What I read in 2024

My goal for 2024, as usual, was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read 122 books, more than twice as many.

Here is a review of what I read in 2024, by category.

Children's Books. I don't read children's books to the kids anymore, but I read a few to myself this year. My favorite was, of course, The Birchbark House, which is a lovely story, but I also really liked Zia, which is a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins and is very sad. And Totoro was very sweet and made me feel like I was watching the movie again.

• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
• Zia by Scott O'Dell
• My Neighbor Totoro (novelization) by Hayao Miyazaki & Tsugiko Kubo, translated by Jim Hubbert
  

Young Adult (YA)/Teen Books. Since I've stopped reading to the kids, I read most of these to myself (except the first, which is the second to last book I read to them). I honestly didn't like any of them much. I don't like this genre. I keep wondering whether I would have liked it when I was a teenager, if it had existed then. I'm not sure. Anyway, my favorite was probably the John Green book, which I have read before. The kids didn't like it that much, though. We watched the movie, and it was pretty good.

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (read to the kids)
  
• I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
  
• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (set in Ridgecrest)
  
• House of Stairs by William Sleator
  

 

Books for the Book Group. My beloved book group continues, even though we have only three members now and two of us are on Mounjaro/Zepbound, so we don't want to eat! I liked several of these, so it's a little hard to choose a favorite. I think I'm going to go with Good Night, Irene, which was a really unusual perspective on World War II. I think the only books I really didn't like were The Promise and Loot. They were both well-meaning books, but they just didn't work for me. Oh, and Rin Tin Tin. So boring, although I learned some interesting things about dogs and dog movies.

• January/February: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• March: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
  
• April: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
  
• May: The Promise by Damon Galgut
  
• June: Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto
  
• July: Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
  
• August/September: Loot by Tania James
  
• October: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
  
• November/December: Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean
  

 

Mystery/Thriller. Often a long list, but this year it was mostly just rereads of Dorothy L. Sayers. My favorite of the new books I read was probably Slow Horses, which was a fun introduction to a new series that now I get to continue reading.

• Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
  
• A Cold and Silent Dying by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• Slow Horses by Mick Herron
• Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• Dead Lions by Mick Herron
• Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron
• Lost Birds by Anne Hillerman
• Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Supernatural Mystery/Ghost Story. I only read a few of these this year. Didn't really like the Tremblay, hated the last installment of Phil Rickman's beloved series. So I guess my favorite was The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, lol. Must do better next year.

• Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
• The Fever of the World by Phil Rickman
• The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories edited by J. A. Cuddon

Science Fiction/Fantasy. Hardly read any science fiction this year. I thought about choosing a scifi writer as one of my monthly picks, but ended up not doing that. The Cherryh book was fine, but at this point in the series she's just phoning it in. Drowning Towers was so unusual (about climate change and the destruction of society in Australia) that I'll say it was my favorite.

• Resurgence by C. J. Cherryh
• Drowning Towers by George Turner

 

Poetry. I planned to read more poetry this year, but eventually petered out. Still, eight books, that's better than usual. I'm going to say my favorite was Walking Gentry Home because it was such an interesting concept, genealogy in verse. I also enjoyed the volume of Pushkin, which I started reading during the month when I was reading Nabokov, and finally finished a few days before the end of the year.

• Tomorrow's Living Room by Jason Whitmarsh
• Feel Free by Nick Laird
• There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1963-78 by Michael Ondaatje
• Seems Like a Mighty Long Time: Poems by Angela Jackson
• The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968 by Louise Bogan
• Selected Poems of May Sarton, ed. by Serena Sue Hilsinger and Lois Brynes
• Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse by Alora Young
• Alexander Pushkin: Selected Poetry translated by Antony Wood

 

General Fiction. A very long list this year, on account of my plan to read multiple books by a different author each month. I liked several of these a lot: Life and Times of Michael K, The Last Night at the Ritz, Austerlitz, Jesus' Son, James, The Trial, The Painted Drum, and The Things They Carried were all really good, and I'm probably forgetting some. Any of these could have been my favorite, but I'm going to put a picture of Jesus' Son here because it probably blew me away more than any other piece of fiction I read this year.

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Martha & Hanwell by Zadie Smith
• Mixed Company by Jenny Shank
• Howards End by E. M. Forster
• NW by Zadie Smith
• Dusklands by J. M. Coetzee
• Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
• Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (again)
• Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee
• Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (again)
• The Pleasing Hour by Lily King
• The English Teacher by Lily King
• Father of the Rain by Lily King
• Foe by J. M. Coetzee
• 1984 by George Orwell (read w/Teen A for school)
• Writers and Lovers by Lily King
• Life of Pi by Yann Marten (read (for the 2nd time) w/Teen A for school)
• But Not For Love by Elizabeth Savage
• The Last Night at the Ritz by Elizabeth Savage
• Toward the End by Elizabeth Savage
• Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes (read to the twins)
  
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
• A Revolver to Carry at Night by Monika Zgustova, translated by Julie Jones
  
• The Apple in the Dark by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser
  
• The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, translated by Idra Novey
  
• Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell
• The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser
• Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• James by Percival Everett
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard (also could be considered a memoir)
  
• Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
• Collected Stories by Franz Kafka
• The Trial by Franz Kafka
• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (read w/Teen B for school)
• The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich
• The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (read w/Teen A for school)
  
• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens
  
• The Chimes by Charles Dickens
• The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens

Christmas Books. I only read one Christmas book this year (I'm not counting the Dickens books as Christmas books) and it was appallingly awful. So I don't have a favorite, and I won't include a picture. I don't want to encourage this sort of thing.

• The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose

Graphic Novels/Memoirs/Whatever. I only read two graphic books this year, and the second was a children's book. It was OK. But The Talk was outstanding and I'm sure it would be my favorite even if I had read several others. Really good book, with the scenes set in Berkeley as a bonus.

• The Talk by Darrin Bell
• Took: A Ghost Story graphic novel by Mary Downing Hahn, adapted by Scott Peterson, Jen Vaughn, & Hank Jones

 

Memoir/Diaries/Autobiography. Looking at this list, I see that I read a lot of books about death and dying this year. I didn't mean to be morbid -- death and dying are just really interesting subjects, especially as one approaches the latter part of one's life (I'm only 64, but I might easily have lived 3/4 of my life already). Although I thoroughly enjoyed several of these books, I'm going to choose the first one as my favorite. The Bright Hour is really a good book (if you can bear to read about a young mother dying of breast cancer). I also especially liked Stay True, which brought back so many memories of my time at Berkeley. And the books by Kevin Fisher-Paulson were so comforting. I read bits of them at night when I needed something to calm me down.

