Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley

I’m always a bit apprehensive when I pick up a piece of “classic” literature. I remember reading classics in school and finding them hard to read and esoteric. Once again, though, I was surprised at how much I enjoy the classics — at least this one.

We all think we know the story of Frankenstein. A scientist goes against God and creates life, but is destroyed by his hubris, by his creation. Right? Well, yes, but we don’t really know the story of Frankenstein as Shelley originally told it. The “monster” that Shelley created was intelligent. He finds out what society is, tries to join it to have some companionship, and failing that he plots to force his creator to make him a companion. This is not your Bela Lugosi monster, but an eloquent, thinking monster. And, frankly, a much better story than we all know.

Flying Home

We flew home today. I have just one piece of advice — don’t expect much when you get a kick-ass deal on airfare. Our original flight was cancelled, and I think this was because the airline we were flying is facing bankruptcy and were scaling back the number of flights. We had a lay-over in Philadelphia, during which we had enough time to get to our gate, use the bathroom, and enjoy a pretzel before boarding. Unfortunately this was not enough time for our luggage to get from one plane to the next…hopefully it will arrive tomorrow.

Wedding Gifts and Packing up

Day 3 in Minnesota –

We spent a fairly quiet day, starting by opening our wedding gifts and packing up the gifts and reception mementos to ship back to our place in Virginia. For the most part people gave us cash or gift cards, since they knew we’d be travelling. We did get a few nice gifts, though, including a Gorham crystal centerpiece bowl, a courtesy basket with salt, sugar, bread, sponges and a frame (to go along with a saying about always having something to eat, having sweetness and spice, etc.), and a few things from our registry.

Sweetie came over and we went to dinner that evening. First Sweetie and I exorcised some of her bad-marriage demons, and later Andrew and I went with her to exorcise and even larger bad-marriage demon — I won’t give details, but Sweetie is ready to move on, and we got rid of a few things that might have gotten in the way of that. Yay, Sweetie!

Bridezilla in the Museum

After the reception, my mom and dad, their friends Dick and Sharon, Sweetie, Andrew and I ran around the museum and took pictures of Andrew and me still in our wedding clothes.

Our first stop was the IMAX theater — Dad was off packing up the car, so I hopped in line and got our tickets. Hee hee hee…I wish we could have gotten a picture of the face on the guy behind the counter when I first walked up. You’d think they never get brides in line.

I found out later from some of the other guests that they had caught the IMAX show that exited as we were milling aobut in the lobby. They heard a father telling his daughter, “You’ve seen the princess long enough. We need to go now.”

After the IMAX movie, we headed straight downstairs to the dinosaurs, catching a brilliant sunset on the way.

We ran around the rest of the museum, and got a whole bunch of great pictures. Here are a few.

Minnesota Reception

Today we had our reception for my family and friends in Minnesota. We decided early on to have this reception for two reasons: first, we wanted a fairly intimate wedding and reception here with only close family and friends, and second we knew that many people wouldn’t be able to take the time and expense of travelling out for the wedding.

The reception was held in the Discovery Hall at the Science Museum of Minnesota. My family has been members of the museum for more than twenty years, plus, of course, I’m a scientist, so it seemed the perfect place for the reception. The Discovery Hall has a lovely view of the Mississippi River and a terrace that we were able to use for pictures.

We we arrived, some of the guests were already there, but Andrew and Dad had been there for a couple hours overseeing the set-up. It was a lot of fun to see some of my old friends who I only keep up with through Christmas cards. I also got to catch up with some of my parents’ friends who I haven’t seen since I played with their kids while our parents had silly parties.

Perhaps the most special guest, to me, was Greg Greer, the man responsible for getting me into physics. He was a physics instructor at Normandale Community College, and when I first took his class I was there only to fulfill the math/science requirements for an Associate of Arts degree. I took the second quarter physics class ‘just for fun’. Now, here I am, working toward my PhD in astronomy at NASA. I don’t know if either of us thought it would come to this!

Since we didn’t have the whole wedding party for a head table, we decided to modify the traditional head table. In addition to me, Andrew, and Sweetie, we had my parents and grandmothers…and two very special kids, my nephew and niece.

After dinner, Andrew and I walked around to the tables. I must confess that I didn’t know everyone there, especially members of my Mom’s extended family, but most of them knew that I might not remember them and introduced themselves to Andrew (and me…) They served the cake while we were walking around, and a couple kids gave us a gift from the kids’ table (a sand art picture of a rocket and astronaut — way cool).

Just after the cake, Dad started up a photo montage that they’d had made of me and Andrew from pictures of us throughout our childhoods. This might not have been so bad, but the Discovery Hall has a huge disco screen, so there I was in all my childish glory on a 20-foot by 15-foot (or so) screen. There isn’t much in life quite as humbling as that!

Andrew and I grabbed our cake after that (with Sweetie yelling at me to eat and shooing people away — I love Sweetie!), and then we went out on the terrace to take a few pictures. It was a lovely day outside, and with the view of the Mississippi it was the perfect place for some pictures.

It was a very nice reception, and I can highly recommend the Science Museum for anyone thinking about it. Dad actually did all the planning and coordinating, but he was very happy with the people at the museum. Another plus of having a function there is that all of the guests get wristbands to see the exhibit free. And, if that’s not enough, they can get tickets for the IMAX show for just $4.50, the price of adding the show on to an already paid-for museum admission.

