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solarishashernoseinabook · 1 year ago

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Solaris reads Murder as a Second Language, by Joan Hess (2013)

So yeah, this was the book I made the poll about. As this is a murder mystery I'm liveblogging, it's very likely I'll spoil the killer for you. Block the tag "solaris reads murder as a second language" if you don't want spoilers.

Murder as a Second Language is the 19th book in the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the first book by Joan Hess I've read. Last year I listened to about 30 minutes of the audiobook before DNF'ing it because of how trashy the first couple chapters were. Well, now I'm back, and we're going to see how bad the rest of it is.

MAASL picks up shortly after our main character Claire, long-time local business owner, has married Deputy Chief Peter Rosen, and just before she packs her daughter Caron off to college. To get into the college she wants, Caron has to spend the summer doing volunteer work, and Claire - now faced with the possibility of spare time - decides to volunteer as well. When a murder happens in town, Claire and Peter team up to solve the case.

Well, let's see what I've gotten myself into...

[Transcript: "Inez found thsi really cool place where we can volunteer to teach English as a second language to foreigners. It's like four hours a week, and we arrange our own schedules. I figure that if we're there from eleven to noon, we'll have plenty of time to go to the lake and the mall." /end]

Just setting up some background here. Caron has picked fairly easy volunteer work that gives her plenty of time to still enjoy summer, and only really has to devote 40 odd hours to it. As far as last-minute requirements to get into college go, Caron has it pretty damn easy.

Or maybe not. See, she has to attend a training session and...

[Transcript: "Yeah," Caron muttered. "The training session was interminable. The teacher basically read aloud from the manual while we followed along, like we were illiterate. We broke for pizza and then listened to her drone on for another four hours. After that, the executive director, some pompous guy named Gregory Whistler, came in and thanked us for volunteering. I was so thrilled that I almost woke up."

"Then it got worse," Inez said. "The program director, who's Japanese and looks like she's a teenager, told us that because of the shortage of volunteers in the summer we would each get four students - and meet with them twice a week for an hour."

"For a total of Eight Hours." Caron's sigh evolved into an agonized moan. "We have to call them and find a time that's mutually convenient. It could be six in the morning or four in the afternoon. We may never make it to the lake." /end]

How heartbreaking! Caron, on the cusp of adulthood, faces a fraction of the responsibilities she will face in a year when she goes off to college! Her life is truly difficult (sarcasm)

[Transcript: "And I," Caron said, rolling her eyes, "have to tutor an old lady from Poland, a Chinese man, an Iranian woman, and a woman from Russia. How am I supposed to call them on the phone? They don't speak English. Like I speak Polish, Chinese, Russian, and whatever they speak in Iran. This is a nightmare, and I think we ought to just quit now. I say we set up a lemonade stand and donate the proceeds to some charity." /end]

And it gets worse (heavy sarcasm)! Did you know that people who need to learn English as a second language don't speak English perfectly? Caron is right to throw away the chance to go to a good college over this (heavy sarcasm)

Anyway, all is saved, because Claire promises to volunteer as well and take some of their students off their hands so Caron doesn't give up and go to the local community college instead. Personally I'd say a good parent would make their child take responsibility for themselves, but what do I know. This post is getting long, so check the reblogs for how well that works out for everyone

#solaris reads murder as a second language

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solari-writes-things · 5 years ago

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Instinct

🛑 WARNINGS: depictions of murder, language. 🛑

✨ requested by: anon

✨ Pairing: Coco Cruz x Reader

✨ Summary: Reader stumbles in on a mess after a cryptic message from Coco.

✨ Solari Says: -

✨ Prompt(s) -

Angst #5: “My heart tells me to kiss you, my head tells me to walk away.”

gif credit: to the OP

🌎 translations at the bottom!

MORE COCO | MORE MAYANS | > MASTERLIST < |

Coco had sent you a text message in a similar fashion that he would an SOS.

