Gothic Novels

Once a year I read a gothic novel.

I have been reading gothic novel since I was a teenager after stumbling upon several collections of them at the local public library in my hometown. The library had a large selection of Madeline Brent and Victoria Holt books left over from the 1960s and 1970s. Later, I ended up purchasing a number of those books when they were withdrawn from the library. In fact, I found out that I by me reading them I had saved them from being removed from circulation for several years.

Although I generally prefer less formalistic fiction I have a special place in my heart for gothic novels.
 
Last year, I read "A Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters.

This year, I read "Lord of the Far Island" by Victoria Holt.

Gothic novels are very formalistic and generally have a lot of the same plot points, so much so that you would think they were all written by the same person, regardless who wrote the novel. I once discovered a (now former) co-worker was a fan of gothic novels and that we had read many of the same ones. We ended up having a lively debate about the formalistic nature of them and how despite that they are enjoyable to read.

A gothic novel has any number of these characteristics:

• Poor relation or other in-between social standing.
• An Inheritance.
• Said inheritance will be received at age 21.
• Guardianship.
• A companion or relative close to the same age as the heroine.
• Mysterious accidents involving boats, cliffs, trains, guns, or cars.
• Mentally unstable relative(s).
• Castle and/or grand family mansion/estate.
• Reoccurring dream starting in childhood that continues into adulthood, but by the end of the book never occurs again.
• Crumbling family fortunes.
• Deception.
• Family secrets.
• Family heirloom jewelry, generally a necklace that has been in a family hundreds of years and has a name.
• Family member locked away in a country home, the home of a trusted family friend, a top floor apartment of a mansion, or the attic of said mansion.
• Someone died before the book started or dies during the course of the book.
• Orphaned heronine.
• Heroine is generally between the age of 17-20.
• By the end of the book the heroine is married.
• Mysterious character, family friend, or family member that is assumed to be evil, but is eventually revealed to good hearted.
• Family member or family friend who assumed to be good hearted, but is eventually revealed to be evil.
• After a brief introduction into the world in which the novel takes place, the heroine recaps her life thus far before the story moves forward.
• The final chapter(s) skips between a few months and a few years and gives a recap of where things now stand.

I tired to compile this list while I was reading the book and typed it up after I finished reading it. Then, look at what Wikipedia had to say about gothic novels and was surprised by how spot on my list was.

Although I wouldn't want to read a gothic novel every week or even every month, they are certainly a fun read every once in a while.

The Kraken Returns

The Kraken made another appearance in Iowa City last week on the roof of a building on Washington Street.

I wonder where he will show up next?

Release the Kraken

This summer, I came across a news article about an interesting art project that was being staged in Muscatine, Iowa.

This public art display featured the Muscatine River Monster aka The Kraken. A mythological water dwelling monster that has allegedly been sighted in the Mississippi River near Muscatine off and on since ~ 1838.

This gigantic tentacled piece of art has made appearances at a variety of events and locations around the Muscatine area, but has recently been making its way inland and has been spotted in Cedar Rapids and now Iowa City. Apparently he wanted to come to Iowa City for the University of Iowa's homecoming.

I took this picture of the Kraken on the morning of Saturday, October 22. He was hanging out at the former Vito's building in downtown Iowa City on the ped mall.

I hear that the Vito's building is being turned into office and retail space. Maybe the Kraken needs a space to work or perhaps a retail location to sell some of those famous pearl buttons made out of Mississippi River clams.

Getting Free Stuff in the Mail is Fun

One morning last week I was riding the bus ride to work and I began to wonder when my free samples from Target would be arriving, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a white and pink box from Target in my mailbox that afternoon.

Over a month ago, one of the blogs I read had a post about Target giving away makeup bags of free samples, so I went to Target's website and requested one. Target has done this offer before. The last time they had this giveaway, I received a blue and white makeup bag filled with shampoo & conditioner samples, a sample of lip gloss, a tube of lip balm, a travel sized bottle of hand lotion, and a coupon book.

The box I received today contained:

• A brightly colored makeup bag. 
• A sample of Burt's Bees lotion.
• A travel sized package of Pond's facial cleansing towelettes.
• A sample of L'oreal facial cream.
• 3 different sets of shampoo & conditioner samples.
• A coupon booklet for lotions, makeup, and other products at Target.

