Ponder: Remarkably Bright Creatures

A first novel by Selby Van Pelt ©2022, Remarkably Bright Creatures was a delightful read with three main characters: Tova, Cameron, and Marcellus. 

1. Tova is a woman in her seventies who works as an after-hours cleaning woman at the Sowell Bay Aquarium in the Pacific northwest. She lives alone, her husband having died three years earlier and her eighteen year old son having vanished thirty years earlier in a boating incident in Puget Sound.
2. Cameron is a young man who had been deserted by his mother at a young age and who never knew who his father was. He was raised by an aunt in a trailer park in the Modesto region of California.
3. Last but not least is Marcellus, an extremely intelligent giant Pacific Octopus, who forms a bond with Tova. As a detective, Marcellus is able to deduce what happened the night of the disappearance of Tova's son and seeks to devise a way to communicate this to her.

I was drawn to this book having read the nonfiction work The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, which attests to the intelligence of octopuses, (post for 7/24/2019). I'd given that nonfiction book a strong 4 stars. The plot of Remarkably Bright Creatures requires some suspension of disbelief but still manages to remain some plausibility and keep the reader engaged. How do the lives of these three characters wind up interacting? I stayed up late to finish the novel in one sitting. The ending was satisfying and made me feel good. I rate it 5 stars although those readers who are unable to suspend disbelief might disagree.

★★★★★ Great! Read it!

I leave you with one quote from Marcellus. It is his thoughts only. It would be ridiculous to think the octopus actually spoke!

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.

May Birthdays and June Events

Time to play some catch-up in my July blog posts. Yes, over a month has gone by since Alex's and my May 26th birthdays; but then again, I am not one for blog punctuality. Our birthday was on a Thursday this year. Alex's bowling league meets at 4:00 pm on Thursdays, so before we took him to that, he opened one present from us. What else? Another puzzle.

The Saturday evening after May 26th, Alex's home had a party for him with a big cupcake each for his 36th and my 69th and a luscious chocolate cream roll with both our names on it.

After wishful thinking and blowing out candles, Alex opened up gifts from us and his home.

I had a cheerful sunflower bouquet waiting for me at home from my friend Vickie.

Sunday after the party Frank had a sore throat accompanied by feeling awful – awful enough to watch all 200 boring laps of the Indy 500 without budging his butt from the couch. We were hopeful he would feel better soon. We were scheduled to fly down to San Diego the next Saturday, June 4th for a one week stay at a vacation rental and get together of both Robin and Dan's family with the six grandkids. Feeling better Monday and better still Tuesday, Frank thought that to be cautious since we were traveling, he should take a COVID test. This was now Tuesday, May 31st. Whoops. He tested positive. Since I live, sleep, and eat with him, I took a test, too. I also tested positive although any symptoms I had were merely a mucous-y nose, no worse than when my allergies act up, and, with a stretch of imagination, a bit of tiredness. Thankfully no one at Alex's home, neither clients or staff tested positive. Unfortunately, Alex did have to stay home from his day program; he and his housemates had to quarantine for a conservative14 days since they had been exposed to a positive person.

Frank and I needed to test negative in order to travel. We tested again after a few days of feeling fine, hoping to join at least part of the trip, be it a few days late, but to no avail. We still tested positive. Then we learned that although contagious only for 10 days after occurrence of symptoms or day of test, a positive test is still possible for up to 90 days, even with the home antigen test. Our ten days overlapped the trip, so alas we did not go at all, missing the entire June 4th - June11th window. But we were sent some photos. Opening day of the trip was to be a visit to LEGOLAND.

Our self-imposed quarantine lasted until June 11. Afterward, on June 13th, we went out to see the Smothers Brothers show at our local, mandatorily-masked, Bankhead Theatre. Tommy and Dick Smothers are 86 and 85 years old respectively. The show had been scheduled for January 2022 but they cancelled due to a surge in COVID then and rebooked six months later for June. They told about their early lives and how they broke into show business. Their actual performance was minimal. They showed video clips, commenting and giving background on each of them before and after. Tommy did come jigging out onto the stage at one point and did a whole bunch of very fancy and accomplished yo-yo tricks. It was a fun 90 minutes with no intermission. Frank and I were happy to be out and about.  This is one of the videos they shared in the show. Enjoy this YouTube link of Tommy Smothers and Janet Leigh waltzing.

Enjoying our new found freedom, we engaged in some retail therapy. A couple days later I bought a new iPhone 13 Pro Max in a lovely gold color. My old iPhone 6 had a failing battery and limited photo capacity. I had planned to upgrade my cell phone before our San Diego trip but you now know how that went. Sigh. Frank says the iPhone counts as my birthday present. Sounds fine by me. Now I just need to learn how to use it.