Reading post: Books from the long shelf above the TV

August is almost over, so before I leave on my trip to San Diego tomorrow, I'll post another reading update.  In August my goal was to read five books from the long shelf above the TV. Books that end up here don't get read very often, in part because I can't reach them. I had to get up on a stool to pull down the five I chose. This is how the reading month went:

1. From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived by Elizabeth Pond. Though it's wildly out-of-date (published in 1981), I still wanted to read Pond's description of her trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad and her perceptions of life in the Soviet Union, because I rode the Trans-Siberian back in 1986. Pond updated her book twice: in 1984 and 1988, after which I guess she just gave up! It might be interesting to take a look at the 1988 edition. A caveat: the book is incredibly boring. Pond includes so much detail, so many statistics, as to make the book almost unreadable. I did enjoy her musings about what would happen next to Russian leadership (Brezhnev was still in power in 1981). She assumes that the next leader will be much younger and perhaps slightly more open to change. In fact, Brezhnev (b. 1906) was succeeded by first Andropov (b. 1914) and then Chernenko (b. 1911), until finally in 1985 a youngster (Gorbachev, b. 1931) grabbed the reins and changed everything. She was definitely not expecting that. And then came Yeltsin (also b. 1931). And then Putin, the real youngster (b. 1952), who dragged everything back into the Dark Ages.
   
   Even though the book is outdated and dull, I'm keeping it. It was my father's.
   
   
2. In Leningrad by Joseph Wechsler. This book was a little better -- out of date, sure, published in 1977, but most of it is historical, so it doesn't matter. Some of it was terribly dull, but I found the description of the Siege of Leningrad (880 days from 1941 to 1944) fascinating. I also enjoyed his take on the Romanovs, and his stories either jogged my memory or told me things I'd never known. I've been to Leningrad, of course, in 1986 (it was called that then), and I remember really loving it, even though we were only there for a couple of days. I've been to the Hermitage, I've been to Pushkin, I know what it's like to wander the deserted streets very late at night but have it still be light (we were there in mid May, too early for the White Nights, but they were pretty darn white). Keeping the book, in part because it was my father's, but also because I enjoyed it.
   
   
3. Great Harry by Carolly Erickson. I remember when my father bought this book, which was published in 1980. He brought the hardcover home from the bookstore (Shirley Cobb's?) and showed it to me, very excited because it was written by what he called a "young woman" (she was 36 when she wrote it). I think he was trying to interest me in writing books, showing me that it was possible. "Hmm," I responded, deciding never to write such a book. But it's a sweet memory. My father was not pushy with his daughters, though he valued "pure" education over the practical sort. He didn't approve of my little sister getting a degree in Nursing until she had first gotten a degree in Biology. My mother wanted me to switch my major from Rhetoric to Engineering, but my father was perfectly happy to have me take Ancient Greek and other not very useful classes. I don't know what he expected me to do with my life, but once in a while I got a little clue.
   
   So, anyway, Great Harry. It's a life of King Henry VIII, not a subject I'm very interested in, but it was mildly amusing. I learned some things I either never knew or had forgotten. Erickson stresses that this is a "personal history," not a political one, and she includes all sorts of details about what Henry bought (jewels, clothes, books) and how much he paid for it all. It seemed to me that the book had plenty of politics too, but I guess it would have been hard to leave that out entirely. Great Harry reminded me of a novel I've been meaning to read, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Maybe I'll put that on my list for next year (this year it's too hard to add anything long). Anyway, I doubt I'll ever read this book again, but I'm keeping it in memory of my father.
   
   
4. Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients by Bernie Siegel. This wasn't my father's book (obviously -- he never would have read something like this). I think I picked it up because my mother said my Aunt Helen had read it and liked it when she was dying of lung cancer. It's a self-help book about loving yourself and willing yourself to beat cancer. The parts about expressing your feelings and actively deciding to live -- and therefore making the best choices about your care and looking after yourself -- all that is fine. But the underlying message that I got from it is that it's your fault you have cancer, it's related to your bad attitude as well as your bad habits. When I think of the wonderful, positive, clean-living people I've known who have died of cancer... The book also isn't very well written. I thought it would be a quick, easy read, but no. Siegel keeps circling around, back to the same points, then off to a new point, then circling back around. I kept thinking, "Haven't I read this already?" and then off we'd go again. I started wondering if he has a better book -- maybe his writing improved over time -- so I looked at his website. He's written a LOT of books, and they all seem to be about the same thing. I think I'll just give this book to Goodwill.
   
