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Monday, January 31, 2005

January reads

Books read in January:



Title (bold indicates first-time read) -- Author -- Rating (out of 5)

1. finished Mistress Pat -- L.M. Montgomery -- 4
• Most people know about Anne of Green Gables, and most girls have probably read it at some
  point. It's one of my very favorite books, one that, humble
  "kidlit" as it is, has even changed my life in many ways. What
  most people maybe don't know
  is that L.M. Montgomery wrote around 20 other novels -- seven more in
  the Anne series, an Emily series (probably her second-best-known
  books), two Pat books, two Story Girl books, a few standalone
  children's books, and two books written for adults; all these books are
  well worth reading. Mistress
  Pat is the sequel to Pat of
  Silver Bush; these novels were written late in Montgomery's
  life, and are darker than the Annes -- notably, Mistress Pat is
  possibly the darkest of Montgomery's novels and was written under the
  influence of a deep depression which clouded the second half of her
  life. I definitely recommend this pair of books, although you
  will pretty much need to read Pat of
  Silver Bush first. Pat in the first book is in close
  contention for the position of my favorite Montgomery heroine.
  Also, this short series has the distinction of containing one of
  Montgomery's two actual knowable male characters, in the young
  Hilary. He'll disappoint you by pretty much disappearing till the
  end of the last page of the second book, however, as Montgomery's
  romantic heroes were wont to do once she got out of her depth with
  them. "Write what you know", for this author, sadly didn't
  include strong men or normal romantic relationships.




2. finished Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Brontë -- 5
• I always have a very difficult time choosing a favorite
  book. However, when I am forced to make a short list (I never can
  just come up with one), style="font-style: italic;">Jane Eyre is always on it.
  Yes, it's dark and gloomy and has a very gothic feel. Yes, it has
  its preachy moments. But what a wonderful story, what style="font-weight: bold;">living characters. What
  sigh-worthy romance. (sigh).




3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
   -- Mark Haddon -- 4.5
• I was in love with this book from the first page.
  Literally. And like any love relationship, it ran into a few
  snags, but was overall a deeply enriching experience. Haddon's
  first novel is a deft handling of the story of a teenaged boy with
  Asperger's Syndrome, told from his point of view. Amazing that a
  book "told" by a person who doesn't understand humor can be so funny --
  but the humor comes in with his emotionless, dry discussion of
  situations that are sometimes, honestly, not funny at all. And
  the book isn't all laughs, either; as the mother of a person with
  Tourette Syndrome, a disorder which manifests itself in some ways that
  are similar to the autism spectrum, I found that this reading was
  peppered with insights and "YES!" moments.




4. finished A Tale of Two Cities -- Dickens -- 4
• I started listening to this on CD in December while I was
  sewing, and then I listened to it some more while I was painting my
  bedroom, and then I couldn't wait to get to the end, so I read the last
  half-dozen chapters from my copy of the book, in bed one night. I
  love Dickens, and this book is no exception; bonus points for teaching
  me more about the French Revolution than I learned in school, while
  managing to also maintain an individual human scope. Most of the
  characters are perhaps less "Dickensian" than usual, although there are
  notable exceptions (Mr. Cruncher as a messenger who "moonlights" as a
  grave robber and chides his wife for "flopping" is probably the style="font-style: italic;">most notable). Dickens
  doesn't have a 150-year-old reputation as the master of verbiage and
  characterization for nothing; what more can I say?




5. Until The Real Thing Comes Along -- Elizabeth Berg
   -- 3 for content, 5 for style
• Like I do with most Bergs, I read this in one day. Her
  poignant, feel-it-in-your-spine observations were thick on the page, as
  they are in all of her books. I was especially touched by the
  descriptions of babies as the main character struggled with singleness
  and the ticking of her biological clock. I was less thrilled with
  her solution to the problem (becoming pregnant by her gay
  ex-lover). It was an interesting idea, and the author is honest
  about the emotional difficulties involved, but it just didn't resonate
  with me, and I didn't want her to go through with it.
  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, and Ms. Berg certainly didn't miss
  her mark with her trademark raw, emotional descriptions that make you
  realize that you've thought the same thing your whole life but just
  never thought to put it exactly that way.




6. Good Grief
   -- Lolly Winston -- 4
• I had a hard time really getting into this book at first; I
  sort of got off on the wrong foot with it and it seemed amateurish and,
  I don't know, untouchable is
  a word that came to mind. I definitely felt like I was on the
  outside of the book looking in. I can't put my finger on the
  point at which that changed, but it did, and I enjoyed the second half
  of the book much more than the first. This is Winston's first
  novel, and her handling of the loss of a husband seems so skillful
  (from my position of inexperience, at least) that I found myself
  wanting to look her up and find out if she's a widow herself. As
  far as style, that was where my main problem was with the book early
  on; it seemed like something I could have written. Then I started
  to notice some phrases that sang out at me in an almost
  Elizabeth-Bergish sort of way, and then there were more and more of
  them, and before I knew it, whether it had been my mood at the
  beginning of the book causing the problem, or whether the style really
  improved so much for the second half, I found myself fully enthralled
  by the end, rooting for Sophie like she were my best friend.




7. Villette
   -- Charlotte Brontë -- 3.5
• I've had this book on my shelves for years, and I finally plowed through it this month. It took almost four weeks, which is a long time in book years, for me, anyway. I just had such a hard time getting into the protagonist's head for the first three-quarters of it or so, and I disliked most of the members of the "supporting cast", with one exception, that being Mrs. Bretton. Finally, however, Lucy Snowe really clicked for me, and the rest of the book was quite enjoyable. It wasn't Jane Eyre, but on the strength of those chapters the book was able to stand alone on its own merits for me. I was touched by the growing relationship between Lucy and the man she loved; I was glad to see some of the uselessly annoying characters come to have a raison d'être before the last page. I won't mention the one thing that really bothered me about the story, even after I really began to enjoy it, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if it weren't for that one thing I'd probably have given this book a better rating.




8. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
   -- Ann Patchett -- 2.5
• What merit I found in this book was due almost entirely to Patchett's narrative style. The author of two of my most-often-recommended books, Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant, doesn't disappoint on that score in this -- what does one call it, a memoir?
  
  And therein lies the main problem -- it's not a memoir, but it's told with too much almost-voyeuristic detail to be a respectable biography. I suppose that what it's supposed to be is a memoir of a friendship, as well as a memorial tribute of sorts, but it would have been better, in my opinion, as an essay, without spending what amounts to a large part of a book going into so many sordid personal details. If someone writes about her own (appalling, really, in this case) promiscuity and drug use, you feel that she has the right to do so and that she's given you the right to read it -- whether one is interested in that sort of thing or not, she's putting the choice in the reader's hands. But no matter how close Patchett was to Lucy Grealy, the other half of the titular friendship, I felt like she was overstepping her rights. It was like she was giving us Lucy's diary to read, without her consent. I enjoyed reading about the more innocent aspects of their shared life -- their inside jokes, for example, and their trials and successes as writers -- but it seemed like a page couldn't go by without a shot of the kind of details that I personally think would have been better kept between Ann and Lucy, especially since Lucy wasn't the one telling the story.
  
