Book completed

The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, by Erik Larson. It's our neighborhood book club book for August. I was skeptical at first, but I quite enjoyed it. The book tells the story of Churchill's first year as Prime Minister, with perspectives including his daughter Mary; his subordinates Jock Colville and Lord Beaverbrook; one of the police assigned to guard him, named Thompson; a scientist friend (Lindemann?); his daughter-in-law Pamela; and probably others I'm forgetting. It's a nice balanced mix of social history, political history, military history, and biography.

Book completed

Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Jonah Berger. Another useful book about marketing, related to my research on why things are interesting.

Day 871: Missing out

Today's plan was for J&D to go to JC's birthday party at 1, to play a four-player version of Magic the Gathering that J had invented, then I'd join them by 5 pm for pizza. Meanwhile, I was to go to RI's mom's memorial service, postponed nearly two years due to COVID, at St Mary's Episcopal. I wondered if I'd have time to stop at the university library between the service and the party, as I have a book to return and four I'd like to get.

J. had been pretty uncomfortable during the night but by morning concluded that he did feel well enough for the party, and D. was fine. I slept well and my digestion was calm, so I hoped I'd have the energy for all my things, but my throat was pretty sore, and I did a COVID test, which was negative. Still, it seemed irresponsible to take some virus that hadn't been deterred by masking into a public gathering, so I messaged my friend to ask her to let RI know I wouldn't be there.

Then I walked to Safeway and bought a card for RI, and bouquets for her and JC, and I came home and wrote on the card, then walked to the end of the block to leave the flowers and card for her. I figured this would be a good test of whether I had the energy for the library errand.

Alas, by the time I walked home again, I was utterly wiped out. I rested half an hour and was still wiped out. So I gave up on going to the party. Bummer. Instead, I spent another half hour indoors, until I felt too cold, then an hour outdoors in the very warm weather until my lower legs (in direct sun) were too hot, then more time indoors, then back outdoors in the shade. I pretty much just read, with a bit of cat-petting.

Eventually J&D came home; they'd had pizza, and D. had been the overall winner of their card-playing. I read some outside with J. by the water feature and enjoyed watching our two mostly black cat friends. Parker climbed fairly easily up a fence post and sat atop the fence, and his brother Oberon wanted to join him. It was amusing to watch Oberon walk from one post to the other, trying to decide which would work better for his own climb, then giving up and wandering away. Oberon is much heavier than Parker.