The Hunger Games and Christmas Survival

A bit of the insanity of taking three little ones to visit a Santa display.....I'm not really as jaded as I sound! 

It's now officially that time of year again. It's finally December, the month I dread most. Why, you may ask?  

Well, I've long said that I think Christmas should be celebrated only every four years, like the Olympics.  After all, getting though the holidays is truly worthy of an Olympic event.  Your need of stamina is the least of the problems.  Remembering who should get gifts is the least of them as well.  

Anyhoo... that's the inside-my-head thing for the day!  I'm not proud of this feeling, I must admit.  However, it is what it is.  Truly, I must not be the ONLY person out there who feels this way all too often?  Does the word "humbug" ring a bell?  ;) 

It's been an unusual couple of days in a very nice way.  I'd realized that I'm probably one of very few who hadn't seen The Hunger Games - the original version - and  with all the press for the new installment of the planned trilogy, I suddenly started wondering if I was missing a huge global event, common to all.  I was suddenly reminded of the summer in camp when I (and my fellow campers) must have been the few in the world to have missed the moon landing.  To put me out of my misery (read: family feeling sorry for me because I'd just gotten home from the hospital) the movie appeared in my player. (Imagine the curses as I tried to figure out the newfangled system that I have yet to master, despite daughter-who-is-pitying-me trying to wrestle with the contraption.)  

Let me just say that to me (jaded soul that I am), the holidays also mean some pretty cruddy TV and so I realized that if I want to survive the holidays with any sort of sanity at all, I'll need to figure out how to watch movies on my "favorite mobile devices."  Yikes!  Seeing those words, "favorite mobile devices" put a chill through my body as I read this new way of watching movies.  But I've never cared for holiday specials which I find infinitely boring.  And I resent the fact that our favorite shows are held up.  Um ... Scandal anyone? Love, love, love the show.  (And the last few episodes have been fantastic!)

Back to topic at hand: I really loved The Hunger Games!  Yay!  (Daughter in the background finally said, "Exactly HOW long has it been since you've seen a movie?" getting a bit weary at all my oohing and ahhing.) The costumes were incredible.  Makeup: wow! The premise was gruesome, yes, but fascinating.  There's so much attention to detail.  I was hooked, right from the first moment.  The only thing that took me out of that world were thoughts where I wondered how a certain thing came to be, how it was treated in the book I'd yet to read.

And thus, a first-time experience: every five minutes or so I couldn't stop wondering what the full story was about this character or that, why life became the way it had.  I couldn't wait to read the novel.  Normally, I read a book and a couple of years later see the movie and, of course, I'm disappointed.  Or, if I see a movie first and then read the book, I wonder why the book had all this unnecessary information, background, plots. Too much clutter.

Thanks to Kindle I started reading the first of The Hunger Game series almost immediately and am now about two thirds of the way through the first book.  Yes, fascinating!  But I've gone a step beyond.  Suddenly I find myself putting down the "book" (it IS on Kindle so it feels funny calling it a "book") and watching the movie to the point where I am in the novel.  Bliss!  This is the first time I've ever "savored" a book, like hubs has a tendency to do.  Normally, I rip through books - especially since good old ME/CFS and fibromyalgia don't allow me to retain much and if I don't get a book down in one fell swoop, by the next day it is completely gone.  But with Hunger Games, I go back and try to figure out a scenario that fits the movie, book and my imagination until I'm in a good and satisfied place.

What's even better is that despite fibro-brain, I can understand all.  It's a young adult novel but I don't feel being catered to, being talked down to.  It may be in the same league as Ann Benson's novels, most especially The Plague Tales (taking place in the past as well as the future).  I've not read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in ages, nor Marge Piercy's He, She and It  but I'm truly enjoying this first book of The Hunger Games and am not sure the aforementioned books are too far superior.  There are so many layers to the book as well as the movie.  Yes, I'm jaded when I hear about "coming of age" books but the moral issues here alone keep me turning things around in my head.  I guess you could say I'm interested in the "coulda, woulda, shoulda."

