shistavanenjedi

Last night was another one of those where I was up every hour. I fell asleep easily at 10:30, but then was awake at midnight, and every hour until 4am. Then I stayed asleep until 8am, went back to bed at 10am, and woke up every hour until I finally woke up for good at 2. When I woke up, the groceries were already here, so I woke Kevin up and we put them away.

When we were finished with that, I read lj and dw, and then did some reading. Around 5 I had a great debate as to whether to cook dinner or just act like a cat and continue reading in a blanket all day. Eventually I decided it was cheaper to cook than to cat, so I got up and cooked Italian Wonderpot, which is one of Kevin's favorite meals. It's one I think I can continue to make if I make it with whole wheat pasta or something. Hopefully that won't change it too much, and Kevin will still like it. There's enough stuff that the pasta isn't the main part of the meal, and you probably don't eat more than a serving of pasta.

After the meal, I tried a larabar brownie. It was not bad for a low carb, gluten free sweet. At any rate, it tasted like chocolate even if the mouth feel wasn't quite right. I guess I can replace some of my candy bars with this. Probably not all of them unless I find a mint option, but I think I did see a low carb mint ice cream, which might do for that flavor. I didn't buy it because I was buying a lot of snacks to try different things this week.

When I was done, I came back and continued with my reading. I gave up on a book I just started yesterday for being too theoretical and not providing enough concrete examples. It's the kind of heady crap you get in graduate school, but it's not fun to just read it. I started a book that is supposed to be a general overview of Russian history from the Kyivan Rus to Putin. There are no realpage numbers on it though, so I guess I'm reading a chapter a day, which is probably significantly more than 10 pages. Unless I read 10 kindle pages, which is significantly less than 10 pages. Or I guess I could figure out how many pages there are supposed to be and what percent of the book would represent 10 pages each day?

Kevin's doctor told him today that our deductible that we have to pay before the insurance will pay any of his new bipap is $1900. But it's on a year long rent-to-own program, which means in January, it'll reset as though we paid 0 of it and we'll be on the hook for the entire thing again. He says he knows where to call to try to buy one outright for the $2000 that our deductible is, which will mean getting no help from his insurance, and I'm not sure why we pay for his insurance because they're always crap. I guess that's what we get for him working for a UK based company where his bosses don't have to deal with the insurance they decide to buy for their US based employees. This has caused more than one headache. Although he may have just found a place to buy a good one for $1700 which is even less than the insurance wanted out of us.

Amazon sent out an email for something or other highlighting 9 free books you can read in translation on the kindle. I downloaded 5 of them, but I'm not going to start reading any of them until I'm done with The Red Tent which I just started. As with anything shiny and new, I want to start right now, but if I'm honest with myself I can't handle any more daily reading. Although there's only 6 more chapters of The Boy on the Wooden Box so theoretically I could start a new book when I finish that, if I acknowledge that I'm going to have to stop reading it when I find out what the next book club book is. That would give me 6 weeks to finish the book, which is about right for a novel, I think? We'll see.

I haven't written fiction in a week now, which is pathetic for a camp month. Admittedly I easily made my goal, but stopping 2 weeks into the month, even given that, is not ideal. Maybe I'll try to write something tonight.

Tomorrow is going to be rainy, but it should stop by the time I'm done getting my oil changed. There's really no excuse for not going on a walk. I haven't gone in 3 or 4 days, and I meant to go today, but it never stopped raining, even though the only rain was supposed to be in the morning. After that it should be nice until Thursday evening. We probably won't get a fighter practice Thursday, but Tuesday we should.

I have no plans for Sunday or Monday, and tomorrow the only thing planned is an oil change. I guess it's going to be a boring long weekend for Easter. Kevin was off today, too. At least he's been relatively quiet for whatever reason. I should be able to get a walk in both of those two days since the weather should be nice.

