A Soft Place to Land

Hello everyone! For my 20% time project, I chose to read a novel entitled A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White. Throughout White's novel, two sisters, Julia and Ruthie, face a tragic family incident, the loss of both parents. Julia and Ruthie were extremely close after the loss of their parents until they were separated from each other and each lived on opposite sides of the United States. Their sisterhood, once an oasis, becomes complicated by resentment, anger, and jealousy. It seem as though their parents' accident will never stop shadowing the girls - until another appalling accident changes everything for a second time.

The reading standard used in my project was an application of 11.R.1.1. In this standard, students can recognize and analyze words by applying context clues to extend vocabulary.

Julia and Ruthie had discussed the last days of their parents' lives so often. Phil and Naomi were on a vacation to the Grand Canyon while the girls stayed home for the weekend with friends or other family. Their plane crashed into the Canyon around 3 PM on Wednesday, March 24, 1993 while the girls were on Spring break from school. The girls had discussed how their parents would spend their vacation without them. The girls thought the trip would have been traveled down a lonesome highway in the middle of the desert with their parents driving a convertable Mercedes with the top down, but the windows up. Julia decided she could do whatever she pleased since it was Spring break and her parents weren't around to tell her what to do. She always ended up hanging out with a guy from her school. Together they would drink and smoke until Julie decided it was time to leave and return home to attend to her younger sister Ruthie. Ruthie knew about Julia's secrect getaway location, but she'd never tell.

They day of the accident, the girls were to recieve a phone call from their mother which they had never gotten. Mother Martha, Ruthie's grandmother, had recieved a call. Not just any call, but the call no one ever wants to receive! On the other end of the line, someone had told Mother Martha about the accident; it was her responsibility to tell the girls about their parents' death and the accident. Weeks after, the family, the girls' aunts and uncles, and lawyers came to reveal Phil and Naomi's will. In the will, it stated the girls were to be sent separate ways. The girls cried in fear of their parents' choice. They thought they should be together forever. Julia plotted a plan to go against the will. She wrote a letter to her birth father to convince him that Ruthie needed her, so they could stay together. Julia made Ruthie read her work, which she really liked and thought was well worth the try. Therefore, Julia was proud of her efforts in trying convincing her dad and the girls were ready to mail the letter.

I wanted to read more than I did, but I only made it through the end of chapter three plus the prologue at the very beginning. Throughout this project there have been many difficulties stumbled upon; for example, extra-curricular activities (sporting events, band, FCCLA), piano lessons twice a week, and schoolwork. In order to overcome these difficulties, I worked on my project for the 20% of my school week and some week nights after school as I didn't feel that 20% allowed enough time. If I had a choice of repeating this same project, I would not repeat this project. I would rather just read the book on my own.
_______________________________________________________________

The next morning the girls were late getting to school. As they ride in Julia's Saab 900, they discussed whether Ruthie was going to be dropped off on the Junior High side of the building or she'd have to walk across the school with Julia. Julia decided to just stop in one place and Ruthie would have to deal with walking a ways for one day. They go straight to the high school parking lot and have to walk a mile to the school building. As they are reaching halfway, Jake Robinson - Julia's friend - drove by and offered them a ride to the building. Ruthie jumped out and headed for class, but Julia decided to skip and spend her day with Jake as they drove out of the school parking lot and on their merry way. As Ruthie walked around the building to the Junior High side, her friend was having some complications with the other kids. They were pushing her around and she dropped her bag and roughly 20 tampons went rolling around on the sidewalk. Ruthie thought she would be nice and try to help the situation by gathering the tampons to hide the embarrassment of her friend. Just then the bell rang for class. Throughout the day, Ruthie had learned a few important lessons to keep in mind:

• Lesson one: Do no appear to be trying too hard.


• Lesson two: Be wary of sudden, unexpected friendliness.


• Lesson three: Never show your pain

As they girls returned home from school, their aunt Mimi confronted them about Julia skipping school (the headmaster at the school called to inform her that Julia and skipped). Julia didn't have much to say about the subject, so she went to her room, followed by Ruthie. When Ruthie got to the door of Julia's room, she could hear Julia's music blaring from behind the door. She opened it and welcomed herself into her sister's room. She came to find that her sister was mad because she'd received a letter back from her father saying that it was best for the girls to be split the was it was origionally planned in the will. Her dad had also said that Julia's stepmom had agreed to the situation.

