Flickerstory

Sunday, June 21, 2026

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.

Sunday, June 14, 2026

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.

Sunday, June 7, 2026

Busy, busy

Well, it was a busy week, as I expected it would be. Our big achievement was Teen B retaking his driving test and PASSING! Oh, thank goodness. The examiners score the tests, and you can't get more than 20 points. On his first test, Teen B got 22 points. This time he got 20 -- but that's still a pass. It's like getting a D in Language Arts, but that was still a pass. Such a relief.

Unfortunately, because he had to take the test twice, there was some special fee I needed to pay for him to get his license, and I couldn't figure out how to do that online, so we had to make a physical appointment to go in and get the license, and it's not until June 18th. So he can't drive alone until then.

The day after his test, he got invited to a graduation party, and if he'd had his license, he could have driven himself, but... The party started at 7 pm, and around 8:15 he finally decided to go, so I drove him out there. We got there about 8:45, and sat in the parking lot for a while before he finally texted the girl who had invited him and she came out and got him (the party was held in a locked building, some industrial thing). I went home, and around 11 pm, when I was thinking of going to bed, I texted him and suggested that he might like to get a ride home with someone else... but he texted back and said the party just ended. So I went and got him, getting us both home about 11:45. It was a "game show party," with prizes, and he came home with a stack of stuff, candy and soda and miscellany.

I suggested that the girl who invited him maybe "likes" him. He said no. I suggested that maybe he'll see these people at other parties during the summer. He said no. It's OK. I'm glad he got to go to one party, even if that's the only social life he has all summer.

Teen A's social life has been complicated by his girlfriend's father moving to Berthoud. We're gradually learning more about this -- mostly from her, since Teen A never tells us anything. Apparently her father was only renting the place in Boulder, and the landlord kept raising the rent, thus the move. They are now living with the father's girlfriend, in a smaller house, and the father's girlfriend disapproves of Teen A spending the night. So for now the two teenage sweethearts have no place to be together, except the couch in our living room. I expect we will be waking up to the two of them on the couch a lot this summer. It makes Teen B angry -- he doesn't like having an extra person in the house -- but it doesn't bother me (the girlfriend is quite pleasant). In the fall, of course, Teen B will go off to live in a dorm at CSU, making the twins' bedroom available, but Teen A's girlfriend is also going off to live in a dorm at CSU, so... Life is hard for teenagers in love. I remember it well.

Let's see, what else happened this week? Monday was the Prius V's oil change, which turned out to be more complicated than expected. I followed Teen A out to the repair shop (about 5 miles from here), where he dropped off the car. As we drove away, I asked him if he'd reminded them about the car's other problem, the fact that the driver's side door won't reliably lock. No, he'd forgotten. So we went to Jamba Juice, and from there I called the shop and reminded them. Sure, they'd look at it. We got Jamba Juice and went home, and an hour or so later they texted me that the car was ready. We drove the five miles to pick it up and after paying $119, I asked about the door lock. Oh yeah, I think the mechanic said something about that, do you want me to check? Yes, obviously. She checked and it turned out that the car needed some part I'd never heard of -- an actuator? I said, OK, should we make another appointment to have that replaced? Oh no, she said, we can do it today. (Then why didn't you, I thought but did not say.) It would be about $300. Fine, fine. Teen A and I drove the five miles home again. An hour or so later another text: it's ready. So we drove the five miles back to get the car. This time it really was ready. But there was an issue with paying. The bill was $152. Wow, I said, that's a lot less than you said it would be. Puzzled, the girl looked at the bill. Oh, no, it's actually $452. Wow, I said, that's a lot more than you said it would be. More study of the bill. Oh, actually you already paid $152, so it's only $300. OK, sure, but I didn't already pay $152, I paid $119. Oh. Hmm. Oh, actually the original bill was really $152, so we just charged your credit card the extra $33 after you left. Ohhhkay. "Clear as mud," said the mechanic sitting next to her. Anyway, the Prius V is fixed now and the driver's side door locks and everybody's happy.