• The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
  
• A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety by Donald Hall
• Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor
• Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son by Anne Lamott with Sam Lamott
• The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride
• Night by Elie Wiesel (read w/Teen B for school)
• Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited by Vladimir Nabokov
• Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu
• Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
• A Song for Lost Angels: How Daddy and Papa Fought to Save Their Family by Kevin Fisher-Paulson
• In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife by Sebastian Junger
• How We Keep Spinning: The Journey of a Family in Stories by Kevin Fisher-Paulson

 

Biography. Now this is embarrassing. I did not read a single biography all year (except for presidential biographies). I guess I could have put the bio of Florence Harding here, but I think it really belongs with the presidential bios. Right after Christmas I read a book about Judy Blume that I thought was going to be a biography, but I ultimately decided that it wasn't one -- it was about her influence as an author, not her life. Oh well. I'll do better in 2025, I hope.

• 
  

 

Presidential Biography. I made it through four presidents this year and they were all interesting. I was surprised to find that I didn't care much for Woodrow Wilson after reading about him. He had many good points, but overall not a very effective president. Harding was a joke: his many affairs, his crazy wife, the Teapot Dome scandal, etc. Calvin Coolidge was a lot of fun, though not a very good president. And Hoover was so interesting -- such a fascinating guy, though again not very successful as president. It's hard to choose a favorite book, but I guess I'll go with Hoover (though I also loved the Coolidge bio). That was an exemplary presidential biography.

• Woodrow Wilson by August Heckscher
• Warren G. Harding by John W. Dean
• The Harding Affair: Love and Espionage During the Great War by James David Robenalt
• Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferazza Anthony
• Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President by Donald R. McCoy
• Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte

 

General Nonfiction. Even with reading all that fiction, I managed to squeeze in the occasional work of nonfiction. Most of these were OK, but I'm not sure how to choose a favorite. I don't think I was totally blown away by any of them. I enjoyed The In-Between (more books about death and dying), and The Ship Beneath the Ice was very interesting. White Sands was a good introduction to a new writer for me (Geoff Dyer) who I plan to read more of. Rough Sleepers was a good book to read if you want to know more about the homeless crisis. But a favorite???? Could be any of those.

• Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith
• The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments by Hadley Vlahos
  
• Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson
  
• Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott
• Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott
• Eating in the Light of the Moon: How Women Can Transform Their Relationships with Food Through Myth, Metaphor, and Storytelling by Anita Johnston
• The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton's Endurance by Mensun Bound
• Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb
• Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West by Wallace Stegner
• The Birds That Audubon Missed: Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness by Kenn Kaufman
• Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story by Dean-David Schillinger
• A Walk in the Woods by Dick Chavey
• White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer
• Love is Stronger Than Death: The Mystical Union of Two Souls by Cynthia Bourgeault
• The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings by Geoff Dyer
• Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People by Tracy Kidder
• The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein

The long vac

Winter break is always a little daunting -- such a nice long break, you think, but you still have to do laundry every day (practically) and figure out something for dinner and clean the litter boxes and all that. And deal with the children, who in their current incarnation are grumpy teenagers. 

So it's not really a break so much as it is a change. I don't have to get up at 7 am, unless the cats decide that I should, and they're being quite reasonable so far. I don't have to help with homework. And there's a Christmas tree in the living room and tins of cookies all over. Otherwise, not much different.

We had an OK Christmas, very low-key. I had struggled mightily with presents, and from the reactions I got I thought maybe I shouldn't even have tried. Oh well, I'll rethink this next year. Teen B was mildly pleased with his new t-shirt (he's worn it once) and his new pajamas (he's worn them twice). He pronounced his new slippers "zesty" and has not worn them. Teen A was not pleased with his soft gifts. He has not worn his new shirt nor his new pajamas nor his polar bear socks. Oh well. They both wolfed down the candy in their stockings, and Teen B has expressed interest in using the German pretzel mix he received (Teen A has pointedly ignored his 12 cans of oysters). Nobody has wanted to play MadLibs or make the new puzzle. Teen A didn't even open the "cat-a-pult" that was in his stocking, much less play with it.

I looked at the pile of paper and gift bags afterwards and thought: huh! What was the point of all that? Again, I must think this through better next year. Maybe we don't need a lot of presents to open. But if we get rid of presents, will the twins even want to celebrate Christmas with us? I started feeling insecure, like I haven't done a good job of instilling Christmas traditions in them over the years. For example, I've never really taught them how to give presents. When they were younger I used to get them involved in choosing presents for dad, and for our next-door neighbor. But these days they don't show any interest in buying or making presents for other people. That is undoubtedly my fault, and it's partly because I'm so lukewarm about the whole gift-giving thing anyway. They haven't had a good model. Rocket Boy is not good at it either. But also I think they're a little selfish, don't want to spend their money on other people. That was one thing when they had no money, but now they get $20/week. They could buy some little gifts for family members. 

Of course, what would they get us? Rocket Boy didn't even get me a present this year. He asked me, rather desperately, what I would like, and I said a new frying pan to replace our two that have the non-stick coating coming off. I said it could be a joint present (since we both cook). So we went to McGuckin's together and bought it (I paid for it), and he put it in a gift bag. I couldn't think of anything to get him, since the house is full of chocolate and tea, and I promised him no more new shirts, since his closet is full to bursting. So on Christmas Eve I typed up some coupons that said things like "Good for one hike in January 2025," "Good for one movie in February 2025," etc., and gave it to him. So lame. And not a very good example for the twins to follow.

Oh well. Next year things will be completely different. We won't be getting used to having Rocket Boy around -- we'll be used to him. The twins will either be even more independent, or they'll be coming back around to us (probably the former). Whatever plans I make after this holiday will be upended by whatever situation we're dealing with next year. I just need to remember to revisit the issue in general. But for this year, I'm still sorry Teen A seemed to have such an unhappy Christmas.

BUT! Yesterday Rocket Boy drove to Longmont to buy a new TV/monitor thingie that will be able to interact with our old VCR. It cost $50 (on craigslist). This means that we can get rid of our old gigantic TV that sits under our flatscreen TV (we kept it so we could watch VCR tapes through it) and I'll be able to see the picture of my ancestors that's been hidden behind it for a few years. And so, Rocket Boy put the old flatscreen TV (which we got for free from a member of my book group) in the desk room, to be a giant monitor for Teen A to play video games on. Teen A had actually requested a giant monitor for Christmas, but I had ignored that request because we have perfectly good monitors and why do we need a new one? Anyway, Teen A now has his "new" monitor (our old TV) and is thrilled. So it's a merry Christmas for him after all and his mood has improved.

Our Christmas ham has been a bit of a disappointment. We didn't start eating it until Christmas day (had salmon for Christmas eve). Teen A took one bite, said yuck, threw the rest in the compost bin, and hasn't been willing to touch it since. I don't know what the problem was -- he won't say. Teen B ate the ham for three nights, but now he says he's done too (we had it again tonight). But the ham's not done! Even though we got the smallest size, there are at least six slices left. I've promised to make something without ham tomorrow, and then I'll probably make my mother's rice ham dish, and then I don't know, maybe soup? Bean soup with some ham mixed in?

