Summer in Arkansas

In the 90's all this week and a high of 100 predicted for Monday. And still technically spring.

The coldest summer of our future has commenced.

Thirteen weeks until Fall.

What I'm Reading Now

Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair

I found this one in a used bookstore. I love Josephine Tey, and I thought I had read everything she had written, but I had missed this one somehow. It's not exactly one of her Inspector Grant novels, though he appears in it briefly -- it's about a 40-something lawyer who takes as a client a 40-something woman and her 80-something mother who have been accused of kidnapping and abusing a 15 year old girl, in an attempt to force her to be their maid. Written in in 1948, it's a charming look at small-town England just after the war. As usual with Tey, it's mostly a conservative point of view, but very readable nonetheless. Liberals are silly, mainly, that kind of thing, but also some religious stuff. I enjoyed this one very much, despite that. 

If you've never read Josephine Tey, start with Miss Pym Disposes, which is her best book. But this one is also very good. (I've read my copy of Miss Pym Disposes to tatters.) They're mystery novels, and there is usually a romance somewhere, and justice always prevails.

Richard Adams, Watership Down

I'm not actually reading this one, I'm listening to it while I exercise. I've read it several times, though. It's an epic novel about rabbits. One of them, based on Cassandra, according to Adams, can see the future, and usually isn't believed. But his brother Hazel believes him this time -- the rabbit, Fiver, sees doom coming to their warren. Hazel, Fiver, and a half dozen other rabbits flee the warren, and for the first half of the book trek across a small area of England. They end up at Watership Down, where they establish a new warren, and that's just the first half of the book.

If you haven't read this one, you should. I'm not kidding about the epic part -- it's structured very like an epic, probably intentionally, as Adams had a classical education and attended Oxford. He based many of the rabbits on people he fought with in WWII. Anyway, a great read, and I'm enjoying listening to it as well.

John Wiswell, Someone You Can Build a Nest In

I also listened to this one, and highly recommend "reading" this book that way -- the narrator is excellent. This is an odd, fascinating book about a monster who falls in love with a princess, more or less, told from the point of view of the monster.  It's the monster's point of view that makes this really work -- she thinks and acts like a monster, and yet we find ourselves on her side. There's some rough bits -- A bit of body horror early on, and some off-stage physical abuse of the princess, plus emotional abuse on-stage -- so be aware of that, but also a happy ending.

This is Wiswell's first novel. I'll be reading his further work.

Stephen King, You Like it Darker

A collection of short stories. King is better at novels than he is at short stories, but these are all readable, if not all excellent. More "literary" rather than "horror" in this collection. He touches on COVID in several stories, and there are some very weird ghosts in one. Also a gruesome death by alligator.

I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I got it from the library rather than shelling out $$$. If you liked King, you'll like this one. And if you don't like King, you might like this one anyway. You can skip the ghosts. 

Father's Day Weekend

The kids are visiting us for the weekend, but they only just realized it's Father's Day weekend today, so it's not for that.

I made them a lovely Dutch Baby for breakfast, and Dr. Skull is going to make a cheesecake for dinner.

Meanwhile it is so hot here. What the hell. It's not even technically summer yet.

How I Will Spend my Summer Without Teaching

I'm not teaching this summer, which is such a relief. I have 12 weeks in front of me with -- shit, what? Oh, okay. It's down to nine weeks now. What the absolute fuck, where did my three weeks go?

I drove to New Orleans for my father's memorial and then I drove home again and then my dog died, and then today I didn't do a gotdamn thing but drink tea and read SF novels.

Right, okay. What will I did with my almost nine weeks that remain?

I'm going to read more SF novels (big surprise) and write reviews for some of them, and I will also work on what might be (knock wood, touch silver, spit) a new novel. Or maybe just a novella. WE WILL SEE.

I will also continue exercising. And I'll visit my kid and the rest of my family up the mountain once a week or so, which is easier now that we have the Subaru. Oh, and I promised Dr. Skull a trip to visit Glen Campbell's grave. (Why? I do not know.)

Speaking of Dr. Skull, Dr. Skull wants to get a new dog. I am against that for the time being, though a pet search program keeps throwing up cute puppies for my perusal. I'm just not ready.

