L.V. Gaudet's Blog, page 37

Cuban Adventures – 5 days, 7 nights in Cuba Part Five: Highlights, Lowlights, and Stuff In Between.

There are two things we noticed immediately about the Cuban people that we came into contact with.

First was their unfailing friendliness.  It seemed that nearly everyone we dealt with was friendly, courteous, and helpful.

Perhaps that is in part because they were the lucky ones.  No matter how bad we thought their job was, at least they had jobs.  And maybe it was in part because of their culture, a culture dependent on us vacationers and our tips.  Despite having to take the often unreasonable and undeserved abuse of a bunch of overtired and cranky vacationers, they still managed to turn around with a polite smile to help the next cranky vacationer.

The second thing we noticed goes hand in hand with the first.  Everybody wants a tip.  While we're used to certain service positions coming with the assumption that tipping is their due (like waitresses, waiters, and hairdressers to name a few); that tip culture in Cuba seemed to involve everyone.

Imagine going on a local sight-seeing trip with multiple stops, a bus ride, boat ride, a meal, and a show – all inclusive – where every stage of the trip involves the people passing around the tip hat and cheerfully letting you know what is considered a proper tip.  And then as you get back on the bus to go home, your tour guide reminds you to tip the driver too.  By the time it's all done, you've likely doubled the cost of that already pricey sight-seeing trip.

The big difference was that, unlike our local waitresses, these people were still friendly on the occasions when you didn't tip.  And let's face it, when you spend a week at an all inclusive resort where everyone from the cleaning lady who makes your beds to the lifeguard at the beach are looking for tips every time they rush to do something for you – it's not easy to always be tip-ready on your first inclusive vacation.

Almost there, just a few more buildings to go.

We struck it pretty lucky with our room by all accounts.  Our room was huge for a single room, with not two but three double beds.  It was nice and clean and in decent shape.

We had a bit of a trek to get to the main hotel and the beach, but it was a nice walk and we had only ourselves and a bag of sunscreen to carry.  So, instead of a two minute walk, it may take us anywhere between ten and twenty minutes, all depending on how much the kids dawdle to look for the little lizards that come out in the afternoon.

Pool with "Snack Bar" in the background

The extra walk also meant we were in the nice quiet area where the kids were asleep within moments of going to bed, while their movie prattled on quietly to deaf ears.  All the loud partiers were in the main hotel building close to the beach.  But we still had a pool close by and a 24 hour "snack bar", which turned out to be loosely translated from a bar that serves bar food like hamburgers, pizza, and hot dogs.

Some of the people from our plane that we talked to weren't so lucky.  One guy on his own was put in a small basement room of the main building.  Some begging, pleading, and a tip got him moved to better accommodations.

A woman and her husband were put in a room she was completely unhappy about.  But then this woman seemed to be completely unhappy about a lot of things every time we saw her.  She said their room was full of mold that was painted over, peeling paint, and that she couldn't breathe.  All valid complaints, but despite her angry words, demands, and complaints, the hotel staff couldn't find them another room.  Oddly enough, it was about that same time that her husband got drunk and went AWOL.  My guess is that he'd had enough of her complaining.  This same woman had also been loud, obnoxious, and rude to the hotel staff on our first day, making sure everyone in the area knew she was tough enough to kick in the locked door keeping everyone's baggage safe while we were all waiting for rooms to be ready.

On our way to the "family" buildings

Another family that was in the cluster of family buildings where we were had a room like ours, but poolside.  We were envious until we found out they had no hot water (and that lasted for days).  Being on the ground floor, they also found they were sharing their room halfway through the week with the large cockroaches common to tropical areas.

We did get our turn to rough it without hot water, but luckily it was repaired that same afternoon.

Of course, you also get what you paid for and we were in one of the cheapest low end resorts.

Most of the vacation was spent at the beach and visiting the two swimming pools. 

Ah, there's the beach ...

Unfortunately, Sidney didn't have a whole lot of fun, but all that lounge-time gave her lots of time to just sleep and get lots of fresh air.  What better place to be sick than in a relaxing tropical paradise?  The poor girl started running a high fever the night we arrived and was sick the whole vacation.  Luckily we were prepared for it with all the medicines a sick kid might need.

I spent most of the week by Sidney's side, sitting pool or beachside watching the other two have fun.

Let's go Dad!

 

Steve and Robyn, of course, were having a blast.  Robyn discovered the coconut slushy (Pina Colada mix without the alcohol), and they both spent a lot of time playing in the water together.

Going in to ride the waves

 

Robyn couldn't get enough of riding the large rolling waves of sea water, and thus our Robynism for today:

 With the large rolling waves of the beach in Cuba, you wait and watch for the wave and turn away just as it hits, jumping so you ride the wave.  Otherwise you'll just end up with a face (and mouth) full of salty sea water and knocked off your feet.

Being all of about 3 ½ feet tall, Robyn couldn't reach the bottom and happily rode the waves up and down in her life jacket.  One day the waves were higher and even more fun for her.

With great delight she squealed, "This is AWSOME!!!  It's like riding a roller coaster from Evil Heaven!"

Of course, it's not hard to figure out that at six years old she's just coming up with the best way she can to describe that other place (Hell) – she just couldn't remember the name of it.

That SPF 60 lotion sure did its job.  With all those hours spent on the beach, we surprisingly weren't all that more tanned by the end of the week.

 

 

 

Sleeping the bug away

It wasn't all boredom sitting beachside with a sick kid, though.

  It was somewhat entertaining watching the people who were so determined to get deep enough to ride the waves, but just didn't have the timing right.  They would get just so far only to be tossed over on their heads (or arses) and out of the water by the waves.