For anyone who wants/needs another few recommendations to escape the holiday madness, I also recommend The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldo about a time traveler between now and the 18th century.  Just the medicine aspect kept me fascinated.  I made the mistake of bringing one of the books on vacation with me - and had to end the book before I'd go to see any of the sites I'd so looked forward to.

I'm not really a reader of science fiction but these books really do capture the imagination.  You might just thank me for these titles when TV is running the upteenth Christmas showing of Peanuts and/or the Muppets. And now, back to disappearing into the Games and avoiding the holiday madness for another few days! 

As always, I hope everyone's doing their very best - only better!  Ciao and paka.


Note: Sorry, I had the wrong link to Ann Benson's The Plague Tales. It's been corrected. Thanks! 


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Determined to Read Again & Book Reviews

Reading in the school library in more stress-free times...

Oh for goodness sake!  I'm trying to write a post while fibro-brain appears to be at its worse?  My concern is: will I even make any sense?

But before I go on, I can't help "promoting" myself a bit. There aren't too many "highs" in my life, so this is a rather biggie for me.  Another blog, fibrodaily has a segment called "Fibro Warrior of the Week" and I was asked to be interviewed as their latest warriors, the seventh.  It came out yesterday.  Thanks so much FibroDaily: you made it all so easy and were so kind with what you said before the interview started.  

OK: enough with the odds and ends (moi) and let's get to the problems at hand.  

With the "cold" weather (understatement) it's the perfect time to curl up and read some mindless and fun books. If I'm to get back in my reading to where I was a few years ago, I need to get to the point where I lie down and not even notice the time passing by as I read.  So, it seems that for a while I'll need to forget Einstein's biography (true: what possessed me to buy one?)  or catching up on my Proust (made that one up) or reading about Malaria and how it ruled the world for thousands and thousands of years even into the present time in some places - like Papua New Guinea where my son "holidayed" not once, not twice, but three times when he finally came down with Malaria.  You'd think his mama would have taught him better!  But enough on the foibles (insanity) of my family.

I need books that will get my brain to start working out like you would exercise a muscle to stay in shape.  After all, in recent decades there were times when I had to force myself to read.  There were all too many days when my brain couldn't handle the usual and I had to adjust to that.  It was a funny time, one day a Harlequin-type romance, the next day a prize-winning novel.  In my shorthand way, I tend to say that I'm a moody reader.  However,  I've realized that's far from the truth.  It's that my brain simply can't tolerate or take in huge concepts, ideas, glorious writing which makes me gasp at the perfection of a word used or a sentence structure.  But in decades past, the Harlequin-type novel would creep in because the most important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is to read or you WILL lose that ability.  For example, I've never been the best at reading Russian, but I could do it.  The frustration set in because I read rather quickly in English but the Russian had always lagged behind,   However, in college I even read Dr. Zhivago in its original, plus a few other goodies.  But that sight reading is gone now.  So, use it or lose it!  I can't afford to allow this to happen with English.  

And so I'm into those baby-steps.  I focus on not thinking about my daughter and what she, as well as WE - our entire family - went through in her care.  I've had my own near-death experiences since my daughter's but enough time has passed that I need to get back to using that oh so important "muscle."  Now!  Fast and frequently.  Besides, reading is me.  I started back when I was four and would constantly get into trouble because I just couldn't bear not having a book in my hands.  I hear a title and it brings back memories of what we as a family were going through, almost more so than a picture.  

So, I'm admitting to a few books which I've read in the last few weeks, with the hope that some here will find a way to take a vacation from our DD:

