Reading post: Louise Erdrich in November

November is almost over, just a few more days, so I think it is time for a reading post. In November I decided to read books by Louise Erdrich, who is practically a contemporary of mine. She was born in 1954 and is thus now 70, like Rocket Boy. She is, of course, famous for her books about Native Americans. I had read seven books by her before this, so it wasn't so much a "get to know X writer" as a "get to know X writer better" situation.

Louise Erdrich has published, roughly, 33 books, mostly novels. Many of the characters in her novels are related to other characters in her novels, but you don't have to read them in order. As I get older, I tend not to remember characters' names very well anyway, so even when I read books in a series, I don't necessarily remember what I'm supposed to remember -- and it all works out OK anyway. Mostly.

With help from Wikipedia, I came up with this list of her books. I've put the ones I had read before this month in blue.

• Novels related to her first book: Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Four Souls, The Painted Drum
• Standalone novels: The Crown of Columbus (with Michael Dorris), The Antelope Wife/Antelope Woman, The Master Butchers Singing Club, Shadow Tag, Future Home of the Living God, The Night Watchman, The Sentence, The Mighty Red
• The "Justice" trilogy: The Plague of Doves, The Round House, LaRose
• Children's books: Grandmother's Pigeon, The Range Eternal, and the Birchbark series: The Birchbark House, The Game of Silence, The Porcupine Year, Chickadee, Makoons
• Nonfiction, poetry, short stories: Route Two, The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birthyear, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Jacklight, Baptism of Desire, Original Fire: Selected and New Poems, The Red Convertible: Collected and New Stories

I decided that what I was really missing out on was the Love Medicine series, and her children's books. So I chose this month's books accordingly (they're in gold above).

• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2001): When I was looking around the internet for suggestions on which Erdrich books to read, this kept coming up. Several people said it was their favorite Erdrich. And what a great title, no? So I read it. I liked it, but I wasn't entranced by it. I had to keep reminding myself to go back to it. It's the story of a Catholic priest who is actually a woman. The priest is known to others on the Little No Horse reservation as Father Damien, but also has an inner, secret, identity as Agnes. This is one of Erdrich's magical realism books, with lots of Ojibwe tales included and magical things happening, and I remembered that this was why I stopped reading Erdrich originally. I have very much liked some of her more recent books, especially the "Justice" trilogy, but those books are more realistic. While reading this I kept thinking, I'd follow this better if I read the other "Love Medicine" books -- but the truth is, I don't want to. Oh well. I read this one. It was fine.
  
  
• The Painted Drum (2005): Now this one I really liked! It starts out slow, with the story of a modern day part-Ojibwe woman named Faye Travers who lives in New Hampshire with her elderly mother and runs an estate clearing business with her. Faye has an unsatisfactory relationship with a local artist, and a painful past which we only gradually learn about. I didn't really engage with Faye at first, but then she "removes" an old Indian drum from an estate and the story (and the drum) wakes up. In Part 2, Faye and her mother return the drum to its rightful caretakers in North Dakota and we learn the story of the drum and how it came to be. This is a return to Erdrich magical realism, but it seemed appropriate. In Part 3 we watch the drum in action with a modern day family. I won't say more except that, again, I really enjoyed this book. A lot of tragedy, but a lot of good stuff too. I was glad I had gotten it at the Bookworm, so I can keep it.
  
  
• The Birchbark House (1999): The first in a series of five books, this is supposed to be Louise Erdrich's answer to the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (which I love). Immediately I was sorry I hadn't read this book, and the rest of the series, to my kids when they were younger. The last two books in the series (so far) are about twin boys, and those would have been fun to read to my twin boys. Anyway, The Birchbark House is a very sweet book, with some scary parts and some sad parts, but overall something that I think kids would enjoy. Lots of descriptions of how the Ojibwe family gathers, grows, hunts, and makes its food & clothing & shelter & medicine, which is similar to the Little House books. Lots of good animal interactions, including a pet crow. I enjoyed it and I plan to read the rest of the books in the series, eventually.
  

And the consensus? I guess I haven't changed my mind about Louise Erdrich. As before, I don't love her books that have a heavy dose of magical realism. But also as before, I enjoy her books that have some magical realism. I don't think I can be more clear than that. I think my favorite of her books is still The Round House, but I really liked The Painted Drum and am very glad I read it. And I will continue to read her.

Other reading

I started the month with a biography of Herbert Hoover... and it took me more than three weeks to get through its 614 pages of text. But it was such a good biography. It's called Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte, and it was just excellent. I had gotten the idea from previous biographies that Hoover was interesting (Hoover was Harding's and Coolidge's Commerce secretary), but I had no idea the man was so complicated. I just knew him as the awful president who preceded FDR, the man who gave his name to homeless encampments: Hoovervilles. Growing up in Palo Alto with liberal parents, I somehow absorbed the idea that we did not like the Lou Henry Hoover Girl Scout House because she was Hoover's wife, and we did not like Hoover Tower because it was Hoover's legacy, and so on.