I'm really excited about the facial cleansing towelettes, because I like to take those in my toiletry bag when I travel so I don't have to lug around a bottle of face wash.

The makeup bag will go into my present box where I put things that I stick away to give to people later. I know several people who would like to have the makeup bag, but I haven't decided who I will end up giving it to.

The rest of the samples will I try out later this fall.

The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman

I'm a big fan on Chuck Klosterman's work, so I was excited to learn that he had a new novel out,
"The Visible Man."

Klosterman mostly writes nonfiction, magazine articles, and essays. He's primarily recognized for his witty writing on American pop culture.

I have read all his books and a handful of his magazine articles over the years.

Despite not entirely enjoying his last book, "Eating the Dinosaur" and finding his first novel, "Downtown Owl: A Novel" OK. I was a little worried I might be disappointed by this book, but wanted to read it regardless because I really like Klosterman's work.

The book focuses on a licensed therapist and her relationship with a patient referred to only as Y__.

Y__ was allegedly a scientists for a defunct research project that created a suit and cream solution to make people practically invisible. He then used the special suit and chemical to essentially break into people's homes and observe them while they were alone.

The book had a lot of the themes Klosterman has touched on in his previous books (nonfiction and fiction) such as voyeurism, drug use, pop culture, music, and life fulfillment.

Some of the observations about watching people alone in their homes reminded me of a story from one of Klosterman's other books (unfortunately I don't remember which one) where talks about having a neighbor who never closed her blinds/curtains and how he became enthralled with sitting on his couch watching this neighbor in her apartment unbeknown to her.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was interesting and there were a number of odd plot developments that kept me wanting to read it, but it wasn't so enthralling that I wished I had bought the book instead of getting it from the local public library.

It was no "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs," but it was great read for any Klosterman fan or anyone that loves odd genre defying fiction.

Fall Day Trip

Saturday, we took a day trip to Wisconsin.

We love going to Wisconsin, it is our favorite weekend getaway location. We have a long list of things we like to do in the Madison and Milwaukee areas, as well as in the Kettle Moraine State Forest Region.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a delicious break at the Pilot Club of Iowa City breakfast we hit the road and headed up to the Kettle Moraine area.

Our first stop was Baker. Baker is best known for their string cheese. We found out about them and Kettle Moraine when we were visiting another local dairy and someone recommended that we check out Baker and Kettle Moraine. We were not disappointed.

Baker makes great string cheese and we drove by a number of the dairy farms that supply them with milk on the way, so that was neat.

Next we made a quick drive through part of Kettle Moraine State Forest to get to Beechwood, home of Beechwood Cheese Co.

We first had Beechwood cheese curds during a visit to Sprecher Brewery. We bought a small package of them while we sampling Sprecher products after a tour once. After that we looked up the location of the dairy and discovered it was less than an hour from Milwaukee and we've been going there ever since.

We then headed back to Kettle Moraine State Forest where we drove back and forth down Scenic Drive (that's the actual name of a road that runs through a beautiful stretch of the forest), walked around and enjoyed the beauty of the forest.



This a video we made of our drive through the forest. I was driving and my husband was running the camera.

As you can see from the video, the forest was gorgeous with all the leaves turning and falling.

After we enjoyed the forest, we drove to Milwaukee where we went to Kopp's for a cheeseburger, fries and chocolate frozen custard. It was delicious. I'm not a big fan of restaurant or fast food burgers, but Kopp's is one of the three places where I will happily eat a cheeseburger. Their fries are handmade and tasty, but what Kopp's is known for is their custard. It is so smooth and full of flavor. It was a great way to wrap up the day before we headed back to Iowa.

Money for nothing...toiletries for free

Today, I got 6 bottles of dish washing detergent, 2 3-packs of bar soap, 1 bottle of shampoo, 1 bottle of conditioner, and a tube of hand lotion for free.

I also paid 39 cents for a pack of facial cleansing/makeup remover towelettes.

Oh and a couple weeks ago I got 5 bottles of dish washing detergent for free too.

How did I do that? I shop at CVS and use the extra bucks I earn to buy stuff that we can use in the future or need right now.

 At CVS you can earn extra bucks in a variety of ways.