A black mouth cur that Petfinder says I should get

R.I.P. Heywood Floyd, 2010-2024

My little dog started having seizures and trouble walking yesterday, and today he had a seizure that wouldn't stop. After running tests the emergency vet and I decided it was time.

It never gets any easier to let them go.

In Case You're Confused

The American College of Pediatricians is not a credible organization. And they are not to be confused with the American Academy of Pediatricians, though they would like you to conflate the two.

See here: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/american-college-of-pediatricians/

And also here: https://jabberwocking.com/no-pediatricians-arent-suddenly-opposed-to-gender-affirming-care/

(Blogspot has suddenly stopped allowing me to embed links, I do not know why.)

This is what the Mediabias/Fact check site says about them:

Reasoning: Hate Group, Poor Sourcing, Pseudoscience, Failed Fact Checks
Bias Rating: FAR-RIGHT
Factual Reporting: LOW

Among other things, the American College of Pediatricians spread the lie that the vaccine for HPV causes infertility.

And the group was specifically founded by sixty doctors who wanted to oppose marriage equality. They exist to spread lies and bigotry about LGBTQ people. They're also a very tiny organization -- there are more than sixty of them now, but not much more. (700, in 2002, as opposed to over 70,000 in the AAP.) 

Anyway, if they're braying about trans kids now, it's (a) not a surprise and (2) lies and bullshit.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Down in New Orleans

Day One: We drove ten hours, through intermittent torrential downpours, reaching New Orleans in time to eat at the Kosher Cajun before it closed. The storms were blinding -- my windshield wipers couldn't keep up with them -- but brief. Driving through Memphis without being able to see more than a few feet ahead of the Subaru was a real treat. However, we survived. 

I had a lovely tongue sandwich at the Kosher Cajun, highly recommend. We're staying at a hotel about three minutes from a very small Trader Joe's, which we visited after dinner.

It is so hot here. SO HOT. The temperature is only 90 degrees, but the air is thick as soup. I did not miss the weather in New Orleans, city of my dreams.

Day Two: We had breakfast at the hotel -- Residence Inn does a nice free breakfast -- and then drove Uncle Charger to the French Quarter. Then Dr. Skull and I drove around visiting places either he or I wanted to visit  while we were in town. This included Trader Joe's and the giant Barnes & Noble. I finally burned through all my Barnes & Noble gift cards. We visited Zuppardo's (Zuppardos,com), which is the grocery store my mother always shopped at, and where my brother Mike worked as an adolescent. It has been rebuilt and is not the tiny crowded grocery of my childhood.

The Zupppardo's of my Childhood

Current Zuppardo's

In the evening we met my sole surviving brother and his wife for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. A big gusty thunderstorm hit as we were driving home. 0/10 do not recommend. Driving in New Orleans is a real treat, by the way. And I mean that with ever ounce of sarcasm in my bones.

Day Three: The ceremony was at three, so in the morning we went to a used bookstore, but it was closed, and then back to the Barnes & Noble instead, and also the Kosher Cajun one more time. Then we came back to the hotel to dress, and went on to the ceremony. Lots of my father's friend and co-workers showed up, none of whom I knew, but it was a nice ceremony. Dr. Skull told his favorite stories about my father, including the time he blew up part of a building testing an O-ring, and how he and my father would go buy ice together. Afterwards, we all went to a very loud and smoky bar and grill, the River Shack, which was one of the places my father liked to hang out. (They had Dixie on tap.)

We came back to the hotel and I fell asleep at 8:30.

Day Four: Since I had gone to bed so early, I woke at 4:00 in the morning. We ate the free breakfast at the hotel, and got on the road by 8:00. Aside from a torrential downpour while we were on the twin span crossing the spillway, and a very exciting roadkill (a giant alligator), our trip home was uneventful. We came back via I-49 because Dr. Skull wanted to visit Glen Campbell's grave ("Who?" the kid said), but in the end we were too tired and just came on into town.

the Twin Span

Upon arrival, we found the house had lost power during the big storm on Monday, but was otherwise okay. Now we are waiting for the AC to cool the house down to a bearable level.

We boarded the dog and the cats, but we can't pick them up until tomorrow. I am going to spend the evening reading novels and eating ice cream.