Heat wave

So our heat wave has begun. I'm just glad it didn't start a week ago, for my birthday. I was able to bake my (meh) cake without feeling bad about turning on the oven. Definitely wouldn't want to do that today! And there's no end in sight for the heat. I read somewhere that it was supposed to last 10 days, so that would be until a week from tomorrow, roughly. We'll be on vacation by then, so we won't know for sure.

It's a little scary with no air conditioning. Right now our house is comfortable, but not wonderful. It's 4:30 pm and the temperature in the hallway is 79 degrees. Outside on the front porch it's 97. We're all kind of taking it easy, not moving around too much. I scolded Rocket Boy for using the oven to reheat a slice of pizza. I'm trying to figure out how to make dinner this week without turning on said oven.

Looking back to last Sunday, the rest of my birthday was nice. We went to the Shakespeare Festival that night, despite both of us not really feeling it. On July 3rd (which Rocket Boy had off work) he discovered that mice had colonized our garden shed and were eating all the grass seed he had stored there. So he embarked on a weekend project to take everything out of the garden shed and clean it thoroughly. He worked on this on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th, pausing to make the 4th of July barbecue happen and go out to lunch on my birthday, but otherwise working straight through. So when we left for CU at about 7 pm on Sunday night, he was a wreck. But he's a sweetie, so he didn't complain.

CU has redone the outdoor Mary Rippon theater and it was very nice. I remembered, too late, that in the past people in the know always brought their own seat cushions. But it was OK that I'd forgotten, because now they're provided for everyone, free of charge. Makes those red rock benches a LOT easier to sit on for three hours. 

It wasn't 97 degrees on July 5th, but it was still hot, even at 7:30 pm. As we settled into our seats and waited for the performance of "Shakespeare in Love" to begin, I thought, why am I here on my birthday? Is this really something I want to do? But it turned out OK. The performance was very good, great performers especially the guy who played Will. I was glad I'd gone.

The next day, Monday, it was back to real life. Our cat Sillers had an appointment with the cat neurologist at 9:30, so I had to get up when Rocket Boy did (at 7 am) and get my act together. I was pretty tired at the vet's, though, and gave some dumb answers to their questions. Based on those dumb answers, the neurologist decided that Sillers needed to have an MRI of her brain and neck -- for $3000 (including anesthesia, because obviously you can't ask a cat to hold still for an MRI). I gulped. But, you know, I knew it would be expensive, and what was the point of coming here if we didn't do the testing? So I said yes. I left her there and picked her up about four hours later.

And the results of the MRI were interesting. Sillers' brain is fine, but she has some sort of "lesion" or "growth" or "obstruction" or whatever -- not in her brain, but in her brain stem. The vet thought this could explain all of her weird behavior. It is probably not cancer, but it is not curable -- you can't go into the brain stem and remove things. However, you can try to treat it. We're going to try first with prednisolone (the same thing Baby Kitty takes for his asthma) and if that doesn't help, with gabapentin. The vet said we would do prednisolone for a couple of months and then repeat the MRI. I smiled. Of course we're not going to do that. I'm not going to spend another $3000 to see if a drug is working. But we'll have that discussion later. 

The problem is that the prednisolone apparently can't be mixed with her food (even though I mix Baby Kitty's prednisolone with his food). It's in liquid form, and I'm supposed to shoot it down her throat after each meal. This will not be fun, and I do not want to ask the cat sitters to do it. Therefore we're going to postpone starting treatment until after our trip. So poor Sillers will go untreated for another few weeks. Two days ago she peed on my pillow again -- and looked startled and started sniffing around to figure out what had just happened. I grabbed the pillow and the cat blanket and the bedspread off the bed and threw them straight into the washing machine. Most days she throws up at least one meal. I'm afraid she's going to die of starvation before we can start treating her.

But it's always like this before a trip! Something awful happens and you feel like you shouldn't go. Sillers will (probably) be OK while we're gone. She'll try to be good for the cat sitters. We'll put plastic on the bed (under the top coverings) so that if she has accidents while we're gone, they won't penetrate further. The cat sitters can clean up whatever accidents they find on the floor, and otherwise we'll clean up the rest when we get back. It will be OK.

Before I took Sillers to the cat neurologist, I told Teen B that on the forms they have you sign, where they ask if they should resuscitate your pet if it goes into cardiac arrest or whatever, I was going to check "no." Then, if Sillers went into cardiac arrest, all our problems would be solved. But I couldn't do it. She got sick on the car ride to the vet, threw up in the cat carrier, had bile dripping from her mouth, looked So Incredibly Pathetic. I couldn't do it. She's my baby, for better or for worse. I told them to resuscitate her if necessary (it wasn't necessary).

However, I'm not going to keep spending $3000 on repeat MRIs. There are limits. 

Not much else happened during the week. Teen A, who got a flat tire the week before (necessitating the purchase of two new tires, so they would match, only one of which was covered by the warranty), hit a raccoon on 36 north of town, and broke a piece of plastic that was attached to something near a wheel. So on Friday he and I went to Boulder Hybrids for them to take off the broken thing and put on a new thing. Cost: $175 (less than the tire). I paid it. I know, I know, at some point I should probably start charging him for things that happen to the car. But it's still my car and I figure as long as I can pay for it (easily), I'll pay for it. 

It was a very bad cooking week, and I'm sure this week will be just as bad. The combination of heat plus my drug makes me just pathetically useless. I did manage to make a pasta dish and a curry with rice. That might have been it. What in the world will I cook this week, with the terrible heat? 

This coming week I finally get my new fake tooth, that's tomorrow. I'm excited (a little). I've had a hole in my mouth for over a year now. Then on Tuesday my car goes to the shop for an oil change and a checkup. Hopefully nothing terrible will be wrong. And the rest of the week we will just try to survive the heat and get ready for our trip! 

***

Yes, the trip! so now we're planning our trip across the country. We're going to drive to California and back, be gone 11 days. We leave next Saturday, so I probably won't write any blog posts for a while (can't do it on my phone). We don't have the whole trip planned yet, but I'm getting there.

Next Saturday we're going to drive across Wyoming and Utah, past Salt Lake City to a hotel near Tooele, practically on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Sunday we'll do the rest of Utah and most of Nevada, stopping for dinner at the home of my old college roommate, Grace, who lives in Reno. Then we'll stay the night at a hotel in Carson City. Monday we'll drive to the Bay Area via highway 88, a road I've never (to my knowledge) taken before. It will be slower than I-80, but it will avoid Sacramento and other population centers, maybe be slightly more pleasant than I-80. I don't know.

Monday afternoon we'll show up at my sister's in Santa Clara, and we'll stay with her for five days. I also got a hotel room nearby, so that we can take a little pressure off her house and the family -- people will have a place to go to get away, things like that. I think I'm thinking of myself, mostly. Not that I would get away to the hotel, but if my husband is driving me crazy, I can send him off to the hotel to swim or rest. Not that my husband drives me crazy, but he likes to be active, always wants to have a plan and a goal. I might like to spend some time just lying around watching television, petting dogs, chatting with my relatives. That's when it would be nice to have a place to send him to.

