When All Is Said by Anne Griffin is a simple and well told story. I found myself not wanting to put it down and read it easily in about two days. It was one that came up as a suggestion and after reading what it was about, I decided to read it. I admit that it became clear where the story was heading early on in the book, but that only made me want to read more.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
A tale of a single night. The story of a lifetime.
If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn about yourself, when all is said and done?
This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.
Beautifully written, powerfully felt, When All Is Said promises to be the next great Irish novel.
I’m not sure exactly what they mean by “the next great Irish novel,” but I can tell you that it was a very good story. When it was over, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what else happened. I could see where a second book could pick up the story with a secondary character, but it is find exactly how it is.
In a sense, it is a love story – well, five love stories. But as you can probably tell from the synopsis, there are moments of sadness throughout the story. Each of these five people and how they fit into Maurice’s story and how they helped shape his life will bring laughs and tears.
The initial question asked by Goodreads was enough to hook me. It even had me trying to answer that question. Which five people would sum up my life? Who would I toast? Why only five? I am still struggling with the answers to these questions.
You might enjoy it. If you do read it, I’d love to know your thoughts….
Not too long ago, my boss at the sleep lab left to pursue another opportunity. Before she left, she asked me if I would be willing to speak to an EEG class at the Carnegie Institute. It was something that she was lined up to do and with the new position, she was unable to do it.
I have done a few presentations for my job. I have spoken at a local sleep conference, presented at a senior living center, and other various appearances. This is something that I truly love to do, so naturally, I said I would do it.
There are a lot of similarities between sleep and EEG, but also a lot of differences. This talk, and the one next week, will offer the students a look at the sleep side of things. Tonight I presented a basic “intro” to the students and will go into the various sleep disorders next week.
The director and the president of the institute were there to greet me when I arrived and were both very pleasant. I felt very welcome. They showed me the room I would be presenting in and got me set up.
It was a nice group of students and they asked some very good questions throughout my presentation. The class is supposed to take a couple ten minute breaks, but they opted to not take them tonight, which allowed my to finish a tad early. (From my days in the college classroom, I can tell you that I always loved when the class let out a bit early.)
As with most classes, there were those who bolted as soon as I was finished and those who hung out afterward to ask questions about sleep in general, CPAP, and even getting into sleep after being in EEG.
I am really looking forward to next week’s presentation!
My youngest son, Andrew, has had his share of challenges in his almost two years. After his first sleep study, he was diagnosed with laryngomalacia. It was causing him to have sleep apnea. A surgery was done to correct that problem. While in surgery, a cleft was discovered and the surgeon filled it.
Three months later, he had a second sleep study and his sleep apnea index had gone down, but not quite enough. We opted to try CPAP, which meant a third (CPAP) sleep study. It worked for a while, but because of a lack of proper pediatric CPAP masks, we wound up stopping and attempting to treat it another way. Medications to help open nasal passages and the airway were prescribed and they seemed to work well, as he was sleeping a bit better (despite some louder snore).
Just before the Fourth of July, he had a fourth study and we discovered that his apnea is worse than it was last time. We also found that the laryngomalacia, which he should have grown out of by now, was still an issue.
Andrew had his visit to the ENT today and there was quite a discussion. It seems to the doctor and his colleagues that the main issue is the cleft. They will probably have to do a deeper scope to make sure there isn’t another cleft. The goal is to repair the cleft or clefts. They may remove tonsils and adenoids, too. Either way, it is a much bigger surgery than we anticipated.
He will probably be in the hospital for a few days, perhaps in ICU. We’ll be awaiting a call to schedule surgery Monday. They think it will be sometime in August or September. I found this video on YouTube, which only scared me more.
My wife and I are quite overwhelmed right now. We can only hope and pray that this will take care of Andrew’s issues and the healing will be fast and easy.
I thank you in advance for your good vibes, your positive thoughts, and prayers as we anxiously await a plan of action.
This was a book that kept popping up in my Goodreads feed as well as in blogs that I follow. Almost all of the reviews I read praised it for being clever, witty, a bit dark and creative. Now that I have finished it, I can say that those reviews were accurate.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Is it a murder mystery? Not really. It is far from a Whodunit, but it was very entertaining. The premise itself is unlike anything I’ve ever read. Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:
A devilish thriller with a killer concept: The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to “delete” their most deserving victim.
Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.
Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.
