Seriously?

This morning, people were setting up what looked like a street festival across the street from our apartment. It appears to be a joint venture between the Pentacostal church across the street and some random pediatrics group. There were some booths and a bandshell and a bouncy castle. I was charmed.

Six hours later, I'm significantly less charmed. It's turned out to basically be a revival meeting. We've had alternating preaching and extremely repetitive songs on the exceedingly loud loudspeakers for the entire day. As in, can hear every word as clearly as they were standing in the room, despite all the windows being closed. I wouldn't play the stereo at the volume I'm getting in the bedroom. Mostly in Spanish, for which I'm grateful, since I don't speak the language and it's a little easier to ignore. But it's really intrusive and increasingly annoying. It's an official Jersey City bandshell, so they obviously filed the appropriate permits, so there's not a lot of point in calling the cops or anything.

I support people's right to worship as they please. I have fond memories of church picnics as a child. But I've essentially had a religious service for a religion I don't practice, in my living room for over six hours now.

Oh crap, this new singer can't stay on pitch. I'm about ready to poke my ears out. Thank goodness ARR has managed to nap anyway. If they were keeping him up, I'd be tempted to go pick a fight that wouldn't go well.

This is not a good reason, actually

There are very few books that I've begun but not finished. It's something I've taken kind of an obscure pride in. The fact that I read incredibly fast does make me willing to sink time into mediocre or bad books, since it's not as much of an investment as it might be for someone else.

Still, time is something I have in short supply these days, even if I am burning through books like a fiend. And so I think I'm going to abandon the one I just started. It's historical fiction, about Emperor Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire. In the first chapter, we've bounced through a decade of disjointed scenes. It's just all one gigantic prologue, and I'm realizing that I've been waiting for the actual book to start and I don't think it's going to. It's just one awkward info dump after another. And I'm realizing that the only reason I have to look forward to reading the rest is to write a scathing review at the end. But it's not even that terrible, it's just not good. And you know what? Spite is kind of a lousy reason to waste your time on something. So I think I'm done now.

In other news, I have high hopes for the nectarine/raspberry/strawberry sorbet I just put in the freezer. The base tastes amazing. I love summer fruit.