Short Attention Span Theatre

 It's time once again for Short Attention Span Theatre, with your host B.E. Sanderson.  (Yeah, I went with the British spelling.  You wanna make somethin' of it?)

I woke up today to a pair of fawns with a serious case of the zoomies.  They were running all over the yard, up into the neighbors' across the street yard, over to the north neighbor's yard, around the house and back again.  ZOOM!  So much happy.

I have the hiccups.

Is it hiccups or hiccoughs?  

I got next to no sleep last night.  Thanks, menopause.  Appreciate ya.

Coffee is my friend.

Since I was up anyway last night, I sat down and wrote.  Got another 800+ words added on to the day's total.  Woohoo.

Damn, that cigarette tastes good.

For some reason, the jukebox in my head decided to kick on and it felt like the damn thing was playing every song I ever heard.   Not the whole songs.  Just snippets.  On repeat.  

Put another nickel in... in the nickelodeon... all I want is lovin' you and music music music... SHUT UP!

I went to the DG yesterday.  Pulled into the parking lot with lots of cars and a few people milling about.  Turned my car off.  And notice the big banner across the front of the building: CLOSED FOR REMODELING.  You'd think one of those people would've waved me off.  But no.

I found a new internet music source - Jango.  I put a band into the search and it gave me a station based on the band (Of Monsters and Men, btw,)  It was perfect for writing fantasy.  Especially this song - Dirty Paws.  (Lyric video, not the original one.  And yes, I thought of your books, Silver, when this song came up.)  Anyway, it's free and it hasn't bothered me with annoying ads yet, so I'm good.

Well, I'm way behind this morning, so I should probably scoot along.  Have a great day.  And drop some Short Attention Span Theatre of your own if you feel like it.

Sunday Update - Week... Hellifino

What do you get if you cross a hippo, an elephant, and a rino?  A hellifino.

Umm... yeah, it's early and I'm not quite sane yet.  

I wrote some this week.  Not nearly the word-extravaganza I was hoping for, but hey, it was writing.  An additional 4578 words were added.  What can I say?  Sometimes this writing stuff is hard.  :shrug:  I did sit down and draw a map.  It sucks, but it's a start.  I also looked at free map drawing software.  And then read the FAQ wherein I discovered I couldn't commercially use the maps I would make (as in inside anything I would sell.. like books) unless I used the pay version.  Umm...  Yeah, I'll go back to doing it the old way.  Thanks.

It wasn't a great week for reading either.  

No baking.

I did a bunch of active stuff this week, though.  I reorganized some stuff and I did some weeding stuff and cleaning stuff.  I did a lot of Helper Monkey stuff for Hubs when he was doing the roof.  All the mowing I did the week prior finally caught up to my body and I dropped some poundage.  Weight: 184.4

Speaking of roof stuff, Monday morning Hubs went out into the smoking room and discovered a puddle.  Thus began the saga of the drip, which I already detailed.  Yesterday, Hubs was up on the roof fixing things.  Right now, it's raining cats and dogs, so fingers crossed, eh?  So far, no drips, but it's early yet.  I hope everything he did works, not only to ameliorate the drips but to keep him from having to do that again.  One thing I learned, for future reference... peanut butter takes Liquid Nails off your skin.  (but not out of clothing, so there goes my favorite pair of pink shorts)

We've been watching the Olympic trials.  My favorite athlete so far is Gabby Thomas.  She's a runner.  But she's also working on her Master's degree in epidemiology.  Smart and fast.  Seems like a good person.  And she's pretty, too.  Of course, Simone Biles is back and kicking butt.  And Katie Ledecky is back, too, swimming like a dolphin.  Sam Mikulek made the team again for men's gymnastics.  All kudos to Sam, but I think he should've sat this one out and let one of the younger, healthier dudes have his spot.  (He's got wrist issues and a wonky elbow.)   There's a distance runner from my old stompin' grounds that I'll be rooting for - Grant Fisher - even if I didn't get to see him in the trials.

In gardening news, still no veggies.  Loads of flowers on the zukes, but that's it.  The flowers do their thing and then drop off, leaving only a stalk behind.  :sniffle:  Same with the tomatoes.  Flowers, but no fruits.  It's very disheartening.  

We're seeing fawns way more often now.  Yay.  And we have three raccoons coming to eat.  And two bunnies.  Chester Chipmunk is alive and well, and living under the big hydrangea.

