Reading the newspaper

Last night as I was finishing loading up our van (at 10 pm) for our vacation, I realized that I hadn’t written on my blog…again. This shouldn’t be this hard to keep up with, but I haven’t read my book. Then duh, it hit me. I have been reading the newspaper every morning. We have been at my mom’s a lot this week because we are redoing our bathroom. We only have one. Enough said, sorry.

Wednesday the front page article was about the drought and how it is affecting parts of our state. An interview with a Don Distler, a biologist that lives along the Ninescah River, explained how he can walk along the bank in the evenings and not get bit by mosquitoes. That in itself is an oddity. There are pools where the fish and other wildlife are living but there isn’t free flowing water. Records are very close to being set.

As we drove across Kansas today, the drought is even more apparent. Many of the farm ponds are drastically low. Creeks are very green but no running water. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this crazy summer turns out.

July already??

I took some time off from reading about the Cavanaughs and their journey through Ireland. This was more out of accident than planning. I spent the last week working at a fireworks tent with a close friend, my hubby, and others. This close friend had brought "Lucky Man" by Michael J. Fox along, so I picked it up and started to read, and I have had a hard time putting it down. Well written and grafted together, I have been pleasantly surprised by this autobiography. Michael tells the story of his rise and almost fall of fame, success, accepting Parkinson's Disease, along with his shortcomings as a husband and father.  He is honest and open in his writing and shares memories with minute details. Reading his work makes it surprising to realize that he dropped out of high school (with his parents approval) and didn't receive a GED until 1994 at the age of 32. He does not write like a low educated person and there is no credit given to someone that helped him write. When you read this book he tells of a bright young man who was completely creative and didn't fit into the mold of traditional learning.
There are so many situations in this book that I was oblivious to about this actor. Maybe they were out there in the late eighties and early nineties but I didn't pay attention to tabloid gossip about stars. He shares his struggle with alcohol and feeling miserable despite all that he had acquired. I would encourage anyone to grab this book and enjoy the tale.