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So Proud of My Friend!

Wednesday night, I had the great honor of celebrating with my friend, Lisa, as she participated in Polk State College's Nursing Program's pinning ceremony. After a couple of long years in which we haven't seen much of each other, because she was always studying or in a lab or doing some clinical something, it was a joyous occasion to be able to acknowledge her hard work and accomplishment.

I am not only proud of her for finishing the program and becoming a nurse, I am also proud of her for doing what a lot of people are incapable of: really assessing her life and taking control of its direction, going back to college, and completely changing the trajectory of her career and life. It is quite a feat.

Congratulations, Lisa! Well done. We here at the Devlin house are very proud of you.

Munchkin's First Concert

Today, my mother and I took the Munchkin to his first concert. At the time, I didn't realize it or even recognize it (and I guess we're not counting bluegrass night at the Twistee Treat), but I guess it was.

We went to see Jim Stafford. Before you start asking me who that is, know that Jim Stafford is not only a native son of the Winter Haven area, but he is also my cousin, though I only met him once when I was a little kid. He's a few years older, but he and my dad grew up together. Well, anyway, this long-lost-cousin has been doing some shows to benefit the tragically burned Ritz Theatre in Winter Haven. (And, yes, I did originally type Rita Theatre, thank you very much.)

Now that you've gotten excited about the concert content, you are dying to know how a sixteen-month-old Munchkin did, aren't you? Let's just say a couple of things. As long as there was music playing, he was great. And we left at intermission.

Recent Reading: Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. This book of inter-connected short stories was a very good read. I was immensely impressed with the way Strout illuminated this character even when she was busy focusing on illuminating other characters. It was a refreshing surprise that Olive, as the titular character, did not always feature prominently in every story. In fact, in some stories she merely passes through with a wave to the story's main character. This treatment had the effect of keeping me on my toes and looking more for Olive, while trying to figure out what these small appearances revealed about her character.

We discussed Olive Kitteridge at book club Monday night. Those of us who made it agreed in our enjoyment of the book (and it is a rare thing for all of us to be in agreement about any book). I think it is also rare (for me, at least) to really enjoy a book when you don't necessarily like the main character, which we didn't, for the most part.

The residents of fictional Crosby, Maine, intrigued me. All of them, including Olive. They are broken and lonely and hurting; some find redemption and relief, while some don't. Just like most of the people I know.

Three (or Four) Tales of Excellent Customer Service

I am in a mood to share some great customer care we've received recently.

The Bunn. When Keith and I got married in 1994, one of his fraternity brothers, who had shared many a meal at Waffle House with Keith, gave us our very own Bunn-O-Matic coffee maker. For 13 years, it faithfully made coffee on demand and satisfied my husband's addiction. And then it died. Sad, sad day for Keith.

In order to save myself having to get up at the crack of dawn to make coffee, I bought a Krups programmable coffee maker as a replacement. It was lovely but died within the year, making it appear fairly shoddy after our 13 years with the Bunn.

So Keith and I returned to the known entity of the Bunn-O-Matic and purchased a new and beautiful Bunn. Would you believe that it died before we had it two years? Believe. It did. Convinced that Bunn would not take this failure to thrive lightly (and in the face of my husband's near-depression over the loss of coffee), I contacted Bunn Customer Service with my coffee lamentations. They asked me to ship them my old maker (no receipt necessary), and they would then ship me a new replacement. Amazingly enough, two days later, a new Bunn was at my front door; they shipped me a new one before they got the old broken one. Now we're swimming in coffee again.

The iPhones. Keith got his iPhone 4 last Fall; I got mine for my birthday, this past February. Not long after my acquisition, the iPhone started rebooting spontaneously. After a long call with Apple Support, I was sent to my nearest Apple Store (at Mall at Millenia) for hands-on support. When the phone started spontaneously rebooting while the Apple Genius was working on it, she gave me a new phone. It was like Christmas.

Earlier this month, Keith's iPhone stopped working altogether after he got caught in an afternoon shower while riding his bike. We tried the hair dryer and the bag of rice, to no avail. He went to the Apple Store hoping they could help him dry the thing out. His Apple Genius looked at it for a few minutes and then gave Keith a new phone. He wept. (Not really.)

The Speck. I had a lovely Speck black and white tartan cover for my iPhone. The tartan part was made of fabric, which came unglued in a couple of places and required a little SuperGlue patching, but that was okay. Then one day recently I took it out its own special little pocket in my purse, only to have the cover fall off in my hand. Unsatisfied with that performance, I contacted Speck Support. They sent me a new case (unlike Bunn, they waited until they had the old broken one and my receipt). It seems that Speck may have learned something from the old cases, because my new one seems to be made a little differently.

