Vacation

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bob's parents' house tonight. It was a small crowd, about half what it normally is. Some of the relatives had other things going on tonight, but that's okay. It was kind of nice to have fewer people, not quite as much commotion and confusion, easier to talk.

Bob made the mashed potatoes and gravy, and I made spinach dip and stuffed celery, and Bob's mom did the rest. It was a nice evening. We're having Thanksgiving for my family at my sister's house on Thursday; Bob has to work, so I'll go out by myself. I'm in charge of napkins, cups, ice, and drinks, and I'll make something to take, but I haven't decided what yet.

I'm on vacation next week. I don't have anything in particular to do, but I have about a week and a half of vacation left that I haven't taken, so I figured since next week is bound to be quiet, it was a good time to take three days off before the long Thanksgiving weekend, especially since my birthday is on Tuesday.

I'm thinking I might go see New Moon (I read that, as well as the third and fourth books in the Twilight series, one after the other about a week ago, so I'm looking forward to the movie), and possibly 2012, although probably not, since I think Bob would like to see that one, too.

I also have a pile of books -- I picked up Charlie Huston's Already Dead on audio CD a couple of weeks ago at the library, and as soon as I put in the CD player, I was hooked. It's about Joe Pitt (an assumed name), who is a vampire and a sometime-enforcer for the vampire coalition. He's hired by a wealthy family to find their runaway daughter, and in the process finds out that there's a lot more to that task than it first appeared.

As the book opens, Joe is tailing a group of zombies (or as a politically correct acquaintance prefers to call them, "VOZ," or "Victim of Zombification." He takes care of the ones he finds, but is still seeking the carrier -- the one who created the zombies.

The vampires in this world can eat and drink regular food, but they need an occasional meal of blood to survive. They can't go out in the sun, so when Joe has to go out, he wraps up in a burnoose and tries not to let any part of his body be exposed. He isn't always successful.

There are four more books in the series, and I picked up three of them at the library today. The same time I picked up the Already Dead audio book, I picked up a book called Head Games, by Thomas B. Cavanagh. It's about a retired policeman turned detective hired to find a missing member of a boy band, "Boyz Club." The detective, Mike Garrity, has a brain tumor (which he's named Bob), a teenage daughter, and two ex-wives, so he has a fairly busy life.

I really loved the book, so I went looking for more by Cavanagh. He has written another Mike Garrity novel, Prodigal Son, as well as a standalone mystery titled Murderland, set in a Florida theme park. I couldn't find either of these at my library, so I requested them from interlibrary loan, and I picked them up today. I also have Under the Dome, Stephen King's latest, so I'm pretty well fixed for books this week. Oh, and I've also got a couple of Raymond Benson mysteries -- Dark Side of the Morgue and A Hard Day's Death, both dealing with murders of rock musicians investigated by Spike Berenger's "Rockin' Security" firm.

If I could just stay in bed all week and read, I think I would be happy. I won't, though, of course, but I plan to spend at least some of the week doing that. That's probably the best place to read Under the Dome anyway, since at over 1,000 pages, it's not likely that I'll be carrying it anywhere.

Upcoming reading:

• Under the Dome - Stephen King
• No Dominion - Charlie Huston
• Half the Blood of Brooklyn - Charlie Huston
• Every Last Drop - Charlie Huston
• My Dead Body - Charlie Huston
• Murderland - Thomas B. Cavanagh ✓
• Prodigal Son - Thomas B. Cavanagh ✓
• Dark Side of the Morgue - Raymond Benson
• A Hard Day's Death - Raymond Benson

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Saturday

It's 11:45, and I'm getting ready to head out of the house. Bob left a half hour ago or so to go downtown to Arthur Bryant's and pick up some barbeque for his lunch; he said he'd come home and watch football this afternoon. I'm planning on getting lunch at Chipotlé, then go to the library, pick up a prescription, and I don't know what else.

The weather is absolutely beautiful--68° right now, with a projected high of 75°. I guess this is the belated Indian Summer that we didn't have last month.

I'm finally getting over the cold that I've had for two weeks. I still have a cough, but it's not too bad, and I feel fine. I've been trying to take good care of myself over the last couple of weeks, and getting a lot of sleep. Last Friday I took some Nyquil when I went to bed, but I hate the stuff, and didn't take enough. So a couple of hours later Bob told me to get up and take some more, and I did, but I was still waking up coughing, so I got up and took a couple of cold pills around 2:00 in the morning.