   
5. Centennial by James Michener. I have been meaning to read this book for a long time, because it's basically a fictionalized history of Colorado. I used to have a paperback of it, but it was in very bad shape, so when I found this hardback copy (maybe at Goodwill?), I threw the paperback away. I was really looking forward to reading it this month, even though it's 907 pages. And I was tickled when I started reading it and realized it was also a history of the South Platte River. Our cabin near Alma is very near the headwaters of the South Platte; in fact, the South Platte runs across our land.
   
   The book isn't really a page-turner, so I didn't think I'd finish it by the 31st, but I figured I'd take it on my trip, read it on the plane. Then I got to the bottom of page 208, moved my eyes over to page 209 -- only it wasn't page 209, it was page 177. What? It turned out that my copy was missing pages 209-240. The signatures were bound incorrectly -- there were two copies of pages 177-208, and pages 209-240 were nowhere in the book. So I threw it in the trash. No donating this one -- it's missing 30 pages. I'll find another copy of Centennial one of these days and I'll read it, starting on page 209.
   
   

In September we move on to some more bookshelves in the living room -- the tall shelf below the steins and demitasse sets, and the biography shelves above the piano. I decided to combine these because I didn't think I'd come up with enough books from just one or the other. 

Most of the books on the shelf below the steins are coffee table type books, not really things you typically read cover to cover. As for the biography shelves, I've read a high percentage of the books on them. But I still managed to find a few volumes in both places that I hadn't read.

Once again, I have chosen just five books for this month, because it's challenging to read even five books that I'm not longing to read.

Two are from the shelf of coffee table books and three are from the biography/memoir shelves. Two are short and three are longer. One I'm interested in reading and the other four I don't have strong feelings about (but I'm not actually dreading any of them). Wish me luck.

August musings

August was a different month when I was a kid. It wasn't as hot, for one thing, because I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the ocean breezes cool things off. 

Also, August was still summer. School didn't start until the day after Labor Day -- when it was REALLY hot. I remember wearing my new school clothes on the first day: a plaid wool skirt and a sweater vest over some sort of blouse. Maybe tights, too, I don't know. It was probably 100 degrees and there I am in a plaid wool skirt and a sweater vest. The sweater vest was yellow, not a color I look good in, maybe especially not when my face is red and dripping sweat. I looked just now to see if I have a photograph of myself wearing that, but no. I'm not sure what year that would have been. Maybe even high school, which is embarrassing.

I would have gone shopping for that outfit in August, with my mother, so August wasn't just summer, it was also getting ready for school. But not until the end of the month, I think. Most of August was summer -- maybe we went camping, or to the beach for the day. My older sister's birthday (August 18th) wasn't on the first day of school, as it often is now.

We don't shop for back-to-school clothes anymore. The twins wear the same clothes to school that they've been wearing around the house all summer. When it gets cold, they'll switch from shorts to long pants and they'll wear their hoodies over their t-shirts. But they refuse to wear long-sleeved shirts, so the shirts are the same, summer and winter and fall and spring. Mostly black and gray. Teen B (right side) does have a few in other colors, and he has some shirts with words and pictures on them. Teen A (left side) only has one shirt that he's willing to wear with a picture on it: a white outline of a cat (on a black background).

Classes start at the University of Colorado tomorrow, Monday. If I were still teaching that would be extremely important to me, but even now it's a notable date, because that means 36,000 students will be trying to get to class on Monday, crowding the buses and the roads. The twins take the same bus I used to take to teach at CU. That bus goes down Broadway, which is also the main road to campus. 

We are going to Target this afternoon to get some more folders (and whatnot) (probably mostly whatnot). I expect it will be hard to find a parking place.

***

OK, we're back. Target is quite the place to be on the Sunday before CU starts. In addition to folders for school, and some cat food and chips, I bought Teen A a pair of new (gray) shorts, much to his displeasure. They're too big, XL when he's in between M and L depending on the cut. But there weren't any M's or L's, and there's a drawstring, and anyway, they're just backup, for emergencies. He only has four pairs of shorts right now, and since I do the kids' laundry every 3 days, that's cutting it close. Both boys think it's disgusting to wear a clothing item more than once without washing it, except for hoodies. I think this is weird -- I wear pants and nightgowns multiple times between washings -- but that's how they feel. So we needed a backup pair of shorts.

