Stages of grief

So, we're halfway through November, less than two weeks past the dreadful election. It's interesting how everyone is now talking about what we're going to lose when Trump takes over in January, what you should do now because you won't be able to do it then. For instance,

• Get all your vaccines now, before RFK Jr. cancels them. It's not clear whether he really will do this, but I'm late with vaccines this year, and I feel a sense of urgency. Must schedule flu, Covid, and probably in December I'll finally do the shingles shot.
• If you're on a weight loss drug, as I am, try to stockpile it, because RFK Jr. plans to cancel them and give people gym memberships and coupons for organic vegetables instead.
  
• If you're in the market for an electric car, buy it now before the tax credits go away. Our neighborhood has been discussing this recently.
• If you're a woman of childbearing age, try to stockpile as much birth control as you can. Or get your tubes tied, have a hysterectomy, something like that. If you're part of a gay couple, or trans, especially if you have kids, move to a blue state. Fortunately for us, we already live in a blue state. Rocket Boy is very glad he is no longer in Missouri.
  
• Rocket Boy will probably lose his job (contractor for a scientific federal agency -- probably one of the first jobs Elon will cut), so we should either save as much as we can now or (my preference) spend happily, because it's the last time we'll be able to in our lifetimes.
• Anyone who works for the government who has been involved in investigating Trump has already been warned that they should probably leave the country.
  
• And I already mentioned that the student loan forgiveness will go away, so we'll probably have to start paying again. Interestingly, because the organizations handling this are slow, Rocket Boy is shown as still having one payment left before he's done, even though he made it in September and also made extra payments in October. The woman he talked to from the (soon to be eliminated) Dept. of Education said it will process before the end of the year. So he should be shown as having paid off his loans by December 31st -- and then Trump will take over a few weeks later and cancel everything and we'll have to go back to paying.
  

I should note, as I have before, that I think we are still in good shape. Many people in this country have a LOT more to worry about than we do. If I can't get my weight loss drug anymore, I'll just gain all the weight back plus more. It's not the end of the world. If Rocket Boy loses his job, I'll sign up for social security and we'll start taking distributions from both his and my Thrift Savings Plans. We should be OK. Although, if Trump really does get rid of the science agencies, Boulder will be strongly affected in ways I can't imagine because we have so much science here. Also, Colorado in general will be a target because Trump hates states that didn't vote for him. Hmm.

I think you would describe this as the "Bargaining" stage of grief. Like, OK, we're going to lose this and this, but we'll still be OK because of this and this.

I'm also in the "Black Humor" stage of grief, which I've been struggling to map onto the usual stages. I'm not sure it's a stage, exactly, but rather a coping strategy, but aren't all the stages coping strategies? Is the use of humor a form of "Denial"? Or a type of "Acceptance"? I found a recent article that explores the idea of "bereavement humor" and identifies it as a useful coping strategy and a sign of resilience. It's a way of reducing anxiety and distress, as well as a way to connect with others. Another article I found argued that black humor is a way to moderate stress, to take a terrible situation and look at it from a less threatening point of view. Then I read another article that said people use humor to avoid facing the dark truth about their situation.

You may argue that there's nothing funny about Trump's cabinet picks. But they're so insane that they do seem funny to me. I laugh, and then the laugh catches in my throat as I think of something awful that's going to happen as a result of them. And then I laugh again, because really, what else can you do? I cannot cry about this stuff. I refuse to cry. I need my strength. Is that denial? I don't think so.

***

I've gotten behind on New Yorkers again, after getting myself all caught up some months ago. I think it's related to having four people using our one and only bathroom. I read the New Yorker in the bathroom, and I just can't spend as much time in there reading anymore, lol.

Anyway, I'm currently reading the October 21st issue. It includes a long, depressing "reflection" from Adam Gopnik about Trump. I read it, but I didn't enjoy it. I'm like, OK, yes, you're right, he's a monster, now please go away. Then there was a lovely article about bird language which I enjoyed thoroughly. That was followed by a profile of Kamala Harris. I started reading it and had to stop. Couldn't do it. Too sad. But after that came Alexei Navalny's "Prison Diaries." Navalny was the Russian opposition leader who Putin tried to kill by poison in 2020, and then after he recovered in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 where he was promptly imprisoned. He died in prison, north of the Arctic Circle, in early 2024 -- probably murdered, although Putin said it was from natural causes. He was 47.

What I keep hearing is that Trump and his minions are trying to turn the USA into Russia. Of course, it's supposed to be a more successful Russia than Russia, with big business having more control than the government, but in many ways, Russia. They're trying to make people distrust the government, distrust science, distrust the law. They're planning to punish people who criticize them, gradually eliminate free and fair elections, etc. Thus, excerpts from the diaries of someone who opposed Putin and was murdered for it seem useful to read. Navalny's writing is a mix of black humor and true patriotism, standing up for what's right and true. It's really inspiring. I am going to buy the book -- maybe I'll ask for it for Christmas.

***

Since I was talking about weight loss drugs, it's probably time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 229.8
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 21+ weeks on Mounjaro): 232.8
  

Yep, that's right, gained three pounds. How did that happen? Well, last Sunday night when I took my shot, I don't know how to explain it, but I somehow got the pen turned around and I injected myself in the finger that I was using to press down (I thought) on the plunger. Ouch! I don't think it all went in, and you are NOT supposed to inject yourself in the finger. So I got some of the dose, and it had some effect, but not a normal amount. I considered starting over with a new pen, but I had no way of knowing how much I'd gotten, so I finally decided to let it go and have it be a weird week. Which it was. I still had some appetite suppression, and I didn't binge at all, but I didn't feel like I usually do on this drug. For one thing, I had a lot more energy, so I exercised a lot this week. I did four stretch videos and took four walks (divided among six days). I think this is proof that exercise doesn't lead to weight loss! Compare this to two weeks ago when I lost 3.6 pounds after exercising three times.