  I do realize that she was probably trying to avoid the standard "triumph of the human spirit" biography -- indeed, Ann and Lucy had a running joke about the various attempts people would make to turn Lucy into that kind of lesson. But somehow going too far in the other direction was even worse, for me, anyway.
  
  Obviously Patchett cared deeply about Lucy and had reasons for writing about her life the way she did. And not being on the inside, so to speak, I really don't have anything to say about whether this story should have been written or not. But as a reader, a looker-on, I can say that I do wish I had been able to leave Lucy some respectful privacy. Had I known how deeply private this story was, I'd not have chosen to read it.
  

Sunday, January 30, 2005

sunday afternoon and the living is easy

This sinus infection is still hanging on, although it's better than it was. Now I only feel like my head is going to explode if I sniffle, or if I bend over to pick up something off the floor. Just enough to make life interesting, right?

Henry the cat (who, you may remember, was coughing) is still coughing. He has a vet appointment on Tuesday, which was the soonest they could get him in. I am worried enough about him to have been excited enough to run outside and tell T about half an hour ago when I saw him drinking water from his dish. He behaves nearly normally during the day -- still a champion purrer, even. But at night the poor boy coughs and/or sneezes in the most miserable-sounding way. It reminds me of when the kids would get croup, and you'd wait for night with a mixture of dread, hope, and curiosity -- will it start getting better tonight? I even have the humidifier running for him. :)

When we got home from church today T made me lie down on the couch and take a rest. I started out reading Anne of Green Gables (which I have pretty much memorized, but I can't just start with Anne of Avonlea because that would be Reading Out Of Order), got as far as Anne crying herself to sleep in the east gable on her first night at Green Gables, and laid the book down "to close my eyes for a few minutes". I woke up THREE HOURS LATER. I actually got to take a nap on a Sunday afternoon. I will have to mark it on the calendar.

This is a nice week coming up. T only works three days, since I have a doctor's appointment AND we both have optometrist appointments tomorrow, and then Friday is his usual Friday off. So we have two three-day weekends in a row, PLUS he has Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the next week off because we're taking our little overnight to Morro Bay so I can see the 6.7-foot high tide and the I-can't-remember-the-number-but-it's-really-low minus tide because I am a total geek and a half. Also because we need to eat the best fish and chips in the world. So T has a three-day week, then a two-day week, then a four-day week (regular Friday off) and then another four-day week (President's Day) and then ANOTHER four-day week (regular Friday off). Maybe after that he can break a bone to get some real time off. (Um, that's a joke. But seriously, we had such a blast when his ankle was broken two winters ago and he was home for 2 1/2 months solid. Yeah, he was in pain, and yeah, I had to wait on him hand and foot, but the whole family got to be together for such a nice long time. And compared to being at work with his word-I-don't-use-unless-I'm-really-super-angry of a boss, that sort of "vacation" looks really pleasant right now.)

And before I lapse into a hyphen-and-parentheses-induced coma (ack! there I go again! and here, too! oh dear), I will go update my 1001 Days journal and then fold some laundry, because Mommy Guilt won't let me just spend an ENTIRE day in idleness. Not today, anyway. :)

Saturday, January 29, 2005

you really would not believe how ill I am

I am so, so ill.

OK, so I'm really not that sick. I'm even feeling a good bit better now than I was this afternoon (I think I was dehydrated and that didn't help). But by golly I am going to milk this for all it's worth. So what if it's just a sinus infection? I don't get lying-down-in-the-middle-of-the-day privileges very often and I'm not going to let the opportunity pass me by. And any work I do in this condition is just extra brownie points, which are always handy.

So. I am so, so ill.

Also. Did you notice the sidebar? I am done with Villette, -- just finished it before I started writing this entry -- and I found that I liked it better as I got nearer the end. Which is probably why I plowed through about 250 pages of it today. (see above re: lying down in the middle of the day. We also watched "Anne of Avonlea", and it's been so long since I read the books that I was actually able to enjoy it. I will, however, be doing a good read-through of that entire series ASAP. Watching adaptations always gives me book cravings.)

I am going to go smear myself with VapoRub and talk like the guy in the NyQuil commercials (or, at least, the guy who was in NyQuil commercials last time I saw any commercials, which was years ago), for the extra sympathy factor, before I go to sleep. Good-dight.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

feeling snippety

I feel snippety. All these little journal-thoughts keep skittering through my head, but nothing long enough for a whole entry. So, here; I'll nail a few of them down long enough to type them, as I do other stuff online:

Today's Lessons had not one but TWO concepts I wanted to steal today. One was blogging every hour all day long about what had gone on in the previous hour (which is much, MUCH more interesting in that particular author's house with her five children than it would be in mine) -- and one, which I may actually go ahead and steal since she OFFERED it like that, is "Before and After Thursdays" -- where I would take a picture of a room in my house before cleaning it, then clean it, then take a picture after, and blog about the whole thing. Oh good Lord that could get a little embarrassing though. Maybe nevermind on that one.

You know what motherhood smells like? It smells like VapoRub. We were not a Vick's family when I was growing up -- I did not even know that there was anything you could do about a stuffy nose besides drink hot tea and wait, until I was a nanny and was introduced to the wonderful world of Dimetapp Elixir -- but when I married T, I found that any time he was stuffy he'd use VapoRub. I still don't like to use it myself, but it works wonders for the kids so anytime we all start getting sick, I smell like it, from spreading it on their sweet little narrow chests. Sometimes as I'm applying it I think about the change that ten more short years will make to those knobby little kid chests, and I just want to grab my kids and take them someplace where they will stay young until I'm tired of it and can let them proceed with growing up.

Henry (the cat, remember?) is sleeping on the chair near me. He wakes up and sneezes periodically, and it startles me. I am such a worrywart about pets (kids' illnesses, I am familiar with; animals are a whole different world) that I have to work hard to stem the fear that he's going to get sick and die. Because he sneezes.

I was tucking LT into bed tonight and I put an extra blanket on him; it was the Toy Story one he got for I think his second birthday. One side features Buzz and the other Woody. When I put it on him I remembered that I used to ask him, as I made his bed each day, whether he wanted Buzz or Woody showing. He would almost always say Buzz, but occasionally would relent and choose Woody because he knew that Woody was my favorite. I reminded him about it, and we laughed. I had completely forgotten about that little ritual until tonight. It makes me wonder how many other things I've forgotten. While I was clearing out our dresser so that I could move it to paint our room (I AM DONE PAINTING), I came across a little note from myself to T from the first year of our marriage and it contained an inside joke of which I have absolutely no recollection. There was a time when I thought that could never happen. That's thirty for you, I guess. :)

Since the other snippets have skittered away, apparently never to return, I present:
11:05 PM At Rachel's House

A Photo Essay

Henry, asleep on C's coat. (now he is coughing a little bit too. Must not panic.)

Mary, in her favorite sleeping position (although she does often get more contorted than this).

