Month: October 2023

This has been an epic autumn. The color is amazing in the northern part of America (including Canada). We are still traveling, and have been on the road since the last day of August (see my last blog for more on the trip). We crossed the Ohio border earlier today.

Our journey did shift a little, when we discovered we needed to take our Airstream to the Mothership to have service validate our floor stains are a warranty issue. If you aren’t following me on FaceBook, you may have missed the Spaghetti Sauce Surprise incident. Basically, our pantry had a faulty latch, which came loose. A jar of spaghetti sauce, as well as a number of canned goods, came out of the pantry. The lid popped off the jar (fortunately it didn’t break), and the cans had fun rolling back and forth throughout the rig, carrying the sauce with them. It was quite an unfortunate surprise when we opened the door at our next stop.

We tried many ways to clean it, and while it is lighter, there are permanent stains that have not come up in spite of all our multiple attempts. Our next course of action was to talk with the service manager in Jackson Center, who identified it as a warranty issue. So, we reached out to the Warranty department at Airstream, since our rig is only a few months old. That’s where we are heading today.

Now for that Book Review. My book club read The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett for our October meeting. I’m trying to keep up with the books even though I’m not going to be there, and I also send in a review each month. I will be there for the November meeting, and I look forward to it. I miss the in-person dialogue.

This is the first book I didn’t finish, in over a year. It started out promising, and I enjoyed reading the first 90-100 pages or so. The story was interesting, with the town of Mallard outside of New Orleans being something I have heard about but didn’t know much information about it. Basically, the black folks there try to “pass” as white, and they are light-skinned and easily passable. That part was intriguing. However, the author started introducing trans and drag queen characters in the second act. And it seemed to me like the author wanted her readers to believe that these relationships are not only normal, but easier to manage than one might experience in real life. She seemed to be comparing the passing from black to white with the passing to another sexual identity, but it is not a good comparison in my opinion.

I didn’t read the whole book, so I can’t fully talk about it intelligently, but I don’t recommend it. ( I did read a full summary of the book on spark notes, and it seems like the book didn’t get any better from there.) If I were rating the book based on the first 100 pages, I would give it a 2 or 3.

I took it with me every time we stopped at a cafe, park, or drove down the road during the month. I couldn’t get past the first 100 pages.

It seems like others in the group didn’t like this book either. Here’s the group review from our wonderful leader.

Seven of us gathered this afternoon to discuss The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett.  We all agreed that the book is all about identity and contrasts. That the book touched on a lot of topics and was a great read for discussion.  All of us had a hard time with the back and forth timelines but we all continued to read on because we wanted to know what happened to Stella.  We found the contrasts always were black and white, Desiree and Stella; Jude and Kennedy; white people vs black people; Desiree who was poor and Stella who was well off.  In our discussion, R. and K. described how skin color does vary in the African Americans and how being “Brighter” is something that is desired in dating, marrying and their offspring.  We also talked about how each of us has hidden an aspect of our identity.  

We rated the book 7.3.

À la prochaine…hasta la próxima vez…until next time!