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I put off writing this post and put it off and put it off ’cause I hate being negative about any book and had hoped to think of something, anything, positive I could say about Serena.

But in the end, I found I couldn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t have posted anything, maybe I should’ve just let well enough alone and tossed the book when I was through with it, but I found I couldn’t do that either.

So I decided, since this book sucks so bad, to just spew out the whole story including the ending so that you won’t be tempted to read it, saving your life a precious couple of days that you can better use elsewhere.

You can thank me later.

Newlyweds Serena and George Pemberton arrive at his logging camp in depression era NC after being attacked at the train station by the father of George’s 15yr old? 14yr old? mistress because he has a problem with George impregnating his daughter and casting her aside like a soiled condom. George kills him in the resulting knife fight, setting the tone for the whole book.

George and Serena step right into the role of lord and lady of the logging camp, perfect in every way. Each day, astride her all-white Arabian horse and with her hooded, hunting falcon on her arm, Serena rides up the mountain to where the loggers are working and tells them how to do their jobs. I’m sure there’s some kind of imagery there that was lost on me but really? she should have just flown in on a spaceship.

Together, the two of them, with the help of her devoted henchman Galloway, begin to systematically work the loggers to death, or simply kill them and anyone else who stands in the way of their completing logging operations before the federal government takes the mountain from them, all the while busily coupling, (the author’s word, not mine) trying to produce an heir. Busy, busy people.

The story climaxes when Serena, who we’re told always sleeps in the nude, finds out that she, as a result of her miscarriage, can never have children. Ever vindictive, she has the doctor killed and then sics Galloway on George’s illegitimate son and ex-mistress. George, fearing he might have made a mistake hooking up with Serena, has the sheriff help them escape so Serena has Galloway kill the sheriff and her husband instead. Are we seeing a pattern?

And the fun doesn’t stop there.

The widow Serena, after cutting down all the trees in NC in record time, moves on to South America with Galloway in tow and becomes a hugely successful mahogany baroness, employing the same strong-arm savagery used in NC. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

All is happiness and ruthlessness until one night, decades later, her dead husband’s grown up illegitimate son, who has a bone to pick why?, finds out where she is and travels from San Francisco to Brazil, breaks into her home and, stepping over the sleeping Galloway, kills her while she’s sleeps, still in the nude. I’m sure this was more imagery I missed, or something.

Whatever it was, at least it was the end.

Miss Carol’s and me’s first visit ever to the island of Cozumel off the coast of Mexico began as a vacation sitting squarely in the shadows of an Ironman Triathlon. It loomed over all of us (even though Miss Carol and me weren’t competing) as something that had to be endured before the fun could really kick in. Kinda like going to pick up your date but having to meet her parents first.

Cozumel is beautiful- luscious green vegetation and swaying palm trees surrounding brilliant white coral beaches running down into the gin-clear Caribbean Sea hued in blues and turquoises both unbelievable and indescribable and we couldn’t wait throw ourselves into her arms.

Unfortunately, the Ironman towered, daunting and implacable, with its 2.4 mile swim, its 112 mile bike, and its full 26.2 mile marathon. Think grueling in paradise. This was Miss Carol’s little sister’s third Ironman and I knew she trained relentlessly for these things and I also knew that they were like, really hard? But.

Until you live one of these things live you have no idea.

The swim start was at 7am. After an hour in the water Miss Carol’s little sister transitioned to her bike where she spent the next 7 hours pedaling around the island. Think about that for a moment- 7 HOURS ON A BICYCLE. And because Cozumel is fairly small, they had to make three circuits around the island in order to rack up the requisite 112 miles. To give you some idea and provide perspective, in between cheering for her as she passed by on her laps around the island, Miss Carol and me napped by the pool, walked up the beach to a restaurant and had lunch, drank some beers and cocktails, took showers, read and watched TV- all while Miss Carol’s little sister raced around the island knowing she still had four hours of marathoning ahead of her.

Amazing. Who thinks up these things?

But she finished and became an Ironman for the third time twelve hours after she started her triathlon, finishing with a time of  12:16:12- 11th in her age group. I was surprised how moved and wowed I was by her performance and by the sheer scope and magnitude of her accomplishment. And, of course, Miss Carol was crying, she was so damn proud of her little sister.

WAY TO GO JULCOOL!!!!!!!! YOU ROCK!!!!!!

As for Miss Carol and me? Our elapsed time in Cozumel was 5 days and 4 nights of tacos and burritos and cervezas (that’s Mexican for beer, ya’ll) and cocktails and laughter and just plain fun. And ya know what? Looking back after a space of days I’ve come to realize that, far from being the buzzkill we thought it might be, the race actually became the defining moment, the very reason for our trip, and what we will remember long after everything else fades.