I'm trying to think of emergencies that might happen while I'm in San Diego next weekend, and running out of laundry is definitely one of those.

Yes, I am going to San Diego! Have I mentioned that already? Rocket Boy flies in on Thursday afternoon and I leave on Friday afternoon to go to San Diego to spend three days with my little sis (who is flying in from San Jose). We will see the Giants play the Padres three times, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I am going to have lunch with my friend Betty on Saturday. I am planning to get a lot of sleep, have fun with my sister, and not worry about (a) the twins (b) the cats (c) Rocket Boy doing something wrong (d) the rental house and its yard, and (e) anything else that I normally worry about. 

Teen B has already been thinking (worrying) about some of the things that might go wrong while I am gone. For example, the Sunday Starbucks run. Dad has never quite gotten with the whole Starbucks thing, and he always asks for items they don't carry, like decaf Chai. Also, sometimes he forgets his wallet. Also, I will be leaving him detailed cat-feeding instructions, but I think it's pretty much guaranteed that he will do that wrong, give them the wrong food or the wrong amounts of food. Teen A thinks he will probably leave the door to the desk room open, which will allow Baby Kitty to come running out to the dining room before Sillers is done eating. 

I will miss all of that. Can you see me smiling?

No, seriously, he's a good dad, and he's perfectly capable of doing everything that needs to be done, including laundry. He'll just do it a little differently from how I would, and that's fine. It will be very good for him to run the household for a few days. Then he's going to stay the rest of the week, flying back to St. Louis on Saturday the 9th. I'm going to try to drag him to "Oppenheimer," if it's still in our theater that week. It could be Date Night, except that it would be during the day while the kids are at school.

***

It was a bit of a rough week, this first full week of school. We of course got off schedule over the summer, and I had been waking up around 8:30 or 9 most mornings. Now I have to get up at 7. The hard part is going to bed early enough in the evenings. I do best if I get 7.5 hours of sleep, which means lights off no later than 11:30. But at 11:30 I've often barely made it to my bedroom. Sometimes I still need to take my shower. And I like to read before I turn off my light -- in fact, between 11:30 pm and 1:00 am is when I do most of my reading. Not anymore. I'll have to start reading more during the day.

The twins, being teenagers, do not want to go to bed early and they do not want to get up early. I wish I could reinstate our former policy of no electronic devices after dinner (except as needed to do homework). I let that slide this past year and now Teen A will be bashing away at computer games at 10 pm. At least we still have the rule of no electronic devices in the bedroom when they go to bed. The phones and iPads charge in the kitchen; the computers charge in the desk room. 

Another thing slowing us down in the evening is showers. Both boys take a shower almost every night, but they don't like to take a shower right after the other boy has taken a shower. So maybe one will take a shower at 9:00 and the other will take a shower at 9:45 pm. Maybe by 10:15 they're in bed, and then I read a chapter of our latest book, and then Teen B wants me to fill up his water bottle and Teen A wants me to get him a glass of water, and then someone has to use the bathroom.

And then I still have to finish the dishes and take my shower and start the dishwasher. Then it might be 11:30 or so and I crawl into bed to read -- but I really need to turn my light off right that minute.

Anyway, it was a sleepy week. Hard to get things done when you're desperately tired every day. But I made it to Back to School Night, with Teen B's help, and met a lot of their teachers, got a sense of what the year will be like. We've started doing homework (they've already both turned things in late, sigh). I'm also starting to think about MY fall schedule, when I'm going to write and when I'm going to do yardwork and when I'm going to clean.

One thing in place already is driving: we are going to drive on Saturdays. That will be our version of Family Fun Day (according to FlyLady). Yesterday I took both boys out, one at a time, and we drove to the Starbucks that's near the Walmart in Lafayette. In Teen B's case, I first drove us to the church on South Boulder Road that has the big parking lot and he practiced a little there before driving on to Starbucks (and he asked me to drive us home). In Teen A's case, he drove us there and back. So Teen B got maybe 17 minutes and Teen A got a little over 40 minutes driving time. Both boys received a "Back in the Saddle" Badge from the app that I use, RoadReady, acknowledging that they hadn't driven in a couple of weeks.

Driving to Starbucks is not a great idea, because then you go into the Starbucks and spend money. But oh, whatever. With Teen B, I had a Pumpkin Spice Latte IN AUGUST, which shouldn't be legal, but it was fun. He had one too.

