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: