Sunday Bookends: He wasn’t even listening and already a DNF book

/ Lisa R. Howeler



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.


The other day I became overwhelmed with worry that I have failed my son, the high school senior. Like maybe I didn’t teach him enough or well enough during our six years of homeschooling. The last two years have been tough. He’s had senioritis both of those years. He’s so ready to be done with high school. Getting him to do his schoolwork has been torture.

I went to him a couple of nights ago while he was preparing his dinner plate and felt very overcome with emotions. I apologized to him and told him I hoped I had taught him what he needed for the future.  I told him that I did my best but sometimes it was hard when he didn’t seem interested in learning so I would try to back off and let  him explore the subjects he was really interested in. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do, I told him. Maybe I should have been  more strict or —

I looked at him and my kid has this dumb grin on his face.

I’m practically crying and he’s grinning at me? What’s this about?

He’s not really looking at me either. So —

He laughs this really stupid laugh , looks up at me, and his smile fades. “What?” he asks. “What’s going on? Why do you look like you’re going to cry?”

That’s when I remember that my son’s long hair covers his ears and in his ears are probably  . . . Yes. Earbuds.

He’s been listening to a podcast the entire time and didn’t hear even one part of my lamenting speech.

“Were you saying something serious?” he asks. “What happened?”

I fill him in briefly and he laughs another stupid laugh and sas, “I was totally not listening at all.”

Apparently he isn’t really concerned that I might have screwed up as a parent so I suppose I shouldn’t be either.

I told him not to worry about it and walked back into the living room shaking my head. Sheehs. Kids. *wink*

Did I write last week that I decided not to finish The Definitive Oral Biography of Anthony Bourdain? I could go back and look, I suppose, or I could just run the risk of repeating it. I’ll run the risk.

So, yes, I DNF’d that book on Anthony Bourdain. I was terribly bored and a few chapters in I realized that reading broken up tidbits of people’s memories of Anthony wasn’t very interesting. There really wasn’t a story to the book. It was more like random memories and thoughts and interviews just tossed together in written form. If it had been filmed and I had been watching it, I might have been a little more interested, but this simply did not hold my attention.

I did enjoy reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony himself — even though I didn’t enjoy aspects of it (how many times did he need to share the crude nicknames he had for his co-workers or how many times he shot up or snorted something before going to work on the line at well-known restaurants?). I did not enjoy reading how others met him or what interactions they had with him as much.

Anyhow, moving on to my current reads. I am reading The Tuesday Night Club, a series of short stories with Miss Marple, by Agatha Christie.

I also decided I needed something sweet and light one night this past week and got caught up in Every Living Thing by James Herriot, so I am also reading that. I absolutely love the sweet and interesting stories in his books but this one, where he is now older with children, is especially endearing.

I am listening to Frankenstein but I keep getting distracted so I may switch to actually reading it. I do enjoy Dan Stevens narration.

Little Miss is getting close to the end of Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban.

The Boy is listening to Frankenstein. Okay, he isn’t, but he will be soon because even though I am “making” him do it for school he does actually want to read it.

This week I watched The Exile with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., The Victorian Farm, All Creatures Great and Small, and a couple episodes of The Dick VanDyke Show.

Up next in my Winter of Fairbanks Jr. movie marathon was supposed to be Chase a Crooked Shadow but I can’t find it streaming anywhere. I did find it on DVD and do plan to order it because it looks good from the trailer I found. Anyhow, I am switching to Angels Over Broadway, which I found on YouTube, for this week.

I really swear I checked some of these before I put them on the list and I swear that they were streaming but now they are not. I will update any of the movies I can’t find streaming in my Winter of Fairbanks Jr. post this week.

So far it looks like the rest are on Amazon, Hulu, or other streaming services.

I found the Sun Never Sets here: https://archive.org/details/sun.-never.-sets.-1939

I guess Fairbanks Jr. wasn’t in a ton of super popular movies because they are not easy to find.

Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree is out on Amazon and Barnes and Noble: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DW1VCWDD

Last week on the blog I shared:

I am listening to Frankenstein, narrated by Dan Stevens, but I have a hard time focusing on it so we will see how that goes. I may have to switch back to the book again.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Stacking the Shelves with Reading Reality, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date.

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31 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: He wasn’t even listening and already a DNF book”

  1. Pingback: Sunday Bookends: More cold weather and switching back and forth between books – Boondock Ramblings

  2. That’s a fun story about your son. Sounds like everything is okay parent/child wise. I feel like the streaming services take down the classics faster than they do others. I don’t understand why TCM just can’t keep my Audrey Hepburn movies up all the time.