Wednesday of that week we'll drive up to my cousin's house near Kenwood, to visit and see his vineyard, etc. We haven't been up there in seven years, and he and his brother are getting so old, 86 and 83. His wife died a few years ago, so we won't be seeing her, and his brother's wife is younger, but not that much younger. How many more chances will we have to see them? Not many.

The following Saturday (the 25th) we'll pack up and drive to Solvang to visit my father's cousin and her husband. They are very old too -- my cousin is almost 88 and her husband is 93 (or thereabouts). So again, how many more times do we get to see them?

Then on Sunday we're going to Chino to visit Rocket Boy's aunt (his late uncle's second wife), who we haven't seen in ages, maybe, hmm, not since his uncle's funeral? December 2002. Is that possible? More than 23 years. She's 95 and still sounded totally on top of things when RB called her yesterday. We'll probably have lunch with her and her son, who lives with her.

And then we'll get on the road again. I made a hotel reservation in Needles for that night, but beyond that how we're going to go home is still up in the air. Probably we should just go the fastest way. It's 868 miles to Boulder if we just take 95 to I-15 to I-70, and that's probably what we'll do. Just haven't quite committed to that plan yet. I'd like to take 40 to 89 to 160 to 285, go through Navajoland and southern Colorado. It's about the same mileage, 864 miles, but would take about an hour more. Does an hour matter? Will have to give this some thought.

Rocket Boy likes to see unusual things on road trips, and I mostly focus on getting us to the places we're going. But I try to leave room for his enthusiasms. For instance, on the way to Reno we're going to try to see the Sutro Tunnel. I'm not sure why this is so interesting, but I put it on the itinerary. Then, after we leave Chino on the 26th, we're going to visit Amboy, California, which I guess was featured on a Huell Howser program once upon a time. It sounds as though maybe the whole town is closed down now, but it's on Route 66, so that'll be fun, and hey, why not?

See you when we get back... 

Happy birthday to me

It's July 5th, so you know what that means! Happy birthday -- in this case happy 66th birthday -- to me! And just look at that beautiful cake. It's a chocolate cake, actually more of a mocha because it has a cup of coffee in it (we made a special trip to Starbucks for the coffee), frosted and layered with a mixture of whipping cream, mascarpone, powdered sugar, and lemon curd, and with lemon curd drizzled on top and on the individual layers. The middle layer split in half when I transferred it over, but I don't think that matters. I patched it together with cream.

We haven't eaten it yet. I don't know if it's actually going to be that good. It just looks amazing. I can't believe I made myself a three-layer cake. I never make cakes. And it's so hot today, 95 degrees currently. What a day to be making (or eating) a cake. There was a lot of cream left over, and I just put it all down the drain. It would have upset my husband if he'd seen me, but come on, what are you going to do with three extra cups of whipped cream frosting? 

I am having a nice day, a nice weekend. We hung one of our huge American flags yesterday, hoping the Pride flag next to it will make people understand that we're not Republicans. It's still up -- probably should take it down soon. OK, I took it down and Rocket Boy is now folding it up, putting it back in its container for another year.

Though maybe we should pull it out for Election Day. I'll see.

Our primaries were this week (we had all voted already, of course, so I guess you could say they ended this week) and the results were interesting. The candidate Rocket Boy and I wanted for governor (Phil Weiser) won, so that was good, although his challenger (Senator Michael Bennet) would have been OK too. I like Bennet, but I thought it would be disruptive to pull him out of the Senate. Weiser is a little more liberal, not a lot, but anyway, he trounced Bennet. I was surprised to see that John Hickenlooper almost lost his Senate seat to a socialist challenger, and Diana DeGette, who's represented Denver in the House for eons, did lose her seat to a socialist challenger. I don't think of Colorado as a particularly socialist state -- we're not New York. Brooks and Capehart on the NewsHour were surprised too. 

The other race that surprised me was Secretary of State. Both candidates seemed fine, so I voted for the one who wasn't blond and had a Hispanic last name. That is seriously how I made my decision. Turned out she won in a landslide. Apparently she is more progressive than the blond candidate -- I didn't even realize. I need to pay more attention!

We are still watching the Republican race for governor, but it seems pretty clear that the craziest candidate is going to win. The Repubs had three people running: a relatively normal person, a MAGA nut, and a certifiably crazy weirdo. And the weirdo is winning. I don't think Phil Weiser is going to have to campaign very hard.

So, anyway, the 4th. We had a barbecue, although Rocket Boy first had to remove a wasp nest from the barbecue itself (eek!). I bought a thing of potato salad, and we barbecued swordfish (very good), broccoli (a little different, but OK), and chicken, which was already cooked. I had bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store a few days before because I wanted to make a Chinese chicken salad. I decimated the breast for the salad and then put the rest of the chicken in the fridge, planning to throw it in the compost when Rocket Boy wasn't looking. (I don't like chicken!) But he put the legs and wings on the grill instead. I guess that was fine. I didn't eat any. He had some -- and then had a terrible attack of reflux and couldn't eat anything for the rest of the night. 

For dessert, I had bought graham crackers and chocolate for s'mores, assuming that we had plenty of marshmallows. What we had, it turned out, was plenty of MINI marshmallows! Honestly, my brain. I toasted some mini marshmallows, but it was pretty pathetic. Teen B was very disappointed in me.

After dinner, and after it got dark, we walked down to the park and the school, looking for fireworks. We saw some, but couldn't figure out where they were coming from -- maybe just the middle of a street somewhere. Instead, in the park, we found this sign, which amused me. Like, if I were a teenager looking to set off fireworks, would I really be deterred by this sign?

We went home and watched an episode of "The Prisoner" which is on the Criterion Channel right now, and then went to bed.

This morning everybody got up terribly late, even me, at 11. I sat in the living room (with Teen A asleep on the sofa) and did Wordle and Connections and opened a card or two. Around noon or so I opened Teen B's door and whispered "Starbucks... Starbucks..." and finally he got up and we went. I couldn't miss my beloved Iced Horchata Shaken Espresso on my birthday. Last week, Teen B and I went to Starbucks in the middle of the week (Wednesday?) just so we could try all the new S'mores drinks and our verdict was: meh. So I went back to my favorite and so did he (the Iced Lavender Chai). 

Then we came home and I opened the rest of my cards and gifts and talked to my little sister. I had gotten myself some books on genealogy, which I was happy to receive from myself, and a dress (a smaller version of my favorite which it occurred to me was probably available on eBay and sure enough it was, so now I can give my old larger dress to Goodwill), and the Rosa Parks Barbie doll, who I'd been coveting for a long time now. Should have bought her when she was cheaper, but it's fine. My older sister gave me several little things: a book, a sheet of paper dolls, some little doll toys, and a set of 12 handkerchiefs with birds embroidered on them. I said to her, I am the only person in the world who would want this, and it is so smart of you to have figured that out. If I had a pocket in my dress, I would put a bird handkerchief in it now. As it is, tomorrow I will wear pants and can put a bird handkerchief in the pants pocket.

