Ponder: Three Romance Novels

I have found a new romance author I like, at least this particular series where the characters are intertwined from one book to the next. The author's name is Jasmine Guillory. Per the Amazon information page 

Jasmine Guillory is an American romance novelist. Her works' protagonists are often African-American professionals. In February 2019, her book, The Proposal, was ranked on The New York Times Best Seller list for paperback trade fiction.

Each novel has an interesting premise for how the male and female of the couple are introduced. 

• In The Wedding Date © January 2018 Alexa and Drew are stuck in an elevator during a power failure for the building, He laments he needs to go to a wedding for his ex and lacks a plus one. He asks Alexa if she will go with him and she agrees.
• In the Proposal © October 2018, a man blindsides Nikole by proposing to her on the JumboTron™ at a baseball game. They have been casual dating for a very short period and he even misspells her name on the big screen. When she turns him down, Carlos, from a few seats back, comes to her rescue to save her from the wrath of the crowd and the media attention. (Carlos is a friend of Drew from the first book.)
• In The Wedding Party ©July 2019 Maddie and Theo (who hate each other) wind up sharing duties in the wedding party of Alexa, a mutual best friend (and from the first book).

In the couples from first two books are of mixed races – white/black and black/latino – and the novel tastefully and subtly made me aware of the struggles or concerns of a minority group.  The couple from the third book, although black/black come from diverse backgrounds and each learns to drop his/her prejudices and appreciate rather than condemn the other's differences.

All three books are filled with lively banter both in person and via text messages that caused me to smile quietly. There was an overall theme of fun and acceptance in these books that made for a pleasant read. Was it rocket science? Hardly, especially not with a book published about every ten months. But I still gained some insight into other life experiences. I rate each of them three stars.

★★★☆☆ Better than average; not a waste of time

San Jose Discovery Museum

On Sunday, August 21 Frank and I took Alex to the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose. We considered it a COVID-safe outing. Masks were required by everyone. The museum has a theme of rubber duckies and even has a huge one up on the roof. Once entering the building there is an entire collection of rubber duckies in all sorts of dress-up costuming. I had Alex pose near the shelving that displayed a large number of them.

Once passing through admissions, there was a huge air maze off to our right. Clear plastic corrugated tubing was hooked up to a vacuum system which whisked fluffy, bright-colored yarn pompoms through the twisty, turny pathway and spits them out from various heights and locations. It fascinated Alex – and Frank and me. Alex did not tire of picking up the soft balls and shoving them back in various portals for a repeat performance. The balls of fluff bouncing off our heads occasionally upon exiting elicited a few giggles.

On a similar air-powered note, there was an activity where a ball bounced suspended in an air stream. Alex tried repeatedly, and unsuccessfully to shove the ball back into the hole that was the source of the air stream. Frank tried to get two balls suspended at once, also unsuccessfully. Much to his chagrin, another museum attendee did manage to get two balls at once to stay up in the air. Alex liked collecting the wayward balls in a big, green bucket.

There was a full size Fire Engine to climb in and explore. Alex cheerily moved over to let his dad drive.

There was also a Stage Coach to get in. I do not know if it was refurbished or just preserved in great shape.The tapestry ceiling and walls were impressive. Alex looked pensive as perhaps he was pondering the days of the wild, wild, west.

Another one of Alex's favorites was a bump bridge. Two humps in it changed position as the pedestrian crossed it. I was amazed that balance was not an issue at all for him and he laughed heartily as it shifted beneath his feet. He liked it well enough we came back and did it a second time before leaving.

A display area about the mammoth has statue posed outside the window. Look out Alex! He is behind you! Perhaps a cool profile view would be appropriate. Unphased by the huge behemoth looking on, Alex concentrated on arranging and re-arranging the story tiles on a slant board.

An entire water play area was as much fun to watch as to participate. Alex got into the action of tossing balls high into the air and into a whirlpool that sucked them down and spit them out into a river flowing from its base. His aim got better and better and soon he was not throwing over the tank and onto the heads of people on the other side. Three other waterways, each from a different activity, coalesced into a central pond with a bridge and several other fascinating ball gyrations to watch. Even just keeping up with picking up all the escaped ball was fun for Alex.

A big area was set aside for building with super sized foam blocks. Stacking a carrying them around engaged Alex. The smile on his face showed he was enjoying himself and quite proud of his creations.

On the upper level was an area devoted to "Circle Secrets". Alex concentrated hard on stacking fist-sized wooden "bead" on a stake. He was a bit reluctant to move on but other kiddos were waiting. He found a shape sorter not quite as interesting but certainly worth a bit of time investment.

