Reading post: Elizabeth Savage in May

May isn't quite over, but I'm mostly done with my planned reading (and we're about to go on vacation), so it's time for a reading post. In May I decided to read books by Elizabeth Savage, an American author who has been mostly forgotten. Born in 1918 (like my Uncle Bob), she's mainly known for having been married to the novelist Thomas Savage, who wrote The Power of the Dog (made into a movie a few years ago). She published nine novels from 1960 to 1980, but the only reason I know about her is that my oldest sister once gave me a copy of her fourth novel, Happy Ending (1972), and I loved it. I've read it several times since then, loving it every time.

But I had never read anything else by Savage except her first novel, Summer of Pride (1960) which I didn't like (I recall it as being a less good version of the story told in Happy Ending). About ten years ago, the librarian Nancy Pearl praised Savage's books and got two of them reprinted by Amazon. But you still can't find them in libraries. I ended up getting two of her books through Prospector, and I bought one used on Amazon.

• But Not For Love (1970). Savage's 2nd novel, published 10 years after her first. Oof. I did not like it at all. It's about a bunch of adult cousins, the Hollisters, who spend every summer on an island off the coast of Maine. Each of the four cousins owns a house or cottage on adjacent properties, all purchased originally by their grandparents or parents. Three are married and the fourth was previously married to another cousin, who may have drowned the year before. They hang out together, smoke and drink heavily, and annoy each other. They certainly annoyed me. Toward the end it occurred to me that perhaps the book was supposed to be funny. It isn't funny, but if that was the intent, that would explain some things. It was so interesting to me to compare this novel to Happy Ending. At what point did Savage learn that you need to make your characters appealing?
  
  
• The Last Night at the Ritz (1973). Savage's 5th novel. This was much better, although there was still the datedness problem. The book takes place around the time it was written, but the main characters were close friends in college in the early 1940s. Again, they drink like fish and smoke a lot -- I kept thinking, "their livers! their lungs!" -- but this book isn't primarily a comedy. The characters are dealing with serious stuff. They meet for drinks and lunch at the Ritz Hotel in Boston, and then they decide to meet for dinner too, and more drinks both before and after, and when the book finally ends it's the next morning and many things have been revealed. Everything reminds the main (unnamed) character of something that happened in their shared past, so you learn a lot about college life in the 1940s. I liked the book better as it went along, and by the end I was really worried about the characters and what would happen to them. And the ending kind of broke my heart.
  
  
• Toward the End (1980). Savage's 9th and last novel. So disappointing! We're back on an island in Maine, and as in But Not For Love, the characters are caricatures and the tone is ironic. This novel is maybe a tiny bit better than her 2nd, because we don't have to hear about the horrible Hollister family. But the characters we do have to hear about don't seem real and aren't sympathetic. The novel takes place over the course of about a year, a year when the inhabitants of four cottages on the coast of the island decide to "winter over" instead of going home to their real houses. Unfortunately, it is the year of the Great Blizzard of 1978, and some of the cottages are severely damaged. Honestly, I think Savage must have just wanted to write about that storm, which she lived through. She and her husband owned a house on an island off the coast of Maine and lived there for 30 years, until 1985. But this novel is so boring! I ended up reading it in two days because it was so dull that I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. The only good parts were the descriptions of the physical island and how it changed through the seasons. Sadly, this is the book I bought from Amazon, so now I own it. Haven't decided what to do with it yet.
   
  

So, what's the verdict on Elizabeth Savage? Mixed. Some of her books are great and some are awful. After reading these three I pulled out Happy Ending again to see whether I still loved it, but I did, very much so. In the first chapter, a character is described thusly:

Yes, she had been a nice child, though unamusing. But now... she reminded her mother (the black, the white, the lustrous hair, the beak) of a magpie.

How could I not love a book where a character is compared to a magpie, even though in a not very complimentary way? I think I will continue to explore Savage's books, at least some of them. I read a review of her 3rd novel, and it didn't sound very good, but I definitely want to try her 6th, 7th, and 8th novels, just in case they're wonderful.

***

Since it was the second quarter of the year, I also read a biography of the next U.S. president on my list, #29, Warren G. Harding. In fact, I read two books about him, because the first one was so short: Warren G. Harding by John W. Dean, yes, that John W. Dean, part of the American Presidents series. Kind of an apology for Harding -- Dean likes him, thinks he was a much better president than most people do. In fact, thinking Harding wasn't so bad after all has become kind of a fad. The Teapot Dome scandal happened on his watch, but he didn't know about it, right? He had a 15-year affair with a neighbor, but we don't care about that nowadays, right? And then there was that woman who claimed to have had his baby, but she was lying, right? Dean is sure about that. Except, a few years ago they did DNA testing on her descendants and Harding's descendants, and it seems she was telling the truth. Oops.