Oh, and also I donated to https://www.forcemultiplierus.org/, $100 to the House races they think are most competitive and $100 to the Senate races they think are most competitive, and I plan to continue giving them money over the next four months. This was suggested by my old college roommate Grace, and since getting rid of MAGA would be the best birthday present ever, I was very happy to do it.

OK, we have now tried the cake, and the verdict is: meh. I'm so sad! Mocha and lemon, it turns out, is a weird combination. I think it would have been OK if it had been plain chocolate and lemon... but maybe not. Maybe I should stick with angel food cake, which I know goes great with lemon. Oh well. It's still an incredibly beautiful cake.

I need to finish this up because we are going to the Shakespeare Festival tonight -- we're going to see their version of "Shakespeare in Love" so not actually Shakespeare, but it will still be fine. It's outdoors in the Mary Rippon Theatre, and it's still 95 degrees right now, but we'll see. Probably it will cool down as the sun goes down. This is going to be a very hot week, the one coming up. The week that just ended was hot too, but not so bad. I went to the Boulder Concert Band concert on Monday again. This time it was at Harlow Platts Park, in south Boulder, and they combined with the band from the local National Guard, so that was interesting. Very good players. They encouraged people to join the National Guard and be in their band. Hmm? OK, whatever. 

There's no concert tomorrow, because they played for a 4th of July thing yesterday. I will be able to go to one more concert, on July 13th, and then I'll miss their last two, because we'll be in California (or headed home) on July 20th and 27th. But it's OK. I'm glad I've gotten to see as many as I have.

Tomorrow I take Sillers to the specialist vet, so we'll see if they can figure out anything about our very weird kitty. Other things scheduled this week: Teen B has a haircut on Thursday and that's about it. We can spend the time planning our trip and trying to check things off my master summer list. All of a sudden, with the trip looming, I feel like we don't have much summer left.

Reading post: June

In June my plan was to read "general nonfiction," in other words, nonfiction that isn't biography or memoir (except that it's hard to distinguish between memoir and not-memoir, as you'll see below). I had 22 books on my list, and I got through about a third of them. It helped that the book group meeting was postponed until August. It did not help that Prospector ignored my request for one particular book. It's fine, it was a good reading month.

Books I said I'd like to read

The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker (1973). I don't know how this got onto the list, but somewhere I'd heard it mentioned as an important book. It was rough going, though. So intense. The basic idea of the book is that human beings are motivated by an awareness of their mortality and their consequent fear of death, that almost all of modern civilization can be traced to our attempts to deny death (or live forever by doing something memorable or believing in a religion that lets you live forever in Heaven, etc.). Very interesting when applied to the current political situation, Trump and the oligarchs. The author died of cancer soon after finishing it, which is also interesting.

The book is full of fascinating arguments, but it also shows its age. Fifty years ago apparently it was OK to write things like "Today we generally see homosexuality as a broad problem of ineptness, vague identity, passivity..." He also thinks non-human animals operate entirely by instinct, oh, and schizophrenia is caused by bad parenting. I kept being utterly fascinated... and then I'd hit one of those comments. The whole chapter on mental illness was nonsense. Still, I'm glad I made the effort to plow through the book.

On the Natural History of Destruction by W. G. Sebald, translated from the German by Anthea Bell (2003). After reading all of Sebald's "fiction," I turned to his nonfiction. Sebald is kind of an addiction, and I know I'm not the only person who suffers from it. He was just so good. This book consists of four essays. The long title piece, about how German authors failed to write much of anything about the 600,000 German civilians killed in World War II by Allied bombs, is excellent. As he says in the Foreword,

...the works produced by German authors after the war are often marked by a half-consciousness or false consciousness designed to consolidate the extremely precarious position of those writers in a society that was morally almost entirely discredited. 

The other three essays are about German writers who I wasn't familiar with. They were OK, just didn't mean much to me.

The Missing of the Somme by Geoff Dyer (1994).  In 2024 I discovered Dyer, liked him a lot, and planned to go on reading him, both his fiction and his nonfiction. I think of him as a humorist, but this book about World War I (or as he prefers, The Great War) is mostly not funny, as befits its subject. Dyer writes about the poets, like Wilfred Owen, and novelists who experienced and then wrote about the Great War, and he also describes in detail the memorials to it and the enormous cemeteries in France (there are photos). It was interesting, but not as moving as I expected (although somewhat moving). Most people think it's amazing. I don't know why it didn't work for me, because I do like Dyer. I'll keep reading him.

My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir by Sarah Moss (2024). What was I saying about not reading memoirs this month? I have mixed feelings about Sarah Moss. I adored her first novel, Cold Earth, which I read in 2023, but couldn't finish Night Waking. I thought it was time to try her nonfiction. This one is a memoir, sort of, about being anorexic, but I think it's more about anorexia than about Sarah Moss. OK, it's both. She's still anorexic now, in her 50s, as the last few sections of the book illustrate. I've never been remotely anorexic, but I'm so uninterested in food (other than sweets) that I kind of understand the attraction. Food is so boring and I hate making food, but -- I don't like being hungry. I would never dream of starving myself intentionally.

Trying to decide if I liked the book... during the first long section, about growing up with her appalling parents, I kept thinking about putting the book down and trying something else. But the later sections I *really* liked. So it's mixed. Oh, and the title of the book is (sort of) from a poem by May Sarton, a really cool poem, but this is the same crazy borderline May Sarton that I read that biography of in April. I thought it was nice that crazy, impossible May Sarton could write something that would help Sarah Moss go on living.

Bluets by Maggie Nelson (2009). I really like Maggie Nelson, and I had heard that this book was incredible. It consists of 240 (numbered) paragraphs of prose, some just a sentence or two, some taking up most of a page, about the color blue, and incidentally about how Maggie Nelson got her heart broken (so she was "blue"). The heartbreaking part seemed a little pointless, since I know she later found joy with Harry Dodge and wrote The Argonauts, which I read back in 2015, about him and their son. But the stuff about blue was fascinating. Writing about the male satin bowerbird and the bowers that he constructs, she says,

69. When I see photos of these blue bowers, I feel so much desire that I wonder if I might have been born into the wrong species. 

I like the color blue, but I don't love it the way Nelson does. I have something of the same feeling, though, for purple. Certain shades of purple blow me away, can't stop looking at them. Lavender, periwinkle, colors like that. But other purples I don't like, and then I tell myself that purple's not my favorite color after all, that I like green better. I do like green, especially pale mint green. But purple... Anyway, this is an interesting book and I will go on reading Nelson.

Eating Stone: Imagination and the Loss of the Wild by Ellen Meloy (2005). This jumped onto the list quite recently, and I'm trying to remember where I read about it. I guess it doesn't matter. It's about a year that Ellen Meloy spent watching a herd of desert bighorn sheep that lived fairly near her in Utah. Also, perhaps because she felt those sheep weren't entertaining enough, she visits different sheep in New Mexico and California, and places where sheep used to live, such as Baja California. And the sheep petroglyphs at China Lake! Besides being a book about sheep, it's also a book about wildness, and how there hardly is any anymore, and what effect that has on us, on humans. Sometimes the language is a little too ornate for my taste, but overall I enjoyed this book a lot. Ellen Meloy died in her sleep three months after finishing it, which seems terribly sad. I wonder whether the fires in Utah are affecting the sheep.

Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss (2012). I first heard about this book when one of the members of my book group took a vacation to Iceland and we looked for books about the country to read. We ended up reading a mystery instead, but I still wanted to read this. It's a very interesting book, but too long, I think. It's 356 pages and it would have been stronger at about 250. The basic story is that Sarah Moss and her family never figure out how to live successfully in Iceland, and so after a year they move on. But during that year they experience a lot of cold and dark. And skyr (Icelandic yogurt, the American version of which I am very fond). She talks about what bad drivers Icelanders are:

Max and I, waiting for a bus, conduct an informal survey: at the junction outside Kringlan shopping mall, where two eight-lane highways intersect, one afternoon in mid-August, six in ten drivers are texting or talking on their phones, four in ten are eating -- usually skyr with a spoon -- and one has a laptop open on his lap. 

One interesting thing I learned about Iceland: they don't like used things. Moss and her family have a terrible time finding affordable appliances and such because there are no secondhand shops and nobody can understand why they would want to buy something used. Also, she can't figure out what they do to entertain their toddlers, since she never sees any toddlers outside walking around, only riding in cars. There are many other unsolved mysteries, but finally they move back to England and the book ends. They go back to Iceland the next summer and visit places they didn't go when they were living there, but that chapter of the book was pretty boring. Definitely worth reading if you want to know more about Iceland, but not as good as it could have been. (And yes, it's a memoir. Don't worry about it.)

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (2013). Such a fun book, although it got a bit repetitive. Currey describes and/or quotes 161 creative people on how they spend their days. Writers, artists, musicians, mathematicians, and some others. Most people seem to get up early and work for several hours in the morning, but others stay up all night to work. Those who spend the most time working are the most productive -- imagine that! Most of the people he profiles were big smokers, drinkers, and/or drug users, and I wonder if that's still true these days. Paul Erdȍs, a mathematician, managed to sleep very little by taking 10-20 mg of amphetamines daily. Once, challenged by a friend, he gave it up for a month, but then he couldn't get any work done. "You've set mathematics back a month," he scolded the friend. Erdȍs was certifiably crazy, but he did get a lot done...

Other reading

More Psychic Roots: Further Adventures in Serendipity & Intuition in Genealogy by Henry Z. Jones, Jr. (1999). This is the sequel to a book called Psychic Roots, and I suppose I should have read that one first, but it's fine. Henry Z. Jones is the person who wrote the Palatine Families books that I have been digging into for my genealogical research. In this book he reports stories of people's genealogical research that seemed to involve a little extra "help," perhaps from supernatural sources. Of course, it's mainly just stories of how people were looking for gravestones that they turned out to be sitting on top of, turned to the exact page in a family history book that they needed, things like that. So it's mostly silly, barely spooky at all, but still fun.

Summer heats up

By the end of June, it's starting to feel like full-fledged summer. Fires are raging in states near us, making our air bad (and the almost-full moon bright orange). There are fewer cooler days interspersed among the hot ones. We are approaching my birthday -- it's next Sunday! -- and it's always horribly hot around my birthday. I am currently planning to make a lemon chocolate cake that I found on the internet (chocolate cake with lemon whipped cream frosting), and I know that by next Saturday we're going to be sweltering and I'm going to think twice about turning on the oven. But for now I can dream.

This was a productive week, including as it did Teen B's college orientation session. I thought I had made reservations for us to stay in a dorm Wednesday night, but apparently I hadn't (we found this out Tuesday night). What was I saying last week about how my mind can't do everything it used to be able to? I think I planned to do it "later" and "later" never came, because I had forgotten that I was going to do it "later." So on Tuesday night I made us a reservation at the Best Western that's right across the street from campus. This would have been perfect except that they were in the process of renovating the breakfast room, so there was no free breakfast. 

Why couldn't I have worked this out sooner, researched hotels instead of grabbing the first one I saw, etc.? Life is hard when your mind is going.

I was a little nervous about the drive to Fort Collins, but I shouldn't have been. It's really easy. When we went last summer, we took a very back-roadsy way (instructed to by Google), but this time I took a more direct route. Basically it's the Diagonal, then drive through Longmont on Hover, go east on 66 which leads you to 287, drive through Berthoud, and then 287 becomes Berthoud Parkway which becomes Taft which becomes Shields, turn right on Laurel, and you're there. We left at 1 pm and it takes about an hour and a half, maybe less, maybe more, depending on traffic.

We parked in the main lot, which had plenty of space (it was about 2:30 pm), and went into the Lory Student Center so that Teen B could get his Ram Card. They've been pestering him about the Ram Card over email for a while now, trying to get him to take his own photo for it, but the rules for the photo are very complicated (on a white background, only certain body parts included, I forget what all). We decided to just go to the Ram Card office and let them take the picture, and this was a smart choice. There was no one in line ahead of us, it took about one minute to fill out the forms and take the picture, and then 30 seconds later the card was ready. 

After that, the bookstore was calling, so we spent half an hour browsing there, examining all the CSU "merch." In the end, I bought Teen B a new t-shirt (he already had one, so now he has a selection), a new hoodie, and a pair of pajama pants, and I got a stuffed ram for myself. Then we went to the hotel to check in and crash. We had a lovely room with two queen beds, so comfortable. 

I was very hungry, because we had forgotten to eat lunch before leaving home, so we drove to the closest Starbucks for a snack. I had a yogurt parfait and Teen B had a ham & swiss croissant, plus our usual drinks. Then we went back to the hotel to crash for real. Teen B wanted to walk around campus and explore, but I was worried about my knee holding up, so I begged off. What we should do is go back to campus again later this summer and explore then. It's really not that far away. I'll see how it goes.

I dozed a little on my big comfortable bed, honestly could have slept through the night, but Teen B was hungry again, so we got up and drove to the closest Noodles with a parking lot (there was a closer one, right next to campus, but it had no parking that I could see). Everywhere we went we saw single middle-aged adults with single teenagers, clearly people who were here for orientation the next day. 

After eating we went back to the hotel again and I tried out the pool and hot tub. Teen B had forgotten to bring his swim stuff (even though I told him to -- he assumed I would pack it for him), but he dangled his legs in the hot tub. It was a very nice pool. I would stay at this hotel again just for the pool.

And then we went back to the room, took showers, and watched an old episode of "Sherlock" on PBS. I couldn't hear it very well (we didn't want to turn the sound up too high, for fear of bothering other guests), but it didn't seem to matter. Shows like that follow such a set pattern, it doesn't really matter what exactly the characters are saying.

We stayed up too late, of course, and very soon my alarm was beeping, announcing 7 am. It was at this point that the lack of a free breakfast became a problem. I had brought half a loaf of banana bread with us, and we each had some of that, so we weren't completely starving, but I really wanted a cup of coffee or tea. But there wasn't time to go back to Starbucks. We packed up our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and drove back to the parking lot for the Lory Student Center, where we were supposed to check in for the orientation.

