…I finally found a book that, upon rereading, disappointed me.  I just finished Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn, which I probably read sometime in late elementary school or early middle school (I don’t remember exactly, because it was a long time ago, so give me a break).  At any rate, I think I must have read it when I was at an age to identify with some of the characters.  There’s Molly, who is 12; her younger brother, Michael, who is 10; her mother, Jean; her stepfather, Dave; and her step-sister, Heather, who is 7.  They move from Baltimore to this little country church, complete with graveyard, where Heather happens to befriend the ghost of a little girl who was just her age and even had the same initials.  Both their mothers had died in fires and they became fast friends.  Heather was not overly accepting of her father moving on with another woman, let alone of the woman herself (or Michael or Molly).  Half the book involved Molly, Michael, and Heather fighting and then their parents ended up fighting.  Molly felt like no one believed her because Dave and Jean (especially Dave) always took Heather’s side and after a while, this kind of got on my nerves, but not nearly as much as Dave himself did.  He was always making excuses for Heather’s bad behavior, saying things like, “Well, she’s just an unusually sensitive little girl,” or, “She’s suffered a loss and just needs love and understanding.”  Well, yes, but that only takes you so far in life.  I guess that’s the part that bothered me: no matter what she did that was wrong (and plenty of it was horrible), he was always making excuses for her and he seemed completely blind to the fact that he was being played, that she wasn’t nearly as innocent as he thought.  Now yes, she is just a little girl and yes, this is just a story, but it reminded me of one too many people I know in real life who have that same attitude of, “Well, I’ve suffered a loss, so you all should feel sorry for me and let me have my way” and blah blah blah…Apparently I couldn’t identify with anyone in the story this time around and I actually found myself growing mildly offended.  Isn’t it funny how our perceptions of things change over time?

In other news, we’re off to the courthouse this afternoon to get our marriage license.  Yay!  My aunt is going to meet us there and be our witness and then we’re all going out for supper afterwards.  Her mother-in-law is in town visiting and I’m really looking forward to having supper with her.  She and her husband were like second grandparents to me growing up and I haven’t seen her in a long time, so I hope we’ll have a good visit.  Evidently she was under the  mistaken impression, though, that supper tonight was supposed to be in celebration of my engagement and she didn’t want to intrude, so my aunt had to convince her that she was invited and that she wasn’t intruding on anything.  Besides, anything to celebrate our engagement would have been done a long time ago, like right after we got engaged.  I don’t want her to feel like she’s not welcome because she was the reason I suggested going out for supper in the first place, so I hope she’ll have fun.

Oh, I need some more medicine!  I woke up with a killer headache this morning and it just won’t go away.  I need a pop.  For the headache.  Yes, that’s it, for the headache…

Sixty days till September 26…

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