Yearbook Lives

It's been a busy couple of days. School ended here for the Shrieky Sons yesterday. Next week I have to adjust my work schedule in order to transport them home from day camp.

I avoided a near crisis on Wednesday. Shrieky Son #2 absolutely loves his school yearbooks. He looks at them quite often. About a month ago, I got a reminder that yearbooks would be here soon. It said that if I hadn't purchased one I might want to go ahead because extras were limited. Yes, I ignored this note. After all, surely I had already purchased one way back at the beginning of the year.

Shrieky Son #1 got his on Tuesday (I purchased his online). That got me wondering where Son #2's book was. When I asked him at breakfast on Wednesday, he said they had passed them out on Monday, and he didn't get one. Sigh. Mr. theshriek called the school, and after some searching in the office, they said there was one left. First-come, first served. No they couldn't hold it for us when we could pick it up at lunchtime. No they wouldn't take a credit card number over the phone. I immediately left work and high-tailed it to the school and got it. That was too close.

Shrieky Son #2 was happy, and it made me happy to see him looking at the book that night.

Raccoon Up The 'simmon Tree

This guy was up in a tree in our backyard tonight. He had his arms around a branch and was sleeping despite the tree moving back and forth in the wind.

Book Report Time

I am usually reading two or three books at the same time. Lately, I can't seem to finish any, but continue to start others. Thus, I am reading:

On my Kindle:

Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends by Charlotte Chandler - I have been enjoying this, and it does have a lot of Groucho stories that I had not heard. However, there is some repetition of stories within the book itself. Also it is also a little depressing because she is writing about the end of Groucho's life.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne - I read this one in college and wanted to revisit it. I am near the end of it, but I am reluctantly to finish it because ... well you know.

The Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson - This one of those type of books that I have around because sometime you only have time to read a small chapter and not get involved in a big storyline. This one is informative and fun. For example, the ostrich lays the smallest egg for its size, and the wren's egg is 13 percent of its weight. A chicken once lived without its head for two years. By the time I have finished reading this, I will have a plethora of facts to bore you with here.

And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander - I just started this one at the end of last week. It has been described as Jane Austin meets The Da Vinci Code. Well I guess. (I am probably the only person left who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code.) However, the heroine is a lot more modern (naturally) than a Jane Austen heroine. However, it is a lot of fun and suspenseful. I actually think I am going to finish this one within the next couple of days.

Ladies of Liberty by Cokie Roberts - OK. I have just read the introduction on this. After watching the John Adams series on HBO, I wanted to read some more about John and Abigail.

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene - I heard Brian Greene a couple years ago on NPR's Fresh Air and thought the book sounded interesting. It has taken that long for it to get in electronic form. I have just read the first chapter on this one too. Don't know if I am going to enjoy it or not.

I also still have several books on my Palm. The reason for that is I can keep my Palm in my purse so that I will always have something to read. I don't always want to carry the larger Kindle around.

Since it is for short spurts of reading, I only am reading books like The Book of General Ignorance on it. Right now I am reading:

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge by Eleanor Herman - The sex, the intrigue, etc. is all there. However, you also see what difficult lives some of those women had. Once they became the mistress of the King, they had to watch out because there always others that wanted to get rid of them.

Of course, what gets me the most is the hypocrisy of it all. Many times the Mistress was considered a sinner for having relations with the King. She was called vile names in written works and sometimes to her face. Of course, it didn't work the other way, and it wasn't just because "he" was the King. The double standard hard at work as always.

The Poets' Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family - John Lithgow - The usual suspects (for an English major): Dover Beach, The Tyger, Kublai Khan, etc are here, but there have been a few that are not familiar to me. Lithgow has a genuine love for these poems. It is fun rereading them, and getting commentary about them from someone who isn't an English professor.

Well those are the ones that I am still officially reading. I do have some that I stopped reading, and I don't if I will try them again or not i. e., Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval That Inspired America's Founding Fathers by Michael Barone. An interesting book about England's Glorious Revolution, but one needs to be very focused to read it, and I wasn't (at that time).

At the rate I read, it will be three years before I finish these (if I decide to read each one in its entirety).

Lungs

Yesterday I attended a four-hour genealogy workshop. About an hour into it, I was feeling guilty that I hadn't been doing as much research as I should be. Three hours later, I realize that my lungs feel like I am developing a serious case of bronchitis. Oh yeah now I remember. The dusty books get to me (there was a vendor there with a lot of old books). I am still fighting the effects of it this morning.

There is so much material online, but you really need printed works to back it up since there is so much misinformation out there. That includes mistakes and outright lies (not that any of us would know about any misrepresentations on the Internet.) However, it looks like I will have to continue to do most of my family research (whenever I do it) online.

Prove Your Excuse

The teen (just turned 13 but acting like a teen for several months) version of Shrieky Son #1 has been very amusing lately in his continued assertions that he is not responsible for anything that occurs. He is forever being buffeted about by the sea of the fickle finger of fate. This morning’s incident involved Shrieky Son's #2 paper airplanes (he is creating a lot of them again). Son #1 was throwing a couple of these airplanes despite Son #2's strenuous objections. I asked Son #1 not to do that, but he kept on doing it. I made him put the plane down and took him in my bedroom to get him away from the airplanes and his brother. While there, Son #1 proceeded to explain that he had to throw the planes because they were created to be thrown. All of it was Son #2's fault for making the planes in the first plane.

I am in fuckin’ wonderment.