I didn't take any pictures during the orientation, but suffice it to say, it was long and tiring (especially for someone who hadn't had breakfast) and really very helpful. I learned a lot and got some important questions answered, such as what to do about health insurance. I also learned, right at the end, that there is a concert band class offered in the spring that you don't have to audition for, and Teen B said he would like to participate in that. Score! For the parents, there was an interesting talk about transitions, where they explained that right now our kids are probably in "the neutral zone," and that's why they're being nasty and uncommunicative (implying that this is a state unlike their usual one). I also attended a session given by someone in Disability Services where they explained how to apply for "accommodations," but they didn't explain how to get your kid who doesn't think they're disabled to apply for those services, so that's still a big question. We'll see.

By 3 pm or so, the orientation was winding down and I was exhausted, so we just left. We stopped at Starbucks again on our way out of town and got me a large caffeinated beverage, which made it possible for me to drive home. We were home before 5 pm.

The next day (Friday), Teen B and I finished up the health insurance question (we had to formally waive the CSU health insurance and provide proof of our own health insurance), so now he has no more red X's on his new student dashboard, which made him happy. Rocket Boy got home early because he had a mid-day doctor appointment, so we finally filled out the FAFSA (the Federal financial aid form) and just as I suspected, we are not eligible for anything. Owning two additional properties worth a total of over a million dollars will get you every time. It doesn't matter, I keep telling everyone. We have college funds. No one listens. But in addition, we also finally created accounts for the kids to get the College Opportunity Fund stipend, a Colorado thing, which gives them $116 off each credit hour. We think this is about a 20% savings for Teen B and a 30% savings for Teen A, and we get it just for being Colorado residents, so that's another Score!

Rocket Boy's appointment that afternoon was with his orthopedist, to find out whether he needs to have surgery right away, but he didn't get a definite answer. Apparently his rotator cuff is not as badly torn as the other one, so the doctor thought physical therapy might be enough. The key factor affecting his decision is that RB is not currently in much pain. So they agreed to meet again in about six weeks and reevaluate. This means that we can plan a vacation trip for July! So we're going to work on that now. 

The other thing I did this week that was notable was go to the Boulder Concert Band concert at Foothills Community Park on Monday BY MYSELF. Rocket Boy wasn't going to get home in time (the concerts start at 7pm) and Teen B didn't want to go, so I very bravely packed up a camping chair and drove all the way up there alone. I felt very guilty to be taking up a whole parking space for just me, but there you are. I did it. I've got to get over that feeling of not being entitled to do things if I'm alone. Most people were there in couples or family groups, but if my husband works late in Aurora, I don't want to just sit at home. What if I didn't have a husband, what if he dies before me? Am I not allowed to do things? (this is me arguing with myself)

The concert was wonderful, as always. The theme that night was "80s Dance Party," so in addition to various patriotic songs they also played band arrangements of lots of dumb 80s songs, like "Take On Me" by A-ha, and "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, and "Up Where We Belong," and I forget what else. One of the percussionists was really getting into the music, dancing along with it while playing various drums and things, and I was dancing along in my camping chair. I was sitting close to a man who had a very nice singing voice (we were encouraged to sing along to "The Star Spangled Banner"), and he and I also clapped along with some of the songs (as we were encouraged to do).

The camping chair turned out to be a bad choice, because I had a very hard time getting out of it, with my weak knee. Next time I'll try a regular patio chair. Also, we were kind of on a hill, which is why once again you can't really see the band in my photo, just people in their camping chairs. 

It's fine. It's SOOOO fun. I plan to go again tomorrow, when they will be in Harlow Platts Park and the theme will be "Out of This World." The Sweet Cow Moomobile will be there, so maybe I'll be able to get Teen B to come.

And.... what else? Teen B's drivers license arrived in the mail yesterday, so he's finally legal. Has a license and a Ram Card -- and a new permit, pointlessly. I can't believe they bothered to send a new permit. What was I saying last week about ways I could save the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles some money? Now our next step will be passports (Teen A got his last year). I don't know that we're going to go to any foreign countries any time soon, but we should be prepared.

Oh, and we all voted! Teen A's ballot arrived in the mail last week along with Rocket Boy's and mine, but Teen B didn't get one. I realized that he probably wasn't registered. I looked it up and realized he could register online with his new drivers license number, so we did that, and his ballot arrived a few days later. So I helped him fill it out and dropped it off today. All four of us voted. Take that, Republicans! 

I don't have a lot planned for this coming week, but I have ideas.

• Monday: the concert at 7 pm, as noted above
• Maybe I can finally take Teen B's clarinet in to the repair shop, as planned
• Teen B keeps making noises about a new laptop, so maybe this could be the week we buy him one (he's going to buy it with his own money, but he needs me to go too and interact with the salesperson, etc.)
• Teen A finally had his first flight lesson last Sunday, and we think he has another one scheduled for this coming Saturday, but since that's 4th of July, maybe it's actually for the 11th 
• We have to figure out how to celebrate the 4th -- a barbecue probably, but anything else? It's so frustrating having Trump be in charge of the 250th. You have to think of ways to celebrate but also be defiant. Must think about this. 

With my 66th birthday coming up next Sunday, I've been thinking of some present ideas. I've given up on expecting people to give me things, since what is the point of making my husband and sons feel stressed out and guilty about something that I could easily (and better) handle by myself? So, I've already bought myself a new doll (who I will take out of the box on my birthday), and yesterday I ordered myself some clothes, including a very pretty new swimsuit. I'm thinking I might also order some books, but beyond that I don't know. I need a new laptop too, but that's such a pain. I don't want any other electronics. I want my knee to be fixed so that I can go on longer walks, but that'll be later in the summer. I want the Republicans to lose control of the House and Senate. Maybe I'll start giving money to this organization my friend Grace keeps emailing me about, Force Multiplier. I could give them $100/week until November. We could afford that, easily. Might be a good idea!

A week where my brain let me down

I am getting older. I don't like to think too much about it, but I am. My brain can't do everything it used to and I find this SO annoying. I want to be able to read and write and think and remember just as well as always. "Come on, brain," I urge it, "Fire on all cylinders! Make new connections! You can do it!" And the brain tries, but it doesn't always succeed. I misunderstand things. I forget things. I take shortcuts, because it takes too much energy to do everything I need to do.

Case in point #1: about two weeks ago, Teen B needed to take the math placement exam for his college. Math placement exams are new to me -- I don't think anybody at UC Davis took one when I was there in 1978. You just signed up for Calculus 101 and either you passed or you failed. But that was 48 years ago and I guess things have changed, lol. I told Teen B not to worry about the test, if he did badly, he could just start with an easy math class and move up. Was this smart of me? No, it was lazy. Did I read up on math placement exams and how important they are? No. I just thought, oh, I know this, I'll wing it. I didn't know this. I was wrong.

Well, he did badly, and it turned out that you can't really "move up," you're banned from regular math forever until you can pass that test. So now he's going to have to take the test again, this time with a proctor (he could have cheated on the first test, but we didn't know). And he's nervous about that and doesn't want to schedule it. And unless he pulls himself together, this may mean he can never take math and science classes in college, which means he might as well drop out before he begins.