I actually got to sleep around 2:30 last night, but then I didn't wake up until Kevin called to tell me he was on his way home from work at 4pm. I got up at that point, although Kevin didn't stay on the phone. I read lj and dw while I waited on him. He got home around 5. I was feeling like isolating myself so I didn't go out. We ordered Jimmy John's, and I read a bit until it got here. I ate dinner, and then went back to reading. I finished around 7, and then started talking to Kali, Sarah, and Glitter while reading a bit at YAP.

Beyond the Point has proven that it was not written by anyone in the military. The author apparently heard of "being smoked" as military slang, but for some reason thinks it means that someone beat you in a contest. It doesn't. It means that a drill sergeant made you do exercises more than your peers. The author has also doubled down on them being class of 2004. The class of 2004 thing doesn't bother me as much as the being smoked thing. That's such a simple thing. Honestly, if you're going to write about the military, send it past someone who has been in the military? Also they have Dani as the only girl in her basic training unit which I don't think is realistic. There's such a rape concern in the military that you're not allowed anywhere without at least 2 other girls during basic. I feel like even though there's not very many women at West Point, they would purposely put all the women together.

The local paper emailed me that the 2019 Falcons schedule is out, so I spent some time putting that on my calendar. Once again almost all of the games are at 1pm on Sunday, and the only game that isn't a Sunday this year is the Thanksgiving day game. That's unfortunate, as I really only get to watch weekday games since I'm fighting or sleeping at 1pm on Sunday, but if I'm awake, I'm going to go to fighter practice.

So apparently scientists have shown that cats who hear their owner say their name have their brains light up in distinct patterns, so when they ignore you it's just that they are assholes, not that they don't know their names. Kitties may be assholes, but they make my brain calm, so I love them anyway.

In The Boy on the Wooden Box the boy's father has just landed a job with Schindler, so I guess he's going to get the rest of the family the same job sooner or later. The thing that always surprises me about holocaust stories is how quickly people who didn't seem to care that their friend was a jew become antisemites after just a week of German propaganda. Were they always antisemites and just pretending not to care? So many of them? Are we all so susceptible to propaganda? Why is it that nobody said "but Leon's a good kid. We don't think he's awful?"

The high is only going to be 54 on Saturday. This makes me glad I will not be at Fools War. All I have planned for that day is an oil change. It will be a quiet day of reading and taking care of things.

I just looked up what documentation I would need to renew my drivers license, and apparently I can do it online I think since I already have a secure id. This makes me happy because not having to deal with the DMV is always a good thing. Also, since I have a secure id I don't need any other id to prove I'm me. The expiring license is good enough.

What have you just finished reading?

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land - Okay so our supposedly happy ending for them is that she goes to college to get a degree in creative writing. I'm sorry? That's supposed to be a good thing? Do you have any idea how many people go to college for creative writing and then can't get a job because it's a useless major? Anyway, the ending of this book gives me very little hope that she will ever make anything of herself other than a maid who now has to pay off student loans. Why on earth did she not pick a useful major? The only positive thing to come out of the last 5 chapters or so is that she finally stood up to her abusive ex and told him she was leaving the state. Of course, she was only leaving the state to go be a creative writing major somewhere, so maybe that's not great either.

A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) by Ransom Riggs - Jacob is an idiot child, and deserves to be treated as one. He keeps running away when he knows it will make things worse, and thinking he knows everything, and basically, he's awful. All of the adults in the book have told him to go back to Devil's Acre and go home, and yet he seems to be setting off on a new adventure. Anyway, like the first and second book of this series, this book had no real ending, and seems to just be an advertisement for the next book. I'm not convinced I will pick up the next book however, because the main character is awful. Maybe 37 will be the year I finally stop reading YA books since I consider all of their protagonists children. However, I've replaced this book by another book about a teenager. I'm not sure if it is YA or just stars a teenager though.

What have you given up on reading?

