After my session at the library today, it's off to Frye's to get a wireless router. This under instruction from The Computer Guy who is coming out Monday afternoon to get us going again. It will connect the computer wirelessly to our current internet connection, thus eliminating the whole issue of wheelchair wheels and electrical and phone cords and their inherent incompatibility. What a relief.
This morning was a good morning. Nine loads of laundry done and miscellaneous other household chores. It felt good to that the huge pile of laundry all sorted, washed, and then dried. Later today it will all be put away.
After Frye's, I'll stop at IKEA (three freeway stops on the way back home) to get the last of the shelves for the kitchen and the twin bed frame for the living room. We have a full-size bed in there now but KidOne pointed out that she thought a twin would work better and KidThree (the usual inhabitant of the living room bed) concurred, so a twin it is. That will free up more floor space, a good thing in a small apartment.
Since appropriating KidOne's library card, I've been a reading fiend--trying to make up for lost time. I just finished a biography of Jane Boleyn, Anne's sister-in-law. After reading that entire book, I couldn't believe it had even been written. There was almost no direct information on Jane, it was all 'probably,' 'likely,' 'possibly,' and 'may have been's,' with everything else being the same things written in so many other books about Henry VIII and his wives (Jane was lady-in-waiting to Wives Three, Four, and Five, in addition to Anne). Apparently Jane had been given a bad rap by history and this author wanted to correct that, but I found her explanation of that (at the end of the book) so brief that it could have been done in a scholarly article instead of a book. The book was interesting in that I find everything to do with Elizabethan and Jacobean England to be interesting, but as far as Jane herself went, ho hum, there wasn't any personal stuff to learn.
I also read a book called "Covert" by a man who infiltrated the Mafia in New Jersey in the seventies. That was interesting, especially after watching the Sopranos the last several years. I picked up another book on Darwinism and Christianity but didn't finish it, as it was a compilation of things I've read in so many other books. Then I read a book called "Shakespeare Unbound," a biography that took the perspective of his life as apparently reflected in his writings. That book also had a lot of 'probably this' and 'possibly that,' but not nearly so many as the book about Jane Boleyn and the author did a good job of explaining just why he was supposing the different potentialities. I thoroughly enjoyed that book and may get it for myself. I do so love reading Shakespeare and reading about Shakespeare and this book gave me some new insights to the plays and poems. It also referenced a lot of historical research that I've already read, which made me feel quite smug and well-informed.
Now I'm starting a book by Strobe Talbott on the rise of modern nations and the global economy, which I also find intensely interesting, and have waiting a biography of John and Jesse Fremont, two players on the early California stage whom I'd love to learn more about. And a biography of Marcus Garvey, because I'm also interested in African American history and don't know much about his particular story and where he fits into things.
It feels so good to be reading again. And now off to Frye's for our wireless router.
A
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Life, Unplugged.
The computer still isn't hooked to the internet. The one business advertising computer repair in our local phone book no longer repairs computers, so it looks like it's going to have to be The Geek Squad to the rescue. This computer-less existence is just plain weird. These days, I do all my banking online, and collect things from eBay, and look for work over craigslist. All of that needs the computer, and the library isn't always open when I'd like to be online. And I miss my mother, who is online daily. Yesterday I even missed her weekly phone call. KidThree took it instead and took careful notes on her cell phone while talking with grandma so that I got a thorough synopsis, but I still Miss My Mother. And KidTwo, as she is out of the country and I talk to her almost daily through email. I Miss KidTwo, too.
Things at home are going reasonably well. KidOne and I got the new shelves up in the kitchen--we now have one solid wall of shallow shelves, ten feet wide and a little over six feet high. They are firmly bolted to the wall so that KidThree won't have them come down on her when she uses her grabber to get something off one of the upper shelves. I also got a new table for the kitchen, one with a sturdy steel frame so that KidThree can do her food prep there and use my heavy KitchenAid without overloading the table. She can access almost all of the shelves on her own, and yesterday was able to fix her own lunch for the first time in months. Tonight she is cooking dinner. She is thrilled, as am I.
The trial was continued yet again. It was to start tomorrow but this morning I got a call from our ADA, telling me it was continued for a few more weeks as one of the defense attorneys had an unavoidable conflict two weeks out, and this trial would not be done by then. Why was this left until this late date? Did that defense attorney honestly not know he had this conflicting obligation? This is my second experience with the criminal court system and it has not left me impressed. KidThree has to get herself psyched up to face her assailants in person and to testify to the events surrounding her injury, then the rug gets pulled out from under her, again and again. By the time the actual trial comes around, she may be retirement age. As for her assailants, I'd just as soon they stayed incarcerated as long as KidThree is in a wheelchair, and her paralysis is permanent. They can stay locked up and pray for the scientists doing stem cell research.