Anyway, we won't have ham for Christmas for another several years, I think.

Two nights before Christmas we went to my friend Sally's house and decorated sugar cookies with her (this was part of her family tradition -- her family decorated their Christmas tree with these cookies). She had made two different kinds of chili, and we ate that with her for dinner before decorating. 

I wanted the twins to come with us, and I couldn't think how to convince them, but in the end I just pretended to be a hard-ass, and they bought it -- they apparently thought, oh, Mom's forcing us to come, so they came. It occurred to me that the less you say, the less of a foothold they're able to get in an argument. I just said, we're going, and that was that. And I think they had a good time. They decorated (and ate) lots of cookies. But after that I knew I wouldn't be able to get them to do anything else over Christmas, and I was right about that.

Teen B really likes Sally's cookies. I don't -- I tried one, the green butterfly (that I decorated) and thought it was awful. But he likes soft cookies. I make my sugar cookies as thin and crisp as possible. Not his thing. So he's finished off the Sally cookies and I have (almost) finished off my sugar cookies. I've discovered that Mounjaro doesn't seem to prevent me from eating Christmas cookies, although it prevents me from bingeing on them. Each day this week I've had Christmas cookies for "lunch," i.e., for a snack in between breakfast and dinner.

This is probably as good a place as any for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 230.0
• Weight this morning (after 27+ weeks on Mounjaro): 229.2
  

Yep, that's right. Fourth week in a row with a tiny weight loss, although this was a bit more -- almost a pound. And that's with all those Christmas cookies! I think what did it is exercise. We continue to have this very mild weather, and so I took advantage of it. On five of the days I took good walks outdoors, one day Teen B and I walked around and around Walmart, looking for something that I was too shy to ask a clerk about -- and I had my app turned on, and we walked 1.28 miles just in Walmart! -- and one day I was lazy. But six days out of seven I walked, and I think that's why I lost the weight. I will try to do that again this week (after tomorrow, when we're having a wind event).

Today, Rocket Boy and I went to the Denver Art Museum and saw the Maurice Sendak exhibit. I've been wanting to do this for a while now, even rejoined the museum in anticipation of it. But it's been hard to find a time, and the twins were adamant about not wanting to go whenever we did go. In retrospect, I think they made the right call. The exhibit involved a lot of reading (not their strong point) and trying to push your way past a whole lot of other people in order to examine tiny little pictures up close. I enjoyed it a lot, but they wouldn't have. So it's all good. And I'm glad we finally went.

On the way to Denver, listening to NPR, we heard the news that Jimmy Carter had died. 100 years old, so amazing. If my parents were still alive, they would be 102. So it's like someone from my parents' generation dying, and yet my parents have been gone so long. I remembered how when I used to work for the government, it was a problem when a former president died, because federal employees get a day of leave to either attend the funeral or watch it on TV, and this could be a problem when calculating people's leave balances, especially at the end of the year. I remember our budget analyst saying, "Come on, Ford, don't die!" but he did, on December 26, 2006, thereby messing up all the leave balances. Rocket Boy isn't a federal employee anymore, nor, of course, am I, so it won't affect us, but there are probably many budget people out there tearing their hair out right now.

So, we have eight more days until the twins go back to school. I don't know what we'll do with all that time. I'm going to try to get Teen B to go to a movie with me. There's finally something in the theaters that I think we would both like: "Flow," an animated movie about a cat in a flood. 

He probably would also like to go play mini golf again. But I don't know what else. There's got to be something.

Tomorrow there's that "wind event," so we won't do anything then. I can read, maybe fill in the 2025 calendars (I annotate everyone's), maybe work on my New Year's resolutions. Try to enjoy another day when I don't have to get up early.

Reading post: Charles Dickens in December

December is not over, but the end of the year gets so complicated that I think now would be a good time for a reading post. In December I decided to read books by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). He seemed to fit well with the Christmas season. But when I looked at my master list, I was shocked to realize that the only Dickens on it is Bleak House, which I read with my book group back in 2016. Of course I've read A Christmas Carol, but I've always thought of it as a short story, so it didn't make my list. I've seen dramatizations of some of his works, but haven't read them. I think I always thought I didn't like Dickens, but I don't know what I was basing that conclusion on. So this month I attempted to remedy my lack of Dickens experience.

Here's a fairly complete list of his longer works. I've highlighted in blue what I'd read before this month, and in red what I read this month.

• (1830s) Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers,  Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, 
• (1840s) The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, Dombey and Son, 
• (1850s) David Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities,  
• (1860s) Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend, No Thoroughfare, 
• (1870s) The Mystery of Edwin Drood (posthumous)
  

Yes, I read Dickens all month, but didn't get very far.

• The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club aka The Pickwick Papers (1837). I started with this book because nobody ever seems to read it, and yet I knew it's considered funny, plus I knew it had Christmas bits in it. I really enjoyed it, every one of its 57 chapters, which took up (in my edition) 801 pages! It was as long as a very long presidential biography. And since it was Christmas, and I had a lot to do, I mostly read this at bedtime, when I was sleepy, and the book would put me right to sleep. I didn't finish it until December 23rd. But I did really enjoy it and am very happy I read it. It's funny, it's silly, and the characters are delightful, especially Mr. Pickwick's servant Sam. There's also a "goblin story" that must be Dickens' first attempt at what eventually became A Christmas Carol. The edition I read had multiple introductions, including one by G. K. Chesterton in an Appendix, and Chesterton makes the point that in The Pickwick Papers, Dickens' tendency to be maudlin is happily restrained (because he was trying to make the book lighthearted and funny).
  

  This is the one book in which Dickens was, as it were, forced to trample down his tender feelings; and for that very reason it is the one book where all the tenderness there is is quite unquestionably true. (p. 812)
  

  
  The Chimes (1844). Partway through Pickwick I realized that I wasn't going to get much else read this month, so I took David Copperfield back to the library. I did hope to read a little more than Pickwick, though, so I settled for a couple of novellas. After the success of A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote four more "Christmas stories," none of them nearly as good and most of them not actually about Christmas. The Chimes is about a poor man called Trotty who likes to listen to the bells of the nearby church. On New Year's Eve, when things in his life are looking pretty desperate and he has lost faith in their ability to improve, he climbs to the bell tower, where the goblins of the bells show him what will happen to his family if no one has hope. He regains his hope in humanity and everything magically fixes itself. I was not impressed by this story at all, and in fact kept getting confused by it. Not recommended.
  
  
• The Cricket on the Hearth (1845). In this story, which has nothing to do with Christmas (though it does take place in the winter), a young woman married to a much older man is suspected of cheating on him. Of course it isn't true, and all is well in the end, including another young couple whose love is almost, but not quite, thwarted. And the cricket chirps along. This story was OK, but it was so obvious what was going to happen that I got quite bored with it. Not recommended either.
  