It turns out Hoover was really a great guy, though not a great politician, incredibly competent, and actually very progressive, even though he later became more or less the father of modern conservatism (not Trumpism). Many of FDR's New Deal projects were variations on things Hoover thought of first. Hoover hated FDR, mainly because FDR beat him, but became very good friends with Harry Truman. Later on in life, Hoover was friends with both Richard Nixon AND John F. Kennedy. Whyte is so good at presenting Hoover's thoughts on things without actually agreeing or disagreeing with him. For instance, describing his work on the Hoover Commission, he says, "Hoover could at least take pride in having helped to clean up what he believed to be Roosevelt's mess." (p. 589). Note that Whyte doesn't see it as "Roosevelt's mess," Hoover thinks that. 

Anyway, it was a very good book, a classic presidential biography. And now I don't have to read any more presidential biographies until 2025, when I will figure out how to tackle FDR. I will probably read more than one book about him.

What else?  

Honestly, I didn't read very many other books this month. It's OK. Nothing to worry about. I'm currently reading the book for the book group (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean) and a book about homelessness (Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People by Tracy Kidder), but I don't know if I'm going to finish either of them in the last four days of the month.

Next month

One month left in the year -- December. I need another male author. After giving this some thought, I decided to read books by Charles Dickens. I want something Christmassy and I can't think of a better choice. Plus, his books are always about people being cruel and Trumpy to other people, so that will be a good fit too. I don't seem to want to read as much right now, possibly because I'm depressed about the election, possibly because of Rocket Boy being back and me feeling like I don't have as much time to myself. Whatever the reason, I'm not reading as much, so I may only read one or two Dickens next month, but that's OK.

Fall break

So, it's Thanksgiving week. The kids have the week off; Rocket Boy doesn't, but his job is going so strangely that he probably mostly does have it off. The person who's supposed to be telling him what to do has flaked out, he did manage to have a Zoom call with someone who used to work there who knows about the project, but he could barely understand her Scottish accent, and now he's been referred to a third person, who we think is probably on vacation this week, because she hasn't responded to his email yet. 

A more cynical person might say that perhaps this agency needs the Musk-Ramaswamy treatment, but I think actually the employees are freaking out due to the election. At my parent group meeting this week, I was talking to someone who works there, and she got all choked up and said she couldn't talk about it. She's afraid her job is over. I felt terrible and tried to reassure her: "we don't know what's going to happen, no sense getting too upset until we do," stupid things that I don't really believe, but she calmed down.

Aye yi yi, as Ricky Ricardo would say. This country. What have we done?

This week I moved on to a new stage of grief: Anger. I was reading an article about how the Trump clown car plans to dismantle the civil service, and I felt pure rage boiling up inside. I had to set the article down, and even so I was furious for the rest of the day.

So I decided I would have to be careful about the news again. I read it, but very lightly. As soon as an article starts to bother me, I set it aside. I refuse to read ANY articles about "Mistakes Democrats Made" or "What Democrats Should Have Done," even when they're by writers I normally read. I did enjoy the humor piece by River Clegg in this week's New Yorker (I'm still way behind on New Yorkers, but I glance at them before putting them at the back of the pile in the bathroom): "This Election Just Proves What I Already Believed." 

"I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris's loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think."

It made me laugh because that's what all these articles are saying, more or less. We obviously should have done X, even though at the time it seemed like it made perfect sense to do Y. I say, screw it. Donald Trump won because more than half the country were unable to recognize that he's a nasty, horrible liar and/or didn't care. And so here we go.

It was nice to watch the downfall of Matt Gaetz this week. But now he's going to be replaced by some dreadful blonde person. I'm already missing Matt. And I'm not reading the descriptions of Trump's new choices too closely. I mean, OK, it's funny that the Dept. of Education is going to be run by the World Wrestling founder or whatever, but that's all I want to know.

When I had trouble sleeping one night this week, I came up with a wonderful fantasy, actually a few of them. In one, at least a dozen Republican senators came to their senses and blocked all Trump's attempted crimes. In another, the House had too many Republicans on leave or whatever, and Hakeem Jeffries was elected Speaker. In a third, Donald Trump Jr. took a lot of drugs and went running into the ballroom at Mar-a-lago with an AK47, which he proceeded to use to assassinate his father, JD Vance, and other unpleasant people. And then Hakeem Jeffries became president. I was able to sleep after that.

***

This past week was very busy for our family. We attended both the orchestra and the band concerts (Teen B was of course IN the latter), and we also went to the Open House at Teen A's vocational program, which was a lot of fun. We got to meet some of his friends and see the amazing projects they're working on. 

Oh, and we took both of our hybrids to Boulder Hybrids for service this week. Rocket Boy's Highlander needed new struts, among other things, to the tune of $1500, and the Prius v just needed an oil change ($90). Plus they were able to turn off the beep-beep-beep noise it makes when it backs up -- now it just makes a single beep.

Friday was Teen B's IEP reevaluation meeting, and not surprisingly his case manager decided to end it. He'll probably get a 504 instead, which means he'll have accommodations, but he won't be considered Special Ed and he won't have a case manager anymore. One nice thing: Teen B's language arts teacher attended the meeting and advocated strongly for keeping him on the IEP. I thought I didn't like this teacher, but I changed my mind after hearing her. The case manager basically told her she was full of shit, but I appreciated the fact that she tried. I also tried: the case manager had written in the evaluation that Teen B "advocates for himself when appropriate." I said, this is ridiculous, he's never advocated for himself in his life. The case manager said no, he advocates for himself in my class -- he occasionally asks for help. I pointed out that the three teachers who had provided comments for the evaluation all said that he did not do this, which is also what every teacher Teen B has ever had have said. Hmm, said the case manager, but he didn't change what he'd written. It was kind of a pointless meeting.