I feel very guilty about this and have lost some sleep over it. Yes, I know, Teen B should have read up on this and figured out that he needed to study for the math placement exam, but he's not a reader. He depends on me to read things for him. I know, I know, we have to move beyond this, he needs to take responsibility for his own stuff, not depend on me. But couldn't we move beyond this in the fall, not now?

Case in point #2: this week Teen A was supposed to have his first flying lesson. It was scheduled for Wednesday, but they called and canceled it, because high winds were predicted. They asked if they could reschedule for Saturday at 12 noon. I said sure, and I told Teen A the new day & time and also Rocket Boy, and I wrote it on the calendar. Nobody, but nobody, ever checks that calendar except me, but they COULD. It's right there in the kitchen. Nobody ever does, though.

Saturday came, and I had a Zoom call with my old Michigan friends at 10:30. I was a little nervous about the call because I was doing it on a new device (Teen B's old Chromebook) so that I could take it outside and show them the graduation signs in our front yard. Around 11:15, though, I wondered why Rocket Boy wasn't getting ready to go to the airport and why Teen A wasn't even home from his girlfriend's yet. I put the zoom call on mute and went to the desk room to consult with RB. It turned out he thought the lesson was at 2 pm, not 12. "Well, I wrote 12-2 on the calendar," I said. "You could call them to check." RB called the airport, and sure enough, the lesson was at noon. So he started trying to contact Teen A. But all calls went straight to voicemail. 

We both tried to remember when we had last discussed the lesson with Teen A. He'd been home the night before, we'd all had dinner together, but it was a special Juneteenth dinner and my mind had been focused on that. I'd made deviled eggs, which neither twin could remember ever having had before, and I baked cornbread, and heated a can of baked beans, and that's what I was thinking about, not the flight lesson the next day. I was also probably worrying about my zoom call and the Chromebook and all that.

And I can't seem to hold more than one or two thoughts in my mind at once. So I didn't mention the flight lesson, and Rocket Boy didn't mention the flight lesson, and Teen A didn't mention the flight lesson. And then he waltzed off to his girlfriend's.

Long story short: he missed the lesson. Slept right through it. Woke up around 2 pm (he'd put his phone on "do not disturb"), saw 14 texts from me, responded "oh shit." His story, which is nuts, is that he'd thought Friday was Saturday, and while he was swimming with friends he'd suddenly thought, "oh shit, I missed my flight lesson," which is why he didn't mention it at dinner time -- he thought he'd missed it and we were mad at him and...

It makes no sense. And obviously Teen A is primarily responsible for the screw-up, with Rocket Boy a little bit responsible too. But the thing is, I could have prevented the whole thing, easily, and it's my job in the family to prevent things like that, but I didn't do it because my mind was full of (1) Juneteenth and the dinner, and (2) my zoom call and the Chromebook issue. No room for a third thing, the flight lesson.

Sigh.

They apparently weren't too upset at the airport. Rocket Boy filled out a lot of forms, which was useful, and they made another appointment for 12:30 pm on Sunday (today). And Rocket Boy reminded Teen A of THIS appointment about forty times, and he got up around 11:30 am and they made it to the airport on time and he had his first lesson. And Rocket Boy gave the airport people his debit card, and now whenever Teen A has a lesson, they'll charge the debit card, and we're fine.

But my brain, hmm. Just cannot depend on it the way I used to.

It was another busy week. On Monday, the Boulder Concert Band was scheduled to perform a concert in Martin Park at 7 pm and I really wanted to go. I ended up convincing both Rocket Boy and Teen B to come with me, so that was fun. (Teen B came because the Sweet Cow truck was going to be there, so I had to buy him ice cream as a condition of his attendance.) There were hundreds of people there, a large portion of the neighborhood, and everyone except us had brought camp chairs. We sat on the grass, but that meant we couldn't see the band very well (which is why my photo mostly shows the backs of people sitting in camp chairs). It was still wonderful, though. The weather was exquisite, not too warm, not too cool, and not raining or windy. I had a very strong sense of privilege, and I wondered about all the other cities & towns in the U.S. that don't have their own personal bands to give free concerts in their beautiful parks, if they even have parks. 

The experience was especially interesting because the night before had been Trump's crazy fight thing at the White House, with that giant Claw and all those people watching men attack each other and one of them saying Michelle Obama is a man and all that horribleness. I wondered how many people in the U.S. would prefer watching a lot of fights inside a Claw and how many would prefer sitting in a park listening to a band play music. (They played patriotic songs -- they do three different concerts in the summer, each of them twice, so this was the patriotic version, with a Sousa march and the 1812 overture and "America the Beautiful" and things like that.)

Tuesday was Teen A's orientation at Metro, and he got up early and went to it, no problem at all (but of course, I'd reminded him about it multiple times). I kind of wanted to go too, but he was happy to go alone, and I figured that was better.

Wednesday was a very busy day. I had a dentist appointment at 8:30 am to scan my mouth in preparation for getting a fake tooth, Teen A had a haircut at noon, Teen A had his flight lesson at 2 (but it was postponed to Saturday, as I already mentioned), I saw my new orthopedist at 2:45, and Teen B met with his counselor again over zoom at 3:30. My new orthopedist was very nice, and he told me that I have to have surgery, preferably soon before my torn meniscus gets caught in the knee joint (as happened in 2005 with the other knee). I asked him if we could postpone until after our possible July vacation and getting Teen B moved to college in August, and he said yes, but remember the risks.

Teen B's counselor signed him up for Intro to Sociology, since he can't take math. He's also currently enrolled in Intro to Food Science, Music & Technology, College Composition, and a freshman seminar. And maybe something else that I'm forgetting. It's fine. Incidentally, he had to take a placement test to be put into a writing class and he scored high enough to skip bonehead English and be put into the slightly more advanced class. Can you please explain to me how someone who gets a D in senior language arts does that? Oh well.

Thursday was a big day: we had our appointment to get Teen B's driver's license! Finally! It was a little bit complicated because in the time since he passed his driving test, his permit had expired. So before he could get his license, he had to renew his permit. This required taking a new photo, which was fine, but once he had the new permit, he had to have ANOTHER photo taken for his license. If the Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles ever needs some advice on how to cut costs, I have a suggestion to make. But anyway, it's fine, he now has his license! Of course, the real one won't arrive for a week or so, but this one works for now. I forgot to call our insurance company, so I won't let him drive until I do that -- because up until now, we haven't had to pay extra for him, but now that he has his license, we will have to. I wonder how much it will be!

We got boba tea to celebrate and then went and picked up our new glasses, which were ready. His look very nice, and mine are so much like my old ones that nobody notices the difference. But I notice -- I can see better! It's quite impressive.

Friday, Rocket Boy had the day off because of Juneteenth, and of course there was the whole mess with Teen A and forgetting to remind him about the flight lesson, and Saturday of course there was the whole mess with Teen A missing the flight lesson and I don't really want to think about it.

