Rainbows

This has been quite a week. Today I thought maybe I would write about my recently active social life -- my book group, coffee with a friend, another mini-reunion with my cousin and her family this past Wednesday, and on Saturday I took the bus to Denver and had lunch with an old friend from high school. So different from early pandemic days, when I never saw anyone except the twins. So nice to interact with people, not just screens.

I wanted to write about that because I didn't want to write about Roe v. Wade. I'm so sad about the Supreme Court decision this week that I don't want to write about it. I'm still processing it. It's so strange to think that young women today now have fewer rights than I have had my entire adult life. Fifty years ago I was 11. What do 11-year-olds have to look forward to now? An increasingly deprived life, that's what it looks like. Clarence Thomas has it all mapped out: no abortions, no contraception, no gay sex or gay marriage. In other words, no pleasure for anyone. You can have children (at least straight people can), but you can't have fun.

Yeah, I didn't want to write about that. I'll write about the fun stuff instead.

But then, last night, I realized I'd lost my keys somewhere during the Denver trip yesterday. I had them in my pocket, and when I got home I didn't have them anymore. So after a lot of calling and texting and filling out online forms, we determined that my keys MIGHT be at the Sheraton hotel in downtown Denver where I'd had lunch yesterday. My old friend who I'd had lunch with called the front desk and determined that they did have a set of Subaru keys and that I should call them. But I couldn't get anyone in the hotel to pick up the phone. 

Eventually I decided my best option was to take the bus back to Denver and go to the hotel in person, and Teen B very sweetly offered to come with me. That made all the difference. We took the FF1 to Union Station, and then caught the free MallRide to the hotel. At the hotel we stood in a really long line (20 people ahead of us) to get to the front desk, where I explained my problem. The clerk called security, we determined they probably did have my keys, we waited on a bench for security, I showed him my ID and signed for the keys, and then we had to come all the way back to Boulder. The entire trip took almost four hours (Saturday's trip took five hours, but that included a nice lunch). My butt is killing me (yes, I'm still in pain from the tailbone injury two and a half weeks ago).

I could have driven -- my car is fixed, at least enough to drive to Denver -- but downtown Denver is a madhouse today. It's PrideFest, and the 16th Street Mall and thereabouts were mobbed. Almost everyone we saw was wearing rainbows, all different kinds of rainbows. Rainbow shirts and rainbow capes and rainbow makeup and rainbow hair accessories. I saw one woman with a sort of rainbow tube top worn above her lovely breasts, which were adorned with rainbow pasties (I suppose the tube top was there to be pulled down if someone made an issue about her lack of coverage). I thought, wow, that takes guts to walk down the mall like that, and then I thought, no, all of this takes guts. All the people who came out today to stand up for who they are, they had to have guts. 

During our lovely lunch yesterday, my old high school friend Tracy and I talked about a lot of deep subjects, possibly more than we've ever talked about, and we've been friends since we were 13. We talked about race and gender and how different things are now. I mentioned that when we were in high school I really only knew one person who I was absolutely sure was gay, and I named her. Tracy nodded thoughtfully. "And then," I said, "we went off to college, and all of a sudden there were all these other people who turned out to be gay." Tracy nodded more vigorously, and we both remembered all the people we knew who'd come out when they went to college. "And there were probably lots of other people who came out later still," I added, and she agreed again. 

Today, wandering rainbow-filled downtown Denver with Teen B, I realized that I'm even more upset about the threat to LGBTQ people than I am about Roe v. Wade, and believe me, I'm terribly upset about Roe v. Wade. But gay people's rights are so fragile and new. Gay people have been around forever, but it's only so very recently that they've started to be accepted as part of mainstream society. Think of all the gay families who might be made illegal if this evil court has its way. 

***

We saw my cousin Kathy back in March, during our Spring Break trip to Nebraska, and I was so happy to see her again, after I don't know how many years -- more than 20 but fewer than 30 is the best I can come up with, and I'm not totally sure about the "fewer than 30" thing. Being able to see her again this past Wednesday (just three months later) was wonderful. But in the meantime she's been diagnosed with a degenerative condition. She talked a little bit about things she still wants to do, before the disease makes them difficult: get another dog, go to Hawaii again, visit her son in southern California. I thought of other people I know and have known who had this condition, such as someone in the bird club who insisted on going camping on her own because soon she wouldn't be able to.

This made me think, again, of what I still want to do in life -- even though I don't have a degenerative disease (that I know of), nor do I have coronary artery disease, as we thought previously. I'm basically fine, as far as we know, but I'm 61, ALMOST 62, so you do start thinking about how much time is left, how much healthy time is left, and what would you like to do with it.

I brought this up in conversation with Tracy and I told her that the main thing that comes to mind is getting my kids raised (I told my cousin that too). It's the only thing that seems urgent. She agreed, though her two girls are just about launched (one is mid-20s and working, the other just graduated from college and is in training for her first job). My cousin Kathy's kids are in their 30s and definitely launched, so she can think about other things. 

I mentioned that I do still think about writing, but I don't think it's urgent. It's fun, it's satisfying -- as is reading -- but I don't feel a desperate need to get something written (and especially published), nor do I feel a desperate need to read certain things (a desire, but not really a need). It's more that I'd like to go on reading and writing as long as I'm able, not that there are particular things I want to achieve in those areas. I'd like to travel some more, too, but there aren't any places that I feel a desperate need to see before I die. Maybe it's because I live in such a pretty place. I see beauty every day. It would be nice to see other places, but I don't have to.

Then I mentioned the one other thing that does cross my mind: giving back. I've had a good life, I continue to have a good life -- I would like others to have a good life too, not just my white children who are growing up in privileged Boulder. Tracy agreed again. She was in Denver for a conference of the League of Women Voters, which she's been active in for a while. I asked her how she happened to get involved, and she said she joined after Trump was elected, because she felt like she had to do something. 

