The good, the bad, and the uncertain

The good:  The heatwave that's made this place unbearable for the past month and gave us a $370 power bill for May seems to have broken.  You can step outside without feeling as though you're in a hothouse or a sauna.

The bad:  While my big toe is healing up well, the little toe on that foot is still trying to twist and curl under the toe next to it.  This is a painful process.  I'm therefore scheduled for surgery on that toe again on 7/21.

The uncertain:  No feedback from either Google interview yet.  The HR rep promised to follow up with the interviewers and let me know the status, but has not yet gotten anything back to me.  I don't know whether this means they're busy, they're still talking it over, or I came across so badly they're embarrassed to talk to me.

Literary musings

I'm currently reading Morgan Llywelyn's historical novels about Ireland, beginning with Lion of Ireland, which chronicles the life of Brian Boru, and continuing with Pride of Lions which tells of the lives of his surviving sons and daughters after the battle of Clontarf in 1014.  And what I'm coming to realize is that while they're outwardly about Brian Boru's lifelong quest to unite Ireland and his son Donough's efforts to hold it together, they're almost as much about Gormlaith of Leinster's lifelong efforts to tear it apart in the quest of her own personal aggrandizement and vanity.

On balance, Ireland would likely have been significantly better off for much of the last thousand years had someone slit that woman's throat before she was first married, or at the very least before she got her hooks into Malachi Mor.  She was personally responsible for starting at least two wars, if not more, including the one that was settled at Clontarf.  Not for nothing was she the most hated woman in Ireland.