Thank goodness it's March

This is not my usual attitude toward the beginning of March, but last month was so hard that I'm looking for a new start, and March will have to be it. 

I usually don't like March because (a) the twins' birthday, which is hard for me, (b) my father was born and died in March, (c) I'm often still frantically trying to finish the taxes, and (d) crummy weather. This year the taxes are done and the weather shows no signs of doing much of anything. I still have to live through the anniversaries of my father's birth and death, so there's that. 

And then there's the twins' birthday, which has me baffled this year. The main thing I know I have to do on the 9th is turn over their social security accounts to them. Teen B has $12,845 in his and Teen A has $10,909 (I've taken money out of his to buy him a computer, and to pay for the car accident, court costs, a speeding ticket, a parking ticket, etc., and both of them have been getting a $20/week allowance out of it, so this is what's left after that). That means giving them money as presents is going to feel sort of ridiculous. But what else? I've thought of giving them silly presents, like Lego sets, but I don't know. Spending money on stuff they won't use, just to be sweet and funny... not sure I'm into that. Their birthday is a Monday, which is dumb. I suppose we might celebrate it on Sunday. I could make a couple of cakes. I just don't know what to do. I don't suppose it matters a lot.

I'm actually really ready for them to grow up and move on. Part of the misery over Teen B's diagnosis is the thought that he won't do that. But I think I'm starting to come around. What's been very stressful for a long time is thinking about him growing up and then running into a sort of brick wall in my mind because I can't imagine him doing [whatever]. Now I'm starting to think, OK, he's probably not going to do that, or at least not right away, so don't worry about it. We'll take things slowly.

Teen A, on the other hand, is racing away into adult life as fast as he can go, and that makes me feel better about Teen B (i.e., at least one of them is going to grow up). It also, of course, makes me worry, because when you're going really fast there's a greater chance that you'll crash, perhaps literally. On bad days I imagine Teen A getting into a terrible car crash and ending up paralyzed, in a wheelchair, at home forever more with me looking after him.

Why do people have children? Such a bother. Of course, they say fewer and fewer people ARE having them. You can kind of see why.

***

We had a fire yesterday, up in the hills above Chautauqua. Teen A and I were driving downtown to pick up the pants for his suit which had come in at Men's Wearhouse, when he said to me, "There's a fire." "Where?" I looked around. "Right there, mom," he said, gesturing to his left. And there was a huge plume of smoke. Great. I opened the "Watch Duty" app on my phone and sure enough, the Bluebell Fire. 

It turned out not to be a big deal, no neighborhoods had to be evacuated, and they got the whole thing put out by the end of the day. But I thought it was sweet: the people who DID have to be evacuated were the hikers on the trails above Chautauqua. According to the fire chief (I watched his press conference), there were "hundreds of people on the trails." It was a nice sunny day, of course everyone was out hiking. I had thought about doing that too. The rangers had to go running up all the trails and get everyone down. According to the fire chief, people were very cooperative. Oh, Boulder.

Of course, the fire may have been arson, or possibly someone throwing down a smoldering cigarette or something like that. We won't know for a while, I guess. 

We got Teen A's pants (Men's Wearhouse had lost them, but eventually they turned up), so now his suit is ready. We just need a pink tie (his girlfriend's dress is pink). I looked at pink ties on the Macy's website and texted him some possible ones later. He showed them to his girlfriend and she approved them, but she said don't buy anything, I might get a different dress. That amused me. TWO prom dresses? I guess for a once in a lifetime thing like prom, you might want to go all out. As long as Teen A doesn't want to get a different suit.

For dinner, we (well, Rocket Boy) decided it would be fun to drive up north on I-25 to Johnson's Corner and go to the Black Bear Diner (the chain that has taken over the old Johnson's Corner restaurant that we used to go to in the old days, on our way to Wyoming). It's 40 miles from here, but Teen A was happy to drive. We first ate at a Black Bear Diner three years ago on our spring break trip to Arizona and we had such a good experience there that we always want to go again, even though the food is really not that good. 

It was fun, although Teen B complained quite a bit. Rocket Boy reminded him that we will be doing a lot of driving on our spring break trip in a few weeks, so this was practice. Hmm. I really need to get busy planning that trip. I haven't even asked the cat sitters if they'll be available. Should do that today.

Teen B thinks he doesn't want to take this trip we're (sort of) planning. "Where are we going again?" he asked me. "Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky!" I said, trying to make it sound exciting. "KenTUCKy! Why do we have to go to Kentucky?" he asked in horror. "We're also going to Oklahoma and Arkansas," I told him, trying to take the emphasis off Kentucky. "And we're going to stop off in St. Louis on the way back, see Manny, go to Fitz's." "But KenTUCKy!" he went on, unable to leave that alone. "You can stay home, you know," I told him. "You'll be 18, it's legal. You can take care of the cats." He gave me a look.

I don't know about this trip. It does sound a little ridiculous. But it might be the last, or one of the last, family trips we ever take together, so we might as well do it.

***

So, the week ahead looks very complicated, mainly because of the musical. Tomorrow, Monday, I have to make a vegan entree and deliver it to the school by 3:45 pm. I had several bad dreams about that last night, lol. I'll also have to come up with something for dinner, for me and Rocket Boy and possibly Teen A (he's sometimes home for dinner, sometimes not). And then pick up Teen B around 8:30.

Tuesday is another rehearsal day, so Teen B will be home very late again. I'll probably get fish for me and Rocket Boy for dinner.

Wednesday is late start except that Teen B has to be at school early, so it's not late start for him. I'll take him and then go on to Boulder Medical Center and get blood work done (for my appointment the next week). Then Teen A has a haircut at 11, but he can drive himself, I'll just give him the money. It'll be a normal dinner, with everyone home. I might make Brenda's sticky tofu.

Thursday is the first night of the play, which means that I'll have to get Teen B to the school by 6 pm, which means I'll need to feed him (and myself) around 5 pm. But feed us what? Then I'll attend the play at 7 and come home around 10 pm with Teen B... and feed Rocket Boy? I think he can feed himself, lol, or maybe whatever Teen B and I eat at 5 pm will have leftovers.

Friday will be a repeat of Thursday, except that Rocket Boy will bring Lenten Fish Fry dinners from some Catholic church, so I'll just have to feed Teen B at 5 pm and RB and I can eat later.

Saturday I'll have to get Teen B to the school by 1 pm (I think), pick him up again around 4:30, have a quick dinner of some sort, take him back at 6 pm, we'll watch the musical from 7 to 10, come home, and collapse. We'll eat out on Sunday instead of Saturday. And I suppose it should be a birthday-ish dinner, since their birthday is that Monday. OMG.

I'm getting stressed thinking about this, but at the same time it should be really fun, because the musical is fun and exciting. All I need to do is not get upset about things, do my best to smooth over any rough edges, make life easy for everyone else. Hmm.