And then with Teen A, I had a lemon loaf and he had a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino. The barrista recognized me from an hour earlier, although thank goodness he didn't remember my name. The barrista at the Starbucks that we go to on Sundays knows my name.

Someday the twins will be grown and gone and then I probably won't go to Starbucks much. Rocket Boy doesn't like it, and honestly, I'd just as soon have tea and cereal at home on Sunday mornings, followed by a nice hike if the weather's good or some quiet reading time if it isn't. 

That's the future. For now, while the twins are teenagers, I don't mind basically living at Starbucks. I know it's temporary.

That's how I think about everything these days. Last night, Teen B and I took a walk around 8:30 pm, and as we walked through their old elementary school's playground, I had this flash of what my walks would be like after the twins grow up and leave: just me alone. No more twins. A part of me thinks, oh, they probably won't leave home for a while. Maybe they'll never leave home. I can kind of imagine Teen B having some trouble "launching." But what if we do manage to get them launched -- which is, of course, the goal. Then it'll just be Rocket Boy and me and the cats. How do parents DO that? How do you say goodbye to your kids and start over with a new life alone? I mean, it must be do-able. It's what parents do. But how terrifying to contemplate. 

School! and heat! and August!

What can I say other than here it is! School started Thursday, it's going to be in the 90s the next several days, and that's August for you. 

I was thinking that in a couple of years August won't be like this for us anymore, because the kids will be out of school. (It'll still be hot, but school starting won't affect us.) But that's not true, because the whole city shakes, rattles, and rolls when school goes back into session. First the little kids go back, then middle and high schools, then the students move into the CU dorms, and finally CU starts and everything goes crazy. You've got teenage drivers ALL over town, the buses increase their routes, there are lines in stores and restaurants, there's no place to park. A good time to go somewhere there aren't schools, like maybe back to Yellowstone.

Right now, as I'm writing, it's almost 5 pm and 90 degrees. Not too terrible, but tomorrow it's supposed to be 95, so that will be worse. The main problem is that it's been hot for a few days now, so the house stops cooling off at night. Plus, it's only going to get down to 65 tonight, so that's not cool enough to do the trick. We're so spoiled, I know. It's been such an easy summer. We're not having a Tropical Storm, like southern California. Ridgecrest is flooding! Death Valley is flooding! And they just had an earthquake near Ojai! We're not having any of that. And we're not under an Excessive Heat Warning, like Rocket Boy in St. Louis. They're going to be in the 100's until next Saturday, plus of course high humidity. Right now in St. Louis it's 96 with 60% humidity. In Boulder it's 90 with 29% humidity. Even 29% is kind of high for us when it's not raining, but imagine 60% with no rain in sight.

So we're fine, really. But it is hot. I can tell it's hot because my legs are swelling. I've had almost no trouble with that this summer, until now. Also, I'm not hungry. And neither are the kids, really. The fridge is full of leftovers from dinners this week that I don't want to eat. We ate out at Great Scott's last night and I brought half of my sandwich home, but I don't want to eat it today. My food consumption today consisted of two muffins and a bowl of cereal. The twins weren't much better.

On the plus side, it is excellent laundry weather. No need to use the dryer, though it does take a long time to hang all the shorts and pajamas and underpants and socks on the line (shirts can go on hangers, on the hooks on the patio). But it's very satisfying to think that I'm drying the clothes without using fossil fuels.

I don't have a lot else to say. The twins were a little bamboozled by the first two days -- and Teen B brought home homework in three classes! -- but it wasn't a big deal and they're going back tomorrow, no arguments. The bus is free to everyone right now and will continue to be free to kids and teens indefinitely, so that's great, and also school lunches are free this year. A nice little savings.

I bought myself a new hummingbird feeder today, since the old one (on the left in the photo) is kind of broken and hard to clean. The new one (on the right) is much simpler. The lady at the bird store cautioned me to change the water EVERY DAY when it's this hot, but then amended that to every other day -- at least. I definitely should do it more than once a week. The hummers are stoking up, getting ready for their long journey in the fall. They'll be leaving in a few weeks -- I looked at my blog for last year and on September 11th I wrote that the hummers had stopped coming. So, maybe three more weeks? Oh, I'll miss them so much!

If I think of anything else to write, I'll come back and add it tomorrow. For now, good night.