Oh well. I'm OK with this, although I actually feel very fat, as though I had gained 10 lbs back, not 3. Tonight I am going to take my last 5 mg pen, which I was saving for an occasion like this one, because I figure my dose this past week was low, so I should titrate back up to 7.5 slowly. I'll do 5 mg this week and then go back up to 7.5 mg next Sunday and we'll keep going like that. 

It's been interesting having Rocket Boy back in many ways, including housework and cooking. I figured I would go on being the primary cook and housekeeper, since I'm not working for pay and he is. But we agreed that he would do some of the cooking, mainly early in the week when I'm (normally) not feeling well due to the shot. So this week he fixed seared salmon on Monday with rice and steamed carrots, and on Tuesday we had the leftovers. On Wednesday I made a delicious casserole from Smitten Kitchen called Mushroom Marsala Pasta Bake, with brussels sprouts on the side. On Thursday I made sweet potato quesadillas with avocado. And on Friday before the play we had the old favorite, Pizza Grilled Cheese sandwiches (made with pesto, tomato sauce, and mozzarella on Italian bread). (Last night we ate out at the Gondolier and tonight we'll probably have pancakes or waffles.)

So our veggies for the week were carrots, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, onion, and avocado. All fresh, many organic, all prepared from scratch. The protein sources were salmon and various kinds of cheese.

Our special thing we did this week was attend the musical at the other high school, Friday night with Teen B. "Bye Bye Birdie" is such a dumb show, but they did it really well. Our next-door neighbor had a funny part, which he performed beautifully. But the whole cast was marvelous. Afterwards, Rocket Boy decided he wanted to see the movie, so I got it from the library yesterday and we watched it. The movie is so dumb! The play was actually much better, even though also dumb.

We were going to go to the Art Museum this weekend, but we ended up putting it off. Too much teen homework and other nonsense. We'll try to go next weekend instead. We have a lot going on this week: the band concert and the orchestra concert, my parent group meeting, Teen B's IEP meeting, and probably lots of homework, due to it being the week before Thanksgiving break. It's going to be very cold on Tuesday, with possibly a little snow, but that's looking less likely (and our last snow is JUST about gone). Just a normal average late fall week in the still-democratic, for now, USofA.

The aftermath

I was just re-reading last week's blog post and I felt sad to remember those days, only a week ago, when I still had hope that Kamala Harris might win the election and we would have happy days ahead. I was nervous, very nervous, but still that was better than the way things are now.

The IT people who work for the NY Times are on strike right now, so I guess you're not supposed to interact with the NY Times online while it's going on. Or something like that. Don't play games, don't look at recipes, not sure what else. I'm FINE with not reading the Times right now, because I'm trying to avoid all articles/discussion about politics and the election. At some point I assume I will go back to paying attention, but I'll see. I might have to do the whole thing from a distance for quite some time. Rocket Boy isn't afraid of the news, so he can tell me anything I really need to know. And I admit that I am reading a little bit of news, because the newspaper keeps being delivered to our house every day. I don't read much of it, but I see headlines and maybe read a couple sentences (and then wish I hadn't).

I don't want news, but I want community, other people who feel as sad as I do, so that we can feel sad together. And one place I find community, bizarrely, is in the comments sections for the NY Times games, particularly Connections. I do Wordle also, of course, but I don't read those comments much anymore. But I really like the Connections comments. There's a guy in New Zealand who always tells us what the weather is like and where he and his dog are going that day. Except that now because of the IT strike, he's staying away. I wonder if he will come back when the strike is over. I wonder when the strike will be over. 

I know I shouldn't play Wordle and Connections while the strike is going on, but I feel like I need them. Maybe that's selfish. The poor IT workers, paid more than almost anyone else at the Times, being forced to go to the office 2 times a week. (What?) I don't feel any sympathy for them. But I should. I'm sounding like a Trumper, not supporting a labor strike.

I don't know what to do anymore.

My cousin forwarded me the piece that Rebecca Solnit wrote, about how we have to go on, that this is nothing like the situation in (fill in the blank with some awful place and time). She's right, of course. And it's helpful to think that it could be so much worse. Sort of helpful. I also find that having some historical perspective, due to having read all those presidential biographies (I'm working on president #31 right now), helps me to not freak out too much. I mean, sometimes it helps. The bottom line is that we've had terrible presidents before and the country goes on, even when terrible laws are passed, etc. And life goes on, and gets better someday, even if maybe not in your lifetime. 

Something for the people in Ukraine to think about, I guess, as they wave goodbye to the remnants of their country. Also Gaza. I read that lots of Arab Americans in Michigan refused to vote for Kamala Harris because they don't like Biden's handling of the Israeli mess. And they think TRUMP is going to be better????? Trump is Netanyahu's biggest fan. If that wasn't a poor decision on those people's part, I don't know what would be.

I keep remembering 2004, also. George W. Bush won reelection over John Kerry even though he was the most terrible president ever (at that point), and Republicans also held the House and Senate. Those were the dreadful "freedom fries" years, when people drove around with flags on their cars. And four years later? Obama. So it can happen. Keep hoping, I guess. But of course, back then, Republicans hadn't turned into the screaming mess of insanity that they are now. There were still people in that party who believed in doing the right thing. They are all gone now.

OK, enough politics. I don't even want to be writing about this stuff.

***

We had a big snowstorm this week, maybe 10 inches or so total, over a couple of days, but it's almost all gone already (see photo at top for what it looked like briefly). I mean, there's still some snow on the lawn, but it'll be gone soon.

It was extremely cold and awful. It felt like February. Fortunately this week it is going to be in the 50s every day. I'm not ready for February. I did get down my winter clothes (long-sleeved shirts, some sweaters) and put away the summer clothes (tank tops, sundresses). I was hoping that some previously too-small clothes would fit this year, but they didn't, really. I haven't changed sizes, despite losing weight. It's odd. The main problem seems to be that my stomach is just as big as ever, so smaller shirts don't fit over it and smaller pants don't fit at all. The one thing that is fitting slightly better is sweaters, because my upper arms seem to be slightly smaller.