It's OK. It just means that I'll have to continue to be heavily involved with everything Teen B has to read or write, for another year and a half (and perhaps beyond, if he goes to college). It's OK. Not like I have a job or anything.

***

Moving on, we had nice weather this week. It's actually been quite warm the last couple of days, in the high 50s and even 60s, although that's about to change. Teen A has been driving a lot, basically any time I let him. He complains about the Prius v being "too zesty," whatever that means, but he's attached one set of its keys to his school lanyard and we're starting to think of it as his car.

Time for the Mounjaro report, I guess.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 232.8
• Weight this morning (after 22+ weeks on Mounjaro): 231
  

So I lost 1.8 lbs of the 3 lbs I gained the week before. Not very impressive, but this was only on 5 mg. Even though I didn't have full appetite suppression, my energy level went back down to basically nothing. I only took two walks, one of which was last Sunday and the other was yesterday, and in between I managed three stretch videos. Tonight I will go back up to 7.5 mg, so we'll see how that goes.

Rocket Boy wants us to do an activity tomorrow, maybe go to Denver and do something, or maybe somewhere else. I'll do my best to participate. We all got vaccinations yesterday (flu for me and the boys, Covid for RB), so we're taking it easy today. I feel OK, but it was hard to sleep last night. I had body aches like what you get when you have the flu.

Tuesday we're supposed to have weather, so we'll probably stay home, Wednesday night we're going to Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens (it's going to snow during the day and get down to 17 that night, lovely). Thursday is Thanksgiving. And on Friday afternoon, Rocket Boy and I are planning to go to the funeral of someone I used to work with. That may be a little weird, if we run into a lot of people from ITS, but maybe not too many will come.

We planned our Thanksgiving menu today, finally. We'll have swordfish as a main course, as we've done for several years, assuming all the bad weather this week doesn't prevent the stores from having it (it's not the kind of thing you can buy ahead of time, like a turkey). Mashed potatoes and gravy, made by Rocket Boy. Spinach dish, which the kids like. I decided to mix things up a little bit this year and make a different sweet potato dish and a different cranberry dish, both of which sound much easier than our usual dishes. And of course pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Considering that I'm going to be feeling nauseated and extremely low energy, I wanted easy.

Well, maybe I'll finish this up and go to the library and the grocery store. And then maybe later a nap.

Stages of grief

So, we're halfway through November, less than two weeks past the dreadful election. It's interesting how everyone is now talking about what we're going to lose when Trump takes over in January, what you should do now because you won't be able to do it then. For instance,

• Get all your vaccines now, before RFK Jr. cancels them. It's not clear whether he really will do this, but I'm late with vaccines this year, and I feel a sense of urgency. Must schedule flu, Covid, and probably in December I'll finally do the shingles shot.
• If you're on a weight loss drug, as I am, try to stockpile it, because RFK Jr. plans to cancel them and give people gym memberships and coupons for organic vegetables instead.
  
• If you're in the market for an electric car, buy it now before the tax credits go away. Our neighborhood has been discussing this recently.
• If you're a woman of childbearing age, try to stockpile as much birth control as you can. Or get your tubes tied, have a hysterectomy, something like that. If you're part of a gay couple, or trans, especially if you have kids, move to a blue state. Fortunately for us, we already live in a blue state. Rocket Boy is very glad he is no longer in Missouri.
  
• Rocket Boy will probably lose his job (contractor for a scientific federal agency -- probably one of the first jobs Elon will cut), so we should either save as much as we can now or (my preference) spend happily, because it's the last time we'll be able to in our lifetimes.
• Anyone who works for the government who has been involved in investigating Trump has already been warned that they should probably leave the country.
  
• And I already mentioned that the student loan forgiveness will go away, so we'll probably have to start paying again. Interestingly, because the organizations handling this are slow, Rocket Boy is shown as still having one payment left before he's done, even though he made it in September and also made extra payments in October. The woman he talked to from the (soon to be eliminated) Dept. of Education said it will process before the end of the year. So he should be shown as having paid off his loans by December 31st -- and then Trump will take over a few weeks later and cancel everything and we'll have to go back to paying.
  

I should note, as I have before, that I think we are still in good shape. Many people in this country have a LOT more to worry about than we do. If I can't get my weight loss drug anymore, I'll just gain all the weight back plus more. It's not the end of the world. If Rocket Boy loses his job, I'll sign up for social security and we'll start taking distributions from both his and my Thrift Savings Plans. We should be OK. Although, if Trump really does get rid of the science agencies, Boulder will be strongly affected in ways I can't imagine because we have so much science here. Also, Colorado in general will be a target because Trump hates states that didn't vote for him. Hmm.

I think you would describe this as the "Bargaining" stage of grief. Like, OK, we're going to lose this and this, but we'll still be OK because of this and this.

