Reading "Demon Copperhead"

 There are books that grab you.  There are books you read to get to the end just to finish it.  There are books that take you to other worlds.  I just read.  Good, bad and I almost aways finish what I start.  Even though sometimes that feels like a waste of time. 

Over the years I have discovered something about myself.  If I really really enjoy a story, I will slow it down.  It is like wanting to hurry to the end but not hurry so to make it last. Most books that I read are just stories and I can hurry if I want to.  I no longer read the endings before I am halfway through.  I almost always take a Stephen King book and make it last as long as possible.  I slowed down the Harry Potter books.  I just liked to live in the stories. 

Right now, I am reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver.   Her stories kind of rival King's stories in that I want to live there.  And as I am reading this book, I realize that I have done this with other books by her.  She has a way of writing that just sparks my imagination.  

My friend Kim had recommended this story to me last year.  She said it was great.  And she is right, so I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter, anyone who likes Kingsolver books, and just in general.  The story takes you through the life of a poor boy from birth to adulthood.  It touches on addiction, poverty, social programs and life.  

Kingsolver has an interesting way to write.  I have had a friend tell me Kingsolver is just not interesting enough to hold anyone's attention.  That friend meant her attention.  Because if you get Kingsolver's way of writing you get another world that you want to live in for a while just for the story.  She is a marvelous storyteller.  

Fishing

 One of the residents where I work at asked me if I was a fisherman.  I said no, because I'm not.  He told me my shirt begged to differ.  I looked down and realized I was wearing the shirt from Prince's Bait in Milaca MN.  I'm from Minnesota.

I then told the resident about my shirt.  My mom would take us fishing when we were kids.  And in Minnesota you fish with bait, minnows.  We would get our minnows at Prince's Bait.  I caught my first fish out of the Rum River, and it was a northern (which I believe is a type of trout).  I don't know how big it was, but it seemed big to the child me.  

We also fished in some of the lakes up north.  Sun fish specifically.  I remember being on pontoon boats.  I think my fishing ended on one of those trips.  My mom got stung by a bee and it turned out she was allergic.  We were switching lakes and as we are getting ready to go out on the pontoon, she told my uncle she was having problems breathing. We loaded up really quick and headed even further north to a hospital.  This is a weekend and it is a two-lane highway that is busy on weekends. My uncle took us down in ditches and around cars.  Felt scary.  We got to the hospital, and me and my cousins stayed in the vehicle while he and my mom went in.  We waited what seemed like an eternity.  The doctors there did what they do and Mom was okay.  But they did tell her if she had been five minutes later, she would not have survived.  Thank God for ditches. 

We moved to the PNW when I was a child. Here you can't use minnows.  Bait is worms.  My dad is not the type to buy bait.  So, he would go out and water the lawn really well.  We have night-crawlers in our yard.  Watering really well makes them come to the surface.  When it was dark we would go out picking worms out of the yard.  That was fun for us.  I don't recall ever fishing with those night-crawlers, but someone did.  

We also loved smelt in Minnesota.  When we first were here my parents went smelting and brought them home.  Mom cooked them up and we tried to eat them.  They are different for some reason than Minnesota smelt.  Maybe our proximity to the ocean?

So back to my shirt.  A couple of my trips back to Milaca took me on nostalgia trips and I stopped at Prince's Bait.  Looked at all the minnows swimming around in their tanks.  And I bought a couple of shirts.   And no, I still don't fish. But I will eat fish. 

How Old is Sunset

 We got Sunset in 2016 so that means our black cat will be 10 years old this year.  I was talking with my girl about cats and Sunset came up.  But that is not what this post is about.

Every variation of the blog seems to have its own thing.  And when I change it, I remove all the old posts and start over.  The old posts do not just disappear though.  They move to another blog for safe keeping.  I use the blogs a lot to check when things happened.  Like when we got Sunset. 

So, after my conversation I went to the safe keeping blog to find the answer.  And I was very surprised.  That blog has nothing new since December 2020.  And yet it is getting so much viewing.  Over 500 views in the last 24 hours, almost 500 views yesterday and 4000 so far this month.  

I have no idea what is so interesting to be generating these numbers. But there must be something in the 4400 posts that live there.  Blogging since 2008 is a long time.