Reception Prep

We didn’t have Mushi or Suzanne, but Mom, Sweetie and I still braved the salon for our hair much as we did for the wedding and reception in Virginia.

My appointment was for 8:15 AM, and we didn’t get out of there until about 9:45, so we rushed home to do make-up and get dressed. We didn’t get out of the house until about 10:45 and we were supposed to be at the reception by 11:30. The drive to the Science Museum would normally have only taken 25-30 minutes, but Dad had steered us wrong in the directions. Fortunately Sweetie knew how to recover, since she used to live in St. Paul, and we were only ten minutes late. Hee hee hee. Nothing like making Dad panic!

Nails and Uncle Hugo’s

Day 1 in Minnesota —

I woke up quite early this morning, since I’m apparently still on Eastern Time (not surprising, since we flew in late last night) and still on my work schedule. I was hoping to sleep in, considering how late we got in last night (after midnight, Minnesota time), but my body would not cooperate.

Mom and I headed off to get our nails done, dropping Andrew at the nearby Starbucks. No sooner had mom and I finished the drying cycle of our nails, but we had both nicked our freshly painted nails. The person working on Mom’s nails had been smart enough to tell Mom to pay before she painted her nails. However, my person didn’t do the same thing, so I had to fish in my wallet for my credit card. I didn’t have enough singles to tip her, so I asked Mom if she had any, thus making Mom fish through her wallet. We both nicked our nails, and asked the girl to touch them up. We then decided to sit through a second drying cycle.

When we met up with Andrew in Starbucks, we made him buy us each a tea and a treat, since we couldn’t possibly take out our wallets again by ourselves. (Andrew is such a good sport, and so indulgent.)

Next we all went to Uncle Hugo’s, my favorite bookstore in all the world. They have new and used science fiction, fantasy and horror books. They also have a sister store, Uncle Edgars, in the same building that specializes in mysteries, where Mom did her shopping. Andrew floated between both sides of the building. We didn’t actually walk out with any books, but that’s because we bought so many that we had them ship them.

When we arrived home, we tried to help Dad out with reception preparations, but everything seemed to be done except for packing up his truck with everything. Oh, and Mom and I went through all the stuff she’d bought for the kids’ table, and organized it a bit. So, we helped Dad organized everything to be ready to load into the truck, and went to dinner at The Olive Garden in Bloomington.

I had been expecting more to need doing for the reception, so frankly it was a fairly relaxing day. Dad’s almost as organized as I was.

Off to Minnesota

We’re off to Minnesota in a few hours. Tomorrow we’re going to buy more books at Uncle Hugo’s, Saturday we have our second wedding reception at the Science Museum of Minnesota, and Sunday we’ll be packing up gifts and hanging out with family and friends.

Talk amongst yourselves until my return next week.

Is it a cop-out to leave the neighborhood?

If I lived in a neighborhood for a while, and one day some new neighbors move in across the street with three old junker cars, five dogs and a heap of junk metal, what would I do? First I might call the city to see if there are any ordinances against that many dogs or that much junk in a person’s yard. But I quickly find out that these people are good friends with the city counsel. In fact, their connections go up to the top — to the mayor. Worse still, neighbors start calling me un-neighborly for even questioning that things might be wrong with the neighborhood.

So next I erect a privacy fence to block my view of the neighbors. But, the next thing I know, there are two more new neighbors, both with several junker cars scattered in their lawns and animals running amok in the neighborhood. Every time I drive on my street I’m forced to look at the eyesores popping up in half of my neighbors’ lawns.

I like some of my neighbors just fine — we’ve lived together for a long time, and even had several block parties and game nights. But the neighborhood is going downhill. The worst part is that only a few of us seem to think that the junker cars, piles of junk metal and the zoo of animals is a problem. A few children get hurt playing in their parents’ heaps of junk, but this new information doesn’t change anyone’s mind about the safety of the neighborhood. Sanity and common sense have left the neighborhood.

Surrounding neighborhoods start to shun us as “that neighborhood with all the junk,” and they won’t even drive through anymore. I start to find that friends from across the city don’t want to come over to my house anymore. “It’s just too hard to get into your neighborhood, and frankly there’s not much there that I can’t find at home,” they say.

I wouldn’t stay in that neighborhood for long. Why would I? There are many other places in the city to live; places where people have more sense.

I know that I’m priviledged to have been born in this particular neighborhood, but the it has gotten too trashy too quickly. I like some of my neighbors, but too many others have let the place go. Perhaps it’s time to give another neighborhood a chance.

NaNoWriMo Update – Day 2

I’m up to 3,020 words. Not as many as I’d hoped, but I needed to get a few things done this evening, plus I had a monster headache. The next few days are going to be difficult, with a meeting tomorrow night with our wedding photographer about our big, expensive, keepsake album, and then Thursday night we leave for Minnesota for the weekend. I’m going to bring Andrew’s laptop and try to continue writing, but I have a feeling that I’ll be playing catch-up next week.

The story sucks so far, but I’m not letting myself go back and change things too much. I really just want to get a story down on paper that I can go back to later, do some research on a few things, clean up the plot, add more description and beef up the characters. For now I’m just forcing myself to put words on paper. I don’t actually know where the story is going, but I had my first peek last night into the conflict of the novel.