I even managed to ride the waves myself once for a short time.  I held on to Steve for dear life, of course.  I'm not exactly a good swimmer.  It was the day of bigger waves, but no yellow warning flag and we'd made it out past the knock-you-on-your-butt zone with no problem.  We were a little further than most of the people in the water when three big waves came in, rolling in one right behind the other.  When we looked after the third wave, we were suddenly two of the very few people left in the water.  Anyone closer to shore had been dumped unceremoniously out of the water by the waves.

This was also when we had our third casualty of the week – my new bathing suit top and the first bikini I've bought since I was twenty (and I'm not even going to say how many years that's been!).  Apparently George bathing suits with plastic fasteners just aren't meant to actually be worn swimming.  Luckily for all the other beach goers, nobody saw a thing.  The saggy boobs of a middle-aged housewife with two kids and a few pounds to lose is not something anyone is going to want to see.

And who doesn't go on vacation without making at least one friend?  Not my kid!

It didn't take long before our usually outgoing six year old had bartenders giving her high-fives on sight, waitresses stopping her to give her a hug and a kiss on the head, and was amusing French foreigners sharing our lunch table in the packed cafeteria with her complaints the food wasn't spicy enough.

Robyn and Steve even managed to make themselves a couple of friends very quickly in a single mom there with her daughters, one of them just the right age for our girls to play with.  They played in the water at the beach and the pools, and even had lunch together when Sidney was feeling too sick to go for lunch and spent the afternoon sleeping in bed.  The girls played in the sand at the beach and sat together on the bus for the catamaran and dolphins tour.

Hanging out on the catamaran

We managed our one and only outing at almost the end of the week – a full day excursion on the catamaran.  This was a boat ride with a stop for snorkelling, lunch on the beach of a small island, and swimming with the dolphins.  With a sick kid all week and tips eating up most of our spending money, we were lucky to manage that trip.  Unfortunately for Robyn, their friends ended up on another catamaran boat and, except for waving at them in the water during the snorkelling stop, we didn't see them again until the bus trip back to the resort.  Sidney and Robyn were too nervous to try swimming with the fishes.

catamaran

 

Snorkelling

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swimming with the dolphins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And some other stuff too – While most of the food was just different enough to make it not always very palatable, we always managed to find something to eat.

Well, all of us except for Sidney who was by far the fussiest person on the entire Island of Cuba.  The rest of us ate well enough, especially when we ate at the "snack bar" and for our turn in the Italian restaurant.  Sidney pretty much lived the week on not much more than bananas and water.  We got her to eat pizza one day, one of her usual staples of life, and tried every meal to get her to eat something more than bananas.  Apparently even the bread was inedible – she didn't like the butter.  The coffee was very different than we have here.  And the pork chops they had at lunch one day were possibly the best pork chops I've ever had.  Or maybe it was because we'd grown accustomed to the food there.  Despite the lack of seasonings, we only broke out the salt, pepper, and garlic salt for our last two days of our vacation.

Another thing to get used to is the lack of toilet seats in Cuba.  Finding a toilet the kids would use that had both a toilet seat and toilet paper available was a challenge.  If you were lucky there was even soap too.  But don't count on anything but your pants to dry your hands on.

We must not forget what was probably the best part of the vacation for the kids – the day the clowns came!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And when at last our  vacation was over, it was time for one more lesson in vacationing overseas.

 

Our flight home wasn't as crazy early as the flight to Cuba.  We were up early, rushed to pack every last thing and give the room a once over, and rushed off to put some breakfast in everyone's tummy and double-check the time for the bus one last time.

We waited around a little, trying to find the bellhop to help with the luggage and, watching the clock closely, gave up and headed back to our room to haul it all for the long trek to the main building.

Now here's where the lesson comes in.  We got there, thinking we would still have time to wait for the bus, only to learn they've been waiting (and desperately looking) for us!  We were half an hour late for the bus!  I'm not sure if we would have been able to scrounge enough for the tax fare with tip to get us to the airport.  Yep, we could have missed the plane, the only plane, and would have had to catch the next one – in a week.

The time on my watch had been changed!

I'm pretty sure I know exactly what happened.

Paranoid about not hearing the little watch beep alarm, worried about not waking up on time, stressing over what if we don't make the bus – I couldn't sleep.  Most of the night was a groggy blur of fitful dozing and waking, checking to make sure it's not daylight (remember, it was full light out well before six a.m.), and fumbling around in the dark for the watch on the night stand and trying (usually more than once unsuccessfully) to find the right button for the light to check the time before dozing off for a few more minutes.

Next time I'm bringing a backup clock!

But we made it, and after a very long wait and many lines followed by a much longer wait at the airport – we were on our way home to icy post-blizzard roads.

 

Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings, Uncategorized Tagged: Cuba, Cuban vacation, holidays, kids, life as a working mom, vacation

Cuban Adventures – 5 days, 7 nights in Cuba Part Four: Cavorting Catamarans

What rocks more than being in a tropical place like Cuba with five days and five nights to frolic and have fun while it's -40 wind-chills and blizzards back home?

Riding a catamaran in rough seas.

Waiting for the bus to the catamaran

 

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 Lucky for us it wasn't rough seas on the day we took the catamaran tour.  It also started out as a pretty good day – we didn't have to medicate the seven year old for the fever she had from the first night of our vacation.  We made our one and only outing late in the vacation, with only one more day of fun in the sun to follow it.

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A nice peaceful day, riding the waves and heading out until the land we left behind disappeared into the waves.  Still not quite feeling herself, seven year old Sidney just kind of took it all in.  Meanwhile, Robyn took advantage of exploring a new bathroom – repeatedly.  I swear this kid has a thing for bathrooms.  It doesn't matter where you go, or how recently she went, she always has to go.