It was way cool and Miss Carol says we’re gonna do it again.

I got me a problem.

It’s not walking Tug and Cutter a couple of miles everyday where walking equals being at the ass end of a herky jerk tractor pull that, to date, has jacked up one knee, wrenched my back, pulled something or other in my other leg, yanked my bicep, and lengthened my right arm.

It’s not them sleeping in bed with us, even though I barely remember what Miss Carol feels like. Now, instead of cuddling with soft smoothness, I find myself draped in itchy, snoring dogs huffing and woofing hot dog breath in my face, chasing dream rabbits.

It’s not their incessantly manic barking at everybody and everything that moves.

It’s not having to share my apple and banana breakfast with them, even though they usually eat most of it and I go to work hungry.

It’s.

It’s that I’m getting wwaaaaaaay to attached to them. I’m lucky in that I get to come home for lunch everyday so I spend a LOT of time with Tug and Cutter and not much time with anybody else.

I work by myself so my interaction with other people is pretty limited. At the end of the day I go home to Cutter and Tug and then Miss Carol comes home and we have a cocktail and dinner and sleep and then it’s back to work again.

So this is my problem- the Friday after Thanksgiving we’re flying to Cozumel. Miss Carol’s youngest sister Julie is racing in an Ironman triathlon and we’re going to provide some kinda semi-drunken race support for her. Think beer and bikinis and the occasional shout out- GO JEWELS!

It should be and will be and promises to be a ton of fun.

And yet.

I can’t help but think that for five days I won’t be going home for lunch with the boys, won’t be sleeping and snoring in a big pile with with them, won’t be jerked and yanked, cursing, each morning and evening as we walk, won’t have them napping at my feet while I write this drivel, won’t have them barking for treats every time I get near the kitchen, won’t be seeing them impatiently waiting for me to do something.

I gots a problem.

So.

Aunt Ida finally left on Sunday. After 4 days of blowing, driving, horizontal rain, flooding and overall nastiness, she packed her bags and headed out of town.

I had been hoping to post each day so that ya’ll could feel with me the pain, the relentlessness that is one of these damn nor’easters, but that hope was squished on Wednesday when we lost Cox, which is phone, internet, and TV and then further smooshed on Thursday when we lost power, leaving us sitting in the dark listening to the howling wind and pounding rain til Saturday, taking cold showers and cooking on our little propane camp stove.

It’s fun camping in your house.

For a day tops.

Then it gets old.

Really fast.

But anyway, so Aunt Ida finally booked, leaving a little friend behind.

La Princessa is a 570 foot (that’s almost 2 football fields to you and me) container barge that was being towed from Puerto Rico to New Jersey when she and her tug parted company up off the Eastern Shore. Aunt Ida’s winds pushed her back southwards and up on our beach where she almost took out some condo’s and our fishing pier.

But she didn’t and now she sits hulking, wondering where Aunt Ida is.

Looks like the storm formally known as Hurricane Ida is coming for a visit. And like the annoying in-law whose visits you dread, it looks like she’s gonna stay awhile.

And that’s a problem.

Typically hurricanes are fast moving events. They ramp up and blow out in 24 hours or so.

This storm is supposed to be with us for almost FOUR DAYS. By tomorrow winds are forecast to be 35-45 knots with gusts to 55 and seas are supposed to be 13-16 feet. And stay that way, for DAYS.

Tonight when I walked Cutter and Tug it was raining horizontal and the wind was 25-35 with gusts to 40. You can lean into 40 knots and almost have it hold you up. Everything was swinging and swaying wildly, dancing in the wind and wet sand was already blowing and drifting across the beach road. The wind makes a weirdly eerie moaning sound blowing through the power lines that’s all but drowned out by the roar of the ocean.

It’s wildly beautiful, in its own way, but honestly? four days of this shit is going to rub raw and while I know living at the beach isn’t ALL bikini’s and beers, it’s like, c’mon, enough, already.

I don’t usually do book reviews or comment on books I read mostly because, really, who am I?

But The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an exception ’cause it’s, quite frankly, exceptional. And the fact that it won a Pulitzer doesn’t hurt my creds either.

It’s Junot Diaz’s first novel and I’m always drawn to first novels. I kinda remember reading reviews about it after it was released but then it was lost in the shifting muck of my memory. While out shopping last Christmas I ran across it at a bookstore and picked it up.

I’d like to say I hurried home and read it right away but I didn’t. Instead, it sat on a bookshelf for the better part of a year while I bought and read other books mostly best forgotten.

I finally got around to reading it last week and almost immediately wondered why I had waited so long, why I had kept pushing it to the bottom of the pile.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a high speed rollicking ride down the haunting tragicomedy highway of three generations of Oscar’s Santo Domingo (Dominguan?) family. Spanning the late thirties to the present it’s the story of his family’s inescapable familial fate.

