Holy Cow

Well, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida has finally decided to accept their responsibilities and pay for Ricky's MS treatment. That was the best news we've had in six months. However, that doesn't mean they aren't still trying to find ways to sink our battleship. They do not want to pay for his Tysabri, which is the drug the doctor wants him on. He tried another MS drug, Avonex, and it wasn't having the desired effect. Originally, the doctor tried to put him on the Tysabri right away, but the insurance company wouldn't pay for it, since he hadn't tried other drug therapies first. Well, now he HAS, and they STILL don't want to pay for it, so I see yet another struggle coming in the near future, albeit not as big of a struggle as it was to get that little "pre-existing" code erased from his file.

We spent yesterday making the rounds to four different doctors, between the two of us. It was a long day. We also had to spend Saturday picking out a new computer. For some reason, our two-year-old HP laptop just DIED Saturday, in the middle of me playing a game on it. We couldn't even get it to come back on. So, not knowing what else to do, we went to Geek Squad (which everyone I know is telling us we should NOT have done), and they told us the motherboard was dead and will cost $400-$500 to fix. Mind you, we just dropped $150 in January on a monitor when the screen on the damn thing died. So the computer we spend $900 on just two years ago has ended up costing us much more than that. I loved the computer while it was working, but keeping it working was just too much. So we invested in yet ANOTHER new laptop. Which disappoints me. The laptop I had in law school was an HP and it lasted me FIVE YEARS, which is ancient for any computer technology these days. Needless to say, we bought a protection plan this time. THEN we found out on Saturday that one of our friends/acquaintances is a computer guru and probably could have fixed the thing. We're actually going to give it to him to mess with, to see if he can get it running again, and, if he can, Ricky will inherit it as his own computer. The only positive to the situation is that I FINALLY took the time to get our wireless system up and running in the house we've lived in for a year. So now our Wii is updated and we can use the computer in any room of the house. It's WONDERFUL!

In reading news, I have made great progress in Comanche Moon, the fourth book (in publication order) in the Lonesome Dove series. It is just as wonderful as the other three, although there isn't as much edge-of-your-seat action as in the other books. I may finish it this week and get a review up. Next up is another review cookbook...

Joining My First Challenge

Well, I've decided to inch into the challenge waters and enter my very first-ever timed (i.e., non-perpetual) reading challenge! I'm a terribly slow reader (life seems to always get in the way), and I'm very anal-retentive about my reading, but I'm going to try to just fit my next few reads into some of these categories. We'll see how I do.

5 Point Challenges


Read a chick lit book

Read a name with a proper name in the title

Read a historical fiction book

Read a book with a one word title

Read a book made into a movie

10 Point Challenges


Read a book with a Civil War theme (any country)

Read a Biblical fiction book

Read a hardcover book

Read a book about a king or queen

Read a book set in France

15 Point Challenges

Read a book by an author you’ve never read before

Read a biography or autobiography

Read a book with a number in the title

Read any book and then post a review

Read any book but read it outside

20 Point Challenges


Read a book in a series AND the one after it

Read a book that was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Read a book considered Christian fiction

Read a book from The Modern Library Top 100

Read a book by an author born in July, August, September or October

The Best American Mystery Stories 2009, ed. Otto Penzler and Jeffrey Deaver

Again, another winner from the Best American series! This book of 2009's best mystery short stories was great. I started it over a month ago, but just finished it over the weekend, while I was away on vacation. And not because it hasn't been engrossing, but because I haven't had the time to commit to reading like I have in the past. Each of the stories was very good, in its own way. My favorites included Chuck Hogan's "Two Thousand Volts," N.J. Ayres' "Rust," Rob Kantner's "Down Home Blues," and Kristine Kathryn Rusch's alternate history "G-Men." I'd like to do some research to see if Kantner's private eye, Ben Perkins, appears anywhere else. I took quite a liking to him while reading that story.

I'd give it five out of five Whatevers, as usual. Perfect for the mystery buff or those who like short stories. Or those who like both. Once again, I renew my plea to please, please, PLEASE pick up a volume of this series (mysteries, short stories, or otherwise) and read one or two of the stories therein. Even if you don't think short stories are your thing, you might find yourself changing your mind.

Edited to add: My copy was a Christmas gift, not a review copy!

Whirling Dervish

I've been so busy lately! I started teaching part-time at the local university, so I've been spending a lot of time working on class-related things, in addition to the trial I had last week for my full-time job (which I WON!). Friday night was a going-away party for a colleague, yesterday was a Memorial Day BBQ at a friend's house, and today was cleaning, since I'm hosting Girls' Night at our house on Friday night. Needless to say, reading has been taking a bit of a backseat. And, honestly, I'm not much into it right now. Guess it's a slump.

BTW, someday I want to actually go to Istanbul to see the Whirling Dervishes in person. They are SO beautiful! If you've never seen them, go to YouTube and type in "whirling dervish." You'll find some great video of them!