I'm also in the "Black Humor" stage of grief, which I've been struggling to map onto the usual stages. I'm not sure it's a stage, exactly, but rather a coping strategy, but aren't all the stages coping strategies? Is the use of humor a form of "Denial"? Or a type of "Acceptance"? I found a recent article that explores the idea of "bereavement humor" and identifies it as a useful coping strategy and a sign of resilience. It's a way of reducing anxiety and distress, as well as a way to connect with others. Another article I found argued that black humor is a way to moderate stress, to take a terrible situation and look at it from a less threatening point of view. Then I read another article that said people use humor to avoid facing the dark truth about their situation.

You may argue that there's nothing funny about Trump's cabinet picks. But they're so insane that they do seem funny to me. I laugh, and then the laugh catches in my throat as I think of something awful that's going to happen as a result of them. And then I laugh again, because really, what else can you do? I cannot cry about this stuff. I refuse to cry. I need my strength. Is that denial? I don't think so.

***

I've gotten behind on New Yorkers again, after getting myself all caught up some months ago. I think it's related to having four people using our one and only bathroom. I read the New Yorker in the bathroom, and I just can't spend as much time in there reading anymore, lol.

Anyway, I'm currently reading the October 21st issue. It includes a long, depressing "reflection" from Adam Gopnik about Trump. I read it, but I didn't enjoy it. I'm like, OK, yes, you're right, he's a monster, now please go away. Then there was a lovely article about bird language which I enjoyed thoroughly. That was followed by a profile of Kamala Harris. I started reading it and had to stop. Couldn't do it. Too sad. But after that came Alexei Navalny's "Prison Diaries." Navalny was the Russian opposition leader who Putin tried to kill by poison in 2020, and then after he recovered in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 where he was promptly imprisoned. He died in prison, north of the Arctic Circle, in early 2024 -- probably murdered, although Putin said it was from natural causes. He was 47.

What I keep hearing is that Trump and his minions are trying to turn the USA into Russia. Of course, it's supposed to be a more successful Russia than Russia, with big business having more control than the government, but in many ways, Russia. They're trying to make people distrust the government, distrust science, distrust the law. They're planning to punish people who criticize them, gradually eliminate free and fair elections, etc. Thus, excerpts from the diaries of someone who opposed Putin and was murdered for it seem useful to read. Navalny's writing is a mix of black humor and true patriotism, standing up for what's right and true. It's really inspiring. I am going to buy the book -- maybe I'll ask for it for Christmas.

***

Since I was talking about weight loss drugs, it's probably time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 229.8
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 21+ weeks on Mounjaro): 232.8
  

Yep, that's right, gained three pounds. How did that happen? Well, last Sunday night when I took my shot, I don't know how to explain it, but I somehow got the pen turned around and I injected myself in the finger that I was using to press down (I thought) on the plunger. Ouch! I don't think it all went in, and you are NOT supposed to inject yourself in the finger. So I got some of the dose, and it had some effect, but not a normal amount. I considered starting over with a new pen, but I had no way of knowing how much I'd gotten, so I finally decided to let it go and have it be a weird week. Which it was. I still had some appetite suppression, and I didn't binge at all, but I didn't feel like I usually do on this drug. For one thing, I had a lot more energy, so I exercised a lot this week. I did four stretch videos and took four walks (divided among six days). I think this is proof that exercise doesn't lead to weight loss! Compare this to two weeks ago when I lost 3.6 pounds after exercising three times.

Oh well. I'm OK with this, although I actually feel very fat, as though I had gained 10 lbs back, not 3. Tonight I am going to take my last 5 mg pen, which I was saving for an occasion like this one, because I figure my dose this past week was low, so I should titrate back up to 7.5 slowly. I'll do 5 mg this week and then go back up to 7.5 mg next Sunday and we'll keep going like that. 

It's been interesting having Rocket Boy back in many ways, including housework and cooking. I figured I would go on being the primary cook and housekeeper, since I'm not working for pay and he is. But we agreed that he would do some of the cooking, mainly early in the week when I'm (normally) not feeling well due to the shot. So this week he fixed seared salmon on Monday with rice and steamed carrots, and on Tuesday we had the leftovers. On Wednesday I made a delicious casserole from Smitten Kitchen called Mushroom Marsala Pasta Bake, with brussels sprouts on the side. On Thursday I made sweet potato quesadillas with avocado. And on Friday before the play we had the old favorite, Pizza Grilled Cheese sandwiches (made with pesto, tomato sauce, and mozzarella on Italian bread). (Last night we ate out at the Gondolier and tonight we'll probably have pancakes or waffles.)

So our veggies for the week were carrots, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, onion, and avocado. All fresh, many organic, all prepared from scratch. The protein sources were salmon and various kinds of cheese.

Our special thing we did this week was attend the musical at the other high school, Friday night with Teen B. "Bye Bye Birdie" is such a dumb show, but they did it really well. Our next-door neighbor had a funny part, which he performed beautifully. But the whole cast was marvelous. Afterwards, Rocket Boy decided he wanted to see the movie, so I got it from the library yesterday and we watched it. The movie is so dumb! The play was actually much better, even though also dumb.

We were going to go to the Art Museum this weekend, but we ended up putting it off. Too much teen homework and other nonsense. We'll try to go next weekend instead. We have a lot going on this week: the band concert and the orchestra concert, my parent group meeting, Teen B's IEP meeting, and probably lots of homework, due to it being the week before Thanksgiving break. It's going to be very cold on Tuesday, with possibly a little snow, but that's looking less likely (and our last snow is JUST about gone). Just a normal average late fall week in the still-democratic, for now, USofA.