I guess this topic means it's time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 231
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 21+ weeks on Mounjaro): 229.8
  

So, I lost another pound, but I was a little disappointed with that, considering how sick I felt this week and how little I ate (no bingeing in response to the election results). I am now down 24.8 lbs in a little over 21 weeks, for an average of 1.18 lbs per week, same as last week. Wouldn't you think an almost 25-pound weight loss would translate into clothes fitting better? Oh well. 

***

When Rocket Boy lived in Missouri, he got out and did something fun almost every weekend (unless he was sick). So he really wanted to do something this weekend. Today seemed to be the best day, halfway through the three-day weekend. I wanted to go to the Denver Art Museum, because we haven't been there in years and they're having a Maurice Sendak exhibit. Rocket Boy wanted to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science so he could see an exhibit about poisons in nature. But he was really hoping a twin would go with us, and Teen B was only willing to come if we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens (Teen A refused to go anywhere). It seemed like an odd choice, with snow on the ground, but I hadn't been there in ages, so I said OK, and RB was open to anything as long as it wasn't in Boulder.

And we had a nice time. It was warm -- you didn't need a coat. They had clearly gotten a LOT of snow, more than we did, and a lot of it was still on the ground. But the paths were mostly clear. A lot of areas were roped off -- maybe because of the snow, maybe because they're getting ready for Blossoms of Light, which starts in 10 days. You could hardly see any of the plants under the snow, just the little signs telling what they were. Teen B thought it looked like a cemetery, with the little signs acting as gravestones. We spent a long time studying a cholla cactus which was next to a sign for a Missouri Foxtail Cactus, looking up photos of the Missouri Foxtail Cactus on my phone and comparing them with the cholla, finally deciding that the Missouri Foxtail Cactus must be buried under the snow. The conservatory was closed for construction, which was disappointing, but the Orangery was open, and anyway, none of this seemed to matter. It was just nice to be out walking around on a warm fall day.

We ate lunch at the little cafe they have, Offshoots, and it was really good, although the prices seemed to have doubled since the last time we were there. And after walking most of the way through whatever gardens were open, we ended up at the pyramidal structure where we found an area they are currently calling the Habitat Lounge (or Eco-Sala, in the oddly translated Spanish). We sat in the sun and looked out at the snow and felt mostly OK, if still depressed. 

Then we looked at a few more things buried in snow, and then we went to the gift shop. I like that gift shop, but I never buy anything because it's all expensive and I don't need anything anyway. Today I bought myself some little flower earrings and a little glass dish (they weren't very expensive). I'm not sure why. I did it almost defiantly. Like, how dare all you Trumpers take away all the joy in the world, I'm going to buy myself something pretty while I still can. I probably could have given that money to a useful cause, that would have been better. But we have a little extra right now and, hm, I don't know. The gift shop was so pretty -- everything in it seemed to be covered with flowers. I wanted to bring some of that beauty home.

I feel as though disaster is going to strike soon and then it will be a long cold winter of my heart. 

For one thing, Trump will undoubtedly cancel all of Biden's attempts to forgive student loans, and then we'll have to start paying off Rocket Boy's again. There will be no more buying of trinkets in gift shops then, that's for sure.

***

So what do we have ahead of us this week? (Other than avoiding/ignoring the news.) Tomorrow is Veterans Day, so the kids have the day off school and Rocket Boy doesn't have to work. Teen A has an eye appointment; he wants to get contact lenses. That'll be interesting. I'm so used to seeing him with glasses. Then four days of school, probably with lots of homework, since after that there's only one week until Fall Break.

Next Friday night we're going to see the fall musical at the other high school. We like to go because our next-door neighbor is involved. They're doing "Bye Bye Birdie," which seems like a really strange, really retro choice. I remember going to see "Bye Bye Birdie" at I think the Children's Theatre in Palo Alto when I was like 10. As I recall there was a scene toward the end when the main characters smoke cigarettes, and they actually lit up on stage (this was a long time ago, obviously). I was horrified. Was that at the Children's Theatre? That seems impossible. Maybe it was somewhere else. Probably the smoking scene will be done differently in Fairview's production, but we'll see.

I'm going to be taking my shot in an hour or so, so I'll feel crappy for the next few days. But it will match my mood. I'll try to get a lot of reading done.

November cometh

Halloween and beautiful October are over, and here comes dull, brown November. In fact, it is still very pretty out there, but it won't last. We've got a storm coming in tonight that's supposed to bring rain and snow, and then some form of "weather" is predicted for at least a part of every day this week. We get a little break from Monday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon, but then it comes back. Days and days of rain and snow should take down all the pretty leaves that are still clinging to the branches.

A good week for the time change! We are going to appreciate that extra sleep. This morning I woke up at 9:15 (old time). I hope 7 am tomorrow (8 am old time) won't feel too early.

I have been very successful in putting the election out of my mind, not reading articles about it, etc., but now it's in two days, and pretty soon I won't be able to ignore it. Ignore the results, that is. I hope they are good, but I can't even let myself think about that. 

Rocket Boy has been enjoying being back in Colorado the last few days by walking the streets, handing out leaflets and reminding people to vote. The thing is, the decision won't be made in Colorado. Colorado does have some important things on the ballot, but truly, it's not my state I'm worried about.

We had a pleasant Halloween this year. I didn't feel good, of course, due to stupid Mounjaro, so I didn't get around to carving any of our pumpkins until very late in the day. In fact, it wasn't until Rocket Boy got busy and carved one (on the left) that I finally decided I felt up to carving one (on the right). Trick-or-treaters started arriving while I was carving, that's how late I was. I gave up and drew a cat face on the little white one, and we had a fourth pumpkin that wasn't even touched. (The twins considered themselves too old to participate.)