One Year

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary. I cannot believe we've been married for a year. It's gone SO QUICKLY! Between moving, transferring positions at work, finding out the house we're renting is in foreclosure, my car getting flooded, and Ricky's illness, we haven't had a dull moment in our first year of marriage. I can't believe we have survived, but here we are. And, hopefully, things will only get better from here. I'm not terribly mushy, even with Ricky, so I'll just say that I'm happy with him and leave it there.

Review: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

FTC Disclosure: I Mooched this book.

I believe I first heard of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle during Mr. Weimert's American History class in high school. I knew it held a major place in our history, but the details were fuzzy. If I remember correctly, Sinclair was known as a "muckraker," one of those investigative journalists who exposed the corruption and scandal of which the American public was (wilfully?) ignorant. Upon reading the copy on the covers of my book, I learned that in writing The Jungle Sinclair sought to unify workers. What resulted, instead, was the Pure Food and Drug Act.

The Jungle is the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant who came to the meat-packing district of Chicago to seek his fortune. He brought with him his new bride, Ona, and a host of other family members for whom he had to care. He obtained a job at Durham's meat-packing plant as soon as he arrived, and spend a good portion of the book working for Durham's. During his time there, he observed the absolutely horrifying conditions under which the men (and women) worked, the disgusting things, both natural and unnatural, that tainted the U.S. meat supply, and the corruption and favoritism that existed in the upper ranks.

The Rudkus family endure tragedy after tragedy. The book is not light, by any stretch of the imagination. Every time something happened to Jurgis or the family, I kept frantically turning the pages, waiting to see how they would get out of it. Then I was kept frantically turning the pages to see what could possibly happen to them next. Their many tribulations seemed too much to bear. At one point, I remember thinking that it was the end for the Rudkus family, but there was half of the novel left! Eventually, the family does break apart and Jurgis finds himself a criminal, a pauper, and a societal outcast...until he positions himself as a cog in the political machine. Finally, at the end of the novel, Jurgis discovers socialism and begins to work to organize the laborers and spread the wealth.

This book was tremendously sad. It was especially poignant for me these days, as I've currently been struggling to readjust our lifestyle to one income, with my husband out of work. I felt as though I could really understand Jurgis' stress over being out of work, how they would pay their bills, etc. It hit very close to home for me.

The book was also quite disgusting. I would not recommend it for those with a sensitive stomach. It is amazing to me how terrible the conditions were in the meat-packing plants: no air or light for the workers, filth and contamination all around, disease and vermin infesting the factories...as I said in an earlier post, it's enough to persuade one to become a vegetarian.

While I enjoyed the book overall, and found it much more of a page-turner than I anticipated, I didn't like the end. The last chapter or so is basically just socialist propaganda. I'm not even that opposed to the ideals of socialism (i.e., fair labor, sharing of wealth among many), but it was a bit much. The speeches went on for pages and it made the ending rather anticlimactic for me.

Overall, however, I give The Jungle three and a half out of five Whatevers. It's an important historical novel, which gives a good view of American big-city life at the turn of the last century.

Semi-Sunday Salon

I'm still working my way through Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. I'm actually really enjoying it, although I can see why it was one of those prescribed books in high school English classes. And maybe history classes. It's kind of making me want to become a vegetarian. And it is SO DEPRESSING. But I can't stop reading, perhaps for the same reason people stop to look at car accidents...I want to see what awful fate will befall Jurgis and Ona next.

I got a new Bookmarks magazine a couple of days ago, so I'm looking forward to getting into that. And I got a little bit of birthday cash from my husband's aunt, uncle and cousins, that I will probably spend on a new book or two.

Ricky is still not doing as well as I would hope. Our lives have changed in so many previously unfathomable ways since January. We're still waiting for the doctor to start him on a preventive medication and, while we were waiting, he had another relapse. He seems to be coming out of that now, but he's not working or driving or even walking very well. And our insurance company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Florida, is trying to deny coverage of his hospital stay and subsequent bills, as a "pre-existing condition," since the ER doctor whom he saw for five minutes on the date he was admitted into the hospital coded his bill wrong. And they're denying coverage for the medication Ricky's doctor wants him on. And, yes, I named the insurance company, because if they want to play around with my husband's LIFE like that, I'm going to bitch about them by name on my blog. It's been a long three months. And, with the exception of the Read-a-Thon (well, kind of even then), reading is kind of taking a backseat to everything else. Well, everything else except cleaning, which I haven't done too much of lately, either. I'm starting to teach a class or two next month at the local college, too, so I imagine my reading time will be even MORE cut back. So. I'm trying to keep updating, but there's not that much reading-related to talk about.

On a happier note, I promised Ricky a trip to the bookstore soon, to spend some of our birthday money, so maybe I'll be updating about that next weekend.