The R.C. says, "let's play a game" and I say, "okay" because I'm good-natured that way, and she says, "what's your favorite book" and I don't like that game.

I don't have One and Only Favorite things. It depends, you know? My "favorite" food is whatever I've eaten recently that was particularly nice. My "favorite" color is whatever I happen to like at the moment. My "favorite" song depends on whether I'm in the mood for pop, rock, or classical at the moment. (But favorite composer would always be Mozart.) (Although I do get into Strauss or Verdi moods.)

I have some "Mosts," though.

Most overrated (and overwrought) composer--Wagner.

Most overrated author(s): In the "pop culture" category--Stephen King. In the "classics" category--James Joyce.

Most annoying neighbors: The people downstairs who bought a giant cardboard tub and for some reason spend a lot of time breaking glass into it.

I might, given a month or two to think about it, be able to choose a single "very favored" book in each genre I read in, but one, single favorite of all the books I've ever read? So not possible.

Anyhow. She pushes and finally I say maybe, Dandelion Wine because while I'm not sure if it's my favorite book ever it's certainly the one that appears most consistently in my Top Ten over the years.

But she doesn't like that book and, not having my selective memory of our childhood, has never understood why it's so seminal for me.

She says, "Pick a better book" which is just wrong. Cheating!

I am entitled to my own favorites, no matter what anyone else thinks of them.

Other topics:

Plants: This whole "garden" thing is very disappointing. I swear those stupid seeds aren't growing at all. Except for the weeds sunflower seeds.

A little internet research has revealed that those of us wanting early summer blossoms should be starting our seeds indoors a couple of months in advance. Grrr. (You know, where I was raised, in Kansas? You stick a seed in the ground and jump back so it doesn't hit you as it stretches for the sky.)

The weekend hasn't been punctuated by any outstandingly interesting events. Friday, I did some laundry. Yesterday, I went shopping and got away with a total of under $20 for the entire day. (Go me!) Today I gave myself an at-home "spa day" with a pedicure, facial, hot-oil treatment for my hair, etc. Tomorrow I'm going to Target to buy some bath oil.

Some weeks are more interesting than others. The past week hasn't been a big one for me.

I've been thinking about holiday cards. (Yes, already. Because they're a "spare time" activity and I have lots of that right now.) (And also I'm back on the diet, fighting to lose 5-10 lbs, so I need activities to occupy my hands.)

Yes, of course, I'm still sending out resumes. To the complete indifference of the entire Denver metropolitan area, I might add.

I'm hitting another of those worrisome points where I'll be sending out resumes Mon-Wed this week, then flying out of town to a place where my Verizon phone gets lousy coverage Thur-Mon, so I won't be available to take calls or schedule interviews.

On the other hand it's always possible that this week's resumes will fall into the same black hole of apathy as the ones I sent out last week. Shrug.

I won't be taking the laptop this time. I'm told that the phone service at my Mom's trailer has been shut off, so I wouldn't be able to get online, even with the lame dial-up account. Also, I'm flying to Joplin for a day, going to K.C. for 2 days, then going back to Joplin for another overnight stay before I fly back to Denver, so my travel arrangements are already complicated enough.

I fully intend to have some adventures during my stint of unemployment. I must admit that electronic searching on job sites is a heckuvalot faster than old-style "mail your resume to this address" newspaper ads and consequently, even checking all four or five jobs sites twice a day, I have plenty of spare time.

I'm just not sure what adventures or when. I'd like to go to the museum (or, really, several of the many museums scattered around the Denver landscape), back to the Botanic Gardens when the roses are in bloom, back to the Chamberlin Observatory on a non-cloudy evening.

Having spent money I hadn't anticipated spending (on Unexpected Medical Bills and Unexpected Family Medical Emergencies), I'm trying to find Frugal Adventures. There are plenty of things you can do in Denver for $5 or less.

Mother Digression Hidden Below Cut (Those Uninterested Should Not Click)

Mom's not doing better. In fact, she's doing quite a bit worse. I don't know if that's because she gave up the moment she got a 12-month prognosis or what. The disease, which is progressive, seems to have been quite far along before it was diagnosed, so maybe I'm expecting too much "fight" out of a 73 year-old woman.

Anyhow, she's in the hospital now, undergoing some new tests. Tomorrow she's being transferred to the nursing home the L-i-K-S selected (in concert with Mom's doctor down there in Joplin) in Kansas City.

The good news is that the nursing home is only about three minutes from the L-i-K-S's house. The bad news is that--well, it's a nursing home.

No one wants to think of themselves as the kind of people who put their old, widowed mother in a Home, but the bottom line is that she already needs 24/7 care. She can't bathe or dress herself, she's having trouble feeding herself, and she needs a catheter. For some reason, her potassium levels keep dropping to dangerously low levels, so she needs medical monitoring for that and other things.

From what the L-i-K-S tells me, the Home looks nice, the people there (she toured it) seem to be well-cared for, and the place has experience handling patients with Mom's kind of disease.

I'm glad Mom decided to transfer to K.C. It's a lot easier (and cheaper) for the R.C. or I to travel to K.C. to see her than it is for us to get to Joplin. (Also, now the L-i-K-S doesn't have to drive down to Joplin every weekend.)

Which brings us to the fact that I am, in fact, flying to Joplin on Thursday and am I regretting my decision to try out the local commuter service now? Yes.

Still. There are things I need to go through and pack up at Mom's house. She's sold the trailer to one of my cousins and his wife, effective July 1. They took the furniture as well (quite a good deal for them, since she has some nice furniture and she sold them the trailer and contents for the payoff value of her mortgage) but there are a lot of personal things that need to be sorted and/or cleaned out or brought back with me. Mom's sisters were all by the trailer this week to pick out things they wanted to keep--mementos of their family or their childhoods that are going to mean more to them than to us. Mom designated some items for each of us kids and then there are some other items (photos, etc.) that I need to look at. Stuff like that.

She sold her car to one of her sisters, which left me in a bit of a pickle. I was planning to use her car to drive myself to K.C. to see her during this trip. Now the poor L-i-K-S has to drive to Joplin twice more--once to pick me up and then again to take me back so I can catch my flight. Unless I decide to rent a car, still something I'm considering.

It feels macabre to be going through my mother's things when she's still here, you know? But she can't take much to the nursing home and she doesn't really want much of the stuff anyhow, so better now than later when everyone's likely to be a lot more emotional.