Recent Reading: People of the Book

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. I very much enjoyed this book. At first glance, it seems like it is going to be a forensic examination of some interesting artifacts found within the famed illuminated manuscript, the Sarajevo Haggadah. This fictional accounting, which is fueled by fact, takes on rich layers with Brooks's imaginings of how the forensic artifacts, such as a butterfly wing or wine stain, came to be integral parts of the history and geography of the 14th century haggadah. Brooks immerses us in a tour of the centuries as we follow the haggadah from its earliest beginnings in Spain through the Spanish Inquisition, its survival of the Nazi book-burnings and the shelling of Sarajevo.

Every other chapter focuses on the Australian manuscript conservator who is contracted to work on the haggadah. She travels around the world in search of not only the answers to the manuscript's puzzles, but also to a few mysteries of her own life.

As an (hopefully) interesting side-note, it took me considerably longer to finish this book than is usual. So much so that Keith made note, assuming that it was a difficult book to read. I told him that it takes a long time to read a book five minutes at a time, which is about the amount of free time I get these days, especially now that there is an inchworm in our family.

Where Has The Time Gone? OR Oh, Yeah, I'm a Mommy Now

I received an e-mail from a friend the other day asking me if being a mother had consumed all my reading time. The answer is both "yes" and "no." Since November, I've kept up with my book club reading and have done some parental research. But the rest of the time, I'm enjoying my new little man. Well, there was also some Monty tumor surgery drama, but we're just about back on track with him now.

Having said all that, I will make a renewed effort to not neglect my poor, lonely web site.

Recent Reading: The Catcher in the Rye

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. The first time I read this book, I hated it, thought Holden Caulfield was a spoiled rich kid who got on my nerves endlessly. All of the really important pieces of his life were lost to me in the lousy (his word, not mine) way he lived that short period of his life, lost to me in the poor choices he made and in the hypocrisy of his words and actions. When my Book Club chose to read this book, I dreaded the idea of reading it again. Even so, I read it in the hopes that I might find something to like in it this time.

Lo and behold, I found a glimmer of hope.

Though I don't hate it now, I still don't like this book; it will never be among my favorite of books. But this time I found myself sympathizing with Holden just a little bit. He spoke to me in a way subtly different than he did before. Or maybe this time I just listened better to what he had to say.

It's a Mama Party

Mama's retirement party was Wednesday night at a tea room in Auburndale. Given the number of years and the amount of friends she has in the school system, this could have been a very large party. But Mama doesn't exactly like to be the center of attention, so she wanted a small get-together with current co-workers. And us.

Since I was in the first or second grade, Mama has worked in the school system in various positions. She's worked very hard for many years to first take care of her children and then to make a pretty good and comfortable life for herself.

So Keith and I were pleased and honored to attend her retirement party and its small amount of roasting. When you love someone as much as we love Mama, it's nice to see other people love and appreciate that loved one, too.

P.S. I'm sure Mama thinks the only thing that would have made it better would have been Roger's attendance.

Recent Reading: The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. A few months ago, Keith began to show interest in watching the movie based on this book. Since it has Viggo in it, I thought that was a reasonable interest. However, when I told Keith I'd rather read the book first, he agreed, immediately running out to buy the book and devouring it in short order.

Then began the gentle nudging as he tried to get me to read it so that he could watch the movie finally. So a couple of weeks ago, I was feeling a little ill and for some reason thought it was a good idea to read a book about post-apocalyptic America while I was recuperating in bed. I think I read the whole thing in less than four hours.

I thought it was genius. It was stark. And spare. And grim. No character names, minimal punctuation, no chapter breaks. Just brilliant writing, a man and his son on a search for survival (the landscape is full of cannibals because all the vegetation and wildlife have not survived the unnamed event--super-volcano? meteor?--that has decimated the world as we know it) in warmer climes, and a reader unable to stop reading.

As you can imagine, the book is almost depressing, leaving the reader with little hope for this family unit or for the rest of former civilization for that matter. But I (being the hopeless romantic and wannabe eternal optimist) see much more hope in the end than Keith did.

Now I guess I'm ready for the stark, spare, grim movie.

Recent Reading: Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. First of all, I need someone to please please please tell me why I am supposed to care about Catherine and Heathcliff. I know that I am probably stepping on a lot of Brontë-loving toes right now, but I cannot force myself to feel anything for these two hateful people who repeatedly make poor decisions and then punish everyone around them.

Please don't get me wrong. I am very glad to have finally read Wuthering Heights after all these years of avoiding it. I enjoyed the book, just don't really believe Catherine and Heathcliff loved one another enough to justify all the hullabaloo. One of the great things about our book club is that most of our reading comes from classics, which gives us all an opportunity to hopefully be exposed to wonderful books we've somehow not read yet. In case you're wondering how I somehow have not yet read Wuthering Heights, all I can say is that it has never appealed to me.