I've been so depressed the last few weeks, even after getting the taxes done early, even after finally getting those stupid social security forms in last week. I honestly spent most of the month in bed. After getting the kids to school and the cats fed and breakfast eaten and the laundry started each day, I would climb back into bed and read. This is how I managed to read 13 books in 28 days, some of them long and difficult (some of them were mysteries, though). I also ate a lot of chocolate. Well, that's what I do in February, even on this drug.

Later I would get up and make whatever I had to make for the school dinners. Brownies on Monday (I actually made them on Sunday), fruit salad on Tuesday (that turned out well), and raspberry lemon bars on Wednesday. And put away the laundry. And make dinner for us. I did what I had to do. I remember my mother, when she was depressed, spending the day in bed, but she always got up and made dinner. 

I did not go for any walks all last week. My last walk was on February 22nd, last Sunday.

I try to be good to myself when I'm depressed. I know it doesn't help to yell at myself. I try to be kind. Wouldn't you like to go for a walk today? I say, rather than, "Come on, you lazy bum, get out of bed and go get some exercise!" But I didn't want to go for a walk (even though walking might have made me feel better), so I didn't go.

This week, despite the craziness, I am going to try to find time for walks. But if I don't, that's OK too. Just keep going, keep trying.

Oh, and now we apparently are at war. I can't even process that, it's so weird. There was a protest today about that, downtown. We didn't go. After the musical, after the birthday, after the spring break trip, I'll think about what's going on in the world. Unless the world comes to me first, which could happen. We'll see. 

Reading post: February

It's the end of the month, so it's time for a reading post. In February I focused on books, mostly fiction, by and about Black writers (because February is Black History Month). I had a very long list and I did the best I could with it. I think mainly I was depressed, and there were days when I barely got out of bed. I just read, all these interesting books.

Books I said I'd like to read

The Walls of Jericho by Rudolph Fisher (1928). In August 2020 I read Fisher's The Conjure-Man Dies, the first detective story written by a Black person about Black people, and I LOVED it. This month I read Fisher's first novel, which isn't a mystery, unfortunately. It isn't much of a novel, either, very little plot, but he was just finding his feet as a writer, I think, and it's still worth reading. Lots of funny situations, lots of interesting cultural information about Harlem in the 1920s. 

This book was published the same year as Claude McKay's Home to Harlem, which I read in 2020, and which is, I think, the better book. I'm still so sorry that Rudolph Fisher died young (age 37) and only had time to write two books.

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely (2014).  After I read The Conjure-Man Dies, I made a note that I wanted to read more mysteries by Black authors. 

I have added to my to-read list the other seven Chester Himes novels... the ten additional books in the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley... and the 13 additional books by Eleanor Taylor Bland... I'd also like to explore works by Barbara Neely, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Grace F. Edwards...

Out of this list, the only thing I went on to read was Eleanor Taylor Bland's series, so this month I read Barbara Neely's first book and it was so fun. Blanche works as a cook/maid for rich white people in North Carolina who neglect to pay her, thus causing her to bounce a few checks. Running away from the sheriff, she ends up working for another rich white family who have a lot of secrets, including murder. Blanche solves the murder and gets out alive. This is the first of four books, the rest of which I will now read.

Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed (1972). In August 2021 I read a profile of Reed in The New Yorker and noted,

His most famous book, Mumbo Jumbo, has been vaguely on my "to-read" list for years, and after reading this profile I'm more interested, because I learned that it is "a detective novel set in Jazz Age Harlem."  

It isn't really a detective novel, I found to my disappointment. But it's set during the Harlem Renaissance and mentions lots of writers of that time period, so that's fun. It's a pretty crazy book, very hard to follow. There's a virus spreading across the country, a pandemic called Jes Grew (I got the "Topsy" reference!) which seems to make people dance and be happy. A shadowy group called the Wallflower Order wants to stamp it out, stamp out Black culture and history, and make everything white and bland and boring. There's a long section at the end that basically rewrites ancient history from a Black perspective. The whole book was nuts. But I'm glad I finally read it.

If I Should Die by Grace F. Edwards (1997). Another from my list of Black mystery writers I said I'd "like to explore." I had to request this from Prospector (from the University of Denver library), because the Boulder library has nothing. It's the first of four books featuring Mali Anderson (named after the African country), former police officer and now sociology grad student.

I have to say, it's not a very good mystery. It was pretty obvious who the murderers were, and there were a lot of loose ends not tied up properly. But Edwards writes well. She just hadn't figured out how to write a mystery when she wrote this book. I might try the next book in the series, just to see if she gets better at it. What I did like about the book was its sympathetic portrayal of life in Harlem in the 1990s.

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd (2003). Not fiction, but a biography of a famous Black writer from the Harlem Renaissance era. After I read Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2020, I said

If I were feeling up to snuff, I would have read some of her anthropological work, and either a biography or her autobiography. 

Later on I did read her anthropological Mules and Men, and this month I tackled the biography. And I almost didn't finish it. It's 438 pages of text plus notes, and the text is small and closely spaced. Boyd basically includes every known detail of Hurston's life and it just gets oppressive. I thought we'd never get out of the 1930s. But I stuck with it, and I'll be darned. All that text, all that detail, and all of a sudden I felt like I knew Hurston and understood her. And liked her, whereas before I hadn't, quite. Not sure I really recommend this book unless you are a huge Hurston fan, but if you are, then you should read it.

The Trees by Percival Everett (2021). My third book by Everett and my favorite so far. When I read James in 2024 I said I'd like to read more by Everett. When I read Erasure this past November I noted that I didn't enjoy it, and said,

But I was impressed by Everett (who also wrote James) and would read more by him. 

So, I tried another one of his books -- and hit the jackpot. The Trees is SOOO good. It's structured as a murder mystery, although it's actually about the history of lynching in America. It begins in Money, Mississippi, the site of the Emmett Till lynching in 1955, where the two redneck sons of the two men who murdered Till are themselves found murdered, and lying next to each of them is the corpse of a small Black man who resembles Till, which later vanishes. And that's just the beginning. It doesn't seem like a book about lynching could be funny, but this one is. Eventually I started wondering how Everett was going to wrap it up, and he may have wondered that too. It's a little unclear! But still, very good book, fun book. I'll read more of Everett for sure.

Women of the Harlem Renaissance by Cheryl A. Wall (1995). Not sure this belongs in this list, because I think I just found it when I was looking for books about Zora Neale Hurston. Anyway, it's a scholarly book about Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, and Hurston, as well as some more minor writers of the Harlem Renaissance, so it feels like it fits here. It's a pretty readable book, despite being scholarly. I haven't read Fauset, so I was glad to read about her novels and conclude, as I had thought, that they're probably not worth reading. Also interesting to read about Larsen, whose Quicksilver I have read, and I am planning to read Passing next month. And of course Hurston, a slightly different view of her. A good, quick read.