We'd been at the museum a couple hours and it was time to think about going home. Alex insisted on another go on the bump bridge. This time Frank challenge him with a bit more bounce interjection.

Still on our way to the exit, we passed a pin screen that we had somehow missed on our first go around. With people on the other side pushing, too. the pattern of pins popping out was ever surprising. Alex showed curiosity in the new tactile experience.  Frank and I liked playing with it too. It was kind of mesmerizing.

We were tiring out by now but swung by the water play area once more. At its entrance we took shelter in a dome shaped structure where we could hear the sounds of rivulets to torrents of rain above our heads. Then Alex pretty much relaxed on a bench and was content smiling at the water play activities, sporadically laughing at the splashes and occasionally chasing the errant escaped ball.

Before leaving I wanted one last picture with Alex next to the full height of the cabinet containing the rubber duckies. He sure looked happy. As I was writing this blog post and enjoying the pictures once more, I noticed a goof. Alex's shoes were on the wrong feet! This faux pas did not seem to detract from his pleasure. Perhaps it even helped his balance on that bump bridge.

Niles Canyon Railway - the M200

On Sunday, August 14th, Frank and I took Alex for a ride in a specialty railcar on the Niles Canyon Railway in Sunol. We drove from Livermore to San Ramon to pick Alex up and then south to the Sunol station. The round trip the railcar makes is from the station, north to the bridge at Happy Valley Road, and back south to the Sunol Station starting point. The rail trip was about 90 minutes total.

As we were waiting for our rail bus to arrive, a larger locomotive loaded with passengers drew into the station from the west. That was not our ride. We would be riding a newly renovated rail bus M200 on a newly opened stretch of track to the east and north. Frank was particularly excited about our route since we had never before seen this extension of track. It had been laid by volunteer members of the Niles Canyon Railway from rails and ties they had rescued from being salvaged. Each tie runs ~$600 and they got the ties for free along with the rails by devising a method and team to pick up all the components. Laying the miles of track was a labor of love (and sweat) we learned from a narrator during our ride.

Not only the route was special but also the rail bus we would be riding.  We learned some history per the website https://www.mendotraintony.com/railbus-m200-which-used-to-belong-to-the-califiornia-western-railroad-running-at-niles-canyon/. The seven minute YouTube video, also accessible from this site, gives a marvelous moving view of the following still photos. Midway through the video, the inside of the M200 rail bus begins to show.

The California Western Railroad (aka The Skunk Train) used to have four railbuses – M80, M100, M200 and M300. One of them, M-200, still exists and is still running but not on the Skunk Line. She has been completely restored and she runs on the Niles Canyon Railroad (out of Sunol not too far from San Francisco). 

M200 was built by the Skagit Steel & Iron Works, MAC Division, in January 1926. Only her rear truck is powered by a diesel-hydraulic engine. She weighs 21 tons. Her history: She was built new for the Longview, Portland and Northern Railway as their #20. She became the Trona Railway #22, Trona. She was acquired by the California Western Railroad in 1941 as #M200. She was acquired unserviceable by the Niles Canyon Railroad in July 1975. Completely restored she returned to service in 1985. Her inaugural passenger service was in May 21, 1988. She is still in service.

The trip was sold out so we were fortunate Frank had been able to get three tickets a few weeks before. The logo on the side is a skunk. Why? When the M200 had been used as a commuter bus, its route went past some fish processing yards, ripe with the stench of rotting fish. The name stuck and was adopted as a logo, perhaps not as prestigious as Starbucks' or Apple's, but certainly much cuter.

Did all this background information matter to Alex? Not one bit. But he looked forward to an outing, a ride on a train, and a multi-page glossy brochure to page through and eventually feed to his bunny. He was dressed appropriately in a train shirt and a red bandanna. He had a window seat and could move about for other views.

Did you ever wonder what the "end of the line" looked like? Well, here it is, viewed from inside. The track just ends. There are plans to extend it to Pleasanton at some point. The outside view is from the Niles Canyon Railway website blog post https://www.ncry.org/blog/m200-to-the-end-of-the-line/ which has many other great photos published with permission from the photographer.

After reaching the end of the line, the M200 reversed direction and returned to the Sunol station. We passed a railroad crossing gate and experienced a train's view coming and going rather than a car's view stopped at the gate.

When we reversed directions Alex moved to the now front of the rail bus and watched our route along the tracks as the engineer ran the train. Frank joined him and the two of them were quite content with their privileged vantage points.

 

We were given logo fans to cool ourselves, but the breeze from the open windows was pleasant.

A stop at the gift shop after arriving back at the station yielded Alex a shirt and Frank this hat.

We finished off our outing with a stop at Gay Nineties Pizza in Pleasanton. What did we order? Why, Frank's Special of course!