My referral to orthopedics went through and they actually called me, I think it was Monday. So I have an appointment to see my new orthopedist on Wednesday, June 17th. I said to my doctor (over email) that I didn't think there was much they could do for an old person who tears her meniscus, but she replied cheerily that there were many options and not to worry. So we shall see. Rocket Boy has been having a lot of trouble with his OTHER shoulder (the supposedly good one) that he fell on in a hotel room on our spring break trip back in March, and his physical therapist encouraged him to have that seen to. So he's seeing HIS orthopedist (different from mine) on Monday. It would be pretty funny if it turned out that shoulder was torn too and he had to have a regular rotator cuff repair of it. Hilarious.

The kids keep asking if we're going on vacation to California in July, and I keep saying, it depends on whether Dad and/or I have to have surgery, and when. Hopefully we'll have some answers quickly.

I had less success getting an appointment for poor Sillers and her peeing problem. At our vet's recommendation I had called the specialist vet for an appointment, but couldn't get through on their busy phone. So I filled out a form online and this week they called me (I think Tuesday?). But it was someone from the cat nephrology department and as I explained, we probably need to see a cat neurologist. She agreed and said she would pass the information on to them. But no one ever called back. So I guess my next step is to fill out another form online, since their phone is too busy. Poor weird Sillers. She doesn't want to go to a specialist vet, or any vet. Meanwhile, Rocket Boy and I sleep with a big towel laid over our fitted sheet (because she sleeps between us) and I keep washing cat blankets.

Teen B and I spent some time working on his college stuff, and I got him to schedule an appointment with a counselor to choose classes for the fall. But before he could have the appointment, he had to do some "assessments," including a long math test that he didn't want to take. I said, "Don't worry about it, if you do badly, they'll just put you in an easier class, and it would be great to have an easy math class your first semester of college," but he ignored me. Finally he took the test. He asked me for help with one of the algebra problems and I was just baffled by it, didn't know where to start. I guess a lot of the test was like that. Anyway, he didn't do very well, so he'll get to take an easy class. Win-win, in my book.

And yesterday I finally got him to write thank-you notes for all the graduation presents he received. At the last minute I remembered that we had actual graduation stationery, so we used that. I addressed the envelopes (six of them! including my sister who told Teen B he didn't have to write her a thank-you note because he'd thanked her in person, because COME ON) because my handwriting is better, but he wrote all the notes himself. Now I just have to get Teen A to do his.

(Update: Teen A did his! Now I can go mail all 12 of them at the post office!)

We had an odd thing happen in the garden this week, not sure which day. So last fall I planted six tulip bulbs in a row in our front-yard flower bed, and they came up all in a heap, as though they had somehow gravitated toward each other over the winter. Only one bloomed, but I enjoyed that. I'd been looking at the leaves ever since, wondering if I should cut them back the way I do the iris. Then suddenly this week they were gone, all of them, just gone, no trace of the leaves or anything. We still have no idea what happened. Did a squirrel dig them all up? Would a squirrel do that? I just don't know. Fortunately, today a neighbor dug up some of his own tulips and offered them to anyone who wanted some, so I went by and got about a dozen. I'll save them to plant in the fall (hopefully won't forget about them).

It's been very hot here the last few days, and today is supposed to be another scorcher. But then it is going to cool down a little, with only Tuesday being really bad. A few days ago they were predicting that the whole coming week would be hot, but they keep changing the forecast. Now it looks like a mix of high 80s and low 90s, which is better than all high 90s. Yesterday, because of the heat, I wore my new sundress that I paid a lot of money for at April Cornell. I like it a lot, but NO ONE said anything about it. No one said, "What are you wearing?" or "Pretty dress," or anything, positive or negative. I decided not to ask for comments, in case it looked terrible and my family was being polite (but they're never polite -- probably just didn't notice). I was very comfortable in the dress and am thinking about ordering another. Why not -- we have the money...

My computer doesn't like the heat and keeps overheating and grinding to a halt. Yesterday I worked on genealogy in the morning, overheated the computer, and turned it off for a few hours. But when I turned it back on, it was still sluggish. So I set up our big box fan to blow right onto the back of the computer and wow, what a difference. Suddenly it was fast again. So today Rocket Boy dug out a little fan from a drawer and set it up so it's aimed right at my computer. So far so good. I really need a new computer, but that's such a hassle.