Well, I think that's it for me for now.  How was your week?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/26/21

Hello again.  Sorry I'm late, but I didn't set this up like I was supposed to and then I slept in a bit this morning.  Derp.  Anyway, it wasn't exactly a bonza reading week.  I only read one book.  I blame the duds I finished last week with.

I did pick up some new ebooks this week, though.  Urban fantasy, paranormal mystery, romantic suspense, and cozy mystery.  Here's hoping none of those are duds.  We'll see.  

Books read:

43) The Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie (6/23/21) - Mystery - 3 stars.  Not new to me or underappreciated.  I picked this one up a few years back at the thrift store for a dollar, I think.  It was one my mom had on her shelves my whole childhood, so I picked it up out of nostalgia.  And, well, it's a Chirstie.
Review: "I started this book once before, but couldn't get through it. I thought I'd give it a try again. Not my favorite Agatha Christie. There's a lot of rambling in this one and it wasn't holding my interest. But I forged through and I liked the end. The best part is Hannibal, the dog, though."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... I'm not currently reading anything, which is sad.  I'll pick up something new today.

Despite my poor showing this week, I am still seven books ahead of schedule for the year, so it's not really that big a deal.

What was your reading week like?

Thursday This n That

I'm in some kind of mood this morning because I keep getting the urge to argue with morons on FB.  And it's about stupid stuff.  For instance, there was this math problem, and there was this guy arguing that the answer had to be 6 because when you broke the math problem down it was basically 2(2+1), but the first part of the problem had 6 divided by 2.  In what alternate universe do you ever get two goes into six two times???  I want to think he did that on purpose to see if anyone caught his mistake.  (No one arguing with him did, btw.)  It had to be that or else he's a total putz.  Maybe he's a total putz either way.  

At first I thought the division sign in the problem was a plus sign and I couldn't figure out how anyone was coming up with nine - including the calculator the poster posted an image of.  Glasses, you dork, wear your glasses.  LOL

Getting older blows.

Hubs has been leaving a special little pile of seeds by the iris bed just for Chester Chipmunk.  I made Chester a theme song.  "Chester... Chester Chipmunk.  He's the chippiest chipmunk of them all."  It works better if you can hear me sing it.

There's Chester on our front porch.  Isn't he darling?  I want to snuggle him up.  Of course, if I got my hands on him, he'd bite the hell out of me.  Wild things don't understand snuggling.

We have all these woodland creatures.  Why the hell aren't they cleaning my house?  Damn you, Disney, for giving me unrealistic expectations of woodland creatures.

I wandered the yard yesterday taking pictures.  Here's one from my front door, looking across the porch at the yard.  

The yard is great until you have to mow it.  And that's just a fraction of the whole yard.  With trees you have to mow around scattered throughout.  

Yes, we have a ceiling fan on the front porch.  Don't look at me.  I didn't put it there.  It was here when we bought the house.  Now, it's mainly a place for birds to perch while they're waiting for their chance on the suet cage.

We do so love the little birdies that we give them this to perch upon.  ;o)

Anyway, I'm running late today, so I'd better get my buns in gear.  Got anything to add from your this n that lists today?

The Saga of the Drip

 A large portion of yesterday was spent trying to find the drippy spot in the roof.  

Lemme back up a little...

I was sitting here doing something or other yesterday morning when Hubs goes out back for a smoke and I hear swearing.  Then he walks past me into my bathroom and I hear him puttering in the linen closet.  As he passes me again with towels I ask him what's up.  There's a puddle on the floor in the sunroom/smoking room.  

I follow him out and look down.  Yep.  Puddle.  I look up.  Yep, the ceiling is dripping in several places along the seam of the wood ceiling.  We clean it up, place buckets, and make plans to figure it out later.

The only thing to do, we decide, is to finally cut a hole into the attic above the sunroom.  When they built this addition and added on the sunroom, they built a solid wall between the attic above the office and the attic above the sunroom.  Yeah, I know... Derp.  

Here I need to back up further...

When we moved in here, there was no access to the attic above the office addition.  (They used the office as a master bedroom, we made it an office.)  In 2015, when Hubs re-insulated the whole house, he cut an access hole into ceiling of the walk-in closet off the office.  He then insulated the attic above the office, but at the time, he didn't want to go the extra step of cutting a hole through to the sunroom attic.  It wasn't a priority then.

