Blue-Footed Musings

I got a free 7-day trial of BritBox because I thought that The Other Bennet Sister looked interesting. I should have investigated first, though, because only 5 of the 10 episodes had been released at that point. I watched all five and then waited impatiently for the 6th episode, then the 7th, and now I’m waiting for the 8th. The show feels like an extension of the Ehle/Firth version of Pride and Prejudice (one of the best things ever made for TV) and consequently I can’t help but like it. My only major complaint is the cliffhangers. I hate being manipulated that way almost as much as I hate waiting to find out what happens next.

While sorting through a stack of paper I found a sticker that said, “I VOTED BY MAIL.” The sticker must date to the Covid era because that’s the only time I ever voted by mail. The sticker was a throwaway item then, but somehow it survived, and it seems more meaningful now that the right to vote by mail is under fire. I stuck the sticker to my computer as a symbol of hope and defiance.

Every day there are news articles about terrible things happening or being done in the world. At some point I started bookmarking those articles in my web browser. Initially it was so I’d have a list handy if anyone ever asked me for specific examples of what I considered to be so terrible. Now, any time a news story starts to upset me, I immediately bookmark it and close the browser tab. It’s a coping strategy for keeping myself from being consumed by fury and grief. My bookmarks, once home to my list of grievances, have become more like an oubliette, a prison for the things I want to forget.

Last week each of my children got an award at school. Livia won an award for French. Marshall got a college book award, for which we had to attend an awards ceremony. The ceremony went on far too long, we all agreed afterward, but I’m glad we were there. He didn’t apply for the award, so he could only have gotten it by recommendation. I’m happy to know that Marshall has at least one teaching advocating for him. And I’m proud of both children for doing so well in school this year.

I recently saw an article ranking each U.S. state on the percentage of residents with BAs. It’s interesting. I grew up in the state ranked 7th, went to college in the state ranked 1st (48.3% of MA residents have a BA!), and currently live in the state ranked 14th. I have a BA, as do many of my friends and family members. To me, college is a rite of passage and I expect that both of my children will go. But it is clear that people in some states (notably West Virginia, which ranked 50th) either have less access to higher education and/or value it differently. And news reports suggest that attitudes toward higher education have begun to sour, even in states such as MA, partly due to the exorbitant cost of a four-year degree and the ensuing student debt, partly due to politics. Each year’s batch of high-school graduates will be smaller now (the so-called “demographic cliff”). And then there’s AI stealing away so many of the jobs to which college grads once aspired. All of this will likely lead to fewer college students, more colleges going out of business, and a less educated populace. I wonder how each state’s BA percentages will change in the coming years.

• I’m not really the schadenfreude type, except those rare occasions when a certain malicious person gets mad over having been thwarted. That always brings a smile to my face. Too bad it doesn’t happen more often.
• I have now looked at roughly a million lake houses and spent more time on Zillow than it took to build the Panama Canal. Livia says I belong on My Strange Addiction.
• Yesterday afternoon there was a sudden BOOM that shook the entire house. My husband and I were so surprised that we each went looking for the other so that we could talk about it. He thought a tree must have fallen. I thought it was thunder. We looked outside. Nothing seemed amiss. So we went our separate ways again and forgot about it. Later I noticed a news update on my phone mentioning a loud boom. So I looked it up and OMG it was caused by a meteor!!! How crazy is that?

Last weekend my friend and I were talking about drought, and I commented that my area was probably one of the few parts of the U.S. not in drought. Apparently I spoke too soon. The state of RI issued a drought advisory a few days ago. Given all the snow we had during the winter and the steady march of rainstorms since, it’s hard to imagine how we’re that dry. It’s raining right now, actually. But I understand what drought means and how what we see of the weather doesn’t necessarily give the full picture. It’s scary to have drought in the spring when it ought to be wet, and knowing that there’s still the searing heat of summer to come.

I know it’s crazy, but I continue to shop for lake houses. In fact, one day I got so excited about a lake house in New Hampshire that I convinced my husband we should go look at it. But, ten minutes later my common sense kicked in. It was the property tax that got me. Over $11,000 in 2025. OMG, that’s onerous! That much tax on a primary home would be tough to bear. On a second home? Impossible.

But the heart wants what it wants, and no matter how many times I come to the conclusion that I can’t afford a lake house, I can’t let the dream die. So last weekend I convinced my hubby that we should go see a house in western Massachusetts, where property taxes are more reasonable. To be clear, I’d never make a realtor show me a house I had no intention of buying. This was an open house, though, and open houses are another matter.

The house had a lot of things going for it, its location being the primary one. It was on a lovely, good-sized lake and placed high above, where the views were amazing, and where flooding wouldn’t be a concern. It had a lot of downsides, too, the price being the biggest. They’d recently dropped their asking price, actually, but I suspect they’ll have to drop it more before they sell. We arrived just before the end of the open house, and there was only one other name on the sign-in, suggesting that interest is limited. We were somewhat interested, but we’d never be able to offer anything close to the asking price. Plus, the house needed updates and had some bathroom/kitchen issues that I’d never be able to tolerate unless we got a really good deal on the price.

None of that really matters, though, since we aren’t ready to buy a house. The value in seeing it and, I hope, additional houses later this season, is to get an idea of what’s out there. To figure out what we like and don’t like. To decide where we might want to settle in a few years, after the kids finish school. Because that time is coming fast, and then we’ll have nothing keeping us here but habit. It would be good to have a plan and a destination already in mind.

My shoulder diagnosis is in. I have a torn labrum. It’s not the “Tom Brady” kind, but rather the “Old Lady” kind. That is to say, it’s a degenerative tear. In a way, that’s a good thing, because it means I didn’t bring this upon myself through a specific activity. In another way, it’s a horrible thing, because it means my body is just plain wearing out and at any moment I might become incapacitated due to nothing more than age. But, at least in this case there is some good news: a torn labrum can be fixed surgically.

Now I have to decide if I want the surgery. I think I can use my experience with my knee as my guide. I injured my knee when I was in middle school. After the swelling went down and the pain stopped, it seemed to be okay, but over time it proved to be unstable. I stopped doing things that required knee stability. It affected how I lived my life. Over time it got worse, eventually requiring surgery. Since the surgery, it is much better than it was, but it often hurts when I walk. All of this might have been avoided if I’d had surgery immediately after the injury. But, I didn’t know I had a torn meniscus or how it would affect my knee over time. Even if I had, surgery probably wouldn’t have been an option back then.

That’s how this shoulder problem is different. I know exactly what’s wrong, and I know how bad it can get. Though my shoulder has felt better lately, simply demonstrating my range of motion to the doctor yesterday made it hurt for hours afterward, a reminder that the pain can start again at any moment. And, through my experience with my knee, I know how that’s likely to affect my life. I will limit the use of my arm and avoid certain activities. And because the shoulder has already caused me so much more suffering than the knee, I won’t merely be wary of using it. I’ll live in constant fear of a flare-up.

I don’t want to live like that, and I don’t have to. The surgeon who fixed my knee also does shoulder surgeries. I’ll call him next week.

It’s a common coping mechanism to look for things to like in a situation that you hate. That is, we all need our silver linings. So naturally I was searching for something good to be said about the changes happening at work, and I thought to myself, “Well, at least I won’t have to write those stupid blurbs anymore.”

Not long after finding that tiny sliver of silver, I got an e-mail from my boss telling me that some of those blurbs might end up being done as new material after all. Seriously? The Universe just keeps laughing at me.