I went to a wine tasting last night at All On The Same Page Bookstore.  I only had one glass and it was of a Chardonnay that a writer friend had brought.  It was quite good and was the first glass of Chardonnay I’d drank in years.  I tend to be more of a “sweet” wine person.

It reminded me though how much I actually do like Chardonnay, so I may be searching the grocery store for a good bottle of it sometime soon.

Years ago J and I threw a wine and cheese party for friends.  It was a huge success.  We’ve been in our house for six years now and have yet to throw one here.  I don’t know why.  Maybe this will be the year.

This picture was actually taken Spring of 2010 just after we had the gables and windows painted, but I like the flowers in this photo and thought about them when I walked outside today on the way to work and peeked at the drab flowerbeds that are brown and dead right now, with everything asleep in the ground for winter.

Made me sad and anxious for Spring.

You’ll probably be seeing a lot of photos of the house and the flowers in a few months.

Spring is my favorite time of year!

Tom Hanks.

Sandra Bullock.

Cute lil boy that reminds us of Haley Joel Osment.

9/11.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that its based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer, who also wrote Everything is Illuminated, which was a good movie but did not have Sandra Bullock or Tom Hanks in it.  But it did have Elijah Wood if that counts for anything.

Anyway, I started reading ELIC this past Saturday and I am about 60% through it. Half of it is the first person narrative of a young boy named Oskar Schell who lost his father in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  Oskar comes across a key in his father’s belongings which he believes is a clue that is father left for him to something quite extraordinary, so the book becomes Oskar’s adventure in finding out what the key goes to.

The book is written in a bit of stream of consciousness type format, in that almost all of the dialogue between Oskar and anyone else is crammed into one large paragraph, sentence after sentence, making it a bit hard to follow and determine who is saying what if you aren’t paying attention.

Chapters are frequently broken up by random photos which you learn Oskar is taking along the way: a door knob, the back of someone’s head, the front of a house… and then there are random photos that Oskar hasn’t taken but which point your attention to something trivial in the text: a roller coaster, a skeleton’s hand, an elephant’s eye up close.  There’s also a “falling man” picture that repeats itself throughout the book, reminding us that this is a 9/11 story.  By the way, the date has not been mentioned so far in the 60% of the book I’ve read.  You know they are in New York.  Oskar mentions his father was killed in a terrorist attack and mentions visiting Ground Zero, but other than that, the date itself has not been mentioned. I don’t know if that’s important, but I’m sure it was left out intentionally.

Speaking of things being left out, about every other chapter is told from the point of view of Oskar’s grandmother or grandfather. Their chapters are also told in an extreme stream of consciousness narrative…long run on sentences, short choppy sentences, no quotations around dialogue, long paragraphs, no paragraphs… it’s erratic and unorganized and very hard to follow at times.  Much of it appears to be drafts of journal entries that the grandmother has written to her son, Oskar’s father, about how his parents met, etc. The grandfather was a mute sculptor.  At least I think he’s mute, but I don’t really know if he was always mute.  He writes in a notebook a lot when conversing with his wife.  He also leaves her, but comes back later, maybe, I’m not sure…I still have 40% more to read, hopefully I’ll find out.

And hopefully, you get my point. This book is extremely hard to follow.  BUT….buried in it is something that makes me want to finish it instead of throwing it across the room, although I wouldn’t actually throw it because I’m reading it on my Kindle Fire.  Maybe, I’d delete it from the device instead with a smirk on my face.  There!  Take that ELIC!

But I’m going to finish it.  I don’t want to play the 9/11 card and say that’s why I’m reading it.  Sure, seeing the trailers for the movie helped.  It’s definitely meant to tug at our heart strings.  Maybe that’s even why some people don’t want to see the movie or read the book.

Though this is Foer’s 2nd book, his ability to fill a page with banter, but still give his reader those A-ha! moments like some archeologist who just found a femur bone on the last day of a five year expedition is amazing.  I stumble all over my tongue trying to describe this book to someone as I’m reading it, but deep inside, I get it.  Do you hear me Foer?  I get it.  I connect with Oskar as a kid.  I feel sorry for him.  He makes me laugh. He pisses me off.