I haven't been writing recently, because it's hard to concentrate when there are so many people in the house. Instead, I've been obsessed with genealogy, using Ancestry.com to explore. I have over 1700 people in my tree now. I've always known a lot about my family history, but it turns out there are so many more avenues to explore. For example, a distant relative did a lot of work on my mother's father's line, the Morrisons. But here's the wife of my mother's father's father's father: Malina Miller, who was born in Illinois in 1826. The genealogy simply says, "Parents unknown at this writing." Well, obviously that needed work. I had already found out more about her parents and grandparents, but this week, I've been looking at her many siblings and tracing their descendants. I get a kick out of following lines forward instead of back, looking for third, fourth, and fifth cousins. I haven't found a sixth cousin yet, but I know I will. Sometimes Ancestry pops up with a note: "Would you like to contact XXX Cousin?" meaning that the fourth cousin I've just found is also on Ancestry. I always say no. Maybe at some point I'll say yes. Maybe someday I'll do the genetic testing. But for now, I'm just having fun.

Most of these distant cousins live in the midwest: Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, places like that. I found a really nice-sounding fourth cousin who'd retired from the photo department at Walgreen's (in northern Minnesota). You just wonder if she'd been living somewhere else, would she have had a better job. Occasionally a branch of the family will make the move to California or Washington, and then suddenly the distant cousins have better jobs. I found a fourth cousin this week who was a teacher in California before she died rather young of Alzheimer's and another last night who's a professor (also in California).

And then there are the tragedies, the sad family stories. One distant cousin was out hunting pheasants with a friend in the late 1800s and the friend accidentally shot the top of the cousin's head off (the boys were about 16). Yesterday I found another distant cousin who accidentally shot himself while hunting rabbits in Missouri and "died within the hour." He was 23. Sometimes a whole family dies within a few years: baby, mom, toddler, dad. Yesterday I found a family that had two daughters born in 1900 and 1901. Mom died in 1908, dad died in 1913. Just like that, two young girls left alone. They both grew up and got married, so someone must have taken care of them.

I've always been a snoop, fascinated by other people's stories. Doing genealogy is the ultimate pleasure for a snoop.

So anyway, not writing right now, though I plan to return to my mystery children's book series in the fall. Not that the world cares. In the May 25th issue of the New Yorker there is a comic piece titled "Realistic High-School-Yearbook Inscriptions" by Jason Roeder and Mike Sacks, and one "inscription" reads

You're such an AMAZING WRITER! I'M SO JEALOUS! I can't wait to read that one book you'll self-publish years from now, a children's book about a talking stapler with a huge heart. -- Mary P.

That could easily have been written in one of my high school yearbooks, with the part about the talking stapler implied. In fact I think it was. Hmm, I'll check. Not in my senior yearbook, where mostly people praised my manual dexterity (because I didn't break anything in AP Chemistry). In my sophomore yearbook I found one comment like that, but it actually said,

Keep on writing those stories? and maybe you'll become a professional scuba diver or something.

which actually is pretty insightful, I think. Anyway, if someone -- even someone who was predicted to do great things -- is enjoying writing about a talking stapler, maybe that's OK too.

The week ahead looks very busy.

Monday, Rocket Boy sees his orthopedist, so we'll hear what he has to say. I expect there will be another MRI scheduled too.
Tuesday, Teen A supposedly has some kind of orientation thing at Metro from 12 to 5. I tried to get him to prepare for it, figure out what he has to do, but there's some app that he has to use that won't work for him. He tried to use it on his computer and his computer blew up. So we ordered a part for the computer, but meanwhile I don't know what he has to do for Tuesday, and the app won't work on his phone either. Fortunately, Metro is a forgiving school. I think this will all work out. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, Teen B has his advising appointment (over Zoom). Parents are NOT allowed to attend (this is CSU's attempt to deal with helicopter parents, obviously). But of course, Teen B is nervous about his appointment and WANTS me to attend. I suggested that I could stay out of range of the camera and signal to him when he has questions. We'll see.
Thursday, both Teen B and I have eye appointments. He wants to get new glasses whether or not his vision has changed, so we'll work on that too.

And somewhere in there I'll hopefully make contact with the specialist vet about Sillers, and maybe my dentist will call to make the appointment to get my fake tooth put in. Another busy week, and the week after that looks even worse. Worse, no, none of this is bad. I just keep thinking about how quiet things are going to seem in the fall, when the kids are at college. Maybe. We shall see.

