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Home Stretch
Home Stretch ~ Graham Norton Another book about growing up gay in Ireland. This one begins with a group of 6 young adults involved in a horrible car accident on the eve of a wedding in 1987. The bride, groom, and bridesmaid are all killed. The survivors are the sister of the bride, the driver, and one other young man. One of the survivors is Conner, who leaves the village rather than live with the constant shame of being the driver who caused the death of three young people. He ends up living in London for a while, then in New York, where he forges a new life for himself.…
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Wordless Wednesday
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The Heart’s Invisible Furies
The Heart’s Invisible Furies ~ John Boyne Cyril Avery is born in Dublin in 1945, to a young unwed woman, Catherine, who relinquishes him to a convent to be adopted. He is raised by Maude and Charles Avery, a couple who want a son because it seems the thing to do. Maude is a writer and is mostly interested in writing her books and chain smoking cigarettes. Charles is a businessman (I don’t remember what he does actually) and is kind of shady. One day when Cyril is 7, Charles’ lawyer comes to the house with his two young children, Julian (7) and Alice (5 or 6). Julian and Cyril…
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Spotted Photo Theme – Circles
OK, I’m squeaking in under the deadline here. iHanna has another Spotted Photo challenge, where the idea is that you go through your phone/iPad photos, and find pictures that match the theme she has given. You’re not out looking for that theme, not taking new photos, just curating the pictures you already have. I’m not a photographer by any means, so mine are not going to be gorgeous like some others, but here they are anyway. A lot of them are food. And I snuck in some memes, which is totally cheating and not cool at all. The Rose Window in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 2018. I really hope…
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Money Monday
The meme above has nothing to do with anything, it’s just cute. Today’s post is for those of you who enjoy credit card points. Credit to Sarah for the blog post title. [Update to add: Here’s the TL;DR version if this kind of stuff is confusing. PayPal has a MasterCard Debit card where you can get 5 cents for every dollar spent on 1 category per month. Unlike a credit card, you load the card with funds and then spend them, so there is no interest to worry about.] Like many of you, I enjoy earning money on my purchases via credit card points. I don’t really try with hotel…
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The Flatshare
The Flatshare ~ Beth O’Leary The Flatshare is a ridiculous (and fun) rom-com in which 2 strangers share a one bedroom flat, though they have never met. Leon needs some extra money, he works overnights, and spends his weekends with his girlfriend. Tiffy has recently broken up with her boyfriend and needs a place to live, so she answers Leon’s ad. The rent is ridiculously cheap, because Leon’s flat only has one bed, which they will share, though not at the same time. This is the silly premise, but the author makes it feel realistic enough, and as they start communicating with each other via post-it notes left around the…
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Happy Birthday Maya!
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, today is Maya’s birthday! This is her ‘Golden Birthday’ or ‘Champagne Birthday’, which is the year your age and day of the month match. She turns 29 on the 29th. I don’t remember what year the picture above is from, but it’s not new. I considered taking her shopping for something gold, but took a look at her jewelry and decided she has plenty and likely won’t wear it, so I bought some Veuve instead to enjoy at her party. Bonus photo from 2022. Note the candle is not on the cake. I didn’t think we’d ever go back to blowing germs all over cakes…
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Friday Randomness
In an example of what we call ‘Cognitive Decline’ around here, Sunday found me at a local nursery, looking for a specific flowering plant, but not finding it. When a helpful employee asked me if she could assist me, I said yes, I’m looking for a flowering plant, often (but not always) a hanging plant, kind of fuschia in color, likes shade and cooler weather. “A fuschia?” She asked. Yes, a fuschia. Hence the color. Sigh. I bought 2. I liked the story of this complaint tablet chiseled almost 4,000 years ago, decrying the inferior quality of copper received, as well as poor customer service and mistreatment of the writer’s…
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Five Star Stranger
Five Star Stranger ~ Kat Tang The unnamed protagonist of Five Star Stranger works as a rent-a-person, via an app where he can be rented by the hour to pose as a date to a wedding, a mourner at a funeral, a wingman, a brother, etc. The Stranger, as I will refer to him here, (makes me think of Camus, and from there to The Cure) lives in a cramped apartment in New York, and goes from gig to gig, some with regulars whom he sees often, some with clients who only need him for an hour or two. His goals? To make people happy, to help them when they…
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Slow Dance
Slow Dance ~ Rainbow Rowell Shiloh, Cary, and Mikey were best friends in High School. Shiloh and Cary had romantic feelings for each other, but they were always too afraid to act on them. Fear of rejection and of ruining their friendship keeps them platonic. Shiloh is growing up in poverty with her mom (I listened to this a month or so ago, and I don’t remember where her dad is. Another story with an unknown dad? Dead? No idea.) Cary is being raised by his grandmother, and he is told that he is hers, so he thinks that his birth mom is his older sister. He never lets on…
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Back in Stockton
Last week I was able to serve as an ‘emotional support cousin’, helping my cousin Carey to try to figure out the situation with her late father’s ex-wife’s final wishes. Confusing? Maybe. My uncle was married 3 times, first to Carey’s mom, then to K, and lastly to C, his widow. K never had children of her own, nor did her late husband B. She said that her plans were to leave her estate (such as it is) to her step-daughters (Carey and her sister), and B’s step-daughter. K passed away suddenly last month, and as is too often the case, a will and/or trust could not be found. I…
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Action is the Antidote to Anxiety
I saw a meme the other day that was 20 things you wish you had heard before, and the first item was this: “Action is the Antidote to Anxiety”. This is definitely true for me, and I think it’s a lot more helpful for my mental health to write postcards, attend rallies and demonstrations, exercise, and listen to music, than it is to doom scroll or listen to the news all day. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I wrote a lot (for me, I know some do more) of postcards to voters this week, for elections in Florida and Wisconsin. There were 2 protests this week in my town,…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is my favorite thing that Maya has shoved in my face and made me watch recently. We had a good laugh. It starts with ‘my mom with the cat she didn’t want’, and we agreed, that’s Ted with Mulder. If you enjoyed this video, watch the next one, where mom makes kitty a beautiful dress and sings to her. Friday I slept until 7:15!!! I rarely am able to sleep that late, and it was DELICIOUS. I felt so well rested. I had a relaxing day, which included using a reverse vending machine to recycle some cans for CRV (California Redemption Value), which was kind of novel but a…
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Friday Randomness
Apropos of Elisabeth’s FIG challenge, where we looked for moments of joy in the (very stressful, dark, and for many of us, cold) month of February, the other day I heard a piece on NPR about searching out ‘glimmers’. The author being interviewed said that searching for glimmers is not the same as toxic positivity. “They’re not so that you forget the challenges or look away from the suffering,” she says. “But what they do is they build capacity in your brain and body to be anchored enough in safety and connection so that you can turn toward the suffering and the challenges and not be pulled into them, not…
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Friday Randomness
This week has felt pretty blah. I’ve felt pissy and grumpy, which is ridiculous because the weather has been truly lovely here (sorry to those of you still in the depth of winter). But it’s also not at all ridiculous, because there’s just so much bullshit going on, and it’s wearing on me. I don’t want to ‘fake it till you make it’, I don’t want to let the motherfuckers steal my joy, but I do want to stay engaged and find comfort in my family, and in making what difference I can. Engie had a great post yesterday, about how she’s feeling like crap and stressed out and how…
