Monday, March 28, 2011

I Guess God Thinks It Needs Two More Months

Wow, it seems like it was a wasted weekend. I kept thinking I would go for a walk, but it looked like it was about to rain and 5 minutes later, it did. 15 minutes later it would clear up, but who knows if it would just start again? Now I am a bit stir-crazy.

I watched The King's Speech and Inception. The King's Speech was excellent, with excellent performances, although I got preoccupied with placing the film's events in history. When King George VI took the English throne, the English empire included a quarter of the world and by the time he died the English empire was gone. Inception was interesting and I liked it that the level designer was a girl, although this is also completely unrealistic. Maybe this has changed in 10 years, but there are few girl game designers, unless they are working on a Barbie game. I loved the ideas in this movie and it kind of made me miss making games.

I also finished Reading Lolita in Tehran. It was very interesting reading about being in Iran after the Shah, especially now with all of the activity going on in the Middle East. I thought the book was very uneven, there were parts where I had a hard time reading and staying interested, and parts that I enjoyed. I never felt like I got to know the characters, but I liked the first hand account of Iran's fundamentalism. I am amazed that there is anyone left in Iran and I appreciated the author's conflict between staying and fighting for her country and leaving Iran knowing a fight is a futile effort.

Dad sent watercolor brushes for my birthday and I decided to use Mom's birthday check for new glasses. My eyesight is bad enough that only having one pair of glasses makes me nervous and the two things, glasses and brushes, are both necessary for me to keep painting, so they feel like positive things needed for me to keep creating.

If you are home all the time during the Winter in Idaho, your Bearpaws will only last one season. I wore socks with them much of the time, but pee-yew, they really started to smell by March and I threw them out. I don't know if I would have the same problem with the natural sheepskin, much more expensive, Ugg boots, but I don't think I would ever pay an extra $100 to find out.

Mary Jo's commissioned painting arrived in two days, shipped on Thursday, arrived on Saturday. That was pretty fast.

First thing last Thursday, I sold all of the stock Dad transferred to me. He opened an account for Lauren when she was born and bought her stock most years on her birthday. It was supposed to be for her college, but she disconnected from me and my family at 16 and not only didn't claim it, but didn't deserve it. I think I made her use some of it for a school trip when she was 16, but what was left was in a minor's account and she hasn't been a minor for 5 years, so Dad needed to change the account. I asked him to transfer it to me last Summer and that transfer finally went through last Monday. I wanted it out of the stock market, so I sold all of it. This will buy me a few more months here, although I have many different feelings about using that money for myself, but mostly I am disappointed in my daughter's behavior. I thought having the stocks would leave a door open between Lauren and I, but instead it is a perfectly-timed financial relief for me.

A few years ago I was in the middle of a super painful experience that I found out would take a few more weeks to end. At the time, my friend said, I guess God thinks it will take a few more weeks. I still do not know what needed a few more weeks in that situation, but today I think about my financial situation, and receiving the money to allow myself a few more months here, and think, I guess God thinks it will take two more months.

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