Wrecks

What happened to my car is no longer an accident. It is a wreck. The jerky old dude who ran in to me is now saying that I used my Mario Andretti skills to swerve around him so I could smash his right rear brake light. Silly me. My insurance company doesn't believe him, his isn't sure. So now we have to go to arbitration. My insurance company, Mercury, is the slow-pokiest folks on record. Or rather, David, in the LA office, is overwhelmed/underbrained and can't keep up with the work. Glad I've got his number and can keep him on track.

I know this is a picture of a TV show. I guess Niall Ferguson did a show about The Ascent of Money before he wrote the book. OMG, so hard to read about how we have gone so terribly off track in our banking and financial institutions. This is another wreck. Instead of blaming one lying old man, I guess we have thousands of lying old men to blame. This was very hard to listen to, I don't know if I would recommend it to anyone with a weak stomach.

On the other hand A.S. Byatt's The Matisse Stories is a joy to listen to. Matisse's work appears in each story in a wide variety of ways. Ms. Byatt is an old feminist. Me too. I like her perspective and her weaving of the artist into these stories of women.

I've also been reading all of Eric's Robert Crais books. These are all pulp mysteries, easy to read and skim. That is hard to do when you listen. You usually have to listen to every word. I guess there is a place for everything.

One thing that is absolutely best to listen to is Chivalry by Neil Gaiman. He is one amusing writer. Audible offers free short stories to subscribers. Chivalry is about a fussy woman who buys the Grail at a second hand store. Adorable, charming, quirky, etc.

I worked last week for my favorite Senior VP, Gary. I have four days off and then go back next Monday for four days. July will be a busy month of work. Two weeks with a different VP, one week off and then one more week with Gary. Good to keep busy in an office building because this is hot and humid around here. Not as bad as it could be, but I prefer to avoid those two things as much as possible.