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We watched the catamarans ahead of us disappear into the distance, and watched the catamarans behind catch up, feeling almost a camaraderie with these fellow cataramaners, all of us travelling the sea towards the same goal.

Robyn was tickled at her new "friends", sea gulls that loyally followed the boat during our voyage.

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We had a stop at a reef for snorkeling, catamarans arriving and weighing anchor around the reef like pioneers circling the wagons for the night.

While the snorkelers geared up, our guide instructed them in the finer points of snorkeling.

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"Reef here," the guide said, gesturing to the shallow waters of the reef in the middle of the circled catamarans.

"You swim here.  Fishies here."  He indicated the reef.

"Sharks out there," the guide added, his arm sweeping to include all of the waters beyond the circled boats.  "Ok."

And off the snorkelers went to fill the little reef in the middle of what was apparently shark infested waters.

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I suspected the shark warning wasn't all joke when I noticed one of the guides on the next boat looking a little concerned while he tried to get the attention of one swimmer who went past the edge of the reef.

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After the swimming with the fishies, we were loaded up and whisked off to a tropical island for an outdoor barbeque lunch with the biggest chicken legs I've ever seen.  After lunch, of course, there was time for frolicking in the water, making giant anthills in the beach sand (which was very different and much more pliable than the sand at the resort beach), and the kids collecting enough seashells to fill an ocean liner.

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Loading back into the boat, we all had a chance to ooh and aah over the shadow of a large stingray gliding around beneath the surface of the water by the dock – only feet from where some of the kids had been playing in the water.

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We were on our way to the main event of the day – the dolphins!

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Is that tourist getting mugged or hugged?

 

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And then it was long ride back …

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Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings Tagged: Cuba, Cuban vacation, holidays, kids, vacation

Book Review – Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

When I picked up Cormac McCarthy’s The Road I didn’t really look at the “#1 National Bestseller” on the cover.  Heck, it seems like all the books on the shelf at Wal-Mart say that, or some similar claim.  And I didn’t even notice the “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize” blurb beneath the author’s name. I [...]

Book Review – Cormac McCarthy's The Road

When I picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road I didn't really look at the "#1 National Bestseller" on the cover.  Heck, it seems like all the books on the shelf at Wal-Mart say that, or some similar claim.  And I didn't even notice the "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize" blurb beneath the author's name.

I had no idea who Cormac McCarthy was.  I'd never even heard of McCarthy.  These last years as a stay-at-home mom, I was pretty much shut off from anything happening in that big world outside that wasn't preschool or princesses.

It was the book cover that caught my eye.

This book cover.

The dirt smeared look that cries out desperation, the man appearing to be clutching a child who appears to be clutching back.

I picked up the book, looked at the cover, read the blurb on the back, and put it back on the shelf.

Yep, that was the end of The Road for me.

Ok, so it wasn't.  The cover interested me, but I was feeling a bit wish- washy on what kind of book I thought I'd feel like reading.  Actually, it was more of a monsoon of wishy-washiness.

I looked over the shelves, which seemed to be mostly copies of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books and a large assortment of other romance novels with little else to chose from.  I even briefly wondered if Wal-Mart had stopped carrying much other than the romance genre.  This was probably a good thing, since it made my choice easier.  I'm not very fond of the romance genre.

I picked up another book, flipped through the pages, read the back cover, and put it back.

I picked up The Road again, looked at the cover, read the back again, flipped a few pages, and yes put it back again.  I just couldn't decide what kind of story I wanted to read.

I bought The Road mainly because of the book cover, as sad as that is.  And the cover really is sad too.

The Road is a story without words.  This book is seriously lacking in words in a big way, but it isn't in a bad way.  McCarthy did what I had always thought was unheard of before reading this book.  I wondered, while I read the book, how this author managed to find a publisher who would even touch a book without all those missing words.  McCarthy left out all the he said/she said, and how they said it.  I'm pretty sure that wasn't the wind moaning outside my window when I read the book.  That was all the grade school teachers rolling over in their graves over this blatant disregard for proper sentence structure, grammar, and whatever other rules of proper writing have been completely ignored.

This book is also lacking a great deal in dialogue.  Things are happening, the characters are going about their business doing things, and there isn't a whole lot of talking going on.

Sometimes talking isn't necessary and what these characters were going through seemed to be one of those times.

Without all the he said/she said and descriptions, you would be completely lost and confused about who said what and how you should feel about it.  I read that in a comment online somewhere (I can't remember offhand where).  I probably should have read that before I read the book, because I didn't even notice all that stuff was missing until I was well into the book.

I burned through this book quickly.  It was one of few books that actually managed to suck me in and grip me throughout the whole book after reading so many books over the years.  It was an easy read and an interesting read, and without the extra he said/she said words the story had a feeling of added urgency even without the fast action urgency usually calls for.  It wasn't that kind of urgency; it was one of desperation over a long period of time.

The Man is, of course, a man.  And that's all we need to know about him.  He doesn't have a name.  He doesn't need a name.  At first I wasn't even sure what kind of relationship the man has to the boy.  The Man's main goal is to keep him and the boy alive.  Somehow, he thinks travelling across the country to the coast will accomplish this goal.  Sounds like vain hope to me.  But in a world that has been destroyed, where people have turned into cannibalistic savages for survival and food is almost nonexistent, even the smallest breath of hope is still hope.  Without hope there is no reason to try.

