2013 Reading List

I will try to keep this updated better than last year's list.  Not sure what happened to last year.

1. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose, by Susan Wittig Albert (1-11-13)
2. Threadbare, by Monica Ferris (1-26-13)
3. Diary of a Player, by Brad Paisley (1-28-13)
4. And Then You Dye, by Monica Ferris (1-29-13)
5. lots and lots of magazines (stack to donate is 2 feet high and growing)
6. The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams (1-x-13) - YA novel about a girl in an LDS-like cult
7. Thin Wood Walls, by David Patneaude (1-x-13 or sometime 12-12) - YA novel about the Japanese internment during World War II
8. Are You In the House Alone? by Richard Peck (2-20-13)
9. Chestnut Hill: The New Class, by Lauren Brooke (2-22-13)
10. Kevin Sorbo bio
11. Babylon Confidential
12.  A Horse in New York, by Cam Parker (3/5/13)
13. Conversations with J. K. Rowling (3/5/13)
14. Best (worst) School Year Ever
15. Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust (3/5/13)
16. A Group of One, by Rachna Gilmore (3/6/13)
17. Defiance
18. Someone Named Eva
19.  Wringer
20. Final Journey (holocaust)
21. 
    
22. The Surgeon
23. The Apprentice
24. The Sinnner
25. Body Double (4/23/13)
26. Vanish
27. The Mephisto Club
28. The Keepsake
29. Ice Coldd
30. The Silent Girl
31. Brio Girls x2
32. Amelia
33.  
34. A Feral Darkness
35. Counterfeit Son, by Elaine Marie Alphin
36.  Last to Die (5/15/13)
37. Rich Mitch, by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (5/16/13)
38.  Father of the Orphans
39. Counterfeit Son
40. k. d. lang biography
41. Bruce Springsteen biography (6/7/13)
42. The Compassion of Father Dowling (6/10/13)
43. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (6/10/13)
44. Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
45. Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
46.  
47. Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
48.  
49. Shipwrecked book 1
50. Shipwrecked book 2
51. Shipwrecked book 3
52. Uprising - Margaret Peterson Haddix
53. Unbroken - Jessie Haas
54.  Mr. Monk in Outer Space
55. 
    
56.  Mr. Monk Goes to Germany
57. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World
58. Exit Wounds, by J.A. Jance
59. Dead Wrong, 
60. Mr. Monk is Miserable
61. Damage Control,
62.  Fire & Ice,
63. Judgment Call, 
64.  No More Dead Dogs
65. Secrets from a Dead Girl
66. 
    
67. 
    
68.  
69. Mr Monk and the Dirty Cop
70. Mr. Monk in Trouble (7/3/13)
71. the rest of the Monks
72. 13 Reasons Why
73. Touch, by Francine Prose
74. The Best Horse - Elizabeth Van Steenwyk (Girl sells spoons for barrel race entry fee, realizes her horse isn't a racer, uses the horse they're boarding instead)
75. Wildwood Stables: Daring to Dream - Suzanne Weyn (typical girl wants horse, gets free horse, has no way to keep it, miracles occur)
76. Scott Westerfeld Midnighters 1 & 2
77. Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet
78. Calvin Coconut: movie
79. Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven
80. The Ruins of Us, by Keija Parsinnen
81.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham (9/29/13)
82. Canterwood Crest
83. Silver Creek Riders
84. Sandy Lane Stables: a Horse for the Summer
85. Brio Girls: Good-bye to All That
86. 
    
87. Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver (9/30/13)
88. Revenge Wears Prada (10/5/13)
89. The Dark Horse (Longmire) by Craig Johnson.  (11/14/13)
90. The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach
91. Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
92. This World We Live In (skimmed) by Susan Beth Pfeffer - Two books of a semi-related trilogy.  Fulfilled my quota of post-apocalyptic gloom-and-doom for a while, and I'm still of the opinion that the moon-meteor collision suffers from iffy science.
93. Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella (11/x/ 13)  Not as good as the Shopaholics, but still fun.
94. Changes (Collegium Chronicles)
95. Redoubt (Collegium Chronicles)
96. Bastion (Collegium Chronicles #5) by Mercedes Lackey (11/30/13).  Glad she's still writing Velgarth/Valdemar books, but these are geared it seems more to the YA market.  
97. Turn and Burn
98. Kissin' Tell
99. Chasin' Eight
100. Family Italian by Gennaro Contaldo (12/7/13)
101.  The Litter of the Law, by Rita Mae Brown (12/8/13)  Finished in one afternoon, which is why I sadly stopped buying these in hardback.  I get the library's copy, saves money and space.
102. 
     

