Audible Kids

Last week I listened to Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned. This is the second book written by Fitzgerald, just before The Great Gatsby. It was 1922. It seems like the book is autobiographical, but it was written when he was a young man. The hero of the story, Anthony Patch, seemed to foreshadow Fitzgerald's later life. Drink and lack of purpose pulled Anthony and his wife Gloria down a dismal path, just as it did for Scott and Zelda.

I enjoyed the book, but found the last part, his slide to utter despair, was hard to read. I have to admit that I skipped an hour or two, after I could see that there was little hope for Anthony. But it was still interesting enough to recommend.

It was strange to hear, once again, that this was an Audible Kids book. First the vampire romance and now a story of dissipation and despair. Maybe I'm wrong about what kids read. Or maybe this book is assigned by a lot of high school teachers. I think I would assign it. There are surely a lot of parallels to our current lives.

See that picture on the left? It is an artery that is filled with plaque. Euuuwwwww. Eric went in for an angiogram on Tuesday and they found one of his arteries was 99% blocked. So they put a stint in. That cleared up the plaque instantly. We have all been eating more healthfully since then.

He had been complaining about chest pains when exercising. Cindy found a doctor who would not just wave a yada yada wand over him but would do some intrusive snooping. But before his scheduled angiogram appointment on election day, he went to lunch with me. I thought he was having a heart attack. He said it was just bad food. Once I told Cindy, he was whisked to the hospital and the procedure was done the next day. I keep looking at that picture. No more cheese. Sigh.