February doldrums

That's not a very cheerful blog post title. I will change it if I think of a better one while I'm writing this. But I must admit it's accurate, so far. Despite all the chocolate -- and we've already eaten a lot of it -- and despite the Girl Scout cookies that were delivered today (see photo -- this is half of them, with a duplicate box of each waiting in the garage), February isn't feeling very cheery.

Usually I look forward to writing my blog post on Sunday afternoons, but today I'm not feeling the joy. I don't feel like describing my blah feelings.  

I suppose this is just more depression. I don't feel sad, but I'm having more than my usual trouble getting things done. It doesn't even feel like what my mother used to call "iron bands," the feeling that you just simply can't do whatever it is, that you're being held in place by invisible iron bands. This is milder. I think about what I need to do (litter boxes, dishes, finally putting the stupid Christmas tree away), and I think, hmm, OK, and then I don't do it. Any of it.

I don't think it's because I'm tired. I think I have a normal amount of energy, or nearly. When I manage to get out the door for a walk, there's a spring in my step. It's hard to get out the door, but not because I can't move my arms and legs. It's more like I think, hmm, I should take a walk. And then I don't. I do a little better on the weekends because then Teen B (at least) goes with me. We walk to the school and play basketball with whatever ball we can find lying around. Today was excellent: we found three balls. We played for a long time.

I think part of the problem is The Tale of Genji, which I am continuing to slog through. Last Sunday I was on page 494 and today I am on page 850, so that means I read all of 356 pages this past week. My normal reading pace is faster than that, but Genji is not a fast-paced book. OK, wait, I also read the book group book, which was 170 pages, so that's a more reasonable page count. And this means I only have 305 pages of Genji left to read. Only 8 or 9 chapters, depending on how you count. At my usual rate of about 2 chapters per day, I might finish by Thursday. But on the down side, Genji (the character) is dead and I am deep in the so-called "Uji chapters," which are not very interesting. I now know that the first two thirds of Genji are considered more interesting than the last third. In fact, it is believed by some that Lady Murasaki did not even write this section.

But I still have to read it, if I want to complete this Challenge. And so I slog on. And it is true that it is distracting me from regular life, at least a little. I've spent some time reading about Japan and remembering when I was there, 36 years ago almost. April of 1986. Immersing myself in 10th century Japan means I don't have to think about 21st century America, or at least not as much. I still try to skim the New York Times home page every day, so that I'll do well on the Weekly Quiz, but as soon as I see an upsetting article, I'm gone -- and so many of the articles are upsetting.

I didn't do well on the quiz this week. The New York Times is very stern with me: "Your score is below your recent average." Then it tries to get me to read its digest, so I'll do better on the quiz. To me, that seems like cheating.

I am doing pretty well with Wordle, though. Teen B has gotten interested in Wordle, and we have a low-key competition going to see who can solve the word fastest. Here are my results for today:

Wordle 232 4/6

🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Teen B also got it in four tries, but that was because I gave him a hint (there's a double letter in it) and he peeked at my screen and saw that the first letter was an "S." He struggles with it a bit, putting in somewhat random combinations of letters, but today he got lucky -- two of them were words. I looked at his screen and said, "Those aren't words! Why did they let you use those?" and then I looked them up and hmm, turned out they were words. But not words he knows, not even words I know. Anyway.

I'm trying to think of things that happened this week. I saw the orthodontist again on Monday and they took x-rays and photographs. I'm going to have one tooth pulled and then they'll put on the bands. When the orthodontist (who graduated from dental school the year I graduated from high school) looked at my x-rays he said, "Whew, that's a lot of dental work! Root canals, crowns, fillings..." I pointed out that I am old, but he said kids today don't get cavities like we did. These days dentists "seal" kids' teeth so they don't have decay. I know he's right -- when we saw the dentist a couple weeks ago, after a full year, nobody had any cavities. It was crazy. He said he wondered how dentists pay off their student loans these days, with no dental work to do.

So now I'm waiting to hear from my dentist, so we can schedule that extraction. I'm dreading the braces but also kind of looking forward to them. I keep feeling my funky teeth with my tongue, thinking, huh, maybe in a year or two it won't be like that anymore.

We had another big snowstorm, about 10 inches, and wonder of wonders, they cancelled school completely. We spent Wednesday sitting at home. I did go out in the afternoon and shovel the driveway (a neighbor snowblows the sidewalks) and uncover the car, so that I'd be able to drive the twins to the bus stop on Thursday, because it was -12 on our front porch when I got up that morning. Even at -12 (actually it was -10 when we left the house), the twins refused to wear their warm coats. They just wore their dumb sweatshirts. Stupid twins.

I made lovely squash-apple soup on Thursday, but we didn't actually eat it until Friday night. Thursday, Teen B and I went to "WinterFest" at the school. It wasn't very well attended compared with two years ago (they didn't have it last year), but it was OK. The main problem (and the reason it wasn't well attended) was that it was so cold! You could be either indoors or outdoors -- outdoors they had space heaters and a hot chocolate bar, but the hot chocolate bar was a little disappointing because the whipped cream froze and wouldn't come out of the cans. We settled for mini marshmallows instead and hurried back indoors. I felt sorry for the kids who were manning the bar. Indoors there was pizza and a Spanish version of bingo called Loteria. I found it a little difficult to distinguish the words because I am going deaf and because (of course) the caller was wearing a mask! and Teen B found it difficult because he doesn't know Spanish. We went in the gym and played a round of cornhole and then we agreed it was time to go home.

So we had the soup on Friday night instead, but the kids didn't like it! Rotten kids. It's such a lovely soup, too. We ate out Saturday, at Shake Shack -- not worth going to, we agreed, just as we agreed when we went to it last summer but then apparently forgot and went again. Whatever. Tonight we're having the lovely soup again, that is, I'm having it again tonight, and I'll probably make scrambled eggs or something for the kids. But first I should clean the kitchen. Sigh.

