Bertram's Blog

A Focus for My Life

September 8, 2021 — Pat Bertram

As I was wandering around my property, planning my next step in turning the yard into a micro park, my focus shifted, as it sometimes does, and suddenly it all seemed so foolish. I could only think, “Why am I doing this?”

I had no answer for my question because at that moment, it truly did seem silly to be doing all this planning and working, spending money on plants and seeds, and setting myself up for a huge summer water bill as well as months of work each year to keep up with the maintenance once the project is completed.

My focus eventually shifted away from the silliness of it all, though a bit of that feeling lingers. In a way, it really is silly, and yet, why not? It’s no sillier than the rest of my life. I write books that few people read. I read books that do nothing more than keep my mind occupied while time passes. I prepare meals that go in one end and come out the other. (And nothing, really, is sillier than that!)

If I had anything more profound to do than to turn my yard into a place of beauty (or rather, to try to do so since the results are, to a great extent, out of my control) I would probably be doing that instead. And yet, gardening — just the act of gardening itself — might be as profound as anything else. I’d say it was joining in the act of creation, but so much of gardening is as much destruction as it is about creation. For example, weeds are natural, a part of creation, but we gardeners take it upon ourselves to choose which plants live and which die. And all the rock I have around my house to protect the foundation came from the destruction of a mountain.

Perhaps with gardening and landscaping, I am just revving my internal engine, creating work for myself to no great end, but I don’t suppose it matters. It gets me outside, for one thing. Gives me a focus, for another.

It is good to have a focus, and even if that focus slips once in a while to reveal the foolishness of that focus, it’s still good. At least — in my case — it keeps my mind off the very real inanity of daily living. I mean, truly, what’s it all about? Going to bed. Dreaming. Getting up. Working and working out. Sweating. I could go on, but there’s no need to. You know what I’m talking about — all those dreary rites of maintenance that only serve to keep the body functional.

So see? It’s a good thing I have my various yard projects to focus on! I just need to occasionally remind myself of that.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: body maintenance, creating a focus for oneself, keeping the body functional, needing a focus, something to focus on, the inanity of life. 2 Comments »

Mind over Matter

September 7, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’ve lived long enough that you’d think the workings of my own mind wouldn’t be much of a mystery anymore, but still, it does surprise me at times how hard it is to overcome the it-doesn’t-matter mindset.

For example, a week ago I noticed that it’s been a little more than a year since I last changed the batteries on my smoke alarms. It took three or four days before I made the leap from thinking about the job to actually setting out my box of batteries. It took another day to remove the batteries I needed from the box. It took yet another day to buy extra batteries, even though I had enough for this particular job.

Admittedly, a few of those procrastinating days I’d overdone it with gardening work, and I didn’t think it would be smart to climb a ladder under those conditions. In fact, I even considering asking the contractor or one of his workers to change the batteries for me, or at least to stand by while I did it. I simply couldn’t get my mind in the right place to do the work.

When I finally settled into carrying out the task, it didn’t take long at all, but I can certainly understand why I stalled. The new smoke alarms have a little drawer you can pull out (rather than having to pull the whole unit off the ceiling), which is supposed to make it easy, but nothing is easy when you have to work with your hands over your head. And of course, the little drawer is only plastic, so even when it is difficult to pull out, you can’t really force it otherwise there would be the truly onerous task of replacing the whole unit. And once the drawer is open, the batteries won’t come out easily. Yikes.

But the job is now completer, the box of batteries put away, and the ladder is back in the garage. I’d feel silly about how much mental work it took before I could do the physical job except that . . . well, I simply didn’t want to do it. And truly, it didn’t matter, and it wouldn’t matter until the alarm started chirping and forced me to do what I should have already done. It’s that thought of pending doom that finally got me up on the ladder.

Now I can stop thinking about having to do that particular job and set my mind to working on other things that don’t matter, like solving puzzles. Or I could work on solving the more important puzzle of how to do the mystery at the museum event. Luckily, for that job, I have you (and thanks for all your help!) as well as a friend who is coming up with some great ideas. But still, how much do you want to bet that I will wait until the last minute because I can’t make the mind over doesn’t-matter leap?