So, for the right reason, you had been concerned the entire time you spent behind the wheel. Speeding down the small streets of Santo Padre, hoping to something that he hadn’t found himself in some form of serious danger. He had sent an address to you, with the request of a meet up, and something about the place that he prompted seemed so familiar when reading it.

You pull into the lot of the place, gazing at it with some form of familiarity that you could not pinpoint. Something about this place bothered the pits of your stomach, as if your mind had repressed the last time that you were there. It was probably for a good reason, but nothing that you could merit right at this moment.

Climbing out of your car and closing the door behind yourself, you carefully approach the building as if it was going to come to life and kill you. Everything about this seemed to raise every red flag that your instincts could wave, yet you elected to ignore them on the premise of helping someone you had held dear. That you knew faced a lot of demons. You knew that something about the mysterious message to your cell phone meant a heap of trouble.

Yet, you pressed on.

Into the building you went, and it was like a tidal wave of anxiety crashed onto your shoulders. Your heart rate raised, your breathing shook a little. You pulled out your cell phone once again to take a look at the apartment number that Coco had texted you, to ensure that you were heading to the right place. You averted your eyes up, to take one last peek at the door you stopped in front of, and the weight pressed harder when you realized that you had remembered correctly.

No. You needed to help him.

But everything inside of you was telling you to run.

So you raise your hand, your knuckle tapping on the wood that closed you out ever so gently. You heard a muffled voice, one that didn’t belong to Coco, which caused you to ruffle your brow. Obviously, the person who was there had been unexpected. Unaware of your appearance.

You knock again, hoping that Coco had been in there somewhere.

You hear your friends voice retort to the other being inside, before you heard some steps approaching the door. A chain lock, a deadbolt turn, and then the door was opened in front of you. In front of you, now, stood Coco Cruz with a painfully relieved look in his eyes.

One that you only recognized a couple of times throughout your years. He had done something, the matter of what was something you were about to find out.

“Coco, ¿Está todo bien?” You inquire, not even trying to peer over his shoulder at the mess that you could see inside. You almost didn’t want to know if it was from him, or from something else that he had to clean up.

“Todo es perfecto,” was his response to you. He moved out of the way so you could come inside, in which you ruefully obliged.

You take the time to take a gander around the apartment, your eyes flitting over the small, disheveled details around the room. Smaller things seemed knocked out of place, but nothing like furniture seemed to be thrown around the room. If there was a scuffle, it was small.

You spin your body, observing the details that were presented to you. “Then what was the morbid ass-”

Your breathing stopped. Something had convulsed in your body, making you want to heave forward onto your knees. There was another man there, wearing the prospect version of the kutte Coco had always worn. The prospect’s arms were crossed, his expression guilty.

On the ground, laid in front of his feet on a towel, was the body of the woman you had known to be Coco’s mother. The one who had spent so many years of her life, disowning and openly regretting who her son had turned out to be.

You breathing shook as it all began to sink in, the gravity of the scenario finally weighing on your shoulders. The relaxation in his posture send a chill down your spine, and his even stare for your reaction made you just a tad worried for what he expected out of you.

It’s not like you were ignorant to the ways of the club. It’s not like you were ignorant to the fact that your friend was a sniper in the military, trained to take lives when instructed.

But seeing it done. The aftermath of what you could only imagine occurred in the walls of this condemned household. It made you almost sick to your stomach, but almost pleased.

The vile woman deserved every second of what she got, but did Coco deserve to be the conductor of her demise?

“Coco... w-what the fuck?” was all you could breathe, the look on your face making him frown just a bit.

“I did it. It’s done, chica. I dealt with her shit for too long. I let Leticia deal with her bullshit for too long,” he justified.

It was fair. All of it was fair. Celia was nothing but a damn demon to the two of them. Made Leticia condemn herself to an obscure life, condemned Coco for ended up the way that you saw was perfect. Damaged, sure. But it made him who he was, and you would want nothing else from that.

“Coco, my heart tells me to kiss you, my head tells me to walk away,” you shook. “I want to be happy that you’re free, but was that the way to do it?”