Summer's almost over

Oh yes, summer is ending. The twins went to Picture Day last Monday -- they both dislike their pictures, but I actually like both of them. They aren't BAD, they just aren't how the twins want to look. Teen A looks snarky -- a totally typical expression for him -- and Teen B looks suspicious of the person taking his picture -- very typical for him too. They both say they're going to have them retaken. I just smile and say OK. If they actually go through with it (that is, having them retaken on Retake Day), that's fine, and if they don't, that's fine too. 

They care about their pictures not just because they end up in the yearbook, but because they go on their ID badges, that they have to wear every day. Of course, there's always the time-honored tradition of turning the badges around so their faces are hidden, but still. 

This was sort of an awful week. Last weekend there was a knock on our front door and it turned out to be the neighbor two doors down. He was unhappy because the weeds in the backyard of the house in between our houses (which we own and rent out) were growing so high that he could see them in HIS yard. So I said I'd do something about it. I can't really afford to hire a gardener because our tenant pays a very low rent. So I texted our tenant -- she's supposed to deal with the weeds, it's in her lease -- but she reminded me about her ankle that she broke back in March. So I said I'd come work on them. I worked in her yard all week, except for Wednesday, when I worked cutting the junipers that were blocking the easy path between our two houses.

This picture does not do the yard justice -- I took this on Thursday, after working there Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (you can see a pile of branches that we cut down but hadn't put in bags yet. Teen A and Teen B both helped on Monday, and Teen A also helped on Tuesday and Thursday. The tenant helped on Monday. It was hot. It was horrible. Burs from the weeds stuck to every bit of our clothing. We seemed to make no progress.

All summer, of course, I've been working on OUR yard. I started out very unhappy about how we'd let things fall apart, but after a while it became satisfying and even fun to prune and prune and prune. I've got masses of work left to do, but I've also achieved so much, it's really making me happy. 

But the rental yard did not make me happy, and I don't think it will ever make me happy even if I work there several more weeks and make some progress. The whole thing needs to be rethought and redone, and I don't want to be the one to do it. I'm not a landscaper. If it was up to me, we'd sell the house to some nice family who could fix it up the way they want it. It's not up to me, though I co-own it, because Rocket Boy absolutely refuses to sell. But he won't handle things like this. He's always too busy. Well, OK, he's in St. Louis, it's pretty hard to work on the rental property from St. Louis. That leaves me.

In the midst of my unhappiness about the rental house, here comes our anniversary! And I was reminded, as always, that I really do like my husband very much and I miss him. We sent each other cards, he also sent See's candy, and we talked on the phone. It's OK. Last year we were together on our anniversary (ate at the Teahouse) but he was recovering from surgery, in 2021 we were apart and I was recovering from surgery, in 2020 we were together (ate at Chautauqua), and in 2019 we were together as part of our Four Corners trip and we ate at a Village Inn in Grand Junction. Before 2019 I think we were always together because he hadn't gone to St. Louis yet. Maybe there was a time or two when he was traveling or something. I can't remember.

Maybe by next August 10th he'll be back in Boulder permanently. I can dream.

Let's see, how about a Summer Update.

1. Summer movies: We did not see anything this week! There's just nothing in the theaters that appeals to either Teen B or me. Well, I'd like to see "Oppenheimer," but he doesn't want to. I was kind of interested in "Shortcomings," but I read a review that said the book (a graphic novel) was better. So I requested the book from the library, read it, and didn't like it. It seemed to me that the movie might be better (this is based on a preview I saw of it). So I suggested it to Teen B, but lo and behold, it was already gone from our theater. I'll have to get it from the library sometime.
   
   
2. 
   Ice cream: Teen B and I went to Ben & Jerry's on the mall Friday night, but Teen A didn't want to go. I don't know why -- something seemed to be up with him. So anyway, Teen B and I had a pretty good time. At B&J's you can't see the ice cream, it's hidden behind the counter, so I ordered a small dish of "Marshmallow Sky" without knowing what I was getting. It's blue! It tastes OK, but the color is nauseating. And of course I managed to spill it on my white shirt.
   
   I was very afraid that these blue splotches (the color comes from spirulina) would not come out, but I treated them and they vanished. Still, not ordering THAT flavor again.
   
   
3. Driving: I got more serious about this, realizing that summer is ending. I took both boys out on long drives this week, and Teen B nervously drove me to the Bookworm yesterday. I'm hoping to take Teen A out later this afternoon, but not sure if it's going to happen.
   