While the story itself is kinda predictable the storytelling is anything but. Written with a raw energy and peppered with latino slang, Junot uses lengthy footnotes that are as entertaining as the story itself. The book is truly a literary event. (whoa, check me out, this is why I don’t review things- I start sounding like a turd)

Honestly though, it’s one of those books that you don’t want to ever end and even when it predictably winds down to it’s predictable ending it’s so well written that you’ll find yourself reading and re-reading the last couple of pages over and over and savoring the feelings they bring out.

It’s that damn good.

Tomorrow is one of most favorite days of the year.

Why?

Because our blessed almighty Federal Government says tomorrow is 25 hours long instead of 24. I loves me some Federal Government.

Now, according to all the newspapers and the radio and the TV everybody’s supposed to set our clocks back one hour before we go to bed tonight and get an extra hour’s sleep. Puhleez. That’s about as much fun as gettin’ oral after you’ve passed out.

Not that that’s every happened to me.

Instead, why not wait until tomorrow and take your extra hour whenever you want and use it to do the things you love doing for an hour longer?

Here, let me show you:

Suppose you’re her and you’ve just baked up some of your unbelievably sinfully chocolatey treats but you’re worried it’s getting too close to The Husband’s dinner time for a taste test. Not a prob. Just turn back the clock and start shovelin’ ’em in, sister.

Or perhaps you’re this chick and you’re slapping silly a bear hunter in a bar in Aruba for using the f-bomb and it’s getting late but your hand isn’t tired yet. Just get B to turn back the hands of time and keep slappin’ away, baby.

Or maybe you’re him and you’re just chillin’ on the beach soaking up some fall sunshine and swilling coldies and staring at the horizon like it’s gonna change and you don’t really want to limp back home yet and walk your dogs who just wrenched your back out AGAIN. Simple. Reset your watch and grab an extra hour, gimpy boy, and drink and drool on yourself.

Or, hey, use it to get more sleep.

Whatever.

I apologize for yesterday’s post. In a fit of weirdness I wrote three hundred words about a clock that doesn’t work.

But what’s weird is that that’s not the weird part.

What’s weird is what spawned it. Like most everything it was symptomatic of something else completely unrelated.

Last weekend a couple of our nephews and his girlfriend and friend stayed with us and helped me paint Casa Oceandoggy. We got a bunch done and turned the corner so at least from the street it looks all nice and new and freshy. Bling baby.

But that wasn’t the weirdness that made me write about  a broken clock. The weirdness started with the delivery of something I’m going to roll out soon with them there and then with other friends stopping by and Miss Carol showing off the something which became something else entirely and before I knew it I had close friends and family reading my blog.

I was outed.

And it totally weirded me out.

It’s one thing writing anonymously, broadcasting to strangers and quite another watching your nephew’s girlfriend reading your shit on her laptop. Kinda like the difference  between throwing up in the alone darkness of the beach and vomiting on your buddy’s shirt while he’s wearing it.

Hence the clock story- a reaction enfeebled.

It took me a couple days to come to grips with this whole bold new frontier. To realize from here on out it’s only gonna get worse in that I’m gonna have more and more people I actually know knowing about oceandoggy.com.

It’s weird.

Ever have one of those days where you’re fishing in really shallow waters, knowing your chances are slim to none of catching anything worthwhile? And yet, you keep it up hoping on hope that something will come of it?

This is one of those days. Slackness masquerading as substance.

We have a clock mounted on the bulkhead between our kitchen and dining room that we call crazy time and I actually took a picture of it for this post before realizing how unbelievably lame it was.

The picture- not the crazy time clock, but maybe this post.

The clock was given to us by one of Miss Carol’s brothers when he came to visit. It’s hip and cool and very contemporary, with loads of textures and gobs of happy colors. It’s onliest problem is that it doesn’t keep time in the linear, accepted, sense, choosing instead to keep time in a more abstract and contemporary fashion.

I’ve fixed it a couple of times but it’s stubborn, which is fine, meaning I finally just succumbed and gave up. You gotta pick your fights and there’s lots you’re not gonna win and this was one.

Instead, Miss Carol and me have accepted and embraced our crazy time. The clock’s hands freely spin at their own speed, whenever they want, at a rate known only to them, and we’re just constantly entertained by whatever time it gives us.

Hoo boy, can laziness pirouette?

Me and the boys are alone tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow night.

Miss Carol’s out of town on business for a couple of days so Cutter and Tug sit and stare relentlessly at the horizon waiting for her jeep to come around the corner and bring her home.

Hour after hour, just waiting and hoping.

Their fierce devotion to Miss Carol always makes me glad somehow, while at the same time maybe just a tad envious.