The Illegal by Lawrence Hill - I really couldn't forgive this book for one major plot hole. If you were African, and had to disappear and be an illegal immigrant somewhere, would you pick A. Boston or B. Freedom State where everyone with more than 1/8th African blood is an illegal immigrant subject to deportation back to the corrupt dictatorship you just had to flee for your life? Of course you'd go to Boston. So why does Keita run in the Boston Marathon, then get on a plane, go to Freedom State, and then disappear? Why not just disappear in Boston? There was literally no reason other than "the plot demanded it" and that's not a very good reason to do a thing in a story. I couldn't get over the main character's stupidity. Other than that I wasn't really sure what the plot was. I mean his sister was kidnapped by the dictatorship, but he didn't seem to be doing much towards getting her back. So I don't know. I think the point was "republicans are evil." And while I generally agree with the point, just why did he go to Freedom State!?

What are you reading?

Educated by Tara Westover (77%) - Her father is no longer listening to her, and refused to come to her graduation unless she apologized for telling him he was not allowed to stand up in the middle of the auditorium, and tell everyone at the graduation ceremony how useless and evil education was. Also, she may be going abroad for a longer period of time. It seems more education is coming, rather than an attempt at a return to the mountain. I feel like I'm supposed to like her family, but I really hate all of them.

Bully for Brontosaurus by Stephen J Gould (40%) - Now there is a chapter about how some artist thought that all coloring was for camouflage and tried to prove this by claiming that flamingos were camouflaged with the sun set, but of course flamingos are out all day, not just at sun set, and don't hunt anything that can see color at sunset, so this proves to be a ridiculous assertion. Still no word on why flamingos actually evolved to be pink, though.

Watership Down by Richard Adams (29%) - They're trying to convince male rabbits to make a warren by digging, but none of the male rabbits want to dig because that's a female's job. I guess, if you're a rabbit, that is true. Some of the rabbits want them to dig, even though it's against their nature, because they didn't bring any does, and they need a place to live. Of course, not discussed or thought of is how they are going to form a warren without any does that won't go extinct with the current generation, and how anyone is going to be happy not, well, fucking like rabbits. There is still an awful lot of book left to go.

The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles by Gregory Bassham (45%) - After concluding that nationalism is always bad, we start a chapter on whether the books are Libertarian propaganda. Of course, anyone who knows anything about JK Rowling knows that they are not, as she was on welfare when she started writing them, and still defends that choice. Still, there are two major philosophers who claim it is either because Dumbledore is largely hands-off when it comes to his faculty, and doesn't discipline Snape for being awful to the Gryffindors or whats-her-name the pink cat lady for torturing Harry. The other claim is that the Ministry of Magic is corrupt and awful and it would clearly be better if it were smaller. The author points out that while the ministry may be bloated, it has done a commendable job of keeping muggles safe from wizards, and wizards hidden from muggles over the centuries, so it can't be all bad. After this load of ridiculousness we start a chapter comparing Dumbledore to Plato.

The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe by Valerie IJ Flint (23%) - We go from astrology to summoning demons in this chapter. Astrology was largely considered pagan while summoning demons is largely considered Christian, even though many of the demons are simply pagan gods repurposed.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath (33%) - We've finished the chapter on the second part of making things sticky, and I think the clue was "unexpected" at any rate the acronym is SUCCESS or SUCCEED or something like that. We've moved onto the C and rather predictably, I've forgotten what the C stood for. The story at the start of the chapter was one of Aesop's Fables from which we get the expression "sour grapes" but I haven't yet figured out what the connection is between this story and whatever the C stands for.

The Municipalists by Seth Fried (61%) - They've found a kidnapped celebrity who it turns out actually ran away rather than being kidnapped. They're trying to rescue her and she is resisting them. I forget why she was important or what was going on with her. I'm not sure why I keep forgetting things that are happening in this book, but I seem to have no idea what's going on more often than not. As a sort of mystery, I guess that's normal but I don't particularly enjoy it. Still, I want to get to the end of the mystery and find out why they are under attack.

Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews by Joseph Telushkin (34%) - We've gotten into jokes Jews tell about other types of Jews, and I've forgotten both the word for the butt of these jokes, and what their characteristics are. I've never heard the word before, and never heard a joke like these before. I just don't know. I haven't found anything in this chapter particularly funny, but I think it's because I'm missing some part of Jewish culture that I just haven't learned yet.

1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Women's History by Constance Jones (14%) - We've had a chapter on winning the right to vote, and are now starting one on abortion. I'm not entirely convinced I'd list abortion as the second most important thing to ever happen to women, but I guess you could make the argument. Sometimes entire "things" you're supposed to read about consist of just a quotation by some famous woman, with no context or anything else given. This drives me nuts, and I usually skip those. I'm not entirely sure we'll be finishing this book.

Where the Desert Meets the Sea by Werner Sonne and Steve Anderson (translator) (44%) - The two women it was promised me would become friends have seen each other for the first time since the second one left the hospital. It was not a warm greeting. Also the Arab woman is pregnant by a Jewish man. The Jewish British soldier is stealing weapons for the settlers. I'm mostly reading this to see what happens to the Arab woman. I'm not sure how much I care about the other characters.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff (25%) - This week is a chapter about how Taoism is against intellectualism, which makes me very curious as to how Nat sees it as I know he is an intellectual but he also seems to have a thing with Taoism. It doesn't seem to connect. Anyway, they use Owl of course as an example of how intellectualism gets confused and doesn't seem to know anything. Something about Owl's house blowing over in the wind, and Owl trying to blame Pooh.

Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson (10%) - We've met our three main characters. We have Dani, who is a star basketball player as well as a straight A student. When asked by a white classmate's parents where in her genealogy she got freckles, she answers "maybe one of your ancestors raped one of mine." Of course since it's fiction, we happen to know that one of her ancestors had 8 babies by her master. Then we have Avery who is the queen bee of her high school, always drinking and partying until her younger brother gets arrested for DUI and her parents decide to punish her for it. I'm not sure this is the kind of woman who usually joins the military, but okay. Finally we have Hannah whose grandfather was a general and West Point graduate himself. He tries to talk her out of going to West Point based on some of the things he has seen in war, but she is determined to go. And so, they all head to West Point. Also, the author made a mistake and put them in the class of 2004, which would make 9/11 their sophomore year, rather than the freshman year they originally said.

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson (21%) - This is the memoirs of the youngest child saved by Oskar Schindler. So far it is about his childhood in Poland, and how really his classmates and neighbors weren't antisemites except for during Holy Week, and everything was perfect and such. At the end of the 2nd chapter, German soldiers show up. He says his parents still remember the German soldiers from WWI who came in and were gentlemen, so they weren't really worried, but how little they knew.

The Snow Gypsy by Lindsay Jayne Ashford (3%) - So far in 1939 a girl with goats has fallen down a mountain into a pile of bodies. One of the bodies was not quite dead, but still attached to her baby by the umbilical cord, and says "please take my baby" as she dies. So the girl takes the baby, and that's the end of her chapter. The next chapter is in the 40s and involves a girl going to find her brother in Spain during the second world war, and how her father went looking for the brother before, but the father died. I'm not sure whether the people at the bottom of the ravine are Jews or Roma, nor am I really sure it matters except that I think the child is called the snow gypsy after her birth. Supposedly these two women plus the child will team up to find the brother.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (8%) - This book was suggested to me after I liked After Abel and it seems to be in the same vein. The Biblical woman Dinah is telling the story of her mothers and their marriage to Jacob.