DO YOU SEE THE EMPTINESS? I walk into this room and the shock is, well, shocking. It's unrecognizable. Laundry has been my let's-return-to-sanity-now-shall-we occupation this week. I am not sure HOW sane it is to obsess about getting to the bottoms of every single one of our hampers, to the tune of about 20 (small, because our new-to-us washer and dryer were apparently made for single people, or something) loads of laundry washed, dried, folded, and put away, over the course of three days, but oh well. At least I made it all the way through "Pride and Prejudice" while I did the folding.

Me. Man, I look tired. And also, more like my dad every time I see myself. Dad, in turn, looks remarkably like a Caucasian version of Bill Cosby (which is not, you understand, a bad thing for HIM, being male, but oh goody, just think what's in store for me in about 20 more years).

In between loads of laundry this afternoon, since P&P had long since been finished, and, well, because I am the kind of person who likes this sort of thing, I rearranged my living room. The atrocious couch used to be on the left, and the computer and ugly loveseat on the right, with the computer nearer the camera. I also switched positions of the stereo cabinet and TV. The reason for this (other than just my love of change) was so that I could wire the computer sound through the stereo. Which I did ALL BY MYSELF, and I also fixed it so that the DVD player's sound can go through the TV or the stereo or both, instead of just the stereo as was previously the case. This is all thanks to Dawn and her Go Girl Power inspiration, dating from early in our diaryland acquaintance when we were both so new at it that we were using the stock templates. Or I may have been in the fuzzy duckling stage by then; I don't remember.

Notice the little container of VapoRub sitting on top of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Now please avert your eyes from the rest of the clutter, especially the one basket of laundry which I swear I am folding as soon as I post this, I SWEAR, and also my shoe, which is sticking out from the edge of the coffee table, even though I am always scolding the kids for leaving their shoes in the living room. Because I am the world's best mom, that's why.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

as normal as I ever am

So I'm doing a lot better than I was on Monday. Basically, except for a lingering tendency to get all choked up over songs that would ordinarily have no effect on me (I can see "With or Without You" -- but "Fields of Gold"?!), I am normal and fine. Well, as normal and fine as I ever am.

What I am as well, however, is again extremely pissed off at T's boss. So much that it's not satisfying to look at other job listings, like I usually do to let off steam when T's job satisfaction levels hit a low point thanks to that loser, because I would want to actually send in his resumé, which would possibly involve being willing to move out of California, which is one of those things that's great in theory but scary as hell when you actually look at it, up close, personal, and seriously. Not because I wouldn't be unbelievably glad to get out of the politics and price-craziness of the left coast, but because:

• I love everything physical about California. I need relative proximity to mountains and ocean simultaneously. And frankly that's kind of hard to come by in places that aren't expensive and therefore populated by a lot of, well, people whose voting decisions make me want to scream out loud.


• Also, my parents, T's parents, my brother and SIL and nephews, T's friends (my local "friends", except for the aforementioned SIL and parents, could pretty much take me or leave me; we're not all that close) -- all are here within half an hour's drive. And that's a lot to throw away -- especially since my dad's health is poor, and that makes it even more important to us to be near him. It would seem scungy (funny, I have never tried to spell that particular junior-high word before) to move out of state just for our own selfish reasons and leave all that behind.

All this to say, this is why I'm not having a usajobs.gov/realtor.com spree right now. As much as I would probably enjoy it.

---

Darnit, T keeps altering my Yahoo Launch settings so that they play No Doubt ALL THE TIME*. They are definitely a two-or-three-star group for me, not a four-star one. GET YOUR OWN LAUNCH. Now I'm going to have "Underneath it All" in my head for DAYS. I do not appreciate this.

*He is also prone to giving anything by Pink Floyd a "Never Play Again" rating. Stinker.

---

I was carrying C to bed a few minutes ago (she is ill with a nasty sinusy thing so we are home from Bible study), because she had fallen asleep in her chair, and we had the following conversation:

She [mumbling, eyes still closed]: "Mommy, where are you taking me?"
I: "To bed, dearest."
She: "But I'm not tired."
I: "No, you're just asleep."
She: "I'm not asleep. I'm just resting."

She was fully unconscious again three (3) seconds after I put her down in her bed.

---

edited to add:

HE GAVE SHANIA TWAIN FOUR STARS. I cannot believe he would do that to me. What's next, Faith "you pretend you listen to me because you like my music but that's not really your reason, now is it, big guy" Hill?? gag.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

weird day

Yesterday was... a really, really weird day. I don't know where my regular self took off to, but I hope she's back today.

It started off with the unpleasant experience of simply walking out into a very cluttered, messy living room. This was partly because of my "it's clean enough, I'm going to be lazy this weekend" mentality (which always backfires), and partly because the kids had again got stuff out and not put it away, and partly because T's model things were still out, and partly because he had brought in his two telescopes and all their accoutrements and left them in the living room and dining area after a Saturday-night astronomy session. Anyway. The clutter was everywhere; I could not look in any direction (except from my bed) without seeing heaps of STUFF. So I set to work with the kids cleaning it up, but they were not cooperative and I don't know why but my mood just went south. And continued to do so until I found myself completely out of control, sitting in front of a Cary Grant movie methodically eating my way through three-quarters of a big bag of barbecue chips, not even tasting them. And then trying to throw them up.

It pains me even to type that, and it's embarrassing. That is so not like me. When I told T about it I kept saying, over and over, that I wasn't planning to make a habit of it, I just wanted to undo that stupid thing I'd done just this one time. It felt like if I'd been fifteen years younger I could have been the main character in an ABC After School Special. The kids and I went for a walk because I thought it might clear my mind, but still, I spent the rest of the day alternately cleaning, staring into space, and crying quietly (and telling the kids when they asked that Mommy just felt sad and she didn't know why. LT: "Sometimes I feel like that. You just have to think about other things.") I cooked dinner and walked to chorus rehearsal, and things started looking up at that point. When I came home, I found that T and the kids had not only installed my closet shelves and brought over my lingerie chest from the guest apartment, but they'd also hauled the model stuff next door and put away the telescopes. And the kids had washed the dishes. So I was able to put away a lot of things (thanks to the shelves and the dresser) and I'll do more of that today. So far this morning I feel normal and fine. Please God let it stay that way.

P.S. The cats are fast friends now. We've started letting them spend a little bit of time outside now, but they will always be trapped in the house from dusk until I get up in the morning -- other animals have been disappearing in our neighborhood at night as well.

Sunday, January 23, 2005

guilt

I think I need to regain a little perspective here. So if you ever had an experience where your parents hurt your feelings without realizing it and you cried quietly in your bed but your dad heard you and you told your parents you felt like you were being ganged up on (or "teamed up on", hey, whatever word choice you may happen to have made was fine), and they hugged you and told you they were sorry and told you to please tell them next time instead of crying quietly alone in your room and they prayed with you and you told them you loved them too and went to sleep afterward, and then you grew up into a normal adult who loved your parents and didn't cut yourself or start doing drugs at the age of twelve, please tell me.