• Purchase an item that they are offering extra bucks for. Example today, if you purchased a certain 3-pack of Dial bar soap, that was on sale, you received $1 in extra bucks for purchasing it.
• Have an ExtraCare Card and use it. It is basically their customer rewards card (you can't get the sale prices in the store without one). Several times a year (I'm not entirely sure if it is 3 or 4 times a year), CVS gives you back 2% of what you spent during a certain time period in the form of extra bucks.
• Join their beauty club. For every $50 in beauty products purchased (makeup, facial lotion, and so on) you receive $5 in extra bucks.
• Also, if you bring your own reusable shopping bag and have a special bag scan card (which costs $0-$1, depending on what deal they're offering on it that week) you earn 1 point for every time you use it. According to my receipt today it now takes 8 reusable bag points to receive $1 in extra bucks.

I started shopping at CVS earlier this year because I no longer live near a Target and I walk near a CVS every day on my way to and from work making in convenient and cost effective for me to shop there. I usually shop there after work before I catch a bus home. Where I lived previously there were no CVS stores, so I wasn't familiar with them personally, but a number of blogs I read had mentioned they were a good place to shop for toiletries.

Today was one of my better extra buck purchases. Usually I put it toward items I was going to buy that week anyway. However, today I had a lot of extra bucks and I was well stocked up on most items. Before I went to the store I counted up my extra bucks, I had $8.50, plus a 50 cent coupon for a specific bottle of dish washing detergent. I looked over the store ad for the week and saw dish washing detergent was on sale, both the kind I wanted and the one I had a coupon for. So I knew would put some of the extra bucks toward that. The rest would go toward items on my always buy list: bar soap, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant, lotion, toothpaste, and so on. When I arrived at the store I scanned my CVS card at the special kiosk they have. The scanner then reads your card and prints out coupons, and/or any extra bucks you might have from your last purchase (generally these are ones you didn't realize you had). In addition to a bunch of coupons I didn't end up using I had $5 in extra bucks print out. Which meant I had $13.50 in extra bucks.

First I grabbed a tube of hand lotion, then I went and got the dish washing detergent. Then, I counted up what I had so far and found I still had about $6 to spend, so I looked at a number of things on my always buy list and settled on 2 3-packs of bar soap, a bottle of shampoo and a bottle on conditioner. As I was heading to the register I saw that face towelettes were on sale and I had been wanting to buy them since we're hoping to go out of town soon. I figured I would pay almost full price for them, which was fine since I was getting all the rest of the stuff for free. So I was quite excited when I got to the register and discovered my skillful purchasing meant I only had to pay 39 cents including tax for the face towelettes.

Overall, a thrifty and successful trip to the store.

Delayed Gratifcation

A lot of times frugality means delayed gratification.

For example...

This summer, I saw a book, New Miss India by Bhararti Mukherjee, that I really wanted was advertised in one of the local newspapers as being available at the local bookstore, which was having a 20% off sale.

The week of the sale I walked past that bookstore and saw the sign in the window about the upcoming sale, and then I noticed the book I wanted in the storefront display. I walk by that bookstore at least twice a day, so I saw the book and the ad for the sale a lot that week.


I really wanted that book and I couldn't wait to read it. It is exactly the kind of new book I'd been waiting to read.

However, the book was $15. As much as I love books, these days I have a hard time paying full price for books unless they are gifts for other people. In fact, I think I've only bought one new book for myself this year and it was $3.95 plus tax.

Generally, if I'm going to buy a book I wait for the price to go down or there to be some sort of discount deal. For the past few years I haven't been buying many new books for myself and have been sticking to paperbackswap.com (a book swapping site), the book nook (used book sale corner) at the library I used to work at, a second hand book store, and used book sales put on by public libraries in the Des Moines area. I only used those options when my needs could not be met at the public library I worked at.

Even though I really wanted this book, I decided to wait and not by it. I chose the frugal route of putting it on hold at the local public library. The library had ordered the book, so I put my name of the waiting list and I delayed my gratification of reading the book significantly by waiting for the book to be available at the library.  

It ended up being worth it. The book was exactly the kind of book I had been wanting to read. Though, the ending wasn't as strong as I had hoped. I greatly enjoyed the book. It ended up not being a book I would want to reread so I was glad that I waited checked it out from and didn't buy it.