“There was no other way, [Y/N]. She would have come around again,” he pressed, eyes even despite your shaky reaction.

Even though you had walked in on the aftermath of a murder, he knew you wouldn’t ever rat on him. Regardless of what your head might’ve thought, something in the back seemed to ring sensibility. He was right in that regard, you always thought of Celia to be something of a cockroach.

So you inhale, running your hands through your hair. Trying to ignore the various red flags that your instincts seemed to scream. “Me voy a arrepentir de esto, ¿no?”

“No te arrepentirás,” he says, the level tone of his voice giving you a pang of worry, but a wave of reassurance. Your emotions were playing some form of limbo, but you weren’t sure which way to bend.

Regardless, you understood that you needed to trust him.

Just as you always had.

Translations:

¿Está todo bien? - Is everything okay?

Todo es perfecto, - Everything’s perfect

Me voy a arrepentir de esto, ¿no? - I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?

no te arrepentirás - You won’t regret it.

__

Mayans Tag List: @thebookishfeminist :|: @crimsonheart01 :|: @chibsytelford :|: @kind-wolf :|: @supervalcsi

General Tag List: @sazafraz :|: @tsumethedrifter :|: @angelaiswriting

if you want to be included in the tag list, comment or message me!

#mayans mc #solari writes things #coco cruz #johnny coco cruz #mayans imagine

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subvertingyourexpectations · 6 years ago

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Long Day’s Journey into Night

(If you haven’t seen Long Day’s Journey into Night, this essay is spoiler-free up to a point, so read on! But you should check out the movie.)

I love Long Day's Journey into Night. It's the kind of film that comes along every once in a while that is just a perfect execution of what it's trying to do, and what it's trying to show you. You could go on and on about the dynamic and incredible camerawork, the emotionally-charged performances, and the stunning visual language of the film all before even diving into the second half, which expands on what the film has set up tenfold.

The film takes place in the Chinese province of Guizhou, where a man named Luo returns for his father's funeral. While there, wandering around places and people from his past, he begins to search for a mysterious woman from his past named Wan, who he spent a summer with at the turn of the millennium. Throughout this journey, we're introduced to characters and locales that played a role in both their lives, interspersed with flashbacks to their summer together. Roughly an hour or so is dedicated to this before the film technically begins. (There’s literally a title card 70 minutes in.)

On its surface, it's a film about trying to find someone from your past. But as the film's climactic sequence builds it becomes a melting pot of memory, regret, and redemption. All these themes mix and intertwine to create a bombastic and stunning hour-long one take that is both visually and thematically unbelievable. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but I genuinely can't stop thinking about this film.

(This is where it's gonna start to get spoilery, so please go watch this movie. If I haven't sold you on it already, just look up some more screenshots or something. Also it’s free on Kanopy so you have no reason not to watch it.)

What I think I love so much about the final sequence of this movie (and let's just call it what it is, the dream sequence), is that, like an actual dream, everything is imbued with meaning and context from your life and from your day. (As Ki-woo would say in Parasite, "This is so metaphorical!") Everything has some bigger meaning: the slot machine features a wild pomelo prize, harkening back to the first night Luo and Wan shared together and she asked for a wild pomelo. The strange child challenges Luo to a game of ping pong, referencing what he was going to teach his child (and later he suggests that the child be nicknamed Wildcat, referencing his childhood friend who was murdered, making this character a cerebral manifestation of Wildcat and the son he never had). And the whole dream is physically locked around this karaoke party, that of course being a reference to Zuo's bizarre fondness for karaoke.

All of this is what dreams are made of, and to see that so beautifully realized in a film is absolutely remarkable. But even if you remove those brilliant themes and nods to the first half of the film, I think it stands on its own as a visual tour de force. One long camera shot follows Luo through a motorcycle ride, a zipline trip, and a slow and beautiful descent of what appears to be at least a couple hundred feet. All while being filmed in 3D, despite the 3D version apparently not being available anywhere online. (If you find it, please tell me.)