This week they have tomorrow off, but not for weather. It's some teacher work day thing. I'm in favor of all such days, so it's fine. We'll get to sleep late for the third day in a row, and then spend more time lazing around with kitties. This photo shows the beautiful Mr. Merlino (aka Baby Kitty) with all his fish toys. The regular fish and the fish skeleton came in a toy can, but I don't know where it is. The fish in the middle is actually a fish taco. Mr. Merlino loves them all.

I won't cook tomorrow night, because I get to eat out at my book group, but I'll cook Tuesday, something full of vegetables that the twins won't like. Also, I should think of something to mail to Rocket Boy for Valentine's Day. I could make Valentine's cookies or brownies or something. Just don't have the energy! But I do have a card for him. Maybe that's enough. I know he'll appreciate whatever I manage to send.

Goodbye, January

Well, we've just about made it to the end of January. In anticipation of February, the chocolate month, I bought a whole lot of Valentine's Day candy at Target last night. I know, I know, I'm diabetic and the kids need healthy food to grow, and nobody needs this much chocolate. But in fact we do need this much, and more. Also, the Reese's hearts are really good.

It's been a very January month, especially the last couple of weeks, with all the snow and cold. More snow is due this week, and some truly frigid cold for a couple of days, to welcome in February and all that. Fortunately, the boys seem to have decided that wearing long pants to school is OK this year, though Teen B still comes to the breakfast table in shorts at least half the time. Teen A currently wears a size men's small in Target-brand exercise pants, so we now own six pairs of them and he only has to wear shorts one day a week, usually Saturday or Sunday. Today he wore shorts to Starbucks, our usual Sunday morning outing (we've started calling it the Church of Starbucks), but changed into long pants to walk to Safeway where he meets a friend to hang out. It's a long walk to Safeway, 1.8 miles according to Google Maps, but he's decided it's worth it. Yesterday he also went there, but then they walked on to their school, another 7/10 of a mile, in order to slide on the ice there. 

Whatever floats your boat. I would not walk 2.5 miles (and 2.5 miles back again) in order to slide on some ice. I can do that just as well, unintentionally, in my driveway.

Speaking of my driveway, it has a lot of ice and packed snow on it right now because I did not handle things properly on Thursday. After the heavy snow on Tuesday I did do some shoveling, but after however much came down on Thursday, I pretended I had a snow removal service and did not go out to inspect the damage until Saturday afternoon, at which point we were in trouble. 

A nice neighbor snow-blows the sidewalks for us, but we have to do our own driveways and walks and whatnot. It is very important to start shoveling as soon as the snow stops falling, not wait two days and then say, "Oops!"

Oh well, at least we didn't get two feet, like the East Coast did this weekend. Just 5.5 inches on Tuesday and I don't know how much on Thursday, maybe 3 inches or so. I hope we just get a little this week, but I haven't seen a prediction yet.

Snow is a good thing -- we need snow -- and so I must not complain. 

I felt a little low again this week. On Thursday, in the snowstorm, I got my hair cut, and my stylist and I got into a conversation about the fires, who we knew or had heard about who lost their homes, what we had given in terms of money or clothes or whatever. It just brought it all back into the forefront of my mind, and I felt sad the rest of the day and all day Friday. The newspaper had a lot of articles about it today and I read some of them. One was a happy story about a couple who had to drive off without their two horses, but later someone found their horses, even though their barn had burned. I think the saddest stories are the ones about people who couldn't find their pets and had to evacuate without them, or weren't home when the fire happened and couldn't get home, so their pets died in the fire. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how I would manage to get the cat carriers from the garage and the cats into the cat carriers, if a fire threatened us. The most likely scenario is that I would get Sillers into a cat carrier, because she's fairly slow moving, but the Baby Kitty would run away and hide and we'd lose him. 

Well. It's good to think about that stuff up to a point, and then I have to back off and not think about it for a while, because it's so upsetting. It's very difficult to hit the right level -- think enough about it to be able to make good plans, but not think about it so much that I get upset.

I'm working my way along through The Tale of Genji (which you can see in the background in this photo), but don't expect a "reading post" any time soon. As I mentioned in my last two posts and will surely mention a few more times before I'm done, the book is 1155 pages long! For a while I was trying to read a certain number of pages per night, but I finally gave up. I'm currently on page 494, which is fine. The book is divided into six parts, with 6-12 chapters in each part. I am midway through Part 3, about to start Chapter 25. Each chapter is very self-contained, and I read that in the long-ago past the book was sometimes published as a series of 54 separate booklets, corresponding to the 54 chapters. 

I find that some chapters are a lot more interesting than others. The less interesting ones can really drag, making me feel as though I will NEVER finish this book, but, for example, I found Chapter 22 to be quite gripping. So I try to pace myself, read a chapter before bed, once in a while two chapters, and then maybe read a chapter during the day as well. Today I've already read two chapters and I'll probably read one more at bedtime. And on we go. I expect I'll finish in about two more weeks, though I'll have to take a break to read the book for the book group (which fortunately is short), because we meet on February 7th. It's really hard not to set Genji aside and pick up something short, just to boost my book count for the month. I'm resisting. I keep reminding myself that reading short books just to boost my book count is ridiculous.

One night this week I had a dream that I was living in 11th century Japan. It was quite terrifying.

As it is the end of the month, I should make some plans for February, or at least for the coming week. In February I would like to...

• Do the taxes and send them off to our tax preparer. She sent out her "organizer" yesterday, so I plan to work on it this coming week.
• Put the Christmas stuff away! Groundhog Day/Candlemas is almost here, so it is time. I took the ornaments and lights off the tree and put them away yesterday, but I still need to finish dismantling the tree. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.
  
• Finish Genji and possibly start my second book for the Challenge. Oh, and the book for the book group.
  
• Go back to my middle grade novel and work on it some more.
  
• Eat a LOT of chocolate (and Girl Scout cookies, which are being delivered on February 13th) but also get a lot of exercise. I did better with walking this week and hope to continue that. Also, I'm still trying to get myself to start lifting weights again. And then there's snow shoveling.
  