So that's what's on my mind right now, in this terrible week (politically speaking), in the midst of my own happy socializing and the pleasant June weather. What are some things I can do, some concrete ways I can help out? I don't really want to think too much about the horribleness. I just want to think about how I can help.

*All the rainbow pictures in this post were found by doing a Google image search for rainbows, and then limiting it to those with Creative Commons licenses. They aren't my pictures.

Enjoying June

I'm really enjoying June. We're two and a half weeks into it, and I've enjoyed it all so far -- despite all the things that keep going wrong. It's been very peaceful -- no Rocket Boy around planning activities and no teachers assigning homework projects. We go to bed at a reasonable hour (10 pm or so for the twins, maybe 11:30 for me), and get up when we want to, usually somewhere between 7 and 8. Though yesterday Teen B got up at 5 am because he couldn't sleep because it was too hot. That was bad. But today I slept in until 7:30 or so, got up around 8:15. Very relaxing. 

Rocket Boy plans to arrive sometime during Fourth of July weekend, and that will be great too -- we'll do activities, celebrate my birthday, and all that. But I'm really liking the peacefulness of June.

So, what went wrong this week? My car died. The air conditioner stopped working early in the week and I decided I'd better take it in to be looked at. It's too hot in the summers now to go without a/c, and I'm going to try to keep my car at least five more years, so it's worth it to spend the money, even if it's a couple thousand or whatever. But on my way home Thursday (I was doing errands, very aware of how hot it was without a/c), the car started making a rattling sound. When I got home and parked in the driveway, the rattle got worse. And when I turned off the engine, clouds of smoke/steam came out of the hood. The next day Rocket Boy walked me through opening the hood and looking at what's underneath it, and we determined that I have a radiator leak. Among other things.

My regular shop, Hoshi, couldn't get me in until July 6th, but Rocket Boy called around and found another shop that can take me on June 22nd. Still, it's a long time to go without a car. Especially for someone with a tailbone injury, making it hard to go for long walks, e.g., to the grocery store.

HOWEVER, this morning the twins and I decided we would try to walk to the store, because we always get Starbucks on Sunday morning. First, I tried again to order Starbucks delivered. It is a very great mystery to me why I cannot make that work. A month ago, when we all had Covid, I signed up with UberEats (which delivers Starbucks) and even gave them my credit card info, but couldn't make the order go through. This time when I went to the website, it remembered me and told me it had my credit card stored -- but I still couldn't make the order go through. It would not let me click on "Order now" or "Purchase" or whatever it was. I checked everything over and over, couldn't see anything wrong with anything, I'd chosen sizes for everything, all of that. But something was wrong, because it wouldn't let me order. I wandered through the website, looking for an explanation, and then when I got back to my order, it told me it had deleted all my items! There was some comment about how I had very discerning taste. WTF?

So our only option was to walk. I decided it was worth a try. If we got all the way there and I was in too much pain to walk home, I could call for a Lyft. 

We decided to walk to the Starbucks inside King Soopers, because that was only .7 mile away, unlike the Starbucks we usually go to in Basemar which is 1 mile. And it worked! I managed to walk there, I bought them their Starbucks stuff (nothing for me), I did a tiny bit of shopping (bread, raspberries), and we walked home. And I was OK. That is, I was in pain, but not any more pain than is usual right now. We walked slowly (it was kind of hot and humid -- humid for Colorado, anyway), and I was OK. 

The only problem we had was that Teen B had brought his own money with him and insisted on buying five cans of Arizona Iced Tea (Green Tea with Ginseng flavor), which is his new favorite drink. He bought these even though I had just bought him a Mango Dragonfruit Lemonade Starbucks Refreshers Beverage (that's really its name). I refused to carry the cans home in my backpack along with the groceries and my purse and my water bottle, so he carried them in a plastic bag (I hadn't brought any reusable bags with me because I had my backpack). The plastic bag was not intended to carry five large heavy cans and quickly broke. Eventually I agreed to carry one can and his Starbucks drink. The bag broke again. We stopped at every bench in the park to rearrange the cans. Teen A (who never has any money and thus couldn't buy his own nonsense) kept up a steady stream of criticism. Eventually Teen B stuck the broken bag in his pocket and carried four cans rolled in his shirt. Somehow, we made it home.

But I'm psyched! Now I can walk back to the store tomorrow, bringing my little grocery cart, and do a real (small) shopping. Maybe I'll even bring a cooler and we can get frozen stuff.

Of course, there's always a complication, and the latest one came in the form of a text from my cousin Kathy in Nebraska. I thought she told me they'd be out here in July, but it turns out it's June, and it's this week. They'll be staying in Lyons. Would I like to come out and see them? Of course I would, but I can't do it without a car. Lyons is pretty far away to take a Lyft (19 miles). They'll be here Tuesday to Thursday. My car goes into the shop on Wednesday morning. I decided to just say "yes!" and figure it all out later. Can I rent a car? I'll work on this tomorrow.

I had another good week of FLYing with the FlyLady. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying her program! Every day when I get up I make the bed, put away the clean dishes (which are clean because I DID them the night before), and start a load of laundry. I feed the cats, eat my breakfast, and decide what I'm having for dinner. And then I start on my little tasks. Every day there is a small cleaning task (except Monday, when you're supposed to "bless your house," which takes longer), and then I'm supposed to spend 15 minutes decluttering. In addition, there's the special task for the day (Tuesday is planning, Wednesday is doing something you've been putting off, Thursday is errands). And at some point I have to move the laundry to the dryer and later put it away, and then I have to make dinner, and at the end of the day I do the dishes. It's all so easy, it blows my mind.