Not that this has anything to do with ME, or with an enormous load of parental guilt I'm staggering around under, or anything. It's just a little, um, survey.

Other than that.

Today was a beautiful day. I am the first to say that I love winter storms -- at least California "winter" storms -- but a week of days like this in between them is like a gift. We spent the afternoon at my parents'. The grass is so green; the creeks are burbling; the afternoon sky is bright, dark blue; the moonrise was a thing of beauty and a joy forever. It was perfect weather for a walk, which we took, and for roasting hot dogs, which we did.

We got to the halfway point in Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, our current family read-aloud book, today. I think I read about eighty pages of it today -- in the car on the way to church, in the car on the way home, and on the way out to my parents', and on the way home (WITH A FLASHLIGHT), plus the regular nightly chapter before bed. T and I already loved this story, and the kids have fallen completely in love with it as well, and they just won't let me stop reading. Except for tonight, when LT wanted to play a game instead but the rest of us wanted to do the nightly reading first, and then we kind of jumped all over LT for not paying attention, thus making him feel like he was being "teamed up against". Because we are the world's best parents. (somehow the most heartbreaking thing to happen to a person -- not ME, a purely hypothetical person who accidentally hurts her child's feelings, I mean -- who has hurt his/her child is hearing that child say that s/he is the best Mommy/Daddy ever -- while the child is still crying. That seems like perhaps it would tear a person's heart to pieces, doesn't it. Not that I would know.)

Saturday, January 22, 2005

drama queen, awana games, leftovers, and absolutely no title creativity

C's latest Drama Queen moment, on learning that she must take a bath even though she has a cut on her hand: "I wish my whole life was just a dream!" (emphasis in original).

The big event for today was Awana Games. This is an activity where Awana kids (Awana, for those of you joining us late, is a Bible club for kids, wherein they get together and memorize Bible verses and listen to stories and play these club-specific sort of outdoor games involving bean bags and bowling pins and a few other oddments) from various churches get together and play all their games against each other. There's also, for the middle/older-elementary kids, of which LT is one, a "quizzing" segment where the kids sit there looking all serious and use little paddles with letters to answer multiple-choice questions, and then there's a free-response round where they buzz in like on "Jeopardy!". Last year, LT was a total basket case for this entire day (and he wasn't even doing the quizzing); it was not terribly long after his Tourette's had first manifested itself, and he was in a particularly anxious, crowd-phobic period, and the gym full of stomping, yelling people and all the strangeness and the fact that his awful, bad mother had left him with his aunt and a group of near-strangers because she had to run to the bathroom when we first arrived sent him into a ticcing, melting-down tailspin. He came out of it a bit when T told him a joke about Luke Skywalker wetting himself when he had to fight Darth Vader, and by the end of the event he was doing relatively OK, although he swore he never wanted to do anything in a high-school gym again. That was last year, though; this year he had a fine time, and didn't even really tic more than normal, which is a good sign for his stress level. And he even placed second with his team in both quizzing and games. Meanwhile C spent the day distracting her cousins, who are in Sparkies (that's the Awana division for K-2) with her, and then asking EVERY THIRTY FREAKING SECONDS if LT was almost done, once her part was over. While I ate half a bag of pretzels (I accidentally bought unsalted ones so nobody else wanted them) and wished I'd brought the seat cushion I made in Girl Scouts in the fourth grade. I'd forgotten how hard seats are in school gyms.

Do you know what I did today? I finally threw out the Christmas leftovers. Not that we'd been EATING them since about New Year's Eve. I just hadn't gotten around to cleaning out the fridge yet. Now you will never ever come over to my house. Sorry.

much ado about... not much

Tonight I read a chapter of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh aloud to the family. One of my favorite memories from childhood is the way my brother and I would lie in bed while Mom sat in our room and read out loud to us. Both of us were old enough to read ourselves, and I had already developed the nose-in-book disease that would plague me so deliciously for the rest of my life, but somehow having Mom read to us was special. She read Charlotte's Web, and a wonderful little book called No Children, No Pets, her copy of which I later destroyed by much reading and which I tracked down and bought on Bibliofind.com (may it rest in peace) when I first had Internet access, and some of the Little House books and some of the Narnia ones. I've tried to do this with my kids over the years but it's always fizzled out after a few weeks. This time I wised up and picked a book that T really, really likes, so maybe he'll help me not slack off. ;-) Should we get through Mrs. Frisby, we'll move on to C's choice, The Wizard of Oz, and then LT's, Journey to the Center of the Earth, which I may record for my dad.

Cat update: Henry and Mary can now occupy the same couch without a single smidge of hissing or snarling or even crouching. They aren't washing each other's faces yet (oh, poor Molly, we miss you so, so much) but it's progress. They remind me of a blended family wherein a 15-year-old girl who wants to be a rebel but is good at heart just acquired a soft, skinny little 12-year-old stepbrother. Only they've never yet called each other "pizzaface" or listened in on each other's phone conversations. Give them time, I guess.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

I can't possibly come up with a title for this one

note to self: when using Mozilla Firefox DO NOT ATTEMPT TO USE THE GOOGLE SEARCH WINDOW THINGIE WHEN TYPING A DIARYLAND ENTRY. Because the entry disappears. And the really bad thing is, that's the third time I've done this today. You'd think I'd have learned by now. I hate having to try to re-create what I'd already had typed out. Good thing I've had some diet Coke -- we were out of my crack substitute earlier today, which was part of why I was so crabby, I think -- or I would not have handled that as well as I did.

The new cat's name is (drumroll please) Henry. It was the first name we could all agree on; LT came up with it. And he already seems Henryish. And we don't know any Henrys, which is good, and nobody would agree to Fitzwilliam, Wentworth, or Rochester, which were my three suggestions. Frankly he doesn't LOOK like a nineteenth-century romantic hero -- but a girl has to try. Hmm, maybe I should have tried Frederick.

And now I am going to go to bed in my (never again to be painted by me) bedroom, in my own bed. It was a little weird, sleeping in C's bed and having T come lie down with me in the mornings, because hello, I slept on that bed from the age of 12 until I got married, and it was just a little... squeeby. I love our room right now, hospital-colored ceiling and all, because all it has in it is the bed and a small dresser on its beautiful hardwood floor. I wish it could be that minimalist all the time. Just being surrounded by clutter, before I even get out of bed in the morning, shoves my stress level up a few notches.

I plan to spend a lot of time this weekend reading and crocheting. The dratted bedroom is done, the house is "clean enough" -- I'm going to spend my time at home this weekend (which won't be as much as I like) folding laundry to the accompaniment of Austen adaptations, plowing into my new stack of library books (Ann Patchett, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Berg, and one I'd never heard of but it sounded interesting), and seeing how much of that blanket I can get done. ahhh. :) Of course I shouldn't plan for this, because as soon as I do that means it can't come to pass. Hmm. Maybe I'll figure on spending the weekend cleaning instead. ;-)

this isn't about the ******* painting; it's about the new cat

Instead of telling you all how much I hate ceiling trim and how VERY bad I am at installing it, but how I can't leave it up to T because his wrist is quite likely fractured, I will just show you a picture of the new cat.



