An Unremarkable Spring - yes I know it's the fall

I’ve fallen very behind on my posts. I have a few in the wings for the next while, but instead of trying to catch-up, we’ll just erase the spring, shall we?  It wasn’t terribly notable.  I travelled quite a bit, a garden was put in, but because spring took its sweet time arriving, and was so late and so damp, it was a less than stellar year. The yard is normally terrorized by unruly cucumber plants bent on world domination, but this year, almost half my plants drowned and the rest remained demoralised even after a turn in the weather. My tomatoes eventually flowered and fruited, but we will head into the first frost with green tomatoes and no Greek salads.

I did a read a few books, but honestly, only a few were particularly memorable. I know we knocked off Emancipation Day for bookclub. I remember being underwhelmed and though interested in the history presented about race relations in post WWII Windsor/Detroit, I found the supporting characters mundane and the main characters unsympathetic.  I also read The Girl on the Train at the behest of every newsstand kiosk, blog, best sellers list etc.  Honestly, the book was hard to escape it was/is so much the rage, but, the thing is, I could have cared less about the horrible people contained within the book and the misery they caused each other. Sure, you can never truly know another person, but good grief, that is an unbelievable level of manipulation and spineless addled-mindedness. Sure, maybe the two attract one another, but I felt only relief when the book was over.  Maybe I am too naïve, but there is no way I could accept the premise of this novel, let alone that such direly stupid people could function as contributing members of our society.

On the more positive side, I also furthered my Neil Gaiman experience by reading the classic American Gods (4*) and The Ocean at the End of the Lane (4.5*). Both are gorgeous reads, full of mind popping visuals and truly immersive worlds. I also had the pleasure of reading Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance.  It was delightful as I feel Aziz himself is; quirky, cute, but holding substance. I didn’t find the results of the research particularly earthshattering, but the fact that he undertook the research was fairly remarkable.  What I know for sure is that I am grateful that I am not part of the Tinder revolution. I found LavaLife hard enough on the ego/self-confidence. A swipe? Icky.

With A God in Ruins, I was devastated that Teddy fathered such a reprehensible off-spring. My heart broke for him, and for me since Life After Life was as near a perfect story as could have hoped for. I know (no, really, I am full of a very deep understanding) that there are gross people in the world. I guess I just don’t care to read about the undeservingly entitled and unpleasant people in the world of fiction. I see too many of them in the grocery store and on the bus. Of course, we all have our stories, we all became the person we are today due to a series of defining moments of our lives. And we all have our own unique hardwiring which dictates how we will experience and allow those moments to shape us.  I guess my own wiring and defining moments harden me from accepting those moments as unredeemable.