I almost got myself into trouble at Book Club and had to hush the verbal uprising when I compared Wuthering Heights to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. It's not the first time I've had to defend an unorthodox comparison at a book club, having once incensed some Steinbeck fans by comparing Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune to East of Eden. But in my mind, Wuthering Heights shares with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the trait of hateful people sniping at each other constantly without the redeeming Southern Gothic-ness of the latter. (And, no, it doesn't matter to me that Wuthering Heights is a Gothic novel.)

Recent Reading: To Kill a Mockingbird

Here in the Fiftieth Anniversary year of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I celebrated by finally reading it. I know you are shocked to hear that I have lived this long without reading it and think I must be pulling one over on you. But it is true. And now I lament that it took me so long. The characters were like family or old friends to me.

First of all, my mother's family is from Alabama two counties east of Monroe County (or Maycomb County, if you please). So I know Lee's characters very well--the way they talk and act and love and fight and protect. Second, Lee was born just six years after my grandmother, making her a contemporary of my grandmother and very familiar-feeling to me. Even so, Scout's sassy mouth and tomboy ways are more like my mother than my grandmother.

I think that I, even though I am really a non-re-reader, will read To Kill a Mockingbird many more times in my life. I bonded with the characters, became enraged with the hateful, pitied (and became enraged with) the ignorant, and loved every minute of it.

Recent Reading: Bel Canto

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. From Ann Patchett's web site: Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening, until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.

Using a setting more appropriate for a thriller, Patchett has written a beautiful, lyrical love story(ies) complete with a large, distinctive cast of international characters and some Stockholm Syndrome dynamics. I really enjoyed this book. From the love-smitten Russians to the Japanese businessman with a gift for playing the piano to the poor girl with hopes of a better life who finds herself on the wrong side of the law, the characters are beautifully rendered and mostly believable. (I do believe, however, that a bunch of armed, teenaged terrorists would be more brutal toward hostages.)

The one thing I don't like about the book: The epilogue, which I could have done without. I won't give anything away here. But for my reading preferences, I would have preferred this book without the epilogue.

A Tale of Two World Cups

Four years ago, we moved into this house. (Please note what a considerable record it is that 1. Keith has had the same job for four-and-a-half years now, and 2. We've lived in the same house for four years.) When we moved in, we had an air mattress, two dogs, some clothes, and a borrowed 13-inch television. For two weeks we camped out like this in our new home while we replaced carpet, painted, and generally spruced up the place.

During our infrequent rests, we watched World Cup Soccer. On a 13-inch TV.

Fast forward four years. Now we are down a dog and have done a nice job of filling the house and making it a home.

And this year we can watch World Cup Soccer in high-definition on a 47-inch TV. What a difference!

Recent Reading: A Slow Burn

A Slow Burn by Mary DeMuth. This is the second installment in DeMuth's Defiance, Texas trilogy. The first book, Daisy Chain, mesmerized me. While I quickly churned though A Slow Burn, it didn't mesmerize me as much as the first book. The reason why? I couldn't identify with the characters.

In Daisy Chain, I felt that Jed Pepper and I had walked in the same shoes for parts of our individual adventures. In A Slow Burn, I cannot relate to either Emory Chance or Hixon Jones. They are both in the previous book, which leaves off where this book picks up. I wanted to relate to them, tried to relate to them, because I am already invested in this story and want to know these characters and find out what happened to Daisy. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in me to like a drug-abusing mother who took her child for granted or relate to the handyman who feels that God has told him to marry her.

My friend Jed Pepper is still around and lurking in this book, though his home life doesn't seem to have improved any. The next and last book of the trilogy is from Jed's mother's point of view. Since a battered wife is something I can relate to (not personally, people), I look forward to getting to it soon.

Recent Reading: The Alienist

The Alienist by Caleb Carr. Without beating around the bush, let me tell you that I love this book. This was my second reading, both of which were for book clubs. In New York City in 1896, an eclectic group of "investigators" are tasked by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt to solve a series of murders of boy-whores--a segment of society that is rarely even acknowledged. Using the latest theories and advancements in psychology and forensic science, the group of fledgeling profilers forges an understanding of the murderer long before they eventually have to face him.

Aside from the obvious fascination for anyone who watches any of the CSI franchise, I think the writer part of me is engrossed by the idea of understanding how people think and operate and react to the world around them. Well, that's what Carr's profilers are doing, just without the benefit of actually knowing who they are understanding.

I also recommend Angel of Darkness, which features our same cast of characters in search of another baddie.

Recent Reading: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. We read Fahrenheit 451 for our last book club meeting. Since we are meeting next week to discuss another book, the time seems right to finally say something about the last book. For weeks now, I've wondered what my block is, why I can't form any cohesive comments about Fahrenheit. I still have no answer to that.