Skipping back to the present...

Once properly caffeinated and nicotined, he got the ladder and went up through the closet access hole to assess the situation.  He then made a plan.  He came back down - never an easy feat.  Plan in place, he marched back up the ladder and I handed stuff up to him through the hole.  He cut the hole through the particle board wall using an electric saw thing and through he went.  

He took a good gander, walked all around (balancing on the boards since there's no floor and he doesn't relish the idea of falling through the ceiling), moved some insulation around, and found... nothing.

Back out the hole he cut and a reverse of the process of getting everything up there.  

Never ones to let a mystery lie, we pondered where to proceed from there.  We are both loathe to cut holes in the cedar wood ceiling of the sunroom.  Out to the deck to attack the problem from the outside.  Still can't see anything wrong with the roof.  Time to take off the fascia and peek into the inches wide crevice from there into the attic.  We've tackled that fascia before and it's not an easy task, but we do it.

Still can't see anything wet.  But the damn space is filled with spiders.  Brown recluse spiders.  Fuckers.  Gah!  Hubs suits up with long sleeves tucked into rubberized gloves and, after he sweeps away the visible spiders, starts pulling insulation through the crevices.  

HUZZAH!  Wet insulation!  Soaking wet insulation.  Once he pulled that crap out, and shined the flashlight above where it was, he saw a single drip, drip, drip.  

Near as I can figure it, we had those really hot days, which probably melted the tar and made shingle slip slightly to uncover a nail hole, through which the water could drip.  

Sometime between now and the next rain, which is a few days off, Hubs will get on the roof, find the hole, and fix it.  He's handy like that.  (I can't help him there.  Vertigo.)  

Some things to note from all this: 

1)  If you're building a house, put some damn access holes into your attic and make sure every part of your attic is accessible.
2)  Roofing nails stick through your attic ceiling and are especially ouchy to your back if you have to walk around up there.
3)  Laying a basic floor in an attic even if you don't think you'll be up there regularly is probably still a good idea.  
4)  If you can't climb ladders and suffer from vertigo, it's good to have a man around.  ;o)

Sunday Update - Week 25

:blinkblink:  Good morning, everyone.  This past week was a fun-filled extravaganza... not really... but it wasn't bad either.  It just was.

I managed to write some words this week.  After finishing my re-through of Unfinished Untitled Fantasy, I put down about 2300 more words on it, made some notes for more, and had a dream about how to handle a particular niggle.  Then yesterday I didn't write on the story, but I made some more notes trying to figure out how to handle the upcoming scene.  I think I've got it.  As of this morning, 80818 words.  Probably about 20K more to go.  We'll see.

I've been doing marketing.  No sales for the genies.  No sales so far for the SCIU books which are discounted now.  I did get a lovely note from a fan on one of my sale posts, though.  She posted a picture of the paperbacks she bought of the SCIU books and AD last year.  And squeed a bit about how awesome they are.  It was a nice thing to go to bed on last night.

My reading week was kind of weird.  I finished a book and then spent most of the week reading my manuscript.  When I finished that and sat down to read other people's books, I hit a couple duds.

In baking news, I made granola bars, corn bread (to go with a big pot of chili), and chocolate oil cake with butter cream frosting. (The frosting was store bought, but that's okay.)

On the activity front, I spent three days on mowing the yard, one day vacuuming the entire house, and one day walking.  I added in the walking from the mowing and I'm at almost 40 miles for the year.  No movement of the scale numbers, though.  Weight: 186.0  As for eating, I'm back to trying to eat smaller portions.  We'll see if that helps.

We saw fawns this week!  Two came scampering through with their mama.  And then yesterday either the same two or a different two hung out with mom while she gobbled down some corn.  (I think it was a different set, but I can't be sure.)  Still no pictures of the twins together - they won't hold still.  I did get this, though:

We also have raccoons.  Rockette brought a friend to dinner and now Rockelle is visiting regularly, too.

(Rockette is the blacker one.)

Chester Chipmunk is alive and well.  So are the bunnies.  Life in the woods is good.

In container gardening news, the zukes are still blooming but still no fruits.  Same with the tomatoes.  It probably has to do with the bug spraying we do in the yard (not the deck this year, just the yard), but I'd rather spray and have no veggies than not spray.  The lettuce and the carrots are pathetic.  So are the onions.  I'm about ready to say 'screw it' and try again next year.  In flower-bed news, something came along and ate the buds off my remaining lilies.  Rabbit or deer probably.  Darn it all.  But the sedums are getting ready to bloom, and the hydrangea is still covered with white flowers.  Can't win 'em all.