• Continue with all the needed medical stuff. I see the orthodontist again tomorrow morning, sigh, and after that I'll probably have to get a tooth pulled, and then a week or two after that the brackets will go on. More sighs. I also see my new doctor -- a replacement for the one I got so unhappy with last year -- in mid-February, and I need to make eye appointments for the kids and probably myself, and then probably the dermatologist again for another skin cancer check, and on and on and on. Also, the twins need their booster shots!

That's all I'm going to plan for now. I have a feeling I need to leave a lot of time and energy for the braces, because those are really going to make a difference in my life. Alternatively, I might be making too much of a big deal about it -- maybe it won't be an issue at all. We'll see. But this week -- orthodontist, taxes, put the tree away, do some reading and writing, and survive another snowstorm. Oh, and eat chocolate. It will soon be February, after all.

A little sunshine

I realized today that it's been exactly six months since my parathyroidectomy (July 23rd, 2021), so that means my scar is supposedly as healed as it's ever going to be. So I thought I'd take another picture of it. Sure enough, just like the doc promised me, it's vanished into my neck wrinkles. Actually, if I look in the bathroom mirror, with the light turned on, I can see a very distinct white line. But as this picture shows, in the right light, the scar is basically gone. And honestly, how many people are going to stare at my neck in a strong light? 

I probably should have made more of an effort to make it disappear -- rubbed vitamin E oil into it, or whatever. I never rubbed anything into it. I just didn't care. Still don't. 

So here we are, January 23rd. A little over a week left of January. I think I can handle it, though it's going to be a busy week. Tomorrow I have a surprising addition to the year's plans and goals: an orthodontia consult! I finally managed to see my dentist this week, kids too, and even though it had been a year since our last visits, nobody had any cavities, thank goodness. Actually, Teen A had a cavity, but it was in a tooth that was about to fall out -- and fall out it did, the next night. So, no cavities. 

The dentist was working alone the day I went -- his receptionist was out, hygienist was out sick, so he was answering the phone and accepting UPS packages and doing the cleanings. I said, "You're going to clean my teeth?" and he said, "Yep. I'm good at it, too." He was OK, my teeth felt good afterwards, but he got an awful lot of water on my shirt. 

Anyway, since it was just me and him, I asked him a lot of questions about my funky teeth, and he took a closer look than he usually does. "Ah, you're developing a crossbite," he said. "Probably need to see an orthodontist sooner rather than later." We chatted about that, and the upshot is that I have an appointment for a consultation with the kids' orthodontist on Monday morning. According to my dentist, I need actual metal brackets, not Invisalign or anything like that. We'll see what the orthodontist says. But I suspect that my life is about to change dramatically. 

Monday night it is supposed to snow, on into Tuesday, and of course, because Life, on Tuesday the twins both have doctor appointments, Teen A at 11 and Teen B at 1. I mapped this all out: I'm going to show up at the school at 10:20, collect Teen A by 10:30, drive across town to the appointment, hopefully arriving by 10:50, have the appointment, drive Teen A back to school, pick up Teen B and drive him across town for his appointment, hopefully arriving by 12:50, have the appointment, drive Teen B back to school, go home, collapse, and wait for them to come home on the bus.

But if we're having a heavy snowstorm, this might not work. I will just have to see how it goes. I hate driving in snow. When it snows, I like to stay home and look out the window, not ferry people back and forth across town like an unpaid, unappreciated Lyft driver.

This past week we had a couple of precipitation events, the most dramatic being the ice storm that took place all day Wednesday. They really should have cancelled school that day, but I don't think our new superintendent understands Colorado weather. The kids were supposed to have their dentist appointments after school that day, but fortunately the dentist moved them to Thursday. However, I still had to pick up the kids, because they thought they were having dentist appointments and thus wouldn't have gotten on the school bus. Driving to and from their middle school in an ice storm is one of those little moments of motherhood that I'd be fine missing out on. 

Things were still terribly icy on Thursday, and then we had a few inches of snow on Friday. It was warmer yesterday and lovely today, supposed to get to 50, a little bit of sunshine in our lives -- but there's still a lot of patchy ice and snow everywhere. Today I parked my car on the street to give the driveway a chance to melt. 

The kids don't have PE this quarter -- it's "Health" instead, which means sex education, drugs, suicide, all the good stuff -- so instead, they're supposed to exercise at home. They have a weekly exercise log that I have to fill out and sign every Sunday. This is a problem when they don't get home until 4:30 and it's snowy and icy out there. The exercise has to last at least 20 minutes to count, and it only takes them 10 minutes to walk home from the bus, so I've tried to get them to go out for a little more of a walk after they get home, but they're not interested. We go for walks on weekend days, but I slow down the proceedings immensely by being terrified whenever I see a bit of pavement that looks like it might be icy. "Mom! It's not slippery! Come on!" and similar comments erupt from the twins every time I slow down to a crawl. 

The thing is, it would be very bad if I fell and broke something! I probably wouldn't be able to drive. I might not be able to cook, take care of the cats, all that stuff (depending on what, exactly, I broke). It is very important for mostly single parents not to break their limbs. So I'm being careful. And on the plus side, slowing down our walks means the twins get extra minutes on their exercise logs. So what if their heart rates aren't going up as much as they're supposed to. I think yelling at me probably raises their heart rates, at least a little.

My mood has improved since earlier this month, which is a relief. For a while there, I thought I was heading down into a serious depression, but now I think maybe that won't happen. The main thing that helped is to distance myself from the fires a little, just force myself to stop thinking about them so much. This Friday was payday, so I donated another $100 to the wildfire relief fund. Just doing that made me start crying again. Also, I got an update from a go-fund-me account that I had donated to, a renter who didn't have renter's insurance and lost everything, including everything for their small business that they ran out of their home, and the person has only received $13,000 ($50 of which was from me). That made my heart hurt too. How can you rebuild your entire life with $13,000?