I didn't feel like cooking, so we got takeout Chinese. That was a good choice.

Rocket Boy didn't bring down the Halloween decorations until the 30th, so I didn't do much with those. I didn't even get out my little dolls. "Next year," I said. It didn't bother me at all. You don't have to do everything every year. The cats, however, did wear their costumes (involuntarily). We got a new one for Sillers this year at Target: she's a wizard, I think. It fit her a little better than her old witch costume, but it still kept moving around until it looked more like a bib than a cape. Baby Kitty wore his lovely candy corn collar for most of the night, until Rocket Boy took pity on him and removed it.

We didn't actually do much that night, just sat around in the living room and waited for those knocks on the door. I wanted to watch something spooky, but Rocket Boy found a documentary on PBS about what really happened to the little princes in the Tower of London, so we watched that. A fairly late trick-or-treater was holding a (quite realistic) toy gun as part of his costume, and for just a moment I was nervous. After he and his sister left I thought, should we really be sitting here with the front door open and the storm door unlocked? What if a desperate homeless person shows up? But of course they didn't.

We had lots and lots of kids come to the door, but I had purchased so much candy that we had a lot left over. Smarties and Tootsie pops. I like Tootsie pops, even on Mounjaro, but Smarties don't do much for me. It's going to take a while to empty the bowl. We also still have M&Ms left over from what I bought weeks ago to have around for snacking. M&Ms don't appeal to me anymore, and the kids are not into them either, so there they sit. It's very strange.

I'll stick the Mounjaro report in here. I went up to 7.5 mg this week, and the effect was noticeable.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 234.6
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 20+ weeks on Mounjaro): 231
  

I was so sick this week! For the first three days after the shot I didn't want to eat at all. Thus, the 3.6 lb weight loss. This brings me to 23.6 pounds down in a little over 20 weeks, for an average of 1.18 lbs per week. I like the fact that I lost some weight, but I don't like how sick I felt. I'm hoping this week will be a little better... or maybe in a few weeks I'll feel better. No matter what the results of the election are, this is going to be a stressful week.

In preparation for the storm that's coming in, Rocket Boy and I decided to rake leaves today. (I moved my car across the street in order to work on the driveway.) I guess I should have taken an "after" shot too, but you can imagine it -- just a bare driveway. It's really much prettier with all the orange leaves, but slippery. In deference to my age and likelihood of slipping on things, I swept all the leaves into the compost bin.

It is very hard to rake these little leaves (from the honey locust). I gave up on the rake and used a broom.

We are gradually adjusting to Rocket Boy being here. I vacillate between being delighted to have him here and being annoyed by all the unnecessary things he brought with him. Our house is simply overflowing with his belongings. Of course he can't bring himself to throw anything away, so we keep running into problems. There was one box that was full of twist-ties, I kid you not. I saved a few good ones and tossed the rest. He brought several boxes of tea with him, naturally, but our tea cupboard was already full to bursting. So I reached in, pulled out a couple of boxes of tea I don't like, and tossed their contents in the trash, pushing the teabags down under other garbage so RB wouldn't be tempted to get them out again. He was horrified, but now we have room for his tea.

But other stuff is more of a problem. For instance, he brought with him three glass measuring cups -- a 1-cup, a 2-cup, and a 4-cup. These are identical to my glass measuring cups. "We can give yours to Goodwill," I said. He agreed, but they are still sitting on the dining room table, and in fact, he used one of his the other day and it is currently in the dishwasher.

He brought so much food with him. We've agreed that we'll plan menus based on what's in our cupboards until we get it down to the point where we can actually close the cupboards.

But it's so fun to have him here, to be able to talk to him at any time of day. It makes me so happy when I look over at him each morning, even though we're having some trouble sleeping together in that tiny, uncomfortable bed. Maybe this winter we'll finally bite the bullet and get a new mattress. And maybe Mounjaro will help me get small enough that we fit better. 

The kids, I think, are reacting to his presence somewhat differently. Neither one seems very happy about it. Teen A got very angry at ME on Wednesday, because I wouldn't let him drive our new car to school. I had agreed, the week before, to let him drive to TEC that afternoon, and I had said he could do it again this week. But he thought I meant he could drive to the high school in the morning. I did not mean that, and I held firm. (If I let him do it on Wednesdays, what's to stop him from doing it every day? And besides, I specifically told our insurance agent that he would not be driving to school. Plus, his provisional license means he can't drive anyone else under 18, and I think the temptation to give a friend a ride would be too great.) He stomped off to catch the bus, and when he came home at lunchtime to get the car, he left without speaking to me. After that, he maintained an angry silence for the next few days. I don't think he spoke to me again until Saturday, and even then it was only a monosyllable or two. He did not speak to Rocket Boy either, and RB found this very upsetting. I've experienced Teen A's sulks before and I know they will pass more quickly if I just let them play out. But this may have been a first for Rocket Boy.

Usually he starts speaking to me again within a day or two, but as this sulk dragged on, I did some online research. The expert consensus seemed to be that a child who goes silent feels overwhelmed by the things he wants to say but feels he can't. And I thought, I wonder if this isn't just about the car. Maybe it's also about Teen A's feelings about Rocket Boy coming home. After all, it's a pretty drastic change in his life.

He's speaking to us now, but he's still angry. He hasn't told me a joke since this started. Just now I guilted him into helping Rocket Boy work on the yard for a while. (I also paid him $10, for maybe 15 minutes of work.) I think it was good for them to work together, even briefly.

We'll get through this transition, I think. But I should remember that it isn't easy.

