Getting Better

This isn't quite the vacation/retirement  I'd been planning, but it is probably most like the one we all get.  Tribune finally got it's act together and moved my medical plan to Northern Virginia.  So I visited all the doctors that Kaiser has.  It seems I'm very healthy except for one little thing.  And for this little thing, I had surgery on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Very good day to do that.  It gives you a lot to be thankful for when Thanksgiving actually rolls around.  So, they worked on my body and I am looking pretty much like that drawing above.  Cute, no?  

Carina's family was here for Thanksgiving, so we had a 2.5 year old to keep things lively.  I'll download those pictures tomorrow.  And will tell more about their visit then.  I did get to read.  I finished the first third of the Civil War.  That got us to Shelbyville.  And now I've started the long road from Fredericksburg to Meridian.  Anyone who tells you that Lincoln's Team of Rivals always agreed on things is a liar.  Now I have to read that book again.  He was very good at managing a nest full of snakes.  I hope Obama is too, if that is the model he is following.
I also read a "new" Reacher book, One Shot.  Something light to keep my mind off the heaviness of battle and my body.  Only, I already read this book either on the cruise or at Maureen's.  That wasn't so bad.  When things aren't going quite right, it's always good to have a friend around.  At first I thought Child had recycled a plot.  My error.  

But speaking of having friends around, Adrian came out to spend Thanksgiving with me.  He was supposed to help me cook and travel around Virginia.  Instead, he stayed at the hospital most of one night and took me home the next day.  If I only had one shot at a great son, I guess I did pretty well.  I am one lucky woman.

Fine

Have I ever suggested that people should eat a balanced diet? Or read a balanced library? Well, we should do both. There is nothing better than finding a gem in a genre that you don't often read. Fine Just The Way It Is is a gem. Some may know Annie Proulx from Shipping News. I wasn't a huge fan of that book; it was just okay. Others may know her as the author of Brokeback Mountain. Actually, she was the author of Wyoming Tales. Brokeback was one of the short stories in this anthology. Fine is also known as Wyoming Tales, Part 3. This, too, is a compilation of short stories. They are as varied as my reading list. A couple are about the devil. Verry funny. And there is a lot of bleak sadness, because Wyoming gets to be like that. This was a wonderful book to read between my Civil War trek.

They did it. Tribune Company decided to pull the plug on my dear friends in India. I know I should be gleeful that, for the second time, these people saw the error of their ways and in-sourced work. But they didn't. The consolidated Helpdesk is now in Orlando. I see little difference in Orlando and Bangalore. I have friends in both places. As much as I have wished that the move to India would succeed, I wish the same for Orlando. But it still doesn't put us where we were. Instead of highly competent people who know our users well and know their issues well, we have people in other time zones determining our needs. Sorry for the we and our references. It's just easier. One of the problems with the tribune company is that they are really eight newspapers. Each set up their computer systems differently. They are trying to standardize, but maybe that project should have been completed before doing this. Where is the picture of me hiding my eyes and shaking my head?

We got a Wii! I have started to do the Wii Fit module. The most fun is the step aerobics. It is supposed to help you with your rhythm. For all of you who have seen me dance, this is quite a task. I promise that I will do that every day and may someday have better rhythm. In the mean time, I will be having a lot of fun with this system. Maybe some day I won't run over 75% of the flags in the downhill skiing. When that day comes, I may actually allow other people into the room while I do this. This is a picture of the hula hoop game. I am okay at this, but you need to move in a certain way to capture a floating hula hoop. This gives you a better score. Walking and chewing gum. Swiveling and moving your body to catch a hoop. Some of us are just not co-ordinated enough to do this.

Yet

What's Up?

Did you ever think you would live to see this day? A Democrat elected without the South dragging him down; a campaign that was brought to everyone, not just swinging people in swing states; a president-elect who thinks before he acts, thoughtfully thinks, not just assuming the "Thinker" pose as he acts out the process. I have truly died and gone to heaven. And what am I proudest of? That the voters of the United States finally understood what being a nation of immigrants means. "Your name is Barack Hussein? Well, that's nice, but what do you think, what do you want to do?" Who knows, some day we may actually elect a Muslim or a woman who is a lesbian. Who knows?

I have still been reading, but I have to say, watching CNN and MSNBC has become addictive. I've also been listening to a kagillion podcasts. Okay, only 3 of them ever get vaguely political, but I'm obsessed with keeping up. And I've been going to the doctor. Tribune finally got my benefits straight and moved to Northern Virginia. It was horrible. The worst was the inefficiency at The Times. It hurts when Tribune does a better job. So now I have new glasses to use when driving and watching MSNBC and I've been this close to getting my knee replaced. I need to see a different doctor. The one they sent me to just does sports injuries. I need the old arthritic lady doctor. Soon.

I decided to read about the Civil War while I am here. Who better than Shelby Foote? This is his three part narrative. When you listen, each of these three parts is in five sections of 6-8 hours each. That is about 100 hours. So far, I'm on the 4th part of the first book. Wow, this is interesting. I'd read Bruce Catton's books when I was here when Adrian was 6. Yes, a long time ago. So it's almost like new stuff. Who am I fooling, we all know this stuff like the back of our hand, right? Even if I did, this first book takes place in the area where I'm living now. Eric and I even visited Richmond, so all that fooling around the McClellan is doing in this book takes place in a location known to me. Very interesting.

Poor Abe Lincoln isn't held up as a hero here and that is good. He is just like all the rest of them, a man caught in a horrific circumstance, trying to do his best. At this point in the book, he is still kicking and screaming against universal emancipation. He wants those Southerners to come back. Ripping away their livelihood isn't the best way to entice them. Luckily, we all know this turns out well.

And, of course, I had to read another book inbetween sections of that long book. David Baldacci has a series of books that started with The Camel Club. Divine Justice is his latest in that series. This is so good. You could probably step into the middle of things and start with this book because he explains a lot about what went on before throughout this book. But I wouldn't do that. These are worth reading from the start. This one may be the fourth book. It has the appearance of being the last, but who knows. At one point in the book, it took on sort of a Jack Reacher vibe and I had trouble keeping track of who the protagonist was. They are both kind of super-hero, knock-you-dead-with-a-look kind of guys. And John Carr does some traveling in this one. But I got it all straightened out in time to really enjoy the end.

It's funny that this too takes place in my current neighborhood. Cool.

Fall

Have I said that it is beautiful here? The trees are slowly turning into all those fall colors we read about in California. Some do it slowly. I don't know any of the names of these trees. Is it the maple that slowly changes from green to orange? And what tree is it that all of a sudden, pfoomp, turns yellow?

Even my car is happy to have soft deciduous leaves covering its windshield wipers instead of pine needles and oak leaves. They were never this pretty. And thinking about those live oak leaves, these leaves are easier to walk on bare-footed.

Another sign of Fall is baseball. I celebrated the baseball playoffs by reading the book Faithful by Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King. It was written during the 2004 baseball season. These two authors and old friends decided to keep journals about every game the Boston Red Sox played that year. The Red Sox hadn't won a World Series since early in the last century. Their book was based on the premise of how faithful the fans remain despite never winning the big one.

Of course the book is well written and it has the wonderful ending of the curse being broken. (No spoiler alert needed, unless you really don't like baseball. And then you won't care.) One of the things that I've come away with is that these guys play way too many games. The season starts in cold weather and may end on Halloween. We got to watch the players play for several innings in the rain in the final game this year. We all like to make a lot of money, but I think the TV stations, team owners and players need to get a grip. Too much, guys.

In any event, Faithful takes you into the minds of guys who wouldn't mind if the season was longer. What do I know?