Group Text PSA

This “conversation”, which occurred in November 2018, shall serve as a public service announcement about the need to avoid group texting unless absolutely necessary, like, if you are a chaperone in the marching band and need all students come to the busses at once.  Except for that, don’t do group text.

You can tell this is a text conversation by the appalling lack of concluding punctuation. 

Husband:  Here is our thanksgiving dinner!  (with photo of turkey in freezer)

Older Daughter:  What dish should I bring?

(Oh, happy day! She really is an adult.  Only a true adult would offer, without being asked, to bring a dish.)

Son: Are we carpooling?

(There followed a discussion about whether they could travel to our house together, which meant lots of annoying pings, because Group Text.)

Older Daughter: No one has answered yet what dish I should bring

Son: You should bring my plates!

(For Rosh Hashanah, Older Daughter had hosted the meal at her house. More evidence of adulting! She threatened to charge her brother $5 for the meal if he didn’t bring something to the meal.  He brought garlic bread on two plates, but left his plates at her house.)

Husband: How about cranberry relish

OD: Ok, and no

  

Husband:  What does that mean

Husband: Fine.  I’m charging you $5

OD: I’m not making a dish that I don’t like

YD:  Stuffing?

OD: I could bring cranberry in a can

Me:  Yes.

(I immediately regretted this response.  Son is old enough to contribute something to the dinner, too, and he should be the one bringing the cranberry in a can, because he has fewer resources than OD.)

Me:  You could bring dinner rolls

OD: Ok!  Spicy dinner rolls

Husband:  Yeah.  Kung pao dinner rolls.  With candy on top.

OD: And shrimp

Son, fearing that one of his favorite parts of the Thanksgiving dinner would not be available:  Should I bring some actual rolls?

Husband:  How about egg rolls?

OD: How about jelly rolls?

Me:  You people.  SMH

YD:  What does that mean?

Son:    “shaking my head”.  I just looked it up

OD: Shake my hamster

YD:  Spoke many Horatios!

OD: Saucy mother’s headache

Son:  single-male household

OD: Smashing more heads

Me:    GROUP TEXT SHOULD BE USED SPARINGLY

Son:    Dad started it!

YD:  Tools this powerful should only be in the hands of people like us!

Husband:  Ya scunners!  I’ve decided we’re having borscht for thanksgiving and that’s that.

(And now the group text conversation has deteriorated into references to the Mac Nac Feegle of the Terry Pratchett books, in which “ship” means “sheep”.)

YD:  Shouldn’t we be havin’ the ships for Thanksgiving with these wee dafties?

Husband:  And snails!  Roasted snails with lots of garlic

YD:  and beef Wellington!

Husband:  And deep fried stoat!

YD:  I think Mom is too appalled to respond.

Husband:  Mom is talking with Uncle J.

Yes, in fact, I was trying to have an actual vocal conversation with my actual brother on my cell phone, while enduring the constant pinging of the group text conversation.

Let’s take a vote:  should group text be outlawed, except for marching band?

Favorite books read in 2018

The feature of my reading habits this year seems to be re-reading.   Even though there are a thousand books on my “to read” list, re-reading is great.

The best fiction I read (for the first time) in 2018

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, text by Kate DiCamillo; illustrations by K.G. Campbell.  © 2013. 

A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote. © 1956. Actually three short memoirs. 

On The River (Bassville Stories Book 2) by Melissa Westemeier © 2018.

This is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel © 2017. 

A Hatful of Sky, by Terry Pratchett. © 2004. Young Adult novel. 

The best non-fiction I read (for the first time) in 2018

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson.  © 2014.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963.  This is a 13-page letter, not a book.

The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, by Masha Gessen. © 2017.

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

by Nelson Mandela.  © 1994. 

Books I re-read in 2018

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte © 1847 under the pen name Currer Bell.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

The President’s Hat, by Antoine Laurain.  © 2013

Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy.  1874.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling.  © 1997 (or 1998 in US). 

Joel (The Bible).  © 9^th to 5^th Century BCE.  Features many locusts.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling, published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.

Least favorite

Usually if a book falls in this category I am unlikely to finish it, so it never goes on my list of First Lines.  In this case, there were two that I finished, although I did not enjoy reading them.

Skipping Christmas: A Novel, by John Grisham. Quite annoying.   I have no reason for why I actually finished reading it.

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. © 2016.  I know, I know.   Everyone else in the world enjoyed this book.  I just couldn’t get into it.  It was exciting at the end, though.  I read it for book club.

First Lines: December 2018 edition

Below are the first lines of the three books I finished reading in December.  

I might have read more, but there was too much else to do, including the task of giving away nine boxes of theological and religious books from my father's shelves.  I am deeply grateful to the pastors and seminary library folks who agreed to take the books. This is a miracle from heaven and means that my Mom feels one tiny bit better about her move to assisted living, and also means that I did not have to lie to her about what happened to Dad's books. 

The trunk of my car was full of theology books.

Book 1

Not for the first time, an argument had broken out over breakfast at number four, Privet Drive.

Book 2

A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain

Book 3

Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla. In Xhosa, Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of a tree,” but its colloquial meaning more accurately would be “troublemaker.”

The titles and authors revealed:

Book 1

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling.

Published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.  

Very much a young adult book.  I still love the notion of a loyal yet battered flying car.

Book 2

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.  ~1610. 

(Read out loud with Younger Daughter.)  It seems shorter than other Shakespeare plays.  We finished reading it in one afternoon.  I am guessing that lots of special effects would be required to stage it.  Burning questions remain after reading it:  Is Prospero an entitled jagoff or a compassionate, forgiving nobleman?  Are Iris, Ceres, and Juno in the play only to raise the number of female characters to an acceptable level?  What is freedom and which of the characters is free? Is the portrayal of the character Caliban racist?  (I read it for book club for January.)

Book 3

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

by Nelson Mandela.  © 1994.  

This memoir takes us from Mandela’s early childhood, through his development into a freedom fighter, his many years in an oppressive prison, his freedom from prison, and up to his taking office in 1994 as president of South Africa, the first elected black president.   After so many years in an oppressive political situation and in a brutal prison, how is it that Mandela remained an optimist about humanity?  This is a relatively lengthy book, but I was captivated the whole time.  I recommend it.

The back seat of my car was full of theology books.
The pressure was high to get them out of the
 house and out of the car.