• The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton.  I'd read her other novels and can't remember anything at all about them.  At the moment that's a good thing.  I find that if I reread a book, it's much easier to get into the reading habit, at the moment.  I certainly hope to progress beyond what I have already read, however. I did very much enjoy The Secret Keeper because it kept me guessing the "answer." I look forward to rereading her other novels. (BTW: forgetting what a book is about is not a negative: it's just the way my brain works.  I rarely remember what went on in a book a day later and that's one of the reasons I need to read a book in a single day or one sitting: otherwise I cannot  remember what had happened in the book the previous day!)
• My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall.  This definitely belongs in the laughter category: by now I think everyone knows how I feel about laughter.  I've fallen in love with all the Marshalls.  What a family!  Funny as you would imagine, but there are so many more aspects to them to admire.  I love their love of family (despite the title: I won't give out more for fear of a "spoiler.") I loved this book so much that I then read her brother, Garry Marshall's, memoir, My Happy Days in Hollywood.   Anyone who grew up in the NYC area in the 50's and even 60's will absolutely love both books. BTW: I was able to "borrow" Penny Marshall's book for free with Prime on Amazon.
• Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth is actually a trilogy and the last two are finally available here in the States through Amazon and kindle.  I absolutely adored the first book, and was extremely surprised that the TV version  actually respected the memoir, give or take a few minor liberties. I'm about halfway through the second book, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse.  In this edition of her memoir Worth speaks about fewer people so that we can understand how certain things turned out the way they did in fewer characters' lives.  Her depiction of the workhouses is a great tribute/reminder to the horrific conditions that those "thrown" into those places had to endure.  It's a very compassionate and very well-researched book - though often as heart-breaking as it is eye-opening.  However, something about Worth's matter-of-factness and bits of humor here and there make this an enchanting memoir, definitely worth reading.
• I've rediscovered Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice and loved it as much as I did 50 plus years ago. 
• I also reread To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Mockingbird really should be read every few years.  The love and gentleness of that particular era is striking. The quiet wisdom keeps you thinking long after you've finished reading the book.  You fall in love with Atticus with his quiet strength and goodness, as well as Scout, that observer of everything.  In other words, you fall in love with the characters all over again.  It's such a readable book and yet such a classic, perhaps one of the best American novels ever written.
• The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe by J Randy Taraborrelli.  I knew very little about her, but just enough that I had the outline more or less already configured in this so-called brain of mine. This was a great reading foothold.  I can see the horizon where I'll be able to read almost anything that tickles my fancy!  Bring it on!  

As always, I hope everyone's feeling their best, only better!  Ciao and paka! 

The mystery of why can't the bookworm read?

The boys loved putting on the "bobbies" hats when we had our own little mystery: who had robbed our flat while we were all sightseeing?

Good golly, great balls of fire!  I am NOT kidding when I say that I'm not sure how much longer I can "accept" this new Irene who doesn't read, who's not capable of reading because of problems with concentration.  I'm very much back in the POSITION of being able to read again, given that my daughter's health is, for the most part, on the upswing, and that I'm back in bed.  In fact, given how much I am recovering from the abuses my body and CFIDS/ME/fibro-addled brain experienced in the last two years, that is, between all the health crises in the family, I should be able to GLADLY escape to my book world, and certainly would have any other time in my life.  Heck, normally at any other moment in my life, I'm sure a crazy blood-thirsty gang of Viking would have had problems ripping a book away from me.  

This is a totally new me I don't recognize.  I don't like it at all and, frankly, I'm beginning to fear it.  Heavens, no matter how ill I've ever been, I've always been able to read.  Granted, I did get to the point in my deteriorating health where I was strict with myself and forced myself to read at all times, for fear of losing the ability to do so. And I reluctantly admit to reading some of the most awful junk on my really bad days (no titles from me on this count - I still have a bit of pride left!) when I had such extreme concentration problems.  Yes siree, I've read awful, flinching stuff when all is said and done, all in the name of keeping my brain from completely atrophying from this DD.

Forget the memory problems (pun: groan!).  I signed the terms to the surrender of that battle a long time ago and made extremely difficult concessions to the agreement, that of having to read a book in a day or in a single "sitting."

"Sitting"?  And how wrong is THAT word since I can basically only read lying down and only on my right side at that, in bed, no other way as long as I can remember?  Ha!  Given that I remember HOW much (?), I'm not sure how convincing that statement is.  But rest assured, it was my middle child, who's always had a knack for noticing the oddest things, who pointed it out to me back when he was about eight years old and he was absolutely right.  And I DO remember my mom being upset with me even when I was growing up, that I wasn't able to read from a sitting position.  I'm a bit of an odd duck, aren't I?