And that’s probably what a good book should do.  Makes us think about it. Laugh at it. Hate it. Write about it.  But most of all, it makes us remember.  I may not be able to clearly tell anyone what this book is about by the time I finish reading it, but I will remember it.

And in the end, isn’t that what a good book or a good movie or a good person or a good memory deserves?

To be remembered.

But maybe there was a message in there that I was supposed to get, and if so, it had to be that Ms. Skully was Mr. Faulk’s mother.  If so, why had Mrs. Faulk not told me that today?  Why had Ms. Skully not mentioned it either?  For that reason alone, it couldn’t be true. Or could it?  I knew I was not going to be able to get back to sleep.  I’d lie away the rest of the night obsessing over the dream and why neither of the women had disclosed their relationship to one another.

That’s when a light but quick knock came at the door behind me, almost sounding like those woodpeckers I’d heard out in the swamp earlier today when I first arrived.  It made me jump but I tightened my grip on the phone and laid it gently back down on the dresser. I wasn’t about to let the dream start coming true. I turned around and approached the door.  The knob did not start to turn like it had when I was asleep.  Instead, the knock came again, even lighter than before, as if someone was intentionally not wanting to be heard by anyone else in the house but me.

“Who’s there?”  I whispered.  I stuck my face up to the door frame and said it again, “Who’s there?”

No one answered.

I let out a deep breath and tried not to think of what always happened to all the B actresses in horror flicks who nonchalantly opened a door even after the unseen person who had been knocking didn’t answer their inquiry as to who it was.  Would it be Ms. Skully wielding a chain saw?  Probably not.  She was too fragile and would probably have trouble managing any heavy piece of machinery.  Maybe it would be Jule Ann with a butcher knife.  Or even the third unknown sister  with an ax.  Or maybe even a ghost with a candlestick.

“Who’s there?”  I said again, louder and firm, trying to block out all my guesses that had begun to sound like suspects from a game of Clue.

I wasn’t going to open the door unless someone answered.

A soft voice finally spoke.  “It’s Jule Ann, m’am.”

I unlocked the door and opened it.  Sure enough, Jule Ann was standing there with her arms behind her back, still dressed in the uniform from dinner.  It was the same stance she had taken on while standing next to the dining table, that of a typical servant waiting for their next order.  The only difference was her face looked kinder in the soft light of a table lamp that filled the hallway outside my room, reflecting in the framed glass of the photos on the wall like a hundred church candles.  Even the scar on her face looked much more amiable in this light.

“Did I wake you?”  she asked in a kind motherly voice and with a worried look to her face.  It was not the barbarian “Helga” voice I had expected from such a large bitter looking woman whose appearance practically scared me at dinner.

“No, not at all. I had laid down, but I was still awake,” I said with a smile.

“I won’t keep you, but I wanted to just say thank you.”

“Thank you?”

“Yes, for helping Cotter.  He’s such a sweet, dear boy.  So shy.  When I learned of his mother’s passing, I felt so sorry for him.”

“You know Cotter?”

“Yes, I am his great aunt. Ms. Skully is his grandmother.  I thought you knew that,” she said.

She could probably tell by the look on my face that I had not known that. I was more perplexed by the fact that what she said confirmed what Madam Miller had said on the phone in my dream. Mrs. Faulk had sent me here on purpose for some strange reason unknown to me.

“Oh yes, of course,” I lied, shaking my head as if to clear it, acting like I had just misunderstood her.  “So you’ve met Cotter?”

“Oh yes, it’s been about a year though.  He and his mother used to stay here when they came to Monroeville for the Faulk family reunions.”

Jule Ann’s pleasantry baffled me. She was a completely different person standing before me now. It was obvious that in the presence of her sister, she was merely a servant and nothing more. I assumed this also because she continued to speak in a heavy whisper, as if not wanting Ms. Skully to be able to hear her from down the stairs.

“Jule Ann, may I ask you something?”  I said, changing the subject.

“Of course, dear.”

“Did you and Ms. Skully have a third sister?”

“Oh yes, indeed, we did.  Her name was Leigh.  How did you know?”

“I had stopped to admire the photos in the hallway when I came up from dinner and saw the photo of the three little girls.  I recognized you and Ms. Skully immediately, but I wondered who the third little girl might be.”