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas (0%) - No progress this week

I had one of those nights. The ones where you wake up repeatedly. The first time was 5am, and I wasn't sure whether I had slept at all, except that I had thought I was a spaceship and my cat was a shuttle, and it wasn't until I urged the cat to come to me and he stepped on me that I realized he was a cat and I was a human. I must have been sleeping. This exact scenario happened at least twice last night. Both times I got up and started reading and thought "Well I guess I'm up." The second time I was up from 7-10am and read 50 pages before falling back asleep. Then Kevin called and woke me up, and he called twice so I thought it might be important, but all he wanted to say was that I had bought Endgame tickets for the wrong weekend and it opened a week earlier. He ended up buying tickets for the appropriate weekend. We'll see it at least twice in the theater anyway, so now we have tickets for twice. I went back to sleep.

I woke up with the alarm at 2:20 and got dressed and headed to the VA. I had to go to the main hospital today, which is a pain in the ass because they have no parking. You have to park 15 minutes away and take a shuttle in. This means getting there about 30 minutes before you would have to if your appointment were at the Decatur clinic.

The end of a long story is that there are two medicines. One is much better than the other, but it's also new, and therefore expensive. The VA doesn't like to pay for it. My doctor thinks I'm a good candidate to get it, however, so she has prescribed it. If the VA decides to pay for it, it's a weekly injection. If the VA decides not to pay for it, I have to start on insulin, which is a daily injection. Also, I need less of my thyroid medicine. I had to go upstairs to get my A1C tested, and they moved the room but it was almost empty. I was the 2nd person in line. Any prayers or thoughts that I get the better medicine are appreciated.

I left, and got to Starbucks on time, but Klepto and Spoon were not there, so I turned around and came home. Kevin was here, and spent some time ranting about his programmer. I was only home for about 15 minutes before I had to leave to go to fighter practice. I was the first one there, but we had a crowd: 9 or 10 people today. My arm kept wearing out, so I only fought 4-5 of them. Advice is consistent - extend your arm before you move your feet and maybe you won't have to move your feet. I guess I really gotta work on that.

Afterwards we went to some kind of burger place for hipsters where all the beef was grass fed and organic and all that useless shit. We went there because Ximon said he wouldn't go with us to King George's Tavern, but then he didn't show up anyway, so I'm not sure what that was about. It was, however, less expensive than King George's Tavern by about a dollar. I guess that's a little weird, but there ya go. We were there well after closing, though, so I don't know that we'll go back. They were glaring at us as we walked in with a large crowd half an hour before close.

I came home to find Kevin in bed, so I couldn't stretch or take a shower because either would have woken him up. I came into my room, and finished reading lj and started writing this entry. I regret not waking him up to stretch, as my back is starting to really hurt now from lack of it. But I guess it is too late now. I had to decide that all the reading I had done earlier in the day counted for the books I was supposed to read, even though it was all the wrong books. Now that I'm almost done with this entry and it's only 11 I may try to read the 3rd chapter of Beyond the Point so that I can comment on all 3 girls for my What Are You Reading Wednesday post in a hour. But I'm definitely not going to get the other books read in time. And that's going to have to be okay for today.

I'm hoping to get to fighter practice on Thursday, and then next Tuesday, but next Wednesday and Thursday they're calling for rain now. For some reason Thursday says cloudy but then on the predicted rainfall it says over an inch of rain predicted. They're not showing the rain chances, so I don't know if there's like a 20% chance of rain all day or what, but that is really odd.

The thunder storms were so severe last night they woke me up. Fortunately, I got back to sleep. I woke up with the alarm at 2. I seriously considered going back to sleep, but I was so excited for book club. I got in the car, and got to the Temple 10 minutes early. Except that on the ride over there, that thing with my eye happened again. The one where I feel like I'm being stabbed in the eye even though I'm not wearing contacts, and there's no apparent reason for it. I was stuck in the left lane, so looking for a place to pull over was problematic, but there was no way I could change lanes in pretty heavy traffic for a Sunday, when I couldn't even open my right eye. By the time I found someplace to pull over, the danger had passed, and I was fine again. I continued driving and was soon to my destination.