And this incredible camerawork, coupled with the immaculate set design give you a terrific sense of space. The way the staircases and alleyways weave together like a maze around the karaoke party. The way the child's home is open to both a mineshaft and a road, and that road just happens to have a working zipline down to a pithy little bar. And the way the backstage has a staircase winding down to the room that spins when you cast the spell, it's all so incredibly dreamlike. I've never seen a film so perfectly capture this hazy, mystical sense of space that dreams have. Not Inception, not Solaris, not even Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

This eventually climaxes into an ending that I'm sure many will find unsatisfying: Luo and Kaizhen (the dream manifestation of Wan) descend into the basement, the room begins to spin, and they kiss. The camera goes back up, and the sparkler burns indefinitely, giving us no resolution for the real Luo and the real Wan. But what I love so much about this ending is that no ending in reality would ever be satisfying. Luo and Wan would meet, but from the journey Luo makes to find her it's clear she's changed, and there's no reality where them meeting would give him any sense of closure. Instead, he gets to live in his dream world and undo all his mistakes, change all his regrets, and save the girl. Even if it's just for as long as the dream lives on, and the sparkler burns, those fleeting minutes can feel like a lifetime.

#subverting your expectations #long day's journey into night #movie review #movie essay #Diqiu zuihou de yewan #gan bi #wei tang #jue huang #sylvia change #chinese films #chinese arthouse

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fonulyn · 8 years ago

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oh ohh if you're bored, let's play a game of recommending your favorite books :D (truth is i need something new to read but i don't know what should i read lol)

ohhhh i’m so sorry i only saw this now! i was so bored i went to bed xD BUT YES BOOKS! i... don’t really know what genres you like so this is gonna be all over the place (bc my faves are all over the place too ahaha) i’m just going to link wikipedia in case you want plot summaries or so (beware spoilers tho ;D)

ok so. first some sci-fi!

The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov -- basically one of my ultimate faves, i’ve read it like 15 times in three diferent languages lmao. idk why it’s stuck with me, but i somehow find new things with every re-read. i used to be a huge fan of the second part, but as i grew older the third part somehow became a new favourite. (it also contains one of my favourite quotes, which is apparently a quote from Schiller originally, "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.") basically it’s about the dying Earth and a parallel universe that seems to be extending a helping hand (such boring summary i’m sorry lmao).

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov -- a habitable planet is found, but something is not quite all it seems with the planet dun-dun-duuuunnn~

Nightfall by Asimov again lmao (see a trend here?) and Robert Silverberg -- it is set on a planet that has six suns and is always illuminated, and no one has ever seen a night. so what happens when they do? (i think it’s not only enjoyable to read, it’s also inspiring!)

basically i'd recommend Asimov’s stand-alone books, as it feels like he tends to lose focus with his long series? the series aren’t bad at all, either, but the stand-alones are excellent.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem -- is really good too. Solaris is a planet that’s covered by an ocean that appears to have a mind of its own, impossible for the scientists to understand. attempts at communication end up just taking a toll on their sanity.

okay let’s abandon scifi and move to fantasy, i’ll keep this shorter i promise.

The Death Gate Cycle -series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman -- it's got seven parts, and i just recently re-read the entire series. i just love the characters in it, how they develop and grow, and form friendships. that's always what makes or breaks a book (or a movie) for me.

The Tales of Alvin Maker -series by Orson Scott Card -- it's partly alternate history, partly fantasy, and i'm so bummed that the series hasn't been finished LET ALONE BEEN TRANSLATED TO FINNISH GODDAMN, they haven't translated the latest book and i doubt they ever will. ANYHOW it's good.

i love fantasy as a genre in general, i’ve read so many good ones, but i’m trying to limit myself here lmao.

then the historical (more or less) novels

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas -- let me tell you i LOVE this book?? i’ve read it a dozen times, again in three different languages lmao, and it never ges old. most of my friends think it’s boring but i find it absolutely delightful.

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas -- again, delightful. i love this novel.