Mary does not deign to admit that he exists, except to growl under her breath if he appears. And he will only come out of hiding if it's very, very quiet, and what with the STUPID EFFING TRIM that hasn't been happening today. But he is very friendly and has a fantastic purr. He does not have a name yet; we're kind of waiting to see if his personality is name-able, once he settles in. If he never settles in I guess we'll just call him "the new gray cat" for the rest of his life.

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

I AM DONE PAINTING

I. Am. Done.

That nasty awful bedroom is painted. And you know what? Now it looks like a 1963 hospital room, with that kind of sea-green color on the ceiling. And you know what else? I don't care. I won't live here forever, it's better than the dark wood, and above all, if I cared, I would have to repaint it which I am not going to do. Nuh-uh.

Besides, it will look better when we nail the trim back up tomorrow. And tomorrow night I am sleeping IN MY OWN BED darnit. With my husband. And maybe Mary will curl up by my feet like she usually does; that sounds nice.

After a lot of discussion with T and the kids, and after scouring the neighborhood, knocking on doors, handing out flyers, putting up posters, etc., we've decided to go to the SPCA tomorrow and adopt another kitty. Not just for us and the kids (although that's a big part of it) but we're hoping that a feline companion will help Mary get back to normal. (I really REALLY hope we're not bringing Mary a feline enemy, because that is ALL she needs right now). Her temperament is just so changed with Molly gone, and she seems to be looking for her sometimes. This feels a little soon to me -- like this will be a designated Rebound Cat, and we shouldn't be getting into a serious relationship at this point, know what I mean? Maybe we should name this cat Bob. Bob was the only bona-fide rebound relationship I ever had -- lasted a couple of weeks, about two weeks after my first and most serious high school boyfriend broke up with me after we'd been "going together" for almost two years. We held hands and walked around in the pasture on the ranch where I lived; we drove to the city just to get Oreos; he proposed to me. Did I mention he was 19 and I was 16? Yeah. A little soon in a lot of ways, there. At least I had the presence of mind to tell him no, right? Bob's mom had just died and he was on his way to Texas to go to seminary, so his whole life was kind of out of whack at that point, I think. Poor guy.

Anyway. I'm sure the new kitty will not turn out to be a mistake. Even though this will probably mean the return of THE LITTER BOX AUGH for a week or so while we get him/her adjusted to the idea that this is home.

Did I mention I'm done painting? I AM DONE PAINTING.

Monday, January 17, 2005

trying to keep that nasty pit-of-the-stomach feeling away

I think Molly is really, really gone, as there was still no sign of her today. And to top things off, now we haven't seen Mary in a couple of hours; she went outside and hasn't come back in yet. My usual anticipatory worrying has begun -- if both our cats are gone, will we get new cats right away, or in the spring when it's kitten season, or never? We don't like keeping cats cooped up indoors for a variety of reasons, but if we're going to get attached to them and then have them get eaten by predators or killed on the highway or what have you, is it worth having them in the first place? And then I try to laugh at myself for borrowing trouble when it's probably just that Mary's having a little moonlit (and platonic, since she's spayed, right?) tryst with her buddy Max/Maxine (we can't tell; s/he never lifts his/her tail), the local feral cat. But I can't laugh. I'm not despondent; I know the difference between pets and people and I'm maintaining perspective. But even losing a pet is painful. And losing two in one weekend would be just downright depressing.

In other news: I reported in the 1001 Days journal about the progress with the paint job. T seems to have been inspired by my decision to actually do a project that we've been planning on doing for somewhere in the neighborhood of six months, and he started sandblasting on his Charger today (the blue-tarp sandblasting tent has only been set up for, hmm, three or four months now). Or maybe he was just trying to keep his mind occupied, like someone else I know. As soon as I stop the aimless rambling typing the yucky feeling comes back to the pit of my stomach. I think I'll go take a shower and then read for a bit (nothing like reading about the Reign of Terror for that "maintaining perspective" thing) before I try to fall asleep.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

giving my heart to a cat to tear

I must confess a weakness. My heart has been broken by a cat.

But this isn't just any cat. This is Molly, who was originally supposed to be C's but who adopted LT early on. She would sleep with him, wrapped around his head like a hat. This boy who wipes off kisses because he "doesn't like to feel people's mouths" would allow Molly to lick his head all night, like he was one of her kittens. We thought Molly was going to die once; she was lethargic and sick. But she got better, and we were all, even T, so, so glad.

We haven't seen Molly since yesterday afternoon. She never came in and slept with LT in the night. We looked hard for her today, all of us; we walked the neighborhood knocking on doors; I went up and down the highway looking for her little body. I've checked places where she could have been trapped four and five times. She seems to be totally gone. We have a teeny bit of hope that she may turn up yet, but personally, I've already started to grieve.

We'll miss you, little kitty.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

******* painting

As I mentioned in the 1001 Days journal, I'm painting our bedroom. I've removed "this weekend" from that phrase because I see no way short of a miracle which includes a team of professional painters that I'll be done by Monday night. This is partly because we ended up zipping down to the valley this morning and didn't get back till 2:30, and partly because, dang, painting takes a whole lot of time. Or rather, preparing to paint does. I HATE PAINTING. I always forget how much I hate it in between episodes of it. T has suggested that I give myself a week and he'll plan on helping me put the trim back up on Friday. Which means a week of me sleeping in C's bed and T sleeping on the couch. That sounds sad. Except it means BLANKETS ALL TO MYSELF FOR SIX NIGHTS YAY.


Sorry, T. I really do love sleeping with you. I do. Really. I'm only tempted to do the 50's-TV-couple-twin-beds thing every ONCE in a while.

In other news: I am wearing a pedometer. I think it grossly overcounts. I am convinced that this is because I am wearing it at the front of my waist, like it says to do, and, well, that's a jiggly area. Which hopefully just wearing the pedometer will fix, right, I mean, that's a fitness regimen, isn't it?

I have noticed a decrease in the frequency -- the event density if you will -- of my Really Stupid Things. For a while I easily tallied up one or two a day. Now (and I don't think this is just because I'm not paying attention), I seem to be slowing down. Maybe it was turning 30. Today, however, I have made up for lost time. Moving furniture will do that. And was it the huge cumbersome mattress and box spring that gave me trouble? Nooo. The chest dresser? No, it was our little metal bedframe. Four measly lengths of angle iron bolted together in a rectangle, with legs and wheels attached, that C could probably have taken care of with very little trouble. Well, maybe not C, who is affectionately known between T and myself (never in her hearing) as "The World's Cutest Disaster". But LT, for sure. Anyway. It confounded me for several minutes and resulted in my incurring two minor-but-painful injuries. Because I am all cool that way.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

and the enslavement to memes continues...

Again, I lifted this audience-participation game from the equally-meme-enslaved KiwiRia.