Plus, that neighbor he had a 15-year affair with turns out to have been (possibly) a German spy during WWI. The second book I read, The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War by James David Robenalt, goes into that in great detail. It was very interesting. I found myself actually wanting to know more about Harding (and his women) and I'm considering reading either Crooked: The Roaring '20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal by Nathan Masters or a biography of Harding's actual wife, Florence Harding (as opposed to all these mistresses). Or maybe both of them. I'll see how June goes.

***

When I was at the main library to get a Harding biography, I walked past the poetry shelves and thought, oh, I'll get some poetry to read in May. But what? Nothing ever comes to mind when I'm faced with a thousand books on shelves. So I decided to find a poet whose last name was close to Savage and that brought me to May Sarton. Sarton was born in 1912, so she's roughly a contemporary of Savage, plus she lived in Maine for the last 22 years of her life (overlapping with Savage for about 12 years). I might consider reading Margot Peters' biography of her at some point. However, I didn't love her poetry. I liked it, some of it, but I got tired of it by the end of the book. All these excessively grand poems about her trips to Greece and India. I did like the poems about animals (a goose, a dog, a parrot, a snail), and one called "Nursery Rhyme"

...Under a crimson sun
In a pale milky sky
With a vermilion
Lizard near by,
And over it all
The strangeness that hovers
Like a green pall,
Envelopes and covers
In a warm still suspense
All of the landscape
Like a sixth sense--
Till there is no escape...

Supposedly Sarton wrote a lot of explicitly lesbian poems, but they seem to have been omitted from this collection, unless I missed something, lol.

In May, I was also supposed to read one book from the white bookcase in my bedroom, but there was almost nothing there I hadn't read before. So I grabbed another book from the piles by my bed and I plan to take it on our trip: All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir. It's set in a fictionalized version of Ridgecrest!

As of today I've read 55 books and since my goal for the year was, as usual, 52 books, everything after this is gravy.

***

In June I need another male author, and I have chosen Vladimir Nabokov because it embarrasses me that I've never really read him. The only thing I've read by him is Pnin, plus dipping into Lolita looking for the dirty parts when I was a teenager, which I don't think counts. I'm going to read Lolita cover to cover, plus a couple of others. Should be interesting.

Summer begins

Yes, I know the summer solstice isn't for three and a half weeks, but when school lets out, it's summer. The twins' last final was Thursday, May 23rd, and that would have been Celebration Time, except that the tree trimmers arrived on Friday morning and were here all day Friday and Saturday. 

So today, Sunday, is the first day of summer. In my opinion. Also, the irises have finished blooming and the onions are going to seed. So spring is done.

I'm not going to plant anything until after we get back, so the front of the house looks rather bare.

We're getting ready for our trip to California, sort of. I am trying to take it easy today, because I think I need a day off. It's funny though -- Sunday is always homework day, and I can't get it out of my head that there's some homework somewhere that needs to be done. Is Teen A's Shackleton project REALLY done? Yesterday I took the DVD of "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" back to the library, but I "forgot" to take the DVD out of the player, so all I returned to the library was the case. (I think I just couldn't believe that we didn't need it anymore.) By the time I got home they'd already called from the library to tell me, so I had to turn around and go back to the library to give them the actual DVD.

So we are done with Shackleton, except that the project hasn't been graded yet. I keep checking Infinite Campus. Teen A doesn't check -- he could not care less about his final grade. I probably need to chill about it.

There are three days until we leave for vacation. Today (which is mostly over), Monday, and Tuesday. Today, as I mentioned above, is supposed to be a rest day, but it's hard to relax when you have so much stuff ahead of you to do. I've been spending a lot of time tweaking the family trees I constructed for the twins, to explain to them who all these relatives are that we're going to be seeing. The trouble is, they refuse to look at them. Today my cousin Brenda called to check on what she should buy for food and whatnot, and after I hung up, Teen B said, "Who was that?" I said, "Brenda," and he said, "Who's Brenda?" So I ran for the family tree, with him shouting "No, no, I don't want to look at that!" I forced him to look at it, to show him how Brenda is my cousin because my mother and her father were siblings. "You could have just TOLD me," he insisted. And then he crossed out my name on the tree and wrote "Marge" which is what Rocket Boy told the nurse in the maternity ward that I liked to be called, when I was almost comatose after the delivery, and I woke up just long enough to say, "I do NOT" before collapsing again. Thus I am Marge forever more with the twins.

Since Monday is Memorial Day, a lot of things won't be open, and here in Boulder we have the big road race, the Bolder Boulder, plus the Creek Festival is ongoing (Monday is the last day), so no one should try to go anywhere downtown. (Gone are the days when we used to GO to the Creek Festival, and jump in all the bounce houses, ride on rides, get icky things to eat and drink.) Thus I have decided that Monday will be "do things at home day." It will be my day to clean house, throw out food that we're not going to eat, do laundry, start packing, do some yardwork, set things up for the cat-sitters, all that good stuff.

Tuesday will be "out & about & deal with the world day": go to the bank, pick up Teen A's new glasses, return a last few things to the library, drop off some stuff at Goodwill, call my insurance agent... and also do one last load of laundry. And continue to pack. I've already made a basic packing list, just tweaking it.