The Etruscan by Mika Waltari -- i made a book report on this when i was 16 lmao, but i’ve re-read it since and it’s still one of my favourites. it mixes actual historical events with fiction.

actually I’d recommend ANYthING by Mika Waltari. sadly, not all of his works have been translated (the english-speaking world missing out on his crime novels is atrocious), but he is fabulous.

Ivory Carver trilogy by Sue Harrison -- the series focuses on prehistoric Aleut tribes and I think I've read it again like... six times? i'm currently reading Harrison's other trilogy (the Storyteller trilogy) and it's really good too, though I prefer the aforementioned one.

okay then some random honorable mentions??

i love Jane Austen okay, especially Pride and Prejudice.

Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott is charming and one of my childhood favourites that i still revisit sometimes.

Emily of New Moon by Lucy M. Montgomery is another one that i loved growing up. it’s a part of a trilogy too, and they’re all good.

The Judge Dee mysteries by Robert van Gulik are sort of a breath of fresh air among the traditional murder mysteries? idek i enjoyed them a lot.

okay i'm gonna name-drop Colleen McCullough too, i loved The Thorn Birds, The Song of Troy and The Touch, at least!

okay I gotta mention the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games series too bc i did enjoy the hell out of them too, but those everyone has probably already read lmao.

i’m so sorry i don’t think you wanted a massive reply like this lmao. but well. here you go? :D i’m sure i’ve forgotten some absolute favourites too, and it bothers me, but i need to run because i’m having visitors over in like fifteen minutes and i’m sitting here in my nightgown ;D

ALSO feel free to recommend me books too, srsly, i’m always open for suggestions!

#me and my faves #book rec #Anonymous #ask and i shall answer

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solarishashernoseinabook · 1 year ago

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Solaris reads Murder as a Second Language by Joan Hess, part 2

Start from the beginning here

[Transcript: A taciturn officer gave me a ride back to my car. Leslie's nosy neighbor had retreated under his rock. I drove slowly by his house in hopes of spotting something remotely felonious. Alas, there was nary a scrap of litter in the stubby brown grass. I reminded myself that I was not a vengeful person, /end]

since when

#solaris reads murder as a second language

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solarishashernoseinabook · 1 year ago

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Solaris reads Murder as a Second Language by Joan Hess, part 3

Start from the beginning here

Read part two here

[Transcript: [...] want to hear it. His attitude reminded me of Caron's: If you believe you have right on your side, you're empowered to flout the rules. That's what she'd told me after she and Inez [...] /end]

Pot, meet kettle

#solaris reads murder as a second language

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solarishashernoseinabook · 1 year ago

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Solaris reviews Murder as a Second Language, by Joan Hess (2013)

Me: I should've turned this book into a drinking game. Take a shot every time it's racist. Take two every time Claire's a bitch. etc etc Angel: You'd be dead. You'd be in an ambulance and Claire would be withholding your insurance card

Content: I thought the first eleven pages were bad and rage-inducing. Folks i had no idea what I was getting myself into, oh my god.

Who I think would like it: Someone who likes cosy murder mysteries, who feels like turning their brain off for a bit to read something low-stakes.

Things it does well: On a purely technical level, the writing was competent. No major plot holes, unless you count Claire flip-flopping about her motivation to volunteer. Red herrings are successfully set up and disposed of, and clues were laid effectively.

Things that could be improved: The dialogue was a major weak point. Exposition was shoved into sentences without any thought to how difficult that would make them to read, and Caron didn't talk like a seventeen year old. Keiko's grasp of English (as well as Jiang's, frankly) got better or worse depending on the paragraph. The racism, of course, was bad, but Claire was by far the weakest point in the novel. I've read trashy books, but never have I read a character so unintentionally unlikable. Not all protagonists have to be good, upstanding people, but they should at least be compelling - think Fight Club, or The Godfather. Claire was neither likeable nor compelling, I can't see any interest she and her husband have in each other besides wanting to bang, and Caron is an insufferable brat. I'm glad my time with them is over.