This past week we were in Zone 3, which is the bathroom and one other room (I chose the office). Some of the things I did in the bathroom this week were (1) throwing away a lot of old expired toiletries and recycling a lot of empty bottles which for some unknown reason we were storing in there, (2) cleaning the shower walls and the windowsill and the sink, (3) cleaning the baseboards even though it wasn't on her list, because they always get so dusty. Cleaning the tub wasn't on the list, so I imagine that will be next month or the month after. I cleaned mine a little anyway, because when I cleaned the windowsill a lot of dirt splashed down into the tub. It's all good.

I couldn't really clean the office because it is too cluttered. Instead I spent 15 minutes every day (six days straight) decluttering. It is still incredibly cluttered, but I made some progress. Of course I don't have a "before" picture, but take my word for it, this is an improvement. "Before," I had a row of books on the floor, too. I managed to cull about 20 books -- some belonged elsewhere in the house, but I'm going to try to find new homes for a dozen books on technical and business writing, because I AM NEVER GOING TO TEACH TECHNICAL OR BUSINESS WRITING EVER AGAIN. I know, never say never. But really. I'd rather work at King Soopers than teach those classes again.

One of the nicest things about her system is that you're not supposed to work on the weekend. Saturday is "Family Fun Day" and Sunday is "Go to Church Day" except she doesn't call it that. What does she call it? "Renew Your Spirit." Which means, to her, Go to Church. But I substitute "Starbucks" for "Church" and we're all good. You're still supposed to make your bed and do the dishes and do a load of laundry -- and maybe declutter, I'm not sure. I did a load of laundry today but skipped Saturday. I did 15 minutes of decluttering yesterday but I'm skipping today.

We didn't do anything special for Family Fun Day, not having a car. We got takeout from Subway. They forgot Teen A's chips, used the wrong bread on Teen B's sandwich (they used white bread and he was really puzzled by it -- "what IS this bread? it's so puffy!"), and didn't toast either sandwich, but what the heck, it was only $43 including delivery and a tip. Of course, all I got was a cookie, so $43, hmm. I don't care, I don't want to give up my once a week not having to cook dinner. Even if it means I don't actually GET any dinner. 

No, I'm wrong, we did do something for Family Fun Day. After dinner, we walked to their old elementary school and played basketball. Teen B wanted to go to the park and play tennis, but Teen A wanted a break from tennis, so we did this instead. They each brought a ball and I was the ball retriever (this is usually my role when we play tennis, too). I walked very slowly and carefully after the balls (I'm terrified of falling again). Teen A was in good form and pretended to be a basketball instructor, shouting to me to "Watch how I do this! No, not that, watch this! No, not that, watch this!" until he finally made a basket. Then Teen B was allowed to be the instructor. They pretended to be their tennis coach, who they don't like. 

I feel so lucky that we get along so well. I mean, OK, we don't always. The two of them fight like cats and dogs. But they get along with me pretty well. Really, things are better than they were, say, five or six years ago. I'm not sure when things changed, but they're so nice right now. High school is coming, two months from now, and soon we'll have fights about serious things like drugs and alcohol, more mature relationships with whoever they end up having relationships with, driving, cutting class, I don't know what all. But it's so nice to have one more easy, pleasant summer.

So, the week ahead. I've got this car problem to figure out -- how to get to Lyons and also how to get my car repaired and all that. I'll have to walk to do my grocery shopping and hurry home before everything melts. And an old friend from high school is supposed to be showing up on Friday or Saturday, so that will mean a bus trip to Denver (if it actually happens). With the FlyLady, we'll be focusing on the master bedroom, and I plan to work on the twins' room as well. I looked at her flight plan for the week: it looks fun. Monday we clean under the bed, Tuesday on top of the bed, Wednesday the left side, Thursday the right side, and Friday the end of the bed. I think both rooms will look very different by Friday evening.

I haven't planned the week's meals yet, and that's a problem, because I've now been sitting (writing this blog post) just about as long as I'm able to sit these days. Last week's meals worked out so well! My book group came on Monday and I ordered two "party trays" from King Soopers for it: an antipasto tray and a fruit tray. Of course, there was tons of food left over afterwards, so I planned a meal around each type of leftover. Tuesday we had pita bread sandwiches with hummus and olives, Wednesday we had baked feta (using the chunks of feta) with leftover honeydew melon as a side, Thursday we had mozzarella biscuits (using the mozzarella balls) with leftover cantaloupe as a side, Friday we had pasta with a sauce made from the leftover sweet red peppers, and both Friday and Saturday we had smoothies made from all the rest of the leftover fruit. It was so wonderful.

Maybe I can go lie down and plan meals from that position. Hmm. My tailbone area is just as painful as it was 10 days ago, maybe more. I finally emailed my doctor and she said yep, it's really painful and yep, it takes a really long time to heal. So I've given up and now I take painkillers four times a day. Two ibuprofen when I get up, two tylenol after lunch, two ibuprofen around dinner time, and two tylenol at bedtime. And I'm still in so much pain. This is a really crappy injury, one that I encourage people not to get.

But there you are. Crap happens. And we swallow our painkillers and try to keep going.

The best-laid plans of birds and men...

...gang aft agley. I love that line (I know it's supposed to be mice). The last three words mean "go often awry," roughly, but "gang aft agley," however you pronounce it, is more satisfying.

Things didn't really gang agley this week. That is, my plans didn't. The only things I had planned were to get bloodwork done on Monday and to see my doctor on Wednesday, the twins' first tennis lesson on Tuesday, haircuts for all three of us on Saturday, and working along on FlyLady tasks throughout the week. And all those things got done, more or less. I also finally finished my fifth book for the Classics Challenge yesterday and wrote a blog post about it. Glad to have that done.