She stepped away from the door to reach for the photo, showing it to me.  “Yes, that’s our dear Leigh. God bless her heart. May she rest in peace.”

“If I may ask, what happened to her?”

“I’m afraid she passed away a few years ago. Terrible thing,” she said nodding her head in sorrow.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“She was poisoned, ya know?”

“Poisoned?”

“Yes indeed. Horrible tragedy,” she said shaking her head as she looked down at the photo. A heavy frown fell upon her face, almost mirroring the sad arch to her facial scar.

Without even being invited in, Jule Ann stepped past me into the bedroom.  She sat lightly on the edge of the bed, keeping both feet on the floor, still clutching the photo. And she began to speak.  She told me how Leigh was the “wild child” of the trio and completely boy crazy.  She’d proudly lost her virginity even before graduating high school. She cavorted around town with different men every weekend and liked to get drunk and hang out in bars. She was a disgrace to the family, and their father did everything in his power to keep her out of trouble but to no avail.  The town easily labeled her a slut and ridiculed her parents for her behavior.

Leigh had met a man that she started seeing regularly. She moved in with him and surprisingly became pregnant.  She lost the baby though.  Everyone believed the man had probably caused the miscarriage because it was known that he frequently beat her.  But Leigh loved him and refused to leave him no matter what everyone advised her to do. And she refused to listen to the advice of her parents who offered to help her if she’d just leave him. Still depressed over the loss of her baby, she went on a drinking binge.  She drifted around town and eventually ended up disappearing for a few days.  Her body was found days later upriver. An official autopsy said she had been poisoned.

“Was it alcohol poisoning?  Drugs?”  I asked.

“No.  Her blood showed signs of arsenic.  Someone had killed her,” Jule Ann said, still in a heavy whisper though I had shut the door behind her when she came in.

“Was it the man she was living with who did it?”

“He was arrested, of course, on suspicion but he had a solid alibi so all charges were dropped. Of course, my parents believed he was the one responsible.”

I nodded my head in disbelief.  This entire family had experienced so much pain and tragedy.  It wasn’t anything I had not witnessed before in other cases that I worked, but it still unnerved me.  The discovery of Leigh’s body upriver made me think of what Ms. Skully had said about Jule Ann’s husband.  It made me wonder how many other disappearances or murders in this town could be mysteriously blamed on the alligators or that dark Alabama river right outside my window.

“Well, I’m sorry to bother you with my story.  I hope you sleep well,” Jule Ann said, getting up from the bed and showing herself to the door.

“It’s quite alright.  I’m glad we actually had a chance to talk with each other.”

“Yes, Sis likes to uphold a certain persona when entertaining guests at dinner. She doesn’t allow me to speak, wants me to look like hired help.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“It’s alright.  She always was the bossy one,” Jule Ann said with a nervous laugh.

Jule Ann’s past was indeed sad, but now being at the mercy of such a dominate sister was no way to live out the rest of her life after such horrible things had happened to her.  I felt very sorry for her and reached out to give her a reassuring pat on the back.  I opened the door for her as we said good-night.

She had just stepped into the hall and was putting the photo back when I thought of something else I wanted to ask her.  I don’t know why, but I was curious about the man who had been Leigh’s lover.

“Oh, Jule Ann?”

“Yes, dear?” she said, looking back at me.

“One question. Whatever happened to the man who Leigh lived with? Does he still live around here?”

“Yes, dear. I believe he does. I’m not really sure.”

“What’s his name if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It’s Sook, dear.”

“Sook?”  I repeated.

“Yes, dear. Mr. Sook.”

And with that, she turned and quietly walked down the stairs.

It sits up high on a wall shelf, almost touching the ceiling, next to the photo of us from yesterday’s post.

Several of the limbs have been broken over the years (I’ve had this at least since 2003), but it still looks fairly nice.

This is actually the 2nd photo ever taken of me and J.  Back in 2003. In the front yard of a friend’s house when we visited him in Memphis.

I hate this photo, but it’s J’s favorite.

He sits on a shelf above my desk in the office.

Ain’t he cute?

Out of the organizer and under the weight is where my paid bills go before getting filed away at the end of the month.

I bought this for myself last year at Tuesday Morning because it made me happy.  Notice the bird!