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

Posted in life. Tags: changing smoke alarm batteries every year, mental work, mind over doesn't matter, procrastination, replacing batteries in smoke alarms. Leave a Comment »

Plots and Plots

September 6, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’m reading a book with four subplots — or rather four co-plots since none of the plotlines seem to have more importance than any other. That’s not a problem. I can keep four different plots in my head. The problem is that all four subplots are exactly the same, only with different names, though too many of the names are similar, making it even harder to distinguish the various plots. Each subplot has a bad-guy group and a good-guy group chasing each other with frequent pauses for a fight. The good guys want something the bad guys don’t want them to have — some sort of knowledge about a plague originating in ancient Egypt. At least, that’s what I think they want. Just as I sort of figure out what one group is actually after, the author switches to a different group. I have a hunch he thinks this keeps up the suspense, but all it does is put me to sleep.

Generally, when I get a book that bores the heck out of me, I skip to the end to find out what happened, and then forget it. With this book, I’m afraid that if I skipped to the end, I won’t know what happened. There’s also the possibility that if I don’t skip to the end and continue to plod through four plotlines that echo each other, I still won’t know what happened.

Is it any wonder I am weeding instead of reading?

Today I dug up more weeds, way more than I planned to. The ground had just enough dampness left from the last rain to be crumbly, so it was much easier to dig into than when the ground was sodden (and incredibly easier than when it was dry), so I continued working until that plot of ground was finished.

Hey! Plots and plots! Although I didn’t plan to wrap this blog around the theme of plots — story plots and garden plots — it tickles me that it happened.

I hope I finish the book soon so I can find something fun to read to allow me to sit still long enough to rest up from my outside labors. I did set aside the multiple-plot book for a while and read a single-plot book; unfortunately, that one was just as boring.

Even if the next book doesn’t keep my interest, it won’t matter. We’re returning to 100-degree temperatures (or close enough) for a while, and even a boring book won’t send me outside when it’s that hot.

Besides, I really do need to rest up. Starting next week, the plants and bulbs I ordered will be arriving, and I’ll have to be doing a lot more digging. I’m hoping digging to put plants in the soil will be easier than digging to pull things out, but I have a hunch digging is digging, whether it’s digging into the plot of a boring book or digging into a plot of weed-infested land.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Posted in books, gardening. Tags: book with too many subplots, boring books, digging, skipping to the end of a book, weeding, weeding and reading. Leave a Comment »

A Garden is but a Dream

September 5, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today was another digging day. Since the ground still retained some moisture from the last rain, I thought it would be a good idea to finish clearing out more weeds before the sun baked the clay soil into some sort of adobe. I’m sure a better idea would have been to rest up today after yesterday’s exertions, but I wanted to finish weeding one particular section.

I considered putting sod in that area, but I will lay down sod for a patch of lawn in the front yard, and I really don’t want to spend the time and effort — and water — to groom two lawn areas. As I was digging up weeds, I noticed there was plenty of knotweed in the area, which passes for grass in this arid climate, so I considered just watering the area and letting the “grass” grow to add a bit of green to the backyard.

But, as I was weeding, I had another thought. When I first moved here, before I got into landscaping and gardening, I’d considered turning my yard into a meadow. Even that takes a lot work, so I abandoned the idea, but a small meadow would be perfect for the area I’ve been weeding. That triangular plot of land will be sectioned off by hard pathways on two sides and the sidewalk on the third side, and I can see all sorts of wildflowers blooming there. Even better, it won’t matter if the “grass” grows between the flowers or if an occasional weed gets a roothold, because that’s the point of a meadow — anything goes.

The real issue for me is to get a mix of short wild flowers. I’ve been researching wildflower and wildflower mixes, and so many of the flowers grow four to six feet tall. Eek! I’d get claustrophobic with such tall plants in an open area! They would be perfect for outlying areas along the fence, but I’ve already planned other flowers for those areas — hollyhocks in one spot and a lily forest in another.

I finally found the right mixture at a seed place that caters to farmers and businesses with acreage to fill, so I’ll have to buy more than I need, but it will be a lot cheaper (and quicker) in the long run than trying to buy individual flowers seed packets and mixing the seeds myself. The good thing about having so many seeds is that I can plant half in the fall, and if they don’t come up next spring, I can plant the other half and see what happens.

Even after all this time, my landscaped yard with lush garden spots is still little more than a vision I dream when I am doing such mundane chores as digging weeds and turning soil, but you never know. Someday I might actually dream that vision into reality.

***

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: creating a garden, creating a meadow, dreaming a garden, landscaping a yard, wildflower mixes. 8 Comments »

Digging

September 4, 2021 — Pat Bertram

You’ll never guess what I did this morning. Oh, you guessed it. And yes, you’re right: I dug up more weeds.

It must seem as if that’s all I ever do in my yard, and lately, it is. The areas I’ve been working on hadn’t been weeded in years. I think the previous residents mowed them down like I’ve been doing, but that doesn’t really do anything to get rid of them — it just keeps them from growing to six feet. The root, of course, is still in the ground.

The particular area I am currently working on was under cover for about a year. After the old garage was torn down, the metal carport the previous owners had put up was moved close to the house to store the building materials for the new garage as well as tools and ladders and such that couldn’t go in my house. You’d think that having the ground hidden beneath all that lumber would kill the weeds, but nope. As soon as the garage was built, the materials used up, and the carport taken away, weeds immediately sprouted like . . . weeds.

It’s the same with the area that was covered by the construction rubbish heap — weeds still grew under there. How, I don’t know. Supposedly, if weeds are deprived of sun and water, they will die, but those didn’t. So, I am digging them up and hoping they don’t grow back.

The thing with weeds is that they are opportunists that fill any available ecological niche. My first spring here, much of the yard was covered in wild mustard. I like wild mustard when it’s young — it’s such a pretty ground cover. But when it grows up and starts blooming, it takes over everything. During the rainy season that year, I managed to dig up all the mustard. It’s not totally eradicated, but what does grow is easy enough to pull up in the early spring. The problem, then, is that other weeds move in.

So if I get rid of these weeds I’m now working on, and if I don’t plant something that will be stronger than the weeds, some other type of weed will find a home here.

Everyone has a favorite weed killing concoction, but I haven’t found anything that works for me. Oh, I’m sure the poisons would do fine, but in a yard this big, I’d need to use so much of the stuff that it would probably kill me, too.

Someone swears by salt — he pours a strong salt solution on the ground, and it kills the weeds. That’s fine if you don’t want to grow anything in the area because too much salt will sterilize the soil permanently, so the best use is for things like weeds growing in the cracks sidewalks.

Several people do well with an Epsom salt/dish detergent/vinegar solution, but that’s a temporary fix because it doesn’t kill the root. In fact, when you have an alkaline soil like we do, vinegar makes the ground more fertile for weeds. In addition, no matter what kind of soil you have, vinegar will kill beneficial bacteria and bugs. Epsom salts supply needed nutrients to soil, so it’s more of a fertilizer than an effective weed killer. The dish detergent is fairly innocuous — it mostly serves to keep the vinegar and Epsom salts on the leaves of the plants. Although it seems to be effective in small areas for some people, it doesn’t seem like a good way to get rid of strong and tall weeds.

Someone suggested bleach, and I did try that on the woody weeds along the alley, but it didn’t do anything at all, even though I applied it directly to the stem at ground level.

Vegetable oil is supposed to be a good weed killer, but I haven’t yet tried it. I wouldn’t want it in my yard where I intend to plant things because it can damage plants and microorganisms. At least, that’s what some people say; others say it’s good for the soil in small amounts. Small amounts, being the key here — if I were to use it to kill all the weeds in my yard, I’d need gallons and gallons of the stuff.

One idea I found online and would like to try is to make a concoction of orange oil and 20% vinegar (household vinegar is 5%). I do know orange oil is a good disinfectant, so it might work for small areas of weeds in a garden.

As with everything nowadays, there is a plethora of information available, but the truth can only be discovered by trying things and seeing what will work for me.

And what works for me now is digging.

Oddly, as long as it is fairly cool, I like the work. Not only does it give me an excuse to be outside, it gives me a full body workout. Eventually, when the yard is landscaped and mulched, and all the various garden areas planted with the plants I choose, I won’t have to do this sort of weeding any more. But for now, it seems the safest way to go. Besides, all that digging loosens the compacted soil and prepares the ground for the deeper digging I’ll have to do when it comes time to plant something pretty.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: benefits of digging weeds, digging up weeds, killing weeds, natural weed killers, preparing soil, vegetable oil as weedkiller. 4 Comments »

A Witness to My Life

September 3, 2021 — Pat Bertram

This morning, I cleared away the patch of seven-foot-tall weeds that had been growing unchecked behind a construction rubbish pile in my yard. Having them gone — both the weeds and the rubbish — makes me feel so much better! With the weeds growing like that, it made me feel slovenly, which isn’t at all how I like to think of myself.

I was going to pack it in when the work was finished, because I really did overdo it in my zeal to finish the task, but then clouds came and obscured the sun, and it felt cool enough to do a job I’ve been putting off.

I never considered bindweed a weed — it looks like small morning glories, and is pretty when it covers a field, or even when it entwines itself around the links of a chain-link fence. The problem with the fence is when the season is over, the plant dies back but leaves the vines wrapped around the links. I worked a bit on clearing off the fence the past couple of days, but so much of the weed was still left to clear off, that today, in the coolness, I got out a chair, sat down, and picked and picked and picked all that weed off the fence.

It looked so nice after it was finished, I hoped someone would notice and tell me that they noticed. I felt silly thinking that — I’m not a child, calling to her mother to witness some derring-do, “Lookame, Mommy. Lookame.” And yet . . . it is nice to have our feats noticed, even if they are as trivial as a clean fence. To be honest, I think it’s more than just nice. I think it’s a fundamental need.

In the movie Shall We Dance, Beverly Clark (Susan Sarandon) says: “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet . . . I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things . . . all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’”

Jeff, of course, had been the witness to my life. He gave it meaning by that witnessing. After he died, I used this blog as my witness, writing about grief and all that I went through because of his absence. This witnessing of my grief gave it importance — because of what I wrote, I connected with people in a similar situation, and we helped each other get through each new phase of grief.

I am still using this blog as a witness to my life, telling about all the large and small things that make up my life, but even if I didn’t have this blog, I’d still have a witness: me. I witness my own life. I see what I do. I see the end result of my labor and, in this case, I appreciate the cleared fence.

Incidentally, the lack of tall weeds — or any weeds — by the gray slag and along the other side of the fence is due to my labors at the beginning of the week where I dug up all the waist-high and shoulder-high weeds.

***

Posted in gardening, home, life. Tags: a witness to our life, bindweed, clearing bindweed off a fence, Shall we Dance movie, Susan Sarandon. 7 Comments »

A Woman’s Work

September 2, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I went out this morning to do a few gardening chores. I planned to spend only a short time because it was later than I normally go out and I expected it to be hot and humid. It rained last night, but only for a few minutes and barely got the ground wet, but it did leave behind a lot of humidity. Surprisingly, there was also a bit of cool in the breeze, so I decided to make use of the cooler temperatures to consolidate the construction rubbish pile that had been left behind when the old garage was torn down and the new one built. That pile was an unsightly mess, longer than fifteen feet, wider than six feet, and perhaps knee high. The contractor kept telling me they’d haul the stuff away but, as with so many of my jobs, it wasn’t a priority for them. Although it didn’t bother them, it did bother me. Six-foot tall weeds were growing on the other side of the pile where I couldn’t reach, and I wanted to be able to get behind the pile so I could clear them away.

I started out picking up the easy pieces and throwing them in the dumpster. Not necessarily easy to carry, you understand but easy to get to, because after more than two years of wood being dumped in that spot, it was jumbled like a giant game of pick-up-sticks. After a while, a neighbor noticed what I was doing and asked if I minded if he took some of the boards I’d thrown away. I told him he could have whatever he wanted, so he came and helped me sort through the wood. The best pieces I set aside, the worst I threw away, and the middling boards he took. He was excited to see the old garage supports — oak four-by-fours — and I was glad he wanted them.

My few minutes of outside work ended up being a few hours. After the neighbor went home with his loot, I noticed my keeper lumber pile was just as much of an eyesore as the original pile, so I hauled those boards — some long two-by-fours, some short, and a few two-by-eights — to the garage and stacked them neatly against the wall. I am exhausted now, of course, and very hot because the cooling breeze didn’t last, but I am thrilled to have eradicated something that’s been a problem for me for so long. Even better, I now will be able to clear out the weeds the proliferated behind that junk heap and prepare the area for planting hollyhocks this fall.

It does seem as if that adage, “A woman’s work is never done,” is correct.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: clearing away a rubbish heap, clearing away construction leftovers, woman's work, working in the yard. 1 Comment »

Creating a Murder

September 1, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I met with a friend today to do a bit of brainstorming for the murder at the museum event, but we got stymied when it came to figuring out physical clues. We never got further than my original examples of a weapon, a blood spot, a fingerprint, and some sort of photographic clue. In my own mystery stories, I’ve depended on conversations, especially when one character contradicts another because physical clues always seemed so Nancy Drew-ish. And yet, that’s what I need for this event — clues for the participants to find. Even though I can think of things to plant around the museum, I can’t figure out how any of those clues would lead people to suspect a particular character.

Because neither of us were able to come up with anything other than what we already had, we went on to discuss the victims. Since the event will be called “A Murder of Crows,” by definition, that means that two or more people will have to be victims. My idea is a married couple — traveling salespeople. Perhaps the man sells men’s haberdashery and the woman sells women’s unmentionables. I envision them killed in their bed, but I have no idea how someone would kill two people without one or the other being aware of it, though it’s possible only one of the couple was the intended victim, and the other woke up and saw the killer.

But I haven’t a clue why anyone would want to kill one or both of these seemingly innocuous characters. We discussed the possibility of the couple being spies, but there doesn’t seem to be anything noteworthy happening in this area around that time (1900), nor does there seem — at first glance — to be anything spy-worthy about that time in the USA, either. If we jettison the spy idea, we could have the couple ending up with some sort of contraband — an Indian relic, for example — and the owner wants it back or a greedy person sees it as a source of personal riches.

There are lots of other possibilities, of course. Most of the costumed characters would need to have to a motive, otherwise, there’s no real game. Often in a mystery story, you start out with no one who has a motive, so the detective needs to search out a motive to discover the perpetrator, but I don’t think that sort of scenario would be feasible in this case. Too much work for the participants.

Which means that I would have to come up with a motive to assign to each of the characters. Possibilities are: robbery, jealousy, vengeance, lust and passion (as in a crime of passion), money, loathing, anger, fear, mistaken identity, covering up secrets and lies, prevention of a greater crime (killing an assassin, for example)

I won’t have another meeting on the topic until next week, so it will give me a chance to let things stew in my brain pan. With any luck, I’ll cook up a likely scenario and plenty of suspects.

***

Posted in life, writing. Tags: a murder of crows, creating a mystery game, motives for murder, murder in a museum. 7 Comments »

To Mulch or Not to Mulch

August 31, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been researching mulches for my garden and yard to keep down the weeds, and I end up doing what I always do when I research such things — nothing.

The information is always too contradictory. For example, use wood chips, but don’t use wood chips. Wood chips are a good mulch, but so many commercial wood chips are created from old treated woods, such as palettes, which is bad. Cedar chips are good, and since they are acidic, you’d think they would be good for alkaline soil, but when the cedar chips break down, they add to the alkalinity of the soil, which is not good because the soil around here is already too alkaline.

Weeds are bad, but then, weeds are good, too, since they form a sort of living mulch, covering the bare ground and keeping it from blowing it away. Some people have good luck growing food in weedy soils, others do not. Some people say that yes, weeds are good, so create a weed patch, but keep them out of the garden. Some people say it’s important to keep the ground covered, that bare soil is not a good thing (though I do like the look of plain old dirt), so if nothing else, plant weeds.

I’d been pulling up the prostrate spurge in my daylily garden, but then it dawned on me that for the most part, the root grows between the plants, so it doesn’t really compete, and at the same time, it branches out to cover the ground. The plants seem to be doing okay, so I’m not really worrying about it.

I don’t really mind the low-lying weeds or the weeds with pretty flowers, like dandelions, but I do have an issue with weeds that have the potential for growing taller than I am. I finally got rid of the weeds along the alley, and there is another patch of weeds along my fence that I would like to get rid of because they are taller than me and are now going to seed, but I can’t get to them because of the construction rubbish piled in front of them.

I’d read that pouring vegetable oil over weeds and around their root will kill them without destroying nearby soil. I also read that some flowers crowd out weed, but if I did that, I’d have to make sure those flowers grow, which isn’t always possible. Still, both of these are possibilities. I also have a bucket of cedar wood chips I gathered when a cedar tree stump was ground out, so I can use those somewhere.

Mostly, I am taking this project one square foot at a time. I figure that the buildings on the property and the rocks around the house as well as the paths will take up about two thirds of my property, but that still leaves a minimum of two thousand square feet of ground to figure out how to cover, whether with grass, bushes, trees, gardens, mulch, wildflowers, or weeds.

Such a big project! But it’s good to have something major to occupy my time, even if I don’t know what I am doing.

Luckily, the flowers know what they are doing, so there’s always something pretty for me to look at in my yard.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: ground cover, learning to garden, mulching, prostrate spurge, vegetable oil and weeds, weeds as mulch. Leave a Comment »

Putting the Brakes to Monday

August 30, 2021 — Pat Bertram

It seems as if it’s been only a couple of days since I wrote about the pattern of my Mondays, yet here it is, Monday again. And the pattern remains the same: I got up, did my knee exercises, made my bed, folded my quota of origami cranes, dealt two cards for a simple tarot reading, checked a few things on the computer, then drove to the mechanic’s shop.

The difference between this Monday and the previous three or four is that instead of chatting with the mechanic for a few minutes while we rescheduled the appointment for the following Monday is that he wasn’t there to chat with. The shop was closed, which didn’t surprise me. The poor fellow is dealing with some post-Bob issues, and even all these months later, isn’t back to his normal healthy self. In fact, the last time I talked to him, he hadn’t been doing well at all.

I’ll check back with him in a few days to see how he is doing and to reschedule an appointment to get my brakes fixed. They seem to work okay, but the brake warning light comes on when I depress the brake pedal. The problem could be one of the brake cylinders. Three were replaced, but the VW parts place sent the wrong part in the right box, so that fourth cylinder has to be replaced as well as — perhaps — the master cylinder. Because my brakes seem to work for the light driving I currently do — a few miles out and back on the four-lane highway outside of town — I can wait a while longer. But eventually, the brake work will have to be done.

As on previous Mondays, after I left the mechanic’s shop, I stopped by the library and got a stack of books. It’s really nice not having to lug a satchel full of books on foot, so I indulge myself on Monday and get plenty to read.

I hope these books are better than the last batch I got. Those were all recently published books, and the good guys weren’t readily distinguishable from the bad guys. I’m all for a bit of ambiguity in books, but a couple of the authors went so far as to make the story so ambiguous that I had no idea if the good guy was the bad guy or the bad guy was the good guy or if both were reprehensible. A couple of the books used the cliché of multiple personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder). In one book, the good guy was also the bad guy. In the other book, we never find out.

I don’t need truly heroic characters, though I do like them, nor do I need characters I can identify with, though it does make a book more personal, but I do need characters that I don’t mind spending a few hours with.

I’m hoping at least a couple of characters in this current batch of books will be worth getting to know, but if not, well, the library is just a few blocks away. I don’t have to wait until Monday to replenish my stock, I can go any time.

Besides, one of these days, I will be putting the brakes to my Monday pattern because the car will be fixed.

At least, that’s the plan.