I put the book on hold at my library and when I picked it up, I noticed the author’s name – Rupert Holmes. The only Rupert Holmes I knew was the guy who sang “Escape,” otherwise known as “The Pina Colada Song!” You know it, of course:
“If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. If you’re not into yoga. If you have half a brain….”
My first thought was, “This cannot be the same guy!” Well, I was wrong. It is the same guy!
He is quite a successful author and has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. Who knew?
Overall, I really enjoyed the book and enjoyed the way it all came together at the end. Check it out and let me know what you think….
America celebrated her 247th birthday this week. It was a busy and wonderful weekend for us, as we had an out of town visit from my brother. He and Stacey drove up from Ohio on Sunday. They spent all day with us on Monday. We ordered Pizza for lunch, Barbequed chicken for dinner, and went for ice cream before they headed back to their hotel.
On the fourth, they met us at this little zoo nearby and we spent the first part of the day there. It’s been years since I have been there and forgot that they actually have some pretty cool animals. They have brown and black bears, a white Siberian Tiger, Kangaroos, Lions, and a plenty of birds (more on that in a minute).
The zoo has many places where you can buy feed to give to the animals. They kids loved feeding the goats.
The look on this goat’s face in the picture cracks me up!
The animals are so close to you and there are many you can pet.
Sam does not like birds. I’m not saying I do, but the kids wanted to go into this parakeet experience. When you walk in, they give you a stick with bird seed on it. The birds will fly over to your stick and eat the seeds. I made a friend quickly, and didn’t even need birdseed.
This bird flew to the top of my head and STAYED there pecking at it until we were done. I swear we were in there for at least 10 minutes. This bird would not leave my head. Finally, when the kids were ready to go, we walked to the door of the exhibit and the door guy had to shoo the bird off my head so I could walk out. It was freaking me out!
We went back to our house to wait for our local fire works show. Sam’s folks and a friend from college (who just moved to our neighborhood) joined us in our backyard to watch the show.
Every year, since Ella could walk, we’ve taken pictures of them walking down down the sidewalk with a flag. It was fun to put them all together in a collage and see how much they have grown.
For such a small town, they really do a fine job with their fireworks show. I wish cell phone photos could do it justice.
Ella said it was too loud and Nana and her went inside. The rest of us stayed outside and enjoyed a nice show. I wish that the tree in my neighbor’s yard wasn’t there.
As I scrolled through the photos I took on the fourth, there was one that struck me for the weirdest reason – the shadow.
I thought this was just such an amazing picture. I love the way the shadow is.
As of Friday, a new law here in Michigan made it illegal for cell phones to be in the hands of drivers. The law, which strengthens other distracted driving laws already in place, aims at reducing deadly distractions on the road.
In the past I have always taken advantage of Bluetooth technology, but admit to sometimes picking picking up the phone at stop lights to read a text. Thankfully, my last couple vehicles had the hands-free option for making and receiving calls. In my new vehicle, if a text comes through, the car gives you the option of having it read to you. You can then replay by simply talking. It’s quite a nice feature.
A Grand Rapids TV station interviewed Lieutenant DuWayne Robinson with Michigan State Police about the new law. He said he’s confident that state troopers pulled over drivers Friday and at least issued warnings and took the time to educate drivers about the changes.
“Our first goal with all laws and all violators of traffic laws is to educate the public, and we have a lot of discretion in terms of whether or not we issue a verbal warning or citation and definitely if there is an egregious example of a violation right in front of us, then that will inform what we may do next,” Robinson said.
I certainly feel that this is a step in the right direction. We are so connected to our phones these days. But is it really that important to see the Facebook or Instagram photo of a friend’s dinner the minute it is posted? Probably not.
There are people I saw on the news recently who seem to think this is something petty for police officers to do. One guy went as far as to say, “There are people who are breaking laws every day that are more serious than this.” He insinuated that the focus on distracted driving would cause police to not be able to enforce more serious laws.
Personally, while phones tend to be a big distraction, I believe that there are other distractions that need to be addressed, (and enforced) too. We are a society that is always on the go. I always question these people who eat and drink at the same time they drive.
My vehicle has cup holders. I’m sure yours does as well. Is it necessary to have a drink AND food in your hand?
The one that never ceases to amaze me is when I see some gal putting on makeup while driving 80 miles per hour on the expressway!
In order to do this, your eyes are NOT looking at the road. They are looking in the mirror. Not trying to justify it, but at least when you’re chowing on a burger, your eyes are looking ahead (in most cases, anyway.).
