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Table for Two
Table for Two ~ Amor Towles Table for Two is comprised of 6 short stories and a novella. Without going into too much detail, because I don’t want to ruin anything for you, below are the bare outlines of the stories. The Line – Irina is a fierce believer in the Bolshevik cause, and she and her husband Pushkin leave their farm to go to Moscow in 1916. Irina is able to find work, but Pushkin cannot, and spends his days standing in line for food and other items, making friends along the way. The Ballad of Timothy Touchett – Timothy works in a rare bookshop, and follows the work…
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Annie Bot and Kairos
Annie Bot ~ Sierra Greer Annie and Doug live in New York City. Her singular goal is to keep him happy, which is not always easy. She cooks and cleans, but not to his exacting specifications. She is always ready for sex, eager to please him in any possible way. Eventually he gets tired of the fact that she doesn’t keep the apartment clean enough, so he brings in a maid, with whom he also sometimes has sex. Annie isn’t jealous though. Annie is a robot. Doug has set her into auto-didactic mode, and she is learning about herself and the world in which she lives. She is starting to…
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The Life Impossible
The Life Impossible ~ Matt Haig Grace Winters is 72 years old, a retired maths teacher who is recently widowed. She has lived in a state of grief and guilt since the death of her young son decades earlier, a death she blames on herself. She is depressed and bored and full of self-hatred. One day, she learns that she has been left a house on the Spanish island of Ibiza, by a co-worker from over 30 years ago, Christina, a woman she didn’t know well, but whose life she impacted mightily. She decides to leave her home in England and go to Ibiza and check out the house, and…
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Day of the Dead
Sorry for the Bonus Post, but I thought I would share the little poster that I put together for Day of the Dead today. This year’s additions are my Great Aunt Flo, who died in early October at the age of 100, and my boy Mulder, who died last year. I didn’t do any sort of altar last year, so just adding him now. I did not grow up with Day of the Dead, I think the first time it occurred to me to do an altar was in 2017 after my Dad died. But I like it. I think of all of these loved ones many times a year,…
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Tell Me Everything
Tell Me Everything ~ Elizabeth Strout Lucy Barton is a writer who has moved from New York City to a small town in Maine. She and her ex-husband went there during the pandemic, and decided to stay (in Maine, and together). Lucy’s gift is that she really listens to people. She has an understanding heart, which helps her with her writing, and to be a good friend. Olive Kitterage is a gruff 90 year old, living in a care facility in this same town. She is a retired school teacher. Bob Burgess is a lawyer, long time friend of Olive, and newer friend of Lucy. Bob’s ex wife Pam had…
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NaBloPoMo 2024 – A Month of Books
I haven’t told you about the books I’m reading much this year. Why? Who knows. Perhaps this is not a lack that you are feeling in your life, but it is a lack in mine. I like being able to go to my blog and do a search for a book or an author years after reading it, and finding that yes, I read it, and maybe I even had an opinion about it. For this reason, I’ve decided that for NaBloPoMo, I’m going to write about the books that I read this year. A lot of them will be familiar to you, because I read about them on your…
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Soup Weather
Back in July, Tobia hosted the Cool Bloggers Summer Salad Challenge, in which she challenged herself (and us) to eat more salads. It was fun to see people sharing salad recipes on their blogs, and also fun to try some of them for myself. Now that we’re easing into soup weather, and it’s feeling like Fall in the northern hemisphere, I thought we could have a Cool Bloggers Autumn Soup Challenge, and share some favorite soup recipes. I think Winter Soup Challenge has a better ring to it somehow, but Winter is 2 months away. I don’t have any new soup recipes for you, but instead will share some of…
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6 Things Saturday
I was going to write a Friday Randomness or 5 Things Friday yesterday, but the day got away from me, so Saturday it is. Here we go. My avocado tree seems to be doing well, since I cut it back, treated the soil with a tiny bit of dish soap, and gave it some fertilizer. That asshole squirrel, George Bush, knocked off one of the budding branches when he was burying his acorns, which pissed me off. A neighbor suggested that I put some red pepper flakes on the soil, and that would keep squirrels away. I went online to see if that was safe for the plant, and the…
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Washing Machine
When I lived in San Francisco, we never had our own washer and dryer. The flat that I shared with my roommate Troy had, inexplicably, a dryer, but no washing machine. The two apartments that I shared with Ted had laundry rooms, where you shared the machines with the other tenants. That all changed when we moved to Philadelphia, and we had a washer and drier in our apartment. It was such a relief to not have to guess when the clothes would be dry, to not have to trudge up and down stairs, that kind of thing. When we bought our townhome back in 1998, it had the original…
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Friday Randomness
Time for some randomness to get you all caught up with me, and then hopefully I can come by and get caught up with all of YOU. First off, hurricanes and tornadoes. I’ve been thinking of my Florida bloggers…I hope you’re all safe. I’m on IG and saw some posts from Stephany that she is safe and she and her mom came through it fine. CCR was holed up with her cat in a hotel. Jenny was fully stocked with snacks, and now I see that she is happily untouched by the tornadoes in her area. Any other Floridians that I didn’t know were Floridian? I hope you’re all safe…
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My Great Aunt Flo
Grandma on the left, my Great Aunt Flo on the right. Aunt Flo’s husband died in 1961, and she spent the rest of her life caring for family. For a cousin, for her parents, and then for my Grandma. When my Grandma died in November of 2016, Aunt Flo asked me, “Who am I going to take care of now?” I told her that those days were behind her, she needed to take care of herself. She spent her final years collecting recipes and going through family treasures. Then in late 2021, she went to a care facility, where she got excellent care and lived near her granddaughter, Debbie, and…
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My Old Ass
On Elliott’s 18th birthday, she and two of her friends decide to blow off any other plans they might have (including the family birthday party at Elliott’s house) and go camping on a small island and take hallucinogenic mushrooms. Her friends are tripping and Elliott is feeling disappointed because she is not, but then her 39 year old self shows up to give her some life advice. 39 year old Elliott suggests that she should spend more time with her parents and her brothers, and that she should avoid a guy named Chad. Of course, Chad shows up, and Elliott has to figure that out, because 39 year old Elliott…
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Proof of Life
My poor avocado tree, which I grew from a seed and have had for many years, is not doing well. You may remember that its leaves fried in a 2 week heat wave this summer, though I watered my plants and tried to save them. I trimmed back the leaves, and have been watching to see if it might come back. There is new growth near the bottom of the trunk, but nothing higher up. What to do? It just so happens that one of my cousins knows a lot about plants, and is a Master Gardener. When I’m worried that I may have killed a plant, I consult her.…
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The Substance
This weekend, Ted and I went to see The Substance, which is described as feminist body horror. I did not know that going in (and not being a big fan of horror movies, I wouldn’t know what that means). I just knew that it starred Demi Moore as an aging actress who finds a way to split her body into older and younger versions, something like that. Think The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Faustian bargain, etc. The Substance is one of the weirdest movies I’ve ever seen. Did you see and enjoy Boxing Helena? The Fly?* Crash (the super creepy 1996 movie, not the 2005 one with Sandra Bullock)?…
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Friday Randomness
Just a few random things I’m thinking about today. First off, while I appreciate the humor of the joke above, I am a firm believer in the Oxford Comma, so the first line bugs me. Enough of that. On to randomness. Kyria posted about things she has learned, and one of them was about how she uses Feedly. I don’t use Feedly, but my blog does have an option when you comment, that you can get an email if someone replies to your comment. However, I have heard (from Ally I think) that it does not work. Color me pleased to read in Kyria’s comments that you need a plugin…