 

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

Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family by Rachel Jamison Webster. A genealogy book! And so interesting. The author, a white woman, learned through DNA testing that her father's father's mother's family was actually part Black. In fact, they were descended from a sister of Benjamin Banneker (the Black astronomer and mathematician who published an almanac in the late 1700s and helped lay out Washington, DC for Thomas Jefferson). She connected with other descendants who had been researching their family tree for a long time, and eventually wrote this book. 

The book itself is good but a bit frustrating. I didn't enjoy the chapters where she imagines the lives of Banneker and his parents and grandparents. It was impossible to know what she was making up and what was based on fact, because those chapters were written as little stories. But I did enjoy the chapters about the research and about Webster's interactions with her newfound Black cousins, who made the book possible. She spends a lot of time thinking about whether it is really appropriate for her to write this book, as a white woman who is descended from the branch of the family who decided to "pass," leaving their Black cousins behind to deal with racism in America. She never quite answers the question, although in some ways the book is her answer. But in some ways the book is the question. Very thought-provoking.

 

Other reading

Snow: A Scientific and Cultural Exploration by Giles Whittell (2018). In this year of no snow, I found this book on the "Staff Picks" shelf at the library. Whittell, an English journalist, explores many aspects of snow: the science (why no two snowflakes are the same), the linguistics of snow, big snows in history, the ski industry, Bigfoot, snow in art, how climate change is affecting snow (soon it'll all be gone), etc. I mean, it was a little dull (I used it to help me fall asleep), but I still liked it. One fun thing: Whittell tells the story of Rick Sylvester who did the ski jump in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me, so I got that from the library and we watched it. Pretty dumb movie, but that ski jump was awesome!

Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America's New Age of Disaster by Jacob Soboroff (2026). From snow to fire. I saw an interview with the author on the PBS NewsHour a while back and put a hold on his book at the library. Most of the book is a detailed diary of the first few days of the fires of January 2025, which Soboroff reported on. It's agonizing to relive, but I also really wished Soboroff had gotten a little more distance from it before writing this. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, where one of the two worst fires was, and he keeps talking about his lost childhood, but saying the same things over and over. The epilogue is interesting, focusing on what Trump is doing to make it harder to fight fires, deal with climate change, etc.

Ausome Parenting: The Guide to Endless Love, Emotional Support, and Acceptance for Your Autistic Child by Natalie Loveson (2024). I got this from the library and oh, it's so awful (or should that be "auful"?). I can see how parents of a newly-diagnosed toddler might get something out of it, but I got almost nothing. It's self-published, so there are lots of grammar and format mistakes that should have been caught by an editor. Also, the author is so perky! Like, this experience is going to be GREAT! And then she gives a lot of breathing exercises (presumably to be used when things aren't GREAT). Not recommended.

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida, translated from the Japanese by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell (2007). This was more interesting, although I guess it is controversial. Supposedly it was written by a nonverbal boy with autism, using an "alphabet grid," but some people think his mother really wrote it for him. I have no way of knowing how much of it Naoki actually wrote, but it presented a lot of ideas about autism that were new to me, and I found it easy to read and very interesting.

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym (1958). Oh, yes, February is when we read Barbara Pym! I almost didn't manage it this year, too busy with all these other books. This is not my favorite Pym, wouldn't choose it as comfort reading normally. But I read Less Than Angels last February, so it was time for this one. And really, it's very good, it's just that it's not as cozy as some of hers. The main character, Wilmet, is a little hard to like, but when she gets badly hurt toward the end of the book, it's still painful. But there are lots of cozy bits, and it all ends well, so I didn't mind reading it again. Still, not the happiest book and I wanted something happy. Next year!

February drags on

So we continue with February, the month of pink things and chocolate. This wasn't a good week for me, I must say. Oh, nothing bad happened. In fact, it was kind of dull. The first few days were part of the Presidents Day holiday, and then the kids went to school Wednesday through Friday. No one is sick. There were no appointments. 

Mostly it was a bad week because I'm in sort of a fragile state right now and things set me off. So. 

I don't feel bad today. Last night we ate at the restaurant at the golf course, and I had a delicious salmon dish (blackened salmon with mango salsa, sauteed spinach, lemon white wine sauce, and jasmine rice) which later made me feel like throwing up. But I managed not to! And today I feel pretty good, perhaps because I had such a good dinner. Also: got a good night's sleep, have already done some homework with both kids, laundry is in the dryer/hanging up, dishwasher is running, brownies are in the oven, we've done our Starbucks run, and I'm writing this blog post. 

I do still have to clean the litter boxes. But there's always something like that lurking in the wings.

Yesterday, Teen B, Rocket Boy and I went to Costco. I hadn't gone in maybe a year and a half, let my membership lapse a year ago and all that. But they're always happy to have you back. I really wanted to get a special lantern, as recommended by both our nextdoor neighbor and someone in my book group, to have in the event of a power failure. But we couldn't find it. Someone said it was probably seasonal. I thought, February is still power failure time (actually, every month is power failure time). But it wasn't there.

Still, they had all sorts of other things I needed. Brownie mix, for the brownies I am making right now (that have to be delivered to the school tomorrow). A giant tub of sour cream, a giant tub of guacamole, and two large bags of shredded Mexican cheese, all of which I have to bring to the school on Friday. I will have to go to the regular grocery store to buy the ingredients for fruit salad (Tuesday) and lemon bars (Wednesday), but that's OK.

I also bought a big jar of jelly beans (Easter is coming), a three-pack of Poopourri, a lifetime supply of Sensodyne toothpaste (four tubes), and a big package of tissue boxes (Teen A goes through tissues like water), and Rocket Boy got two big boxes of granola bars. And we got a lot of vitamins. And RB chose a fancy tuxedo cake that we did not need. Maybe there were other things too, I don't remember. But the total, OMG. Almost $350. Later, when we spent almost $150 at the restaurant, RB announced that we had spent $500 that day! Not quite, I said. But yeah, just about.

And today I found the lantern on the Costco website (for $30) and ordered it. If you add that to yesterday's purchases, plus what we spent at Starbucks today, yep, it's over $500. Money just doesn't make any sense anymore. Fortunately, we have plenty of it.

After Rocket Boy's job ends, whenever that is, and we have to depend on Social Security and distributions from our retirement accounts, we'll try to spend less at Costco. But for now, I figure might as well spend the money and enjoy it. This reminds me of what my parents used to call themselves: "The last of the big-time spenders." They really weren't -- they were fairly frugal. But my father bought himself new books and records, and we always had nice clothes, and they ate out once a week, and many of my friends' parents didn't spend money so freely. So, whatever. 

