Labor Day Weekend

No fun stuff or traveling for us this holiday, just a stay at home time where we got caught up, rested, etc.

I finished Chapter 9 on Saturday, then decided late in the day that I had to read some fiction. I'd not been allowing that since I'd started the revisions on account of not having the time -- and the fact that when I start reading a book I almost always have a couple of reading sprees where I just can't stop, won't stop, not to eat, not to go to the bathroom, and sometimes not even to turn on the light until it's too dark to see the page. But I started Michael Crichton's Prey which I borrowed from my son. I read it in two evenings, and yes last night was one of those don't-stop-for-anything-until-it's-done sprees.

I enjoyed it on several levels -- the concepts, the suspense and the observations of how he was presenting the story -- first person pov (which meant only one), minimal characterization and setting description, with the story's primary focus on the idea. The theme is a familiar one for Crichton -- technology (nanotechnology and computer programming, in this case) runs amok in an out of the way scientific installation. I enjoyed the first half of the story better than the second half when he started explaining things and my suspension of disbelief collapsed in a number of places, though not so much I couldn't enjoy it. It moved fast and since BHP wants me to try to keep things shorter in the next book, I thought it would be a good study.

Sunday we had our monthly communion service and potluck which lasted nearly all day, and then another party out to the south of town. I'm a introvert and at my first Mt. Hermon conference someone told me that while extroverts are energized by social interaction, introverts are drained. Even if you really, really enjoy the socializing, which I did. I always knew that, but had never really acknowledged it, and had I done so wouldn't have believed it. But the miniute the person at Mt. Hermon told me that, I realized it was definitely my experience.

Thus today I was a total blob. Slept in (which was probably also related to the reading spree that lasted until past midnight last night) and just never could quite get anything going. I wrote about Prey (that'll be up tomorrow, maybe) organized some of my papers and looked at ch 11, which is the next one for me to tackle, and hopefully the last of the really hard ones. Alas, my brain sat inertly, quiescently -- like those cells resting before they go about the division process again -- and no ideas stirred. I wasn't terribly surprised.

Later we took a walk in the rain around the park, then took Bear out around the block, which he loved. He even ate some dinner, after having gone about two days not eating anything. Tonight he was excited about canned chicken and ate that with about half a cup of his special kidney diet dog food. We've run though just about everything now -- he'll still eat chicken, hamburger and venison, but not with the gusto he once showed. Eventually nothing will appeal and he'll stop eating altogether. Then we'll be faced with the hard decision as to when to end it. Ugh.

Grace,
Karen