And I think that's it for me for now.  How was your week?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/19/21

Hello again.  Not much on the reading list, because I was busy reading my own manuscript.

I didn't pick up any new books, which I really need to do since I'm out of unread ebooks.  Ane the last two were duds, which makes me leery of diving into the free pool again.  I will, but not yet.  

Books Read: 

42) N or M? by Agatha Christie (6/13/21) - Mystery - 5 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  I've had this one for YEARS and never read it.  Silly me.
Review: "Ooo, this was a good one! I don't know why I hadn't read it before now."

DNFs:

6/18/21 - free - SF.  The author has seen the future and it is crass.  It read like a group of thirteen year old boys sneaking their older brothers' low budget girly mags and reading them under the bleachers.  

6/18/21 - free - UF.  Could you BE any more wordy?  This one was so top-heavy with description, loaded with similes, overburdened with metaphors, and rife with witty/clever little asides, I wanted to poke my own eyes out in the first paragraphs.  I tried flipping past the extremely descriptive opening, but every new experience for the MC was a cornucopia of verbosity.  It promised to be light and snappy, kind of noir mystery with monsters, but if Spillane had written like that, he would've been flogged.

Currently reading... Nothing.  I haven't shaken the gunk from those DNFs off yet.  I'll probably snag a paperback out of my collection for something I can trust to read.  Blerg.

What was your reading week like?  Please tell me yours was better than mine.

Thursday This n That

I wonder who at the paper company thought it would be a good idea to make a pack of sticky notes where the sticky alternates from one end to the other.  It's a pain in my ass.  I keep having to move the damn thing around so the sticky part is at the top of what I'm writing.  And I threw out the wrapper ages ago, so I can't even see which company it was so I never buy them again.  Derp.

We saw the first fawns of 2021 this morning. Twins!  Yay!  Sadly, none of my pics turned out and now they're gone.  

I got a wild hair after dinner yesterday and decided to start mowing the lawn.  It was 90 degrees F outside.  Umm... yah.  It's supposed to get to 97 today, so I better get my butt in gear this morning.  There's mowin' needs doing and I'm the gal to do it this time.  (It's usually Hubs' job, but I wanted to this time.  I need the exercise.)

We got a gadget from Hubs' brothers for copying slides onto your computer.  (They already did theirs and mailed us a thingie with the pics on it.)  We've had it for a couple weeks now and haven't done anything with it.  I think I know where the slides are.  It's just a matter of digging that box out from under all the other boxes.  Maybe this weekend.  The gadget is sitting on the dining room table, mocking me.

SCIU is on sale this week.  I can't muster the gumption to do anything about it.  All that time I've spent the past few weeks on sales and things, with nothing to show for it, make doing more of it less than palatable.  

In happier news, I'm plugging right along on the re-read of the unfinished book.  It needs SO MUCH work, but that's okay.  It's good stuff and I need to finish it before I fix it.  (Or I'll spend too much time fixing and never finish.)  I did read what I think is a particularly brilliant piece of it yesterday, which made me feel good about myself.  So yay.

Okay, I really need to get moving this morning.  The grass ain't gonna mow itself.  And the sink is full of dishes.  Thank goodness this is my 'no call the office' day.  

What's on your radar today?

Getting Back on Track

So, yesterday, I got thoroughly sick of myself.  The first thing I did was go for a walk.  Sitting on my ass all the time was definitely on the list of things irritating me about myself.  The walk helped.  Later, I emailed one of my unfinished books to myself and I'm reading that now so I can get the swing of it and finish it.  (Not saying which one because I don't want to get anyone's hopes up - including my own.)  It's still as good as I thought it was.  I just need to get out of my own way and complete it.

I'm just reading it right now.  I mean, I do have a notebook handy in case I need to write down ideas, but I'm trying not to do that.  I just want to approach it like any reader would without picking at it.  Which is harder than you might think.  This is a first draft, after all, and there are tons of typos.  I just have to keep reminding myself that this isn't an edit pass and let the typos go.  I'll catch up with them all again later.