When we're spending vast sums of money on not much, like yesterday, I always think about what it was like ten years ago, when the twins were in elementary school and we were living on my part-time teaching and going on and off reduced-cost lunch. It would have been so nice to have more money back then. 

Right now it seems sort of unimportant. I guess it's good to be able to buy the twins things they need for school this year, like their "senior jerseys," and the "graduation swag" that I really didn't need to buy. And Teen A's suit for prom. That was fun to shop for.

Next year, when they're in college (maybe, maybe), we'll start spending their college funds. That will be interesting. I don't even know how to access that money. But we will learn. 

So, the week ahead. A lot of food preparation for the dinners at the school, but less so at home. Teen B doesn't have to go to practice tomorrow, and he's requested tacos for dinner, so I'll make those. Tuesday through Friday, he'll eat at school, so Rocket Boy and I (and Teen A, but he only eats with us now and then) can have something Teen B doesn't like. Maybe we'll have fish a couple of times, or, I know, potatoes! Teen B has a weird aversion to potatoes, so I never get to make potato dishes. I should do something with potatoes this week.

Other than that, I think it will be a quiet week. I do have to go to the Social Security office in Louisville, just to drop off the forms, so I'll call on Monday and make an appointment. But that's about it. Hope it ends up being as quiet as it looks right now.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's over, of course, but it feels like Valentine's weekend is ongoing. Tomorrow is President's Day and my niece's birthday, and Tuesday is just an extra vacation day for the kids (Rocket Boy will go back to work), when we can catch up on homework. But it's also Lunar New Year and the first day of Ramadan, and then Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, none of which we really celebrate, but I like to acknowledge them anyway. 

This should be a pretty easy week, I hope. Just three days of school. Rocket Boy made his famous mac & cheese last night for dinner, and there's plenty left over, so we'll also have that on Monday. Tonight we're going to eat out somewhere. So I don't have to cook until Tuesday, and I already know what I'm having, a lemon tofu dish over rice (nice for Lunar New Year). Then I'll just have to figure out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Sigh. Sometimes I think about ALL the cooking I'm going to have to do, in what's left of my life, and it is rather horrifying.

On the other hand, after Rocket Boy cooked last night, the kitchen was an absolute shambles. I think he used almost every large pot we own (all of which have to be washed by hand). I worked and worked to do the dishes this morning. When I cook, it's not quite so horrible afterwards (usually).

The week after this one is "Tech Week" rehearsals for the musical, so I have signed up to bring something each night (since Teen B won't be eating with us). Brownies, lemon bars, fruit salad, a vegan casserole, and then on Friday for Taco Bar Night just some add-ons (guacamole, sour cream, shredded cheese). Last year I signed up to bring 10 baked potatoes on Baked Potato Night, and then I got sick and it was a disaster. So I'm bringing simpler things this time, except for that vegan casserole, which worries me. But it'll probably be fine.

***

This past week was pretty intense. On Monday night we went to our last parent-teacher conferences ever, which brought a tear to my eye (well, kind of). Both Teen A's math and physics teachers said he's doing better this term than last (when he got D's in both classes). Paying attention, asking questions in class, that kind of thing. Hmm. 

Teen B's math teacher insisted that he was doing great. Teen B thinks he's failing, keeps asking if he can drop the class. I think the truth is somewhere in between. 

We told two of Teen B's teachers about the autism diagnosis, one of whom had helped by filling out questionnaires. (We didn't tell the oblivious math teacher. No point.) I still haven't figured out who else to tell. His counselor? Probably. His doctor? Probably. Maybe I'll work on that this week.

While we were talking to Teen A's "Interpersonal Relationships" teacher, the teacher sitting next to her overheard us mention that Teen A wants to study aviation science at Metro (maybe). This other teacher had gone to Metro, said it was a great school, and also mentioned that his daughter was trying to become a pilot, but she was having trouble passing her FAA Aviation Medical Examiner (AME) test, which you have to do before you're allowed to "solo," because she has ADHD and at one time took medication for it. You have to be able to prove that you don't need medication to function. The medical examiner found out she has ADHD because she's been on an IEP and it mentions ADHD on the form. Of course, Teen A has also had an IEP and a 504, and both mention ADHD as a reason. He only took medication VERY briefly, back in 2018 -- we didn't even finish one bottle of it (I still have it). But according to the teacher, it can be hard to prove that you stopped taking a med. We may have to provide years of medical records.

We did not know about any of this, so it was good to hear about, though worrying. The teacher also said that the dyslexia diagnosis may be an issue. I had wondered about that. We'll just have to see.

Tuesday night was the Synergy Concert, which I love. All the different musical groups at the high school perform together in various combinations. I really liked one piece the choirs did, called "Golden Field," and also a jazz piece called "Walking by Flashlight." The younger band and orchestra played Prokofiev's "Montagues and Capulets" from "Romeo and Juliet," which I love, although Teen B told me they did a terrible job of it compared to when HE played it, two years ago (sitting up in the balcony, I didn't notice). And then they finished with the advanced band and orchestra and all the choirs doing some of the "Polovtsian Dances" by Borodin, which was a favorite of my mother's and which I love love love. 

After this, how many more performances do we get to attend? The musical in early March, and then the spring play at the other high school in April, and then the final band, orchestra, and choir concerts in late April/early May, and then graduation in mid-May. And then it's over.

I will try to go to everything.

My book group met on Thursday, finally, after much rescheduling. We read The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which I liked but did not love. The member who listened to the audiobook loved it, and she played some of it for us so we could hear. There was a different voice for each different character who wrote a letter, and I could see how that made it better. 

Next month we are going to read Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I suggested Hamnet once before, but one member strongly nixed it because it sounded sad. This time I had it on a list with five other books and she picked it out and voted for it strongly. I'm happy -- it sounds like a good book. I am #71 out of 75 on the waiting list at the library for it, but we don't meet until March 24th, so there's a good chance I'll get it in time. And if not, I'll buy it, no big deal. I bought The Correspondent, but I don't really want to keep it, so I gave it to the member who listened to it, to give to her partner, and I told her he can pass it on to someone else.

Finally we got to Valentine's Day. It was a sweet day. Everybody slept late, which was nice. We worked on the TAXES, which I have been stressing over, and we actually finished them! All I have to do now is get Rocket Boy to sign a form, and then I'll scan it, and then I'll just wait for our tax preparer to "open the portal" so I can upload everything. Our taxes seem terribly complicated this year, but at least we don't have to file in MISSOURI.

Rocket Boy and I exchanged cards. We are always amused by how our choices seem to dovetail. This year we both got cards that said that the other person was our "better half." I'm not sure Rocket Boy really is my better half -- I think we work together pretty well, and I do not leave my towel on the floor as my card implied -- but because we both said the other was our better half, it seemed fair.

