Please Join Us

I finished reading Catherine McKenzie's novel called Please Join Us. This is a complex mystery story about a 39 year old lawyer named Nicole and her husband Dan. Nicole and Dan rent out beloved Aunt Penny's apartment in Manhattan. They might loose their apartment when Aunt Penny dies and they are worried about that. Plus Nicole got a warning from her boss at work that her billable hours are down and she had better shape up. Then Nicole gets an email asking her to join a women's group called Panthera Leo. She is invited to a 5 day workshop in Colorado to be initiated into the group.  Dan thinks this is probably a cult but Nicole goes anyway. Nicole ends up in Colorado in a remote area. Each of the six women in this group get a private lodge. They eat delicious meals and are asked to do strange exercises such as jump naked into a freezing river or gut a dead deer. I would have never made it in this group. Nicole gets through the week and goes back to work. Immediately things appear to get better for her. Her new friends at Panthera Leo get her an important client. Another friend rents her a luxury apartment for the same price they are paying now at Aunt Penny's place. Nicole is a curious person and she keeps asking questions which annoys the women at Panthera Leo. Eventually it clicks into her head that this group is actually a cult. Nicole isn't sure she is going to be able to leave. All the double crosses, lies, gaslighting, and deceit made my head spin at times. Panthera Leo is equivalent to the "Good Old Boy's" club. I enjoy stories about educated successful women. I was definitely not cut out to be a corporate lawyer in Manhattan. I would never want to work that long nor that hard. 

The Storm Of The Century

 A good friend of mine (I think of her as my warm blanket friend because she is as comforting as a warm blanket) lent me her book. She said I have to give it back because it is an autographed copy. I forgot to ask her when and where she met Al Roker. The book is called The Storm Of The Century. Al details the 1900 hurricane that decimated Galveston, Texas and killed between 1500 and 1800 people. The book comes in 3 parts, before, during, and after the storm. Al got most of his information from letters, diaries, books, and other paper materials in Texas. Aa a meteorologist he knows hurricanes. One of the people he mentions often is Isaac Cline who worked for the federal government as a meteorologist along with his brother.    Both brothers lived together along with Isaac's wife and five children. Isaac's wife and newborn were both frail and ill at the time the storm hit. When their house started to topple over in the hurricane both brothers grabbed two children and jumped out of the window. They managed to survive but Isaac's wife and newborn died. They were later found under their house. Besides the weather and the people the book delves into the racism of the time. Black people were forced to do the smelly work, the dirty work, and the most disgusting work while the whites and Latino's did the preferred jobs.  Racism is part of the reason Isaac Cline got not warning that the hurricane was headed his way. Jesuit priests in Cuba had telegraphed the warning to the federal head meteorologist in Washington, D.C. Because that guy was racist about Cubans, he refused to believe them. Although it took me a chapter or two to get accustomed to Al's writing style, I did enjoy his book.

Hunger

 Roxanne Gay has written quite a few books including Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. This book was interesting, alarming, and honest. Roxanne's parents immigrated from Haiti. Her father was an engineer working at a cement company and her mother was a stay at home mom. She had a couple of younger brothers. The family was quite affluent. Her mother was a good cook and the meals were made from scratch and healthy. When Roxanne was 12 she was invited to a shack in the woods near her house by a boy she liked. When she arrived she found him there with his six friends, their breath all smelling of beer. Her friend was not her friend. He was the first to rape her while the other boys held her down. Roxanne's life was forever changed. She thought this incident was her fault. She never told her family what happened until she was over 30 years old. Instead she turned to hunger. Roxanne figured if she got fat enough she would not be attractive to men. Even 12 year old girls know that men prefer slim women. Her parents tried to help her. They took her to doctors. They sent her to fat camp for 2 weeks. Nothing seemed to help. After graduating from high school she was admitted to Yale. After 3 years at Yale she ran away. Without telling anyone where she was going she moved to Arizona, to Minnesota, going from state to state and moving in with strangers. She got involved in drugs, alcohol, and bulimia. The decade of her 20's was the worst in her life. Her parents hired private detectives to find her. They asked her little brother to call her because they knew she wouldn't hang up on him. Eventually things turned around. With the help of her loving parents and family she finished her degree and got a master's degree. Roxanne is a feminist writer who tours the country giving talks and lectures. She is a large woman. She is six feet and three inches tall so of course she is large. Roxanne is an excellent writer so I think I may borrow more of her books.