It's been an eventful week, what with the end of school and the tree trimmers and all. I think the tree trimmers did a good job, though the front and back yards still look pretty overgrown, especially the back. In front, they took out our volunteer Siberian Elm that was getting SO big and should have been cut down 10 years ago or more. Not a good place for a Siberian elm (not that any place is a good place for a Siberian elm, outside of Siberia). I actually felt really bad about cutting it down, because little birds are always sitting in it, and now they have no place to sit. But it had to go, it just had to. And now it is gone.

They also cut off all the dead branches on the honey locust, which now looks like a completely different tree. It looks kind of like a kid who's just had a summer haircut. I think it is much healthier now. The tree trimmer explained that honey locusts are attacked by some kind of bug that "defoliates" them but doesn't kill them. That's why it had so many branches with no leaves on them. They're all gone now and the tree looks happy, but surprised.

After the tree trimmers left, I mowed the lawn. Should have done it before, but oh well. Our yard looks almost normal now.

On the second day, Saturday, the tree trimmers worked in the back yard, on the big Siberian elm that air-conditions our house, and a little bit on the maple. You can't easily tell what they did, but I know they did something, because they were out there for 8 hours (minus several trips to wherever it was they were taking the branches), and the amount of branches and foliage they hauled away was unbelievable. Unfortunately a lot of it is still in the backyard. The head tree trimmer apologized to me: "We tried to get it all, but we just couldn't." I paid him $2200 anyway. And I would hire him again (to work on the rental house's trees).

So, with that, we are done (mostly) with one of our problems. That is, there's a lot left to do in the yard, but I can take over now. It's going to be another summer of pruning.

Still to be worked on: our furnace (which Rocket Boy wants to take another stab at), the furnace and ducting next door, the hole in the patio roof, and the bathroom door. We are expecting to get a call saying the bathroom door is ready to be picked up -- probably right around the time we're boarding the plane on Wednesday. There was some problem with the door, they had to send it back and get another one... whatever. 

I decided to wait and start taking Mounjaro when we get back. I tried to take my first shot on Tuesday... then Wednesday... then Thursday... and on Friday I just thought, what am I doing? Wait until after the trip! So it will sit in my fridge until we get back. I think that's the best thing to do.

Things keep occurring to me. Like... this morning I woke up thinking about Death Valley. We're going to be there in early June... hey, it might be kind of hot in early June! Duh. I looked at weather.gov. Next Sunday, which is the closest I can get to when we will be there, it will be 100 in Ridgecrest, 99 in Trona, 101 in Panamint Springs, 108 at Stovepipe Wells, and 109 at Furnace Creek. Of course, it's a dry heat...

School's almost over

That title is wishful thinking -- the kids still have finals week ahead of them, and that's hardly nothing. But we're almost done. Teen A and I spent several hours yesterday working on his social studies paper and he just now finished the slide show based on the paper -- both are due tomorrow. I helped Teen B study for finals last night and maybe I can sit with him while he studies for his other Monday final.

Graduation was today -- of course, we're not graduating, but Teen B played, along with the rest of the band, the orchestra, and the choir, at the event, which was held at the CU Events Center. That's a good place to do it. Plenty of parking, plenty of seating. The only problem was that it was at 9 am, so Teen B had to be there at 7:30 am, so I had to get up at 6:30 am in order to get him up at 6:45 am so we could leave at 7:15 am. Bleah. I mean, normally I get up at 7:10, so 6:30 shouldn't have been so hard, but last night I stayed up until, oh, I don't know, 1:00 am? So 6:30 was hard. And now I'm a zombie. But it was good. I watched the livestream of the graduation until about 10 am, when they started calling the names of the graduates, because at that point the non-graduating musicians were allowed to leave, so I drove back to CU and picked Teen B up, and then we watched the rest of the graduation on the livestream when we got home.

I cried quite a bit while watching the livestream. Partly because I'm a zombie today, and partly because graduation ceremonies always make me cry. I have to admit, though, that even I got a little tired of hearing "Pomp and Circumstance" played over and over and over again (by Teen B and his buddies), as the hundreds of graduates walked in slowly. The band director just kept on directing. He must have really strong arms.

This afternoon, just out of curiosity, I watched the livestream of the "other" big high school in town, to see how it was different. It was rather amazing how different it was. After hearing the all-white cast of student speakers (the twins' high school had two white and two Latina speakers) talk about how you shouldn't compare yourself to others, a faculty member proceeded to ask all the various award winners (National Merit, International Baccalaureate, and many others) to stand up, each in turn, and be clapped for. If that's not comparing students to each other, I don't know what is. (The twins' high school didn't do that.) The principal went on and on about how theirs is the best high school in Colorado, how they've won this award and that award and that other award too. Again, the twins' high school didn't say anything like that. It's a good school, too, it's just not so in love with itself.