The aftermath

I was just re-reading last week's blog post and I felt sad to remember those days, only a week ago, when I still had hope that Kamala Harris might win the election and we would have happy days ahead. I was nervous, very nervous, but still that was better than the way things are now.

The IT people who work for the NY Times are on strike right now, so I guess you're not supposed to interact with the NY Times online while it's going on. Or something like that. Don't play games, don't look at recipes, not sure what else. I'm FINE with not reading the Times right now, because I'm trying to avoid all articles/discussion about politics and the election. At some point I assume I will go back to paying attention, but I'll see. I might have to do the whole thing from a distance for quite some time. Rocket Boy isn't afraid of the news, so he can tell me anything I really need to know. And I admit that I am reading a little bit of news, because the newspaper keeps being delivered to our house every day. I don't read much of it, but I see headlines and maybe read a couple sentences (and then wish I hadn't).

I don't want news, but I want community, other people who feel as sad as I do, so that we can feel sad together. And one place I find community, bizarrely, is in the comments sections for the NY Times games, particularly Connections. I do Wordle also, of course, but I don't read those comments much anymore. But I really like the Connections comments. There's a guy in New Zealand who always tells us what the weather is like and where he and his dog are going that day. Except that now because of the IT strike, he's staying away. I wonder if he will come back when the strike is over. I wonder when the strike will be over. 

I know I shouldn't play Wordle and Connections while the strike is going on, but I feel like I need them. Maybe that's selfish. The poor IT workers, paid more than almost anyone else at the Times, being forced to go to the office 2 times a week. (What?) I don't feel any sympathy for them. But I should. I'm sounding like a Trumper, not supporting a labor strike.

I don't know what to do anymore.

My cousin forwarded me the piece that Rebecca Solnit wrote, about how we have to go on, that this is nothing like the situation in (fill in the blank with some awful place and time). She's right, of course. And it's helpful to think that it could be so much worse. Sort of helpful. I also find that having some historical perspective, due to having read all those presidential biographies (I'm working on president #31 right now), helps me to not freak out too much. I mean, sometimes it helps. The bottom line is that we've had terrible presidents before and the country goes on, even when terrible laws are passed, etc. And life goes on, and gets better someday, even if maybe not in your lifetime. 

Something for the people in Ukraine to think about, I guess, as they wave goodbye to the remnants of their country. Also Gaza. I read that lots of Arab Americans in Michigan refused to vote for Kamala Harris because they don't like Biden's handling of the Israeli mess. And they think TRUMP is going to be better????? Trump is Netanyahu's biggest fan. If that wasn't a poor decision on those people's part, I don't know what would be.

I keep remembering 2004, also. George W. Bush won reelection over John Kerry even though he was the most terrible president ever (at that point), and Republicans also held the House and Senate. Those were the dreadful "freedom fries" years, when people drove around with flags on their cars. And four years later? Obama. So it can happen. Keep hoping, I guess. But of course, back then, Republicans hadn't turned into the screaming mess of insanity that they are now. There were still people in that party who believed in doing the right thing. They are all gone now.

OK, enough politics. I don't even want to be writing about this stuff.

***

We had a big snowstorm this week, maybe 10 inches or so total, over a couple of days, but it's almost all gone already (see photo at top for what it looked like briefly). I mean, there's still some snow on the lawn, but it'll be gone soon.

It was extremely cold and awful. It felt like February. Fortunately this week it is going to be in the 50s every day. I'm not ready for February. I did get down my winter clothes (long-sleeved shirts, some sweaters) and put away the summer clothes (tank tops, sundresses). I was hoping that some previously too-small clothes would fit this year, but they didn't, really. I haven't changed sizes, despite losing weight. It's odd. The main problem seems to be that my stomach is just as big as ever, so smaller shirts don't fit over it and smaller pants don't fit at all. The one thing that is fitting slightly better is sweaters, because my upper arms seem to be slightly smaller.

I guess this topic means it's time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 231
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 21+ weeks on Mounjaro): 229.8
  

So, I lost another pound, but I was a little disappointed with that, considering how sick I felt this week and how little I ate (no bingeing in response to the election results). I am now down 24.8 lbs in a little over 21 weeks, for an average of 1.18 lbs per week, same as last week. Wouldn't you think an almost 25-pound weight loss would translate into clothes fitting better? Oh well. 

***

When Rocket Boy lived in Missouri, he got out and did something fun almost every weekend (unless he was sick). So he really wanted to do something this weekend. Today seemed to be the best day, halfway through the three-day weekend. I wanted to go to the Denver Art Museum, because we haven't been there in years and they're having a Maurice Sendak exhibit. Rocket Boy wanted to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science so he could see an exhibit about poisons in nature. But he was really hoping a twin would go with us, and Teen B was only willing to come if we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens (Teen A refused to go anywhere). It seemed like an odd choice, with snow on the ground, but I hadn't been there in ages, so I said OK, and RB was open to anything as long as it wasn't in Boulder.