So, what's the consensus? The Pickwick Papers was so much fun that I do want to read more Dickens eventually. I'd like to read David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and Great Expectations and maybe some of the others. Eventually. When I need a break from all my other reading. December actually seems like a great time to read Dickens -- I'll try to remember that.

I read very little else this month, though I did manage to read one modern Christmas book (a silly romantic mystery). Also, Teen A had to read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien for English, so I read it to him, and we finished it earlier this month. What an incredible book. I've been told for years that I should read it, but I thought it would be too depressing. It's really not, it's just very good.

What comes next? 

So 2024 is ending, and 2025 is looming, which means it's time for a new challenge of some sort. I see no signs that the Classics Challenge is restarting (hope the woman who runs it is OK) and I don't really want to go hunting for another internet challenge. Instead I am going to do what I've been meaning to do for a while. 

Each issue of The New Yorker contains a section called "Briefly Noted," where they describe (briefly) four new books. For at least 15 years, maybe more, I've been clipping the reviews that sound interesting to me and sticking them in a big envelope. I didn't do it with every issue, but even so I had many, many little reviews saved. I decided recently to go through them, throw out the ones I was sure I didn't want to read (and the ones I've already read), and divide the rest into fiction and nonfiction. I ended up with something like 500 reviews (which really isn't many, seeing as how the New Yorker publishes nearly 200 of them per year).

So now I have two big envelopes, and my plan for 2025 is that each month I will reach into them and pull out a review of a novel and a review of a nonfiction book. If the books still sound interesting, I'll attempt to get them from the library or whatever, and read them. If the review I pick doesn't sound good, I'll toss it. No fair saying, hmm, maybe another month. It's do or die. I think this will be fun, and it means I'll have the rest of the month to read whatever else I want to read. And in 2026 I can do something more specific and historical, or whatever. But 2025 can be my year to catch up with books published in this century (24 of them, anyway). I'll also continue to read books off the NY Times' "Best of the 21st century so far" list.

Oh, and I'm planning to read biographies of three presidents: FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower. I'm planning to read more than one book about FDR, which is why I'm only going to try to do three presidents this year.

Next week I'll do my usual post about what I read all through the year. And on we go.

Almost here

Christmas is almost here, yet again! And we are basically ready. I had my week of writing and sending cards, that's done. I had my week of shopping, that's done. And this week was my week of baking cookies. It started out well and then became a bit of a slog, even though I like baking cookies. I think I am getting old. By Friday, when I made the sugar cookies, I didn't think I would survive the process (fortunately Rocket Boy helped). And then on Saturday, making the candy cane cookies, I thought my arms would fall off. So old and weak! But my arms didn't fall off and I also made the fudge.

It all got done. And we have one more day before Christmas Eve. I still need to buy some ingredients for our Christmas Eve/Christmas Day dinner (we have the same thing for both dinners, leftovers the 2nd day). A couple of things need to be wrapped. Oh, and I still need to set up my dollhouse. But it's so minor. I feel very relaxed. We might go over to a friend's house tomorrow to decorate cookies that she's baked, as a holiday activity.

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I decided that I wanted to have a ham for Christmas dinner. We used to always get a ham, and then we got tired of it, probably because we don't eat anything like that the rest of the year. So I don't know why I suddenly wanted a ham again this year. Maybe because I'm supposed to be eating a lot of protein and it's so hard to get enough from cottage cheese. Maybe because a ham, even a very small one, means dinner is taken care of for at least three nights. I know we'll get tired of it and everyone will say "no more ham!" and then we won't have it for a few years. And that's fine. But we're going to have it this year.

Anyway, since we always eat out on Saturdays, Rocket Boy suggested that we go pick up the ham and then eat out somewhere near there, killing two birds with one stone. We used to always eat at the Chili's that's in the same strip mall, but Teen B has gone off Chili's, so we looked for other choices. Hey, there's a Black-eyed Pea right near there. I didn't know that chain even still existed, at least in Colorado. But apparently it does. So we decided to go there. First we went to the Honeybaked Ham store. It closes at 7 and we got there at 6, in case we had to stand in a long line. But I guess four days before Christmas is too early (or is the chain in bad shape?). There was almost no one in the store. We got a little ham, and some rolls, and a blueberry coffeecake for Christmas morning. And then we went to the Black-eyed Pea.

I hadn't been in a Black-eyed Pea in many years, probably since before the twins were born. So I'd kind of forgotten how it works. When the waiter asked if we'd like to start with some rolls, I misheard him and ordered a fried pickle appetizer (Teen B loves fried pickles). After the waiter left, looking a little puzzled, my family told me what he'd actually said. "I'm sorry!" I said, putting my head on the table in shame. Deafness is embarrassing. Then another waiter brought the people next to us some rolls. "See, Mom, we could have had that," the twins pointed out. Fortunately, when our waiter came back with our drinks, Rocket Boy asked him if we could have some rolls too. So we had rolls and fried pickles and tons of other food, besides. I ordered the vegetable plate, which means you get to pick five of the sides listed in the "vegetable garden" portion of the menu. One of my choices was a Caesar salad. They brought that first -- a huge salad, plenty big enough to be my dinner. But I still had four more things coming. Teen A ordered a stuffed potato AND green chili mac & cheese. The waiter misunderstood him, probably because most people don't order two entrees. But after Teen A finished his massive stuffed potato, we asked the waiter if he could also have the green chili mac & cheese, and pretty soon it arrived too. Huge quantities of food. RB had brought a large to-go container and we filled that up, but we still needed the waiter to bring another container for the rest of our leftovers. 

I ate too much of my food in the restaurant, more than I should have, and by the time I got home, I wasn't feeling great. Rocket Boy and I tried to watch the special features on our latest Christmas movie ("Rare Exports"), but I kept falling asleep. Finally I decided to feed the cats and go to bed. But when I got up, my stomach heaved. Oh no. 

To make a long story short, I didn't throw up, but I was sure I was going to. I could feel this massive amount of food in my stomach and my stomach rejecting it. Also, I couldn't stay awake. Finally I told RB I was going to bed and I would probably wake up in the night and throw up. But I didn't. I woke up about 9 hours later feeling great. Sometimes you get lucky.

This is probably a good place for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 230.4
• Weight this morning (after 26+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.0
  

Third week in a row with a tiny weight loss. I thought I was going to do better this week, because I exercised more than usual. I took three good walks, and on another day I did a stretch video. So, four days out of seven, on a week when I had all those cookies to bake. It's true that if I hadn't eaten so much at the Black-eyed Pea I probably would have been a little lighter this morning. But it's OK. Honestly, if I could lose .4 lb every week, I'd be thrilled. We'll see how this week goes, but I am going to continue trying to exercise as many days as possible and see if that helps.