Another difference: At the graduation for the twins' high school, several students were wearing stoles that represented their country of origin or their culture (or their parents'). Probably mostly Mexico or other Latin American countries, but some I think were meant to be African, some maybe Native, and one girl had one that might have represented Vietnam. I saw a couple of people with that sort of stole at the "other" high school, but not very many. It might be that the twins' high school has a larger Latinx population -- I think they do.

Then they called the names of the graduates and had them walk across the stage and be photographed while shaking the principal's hand. (The twins' high school did this too, very nicely.) And -- this was the kicker -- they totally screwed it up. They had the students coming from both sides of the stage and the principal would forget to look the other direction and students would duck past her and leave without being photographed or shaking her hand. Then she would turn the other way and miss other students. Sometimes students waited for her to look at them and then just gave up and left. Teen B and I watched it together in fascination. The "best high school in Colorado" and they can't figure out how to graduate. I'm so glad my kids didn't choose to go to this obnoxious school.

Anyway, here comes finals week. Monday is finals for periods 1 and 8, Tuesday is finals for periods 2 and 7, Wednesday is finals for periods 3 and 6, and Thursday is finals for periods 4 and 5 (the twins have lunch 5th period, so no final Thursday afternoon). The finals are only from 9 to 11 and 12:30 to 2:30, so they're short days. And by 11:30 or so on Thursday, they'll both be home and done, and I will have no more time to myself until August 15th.

***

I'm trying to think of what else to write about today, but I'm so tired that ideas aren't coming. We didn't make much progress on the house this week. The furnace guys came back, and replaced some parts, but the furnace still didn't work. So now they think it's the circuit board, and they quoted me $1200 for a replacement. I told them we'd think about it. They also said they could put in a new furnace for $6000. I looked around online, and $6000 for a new furnace is on the high end, and $1200 for a new circuit board is REALLY expensive. It's the Boulder mark-up again. So we may sit on this one for a while. Rocket Boy would like to take another stab at it, since now we have a better idea what's wrong. And we won't need the furnace again (probably) until October, so we have some time.

The tree guy was supposed to come tomorrow, but he called this morning and asked if he could postpone until Friday. I said sure. We're not in a hurry.

No word from the bathroom door people, nor the handyman who thinks he can fix the porch roof. So, yeah, not a very productive week in that respect.

Plans for our trip are in good shape -- I know where we're all sleeping every night except June 4th, and I know where most of us are sleeping that night. I just have to decide on a hotel for Rocket Boy. Maybe this week I can pin that down.

I'm also keeping up with my credit card -- paying it down every week, anything to reduce the shock I'll feel when we come home and I have thousands of dollars of charges to pay off.

I've thought of a couple of little projects I might do this week (if I'm in the mood). The first one I've started already: a little booklet with all the information I have about each day of the trip on a different page (route, hotel info, people we're seeing, possible restaurants, possible rest stops, etc.). And the other is to draw a family tree, because whenever I tell the twins who we'll be visiting, they ask how they're related to that person, and when I try to explain, their eyes glaze over. I tried to draw a little chart at the restaurant last weekend and even I was surprised by how complicated it got, and how quickly.

My Mother's Day card from Rocket Boy finally arrived -- maybe on Thursday? After opening it, I put away all the twins' birthday cards except for one that makes me laugh every time I look at it, and gave the Mother's Day card pride of place on the piano.

I was a little iffy about the card. It seemed, I don't know, a bit retro.

I mean, look at the inside. The woman is on her phone, cooking something in the microwave, using a broom and a dishtowel, and perhaps even dancing, while a cat and a dog misbehave, and there's just a glimpse of a kid's leg as he/she heads off, probably to play video games. 

I wasn't sure I wanted to be that woman. Though possibly I am her.

I asked RB about the card and he said it reminded him of me, how I do everything around the house, manage the twins' lives, etc.

So I decided to look at the card in a positive light. He wasn't criticizing me, or trying to turn me into a "tradwife," he was complimenting me, or trying to. Still, not sure. I think the bottom line is that I'm tired of being this woman.

Oh, I know what else happened this week -- I finally made the decision to try Mounjaro. I have really been dragging my feet about that drug, but on Wednesday at my book group meeting I realized that one of the members has lost a LOT of weight. She and I have kind of gotten fat together over the 20+ years of book group. But she looks so good now -- she's down 56 pounds in five months. And it turns out it's all due to Mounjaro -- or, in her case, Zepbound, which is the name for the same drug if you take it when you don't have diabetes.

She's started to be able to shop in the regular size women's department again, no more Plus sizes. I'd probably have to lose more than 56 pounds to be able to do that, but hey. She hasn't experienced any side effects. It's all been easy. And she's so happy, you could tell.

So I went home and emailed my doctor, and by Friday the prescription was waiting for me at King Soopers. Sort of. What I mean is, there's a current shortage of the drug, so they were only able to fill one month's worth of the prescription, when I was supposed to get two months. But I picked up that one box and took it home and stuck it in the fridge.

