Week one of Summer Vacation: Update

By Elizabeth Prata

So it has been one week since the official start of summer vacation from my public education job began. Of course, the last 4 days of school, the half day with the kids and the 3 successive post-planning days, I was not at school due to pneumonia. I don't call that part of the summer a vacation, lol. It was a difficult week.

Anyway, true to my promise to myself, I put my Summer Reading Plan into action. I've been enjoying the books I chose, and I am enjoying the structure of reading through a mountain of books in an orderly fashion. Again, the books I chose are:

I am truly enjoying the Crawdads book. It's written in a lyrical, almost poetic style but not so intrusively it's precious. Nor does it take away from a driving narrative that rolls along from the first sentence. It helps that I love the low country marshes.

The Internet Inferno book is about James and the tongue and social media, so I love it because I'm extremely active on social media but I also sin on social media. This book helps me be more careful, wise, and measured. Combining it with the Reinke book on Competing Spectacles this is a double whammy about how I spend my time...or not.

I chose the Kipling because I always like to read at least one classic during the summer. I've never been a huge fan of Kipling but I thought I'd give him one more try. It's a book of short stories so I'm not committing to a long story arc.

I read Elmer Gantry last year and loved it. Sinclair Lewis is wordy though. Good words, incisive words, poetic words, but lotsa words. It's the same with It Can't Happen Here, about how America could easily turn from representative democracy to fascism in one fell swoop. I like the subject matter and I enjoy Lewis's writing, so I'm good with it so far. He tends to get preachy so I'll be watching for that.

I'm enjoying the others as well.

Sunday School started back up for the summer and also the Tuesday night Bible lessons. I will be attending both, as the Lord allows. I don't have any social plans, other than a birthday celebration Wednesday night for someone out at a local bistro. I have a huge vet bill from the University of GA from where Bert spent his last few days so I don't plan on shopping anytime soon either.

I did go on up to The Special Store for their $5 fill-a-bag sale. I needed office supplies and that is indeed a great place to get them. Staplers, paper, notebooks, stationery, binder clips, markers, you name it. Saturday, I got some paper, file folders, three clay pots (I want to re-pot my succulents), and a 70-year-old teacup. It's a Homer Laughlin Eggshell Georgian pattern Cashmere. It was made in February of 1949. So cool!

Here is a Pinterest photo of it, not my photo. I'm currently too lazy to get up and snap a picture of the one I got. At some point soon I think I will take photos of each of my teacups and teapots and make a Pinterest board of them. I enjoy seeing others' and they also help me identify the ones I buy. So I'd like to return the favor.

I have also been watching Netflix/Youtube/Amazon Prime. I started watching Monk but Monk's pain is so palpable I only made it through season 1, skipped ahead to when Sharona was gone (didn't like her) and watched a few in season 3 with Natalie. Then stopped. It's too painful to watch the man be in so much pain.

I stumbled on an Australian show on Netflix. It's rated TV-MA which if I see ahead of time I skip but I did not see the rating and I'm glad I didn't, because I have not seen anything mature about the show. It's called Court Justice. It is a reality show about people who commit a crime and go to court, from their pov and from the Magistrates' point of view. They interview the judges and you learn their view of what the law is for, how the things that people do impacts society, and the onus of burden on the judges to balance compassion and justice individually for each case, tailored to each offender but also protecting the community.

The people were dressed appropriately, there wasn't swearing, or any crude scenes etc. The subject matter dealt with involves drugs, drunk driving offenses, traffic offenses, civil disobedience, self-representation, etc. There are some scenes of car crashes, when the narrator is explaining the statistics on drunk driving etc, perhaps those caused a TV-MA rating, but there wasn't any blood of victims seen. I'm sad that Court Justice only made it 1 season, and only 10 episodes. I like hearing about the Law and seeing judges who are good and righteous.

I've also been watching season 1 of The Waltons on Amazon. I watched the show when it first came out, 47 years ago. Wow. Hard to believe it's been that long. It's a sweet show and heartwarming. Unlike Monk, which is just pain-anguish-more pain.

I'm still in recovery from my pneumonia. My energy saps away suddenly and then I have to lie down. My lungs still hurt and I'm still coughing. I stopped at Kroger yesterday and got some chicken soup fixins. I've been living on scrambled eggs and chicken soup with rice. The soup is literally what the doctor ordered and she knew what she was talking about. The soup feels so good going down, is easy on the stomach, and fills me up without making me queasy. The hot liquid and steam loosens the fluid in my lungs. I'm going to make some more for a late lunch. Yum. After a nap. I'm tired now.