There's yet another reason that I'm afraid and upset about this inability to read.  Just as I've always used my "Russian-ness" as an identity that made me different from others as I was growing up and allowed me, I strongly feel, to avoid an "identity crisis" in college when EVERYONE was going through their "identity crises,"  (it WAS the 70's!) so, too, has "bookworm" been an integral part of my identity.

I've lost so much to this stinking disease, this CFIDS/ME and fibromyalgia, not to mention the migraines, the pain, the God-awful fatigue that makes you want to flow down the drain with the water as the bathtub empties.  I'm no longer able to garden like I love to, cook and bake like I yearn to, on a regular basis.  The couple of times I can do so a year, if I'm lucky, are an exception to the rule.  I long ago gave up on photography (or picture-taking!), swimming, visiting with friends.  I've not been to the movies since 1997 when "Titanic" swept the Oscar's, this a person as a member of a family that would often go to see three movies right in a row on a single Saturday or Sunday.  I no longer go to church. I cannot clean, iron...tasks I used to love to do because of the sense of accomplishment I always felt afterwards, if for nothing else.

As I torture myself trying to analyze what the heck is happening to me, I realize that in the last twenty years I've become more and more drawn to mysteries, and series at that, and have wondered why?  It took me a while to realize that the mystery aspect was enticing and appealing because it sharpened my deductive reasoning skills - a fancy way to say that I needed to think like a detective as I've tried to figure out my biggest mystery: what the heck was going on with, to and in my body, as well as my brain?

And why in the world the love of series?  Well, because it was so much easier to read a novel where I knew all the players and their histories and didn't have to kill off precious brain cells in trying to learn new people and places and their back stories.  There's not much I dislike more than beginning a book because it's just so hard to figure out what the heck is going on.  Lordy, even the font that changes from book to book throws me off my game.  All of this is so weird since that means that as I was reading 400 plus books a year in the last few years  (I kept a journal of titles, that's how I know!) that's an awful lot of unpleasant feelings at least once every single day. Was/am I a masochist? Coupled with how much time I would spend each day wandering the house trying to find a book to read, was in the "mood" to read (code word alert!), and given how much I was reading, I marvel at how quickly I must have been flying through those books!  And it's no wonder hubby had such mixed feelings about hitting up our libraries, hauling books home by the bagfuls, hoping he'd hit a home run with at least a couple of those books every few days.

A funny memory of my kids' childhoods.  At night when they would finally be ready for bed, once I got to the point where I couldn't always put them to bed anymore but hubby had to as often as not, the kids would run to my bed, attack and jump all over me vying for my attention, hyped up as usual from just being three rambunctious children, and demand to know what I was reading and how far along I was into the book. In the morning, when they would see that I'd had yet another sleepless night, they'd again invade my bed and want to know what I was NOW reading. Their biggest delight: if I had finished the book I was reading when they went to sleep, read another book as they slept and was into book #3 when they woke up.  OK, I never said my kids were NORMAL!

I'm trying every mind game I can think of and I still can't get into reading, this to a person who would walk down stairs reading, wash my hands in the sink while reading, brush my teeth while reading...the list goes on and on. In fact, I often tricked myself into doing a chore my body couldn't handle by reading and doing that chore at the same time.  I'm not saying I remembered anything I read while doing these things.  It was a bit like a roller coaster ride, fun while doing it but almost immediately forgotten.  And it got the job done.

Just as a smell can trigger the most deep-seeded memory and bring it it the foreground, I remember where I was or what my interests in life were back then, and I recall what crisis, happiness, indeed every twist and turn of our family's history at any given moment, all from just seeing a book cover.  Books are my history.

And the joke and anecdotes surrounding my reading are many. We were on our first trip to London, the entire family! The oldest was ten (trip first described in the post on 2/26).  We stopped at the bookstore at the airport (oh how I love to look at walls and tables at a bookstore and laugh when I see that I've read at least 75% of the books I see).  The gentleman remarked on how wonderful it was to see my kids zeroing in with excitement towards the books instead of the toys sold there too.