Funny thing is that I can't seem to remember why I never finished this.  It's at like 78K words and that's about 2/3rds done, if I remember right.  I think it might've been the fear of finishing it and not having the ability to get a cover made for it.  Yeah, that's kind of stupid, but it's where my brain goes.  I also vaguely remember wondering whether this should be one book or several and how to break it into separate books and...  But I don't want to focus on any of that right now because I do want to finish this book this time.  And the last thing I need right now is getting derailed by my own neuroses again.

So, I'm reading.  And I'm liking what I'm reading.  And that's really the first step in getting back to this writing thing.  

I'll walk some more today.  Get the fresh air through the system and blow out the gaskets. Try to find the positives and work toward them once more.  It's really all I can do.

Sunday Update - Week 24

Yeah, there was no update post for Week 23.  I forgot it was Sunday and then I didn't really have anything to say.  I don't really have anything for today either, but I don't want to disappoint you again.

No writing or editing occurred.  I have been marketing as much as I can take.  No sales whatsoever for Duke.  I've moved 41 free copies of Wish Hits the Fan and sold one copy each of the other books (in the UK).  I'm hoping this spurs some page reads, but I'm not holding my breath.  WHTF is still free through the end of today.  The sale on the other books ends Tuesday.  Wednesday the SCIU books go on sale.  99c/99p each through the end of 6/22.

In reading news, I read some good books and DNF'd some dreck this week.

I didn't do much in the way of activity.  I mean, I washed the car one day and did the windows the next/  Other than that, there was grocery shopping and moving the container garden around.  The week I missed was more active and I'm up to 35.55 miles walked.  It's probably why I dropped a pound.  Weight: 186.2.

A couple neighbors stopped to chat while I was doing the car windows.  They had just seen a fawn.  Only one deer still looked like she was pregnant and she's probably dropped by now.  In fact, they said the fawn was super small and wobbly, so it might have been hers.  Yesterday, I saw a buck with a busted antler.  Snapped right at where it meets the head and laying over like it was attached by skin.   Poor baby.  That probably hurts like a bitch.  It wasn't bleeding, though, so that's something.

The heat spiked here so it's been hotter than it ought to be for early June.  Blerg.  Unfortunately, this means less baking and less fishing.  So, none of that.  

Yesterday, we had a big Texas black rat snake in the yard.  I tried to encourage him to leave, but he hid under a pile of boards we have under the smoking room and I didn't want to mess with it.  I really didn't want to kill it.  I mean, he serves a purpose for the most part.  And he might eat the pack rat, which would be awesome.  Did you know those snakes shake their tails when they feel threatened, so they sound like a rattler?  Silly snake... I saw your tail.  Derp.  I guess it would've been a bit disconcerting if I hadn't seen that it wasn't a rattler.  Since we do have rattlers here and all.  I guess it's time to spray the yard again.  

Chester the Chipmunk has made a home under one of my peonies.  I hope the snake doesn't eat him. Hubs thought he saw a baby bunny at dusk yesterday.  I hope the snake doesn't eat it either.  (Maybe I should've just whacked the snake with a shovel and been done with it.)

Last night, something occurred to me and I got a serious case of the sillies.  I started laughing and couldn't stop because every time I tried to tell Hubs why I was laughing the thought hit me again and I'd start laughing all over again.  What was it?  I was in the process of turning down the bed when I farted and my brain said: Farting is only your butt laughing.  That's what set me off.  And the more I laughed the more I farted and the more I farted, the harder I laughed.  It was a vicious circle.  Getting old is gross.

On that note, I'll leave you.  I hope you weren't bored reading this.  Lord knows, I've been boring the hell out of myself lately.  

How was your week?  

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/12/21

Well, hello there.  Welcome to the Saturday Reading Wrap-up.

No new books of any kind this week.  I need to rectify that, especially since I knocked a few books off my Kindle this week.  I do still have 2 unread ebooks, though - UF and SF.  And, as always, scads of hardcopies to read.

Books Read:

41) Longshot by Blake & Truant (6/11/21) - SF*# - 4 stars.  New to me and underappreciated.  Free off the Book Doggy newsletter.
Review: "Interesting and definitely different. Not what I expected when I began it, but it kept me flipping through the pages quickly, adjusting my preconceived notions as I went. I wish I'd known this was a prequel type story with a long series after it before I began. Worth the read, but I don't have the time or the patience for a long series right now. If you do, you'll probably be in for a wild ride."

