Category: The Graduate

My June Reads

It’s been a ‘bookish’ few weeks around here as the Graduate packed up and moved into his own space. Change is exciting, though the process of integrating change can be a messy one. And things did get chaotic as we helped him sort and toss and pack and schlepp his belongings across town to his new place. We sorted through a lot of books. A LOT of books. It was like a snapshot of his growing up years as we paged through picture books, early readers, teen novels and his more recent adult reads, including a number of educational textbooks.

At the same time, I accepted an assignment to write an article on almonds. Since I have to develop a healthy recipe using raw almonds, I gravitated to my large cookbook collection. I lost several hours and took another trip down memory lane flipping through vegan and vegetarian cookbooks purchased on trips over the years. Each book was a reminder of a country we once visited and a stage of life now gone – a time before we had our kids when vegetarianism, at least at home, was viewed with skepticism and veganism was barely understood.

Times change. Kids grow up and move on. Vegan dishes are on just about every restaurant menu these days. But books?  Books – electronic or paper, fiction or non-fiction – remain pretty much the same; they’re still informing, still entertaining and still providing some much needed escape. Here’s what I’m reading this month:

At the gym: The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

On the Kindle: The Silent Sister by Diane Chamberlain

Before bed: The Dogs by Allan Stratton

Books read to date in 2017: 35

Overheard This Week

“I hope you guys are in school because this really isn’t the kind of career type job I like to see people in.”

So said a customer at the local bottle depot where my son, now known as the Graduate (AKA Teen Freud or The Basement Dweller), has worked part-time sorting and stacking bottles since he was in high school. Amazingly (and I use that word deliberately because he’s not known at home for his diplomacy) the Graduate  smiled, nodded politely and waited for the woman to take her bejewelled self back to her Mercedes before letting loose with a rant to his co-workers about judgement and expectations and class systems.

With his undergrad degree freshly in hand, the Graduate will likely make a job switch at some point over the coming months. But so what if he doesn’t? What if he decides he wants to stay where he is or open a bottle depot of his own? What if he was like a former co-worker who chose the job because he was a photographer (his passion) during off hours but the bottle depot provided a steady salary? Or his single mother co-workers who find the work, though dirty and often unpleasant, reliable and well-paying, especially for a job that doesn’t require post-secondary education.

Why do the jobs we do, the Graduate asked, inspire so much judgement? Why indeed.

That got me thinking about some of the jobs I assign my fictional characters. The mother character in In Plain Sight is an artist and predictably absentminded when she’s lost in her painting. The father is a terrorist and in jail so I went out of the box there. But in The Art of Getting Stared At, the main character’s parents are a doctor, an airline pilot, and a model respectively. In Girls Who Dish, my latest Laura Tobias title, the main characters are a restaurant owner and a lawyer, though I do throw in an accountant with a Shirley Temple obsession.

Sometimes characters and plot reveal the best choice of career or job to further our stories. You need a detective in a whodunit, for example. But Agatha Christie’s  Miss Marple was an elderly spinster and a most unlikely detective, something Christie used to her advantage.

So the next time I’m considering character careers, I’m going to forget the doctor or the teacher or the artist or the politician (especially the politician). I’m going to look for something fresh. How about a timeshare seller or a spider researcher or a cello maker or an otter technician for the Department of Conservation? Or  a chimney sweep . . . letter carrier  . . . judo instructor . . . dialysis tech . . . FAA tower controller . . . exterminator . . . glass blower . . . Christmas Around the World salesperson . . . preschool dance teacher?

So many jobs . . . I’d better get writing.

But first I’m heading out to get a t-shirt printed for the Graduate and his co-workers. I want it to read: Recycling Equipment Engineer . . . and proud of it.