Sunday, May 31, 2026

OK, summer

Last night I dreamed that I was about to fail AP US history (which I passed in 1977) and thus would not graduate from high school (which I did in 1978). I had a term paper due the next day which I had not really started, although I had a topic. The topic was something about how English speakers and French speakers interacted back in the 1700s, and I just wasn't having any luck with it. I explained this to Mr. Bunton (my AP chemistry teacher back in 1977-78) and he looked very disappointed with me. I realized that I was going to have to repeat the class over the summer, otherwise I wouldn't be able to go to college in the fall.

Fortunately, none of us in this household have to worry about any of this anymore. We are all high school graduates! (And some of us have PhDs, but we won't dwell on that.)

So, here comes summer. With no classes to make up, thank you, thank you. It was a close thing with Teen B and Language Arts, but he managed to pass. Somehow. I think it was just his nice teacher being nice. She's off to Japan to teach next year, so Boulder high school students won't be her problem anymore.

This was a very busy week, especially considering that it was a short week, with Memorial Day and all that. On Tuesday, Teen B and I both had dentist appointments and neither of us had any cavities, which is nice. They're going to call me this week to set up an appointment for me to finally get a fake tooth attached to the implant. I've had a hole in my mouth for almost 11 months, so it will be interesting to be able to chew on that side again.

Wednesday was my MRI at Boulder MRI, out in Lafayette. To get there I just drove straight down South Boulder Road for miles and miles, and it occurred to me that it would be easy to get MRIs there on a regular basis, if anyone in their right mind ever wanted to do such a thing, lol. I really hate MRIs. But so does everyone, right?

Almost everyone waiting for an MRI was old. I thought, what is the point of subjecting all of us old people to horrible MRIs and other tests? We're all going to die soon, anyway. Sitting next to me was an old couple. The old woman was heavy, and had an oxygen tank. The old man urged her to sit down, take a load off. Then she was called in to the MRI room, and another woman came by with a pug, which she said was a therapy dog. We all petted the pug. The old man told the woman that he and his wife were thinking about getting another dog. She encouraged him to do so. I thought, why don't we all just get dogs, why are we bothering with all these MRIs? But of course, if I got a dog, I wouldn't be able to walk it, due to my knee.

Then it was my turn. I didn't have to take off any of my non-metallic clothes, just my sandals (which the technician told me were cute). They tried to give me music to listen to, but one time when I had an MRI I listened to early Beatles, and now whenever I hear "I Want To Hold Your Hand" or any of those songs, I think of the noises the MRI makes. So, no music. I silently recited the times tables up to 10 x 15, plus several nursery rhymes, a poem by Philip Larkin called "Wedding Wind" that I memorized when I was in college, and finally some of my mother's old songs. And then it was over. They gave me a CD of my results which the technician said I should give to my doctor "or any other doctor they refer you to," which suggested to me that she had noticed the problem already.

Anyway, I have an "almost complete tear" of my meniscus, which is not a surprise. Today my doctor messaged me and gave me some options of who to be referred to. I chose the guy at Boulder Medical Center. Might as well stay close to home. So I guess I'll be calling for an appointment this coming week.

Thursday was Teen B's driving test. He was very anxious about it, kept delaying putting on his shoes. I finally went out to the car to wait for him. He PHONED me from the house to ask where the shoehorn was. I said, "I don't know where the shoehorn is, I never use it!" and hung up on him. A minute later, he came out to the car with his shoes on.

I had only gotten him to practice for the test once, but he still did pretty well, although he failed. His main sin was not coming to a complete stop at stop signs, which seems like SUCH an obvious thing to do right, but he didn't do it.

Since then, I've been observing my own driving in regards to stop signs, and I see that *I* do this (fail to come to a complete stop) much of the time. I get to the stop sign and then I glide slowly forward, looking, looking. But I don't make that complete stop first. So I'm working on my own driving now!

Teen B is going to retake the test this coming Tuesday, but so far I haven't been able to get him to practice. If he fails a second time, I'm going to make him take more driving lessons. Or give up and just get an ID.