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  3. Oh boys… they really are their very own breed aren’t they?! LOL. I am sure you did just fine. I always figured as long as my kids could think, reason, read, etc. then any gaps I left in their learning they were always capable of filling in themselves. Learning doesn’t end at any age and as long as he has your love and support that’s really all he needs. But I totally get the feeling!

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  4. There you were, baring your heart, and he’s got Airbuds in! I can just see it. There were so many times I told my oldest he was my experiment, and I hoped I got it right. All of my kids are responsible adults with good jobs so I must have done a little something right. I saw Cat’s comment about “As Time Goes By,” and I loved it, too! We would watch that followed by “Keeping Up Appearances” and finishing with “Are You Being Served?” Why is it the British have such good comedies? And, they’re timeless. Did you ever watch “Last Tango in Halifax?” Not as much a comedy, but still good. I also loved “Vicious” with Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen. Very droll humor. We are watching “Younger” which is just goofy, but sometimes you need goofy!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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    • We also watched Are You Being Served and Keeping Up Appearances. British sitcoms really are so good. I also enjoyed To The Manor Born, which is a very old one, and One Foot in the Grave.

      I didn’t watch Last Tango in Halifax but will have to look it up. I will look up Vicious too. And yes! We definitely need goofy at times!

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  6. First WP ate my comment, then it told me comments were closed, I don’t think it likes me much 😉

    So in short again.
    Watched “The Exile” and “As Time Goes By” (an old sitcom with Judi Dench)
    Reading “Peyton Place” and “The Greedy Queen – Eating With Victoria”

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    • I LOVE AS TIME GOES BY!! I am so excited that you like it too. That show got me through so many tough times when I was trying to figure out life. I would come home from my stressful job and turn on my tiny TV with only four channels and find PBS and As Time Goes By would be on. When I finally found it again on BBC America when I married and we got cable I was so excited. To this day it is one of my comfort watches. I have the box set, which my husband bought me for Christmas a few years ago.

      I swear, we need to live closer to each other. We like a lot of the same things.

      Also, WordPress doesn’t like a lot of people lately. It’s been rejecting so many comments and also not working correctly when I draft my posts. Very annoying.

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  7. I couldn’t help but laugh when you said your son had his ear buds in. I send my nephew these long texts and wait for an answer which is usually, k. I love all of your reading suggestions. I am sure you have done an amazing job homeschooling all of your children.

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    • My son sometimes just writes “K” too but other times he sends me a weird meme and I am left in the dark with the question I asked in the first place. And thank you. I don’t know about an amazing job, but hopefully I haven’t screwed up too bad. lol.

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  11. I felt like I did a tolerably good job when my kids were young, but when they became teens, I felt clueless. It was such a difficult time. Now they say they had an ideal childhood. Who knew?

    Kitchen Confidential? It sounded like an awful life, pretty much the exact opposite of everything I would want in a life.

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    • I agree on Kitchen Confidential. Yikes. Bourdain was a very good writer, though.

      Yeah, my mom still stresses over how she raised us but I can’t remember most of what she remembers as the bad parenting moments. I have very fond memories of a woman who tried hard and apologized when she knew she was wrong or if she really scolded us when we didn’t deserve it. That didn’t happen often, luckily.

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  12. I have two sons and a daughter and felt the same way when they were getting married or going into the Marines. They all have assured me that I did a good job and they are all very happy. I’m sure that’s how your son feels too.

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    • he has told me he knows I’ve done the best I can and he often hugs me and tells me he loves me. I try not to have these self-absorbed worry sessions too often. I really do worry about the kids,, though, not how I look as a parent. I want them to be happy more than I want some pat on the back for doing okay. I mean, little pats are okay, I guess. *wink*

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      • I know a lot of moms who have those same thoughts, including me.. After reading your post I was wondering what my kids though so I asked one of my sons and he said “Yes, I have no complaints”. I’ll ask the other two the next time I see them.

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  13. I went thru those same feelings when our two youngest graduated from homeschool. But then I had similar feelings when our oldest graduated from public high school years before, so I wonder if it’s a Mom thing to worry if we’ve prepared them for whatever they might face. I still worry, 25 years later! Lots of praying!! 🙏🙏

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    • I think it is a mom thing. My mom still worries about things she says she messed up on when we were growing up.

      She also has told me a couple of times what a sweet person you are and she wants me to thank you again for the kind card you sent her.

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  14. Home schooling is a mystery to me (other than when forced by the pandemic). Kids have so many issues at that age that they seem to need to get away from family. But in this case, the one who had a hard time seems to be you. You haven’t mentioned what your son will be doing next year. College?

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