Well, I should probably finish this post up now. I need to go to the grocery store and clean the litter boxes and help the kids with homework and put away the laundry and clean the kitchen. And do something about dinner. November has started and I have many things to get done this month. There are only three full weeks of school before Fall Break, and one of those weeks actually only has four days, due to Veterans Day. I am planning to work on my next middle grade mystery this month -- I finished the October installment a year or two ago, and I haven't had much luck working on November since then. But I got a good idea for it a week or two ago, so I'm going to try to run with that. Rocket Boy starts his new job on Wednesday, so I'll need something to occupy my mind while he works. Of course there's always reading. I started a 614-page biography of Herbert Hoover yesterday. Nothing like Herbert Hoover to put you in a November mood.

Reading post: Franz Kafka in October

Beautiful October is over, so it is time for a reading post. In October I decided to read books by Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Why Kafka? I'm not sure, actually. I just know that when I started this project, his was a name that came to mind right away. I think it's partly because he still comes up a lot. When people want to refer to a terrible, unfair, senseless situation, especially involving government bureaucracy, they mention Kafka. But I'm not sure how many people still read him. And since the only thing I'd ever read by him was "The Metamorphosis," I figured I owed Kafka some of my time.

• Collected Stories by Franz Kafka (Everyman's Library). I decided to begin with the stories, because they say that's how you really get to know Kafka, although I was reluctant. I don't love short stories and tend to avoid collections of them. The edition I found at the library includes 41 stories published in his lifetime and 43 published by his friend Max Brod after Kafka's death. The "stories" range from a single paragraph to more than 50 pages long. Some of them aren't really stories, they're just brief weird descriptions. But the actual stories are pretty weird too. I was surprised to find that I really liked them. After I'd read a few I thought, I'm enjoying myself. I didn't have to push myself to read them, I wanted to read them. The unpublished stories weren't as good -- presumably hadn't been revised as much, plus Kafka hadn't chosen them to be published -- but I liked some of them.
  
  I didn't like his long, later animal stories: "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk"; "Investigations of a Dog"; "The Burrow." But I loved some of the others. "The Metamorphosis" is better and sadder than I remembered. "In the Penal Colony" is chilling. "A Country Doctor" is amazing, as are many of the stories that were published with it. And among the unpublished stories I loved "The Proclamation." It's just a few paragraphs, a page and a half. In a tenement building, someone distributes a strange "proclamation" that encourages people to come and borrow some of his five broken toy rifles so they can join together in some sort of unexplained protest. But as the narrator of the story says,
  

  "Nobody in our house has the time or the wish to read proclamations, let alone to think them over. Before long the little sheets of paper were floating in the current of filth that, starting from the attics and fed by all the corridors, pours down the staircase and there struggles with the opposing current that swirls up from below."

  Eventually there is another proclamation which states that nobody has responded to the first proclamation. And that's the end of the story. Positively Kafkaesque.
  
  
• The Trial (1925). Kafka didn't publish any novels while he was alive, but this is one of three that were published posthumously. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I enjoyed it. The thing about Kafka that I never understood before is that he's funny. I thought this would be a depressing book, but it isn't, even though the main character, Joseph K., gets into a terrible situation, apparently through no fault of his own. We, and he, never learn what he has been accused of, nor how the mechanism of his trial is proceeding, while at the same time, everyone he meets seems to know something about "his case" already.
  
  The whole story reads like a bad dream, with some parts more dreamlike than others. For instance, after he is "arrested," he is allowed to continue with his normal life, living in a sort of rooming house and working at a bank. Then he is summoned to his first "interrogation," his first official meeting in court (weirdly, in a tenement building), but he is not told what time it will be held, nor where in the tenement building it will take place. He finally finds the court in session on the fifth floor, but the "interrogation" is soon interrupted by a sexual assault taking place in the corner. A few days later he is working late at the bank when he hears "convulsive sighs" coming from a storeroom. He opens the door and finds the two men who "arrested" him, being whipped by a third man. The next day he looks in the storeroom again and they are still there. So bizarre.
  

I decided not to go on and read The Castle this month. I could have, but I think I got a good dose of Kafka from these two books. I also think I might someday read it on my own, because now I know that Kafka is fun. Who would have thought? It was as much of a surprise as when I read Moby-Dick a few years ago and loved it. I also want to find a copy of the stories for my collection, but I'm just going to watch out for them, not buy them from Amazon.

Other reading...

After finishing Kafka's short stories, I took a break and read Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, which finally arrived at the library. I updated my September reading post to reflect that. Very good book. She should write more nonfiction.

I also read some spooky books. 

• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay was OK, although most of the spookiness was early in the book. 
• The latest Phil Rickman novel, The Fever of the World, was just terrible and not spooky at all. 
• The graphic novel version of Took: A Ghost Story, Mary Downing Hahn's middle grade novel, was very nicely done, quite spooky.
• The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottir was not really a ghost story, just a few ghostly bits. It was OK.
• And finally, on October 31st I read the last story in The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, edited by J. A. Cuddon. Reading that all month was a fun project, though most of the stories were not that scary. Some were!

October is supposed to be the month to read books from the tall bookcase by the front door, but I just didn't get to any.

In November I need another woman writer and after a great deal of deliberation I've chosen Louise Erdrich. I've already read several books by her (7 according to my master list), but she's written so many that I still have about 26 others to choose from. Reading books about Indians seems to fit with November -- because of Thanksgiving, I guess, and also somehow because of Election Day, and Veterans Day, and because it's kind of a sad time of year. So that'll be November, and I'm also going to try to read a biography of Herbert Hoover. And whatever else comes up.

Back together again

So, the four of us are back together again! For how long, I don't know. The future is uncertain. But in the present -- yes! We are all here together again, and we are going to stay like this for at least a little while. And it is so strange.

Rocket Boy arrived Tuesday night, after a harrowing journey which involved things flying off the roof of his car and the need to stop and mail some of the contents of the car to Boulder, so that he could see out the rear window. Eight large boxes arrived a day or two after he did, and more followed. It's been almost a week and he still hasn't emptied enough of his car to be able to drive it safely. (Fortunately we have two other functional cars.) His belongings are strewn all over everywhere. I have no idea how we're going to fit everything into the house. I've been throwing things away, and/or telling RB we need to give this or that to Goodwill.