The Boy, another nameless character, is a frightened young boy who is completely dependent on the man for survival.  Without the man, he'd have already been dead.  But for a boy living such a terrifying life with no future and little hope, he's a brave and surprisingly calm little boy.

The pair faces the threat of starvation and of running into other people every day.  Desperate times don't always call for desperate measures, but they do bring out the worst in mankind.  Knowing what kind of monsters are out there, the man had a backup plan for the boy's protection if anything happened to him.  To make matters worse, The Man is sick.  Very sick.  What will happen to the boy if The Man doesn't get better?  I know, but I'm not telling.  You'll have to read the book or find a spoiler.

There is a lot to be said for names and how they make you feel about a person.  By adding the formal Mr. or Mrs., you automatically have a feeling of authority.  That's probably from years of grade school and all adults being Mr. or Mrs. and having some level of authority over us when we were kids.  Calling a person by their surname suggests holding that person at a distance.  You don't know them well enough to be on a first name basis.  First names suggest a closer relationship, and nicknames are the territory where friendships lay.

By making his characters nameless, McCarthy essentially makes them faceless.  Who they are isn't important to the story.  These are faceless, nameless strangers.  At the same time, this man could be your next door neighbour, the soccer coach, that guy who rides the same bus you do every day, or it could be your brother.  It could be you (if you're a guy of course).  Even if you're a girl, you get the sense that you can easily imaging it being you.  This boy could be the boy scout who knocked on your door last week fundraising, it could be that kid who can't play but tries really hard on your son's hockey team, or it could be the quiet boy from up the block.  It could be your own son.

I hated this book.  It made me cry.  I also enjoyed the book and even felt inspired after I finished reading it.

In fact, I felt so inspired that I felt the urge to write and I sat down immediately and wrote Change.  Of course, my story doesn't fall into the same category of writing as The Road does, but if a book inspires a person then the author did more than something right.

It also inspired me to try writing Falling in a style similar to what McCarthy used in The Road.  McCarthy must have been on to something, because Falling was published in the murder/mystery anthology Mystery in the Wind by Second Wind Publishing, LLC.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: Book Review, Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Cuban Adventures – 5 days, 7 nights in Cuba Part Three: The Vacation Begins

It's Thursday evening, we've all been up since two A.M., spent an endless day of waiting, travelling, and more waiting, and amazingly not one of us has slept other than Robyn's brief passing out on the bus going to the resort.

I popped some ibuprofen and we had our luggage locked in the baggage room while we put the kids into swimsuits because we were all overheating in our travelling clothes, grabbed their lifejackets, and took a walk to the beach while still waiting for our room. It was a pretty windy day, so the waves were too big for swimming.

 Robyn was quick to take full advantage of the powdery white sand.

Steve received a caution to watch her closely from the lifeguard when Robyn went to play at the edge of the sea where the water was washing up to cover her legs as she sat before washing out again, much to Robyn's great delight.

Although they would bring her back, the waves were strong enough to suck her right off the beach and toss her about.  That's when he pointed out the yellow warning flag we didn't see at first.

We didn't get any pictures of the waves that day.  I was too headachy to bother with the camera.

We finally got into our room, I popped some acetaminophen to go with the ibuprofen that had barely dented the migraine, and we found some food at what we later learned was the 24 hour snack bar.  We found out later that "snack bar" turned out to be their translation for a bar that serves bar food.  It was also where we found that life saving necessity – pizza.

Sidney got a lot of looks and comments that afternoon and seemed to be enjoying the attention.  After all, how many beautiful little girls walk around the sunny resorts of Cuba wearing a bathing suit and winter boots?  Next time maybe I'll remember to make sure she brings home her runners for vacation.

Back to the room, setting up the kids with the portable mini car DVD player, and we discovered that by this time Sidney was burning up with a high fever.  Good thing I emptied the kids medicine cupboard into the suitcase.  We had everything we might need, except the thermometer to see just how high the fever was.

We all slept hard that night, waking up much too early the next morning to the bright rays of sunshine lighting up the whole room – before six A.M.

Ok, you're cute. But I don't think we want to eat you.

 

Showered and somewhat rested, an hour and a half trying to get ibuprofen into Sidney, and we were all feeling better and off exploring the resort and searching for food.

It's Friday, the vacation is young, and we have five days of sitting at the beach, sitting by the pool, sitting at the beach, sitting by the pool, and enjoying the all inclusive food and drinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now this is what vacations are all about.

Getting drinks at the poolside bar.

Teasing Daddy.

Ok, so Robyn finally got NEAR a chair. But only because the pool water is too cold for polar bears and she's trying to freeze Daddy.

Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings Tagged: Cuba, Cuban vacation, holidays, vacation

Book Review – Stephenie Meyer Twilight Saga

For my second book review attempt I chose another series by a well heard of and much loved and hated writer.  I have not seen as many negative reviews about this series, but it does seem to be one that people certainly love to hate.

With so many rabidly negative comments popping up randomly online and out of peoples' mouths about both the writer and the series since the first book came out, a series that had once again made a big splash and created a glut of envy over all the attention the author was getting, my interest was piqued.  Despite not finding anyone who actually LIKED the books, they were selling like hotcakes.  But then again, maybe I just don't know enough of the right people.

Naturally, I had to find out what all the fuss was about, so I went out and bought the first book.

When I read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight it went down surprisingly fast, like a plate of spaghetti when you didn't even think you were hungry.

It's not that the book was particularly gripping or fast paced.  It's not.  I burned through the pages with amazing speed because it was such an easy read.  But it was easy in a natural way, not stilted like many other overly simply written books.  Before I knew it, I had finished the book and was looking for something else to read.

I suspect this is why so many people don't like the book.

