i've squandered away a sunday morning, partly because i'm tired and partly because i left my glasses in the car and was too lazy to go out and get them.

sunday morning is often my time to delve into family genealogy, which i find comforting in an era when fascism is rising, people are going to war against their own people, etc. family genealogy assures me that people survive through such travesties as the american revolution, civil war, irish potato famine, etc. they manage to survive and have children even, sometimes more than one.

but often it's somewhat uncertain. i look into relatives and find too many with the same name, or too many guesses piled upon guesses to the point that i don't believe any of people's constructed trees. what do they know? they appear to pull names and dates out of places and slap them around like they must be the truth. it makes it all the more obscure what actually happened, and it sucks out my motivation.

i'm also deep into a novel which is essentially a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. A little beyond me at this point - namely, that i should be able to retell the story with some kind of accuracy or parallel to the original stories. i have lots of work to do.

and meanwhile, i have unfinished projects - an unfinished leverett book (bluffs leveretts), another novel or two (sorry for late, legends of powder rock), a language-theory book (vowels in the elevator), and more. all backed up. me making incomplete sentences. me just sitting here wishing it wasn't so humid.

i feel like we're hip-deep in kids we have run out of steam to foster. at our house now are a 16-almost-17 year old boy, a 17-year-old girl, and an 8-year-old girl. Connected to the boy and the 8-year-old are two more who we have our eye on. Out three miles away is a 20-year-old son and his 17-year-old friend. Right there, way more than we can handle. We're old and need to shed, even the three dogs and one cat are too much. The ones that are ours, well they're ours, there's no shedding them. but you reach a point where you say, no, i know when it's too much to take more on, and now's that time. i can say that if i don't feel like i'm being a good enough parent, maybe they can find somebody who would be a better one. a 47-year streak of continuous parenting might be ready to wind down a little,

i have a puppy though, and he's on my lap, and he's happy. the fireworks are over, and he can get some serious rest.