But he's here, he's home, and we are starting to learn how to live together again.

I didn't post yesterday because we went to the cabin for the first time in two years. I didn't realize it had been that long, but the little notebook that we keep there to record our visits didn't have any entries after October 29, 2022. Last summer there just wasn't time and this summer there wasn't time either. When we're away from the cabin for a while, we always think it may be vandalized, or even burned down, but it never is. On this visit we met a neighbor who looks after the property next to ours and he apologized for walking through our property to get to it (of course, we said it was fine). I think that probably helps keep ours safe too.

At first the kids weren't going to come with us on this trip. They don't like the cabin -- so boring, such a long drive, nothing to do there, etc., etc. But I encouraged Teen B to come so that we could work on homework while we were there. And then Teen A expressed interest in the sandwiches at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey where we always have lunch. And then he said he might like to drive...

So without much nagging from us at all, they both came. Teen B brought his homework and we spent an hour on language arts at the cabin, plus he and Rocket Boy worked on math in the car on the way home (before it got dark). Teen A enjoyed a cold ham and cheese sandwich at the Cutthroat Cafe, AND he drove us all the way there and all the way back. He's getting to be quite a skilled driver, though a bit of a speed demon. Rocket Boy sat in the front seat next to him on the way up, scolding him about his speed all the way, and I did the same on the way back. At one point he was doing 75 in a 55-mph zone. Granted, everyone else was going just as fast, but still. I think he needs to get a speeding ticket -- and pay for it himself -- that would help slow him down. 

We didn't spend much time at the cabin. We got a late start (what else is new) and didn't make it there until around 2:30 or so. I took a walk down to the beaver ponds and discovered that the old beaver den had been destroyed, but Rocket Boy investigated and found that the beavers had made a new den on land, with tunnels, so that was interesting. After Teen B and I did language arts, Teen A wanted to leave so that he could shop at Al-Mart (Alma's version of Walmart), but Rocket Boy wasn't ready to go yet. So -- the magic that can happen when they grow up -- Teen A drove himself and me to Al-Mart for a little shopping. We bought some snacks, plus a new hoodie and an Al-Mart t-shirt for him. On the back of the shirt it says "Dude, I think this whole town is high!" and then it gives Alma's elevation (10,500 feet). I was a little worried about him wearing that to school, because of the drug connotation, but he wore it this morning, and I haven't gotten a call from the principal yet, so maybe it's OK.

And then we drove back to the cabin and hung out for a while longer, and then the neighbor dropped by, and we finally left around 5:30 pm. It was fine. We drove to Morrison and had dinner at the Morrison Inn, and were home in Boulder by about 8:30.

I'm a little slow this morning because I took my first shot of the new dose of Mounjaro last night. (I decided to go up to 7.5 mg even though I had one more dose of 5 mg left, because it really wasn't working anymore.) I slept well, but woke up with a splitting headache. That's a Mounjaro side effect that I hadn't experienced before. It's somewhat better now, but it's been replaced by gastrointestinal misery. None of this is surprising. A lot of people have trouble when they go up to 7.5 mg. Speaking of which, it's probably time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 233.6
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 19+ weeks on Mounjaro): 234.6
  

So not only did I not lose weight, I gained a pound back. Hence my decision to go up to 7.5 mg. I was up another pound this morning, but I decided to put Sunday's weight down here because today's weight is probably just due to the trip to the cabin and eating lunch and dinner out. My stomach has already emptied itself this morning, so the weight would be meaningless.

Only three days until Halloween! We don't have a pumpkin yet and we haven't gotten out any of the decorations. I don't know if there's any point this late in the game, but we'll see. We will definitely get a pumpkin at least. (But when?)

On Friday night, Rocket Boy and Teen B and I went to the haunted house at the high school. As always, we had to wait in a long line. We arrived around 8 pm and were let into the building around 9 pm, I think. Something like that. It wasn't too cold and I had a warm sweater on, so I didn't mind the wait. The theme this year was Alice in Wonderland, or, as the posters said, Malice in Wonderland. I thought they did a good job, better than last year. The haunted house is always kind of the same, so when you've been through it a few times, you know pretty much what's going to happen, but it's still good.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the best thing that happened this week (after Rocket Boy's homecoming) -- he got the furnace working! To recap, last April it died, RB fiddled with it for several days, no luck, we called in some furnace people and they fiddled with it, no luck, and finally they said it's the circuit board, it'll cost $1200 to replace it, or you could replace the furnace. This time, RB fiddled with it some more, called around to see if he could buy a circuit board himself (avoiding the HVAC company's markup), and ended up talking to a guy at a furnace supply store who advised him to replace just the sensor. The sensor cost about $32. Also, he asked them how much a circuit board would cost: $161. I know the Boulder mark-up is real, and the HVAC company's labor would cost something, but seriously? Anyway, he drove to the store in Arvada, paid $32 for the sensor, replaced it in the furnace, and voila! We have heat!

His ability to fix things is not the ONLY reason I married Rocket Boy, but it's one of them.

Another thing we did this week was drop off our ballots. That was very satisfying, especially since there was someone right before us and someone right after us doing the same thing. Seeing people vote makes me happy, I don't care who they vote for. (Well, I do, but that's secondary. The most important thing is that people vote.) There's one proposition on the ballot that we disagree on -- sort of -- it's confusing, and a lot of people in this state are confused about it and not sure how to vote. It's Proposition 131, which would establish ranked choice voting. In general, I'm in favor of ranked choice voting, but I was uneasy about this proposition for a couple of reasons. It's being heavily promoted by wealthy conservatives, and many Colorado progressives are against it. Rocket Boy is a big fan of ranked choice voting, so he voted for it, but I am more cautious (about everything), so I voted against it. We have been arguing about it ever since. We keep reading different things about it and debating the merits of what we read. It's so satisfying to be able to have this sort of argument with my husband in person, not just over the phone.