Rocket Boy mailed my card to Loveland, so it could be stamped there, which I thought was so sweet. I'm not sure I'm capable of being moved by things like this, the way I would have been moved if he'd done it 20 years ago. But I still thought it was sweet. I'm going to save the envelope.

I was more moved by the fact that he agreed to cook dinner. We did a Trader Joe's run to get the cheeses and such beforehand, and the whole store was full of flowers. He asked me if I would like some -- which I think might be the first time he has ever offered to buy me flowers, he doesn't like cut flowers, thinks it's like somebody killed the flowers -- but I said no. I appreciated the offer, thought it was very sweet of him, but I think I'm just a little too sad these days to get joy from flowers.

The house is filled with sweets, still. Candy, cookies, one last doughnut, half a pie that we bought at the bake sale after the concert on Tuesday. It's funny -- earlier in the week I made a batch of sugar cookie dough, except I ran out of flour, so I added things like dry milk powder and flaxseed meal to get it to solidify. It looked really strange. I put it in the fridge, planning to bake heart-shaped cookies later in the week after I bought some flour that I could use to help roll them out. And I never did. The cookie dough is still in the fridge, in a bowl, and when Rocket Boy goes back to work on Tuesday, I'm going to transfer it to the compost bin (along with the really old frosting left over from Christmas and the weird "Thai pesto" that I made to go with a weird soup that I made last week that no one liked). 

It's OK. We had all these other sweets and some other year I can make heart-shaped cookies. It's just that this is the last year of high school and it seemed like I should make them. But I didn't. 

Coming to terms

This was a hard week, but I'm coming around. Last Sunday I wrote about how we'd learned that Teen B has autism and how bad I felt about that (for so many reasons). I spent much of Monday crying, some of Tuesday, a little of Wednesday. But I'm feeling better now. This is why:

1.  So many things are making sense now, as I look back. Of course he's always been autistic. It was masked by Teen A, whose dyslexic/ADHD behavior kind of drowned out Teen B's autistic behavior, but it was there.
2. Clearly, things got worse/changed when he hit adolescence. For years now we've been blaming his brother, Teen A, for being mean to him and somehow changing him from the sweet little boy he was into the difficult teenager he is now. Yes, Teen A was mean to him, but I don't think that had anything to do with the change. It's a known fact that adolescence can make autism more obvious. People with autism can also "regress." I think some of that is what happened. It wasn't anybody's fault.
3. Knowing he's autistic means I don't have to get upset when he acts weird. It's just the autism. Every Sunday when we go to Starbucks I wonder, why can't he order for himself, why does he have to whisper his order to me so that I can repeat it to the counter person? But knowing that he has autism I can just let that go. He (thinks he) wants to go to CU next year, and I look around at all the CU students in Starbucks and think, really? He's going to fit in here? Now I know that he probably won't, because of the autism, but he won't be the only autistic kid, and maybe there will be a place for him. I don't know.
4. I've joined a subReddit called "Autism_Parenting" which is incredibly depressing because most of the parents have level 3 kids. But it reminds me that I'm lucky I only have a level 1/2 kid. Plus, it's a community. I've joined a community. Not a community I ever wanted to join, but still. Here I am and it's nice to have "people."
5. Regardless of the autism, I still love him a lot and I've always loved him. In fact, I feel even more loving towards him than I did before, because now I know the weird behavior is just autism. 

Last night I tried to remember odd behavior from his childhood. Did he do X or did Kid/Baby A do X? Or both? Like the time that we went to Marina and Gabor's in SLO and one or both of the kids wouldn't stop opening and closing the sliding glass door. But I can't find anything about that in my old blog (I'll keep looking), so I can't remember who was responsible. Definitely it was Teen B (Baby B, Kid B) who loved elevators, who couldn't get enough of them, wanting to go up and down over and over.

In March 2010, right before their second birthday, we went to Joshua Tree and they were incredibly bad in the hotel.

Within minutes of our arrival, Baby A discovered the phone and pressed the button to call the front desk. A moment later he did it again. So we put that phone in the closet and unplugged the other one... Our room had a little kitchen attached to it, and the second night we were there, the boys decided to bang the cupboard doors open and shut over and over. Then the phone in the closet rang: it was the front desk: someone had complained about the noise! At 8pm! This morning RB let them ride in the elevator (just for fun -- we were on the 1st floor) and Baby A pushed the emergency phone button which calls the fire department. 

Normal two-year-old behavior? Or the joys of ADHD in one twin and autism in the other? I think on that trip we were definitely blaming Baby A for most of the trouble. Baby B was just going along with it.

A few months later we went to the California Living Museum in Bakersfield, and Baby B ran away from me, twice. Once, another family returned him, but the second time... 

Baby B's path went over a tiny bridge above a stream, and instead of crossing it, he sat down on it, and then suddenly lowered himself into the water! RB and I both screamed and ran to snatch him out. He was soaked and filthy -- the water was muddy. And I hadn't brought any extra shoes and socks. I led him over to a grassy picnic area, pulling him on his leash instead of carrying him so I wouldn't get muddy, but I felt terrible because he was crying all the way.

Normal two-year-old behavior or autism? No way to know. It could be normal. Two-year-olds do a lot of goofy things.

Here's a time we tried to go to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound's Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond, when they were almost five. Both kids were bad and wouldn't follow the rules.

Baby B continues to yell at me about how he wants to go on the rock, and then starts kicking the fence around the cats' cage, hard. Everyone is staring at us and the cats are getting more and more agitated.  I give up, pick him up, and carry him out of the park, still screaming. 

It took forever to calm them down enough to get in the car, and Baby B screamed pretty much all the rest of the way to Palmdale. He kept saying "I wanted to see more CATS!!!" It was horrible... In Palmdale, Rocket Boy and Baby A shopped at Kohl's, while I stayed with Baby B, who was too freaked out to leave the car. 

Normal five-year-old behavior? Or an autism meltdown? You tell me.

I also remember all the times he threw fits (after we moved back to Boulder) because something about his routine changed, or something happened that he wasn't expecting. It all makes sense now. I mean, it made sense then, but after Children's Hospital told us he didn't have autism (when he was 8), it didn't make sense, for a long time. Now it makes sense again.

Now I have to figure out what to do next. Do I tell his counselor? Do I tell his teachers? Do I contact the Special Education department? This would be a lot simpler if the parent support group that I used to be in was still running. I guess I could still email the person who ran it (she's retired now, but still keeps in touch) and ask her what she would do if she were me.

***

Well, other than ASD, the week was pretty quiet. My book group rescheduled to this week, so there weren't any weird nights. However, I didn't feel at all like cooking, so it was kind of hit or miss. Rocket Boy brought takeout one night. I forget what we did the other nights.  