Thursday afternoon, after the driving test, Teen A and I took the Prius V to get a smog check. And on Monday we'll take it for an oil change.

On Friday, Teen B suggested we go to a movie. I really wanted to see the sheep detectives movie, but he thought that sounded dumb. He proposed "The Backrooms," which seemed to be a horror movie. I don't love horror movies, but I like spooky movies, and this sounded spooky, so I agreed. We went to the 1:30 pm showing at the Boulder Cinemark theater. Just before we left, Teen A came home and we invited him to come too, but he said he and his girlfriend already had tickets for a 10:30 pm showing of the same movie at Flatiron Crossing AMC theater (because the seats are more comfortable there).

The movie was fun. I didn't realize it's also a science fiction movie -- sort of a combination of horror, scifi, and psychological thriller? It was very creepy and quite scary, and I have no idea what any of it was supposed to mean. A good summer teen flick.

I still want to see the sheep detectives movie, though. We'll probably end up getting it from the library in a year or two.

Teen A got home very late from his movie, and in the morning I was surprised to find not one but two teenagers snuggled up together under a blanket on our living room couch. Teen A's girlfriend's father is in the process of moving to Berthoud (not Fort Collins as we had been told -- Berthoud is about halfway between Boulder and Fort Collins) and she didn't want to drive all the way home so late at night. I whispered to Teen A, "A little crowded," but he replied, "We made it work." I was glad that they felt comfortable enough to sleep at our house, but I wished the bathroom were cleaner. I'm having trouble with housework, due to my knee.

Half an hour or so later, Rocket Boy got up and I ran into him in the hallway. He was in his underwear, as usual. He whispered, "We have a visitor," and I whispered back, "You should put on your pants." It turned out that by a "visitor," he meant Teen A, who often doesn't sleep at home, so he didn't see any urgency about the pants. Eventually he figured it out.

The girlfriend came into my room before she left, to say hi and bye to the kitties (and me). She was wearing a tiny black camisole top and tiny black shorts, which looked more like pajamas than clothes, but apparently they work for either. Today in Starbucks I saw a girl wearing what appeared to be blue striped baby doll pajamas, not even covering her butt, so I guess Teen A's girlfriend was actually quite formally dressed.

Saturday's main excitement was helping Rocket Boy find the ingredients for his icebox cake, which he is planning to take to work on Monday. Nabisco stopped making their Famous Chocolate Wafers back in 2023, but we didn't know that, so I spent half an hour walking around King Soopers looking for them. I was also there to pick up some prescriptions, and because I got in a traffic mess coming from the main library and had to detour to Chautauqua, I arrived at exactly 1 pm, which is when the pharmacy closes for lunch, sigh, so since I had half an hour to kill, I spent it pushing a little cart around and around the store, looking for the cookies. This was not great for my knee, of course, and I felt that people were looking at me, this aging woman dragging her left leg as she trudged through the aisles. Finally, at 1:30, I pulled out my phone and learned that the cookies were no longer made. I picked up my prescriptions and went home to tell Rocket Boy the bad news.

According to the internet, a good substitute is Oreo Thins, which you can split apart and scrape the filling out of, or just leave as is. So after we all went out to dinner at the Nepalese place, we had Teen A drive us back to King Soopers, where we bought Oreo Thins. Then, back at home, I read about some other possible replacement cookies, which might or might not be available at Safeway, so around 9 pm I drove to Safeway and bought Tate's Bake Shop Double Chocolate Chip cookies and Simple Mills Chocolate Brownie Seed & Nut Flour Sweet Thins. Rocket Boy decided the Sweet Thins wouldn't work (though they're rather tasty for snacking), but he made two test cakes using the Oreo Thins (half split apart and half whole) and the Tate's Bake Shop cookies, and this morning we all tested them out. Verdict: In my opinion, the split apart Oreo Thins are the closest to the original, but in Teen A's opinion, the Tate's cookies make the best cake. Teen B didn't have an opinion: "I didn't even want any cake, why are you asking me?!"

Another possibility is Dewey's Bakery Brownie Crisps, but although Rocket Boy called around, we couldn't find any in our area. I might order them online and he can try them later. But for tomorrow, he's going to use the Oreo Thins. Maybe. I strongly suspect that at this moment he is out driving around to different stores (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sprouts, World Market) looking for alternatives.