By the time I woke up, it was after noon, and I had slept for 15 hours! I guess I shouldn't have done that, but on the other hand, I think I needed it. The next night I slept for 12 hours without any drugs at all, and during the week I've been going up to bed at about 9:30 or 10:00 most nights. I haven't gotten a lot of work done at home, but at least I haven't gotten sicker. I was worried for awhile that I might be getting bronchitis, but apparently not.

So I'm heading out into the beautiful day to run some errands. I decided I needed to read "New Moon" before the movie comes out, so I started that this morning in ebook form on my iPhone, so I'll probably read that while I eat lunch. I also need to go to the office supply store and replenish my supply of padded envelopes--I sold one of my knitted scarves on Etsy this morning, the first knitted thing I've sold, which I was pleased about. I want to get it into the mail tomorrow.

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Only Tuesday

I almost never get sick, but this year I think it was inevitable. With Bob working retail, as careful as he is to wash his hands a lot, it was almost certain that he would get a bad cold, and then, as careful as he was to try not to give it to me, I got it anyway.

I stayed home on Friday; I called in and said that I was staying home so that I didn't expose anyone else to my cold, but that I would be working, and I ended up working, I think, more than I do at the office. At the end of the day I checked my "sent" email folder, and I had sent 117 work emails. I was really very efficient -- I just sat in my chair with the laptop on my lap and sent email after email, sending off instructions, following up on things -- maybe I should just stay home all the time, there are a lot fewer interruptions.

Our wedding anniversary--33 years!--was Sunday, but it didn't seem like it made sense to go out to eat when I was feeling lousy, so we bought shrimp at the wholesale club, and I got a steak for Bob, and was going to make salad and baked potatoes, and just have a nice dinner at home. So on Saturday night he had the steak and I had a baked potato, and we both had salad, and he said he wanted to save the shrimp for Sunday night, and we had a bottle of champagne that we hadn't opened over the holidays, so we would have that, too.

Then on Sunday, I went out to run errands, and I was hungry, and I passed a Long John Silver's, and stopped in and got some fish.

Well. After being so careful about what I was eating after that gallbladder attack this summer, I had pretty much forgotten to pay any attention at all. I had been eating whatever I wanted and not watching it, but on the way home, it was evident that I had gone a little too far. Bob met me at the door when I came in, and I said, "I think I may have done something really stupid . . ."

I ended up spending the entire evening in bed, and he ate the shrimp by himself (he saved me some, of course), and we didn't open the wine.

I wasn't able to get to sleep until around 2:30 because of the pain, but by the time I woke up on Monday morning, it was gone. So I've decided to really dedicate myself to trying to keep from having another one of those attacks, since I can't afford either the time or the expense of having surgery right now. Bob went on the internet and printed out some "gall bladder diet" articles -- beets seem to figure prominently in them -- but it seems, at least as far as I'm personally concerned, that it's fried food that does me in.

So this week I've been eating rice and beans and bread, and everything has been fine so far. Except that the cold has turned into what may be bronchitis. My sister called yesterday afternoon at work, and after I croaked out, "Hello," I basically couldn't talk at all. She was on the other end going, "Are you okay? Hello?" and I was trying to stage whisper that I was fine, I just couldn't make sounds, but she couldn't hear me, so it was more or less a comedy of errors.

I ended up bursting into tears, because I felt so frustrated, and she said, "Are you crying?" but then I definitely couldn't say anything. After a little while, she hung up, and I went outside and walked around and composed myself, then came back inside and emailed her so she wouldn't think I had died or something. Bob went to bed early tonight because he has to be up at dawn to go into work; I'm trying to decide if it would be best for me to try to sleep sitting up so I don't cough and keep him awake.

What a week. And it's only Tuesday.

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What I'm reading

I used to read a LOT -- normally over a 100 books a year, at least since I started keeping track. Over the last few years, though, that has gone down considerably, I guess because I converted a lot of that reading time over to time spent on the internet. I've kind of gotten to the point where I feel guilty for sitting and reading, feeling that I should be doing something more productive. But on the other hand, I feel kind of guilty for not reading, too. It's a vicious circle.