One fun thing: on Friday night, Teen A and I went suit shopping (for him to wear to Prom). We went first to Macy's, and they had some nice things, but there was not a soul in the department, no one to measure him, no one to help. So we left and went to the Men's Wearhouse in Boulder. I'd read that their suits are of lesser quality, but not so bad if you aim for the high end. We told the helpful man there that we wanted a dark gray suit, and he showed us a beautiful Calvin Klein suit, charcoal gray with tiny white stripes blended in. He said it was a sharkskin pattern. I'm not quite sure about that, because I thought sharkskin was shiny and this suit was not shiny. Anyway, it looked so good on Teen A, that after we saw that, there was no reason to look further. They didn't have the pants in his size, so we ordered those. We came home with the jacket and a white shirt, we'll get the pants later, and we still have to think about a tie (maybe with pink in it, to match his girlfriend's dress). He wants to wear it with his black sneakers. Fine.  

Today, our big achievement has been to put the Christmas boxes in the basement. It's only February 8th. But Christmas is GONE from our house (except for a few stray items -- there are always a few stray items).

This coming week is terribly complicated. Conferences Monday night, Teen B's concert on Tuesday night, and my book group on Thursday. I have no idea what to cook this week. Oh, and the power's supposed to be turned off at some time tomorrow, anywhere between 8 and 5 pm. Maybe I will spend the day in bed, reading.

I'm trying to get back into walking, after a couple of weeks of being really lazy and sluggish. Yesterday I was out walking and I thought -- there is nothing to look at! Nothing growing, hardly any birds. Normally in February, there's ice and snow covering things, but now it's all exposed and bare -- and there's nothing. Well, I told myself, the earth is resting. Don't worry about it. Think quiet thoughts. I tried. 

Hello, February

Well, goodbye, warm sunny January, hello, warm sunny February! Our weird winter continues, and meanwhile it's freezing in Florida. Think of all the birds that have gone down there for the winter -- what will they do? (Do any birds overwinter in Florida? I assume they do, but I don't know for sure.)

But here it is sunny and warm. No food sources, except feeders and such, so there aren't a lot of birds. It's quite barren outside, just like any January, and we do still have patches of snow left over from last weekend. But it's warm, in the 60s. Sunny. Weird. 

This was a hard week for me. I didn't get enough sleep, as usual, and that meant that I was very low energy on some of the days. Teen B had a haircut appointment at 8:30 am on Wednesday, which meant no late start for us, no sleeping in. I only managed to go on one walk all week, on Friday, and did not lift weights at all. Oh well. Maybe this week will be better. 

Friday was an odd day, because of the "National Shutdown." The kids asked if they could have the day off from school, and I said yes, because BVSD was saying it would excuse all absences and both boys were good and didn't "ditch" on Senior Ditch Day a couple of weeks ago. Rocket Boy went to work, because a top secret government job is not going to look kindly on participation in a National Shutdown, and anyway, he likes his job. I don't usually shop on Fridays, nor do we usually eat out, so it wasn't a problem to stay home and work on stuff instead. Teen B wanted me to take him shopping but I said no, obviously. There was a student-organized protest that I drove by that morning -- it looked like a huge, enthusiastic turnout. I honked at them.

Saturday was the official adult-organized protest, from 1 to 2:30 downtown, so Rocket Boy and I went to that. It was the biggest protest I've ever seen in Boulder, looked like thousands of people. We walked from Arapahoe to Pearl, saw people all along the road there, on both sides, plus people stretching down Canyon and maybe Walnut, can't remember. 

I heard the protests in Denver were huge too. It's interesting -- you'd think people would be getting tired of protesting. I'm certainly tired of it. But I keep going out, because, you know, it's important, and what makes me happy is that more and more people are joining the protests. Lots of young people, too! They're waking up to what's happening. That's a good thing, although the fact that they need to wake up is a terrible thing.

When Rocket Boy and I were standing on the street with our signs yesterday, at one point he turned to me and said "I'm glad you want to do this too, that you feel the same way I do about political things" (or something like that). I said, "I wouldn't have married you if we didn't feel the same way! I wasn't going to marry some stupid Republican."

I wonder if that's true. If I had fallen hard for some guy whose politics were questionable, would that really have been a deal breaker? I'm not sure. It's easy to say it would have been, now, but I don't know.

***

Well, we got some sad news on Friday. I don't know if it's really sad, or bad, because we were expecting it. I met with the psychologist who did Teen B's neuropsych testing back in October, and he said that yes, Teen B does meet the criteria for autism. The autism spectrum is defined as having three levels. Level three is people who are really bad off, who end up being institutionalized. Level two is people who you can tell have something wrong with them, but they're a little more functional. Level one is people who just seem socially awkward, but can kind of blend in with neurotypical people, sort of. Teen B is considered level one, but actually the psychologist said he's kind of on the border between level one and level two. He read me some of the official descriptions of the two levels, and I voted for level one, so we're going with that for the official diagnosis (which we should have in a week or two).

So, ten years after being told that Kid B was completely normal, no signs of autism, now Teen B is officially level one, but close to level two. The psychologist explained to me that Children's Hospital used a different test with him back in 2015, one that's good at identifying kids with severe autism, but that often misses kids with less severe versions of it. For example, they told us that he didn't have autism because he could make eye contact. That's not a definitive sign, I know now, but we didn't know it then.

We knew something was wrong, back in 2015. I remember the Children's Hospital psychologist telling us that Kid B showed no signs of autism and I said, "Then what's the matter with him?" She looked at me like I was crazy and said "Nothing. He's normal." But he wasn't. And so we've gone through ten years of meltdowns and various types of weird behavior, telling ourselves, "Well, he's odd, but at least he's not autistic."

In part, I'm angry! Angry that we could have done things differently all these years! I don't know what we would have done differently, exactly, but I'm sure there were things. We could have had different types of interventions. He's about to graduate from high school! All these years, we could have had different types of support. And we could have not felt so bad that we couldn't seem to deal with our odd child.

I'm also relieved. Relieved that I can now acknowledge that there's a problem, that I'm not somehow causing him to be odd by treating him cautiously, walking on eggshells around him. Autistic people require some eggshell-walking. They have meltdowns. Weird things set them off, and they are not fun when they are set off. Through the years many people have told me I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that, I shouldn't be so accommodating around Teen B, I should make him stand on his own two feet. Now I can say, to those people, "He's autistic," and maybe they'll stop criticizing me. Maybe. 

I'm also sad. Sad because now I know he isn't suddenly going to get better. I've known forever that he was different, but I thought maybe he was just taking his time growing up. Eventually he would work out how to be an adult, how to live on his own, how to have relationships. Now I'm not so sure. He may be living with us as long as we live. Maybe not -- but maybe. I have to allow for that possibility. I also have to allow for other possibilities. The psychologist and I discussed college and agreed that it was best to follow Teen B's lead on that. If he wants to go away to college, live in a dorm, let him. Maybe he'll rise to the occasion. Maybe he won't (probably he won't), but OK, then we move on from there. Don't be surprised if things don't work out, but don't shut him down, give him a chance to try.