The plot is fairly simple, without many intricate plot twists.  The characters are transparent, their motives and feelings all too easily slipping through while they run about brashly acting without proper thought.  Sometimes the characters behave with some responsibility and maturity; often they behave with reckless immaturity.  But of course they do, the characters are all teenagers, and even many adults act the same way at times.

With the straight-forward plot and sometimes bratty characters all rolled into pages of simple writing, this book is not going to be a great read for people like me who have been reading novels for decades.  And it's all people like me who I've come across complaining about the series.

But, do you know what?  The Twilight books were not written for middle-aged wives.  I would have to compare the complaints I've heard about these books to my seven year old complaining that Alyssa Satin Capucilli's Biscuit books are too boring.  Well, of course they're boring – they're not written for seven year olds who have started reading their first chapter books.  Biscuit is for kids like her younger sister who are just learning to read; her sister who, by the way, absolutely loves the Biscuit books.  The Twilight series is written about teenagers for teenagers.

I went on to buy and read the other books of the Twilight series out of curiosity, and because I had to find out who gets the girl.

The main characters in the series are all teenagers, behaving in the usual rash teenager fashion.

Bella Swan is a teenager who is dissatisfied with the changes in her life brought on by her mother's focus changing to revolve more around her new husband than her daughter.  Like any other moody teenager, the first response is to sulk off into the corner – she goes to live with her father, who is a stranger to both her and to parenting.

With an independent teenage daughter so close to adulthood who he doesn't know, and knowing nothing about how to be her dad, Charlie Swan seems content to give Bella her freedom.  He passively lets her exert her need to nurture someone on him, while Bella convinces herself Charlie could not possibly survive without her feeding and taking care of him despite the fact he had done so just fine for many decades already.  Charlie steps in to exert his parental control only when necessary, after things seem to be getting too rough for Bella's mental well-being.

This series has the typical elements of a romance.  Our heroine Bella is a young and naive girl who finds herself torn between two loves and tormented by her desire for the typical bad boy.  In this case both of her suitors seem to be the bad boy.  The main difference is that while one relentlessly pursues the girl, making his desires clear every chance he has and exhibiting a protectiveness that combines her well-being with his own selfish need for her; the other suitor is the typical romance novel jerk.  He is outright rude to Bella at times, constantly pushing her away and telling her why they can't be together, and yet he always seems to be right there to make her feel miserable.  He just can't seem to leave her alone.

Being a romance novel heroine, Bella has no choice.  She falls hard for the more bad of the two bad boys.  The worse he treats her, the more he pushes her away and turns her into an emotional wreck with his self-centered behavior and selfish emotional games, the more Bella is pulled by the need to be with him.  The other suitor doesn't seem to know how the romance novel game is played.    His every expression of love, promise to always look after her, and show of abject devotion, seem to only push her further into the arms of his rival who is more than willing to take her despite his behavior that implies the opposite.

Bella's main goal is to be with Edward Cullen, a vampire of dubious character quality who I suspect is just as emotionally and developmentally trapped forever at the same tender age of seventeen as his body is, and has been for more than a hundred years.  Of course, it makes perfect sense that if the body is frozen at seventeen years old and unable to age, the same would apply to the physical development and maturity of the brain and teenaged hormones, physical changes that come with aging.  No wonder he's so moody and self-centered!  He's been playing the same teenaged game for longer than most people spend an entire lifetime of birth, growing, maturing and withering into old age.

Edward's rival, Jacob Black, is hopelessly in love with Bella.  In fact, he is so much in love with her that he is willing to stand aside and let her be with his rival if she thinks that is what will make her happy.  Of course this causes him great torment, watching Bella suffer emotionally at the hands of Edward's selfish moodiness, especially when everyone except Bella and Edward's family seems to see what a louse Edward is.

Of course, during this I (the reader) am smacking my head and swearing at the little ninny for being so naive and mindlessly chasing after the abusive treatment of the more bad boy when she could have the other guy, the other one she also loves and who genuinely cares for her and isn't purposely making her unhappy and an emotionally scarred mess.

This is one of the points I dislike the most about all romance novels.  While it is necessary to build tension and throw obstacles in the way of love, does it always have to be in the form of the more mature man who is acting like an immature buffoon, abusive, mean and nasty to the naive young woman, making her fall hopelessly and desperately in love with him through his abuse and cruelty?  Must the girl always defer to his rather dubious maturity, while she herself behaves with a much greater level of it, all while he treats her worse than a pile of cow dung he might have accidentally stepped in?  Must romance novel heroines always be drawn with an uncontrollable lust and yearning for love only towards men who make them miserable and treat them badly?

In this case, our heroine does have a choice.  She is drawn to both men (more boys than men really).  She even seems to sometimes be more drawn to the Jacob, giving us hope that she may wise up and choose happiness instead of confused hormones.  The love triangle twists and teases, with Edward and Jacob forced to make an unlikely allegiance for the sake of Bella despite their mutual rivalry and dislike of each other.

This is one of very few series I have read that were what I would consider an actual series.  Most series have a feel as though the subsequent books are an afterthought, like a hit movie where the writer, director, actors, and everyone else put everything into making that one movie, and then years later are told to do a sequel.  The sequel is seldom more than a lesser quality remake of the first movie.  The Twilight saga is a true series, each book following easily on the heels of the one before to continue the drama of Bella's life.  Meyer's did a great job of keeping the story feeling the same from one book to the next, carrying the momentum of the drama across covers, so that it felt more like reading one long book instead of individual books months apart.

While I would suggest that anyone older than thirty, and anyone younger with more mature literary tastes, might want to find a more mature read, I think Stephenie Meyer hit it dead on for her target audience.  It is an easy enough read with a simple plot that has enough twists to keep a young mind questioning and interested in the story.