I went into the conference room, and was shortly joined by the others. We discussed the book, and it was a good discussion. One of the women had family who had gone to chabad, and she had some insight in the book. We discussed the women in our books, as well as their awful husbands. We considered how hard it was to leave a cult after you have children within it, which applied to both women. I still liked Unorthodox better than Uncovered at the end of the discussion.

With an uncharacteristic lack of argument, we decided on our next book The Boy on the Wooden Box. This is a memoir by the youngest child that Schindler saved. He was so small that he had to stand on a wooden box to reach the tools he was working with in Schindler's factory. The book is actually meant to be appropriate for 5th - 8th graders (the two years Georgia students learn about the holocaust in school), and there are questions meant to help students understand what they read at the end of the book. This also means it's not quite as horrid as most holocaust books. The woman who suggested this book was introduced to it when her daughter brought it home as homework, but then she and her daughter both enjoyed it. The book is 235 pages, but only 10 chapters, so we may be reading a certain number of pages a day rather than a whole chapter. On the other hand, if I read a chapter a day, I'll be done with it in 2 weeks, instead of 4 weeks, and if it's depressing, that may be key.

I came home and the groceries had been delivered. We put them away and then Kevin said, "dinner soon?" and started nodding at me. I told him if he fried up the meat, I'd make dinner, and left him to that while I got dressed for bed, and took the tip back from the amazon delivery guy since the bags had once again been at the front door rather than the side door as we specify in the instructions section. They'd been getting better about that recently, but today was, once again, wrong.

By the time I'd finished that, Kevin had finished cooking the pasta, and all there was for me to do was drain it and mix it with the meat and soups, and bake it. Kevin decided we should put cheese on top of it, so we did that, too. Then we put it in the oven for 30 minutes while I came inside and bought the new book on kindle, and read the prologue, which was the point I realized it was a memoir, and not fiction. Then I read lj and dw until it was time to eat.

After dinner, I looked at what I still had to do on habitica, and the fact that it was 7pm, and decided against doing most of it. I went into the inn, and then took a shower instead. When I got out of the shower, I started the laundry, and then decided to do some reading. I read all of the kindle books, and the read the first chapter of Beyond the Point, which I'm really enjoying. The character in the first chapter is an African American teenager with freckles, and when a friend's parents ask her where in her genealogy she got freckles she says, "maybe one of your ancestors raped one of mine." I like this girl. Also her name is Dani, so I'm predisposed to liking her. ;)

I caught up with The Orville last night, after watching two episodes including this past week's. I think last week's was one of my favorite even though every time we see him I like Clyden even less. I wasn't sure it was possible to hate him more than I did after the straight guy episode, but I do.

The whole week looks lovely, except for the two days of Fools War when it will drop to 40F and rain. Hopefully people will still have fun, but not me. I don't have plans for the weekend, and could easily go, but I just don't feel like dealing with it. At any rate, we should get our full complement of fighter practices in for the next 2 weeks.

Laundry got finished while I was writing this entry, and now Kevin is awake and folding it, and trying to justify the pink tax because women use less deodorant so therefore should pay more than men for the same amount, or something. I'd love to know where he gets the idea that women use less hygiene product then men. Now he's telling me that women are stupid for continuing to pay the pink tax. Now women are stupid for continuing to buy pants without adequate pockets. Apparently we're stupid for not going into business for ourselves selling jeans with large pockets to women. I wish he'd go to bed.

I have an endocrinologist appointment on Tuesday to discuss my thyroid and diabetes. We'll see how it goes. I'm not losing any weight, so I suspect my thyroid medicine isn't right yet. But then again, it could just be that I'm a vampire and my body resets to within the same 2 lbs every morning, no matter what I do. I do need to discuss my diabetes with her though, as 2 hours after dinner my blood sugar was at 256 today.