So anyway, a very busy, complicated week. The week ahead is looking potentially busy too, with

The Prius oil change on Monday
Teen B's driving re-test on Tuesday
Possibly my new fake tooth getting put in, depending on when the dentist calls me
My doctor is giving me a referral to an orthopedist, so I have to call them this week, although who knows when the appointment will be
Sillers has a referral to a cat neurologist (a veterinarian specializing in feline neurology, not a cat that is a neurologist) for her peeing problem, so I should hear from them this week and maybe have an appointment
Whatever else comes up. What we SHOULD do is write thank-you letters. We'll see.

This week we had a financial scare -- the state of Colorado wrote us a letter demanding that we repay the $16,000 Rocket Boy received last year in unemployment compensation. I always felt he shouldn't have been awarded that, so I was all ready to pay it back. And for once in our lives -- well, except for when I inherited all that money from my mother, before we spent it all on childcare -- we actually have $16,000 available. Alternatively, I told RB, "Let's just set up a payment plan, pay $2,000 a month, we'll be done in 8 months. You're making so much money now, we won't notice it." But RB ignored me, called the unemployment office and got it all straightened out, and now we don't owe $16,000 anymore.

So it goes.

Saturday, May 30, 2026

Reading post: May

It's almost the end of May and I know I won't finish another book before tomorrow night, so... In May my plan was to read Asian and Asian-American related books, since May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I had a long list of authors and books from 2022 when I read Japanese and Japanese-American classics, but the problem was that the Boulder Public Library had almost none of the books on the list. So I ordered things from Prospector and otherwise made do.

The names of some of the authors I was looking for came from a collection of poetry that I read in 2022 called The Narrow Road to the Interior by Kimiko Hahn, which I got from the library accidentally. I had ordered The Narrow Road to the Interior by Basho, but they sent me this modern collection instead, so I went ahead and read it while waiting for Basho. In one poem called "Asian American Lit. Final," Hahn mentions numerous Asian and Asian-American writers, and that's where I got the names of many of the authors I tried to read this month (Yamada, Yamanaka, Cha, etc.).

One other book that I wanted to read was something published just this year: Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita, about the camps again. I'm on hold for it, #4 of 9 as of today.

Books I said I'd like to read

Camp Notes and Other Poems by Mitsuye Yamada (originally published 1976/this edition 1992). Yamada (who was on that list in Hahn's book, see above) grew up in Seattle and was in the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho during WWII (along with John Okada, author of No-No Boy, and Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter). This poetry collection (which I found at the Bookworm, much to my surprise, almost as though it were waiting for me) includes 20 poems about the camp, seven poems about her issei parents, and 16 "other" poems. I really liked it. The poems are short and simple, but some of them pack a punch. I looked Yamada up and she is still alive at 102!

Snow Angel, Sand Angel by Lois-Ann Yamanaka, illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky (2021). I read this picture book because our library had almost nothing by any of the authors I was interested in, including most of Yamanaka's books, but it did have this! It's a lovely book about a little girl in Hawaii who has never seen snow. Her parents take her to the top of Mauna Kea, but the snow there is old and icy. She thinks it would be so wonderful to see real snow falling, make a snowman and a snow angel. Then, on New Year's Eve, they go to the beach and make a sandman and sand angels. And she realizes that she loves her homeland the best. A lovely sweet story and one that I can relate to, having grown up in California.

The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo, translated from the Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk (1950/2021). In 2022 I read my first murder mystery by Yokomizo, The Honjin Murders, didn't love it, but later read his The Inugami Curse, which was better. And I noted that I wouldn't mind reading more by him. Ergo, this book. It was better than The Honjin Murders, but it wasn't very good. I guessed the murderer early on, but I still had to sit through the rest of the 349 pages of red herrings. Much of the book takes place in a cave, which was kind of interesting, but I thought rather unrealistic. Anyway, I might read more of Yokomizo, I might not. Someone on Reddit said several of his novels (mystery and other) have been made into Japanese movies and those are good, but so far I haven't found any mystery ones with English subtitles.

