20 October 2005

Someone whose journal I read was saying in a locked post that an acquaintance was telling her that things never go wrong all at once -- that one area of your life will be stable and fine if another is all in an uproar. Heh. Yah, right.

It is not strictly true that there are no areas of my life that are not in some kind of uproar right now. But I can come up with only a couple of close friends or family members who don't have something major going on. New jobs, lack of old jobs, new marriages, divorces, diagnoses, lack of diagnoses, new babies, trouble with old babies, new books, trouble with old books, house hunting, trouble with current houses...it's not all bad, but it's all extremely active right now, and sometimes I just want to shout, "Everybody hold still! Well, okay, somebody hold still!"

One of my friends asked what I was so worried about. I sent her an outline, complete with Roman numerals.

Anyway, my mom smelled that I had a cold coming on yesterday -- you didn't think my sense of smell came out of nowhere, did you? -- and here it is. Yay. I'm giving it as much vitamin C as I can dig up around here, and I'm hoping for the best, and I'm reading some of my old kids' books in between trying to get tasks done.

(And I didn't manage to post this yesterday, so my mom actually smelled my cold two days ago. It's better this morning. Dad had business stuff to do in the Cities in the early part of this week, so Mom came along and we got to hang out on Tuesday and have dinner with Dad when he was done with work stuff.)

I'm rereading the Anne of Green Gables books, mostly out of order. I started with Rilla of Ingleside (#8) some time ago and read Anne of Windy Poplars (#4) last week, and then this weekend I reread Anne of Green Gables, and yesterday Anne of Avonlea and the beginning of Anne of the Island. Today I finished Anne of the Island and read Anne's House of Dreams. (They're kids' books -- fast reads.) The first is -- as I remembered -- one of my least favorites, and as an adult I can identify part of why: Anne is the most Mary Sue-ish in it. In Anne of Avonlea, there are not only charming "faults" in Anne (red hair is not a fault, and L. M. Montgomery knew it!) but also actual faults: we are told that she's easy to tease because she takes everything so seriously, for example. Not every character tells us and themselves that there is something magic about that girl, and the ones who don't aren't Sworn Enemies For No Good Reason. Not that little kids don't have Sworn Enemies For No Good Reason sometimes, so I suppose that may be less of a decrease in Mary Sueism and more of progress in the main character's life. While there are a few spots where Anne's personal progress is more told than shown, generally I'm finding the character arc interesting as an adult -- particularly in Anne's House of Dreams. It wasn't a favorite, but Montgomery managed to interest my child-self in the first few years of a marriage, something Maud Hart Lovelace did not do in the Betsy books, which were in several other ways similar. One of those "rules" of what makes a YA, down the drain.

In other news, the puplet's behavior has improved enough that she can mostly be permitted to roam the house at will. This is a great relief to me: occasionally I will find her shredding a tissue on the music room floor or growling at the ghost puppy in the French doors in the living room, but for the most part she behaves as a puppy ought, trotting around chewing on her own toys and cozying up to her monkeys for naps. Her behavior has also improved enough that Timprov can have her with him without other monkeys as support staff for some periods of time. In the past, the fact that his back is not very bendy and he isn't very good at trotting around after a misbehaving pup on the run was a problem. Not so much so, now.

She still does silly puply things, but she's getting to be a big grown-up teenage type puppy. Who appreciates being told how big and fierce she is. She really is a very good box elder bug hunter. This is a fine trait in a pup.