The Jas Says. . .

Mackers called me this morning to let me know that a guy we used to hang around with in our high school days has just been arrested on 16 counts of criminal sexual conduct.

To be more specific, child pornography and sexually assaulting a child.

Needless to say, I couldn’t really get back to sleep after a wake-up call like that.   So, I went and tracked down the news article about the arrest and read it over.  They included his mug shot in the article, and I had the strangest feeling, looking at it.   I mean, we used to be friends with this guy.  At one point in time, we really trusted him.  Of course, he was a massive control-freak and loved mind games, so the whole trust factor didn’t last long.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to all the people I used to know, and where they are now, but you know. . . I never expect something like this to pop up.  If you would have asked me yesterday the most likely reason one of my past acquaintances was in jail, I would have said dealing drugs.  Child porn would have never entered my mind.

Fucking gross.

In other news from Mackers-land, her daughter learned the lesson we all must learn at one time:  Thou shalt not stop thy bicycle using only the front brakes.  Poor munchkin got herself a very nice concussion.

I think I’m going down there this weekend to see her and Chewy.  I haven’t seen them since the wedding, and I miss my friend.

Today I turned 27 years old.

My husband sent me flowers because he’s nice like that.  I had to put them up on the kitchen counter so the cats wouldn’t eat them.

Yesterday, Chris turned 104.

He’s what we call “well preserved”.
(Just kidding.  Chris is only 57.)

Here’s some news that you all missed out on because I was too busy detailing the many books I’ve been reading:

At last week’s fahr I burned the shit out of my right wrist by resting it on one of the rocks that line the fire pit.  It is now regrowing new skin and itches like a mofo, but at least I won’t have to band-aid it for much longer.  I’d put a picture up, but that would negate Purpose Two of wearing a band-aid.  Purpose One is of course to prevent infection.  Purpose Two is to save other people from having to look at the part of me that is blistered and charred.

There are no fahrs for the foreseeable future because practically the whole state of Michigan is under a burning ban.  This is the driest Spring I can remember. . . of course, we may have had drier Springs when I was a wee lass, but I wasn’t really paying attention back then, ya know?  Those of you who still feel like visiting on Friday nights are welcome to come over and play board games, talk, or stare blankly at us.

We are buying the property adjacent to our lot and the piece that runs behind the house down to the creek.  This is actually the biggest news, and the happiest for us, since we’ve wanted that property as a sort of buffer zone.  We certainly do not want anyone putting a house up next door, or strangers wandering around in back with guns, going after the turkeys, deer, and bobcat that roam freely down below.  The total amount of new land is 2.3 acres, but only about 0.3 acres is road front.  The rest is all behind our current property, which I’ve thus far called “the ravine”.

Here’s some pictures to look at, if you feel so inclined.  When you click the links, the images will load in the same window, so just click “Back” to return to the entry.

This is the part of the new property that abuts the road, as seen when you’re standing in front of our garage, facing the road, and looking to the right.  You can see that the property line is clearly defined by lots of weeds, and also you can see the rickety-ass windmill, which [boi] assures me will be coming down.

This is what the road-abutting new property looks like when you’re standing on the road, looking at it.  It’s a mess with burrs and pricker bushes, and a big, unexplained pile of dirt.

This is the small beach at the creek, which is the very back of the new property.  Once the sale is complete, our property will end at the creek.

This is the creek itself, very low due to the whole no rain thing.

Standing at the creek, looking back up towards the house.

This is a little hill that I call the Indian Burial Mound, even though I know it’s no such thing.

Some critter built a den right where the slope starts, in the back right corner of our current lot.  I think it’s a racoon, but there’s no knowing since it never shows its face.

My peony bush is pushing up sprouts.

So is my English Lavendar.

Here is what happens when chipmunks are given free rein in a yard.  Little dipshits burrowed right up through one of my hosta.  The plant seems to be nonchalant, since it is sending up shoots.

The Man and Chris play with a new shipment of dollies.

Fate, looking particulary robust.  She was not too happy when the flash went off.

Destiny, showing off her two greatest talents:  laying around on furniture, and licking her nose.

OK, so since last I wrote about how I was reading 1984 I read two more books.  First of all, let me say I loved 1984, but it’s one of those books I won’t be rereading all that often, because there are a couple things that scare me, and one of them is how much we trust that the government is doing the Right Thing all the time.  I know very few people who question authority in any way; most of us (including me) might get a hot and bothered about something, but all in all, we leave Uncle Sam alone to get on with it, and on my more morose days, I sometimes worry that he’ll “get on with it” to the tune of No More Free Speech For You. . . kind of like how things end up going in 1984.  Oh, and I totally called the fact that What’s-His-Name wasn’t REALLY a member of the mythical Brotherhood. . . when Winston and Julia actually went to his flat, I said out loud “That guy is leading them on and he is totally going to send them down the river.”  It felt good to be right about something.