Since I finished making the cookies yesterday, we decided that today would be a good day to take Rocket Boy's brother his cookies. Rocket Boy also wanted to go for a hike, and I said that sounded good. He also wanted to go out for lunch, and I really didn't want to do that, after last night, but he loves to eat out, so I agreed. I skipped breakfast, just had Starbucks with the kids, and we drove to the First Watch restaurant in Longmont and had a late lunch (said kids did NOT want to go with us). Then we went to Ralph's apartment. It was as awful as always. The low-income apartment complex is quite pleasant, but his apartment... He was wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt and boxer shorts, looking ancient and weird, listening to what he calls Krishna music, and the air was full of incense. Mysteriously, there were seven pairs of shoes on the floor (I counted), along with piles of boxes holding who knows what. We gave him the plate of cookies and a King Soopers gift card. He thanked us and gave RB a Krishna calendar. RB didn't seem to want to leave. I was coughing from the incense and started saying, "Well, we should be going," but RB didn't pick up on it. I think it was the Christmas spirit, that feeling of loneliness and sadness and memories of childhood. This is his brother, after all, all that's left of his family of origin.

But we did finally leave, and we drove to Sandstone Ranch, an open space park on the east side of Longmont where neither of us had ever been. There was a feature about it in the paper this morning and I thought it would be fun to explore. It was fun. We took the loop trail, including the overlook offshoot, and it was just under a mile. There were several other people there -- I was glad the place does get used, since it's very nice. The trail goes through a natural area (no dogs allowed), but ends up at the old mansion that the guy who moved here in the 1860s built out of sandstone. So a neat combination of nature and human history.

Rocket Boy is having a hard time adjusting to the twins being teenagers. He wants them to be little boys, always happy to go on trips with him to explore new places. I feel bad for him. I realized that the last couple of years, almost every time we've seen him we've been going on a trip to Arizona or Yellowstone or whatever. And so of course the boys have been willing to do things with us, because we're on a trip. But in regular life, they prefer to do their own thing. They don't want to go out and about with their boring parents. This breaks Rocket Boy's heart. 

I've reminded him a few times that I warned him about this. "I told you that you needed to come back sooner!" But the pleasure of "I told you so" gets old. Mostly I sympathize! I wish they were still little boys too. Just last night, when I was feeling sick, I was reminiscing about when they were toddlers. When I felt myself needing to vomit, I would quickly put my hair in a ponytail. The twins saw me doing that a few times and then when they felt sick they asked me to put their (much too short) hair in ponytails too, like they thought that was a requirement for vomiting. Funny little boys.

What I think RB and I need to do now is remember how to enjoy each other. Not feel bad when the boys don't want to come along. We met in 2000. The boys were born in 2008. So, for seven and a half years, we had fun together. I think we can learn to do that again! We'll have to -- or we'll be miserable. Teen A at least is going to move on as soon as he can. Teen B might stick around a little longer, but eventually he'll go too. RB and I have the rest of our lives to spend with each other. We need to get used to that. Going on a hike together was a good start. We had fun, and at the end of it, Rocket Boy acknowledged that he had enjoyed it and that sometimes it was nice to do things without the twins.

I can't remember much else about the week -- it's just a blur of cookies. The boys took their finals, with some successes and some failures. Teen B ended up with 3 As and 3 Bs, which is fine. He blew his math and history finals, but still ended up with Bs in both classes. Teen A ended up with 4 Bs and 2 Cs, which isn't great, but it's what he deserved, based on effort. If he wanted better grades, I think he could achieve them. It drives RB crazy. I tell him to let it go, it's their life.

Almost forgot about the stress of the Continuing Resolution debacle. For a while there, after EM started meddling, it really looked like Congress wasn't going to pass a CR, and we would have a shutdown. We've gone through this many times before, first while I was a government employee, here in Boulder, and then while Rocket Boy was (at China Lake and in St. Louis). But this was the first time we'd gone through it with one of us working as a government contractor. Employees always come out of shutdowns in good shape -- you get some time off and then you get all your back pay. Contractors, well, that's a different story. Depending on what his contracting firm wanted to do, Rocket Boy could have been laid off. He could have needed to file for unemployment. He almost certainly would not have gotten any back pay, ever, even if he was able to go back to work at the end of the shutdown. So all of a sudden we were looking at a big loss of income. At Christmastime, right after I just gave away a lot of money to charity. My hatred of the Muskmelon grew by leaps and bounds.

But then they managed to pass the CR. And on we go. It was a taste of what's ahead. We must be ready for anything.

Oh, I know one other thing that happened this past week. A flock of magpies came to visit! On Friday afternoon, Sillers was looking out the front window, seemed very interested. And then we heard what sounded like a tiny knock at the door. Rocket Boy went to the door and opened it, but there was no one there, just a magpie on the lawn. "Did the magpie knock?" I asked. RB didn't know. He had a medical appointment, so he left to drive to Superior, but I kept looking out the window. "There's another magpie," I said to Teen B, who was not interested. "And another! And another! There are EIGHT MAGPIES on our front lawn! I couldn't resist, I opened the door. The magpies flew up into the tree and then across the street. But for a brief span of time, there were eight magpies on our front lawn.

Later, when RB returned, I told him about the magpie invasion. "They were pecking the ground all around the tomato plant pot," I said. "I don't know why. No bird has ever been interested in that area before." "It must have been the rotten food I threw out there," RB said. This is a thing he does, that annoys me. When there's something icky that needs to be disposed of, and it seems too liquidy for the compost bin, RB throws it on the lawn. "I WALK on that lawn," I tell him. "I don't want to step in that goop." But this time, his behavior led to EIGHT MAGPIES coming to our lawn, and one perhaps even knocking on the door. I decided to forgive him, this time and maybe every other time.

Magpies on the lawn. Could Christmas get any better?

Cruising along toward Christmas

So, it's December 15th, 10 days before Christmas, and I am feeling totally on top of things. I'm staying on schedule, the schedule is bearable -- it's all good. But in an email this week, my older sister said she wasn't finding any joy this Christmas (due to the election results and their aftermath). And I thought, joy? Why would anyone feel joy at Christmas? Christmas is just a lot of work. You try to make other people happy, you go through the motions, you respect traditions -- but joy?

But yeah, joy. I mean, why am I going through all this nonsense if not for the hope of a little joy? No one (other than my immediate family) requires me to do all this stuff. I'm doing it because I feel an intense need to do it. And fulfilling an intense need should bring something like joy, right? Maybe? I think usually what ends up happening is that I feel intense nostalgia for times gone by. Which is a kind of joy. A sad joy.

Another thought: One of the things that people like me hate about Donald Trump is his total lack of respect for this country's traditions. He appoints people with no experience or skills to important jobs, he breaks rules, he spits in the face of long-standing tradition. Observing the traditions of Christmas feels like one little way to oppose his nonsense. Maybe?

***

We got the German cards mailed this week, so cards are 100% done. The Christmas tree is up and has lights on it -- I will work on ornaments today and through the week as necessary. I shopped all week, mostly fruitlessly, but I did it, and so shopping is done (mostly). I don't have anything for Rocket Boy, so I will probably go out again at least once. But the bulk of it is done. This is how the shopping week went. 