   
4. Yard work. Already described (see above).

The other thing that made this week less than fun was some news I got yesterday. An old friend from grad school has early Alzheimer's. Her husband is looking after her. They've sold the beautiful house they raised their three children in and moved to their lakefront vacation home, I assume because it's smaller and easier to take care of. Maybe they'd always planned to retire there, I don't know. Probably not this soon -- their youngest is only 22, just out of college. 

I last saw this old friend 22 years ago, in Michigan, when their youngest was a baby, about 3 months old. I have a picture of my friend with her three kids that I took at the time. I could scan it and post it here, but I won't. I'll preserve her privacy. But oh man. 

What made the news even worse is that I googled her and found her on "rate my professor" (she was a language teacher all these years). The old reviews are very positive -- such a caring teacher, though tough. But from the last few years -- ouch. They say she couldn't form a coherent sentence in either English or [the language she taught]. She couldn't explain concepts clearly. They wondered what on earth she was doing teaching [the language], since she obviously couldn't speak it. I remember how fluent she was back in the day -- another friend who was a native speaker said she sounded like a little old lady from [country where they speak the language], not like an American at all. Oh God. It obviously took them a while to understand what was happening to her. The pandemic probably didn't help. What a horrible situation. I'm glad at least that it's over -- she's no longer teaching, she's in a safe little place with her husband to look after her.

I emailed her husband and we're going to have a phone call probably next week after the twins go back to school. The friend who alerted me to the situation has already had a phone call with them, and she said it's difficult but not impossible -- you just have to give her time to speak. It takes her a long time to gather her thoughts enough to form a sentence. I think I can handle that.

Of course this all makes me feel very young and healthy. And it brings up all those thoughts about how short life is, and how you never know. Her mom had Alzheimer's too, but I thought she was older when they discovered it, maybe in her 70s. I don't know. What I do know is that when I heard about her mom having Alzheimer's, I never thought -- oh, and you're going to get it too, in about 10 years. Never would have thought it. I wonder what's around me right now that I'm ignoring, what signs of the future are lurking?

***

OK, enough of that. Back to my life. We have three more days of summer and then school starts. A lot to do this week, to prepare for the transition. Here we go.

School looms

I suppose this post title would make more sense next Sunday, when the first day of school is less than a week away. But with Picture Day/Check-in Day arriving tomorrow, school really does feel like it's looming. I don't know why they do Picture Day so long before the first day of school. The kids receive their IDs on the spot -- it's not like they need several days to process them or anything. 

Parents don't have to go this year, when the kids are sophomores and know the drill. I guess parents didn't have to go last year either, but Rocket Boy and I did. It was fun. The kids were so cute. But this year I'll probably let them go on their own. They don't need me to explain to them how to take the bus. They don't need me to show them where to get off. 

Maybe I'll see if I can go along anyway. They'll probably say no, stay home. OK, I asked, they said no.

It doesn't seem as though school is READY to start. The kids don't have their schedules yet (they're promised for "a week before school starts"). The school website is full of holes. The lunch menu calendars haven't even been posted. Ever since the kids were in Kindergarten, the school district has provided a lunch menu calendar for the whole year. I post it in the kitchen where we can look at it while we eat breakfast. I also use the spaces to write what type of laundry I do that day. This is important, because I am so old that I cannot remember what type of laundry needs doing unless I can look at a list of what I did the past few weeks.

In elementary school, the calendars came home in the kids' Friday folders. In middle school, finding one was more challenging. During the pandemic I think there was one year where there wasn't a calendar, and one year I had to ask the food service department to mail one to me. Last year, in high school, I thought we'd had our last calendar, but then Teen B found a stack of them in the cafeteria and brought one home to me. But even if I can't get an actual calendar, I should be able to print off the pages from the food service website -- except that this year they aren't there. The menus for last year are still up there. The menus for August are there, but not in printable form.

Maybe this week they'll post them.

I can't get over the fact that we have so few "first days of school" left. After this one, only two more years. There's college, but I suspect only one of my boys will be going, and anyway, college is different. After this year, only two more first days of public school, real school. Only two more years of BVSD. Well, OK, this year hasn't even started yet. Only THREE more years of BVSD. Sophomore, Junior, Senior. That's it. We've been doing this for 10 years and there are only 3 years left.

It must be different for people with children of different ages. It's a longer stretch from first year to last year. My parents had children in public schools from 1949 until 1980, and all but one or two of those years were with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD). Then, in 1986, my oldest sister moved back home with her two kids, so then once again my parents were looking after kids in PAUSD. By the time my nephew graduated in 1996, my mother was probably heartily tired of it all (my father had died in 1989). The kids weren't living with her anymore by then, but she was still deeply involved in their lives.