This is another reason why I married him. We think alike in some ways, but differently in others, and we both like to talk about what we think. I think it would be horrible to be married to someone who didn't enjoy arguing.

I should probably stop here. It's almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I haven't even finished my morning chores yet (specifically, the litter boxes). I think my intestines have calmed down enough for me to do some work. Rocket Boy went to Golden this morning, something to do with his new job, and he mentioned that he might try to go swimming too, so I hope that's what he did. I've been enjoying having the house to myself for a few hours, but I'm also looking forward to seeing him again soon.

Chilly days

It's cold in this house. Last night's low was predicted to be 41, and today's high is supposed to be 68 degrees. Currently it's 62 in the house and 57 on the front porch. It could be worse, of course -- it could be snowing. Six months ago, in April, our furnace died, and at the time, I never dreamed it still wouldn't be fixed by October.

No, that's not true. I totally dreamed it. Rocket Boy was sure he'd be able to fix it sometime this summer, but there wasn't enough time on his two visits, and his move home kept getting delayed. He's still in St. Louis as I type this. He should be leaving today, but he's driving around donating things, mailing boxes at the UPS store, dropping off his recycling. I don't think he's going to spend another night in his apartment -- I think he'll call me from a hotel tonight. But at this point we may not see him until Tuesday. Maybe Monday night. We'll see.

To warm up the house, I turned the oven on to 400 degrees and left the door open. I also have the front door open (we still have the screen on, haven't switched to the glass yet). The sun is shining, so it feels warmer outside than in.

The latest disaster connected with RB's move is that his credit union account in St. Louis has been compromised, so he can't use his debit card. He has a credit card too, but he lost it months ago (probably somewhere in his papers, not "lost" as in "someone else has it"). And of course it's Sunday, so the credit union's not open and he can't go in and get cash or a replacement card. Fortunately he can use his debit card from our Boulder credit union account, but I told him, very sternly, "Don't use your PIN! Use the debit card as a credit card." "Uh huh," he agreed, vaguely. I know he's going to forget. We have had our bank accounts compromised two or three times in the past -- it's a pain! We got all the money back each time (this was in Ridgecrest), but sometimes it takes a while. And Rocket Boy cannot get it through his skull that you should not use your PIN except at the credit union, preferably INSIDE the credit union, when you're getting cash. I do also use mine at the grocery store, I admit, but only there. Everywhere else I either use my credit card or I use the debit card as a credit card. No PIN. PINs get stolen!

Arrrggghhh. Last night I dreamed that someone broke into Rocket Boy's house and killed him. I feel as though St. Louis is trying to hold on to him. If he makes it back to Boulder in one piece I think I will collapse in shock.

Other than Rocket Boy's issues, it was an OK week. I managed to cook all five weekdays, which is unusual for me -- usually 4 is my max, although I plan for 5. 

• Monday I made goulash with a new kind of fake ground beef, either Impossible or Beyond Beef, I can't remember which. It tasted weirdly authentic. The kids loved it (Teen A had requested it).
  
• Tuesday was spinach cheese burritos, baked in the oven, and they were good, but way too rich for me. I ate one and got sick. 
• Wednesday I made ratatouille and served it over rice, which the twins thought was weird, but they ate it, even had seconds. It actually turned out really well. My recipe calls for a lot of tomatoes, but I only had one, so that's what I used. Teen B doesn't like tomatoes, and they bother my stomach, so really, cutting back on tomatoes was the way to go. 
• Thursday we had sweet potatoes, twice cooked with black beans and cheese, so incredibly yummy. I could eat that every week.
  
• and Friday we had Thai pineapple fried rice with tofu. Everybody likes that (Teen B had requested it).
  

We have leftovers of every one of these dishes in the fridge, so "forage night" (tonight) will be quite tasty. 

So, a good cooking week, but exercise was a total bust. Did not take one walk until yesterday. Some of that was because it was cold and some because I was cooking at the time I would have been walking. I took a great walk yesterday, though, 44 minutes, so I'll try to do better this week.

It wasn't a good weight loss week either (possibly related to the lack of exercise?), but that's OK.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 233.6
• Weight this morning (after 18+ weeks on Mounjaro): 233.6
  

So I didn't lose any weight, but I'm still down 21 lbs in a little over 18 weeks, for an average of 1.17 pounds per week. Staying the same is fine. Maybe I'll lose this week, but I'd be OK with another week of staying the same. I took the shot last night, a day early again. I've got one more dose of 5 mg and then I can go up to 7.5. 

We're up to 66 degrees in the house! This is the result of having the oven on and the front door open, plus the sun shining on the house and through the windows. It actually got warm enough at one point for the cat to leave the oven and go sit in the window.

This coming week looks a little complicated, especially in terms of meal planning. Monday night I thought Rocket Boy would be home, but now I don't think so. If he is, it will be very late, past dinnertime. Tuesday he should definitely be home, but Teen A has a haircut appointment at 5 and then my book group meets at 7 (fortunately not at our house). I won't eat dinner that night, so that I can eat book group snacks, but what should I have for the family to eat? Wednesday is conferences, from 4:30 to 7:30, so I won't have time to cook and we won't have time to eat until late. Thursday is a normal day, but Friday night we'll probably go to the Haunted House at the kids' high school, so we might eat early or we might eat late.

Hmm.

We had a little bit of weather this weekend, some light rain on Friday and Saturday morning, but then it cleared up. It wasn't enough to damage the pretty leaves, just enough to make the house absolutely freezing. 

