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Book Shopping
Now that I’ve caught up on the books I’ve read/listened to for the last couple of weeks, I’ll tell you about my book shopping finds. One recent Friday, Ted worked a half day, and we went to Oakland for our Friday night dinner. We went early to do a little book shopping. We started at East Bay Booksellers, a favorite of ours that suffered a major fire last year, but they are thankfully in a temporary location just down the street while their store is repaired. Then we went to dinner at a local place we really enjoy, and then to Pegasus Books, another great Indy place in the neighborhood.…
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The Third Gilmore Girl
The Third Gilmore Girl ~ Kelly Bishop I came to Gilmore Girls late, as it was on against Buffy and there was no way I was going to miss Buffy. Some friends recommended it though, so I started watching it via DVDs that I got from the library. Like Engie, I feel that Emily, the matriarch of the Gilmore clan, is the best character. I would absolutely not want her for a mother, but as a TV character, she’s awesome. I decided I loved her in the first season when she quipped “Your father doesn’t know what he wants. He’d get his hair cut at the butcher if I let…
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The Girls from Corona del Mar
The Girls from Corona Del Mar ~ Rufi Thorpe At the beginning of The Girls from Corona Del Mar, Mia and Lorrie Ann are high school best friends, and Mia is in trouble. She is pregnant (with a boy she doesn’t even like, she just wanted to get the deed over with so she would no longer be a virgin). Mia has an abortion, and decides that the only way to get out of sports practice the following day (don’t ask me what sport, all sports are the same to me. Likely there was a ball involved) is to have Lorrie Ann take a hammer to her toe and break…
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The Anthropocene Reviewed
The Anthropocene Reviewed ~ John Green A memoir in the form of a collection of essays where the author reviews various aspects of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale, exploring topics both mundane and grand. He reviews hot dogs in Iceland, the QWERT keyboard, Diet Dr. Pepper, orbital sunsets, the plague, Monopoly, the movie Harvey, on and on. In each essay we learn more about the author, about his struggles with anxiety, his family, his hopes and fears. Among other things, he discusses climate change, the pandemic, history, and science. I really enjoyed a lot of these essays, and found them engrossing and moving, but mostly memoir and essay…
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The Friend
The Friend ~ Sigrid Nunez The unnamed protagonist of The Friend is a writer and professor in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, a self proclaimed cat person, who inherits a Great Dane, Apollo, when her mentor and close friend dies of suicide. She is buried in grief for her friend, she does not want a dog, her landlord does not allow dogs, and here she is with a dog that weighs (quite a bit) more than she does. What happens is predictable to any animal lover. She falls in love with Apollo. “When you’re lying in bed full of night thoughts,” she thinks, “such as why did your friend have…
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Be Ready When the Luck Happens
Be Ready When the Luck Happens ~ Ina Garten From the author’s website: ”From a difficult childhood to meeting and marrying the love of her life, Jeffrey, while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, DC to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned…
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Friday Randomness
Isn’t the Maya Angelou quote above lovely? I found it soothing. We had a lovely time at Maya and Sloan’s birthday party last Saturday. We started off by stopping at the Ramazzatti wine tasting room for a wine that was recommended by Ted’s boss. Ted bought a delicious Chardonnay and an even better Cabernet Sauvignon, and we brought those to the party along with our bottle of Champagne. They were really, really good. I hope we will splurge again and have these wines in the future. (Oh, maybe for Ted’s birthday next month!) Ted’s cousin made the cakes. They are both a really delicious carrot cake. Sloan’s cake has no…
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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…