Before you get to "Oh, how sick can she be if she's flying to London, for heaven's sake!"  Wait!  

I held up a book that had caught my interest, but feeling very guilty about the bloody fortune we were spending on this vacation, plus so exhausted from the packing and planning, I was definitely not in peak shape even for my low standards.  I help up a book and asked the seller, "does this come in paperback?"  The man looked at hubby and hubby looked at clerk and I had no answer to my seemingly simple question.  I repeated, holding the book up even higher, a bit annoyed since my upper body strength has never been the greatest, I was exhausted, I was sure my makeup was rolling to my neck down from my face, I was sweating, I was becoming nauseated, my hair was getting wet from the exhaustion and all I wanted was an answer to a very easy question.  Griding my teeth behind what I'm sure was a very fake smile, I repeated, "DOES THIS BOOK COME IN PAPERBACK," a bit more slowly than called for.

The looks going back and forth were quickly getting on my nerves when hubby gingerly replied, "Uh, Irene...you ARE holding the book in paperback."

My brains was so slow that it took me a full minute of staring at the darn thing to finally understand what he meant.

Some days you just can't win.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue reading samples of books from my Kindle.  Something has to finally kick in. 

Reading, like I said, is me.

Visiting Kensington Palace on  Easter Monday, we discovered that Princess Diana had set up an  Easter Egg hunt for little children coming through that day, as well as a place in the basement where they could color and make all sorts of Easter arts and crafts projects.  What a lady!  

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The THING About Waiting Rooms...

Legs in training....

Since I promised to bring survival tips for my hoped-for readers, here's one 
that may appear to be a bit unorthodox but a real winner for me.

Anyone with any sort of chronic illness is very susceptible to germs and viruses 
from everywhere.  Obviously.  Duh!   With CFIDS/CFS/ME, our immune systems are 
hinky, thus the "ID" in CFIDS, the "Immune Dysfunction" syndrome part.  Our 
immune systems are over-active and under-active, both at the same time, so very 
contradictory in an illness full of contradictions.

I need to meet about every month or so with my long-suffering GP, who of 
everyone I've ever seen in my plethora of doctors over the past 37 years, from 
New York City across the good old USA, has been the best and most successful 
help in my care.  We make a good team, actually, as we've together tackled 
research and question seemingly everything that comes our way.  Some years we're 
gung-ho about learning every new thing, other years we just throw up our hands, 
give up and go into survival mode.  A small-town GP, he's more than a bit 
understanding and has more patience than I could ever dredge up, which is not to 
say we agree on all, but just that he's one of the best things that's ever 
happened to me.  Oh, he does sometimes see me as a bit of sport and I just know 
the man often revs me up to hear what will come out of my mouth next.  But 
compassion when need be, it's there!

However, I hate the germs and viruses that I seem to bring home each and every 
time I see him...or my dentist for that matter.  With my dentist we've agreed 
any work that needs to be done can start around April, once flu season is over, 
but must end by September, before flu season begins.  And the best part, 
perhaps, is that he's enforced these parameters at times when I've thought to 
myself, "flu season be darned," crazily thinking I was just too careful.

I can't exactly not see my GP, however, for so long.  So after many years, which 
included two serious bouts of pneumonia, we've worked out a system that seems to 
be the answer to some of the problems of my funky immune system.  My 
long-suffering hubby goes to the office, as I stay behind in the car with a book 
or my Kindle, signs me in, takes care of whatever finances need to be addressed 
and actually SITS in the waiting room for the moment when my name is called.  He 
then quickly runs out to the car and we go in through a back door, thus avoiding 
as many sneezing and coughing people as possible.

How I wish we had some sort of system like that when the kids were little and 
you'd take your children in for a "well visit," only to bring home three kids 
laden with chicken pox or some of the other childhood illnesses lurking in the 
pediatrician's office!  But I digress....

To tell you the truth I am always tempted to take some sort of germ-killer in a 
can and spray it at all within my reach.  Despite many outrageous things I HAVE 
tried, Lycol'ing my way to an exam room is even too much for me, SO FAR.

