Wednesday morning things

* giveaway hat is still up for grabs. If I don't get a response by tomorrow morning I'll try through Twitter or Ravelry to find it a new home.

* I finished "A Trick of the Light" last night. (Louise Penny novel). I had had to put this aside for a bit as it got to be too much (and it coincided with my dad's being hospitalized, and I needed something lighter), but as is typical of Penny's Gamache novels, if you power through the emotionally hard part, you get to the redemption at the end.

Oh, maybe not redemption for EVERYONE - of course the guilty party will be punished, and also, this book ended with a fractured relationship, but, there seems to be the hope of that being restored. But there were other redemptions - a character seemed to be welcomed "back into the fold," a couple people found peace.

As I said: I'm a big sucker for redemption stories. I want to believe that most people are in some way redeemable. That people can change for the better. And that deep down people realize that not hurting others is the best path.Of course, the person has to want that. But many people do come to that point, I think. (One of the subthemes in this novel: several of the subsidiary characters were in AA - they had gone to the same meeting as the victim - and there was a lot of talk of how sometimes people have to hit bottom before they decide they have to change)

Redemption stories are not *quite* a happily-ever-after (my preferred ending for stories), but they begin to approach it: maybe not a happily ever after, but at least a less-broken ever after, and maybe that's the best we can really hope for in this world.

* And yes, my dad is doing better. He's staying at a rehab center right now but the good news is he's getting a lot of PT and hopefully he will get more mobile and be able to go home in not too very long. (I hope that for my mom, too: she's spending most of the days over there with him and that can't be fun.)

And again this tells me that even though I loathe getting up early in the mornings to work out, keeping up with the workouts is probably a solid idea for me; my dad didn't get much exercise once he stopped doing field camps and especially in the past 10 years, and with his arthritis he lost a lot of mobility and also is not breathing properly, which may have contributed to the pneumonia. I know I have some arthritis (I am wondering if what I thought was bursitis in one hip is actually arthritis) but it gets better with exercise, so I need to keep up with mine.

(I am also hoping beyond hope that if my hip ever really does "go" totally, or if one of my knees "goes," it will be after they've perfected that stem-cell treatment, because I really don't want to go the route of replacement surgery if I can avoid it. My knees crackle like a bowl of Rice Krispies when I workout or climb stairs but most of the time they don't hurt - only if I wear bad shoes and stand on a concrete floor for hours, or sit too long with one leg cocked up under me, which I shouldn't do anyway)

* I did get a few things done yesterday: I got the big thick book on the environmental movement renewed (this is an interlibrary loan, so getting renewals is a bit more effort) so I don't have to cram the last 200 pages of it into my head between now and Sunday afternoon. And I got the AAUW year book over to be copied and arranged for it to be paid for (so I don't have to). And I did the necessary prep for lab this afternoon which will save me time today. But yeah, I was tired. Teaching two practically back-to-back 75 minute classes (and on very different subjects: policy and law vs. intro bio) is kind of awful and exhausting and I forgot how tired it made me.

* There's some talk over Alex Hirsh (the originator of "Gravity Falls") having signed a deal with Netflix and some folks are like "hooray, that means he can put in swears and adult themes" and I am kind of like "can we not, please?" Some media/entertainment should be less edgy, for those of us who are not edgy. ("Bob's Burgers," is about as edgy as I can handle, and the edginess there is mostly fart jokes and Tina's obsession with boys' butts).

I dunno. I would just like an 'all nice cartoons all the time" channel with the nice but not-so-edgy stuff: some of the more interesting stuff Qubo shows, and "Summer Camp Island," and My Little Ponies (especially the early-season ones: I can definitely feel a difference between seasons 1 and 2 and the current season), and maybe some of the more short-run/one-off type cartoons that are on just sort of nice themes.

Not everything needs to be at the level Seth McFarland is at; if it were, I'd never watch. At least I have Amazon Prime and I can find a few things on there like Angelina Ballerina for when I'm feeling jangled and just need something very quiet and soft.

* It's still very hot here. It was 77 F when I left the house just before 7 am, and the dewpoint is around 73. (I felt it when I was working out this morning).

* I think I am about done (in the sense of mastering as well as I can) Mendelssohn's Op 30 No. 6 ("Venetian Boat Song" - one of the two pieces he has titled that). I did order (from Amazon) a book of his Lieder onhe Worte (songs without words) because I've realized I like playing Mendelssohn. For one thing - perhaps because of his history as a child prodigy - he seems not to write things with impossible reaches for someone with girly hands like me (one of my problems with Chopin). And the pieces are pretty and you can put some emotion into them - there are points where I speed up and slow down in this and it's not noted on the score but it sounds *right* to me so I do it.

I also ordered a book of "pieces for the advanced intermediate player" which I am hoping is not overly optimistic but I think I am getting there.

I do need to be thinking about "next piece" and I am considering one of the Bach inventions, as a switch from the more Romantic-era (though Mendelssohn was apparently one of the people who tried to bring Bach back when he had fallen into the memory-hole of music, so liking both Mendelssohn and Bach is perhaps not too unusual).

Other option is to try a Schumann piece again; I had some frustration with him earlier but maybe a different piece and with more experience I can do it.