I have become quite fond of LOVE ON THE SPECTRUM, a reality show about people with autism trying to find love. All of them seem to have been raised to be very polite. Maybe things like manners are easier to teach than how to have a conversation. Anyway, you can't help but root for them. And their parents.
Also watching ROOSTER, HACKS, MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES, and a show on PBS with people in the UK trying to find their parents (or children). Most of them were adopted during the time when those records were hidden.
Reading SHE READ TO US IN THE AFTERNOON, Kathleen Hill and some short stories by James Lee Burke.
The weather is still unpredictable.
How are things there?
Went to an art show at Cranbrook. Cranbrook is a school, art museum and lovely grounds. We all find it hard to identify with installation art, which students mostly seem attracted to. I know photography brought representational art to a crossroads but looking at a table full of broken pottery does not do much for me. Or the recreation of a sixties living room.
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Installation art often allows the viewer to consider everyday objects in a new light, or so I understand. As a philistine, I juts keep scratching my head.
It has not been the greatest week for everyone's favorite hometown hero. Once again, I threw my back out big time and spent most of the week lying flat. This seems to be happening once every two or three months and I am not a big fan. This time the pain was many degrees higher than mere ouchie-wa-wa; the bigger the pian, the more drain on me physically, so I spent much of the week sleeping -- or trying to, in stretches of an hour or so. Everything finally eased up late Saturday so I can get back to a normal life. In the meantime things were happening all around me.
Amy turned 28. That's 28 years of having a very special lady in my life who never fails to make me smile. Others should be so lucky. And Walt Sr. turned 82 and is still truckin' along, at least until the end of the month. Ellen's dementia is getting worse, bringing with a sense of paranoia and a sense of assuredness in whatever she's doing. She managed to get hold of a ;phone and cancelled all of their auto insurance for reasons known only to her; without insurance on his truck, Walt's driving license is no longer valid. Ellen has also been texting personal details to random people on the internet because they asked; I expect much scamming to begin. Christina has been managing all of Ellen's medical appointments, but Ellen recently cancelled and rescheduled them all and then completely forgot about it, so Christina is scrambling trying to figure out when and where (and if) the appointments are. Ellen will also forget to take medication, or will decide that it is unnecessary because there's nothing wrong with her. It's hard for Christina and Walt to control her from a distance because Walt Sr. refuses to help; his mental state is fine but he refuses to acknowledge Ellen's condition. Both have recently flat out refused to move in with us so they can be better taken care of. Christina does a lot of venting to me.
Mark moved out this week and into his new apartment, which means we have begun a game of musical rooms. Walt is moving his office into Mark's room and Jack is moving into Walt's office; Newercat Rose has already moved into Walt and Christina's bedroom (and is still ignoring me, btw). Things will shift one more time when and if Walt Sr. and Ellen move in. in the meantime, the redecoration of the kitchen, living, and dining rooms was put on hold because Walt had been recuperating from last week's surgery.
More to come.
Back again.
Christina and Walt had their first official assignment as Wildlife Rescuers -- saving a baby armadillo. Christina was so excited that she put her Wildlife Rescue vest on inside out, and had to fix is before they arrived at the s=recue center so people would not think she was a dork. The day before, she had rescued a turtle from a busy parking lot, but that was a personal act and not n official Wildlife Rescue act.
Jack got super-spiffed up and was dressed like a dashing dude for his eighth grade prom. He still has not told me if there was a girl involved; he's at that awkward age where the fairer sex may not actually have cooties.
Christina's work hours shift this week; she will be on duty from 4 PM to 2 AM. We will be shifting household errands and duties to accommodate.
Christina is one of the most organized persons I have ever know. She's the bill payer and appointment maker and never messes up, but her desk and her closet are total disasters. About once a year, he needs tom go through a major clean, something Kitty took charge of when she was alive. Now it's Jessie's turn to tell Christina yes-keep-this or no-throw-this-out. So Saturday was organizing day. All day. Eighteen bags of stuff was collected to ither throw out or donate. Phew! To celebrate, they went out to a Vietnamese restaurant. They brought me along because I could finally move a bit and they took pity on me. (I was not able to go out to dinner earlier in the week to celebrate Walt Sr. birthday.)