Fun with Tech Support

You know it's not going to end well when even the tech support guy on the phone sounds confused by what he sees. I've spent way too much time talking to CenturyLink's tech support this week. Our Internet died on Wednesday, mid-use. Phone was fine, just no broadband. And as I was trying to narrow it down to "their problem or mine" we get a call asking if we'd gotten the new modem for the new TV service. Which, no - the TV is satellite, and we don't (didn't) need a new modem. So I called Tech Support, got transferred at least once - because we have "special" broadband and had to call a different number than the main broadband TS number - and confused at least two people. Because apparently what our account says at CL is abnormal or something. Long story short, I spent Thursday waiting for the technician ("any time between 8 and 5" but you can call to see how is workload is). He spent an hour fiddling with things, inside and outside the house, left a new modem, and we have internet again. But, the Kindle now can't get a signal farther than halfway down the upstairs hall. With the old modem, I could get a signal all the way down to the basement door (two floors down). So, on Friday, another call to Tech about the possibility of boosting the signal. And hour and a call-back later, our account may be more accurate on their end, but our only solution is to buy another WiFi router and run the signal through it. And we may not have the "special" broadband - there's some confusion over whether we have bonded, fiber, DDSL, VDSL, or who-the-hell-knows. But at least we have internet again, although the Kindle is used a lot less when I can't netsurf on it. And apparently the trigger for this whole mess is that we called two weeks ago to cancel the inside wire maintenance plan ($5.99/month).

So, the Freak Out Followup

Follow up to the optical freak out. Bob has - according to the second optometrist - Small-angle esotropia, intermittent at near but constant at a distance, causing amblyopia with crowding phenomenon. None of which comes up with a lot on Google, unfortunately. Essentially, his left eye is periodically a bit off-track, thus the "intermittent" which means that surgery won't fix it. He had his 6-week follow-up, and there was some improvement, so we're doing more eye exercises and will go back for another appointment at some point. Scarily, the doctor implied tht this could be a fairly long-term thing. God, I hope not. Adding 2 hours of eye exercises on top of the after-school French program and regular homework, plus time for playing and dinner, is trying to cram a lot into one day. Doesn't help that he's bored with most everything we've done, and is a master at stalling and misdirection. Bribing will only go so far, and threats don't do any good.

It's Dead, Jim

A moment of silence, please, for our poor TiVo. Yes, we knew it was acting twitchy and that we needed to call DirecTV about a replacement. Yes, I knew I needed to watch some of the massive backlog that built up over the summer. Too late now, folks. It died this morning, while I was watching a Flashpoint rerun. Froze up, wouldn't respond, and even a pull-the-plug reboot didn't fix it this time. FedEx will be delivering the replacement hopefully tomorrow. And, sadly, if it was really the hard drive that crashed and burned, all my backlog is gone. Now, 75% of it, oh well, there will be reruns. Eventually. Or they exist on DVD. Things like old Disney movies (although Happiest Millionaire is pretty rare), The Music Man, Flashpoint reruns, the Good Witch movies, even Black Gold, which is obscure at best. Magic School Bus. 15% of it, I may have to start looking for underground bootlegs or something. Special Unit 2 and The Sentinel, since SyFy has given up on showing, you know, actual science fiction shows. But 10% of it probably won't be rerun at all - like the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics that I still hadn't watched. The latest Mars landing. Science Channel's Neil Armstrong tribute. Worst part? It's premiere week, plus new SyFy shows are running, so I've lost the newest episodes of Alphas, Warehouse 13, Hawaii 5-0, and NCIS. Part of those we can maybe find online, but some of it is gone for good. There should really, really be a way to move things between hard drives. I can do it on the computer, which isn't that different from a TiVo hard drive. Heck, our DVD-R recorder could split a recording into multiple parts, so surely they can find a way to program that into a TiVo. Very handy for keeping small bits of shows (music awards, Olympics) and getting rid of the rest. Or, for the Olympics when I had to tape 6 hours to get the one hour of event I wanted, split the recording to delete the other 5 hours and make some room. So, a fresh start. Maybe this time I can keep from having it sit at 98% full for weeks at a time.

School, Week 1

&aIn other news, Bob started school on Tuesday.  First grade.  His first experience with all-day school, cafeteria food, and other things.


It's supposed to be a good school; private, a bit expensive, there are uniforms (basically business casual), etc. Lots of talk about honor, respect, honesty, etc. The expected never-ending requests for donations of time and money, I'm sure. And it seems okay so far, but there have been a few glitches.

For example, no one apparently explained lunchtime procedures, either to us (we've had 3 hours of "orientation" so far) or the kids (unless Bob didn't hear that part). So, Bob didn't know that there were separate lunch lines, and he ended up with nacho bar instead of a sandwich on Tuesday. He'll survive. A talk with the teacher this morning cleared things up, but this should be in the handbook, I think. I can't answer Bob's questions if I don't know the answers.

Also, unfortunately, we've already had to find the Lost & Found. Even more unfortunately, I don't think our Lost thing will ever be Found, which means that (probably - I'm hoping for recovery) someone, not to sugar-coat it, stole my kid's Snuggle Puppy backpack clip on the second day of school, and that said Someone is one of his classmates.

Yes, it's my fault for putting Snuggle in Bob's backpack pocket for a first week security blanket, and Bob's for not zipping the pocket. But still. As near as I can tell, it had to fall out in his classroom, with the teacher and other people around. We looked in the hallways, cubbies, and classroom. No luck. Teacher hasn't been overly helpful (I get the impression she's not friendly with the parents, but I hope that's just me being defensive and tired and anti-social this week) regarding lost Snuggle, either. Wich leads to my supposition that some other little kid saw Snuggle, liked him, and absconded with him, knowingly or not. Sucks majorly. So much for honesty and integrity and all that.