The problems, such as they were, mainly had to do with tennis. Maybe, when I signed the boys up for tennis lessons, I should have remembered that tennis and I do not have a happy history. When I tried to learn to play tennis, in 7th grade PE, I was so uncoordinated that I could never get beyond hitting the ball against a backboard. You had to be able to hit it a certain number of times in a row before they would let you go onto the court and rally with someone. An intellectually disabled girl called Judy and I were the only two people in the class who never advanced beyond the backboard, in three weeks of trying. 

Judy and I got rather friendly during that time, though I'm ashamed to say I was embarrassed to be grouped with her. We laughed about not being able to hit the ball very well. There wasn't much we could do except laugh. On the last day of the tennis unit, Judy and I were allowed to rally on a court -- not because we'd earned the right, but because it was the last day. We didn't do well. So much for tennis.

But I always thought it looked like fun! And I could play badminton, so why not tennis? I always wanted to take a class and finally really learn how to play, but I was always afraid, remembering that backboard. So what's the solution? Make your kids learn. Let them have the life you didn't get to have. Yes, that always goes well.

Anyway, the boys had their first lesson on Tuesday, and while Teen A did fine, Teen B turned out to be something like me. Not as bad as me, but in that category. And the instructor was not any nicer than my old PE teacher. At the end of the hour, Teen B declared, "I hate tennis!" which was exactly what I did not want to have happen. 

So I emailed the organization that runs the class and asked why the instructor couldn't just teach my kid, not yell at him. I said I don't want my kids to make the high school tennis team, I just want them to have fun. The instructor eventually replied and apologized, but now I have to talk to him in person, probably before class on Tuesday, because he wants to CLARIFY things. I haven't replied to his email yet. I will. I'm planning to be very nice, because now we have to work together. I started this, I have to finish it. I must be brave.

I also gave Teen B a talking-to after class. I told him that it wasn't tennis he hated, it was this stupid instructor. I insisted that tennis is still fun. And he seemed to get the message. On Wednesday evening he and Teen A walked back to the park to play their version of tennis. They came home pretty soon (I think someone had to use the bathroom), but a little later (around 8:30 pm), Teen B wanted to go again, and he convinced me to come and play with him. So I went. I wore my new tennis shoes, which are so comfy and springy, and we played happily for a little while. Then Teen B suggested the game would move along faster if I would RUN after the ball instead of walking. So the next ball he hit to me, I chased. I actually ran.

And I lost my balance. And I tried not to fall. And I started spinning out of control. And I smashed into the new, strong, chain-link fence at full force, and then completely lost my balance and fell on the ground. My glasses went flying across the court. I lay there, absolutely stunned.

I heard what I thought was a strange woman's voice, saying "Are you OK?" I didn't want to have strangers coming over, so I struggled to sit up and found that I could do so fairly easily. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed to be broken. I sat there for a little while, dazed. Teen B came over to me. I told him about the woman, and he said, "That was me!" 

Somehow I managed to stand up. Teen B retrieved my glasses. They were scratched, but not cracked. I put them on. We decided we were done for the night and somehow I managed to walk home. I kept thinking about how there was no one to help me and I had to be strong. Oh, how I hate having no one to help me when something like this happens.

That first night I was terribly worried that I was going to die in my sleep. I thought it was going to be a Natasha Richardson type of situation and I would have an epidural hematoma that would kill me (though in fact those are more likely if you hit your head on the side, not the forehead, as I did). But Urgent Care was already closed and I didn't want to go to the Emergency Room for a simple fall and a bump on the head. It's one of those things -- how on earth do you know whether you should go or not? 

I didn't die overnight, but I woke up in a lot of pain. My main injuries were (1) the head bump, still very tender four days later; (2) an elbow scrape; and (3) a pain to the immediate left of my tailbone, which still hurts terribly today, especially when standing up from a sitting position, or getting in and out of a car. It occurred to me eventually that I probably had a concussion and I wondered whether I should go to Urgent Care (this is Thursday, now) for that. Or at least call an Advice Nurse. But I couldn't seem to make that decision. I was very fuzzy-brained on Thursday (which is a sign of concussion). I had been planning to do a bunch of errands that day, but I decided to stay home. Friday afternoon I did go to the grocery store with Teen B's help, and Saturday night we ate out. I seem to be able to drive with no problem now, but my gait is affected by the continuing pain near my tailbone. I don't seem very steady on my feet. I haven't tried to go for a walk yet. I suppose I'm afraid of falling.

I'm still wondering whether I should call Urgent Care, even now. Or my doctor, tomorrow. Dr. Google told me that coccydynia, or tailbone pain, can take 4 weeks to heal, longer if there is an actual fracture (the 4 weeks is for a bruise). But there isn't really anything a doctor can do for it. Probably I will just wait it out.

So anyway, the best laid plans... I had such high hopes for tennis and now it's not really working out for us at all. But maybe the second tennis lesson will be better.

And this pain that I am in is really affecting my ability to do things. Like sit in a chair and read. Or clean litter boxes. Or clean anything! In addition to the injuries mentioned above, both of my arms are sore. When I pick up something even slightly heavy, like a full laundry basket, it hurts both my arms and my tailbone.

But I'm not giving up on the FlyLady. Even Wednesday night, when I was so miserable and in pain, I did the dishes before going to bed. I did them every night this week. And I did laundry every day except yesterday -- I skipped yesterday because I was planning to handwash another tablecloth, and I decided that would be too painful. I did the kids' laundry today, though.

I also cooked every night. I had planned some interesting meals and I made every single one of them. The kids hated what I cooked on Monday (red lentil soup) and Friday (strawberry pizza), but that's OK. Saturday night we ate out at BJ's, and even though we had mostly appetizers (Teen A did have a cheeseburger too), the bill with tip was $93. For mostly appetizers. They were out of two things that we wanted, so they weren't even very special appetizers. And the piece de resistance, if that's the correct term (it probably isn't) was that Teen B threw up his dinner in the parking lot afterwards. I don't know why. He's fine today.