My review: The last book I reviewed that was anywhere near this terrible was The Great Zoo of China. As I vented about this book on Discord with Angel, I couldn't help but compare them. The Great Zoo of China is objectively worse on a writing level. Riley's writing was repetitive, basic, and kept defining words for us (you'll recall the line, "The hole was already four storeys - or forty feet - deep."). And, while Claire and Caron were unbearable characters, at least they were characters - no one in TGZoC had any identifiable personality. Initially, I was firm in my conviction that TGZoC was more racist, but by the endpoint of MAASL I was starting to rethink that. Riley's racism was very targeted, specifically calling negative attention at the Chinese characters in his book. Hess's racism is equal-opportunity: everyone who's not a White US American is a fair target for stereotyping and hate. Riley's racism was extreme enough that I don't see most people openly agreeing with it - remember, Riley openly stated that Chinese people are inherently uncreative and only useful as manual labourers to help white people. Hess's racism is banal, common, the sort of thing your apparently decent co-worker might let slip one day without realising they said anything off while you're left scrambling at how to explain that it's not okay. Both are damaging and hurtful in their own ways, but Hess's is so much more normalised that many of her readers are likely to laugh it off as a joke, or try to forgive it by saying Hess is a product of her time. Look, I like cosy murder mysteries. Sure, a lot of them are the equivalent of literary potato chips, but I still read them. But there are much better ones than Murder as a Second Language, so don't waste your time on this one.

Does this book have…: ✅= yes ❓= not sure ⭕= possibly/mixed ❌= no Romance? ✅ Claire is (supposedly) happily married, and keeps going on about her dream husband. Miao and Jiang are engaged, Caron and Inez are boy obsessed, and dating features heavily in the background of the book. Sex? ✅ No on-screen sex or masturbation, but there are frequent references to it. The only thing Claire and Peter seem to like about each other is the possibility of sex, and references to their escapades are frequent in the novel. There's also a perverted old man in a senior's centre who sexually harasses Claire (all in good fun, apparently (sarcasm)) and also tries to grope her. Racism? ✅ So, so, so much. The best I can say for this book is that, unlike TGZaC, it didn't drop any quasi-slurs. I've covered the racism against Asian characters, but Hess is no better towards anyone else - one the book's two Black character is very large and physically intimidating to every white woman who meets him, and Claire automatically assumes any Arabic men she encounters are violent and misogynistic. Sexism? ✅ Yes, with a racial element. All three of the East Asian women in the book are small, demure, and youthful. It's considered a twist that Keiko, the program co-ordinator, is old enough to be married with kids. Miao exists only to be a sexual object for the men around her. On the other hand, the Eastern European women who feature in the book - Ludmila, a Polish woman, and Yelena, from Russia - were both written with sexist, unflattering stereotypes of loud, overbearing, tough European grandmothers. LGBTQIA-phobia? ⭕ Remember in the 2000s, when "metrosexual" was used to insult any man who brushed his teeth and wore clean clothes? Yeah, Hess unironically uses that term on page 20. Other than that, no mentions of queer characters at all. Ableism? ✅ ⭕ One off-hand use of the term "psychopath" at some point, but that's about it Swearing? ❌ Drug/Alcohol references? ✅ References to marijuana with the sort of gravity typical of the early 2010s, and a lot of drinking - as well as the implication that various characters drove tipsy References to or actual violence or suicide? ✅ Well, it is a murder mystery, after all. In addition, Greg's former wife died by suicide before the story starts, which is referenced in detail later on. References to or actual animal death or cruelty? ✅ ⭕ There's references early on to a dead bird left for someone to find as a threat, but nothing on-screen

Recommended: Hells no

#solaris reads murder as a second language #murder as a second language by joan hess #solaris reviews books sometimes

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solarishashernoseinabook · 1 year ago

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[Transcript: The adolescent Japanese girl purported to be the program director gave me a dimply smile. Her deep brown eyes twinkled as she said, "I am so sorry, Ms. Marroy, but the next training session will not be held until the third week in August. I hope to see you then. Now if you will be so kind as to excise me, I must return some phone calls."