• Monday: the Flatirons Crossing mall. Spent two hours walking through it, bought one present for each kid. Serious waste of time, but at least I did it and I know there's nothing there that I want to go back for.
• Tuesday: Barnes & Noble (walked around the store for 30 minutes, bought nothing); Target (bought a couple of things); Trader Joe's (bought a couple of things, plus some groceries); World Market (bought a couple of things). A lot of driving -- well, mostly a lot of parking -- and a lot of bother, with some success.
• Wednesday: late start day, book group day, not really enough time for a big shopping trip before the kids came home. So, in the afternoon, Teen B and Rocket Boy and I went to Pearl Street together and bought calendars at the Boulder Bookstore, plus then we walked way down the mall to Rocket Fizz and bought 8 bottles of weird soda (from Fitz's and the Indian Wells Brewing Company) just for fun. The kids drank all the soda within two days. (This is why I don't normally buy soda!)
  
• Thursday: JoAnn's, Grandrabbits, and McGuckin's, spent a couple of hours total. I bought several things, but mostly things for me, decor and such. It's OK. It was fun. At JoAnn's, I was wandering around not picking anything up, and then I spoke to myself sternly (and silently): just choose something. You can afford it and once you choose one thing, it'll be easier to choose others. So I did, and it was. This was especially true at McGuckins, where I ended up with about 15 things in my little cart. Not junk -- things I'll eventually use, like candy canes and poopourri and a notepad. I'm just not much of a shopper and I needed some encouragement to start shopping.
  
• Friday: I was mostly burned out by then, but I did go to King Soopers and get some gift cards.
  

All the presents are in bags stuffed in my closet, and I don't have a clear sense of what all I bought. I just know it isn't much. This coming week I will try to get things wrapped and then I'll know for sure. The main thing I know is that I'll need to wrap using our largest gift bags and lots of (endlessly reused) tissue paper, to make the presents look more impressive than they are.

Tuesday was Colorado Gives Day and so I gave away a bunch of money. I gave to Hillside School, three Humane Societies, and a couple of organizations in Park County (where our cabin is) that help keep seniors in their homes, provide mental health care and a food bank, stuff like that. I still have to make my yearly donation to Mission St. Louis, mustn't forget that one. I tried to get Rocket Boy interested in the donations, but he wasn't, really, and I felt slightly guilty about giving away all this money that he had earned. Especially since he had a phone call with his boss that morning and she basically told him to stand down and stop bothering the people at the agency where he's a contractor. If he has nothing to do, don't worry about it. That does not seem to bode well for his continuing employment there. But it's OK. If he gets laid off, we have other options.

The main thing I got out of the week of shopping was exercise! I didn't use my walking app -- really should have, then I'd know how many steps I took -- but I know I walked and walked and walked. I decided to keep it up after I finished shopping, and I took my normal walk on both Friday and Saturday. It felt good! I am going to try to continue this coming week, since our weather is supposed to be mild. If I leave for my walk by 4 pm, it won't be dark by the time I get home, half an hour later.

This seems as good a time as any for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 230.8
• Weight this morning (after 25+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.4
  

So, once again a tiny weight loss (.4 lb), but a loss is still a loss. I was really hoping for more, because most days this week I weighed 229 or so. But we eat out on Saturday nights, so my weight always goes up a little on Sunday. It should even out, over the weeks. The bottom line is that I am down 24.2 pounds in 25 weeks, and I'm happy about that. And I'm still trying to figure out the clothes problem! One of the days, I think Thursday, the pants I was wearing were so loose that they kept falling down as I walked through stores. I kept stopping to hitch them up, which is not a good look. I think I need to go through the pants in my closet again, try them all on, put away the ones that are so loose they look awful. I may need to get the boxes of clothes down from the closet again, pull out some pants I thought were too tight. The current situation is ridiculous.

So that's a nice problem to have. And I think it was all the walking I did this week that really made the difference. Must walk more.

***

This was a less busy week, which was helpful since I had to do all that shopping. On Tuesday night, Teen B, Rocket Boy, and I went to the choir concert at the high school, which I enjoyed greatly. Having been in my high school choir, I just love choir music. I think my fellow attendees were less impressed, although Rocket Boy gamely said it was very nice. I'd really like to go to the choir concert at the other high school this coming week, but I don't know. Maybe Rocket Boy would like to (be willing to) go with me.

Wednesday my book group came here, and that was lovely too. Rocket Boy was beside himself with worry about the state of the house, but I tried to ignore him. We got the card table cleaned off (the tree wasn't up yet), I vacuumed, I cleaned the bathroom, and I baked some chocolate peppermint bread (a Trader Joe's mix). AND we even took that trip to Pearl Street the same day. There was time for everything. It was all fine. And it was NOT necessary for Rocket Boy to throw a fit. But what can I say. He has this issue about people coming over. Realistically, it helps give me a little push to do more cleaning, and that's a good thing.

None of us liked the book (Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean). All of us agreed that it would have been much better if the author had focused more on the dog and less on the promoters of the dog. And chopped 100 or so pages. It is unusual for us to agree so thoroughly on a book! We didn't spend much time talking about it. We talked about our families and Christmas preparations and Mounjaro/Zepbound. I love my book group, even though we are down to three people. Next month we are going to read a mystery about a midwife in 1789 Maine. I am currently #49 out of 62 on the hold list, so that's not looking good. I think I may have to buy this, but since we're not meeting until January 15th, I can probably wait a while before doing that. I'll revisit the problem in January.

***

This coming week the kids have finals, so it's a weird week. Teen A has finals on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. He'll be free every afternoon. Teen B has finals Monday morning and afternoon, Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning. Neither one is interested in studying, which freaks Rocket Boy out. I'm spending a lot of time trying to calm him down.

I'm trying to find ways to enjoy the season. Usually I read Christmas books, but so far this month I've only read one (The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose) and it was DREADFUL. I mean, so bad I wished intensely that I hadn't read it. I just looked at GoodReads, and everyone there seems to think it's delightful. It isn't.

I've had more luck with Christmas movies. Every year I read that "Die Hard" is a good Christmas movie, but I'd never seen it. This year I got it from the library and Rocket Boy and I watched it. I thought it was pretty good! I mean, ridiculous, and violent, but fun, especially since it came out in 1988, which is a long time ago, and the datedness of it was interesting. Rocket Boy had seen it before, but he's always willing to watch movies again. He did not like it, but that's OK. Then this week I got "Office Christmas Party" from the library and we watched that. Again, I thought it was pretty good and RB did not. In fact, he was horrified. It's extremely raunchy, and I think he doesn't have much experience with raunchiness, seeing as how he mostly watches film noir from the 1940s.

I've put holds on two more Christmas movies at the library. The kids may or may not watch them with us, but RB and I can enjoy them.

