Brookfield Wannabe

I confess. I did it. I skipped to the ending of the last Harry Potter book as soon as I got it. Yes, I hear the gasps out there, and let me assure you that members of my immediate and extended family were also shocked and appalled. Apparently, I have violated an unwritten rule of reading in the Suson family, making me somewhat of a pariah on our family vacation last weekend.

The Suson clan held its somewhat bi-annual family vacation in Door County this year. The trip coincided with the release of the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Seeing as there is no Barnes and Noble/Borders/Harry Schwartz in Ephraim, as far as I know anyway, I thought we would be far away from the "Harry Hoopla" and didn't plan on buying the book until we were back. I didn't count on the fact that I would happen upon a small bookstore while taking my mother-in-law shopping, and I certainly didn't count on the hoopla that I personally would create when I bought the book and convinced my niece to get it too.

As we sat in the back of the mini-van on the way back to the inn, my niece dutifully opened the book at the beginning and began to read. As I proceeded to crack it open, I caught the look of longing on my teenage stepdaughter's face, the same child that, upon reading the previous book, proclaimed herself to be bored with the whole series. With a sigh, I handed the golden-covered tome to her, but as I released it, I asked, "Should we look at the end?"

Immediately, my niece reared her head up and said,"That's cheating!"

"I don't think there are rules when it comes to reading!" I retorted.

My stepdaughter looked at me. I looked at her. Then, we opened the book fairly close to the end and huddled over it like misers guarding their treasure. My niece, knowing it was a lost cause, admonished us to not tell her anything, but that did not prevent us from exclaiming surprise at certain passages, albeit in cryptic language -- "Oh no, that person died!" or "Look at what that chapter heading says!"

I almost always read the ending of a book before I completely read it. I don't know when I started to do this, but after reading the first chapter or two of a good book, I then read the ending. I then may turn back to the beginning, or sometimes even the middle, and skim through to the end. If I really like it, I then will go back to the start and read it page by page. It's odd. I know.

When we got back to our room, my husband seemed more indignant than usual that I read the ending, perhaps because I had exposed the teenager to my habit. My brother-in-law walked in, expressed surprise that we had the book, and then expressed something close to dismay when my husband informed him that I had (GASP) read the ending.

We tussled over the book that afternoon and evening or I should say the teenager and my spouse did. I was not allowed to touch MY book until the next day, when it was abandoned in favor of the pool. I was then reminded of another reading rule that I break: I mark my place by turning down the corner of the page.

My niece, the same one who said I was cheating by reading the ending, walked in (I gotta learn to lock the door sometimes on these family vacations) and said I should really use the bookjacket to mark my place. My spouse has also reprimanded me about this too. He uses those subscription inserts from his golf magazines. In my defense, I only do this with books that belong to me, not to books I borrow from the library or from other people.

What is it about the Harry Potter books that makes them so appealing to people of all ages? The teenager, gifted with abundant free time this summer, has already finished it cover to cover. The spouse and I argue over who gets to read it at night. The niece and the brother-in-law are passing it back and forth too, while the sister-in-law is still reading book 3.

All I can say is that this last book has certainly been worth the wait. That's all I can say because there is one rule that I don't break. I never read and tell.

I know it has been a long time since my last post. Early summer always seems to be a time that is jam-packed with activities for me- family vacations, end-of-school functions, summer day camps for the kids, etc. But I had to find the time to comment on something I noticed at dinner the other night. My family has been trying out the new restaurants that have sprung up in Brookfield, and we went out to Jose's Blue Sombrero. I am not going to comment on the food because I am not a big mexican food fan. My husband is though. He thought the food was as good as any of the dishes he has had at other Mexican restaurants, and my daughter was fascinated with the made-at-your table guacamole. What I am going to comment on is the sign behind the host desk. If someone else has already wrote about this, I apologize for the repetition.

Painted on the wall behind the desk in big letters is a mural that is supposed to say "Welcome to Jose's" in Spanish. But the word welcome is spelled wrong. The mural says BIENVIENIDO when actually the correct spelling is BIENVENIDO. Now granted, it has been MANY years since I took Spanish in high school, so when I first saw the sign, I thought maybe I had it wrong. But seeing as how we had to wait a half-hour for a table, I had a lot of time to think about it. I elbowed my husband in the stomach and asked his opinion. He was not sure. He thought it was maybe one of those unusual verb tenses that you conjugate in class and then just forget about later. Then when we sat down, I saw that the word was spelled correctly on something else. But to be sure, after dinner, I dug out my Spanish dictionary and saw that I was right about the spelling.

Leaving aside for the moment that it was a Spanish word that was misspelled, I think knowing how to spell words correctly, without the aid of technology like spellcheck, is kind of a lost art. With email and texting, you don't even have to write out whole words anymore, just acronyms.

So I wonder if anyone else has noticed the mural. Maybe it is correct, and I am just missing something. But if I am right, why is the error still there? Is it too expensive to repaint it so they left it because it was close enough? But with spelling, close enough is just not good enough.