"If you want me to read a manual and discuss the material, I will do so, although it's a waste of time for both of us." I kept my voice modulated and free of frustration, although I was damned if I was going to twinkle at her. "I speak English. Your students want to learn to speak English. I fail to see the need for eight hours of training to grasp the concept."

"It's our policy."

This was the third round of the same dialogue. Keiko Sakamoto, as her nameplate claimed, had feinted and dodged my well-presented arguments with "our policy." I felt as if I were at the White House, trying to persuade the secretary of state to abandon the prevailing foreign policy. My chances in either situation fell between wretched and nil. /end]

Hooooo boy. Lemme count the terrible things in this half-page.

Phonetically spelling out Keiko's accent. Only for Claire Malloy's name, though. I can't decide if being inconsistent about this is better or worse than committing to it, but either way it's racist.

Naturally this adult woman is so small and slight she looks like a child. This is such a common stereotype of East Asian women that surely Hess must have realised its better to avoid it.

Clearly Claire is so important that it's unreasonable to treat her the same as everybody else! (sarcasm) Rules only apply to ordinary people, and Claire absolutely needs to make sure her daughter doesn't have to face the crushing weight of eight hours of volunteer work a week for the next six to eight weeks.

Btw, Claire later refers to herself mockingly as "Ms. Marroy" in narration, for an added dash of racism

Anyway. Claire leaves Keiko's office and comes across another teacher at the centre where the English lessons will be taking place. This turns out to be Leslie Barnes, who had given the training session earlier. Hoping to get somewhere with her, Claire explains the very reasonable (sarcasm) problem Caron's having, which is that Caron is going to be forced to interact with people who don't speak perfect English as part of this course to teach them how to speak English. Leslie responds:

[Transcript: "All of their students speak some English, as I told them. However, if they want to come here this afternoon, Keiko can help them make the calls and set up their schedules. I have another class in a few minutes. Nice to meet you, Ms. Malloy." She went into a corner office and closed the door. I hoped her residual scars from the training session had not driven her to drink in the middle of the morning. /end]

Oh, how nice! Keiko, who's extremely busy, will handle the calls for Caron and Inez. Now they no longer have to face the mortifying ordeal of interacting with their own students, and can proceed to work a grueling one hour a day until August.

Also: wow is Claire ever a petty bitch. I didn't cut out context from this, by the way - that snide comment about drinking comes completely out of nowhere.

Having gotten nowhere with Leslie, Claire leaves the centre and ends up in conversation with someone else. Once again, she's rude about it.

[Transcript: "It's nice to meet you, Sonya. I came by to apply to be a tutor. It appears I'll have to wait for the next training session." I opened my car door, but the subtly escaped her.

"Keiko mentioned it. She'd love to make an exception in your case, but our executive director is adamant about sticking to out policy. We have to be certain that our tutors are committed. Some of them sign up, but then lose interest and abandon their students." She frowned faintly and then brightened. "We'd love to have you volunteer in some other capacity. You're so well-known and respected in Farberville. Having you involved in the FLC would enhance our reputation in the community, as well as in the state organization. You're so intelligent and articulate."

I enjoy flattery, but she was shoveling it on. "If you have a bake sale, let me know and I'll whip up a batch of profiteroles au chocolat." I waved as I got in my car and drove away. /end]

Keep this in your back pocket for now, we'll come back to it

[Transcript: Volunteering at the public library was not an option; everything was computerized except me. I pulled out the telephone directory and found a list of organizations under the heading "Social Services." Safety Net, the battered women's shelter, declined my offer and suggested that I send a check. The Red Cross suggested that I take a class in first aid. /end]

Somewhere in the intervening half-page, Claire's motivation shifted from wanting to help her daughter dodge responsibilities to just wanting to volunteer in general so she van feel useful. Okay, fair. Except that she seems positively insulted at the idea that training might be required for anything she might want to do. She also apparently hasn't stepped in a library ever, because she seems to think books are catalogued, circulated, and shelved by robots. Believe me when I say it would be amazing if libraries had enough funding for that