1. Pick one dozen movies that are ones that you have special feelings about.

2. Pick a few lines of dialogue.

3. As people guess the film, strike out that entry. (I decided to highlight them in yellow instead)

4. If possible, after the film is guessed, explain why that movie made the list.


OK, I know a lot of these are going to be total giveaways. Oh well. :)

1. "As the good book says, 'if a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick!'" -- Paula knew this one. And I didn't know that it was a genuine old Jewish saying; thanks for the educational tidbit! I think I should change one of my columns on the left to "learn something new every day..."
   
   
   
2. "I'm scared of what I saw, of what I did, of who I am -- and more than anything else, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling again in my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you!" -- Susan came through for Baby and Johnny :)
   
   
   
3. "In vain have I struggled, it will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." -- Kat knew her Austen adaptations well :)
   
   
   
4. "Christmas? Christmas means dinner; dinner means death! Death means carnage! Christmas means carnage! "
   
   
   
5. "I'm French. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king?" (say this one with the "outrageous" French accent and it may be a little easier) -- Good job KiwiRia; I was beginning to think I'd picked a too-difficult quote from this very quotable movie. :)
   
   
   
6. "I'm saying I love you. I'm saying it out loud." -- So I'm not the only one who's seen this skating movie multiple times. ***sigh*** Thanks, Cami! :)
   
   
   
7. "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." -- Cami got this one too. Now I want to have a nice romantic-comedy film fest tonight.
   
   
   
8. "Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."
   
   
   
9. "I think Margaret was right. Piracy is our only option." -- Again, good for Kat
   
   
   
10. Sam: Although I cried at the end of "the Dirty Dozen."
    
    Greg: Who didn't?
    
    Sam: Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin [begins to cry] were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis...
    
    Greg: [Crying too] Stop, stop!
    
    Sam: And Trini Lopez...
    
    Greg: Yes, Trini Lopez!
    
    Sam: He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines...
    
    Greg: Stop.
    
    Sam: And Richard Jaeckel - at the beginning he had on this shiny helmet...
    
    Greg: [Crying harder] Please no more. Oh God! I loved that movie. -- Debi figured this one out. T and I LOVE that part of that movie. We generally have to watch it multiple times before we can proceed through the rest of the DVD.
    
    
    
11. "Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page. I can teach you notes on a page, I can't teach you that other stuff." -- Susan again, yay Susan! :) I have a question. Is a crush on a high-school music teacher pretty much a universal thing? Do all girls do this? Because I did.
    
    
    
12. "I know I chatter on far too much, but if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit." -- Kat again! Of course a fellow "Kindred Spirit" would know it :)
    

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

not the kind of day homeschoolers brag about

This was one of those days. By that I mean, it's the kind of day which I think those few bitter individuals who think mothers can't teach their children and shouldn't try to do so would wish on me, if they had a little Rachel voodoo doll (let's not give them that idea, shall we?). It's Wednesday, which means chapter summaries. Ordinarily these go very smoothly. LT has become pretty good at them; the format's simple and anyone from a 5-year-old (C does one too) to a professional Bible scholar can get a lot out of it. Today, I think maybe because he got up early, but maybe because he decided subconsciously that this had to be a day to make Mommy alternate between doubting her calling as a mother, and fantasizing about running for the hills, arms flailing wildly, not looking back -- today he just DID NOT WANT to cooperate. So instead of going to Bible study with T and C tonight, we stayed home, and he went to bed after dinner. Apparently he's not TOO sleepy; he's in there reading. That's my boy.


I really hope tomorrow's better. Meanwhile I'm going to go drown my sorrows in a Jane Austen adaptation (P&P, the standby? Or should I branch out into the Kate Beckinsale version of Emma? Or maybe I'll just keep listening to Yahoo Launch's "Big Hits of the 80's" station -- when was the last time I heard a Heart song? Decisions, decisions...) and some crocheting.

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

snowing

Surprisingly enough, it's snowing here right now. (the snow level was supposed to stay about 1000 feet above our town). The kids noticed it first. The ground is soaked and the snow is wet and it's not sticking at ALL and I'm guessing it'll stop within the next hour. C's comment? "Now it is real winter, Mommy!" I must confess that it's cozy. Makes me want to curl up by the fire and read (but then that doesn't take much).


Those of you in the Midwest and Northeast may come and kill me now.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Yosemite pictures

Today the kids and I went and had lunch with T and then headed to Yosemite Valley for an hour or so to take pictures. (oh goody! pictures!). It was GORGEOUS in the Valley today -- still snow on the ground in spite of the fact that it rained there all day yesterday, and so empty of tourists that I felt almost like we had the whole place to ourselves.

These are thumbnails; rather than resizing the images, I cropped them, so you're only looking at a little piece of the picture, and you can click on that to see the whole thing in a new window. I stole this idea from something that dooce used to do.

Yosemite Falls	the kids at Yosemite Falls	Upper Yosemite Fall
fancy a swim?	Bridal Veil Fall

The following are just a very SMALL sample of the gratuitous little waterfalls we saw, which were actually the reason for the trip today. When the ground is saturated and it's rainy, and especially if it's been snowy and THEN turns rainy, you see hundreds (and I am not exaggerating) of these little waterfalls along the highway on the way into Yosemite, ranging from a little trickle to a roaring, well, waterfall, with more water in it than Yosemite Falls has in September.

I took this one as a comparison shot. A month or so ago it looked like this.

Sunday, January 09, 2005

a lazy Sunday

Today I got up at 10. That's ten in the morning, you know, that time that is only two hours before noon. And the thing is that aside from waking briefly to say "no" and roll back over and go back to sleep, at 7:30 when the alarm went off and T (who was really sore all yesterday afternoon and last night from the snow escapade on Friday) explained sleepily that he'd just set it in case we changed our minds and decided not to ditch church and did I want to go, I'd slept solidly from the time I'd gone to bed (which was, granted, 1:30 a.m.) until then. I felt like a teenaged boy. Well, except for the raging-hormones-huge-appetite-voice-changing-girl-crazy thing.

When I finally stumbled out to the living room, my prince of a husband had built a fire, fed the kids breakfast, and set up a little Sunday school for them, with questions on sheets of paper like "What is your favorite Bible verse?" and "What is your favorite thing about being a Christian?", which they had to answer with a paragraph (LT) or a sentence (C) and a picture. The kids spent two happy hours bent over their work, and the results were suitable for framing in that "so cute and quintessentially childish that it causes a beautiful little ache in your chest" kind of way. Which proved once and for all that if our roles had to reverse, T would do just fine at the whole homeschooling thing.


We had one of those really refreshing days spent at home being semi-productive (T and LT worked on a model car project; LT made up a board game; T went out in the pouring rain to rake over the mess our truck tires made yesterday when we drove in the field next to our house to unload wood; I cleaned and crocheted and read and folded laundry and EMPTIED MY IRONING BASKET, go me; C played dolls and horsies and cleaned her room without complaining; the kids emptied the dishwasher) but not busy enough that you don't feel like you've also been pleasantly lazy. It was exactly the kind of day we needed, especially T, who has to go back to the grind and probably go out in the snow again tomorrow, although I hope the ox-headed boss learned his lesson about snowmobiling in blizzards. If he didn't I may just have to kill him. Slowly.

book infatuation

(quick note: I updated the 1001 Days journal tonight as well. I won't note this here every time I do that; that site now has its own notify list; feel free to use it. Also, the link will continue to be in the blogroll on this site.)