The way Mounjaro works is, you give yourself a shot once a week. So I have to decide on a starting day. I'm thinking Tuesday night. But then I have to decide whether I should wait until we get back from our trip. If the side effects aren't bad, I could take it this Tuesday and next Tuesday, and bring a needle along to use on the following Tuesday (it doesn't have to be refrigerated all the time). But if it makes me feel awful, maybe I should just wait to take my second shot after I get back. Or, I could wait to start the whole thing after we get back.

I'm going to stew about this for another day or so. Part of me is like -- what have I done? I still have all the same qualms about the drug that I had before. It was just seeing my book group friend, how the clock seemed to have turned back 20 years for her. I thought, wow, maybe this stuff does work. Maybe even if I don't get to stay on it very long (due to changing insurance), it would be worth it to take it for a little while. I'll have to see.

Mother's Day 2024

Mother's Day! The day I used to hate and now don't mind at all, even enjoy. Maybe not quite so much this year. But it's OK.

It didn't start out well. We went to Village Inn for dinner last night, way out in Thornton (Teen A drove), and I had something called a "California skillet" ("California" meaning "contains avocado"). Teen A pointed out to me that it was 1200 calories, one of the highest-calorie things on the menu, but that seemed impossible, must be a typo, so I ordered it anyway. And it was good, but too rich (not a typo). I avoided the bacon, but the potatoes and other veggies were soaked in Hollandaise sauce... and with it I had a heavily buttered English muffin... and then we got pie to go, and I stupidly decided to eat my piece of chocolate peanut butter pie when we got home, while watching "The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition" with Teen A, for his social studies project.

And a couple of hours later, yep, threw it all up again. So that was the start to my Mother's Day (it was after midnight). But when I finally got myself cleaned up and settled in bed again, and turned off the light, I heard a loud noise, like an explosion (far away, not in the backyard, thank goodness). Oh, I thought, someone ELSE's house exploded. Then I thought, no, that's not likely. Wait. Was that THUNDER? I opened my window a little, even though we still don't have heat, so I've been keeping all windows closed at night. Another crash, and then the sound of pouring rain. It IS thunder! We're having a glorious spring thunderstorm! 

And when I woke up this morning, it was still going on! It's quieted down now -- long enough for me to go to the store and get a newspaper and some blueberry muffins -- but maybe it's going to start up again later. I love thunderstorms! Baby Kitty doesn't -- just like Chester, he darts under the bed at the sound of the first clap. But I do. I can't think of a more lovely way to start Mother's Day.

When I was at the grocery store I was amused by all the people buying Mother's Day stuff. The card aisle is usually completely empty, a good aisle to go down if you're in a hurry, but not today. It was full of men looking at Mother's Day cards. Young men buying them for their moms, middle-aged men possibly buying them for their wives. I saw lots of people carrying bouquets of flowers. One young woman had a gigantic "Happy Mother's Day!" balloon tied to her cart.

I'm not well remembered this year. Those cards on the piano? They are birthday cards for the twins (whose birthday was in March), plus a couple of New Year's cards from friends that I left up because I liked the photos on them. No Mother's Day cards. On the phone last night Rocket Boy apologized: "There's a card in the mail." Nothing from the twins. No candy, no flowers, nothing. It's OK. I mean, it really is. It makes me a little sad that I didn't bring them up to observe Mother's Day properly, like this is yet another example of my failures as a mom. But, you know, I tried. When they were little, they always used to go with Rocket Boy to buy me a hanging basket for Mother's Day. In the old days they would make Mother's Day cards in school. I don't know what else I was supposed to do -- whine more?

Last year I bought myself a Mother's Day card and had them sign it. This year I didn't do that. Not in the mood. I could have bought myself a cake or some beautiful lemon cupcakes at King Soopers this morning, but the vomiting episode last night meant that I have no appetite. It's fine. It really is!

***

OK, now Teen B and I are back from Starbucks and I don't think we're going to have another thunderstorm. The sun is out, the sky is (partly) blue, and everything looks like it just had a nice bath. I got myself a piece of coffee cake at Starbucks (for a Mother's Day treat) and had that for breakfast. I didn't think it would bother my stomach. Otherwise I'm just having tea. Oh, and I had a blueberry muffin for lunch. My stomach really doesn't want much today.

I almost slipped and fell in the backyard when I walked around taking pictures a little while ago. So much mud, so many sticks and branches, so many dandelions. I swear, you cannot tell that I did any work in the front or back yard last summer. Everything is such a mess. And we can't mow the lawns because there are so many sticks (not to mention gigantic branches) on them. I need to get back to work. Maybe this week, although it's supposed to rain off and on all week. Hmm.

I do love the burgeoning of spring, though, even though it requires that we do so much work to tamp it down. The lilacs are glorious this year! As I drive around town I exclaim at each bush I pass: "Look at the lilacs!" If I have a twin in the car with me, their response is "No" or "Why should I care?" or something similar. They don't get lilacs. Their loss. Our lilac bush, of course, hasn't bloomed yet, but can you see the little flowerlets beginning to form? After everyone else's lilacs are done, ours will be bursting with blooms. I can look forward to that (though I wish I had an early lilac too). 