I don't know what to do about eating out. It's gotten so frigging expensive that I feel like the bill, when they hand it to me, is a joke. Like I'm supposed to start laughing. But at the same time, I don't want to stop eating out. I'm trying to keep it to once a week, so I have to do a lot of cooking on the other six days. But I'd be really sad to give up that once a week meal out. And yet... $93.

The thing about the FlyLady that is so great, even though she is so weird, is that you don't have to do her system perfectly. At the end of all her emails (she sends out about a dozen a day, mostly advertising her products or repeating "testimonials" from flybabies that she's already sent me a dozen times already), she says "You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are." And that makes so much sense. I'm always failing to do what I plan, in regards to cleaning, and then trying to catch up. It's hopeless. Much better to jump back in wherever, and go from there.

For example, Friday's task was to thoroughly sweep and mop the kitchen floor. And I wasn't up to it. I did do Thursday's task, which was to clean the surfaces of large appliances in the kitchen. I thought I'd take it slow and just do what felt right. I got so interested in seeing the refrigerator clean that I ended up doing the whole thing, though I was in pain at the end of it. I took all the magnets off and then put them all back on after scrubbing, with the letters and numbers arranged by color. But Friday I somehow couldn't do that sweeping and mopping. It's OK. The kitchen floor has not gone away, and I will sweep and mop it another time -- probably tomorrow, when it's time to "bless the house." 

The book group comes tomorrow, and I'm nowhere near as prepared as I wanted to be. I wanted to move furniture and boxes on the porch so that we could sit out there. I could still do it -- I could get the kids to help me, if it's too hard for me to do alone. But I think we'll just meet indoors. It's supposed to be 98 tomorrow, which means the porch won't be very pleasant at 5:30 pm. If I'm careful to close windows in the morning, the house should be reasonably cool.

What's coming up this week other than the book group -- coffee with a friend on Tuesday morning, the second tennis lesson. This week with the FlyLady we are going to work on the bathroom and one other room, which I have decided will be the office. I think that's it, but undoubtedly other things will come up. I worked on trying to plan meals today, but finally decided to wait until after the book group comes. I've ordered a Mediterranean tray and a fruit tray from the grocery store (cheaper than ordering entrees from a restaurant), and I'm also going to bake a couple of frozen pizzas and I have some gelato in the freezer. The kids can eat bits and pieces of all that, and then I will plan the rest of the week's meals around what's left on the trays. For instance, I think the Mediterranean tray is going to have a lot of pita bread -- if so, we might have pita sandwiches on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Oh, one other thing. Out the window where I can see the lilac, there is also a half-dead aspen, and yesterday I finally realized that the reason a Downy Woodpecker kept going to it was that it had a nest! I could hear the babies peeping when I went out to the car. I told our next-door neighbor about it, but last night she sent me a disturbing text: she had seen a magpie on the tree and the woodpecker parents chasing it! Oh, no, a magpie! I love magpies, but I don't want one to destroy my woodpecker nest. Today I went over to the tree and I couldn't hear the little birds. And then suddenly, there was the magpie! I yelled, it flew off, and I actually threw a stick at it (didn't hit it). I felt terrible -- magpies are my favorite bird. But it was behaving so badly. (I know it's nature. I don't care.) Anyway, later that day I went out again, and I could hear peeping. I also saw a woodpecker parent sticking its beak in the hole. So maybe the nest is OK. Of course, the magpie can and probably will come back, so the story isn't over. But the babies have survived another day. And I think we have baby blue jays and baby robins and probably baby something elses. I have seen so many birds in the yard this past week. Finches and a flicker and birds that moved too fast for me to identify them. And hummingbirds at the feeder. It's June.

Reading post: I Am a Cat

I have finished my fifth book for the 2022 Classics Challenge: I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume, published in 1905-06. I chose it to fulfill category #12: Wild card classic. A book supposedly written by a cat seemed like a good choice for a "wild card."

Like my last choice, this book was written during the Meiji era in Japan (1868-1912). Oddly, Soseki's life (1867-1916) encompassed the entire Meiji era. Soseki had a better beginning in life than my last author, Ichiyo, but not by much. He was born Kin'nosuke Natsume to a prosperous family in Edo (Tokyo), but his parents were older and they did not want him, giving him up for adoption a year later. When he was nine, his adoptive parents divorced, so he was returned to his biological family, who still didn't want him. However, with their support he was able to go to college and become a teacher. Later he studied in England and then returned to Japan to become a professor. He began publishing fiction in 1903. I Am a Cat began as a short story, but it was so popular that Soseki wrote more stories about the cat, which eventually were published in three volumes, and then altogether as a long novel (470 pages in the translation I read).

Translation note: I'm fascinated by the translation issues going on in the background of everything I read for this year's Challenge. At the end of their introduction to I Am a Cat, the translators note that Soseki is very hard to translate because he was such a good linguist, and could use language in such interesting ways. For example, the book's title in Japanese is wagahai wa neko de aru. "Neko" means cat, and I suppose the little words are particles of various sorts. One or more of them must equal "am." The interesting word in the title is "wagahai," which means "I," but not just any "I." According to the blog nihonshock, wagahai "is a classical way to say “I” that was used by older men of high social stature." So the cat is saying "I am a cat," but referring to himself in a way that makes him seem like an older man of high social stature. Can you think of a way to put that in English? Maybe the title should be Bow Down Before Me, You Scum, I Am a Cat?

Also, somewhere I read that when Soseki lived in England (years before writing this), he had a calico cat who he named Wagahai.That makes me smile. Interestingly, the cat in the book, I Am a Cat, does not have a name. It's not just that his name is never mentioned -- he states clearly, several times, that no one has ever named him.