The kids and I have been reading a (pretty stupid) book called Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, finished it last night, and some of the characters in the book have very odd super powers. Alcatraz (who is a 13-year-old boy) has a grandfather whose super power is that he arrives late to things. This turns out to be very helpful when he is tortured by an evil librarian, because he is able to arrive late to the pain. Later, after the evil librarian is vanquished, the grandpa is able to dole out the pain to himself in small, manageable bits. I'm thinking of the fires that way. I'm not forgetting that they happened and that thousands of people lost their homes and are struggling. I'm doling out the knowledge to myself in small, manageable bits. Or trying to, anyway.

As a distraction, I've started reading my first book for the Classics Challenge, The Tale of Genji, because I figured if I didn't start now I'd never do it. The book is 1155 pages long! And even though it's a paperback, it's so heavy! It's divided into 54 chapters, and I'm trying to read five chapters a day. I started reading it Friday night, but couldn't possibly finish the first five chapters, so I decided my official starting day would be yesterday, and I did manage to finish the first five chapters and also the sixth, giving me a head start on today. I'm on page 129 and I need to read up through page 222 by tonight to stay on track (this is very unlikely to happen). I'm also dipping into books about Japanese literature to help me understand what's going on, plus I found a useful website, ditto.

The point I'm trying to make here is that this is going to be very difficult. 

The book is actually quite enjoyable so far, but the reading doesn't go quickly. And I keep looking at how much is left and thinking OMG, how can I ever read all of that? It's a library book, so I can't keep it out forever. On the other hand, probably there isn't a long line of people waiting to borrow the book. My guess is that I might be the second or third person to have read this copy. Not the first -- the book has been handled -- but I don't think it's been checked out a lot. 

So maybe I'll be keeping it for a few three-week periods (you can renew it twice before you have to take it back). It certainly takes me away from Boulder, Colorado in January 2022, and that's what I need right now.

OK, it's 7:30 pm and I need to finish this post and go make dinner. We're having many-times-leftover veggie lasagna (me) and Trader Joe's chicken nuggets (the twins). Tomorrow I'll go to a real grocery store and get ingredients to make real dinner food (the lasagna was real, but it made too much -- we've been eating it since last Tuesday, I think). The King Soopers strike is probably settled -- they'll vote on the latest offer tomorrow -- so it would be wonderful if I could shop there before the storm. 

Plans for the week: my orthodontia consult, the twins' doctor appointments, getting my hair cut on Thursday, cooking, cleaning the bathroom, working some more on the files and piles, reading The Tale of Genji, and whatever else pops up.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2022

So I think I'm ready to start the Back to the Classics Challenge 2022. My theme this year is going to be Japan and the Japanese-American experience. This is not at all what I thought I would do this year, but one of the categories (listed below) led me to it: #10, "Classic that's been on your to-be-read list the longest."

I looked at that category and thought, hmm, what might that be? Oh, what about The Makioka Sisters? I've been meaning to read that for over 30 years. As soon as I had that thought, I tried to bury it, because I didn't really want to read The Makioka Sisters. There are reasons why certain books don't get read, and often the reasons are valid ones. Not always -- I was beyond thrilled when I finally read Moby Dick in 2019. But often.

The Makioka Sisters -- my copy, that I've had for over 30 years -- is 530 pages of very small, translated text. On the front cover it says, "Japan's greatest post-war novel... A vast and varied picture of the declining glory of a great Osaka merchant family on the eve of war." On the back cover there is a picture of the author, Junichiro Tanizaki (or, more correctly, Tanizaki Junichiro, but since this is an English translation they put the family name last), looking glum. 

I looked at the book and thought about how much I didn't want to read it. But the thing is, I don't usually keep books around if I don't want to read them. Some people who participate in these online "challenges" apparently have stacks and stacks of unread books in their homes. I don't. If something sits in a "to-be-read" pile for too long, I figure I don't really want to read it after all, and I stick it in a Little Free Library. For me to have kept The Makioka Sisters for over 30 years, well, I probably do kind of want to read it. Or to have read it, anyway.

So I thought, OK, I'll read The Makioka Sisters and I'll also read classics of Japanese-American literature, and that'll kind of go with the last two years of reading first Black literature and then Native American literature. But as I started looking around, I realized something: there's very little Japanese-American literature until the last few decades (which wouldn't count, anyway). There are a few books from the 1940s on, but nothing earlier. I considered expanding the category to "Asian-American Literature," but there just isn't any early Asian-American literature of any sort. The earliest I could find was from the 1930s.

So I finally decided to read several works of classic Japanese literature and then the very few books of Japanese-American literature that were published at least 50 years ago. I still feel a little funny about my theme, not sure I really want to pursue it. But the beauty of a "challenge" like this is that it's all for me -- no one's going to come knocking at my door if I don't actually read the books. I think what's most attractive to me about this theme is that it has nothing to do with all the things I'm worried about right now. I'm hoping it will take my mind off everything else.

Like the last two years, I am planning to read the books in the order they were written (mostly), so the category numbers are all mixed up.

Pre-1900

8. Pre-1800 Classic: The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, 11th century. This is THE classic of Japanese literature and I've never read it. Seems like a good place to start. The fact that the copy I found at the library is 1155 pages -- well, at least the type is a reasonable size.

4. Classic in Translation: Five Women Who Loved Love by Saikaku Ihara, 1686. The Tale of the Heike, ca. 1371. Seven of my books are translated from the Japanese, so it was just a matter of choosing one for this category.

11. Classic Set in a Place You'd Like to Visit (real or imaginary): The Narrow Road to Oku/the Deep North by Basho, 1702 (posthumous). So here's the thing. I've been to Japan (36 years ago) and I don't have a great desire to go back. But this book describes a part of Japan I haven't visited. If I were to go back, I would want to see more of the countryside, not the big cities. Also, I'd love to see the Japan of the 1600s...