I need to get off the computer and go decorate the Christmas tree in a minute. But what I'm really enjoying this year is decorating the spider web on the front porch. I found some little plastic creatures at Grandrabbits (a praying mantis, a ladybug, a bee, a butterfly, etc.) and I've attached them to the web. Maybe there'll be something in our ornament boxes that would be good too.

The other thing I still need to do today is plan the Christmas cookies. I'm going to start baking tomorrow and I've already promised Teen B that I'll make peppermint meltaways first. But I need to choose the other five batches, one of which I will make each day this week. I'm really looking forward to this week of baking. It will be a chance to commune with my mother and grandmothers, all of whom look over my shoulder as I bake cookies. Possibly my favorite part of the season.

***

Well, the day didn't turn out quite like I planned. Rocket Boy needed to go to McGuckin's, so I went with him, and we bought our Christmas frying pan, in addition to some other needed items. When we got home, Teen A wanted to go out, so RB taped up the back bumper of the Prius which had come loose. Then Teen B needed to record his band final IN PRIVATE, so RB and I left again and drove to Louisville, where we hung out in Paul's Coffee & Tea for 45 minutes, killing time. We got home again a little after 5 pm, but Teen B wasn't done, so we went to the grocery store (and got into a fight in the parking lot over RB's fondness for (and my intense dislike of) plastic bags). NOT the peaceful Sunday I had envisioned, although hanging out at Paul's was kind of nice. I didn't get to take a walk, but the wind is terrible today, so it wouldn't have been a very fun walk. It's OK. Now it is 6 pm and I am going to finish this post and go do some of the things that haven't gotten done yet (breakfast dishes, litter boxes, putting away the laundry). I have not yet hung a single ornament on the tree. Dinner is leftovers, so that's easy.

The Christmas season is tiring, no matter how well you plan. But we're doing OK. And tomorrow I get to start baking.

Busy December doings

The first week of December is over (see how my weird little German Advent calendar has 8 windows open?) and I feel very on top of things. Last week was card-writing week, and I got 46 written and mailed, plus one we'll give to our next-door neighbor with a plate of cookies, after I bake the cookies. 

All that's left is the German cards. We send three cards to the German relatives and those take a while because we write them in German, which neither of us knows very well, despite Rocket Boy's years and years of study (and my year or two of study). First we have to stress about them for a while, then very slowly and painfully (with some help from Google Translate) we write them, then we feel bad about how lame they are, and then we have to go to the post office and get special stamps, and finally we send them.

I enjoyed the (English) card-writing process -- it didn't feel like drudgery. I broke it down into steps, and there are a lot of steps: (1) order the stamps, (2) buy the cards, (3) draft the letter, (4) get RB's approval, (5) make the copies at Kinko's, (6) finalize the list of recipients and print out a hard copy, (7) mark on the hard copy who gets which card, (8) pull out 10 cards at a time and put stamps and return address labels on the envelopes, (9) write the addresses on the envelopes, (10) write those 10 cards, and continue back and forth with envelopes and cards until they are all done. Oh, and (11) make Rocket Boy sign them too, 10 at a time. And then (12) go to the post office and mail them.

There were only one or two cards that I had to pause over, think about what to write. One friend of Rocket Boy's, in his 80s, has been a problem for a few years: we haven't heard from him in a while, though RB did call him a few years ago. Once or twice our card to him has been returned by the post office and we've had to search for a new address. Last year it didn't get returned, so we had hope that this year's card would get to him, but first, just to be safe, I googled him. Whoops -- here's an obituary from January 2024. Oh well.

I know this is going to happen more and more, as we get older and our friends and relatives get older. Unless we suddenly make some new (younger) friends, our list will shrink. It's OK, it's life.

***

It was a busy week, in general, with some sort of activity every day.

• Monday: Teen A came home from school at lunchtime and I took him to his eye appointment at noon. He's doing well with his contact lenses, and we went ahead and ordered a bunch more (he has to use a new pair each month).
  
• Tuesday: Baby Kitty got his nails trimmed at 1:45 pm and Teen B got his hair cut at 5:30 pm, after which we went to the boba place nearby. According to the FlyLady, December is pamper month -- you're supposed to give yourself little treats every day, as a way to not get frazzled by all the extra work that the holidays cause. So I got myself a mango boba, which was good, but then I was too full to eat Rocket Boy's dinner (mahi mahi burgers). I just had some salad instead.
  
• 
  Wednesday: the wreaths had come in (band fundraiser), so I went to pick ours up around 5 pm. It's hanging on the front porch now, looking a little lopsided, next to the Halloween spider web which is still up (complete with spider).
  
• Thursday: I went in for my 3-month blood tests in the morning, and in the afternoon Rocket Boy went to Golden to attend the holiday party of the agency he's working for as a contractor.
  
• Friday: I got my Covid shot at 2 pm (the new Novavax shot), and at 5:30 pm RB and I left to drive 40 miles south during rush hour to attend the holiday party given by his actual employer, which was held at TopGolf Centennial, a very very weird place (see below).
  
• Saturday: RB, Teen B, and I went to the library for the annual holiday harp concert, which was very lovely as always. My favorite piece was "Tame Her When the Sna Comes," which we've heard them play before. We skipped the Parade of Lights in the evening, though. I was sorry, but the kids weren't interested, so we didn't push it. Another year RB and I can go alone.
  

A little more about that holiday party... I was kind of excited to go to it, since I haven't had the opportunity to go to a work holiday party in many years. I suppose the last one would have been in 2018, when I was a research assistant. I can't remember where we went that year, out to dinner somewhere. Brasserie Ten Ten? It wasn't very good, as I recall. By December 2019 I had quit my job, and after that my only chances to go to holiday work parties would have been with Rocket Boy in St. Louis, so that obviously didn't happen.

Since the party was at a golf place, we knew we shouldn't get super dressed up, but at the same time, it's a holiday party, so you want to dress up a little. I thought I'd wear one of the sweater sets I've recently been able to fit into, but when it came time to get dressed, I waffled. I decided to wear my purple velvet sweater instead (something else I haven't fit into in years) with a purple t-shirt, but when I put it on, the combination looked frumpy. The main problem was that my pants were too big and made me look huge. So I poked around in my closet and found my one pair of non-sweatpant black pants. They were too tight last year, but this year they were loose. And then I pulled a dark green cowlneck sweater out of the closet and decided to wear that. It's stretchy, so it was OK, even though big.

I cannot remember a time in my life when I had this problem: all my clothes a little too big. Yet, I must have -- I've lost weight before. I lost 50 lbs the year after the twins were born. But I don't remember... Anyway, I haven't lost enough weight to start buying new pants -- for instance, today my stomach was bloated and sticking out (more on that below). But hmm, maybe start thinking about it...