I was looking forward to reading this book, but it was a bit of a disappointment. It's so long! Really, 470 pages of supposedly humorous commentary, most of whose points I didn't understand (there are no notes in back) -- it's a lot. Supposedly it's all a satirical look at the Meiji era, but that was mostly lost on me. I liked the parts where the cat did something cat-like, such as when it stalked a praying mantis in the yard. Some of the discussions which the cat reported between his master, Mr. Sneaze (the misspelling is apparently deliberate; I have no idea what it is in Japanese), and his friends were funny, but there were pages and pages and pages that were more boring than The Tale of the Heike. When I reached Volume III and realized I still had almost half the book left to read -- well, I was sad. I kept wondering whether Soseki was paid by the word.

Here is a section near the end (but not close enough to the end, I felt, when I read it) about a cushion. A student of Mr. Sneaze has come to see him about something, and Mr. Sneaze offers him a cushion.

That noble figure, shoving a cushion toward the drooping crophead, bade him sit on it, but the latter, though he managed to mumble a nervous "thank you," made no move at all. It's quaint to see a living being, even this bighead, sitting blankly with a partly faded cushion rammed up against his knees. The cushion, of course, says nothing, not even, "Sit on me." But cushions are for sitting on. Mrs. Sneaze didn't go to a market stall and buy this particular cushion in order that it should be looked at. It follows that anyone who declines to sit on the cushion is, in effect, casting a slur on its cushionly good name. Indeed, when my master has specifically offered the cushion for sitting upon, a refusal to do so extends the insult to the cushion into a slight upon my master. This crophead glaring at the cushion and thereby slighting my master does not, of course, have any personal dislike for the cushion itself. As a matter of fact, the only other occasion in his life when he sat in a civilized manner was during the memorial rites for his grandfather, so his present sally into decorum is bringing on pins and needles in his feet while his toes, excruciated by the pressures of propriety, have long been signaling blue murder. Nevertheless, the clot won't sit on the cushion. He will not do so, though the cushion, clearly embarrassed by the situation, yearns to be sat on...

This passage illustrates both the book's strengths and its weaknesses. For while I found it mildly amusing, in parts -- the parts about the cushion not being purchased in order to be looked at and being embarrassed and all that -- it also just goes on and on and on. There are five more sentences in the paragraph that I didn't bother typing out! (They weren't about the cushion.) Is it funnier in Japanese? Supposedly this is a very good translation. Was it funnier in 1905? Funnier in 1905 Japan? I just don't know.

Nothing much happens in the book. Various friends of Mr. Sneaze come to visit, say silly things, and then leave. A burglar enters the home at night and steals a lot of clothes while the cat watches, but eventually the police find the burglar and retrieve most of the items. A friend of Mr. Sneaze is possibly interested in a rich girl who lives nearby; her mother comes to ask Mr. Sneaze about the friend and feels insulted by his response, which leads to a campaign against him. But then he and she marry other people, so the whole subplot collapses. The cat tries to catch a rat and fails.

The last chapter is 70 pages long and consists mainly of one of Mr. Sneaze's friends, Avalon Coldmoon (and I don't understand that name -- I wonder what it is in Japanese), telling a very long, very boring story. It is so long and boring that most of the other characters stop listening. I wished that I could stop listening too, but I had to read it.

And yet, and yet. After the boring story, there is a very sad discourse among the characters upon what's become of the world and what will become of it in the future. It was worth reading. It was thought-provoking. And then something happens that ends the series of stories once and for all -- but I won't give it away (any more than I already have). It was quite a way to go out.

Would I recommend the book? No, unless you're embarking on a reading project that surveys all of Japanese literature. 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.

FLYing through June

Somewhat to my surprise, June is going pretty well so far. I thought it was going to be a dreary month, but so far it's OK. For one thing, we've had some rain. I think of June as a green time (I have teal bands on my braces this month), but this only works if we get some rain. Some years June is dry, some years it's soggy, but this year, so far, June has been lovely -- mostly sunny, but with thunderstorms every other afternoon or so -- and everything is green. Our late lilac that I thought was ruined by the May snow is blooming its heart out. When I'm sitting at my desk, like now, I can see it through the east window, and its purpleness lightens my heart every time I look up. Also, a Downy Woodpecker has been spending a lot of time in the half-dead aspen next to the lilac, and sometimes a fat bumblebee visits the blossoms.

I don't want to ignore what's going on in the world. Ukraine is still being invaded. The shootings in this country continue apace, one after another after another. In my state, gun control measures are being proposed. I read about these, and try to think positive thoughts for those who are working on them. I can't think about it very much, though, or read too deeply, because it's just so incredibly upsetting. I feel guilty about that, but I also know my limits.

At Walmart last night (the kids and I ate out at Chili's), I saw a man at the gun counter who looked exactly like a mass shooter. That is, he wasn't a teenager, so he didn't look like the Buffalo or Uvalde shooters, but he could have been the 2017 Las Vegas shooter, for example. A dirty, tough, angry-looking middle-aged man. I didn't see what he was buying -- I quickly detoured to another part of the store -- but he looked the part so well I half expected him to immediately use whatever it was he was buying. I kept waiting for shots to ring out. It didn't happen.

I'm doing pretty well with my plans for the month. One thing I really wanted to do was get the kids into something besides video games. I still want to think of more things for them to do, but I started them on one thing this month -- I signed them up for tennis lessons! And then the first lesson was rained out. But that's OK. When I told them I was signing them up, they were horrified -- and then asked if we could go to Target and buy tennis rackets. So we did that, and then they taught themselves to play. They'll have to unlearn all that on Tuesday, when they finally have a lesson (unless it's rained out again), and are taught proper form, but I think it's OK. I'm impressed by the current state of tennis rackets -- it's so much easier to hit the ball with these big rackets they have now. I have been using an old racket of Rocket Boy's to play with them, and it works much less well.