The iris haven't bloomed yet either, although there are clearly six with flowers coming. And the onions are just getting started. Spring comes late to our yard.

I usually go and buy flowers to plant this weekend, but I haven't gone. The planters are empty. Teen A actually asked me today, "When are we going to plant the tomato?" The tomato. We always have exactly one tomato plant in a big pot in the front yard. I said, "I haven't bought it yet!" Maybe I'll go to the pop-up nursery during the week. It's OK.

Another reason why Mother's Day kind of sucks this year is that the twins and I are spending the weekend working on their final papers and assignments. Teen B and I managed to finish his Language Arts paper yesterday, so that was a huge achievement. Two days before it was due! Unthinkable! But Teen A and I have a lot of work ahead of us. In addition to a complicated project for Language Arts (we're probably 80% done?), he has to write a paper for World History. I think this might be the first assignment he's had for that class. It's all been in-class work up to this point and now this nightmare. He has to have 6 sources, 3 of them primary sources, and he has to fill out a research sheet on each one, and then there's the paper itself and then a presentation. It's all due a week from tomorrow.

We're working along. I set the timer on my phone for 20 minutes and work with a twin until it rings. Teen A usually wants to finish whatever we're in the middle of at that point and Teen B usually wants to stop everything the moment the timer rings. Then I take a short break to recharge my own batteries and then start up again with the other twin, another 20 minutes. So far today I've done one session with each boy, and in a few minutes Teen A and I will go on to round 2.

The thing is, even though it's awful, I like my boys. I like spending time with them. (It's very different from when they were little and I thought of Mother's Day as a chance to get away from them.) And if we weren't doing this, let's face it, they'd be playing video games in the desk room and I'd be in my room, reading. If Rocket Boy were here, we might go for a hike or something, but he's not. So this is what I get. It's OK!

***

This was a so-so week. The furnace guys finally came, on Thursday, and I was so happy to see them. But they couldn't get the furnace going. They said it needs some new parts, which will probably be expensive. The head guy said they would try to come back on Friday, but they didn't, and I haven't heard from them since. Maybe tomorrow I'll call them. 

Teen A had his orientation at Boulder TEC that same day, in the late afternoon. We were a little late for it (traffic on Arapahoe is terrible that time of day, something to remember), but we heard most of it. I'm excited for next year, not sure if Teen A is equally excited. One thing I read on the information sheet they handed out is that he can't wear sweatpants to class. It doesn't actually say what he has to wear instead. Teen A does not own a pair of pants that aren't sweatpants. I'm not telling him about this yet. I might email the teacher and ask what pants I need to buy. Maybe jeans? Or some sort of work pants? A whole new world of different pants lies ahead of us.

I also spent a lot of time this week working on our trip to California. It's the most complicated trip you can imagine, with so many different places to go and people to see. I'm trying to break up the work, do one or two tasks per day, but a lot of things depend on other people, so that means contacting people and finding out what their schedules are like. I discovered that I was incapable of calling a cousin who we'd like to visit and might stay with, so I wrote her a letter. Now I have to wait for the letter to be delivered and for her to decide what to do about it. Maybe she'll write me a letter back. And I didn't actually say in the letter, can we come stay with you? I just said we'll be in the area and could we see you? I hate asking people for favors, just hate it. 

I probably should never go anywhere, should just sit in my cave of a house and stew. But I really like seeing people! When I think about this trip I feel a sense of dread at the complications and the hotels and the driving and the expense... but then when I think about the people we might see I get so happy! I don't know. We'll see how it goes.

***

This coming week my book group meets on Wednesday (but not at my house). This month we read The Promise by Damon Galgut, which is set in South Africa. I didn't like the book at all. I was interested to read it because of the books I've been reading by J. M. Coetzee, but this book just seemed unnecessarily gloomy. I believe it's supposed to be an allegory about South Africa. I don't think it's a good idea to have your characters be allegories. Characters should be people.

I also have to see the orthodontist this week. I spent a lot of time this past week being angry at my orthodontist. I'm so disappointed that I have to go on this trip with braces. Food stuck in my teeth at every meal, my smile looking awful... I practiced trying to tell the orthodontist that I need my braces off NOW. Finally I just gave up. I don't know why I still need them on, but after two plus years of braces, I probably should just see the thing out. If he thinks I need to wear them for a few more months, I probably need to wear them for a few more months. So I'm going to let that go. I don't think my relatives actually care about whether my mouth looks beautiful or not. Phew.

The tree guy finally got back to me, and he plans to come out starting on May 20th. So that will be an exciting week. I should do what I can to prepare for him this week, picking up branches, maybe even mowing. The thing is, I saw three bees on our dandelions in the front yard this afternoon, so I don't really want to mow the dandelions away. Maybe I'll wait until they go to seed.

