As you might know, the northeastern part of the United States has been harangued with excess snow, record-breaking low temperatures, and more completely frozen over lakes then we know what to do with (which, as you'll see is kind of cool). Yesterday when I got to work there were small icicles on my eyelashes. ICICLES ON MY EYELASHES! Now tell me, when was the last time that happened to you? Anyway, I've undertaken an abundance of indoor activities during this time, including catching up on my massive reading list. One of these days, perhaps I'll just post my reading list instead of an actual blog entry, and I bet it will be the longest blog entry in the world. This week, I finished reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette? a novel by Maria Semple.
This is the cover art. As you see it features a woman who looks like she stepped out à la 1962, with a hair scarf and large dark glasses. I was definitely into the cover art. I also love the title, because it just leaves you with so many questions such as:
1. Who's Bernadette?
2. Where did she go?
3. Why did she go there?
4. Who is looking for her?
5. Why should I care where Bernadette went?
And so on. Needless to say, with all the blurbs on the cover about how delightful the book was, I decided I would definitely give it a shot.
To tell you the truth, this novel was not what I was expecting at all, which actually made me like it even more! It is first and foremost a satire about a dysfunctional family who live in Seattle (ergo, some of the satire directly targets certain aspects of Seattle culture, I'm not sure how accurate this part of the book is since I've never visited Seattle, or even the West Coast in general, so I can't even draw regional comparisons). Semple tells this story from the perspective of Bee, Bernadette's daughter who is putting together stacks of documents including emails, faxes, letters and other correspondences from Bernadette, her husband and Bee's father Elgie, doctors, administrative assistants, busy body neighbors, and everyone in between as she tries to figure out why her mother disappeared, and where she may have gone. I've met some people who have told me they "just didn't get it." I can empathize with this, at the start of the novel, Bernadette is portrayed by her neighbors as certifiably insane. She's anti social and wears dark glasses everywhere, she doesn't participate in the PTA like other parents (a travesty!), and she allegedly ran over another mother's foot with her car. When you read the emails from Bernadette, her topics of conversation imbue a practically stifling level of weird quirkiness that may possibly be covering some ongoing mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, but you also have the distinct impression that she's a freaking genius. I really liked this book because practically all the characters become better people by the end of the book. Even the terrible neighbor character about whom I had an immediate horrible visceral reaction at the beginning of the novel, delightfully surprised me with accepting accountability for some of her more devious actions, and taking steps to make amends with the people she affected. When the day's over, this book has a happy ending, not a perfect ending, but a happy one with the promise of continued positive change.
Moving on to the weather. It. Is. COLD. Last Sunday, I started a new job (yippee!!) and after the training session I had the rest of the afternoon to myself. Since my new office is right on the Lakefront, I decided to take a stroll out on the lake. Yes, I walked on the frozen lake because, you know, everyone else was doin' it. But actually they were, there were families, old people, young people with dogs, college students, tourists, and me strolling around the lake, and contemplating walking all the way to New York (probably, I don't know for sure). What an amazing experience though, I'm not normally a picture taker, but I took some pictures of the sun pouring through the clouds, and of the vast expanse of completely frozen over Lake Champlain.
So this is a patch of ice someone scraped the snow from. It's quite black, or perhaps a very very dark green. Either way, it was eerily look down and see basically nothing. It's almost disorienting, and like Anne of Green Gables, I could imagine I was floating through space, unhindered, weightless, without a thought for the suffocating confines of life on earth. I'm not sure Anne would ever have imagined anything quite like that, there wouldn't really be any context for space travel in 1880s Prince Edward Island, it's more of the "imagining" part to which I found parallels.
If you've ever been to Burlington and visited the water front, you may remember being at the ECHO Center, the Spirit of Ethan Allan, or even the boardwalk and seen a rocky wall apparently sitting in the lake. I still am not quite sure what that's for, I bet I could easily find out if I asked someone at the ECHO Center. My point though, is that is picture here to the right is of that wall, and I was standing on it because I walked across the ice to get to it.
No words for this one really, I just think it's gorgeous.
I really have nothing else to say about anything except I hope Vermonters vote on Town Meeting Day next Tuesday (March 3), and LOOK AT THESE PICTURES OF MY KITTY!!
She's just so absolutely adorable I don't know what to do about it. So there. I'm sorry this was a pretty anti-climactic ending. I didn't even write any poems this time (yay! says the audience). Anyway, practice makes perfect, and hopefully I'll have a better, more uniform post that will capture your hearts and minds, and tire my fingers with my furious typing!
This is the cover art. As you see it features a woman who looks like she stepped out à la 1962, with a hair scarf and large dark glasses. I was definitely into the cover art. I also love the title, because it just leaves you with so many questions such as:1. Who's Bernadette?
2. Where did she go?
3. Why did she go there?
4. Who is looking for her?
5. Why should I care where Bernadette went?
And so on. Needless to say, with all the blurbs on the cover about how delightful the book was, I decided I would definitely give it a shot.
To tell you the truth, this novel was not what I was expecting at all, which actually made me like it even more! It is first and foremost a satire about a dysfunctional family who live in Seattle (ergo, some of the satire directly targets certain aspects of Seattle culture, I'm not sure how accurate this part of the book is since I've never visited Seattle, or even the West Coast in general, so I can't even draw regional comparisons). Semple tells this story from the perspective of Bee, Bernadette's daughter who is putting together stacks of documents including emails, faxes, letters and other correspondences from Bernadette, her husband and Bee's father Elgie, doctors, administrative assistants, busy body neighbors, and everyone in between as she tries to figure out why her mother disappeared, and where she may have gone. I've met some people who have told me they "just didn't get it." I can empathize with this, at the start of the novel, Bernadette is portrayed by her neighbors as certifiably insane. She's anti social and wears dark glasses everywhere, she doesn't participate in the PTA like other parents (a travesty!), and she allegedly ran over another mother's foot with her car. When you read the emails from Bernadette, her topics of conversation imbue a practically stifling level of weird quirkiness that may possibly be covering some ongoing mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, but you also have the distinct impression that she's a freaking genius. I really liked this book because practically all the characters become better people by the end of the book. Even the terrible neighbor character about whom I had an immediate horrible visceral reaction at the beginning of the novel, delightfully surprised me with accepting accountability for some of her more devious actions, and taking steps to make amends with the people she affected. When the day's over, this book has a happy ending, not a perfect ending, but a happy one with the promise of continued positive change.
Moving on to the weather. It. Is. COLD. Last Sunday, I started a new job (yippee!!) and after the training session I had the rest of the afternoon to myself. Since my new office is right on the Lakefront, I decided to take a stroll out on the lake. Yes, I walked on the frozen lake because, you know, everyone else was doin' it. But actually they were, there were families, old people, young people with dogs, college students, tourists, and me strolling around the lake, and contemplating walking all the way to New York (probably, I don't know for sure). What an amazing experience though, I'm not normally a picture taker, but I took some pictures of the sun pouring through the clouds, and of the vast expanse of completely frozen over Lake Champlain.
 |