Yes, I may sound like a diva, but here is an example of why this has become a 
necessity.  I came down with a common bug going around one winter and was sick 
as a dog for two solid years.  Just as I was in the home stretch something 
strange happened to my legs...they turned blotchy and mottled with lovely shades 
of purple and red.  They've stayed that way for the most part, unfortunately.  
They are of huge interest to my doctors...they seem to love looking at them and 
speculating as to how the heck THAT happened.  I'm not so easily amused.  And 
poor hubby - my legs were what he'd first fallen in love with, only later my 
sparkling personality!  <wink!>

So, if your immune system is really wacko and you know that a needed or required 
visit to your physician may cause you to come down with everything down to the 
seven plagues of Egypt, consider my strategy.  Granted, it may be difficult to find 
someone in your life who's willing to sit in a waiting room full of sniffles and 
sneezes but it's a heck of a lot harder to come down with a bug that can take 
months and months to rid yourself of.  Plus I find that with each "flare," we do 
get more permanent damage to our bodies.  Ask my legs.

Loving my wonderful Kindle....

In front of Big Ben: badly centered!
Amazon.com has simply got to be one of the greatest places on-line, perhaps even on earth. And here I speak mostly about books, although as I get used to the 
idea that Amazon has expanded into almost everything short of booking (ha!) 
flights to the moon, I'm begrudgingly accepting the shared wall space with 
"other things" <snarl here, please> when I go to their main page. 
I've been in love with Amazon since the late '90's, feeling extremely guilty 
because our town has a truly wonderful independent bookstore, a dying breed. In 
fact, if I can, I really try to buy locally as much as possible across the line.  
And local independent bookstores should definitely be supported. 

Plus there's nothing like getting to know your indie bookseller. Talk about 
recommendations! I well remember the wonderful years when I took my Christmas 
list up to "Words and Music" and Alan, between other customers, spent most of 
the day helping me pick out the perfect book for each person on my list. One 
year his enthusiasm for Angela's Ashes, a brand new book no had heard of as of 
yet - for my very Irish fellow CFIDer from our St. Louis days - knew no bounds.  
It was a very hard sell, but he was HOW right?

As I've become sicker and sicker I turned to Amazon more and more often. And 
when you are a severe insomniac, it's great to be able to shop in the odd hours 
when the world sleeps. 

When Strand Bookstore in New York went on-line, I also ordered from them by the 
huge - and heavy - boxful. They have the most incredible stock. What an 
unbelievable bookseller - I have been known to be the last customer out, with 
sales personnel literally pushing me out the door while hubby pulled. I make NO 
apologies...the store is incredible and when you first walk in, there is so much 
there that your brain simply fries. You need to allot much time for Strand. It 
takes a while for your brain to come back to normal. My notebook of books 
already read is almost a necessity, I find, because my brain never quite makes 
it back to normal after walking in.  On-line is definitely the way to go.

But all along the way I've been falling more deeply in love with Amazon...it's a 
growing love affair.

So when the age of the Kindle came, I was extremely torn. To say I love books? 
Oh, I don't even know how to convey to anyone how much. But the house was 
getting squeezed by them and since I could never part with any books no matter 
how lousy, and because there were no more areas in the house to build more 
shelves, Kindle started being forced on me. It was a matter of "buy more books 
but get rid of the same number of books in order to have some semblance of an 
orderly house," or resort to Kindle. 

Heresy! I was very conflicted. But any time there was a discussion of the new 
Kindle from BookSpan to Charlie Rose to "Good Morning America," my ears were 
glued to what was being said. 

Another complication in this decision making was that anything mechanical, 
especially electrical, which includes clocks, watches and computers, seems to 
die on me, or at the very least constantly breaks down. Hubby still tells anyone 
who will listen about how Big Ben stopped for the first time ever on August 5, 
1976 on our honeymoon. Let's just say Big Ben was working when my new hubby and 
I sat down to have a late sandwich in a tiny square near Big Ben and fifteen 
minutes later he wasn't moving. 