About a month later, the girls were split and went there separate ways for the first time in their lives. They had never been apart from each other for vary long. Everything was different now. Ruthie attended a private school and met a new friend, who happens to live just down the street. She liked living with her aunt and uncle; they welcomed her as if she was their own child and they got along very well. On the other hand, Julia had troubles fitting in. She didn't get along with her dad and stepmom. She hated her stepmom for helping her dad decide that the girls had to be split. She would rather be living on her own or with Ruthie. One night Ruthie got upset and called Julia. That night they talked about how they were fitting in in their new neighborhoods and how they liked the new living arrangements.

This time around I did read just as much as the first 3 weeks. I didn't have as many difficulties these past 3 weeks. I'm still going to continue this project for 20% time. If I would change anything about my experience with the project, I would read more often than I have been so I could get farther into the book and hopefully finish reading it by the end of semester.

_______________________________________________________________

Over the next month and a half, Ruthie and Julia write letters to each other; talking on the phone is a difficulty because of the time zone differences.

October 1, 1993

Dear Biscuit,

Man, do I miss you! And man, do I wish that I was in San Frnasicso, or you were in Virden - don't laugh - one or the other, so long as the two of us could hang. I mean, I wouldn't need you to be my shadow or anything. We wouldn't have to spend all of our time together. We wouldn't have to share baths or watch each other pee or anything like that. . . .

Speaking of peeing, do you remember the time when you were little and you got that unrinary tract infection because you were wiping the wrong way - back to front instead of front to back? And you had to take those pills that turned your pee orange? You were eight at the time and every time you peed you wanted to show me because it looked so weird. Anyway, one night during The Time of the Orange Urine, you slept with me in my bed. When I got up the next morning and went to the bathroom (you, of course, were still lying lazily beneath the covers) I asked you why the cap was missing from my brand-new expensive tube of Shiseido facial wash I had gotten for my birthday. And you said, oh yeah, that in the middle of the night you had gotten up to pee, and at the same time you had taken the cap off of my Shiseido wash to smell it and had somehow managed to drop the cap into the toilet. And so you very kindly left the cap off so you would remember the next morning to tell me that it had been floating in orange pee.

Hmm, maybe it is a good thing we ended up in two different places. . . .

Just kidding. I miss you tons. Virden pretty much blows the big one. It is beyond boring here. There is nothing to do but watch TV, go to the crappy a** mall featuring the oh-so-sophisticated Belk's as its anchor store, and look out my window at the mountains. I guess my boredom will serve you well, 'cuz it means you will be the lucky recipient of my vivacious wit and wisdom, as told through my wicked pen.

Peggy is a total b****, as to be expected. Today I made chocolate-chip cookies (told ya I'm bored), and just as I started creaming the butter and sugars she warned me that she had bought very expensive chocolate chips so I "should save them all for the dough and not snack on them." So I'm expecting the chips to be really impressice, right, to be made out of Jesus' dark flash or something like that, but when I look in the pantry all I see is a twelve-ounce bag of Hershey's semisweet morsels.

Way to live it up Pegs. No Kroger brand for you!

Dad doesn't seem to know what to do with me. He is spending a lot of time out back, in his workroom. He and Sam are building me a desk, which I guess is nice, thought it's not really necessary. I always just sit on my bed to do my homework. Plus I don't really like the thought of Sam having anything to do with any part of my life. Remember how he was always a little creppy? Well, he's way creepy now. And way religious. He actually listens to Christian rock. It's all about lifting up your hands to praise the Lord. I bed God hates that crap. I ask you: how can "praise music" be worthy of God's ears? It is all so vapid. Makes me think about Coventry, actually, and how during one assembly this conductor dude came and talked about how you don't find God through books, music, art, nature. You find God in books, music, art, nature. . . .

Jeez, did I just wax mostalgic about Ceventry??? Virden must really suck.

So how are you, Goofy Ruthie? Granddaddy Rhubarb told me a joke about San Fransisco. Not sure where he got it from because all he and Granny Elsie do is sit around and watch the PTL channel. (That's Praise The Lord to you, my lil' San Fransisco heathen.)

Anyway, wanna hear it? Wanna hear it?

Of course you do!

Here goes: There was this mussel and this clam and they were best friends. The clam was named Sam and the mussel was named Fred. Well, one day they each die, and Fred the mussel - who was a ood and noble mussel - shoots straight up to heaven, where he meets Saint Peter and is given a golden harp. Sam the clam, who was always a little naughty, shoots straight down to hell, where he promptly opens an all-night club, called Disco Inferno.