1. 19th Century Classic: Growing Up by Higuchi Ichiyo, 1895 OR Eight Dogs by Takizawa Bakin, 1841. Weirdly enough, finding something from the 1800s is a problem because there was very little good writing in Japan during that time. What there was is hard to find in translation (and I don't read Japanese, sorry). What I read for this category will depend on what I can locate. Stay tuned.

1900s

12. Wild Card Classic: I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume, 1905-6. A book written by a cat sounds like a good "wild card."

6. Mystery/Detective/Crime Classic: The Honjin Murders by Yokomizo Seishi, 1946. Don't know much about it, but it fits the category and sounds fun. Part of me wants to skip The Tale of Genji and all the rest (especially The Makioka Sisters) and just read this. I'll try not to do that.

10. Classic That's Been on Your TBR List the Longest: The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichiro, 1948. Here it is. Looks like I'll be reading it in July or August. I can hardly wait.

Japanese-American Literature

7. A Classic Short-Story Collection: Yokohama, California by Toshio Mori, 1949. This was actually supposed to be published in 1942, which is why I'm putting it first in this group. The first short-story collection by a Japanese American, set in the 1930s and early 40s.

5. Classic by a BIPOC Author: Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo, 1946. About the internment camps, this is apparently a sort of graphic novel. All my American authors, at least, should count as BIPOC, so it was just a matter of choosing one for that category.

9. A Nonfiction Classic: Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone, 1953. A memoir of growing up in Seattle -- and then the internment camps.

2. A 20th-Century Classic: No-No Boy by John Okada, 1957. Partly about the internment camps, but I think it's more about what it was like after the camps.

3. Classic by a Woman Author: Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida, 1971. Just barely old enough to qualify. Another story of the internment camps, this is actually a children's book, but apparently a very serious, mature one.

The premise involved in this list, that classic Japanese literature has something to do with Japanese-American literature, is quite possibly false. In fact, it seems like it must be false, in which case this list makes no sense. But I think I'm going to go for it anyway. Worst case scenario, I'll read a lot of Japanese literature and a lot of Japanese-American literature and have two interesting reading experiences that have nothing to do with each other.

I have read some Japanese literature in the past (after that trip to Japan back in 1986) and that's why some major authors are missing from the list. I've read Thousand Cranes and House of the Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata, and Thirst for Love and Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima, so I decided not to include any other Kawabata or Mishima books on my list. 

I'm also a big fan of Haruki Murakami, but of course he's too modern for the Classics Challenge!

Finally, I may have some trouble finding some of these books, so I'll try to be flexible. Fortunately our library has rejoined Prospector, so I should be able to request most of these books through that. Or I may spend a lot of money buying used copies. We'll see how it goes.

Resolutions, plans, hopes

It's January 16th, so it's way past time for my 2022 resolutions, despite the fact that I feel unable to accomplish anything at the moment. Yep, I'm falling down into a depression -- though I hope, not unreasonably, that I won't fall too far. I know so much about my form of depression, after some 40 years of living with it. I know the type of things that trigger it and what helps it. It would be nice to have a therapist to talk to, but I think every good therapist in Boulder County is really busy right now.

So I'm just trying to stick with what I know. Eat vegetables, go for walks, don't stay up too late, keep after myself to do things, little things, anything -- don't just give up on everything. Don't dwell on upsetting topics, such as the fire, voter suppression, and what a terrible mother I am. Try to think about what I can do to help the people whose houses burned, not just about how dreadful everything is. Connect with other people, focus on loving the twins instead of (just) yelling at them. And spend time on what makes me happy, like reading and writing.

Those sound like resolutions, actually. But before I talk about them in more detail, let's review 2021's "achievements," very loosely defined.

2021 Achievements

• As I've mentioned before, I read 131 books, the most ever, including 12 books for the Classics Challenge (and winning the $30 prize, which was fun), and four Presidential biographies. I only saw 23 movies (the goal was 26), and watched almost no TV that I can remember, so that's probably why I managed to read so much. 
• I achieved a lot of basic medical goals: got the kids a new doctor, got myself a new doctor (and found a replacement for her at the end of the year), got eye exams and new glasses for all three of us, saw a podiatrist and a dermatologist, started Teen B on his orthodontia journey, got us all vaccinated and me boosted, and survived parathyroid surgery (barely). Every year I hope to lose weight, and almost every year I fail, but this year I lost 15 pounds, probably mainly due to metformin, which I had to start taking due to being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Taking regular walks probably helped too. I was down a little more at one point and I gained a little back, but things seem to be pretty stable for now (I weighed exactly the same this morning as I did on January 1st).
• I didn't work but I saved lots of Rocket Boy's earnings, and I also donated a fair amount of money (not sure exactly how much).
  
• I made a lot of home repair type plans, but almost none of it got done -- only repairs on the rental house. We did a lot for that house, including fence repair, gutter repair, a new over-the-stove microwave, and a new "whole house fan" to help with summer cooling.
  
• With the continuation of Covid-19, I didn't try to do much in-person socializing (except the book group), but I kept in touch with friends via Zoom and through writing letters. I wrote this blog faithfully and I also started a writing project -- a middle grade novel -- though I kind of let that lapse these past few months.

2022 Goals/Plans/Resolutions

OK, so this is a little difficult. I'm depressed, so I'm barely functioning. No, that's not true -- I'm feeding the cats, getting the kids off to school, reading, writing this blog. But I'm dragging myself through all of it. Yesterday I had a zoom call with old friends and it was physically hard for me, even though it gave me a lift to see everybody. I didn't want to talk about my depression -- because there's nothing to say -- and I didn't have much else to contribute. I also was a little snarkier than I wanted to be. One of my goals this year is to try to be kind to people. That is harder to do when you're low, I find. 

But, plans and goals have always been good for me, so I'm going to go ahead and make plans and set goals, using the format that I found rather successful last year, with things divided into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals. Here goes:

My Daily goals:

• Go for a walk or get some other type of exercise (preferably involving twins, at least on weekends). Twice a week this should include lifting weights.
  