I used to have three computers in my arsenal: one for in the shop being fixed, 
one ABOUT to go to into the shop to be fixed and one having arrived from the 
shop FINALLY fixed. My family will not allow me to even walk by their computers 
because suddenly their screens would start to do weird things. I've even seen my 
middle child see me coming, grab his laptop and flee. Putting the final touches 
on his PhD dissertation from our home, he was not about to risk losing precious 
data brought home from Australia. (Picky! Picky!)

So, why would a person with my history possibly want the hassle of a Kindle? 
Well, in order to keep buying and reading books, of course - silly! Our 
libraries here are very good and hubby makes frequent runs there weekly, but 
some books you just want to own and some books simply aren't instantly 
available. 

Furthermore, for many it is a wonderful way to go. Some of us have trouble 
holding a book, after all, and a Kindle really helps if you want to continue 
reading.

Thirdly, a real problem with CFIDS and Fibromyalgia is the cognitive problems we 
have. As much as I love to read - a wild understatement - I must admit that 
there have been times when I've forced myself to read, just in order to keep my 
mind from atrophying. I can't believe I'm admitting this, but there have been a 
couple of times when I resorted to harlequin romances...I needed to read because 
I love to and I needed to read to slow the brain deterioration process. 

I often call myself a "moody" reader but that's simply code for saying that 
there are times I can only handle this sort of book, other times I can only 
handle that sort. "Chick lit" one day, Nobel Prize or Pulitzer Prize winner the 
next. And when I read "Wolf Hall"? I love a really long book. But holding one, 
as I mentioned before, is a different story. Finally, being able to match a book 
to your mood in just an instant really helps that pesky "mood" problem.

Anyway, a few months into the second generation of my first Kindle, the 
inevitable happened. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or get mad at myself. 
Instead, I finally called the Amazon Kindle number to talk to someone and a few 
minutes later, talking to a really, really polite and kind young man, we 
realized that my Kindle was really and truly dead. Since the year warranty was 
still in effect (what WAS I thinking when I didn't buy the extended warranty 
with my history?) I was sent a new Kindle, free of charge. I just had to 
remember to mail back the old one within 30 days, which is not as easy as it 
sounds when you can do nothing, nor remember anything, yet ridiculously easy for 
the rest of the world. They even set it up for me by entering my old books into 
it and the heading on the top of the Kindle read "Irene's 2nd Kindle." Sweet!

Were we all in a group I might stop here and ask how many know where this is 
going! You may be right.

You see, the other night I received "Irene's 5th Kindle." To tell you the truth 
I was a bit uncomfortable calling about this fifth one...in fact, the warranty 
had run out. I knew the warranty starts anew with each new Kindle but I was 
just too plain lazy ("too sick" and "too tired"...remember our code words here!) to 
call and explain the dying process of my fourth Kindle. 

Finally, with the warranty over, I now had to choose from quite an array of new 
Kindles. Did I mention I have a hard time making decisions - a very typical 
CFIDS problem?  Well, finally Kindle number four died absolutely and completely.  
I was going to order a new one after much hemming and hawwing. But I wasn't sure 
that I'd be able to handle the library transfer and registration parts, so I 
wanted to order one from an actual human being. Amazon has them, you see...I 
suspect they're there to be amused by the senior crowd who have no clue as to 
what they are doing. 

I finally got around to calling. And in less than five minutes I was informed 
that by paying $60 I could have a brand new Kindle, the very one I was ready to 
put real money into. How amazing is that?

I must say that the support woman was a bit....shocked?...when she realized this 
was my fifth Kindle. I refrained from telling her about my Big Ben incident.

And England: I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean to hurt Big Ben. It was a 
totally innocent and unintentional act!  My sincerest apologies to all.

Laughing from my sickbed starts...

In the past year and a half I’ve learned how to navigate the Internet, somewhat, finally!  It’s all due to my family’s latest effort to drag me, yes, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century, this time with an iPad.

I call it the “idiot pad,” because surely it had to have been invented for those like me who absolutely fear computers. Or are constantly breaking them.  But more on that later.