So my week was basically spent sleeping and moaning. The only television I watched was WILL TRENT and DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN. And I was only able to read one book: Christopher Farnsworth's ROBERT B. PARKER'S BIG SHOT, a Jesse Stone novel. Jesse Stone is the most interesting and least offensive of Parker's characters and Farnsworth did a decent job with him.
As I look forward to a far more active week, I hope you will have an active and fulfilling --albeit relaxing -- week also, Patti. Stay safe.
I woke up with an aching foot and I have no idea what. This is life at 78 I guess. A back would be much worse, Jerry. That is a difficult case of dementia. We went to see a Duke Ellingham Tribute yesterday but they were not quite skilled enough for the music they were playing.
I keep meaning to try Love On The Spectrum, but we watch so many different shows on so many different channels - Britbox, Acorn, PBS Masterpiece, MHz Choice, HBO and HBO Max, Showtime, Paramount +, AMC +, MGM +, Starz, etc. - it's impossible to keep track of everything. It seems insane. And adding Apple this past year really put us over the top. We're watching new shows and catching up on those we missed. Jackie had a cunning plan to save a lot of money and eliminate channels, but her discussion with Verizon would not have saved her much at all. Since we don't do all that much otherwise, and since we can afford it, she ended up leaving things as they were. Once we finish the latest series of what we're watching (The Bureau, The Morning Show, For All Mankind, Dark Winds, etc.) we'll catch up on the newest Slow Horses, try the Harry Hole series, and get to the final series of HACKS (once all the episodes are available).
The weather was great when we got back from Florida, but it's been mostly cold the last couple of weeks. Saturday was a rainy day and we stayed home. I have my third straight week of the dentist - a cleaning this time. I have to get the car inspected today.
As soon as it gets a little warmer we're going to try and see some shows. Jackie did get tickets to the Bobby Darin show, JUST IN TIME, which I think George already saw. Lucinda Williams had to cancel her concert at the Beacon (though she is still doing most of her tour), but we have tickets for half a dozen other concerts, starting with 86 year old Dion in June.
That's really awful, Jerry. Sorry you're all having to deal with it, especially Christina and Walt.
As for the back, Jackie has done it many, many times, though - amazingly - it has been so much better since her retirement. Otherwise, it always takes a week to recover.
I read James Sallis's two books of essays on noir writers, reprinted in one - DIFFICULT LIVES HITCHING RIDES. Now I'm nearly done with his final (posthumously published) novel, WORLD'S END: A Mosaic Novel. As a fan you might want to read it, but the subject... it's basically five related but separate short stories set in a dystopian, possibly post-apocalyptic future time.
We're back to YO-YO weather: a couple rainy days, a couple of sunny days. Diane is starting to put some of our weather stuff away.
Katie bought the tickets to RAGTIME, FALLEN ANGELS, and CHESS for Diane and her sister Carol for the Mother's Day Weekend trip. I plan to read TOM JONES and watch the PBS series that I DRVed two years ago.
The shooting at the CORRESPONDENTS DINNER just shows how dangerous life in the U.S. is right now. Stay safe!
Same weather as we have. Diane and Katie see a lot of plays for people who don't live there. Yes, I love Sallis and still have his final collection to finish. MY friend keeps telling me I would like Madison but I can't subscribe to any more. I spent too much money on restaurant meals.
Katie visits NYC about once a month and sees some plays with Patrick and friends. But, she really loves Boston.
Boston is a great city!
That's some interesting TV viewing, Patti. I admit, they're not shows I've heard of, but it all sounds interesting. We've had weird weather here, too - rainy and cool, then very warm and sunny.
Our weather has cooled down and it looks like it will stay that way for at least a week. I am having digestion problems again, but I am hoping it will not last long. We were going to go buy more soil for potting plants this morning but will wait until I feel up to it.