One article I read spoke about how it is mostly teenagers who are doing the makeup thing while driving, but from personal experience I have witnessed women of all ages doing this.
Then, there’s this guy ….
What an idiot! It actually looks like he is reading music from his lap while driving. At least this saxophone player seems to have his music memorized.
He is at least looking ahead at the road. Of course, both hands are on his sax instead of the steering wheel, though.
As I drove in to work last night, I was watching for people with phone in their hands. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any. Perhaps the thought of paying a hefty fine for it was enough to make people stop. We shall see.
For over three years now, I’ve been razzed and quizzed about Disney Princesses. To my credit, I now know most of them, though occasionally I mix up a couple names. I won’t lie, I’m pretty proud of the fact that I do know most of them and that I can have a “princess” conversation with Ella. Today, however, a new wrench was thrown into the works – in the form of My Little Pony.
Sam and I are not sure where she came to know about My Little Pony. It may have been something that she watched at Nana’s house. The conversation stemmed from a juice that Sam bought her at the store today. It was one of those bottles with the character heads on the top of it. She asked Sam what the character was, and Sam told her she wasn’t sure.
As the conversation continued, it became very clear that she knew many of the characters by name. Sam grabbed her phone and looked up My Little Pony Characters and started saying the names. The more names Sam threw out, the more I chuckled. There was Pinkie Pie, Cozy Glow, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Jack, just to name a few. When my wife said, “Scootaloo,” I laughed out loud at how ridiculous these names were. By the way, we soon found out the character on her bottle was Rainbow Dash.
So Ella is a fan of this My Little Pony. The new challenge for me will be knowing them all. How many are there? I had no idea. It can’t be that many, right? WRONG! I looked it up! According to a site called “The My Little Pony Trading Post,” it depends on if you want to count all the various series, versions, and re-issues. From what I gathered, there are somewhere between 300-1500 different My Little Ponies.
God help me try to remember the names of those things!!!
Every now and then, I have to blog a story just so I won’t forget it. This is one of those times.
We have one of those inflatable pools for the kids. You know the ones I’m talking about? They kind of look like this:
Ours is a bit bigger than the one above. We only fill it half way, but the kids just love it.
Over the weekend, I was out weed whacking the yard before mowing. It was already pretty hot outside. The kids were outside, too and decided to just jump in. Sam was outside with them and just let them play in there with their clothes on. The issue was that Ella was still in a Pull up and Andrew was in a diaper. Well, you know what those diapers do when they get wet!
At some point both the Pull Up and the diaper had absorbed about all the water they could. Sam had the kids take off their clothes and they wound back in the pool naked. As I passed the pool on my way back out to the backyard I said, “Don’t poop in the pool,” and continued the yard work.
It wasn’t long and Sam called to me. “Come here! Andrew wants to show you something.” As I came around the garage, I saw Andrew standing on the driveway. It took me a minute to realize that my son is smarter than I thought. He didn’t poop in the pool. Instead, he chose to poop on the driveway.
It seems like we just heard the news that Pat Sajak was stepping down as host of Wheel of Fortune. He’s been at the helm for 40+ years, so the news of his retirement shouldn’t have come as a shock to fans.
It’s been a great run for him, and when the announcement came, the speculation of his replacement was instantaneous. While there were many names that were being tossed around, one name kept coming up as the “obvious” choice – Ryan Seacrest.
I won’t sugar coat this – I hoped that Seacrest would NOT be the new host. As you know, he has been officially named as Sajak’s replacement. This is a disappointment to me. It is bad enough to see him once a week on TV, now that phoney smile will grace televisions 5 nights a week!
I’m sure that he’s a nice guy, and I know he’s a fellow radio guy, but really, there wasn’t ANYONE else they could have picked? Give someone else a chance, dude! Doesn’t he do enough already? Isn’t he making enough money? I may be in the minority here, but I don’t see the appeal. I don’t get why he is so popular.
The only radio I’ve heard him do is the American Top 40, which Casey Kasem used to host. He does ok, but he’s just reading a script that is already prepared for him. It’s not that hard. Casey did the same thing, however, it sounded more genuine.
He’s hosted American Idol for over 20 years (a show that should have been done 15 years ago). I suppose his recorded bits sound good, but he always seems to be more of an annoyance the rest of the time he is on screen.
When he co-hosted that show with Kelly Ripa, I wondered if we’d finally get to see some real interview skills. I never felt that he had what guys like Carson, Letterman, or even Regis Philbin had. I felt like Kelly was carrying the show.
