Hello again, bloggerinos!

Well, I've fallen behind again, but as always, I'll give you a cursory review of the last week before I get to this one.

Work was frantic. Fellow MSR LaToya was out on vacation, enjoying the Virgin Islands (she later returned with a nice coffee mug for me), and everyone in Chapel Hill decided that was the week to visit their friendly neighborhood credit union, so it was fairly stressful. Add to that the fact that I inherited a new report to work, and also, being the wonderful, supportive colleague that I am, offered to help Denise type out minutes to an hour and a half long meeting, I didn't have much time or patience left over for blogging.

I did, however, have time to read books and watch movies, what with those two things being a staple of modern life. In the former category, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel by Mark Haddon. This is a unique book, in that I happened to like it despite detesting almost all of the characters. (Incidentally, I apparently have a copy with a somewhat 'cleaned up' cover; like that wikipedia article picture, my book has an upside-down dog, but omits the ominous pitchfork protruding from its stomach).

The story is told from the perspective of a 15 year old, autistic boy, who lives with his father in England. The plot centers on his 'investigations' into the violent death of a neighborhood dog (which, being a poodle, likely deserved whatever it got anyway).

It's very believably written from the kid's perspective, and overall, a very interesting story. I don't know very much about autism, and don't know how well it would hold up to scrutiny for others who know more (namely, Justin), but the way it explained things seemed plausible.

I had two major criticisms, though. For one, at sporadic points throughout the book, the protagonist goes off on these spiels against religion and the supernatural, which don't mesh at all with the rest of the story. To me, it seemed to be a problem the real author had, which he felt the need to shoehorn into a book where it really didn't fit. Obviously, I took issue with that- it seemed calculated to needlessly offend part of the audience for no reason whatsoever, and just caused me to dislike the main character, who is supposed to be sympathetic.

Secondly, there's a part in the book where he runs away and travels by train to London. His father reports his disappearance, and the police manage to find him, but he eludes them. I understand that, for plot reasons, he needs to get to his mother's house, but the way in which this is done does not just strain credulity, it breaks with reality all together. Here's a brief synopsis of that part:

In train station, cop is drawn to him, as he remains in same place for 3 hours. Cop helps him get on train. Cop then discovers he's the runaway he's been hearing about, boards train, which then takes off with him in it. (Apparently, cop doesn't bother to tell station to hold the train, which is odd considering he works there all the time and would know how to do this). During ride to next station, protagonist wets himself, prompting cop to tell him to use bathroom, with admonishment that he'll be keeping an eye on him. Cop apparently does not, as 15 year old autistic kid comes out, studies luggage rack, hides in it, all while the cop is unawares. Cop disappears. After several hours, kid comes out, randomly gets off at next stop, which happens to be correct one. Station manager recognizes him, goes to get cops, and tells him to stay put, never stopping to think he might not obey. Kid studies signs, threatens friendly station worker with knife, which also raises no red flags. Kid goes down to underground train platform, sits on bench for 5 hours; good thing all auxiliary characters in this book have the memory of a goldfish, and don't think to, you know, look around the station for him.

One last thing: I refuse to believe that strangers (even city dwellers) are as incredibly rude as the ones in this book. With near uniformity, they're as verbally abusive as Joe Pesci in Casino on a bad day. The rare gem who isn't, though, doesn't get off any better: The few strangers who are nice to poor Christopher Boone usually get threatened at knifepoint.

So, anyway, go read it, or not, whatever. No solid recommendation here.

So, last weekend, Erika decided to invite us over again. This time, following a delicious pizza dinner, the lady of the house kept the veto pen in her desk and allowed us a stirring game of Taboo! The buzzer was broken, so we made use of a set of Charlotte's plastic flowers, which give out a melodious ding when pounded on. Shelly, I'm happy to say, received a great many dings, but her and Erika still managed to carry the day.

In movie news, we watched Rise of the Silver Surfer and New World over the last few days. Both were horrible. We'd actually tried watching New World during vacation, but fell asleep both times. We really should have learned something from that, but instead allowed an addition 140 minutes to be stolen out of our lives by bad directing.

That takes us through last week, and into this one!

This week, with us back up to full staff, went much smoother at work, and there were no major problems to report. This weekend, we have been blessed to have my mother-in-law and fellow blogger Jennifer Glass come to see us, along with a brief visit from her parents during the 'drop-off' phase. Southwest really takes it out of you:

Currently out on the Parade of Homes, the three ladies left me in blissful solitude, enabling me to catch up on my blog. They've already been to a big outlet blowout sale today, rising at 6:30 am to be 500th in line; I can only sit back in awe of their energy level, but then, it is shopping we're talking about here.

I want to say one thing, though, in all seriousness. I might tease Shelly a lot on here, and make her look like the world's biggest nag or free-wheeling spender, but she really is the best wife any man could want. She's never once disappointed me, and she's always been there when I needed her, and I wanted to make sure the record was crystal clear on that. And no, she's not looking over my shoulder right now. I've just had occasion to realize all that, once again, this week.

Ok, everyone, see you again soon. And PS- the Parade of Homes link was a joke, just so you know. The real one's here.