Time Enough

I don't know why I didn't have time to write yesterday, since I'm sure I wasn't doing much of anything, but I didn't, and today was odd, too, time-wise, but here I am. Yesterday I went to the therapist in the morning, then the supermarket, then did some Wii, then started reading. C'est ça.

Today started with the normal Saturday morning (cleaners, Dunkin Donuts) and then, not much more. We had to go to my nephew's wedding shower tonight, for which we had to leave home around 4:15 for a 5:00 arrival, so there didn't seem much point in doing anything else all day before that except read and then get ready to go. Social anxiety aside (mine and my sister's), it was okay, except for a couple of things, none of them worth mentioning but one, which is that I could not bear to see my sister's first husband (Satan J) acting as if he knew how to be a real father and hadn't been such a shithead while his kids were growing up. Good Guy Nephew is on decent terms with him now, despite it all, but Satan J actually does not even make eye contact with Wonderful Niece, who, let me remind you, is Good Guy's twin. An interesting quality in a father, that he gets to pick which of his children he likes and which ones he won't bother with. And for no reason; he didn't like her when she was a baby. No explanation for that one except that he's a shit.

The strangest thing about the whole event was that both my husband and my sister's behaved and acted like entirely normal people. Mine did not lose his temper, even though both his veganism and his not-smoking were topics of discussion, and my sister's had more pleasant conversation with me than he has in the ten years of their marriage. We even discussed a topic or two from when they originally dated, which would be some 40+ years ago, at which time I could not bear the sight of him and I'm guessing he wasn't too thrilled with me, the little sister. But I did thank him tonight for introducing me to the music of Bob Dylan. So that's something.

K rode up there with us, but stayed after we left, and is being ferried home by her sister, unless my sister, who lives closer to us, makes an offer. Either way, this party was held in Bumfuck, New Jersey; I thought we were going to need sherpas to help us find our way back to the highway, but we left before it got dark and the Hubs really is very good at that sort of thing. I swear, I don't know how these people -- the bride's mother and step-father -- find their way home at night. None of the streets are lit, and some of them don't have street signs. Great place for a party.

Okay, back to Exodus. Interesting book, lots of background for the whole Israel/Palestinian thing. The upshot is that it's about 95% England's fault, with a lot of other countries in the world -- Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia come to mind -- making up the other 5%. Amazingly, this was not a U.S. fuck up, at least not originally. Interesting to note that until Israel was declared a state, everyone who lived there, Jew, Arab, and Christian, called themselves Palestinians. Because they all lived in Palestine. Okay, back to the book.

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1792
SUMMER BOOK #2: Exodus by Leon Uris