Free Entertainment

I read a lot and always have.  I suppose it's an escape mechanism.  In fact, I'm quite sure it is.  It was the only way I found privacy when I was a child growing up crammed in with four other people in what amounted to a three-room house until I was in the seventh grade when my Dad finally added two bedrooms and a bath to the house he had built for us.  There was a fourth room intended as a bedroom for my sister and me, but it never got finished and we slept, first on a pull-out couch in the living room, and then on a roll-away bed usually in the kitchen but sometimes the living room.(I'm not sure how we made the choice come to think of it, but we both think the roll-away bed resulted in our almost identical scoliosis).

I've read a lot since I moved into this cabin in the Rockies.  When I was working, I bought my books second hand, but that's no longer adequately thrifty.  Now my source is the very good and brand new community library in Nederland.  I read two to three books a week.  It's wonderful, free entertainment.

I think I mentioned in a previous blog a couple of books I had checked out.   I had just "discovered" Margaret Coel, having read her Blood Memory and checked out The Drowning Man.  I enjoyed both of those, so have checked out two others, Eye of the Wolf and The Girl with Braided Hair.  These are part of Ms. Coel's Wind River Mysteries in which Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley work together to solve mysteries on a Wyoming reservation.  Ms. Coel is an historian and I find the history on which she bases her novels interesting and informative. 

In that blog I also mentioned that I had checked out Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra, called a "Rich, heady, many-layered...a magnificient tour de force...an extraordinary first novel," according to the Los Angeles Times Book Review.  I pride myself on finishing any book I start, but I just couldn't finish this one.  With no T.V., I go to bed early with the intention of reading, usually fall asleep with light and glasses on, then wake up and read myself back to sleep again, so really rely on having a good book available.  But, when I was trying to read Red Earth and Pouring Rain, I would wake up filled with dread knowing this was the only book available.  Sorry, Mr. Chandra.  It was just too fanciful for me.  When the monkey got shot and woke up realizing he'd been reincarnated and had been a human being in his previous life who could type and started communicating with the people in the household where he was recuperating by doing so and then some gods got involved and he was forced to start telling stories, a la Scheherazade, but by typing, I just spaced out.  Now, really.  If I had come to you with this story proposal would you have jumped at it?  So I did not agree with the L.A. Times review and returned it unfinished. 

On this last trip to the library, I also checked out Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance by Gyles Brandreth.  I have always been amused by Oscar Wilde's wit: (“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”  “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”  www.goodreads.com), so thought I would like this novel in which he, along with friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Sherard, attempt to solve the murder of young Billy Wood.  I'm on page 243 and finding it worth reading.  It also got a recommendation from Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which I loved.  Mr. Smith does the best job of writing from a woman's perspective of any male author I've read.

I've saved the best for last, I'm reading another "free" book that I bought with some of what was left from the Amazon gift certificate that my friend Cindy gave me, and I highly recommend it.  Now, I somehow tested into an honors economics class when I was a freshman at the University of Missouri, but have never found anything related to economics or finance an easy subject.  However, I read about this book, Aftershock:  Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown Revised and Updated, on line and decided I'd order it, and have been spellbound all afternoon.  I've only had to reread a couple of passages twice to get it!  These two brothers, David and Robert Widemer, have teamed up with Cindy Spitzer, who has collaborated on books such as Chicken Soup for the Soul, I assume so people like me can understand what they're trying to communicate.  David has the Ph.D. and Robert an MBA, both having attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Apparently in an earlier book, America's Bubble Economy, they predicted the housing bubble bust long before it happened.  I'm not sure why I'm so interested, since I have absolutely no finances to protect.  Maybe it's like watching an accident happen...to someone else.  I'm on page 75 and I can tell you that I'll probably finish this before I finish the Oscar Wilde novel or start the two Margaret Coel books.  Really fascinating reading.  What are you reading these days?  Teddee

Doing Battle

A friend reminded me that I had planned to post yesterday about the ongoing jousting match with Sears regarding the botched repairs my car endured at the Sears Auto Center in Longmont, Colorado, store last October.  My intention got lost in preparing for this cold snap and it has been truly cold.  I've spent the day in bed under the electric blanket and a down comforter reading, getting up only to add more wood to the fire and reassure Pandora Radio that, "Yes, I'm Still Listening."

My wood box is getting low, but the winds are still bashing around out there, and despite the bright sun, the temperature at mid-day is about 15 degrees F.  I'm waiting for a lull, before even higher winds predicted by NOAA commence, to race out and carry in more wood.  Tonight we are supposed to have wind gusts of 29 mph or higher with a low around 7 degrees F and wind chill of -6.  Then Friday, gusts as high as 45 mph, although temps are expected to rise to 27 degrees F, bringing the wind chill to -3.  NOAA calls these days "Breezy."  I guess, compared to 75-100 mph, which we do experience, these could be considered breezes. 