Fred the mussel misses his friend Sam the clam terribly, so he ask Saint Peter if he might go visit. Saint Peter grudgingly approves, and Fred grabs his harp and shoots down to visit Sam. They have a he** of a time. They eat fried foods, talk all night, play music, drink, catch up, etc. The next morning Fred is due back to heaven. He says his good-byes to Sam and heads back up. Saint Peter is waiting for him at the pearly gates. The first thing Peter says is, "Fred, where is your golden harp?" Fredd looks all around, realizes what happened, gulps, and says, "I left my harp in Sam clam's disco."

Get it? Get it? "I left my harp in Sam clam's disco". . . "I felt my heart in San Fransisco"?

Did you laugh so hard you peed your pants? Surely. (And are you crying great tears of sympathy for me that Sam the clam jokes are what pass as high entertainment in Virden? Or, at least, at Granddaddy Rhubarb's house?)

Goofy Ruthie, I miss you so much. More than Mom even, in a weird way. I mean, she's gone. And you're stil here. Except you're not. At least, you're nowhere near Virden, VA. Which is great for you, sucky for me.

I think about you every day. You and your stinky farts.

Write back, write back, write back! I'll be waiting with bated breath. Hope I don't pass out.

Love,

Your older and infinitely wise sister, Egg

October 8, 1993

Dear Egg,

That joke about Sam the clam was the worst! Robert and Mimi say so, too, but then, maybe it's not so bad, because last night Robert told it to one of his friends who came over for dinner and his friend laughed really hard at the punch line. Then again, his friend drank about five glasses of wine, so maybe he was just drunk.

Probably I shouldn't tell you this, because I know you will think it's sick, but last night I ate rabbit. Yep, rabbit. Uncle Robert, who does most of the cooking, had fixed rabbit a couple of times before, but up until last night I jsut sort of pretended to eat it and filled up on bread instead because, you know, I kept thinking about The Runaway Bunny. But last night he cooked the rabbit with mustard and cream and servied it over polenta with all of these really yummy vegetables - roasted butternut squash and grees and a few roasted beets - and it just looked so good that I had to try. Julia, it was DELISH. We will have to get Uncle Robert to make it for you when you come out here! Rabbit meat actually does taste like chicken, but more flavorful, more chickeny, if that makes sense.

Shoot, I have to go. Aunt Mimi is calling m.e We are going to the alteration place to have my school uniform hemmed. TO BE CONTINUED. . .

Okay, I'm back. The alteration lady is also the dry cleaner. She's Oriental - I mean Asian. (That's what Mimi says is nicest to say.) Anyway, I guess the dry-cleaner lady lost one of Mimi's sweaters a while back, because today when we walked into the shop she cried out, her voice getting louder and higher with each word: "I. Found. Your. SWEATA!!!" I've been saying it over and over again to Aunt Mimi all afternoon.

Aunt Mimi: Should we go get a hot chocolate?

Hiliarious Ruthie: I. Found. Your. SWEATA!!

Aunt Mimi: Do you want to eat at La Med or at home tonight?

Hilarious Ruthie: I. Found. Your. SWEATA!!

Okay, so this is also kinda of funny: At the dry cleaner's, Mimi and I fought about the length of my uniform skirt. All year she's been bugging me to get it hemmed, like five inches above the knee. She says the goal is to look cute, not frumpy. I told her about Dean Brown and Coventry, how she would walk around the school carrying a ruler in hand, measuring all of our hemlines. Mimi thought that was hilarious. "Phil certainly put you in the lin's den, didn't he?" she asked. I told her that no one took Dean Brown too seriously, that everyone made fun of her walking around with ehr stupid ruler, wearing her beehive from the 1960s.

Arguing with Mimi over the length of my skirt made me think about the time that Mom and I got into that big fight over whether or not I could wear a piece of her cut-up nude panty hose as a headband. Remember how we would tire our hair back with her old hose? Mom hated it. She made me take the hose out before she would unlock the car door so I could get out and go to school. She said if I wore cut-up hose to class everyone would think I was raised in a trailer. I remember being so mad at her, thinking that she was just so snobby and clueless. And now I can't imagine wanting to go to school with part of someone's hose hanging off my head!

But just that year Mom started going to that little shop at Phipps Plaza that sold all of those crazy sequined outfits. You said she was going through an "Adeventurous Period." That was around the same time that weird client of Dad's took them to that nightclub called Lipstick, where all of the men were dressed liek women. They were so giggly about have gone there! Like they were just the coolest two people on earth.Anyway, I remember being really embarrasses by the clothes she bought at that shop. There was this one outfit that I thought was super tacky. It was a black sequined pants suit and it was made of this stretchy lacy material that was see-through all the way up her thighs. I remember thinkin, as she said good-bye at the door before she and Dad went to their Christmas party, that I was glad I didn't have a friend over that night, because I wouldn't have anyone from school to see her.

I have a photo of Mom and Dad from that night. I'm looking at it right now. Dad is wearing a tuxedo and his hair is neat and short. Mom is about five inches taller than him because she is wearing heels. In the photo Mom is smiling really bid and she looks really pretty. Really pretty and really thin, (remember how alls he would ever eat for lunch was a fruit plate? But then she said she ruined her diet every nigh bu always having a drink with Dad and chocolate for dessert?)

It makes me so sad to look at these photos of Mom. She looks so alive.

But I know she's not.

Semd me some of thos expensive chocolate-chip cookies you made.

Love, Biscuit

October 15, 1993

Dear Biscuit,

Aw, sweetie, I miss Mom, too. And I find looking at photos of her harder than anything. You're right, sho looks so real, so alive, you think you can just pick up the phone and call her. For me the hardest thing about looking at photos of Mom is knowing that she's never going to age beyond the most recent ones. Knowing that her life ended at thirty-nine. That that was that.

It's so sad to think about. Too sad.

Also sad is the fact that you are eating bunny rabbit for dinner and enjoying it. Let me take a moment here to say: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Forget The Runaway Bunny. What about the pair of hares we used to see in Granny Wigham's yard every spring? Those sweet, soft brown rabbits that frolicked together in the grass! Who were always together, who had probably mated for life. Jeez. There's probably some lonely bunny in someone's backyard in San Fransisco right now, looking for his mate, having no idea that she was cooked with mustart and cream.

Cruel. Cruel.

Just teasing. THoguth seriously I don't think I'd do very well eating Robert's food. My imagination is must too strong to start eating bunny rabbit. I'll stink to Peggy's meat loaf and mashed potatoes, thank you very much, 'cuz meat loaf is just made of - well, meat. That already comes ground up and in its Styrofoam package. (Right?)

So guess what? I'm smarter than anyone in my class at school. I know, I know, one is not supposed to "toot one's own horn," as Peggy would say, but Ruthie, I'm not kidding. I'm a genious compared to these people. I cannot believe how different the public high school in Virden is from Coventry. I guess I was naive. The highest math class here, which they erroneously call Trig, is pretty much all Algebra II, which I have already taken. No one in French class speaks any French, including the teacher, who has a deep and dreadful southern accent ("par-lay view France-say, y'all?). And the big book we're reading in eleventh-grade English - I repeat: ELEVENTH-grade English - is To Kill a Mockingbird. Yep, To Kill a Mockingbird, which Mom and I read together when I was, oh, nine, and which we studied from cover to cover in Mrs. McGibbon's eighth-grade English class.

Virden Victory, yeah! (As the cheerleaders say.)

I guess I should consider myself lucky, 'cuz I don't think I'm going to have to do much studyin' to make good grades. Jesus, I could be valedictorian. (can you imagine?) It's funny. At Coventry we always complained that classes were really hard, but I didn't homestly believe that they were that much harder than classes at public school. Or maybe it's just public school in Virden. Let me tell you, this town is not a collection of Virginia's best and brightest.

On the friend front: It's kind of like the Berenstain Bears book The Trouble with Friends. Did I ever tell you about the time that I went to B. Dalton at Lenox Mall, looking for a Berenstain Bears book to give you for your birthday? It was a joke gift, of course. I was just doing it to be obnoxious, debating whether or not I should give you Too Much TV or Too Much Junk Food. So I'm at the little display case with all of the books, and this cute but slightly overgrown-looking redheaded girl walks over, picks up the Berenstain Bears Trouble with Friends, and says to me: "Trouble with firneds. That's what I have. Trouble making 'em, trouble keeping 'em."

God, I didn't know where to laugh or cry. Poor girl. I mean what causes someone to walk through life like that, with no filter?

Speaking of filters, I've got to learn to use more of one when dealing with La Peggy. I am, ahem, grounded right now for my "smart mouth." Not that being grounded really changes my life or anything. There is seriously nothing to do here.

Ah, woe is me.