We've played three evenings so far (one in the pouring rain, see photo), and Teen A has also played with his friends twice (he rides off on his bike with his tennis racket stuck in his backpack. It's such good exercise, even if you don't know what you're doing.

Another one of my plans was to finish my middle-grade mystery novel that I started back in, I think, October? -- and that isn't going well. I spent some time one day rereading what I'd already written and printing out clean copies, and another day maybe half an hour writing about two thirds of a page. That's all. I'm really having trouble getting going with it, mainly because it needs to be reorganized and I get a knot in my stomach every time I think about doing that. I think I'm going to have to resort to the 15-minute trick. Instead of trying to work on it for an hour a day, I'm going to have to set a timer for 15 minutes and force myself to do nothing else but work on it for those 15 minutes.

I like to write, honestly I do. It's just always hard when you get stuck. This week I will use the 15-minute trick to try to get unstuck and we'll see if things get a little easier.

My other June plan is going really well. That's the FlyLady! For those who have never heard of her, the FlyLady is a goofy older woman who lives in North Carolina and wheedles, coaxes, nags, and cajoles her followers to clean their houses and keep them clean. She also encourages everyone to exercise, drink water, have a weekly Date Night and a weekly Family Fun Day, and get a good night's sleep. She's very Christian -- of course -- and she posts YouTube videos of herself playing tedious religious music and singing along to it in her thick southern accent. 

All of this, I realize, would be hard for most people I know to take. And I'm not sure why it doesn't annoy me. Maybe I got used to all the hyper-Christian stuff when the kids were little and I was reading all the hyper-Christian mommy blogs to find ideas for craft projects. It's disturbing to realize how many people in this country sign on to this "Jesus will fix all our problems" mentality, but it is what it is.

Anyway, the FlyLady's Christianity seems to lead her to being very loving toward her flock of what she calls "flybabies," which is I guess what I am now, too. You get this strong sense of affection coming from her. She really wants you to have a clean house, and she also wants you to be happy!

Her website is very confusing, with a lot of repetition and some inconsistencies. I have been studying it all week and I keep getting lost. Her methods are also somewhat confusing. (There are lots of other (Christian) bloggers and YouTubers who use their channels to try to explain how to "do" FlyLady, such as The Secret Slob and That Awkward Mom, and I found some of their posts and videos helpful.)

Basically, there are three main components to her method.

1. A morning routine and an evening routine that you do every day.
2. Tasks associated with the days of the week -- special things to do on Monday, Tuesday, etc.
3. Cleaning that you do every month, divided among the weeks and based on her concept of "zones" in your house -- the first few days of the month you clean Zone 1, the second week you clean Zone 2, etc.
   

In addition, you're supposed to spend 15 minutes per day "decluttering," because she believes you can't clean if you're drowning in clutter. It's possible that the decluttering is supposed to be done instead of the Zone cleaning, or maybe it's part of the morning routine. I'm not really sure. I just add it in as an extra thing I do each day. It's only 15 minutes. Anyone can do that.

The main things I like about the FlyLady are these:

• All the tasks are small and manageable; most take only 15 minutes.
• She tells you exactly what to do each day (you can modify it to fit your own life).
• I really like routines and schedules, so I eat this up. Someone who prefers to do whatever occurs to them at any given moment (e.g., my husband) would probably not like this.
  
• I can see results already.
• She's so ridiculously loving and kind. All over the website -- and throughout her emails, which she sends me about a dozen times a day -- all these nice comments telling me to take care of myself, go easy on myself, don't work too hard, don't beat myself up. There's no shame. She's like a loving grandma (even though she's around my age, maybe a little older).
  

The morning routine is very complicated, but I'm working on it. She's very big on "baby steps," i.e., you don't have to do everything all at once. Just gradually add tasks and routines as you're ready. My morning routine (a mix of my existing one and hers) is as follows:

1. Get out of bed and run to the bathroom to pee. I want to add two things to this: brushing my teeth, which I normally don't do until halfway through the morning, and what she calls "Swish and Swipe," which is basically cleaning your bathroom in five minutes. But those will come later. Can't completely change your life all at once.
   
2. Go back to my room and close my door (Sillers likes to come in with me; Baby Kitty usually waits out in the hall), take off my nightgown and hang it up on the back of the door, brush my hair, put on antiperspirant, weigh myself.
3. Get dressed, including earrings. The FlyLady wants you to "get dressed to shoes" and the shoes should be those that tie, like sneakers. I ignore this advice, even though she says you can have special clean shoes that are only worn in the house. I like to be able to feel what's under my feet. If I have shoes on, I might step on Sillers, since she's often underfoot.
4. Climb back into bed, record my weight in my weight journal, take my temperature (a relic from early pandemic days) and record that too.
5. Open the curtains and (this is new) make my bed. I used to leave the bed unmade on purpose, so I could climb back in whenever I wanted, but she's right, the room looks much nicer if the bed is made. And I can always sit on the bed to read, I don't have to be IN it.
   
6. Gather up the cats' dishes from the night before and take them to the kitchen. Start a pot of tea. While it's brewing, prepare the cats' wet food and distribute it, and then the dry food and distribute that. Also water, if they're low. 
7. Put away the clean dishes (this is new). This only works if you've done the dishes the night before. I managed to go to bed with a clean kitchen FIVE out of the last SIX nights. It's so amazing to get up to a clean kitchen.
8. Start a load of laundry. Yes, every day. When I first read this on her list, I thought, well, that's ridiculous. I don't need to do laundry every day. I do about 3 loads a week, typically. But I tried it, and I found that in fact I have a lot more laundry than I think I do. This week, on Monday I washed some blankets and towels, on Tuesday I washed my clothes, on Wednesday I washed the twins' clothes, on Thursday I washed (by hand) three vinyl tablecloths that had been sitting in the garage since they got dirty last fall/winter, on Friday I washed a bunch of cat blankets and a little rug that Sillers pooped on (sigh), on Saturday I washed (by hand) Teen B's old sorcerer costume that I have been meaning to wash since last Halloween, and today I am doing the kids' laundry again. Now, I won't have tablecloths and Halloween costumes to wash every week, but I can see already that I have a lot more things that need washing than I've been acknowledging. For example, sheets! I didn't even wash any sheets this week, and all three beds need changing.
   
