugar coma, just waiting in the shiny foil for you to take a bite and enter heart-racing bliss.  I have already eaten more than are good for me, although so far I’ve kept it below one a day.  So far… I walked into the campus bookstore today and saw them at the counter.  Resistance might be futile.

I am going to a girls gathering this Saturday and it promises to be a great time.  All my favorite people will be there.  The only problem is that they are all Brian’s favorite people as well.  “If I buy a wig, can I go too?” he keeps asking.  Um – let me think about it… No.

There is a shop in downtown Claremont that carries blooming teas.  Those are the kind in the Marie Antoinette movie, where you put hot water on them and the bud blooms at the bottom of your dainty porcelain cup (because if you’re drinking blooming tea, it’s out of porcelain, preferably with gold somewhere).  I fell prey to the loose-leaf Lady Grey tea this time, but it’s probably only a matter of time before I can’t resist the other.  I’ll have to buy an appropriate cup.  Most of my mugs were purchased for volume and not class.

I misread the publishing date on a book I was dying to read.  It’s coming out May 6th, not March.  I am now upset that I have to wait, but I’ve been consoling myself with murder (in the form of Agatha Christie novels).

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Afghans (the kind you crochet, not the kind who live in the desert)

Posted on March 5, 2014 by caseykins

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I always forget that crocheting goes so incredibly fast.  This is a very fortunate thing.  There has been a rush of babies this year.  Every time I turn around, someone else is expecting.  Not just family, either, but good friends and coworkers.  I like to make afghans for babies, if I can, which means that I am on the afghan train.  My “With Yarn” Pinterest board is getting well used.  I’m working on the afghans in order of due date.

I’m fairly excited about it.  This gives me a chance to make a slough of things.  I don’t have to decide on which one, I only have to decide who gets what.  I’m trying all the options, and all the options are out there.  There are boys, there are girls whose parents don’t like pink, and there are unknown genders until birth.

Amongst all of this, I have realized that my process when making an afghan is much like writing a novel.  I spend far too much time waffling about structure and color.  I stand in the yarn aisle for hours, pulling out colors and seeing how they look together, before finally coming home with a gargantuan bag full of the stuff.  Then I start hooking, absorbed in the way the pieces are coming together in my hands.

Somewhere in the middle, I look at the color scheme and the work that I’ve done and start thinking I’m crazy.  This will never come out the way I think it should.  Who thought that brown and yellow were a good idea, even with all the blue and green between?  Did I pick the correct ratio of white to other colors?  Is it baby enough? But when I finish and look at the whole thing, I usually end up satisfied.  The only way to finish anything is to trust the person I was when I made decisions, and push through.

The first one is more than 1/2 finished.  I’ve been working on it for three days.  Maybe this making 4 afghans within a few months thing will go alright after all.  Also, everyone needs to stop having babies after this so my poor hands can rest.  You’re all on notice until next year.

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The Princess Leia of Pastry

Posted on March 4, 2014 by caseykins

I have been trying not to say too much about job interviews, because you never know.  Even if the interview went well and you’re imminently qualified, you don’t know who else is walking into that office and sitting down with the staff.  The best thing you can hope for is that you presented yourself as the best you are.  Then you know that if you aren’t offered the job it’s because there was genuinely a better candidate for the position.

That being said, I have an interview with Scripps College.  In an effort to cobble together a definitive answer to “why Scripps, specifically?” (I didn’t think “because pretty campus, music” was good enough) I did a little digging on their website.  I learned that the Fine Arts Foundation is based there, an organization that my grandmother was instrumental in helping to run until she was diagnosed with cancer.  There is a memorial scholarship in her name, too.

I was trying to explain the significance of this to Brian, how we were such a tight-knit family that it was part of my childhood as well.  The only thing I could think of  to illustrate my point was the Saint Lucia lunch.  My sister and I participated several years in a row.  I was probably about ten.

“What is Saint Lucia?” he asked.

“It’s a Swedish thing,” I said.  “On the winter solstice, the oldest girl in the family dresses as Saint Lucia, in a white dress with a red sash and candles in a wreath on her head.  She wakes everyone up in the dark and invites them to breakfast.”

Brian started laughing.

“No, I mean it sounds a little silly, but I think it’s about returning to the bountiful spring again,” I said.

“So how does this fit in with the Fine Arts Foundation?” he asked.

“They used to have a brunch once a year.  There were about four of us who would dress up, braid our hair, and pass out hot cross buns on a silver tray. I was usually the oldest.”

“Like Princess Leia, but with baked goods?”

“Uhh, yes,” I said.

“That’s awesome.”

There were fashion shows sometimes, too, and other little events.  Still, I will always remember the suited lady in the banquet hall lighting the real candles on my wreath, blooming golden in the dark, tables scattered around.  They placed the tray in my hands, piled with pastry, and slid the doors open to the white reception room.  I was ordered not to walk anywhere until the candles had been blown out.  For a split second, I got to be Kirsten Larsen the American Girl, and invite them all to breakfast.  At the age of ten, it doesn’t get better than this.

Whatever happens this afternoon, Scripps’ history and my history are intertwined.  I doubt I’ll ever get to be the Princess Leia of pastry again, but at least I have the memories.

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