Well, I should finish up this blog post and go work with Teen A again. We've finished the three secondary sources and now we'll see what we can get out of our three primary sources. Not looking forward to this, but we'll get through it. 

P.S. I should add a note about how Mother's Day ended. The aurora was highly visible in this area on Friday, and we missed it, because I was too tired that evening to go drive anywhere. So, when they said we might be able to see it on Sunday, I thought, oh, maybe we could just take a quick drive up to NCAR and see if we can see anything from there. It's probably too bright, but you do get a good view of a big sky. The kids were game, so we drove up there, parked in the parking lot along with quite a few other cars (at about 9:30 pm), and waited. Nothing. So we drove down the hill again, went to King Soopers and bought a few things, and then I was going to head home, but Teen A said, "Why don't we go back to NCAR and try again?" So we did, it's now maybe 10:15? and there are still lots of other cars, with people coming and going -- all of them obviously doing the same thing we were, since nobody was getting out of their cars, just sitting and looking. But there was nothing to see, so eventually we went home. 

I don't think the aurora came down this far on Sunday. So that was too bad, but I told the twins they'll have lots of other chances to see it in their lives. I have seen the aurora once, in Michigan -- faint green lines, weird looking. It's worth seeing, and I hope they do see it some day.

We had a lot of fun together, even though we didn't see it, and it was a nice end to a nice day.

And now May

We're pretty far into May already, actually -- it's May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, and my grand-niece Mari's birthday. Tomorrow is May 6th, my mother's birthday. I like May, usually. I don't like it very much today, but I'm sure things will get better. We've got about six iris showing flower spikes, so that'll be nice, soon. Lilacs are blooming all over town, though of course ours isn't yet (it's a very late lilac). Next Sunday is Mother's Day and I always like to get a bunch of annuals to plant that day. We'll see.

Rocket Boy went back to St. Louis yesterday, after a week of just working himself to death. He did so much and looked so tired. I was reminded, distressingly, of my father cleaning out the gutters the day before he went to the hospital to die. 

I was very sad yesterday. I'm still sad today, but I'm trying to cope.

Here are some things that Rocket Boy worked on while he was here.

• The furnace. He called our furnace guy, Lucky, who was amazingly still alive, barely, and got some advice from him over the phone. They called each other back and forth, while RB went up and down the stairs to the basement, trying different configurations and thumping on the ceiling to get me to turn the heat on or off. Finally he admitted defeat and we called an HVAC company that had been recommended by a neighbor. They're coming out Thursday to look at both our furnace and the rental's. So that's all good, even though we still don't have heat.
• The bathroom door. He agreed with Teen A that the closet door doesn't make a great bathroom door for the long haul, because it has a big gap at the bottom. So he examined the door I'd gotten from a neighbor (not good), we went to Resource to look at their doors (nothing there), and finally he ordered a new door from a door company in Lafayette. He spoke with them on the phone about a dozen times and eventually we took the old door out to Lafayette so they could measure it exactly (and then they recycled it). The new door will be ready in a couple of weeks and Teen A and I will have to go get it and hang it up.
• 
  The gigantic branches. Together we managed to dislodge the biggest branch from the fence and RB sawed it up into several pieces. We filled a few leaf bags with small branches, plus the compost bin, and RB tied several bundles of small logs for compost pickup. I dragged numerous branches around to the front yard and we worked on them there. Both front and back yards are still full of branches -- it doesn't really look like we did anything -- but we DID, we made a good start, and I will continue to work on it throughout the summer. The tree guy gave us a reasonable quote and I told him to go ahead and schedule us, so we're waiting for that.
• 
  The hole in the patio roof. RB went up on the roof and inspected it. He used a broom, rake, and snow shovel to clean the roof, scraping the mess into a leaf bag. Then he placed a tarp over the hole and weighted it down with bricks and logs. (I stood below, holding the ladder and handing up the tools, leaf bag, tarp, bricks, and logs.) But now we need someone to fix the hole. We both, independently, thought of his old weird friend Ray, who did a lot of work on the porch roof about 20 years ago, but neither of us could remember his last name. How sad is that? RB used to call him "Ray save-a-buck Something-or-other" because he was so cheap, but he was a hard, though very slow worker. However, the last we saw of him he was heading back to Iowa, where he owned a falling-down house with no utilities, and I would think he's almost certainly dead by now. So Rocket Boy started calling handymen. One came to look at it and started lecturing us about how the entire patio should be redone, not just the roof. The second said he'd gotten a regular job and was no longer a handyman. The third asked for photos and after looking at the photos said no, not our kind of work. The fourth finally called back today and said he thought he could do it. We'll see. It would be in a few weeks.
  