40) The Silent Speaker by Rex Stout (6/8/21) - Crime Noir - 5 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  Got this in that box lot.
Review: "I had a little trouble getting into this one at first, but once I settled in, it was a helluva story."

39) Ghosts & the Ancient Stones by Silver James (6/6/21) - Paranormal Romantic Suspense* - 5 stars.  Not new to me, but a new release so it's definitely not appreciated nearly enough yet.  This a series I love and an author I fangirl over who's also a friend of mine, so I paid full price - $4.99.
Review: "This book is wicked awesome! From start to finish. And may be Ms. James' best work yet. Sade and Sinjen and all their favorite friends/frenemies are in fine form. The romance and the tension between Sade and Sinjen is delicious. The plot is enthralling. The premise is wonderful. I loved it all. Then again, I love all of the Penumbra Papers books."

DNFs:

6/9/21 - free - paranormal something.  A little banter goes a long-long way.  This was banter to the max with a side order of snide.  I don't need that.

6/9/21 - free - romance.  Gah, so many adjectives telling me how everything is.   And I don't really care about every stitch of clothes everyone is wearing and every item of furniture they own.  Not his dark blue jeans, his faded team baseball shirt, his scuffed boots, his cowboy hat...  Not the red silk sheets against her milky white skin on the black lacquer bed.  Dude just walked in his woman with another man in his bed.  I don't think he cares about the vivid descriptions of his furniture and neither do I.  The scene had the emotional impact of a bowl of plain, cold oatmeal.

Currently reading...  I finished that SF not long before bed last night, so I didn't have time to start something else.  Maybe I'll pick up a Zane Grey today.

What was on your reading list this week?

Thursday This n That

Hubs and I both really hate the phrase "Appreciate ya".  As much as the word(?) mybad.  The first negates 'Thank You" and the other negates "I'm sorry" - both of which are necessary to society - so we've turned them into joke phrases.  They deserve to be laughed at, so we do.

I washed the car on Tuesday.  There was a tiny tree growing in my license plate holder.  An elm.  I was tempted to leave it and just keep motoring down the highway with a tiny tree leading the way.   Alas, the tree had to go.

Oh, and while I was washing the car, I sliced my damn right index finger right at the tip, like a big papercut.  What a pain in the... well, fingertip.

BTW, papercut should be one word.  Jus' sayin'.

I'm actually going to my BFF's house for coffee this morning.  This probably isn't a big thing for you, but for me, it's major.  We've been friends for about 8 years and have never been to each other's houses.  Hell, we almost never even talk on the phone.  I just talk with her at her job.  So, yeah, major.  If you know me, you understand.  I feel like I ought to have baked something.

Since I've seen pretty much every episode of everything I want to watch, I'm back to watching old reruns of REBA and LAW & ORDER.  And sometimes even those are irritating.

In case I didn't post a picture of Rockette Raccoon here before, here she is...

...munching on crunchy corn kernels.  Ain't she cute?  She's been coming by almost every evening for about a week.  Hopefully, she'll bring her kits by at some point.  (And no, I don't for certain this is even a female.  And I have no way of knowing, so as far as I'm concerned, she's a girl.)

My zucchinis are blooming.  I really should take pics and post them on the gardening blog.

And that's about it in my super exciting life.  Yeah, about that... I forgot to post a Sunday Update, but that's okay because nothing much has been going on.  I'll try to remember this week.

What's on your this-n-that radar today?

Grandpa Was Right to be Worried

In 1936, my German-immigrant grandfather was terrified the Nazis would invade America.  Grandpa Bruno was right to be worried.  He was just 85 years early.  This morning, I read an something about an article in a national medical journal that could've been stripped from the Nazi archives.  Only it replaced Whiteness for Jew in the verbiage.  https://notthebee.com/article/whiteness-is-a-parasitic-condition-that-has-no-permanent-cure-according-to-the-journal-of-the-american-psychoanalytic-association.

That article links to another article which links to the abstract of the 'health journal' article.  Follow the links, read the articles if you think I'm kidding.  

Ten years ago... hell, five years ago... an article like that could've and would've been discounted as being written by a fringe loony.  And it would never have been published anywhere but a fringe loony type publication.  We would've all shaken our heads and laughed at anyone who would've even suggested such a thing.  Now?  It's being elevated to the level of mainstream thinking and being given tacit approval by its publication in a national journal.