Your poor, bored, supersmart sister,

Julia

October 23, 1993

Dear poor, bored, supersmart sister,

I'm sorry that you are grounded, but I'm so excited that in just a few weeks you are coming to San Fransisco for Thanksgiving! We are going to have so much fun! Mimi, Robert, and I are planning the whole trip. We'll take you to Sausalito, which is this really cute town just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It's on the water and there are sailboats everywhere and places to get ice cream, and it's just really fun. Oh, and there's this really good sushi restaurant in Sausalito that we'll take you to that Robert says has the best sashimi in the Bay Area. And I can take you all around Mars and Venus (streets, that is!) and we can climb the Vulcan Steps and burn a thousand calories and then go get smoothies in the Castro. And we can go down to Union Street and shop and get more smoothies and then Uncle Robert can cook each of us our very own bunny rabbit for dinner!!

I can't wait. Make the next four weeks go by fast, okay?

November 1, 1993

Dear Julia,

WHAT IS PEGGY"S PROBLEM? How can she ground you from coming to see me? What right does she have? And why doesn't you dad tell her she's not allowed to do that?

If she hates you so much, why isn't she happy that you are going to be away for a week? I don't understand. I'm so mad. I'm so mad I took a ceramic coffee cup and threw it against the wall. It didn't break, though, just bounced against the rug.

Aunt Mimi says Peggy's punishment is "unreasonable and unfair."She says it's cruel to keep us apart after all we've been through, no matter what you did. (What did you do?) Maybe if she doesn't change her mind you could just come out here anyway? I bet Mimi would send you a plane ticket. She's really upset about this.

God, I hate Peggy. You are right. She is a B****. Not just a mag. A B****!

November 10, 1993

Dear Ruthie,

I hate it here. I hate it here so much. Peggy does not want me. She doesn't want me in her house, but she doesn't want me to leave her house, either, because that owuld mean that I "win." I never knew what it meant to really hate somone until I came here to live. Nothing Mom of Phil did compares to this. Nothing. It's like Peggy has this impression that she always has to keep up, that she's a perfect homemaker, a perfect mother to Sam and me, a perfect Christian who never misses a week of church, a poor martyred woman who provides for her wayward stepdaughter no matter what.

BULLS***!!!

She sucks.

I don't think I'm going to be able to talk her into letting me go to San Fransisco for Thanksgiving, even after Aunt Mimi's call. Truth is, Mimi's call probably eve made things worse, because it embarrassed Peggy, made her storm into my room and call me a little "snitch."

You are right. Dad should be defending me. He should tell her to step the he** aside, that he's my father and he's in charge of whether or not I can go to California to visit my sister for the break.

So I got caught drinking. I had two wine coolers, Ruthie. Two wine coolers! I know you don't drink yet, but that's like having a glass of grape juice with a tiny bit of white wine poured in. Bit since Peggy doesn't drink at all (what a good Christian she is!), she thinks that this is a really, really big deal. She keeps telling me that Sam knows how to have fun without using mind-altering substances. I wanted to tell her: "Some people consider round-the-clock masturbation mind-altering."

I held my tongue. Luckily. I'm in too much trouble as it is. I had skipped a day of school the week before I got caught drinking and somehow Peggy found out about it, so now she's on this big kick that I am "headed nowhere, fast." Not like her precious Sam. Did I tell you he still does Boy Scouts, in the seventh grade?! Vomit.

God, he's such a dork, Ruthie!! He has no friends, besides the little Christian prayer group that he's a part of from church, and they have to be his friends. You can't call yourself a Christian group and then no let in the losers.

Seriously, Ruthie, Sam is such a freak. The other day I was in the shower and I just had this feeling come over me that I was being watched. So I pull back the shower curtain, and I don't see anyone, but the bathroom door is cracked and I hear someone padding down the hall. He was watching me, I swear to god he was. What a perv. It's like he's getting off on having me in the house. Which is sick. I mean, not that I'm thrilled about this fact, but he is my half brother. Yick.

Ruthie, I'm so, so sorry that I'm not going to get to see you for Thanksgiving. I really wanted to be in San Fransisco with you. I would have even eaten a little baby bunny if you had really wanted me to.

I love you,

Egg

For this checkpoint, we only had two weeks instead of three. I didn't get much reading in for this checkpoint. I had many other activites going on. Pepband just started, Band winter concert, two piano recitals, piano lessons, and homework. And of course.. Semester's ending so everyone is cramming for each class. I wish I could've read more, like I didn't for the second checkpoint. But when you're busy, you're busy and there isn't anything you can really do about it.