I talked to my sister again this weekend, this time for an hour and I half. I was glad because she told me more about what is going on in her life. She is 74, and she cleans houses to support herself. Which she has been doing for 30 years at least and probably longer. She has a lovely home, two floors, four bedrooms, in a lovely area. She does live with a lot of clutter plus things she is storing for other people in the family. She is in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, and she and I have the same opinion of Trump (anti-Trump) and the problems of the world. She tells me my brother is a big Trump supporter, which doesn't surprise me, but doesn't encourage me to get in touch with him.
Jerry, I am sorry to hear about the problems with Ellen and Walt Sr. I am sure it is very disturbing for Christina and Walt. Also sorry about your back problems.
Watching: We are watching the same old shows. However we are getting close to the end of several shows: Elementary, The Mentalist, Burn Notice, and only three more episodes left in Murder She Wrote. We are watching the Ellery Queen series with Jim Hutton and David Wayne, but it only has a total of 23 episodes.
Glen is reading ADVENT by Gunnar Gunnarsson, a very short novel, at 112 pages. He is enjoying it. This is from the description at Goodreads: "Every winter, in the days leading up to Christmas, Benedikt walks into the snowy mountains of Iceland to rescue sheep lost in the blizzards."
I am now reading TATIANA by Martin Cruz Smith, the eighth book in the Arkady Renko series. I read the 6th book, STALIN'S GHOST, in 2007, and the 7th book, THREE STATIONS, in 2021. At that point, I was inspired to return to the series when I was reading Matt Paust's blog. He reviewed the first eight books in the series at his blog.
Well, he began his pro writing career in sf....
May the pleasant outweigh the unpleasant for us all. Putting much of the current US pres admin in jail will help.
For most people seeing the installation now, a '60s living room would be as familiar/unfamiliar as a 1940s kitchen. I was 5yo as we exited 1969 CE...so I have a sense of what they were like. At least in Fairbanks, AK, Oklahoma City, OK and then recently in Peabody, MA. And a few relatives' and friends' (mine and my parents') places...
Most of the installations were even less relevant to us.
Is there some sort of committee that your activities organization has to choose events? Any interest in joining presumed committee? I'm not sure if I would lean curmudgeonly on much of what you mention but might well...interesting that they assume you all would like amateur reading of Duke Ellington charts...I think I might enjoy that as an Ellington fan more than the typical person who wasn't around to be listening to radios in the late '30/early '40s. My parents, though they were jazz fans, would've been a bit young for that (both born in '37).
Sorry to hear about Ellen, Jerry. That has to be tough.
My wife and I had to put our dog down yesterday morning. She was 15-years-old and until the end was as active as she could manage. She'd still hassle me for every night for walkies. (Walkies, of course, being a word we acquisitioned from WALLACE AND GROMIT.) She'd been slowly fading physically, but must have had a stroke Sunday night. Unable to walk or even stay upright on Monday morning. Listing to her left even when trying to sit-up.
Meanwhile, Boy #2 had his philharmonica concert last night at Univ of WI. Five musical pieces and I enjoyed them all. At many concerts one or more of the selections won't jibe with me. We were able to meet him for dinner before the concert.
And, before we met for dinner, my wife and I went and bought a new dishwasher. We'd been planning to buy a new one when we remodel our kitchen, but the old one was leaking. So...
I've been listening to THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER and mostly enjoying it. Also slowly reading PIRATES OF THE PRAIRIE about crime in IL and IA in 1830s to the 1840s. The residents of Nauvoo, IL do not come off well. And there were a few clans of murderers and horse thieves across the region.
For TV I've been rewatching SOLAR OPPOSITES. Mainly because there is still so much out there to see. People have complained to me in person that there is nothing on TV. I say we are still in a golden age of scripted TV after those dark years of 'reality' shows. The main drawback being that you have to pay up a lot of cash for all the streaming services.
I quit listening to REMAINS OF THE DAY. I could not focus on the story. I think the printed version would be of more interest to me. I never saw the famed film version.
That is one of my favorite, both the print and audio. Not familiar with Solar Oppoisites
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