Still, it's odd -- a lot of trees haven't changed yet. For instance, our next-door neighbor's honey locust is almost done, but ours has barely started. Yesterday, on my long walk, I went west on Dartmouth to look at my favorite fall tree. I was afraid that it might be done, that I'd missed it. Instead, it's barely started! Look at that tree. It may be in full color by next weekend -- I'll go look at it again then. 

Am I mixed up? Do some trees always wait this long to change? My memory is so screwy these days. We went to CU yesterday for our yearly check-in at the long-term study that the twins participate in, and I had a terrible time answering the questions on my surveys. Some of the questions are so ridiculous. "Was there ever a time when your child acted in such and such a way? When was that? Give month and year." Ummm. I just made things up.

The other thing I did this week was fill out my ballot. I'll wait to turn it in until Rocket Boy gets here, because I'm sure he'll want to discuss it before he fills out his. But I filled the whole thing out, four pages worth, colored in all the little circles. I read about each proposition, amendment, question, issue. I read the review of each judge that I needed to approve (that's a Colorado thing). I researched who was spending money to get each proposition passed. I read people's opinions. In a couple of cases, I changed my mind. It took hours, but it was worth it. At the end I felt more knowledgeable, and as though I had done a good thing (though it won't really be DONE until I drop it off at the rec center).

I'm still panicking about the presidential election. Earlier in the week I started to worry about my reactions. I felt as though I was going to get sick from the worry, have a nervous breakdown or something. I was having trouble sleeping. I still feel that way, but having spent the time on my ballot helped calm me down a little. Also, I'm avoiding reading about the polls, because those REALLY upset me. I'm not reading the news at all as much as I normally do. I know I don't need to -- I've already voted (almost). I'm reading Kafka, and ghost stories, and I'm cooking. This week I'll try to take more walks. In fact, I think I will go take one right now.

Another sleepy day

Well, I did it again. I went to bed too late last night, got an unwanted second wind, and then couldn't fall asleep at all. After a bathroom trip and a couple more attempts to sleep, I gave up, turned my light back on, and read a book by Kevin Fisher-Paulson, the SF Chronicle columnist who died recently. I ordered all his books from Amazon and they came yesterday, so I read A Song for Lost Angels. It was very good, though sad, and much better for middle of the night reading than my current spooky book. I finished it around 5 am and then was finally able to fall asleep. 

But around 9 am, our cat Sillers decided it was high time I got up (I normally feed the cats at 8:30). Meow meow meow meow! I fought it as long as I could, hissing "Sillers!" in angrier and angrier tones. She paid no attention. I finally got up and threw her in the garage. Back to bed. A moment later, here she is again, having climbed expertly through the cat door that I neglected to lock.

I gave up and got up, but I didn't feed the cats until after 10 am, just to be mean.

So I'm a basket case again today. So tired and grouchy. I'm sure soon I'll be ready for a nap, but until then I might as well type this blog post.

It's been kind of a strange week. Last weekend, unhappy about the fact that the King Soopers pharmacy had given me another box of 5 mg Mounjaro, I decided to take my shot a day early, on Sunday night. You can do that -- you can take it as much as 3 days early, I think, if you and your insurance company want to pay for extra doses. I thought giving myself the medicine a day early would make it seem a little like I'd gone up to a higher dose. 

I don't know if that's what happened -- all I know is that I spent most of the week in bed, no energy at all. I got nothing done. Well, I made dinner four times, did the laundry, kept up with dishes, took a few walks. I think that was it. No cleaning to speak of, except litter boxes. No work on the files. And no fun stuff, either, no writing or genealogy, even though on a couple of days I specifically told myself: you can spend today writing. I didn't want to. All I wanted to do was read and nap. And even at the end of the week it didn't improve much. Maybe yesterday I finally had a little more energy, but not a lot.

I also lost some weight, 2.6 lbs.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 236.2
• Weight this morning (after 17+ weeks on Mounjaro): 233.6
  

So I'm now down 21 lbs in a little over 17 weeks, for an average of 1.23 pounds per week. Finally made it past 20 pounds! Yay! 

But OMG, spending the week in bed was not yay, it was awful. If this is what it's going to feel like to go up a level, I'm not sure I want to. I'm not going to take the shot early this week, just stick with Sunday for now. Maybe this will be a better week.

It will be our last week without Rocket Boy. I'm racking my brain trying to think of how to get ready for him. What I really wish I'd done was to clean up the desk room, but that's not going to happen in a week. I think I'll probably just try to do the basics this week -- same as I did last week, except more vacuuming and mopping. Dusting. There are some things on the calendar, too: my parent support group on Tuesday and a conference with Teen A's Boulder TEC teacher on Thursday. Plus I'll try to bake something. This past week I made brownies and the week before I made banana bread coffee cake. It's still warm during the day, but cool at night and the house never gets hot -- perfect for baking.

One thing making it hard for me to sleep at night is the election. The presidential race is so close, ridiculously close, that it's making me feel ill. I just gave Kamala Harris another $10 -- I figure that's my November donation a few weeks early. Our ballots arrived a couple of days ago. I'd like to turn mine in right away, but I'm going to wait until Rocket Boy comes, so that I can show him my choices before I submit it. We don't always vote exactly the same way, but we like to discuss our reasoning. Also, he's been out of the Colorado loop, so I can explain some things to him.

But I can hardly bear to read the news right now. I don't want to read that the Democrats are going to lose the Senate, the Republicans are going to keep the House. I especially don't want to read that Donald Trump is doing better in the polls. Who in the name of God is planning to vote for that mess? I just don't understand my country. When I think about him winning again, I get physically ill. We survived his first presidency because he behaved so badly and so many people noticed and fought back. But this time? 

So anyway, I can't think about it. I have to think about anything but that.

You know, I think I'm going to stop here and post this. My brain is obviously not functioning well enough to write a good post, and Teen B has just asked me for help with homework (ha!), so I'll go do that. If I have more ideas later, I'll come back and add to this. But this is probably enough for now.