Don’t even get me started on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve! Dick Clark was a master and he obviously saw something in Seacrest. Without Clark, the show hasn’t been the same and I can’t even watch it. It actually bothers me that they still include his name in the title, because it never quite lives up the quality it had when Clark was host.
All that being said, now he will be taking over a game show classic. I fear that it will lose something when he becomes host (much like Family Feud got raunchier when Steve Harvey took over). I am probably dead wrong, because it seems like he can do no wrong, but I feel that this is the beginning of the end for Wheel of Fortune.
I haven’t heard whether Vanna White will leave the show at the end of production this season, but maybe she should consider getting out while she can.
Many readers know I work in Sleep Medicine. Every year there is a sleep conference in Detroit that we try to go to to earn our Continuing Education Units to keep our registry. That conference was last week.
Sam and I drove down to Detroit early Thursday afternoon. (The kids got a sleepover at Nana’s house.) The conference took place at one of the casinos. When we checked in, they asked if we wanted an upper or lower floor (we chose upper) and whether we wanted a city or river view (we chose river). It was a nice view!
After speakers were done on the first night, Sam and I went to a small mixer where guests could have a drink together. We hung out with a couple of my coworkers and folks who graduated from the same sleep program. They had raffles while we were there and Sam won a Tim Hortons gift card. My coworker won a $100 Amazon card.
We went up to our room and we were exhausted, but hungry. We decided to order room service ($$$$$). She ordered nachos and I got a burger. When it arrived, it was apparent that we should have just shared the nachos because it was HUGE!!
After the conference on Friday, we had hoped to go out to a nice dinner. Because room service was SO expensive, we decided to get something on the way home. After getting the kids from Nana’s, we ordered pizza and brought it home.
Just a side note: As parents, you can’t wait to get a night or two alone and away from the kids. Of course, when you do, you can’t stop thinking about them and are overjoyed when you see them again!
Clubs
My son, Dimitri, turned 16 on Sunday. I told him I wanted to take him out golfing. It’s something he and I have never done together and I knew it would be a good time for us to connect and chat. We decided to go Saturday morning, and the weather was perfect.
I haven’t been on a course in at least 3-4 years. I knew I was gonna really golf badly. He hasn’t been out in at least a year, since leaving the golf club at school. Thank goodness it was a slow day in the course.
I hate when you’ve always got someone waiting for you to tee off or shoot. I realize it’s part of the game, but I always feel rushed and often just want to hit so we can go. Dimitri and I were far from professionals out there, so it did take us a bit longer than usual. We finally let the twosome behind us play through.
He is like me in that he has his favorite clubs. He rarely uses his driver, but he can crush a ball with his 5 wood. I have a 7 wood that I used to hit well, but topped it every time Saturday. I had a few good drives, just enough to keep me coming back.
We bent the rules a little bit, and had plenty of mulligans (redos), and impost probably a dozen balls in the woods and water. Despite all of that, it was a great time together. He, naturally, beat me by two strokes. I can’t wait to do it again.
Croup
Sam called me while I was out golfing and said that both kids sounded sick. Both had low grade fevers and a cough. By the time I got home, Ella was sounding better after taking some allergy meds. Andrew’s fever was gone but still had a cough and that raspy voice.
Sam wondered if we should take him to urgent care or ER. Everyone we talked to said wait to see how he was in the morning.
That night at bedtime he cried a lot. He wound up in our bed. He woke us up with a nasty cough and wheezing about 3am. He fell right back to sleep, but it was enough to freak us out a bit.
At 6am he woke up sounding worse, so we rushed him to ER. Nana met us there and brought Ella back to her house. We planned to be there a while and Sam packed loads of snacks just in case.
They got us right back and he was seen almost immediately. We weren’t sure what to expect because we were there right at shift change. However, once we were in our room, the nurse came in, followed by the doc. Once the examination was done, she told us it was croup and she gave him a steroid and told us he should be back to normal in a couple days.
How fast were they? Well, we had finished with the nurse and the doctor AND the meds were administered all before the registration gal came to our room! We actually had to wait to get registered before we could leave! Total ER time – about 70 minutes.
Ella decided she wanted to have a sleepover again at Nana’s, so when Sam left for work last night it was just me and Andrew. He really improved throughout the day. Before bed, we stood on the porch and watched the thunderstorm together.
Andrew is still sleeping and Ella should be home later today. The house should return to it’s normal chaotic state shortly after her arrival.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 