But I'm not going to do his college homework for him. Not not not.

We'll see. I have a lot of learning ahead of me, to try to understand this world we're now in (that we've always been in, but didn't know it). 

*** 

Now it's February, so I am taking down Christmas. I've got all the ornaments off the tree and packed in boxes (except the one that's hiding, that will be discovered after everything else is packed away -- there's always one). I took the decorations off the wreath and it's lying on the compost bin, waiting for me to cut it out of its wire backing. I packed up the stockings and the Christmas tree skirts.

There's more to do. I like to have everything put away by Groundhog Day, which is tomorrow. I may leave the lights on the tree for one more night, and then take them all down and pack them away tomorrow. Rocket Boy likes the lights, especially in the morning. I like them too. But I don't like the tree, because it sticks out so much that I can't easily get around it, and I have to go around through the kitchen to get to the dining room or the garage. I want my living room back.

Last week was a decent cooking week. I made sweet potato hash with tofu on Monday, onion soup and turkey & cream cheese sandwiches on Tuesday, coconut cauliflower curry with rice and naan on Wednesday, and Mexican lasagna on Friday. Thursday, Rocket Boy brought home a container of potato salad and we had that with boca burgers and mahi mahi burgers. The potato salad was horribly vinegary, but it was nice of RB to help out.

This week, since it's now February, we'll have Brenda's sticky tofu (which Teen B asks me to make practically every night, but I only make once a month) and I don't know what else. It'll be fine. My book group is supposed to meet on Tuesday, and other than that I think it's a quiet week. Maybe I can do some cleaning, get some exercise, all that good stuff. Maybe make valentine cookies.

Reading post: January

A new year, a new January. It's almost the end of the month, so I'll go ahead and post this (I don't expect to finish another book in the next 2 days, but if I do I can always come back and edit this). So, this year I decided to read things that at some point I said I wanted to read. In January I focused on fiction by white writers (because white = cold, snow, etc.). Some of the books were really good, some weren't -- but in general this was fun and I read a lot.

Books I said I'd like to read

Grendel by John Gardner (1971). In November 2023 I read On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner and really enjoyed it. And I discovered that...

...his most famous novel, Grendel, is about the monster in Beowulf. I went right out and got a copy of Grendel at the Bookworm yesterday. 

I should note that I adore Beowulf (at least the Seamus Heaney translation). So I was planning to love this book. Hmm. Unsurprisingly, it's pretty strange. Seems very difficult to get into the mind of a monster, in Anglo-Saxon England, and often I just didn't buy Gardner's attempts to do so. But I tried to give him a chance. Then I read in Wikipedia that Gardner gave Grendel the mind and arguments of Jean Paul Sartre. What the heck? Do you have to know Sartre to understand this book? I thought knowing Beowulf would be enough, but apparently no. So I don't know. It was interesting, kind of, but I was hoping for something different...

Frost by Thomas Bernhard, translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (1963). In September 2024 I read Wittgenstein's Nephew by Bernhard, after which I wrote: 

I may or may not read more of Thomas Bernhard. Probably I will... Have to be in the right mood, though.

So I gave Bernhard another try this month, reading his first published novel. It was pretty weird. A medical student is asked by his mentor to stay in an inn in a small village (in Austria) and observe his brother, a painter, who lives there. The medical student stays there for 27 days and the book consists of his reporting on the painter and all the crazy things he says. It's winter, and extremely cold and snowy (lots of "frost"), and they go for long walks in the woods. People die, animals die. I have no idea what the point was. Anyway, I can check Frost off my list, and I probably will read more of Bernhard. This is supposed to be his longest and most difficult book, so everything else will be easy by comparison. He's an interesting writer, but this book. Hmm.

Blue Water by A. Manette Ansay (2006). In 2019 I read Ansay's Good Things I Wish You, and in my end of year reading roundup I said it was my favorite novel that year and 

...I want to catch up with Manette Ansay -- I've missed her last few books and she's such a good writer.

So in 2020 I read Vinegar Hill and in 2023 I read her memoir, Limbo. The only novel of hers I still hadn't read was Blue Water, so this month I took care of that. I had been avoiding this book because it's about a woman whose young son is killed in a car accident caused by her former best friend, who is drunk. And then she and her husband go and live on a boat to escape their pain. Oh, man, that did not sound appealing! But I shouldn't have worried. Manette Ansay writes about horrible things, but she doesn't do it in a horrible way. You know almost from the start that you're in the hands of a writer who is not going to be mean to you. I ended up really liking the book, and at the end I just couldn't stop reading it, wanting to know what happened.

So now I've read all her work except her collection of short stories, which I'll get to eventually. Interestingly enough, Ansay now lives in the Boulder area and helps high school students write their college essays. So maybe someday I'll meet her. She sounds like a nice person.

Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee (2003). Two years ago, after I spent February reading J. M. Coetzee, I wrote...

I can see myself becoming a real Coetzee fan.

I've had this book sitting in my TBR pile for a while -- it came from a Little Free Library -- so I was happy to read it. Many people really like it. Do I? It's an odd book, I'll say that. Its eight chapters are mostly a series of lectures that Elizabeth Costello, a famous older writer (kind of a female Coetzee) gives to various groups. (In one chapter her sister gives a lecture, which Elizabeth listens to and responds to.) In between the lectures we get to know a little about her personal life. In the last chapter she appears to have died and is trying to get into Heaven. Maybe. 

So often, reading Coetzee, I think, I do not understand. But then a few paragraphs later he'll make sense. I will probably go on reading him, but he's challenging.

The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer (1989). In September 2024 I read a couple of books by Geoff Dyer and liked them and him enormously.

I plan to go on reading Dyer. He's a lot of fun... 

So this month I tried his first novel. It's loosely fiction, but originally was supposed to be a sort of diary of his time living on the dole in London in the 1980s. I was in London, briefly, twice in the 1980s, and he's only two years older than me, so I feel like I have a vague idea of what he's writing about. As he says, in the introduction,

A couple of years ago I said somewhere that "I like to write stuff that is only an inch from life -- but all the art is in that inch." The importance of that inch -- and the fun to be had within it -- first made itself apparent in these pages.

First novels can often be really bad, but in this one you can already see Dyer being Dyer. On the other hand, it's rather dull. The absence of a plot is notable. Sometimes it's OK. I could read his little anecdotes forever. But sometimes he spends a lot of time describing something and it's boring. I noticed that on Goodreads most people gave the book 4 stars (out of 5). In other words, great writer, fun book, not outstanding. I will keep reading him, though.

The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald (1995), translated from the German by Michael Hulse. At the end of 2022 I noted that I hadn't read much "general fiction."