And we had a nice time. It was warm -- you didn't need a coat. They had clearly gotten a LOT of snow, more than we did, and a lot of it was still on the ground. But the paths were mostly clear. A lot of areas were roped off -- maybe because of the snow, maybe because they're getting ready for Blossoms of Light, which starts in 10 days. You could hardly see any of the plants under the snow, just the little signs telling what they were. Teen B thought it looked like a cemetery, with the little signs acting as gravestones. We spent a long time studying a cholla cactus which was next to a sign for a Missouri Foxtail Cactus, looking up photos of the Missouri Foxtail Cactus on my phone and comparing them with the cholla, finally deciding that the Missouri Foxtail Cactus must be buried under the snow. The conservatory was closed for construction, which was disappointing, but the Orangery was open, and anyway, none of this seemed to matter. It was just nice to be out walking around on a warm fall day.

We ate lunch at the little cafe they have, Offshoots, and it was really good, although the prices seemed to have doubled since the last time we were there. And after walking most of the way through whatever gardens were open, we ended up at the pyramidal structure where we found an area they are currently calling the Habitat Lounge (or Eco-Sala, in the oddly translated Spanish). We sat in the sun and looked out at the snow and felt mostly OK, if still depressed. 

Then we looked at a few more things buried in snow, and then we went to the gift shop. I like that gift shop, but I never buy anything because it's all expensive and I don't need anything anyway. Today I bought myself some little flower earrings and a little glass dish (they weren't very expensive). I'm not sure why. I did it almost defiantly. Like, how dare all you Trumpers take away all the joy in the world, I'm going to buy myself something pretty while I still can. I probably could have given that money to a useful cause, that would have been better. But we have a little extra right now and, hm, I don't know. The gift shop was so pretty -- everything in it seemed to be covered with flowers. I wanted to bring some of that beauty home.

I feel as though disaster is going to strike soon and then it will be a long cold winter of my heart. 

For one thing, Trump will undoubtedly cancel all of Biden's attempts to forgive student loans, and then we'll have to start paying off Rocket Boy's again. There will be no more buying of trinkets in gift shops then, that's for sure.

***

So what do we have ahead of us this week? (Other than avoiding/ignoring the news.) Tomorrow is Veterans Day, so the kids have the day off school and Rocket Boy doesn't have to work. Teen A has an eye appointment; he wants to get contact lenses. That'll be interesting. I'm so used to seeing him with glasses. Then four days of school, probably with lots of homework, since after that there's only one week until Fall Break.

Next Friday night we're going to see the fall musical at the other high school. We like to go because our next-door neighbor is involved. They're doing "Bye Bye Birdie," which seems like a really strange, really retro choice. I remember going to see "Bye Bye Birdie" at I think the Children's Theatre in Palo Alto when I was like 10. As I recall there was a scene toward the end when the main characters smoke cigarettes, and they actually lit up on stage (this was a long time ago, obviously). I was horrified. Was that at the Children's Theatre? That seems impossible. Maybe it was somewhere else. Probably the smoking scene will be done differently in Fairview's production, but we'll see.

I'm going to be taking my shot in an hour or so, so I'll feel crappy for the next few days. But it will match my mood. I'll try to get a lot of reading done.

November cometh

Halloween and beautiful October are over, and here comes dull, brown November. In fact, it is still very pretty out there, but it won't last. We've got a storm coming in tonight that's supposed to bring rain and snow, and then some form of "weather" is predicted for at least a part of every day this week. We get a little break from Monday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon, but then it comes back. Days and days of rain and snow should take down all the pretty leaves that are still clinging to the branches.

A good week for the time change! We are going to appreciate that extra sleep. This morning I woke up at 9:15 (old time). I hope 7 am tomorrow (8 am old time) won't feel too early.

I have been very successful in putting the election out of my mind, not reading articles about it, etc., but now it's in two days, and pretty soon I won't be able to ignore it. Ignore the results, that is. I hope they are good, but I can't even let myself think about that. 

Rocket Boy has been enjoying being back in Colorado the last few days by walking the streets, handing out leaflets and reminding people to vote. The thing is, the decision won't be made in Colorado. Colorado does have some important things on the ballot, but truly, it's not my state I'm worried about.

We had a pleasant Halloween this year. I didn't feel good, of course, due to stupid Mounjaro, so I didn't get around to carving any of our pumpkins until very late in the day. In fact, it wasn't until Rocket Boy got busy and carved one (on the left) that I finally decided I felt up to carving one (on the right). Trick-or-treaters started arriving while I was carving, that's how late I was. I gave up and drew a cat face on the little white one, and we had a fourth pumpkin that wasn't even touched. (The twins considered themselves too old to participate.)

I didn't feel like cooking, so we got takeout Chinese. That was a good choice.

Rocket Boy didn't bring down the Halloween decorations until the 30th, so I didn't do much with those. I didn't even get out my little dolls. "Next year," I said. It didn't bother me at all. You don't have to do everything every year. The cats, however, did wear their costumes (involuntarily). We got a new one for Sillers this year at Target: she's a wizard, I think. It fit her a little better than her old witch costume, but it still kept moving around until it looked more like a bib than a cape. Baby Kitty wore his lovely candy corn collar for most of the night, until Rocket Boy took pity on him and removed it.