• The clothesline. The old retractable clothesline was destroyed by the branch that fell on it, so we bought a new one from McGuckin's and Rocket Boy installed it. Unfortunately that one didn't work, so he went back to McGuckin's and got another one, and installed that one, and it works. I used it yesterday. We agreed that we will not leave the lines up -- after using it, I will retract it each time, so it can't be smashed again and will stay cleaner.
• The storm doors. Rocket Boy fixed the latch on the front storm door, replaced the handle on the back storm door, and switched out the glass on both doors for the screens, for summer.
• Driving. Rocket Boy also drove with both twins. Teen A now has 40 hours & 42 minutes (out of the 50 he needs), including over 10 hours of night driving (all he needs). Teen B only has 24 hours & 24 minutes, with only 1 hour & 15 minutes of night driving, so I'll need to work with him more. But we're coming along. 
• Spaetzle. On Friday, Rocket Boy asked me what we should have for dinner. I didn't really want to cook, but we'd been eating out a lot, so I looked at my recipes, chose a main dish and a side dish, and said I'd pick up the ingredients on my way home from getting my hair cut. I had to go to two different grocery stores, and when I finally got home, RB had made spaetzle and gravy! Not to mention, the kitchen was a disaster. We had a big fight about the whole thing, but we worked it out (when you live in different time zones, you can't let fights fester). In the end, we had mahi mahi burgers from Trader Joe's for dinner, with the spaetzle as a side dish. And I've still got the ingredients I bought and I can use them to make dinner tomorrow. So it's all good.
  

Just writing all that down makes me tired. Thinking about all that Rocket Boy did makes me tired and thinking about all that's left to do makes me tired. I'm now going to be waiting for the furnace guys, the tree guy, the handyman, and the door company. Hopefully they won't all show up at once.

One step at a time.

It's May, so I should review April and my resolutions and think about what I did and didn't do. I know I didn't do some major things that I had planned.

1. Read at least 52 books, i.e., 1 per week. I read 8 books in March. That's 45 books so far this year.

2. Read biographies of at least 3 presidents. I left Warren G. Harding for May (already started a bio of him).

3. See at least 24 movies, i.e., 2 per month. Rocket Boy brought some movies with him, so we watched "Nowhere in Africa," a German movie that we both enjoyed very much.

4. Go to at least 12 special things, i.e., 1 per month. Rocket Boy and I went to see Teen B's band concert on the 30th.

5. Continue blogging/write another novel. I hardly wrote anything this month, just the blog. It's OK. April was a stressful month.

6. Take a walk every day and do a stretch video every morning. I took just a couple of walks in April, including one with Rocket Boy the day after he arrived. It was such a horrible month that I mostly didn't want to go outside, too depressed. I did do stretch videos on 20 days, so that was something.

7. Take a hike every month. I thought Rocket Boy and I would do a hike together this past week, but of course I forgot about his leg. I just don't want him to be less than 100%, and so apparently I pretend he's fine when he isn't. We took one 18-minute walk together. No hikes.

8. Take a load of stuff to either Goodwill or Charm every month. Didn't do this either. We went to Resource to look for doors and the Center for HArd to Recycle Materials is right there next to it, but I'd forgotten to bring anything, even my bag of old batteries. Oh well.

9. Do something to improve my wardrobe every month. In April I had planned to work on shoes, but it never happened. Too depressed. So that'll be my goal in May. We'll see how it goes.

10. Work on the files. I resolved to focus on the files in April, but I barely touched them. I'll try again in May, but I also need to work on the yard. We'll see.

I think mainly I'm just glad April's over and we're still here. Still in our snug little house -- with no furnace, but the weather's getting warmer. Actually, we're supposed to have some bad weather the next couple of days: a little rain, possibly a little snow, and very high winds. May in Colorado. Today is a nice day, though it started out overcast and gloomy. Maybe I'll go for a walk.

Now that Rocket Boy's visit is over, I've started planning our trip to California. We'll go at the end of the month, after school gets out. I'm a little bit excited about that, but I also feel a sense of dread that I'm trying to tamp down. Will I be up to it, will I be up to the driving, that kind of thing. Of course I know I will be up to it, and I'll have the boys to help with the driving if I get tired. It's just so overwhelming. All these people coming to work on the house, all these people to make arrangements with in California. It's going to be a complicated trip no matter what. I have all these people I want to see, or at least try to see, and they live in all these different places. And they're all so old. If I don't see them on this visit, that might be it.

May is a long month, a 31-day month, but looking at the calendar I feel as though it's going to fly by. Trip planning, dealing with workers, and getting the kids through the end of school. They have two more weeks of school, then finals week, and then it's over. There's a lot to get done these next few weeks, and they're both sick. Hopefully just colds, but the district sent out a rather disturbing notice a few days ago saying that they may have been exposed to whooping cough! I thought, OK, we've all been vaccinated against it, no big deal, but according to the letter, immunity wanes over time. Apparently you can still get it, even if you're vaccinated, though it may be a milder case. So, if the kids start coughing violently next week, we'll probably have to get antibiotics. As long as we can deal with this before the California trip, I'm OK with it.

Speaking of illness, I have a bit of a headache. Maybe I'll go back to bed and read.