Anyways.  I read Emma. Since I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice so much, I thought I’d take a crack at another Jane Austen novel.  It was okay, although I didn’t really see the need to have three volumes in this book. . . in case you didn’t know, the movie Clueless is based off of Emma, and it did a fair job of sticking with the plot.  Now make Clueless into a three-hour epic event, and you’ll understand why I think Austen could have shaved a bit off her book.  The other annoying thing is that the edition of the book I bought (I believe it’s called the ‘Barnes and Noble Classics edition’) had a billion-page introduction.  OK, it wasn’t a billion.  It was one hundred.  And it included footnotes.  I am not kidding.  When I picked up the book, I flipped through it to see if I would like the writing, as I always do, and I actually stood there in consternation, wondering where the intro would end.  For lack of anything better to do, I tried to read the introduction once I was done with the book, but the guy who wrote it was obviously way too in love with Jane Austen, and way too in love with Emma.

But don’t take my word for it. . . behold, the massive Intro!

I meandered my way through the first couple chapters of The Three Musketeers, but this is a book that I will need to just plow through, I think.  Certain writing styles are hard for me, and Alexandre Dumas is one of those people who I have a hard time penetrating (heh.  I said ‘penetrating’).  Another book of this ilk is Don Quixote, which I started on Drummond Island and have yet to get into in any way, shape, or form (sorry, Daniel-san).   I just can’t. take. the repetition.  Or the sentence structure.  Or something.

The other book that I actually read last night was Lady Chatterly’s Lover, courtesy of The Literature Network.  I read it only because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  I’ll tell you what it’s about:  very little.  There’s a lot of sex in the book, and I can see how it was a shocking book back in the day, but I skimmed a few chapters without missing a lot of the plot.   It kind of reads like a someone’s attempt at making a thoughtful porno.  I’m sure I missed the greater social message, but really, the social message doesn’t much apply to our time (or maybe to our country), where there is very little hoopla about marrying outside of one’s “class”.  Perhaps I’m being naive, but there it is.

I have three books on standby right now:  Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, and Richard Bach’s Air Ferrets Aloft and Rescue Ferrets At Sea, both of which I only picked up because A) It’s Richard Bach, duh and B) they were on the discount fiction rack.  I’ve been holding back on the “Ferret” books because I’m not fond of animals as main characters.  Jonathon Livingston Seagull worked for me because it was short and I got the message, and The Last Unicorn held my interest because there were other elements that made it very fun to read.

Ender’s Game I’ve heard good things about, and since I enjoy a sci-fi novel from time to time, I thought I’d try this out.  As if by fate, when I went into B&N to find it, there was a WHOLE ENDCAP dedicated to the Ender series, so I took that as a sign and picked up the book.  We’ll see how it goes.

What I really need to do is get to my mom’s and liberate my Beverly Cleary stash from her basement.  I bet my Sweet Valley Highs are there too, and those are FINE BOOKS for reading when you don’t want to think too hard.  I foresee that I will need something to wash the Dumas off my brain every hour or so.

I actually managed to READ BOOKS this week, something that for no good reason I’ve been putting off.  I have a really strange idiosyncrasy about my personality – I love to read, but I hate starting a new book.  I don’t really know why.  I think it’s because when I read a book, and I end up loving it, I really hate to let go of the story or characters.  They will stay with me for days, whispering bits of dialogue into my ears and making me want to start the book again and again, or flip to certain parts over and over.  It’s such a commitment to have to fall in love with a whole cast of new people – people who don’t really exist.

The same thing happens with certain television shows and plays.  I find myself wishing that these people were my friends, because I want to pick their brains about things that I see them doing.  This makes me feel like the biggest idiot on the planet, most of the time.

Anyway, two days ago I ripped through Pride and Prejudice, which is one of those books that is on my self-imposed “recommended reading” list.  Fortunately, it ended up not sucking, unlike its predecessors on my list: Wuthering Heights and Catcher in the Rye.  I liked Pride and Prejudice quite a bit, actually, and the scenes I find myself flipping to over and over are Darcy’s first and second proposals, and the letter he sends Elizabeth after she so forcefully rejects his first proposal.  My favorite line: “You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.”  Yeah!  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you arrogant jerk!

Today I started 1984, which Vicki assures me is a good book.  Of course, she thinks Catcher in the Rye is a good book too, so her opinion is naturally suspect.  However, so far, I have to say that she’s right.  I’m a little more than halfway through it (for those of you who have read it, I’m at the part where Winston is reading the book out loud to Julia), and I like it very much.  It’s having quite the same effect of Fahrenheit 451, which is to make me both hopeful and despondent at the same time.   Strangely enough, when The Man and Chris saw what book I was reading, they both asked (separately) “Oh, is that the book about the end of the world (or the Apocalypse)?”  I had to tell them “Uh, I don’t know.  I haven’t finished yet.  But so far, no, it’s not about the end of the world.”

I guess I’ll go keep reading and see if the world ends sometime in this book.