 

Man's Search For Meaning

In 1946 Victor Frank wrote Man's Search For Meaning. The first half of the book is about his experiences in the five concentration camps that he lived in during World War Two. The second half of the book is about his psychiatric method that he calls logotherapy. Some people think his book is the most influential book in the United States. I listened to an audio version of the book. The author describes the three reactions to being sent to a concentration camp. First comes the shock of being admitted to such a horrible place. After the shock comes the apathy after being accustomed to camp existence where you only care about the things that will keep you and your friends alive. The third reaction is bitterness and disillusionment if you survived and lived. The author also thinks there are two kinds of people, the swine or the saint, the evil or the good. In the second half of the book he starts talking about his patients. One man came to him who was a physician. The physician was so depressed after he lost his wife that he wanted to die too. The author asked him, "What if you died first?" The physician stated he wouldn't want that because his wife would have been so sad. The author explained that he had actually done his wife a favor by living longer and preventing her from feeling the grief that he now feels. Somehow that clicked in the physician's head and his grief lessened. I enjoyed the book even though some parts were sad. Some parts were funny. Later in the book the author explained that one woman thought it was terrible that he wrote in the German language because that is the language of the Nazi's. So he asked her if she had any knives in her kitchen. When she said yes he asked her why she would keep knives in her kitchen knowing knives have been used to stab people and kill them. I thought that was a pretty funny response.

Paper Session

 Today we went to the Minnesota Ornithological Society Paper Session. The session was held at the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota in the Student Center and in the Northstar Ballroom. This large ballroom has a parquet wood floor, a stage, and attached to the ceiling in the middle of the room was a disco ball. I was surprised to see the disco ball. Coffee was available at 8 but the session really started at 9. The coffee was smooth and delicious. Various researchers gave us talks on bird related subjects. Each speaker talked for about 45 minutes. The Raptor Center gave a talk about the avian flu. Watching a great horned own and a red tail hawk having seizures in their final moments was heart breaking to watch. We listened to a talk about northern goshawks who prefer old growth aspen for nesting. These goshawks are larger birds and they can build their big stick nests in little aspen trees. Unfortunately the Minnesota DNR has decided that the state needs to preserve only 2 percent of the old growth aspen. That is so unfortunate. There was another talk about Connecticut warblers who prefer boggy areas for nesting. These warblers build their nests on top of the sphagnum moss which makes the nests difficult to find. The researcher who spoke put back pack transmitters on them to track how far they go. Another speaker talked about tracking American kestrels with Motus towers. When a kestrel with a backpack flies by the Motus tower receives a ping. The tower takes down the information about the kestrel and all the other birds wearing backpacks. There are 19 towers in Minnesota collecting information. A speaker from Hawk Ridge spoke of all the research articles and books that have been written from the data gathered during the last 50 years of research there. All in all it was a great day spent with other bird lovers and learning more about birds.

The Sweet Tooth

Ian McEwan is the author of Sweet Tooth. I like this author and I have read several of his books. I liked this one too. This story starts out in 1972. Cambridge graduate, Serena Frome, has just gotten her degree in maths. Her mother made her change her mind because she wanted to major in literature. Serena was talented in maths but she really didn't enjoy it. Because she is beautiful and smart, she is recruited by the M15 which is a spy agency. Serena isn't paid much and she isn't sure who to trust. She lives in a flat with 3 other women who are all studying to be lawyers. The M15 wants to change the culture of the country by hiring writers whose political beliefs are similar to the government. Serena is sent on a mission to recruit a young writer. She has read his work and she loves his writing and she tells him so. The writer gets recruited. His only stipulation is that she visit him from time to time because he doesn't want to deal with a faceless institution. After a time Serena not only loves his writing but she loves him too. The feeling is mutual. The situation is complicated because she isn't supposed to let anyone know that she works for the M15. I would never work for a spy agency. I liked to talk about my work. I enjoyed reading about current events because I forgot about the Cuban missel crisis and the bombings in North Ireland.

Today I Saw A Murder

Walking along the Lakewalk this afternoon I came upon a murder of crows. All along the side of this hill and up in the trees the crows were squawking loudly. I am not sure what the topic was but the debate was lively.

I tried counting the crows but they kept moving. There had to be 80 to 100 crows in the murder. I was truly amazed. A lady walking her dog said she walks here every day and has never seen this many crows in this spot.