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Sunday Matters

This past week we had some fun stuff going on:

The Force Awakens opened and The Teen got to see it Thursday night. We will see it as a family on Christmas day.
We went to Disneyland on Friday and walked our legs off.
On Saturday we attended our church’s Christmas service and it was good but some of the attendees had children who didn’t want to be there. I missed half the message but I could see that the mom was just as frustrated so I told her about some other viewing options which she ended up taking advantage of, so I got to hear the end of it.
My last day of work was this past Wednesday! I don’t go back until January 11th!

Right Now:

Recovering.

When we decide to visit a theme park, we tend to make the most of it and I swear, my legs are nubs. I. Cannot. Walk. Coffee? Oh yes, there’s plenty of that and for it, I will hobble across the room to get it or beg and plead for The Hub to get it for me because it must be consumed.

We don’t have church today since we already attended the Christmas service so tonight we plan to hit a drive-thru nativity scene. Before that I am planning to watch movie after movie while I recover on this couch but The Girl is asking to go to the mall. Is she for real?

This Week:

This week will be spent trying to figure out what needs to be done before Christmas. I did order my Christmas cards but they weren’t scheduled to arrive until 12/22 but they just came yesterday! They’ll go out tomorrow, hopefully.

I scheduled physicals for the kids this week since they are off and the Otter Pup needs to get her shots so there will be a tiny bit of business to take care of, but not much.

We are going to my Mother-in-Law’s house for Christmas Eve. We are never sure who will show up but there’s family and often some very close family friends. I like it best when there are a lot of people there. Sometimes we play Trivial Pursuit. It can be a lot of fun and the food is always good.

On Christmas day I will make breakfast (not sure what but it usually includes bacon) but we have reservations for dinner and then we have reserved seats for the 7:30 pm show of The Force Awakens! Trying to keep The Teen from telling us any spoilers. Walking around Disneyland was hard because everyone was talking about the movie!

Reading:

Norwegian by Night and The Invaders
I am reading Norwegian by Night for my book club. It was my pick for January and so far, I am happy I picked it. I also started The Invaders because it was on one of the “Best Of” lists I came across.

I finished Tender is the Night and I believe the review posts on Tuesday.

Watching:

We saw Elf last night. I have Christmas in Connecticut recorded. I’ve never seen it before. Tonight I am going to try to watch Jingle All the Way.

Making:

After going to Disneyland I have a craving for Gumbo. Theirs looked really good but was not gluten-free. I’d love to make a big pot but the kids are not fans if it. They don’t like anything that you eat with rice. They are weird.

Grateful for:

Quiet moments. I don’t have many, but I had a few while at Disneyland. I sat there, surrounded by the sounds of Christmas and the beautiful lights and just felt at peace. It happened more than once and I took notice because Disneyland is such a wonderful, chaotic place but it’s quite magical too.

Small World

How does your week look? What plans do you have for Christmas?

Avenue of Mysteries
By John Irving
Simon & Schuster, Hardcover, 9781451664164, November 2015, 480pp.

The Short of It:

A whirling, and at times totally surreal look at memory and how it shapes who we are.

The Rest of It:

This was a very strange story! I know some of Irving’s books are a little strange but it took me many chapters to wrap my brain around these characters and what was going on with them. That said, I am not even sure I understood exactly what was going on until the very, very end. But, I will attempt to share my feelings about it here.

Juan Diego and his sister Lupe are “dump kids” and live in a Mexican orphanage. Juan Diego is a bright kid but much of his waking hours are spent translating for Lupe because Lupe speaks a language that no one understands, except for Juan Diego. Plus, Lupe can read minds. Many times she spouts off about what is happening leaving Juan Diego “in the know” but unable to really let others know that he is “in the know” because much of what Lupe says is inappropriate in nature.

The story alternates between Juan Diego’s “dump kid” days and the present day, where he is a writer on a trip to the Philippines. In the present day, he meets a mother / daughter duo at the airport and they sort of set the stage for what’s to come. They are very mysterious and nothing they do really makes any sense but Juan Diego is strung out on Viagra and Beta Blockers so as a reader you never really know what’s real and what’s not. Plus, memory plays such a large role in this novel. He spends much of his trip remembering his sister and his dump kid days.

I had a really hard time with Lupe. Her dialogue is all one-sided, since no one but Juan Diego can understand her but she has this wild, crude side to her that makes her very animal-like. She’s an interesting character but not one that I could really figure out or relate to.

Juan Diego was more likable, but he too was a bit of a mystery with his bag of drugs at the ready. And the strange mother / daughter duo of Miriam and Dorothy who, in my opinion, provided some much-needed comedy to the mix seemed to come and go without explanation. At the end of the book, you learn why. Juan Diego is really a very tortured soul. His story is very sad at times.

A lot of people will pick this book up and give up on it. It’s REALLY hard to get into and I considered putting it down more than once. I mean, it took me weeks to read it and it wasn’t until the 50% mark on my Kindle that I really began to understand it and yes… like it. So, if you are reading it now, then keep reading it and if you haven’t picked it up yet because of the mixed reviews, give it a shot but don’t hold it up against his other books or you will be disappointed.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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