Over the last couple of weeks, and particularly this past weekend, I made up for it a little bit, though. There were several books that came out that I was very excited about, and I pre-ordered them in ebook form, a couple from Amazon/Kindle, and one from Fictionwise.

I also picked up a few books this weekend from the library. Our library recently went through a renovation, and for the last few months the library has been operating out of a storefront in a strip mall. The new, improved library opened up the first of October, and I checked out the "new books" shelves over the weekend and got several things that had been on my wish list.

Bob was out of town, on a fishing trip to the lake, so I spent quite a bit of time reading. I went to Jason's for a late lunch on Saturday, took a book with me, and basically moved in for a couple of hours. Then on Sunday, I never even left the house. It was cold and rainy, and I spent a large part of the day on the bed, reading. It was great.

What I've been reading:

Juliet, Naked:, by Nick Hornby (ebook from Fictionwise)
Most of Hornby's books involve music (for instance, "High Fidelity"). "Juliet, Naked," is about a singer-songwriter--Tucker Crowe--who hasn't been doing any singing, or song writing, for decades, but is still the focus of a group of obsessed fans, and one in particular, a British fan, who is so obsessed that he makes a trip to the United States to stand outside some of the places that the singer had frequented. In fact, the book opens as the fan and his girlfriend are visiting, and taking photos of, the restroom that figured prominently in the singer's folklore. The fan, Duncan, asks his girlfriend, Annie, to take a photo of him pretending to use the urinal.

Then, shortly thereafter, Duncan falls into a relationship with a woman that he works with, and he and Annie break up. "Juliet" was Tucker Crowe's most famous album, written about a woman that he idolized; "Juliet, Naked" is the "unplugged" version that may or may not be an actual album. In a sequence of events that have more to do with some kind of gentle revenge than anything else, Annie starts an email conversation with Tucker Crowe that ends up being more than either of them expected . . .

A wonderful book. I devoured it.

Vicious Circle, by Linda Robertson (paperback from the library)
This was my Sunday book, the one that kept me reading in bed, reading in the bath, reading in my chair, until I finished it. It's one of the witch/werewolf/vampire genre that are so prevalent recently. Persephone Alcmedi is a witch who supplements her income by kenneling werewolves in her basement during the full moon. One of her werewolf friends is murdered, and she is hired to investigate the crime, which turns out to be not as simple as it first sounded. Even without the murder, her life had been getting complicated--first, her grandmother is kicked out of her nursing home and moves in with her, then she finds out that one of the werewolves, a tattooed, pierced lead singer in a heavy metal goth band, has a very strong crush on her.

I really enjoyed this book, and am looking forward to two more books in the series, due to be published next year.

Rough Country , by John Sandford (hardback from the library)
This is the book that I took to lunch with me on Saturday. This is one in the Virgil Flowers series rather than Sandford's more usual Lucas Davenport books. Virgil is on vacation, taking part in a fishing tournament, when he gets a call from Lucas that a woman has been shot at a nearby resort, and is asked to go take a look. He does, and it turns out that the resort is a woman-only resort--not specifically lesbian, but mostly. It turns out (as it always does) that there is more there than meets the eye, and Virgil ends up investigating the murder.

I always enjoy Sandford's books, and this one was especially enjoyable.

A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse: The Complete Stories), by Charlaine Harris (ebook from Fictionwise)
This is a collection of Sookie Stackhouse short stories that have been printed in anthologies over the years. This one was a little bit disappointing in that I had read all of the stories already, but I got it at Fictionwise on a 100% rebate promotion, so it wasn't really a loss. The stories are good, and I like having them all in one place, I would just have been happier if they'd been new to me.

The Mall of Cthulhu, by Seamus Cooper (ebook)
I actually picked this one up in the library, and I looked it up at Amazon on my iPhone to read the reviews. I found that the Kindle version was only $2.99, so I went ahead and bought it.

Ted, a barrista at a chain coffeeshop in New England, is still trying to get over the horror of killing a group of vampires when he was at college ten years ago. During that massacre, he saved the life of Laura, who is now an FBI agent. Laura is basically Ted's only friend, since he can't talk about the vampires to anyone else. They aren't actually a couple, since Laura is a lesbian, but they might as well be, bound together as they are.