***

Summer Update

1. Summer movies: Teen B and I saw "Haunted Mansion" yesterday (Teen A didn't want to go). It's gotten mixed reviews, and I can see why. The acting is great -- I really liked the guy who played the main character, Ben, his name is LaKeith Stanfield and I'm going to try to remember him. Jamie Lee Curtis was funny, Danny DeVito was funny, Owen Wilson was funny, Tiffany Haddish was funny, Winona Ryder was funny... but the movie was still really bad, because it was just a re-creation of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. Teen B has no memory of going on that ride at Disneyland when he was 5, so he enjoyed the movie more than I did.
   
   
2. Ice cream: We went to Coldstone Creamery on Friday night, kind of boring. That's not my favorite ice cream place, but we'd already done the other major ones, and I didn't feel like going to the mall. Next week we'll brave Pearl Street.
   
   
3. Driving: We went out a few times, but only a few. Maybe today we'll do some more.
   
   
4. Yard work: Teen A skipped this week again. I pruned along, dispiritedly. In front, I did some more work on the junipers that are overgrowing the sidewalk -- which is not fun, because I have to bend down low -- and the junipers that have completely overgrown the path around the side of the house -- which is not fun, because I have to reach up high. In back, I continued cutting back the junipers that have overgrown their boundaries, and also started cutting back the dead stuff that we accidentally uncovered when we cut back the juniper that was blocking the way to the clothesline.
   
   
5. Teen B's PE class: We finished! And by doing some make-up assignments on the last day, we got his grade up to a 90.46 -- which is an A! Yeah for A's! Boo for summer school!
   

We did one other summery thing yesterday: we went to the new Voodoo Donuts store after the movie and bought a Voodoo Dozen. OMG. The doughnuts are so huge and gooey and dripping with frosting and filling and general yuckiness. I've had three so far and each one has made me not feel so good. I don't think this is going to be our favorite donut store, but we'll see. 

I was amused by one thing: the store was crowded, and by and large, the clientele was large. For Boulder, I mean. For practically anywhere else in the country, the clientele would have been considered normal-sized, but Boulderites are skinny. I could only figure that people are coming to the store from Lafayette, Westminster, Berthoud... somewhere other than Boulder. 

***

I was thinking of taking a hike today, but I don't know. It's very gloomy out. Misty and drippy, and oh, now it's actually raining. Like it is in the Pacific Northwest most of the time, but quite unusual for Boulder. Might be a better day to stay inside and read about Theodore Roosevelt. Or Russia.

Last night I finished reading Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace to the kids. It's about Betsy's freshman year of high school (in 1906-07), and I thought they might find it entertaining after reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder's school days in the 1880s. They did, sort of. There's a lot of stuff in there about Betsy falling in love with Tony that I don't think they enjoyed. But they did seem mildly amused by her stories of high school 100+ years ago. Every time Betsy complained about algebra, Teen B would say "hear, hear" or something like that.

I found the experience of re-reading the book a little shocking. For instance, the topic of the Essay Contest (which Betsy fails to prepare for) is "The Philippines: Their Present and Future Value." Having just read Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines , and having read William McKinley and his America earlier this year and currently reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, I now have a lot more context for understanding why that might have been the topic of an essay contest in 1907! And when Betsy dreams about Aguinaldo the night before the contest and her father "said he was glad to hear that she knew there was such a person," -- well, I finally understand what that means.

There are also lines in there, and phrases, that I simply don't ever remember reading before. When you read aloud, you can't skim. 

What really blew my mind, though, was when Betsy realizes how important writing is to her (after spending the year going to parties and not preparing for the Essay Contest). 

    She looked back over the crowded winter. She did not regret it. But she should not have let its fun, its troubles, its excitements squeeze her writing out.
    "If I treat my writing like that," she told herself, "it may go away entirely."
    The thought appalled her. What would life be like without her writing? Writing filled her life with beauty and mystery, gave it purpose...and promise.

How is it possible that I have spent my whole life repeating Betsy's words to myself? But it's true, I have. This, this book, is where I got my ideas about writing being important, about having something special for yourself that you devote your life to. I mean, of course I haven't devoted my life to writing, and I've set it aside lots of times. But I always come back to it, and I'm quite sure that my core belief in its importance can be traced back to Heaven to Betsy.

Well, there are worse things to base your life on.