The party itself, when we finally got there (traffic was terrible) was really weird. At the golf place we were directed to go up a steep flight of stairs and then to walk "all the way to the right." What we were walking past was a long series of "bays," open to the air and overlooking a huge "green" with different colored areas. The bays consisted of low tables and couches, and beyond each one was a little putting green sort of thing and a lot of consoles. You were supposed to sit and eat and drink, and then one at a time people could go up and hit golf balls out into the air. I didn't try it, but Rocket Boy did.

We introduced ourselves to RB's boss (who he had only spoken to on the phone before), ordered drinks (Sprite and an Arnold Palmer), and then found a place to sit. I noticed an older couple sitting alone looking sad, so I asked them if I could sit in their bay with them. It was a good choice. I think they were about our age, and after several false starts, we managed to have a conversation. The background music was terribly loud, so "conversation" is maybe a little too generous. We shouted at each other for a minute or two, and then took breaks. They turned out to be Republicans, so that was a little worrying, since we obviously weren't. But it's my goal these days to find ways to connect with Republicans (since I refuse to believe in the narrative that says half the country hates the other half), and I did my best. And we ended up getting along fine. It's all about staying off politics and not mentioning Donald Trump.

There were trays of appetizers all over the table, and we sampled those. Chips, dips, veggies, fruit, that sort of thing. I ate some carrots with a crab-cheese dip. For dinner there was a buffet, not very exciting. I had some salad, some roasted veggies, a little bowtie pasta with a cream sauce, and a roll. There was also chicken and beef. Dessert was donut holes, which you could inject with Bavarian cream, chocolate sauce, or raspberry sauce. Very messy. But it was fun. I'm glad we went.

***

Two other mildly interesting things happened this week. There's been a trailer parked across the street from us for a week or two, and we've been puzzled by it. It was big, and a little junky looking, and when we backed out of our driveway we had to be careful not to hit it. Just kind of annoying. We couldn't figure out who it belonged to. Anyway, Thursday evening, while Rocket Boy was away at his other work party, a tow truck came and took it away. There was a car with a City of Boulder sticker on it parked behind it too, I think Parking Enforcement probably. Teen B and I watched through our front window with great interest. If Rocket Boy had been home, he would have gone out and talked to them, but I was shy.

Friday was mess day: we discovered that Sillers, overnight, had vomited and pooped all over the living room and dining room, and was continuing to do so that morning. So I put her outside on the patio while we cleaned. We washed a couple of rugs, sponged off others, sponged off large areas of the floor, and in general had a fun time. I had just vacuumed everything the day before, so I recognized the accidents as brand new. Someone on the neighborhood listserv mentioned that a bobcat had gotten one of their chickens that morning, so I brought Sillers back inside. But by then her problems seemed to be over. I didn't feed her until that evening, and she hasn't had any trouble since. Must have eaten something weird (she loves plastic, so it could have been something like that).

Also on Friday, our next-door neighbor was having some tree-trimming done, and after a while the tree trimmer came and knocked on our door. He explained that our dead aspen in the backyard was leaning against the fence and needed to be taken out and did we want him to do it? I had been in the backyard the weekend before and the aspen wasn't leaning on the fence, but Rocket Boy went out and looked, and sure enough, the aspen had come unattached from the ground and was attempting to fall over, taking the fence with it. So he called the guy who took our other collapsed aspen a few weeks ago (for firewood) and asked him if he wanted this one too, and the guy came, and the two of them managed to get the aspen to fall into our yard, not the neighbor's. The photo shows them pulling on the aspen with a rope.

***

Last night, it being Saturday, Teen B and Rocket Boy and I ate out at Shreddy's, our neighborhood taco place. The kids and I had eaten there twice before, just after it opened, and had two bad experiences, but we had heard that it had gotten its act together, so we tried it again (Teen A was out with friends and didn't want to go). They've changed the setup so that now they have a waitress and they bring your order all at the same time, so that was good. I ordered horchata and a cheese & bean quesadilla. The quesadilla came in 3 pieces -- I ate one and took the rest home. 

Late last night, the part of the quesadilla that I had eaten came back up. And today I have the worst diarrhea I can remember in a long time. So I don't think I'll be going back to Shreddy's, and I've already dumped my leftover quesadilla in the compost. Teen B and Rocket Boy enjoyed all their food and are not sick today, so it's probably just me. Maybe it was the horchata? Diabetics should probably not drink horchata (nor mango boba, by the way). But I really like it.

Time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 231
• Weight this morning (after 24+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.8
  

I am cross about this -- only down .2 lbs after throwing up??? -- but it's not worth it to be cross. Friday and Saturday when I weighed myself I was 229. Eventually I will move on from this "stall." I think the main thing I could do to help myself is exercise. I just haven't wanted to go out and walk in the cold. I need to work on that: shorter walks, a new route that keeps to the sunny side of the street -- anything to get me out there, moving.

And on the plus side, the results of my 3-month A1c test were great! In September my A1c was 6.7, and this week it was 6.3! That's out of the diabetic range, finally, and into the pre-diabetic range. Next goal: the normal range, which starts at about 5.6, I think. 

***

This coming week should be much less busy, with only two things on the calendar so far: the choir concert at the high school on Tuesday night, and the book group coming here on Wednesday. But it's the last week of school before finals, which means there may be projects to complete and whatnot. We're supposed to get a little more snow on Monday, but probably only an inch or less. Our last snow still hasn't melted completely.

For me, it's going to be Shopping Week -- I will attempt to do all my holiday-related shopping. Christmas shopping has gotten very difficult, with the twins not really wanting anything and yet wanting things to open on Christmas morning, and this year I can't buy Rocket Boy a shirt! He has so many shirts, they don't fit in his closet. So shopping will be a challenge, but at the end of the week I will say, DONE, it's OVER, and I can go back to enjoying the season.

I plan to go to a different store, or shopping area, each day. Here are some of the choices:

• Flatirons mall (Old Navy, Macy's, the store with anime things, etc.)
  
• McGuckins, Grandrabbits, JoAnn's, Petco (all in the same general area)
• Target and Barnes & Noble (across the street from each other)
• Downtown -- Pearl Street, the Boulder Bookstore?
  
• Hmm. Out to Walmart and Kohl's in Lafayette? somewhere else?
  

I may be forgetting something. Also, I may end up taking two days to do one or more of these. It is harder for me to shop than it used to be, because I always need to go to the bathroom after a little bit, and not all these stores have bathrooms.

Oh, and the other thing this week is Colorado Gives Day, which is the Colorado version of Giving Tuesday. I will have to figure out who I am giving to this year. I usually give to Hillside School (the dyslexia school where Teen A finally learned to read), the local humane societies and the one in Park County where the cabin is, and an organization in St. Louis that helps poor people there -- Mission St. Louis. Then beyond that I do different things. Sometimes I give to a Desert Tortoise organization, but I've forgotten which one -- there are several. One year I gave to a group that tries to bring music back to Denver schools, and I will forever get their emails. 

I'll have to give this some thought before Tuesday, or perhaps on Tuesday. Rocket Boy may have some ideas too.