5/23/2026

 Saturday, May 23, 2026

1958 Mao Zedong started the "Great Leap Forward" movement in China, killed between 23 and 55 million Chinese citizens due to famine and forced labor

2022 President Joe Biden said for the first time he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion

2023 451 Illinois Catholic clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children over 70 years, according to the state's attorney general’s office 

2025  Donald Trump announced the implementation of 50% tariffs on all goods imported from European Union countries

2025 A group of U.S. senators visited Ottawa, Canada, to meet with Canadian prime minister Mark Carney in an effort to maintain the relationship between the two countries amidst Trump's tariffs on the country and calls to make it the 51st state.

In bed at 8:40, up at 4:55; 0515 140/58/30 122 205.0, 0525 132/60/E; 50/60/50, cloudy - partly cloudy

Morning meds at 7:40 a.m., and half-dose of Bisoprolol at 6 a.m.

Yesterday was a pretty rough day in terms of back/diaphram/gallbladder(?) pain.  I woke up with it, had it all day, and went to bed with it, waking up with it again this morning.  For some reason, I found myself thinking of TSJ and our long friendship, of our disbefief on learning that he had died, of his funeral and my eulogy, and of Emily Dickinson's "In this short life, that only lasts an hour, how much - how little - is within our power."  These were my thoughts as I waited for the hot water to drip through the coffee grounds this morning.  I suppose I was thinking of Tom because I was so ferkrimpter getting around this morning and thinking how even doing the dishes can be a dreaded chore.  It had me thinking of assisted living again and VA options.  Yech.

On to The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic about Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and their neighbors.  I read it so long ago, I can't remember when.  Was I in high school?  Whenever, I must have loved it because I recall becoming a big Hawthorne fan, moving on to read The House of the Seven Gables and The Marble Faun.  I have had a fine, leatherbound copy of The Scarlet Letter sitting uncracked on my bookshelves for the past 50 years, since I received it in 1976 as one of the monthly offerings in the Franklin Library's set of classics, of which I was a subscriber.  I never opened it because, after all, I had read it already.  I re-read poems that I love a hundred times without giving it a thought, but not novels except for Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment and now, The Scarlet Letter.  I was drawn back to Crime and Punishment by Raskalnikov's struggle with his conscience and by his relationship with the women in the novel, especially his mother and sister.  I'm not entirely sure what draws me back to The Scarlet Letter other than its depiction of the world's cruelty to Hester and Dimmesdale's clerical hypocrisy, but my memory of the particulars of the plot is mightly dim and I suspect I'll be surprised by what I read.

Next week's appointments at the VA includes a 6:45 a.m. CT scan of my thoracic and lumbar spine on Tuesday in the Radiology Clinic for Dr. Cheng in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic, and a noon  visit with Nurse Practitioner Maggie Angeli at the Congestive Heart Failure Clinic.  Friday's challenge will be to remember to inject myself with Trulicity which I've forgotten each of the last two Fridays.

The delayed start of The Scarlet Letter.  How is it that I don't remember the start of this famous novel that I'm sure I read not being almost 20% of the volume devoted to a looong narative about how it is the novel came to be written.  The narrative begins with "The Custom House -- Introductory to the Scarlet Letter."  In it, Hester Prynne is introducted - barely - but almost nothing is told of her story.  Rather, Hawthorne gives his readers a long description of his family history in Salem and the years he spent as a political appointee as "Surveyer" at the Custom House, which includes some very denigrating but humorous descriptions of government work and government workers.  The book was published in 1850 (a truly awful time of American history) and in reading Hawthorne's writing one is reminded of the writings of his contemporaries, Edgar Allen Poe and Herman Melville.  What I've read of Poe was easy to read, but I can't say the same of Melville's writing, though all I've read of his was Moby Dick.  I read all of that masterpiece but it was at times a bit of 'a long, hard slog.'    Moby Dick was the first book I received after I subscribed to the Franklin Library's collectors' program for leatherbound books, and that book, i.e., the physical product, was itself a masterpiece.  But back to The Scarlet Letter:  I  am a bit miffed at having spent so much time in the Salem Custom House before getting to Chapter 1 of Hester's story.  I had to remind myself that in 1850, readers had different reading habits from those of American's in the 2020s, but sheesh!  On with the show. . .

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I finally got into the main narrative and read the first three chapters, with Hester on the scaffold, enduring the public humiliation and worse of her neighbors, and resisting the entreaties of Reveend Brown and then of Reverend Dimmesdale to name the father of her child.  Big question: who is the White man with the Indian???

I gave up on my old TLC Roku tv in my bedroom.   I order a new Samsung smart TV from Costco for $249.  I ordered it online for pickup at the store in Grafton and was instructed in the confirming email that I would be notified by a second email when the item was ready for pickup.  My hunch is that I'll be picking it up tomorrow. . . .  The ready-for-pickup email arrived at 6:07.  I'll get it tomorrow..