Midwest

Haven Kimmel, author, wrote:

"It's been my experience that people who grew up in other parts of the United States (not the Midwest) find it almost impossible to see the beauty there. I mean they literally cannot see it."

I imagine the same could be said about the high desert, but, truth be told, I'm finding it beautiful back in the Midwest. It feels like home.

The Blind Assassin

I've reread The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood for a reading group. Originally published in 2000, my hardcover copy is 521 pages long. Atwood won a well deserved Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin.

From Amazon:

"The Blind Assassin is a tale of two sisters, one of whom dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen, initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the family. But as Margaret Atwood's most ambitious work unfolds--a tricky process, in fact, with several nested narratives and even an entire novel-within-a-novel--we're reminded of just how complicated the familial game of hide-and-seek can be:

What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly, for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain.

Meanwhile, Atwood immediately launches into an excerpt from Laura Chase's novel, The Blind Assassin, posthumously published in 1947. In this double-decker concoction, a wealthy woman dabbles in blue-collar passion, even as her lover regales her with a series of science-fictional parables. Complicated? You bet. But the author puts all this variegation to good use, taking expert measure of our capacity for self-delusion and complicity, not to mention desolation. Almost everybody in her sprawling narrative manages to--or prefers to--overlook what's in plain sight. And memory isn't much of a salve either, as Iris points out: "Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them." Yet Atwood never succumbs to postmodern cynicism, or modish contempt for her characters. On the contrary, she's capable of great tenderness, and as we immerse ourselves in Iris's spliced-in memoir, it's clear that this buttoned-up socialite has been anything but blind to the chaos surrounding her."

I know my reading and reviews have been scant these last 2 months. I will eventually pick up the pace, scouts honor.

freaky

Before moving, we had discussed with friends the odd people we saw at Wal-mart at night. I've been to the Wal-mart here a couple times after 9 PM and it's nothing like Reno. First, since we're in a big university town, many of the late nighters seem to be college kids or young adults (who are seriously shopping - not just hanging out). Then there seem to be many everyday, normal folks who are just picking up things in the evening. Not one freaky person at all.

We were all sort of freaky in the bank this week though. My son, and I needed accounts opened. We finally settled on what bank and went into a branch office where a nice young college student helped us. FYI: I had just renewed my NV driver's licenses online before moving, sovit has this  renewal sticker on the back. That always seems to throw people for a loop. (I was questioned about that at the airport too.) At the bank she thought at first that 
my driver's license was expired. Then they have these homeland security questions they need to ask. I had to pause and think before answering all of them. Hopefully she chalked that up to old age and assumed I needed extra time to process information.

When it was time for my son to open up his account, he was all indecisive. We had no idea approximately how much money he'd be depositing in a year. He has no job, but may get money back at the end of the college school year from scholarships. He may get a job. We don't know. We knew we were going to be making deposits from our account to his so he could pay for his gas and lunch from his account. We all had to come up with a number. Then, when he had to type in his password for online banking he kept having to retype it because he wasn't able to get it right the second time. We all sat there as he tried repeatedly to get the same code in both boxes until I finally said "Make it simpler." After a couple more tries he got it right. He also got signed up for his first credit card. It's a student card; the bank wisely gave him a $300 limit.

Just before we were done (and I'm sure the young woman was wanting us out of there at this point) I got a phone call. I'm still intimidated by my cell phone, but I had remembered to bring it. The problem was that I didn't recognize that it was MY cell phone ringing. I was looking around to see whose phone was ringing. Once I figured out it was mine, I fumbled to find it in order to answer it. It was my brother. I said hi and told him we were at the bank. Then I started to giggle because answering my cell phone always makes me giggle. I know I need to overcome this reaction, but, alas, I giggled. My brother told us it was hot wings night in town and asked if we wanted to go out for wings... so I asked, as we were still finishing up at the bank, "Do we want to go out for hot wings?" and giggled.

We finally got out the door of the bank, with me still giggling while trying to talk to my brother. "Could we BE any more freaky?"

You know, I'm not sure that we could, but I imagine we'll give it another try sometime...

Contest

5 Minutes for Mom has a contest where they are giving away an Insignia 37" Flat-Panel LCD HDTV, courtesy of Best Buy! It's valued at $799.99. Head on over, read the details and enter today! We love Best Buy at this house!

The Divide

If you tend to like the same books I give favorable reviews to, you may want to avoid reading Nicholas Evans' The Divide. Originally published in 2005, my paperback copy has 499 pages. The blurb on the cover promised a whole lot more than Evans' delivered. It was also a bit too much of a woman's novel for my tastes. Pineapple, pineapple, pineapple.

From Amazon:

This fourth novel lacks the power and intensity of Evans's debut, The Horse Whisperer (1995), and it's not nearly as carefully written. A pretty, upper-middle-class girl is discovered frozen in Montana ice and is soon identified as Abbie Cooper, wanted for murder by the FBI. After a promising beginning that introduces a colorful cast of Montana locals, Evans breaks off and flashes back to Abbie's upbringing in suburban New York, and centers the book on Abbie's now-divorced parents, Ben and Sarah. Evans follows the Coopers' high-end careers and estrangement from their domestic lives in meticulous, mind-numbing detail; their separation propels the already idealistic Abbie into the arms of Rolf, a shadowy eco-terrorist. As Abbie's Patty Hearst-like adventures in the eco-underworld slowly unfold, Ben takes up with Sante Fe-based artist Eve, and Sarah is left alone with son Josh, who emerges late in the novel as an improbable principal. Compelling minor characters like Sheriff Charlie Riggs and besieged ranchers Ray and Martha Hawkins are largely wasted. All winds down to a sadder, wiser, relatively reconciled ending that conforms to the norms of family drama, and of romance. The most vivid thing in the book is the wrangling early on over Abbie's remains.

The Wall

The Wall by Jeff Long was great, however reading during a time when you are moving half way across the country perhaps didn't give The Wall the full attention it deserved. I left off reading for almost a week when a survivor was found on El Cap and the tension was palpable. I'm highly recommending it because although I wanted to finish it, I simply wasn't physically able to right away and because the ending really surprised me. The Wall was originally published in 2006 and my paperback copy was 384 pages long.

From Amazon:

A widowed geologist makes one final, perilous attempt to scale Yosemite's El Cap and winds up running for his life in Long's atmospheric, aggressive thriller (after The Reckoning). Hugh Glass and his climbing buddy Lewis Cole revisit the mountain where 35 years earlier, they shared glory on the 3,600-foot-high monolith and met the women they would marry. Now, years later, Hugh's wife has vanished and Lewis's is divorcing him. Ascending El Cap, Hugh and Lewis yearn for their wives and are humbled by nature's rapture. Their last-ditch adventure is marred by the discovery of a body—one of three fallen climbers—and an encounter with Joshua, a malevolent old "caveman" who steals the corpse. Long casts the dramatic natural setting as a major player in the story and imparts fascinating facts about the art of rock-climbing. Joshua's reappearance and a forest fire complicate the climbers' trek, before a search and rescue guide who seeks his missing fiancée joins them. Lewis abandons the expedition, but increasingly paranoid Hugh continues on, joining the shifty guide to find the other lost climbers just as a violent storm heads their way. The surprise ending is a true shocker in this hurtling, gripping read.

moving time

I'll be gone for a couple weeks now as we begin our move.