But by Saturday night we were all friends again. We went out to eat at the Ironwood Bar & Grille, the restaurant by the golf course, Rocket Boy's choice because it was the day before Father's Day. They seated us right by the open doors to the outside, and I enjoyed watching birds on the golf course and the sun gradually going down on the longest day of the year. They have very good food (I had a delicious beet salad with goat cheese and arugula and pistachios), and we all ordered dessert, which was heavenly (mine was a lemon curd tart). And the bill was $204 (including tax and tip). Can you imagine that? Over $200 for four people to eat one meal (and nobody had any alcohol). Money is really meaningless these days. Fortunately, Rocket Boy is making a lot of it. I told the kids, "You know, in a few years we probably won't have much money because Dad will finally retire, and then we can't do things like this. Just enjoy it for now."

I am continuing to spend a lot of my free time on genealogy. I find it so fascinating and absorbing that I can spend several hours without noticing the time passing. Each day I hit a point where I say, I have to stop this, and I just close Ancestry and findagrave and step away from my computer. But it's hard. Right now I'm working on my great-grandfather's siblings and their descendants, and it seems like every day brings new surprises. I'm starting with the book a distant cousin put together many years ago, called "My Morrison Line," but I keep finding little mistakes (not surprising, doesn't mean she didn't do a good job). 

Today I found -- not a mistake, but more of an omission. She starts out the book talking about a second cousin of hers who was the first Morrison she met when she started her search. He's the most wonderful man, etc. But in the section of the book on his parents, she omits a very important and unusual fact -- his parents were divorced, sometime between 1910 and 1920, after at least 22 years of marriage. She mentions that his mother, Mary, who was a physician, had a second husband, but the implication is that this was after his father died. Nope. The census records clearly show that she was married to Mr. Morrison in 1910 and Mr. Lecocq in 1920, and Mr. Morrison didn't die until 1943. I also found a death certificate for Mr. Lecocq's previous wife, who died in 1909, and Mary was the attending physician. Also, she witnessed the poor woman's will. A little suspicious, if you ask me. Did she hasten the woman's death because she wanted her husband? Oh, I know, probably not, but it's certainly interesting.

OK, what do we have coming up this week? It's not going to be quite as hot, mid 80s instead of 90s, with several chances for rain starting tomorrow. 

• Monday I'm hoping to go to another Boulder Concert Band concert, although this one is in a park in north Boulder, so I'll have to drive (or maybe take a Lyft? or get Teen A to drive me? I'll see). I pulled out a camping chair, so I'm all ready.
• Tuesday, there's nothing on the calendar yet, but Teen B and I will need to be getting ready for his orientation in Fort Collins.
• Wednesday afternoon, he and I will drive to Fort Collins and stay in a dorm.
• Thursday is orientation, all day.
• And Friday, we recover. 

So, not a bad week, at least the way it looks now, but of course things may come up. We hope that we'll hear from Rocket Boy's orthopedist, although he may be on vacation. Apparently, the MRI that RB had done the week before last did show that he's torn his other rotator cuff, which means he probably needs to have surgery on THAT shoulder before we even think about doing the reverse rotator cuff surgery on his other shoulder. Also, it probably needs to be done immediately, because he tore it back in March and here it is June already. So, if that's the case, that could definitely affect our summer plans, ha ha. Stay tuned.

Happy (not) Flag Day

So yeah, it's Flag Day. Not a day we are celebrating, how about you? We just have our Pride flag up. That's the only flag I'm comfortable with right now.

This was another busy week, maybe not quite so busy as the week before. Both boys made progress on getting ready for college, which is of course very important. 

Tuesday, we knew Teen A was scheduled for some sort of orientation, in person, but we didn't remember anything about it. And he couldn't get into his Metro email because the app that says his phone is OK to use (or something like that) wasn't working. 

On Monday afternoon I sat down with him in the living room (he was playing a game on his phone) and suggested he call Metro. "I've gotten two phone calls from a strange number today," he said. "Maybe that's related." Hmm. "Did you check to see if they left voicemails?" "No." "Could you check now?" "I don't know how to check my voicemail." Oh, great. "Why don't I just call the number and see what it was," I suggested. I pushed buttons to do that. Some Muzak came on, and then a voice said something like "Metro orientation department." I explained that someone had called us, and yes, it turned out that they were trying to reach Teen A to be sure he was still coming on Tuesday. Phew.

Teen A seemed nervous about driving to Metro, couldn't remember how to get there or where the building was, etc., etc., so I offered to come too. But in the end, he brought his girlfriend, which seemed a little weird, but probably less embarrassing than bringing your mom. And he apparently met with a counselor and chose his classes for fall. He won't tell me what they are, but that's OK too. (I'm sure I'll find out in the fall, when he asks me and Rocket Boy for help with assignments.) He also got the email problem sorted out, though not in time to find the code for free parking that they had sent him. La la la.

Teen B had his Zoom meeting with a CSU counselor on Wednesday at noon. Teen A's girlfriend slept over on the couch Tuesday night, which always annoys Teen B (it means we have to be quiet and not go in the living room until they wake up, which might not be until 12 or 1). But I warned Teen A the night before that I was going to wake them up at 11 and they needed to get up and out so that Teen B could have his Zoom meeting in peace. 

And that's how it worked out. Teen B wanted me to leave the house too, but I argued that since I'm losing my hearing, I wouldn't be able to hear anything that was said if he was in the living room and I was in the desk room with the door partially closed (it couldn't be fully closed because that would make Sillers meow). He met with the counselor for about an hour and a half, I didn't hear a thing, and they got his schedule partially done, but he still needs to choose two more classes. They're meeting again this coming Wednesday to finish up.

Anyway, progress is being made, little by little. Teen A has his real orientation this week, on Tuesday, which I might attend (or maybe his girlfriend will, lol).

On Tuesday night it was very windy, and around midnight we heard a loud THUMP, which usually means that our Siberian elm has dropped another branch on the house. Rocket Boy and I were in bed, about to turn out our lights, but Teen B came in to get me, so he and I looked out various windows with a flashlight until we spotted a lot of leaves and branches hanging over the window by my desk. It didn't look too bad. Teen A was in the shower at the time, and the bathroom is right next to that window, so the THUMP must have been loud in the shower. He came out in a towel, his eyes wide. 

I know it doesn't look that bad in the picture, but it really was a very large branch. I think it was probably damaged in our heavy wet May snowstorm and just finally finished detaching from the tree due to the wind. I pulled it off the roof yesterday, cut off all the little branches and put them in a leaf bag, and dragged the main log around to the front yard. Rocket Boy, after watching me struggle with it (he was weeding), went up on the roof and removed the residue. He also fixed the tarp that covers the hole in the patio roof, so that the finches won't get rained on. Because yes, the stupid finches are trying again. I warned them, but do they listen to me? No. The lady finch appears to be sitting on eggs. Twitter twitter tweet! So on we go.