So, in addition to battling the elements, I continue to battle with Sears.  We may be making some headway.  I have now engaged Anthony, my Blue Ribbon Service Customer Service Team representative at Sears, in my encounters with Mr. Paul Bernardy, Claims Examiner II Libility, Sedgwick Claims Management Services, Inc.  I have to hand it to Anthony.  He has unfailingly continued to follow up on this case.  The last time he did so, I asked if would please request Mr. Bernardy to communicate with me via e-mail since the phone service here is fitful at best.  My request for this consideration directly to Mr. Bernardy had fallen on deaf ears and I had received no responses to my e-mails sent to the address Mr. Bernardy had provided in our one phone conversation on December 15, 2011.  Low and behold, on January 10, 2012, I not only received a voice mail from Mr. Bernardy, but a follow-up e-mail asking me to submit all documentation that might support my claim.  Mr. Bernardy had told me in that December 15, 2011, phone call that he had access to all of this correspondence electronically somewhere else on the system, but made it clear it was too much trouble for him to access.  He was insisting that I fax everything to him, but I told him I had no fax.  Once I had wrested his e-mail address out of him under duress, I e-mailed him all such documentation the same day.   After receiving his January 10 request, I responded, indicating the documentation had been e-mailed to him December 15 after he indicated he couldn't be bothered to locate it electronically....and I copied Anthony.  Then I forwarded that December 15 e-mail to Mr. Bernardy again...and copied Anthony.  Now it seems Mr. Bernardy is out of the office for an extended weekend...again...so there's a lull in the battle. 

And speaking of battling, I just finished Margaret Coel's Blood Memory, which provided information about the name Niwot.  Until reading this book, I knew Niwot only as the name of a cute little village between Boulder and Longmont where I bought a pair of earrings at a thrift boutique last year and where there is an old storefront that I would love for my brick-and-mortar store if I could only afford it.  I knew Niwot had a Left-Handed Festival and that "niwot" meant "left-handed" in one of the Native American languages.  The book explains that Niwot was the name of an Arapaho chieftan, one of the so-called "peace chiefs," who was slain, along with 159 others at the Sand Creek Massacre in southeastern Colorado in 1864, where Arapaho and Cheyenne had been lured under false pretenses by the U.S. military and government officials so they could be killed.  I don't think this can rightfully be called a battle as the Indians, mostly women, children and old men who had stayed behind while the younger men went hunting, were only armed with white and American flags.  However, I really enjoyed the book, the history lesson, the plot and Ms. Coel's writing style and will now launch myself  into the Drowning Man.

What good battles have you fought and books have you read lately?  Teddee

A Day in the Life

More snow.  My kind...to begin with.  Light, fluffy, no wind.  Enabled me to sweep out, not dig out.  Easier on the back.

Had snowed about an inch or so at 6 a..m. when I awoke.  Snowed briskly all morning.  Think we got about five inches.

After checking the weather with NOAA and seeing that the temperatures were going to fall and the winds were going to come up later in the day, decided I'd better fill the wood box.  Also needed water, so made a run to the spring and filled my water jugs.  It's becoming quite a stretch for me to get my containers situated on the paver as the ice and snow build up around the water pipe.  Hello down there!

 

Drove by the post office and picked up my mail, dropped off a couple of books at the library and picked up two more. I've just discovered Margaret Coel.  Have just about finished her Blood Memory and checked out The Drowning Man.  Ms. Coel, according to the jacket end flap, lives in Boulder and is considered an expert on the Arapaho Indians.  I also checked out Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra, a "Rich, heady, many-layered...a magnificient tour de force...an extraordinary first novel," according to the Los Angeles Times Book Review.  Wow!  I'll let you know.

Also stopped at the grocery store in Nederland and got what I needed to make what turned out to be kind of a Creole stew.  It wasn't gumbo because I didn't make a roux, but used Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and it was tasty. 

And it went with the weather, which has turned just as extreme as NOAA predicted.  The wind picked up late this afternoon and is really blowing now.  I got some fairly decent photos of the snow devils up on the mountain just to the north of the cabin.  Here's one:

And here's a shot just out the front door.  It wasn't snowing at this time.  That is just blowing snow.  I got a face full trying to get this photo.

I just braved the elements and put out some food for the fox.  These photos were taken last Saturday night.  It was dark and snowing so they aren't high quality.   I believe I'm correct in thinking this is the male which, I see from a quick check, is called a dog, regnard or tod.

Isn't he a beauty?  Look at that tail!  He was so little last year that the wind blew him around like a snowflake, but he gave the vixen two kits last spring and he's really come into his own this winter. 

They usually travel solo, but one night not too many weeks ago they were both here together.  He has a lot more black on him than she does.  

I don't envy anything out there trying to scrounge up a meal in this weather.  Supposed to have a low of 4 degrees F tonight with wind gusts up to 37 mph and windchill of -16 degrees F.   This is really an interesting life!  What makes your day?  Teddee