Also, the Lost and Found? It's a cheap pop-up hamper in the main hallway. No sign, so we had to ask three people before we figured it out. No supervision, so honestly if someone sees a nice item in the hamper, they can take it and no one would ever know.

So now, I'm off to search the Internet for a Teenie Pillow Pet dog for less than $15. Which sucks more because I got ours on clearance after Christmas for something like $2. But it's my fault he's lost, so I'll replace him.

Freak out Follow Up

So, last time on the amazingly neglected blog, I was dealing with the Dali/Coin conundrum, and vision issues.

The Dali issue was not so traumatic as I expected.  That day turned out to be bicycle day at Summer Camp, and an extra half hour racing his friends around the parking lot meant that Bob didn't give a fig about missing Dali or the coins (whichever ended up being the actual program).

The eye issue is an ongoing thing.  Bob had a two-hour checkup with an optometrist who specializes in pediatric patients - which meant having his eyes dilated, and whatever the doctor used was heavy-duty stuff, because he was still dilated a week and a half later.  And that led to my mother worrying that his eyes were still dilated.  And yes, we called the doctor, who said "drop by" the office (which is a 40 minute drive, so "dropping by" isn't that convenient).  We dropped, occupied the waiting room chairs for 20 minutes, and an assistant took a 20-second look to tell us that it's fine and can take up to 10 days to go back to normal.  And why couldn't they mention the 10-day timeframe the first time around???  Who knows.

Long story short: Bob has, as far as the optometrist can tell, micro-strabisimus in his left eye, meaning the focus is a bit off or out of sync with the other eye.  She prescribed 2 hours of eye exercises a day - things like stringing beads, putting toothpicks into a straw, tracing things, etc.  That was easy to do before school started, but this week has been a mess.  Trying to fit this into the evening, along with dinner, homework, bedtime routines, and play time, is a serious headache.  I hope it gets better as we get the routine fine-tuned.  We go back for a follow-up in 5 weeks, and if this hasn't worked, I don't know what the next step is.  Google results mentioned surgery, but that was for cases caught a bit younger and suddenly - since Bob's vision last year was 20/20, I'm not sure how something sort of sudden compares to a case that may not have been so sudden.

Another reason to freak out

Yeah, the blog's been ignored this summer.  Serious lack of computer time, since the computer is upstairs and a certain kid doesn't like to be downstairs alone.  And the Kindle Fire, while internet-capable, does not work well with Blogspot.

So.  Today is NOT my day.

Small issue:  we're signed up tomorrow for a program at the campus art & archaeology museum.  Which, thanks to lousy luck, starts at the same time that summer camp is ending, and it's a 20-minute drive/walk from one to the other, but we can leave camp early in a pinch.  But the issue: the schedule I picked up at the museum this spring says the program is supposed to be about coins, while the schedule online says the subject of the day is Dali.  Bob (not his real name) is interested in the antique coins, but not so much with the Dali.  So, I call to double-check, and am told that it's Dali.  Crap.  So, I get to tell Bob that we're not really going to the museum tomorrow, and he'll probably be grumpy about me "ruining" his fun.  Ah well.  We're still doing summer camp, plus pajama party at the library in the morning, so it's not like he's at home staring at the ceiling.

Big issue (Big Big issue.  Freak-me-out issue referred to above):  Eyesight.  In short, mine sucks royally, and the one thing I was really really wanting was for Bob to not inherit the crap eyesight.  We've been going along fine until now.  He had his first optometrist visit last fall, 20/20 in both eyes, everything's fine.  Passed the amblyopia screening at school with no problems.  Then, Monday, he had his annual visit to the pediatrician, and didn't do so well in their quick-n-dirty vision screening.  Right eye fine, left eye "blurry." 

So we say "Uh oh" and called our optometrist after we got home.  He spent an hour with her this morning - got his pupils dilated, nifty little digital pic of his retinas, the whole shebang.  Right eye, still good.  (Okay, a touch of astigmatism in one eye, but still.)  Left eye, not so much.  Still blurry, but oddly, the optometrist can't see anything that would make it all blurry.  So we're getting sent for a second opinion.  Joy.

I will NOT Google this.  My Reader's Digest/Discovery/anatomy class medical education is enough to worry me as it is.  If the eye itself looks fine, but the brain is getting fuzzy pictures, that makes my medical non-education think that it's maybe something else, like problems with the optic nerve or whichever part of the brain is in charge of visual processing.  And neither of those can probably be fixed with glasses. 

The really odd part is that he hasn't mentioned anything, and he's a bright enough kid that surely he would have said something about reading being hard.  Because he's been reading like a fiend all summer - Magic School Bus, Magic Tree House, he's discovered all my Calvin & Hobbes and Foxtrot books, plus anything he can find about the Titanic, or other shipwrecks, or Dr Ballard.  Of course, he's also a bit of a hypochondriac at times, he comes home from Grandma's house with a limp to match hers, and a cough to go with Grandpa's.  But this seems too consistent.