• Help/encourage the kids with their schoolwork (most weekdays and at least one weekend day)
• Clean the kitchen (usually mornings, sometimes evenings)
  
• Spend at least 15 minutes cleaning this week's room
  
• Make dinner or otherwise arrange for it to happen (leftovers, takeout, whatever)
  
• Clean the cat boxes (every other day is probably OK too)
  
• Read
• Write (doesn't have to be every day, but a few times a week would be nice)
  
• Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep at night

My Weekly goals:

• Bake something, with a twin's help. Teaching the twins to cook last year went OK for a while and then the grocery store shooting in March kind of wiped me out and I stopped doing it. I thought an easier approach this year would be to bake with them. Haven't done it yet. We'll see whether I can get this started.
  
• Watch a movie with the kids OR go do something fun, per my monthly goal below.
  
• Blog (usually Sunday)
  
• Pay bills, put money into savings, and donate money (Fridays -- the donating and saving money is only the Fridays when Rocket Boy gets paid)
  
• Work on the current home improvement project (see Quarterly goals below)
  

My Monthly goals:

• Decide on a theme for the month, a way to get through it and enjoy it
  
• Make contact with at least one friend or family member: coffee, letter, or phone call are all fine.
• Read the book for the book group
• Read a book for the Classics Challenge
  
• Take the twins somewhere fun
• Work on one of the smaller goals on my master list (which I won't include here; it changes a lot)
  

My Quarterly/Yearly goals:

• Read a presidential biography
• Work on a home improvement project
• Try to be kind to people, including myself
  

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I should have set all this up at the beginning of the month, but it's January and I'm depressed, so no worries. So, better late than never, here we go.

Quarter 1: January through March

• My next President is #20, James Garfield, and I found a book about him at the Bookworm yesterday: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard, who is a wonderful writer. I may have to read a second book, because this isn't a traditional biography, but it's a place to start.
• Home improvement project: Last year my 1st quarter project was the files, and guess what, here it is again. I did make some progress last year, but there's so much more to be done. Plus, I need to prepare to do the taxes. So this is my goal once again. Sigh.
  

Month of January:

• A theme, hmm. It's January -- the theme is stay warm and survive. Do I need more than that? If I do, then how about "appreciate the stark beauty of the winter landscape." Something like that. Only two weeks left, anyway.
  
• I had that Zoom call with old friends yesterday, and I also need to write to two friends who had major losses in 2021. Maybe by February I'll feel like actual socializing.
  
• The next book group book is My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel (because it's set in Chile and one member is going to Chile), but we don't meet until February 7th, so I haven't started it yet.
• I need to finalize my choices for the Classics Challenge. More on that later.
• This would have been a good weekend to do something with the twins, but it's just not happening. Maybe next weekend. Or we could just stay home until covid calms down.
  
• I guess my small goal will be to figure out what to do about Teen B's orthodontia issues. We all go to the dentist this week and he sees his regular doctor the week after. Maybe I can have some conversations. Sigh. Other than that, I can work on applying to be a substitute teacher, which is very complicated because first I have to get a license. I've filled out some of the forms, but I'm dragging my feet on the next step. We'll see how it goes. Probably no huge hurry, since I may be too depressed right now to be a good sub.
  

Week of January 16-22:

• Monday (MLK Day): The kids and I may go see a movie, but we're not sure yet. I need to plan the week's meals and grocery shop (at Safeway, since King Soopers is on strike). The room to be cleaned this week is the office, so I can start sifting through the piles (also my quarterly home improvement project).
  
• Tuesday: Cook something that will have leftovers.
  
• Wednesday: Go to the dentist (me in the morning, twins after school). There's a meeting at their future high school in the evening.
  
• Thursday: Cook something that will have leftovers.
  
• Friday: Pay bills, and since it's payday, donate money and put money in savings.
  
• Saturday: Eat out, maybe watch a movie with the kids. Maybe go do a special activity, if I'm feeling ambitious. If not, don't worry about it. Stay warm.
  

I have absolutely no interest in doing any of this. But plans and goals are good for me, as long as they're not too onerous. Today has been an OK day -- I managed to get the kitchen cleaned, all the recycling that was piling up, and the handwashing, and I did the twins' laundry, went to the library, went for a walk with the twins, and we ate out since we didn't do that last night. I just kept pushing myself along, and gradually things got done. Now I feel tired, with the depression creeping in again, so I'm going to get off the computer, take my shower, and go to bed with a book.

The new year, for better or worse

This year started out so terribly for several thousands of my neighbors, and it's hard to get beyond that. For them, of course, it's impossible. They're living in hotels and borrowed apartments, with friends or family or in shelters. Every bit of news about this is bad: for example, families have been told not to go to their burned-down houses and sift through the ashes looking for anything that might be left because the ash is toxic and even N95 masks won't protect you from it. I think this is kind of ridiculous. We could have another "wind event" next week, and the ash will blow everywhere.

I'm trying to help. I've donated money to two organizations and a GoFundMe account, given away coats and boots, and bought household items at Target for a family. I'm trying to keep my eyes open for opportunities to help. One thing that's amazing is that whenever a call goes out for help, tons of people jump in to provide it. I was going to donate Teen A's old trombone to an instrument drive in Lafayette today, but they got so many responses -- and I feel really down -- so I decided to skip it. I'm sure there will be more opportunities in the future. I may ask his music teacher if he could use it. 

It occurred to me that the closest I've come to this kind of disaster was the floods of 2013 when we lost most of the contents of our basement. We still had a house! but we didn't have a furnace for several weeks, nor did our tenants next door. And we had to deal with insurance companies and FEMA, and the whole thing dragged on for months. So I think about how horrible that was and then attempt to multiply it by 10 or 100 -- or whatever number would be appropriate. I don't think I can really understand how to do that multiplication. And I feel guilty even suggesting that there's a comparison there. 

