No Argument Here, I'm Middle Aged

Well, I have to admit it, I've officially entered middle age. Oh, I had been noticing the signs for a while now. The increasing frequency of gray hairs (so many that I've given up on yanking out the offenders) and the sharp pains in my knees whenever I try to make an effort at the gym were all flashing neon signals that I wasn't as young as I used to be. However, this week the final nail in the coffin of my youth was firmly hammered into place. After waiting for weeks, I finally got the audio book version of Twilight by Stephenie Meyer from the library. This book and series, about youthful vampires in the American northwest, have been all over the bestseller lists for a long time. The local newspaper carried an article about the anticipation and excitement surrounding the release of the latest book in the series. So I was anxious to jump on the vampire bandwagon and find out what all the fuss was about. Suffice it to say, after about 15 minutes of listening to the audio book, I had to give up. Maybe it was the youthful voice of the narrator, or the subject matter at the beginning of the book (a teen aged girl leaves her mother's house in Phoenix to move in with her father in the small Washington town where he lives), but this book held absolutely NO interest for me. I could not get worked up about the narrator's nervousness about her first day in a new school , or her excitement about the old pickup truck her father had purchased for her. The book must get more interesting once the vampires arrive on the scene, but I just didn't have the patience to wait for them to flap into the story. Oh well, I can console myself with the fact that there are many more audio books just waiting for me to discover that will be more "age appropriate" for me and my aching knees. I won't assign it any Gherkins from my own Gherkin Scale, since I didn't finish it, but I can assign it 0 Gherkins for anyone over the age of 18.


On the other hand, I did really enjoy the latest adventures of Mma Ramotswe in The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith. Someone wrote a review of the book in which he or she said the author was particularly nasty to the character of Mma Makutsi in this book, but I didn't find that to be the case. I thought her actions were in line with how she's always been portrayed in the other books. Now, the only problem is that I have a long wait (probably) for the next book in the series. Although it does look as if the DVD based on the first book in the series, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency will be released in December.


Final Verdict for The Miracle at Speedy Motors: Four Gherkins, for being a reliable, heartwarming visit with old friends