I started, after a few months of leering at the iPad with disdain and suspicion, to fool around with the darn thing.

Oh yeah.  I missed a biggie here.  I’m basically a bedridden person.  So the idiot pad was perfect for me in that too.  I didn’t have to get out of bed to rediscover the world of the Internet.  Yes, I could get out of bed some days and try to communicate through computers which I feared and broke on a regular basis, but my brain was then so fogged up that it was a truly painful and awful experience for all.  In bed with my iPad, I could actually think!  And I love to think.  It’s actually one of my hobbies, sometimes to my family’s dismay.

But this blog is not going to be just about being sick.  Frankly, I try to hide my illness from the world, often successfully.  People tend to think I’m simply a hermit.

I, in turn, discovered Facebook.  Actually, if truth be told, I was forced to discover it, but that too is another story, for another time (hopefully!).  As I found friends from my past and formed a few new friendships, I now heard a new message from them.  For years and years people would say to me, you need to write a book!  Ugh!  I’m not up to it.  Now I was hearing, “you need to write a blog.”  Me: what’s a blog?  (I told you I was dragged into the 21^st century but you didn’t believe me, did you?)

Then after ordering books from Amazon on blogs – but never reading them – I thought, no blog!  I’m much too private a person for that.  I mean, I was upset when the number of people I’d friended on Facebook reached 13, then 20, then 25.  I kept having to up my “no more than” number.  I’m up to 40 now and that just about makes me break out in hives.

But I think the time has finally come to start a blog, or to at least try to start one and see where it goes.  I stumbled over one blog a couple of weeks ago, A Model Recommends, from a British model who’s just so sweet and funny, writing about beauty, skincare, all sorts of the fun things I do love.  In secret I’m a bit of a beauty products junkie, though not successfully since I….  Well, more on THAT later too!!  I thought to write to Ruth, our model, to see if she’d consider adding anything at all for those of us with, ahem, shall I say “slightly more mature skin?”  Well, I discovered, almost all on my own, that her mum had started a blog too!  What fun.

I then desperately wanted both of them as my buddies and that’s when I realized that if I didn’t want to become some sort of stalker crazy person, it may be best if I just go and try my own blog.  Even my hubby, who must win some sort of award for being a privacy nut, keeps saying I need to write a blog!  And I’d also just realized that you can learn everything and anything you want on YouTube, so inadequate computer skills were no longer a legitimate excuse.  (More on that later on too!)

And so I am going to try this new social experiment.

Most of all, I love to laugh and I love to make other people laugh.  No, not in a Billy Crystal or Joan Rivers way (can you tell I have the Oscar’s on my mind?) but in a funny next-door neighbor sort of way.  So, I do hope this blog will be funny or add a chuckle to your day.

And I love to read…in fact, I‘m a bookaholic but due to a few crises in the last couple of years I’ve, for the first time in my life, not been able to read.  But I am starting to regain that concentration, so there is hope.  I belonged to a small book club I co-started in our small town when my oldest was in 3^rd grade (she’s 32 now and is a teacher with her own self-contained autism classroom – forgive a mom for bragging!) and this was before anyone had even heard of a book club, even Oprah.   But we fell apart after about 15 years once retirement started in, as well as politics creeping in….

So, books, yes.  Politics, no – not in this blog.  Fun, yes, seriousness, yes, at times, as in how to live more easily with chronic illness, tips and so forth.   Books, a bit of history…how, even, to get more sleep, a biggie for all, I’m discovering, much to my dismay.

Beauty, yes!  Fashion, yes!  Gardening, yes!  Cooking, yes!  Travel.  Being a mom, a wife, a best friend, yes, yes, yes!  Even a bit…ok, perhaps a LOT, of musings.  Certainly ramblings, which I’m so famous for, will unfortunately, find their way into this too.

But most of all, all with a bit of laughter.  It helps cover a multitude of sins and helps ever so much to get us through whatever problems any of us are going through!  Such a cliché, I know, but there you have it….

So, kick up your feet and join me in what I hope will be my new adventure!

All best,

Upa