Ponder: Bookstore on the Beach

Brenda Novak is favorite author of mine but this book, The Bookstore On the Beach ©2021, was a hot mess! Bummer! The title was so inviting, too.

Novak seemed to be undecided about the theme and general plot. There was a woman whose husband had been missing for over 18 months. A romantic interest was thwarted by the potential but improbable return of the missing husband. There was a daughter struggling with her gender identity. There was a pregnant teen. There was a lesbian friend with an abusive, alcoholic father. There was a grown victim who had been kidnapped, raped, and imprisoned as a teen. There was a woman dying of cancer. There was a grown woman longing to know who her father was. There was teenage boy at odds with his teenage sister. 

Sadly, the pleasantries of a book store and a beach were background noise that got lost in the shuffle. Skip this book. I stuck it out due to my false loyalty to the author. It was a free Kindle download and you get what you pay for.

★☆☆☆☆ Awful but I read most or maybe even all of it

Joan's Pumpkin Patch with Alex

On Sunday, October 15th, Frank, Alex and I visited Joan's Farm and Pumpkin Patch, located on the outskirts of Livermore. This is the second time we have gone here. More details from our first time last fall are in my blog post dated 10/20/22. We knew from experience this time what activities would be a big hit and concentrated on those.

First stop, before we started our adventures, was the portable restrooms, but we had to cross a bridge to get there. Underneath the bridge lurked an alligator. 

The alligator did not phase Alex. He just enjoyed tossing in rocks the water and watching them splash regardless of the reptile. He was careful to avoid the ducks swimming about. Alex was so engaged in this activity, that Frank and I had to stop him from gathering and throwing rocks wherever we went during the outing. 

Admission and parking is free at this event but the three of us all got wrist bands for unlimited activities. We rode the hay ride first which circumnavigated the activities which are located up a hill, segregated from the pumpkin picking areas. Here are my two guys sitting on hay bales during the tractor pulled ride. By the way, per Alex's pointing and obvious repeat requests, we rode the hay ride three more times!

Alex's favorite activity by far is the pumpkin bowling. A turn consists of having a bucket full of mini-pumpkins and throwing them down a lane, aiming for a square opening at the far end.

Alex was quite intense with his throwing but he also enjoyed gathering up the mini-pumpkins and placing them in the bucket to go again.

We did pumpkin bowling over and over and over again. I lost count how many times. We pumpkin bowled before a lunch of hot dogs, chips, and pumpkin pie. We pumpkin bowled after lunch. We pumpkin bowled between and after hay rides. Those wrist bands for attractions were definitely a wise choice. Animal visits did not require a ticket and no wrist bracelet was needed. Alex briefly petted a burro before we headed for home. 

On our way out, near the exit, Alex picked a rather large size pumpkin that just barely fit in a grocery store cloth tote bag. Fortunately I had thought ahead to bring a bag. Heavy as it was, Alex insisted on carrying the big pumpkin himself; the bag handles helped make it manageable. Alex also selected a mini-pumpkin, the size used in the pumpkin bowling, to take home with him. I guess in his mind it was a souvenir, a reminder of a fun day.