The exception, and my best discovery, was W. G. Sebald. I read two of his novels, enjoyed them both [the other was Vertigo], but I think I would pick The Emigrants as my favorite. And I definitely plan to read more of him.

I have since then read Austerlitz, which is wonderful, and now this, his third novel, is my last. It breaks my heart that there aren't any more, because he died in 2001, at only 57. But I have to be honest: I didn't enjoy this book. All his books are dour, somber, but this one was really depressing. It's a description of a walking tour he took of Suffolk in 1992 (maybe -- it's never clear if this is more memoir or more fiction). On his walk, he muses about all sorts of seemingly unrelated things that somehow do relate to each other and to what he's encountering. They all seem to involve terrible tragedies. As he says, at the end,

Now as I write, and think once more of our history, which is but a long account of calamities...

That's the book: a long account of calamities, each one more upsetting than the one before. This is probably not a good book to read when you're depressed. I wish I could read his books in German, though. According to Wikipedia,

The German original is written in a curiously quaint and somewhat precious and old-fashioned language that often disregards the common placement of German verbs at the end of sentences and instead puts them in unusual places.

There are collections of essays and poetry by Sebald that I haven't read, so maybe I'll try them. But his novels are so wonderful. Except maybe not so much this one. I'm still glad I read it.

Aquamarine by Carol Anshaw (1992). I've always liked Carol Anshaw, ever since I first ran across her in 1998. In the summer of 2021 I found her latest book, Right After the Weather, at the Dollar Store, bought it, and read it. In this blog, I wrote,

She's a good writer. I read her novel Seven Moves a long time ago, liked it a lot, and then more recently, Carry The One, didn't like it as much but still liked it. In the back of my mind I planned to read her other books eventually...

Anshaw really is a good writer, and I'm sorry she's kind of vanished in the haze. Aquamarine was her first book, of five, and it earned a lot of praise. It's the story of Jesse, an Olympic swimmer who takes the silver medal (her crush takes the gold), and three possible ways her life might have gone after that. That's the whole book: three long chapters about Jesse's three possible lives, each of which seems plausible. I started out not liking it so much, but it grew on me. I read the whole thing in less than a day -- she's that kind of writer. So, she has one more novel I haven't read, Lucky in the Corner, and it's supposed to be good. I'll get it from the library.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025). This is the book for the book group (we meet next week), but it was also something I wanted to read. I put a hold on it at the library, but on January 22nd I was #373 out of 675, something like that, so I gave up and went to Barnes & Noble and bought the hardcover.

I liked it a lot! But at the same time, I don't know, it's not the greatest book ever. A retired lawyer in her 70s writes to a lot of people every week, including famous writers (who write her back). The novel is nothing but letters -- hers, and some of those she receives. Through the letters you learn all about her life and how she gradually comes to terms with it. She's fairly well-off, plus gets richer as the book goes on (inheritances), so there are no pesky real-life concerns to worry about, other than the fact that she's going blind. And things get wrapped up too neatly at the end. So, it was good, I liked it, but I'll probably end up giving it away to someone. Maybe. I'll see.

Night Waking by Sarah Moss (2011). In December 2023 I read Moss's first novel, Cold Earth, and loved it. I noted that I wanted to read more of her. So I tried this one, which is about an academic who has gone with her husband and two young kids to live on an island so that he can study puffins and she can do all the childcare and housework and cooking while also trying to finish an academic book. I thought I might like it, but I didn't, in part because I felt like she wasn't firm enough with her toddler. Don't let him do that, I kept thinking. Say, "No!" Eventually I decided it wasn't for me. I'll try some of her other books later.

The Crossing by Andrew Miller (2015). Miller's latest novel, The Land in Winter, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize last year and I thought it sounded interesting. So I looked up Miller and HE sounded interesting. I'd like to read this guy, I thought. So I found this book, his seventh, at the library. 

 

I didn't know anything about it; if I had, I might not have chosen it. It's the story of a couple whose child dies in an accident, and the woman goes to sea to deal with her grief. Sound familiar? It's basically the same plot as Blue Water! Except that in The Crossing, only the woman goes to sea, because the man, who was badly injured in the crash, has basically dumped her. He was a jerk, so I was glad to see the last of him. For me, the book got better once he was out of the picture. But the book as a whole, hmm, not sure it holds together. Interesting, though. I do plan to read more of this author.

The Girls from the Five Great Valleys by Elizabeth Savage (1977). Savage is the author of one of my favorite books of all time, Happy Ending, and in May 2024 I read three of her other books, only liking one of them (Last Night at the Ritz).

I think I will continue to explore Savage's books, at least some of them. I read a review of her 3rd novel, and it didn't sound very good, but I definitely want to try her 6th, 7th, and 8th novels, just in case they're wonderful.

The Girls is Savage's 7th novel and I liked it a lot. It's the story of five teenage girls in Missoula, Montana, in 1934. The story follows them from the end of their junior year at Missoula County High School to graduation night the following year, and a little bit beyond. Savage was born in Montana in 1918, so this is her story, her era. In the beginning I loved it, then it got a little dull, and then it got very dark. But I loved the last line. This doesn't replace Happy Ending as my favorite Savage book, but it's similar to it in some ways and I will definitely keep it and reread it.

 

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

By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land by Rebecca Nagle (2024). I chose this book to read back in November and I had it checked out for six weeks before I finally read it. But it's a really good book, although terribly depressing, and not unlike one of my favorite books from last year, Killers of the Flower Moon. The author, who lives in Oklahoma, is a member of one of the tribes she writes about, the Cherokee Nation. 

The book is very well researched, very fair, and about halfway through I suddenly thought, wait a minute, my great-grandparents participated in one of the Oklahoma land rushes (of 1892) -- did they steal Native land? So I did a little research, and sure enough, my great-grandparents' land, in Blaine County, Oklahoma, was originally given to the Creek and Seminole tribes, taken away from them after the Civil War, then given to the Cheyenne and Arapaho alliance, and then taken away from them. So the land that gave my grandmother a good life, leading ultimately to my father having a good life and to me having a good life... was stolen from four different Indian tribes.

I do feel as though I owe someone some reparations.

 

Other reading 

Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake. I saw this "sapphic" romance novel discussed on Reddit and was fascinated that such things exist. So I read it. But it was terrible. All the characters did was drink heavily and wear attractive outfits. I simply did not see the point. This makes me think I should read some other romance novels, to see if I just don't like the genre (I don't think I do) or maybe this was a really bad book. Or maybe I'm just not the intended audience...

Red Winter by Anneli Furmark, translated from the Swedish by Hanna Stromberg. An odd little story about an illicit (and doomed) love affair between a young Communist and an older married mother of three, in 1970s Sweden, during the long cold winter. It's a graphic novel, with evocative illustrations. Very well done, kind of sad, kind of weird, intriguing.