The author is military, evidenced by his preoccupation with people’s names instead of their jobs. I mean, must we need know the guy who winds up the cables is called Aviation Boatswain’s Mate Third Class Johnny Arbogast? It is an ego thing and the book is clearly aimed at that market. If this novel has a plot, I intend to find it. I am still down with the flu and reading a lot.You should see my new medical plan. In some ways, like free eyeglasses, it is better than the phone company (which gives you one pair every ten years). I admit not having been to a dentist since I left the company in 1996, so I’m carefully going over the complicated options. Most allow for the requisite two dentist visits per year so choosing the correct coverage is crucial now. This is something new over which I have zero experience.
I’m another hundred pages into “The Intruders” and still cannot figure out where this story is going. Bingo was mediocre last evening and there is a mild cold spell today, so combining the two, I’ll take the book along to do some shopping and have coffee at the Panera. Sometimes there are good-looking women in there. But usually not. Florida is the worst place I have ever lived for single women. What’s out there is in really awful condition. I have only met one single professional woman here in eleven years (a doctor), and she is half my age.
Later, I finished the book. It never did pick up, although the ingredients were all present. The author is another lawyer, an ex-carrier pilot who loves to detail the launch and recovery in every chapter, it seems. The climax was when they manage to get shot down flying an $8 million plane in the Malacca Straits by pirates with an antique anti-aircraft cannon. The airplanes cannot be made any smaller, they say, or the pilot’s ego won’t fit inside.
I’ve also finished “Victoria’s Wars”, the one-sided account of the British in the Crimea, India and China. Toward the end, the tale is an increasingly difficult read by their bizarre system of awarding titles. Then again, so much bureaucracy depends upon only those within the system knowing exactly who is called what and when. Only the Chinese were worthy opponents. You’ve got to love the way they beheaded smart-ass Englishmen above the city gates. By comparison, the Indian mutinies were gangs of the worst rabble attacking women and children.
However, if you would like more understanding of the idiotic ways the English (and Canadians) justify their screw-ups, this book is a good reference. You can see the underpinnings of all their lame tax laws, useless political parties, avoidance of personal responsibilities, half-baked social welfare theories, and unshakeable self-righteousness so familiar nowadays.
ADDENDUM
That reminds me, still no word from Wallace. That is exactly the wrong thing to do in this situation. My appeal lasted a week over five months longer than the original prediction, so had he listened, I could have told him to the day when I would run short of money (September 8). The fact is he did not listen. But I did. When I learned (September 29) he and Theresa had a “rental arrangement”, I have every right to understand it meant they were paying that share. They weren’t. Imagine two people calling me irresponsible who between them could not cough up $200 a month.
The bottom line is I had to rent out my own room and go live in the shed just to keep my word to Wallace, but does he appreciate it? No, he shows up with the attitude a lousy three months wages made him some kind of southern plantation owner whom I was lucky to serve. The thing is, I know he isn’t that dumb, so somebody got to him. Good, if they don’t have the back rent in the office by end of today, all that cash goes down the drain. Let’s find out how stupid his advisor truly is.
Oh, and never say our multi-cultural society has not been enriched by the “martial class” Hindus. I now have proof at least one of their words has entered common usage in our society. It is a word based on the performance of their soldiers after a battle: “loot”. And in an uncanny parallel, it is used mostly concerning a certain caste of our society.
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