Blu's Hanging by Lois-Ann Yamanaka (1997). It occurred to me that most Y-names are Asian (except Young), so at the main library I started looking at the "Y" shelf in the fiction section. And I found this. That's odd, I thought, I didn't remember that the library had anything by Yamanaka except the picture book (see above) and a couple of e-books (which I dislike and avoid). I tried to check this out, but the machine wouldn't accept it. So I went to the desk, where I learned that the book was actually LOST. "Thank you for finding it," said the librarian. "It was just sitting there on the shelf," I murmured. Maybe the book decided to reappear just for me...

Anyway. This well-written but incredibly depressing novel is about three working-class Japanese-Hawaiian kids whose mother has recently died and whose father is struggling to cope. They live on mayonnaise sandwiches, rice mixed with canned mushroom soup, and chocolate. The boy, Blu, is very fat and has no friends. Their horrible next-door neighbors kill their cat's kittens. An old man living nearby exposes himself to Blu in exchange for candy. The cat-killing neighbors' uncle molests everybody. And so on. It has kind of a happy ending, sort of, but I never did understand the title.

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1982). The Korean-American author of this book was raped and murdered by a stranger a week after her book was published. That nightmare overshadows the work and makes it hard to assess, although I guess it's also a commentary on the dangerous lives of Asian women. The work itself, hmm. I understood so little of it. It's divided into 9 sections, each corresponding to one of the Greek muses (Calliope, Clio, Urania, etc.). One section has to do with the author's mother, who was Korean but grew up in China. But most of the sections I did not understand at all. If Cha hadn't been murdered, would we still be reading this? Would she have written more understandable stuff later? Impossible to know. I don't know what else to say.

Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories by Hisaye Yamamoto (1988). Another book by a woman who lived through the Japanese internment camps. Yamamoto was born in 1921, so about the same age as Mitsuye Yamada and Monica Sone and other writers I've read. Yamamoto was in Poston, though, in Arizona, which is supposed to have been a particularly bad camp. Only one of these stories is set in a camp, though. Mostly they're about growing up Japanese-American in California. In the introduction she is compared to Toshio Mori, whose short stories I read in 2022. Yamamoto's English is much better, though. Some of these stories are really quite accomplished. I think she should be better known than Mori, instead of not known at all.

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, translated from the Japanese by Meredith McKinney (1914). In 2022 I read I Am a Cat by Soseki and didn't love it, despite its delightful premise. As I noted then,

Supposedly some of Soseki's other works are better, but they don't get read as much because they aren't titled I Am a Cat, which I still think makes the book very hard to resist. Even knowing what I know now.

Kokoro is supposed to be Soseki's best book (it was also the last one he completed), so I decided to read that. And it was really good, so much better than I Am a Cat. It's the story of a young man who befriends an older man, who he calls Sensei (teacher, more or less). Sensei harbors a deep dark secret, which he reveals to the young man in a long letter that ends the book. I mean, it's a Japanese novel from 1914, so anyone who considers reading it should understand that it's not good in the sense of a modern American novel. But it is really good. I gobbled it up in a couple of days. I may read more Soseki as time goes on.

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

Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins (2022). I chose this novel because, although it's not by an Asian-American author, it's set in the Owens Valley (not far from Ridgecrest) and is, in part, about the Manzanar internment camp, which we visited when we lived there. It's an odd book, though. The author apparently had a massive stroke when she was partway through the book, and over the next few years her daughter helped her finish it. So there are long stretches that are beautifully written and then there are shorter sections that seem very choppy and confused. And the long stretches should have been cut down and probably would have been, if the author had been fully functional. I should read something else by her someday, just to see what she was like as a writer in her prime. Anyway, it was interesting, but ultimately disappointing. Not enough about the internees, too much fairytale happy ending stuff.

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang (2024). Hmm, I don't know. The subject matter of this first novel was interesting -- a movie theater in China in the 1980s where gay men (most of whom are married to women) congregate, and what happens to them and their wives after they emigrate to America. But it was so first-novelish. The New Yorker called it "moving if uneven," but I would have just said bad. Way too much telling, not enough showing. So much politics, not much art. I would have given up on it after a few chapters, except that I was waiting for two books to come in from Prospector, so I kept saying, oh, I'll read a little more... Maybe his next book will be better.