We didn't actually do much that night, just sat around in the living room and waited for those knocks on the door. I wanted to watch something spooky, but Rocket Boy found a documentary on PBS about what really happened to the little princes in the Tower of London, so we watched that. A fairly late trick-or-treater was holding a (quite realistic) toy gun as part of his costume, and for just a moment I was nervous. After he and his sister left I thought, should we really be sitting here with the front door open and the storm door unlocked? What if a desperate homeless person shows up? But of course they didn't.

We had lots and lots of kids come to the door, but I had purchased so much candy that we had a lot left over. Smarties and Tootsie pops. I like Tootsie pops, even on Mounjaro, but Smarties don't do much for me. It's going to take a while to empty the bowl. We also still have M&Ms left over from what I bought weeks ago to have around for snacking. M&Ms don't appeal to me anymore, and the kids are not into them either, so there they sit. It's very strange.

I'll stick the Mounjaro report in here. I went up to 7.5 mg this week, and the effect was noticeable.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 234.6
• Weight this Sunday morning (after 20+ weeks on Mounjaro): 231
  

I was so sick this week! For the first three days after the shot I didn't want to eat at all. Thus, the 3.6 lb weight loss. This brings me to 23.6 pounds down in a little over 20 weeks, for an average of 1.18 lbs per week. I like the fact that I lost some weight, but I don't like how sick I felt. I'm hoping this week will be a little better... or maybe in a few weeks I'll feel better. No matter what the results of the election are, this is going to be a stressful week.

In preparation for the storm that's coming in, Rocket Boy and I decided to rake leaves today. (I moved my car across the street in order to work on the driveway.) I guess I should have taken an "after" shot too, but you can imagine it -- just a bare driveway. It's really much prettier with all the orange leaves, but slippery. In deference to my age and likelihood of slipping on things, I swept all the leaves into the compost bin.

It is very hard to rake these little leaves (from the honey locust). I gave up on the rake and used a broom.

We are gradually adjusting to Rocket Boy being here. I vacillate between being delighted to have him here and being annoyed by all the unnecessary things he brought with him. Our house is simply overflowing with his belongings. Of course he can't bring himself to throw anything away, so we keep running into problems. There was one box that was full of twist-ties, I kid you not. I saved a few good ones and tossed the rest. He brought several boxes of tea with him, naturally, but our tea cupboard was already full to bursting. So I reached in, pulled out a couple of boxes of tea I don't like, and tossed their contents in the trash, pushing the teabags down under other garbage so RB wouldn't be tempted to get them out again. He was horrified, but now we have room for his tea.

But other stuff is more of a problem. For instance, he brought with him three glass measuring cups -- a 1-cup, a 2-cup, and a 4-cup. These are identical to my glass measuring cups. "We can give yours to Goodwill," I said. He agreed, but they are still sitting on the dining room table, and in fact, he used one of his the other day and it is currently in the dishwasher.

He brought so much food with him. We've agreed that we'll plan menus based on what's in our cupboards until we get it down to the point where we can actually close the cupboards.

But it's so fun to have him here, to be able to talk to him at any time of day. It makes me so happy when I look over at him each morning, even though we're having some trouble sleeping together in that tiny, uncomfortable bed. Maybe this winter we'll finally bite the bullet and get a new mattress. And maybe Mounjaro will help me get small enough that we fit better. 

The kids, I think, are reacting to his presence somewhat differently. Neither one seems very happy about it. Teen A got very angry at ME on Wednesday, because I wouldn't let him drive our new car to school. I had agreed, the week before, to let him drive to TEC that afternoon, and I had said he could do it again this week. But he thought I meant he could drive to the high school in the morning. I did not mean that, and I held firm. (If I let him do it on Wednesdays, what's to stop him from doing it every day? And besides, I specifically told our insurance agent that he would not be driving to school. Plus, his provisional license means he can't drive anyone else under 18, and I think the temptation to give a friend a ride would be too great.) He stomped off to catch the bus, and when he came home at lunchtime to get the car, he left without speaking to me. After that, he maintained an angry silence for the next few days. I don't think he spoke to me again until Saturday, and even then it was only a monosyllable or two. He did not speak to Rocket Boy either, and RB found this very upsetting. I've experienced Teen A's sulks before and I know they will pass more quickly if I just let them play out. But this may have been a first for Rocket Boy.

Usually he starts speaking to me again within a day or two, but as this sulk dragged on, I did some online research. The expert consensus seemed to be that a child who goes silent feels overwhelmed by the things he wants to say but feels he can't. And I thought, I wonder if this isn't just about the car. Maybe it's also about Teen A's feelings about Rocket Boy coming home. After all, it's a pretty drastic change in his life.

He's speaking to us now, but he's still angry. He hasn't told me a joke since this started. Just now I guilted him into helping Rocket Boy work on the yard for a while. (I also paid him $10, for maybe 15 minutes of work.) I think it was good for them to work together, even briefly.

We'll get through this transition, I think. But I should remember that it isn't easy.

Well, I should probably finish this post up now. I need to go to the grocery store and clean the litter boxes and help the kids with homework and put away the laundry and clean the kitchen. And do something about dinner. November has started and I have many things to get done this month. There are only three full weeks of school before Fall Break, and one of those weeks actually only has four days, due to Veterans Day. I am planning to work on my next middle grade mystery this month -- I finished the October installment a year or two ago, and I haven't had much luck working on November since then. But I got a good idea for it a week or two ago, so I'm going to try to run with that. Rocket Boy starts his new job on Wednesday, so I'll need something to occupy my mind while he works. Of course there's always reading. I started a 614-page biography of Herbert Hoover yesterday. Nothing like Herbert Hoover to put you in a November mood.

