Day#8 of the 30 Day Book Challenge

This is Day #8 of the 30 Day Book Challenge.

The prompt is A Funny Book

Not easy for me, mainly because the books I find amusing and funny, many people don't and what others find amusing, I don't.

Why?

Ah.

I don't understand puns. (My family has decided we just didn't pick up the genetic quirk somehow. Mother didn't even know what one was. See, sisinlaw, remarked, some of us don't even know what they are. Because it took a while to define it.)

And embarrassment humor is a major squick for me.

So...I'm going with Elmore Leonard, who along with Carl Haisson, and Janet Evanovich wrote amusing and somewhat sardonic mystery novels. Although Leonard was the best in this group.

The book? Perhaps you've heard of it? Get Shorty

Here's a trailer from the movie adaptation. I liked the book better - although it admittedly, like most Leonard, reads like a screenplay.

Watch on YouTube

Day #4 of the 60 Days of Gratitude Challenge

The fun part of these challenges will be to see how often Shadowkat miscounts or loses track of which day it is. I almost put day 7.

I didn't like the prompt. So I'm making up my own.

A song that you are grateful for

Brave by Sara Bareilles

Watch on YouTube

Corona Virus Diaries...

The above picture is from 2016 - November 2016, during my walk around Prospect Park.

I'm tired. And I've writers block - although Nano (nanowrimore) is sending me loads of support messages. In one, the writer stated that he was struggling to write as well - it felt as if he'd ingested a hive full of bees and they were all buzzing about his brain. The words were clogged up somewhere within all of it.

The news, at this point, is driving everyone, including the news commentators themselves insane.

I'm reminding myself that miracles aren't quick. They take time.

I asked for four miracles in September. Somehow, I got two of them, but it took a long time and for a bit it was touch and go, and I really didn't think they'd come through. I thought, maybe I'm asking for too much, hoping for too much? Because that's the definition of a miracle really - when you've lost all hope, resigned yourself to your fate, and voila - there it is.

I'm half afraid to mention them out loud...for fear of jinxing. And the next two miracles I desperately want are on a much broader scale and affect far more people...and like the first two? Also, seemingly outside of my control. Oh, I can do small things, and I've done them but mostly, I have to put my faith in others and the Universe to carry them through. And it's really hard to have faith right now in much of anything, especially people, when doubt seems to be hovering around every corner. But...I got two miracles, and people came through for those two things - so perhaps two more isn't too much to ask for?

I learned this week that jinxing and superstition are really an expression of a fear of having no control. Or things being completely out of one's control - which I considered odd, yet also makes sense in a way.

We still don't know who the winner is. ( Read more... )

To make matters worse? The US has 100,000 cases a day of COVID-19. ( Read more... )

My father seems to be improving day by day. ( Read more... )

Father and I discussed greetings for fifteen minutes.
( Read more... )

I'm not positive, but I think I annoyed him or confused him. Although he reported to my mother when she returned from her dental appointment that he'd had a nice conversation with me. I know this, because she asked if I had spoken to him today.
( Read more... )

But all that said and done - I see my father's ability to be home, in my mother's care, and cognizant - a miracle. There was a time, not that long ago, that I dared hope for it.

Life, which we all take for granted by the way, is a miracle in of itself.
I wonder at it sometimes. Was watching a cardinal pop about this morning in the trees beyond my window. And later a black and white cat. Both are miraculous creations.

I'm working hard on focusing on those things. History has shown us - the human squabbles come and go, and aren't lasting. As my walks through a cemetery continue to make quite clear - human life on this planet is a temporary thing. We all die, eventually.