Thursday, June 28, 2012

Odds & Ends

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday - I've been finishing up 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King which was excellent.  Finally finished it today.  You know a book is suspenseful when you're literally holding your breath as you read it.  I don't normally read King anymore, because it's bad for the anxiety, although I loved The Stand and have read it two or three times.  Both Uncle Chuck and GBob recommended 11/22/63, though, so I figured it would be ok.  I wasn't disappointed.

The problem with finishing a book is that when you do you're in between books.  I don't like being in between books.  I have several samples queued up in my Kindle, but none of them are really hitting the right note for me right now.  I have a lot of nonfiction in there, and I want some more fiction.  The book that King mentioned in his endnotes, Time and Again by Jack Finney, isn't available as an ebook, so I have to wait.  It's funny how we've gotten so accustomed to instant gratification that waiting to actually go to the library or a bookstore seems archaic.  Luckily a friend of mine has a copy and said I could borrow it.  Yep, the girl who generally can't read horror is actual IRL friends with a horror author.  Oh, irony...  I read one of his books, but I only got about 1/3 of the way into the second one before I decided it was way too scary, so if scary is your thing (or if you happen to have a few extra dozes of Vitamin Z lying around) you should read his stuff.  I'll borrow books from him, and then if he asks, "Have you read my books?"  I can honestly say, "Oh sure, lots of them!"

In other news, Jack has been torturing us with sleep deprivation for the last two nights.  Last night he was up from 2 - 5 am, and the night before that was 11 pm - 3 am.  Deeeelightful.  I got a nap this afternoon thanks to Karen and GBob.  It's 5 pm and Jack is still in his jammies.  I haven't had a shower yet.  It's one of those days...  BJ is working late and probably won't be home before bedtime.  I may or may not make supper.

I took this through the kitchen window this morning before it got so stupidly hot. 
My weird kids are singing Jingle Bells.  In June.  When it's literally 100 degrees outside. They're a little twisted.  Claire just made me a candy cane out of pipe cleaners.  Cool thoughts, I guess.

Vitamin Z is Zoloft, by the way.

I wish I had something profound to say about the health care legislation and the Supreme Court's decision today.  I'm just not entirely sure how I feel about it.  On the one hand, I remember when we were in our 20s and we didn't have health insurance, and how scary that was.  We tried to buy private insurance, but it was prohibitively expensive and what we got didn't really cover anything, anyway.  We were one accident or illness away from ruin for several years.  That's not a good feeling.  And currently, because we are self-employed, our company pays over $18,000 a year to insure us (which, when you break it down is $3600 a year per person, which isn't so bad, I guess, but it's more than we pay for our mortgage, and that kind of stings).  If there were a less-expensive option that we could buy into, that would be amazing.  On the other hand, I don't like the idea that the government can force people to buy something.  That part of it doesn't seem right, to me, whether that thing they're forcing you to buy is health insurance or, well, anything.  There are some really serious flaws in "Obamacare" that need to be addressed before it's implemented.  But all legislation is inherently flawed - no single bill is going to please everyone.  And maybe it's better than what we had.  I think ultimately that trying to take better care of people and trying to prevent bad luck from financially ruining a person or a family is good.  I just wish that cooler heads could prevail and we could get some bipartisan cooperation to get something done, rather than this polarized shouting match that has dominated our political system for, well, for as long as I can remember.

My bonus sister Jill is going to have a baby soon.  More pretty babies!  Their last name is Wise, and I think they should name him "Guy."

Well, this is kind of all over the place, isn't it?  What book should I read next?

1 comment:

Lucy said...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It takes place during the Holocaust and is told from Death's perspective