Every time I read this book, I am stunned by what a compelling story it is. Keith and I have a fair number of books, and the number keeps growing all the time. To immerse myself into a world where books are forbidden is agonizing. To imagine a life with no books, no imagination, no education is frightening. I wonder if I'd rather burn myself with my books than allow someone to deny me a life with them. I certainly hope I never have to find out.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me in this reading was finding out that Keith had never read Fahrenheit before. Perhaps the biggest joy for me in this reading was watching him read the book and talk to the book and enjoy talking about the book. It's a wonderful thing to share something you love with someone you love.

Yes, I'm 40

Last Saturday was my birthday. It was a big deal kind of birthday. To celebrate, Keith and I trekked to Florida's Gulf Coast, to the origins of me.

On Friday, we went to Honeymoon Island State Park with the intention of enjoying it and Caladesi Island. Since a storm front was rolling in and a small craft advisory was in effect, the ferry to Caladesi was not running, so we had to settle for Honeymoon Island. We walked up the beach as far as we could, looking for shells and other interesting sea life. It wasn't so bad with the wind to our backs. When we turned around, the wind and sand weren't very pleasant. When the pelting, stinging rain started, I was pretty much done with Honeymoon Island.

After we de-sanded and -salted ourselves, we headed to downtown Dunedin for dinner at a neat little Mexican restaurant and some window shopping at some cute little shops. When we walked out to the municipal marina, the sun finally shone just long enough to set. Then, we made a detour--literally; the road was closed--around the hospital where I was born.

Saturday we went into Tarpon Springs to buy a clean sponge and to enjoy a yummy lunch of Greek food before heading back to Orlando.

Our Saturday evening small group turned into a social event/birthday party later that night. It's just difficult to be serious when you're having so much fun turning 40.

Recent Reading: Dracula

Dracula by Bram Stoker. When I was a kid, on Saturday afternoons, our local channel 44 ran Creature Feature, which was typically a cheesy horror movie hosted by Dr. Paul Bearer. This was probably my first introduction to vampires. When, as a teenager, I read Stephen King's Salem's Lot, I was fairly sold on the merits of vampires as entertainment. Over the years, I've read a few Anne Rice vampire books and seen more than a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, but I am by no means a vampire junkie (I'm standing firm on not reading any of the Twilight books). If I were a vampire junkie, I would have read Dracula a long time ago, I guess.

The sum-up: I loved Dracula. The flawed characters, the heroes, the villains, the weak-willed women, the strong Mina Harker, the gradual unravelling of the story from various points of view, and the intricacies of the storyline. And a strong Texan never makes for bad reading, does he?

It's a wonder I haven't read this book before now. It's not just a horror classic; I think it is good literature and good fiction. I was intrigued by the art of the storytelling as Stoker spun out the story slowly, dropping hints and planting characters and suggestions along the way. Caught up in the epistolary style--the letters, journals, newspaper clippings--of the book, I was taken aback when Mina Harker started assembling all those pieces in the actual telling of the book. But afterward, whenever her party of vampire slayers would refer to the reams of work they'd collected on Count Dracula, I felt like part of their party--I had the same reams of their work in my very hands. Nice touch.

I am of a similar mind with my friend, Toni, who, upon finishing Dracula, began to read Frankenstein. My shelf of books such as Doctor Faustus, The Adventures of Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde seems to be beckoning me.

Recent Reading: Drops Like Stars

Drops Like Stars by Rob Bell. This is a visually beautiful and artistic book that bills itself as "an exploration of the complex relationship between suffering and creativity, driven by the belief that there is art in the agony." Though it is about 150 pages long, it took very little time to read it... largely because many of the pages only had a few words on them. I said it was artistic and beautiful.

I have great interest in both subjects: suffering and creativity. I've suffered, and I'm creative. Then, the book opened with the beautiful story-image of a man who visits the same hospital twice in the same year--once for the miscarriage of a grandchild and another time for the birth of a grandchild. Suffering and joy cohabitating the same hallways. But then the book devolved into a collection of interesting stories and quotes.

I know several people who are infatuated with Rob Bell's message to the masses. While I do find him to be well-educated and to possess a broad knowledge base, my personal experiences with his work have not significantly enriched my life. This book in particular ended very abruptly for my taste and had me flipping many blank pages to find the real point of the message. I didn't find it. Perhaps because I believe that the works of Christian pastors should always lead the reader to Christ in some way, and Drops Like Stars didn't deliver on that expectation.

Roger in Moving Pictures

Thirty-nine seconds into this video on the web site of The Ledger, Roger is marching in place almost in the middle of the video screen. And at 3:57, Kim's sister and nephew can be seen watching the buses pull away from The Lakeland Center.