I'm struggling with cooking again these days, just do NOT want to do it. No NY Times recipes appeal to me, so I've been trying a trick that sometimes works, picking one old cookbook each week to find recipes in. The week before last I picked the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, which was a terrible choice because (a) the recipes all have meat in them and (b) they're SO old-fashioned. But anyway, one recipe in the "Jiffy Cooking" section jumped out at me: baked beans and Boston brown bread (the kind that comes in a can). I'd forgotten all about Boston brown bread!

I put it on my grocery list, but it turns out that grocery stores don't carry it anymore, it's too weird. I even made a trek out to Walmart because Google seemed to think they would carry it (they don't). Finally I decided to order it online. It arrived this week, and so on Friday that was our dinner. Boston brown bread, toasted and spread with cream cheese. I decided not to heat up a can of baked beans to go with it because (a) it was hot and (b) nobody but me wanted to eat the Boston brown bread anyway.

It was OK, but kind of strange. Has a lot of molasses in it. I don't know what I'll do with the other can (it was sold in packages of two).

Yesterday, when I was doing dishes, I was trying to get the bits of molassesy-bread off one of the can lids and I cut myself REALLY badly. Blood spurted out. Rocket Boy ran to get me a bandaid, which I should really change today because the cut is probably going to get infected. Stupid can. Let this be a lesson to me not to order Boston brown bread again.

This week I cooked out of Laurel's Kitchen, which was better, but still not great. I made veggie enchiladas and quiche. Monday night we had Brenda's tofu, because it's a new month and I make it every month, and Tuesday Rocket Boy brought home a pizza because I couldn't bring myself to cook. Wednesday was the enchiladas, which didn't turn out very well (I used canned enchilada sauce, which is just nasty), and Thursday was the quiche, which is always good, and Friday the weird Boston brown bread. The fridge is STUFFED with leftovers, none of which I want to eat.

The Boston brown bread wasn't the only online order that arrived this week. For some reason I had ordered about nine different things that all came at the same time. 

For Rocket Boy's brother I had ordered two bottles of vitamins with iron from Whole Foods (he called me early one morning to beg me to order them -- he gets very panicky when he's running low). I also ordered him a new landline phone a couple of weeks ago because he keeps breaking his phones. 

For Teen A, I had ordered that new computer part he needed. He got right to work, taking his computer apart and putting in the new power supply or whatever it was. 

For myself I had ordered a new (actually used) tablecloth from eBay and it arrived this week. I also ordered a Barbie that I've been wanting for a while, but I'm not going to open the box until my birthday, so I'll show her to you later. I also ordered a book from Amazon that interested me (it wasn't available at the library or from Prospector), and I ordered a print of the kids' graduation pictures which also came this week (now I need to get a frame). I guess the one thing I ordered that DIDN'T come this week was another sundress. It's supposed to arrive this coming Tuesday, just in time for the heat wave.

If I sound rather extravagant, ordering all these things, well, none of them were expensive. The computer part was probably the worst, and it was like $88 or something. Most of the things were in the $10-20 range, including shipping. Oh, well, OK, the dress was more. But still. Rocket Boy continues to make so much money that I don't quite know what to do with it all. I put $500/week in a money market account, pay all our bills on time, and wonder what I should be doing with the rest.

When we start paying for Teen A's flight lessons, THAT will use up our money. It's fine. 

I am still spending a lot of time on genealogy. On Friday I had to take back Volume I of the big reference books on "The Palatine Families of New York" which I've had out of the library for six weeks, so I spent all week desperately looking for information in it. The book is a treasure trove, but you have to study it carefully. Many people on Ancestry.com have obviously already looked at it and entered information, but they're not always careful. For instance, I saw that someone had entered someone's confirmation date as their birthdate. You're typically a teenager when you're confirmed, so putting that date as someone's birthdate is a serious mistake. 

I worked and worked all week, several hours a day. It's so addictive. I have 2133 people in my tree now, and I can see how I can easily get to 3000 or 4000, just by filling in the gaps. Today, taking a break from the Palatines, I found some interesting (more recent) relatives (in Minnesota again). One young woman (a third cousin) married a man several years older than herself and I found a newspaper article about how he and she had been accused of operating a prostitution ring. Later they had a child, she divorced him, and then he died fairly young. Her sister married a younger man, who was already divorced with a child at age 23, but seven years later in his father's obituary it mentioned that he was engaged to someone else already, so she must have divorced him too. I busily entered all this interesting information in my tree, and then Ancestry asked me if I would like to contact some of these people (which means they're on Ancestry too). Oops. I always say no, but I wondered if I should remove some of the details from my tree. I think my tree is public, not sure. Oh well. Not like I made any of this up, it's all public record. People's lives, OMG.

What else happened this week? Rocket Boy had his orthopedics appointment, which was followed by an MRI on Thursday, but we don't have the results yet. He said they think it's not a rotator cuff tear, but we shall see.

On Thursday, Teen B and I both had our eye exams. His eyesight hadn't changed, but I let him get new glasses so that he could look cool for college. He chose the identical frames but in a different color, so he can mix and match depending on his outfit, lol. 

MY eyesight, on the other hand, had changed. I'm now a little more farsighted, possibly due to my diabetes drug keeping my blood sugar regulated. So I had to get new glasses too, and of course they didn't have my style anymore. I tried on frame after frame, getting more and more tired of looking in the mirror at myself and my gray t-shirt with the butterflies on it. But the woman who helps people choose frames worked with me and we finally found something that seemed acceptable. Both pairs of new glasses will be ready in a week or two.

This coming week, what's ahead?

• Monday evening at 7 pm there's a free concert by the Boulder Symphonic Band at our neighborhood park. We went to some of those last summer and it was so fun. It should be perfect weather for it. Also, maybe I can get out of cooking that night because we usually eat around 7 pm.
• Tuesday is Teen A's orientation at Metro, 8-5, which I may or may not attend with him. (Another excuse not to cook.)
• Wednesday, whew. Teen A has a haircut at 12, followed by his first flight lesson at 2 pm. At 2:45 I meet with MY orthopedist to talk about my torn meniscus, and at 3:30 Teen B has his follow-up advising appointment. (I probably have to cook that day. It's supposed to be hot. Maybe I'll make a salad.)
• Thursday Teen B finally gets his driver's license! And I'll have to cook. Sigh.
• Friday is Juneteenth, which I never really know how to celebrate, but we'll try, if only to annoy Drumpf. Maybe something like baked beans and deviled eggs, with watermelon for dessert (you're supposed to eat red things).
• And Saturday morning I have a Zoom call with my old Michigan friends. 

Probably there will be more than that, but that's all I have on the calendar right now. Maybe I'll finally hear back from the specialist vet about Sillers (I should contact them again) or my dentist, about the fake tooth. Another thing I need to do is drop off Teen B's clarinet at the repair shop in Broomfield, maybe I'll get to that this week. It's first come, first served, and they probably already have a thousand kids' instruments in the pile in the closet (I've seen it) to be worked on.

There are other things on my master summer to-do list that I haven't even started yet, like the files and piles in the desk room and cleaning out the kids' room. Maybe I could do a little on that this week. One idea I had was to put all (or most) of Teen A's toy car collection in a free box on the driveway. Maybe I'll do that this week. Or next week. We'll see.

As June marches on.