I've got a small new job through my Saturday job at the senior center. That job entails caring for seniors with cognitive deficiencies so their caregivers can get some time to themselves. The husband of my favorite Saturday client, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's, has asked me to stay with his wife three mornings a week so he can go to the gym. He is a wonderful man who cares for his wife so lovingly; I was glad to be able to say yes. His wife is a delight. Her Alzheimer's is fairly advanced, but I can still tell a lot about her basic personality. She is loving, funny, and quick with a quip, and loves dogs, children, and (especially!) her husband. This morning I helped her with breakfast, then we went for a walk before coming back home where I read to her until her husband returned. We saw a hummingbird while walking through the park near her home; that was the best part of our walk. It flew around and among the branches of one particular tree for quite some time before taking off for trees and flowers unknown.
KidOne has given me her library card, so I'm reading again. Joy of joys! Most of what I have at home is literature, linguistics, and science; I use the library more for history, current non-fiction, and popular fiction--the sorts of things I'll read once but not more than that. I've just finished a history of the CIA (wow, do I ever feel not safe), a book about dealing with Alzheimer's patients, and another on a secular man's friendship with an Amish family. I also read W.E.B. Griffin's latest. Yes, I know those are not great literature, but what the heck, my mind gets its occasional lightweight fare. I'm a veteran and love to read military stuff from someone who so obviously loves the military. Now I'm in the middle of a book on evangelicals in politics today and another on the history of the FBI (okay, I feel slightly less unsafe there than with the CIA, but that is probably only because I am from the FBI-approved ethnic group), and have just started one on modern-day slavery. I like to have several books going at once, as which one I pick up depends on what I'm in the mood for at the time.
My time at the library computer is about up, so that is all for today. I'm off to check the Reserved Books shelf to see if anything is in for me, then home to call The Geek Squad to see if they can help me.
And, with any luck, within the next couple of weeks I should be able to get square with the library so I can come out from the cover of KidOne's card. Victims' Comp got my latest set of receipts and is slowly, and bureaucratically working on issuing a reimbursement check.
A
Things at home are going reasonably well. KidOne and I got the new shelves up in the kitchen--we now have one solid wall of shallow shelves, ten feet wide and a little over six feet high. They are firmly bolted to the wall so that KidThree won't have them come down on her when she uses her grabber to get something off one of the upper shelves. I also got a new table for the kitchen, one with a sturdy steel frame so that KidThree can do her food prep there and use my heavy KitchenAid without overloading the table. She can access almost all of the shelves on her own, and yesterday was able to fix her own lunch for the first time in months. Tonight she is cooking dinner. She is thrilled, as am I.
The trial was continued yet again. It was to start tomorrow but this morning I got a call from our ADA, telling me it was continued for a few more weeks as one of the defense attorneys had an unavoidable conflict two weeks out, and this trial would not be done by then. Why was this left until this late date? Did that defense attorney honestly not know he had this conflicting obligation? This is my second experience with the criminal court system and it has not left me impressed. KidThree has to get herself psyched up to face her assailants in person and to testify to the events surrounding her injury, then the rug gets pulled out from under her, again and again. By the time the actual trial comes around, she may be retirement age. As for her assailants, I'd just as soon they stayed incarcerated as long as KidThree is in a wheelchair, and her paralysis is permanent. They can stay locked up and pray for the scientists doing stem cell research.
I've got a small new job through my Saturday job at the senior center. That job entails caring for seniors with cognitive deficiencies so their caregivers can get some time to themselves. The husband of my favorite Saturday client, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's, has asked me to stay with his wife three mornings a week so he can go to the gym. He is a wonderful man who cares for his wife so lovingly; I was glad to be able to say yes. His wife is a delight. Her Alzheimer's is fairly advanced, but I can still tell a lot about her basic personality. She is loving, funny, and quick with a quip, and loves dogs, children, and (especially!) her husband. This morning I helped her with breakfast, then we went for a walk before coming back home where I read to her until her husband returned. We saw a hummingbird while walking through the park near her home; that was the best part of our walk. It flew around and among the branches of one particular tree for quite some time before taking off for trees and flowers unknown.
KidOne has given me her library card, so I'm reading again. Joy of joys! Most of what I have at home is literature, linguistics, and science; I use the library more for history, current non-fiction, and popular fiction--the sorts of things I'll read once but not more than that. I've just finished a history of the CIA (wow, do I ever feel not safe), a book about dealing with Alzheimer's patients, and another on a secular man's friendship with an Amish family. I also read W.E.B. Griffin's latest. Yes, I know those are not great literature, but what the heck, my mind gets its occasional lightweight fare. I'm a veteran and love to read military stuff from someone who so obviously loves the military. Now I'm in the middle of a book on evangelicals in politics today and another on the history of the FBI (okay, I feel slightly less unsafe there than with the CIA, but that is probably only because I am from the FBI-approved ethnic group), and have just started one on modern-day slavery. I like to have several books going at once, as which one I pick up depends on what I'm in the mood for at the time.
My time at the library computer is about up, so that is all for today. I'm off to check the Reserved Books shelf to see if anything is in for me, then home to call The Geek Squad to see if they can help me.
And, with any luck, within the next couple of weeks I should be able to get square with the library so I can come out from the cover of KidOne's card. Victims' Comp got my latest set of receipts and is slowly, and bureaucratically working on issuing a reimbursement check.
A
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