This and That

An interesting medical study was released yesterday, correlating the use of digital media and the increasing diagnoses of ADHD - Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.  ADHD symptoms include inattention, hyperactivity, restlessness, or impulsivity that is more severe, frequent, or debilitating than normal.  The study followed a group of teenagers who had no, little, average, or above average usage of "digital media" - Smart phones, tablets, etc - and found those people who accessed their digital media more than 14 times per day were likely to be diagnosed with ADHD as they aged.

The 45th President of the United States was amazed and aghast by the American people's response to his "wonderful" time with President Putin in Helsinki.  He went on television today to say that he "misspoke" and meant that he thought he conveyed the idea that Russia might have interfered in the US 2016 election.  - I believe he did not misspeak, and that he meant exactly what he said...
   He also stated, "We met with the Queen, who is absolutely a terrific person, where she reviewed her honor guard for the first time in 70 years, they tell me.  We walked in front of the underguard, and that was very inspiring to see and be with her.  And I think the relationship, I can truly say, is a good one.  ...  She was very, very inspiring, indeed."  -  Why is the President using the Royal "we?"  The Queen reviews the Coldstream Home Honor Guard multiple times each year.  And the Queen has only been Queen for 66 years - how could she not have reviewed her Honor Guard for 70 years?  Not to mention the fact that she was wearing a beautiful blue brooch that was a gift of the Obamas' during 45's visit; or that their "tea" lasted for 17 minutes only....
   And regarding his belligerence at the NATO meeting, he stated: "The press covered it quite inaccurately.  They said I insulted people.  Well, if asking for people to pay up money that they are supposed to pay is insulting, maybe I did.  But I can tell you when I left, everybody was thrilled and that's the way this was, too.  My meeting with President Putin was really interesting in so many different ways because we haven't had relationships with Russia for a long time.  And we started." -  Oh I can totally believe that "...when I left, everybody was thrilled..."  That stupid man doesn't think anything through before he says it!  (And, being a nasty, bitchy woman with a prurient mind, his comment about Putin and relationships with Russia being so very interesting in different ways makes me wonder what he's been up to with Vladi...)

Here in Boulder, we've just been notified that a "violent sexual predator" has been released from jail, and, having to declare a residence, has filed papers saying he is homeless and will be camping out along Fourmile Creek, within the city limits.  He states that he'll be staying east of Broadway, near Rosewood Avenue.  A lot of the citizens are suddenly upset because they live near there, in new, upscale homes and/or apartments and they are suddenly worried over their safety.  This is two blocks away from the Homeless Shelter, which is across the street from a topless girlie bar...  Am I the only person who finds this confusing?

I had planned on rehanging out outdoor balcony lights yesterday, but just didn't feel like it.  It was cloudy and threatening rain all day, after a day of clouds and rain on Sunday.  I slept and read, and slept and read...  Finished a new Alyce Clare book, and began a new Paul Doherty book.  Will hang the lights when I finish posting for the day...

Snow and Books

So after more than fourteen hours of snow fall, the sun is shining, and most of the sky is bright blue.  But it's 23 degrees outside - not the 80 degrees we had two days ago.  There is snow on our balcony, and on top of Bertrando's telephone pole.  The parking lot and street are almost entirely clear of snow.  There is a small amount of snow scattered across the grasses and bushes  in the little area between our apartment and the restaurant next door, but the community building across the creek looks to have two to three inches of snow on their large yard.
   I had to turn the heat on this morning when I got up.  We'd had the air conditioning turned on Wednesday, but my legs were chilly under my blanket when I awoke this morning, so I turned the heat on.  We have eight biscuits left from last night, and a large amount of soup - that's all in the refrigerator at the moment.  And I had two raspberry muffins for breakfast today - yum!  Waiting to hear from various clients as to whether they want their dogs walked today...  I'm very happy to do so, but a few will want their dogs to stay home because of the cold, and a few because of the snow and ice on the ground.  Winter day walks are always a toss-up.
   I finished reading The Rest I Shall Kill, a very good, but incomplete, biography of William Tillman.  It's incomplete because we really have no history of the man before the incident that made him a "Northern hero," and because, like today's 15 minutes of fame, he disappeared into obscurity a month or so later.  It's really a shame that a man can have so little known about him, even after he's been acclaimed a hero of the Civil War.  -  I also just finished reading the new Jack Reacher novel,Night School, by Lee Child.  I also find it funny that Lee Child, an Englishman, is the author of a series of books that introduce and maintain the idea of the iconic American ex-GI....  But I thoroughly enjoy each and every one of them!
    Going back to read a few more Eight Countries books by Elizabeth Moon that I haven't seen before...  Should be a snug reading and sewing weekend.

