DadR’s weekly report, week 1

Topics/tags: Autobiographical

This fall, the Rebelsky family [1] is starting to spread out to the ends of the country. Eldest is off to Massachusetts; Youngest is off to California. I’m on sabbatical and traveling a bit more than normal. In a year or so, Middle will head off somewhere. While we will keep in touch with each other in different ways, I thought it would be useful if we did something more regular and more formal. So I’ve suggested that we each write a weekly report of what we’ve done recently. Three of us have agreed. I’ve decided that I’m going to post my reports as musings.

The highlights of this week? I enjoyed having dinner at Relish with Michelle, Middle, and Youngest on Friday night. The food was good and the company was even better. It’s also nice to have a longer-than-normal family dinner; we got to chat about more topics than we normally do. Earlier in the week, I finally got around to fixing the stove. What’s that I said to Michelle? I think it was anxiety is a bear. Stoves are scary. But it works now. Yay me! And mom and I got to go to what is likely Daniel’s last piano lesson with Mrs. O’Connor. Three other highlights were the Writers@Grinnell talk on Monday night, Jen Jacobsen and Andi Tracy’s presentation on second-year students on Friday, and the Women’s Volleyball game on Friday night; it’s nice to have some time to get out.

Having more time is nice. It seems like I seem more relaxed than normal. That’s good.

The week also had some lowlights, mostly related to technology. The MathLAN Web server was taken down late Friday night. I’m not sure what the plans are for bringing it back up. That’s frustrating. Today, both mom and I managed to disconnect my backup drive while I was backing up the old laptop to give to Daniel. Now the backup drive is not working. Have I mentioned that I hate computers?

What else happened? I’ve been posting book covers to Facebook. I think Jon challenged me to do so. (If not, Jon challenged mom and mom challenged me.) I’ve also been posting photos from campus. I’ve enjoyed thinking about books that I love, and I’ve enjoyed finding things to take photos of. When I looked for a cover of People’s History of the United States, I discovered a signed first edition for sale for $2,800. I checked, and, although my copy is a first edition, first printing, I never had Howard sign it. Oh well, mom and I have lots of other books that Howard gave us.

I’ve been less productive than I’d like to have been this week. I guess that happens. The next few weeks look to be busy, but not necessarily with research. I have grants to review and meetings to attend.

I’ve been doing some reading for fun. At the start of the week, I read some books by Kim Beall. First, I read Seven Turns after seeing it mentioned in a book review column by Charles de Lint. I seem to recall that the review said something like A surprisingly nice tale marred by an awful cover. It turned out to be free on Kindle Unlimited, so I gave it a try. The book was an engrossing rural fantasy [2]. Since many questions are left unanswered at the end of the book, I was happy to see that a sequel, Moonlight and Moss was available. You should be able to read both in our Kindle library.

I also read The Pizza Delivery Boy’s Tale, which is a short story, published only in book form, that explores that background of one character in the two books that Beall has written. To be more precise, although it focuses on one character, it gives a bit more background on multiple characters. Plus it has maps related to the books. I think Beall suggested reading this before Moonlight and Moss, but the ordering I chose seems better to me.

I still haven’t gotten around to building any of the book boxes. I’m not sure if I’ll start before Youngest heads off to college. I realize that after that, I’m on my own. I’ll send you pictures if I ever find the time to build some.

Last, and perhaps most importantly, I signed up for a water aerobics class. It starts tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes. I should try to sneak in some other exercise. (It doesn’t help that my knee hurt during the second half of last week.)

I love you all! [4]

[1] This Rebelsky family, at least.

[2] A term I use as an alternative to urban fantasy for books that take place in the present [3], include a significant fantasy element, and take place in a rural area. I also worry that for some, urban fantasy has shifted from describing the novels of, say, Charles de Lint and Emma Bull to come what seems to be more paranormal romance.

[3] More or less.

[4] While I likely love other my readers, too, this last comment is intended for members of the Rebelsky clan.

Version 1.0 of 2019-09-08.

Version 1.0.1 of 2019-09-08.