Reading post: Franz Kafka in October

Beautiful October is over, so it is time for a reading post. In October I decided to read books by Franz Kafka (1883-1924). Why Kafka? I'm not sure, actually. I just know that when I started this project, his was a name that came to mind right away. I think it's partly because he still comes up a lot. When people want to refer to a terrible, unfair, senseless situation, especially involving government bureaucracy, they mention Kafka. But I'm not sure how many people still read him. And since the only thing I'd ever read by him was "The Metamorphosis," I figured I owed Kafka some of my time.

• Collected Stories by Franz Kafka (Everyman's Library). I decided to begin with the stories, because they say that's how you really get to know Kafka, although I was reluctant. I don't love short stories and tend to avoid collections of them. The edition I found at the library includes 41 stories published in his lifetime and 43 published by his friend Max Brod after Kafka's death. The "stories" range from a single paragraph to more than 50 pages long. Some of them aren't really stories, they're just brief weird descriptions. But the actual stories are pretty weird too. I was surprised to find that I really liked them. After I'd read a few I thought, I'm enjoying myself. I didn't have to push myself to read them, I wanted to read them. The unpublished stories weren't as good -- presumably hadn't been revised as much, plus Kafka hadn't chosen them to be published -- but I liked some of them.
  
  I didn't like his long, later animal stories: "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk"; "Investigations of a Dog"; "The Burrow." But I loved some of the others. "The Metamorphosis" is better and sadder than I remembered. "In the Penal Colony" is chilling. "A Country Doctor" is amazing, as are many of the stories that were published with it. And among the unpublished stories I loved "The Proclamation." It's just a few paragraphs, a page and a half. In a tenement building, someone distributes a strange "proclamation" that encourages people to come and borrow some of his five broken toy rifles so they can join together in some sort of unexplained protest. But as the narrator of the story says,
  

  "Nobody in our house has the time or the wish to read proclamations, let alone to think them over. Before long the little sheets of paper were floating in the current of filth that, starting from the attics and fed by all the corridors, pours down the staircase and there struggles with the opposing current that swirls up from below."

  Eventually there is another proclamation which states that nobody has responded to the first proclamation. And that's the end of the story. Positively Kafkaesque.
  
  
• The Trial (1925). Kafka didn't publish any novels while he was alive, but this is one of three that were published posthumously. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I enjoyed it. The thing about Kafka that I never understood before is that he's funny. I thought this would be a depressing book, but it isn't, even though the main character, Joseph K., gets into a terrible situation, apparently through no fault of his own. We, and he, never learn what he has been accused of, nor how the mechanism of his trial is proceeding, while at the same time, everyone he meets seems to know something about "his case" already.
  
  The whole story reads like a bad dream, with some parts more dreamlike than others. For instance, after he is "arrested," he is allowed to continue with his normal life, living in a sort of rooming house and working at a bank. Then he is summoned to his first "interrogation," his first official meeting in court (weirdly, in a tenement building), but he is not told what time it will be held, nor where in the tenement building it will take place. He finally finds the court in session on the fifth floor, but the "interrogation" is soon interrupted by a sexual assault taking place in the corner. A few days later he is working late at the bank when he hears "convulsive sighs" coming from a storeroom. He opens the door and finds the two men who "arrested" him, being whipped by a third man. The next day he looks in the storeroom again and they are still there. So bizarre.
  

I decided not to go on and read The Castle this month. I could have, but I think I got a good dose of Kafka from these two books. I also think I might someday read it on my own, because now I know that Kafka is fun. Who would have thought? It was as much of a surprise as when I read Moby-Dick a few years ago and loved it. I also want to find a copy of the stories for my collection, but I'm just going to watch out for them, not buy them from Amazon.

Other reading...

After finishing Kafka's short stories, I took a break and read Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, which finally arrived at the library. I updated my September reading post to reflect that. Very good book. She should write more nonfiction.

I also read some spooky books. 

• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay was OK, although most of the spookiness was early in the book. 
• The latest Phil Rickman novel, The Fever of the World, was just terrible and not spooky at all. 
• The graphic novel version of Took: A Ghost Story, Mary Downing Hahn's middle grade novel, was very nicely done, quite spooky.
• The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottir was not really a ghost story, just a few ghostly bits. It was OK.
• And finally, on October 31st I read the last story in The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, edited by J. A. Cuddon. Reading that all month was a fun project, though most of the stories were not that scary. Some were!

October is supposed to be the month to read books from the tall bookcase by the front door, but I just didn't get to any.

In November I need another woman writer and after a great deal of deliberation I've chosen Louise Erdrich. I've already read several books by her (7 according to my master list), but she's written so many that I still have about 26 others to choose from. Reading books about Indians seems to fit with November -- because of Thanksgiving, I guess, and also somehow because of Election Day, and Veterans Day, and because it's kind of a sad time of year. So that'll be November, and I'm also going to try to read a biography of Herbert Hoover. And whatever else comes up.