This afternoon we went to the valley to pick up a few things, and on our way out of town we stopped by the library and I picked up the books they had waiting for me on hold. I couldn't start reading right away because I was the one driving on the way to the valley, but once we were down there T drove, and in the fifteen or so blocks between the hobby store and Wal-Mart, I discovered that I was in love with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I was reading sections out loud to T and I had a silly grin on my face and I had that twittery feeling like you get when you first start to think that maybe the person you like likes you back and you don't want to hope that you're embarking on something wonderful, so you tell yourself to expect disappointment, but under the surface you know you're totally lost and if this ship sinks you'll go down with it. (I did say that I have books instead of friends. Maybe I have books instead of affairs too.) Maybe I was just really ready to enjoy a book, I dunno. The narrator of this story is an autistic teenaged boy, and the first three pages (the first three paragraphs, really) immersed me in his world completely. I read in the car until it got too dark. I'd have done the trick where I hold the book up in the light of the headlights from the car behind us, like I used to do when I was little, but I wanted to save a little of the enjoyment for later. It couldn't last, though; as soon as the kids were in bed I just dived in, and I didn't come up until I finished the book a little after midnight. READ THIS BOOK. THIS MEANS YOU. The story is interesting, but it's the telling of it that sucked me in, and the insights into the mind of an autistic person are worth the read all by themselves. Having a son with a mild neurological disorder (Tourette Syndrome, for those of you who joined us recently; TS and autism are in the same "spectrum" of disorders), I saw several things I recognized. And not all having to do with LT; the protagonist (ahem) sees the text of a conversation in his head just like somebody else I know who may or may not be named Rachel (and also Kat!).



On the way home from the valley the twilight sky directly above us was clear (hadn't seen blue sky or stars in days) but there was a literally awesome bank of clouds built up against the mountains, and as we drove toward and then under them, there was an enormous thunderstorm going on. I think that will be one of those drives I remember when I'm eighty.

Friday, January 07, 2005

I needed a little something to occupy my mind

T just called. He's on his way home from the shop -- should be here in an hour or so. PRAISE GOD; I was getting really worried. (It took them an hour to snowmobile in and five hours to get back out).

To keep my mind off waiting for him to call, I spent the day creating a list of 101 Things To Do in 1001 Days. I'd read about it on Today's Lessons (link down there on the right) and it intrigued me. And I really needed something to absorb my attention today. So now that I've been staring at the computer screen for like seven hours I'm going to fold some laundry.

By the way, this is my second update today.


Oh! more news! (Not from T). Just got the call that the miracle baby was born this morning (it turned out that she was at 37 weeks when I posted about it before, and the contractions stopped), and is healthy and beautiful. God is good.

an exercise in telephone patience

Update on the asterisk situation: I heard from T at ten this morning. They had reached the equipment without incident after only an hour on the snowmobiles, and were waiting for batteries to charge before heading back to their truck to drive down the hill. Now I feel like I need to tell God I'm sorry for thinking swear words and having a world-class bad attitude, before I can tell Him a big THANK YOU for getting T safely this far.

I finally gave up waiting to hear from T again and got in the shower.
Which meant, of course, that it was time for the phone to start ringing, and of course I had to answer it every time because what if it was T?.

• Call #1: C brings me the cordless, saying that it's ringing but she's "too shy to answer it." I turn off the water and push TALK, getting the phone all wet, and get a dial tone. I dry off the phone and set it on the toilet lid so that if it rings again I can just answer it, in case it's T.
• Call #2: Phone rings. I turn off water, swipe hand against
  towel, pick up phone, getting it all wet, push TALK.
  

  Computerized female
  Prozac voice: "This is the
  TeleCirc library system. You have (ONE) item being held at this time..."

• Call #3: Phone rings. I turn off water, swipe hand on
  towel, pick up phone, push TALK.
  

  Accented
  female voice: Good morning, may I speak to [gross mispronunciation of T's name, which, granted, happens a lot]?
  I: He's not here; may I
  ask who's calling?
  Voice: This is a courtesy
  call from [some credit card company].
  I [deciding to forego the
  usually-quite-amusing discussion of exactly why it is called a
  "courtesy call" when it interrupts my life to try to sell me something I don't want and which involves an enormous corporation profiting from human weakness, since the phone is getting wet]: Please remove us from your list, thank you.
  Voice: All right, as of
  January 7 2005 I am adding your name to our do not call list blah blah blah blah blah thirty seconds of small print while the phone continues to get wet and I begin to shiver because I can't bring myself to just hang up on the person; after all she's just doing her [albeit very annoying] job

• Call #4: Phone
  rings. I turn off water, swipe hand against towel -- you get it.
  

  My grandmother (the
  self-sufficient spunky one, not the whiny one or the dead one): Are your parents there?
  I: No.
  [sixty seconds of shivering, phone-soaking small talk]

  
  

Now. Guess how long I was in the shower, start to finish. Did you guess seven minutes? Because if you did, you would be right. And of course the phone hasn't rung since I got out, what, forty minutes ago now. Why should it, when it would be completely convenient for me to answer? That would be boring.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

rant, with asterisks

I just had an entry all typed up and it disappeared when I hit send. I think Diaryland does this periodically just to make my life interesting. Maybe they have a camera set up somewhere to record my reaction so Andrew can laugh. I should learn to be like most people, and type these up in a Notepad file so they don't get lost when that happens. It was an interesting entry too, full of candid emotion, with many asterisks. Because, you see, I don't want to actually swear in here -- I'm not the swearing type in general, really; with the apparent exception of talking in my sleep during dreams about faithless husbands, I almost never actually swear out loud, being more of the "DogGONnit!" type. But when my husband's boss behaves in such a way as to make all the words that usually scroll through my mind turn into variations of The Big One, I have to vent somehow. (Have I ever mentioned in here the fact that when I'm not speaking or listening to speech, I see random words in my head in various fonts and colors, and that when people are talking the words they say show up like subtitles, sometimes scrolling horizontally, sometimes vertically, sometimes showing up like they're being typed? No? Whoops, I think that BANG I just heard was the door slamming as everyone ran away from the crazy woman. I won't hurt you, I swear.)

What the ******* boss has done is that he has decided, thanks to his vast and immeasurable hero complex, that some work on a remote radio-signal repeater, which could just as well be done on Monday because it is not urgent, must instead be done tomorrow. Even though it's a day off work for both him and T. Even though it will be snowing and extremely cold and there's already six or eight feet of snow on the ground where they're going. Even though they need to start from home at 4 a.m. Even though their heated enclosed off-road Snow-Cat thing is in the shop and they'll be going on snowmobiles. Even though the total amount of snowmobile experience between the two of them is one brief ride. So basically, the boss is at least ruining T's day, and also quite possibly endangering his life, because The Mission Comes First. He is a company man through and through, I'll say that for him. I hope his privates freeze off.