9. Eat breakfast, drink tea, swallow my pills, take my blood pressure. Fix the kids some breakfast if they want me to. Clean up whatever mess has been caused by breakfast.
10. Decide what we're having for dinner and start the prep if appropriate, or decide when in the afternoon I need to start it (I normally do this anyway, but with FlyLady's encouragement I'm being a little more deliberate about it).
11. Review my plans or make plans for what I'm going to do the rest of the day.
    

As you can see, I already had a morning routine, and following hers just adds a few things (making the bed, putting away the clean dishes, starting a load of laundry). They are very significant additions, though. I'm a believer already. By the time I finish these 11 tasks each morning, I feel incredibly competent and on top of things. Also a little tired. It's a good time for another cup of tea and a brief rest.

The evening routine is much simpler. Here is mine:

• Feed the cats and scoop their litter boxes.
  
• Convince the kids to turn off the TV and put on their pajamas, read a chapter to them, say nighty-night, and close their door.
• Do the dishes! (a FlyLady thing -- I normally leave them till morning) If I've kept up with them throughout the day, this isn't hard. If the dishwasher is anywhere near full, start it. If there are dishes that don't fit in the already-full dishwasher, wash them by hand.
• Bring my "done list" up to date for the day, set up my "done list" for the next day, write down a few important things that will need to get "done" that day. (This isn't a FlyLady thing -- I was already doing it every day and I like it better than a standard "to-do" list.)
  
• Take my shower (every other night), brush my teeth, put on my nightgown, climb into bed and read until I'm sleepy, but no later than 11:30 pm (this is the FlyLady's influence).
  

The FlyLady wants me to lay out my clothes for the next day, but since my wardrobe consists mainly of t-shirts and drawstring pants, I feel it's not necessary. Sometimes I'll think, "I might like to wear a green shirt tomorrow," but if I wake up and feel like putting on a blue shirt instead, that's totally OK. It's not like I waste a lot of time deciding. It was different when I had a job.

She also wants me to spend a few minutes before bed clearing off a Hot Spot (a place where clutter tends to accumulate), but since I'm in the early stages of addressing my clutter problem, everything is a Hot Spot right now, so I don't worry about this.

So that's the morning and evening routines. If someone only did those things their house would be in better shape than mine usually is, but of course this is just the beginning. Every day there are also a few other tasks, based on either (1) the day of the week, or (2) the Zone we're currently in. 

I'm still thinking about the day-of-the-week tasks. Some of hers work for me and some don't. For instance, she calls Tuesday "Plan and Play day." That's the day you're supposed to plan your meals for the following week, as well as various other things. Then you're supposed to go have coffee with a friend. Well, the coffee part is OK, but I can't see planning meals on Tuesday! The FlyLady thinks you should grocery shop on Thursday, which she calls Errand Day. I could definitely see doing errands on Thursday, in fact this week I planned and accomplished three errands that day, but it wasn't my main grocery shopping day. I did that on Tuesday. This week I'm planning meals today and I'll probably shop tomorrow. So, you know, I'm working this out. But even if her "Days" don't match with what I want to do on those days, the whole idea of having "Days" exactly matches up with how I live my life. I get enormous pleasure out of making schedules and having themes and all that. So this works for me -- I just need to tweak it.

The third part of her method is Zone cleaning, and I guess that's where the real "cleaning" part comes in. This past week we were in Zone 5 for the first two days (that's the living room) and Zone 1 the other three days (that's the front porch, entryway, and dining room). My book group is coming here in just over a week, so I was pleased to be able to focus on the front part of the house. (This coming week is the kitchen, also very important.) Each day I spent about 15 minutes doing her task for the day and another 15 minutes "decluttering" an area in the front of the house (such as the top two shelves shown here). Sometimes her cleaning task for the day is also to declutter something, so those days I did two decluttering sessions. At 15 minutes each, totally do-able. 

As the week went on, the more I decluttered, the more aware I was of how much there still is to do -- and why I normally have such a hard time doing anything. I think I could declutter something every day for a year and not be done. That's how bad our house is and how overwhelming. But if I decluttered something every day for a year, our house would look so amazing.

One thing about decluttering that's hard is that it requires you to throw things away. That goes against my strong sense of reduce-reuse-recycle. But you know, with a lot of stuff there just isn't anything you can do except throw it away. Little broken toys. Stained, torn things. On Wednesday I "decluttered" the top of a piece of furniture next to the couch which has a wicker basket on it. The wicker basket contains an assortment of gloves, hats, and shoes. I went through the gloves and threw away those that were too small for anyone in our household, had no mates, and/or were stained and torn. It is a sad fact that NOBODY wants a pair of small white winter gloves that are ripped and stained. They belong in the trash. If Rocket Boy were here, he would put them in a free pile out in front of our house. But nobody would take them, and eventually they would come back in the house, back to that wicker basket, and THAT'S WHY OUR HOUSE LOOKS THE WAY IT DOES. One of the reasons, anyway.

So anyway, this is going well. My plan is to continue with full-on FlyLady for the month of June and then see where I am. Rocket Boy will probably come back in July, and while he's here I might do a modified version of it -- more cleaning and less decluttering, since it would upset him to see me throw things away. We'll see. It's a long time until July.