But I think there is -- it's much less, but it's similar. I remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realized that the Christmas tree skirt my mother made me wasn't salvageable. It had gotten soaked and then sat around for a few weeks until we found it, and it was falling apart and had worms on it. So we threw it away, along with the twins' Christmas stockings and tons of books and papers and other stuff. I can't really remember what all the stuff was. I blocked a lot of that out. I just remember ALL the big black garbage bags full of stuff. These days, when I can't find something that I used to have, I wonder whether maybe it was lost in the flood.

The people who lost their houses in the fire will now KNOW that their stuff was lost in the fire, because everything's gone. I can't get my mind around that. 

OK, so this post was going to be about the new year. It's definitely hard to get 2022 started, with this as the beginning.

I've started working on my resolutions, slowly. I'll probably post them this coming week, or the next. I'm going to do the Classics Challenge again, and I'm working on my list for that -- it might be a couple of weeks before I post that. 

It's hard to gather the energy to make plans. It's hard not to be dragged down by the misery. Someone pointed me toward a good article on CNN, about how terrible our community feels after our terrible year. Because we didn't just have a mass shooting and a disastrous fire, we also had (like everyone else) a pandemic! I went to one of my support groups yesterday, and we have people who zoom into it from other states, just because there isn't much like it anywhere else. Some of the out-of-staters were talking about how the pandemic made their current losses so much worse. And I kept thinking, oh, right, the pandemic. That's actually faded into the background for me, despite its continuing, looming presence, despite the fact that some of my California relatives actually have Covid now -- because of this new disaster. Then a local person in the group would talk about how the fire was magnifying their current losses, and I saw the expressions on the out-of-staters' faces change, like oh, wow, they're dealing with something really big out there.

Oh, and King Soopers, which was just about to re-open our grocery store, 10 months after the mass shooting closed it down, is apparently unable to negotiate a fair contract with its workers and they're going to go on strike. The strike is scheduled to begin January 12th (this Wednesday). Our store is supposed to reopen on January 20th, 8 days later. I wonder how long the strike will last. I'm not going to cross a picket line -- I'll shop at Safeway or Sprouts. But why did this have to happen now? Why can't the corporate offices give up a little bit of profit to make the workers' lives better?

I need to pull myself together. Things are very sad, things are very hard -- but they are not made better by me falling apart. On my neighborhood listserv, people have been screaming at anyone who brings up anything but the fire -- anyone who dares to complain about anything when they still have their house. I think everyone feels like screaming at someone right now. But it doesn't help the people who lost their homes. And it is not necessary to be a martyr because other people are suffering. It does not help them. It would be more helpful to the fire victims if we all bucked up and had a cheerful, positive attitude and thus were able to help out more.

But it's really hard not to be sad.

OK, I can't leave things there. I'm sad, yes. It's hard to start the new year, yes. But I have to at least try, even if it's in a low-key way. Last night, it being Saturday, the twins and I drove to Lafayette to eat out at Chili's. But Chili's was dark. There were no cars in the parking lot. We were just there a few weeks ago! What happened? There seemed to be a sign on the door, but for some reason I felt nervous about parking and getting out. It just seemed so dark. So now I don't know what happened -- were they just closed for one night? Are they closed for good? Did their manager lose their home in the fire? (I know of two Boulder restaurants whose owners lost their homes in the fire; one is mentioned in the CNN article.) I can't find anything online about it. It's so strange.

Anyway, I was so befuddled by Chili's being closed that I suggested we go to McDonald's instead (it's practically next door). Oh, what a horrid meal that was. And expensive! Over $30 for stupid McDonald's food. I don't know why we ever eat out anymore. So in a minute, when I finish this, I'm going to Sprouts to get some ingredients for tonight's dinner. I'm going to make red lentil-sweet potato soup. It's one small thing I can do to make our lives better.

Happy 2022.

P.S. I actually made the soup and it turned out beautifully. Lovely healthy soup full of vegetables and non-animal protein. It also has coconut milk in it which is, hmm, not the greatest, but it's OK. All plant-based, anyway. The twins ate it willingly. And there's plenty to have tomorrow, too.

I'm puzzling over today's news -- the terrible fire in the Bronx apartment house and all the people who died of smoke inhalation. It's so different from our fires. Very little property damage -- I think I read that only one apartment burned -- but so much loss of life. So terribly sad. And there was also the fire in Philadelphia. This year is just not starting out well.

When bad things happen

I don't even know how to write about what happened this week. It didn't happen to me -- we're fine. Just need to put that out there, since we've been getting the usual calls and texts and emails over the last few days asking if we're all right. We're all right.

But oh my god, our community is not all right, and it really hurts to think about it.

So, I woke up Thursday morning to wind. This is not unusual, but I hadn't noticed on the weather forecast that we were going to have wind. I was focused on the snow and cold that was coming Friday, because I was going to be driving Rocket Boy to the airport Saturday morning. Missed the wind forecast entirely. But it was windy when I got up, and when I checked the weather it said we would have gusts up to 65 mph -- which means gusts up to 85 mph or more. They're always off by at least 20 mph, not sure why.

It got bad very quickly, and a gust of about 65 mph took our power out at 8:10 am. The lights flickered, went on and off, and then off for good. Great. We didn't lose power in the wind event on December 15th, so I guessed it was our turn. I turned off my laptop, since it doesn't hold a charge more than a few minutes, and went off to make tea -- except of course I couldn't do that because we had no power. I woke up Rocket Boy instead. 

Our local branch library just recently reopened (after being closed since March of 2020), so the kids decided they'd like to go there to play on the computers in the Teen Lounge, since the library still had power. I said I'd drive them, since it was so windy. I was a little nervous even being outside long enough to get in the car, the way things were whistling down the street. I drove to the intersection of Dartmouth and Broadway -- and the streetlights were out. Oh. Hm. I turned right instead of left and went down to the (non-working) streetlight at Rayleigh Road, where I made a U-turn and came back along Broadway to Table Mesa (where the lights were working). I got the kids to the library and headed home again. Two hours later, when I went back to fetch them, things had gotten worse. I took a different route and there were branches down everywhere, in some cases blocking the streets. I was nervous being out, even in my car. When I finally got to the library, I didn't want to get out of the car, but I went in and got the kids. And when we were driving home I noticed something I'd seen on the way there -- huge brown clouds to the southeast of us.