Ted accidentally finds out about a plot by a group of Cthulhu worshipers who intend to awake the Old Ones and bring about the end of civilization as we know it, and Laura, by virtue of her connection to law enforcement, tries to help stop them. This one is especially fun if you have any knowledge of the old H. P. Lovecraft "Cthulhu Mythos" stories, but it isn't absolutely necessary.

Upcoming:

Demon Ex Machina, by Julie Kenner (ebook)
I've been kind of saving this one. I adore Kenner's "Demon Hunting Soccer Mom" series, and this is the latest.

New Amsterdam, by Elizabeth Bear (ebook from Baen)
I'm not totally sure about this one, but I read the sample chapters and, since it was a $5.00 download, went ahead and got it. It's kind of a steampunk/vampire/detective story that reminds me a bit of Kage Baker's novels. I like Elizabeth Bear; I don't generally like "historical" fiction, but we'll see.

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Electricity

Last night was strange. I got home and pulled into the driveway, and hit the electric garage door opener, but it wouldn't open. I thought maybe the battery was getting weak, so I tried it again, and then I held it up to the windshield and pushed it, but no luck. So either the batteries were too weak, or the door was broken. So I parked in front of the garage door and walked around the house to let myself in the front door, and hopefully open the garage from the inside.

When I opened up the front door, I reached in to turn on the light, but it wouldn't come on. The house was completely dark. I thought, aha, the power is out. We had had a pretty severe storm early in the day, so that made sense. So I walked back out to the car and got my computer and purse, locked the car, and came back inside the house. As I walked up to the house, I looked around, and it looked like there were lights in other houses, so it wasn't a neighborhood-wide power outage, anyway.

I knew where a flashlight was--on the table in the living room where Bob drops his keys--so I got that and looked around. The clock on the coffeemaker was on, and the clock on the microwave, and I opened up the refrigerator, and it was on, too. But no lights. I thought I might as well go down in the basement and try flipping the breakers, and as I started down the stairs, I tried the light just for kicks, and it came on. Hm. So I came back into the main part of the house and tried the lights there, and nothing came on.

Okay, so I had power in the basement, and some things were working in the house, but no lights. I went upstairs--we had power upstairs, the lights came on, no problem. So there was power in the basement, and power on the second floor, but nothing on the main floor. Or, no lights. Since it seemed so random, I went around and tried things, and the lamp by my chair where I normally sit came on. But that was the only light on the first floor that would come on.

I called my dad--Bob was working late--and asked him if there was anything I could do besides flip the breakers, and he said to look for a reset button on an outlet somewhere. He also suggested I call Bob's dad and ask him, since he had built the house, so I called him, and he said to try flipping the breakers, and also there should be a GFI (ground fault interrupter--I looked it up) somewhere in the house and I should try resetting that. I knew there was one on the first floor half bath.

I took my flashlight into the bathroom and tried pressing the reset button, but nothing happened. I pressed it a few times, then gave up, and went down to the basement--nice now that the lights were on--and flipped all the breakers, but nothing happene there, either.

So I sat down in my chair by the one light on the first floor and read until Bob got home. He had called to say he was on his way, so I told him what was going on, and when he got home he tried all the things that I had tried with the same result, nothing.

Bob said that he thought maybe the GFI had shorted out, so he was going to try replacing it, but by then it was about 10:00, and too late to go buy one. We were standing in the kitchen talking, thinking about what to do, and I was saying how odd it seemed that the coffeemaker, microwave, and refrigerator were all working, and I just idly turned the knob on the electric stove to see if it was working, too, and the lights came on. Um. Okay. I turned the stove off, and the lights went off. I turned it back on, and the lights came on.

Not really a long term solution, but interesting. Bob went back in the bathroom to try the GFI, and it worked now, and the lights stayed on, without having to turn the stove on. There was still something weird, though. When I ran the garbage disposal, the kitchen lights flickered; it reminded me of the old Frankenstein movies when Dr. Frankenstein flips the switch on the monster and all the lights flicker and blaze.

Bob was off today, so he bought a new GFI and installed it (and he said he only got a little electrocuted), and now everything seems fine. I don't know whether something got struck by lightning or whether it was just a coincidence, but it was sure weird.

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