I won't reveal who gets the girl, for those who haven't read the whole saga yet, but I'm sure it's pretty clear from my review that I was rooting for Jacob Black right from the start.

Face it girls, there is no happily ever after with the Edward Cullen's of the real world.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: Book Review, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Twilight Saga

Cuban Adventures – 5 days, 7 nights in Cuba Part Two: Arrival in Cuba.

I was a little nervous when we arrived in Cuba.  This was my first time leaving Canada, other than a few trips driving over the border to the United States, and my first plane ride since I was bordering on just beginning my teen years, many years before all the fear and high security for airlines.  The news and the world online are filled with horror stories of all the worst things that can possibly happen to the unsuspecting traveller.  Of course, most of them seem to revolve around U.S. airlines and border security and we were travelling from Canada on a Canadian airline, but those details did nothing for the nerves.

We went through the necessary check points, scanners, and metal detectors surprisingly quickly.  And the Cuban border security was even friendlier than the Canadian security at the airport at home.  Ok, so none of them were actually friendly per say, but they did go about their duties in a matter-of-fact and non-intimidating way.

We had arrived in Cuba, leaving -40 wind chills behind to set out into +28 temperatures.  We had found summer!

A bit of a wait on an air-conditioned tour bus for all the passengers to get their luggage and load up, with the already drunk revellers at the back of the bus, and we were on our way rolling through the roads of Cuba to our resort.

There wasn't a whole lot to see on the drive.  The main animal seemed to be goats.  There was sea on one side and bare land filled with low bush and trees on the other for the most part.  But it is a beautiful island, full of a lot of untouched ruggedness and tropical trees and we first-timers marvelled at the wonders of seeing a new country in a new part of the world for the very first time.

Many of the cars in Cuba are vintage to us, while others looked like little electric cars of the future.  The one thing many of the cars had in common was the finish burning off from the top down from the salt water. We're used to cars that rot out from the bottom up from all the salt and junk we dump on our streets all winter so we aren't slipping and sliding into each other all over the roads.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the little bubble scooter, sort of a motorcycle powered rickshaw that serves as a form of mini taxicab in Cuba.

There was another form of Cuban travel that we saw often, parked randomly around the resorts and just off of the roadsides.  This one seemed to range from scruffy little horses to camels.

When we saw houses, it was quite an experience to see for the first time.  Some of the houses further in and closer to the resorts were beautiful, with their own Cuban charm.  But mostly the houses we passed on the drive were depressing.

It was unusual for us to see lines of laundry flapping from every balcony of their little mini-apartment like housing, and in front of every single dwelling.  It seemed like an island-wide wash day and no one has a dryer.  None of the houses seemed to have glass or screens in their windows.  Not all even had doors.  But that wasn't what was depressing.

Many of these people live in housing conditions that would mortify Canadians to learn that animals lived in these buildings.  We didn't see any from the inside, but from the outside it was clear these houses were in a state of crumbling ruin.  Many even had large holes in their roofs or entire roof sections missing.

Some people even lived in unfinished buildings, living on the bottom level while the upper floor stood as an empty and roofless stark grey concrete reminder of the need many of the Cuban people seem to be living in.  These were actually some of the nicer homes that could be seen in the outlying areas further from where all the resorts could be found.   They, at least, looked relatively new compared to most of the housing we saw, and in pretty good condition.

Steve sat on one side of the bus with Sidney, trying to keep her entertained on the drive, while I sat opposite them with Robyn.  Robyn had spent most of the trip with her face glued to the window, jammed for a while between the window and the seat in front of us while she held a conversation with the passenger in front of her, and finally falling into silence as she watched the Cuban world go by.  I have no idea how long she watched, but after a while I realized that she was sound asleep.  I eased her out of there and leaned her back, where she snuggled into me for the rest of the drive without a hint of waking up.

And because every adventure needs a little excitement, our bus driver didn't let us down.  We were cruising along between resorts, casually staring out windows, chatting, everyone eagerly waiting to see what their resort would like like compared to the rest, when we were suddenly thrown forward in our seats when the bus driver braked like someone's life depended on it.  And it did.

I clutched at Robyn, catching her before she flew forward off the seat, looking around in alarm along with every other passenger on the bus to the sounds of gasped wonderings of what was happening.

Outside my side of the bus the driver of a little moped scooter like this one barely managed to avoid wiping out completely as the scooter careened wildly out of the path of the bus that had just almost creamed them.  Skidding to a stop more on one of the driver's legs than the scooter's wheels, the passenger fell off the bike onto her knees, visibly shaken even at our distance and literally kissing the ground.

That couple definitely will be going home with a story to tell.  No one on the bus except the driver seemed to have seen who got in who's way, and we weren't sure he could even speak English, but thankfully it didn't look like anyone was hurt.  We went on our merry way with excited chatter, a bus full of relief, and Robyn blissfully slept through the whole thing.

With some stops along the way to drop people off at other resorts, we had finally arrived at our destination.  The kids were bored, Steve was anxious to hit the pool, and by this time I had already had a raging migraine for hours and was feeling downright nauseous.  We had all been up since 2 A.M. and still had hours to wait for our room.  Fortunately for us, they had very comfortable chairs in the large lobby and Robyn had discovered the coconut slushy.

Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings Tagged: bus, Cuba, Cuban vacation, holidays, kids, life as a working mom, travel, vacation

Book Review – Dan Brown's Robert Langdon Series

I am making my first attempt at blogging a book review.  As a newbie at this I picked a couple of popular series to test the waters with.  This will give anyone reading my first reviews something they can compare to and let them judge just how good or bad a reviewer I am. For my very first review I have chosen a book series by a well known author that everyone has heard of, even if they haven't actually read his books.  Yes, the series has been reviewed to death already.