I had another of those "anxiety attacks" today. I looked around a bit online and found information on ventricular tachycardia, and I began to think that was what I was having. Then I was talking to one of the other moms at Awana tonight (remind me never to go to Awana when it's been raining for two weeks. Any excuse will suffice. Children are intolerable in large groups after two weeks of being cooped up indoors. My hat is off to classroom teachers in the winter who not only retain their sanity but manage to educate kids at the same time) and she said that she had exactly the same symptoms, triggered in exactly the same way, and that when she went to the doctor it did turn out to be VT and she got treated for it and it went away. My episodes aren't frequent (four in a year or so, although I've had two in the past month) so I am not sure I'll get the little outpatient surgery for it, but I might actually (groan) fork over a copayment and go see a doctor about it. Someday.

books I want to read in 2005

I don't remember the last time I was in bed before midnight. It has reached the point where I feel like I'm wasting hours if I am asleep before two a.m. I think this is some kind of long-repressed reaction to having had a bedtime of 9:00 from birth till high school -- when my parents allowed for my extra maturity by bumping it up to 9:30. Not that it was very strictly enforced, I'll admit. But I have to blame my weird night-owl tendencies on something.


I spent some quality time with my Amazon recommendations* the other night, and between what was suggested to me and what those suggestions triggered in my memory, I came up with a really yummy list of a few books I want to read this year. This does not include re-reads, which I know I will be doing a great deal of, because I am the kind of person who has books instead of friends. Some of these books I hadn't even heard of before, which is exactly what I need right now, as I'm in a bit of a rut. I won't necessarily be buying all of these; some I'll check out of the library, and I already own some of them. I'll put a star by those. And forgive the lack of italics and authors' names; this is taken from a text file that I made up quickly as I went, just as notes for myself. Shut UP already Rachel and get to the list.

• The Jungle Book
  
• Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy)
  
• The Awakening*
  
• Jude the Obscure*
  
• Time Machine/Invisible Man*
  
• Vanity Fair*
  
• Dickens* [every year I promise myself a chronological Dickens excursion and every year I put it off. Maybe this year I'll actually do it.]
  
• The Importance of Being Earnest
  
• The Secret Life of Bees
  
• Middlesex
  
• The Life of Pi
  
• Frankenstein
  
• Tales from Watership Down
  
• The Three Junes
  
• The Pull of the Moon -- E. Berg
  
• Say When -- E. Berg
  
• Until the Real Thing Comes Along -- E. Berg
  
• Atonement -- McEwen
  
• Reading Lolita in Tehran
  
• Here Be Dragons -- Penman
  
• The Good Mother -- Miller
  
• Middlemarch
  
• Mill on the Floss*
  
• Fahrenheit 451
  
• more A.S. Byatt
  
• War of the Worlds -- Wells
  
• Good Grief -- Winston
  
• Little Children -- Perrotta
  
• Firefly Summer -- Binchy
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night TIme -- Haddon (this one is waiting for me at the library)
  
• The Lost World -- Doyle
  
• An Assembly Such as This (Pamela Aidan)
  
• Truth and Beauty: A Friendship -- Ann Patchett
  
• The Birth of Venus -- Sarah Dunant
  

*Amazon recommendations: WHAT A TOTALLY BRILLIANT IDEA! don't you think? I mean, isn't it, like, the perfect and purest use of computer programming, to take in data about what books I like and spit out a list of books I probably would enjoy? I feel all warm and fuzzy toward the whole computer industry every time I think of it. Well, not quite the whole computer industry, OK, but pretty close.


Oh, and the redesign. I went for a more bloggish look this time. IT WAS A LOT OF WORK so if you hate it, be nice. It won't last long anyway; you know how I am by now.


Edited to add: Valerie asked me for the URL for Amazon's recommendations. You just go to Amazon.com (I'm pretty sure the British version would have the same feature if that's what you'd rather use, Val). Sign in or create an account, and then the fun starts. :) You can search for books on Amazon that you own or have read, and rate them (down on the lower left on each item's page); you can add things to your wish list; you can make purchases. All these things will change your recommendations. After you've done some rating, buying, or wishing, click on "Your Store" (should have your name instead of "Your" if you're signed in) and there'll be recommendations for you. You can go through those, rating them, telling the beneficent Amazon computer that you're not interested, buying them, adding them to your wishlist (which is a bit of a pain because it takes you away from the recommendations page every time, but oh well, nothing's perfect), and that will continue to update your recommendations.



P.S. If somebody should happen to buy, say, a book about rebuilding MoPar muscle cars, one about the book of Revelation, and a set of Star Wars videos on your Amazon account, you will spend months weeding out the sprouts from those seeds in your recommendations list. Just thought I'd warn you. The moral of the story is: T has his own e-mail address; he needs his own darn Amazon account as well. ;-)

Monday, January 03, 2005

resolutions. I am such a sheep.

One nice thing about being an adult is that it's OK for Christmastime to end. When I was little there were very few days sadder than the one on which the tree came down -- although it doesn't seem to bother my kids much (maybe that's because they have birthdays to look forward to in the middle of the year. Unlike some people I know). Now it's... not exactly a relief; I wouldn't say that, but it's just nice to move on and get on with regular life, I guess.


I think our Christmas decorations breed while they're out of their boxes. I swear we could fit everything in that crate last year, but this year there was just no way. And I don't think we bought anything new to go in it. It is an odd phenomenon and I think someone should look into it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has to deal with it, right?


Remember last year when I swore I didn't make resolutions? I lied. I have made three. Baaa.

1. The housecleaning thing I mentioned in that survey the other day. Of course, I, er, haven't started this one yet. So technically I've already broken it, haven't I. Darn. But I wonder if that gets me off the hook for the rest of the year?
   
2. I'm going to keep track of the books I read. I have a lot of online acquaintances who do this, and it seems like such a nice thing to be able to look back at the end of a year or a month and actually remember what you've read. I forget, and if for some reason I want to remember (like, for example, for that survey thing), I have to go through my journal and my emails and look for places where I just happen to mention books I've read. So I'll make a little text file and try to remember to add to it every time I finish a book.
   
3. 1300 calories, 64 oz. of water, and a walk every day (weather permitting on the walk -- it has been delightfully rainy for over a week here, and I won't go so far as to commit myself to an exercise video or anything drastic like that on days when I can't go for a walk outside. I'm not that crazy). Again. Sigh.
   

The kids and I did do a bang-up job of cleaning the living room before we took the decorations down tonight. T was late getting home from work, and I looked around the house and thought, 'if I were coming home from a sixteen-hour day of working in near-blizzard conditions and encountering unexpected obstacles and a whole bunch of stressful stuff like that, would I want to walk into a cluttery disaster like this?' And after I narrowly avoided a panic attack just at the thought of such a circumstance, we all three got to work and made the place more livable. For the next eight hours anyway -- and that's only because people will be asleep. And do me a favor and don't look in the kitchen, OK?