There was something on FB this morning about being happier if you don't read the news.  Well, duh.  But closing your eyes and humming isn't going to do anyone any good in the end.  And the end could be horrific if we all turn a blind eye to this crap.  Hell, I'd love to just dump it all and go happily humming down to the lake.  But I can't.  I don't want to open my eyes one day to armed men on my porch ready to march me down to the train station for my free tattoo and all-expenses-paid vacation at one of their camps.

People wonder how the citizens of Germany could've gotten to the point where they were loading Jews onto trains and slating them for eradication.  This is how.  

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 6/5/21

Sorry I'm late.  It's been a morning.  Anyway, here are the reading things for the past week...

I only got one new ebook and it was the book I beta read last week which I am now reading again.  No new hardcopies.

Books Read:

38) A Vow of Silence by Veronica Black (6/1/21) - Mystery* - 5 stars.  New to me but not underappreciated.  Free off the Reading Deals newsletter.
Review: "Very interesting and a totally different setting from what I usually read, which worked for me. I liked the characters. I enjoyed the premise. The plot was enthralling. And the mystery was gripping."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... the paranormal romantic suspense I beta read.  It's so yummy.  I wanted to have it finished by now, but life messes up my plans more often than not.  Look for it on next week's wrap-up.

What was on your reading plate last week?

Thursday This n That

Wow, it's Thursday.  I thought it was Wednesday.  Derp.  This does not bode well for the rest of the day...

I got up around 4am today so I would be alert enough to do a bunch of marketing posts early enough for them to be effective.  I just noticed a typo in all the posts to 20 or so groups.  Go to group, find my post amongst the others, delete the freakin' N, save... lather, rinse, repeat.  Guess I still wasn't alert enough, eh?  :takes off the red, rubber nose and floppy clown shoes:

I stepped out to check on my plants and scared the crap out of a deer.  They really shouldn't be hanging out in the south yard.  I hope she didn't eat my lilies while she was over there.  

There is not enough coffee on the planet today.  Personally, I think it's cruel that I can't grow my own coffee.  If the world ever takes a shit, I'm going to be one unhappy camper with no coffee and no cigarettes.  Yeah, that's what I worry about when I think about the collapse of society - coffee and cigarettes.  Shows you where my priorities lay.

Lay... lie... whatever.

The tree we thought was a Bradford pear has fruit this year... plum shaped fruit... I guess I was wrong about the species of that tree.  Or maybe I'm wrong about being wrong.  No clue.  Derp.  I also learned the trees I've been calling Royal Paulownia trees are not those.  Looking at those now, I can't imagine why I ever thought mine were that species.  Derp.  I haven't gone looking for what the real species is.  

I'm feeling especially derpy today.  Need more coffee.  Maybe a nap.

Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad would've been 85 today.  He missed his 66th birthday by just under a month, so he's been gone for 19 years now.  

Dad didn't have the easiest of lives.  He own father died when he was ten, and his mom had him fairly late in her own life, so he was left to his own devices on the mean streets of a low-rent suburb of Detroit.  Oh, the tales he would tell of those days.

Dad was a patriotic man.  He joined the Air Force at 17, if I remember right, and stayed until he was 28 I think.  He got in at the end of the Korean War and out at the beginning of Vietnam.  (Because by then, he had four kids and Mom was worried she'd be a widow raising all those little ones alone if he stayed in.  Thank goodness, because if he had, then I wouldn't be here.)

Heh, Dad was skinny as a rail when he was young.  That uniform hangs on him.

Dad spent most of his after-military life in sales.  That man could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.  And what a teller of tales, he was.  He definitely had the gift of gab.  (I come by it honestly.)  

He spent his last years as a very ill man, but he lived long enough to see all 9 of his grandchildren into the world and long enough to see the oldest of them graduate high school.  I think that last part was very important to him - seeing his first grandson graduate - because Dad himself didn't.  He doted on his grandkids.  All of them.  But the first was always the favorite.  And Owl had a special place in his heart - because we lived with them when she was small.  

While I would've wished for him to live forever, I'm glad he didn't make it to this time.  What's happening to this country would've broken his heart.  Had he been around and still a healthy man, he would've fought hard against the tide and been right in the thick of the battle for this nation he loved so much.

All in all, he was a good dad.  He wasn't perfect... who is?... but he was a good man and I miss him.  I hope you're up there fishing with your own father, Dad.  :hugs: