book list for sick days

Really. No two people in a family should ever be sick at the same time. D and I have never, in 30 years of marriage, been sick at the same time, this is the first time and I hope it never happens again. It hasn't been awful but I am sure that I don't whine as much as he does. I think it's more that there isn't enough room in one day for all the whining we can both do, so I just stay quiet and in bed. Hacking and blowing and drinking and peeing....all the live long day.

I did have a nice hefty stack of books next to said bed: Saving Sky, by Diane Stanley, The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Marion Babson, Mindblind, by Jennifer Roy, Night Road, by Kristin Hannah, and Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses, by Claire Dederer (I'm almost done with that last one-I'm going to bed in an hour to read until Glee comes on and then I'm going to sleep until the morning light. Man, I hope I sleep through the night).

The stack is all gone and I have refilled it. I am looking forward to seeing the same books in the same stack next week. I don't want to read the day away for a little while. It is time to get up, get out of bed, drag a comb across my head...

I had pincushion hair: I have really long hair and it was in one big dread hanging to the back of my head for a day. I couldn't get a comb through it, couldn't put my fingers in it. It just sat there. And now my scalp aches at the roots.

Saving Sky was an amazing story about living off the grid, in a time not so far away, in a state not unlike Arizona, where people who aren't white are being ostracized for something they didn't do and other people are afraid to stand up to the bullies who are pushing them around. Until Sky steps forward to tell them they are wrong and this needs to end.

Sky and her family are great. They are not alarmists, they are just well-prepared for the end of gasoline and oil, the lack of fresh food and water, they live well off the grid, out in the desert, on a bit of property with a good sized garden. They trade for goods, don't watch t.v. or listen to the radio, and give blessings every night under the sky. They aren't particularly religious, they just treat everyone as they would like to be treated, which bites them in the butt when the new kid, who isn't white, is one of the targeted people in a round up of foreigners during a series of terrorist attacks on US soil.

Sky and her family hide him, protecting him even though their family is then roughed up some. I loved this book, yes, it's a liberal read, but it seems like a pretty realistic look at how things may go when the electricity goes out and the last can of tomatoes, box of tampons, and bag of diapers is gone. Ages 12 and up. (HarperCollins. $15.99. Available now.)