I thought they were dust clouds.

Made it home somehow, and told Rocket Boy about the "dust clouds." Then checked email on my phone and someone on our neighborhood listserv's asking "where's the fire?"

So then we started reading fire news on our phones. The fire was just a few miles from us, so close, but we were never in danger because of the way the winds were blowing, west to east, never northwest towards us. But it so easily could have been us. We were getting those crazy winds blowing down the mountain right at us. We're across the road from a big grassy field. It could have caught on fire. It could have been us.

This map is from the Colorado Sun. It shows many of the homes burned, though not all. My neighborhood is on this map too, in the upper left corner. Martin Acres. There we are. Not far away at all. One of my book group friends is even closer, in the middle left. Maybe a mile from the flames?

Rocket Boy said later that our house wouldn't have burned because it's made of brick, unlike most of the houses that burned which were probably made of wood. But Whole Foods and Costco and Target weren't made of wood. I found an article which explained that most of the structures burned from the inside out. They were being pummeled by high winds bearing embers, and the embers eventually found their way into air shafts, crevices, maybe a broken window. The contents of the houses caught on fire and then exploded their way out. 

At one point I got a call from our next-door neighbor and tenant. She had a small greenhouse in her backyard and the wind was whipping the covering off it and trying to blow the whole thing away. We all went out to help her, and she and Rocket Boy managed to get everything stabilized with the help of a heavy picnic table.

Rocket Boy had planned to take the kids to the Denver Museum that day. He hadn't been able to do it earlier because we'd been sick, and it was Christmas, and he had to work. Thursday seemed like the only possible day. The museum is still requiring reservations, and they were almost sold out, but we got tickets for 2:40 pm and he and the kids left here around 1:45. (Later I realized that if I had to evacuate, I had no car to do so with, unless I could get the Montero started. Fortunately I didn't have to evacuate.) They had a terrible time getting there and back, because of the fire. They couldn't take US 36, which was closed, they had to go east, around the fire. They drove past burning houses on South Boulder Road. They were a full hour late for their reservation.

On the way home they ate dinner at a Village Inn. I had some cheese and crackers. We lit the Advent candles, which fortunately had a lot of life in them yet, and we found various other candles and lit them too. Rocket Boy worked on the puzzle we were doing, while the kids discovered they could charge their phones from their Chromebooks. I kept checking my phone for more bad news, watching as its power dwindled. We all decided against showers in cold water. It wasn't too cold in the house, in the high 50s. 

Friday morning, I started freaking out. I hadn't had any caffeine since Wednesday morning, and I was feeling it. (We tried to go to Starbucks on our way home from the library, but they didn't have any power either.) My phone was down to 7% and I couldn't find a car charger. Rocket Boy was trying to sleep in, but I made him get up and look for the charger (he found it; we charged the phones). We decided to go to Longmont to deliver his brother's Christmas present (a King Soopers gift card) and eat out along the way. Teen B came with us, but Teen A chose to stay home alone. The snow had started and visibility was very low, probably because the smoke from the fires was mixing with the snow. But we made it to Longmont and ate at something called First Watch, which used to be The Egg and I. Then we went to King Soopers and got the gift card and dealt with all that. Rocket Boy drove home, for which I was very glad, since we had a few near misses with other cars.

While we were gone our power came back on -- I read it in my email first, so we called Teen A and he reported that yes, the house was heating up. That was very lucky, because it got down to single digits that night (and below zero Saturday night). We had a subdued New Year's celebration. Watched a movie, ate snacks. We had 10 inches of snow by morning and spent Saturday indoors because it was so so so cold. (We changed Rocket Boy's flight -- he's now going back Tuesday instead.)

Many of our neighbors didn't have power until today (Sunday). There were so many problems -- so many trees fell on power lines, so many power poles broke in the windstorm. Xcel Energy has been doing a valiant job of fixing everything, but their corporate office, or whoever is in charge of the robocalls they send out, really needs to rethink their approach. On Friday we got 22 phone calls from Xcel. Our home phone, which is no longer a true landline, had died sometime Thursday night, so almost all these calls went to voicemail -- so I listened to them one after the other on Friday afternoon after we had power again. One call would say, "We are aware that there is an outage in your service area. Crews are assessing damage and do not yet have a restoration estimate." The next call would offer a "restoration estimate." The next call would say, "Your power has been restored." The call after that would go back to saying there was an outage. Repeat, repeat, repeat, over and over and over. It was nonsense. We got a call at 11 pm that night saying we might have to hire a private electrician to fix our problem (we'd had our power back for over 8 hours at that point).

I think some people still don't have power, even now. But they have houses! And we have our house (plus the house next door, which our tenants still have). At least 991 families don't have houses anymore. It's just so hard to take in.

So, that's New Year's. In a few days I'll be back to do New Year's resolutions and all that. They may be a little different than usual. I've had some ideas. In the meantime, I'm trying to think how to help. We donated a bunch of old coats and boots, and also $100. It isn't much. I'm thinking Teen A's old trombone might be useful to a kid who lost theirs in the flames. We'll just have to keep thinking of things like that. How can we help? 

What I want, what everybody wants, is a way to prevent things like this from happening. This was the most destructive fire in Colorado's history and it happened so fast. I'm thinking about those terrible floods in Europe this past summer, and the heat dome over the Pacific Northwest. And the tornadoes in Missouri and Kentucky that just happened. And the flooding in New York City in September. All the terrible weather events that happened in 2021. Most if not all were related to climate change. Which means we have so many more such events to look forward to.

Going into 2022 it's so hard to have a positive attitude. I think the only thing you can do is plan to help out, as bad things happen. Of course vote Democratic, of course work to stop climate change, whatever you want to try to do is all good. But I think all one person can really do is try to help. When bad things happen, try to help. Think of good things to do for other people (and for cats, for the Earth, all that). I don't know what else.