Chilly, Books, Vikings

It was a grey, chilly day here.  After temperatures around 90 degrees (F) over the weekend, having a high of 55 seems a bit cool.  Not to mention the 100% humidity level we've had all day.  It's almost 6 in the evening, and I can finally see the mountains, even though they are very hazy.  And it looks odd to see the pockets of cloud tucked into the shoulders of the various peaks and arroyos.  It's also the first time I've actually seen that the leaves on the trees a block away are green in color.  It's typical during snow, but odd during the fall.
   I've been catching up on this season's Vikings - saw two hours over the weekend, and three hours today.  I'm still in love with Floki, even if he did kill Athelstan.  And I was shocked when Aslaug handed Ivar the Boneless over to Floki as his instructor in the gods and the old ways - but it makes perfect sense, in retrospect.  Linus Roache is amazing as always in his portrayal of King Ecbert; and I have truly enjoyed every minute that Ivan Kaye has been on screen as King Aelle.  Rollo is certainly making waves with Gisla, and I'm rather enjoying the actor taking the part of Count Odo.  Bjorn Ironsides is maturing quite nicely...  And Lagertha  certainly gave her husband an unexpected wedding gift...
   I am re-reading Visitor to capture the nuances I missed, and have already found several items that I did not register in my first, hurried reading.  I'm about to order the new Pendergast novel by Preston and Child, The Obsidian Room, that will ship out next month.  In the meantime, I'm awaiting my own copies of The Rain Wild Chronicles (volumes 1 to 4) for enjoying a leisurely perusal.  After that, I'll start the new Robin Hobb series, The Fitz and The Fool.  I know there are two components already published, so maybe I'll be just in time for the third of the series...  And then it should be time for a new Sigma Force  novel by James Rollins, and then a new CJ Cherryh Foreigner book.   Looking forward to good reads over the next several months!

Back From a Trip Through Time and Space

Sorry, folks; between pet- and house-sitting and getting deeply involved in three new books, I just didn't get around to my blog.   I'm embarrassed by my back-sliding (not really).  I have been extremely busy in my critter-sitter business, and won't be sleeping at home again until the 26th of May.
   I was up at 4 o'clock this morning, showered dressed, walked the dog, fed the critters, watered the garden and the flowers, and was standing at the end of the driveway at 5 o'clock to travel with clients to Denver National Airport.  When they picked me up, dawn was breaking, the robins and smaller birds had begun singing, and a few of the neighbor's ducks were wakening and quacking.  As we drove out of the neighborhood, there was an oddly-moving eye-shine reflected back in the headlights.  The driver asked what it was, and I was able to answer it was a raccoon - although it was moving sideways, more like a crab than a raccoon.  I didn't give it anymore thought, as we were soon on the Expressway, where the speed limit is posted as 75 miles per hour - the family had decided to sleep in a little later and then rush to the airport.  As we passed one automated signal, it said we were traveling at 98 mph.  Oh, boy....   I drove back to Boulder at the rather sedate 65 mph posted for the Interstate, instead of racing back on the Expressway.
   First, I fed and walked Roxie and Finnie, the two Brittany Spaniels.  Then I went to the house behind Roxie and Finnie's and I walked Cooper and Lola, then fed those two, as well as the two cats, Pounce and Tipsi.  I had already fed and walked Tess and the cats, but I stopped by to allow Tess time to go outside again.  Then I went to my apartment, fed my kits and cleaned the litter boxes, and took a 50 minute nap.  After that, it was off to walk Rosie.
   Rosie and I had decided to visit my sister and brother-in-law's yard this morning.  (She's visited Tess the past three days.)  So we ambled toward my sister's house.  As we approached, I saw a raccoon (this was at 10:25) sidling sideways across the road from Olivier's house.  Rosie also saw it, and wanted to run and grab it.  The raccoon was having great difficulty moving.   It crossed the street, and had a seizure.  Then it licked it's hind legs, which were completely hairless and looked like raw meat.  It started sidling sideways, again, like a crab into the back yard at my sister's.  The (d'uhh!) realization came that this was the same raccoon I'd seen about 400 yards away at 5 this morning.   It had another seizure before it hid inside an airplane wing beside the shed.  I told my brother-in-law and sister what I had seen, and they agreed to call the Animal Control officer....   Rosie and I came over to Tess's house instead.
    After walking Rosie, I have bounced back and forth between the three houses of dogs and cats.  I have walked dogs, watered flowers and gardens, and gathered mail and newspapers.  Tonight is the penultimate presentation of Peter and the Starcatcher at the Boulder Dinner Theater, and Max is back in town to see his Dad on stage.  So I'll be headed over to Rosie's soon to keep her company while her family is out for the evening....   I do have to go feed Roxie and Finnie and the ABCs before I go to Rosie's.
    I just finished three new books, as well as re-reading another trilogy set of C J Cherryh's Foreigner series.  I find myself thinking in the alien language, Ragi, occasionally - and I sometimes throw an atevi into a conversation, because the alien word is a better fit than the English one.  Sometimes I feel that I'd rather exist in Ms. Cherryh's universe!

Good Books

I have read a lot of really good, entertaining books lately - James Rollins' Bone Labyrinth, Alafair Burke's The Ex, Shirley Rousseau Murphy's Cat Shout For Joy, Margaret Maron's Long Upon the Land, and Preston & Child's Crimson Shore, plus a few new Clive Cussler books.  But the book that I recently read, that made me very thoughtful, was Independence Lost: Lives On the Edge of the American Revolution by Kathleen DuVal.  Some people might consider the book a little too dry and tied down by footnotes - but it is one fantastic read, especially if you like American history.
   I grew up and attended school in Florida, where I suppose I received a pretty run-of-the-mill background of American history from my school books.  Certain aspects of different eras of our history made me ask more questions, which led to wider reading.  I've read a lot about 'the Founding Fathers' and the battles of the American Revolution.I particularly studied the impact of the Revolution on the colony, then state, of Virginia.  I thought I had a pretty well-rounded grasp of the Revolution from both the American and British points of view.  Professor DuVal's book made me consider the Revolution from the viewpoint of colonists not living in the confines of the original thirteen colonies - people living in Florida, in New Orleans, slaves working for freedom outside the western boundaries of Georgia, and the fates of several Native American tribes caught up in the colonial turmoil.
  When I hear, or read, the words "American Revolution," I consider only the original 13 colonies, and Great Britain.  I know that France came in with support - who can forget the Marquis de Lafayette? - but I had forgotten that Spain came in on France's side, too.  Florida was Spanish, and then New Orleans became Spanish (via the French) and the Native Americans were trying to work out the best deal they could get from everyone - Great Britain, France, Spain, and the new colonies.  I had never even thought about the Mississippi and Ohio valleys in terms of the American Revolution, property rights, tribal rights, and European meddling.
   Originally, the African slaves in the southern and western areas of the colonies were allowed to earn money for themselves, so they could buy their own freedom.  Soon after the American Revolution, this practice ceased to be lawful - especially as the plantation way of life bloomed in the South.  Soon, it became hard to earn any money for a slave to keep for him- or herself, and then they could no longer purchase their own, or their loved ones', freedom.
   Early agreements between the white colonists and the Native Americans stated that the white colonists would not move further west than five miles from the seashore.  That soon became seven, then ten, and, finally thirteen miles in a treaty with the governing body of Georgia.  And the colonists believed that they had a right to any land not claimed by another white settler.  They made huge in-roads into hunting territories of the local tribes; they took over villages and planted fields that belonged to the Natives; the colonists kept pushing further and further west, and south.  This was causing the eastern tribes to collapse back upon other tribal areas to the west and south.  Native Americans fought among each other, then turned against the settlers.   I can't blame them at all.
   One of the numbers that completely stunned me was that in a 10 year period, from 1782, more than 25,000 families moved west into what was then Indian territory - much of it still east of the Mississippi River....  Most settlers claimed 20 to 100 acres, but some claimed square miles, and sold it, or developed it into hated plantations.
    I love my country, but I sometimes dislike the way that the colonists and settlers took over the land - and I know it's a futile dislike.  It happened too long ago, and nothing, really, can be done today to make up for the loss of land, the loss of a way of living, and the loss of faith in fellow men.....