As with all well known and high selling authors, there is a lot of controversy in the readers' trenches over how good (or dreadful) the author and the books are.  Every perceived discrepancy in research and how those details have been used in the books has been nitpicked at some point, and seriously nitpicked to the bare ivory bone.

But I'm not blogging to nitpick little details, to bash a writer or book for not meeting some high on the pedestal expectations, nor to argue whether the author saw the truth of every tidbit of detail and research that went into the books.  I make no claims to be a professional reviewer, nor am I an expert in writing matters.  I bought the books, read the books, and this is just my personal view based on my own tastes as a reader and lover of books.

Like all good things, taste is "in the eye of the beholder", to coin a phrase.

When I read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the first book I read in the Robert Langdon series, I enjoyed it.  I bought the book because of all the hype.   Heck, if even guys like my husband and his co-workers, guys that don't normally pick up a book to read – ever, are talking about it, then there must be something worth looking at.

The book didn't draw me into the life of the characters as much as I would like, and it wasn't gripping, but I liked the book and very few books draw me in with that firm grip that doesn't let go.  It wasn't the writing itself that drew me on to finish reading the book; it was the plot that interested me.  I've read books that were much better written, and ones that made me cringe at every other sentence.  I'd put this one at about a mid-point on the scale.  It's not high up there for an avid reader, but an easy enough read for someone who rarely reads.

As readers we've become so accustomed to every story having to have a tangled web of relationship conflicts (and usually the guy gets the girl and vice-versa) all happening in the background of the main story, that I kept looking and waiting … and waiting – for that relationship tension to begin.  It was almost a letdown when it never did materialize.  Robert Langdon was a character with one single relationship, and that is with the need to solve that puzzle to the exclusion of the trivialities of human relations.  It left me feeling as though his co-character, Sophie Neveu Saint-Clair, and the others that follow Langdon through his adventure, both his allies and adversaries, are just along for the ride.  The usual sexual and relationship tensions were non-existent and the other challenges between conflicting personalities felt driven exclusively by the need for Langdon to find his holy grail and others to stop him.  There were no underlying personal tensions between the characters of the book.  Langdon was a character untouched by human interactions.

Much of the story is based on revealing and using old religious beliefs and history to weave a winding maze that Langdon must follow in a race to reach the end before his adversaries catch up to him.  And, much to the dismay of many religious readers I'm sure, the story didn't fall within the teachings of their religions.  There are also many arguments out there that many of the "facts" within The Da Vinci Code and the other books of the Robert Langdon series are either wrong, based on incomplete research, or outright twisted from their original (religious) intents.

Perhaps Dan Brown's biggest mistake was to make any claims of facts and truths.  Simply put, the biggest cry I have read is to cry foul long and loud against any author or book that makes a big splash.  The bigger the splash, the louder the cries.  Any discrepancy and flaw will be pounced upon with the delight of a starving cat.  Is Dan Brown a legendary historian or an expert in ancient religion?  No.  Dan Brown is a writer.  And as a writer, he must research and interpret his research to the best of his ability.  There will be mistakes and discrepancies that someone somewhere will notice, just as there will be typographical errors in the book the proofreaders missed.  Heck, I've seen more ludicrous and blatant mistakes on prime time television series.  What happened to those writers research?  But, by laying claim to facts and truths, he opened himself with arms wide to be shot down for every single mistake.

But I didn't see all that.  I saw a character, Robert Langdon, who studies history including religious history for its wealth of symbols.  He is a symbologist, and not a religious man.  His studies of religious history are all about decoding the symbols he sees behind everything, not for their mystical religious meanings.  In fact, Langdon doesn't believe God exists as anything more than a construct of man.  For these very reasons the book's deviance from religious teachings made more sense than if Langdon ran around spouting the word of god and teaching his fellow characters a religious history lesson.   It's all about the world as a fictional character, Robert Langdon, sees it and that world is full of hidden symbols and meanings that warp the very religious nature of what history tells us.  Langdon also questions the validity of what historians believe is truth and what is claimed to be false truths, suggesting that perhaps not all is exactly as we are told it is.

While I don't know enough about history or religion to say what facts may have been wrong, which misinterpreted, and how many were warped to fit the world as Robert Langdon sees it, it certainly wasn't worse than many other books I've read that laid claim to the fame of being best sellers.  While the Robert Langdon series certainly does not fall within the best books I've read, it also does not sink as low as the worst books I've read.

After reading The Da Vinci code, I went on to later read Angels & Demons and then The Lost Symbol.  Throughout these books I noticed that Dan Brown did a remarkable job of keeping to the same fast pace and story throughout all the books.  In fact, he did such a remarkable job that I had a strong sense of déjà-vu on reading the next book and I sometimes had to remind myself that I wasn't re-reading The Da Vinci Code.

In Angels & Demons Robert Langdon was the same sexless character, racing to solve the puzzle while staying a step ahead of his rivals and still showing no interest in the trivialities of human relationships.  His drive lay exclusively with solving that puzzle while the other characters just kind of tagged along for the ride.

When I read The Lost Symbol, what stood out most was that this was the first book that even suggested Langdon had an interest in people, let alone matters of intimacy.  And yet the tensions of relationships and affairs of the heart were just as non-existent as in the other books.  Langdon also seemed to just be going through the motions of following his own scripted life.

Langdon seemed to be a reluctant participant, following the twisted maze to solve the puzzle but not feeling driven by his usual need to solve the puzzle.  He was pulled unwillingly forward from one scene to the next with a sense he was just going through the motions.