I don't know what we're going to read next. I haven't been to the Bookworm in a while -- my stack of choices is getting kind of small. Maybe I'll go to the library.

Reading post: Books from the dining room bookcase

July has ended, so it is time for another reading update. In July I read books from the bookcase in our dining room. I pulled out ten and... put half of them back without opening them. Those I did manage to read are as follows:

1.  Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis. A sort of memoir of his early years, focused on how he lost his Christian faith as a child and then regained it in his early 30s. I was doing pretty well until the last few chapters, where he explains how religion came back to him. There he lost me. Too many concepts that were unfamiliar to me, so vague, so elliptical -- I just couldn't follow his arguments. Which was a bit disappointing, since that was what the whole book was leading up to. I think I'll keep it, though, for now anyway, in the little section of the bookcase devoted to religious books.
   
   
2. Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines by David Haward Bain. I bought this book when I was in grad school and studying Tagalog -- I was interested in all things Filipino and wanted to know more. So, 30 years later I get around to reading it. And it was a slog. For some reason Bain thought it would be a good idea to retrace the path taken by Col. Frederick Funston in 1901 when he captured the Philippine insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo. It wasn't a good idea, and the book doesn't make much sense. Bain writes well, but Candice Millard he's not. The book is much too long, with many unwanted details. So many times I wanted to reach into the book and tell the author, "Stop that! I don't want to hear about that. Tell the story!" I would have given up on it, but it occurred to me that it's about the same period in American history that I'm currently reading about in Presidential biographies (McKinley, T. Roosevelt). So I stuck with it to learn more about those times, but I'm not sure it was worth it. I'm keeping it for now, because I have so few books about the Philippines, but I don't recommend it.
   
   
3. The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav. This is another grad school purchase, from when I was hoping to understand quantum mechanics. I don't know why I didn't read it until now -- it's delightful! I really enjoyed it, even though I got kind of bogged down in the chapters about subatomic particles. I tried to determine whether it's now hopelessly out of date, and I have decided that it's not, though of course there have been many advances in physics since 1979. But I don't think these advances have proved Zukav's book wrong, they've just added to our knowledge. Don't quote me, though. Anyway, I now understand Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics much better than I did before. Which isn't saying much. But still -- it was a fun, though challenging, read. Keeping it.
   
   
4. Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary by K. M. Elisabeth Murray. Another book I've had sitting around for a long time -- it's a discard from the Palo Alto Public Library. I'd dipped into it a few times, but never read the whole thing. I'm glad to have read it, and I plan to keep it, though it belongs on my crowded biography shelves, not in the dining room bookcase. But you know, it's not the book I wanted it to be. The first few chapters, about James Murray's early life, are interesting, as is the last chapter, but the middle chapters, about the endless negotiations with the Oxford University Press "Delegates," were very boring. I wanted to hear more about the dictionary! About the words! Who cares about the pointless arguments of a bunch of old men, 150 years ago? Not me.
    

I almost read a fifth book, The Japanese Mind by Robert C. Christopher. I got about 200 pages into it before I said, OK, enough. I just can't do it. The book was kind of interesting in the beginning, though it didn't tell me anything about Japan that I didn't already know, but as it went deeper into politics and business, I zoned out and finally closed the book. After all these years sitting on my shelf, it's going to Goodwill.

Of the books in the stack that I didn't even start to read, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner looks good -- I just didn't get to it. So it goes back in the bookcase for now (I might do a modified version of this challenge next year). The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas looks interesting. Back in the bookcase for another year. Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain might be worth reading, but I'm going to move it to the fiction bookcases in my bedroom. The Science of Harry Potter by Roger Highfield looks mildly entertaining, so I may give it a shot -- some other year. Soviet but not Russian by William M. Mandel looks, frankly, dull, but I'm going to keep it a little longer. I can give it away next year, or the year after...

Moving on to August, during this month I plan to read books from the high shelf in the living room. Though this may seem like a limited book collection (DVDs take up about a third of the space), the percentage of books in it that I haven't read is large. About a third of these are books I inherited from my father (some are from Rocket Boy's father), and I've never read most of them. A lot of books about Russia...

Since I only read four of last month's pile of books, I decided to choose just five books for this month and see if I can make it through them. Three of these belonged to my father (the two books about Russia and Great Harry). Of course I also have to finish reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and whatever the next book for the book group turns out to be, and get the kids started in school, and go back to my novel, and all that. We'll see how it goes...