Weather Change

Hoooooo, boy!  What a couple of days of college football.  I was ecstatic when Mizzou beat Arkansas and became the leader/winner of the Eastern division of the SEC.  The only other team I was rooting for, that actually won, was Georgia Tech.  Dad got me into the habit of admiring the underdog....  Now I'll have to see what the Broncos do tonight.
   Since the Wednesday, we've been having unseasonable warmth - the highs have been in the uppers 60s and low 70s.  That changes today; we've already seen our high temperature, and it's supposed to steadily drop as a windy cold front drops in from the north.  The low tonight is forecast to be 14, after a high of 74 yesterday.  Time to get the woolies out again...
   I finally caught the mouse that Tipsi brought in Friday - since Tipsi roams the neighborhood, I just put it back outside the garage.Pounce has slept beside me every night at the ABC's, while Cooper and Lola have been getting two long walks each day.  I made another pumpkin pie last night - finished reading the new Pendergast thriller, Blue Labyrinth, and have started The Palace, another Count Saint Germaine novel.  Lots of new books out that I want to purchase, but I have to save for the family trip to Chincoteague in July.
  My kits have been full of beans, running everywhere, for the past few days.  I don't know if it's been the warm weather, or what has set them off.  Now is when I start looking forward to the Denver National Western Stock Show in January.  And I need to check my calendar for next month's jobs...  Thankfully, people love their animals, and want e to care for them!

Reading, Etcetera

Thanks to the suggestion of a friend, I have just finished reading five excellent books...  I read the first three books in the Maisie Dobbs series, by Jacqueline Winspear.  They are very thoughtful, in depth mysteries set in England between the two World Wars.  They are very good.  I was also greatly impressed by two new authors - Julia Keller and Laura McHugh.  Both of their books were set in small, isolated towns - one in West Virginia, one in Missouri - and they were great studies of undercurrents that can be seen and felt in any small inclusive community.  I'm looking forward to reading more by all three authors...  (Cousin Sarah, the one set in Missouri mentions Springfield and Howell County several times!)
   Saturday is International Archaeology Day - dig in and learn something about your past!

  

   Today marks two weeks from the Breeders Cup Races - they will be held on 31 October and 1 November this year at Santa Anita Racetrack in Los Angeles, California.  NBC Sports Network will have three hours of coverage on Friday, and four and a half hours on Saturday.  This leads up to the "main broadcast" from 8 to 9 p.m. (Eastern Time) of the final two races of the Breeders Cup on NBC.  It's your chance to see some of the best racing thoroughbreds in the world.

  And, wow, I really could not have guessed what Viola Davis' last nine lines on How To Get Away With Murder would be - definitely not what they were!

 

Second Foggy Day In a Row In Boulder

The temperature never climbed above 75 degrees yesterday, and we had an almost unheard of humidity reading that stayed in the 80 and 90 percentile range .  There was low-lying fog, high mist, and light rain showers most of the day - we needed the moisture badly, so I'm not complaining.  That's the way this morning has started, also, but the weather folks say we'll clear up by noon and have a high of 81.  I spent most of yesterday reading and cuddling with both my cats, and with Rosie.  I'm halfway through reading the fourth book (of five) in a series by Michael Scott called The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel - the books are aimed at teens, but they are an excellent read and a good introduction into the worlds of myths, legends, and sorcery.  I'm thoroughly enjoying them, and I recommend them to all.
  Well, I got dressed up Saturday evening - thought that blow-drying my hair with extra-firm mousse would keep my growing bangs from falling into my eyes, but I was wrong.  Between the breeze, followed by the rain, my hair was the big let-down.   All of the immediate Snow family was there, except the South Dakota clan, tons of friends who live in Boulder (and flew in from else-where, including NYC), and Erin's mother and her family also attended.  Mike and Erin had reserved the South Patio at the Tea House, and we were located beside Boulder Creek.  There were large umbrellas and two tents in case it rained. The party was from 6 until 9 p.m. - and Mike spoke a few words at 7, which made his mother and his wife cry.  One of the last things he said was, "And, thankfully, the rain has decided to hold off."  Once he put the microphone down, there was a huge clap of thunder, and it began to pour.  We got .25 inch in 20 minutes - now, that's timing.  Sarah, Mike's sister, and Michael came and brought Evelyn, the latest Snow clan member. Luckily, Evelyn (at 5 days old) slept through everything.  There were hors d'oeuvres, beer, wines, water, and a stupendous catered dinner.  Everyone had a grand time.