Dan Brown's remarkable ability to keep the story true to itself through all three books left me feeling an even stronger sense of déjà-vu by the time I was reading what was for me the third book in the series.  On this book I found myself constantly having to remind myself that I wasn't just re-reading one of the other two books.  Usually when you read a book from a series, you can tell there are books before that one.  Sometimes it's a bad thing because it serves as an unpleasant teaser of prior adventures you can't read if you can't find the earlier book(s), or a sense of an unfinished project if you can't find the later books.  In this case, I really could not tell at all.  Each book read as a standalone novel.  That in itself was fine, but each subsequent one I read seemed as though I was re-reading the book before, rewritten with changes to the cast and places.  While I marveled at Dan Brown's ability to keep the world of Robert Langdon wonderfully the same from one book to the next, that very sameness was a little too much the same.  Each book lost me a little more and left me less intrigued in the plot and more intrigued in what book I'll read next.

By the first chapter of the third book I read, I was downright bored.

But despite Dan Brown's failings with this series, he certainly did something right.  He got the average Joe non-reader to talk about and get interested in reading the books.

I also like Dan Brown's website.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: Angels & Demons, Book Review, Dan Brown, Robert Langdon, The Da Vinci Code, The Lost Symbol

About Book Reviews

I always wondered about book reviews.

I completely disregard the comments strewn about the cover and inside pages of books.  You know the sort, things like "spellbinding" and ""dazzling", or "Edge-of-your-seat-excitement…" (This particular one was by San Francisco Chronicle inside a book jacket).  Every book seems to have them, including the really bad ones.  The more generic the comment, the less likely it seems that the commenter even read the book.  To me these are just a standard marketing gimmick.  You don't even have to read the book to throw out these catchy phrases and they tell you absolutely nothing about the book or its author.

But book reviews are different.  They usually have to actually tell you something about the book, so presumably the reviewer actually read it.  But you also have to consider the source of the review.  Are they gaining from giving a positive review?  Do they seem personally insulted by something about the book?  Is the review actively part of the marketing strategy of the book, or is it an outside reviewer, reviewing it for their own reasons?  Is it a "professional" reviewer, or ordinary Joe blow or Jane Brown?

And, most importantly, is the simple fact that taste is relative.  One person's "deplorable string of literary garbage" will be someone else's "most exciting read of the genre I've had in a long time".

The ideal book review for me:

Don't make me read the whole review just to find out if I want to read the review.  I won't bother, unless I'm bored and have nothing else to do (and I usually do have something else I'd rather do).

Nothing is completely good or completely bad.  Even a bad book has some good characteristics that make somebody want to read it; after all it did get published by someone who presumably read it before investing their company's money into it.  And even our favorite authors are not without some flaws.  Reviews should include both the good and bad points from the reviewer's opinion.  A review that is only positive reads like a paid advertisement and one that is only negative reads like a personal grudge.

Okay, now entertain me.  Give me your review, tell me about the book, expound its virtues, extol its horridness, and give me both the good and bad about it.

Filed under: Book Reviews Tagged: Book Review

Cuban Adventures – 5 days, 7 nights in Cuba Part One: Heading for Cuba.

The clock did not yet read two A.M., the alarm had not yet rang, but still it was time to get up.  You might as well when you have been lying more awake than asleep in fitful bouts of dozing all night long and the alarm will sound in less than ten minutes.

The house was still a shambles, having exhaustedly run out of time trying to clean it the night before and gone off to bed.

The state of the house is only one of the casualties of trying to be Supermom and returning to full time work after six years exclusively as a stay at home mom.

Seriously sleep deprived, we were up, showered, and stumbling about to frantically get the last things packed, the car loaded, kids up and dressed, and out the door by three-thirty A.M.  We really should have been hitting the road before two-thirty to get to the airport when they recommend – three hours before our six A.M. overseas flight.

And then came the hours of waiting.  Waiting in line while the four of us felt we certainly couldn't possibly stand another minute.  Then more waiting, waiting in chairs and again in another line.  At last we made it to the security line.  We scrambled to put everything in those little plastic trays, jackets etc off, and sliding things though the x-ray machine one at a time.  Finally we were ready to go through the metal detector.  Steve went first and was immediately swarmed by three stern looking airport security guards waving menacing looking wands over him.  It was kind of funny, all the fuss over a little blue jeans button.  But the kids were a bit scared watching these stern guards waving their metal detecting weapons all around their daddy.  It was their first experience going on and airplane, and my first since very many years before all the need for high security on airlines and at the airports.  We scrambled to collect our things and make room for the people behind us, rushing off … to spend what felt like many more hours waiting to actually board the plane.  Naturally, the plane was delayed by an hour and a half.

After a great deal of waiting the kids learned that wonderful magical plane ride they had been so eagerly waiting for weeks for wasn't so wonderful and magical after all.  At roughly five minutes and thirty-six seconds into the flight they were completely bored with a four hour flight to go.

The plane ride was pretty much as expected.  The kids couldn't really see the little television that folded down from the ceiling some rows of seats ahead, the picture and sound were choppy and cutting out through much of the movie, and the seats were cramped.  The kids had no interest in the movie anyway.  It was more of an adult movie.  Seven year old Sidney's distaste for the choices for the limited airline menu was just a taste of what was to come.

Despite the utter exhaustion of only half a night's sleep at best, none of us slept on the plane ride.

Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings Tagged: airline, Blog, Children, Cuba, Cuban vacation, holidays, kids, life as a working mom, plane ride, Random Ramblings, vacation, working, working parent