Norabelle414's Trilogy in One Part

Whoops I could have sworn I created a topic for this year but apparently I did not ........

I did actually read some books last year! Hopefully I will write reviews eventually. I read:

Mr Hornaday's War by Stefan Bechtel
Poems to See By by Julian Peters (LTER)
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff (LTER)
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (reread)
American Zoo: A Sociological Safari by David Grazian
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa (audiobook)
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole (audiobook)
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (audiobook)
Grimspace by Ann Aguirre (audiobook)
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks

For a full list of books I have read this year, click here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=norabelle414&collection=713294

(you can post now)

It's about time you make a thread! I've been waiting to star it for ages! :P

Of course you're starred!

I love your fantasy trip of flying to Montreal and taking the train to Halifax. Other than the airport, I've never been to Montreal, but I really liked Halifax when I visited.

Glad you joined us!

Yay! It's Nora!

I'm glad you have a thread!

I don't know the context for this fantasy Canadian trip, but Mark and I have just started planning a potential Maritimes trip for this summer, motivated by news of coming ferry service from Maine to Nova Scotia. You and I once talked of a road trip to Maine....

I'm really pleased to see you back, Nora and thanks for remembering me with >3 norabelle414:!

>7 katiekrug: Hi Katie!

>8 _Zoe_: I think we talked about you driving to Maine and picking me up at the airport ;-)

>9 PaulCranswick: Of course, Paul!

Happy new thread! I'd love to do a train trip in Canada someday, but I've never done any serious planning beyond looking at the website.

What I am actually up to: knitting baby stuff! I hadn't been knitting much during the pandemic (if you recall, I switched to cross stich for awhile, and then tried to get into embroidery but it didn't take) but knitting baby stuff is so much fun and so fast and I've been really into it.


socks, mittens, hat


more hats


my very first sweater! A raglan, knit in one piece. Subsequent attempts to knit more sweaters have...not gone well


mittens that came out a bit too big, mittens I knit a little smaller, Norwegian-style mittens


Self-striping pants, speckled pants (currently in progress)

(Ravelry account here: https://www.ravelry.com/people/norabelle414)

Aww, so many cute little things!

>12 norabelle414: You put a lump in my throat, Nora. I vividly recall my mum knitting so many of our clothes when we were little and I see cute things like the ones you are showing it will always bring her to mind.

Hi Nora! Congrats on the new niece. Addy's make pretty great ones in my experience. ;)

Happy birthday Nora! :D

Thanks Stephen!!

Happy birthday, Nora! I hope life is treating you well. Cherry blossoms in bloom yet?

Thanks Micky! Cherry blossoms have long come and gone, unfortunately. It's in the mid-80s F here today

Hello :)

I'm new and was browsing threads to see what people are up to/reading and yours caught my eye. I love the baby clothes; I actually retaught myself how to knit last year and made my pregnant coworker two little hats for her baby girl. Your pieces look so adorable.
If you don't mind me asking, what are you working on now? I'm trying to crochet a blanket and it's quite the marathon.

>20 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi! Welcome! Thanks!

Blankets take so much time! I still technically have a half a blanket that I intended to knit for my brother and his wife when they got married....5 years ago! The only blankets I've ever successfully finished are ones that are made in pieces like this one I made last year: https://www.librarything.com/topic/328206#7630971. Mostly I try to knit small things because that's the length of my attention span these days. I'm supposed to be working on some socks for my mom and her husband using yarn they got for me last fall, but now I've mostly switched to embroidery for awhile with the hot weather.

Here's a pic of the baby in the striped pants:

>19 norabelle414: When is the normal cherry blossom season? Living so far north, most flowering trees don't bloom here until May (and late May at that).

>21 norabelle414: So cute! Nice job, Auntie!

>22 MickyFine: Cherry blossoms are pretty early bloomers, relative to other trees. They can stand a frost or two after they have bloomed, which I guess would be early May for you? The ones here used to bloom in early April but lately it's more like mid-late March.

It's just occurred to me that I think one of the reasons I'm not here very often is That One Topic in Talk About LibraryThing makes me so anxious. Even ignoring it doesn't help, any time I'm on LT I have to check it and it makes me so so so anxious. And then I draft a bunch of responses but don't send them and then I leave the site.

(DO NOT say her name here because someone in the spam fighters group made a joke about her and found out the hard way that she searches the site for her name)

No idea what you're referring to, so I'll just say I miss seeing you over here. But if it causes you angst, it's not worth it.

I also have no idea what you're talking about, since I'm barely on the site either! But when I do come here, I mostly just navigate to this group. I haven't really enjoyed looking at Talk since the change that moved the star away from the number of posts.

Yes yes, I should try harder. I'm glad you've both managed to avoid the frustration.

__________________________________

My mom visited last week to see the baby. Baby is doing great, she's big and loud and happy and sleeping through the night. She'll almost sit through a whole book. She's outgrown everything I've knit her so far, so I'm going to knit maybe one or two summer items (I just ordered cotton yarn for a romper) and then get started on 1yo items for next winter.

I've still been mostly at home. I go into the office one day a week but no one else is there. The zoo likely will not be bringing back volunteers until the summer, at the earliest. I've been going back to the theater occasionally, but have not seen anything remarkable. The last thing was the musical adaptation of Catch Me If You Can, which was an enjoyable way to spend an evening but nothing groundbreaking. I went to a liveshow of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale last month which was very nice and familiar.

Last month the book club I run read The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson, which was enjoyable and blissfully short. For next month we're reading World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. The author is a poet and the book is a prose memoir, which is fine but I find its connection to the animals and plants it talks about tenuous, at best. Gorgeous illustrations though.

Currently watching: (just the highlights)
Severance (AppleTV)
Minx (HBO Max)
Julia (HBO Max)
Young Rock (NBC)
Abbott Elementary (NBC)
CBS's adaptation of BBC's Ghosts, which is TERRIBLE but I have watched all of BBC's Ghosts at least 5 times and I need more and this is the closest I can get
American Song Contest, the US adaptation of Eurovision, which is terrible because a few of the songs are very good but only the uninteresting ones get picked
Taskmaster (I just got into this very recently and it's nice to have so much backlog to walk through! I'm currently on season 6, I think?)

Most of the CW shows, most of the Freeform shows, most of the PBS Masterpiece shows, etc. It's nice to have reliably good TV on, since apparently this pandemic is just going to last for the rest of time.

>27 norabelle414: Oh, I didn't mean to say you should try harder! I was just explaining why I don't know about the person you're referring to, and incidentally taking the opportunity to complain about a site feature.

I know you weren't implying that! But I should try harder.

>24 norabelle414: I am another one who misses your company here, Nora and another who is not aware of who is being referenced so it is safe to say I won't be mentioning her name.
Believe it or not I have also suffered from angst on occasions about continuing a wholehearted commitment to the group - I have been the subject of islamophobia on one thread which when I called it out, I got not a jot of support and was very disappointed. I have made a conscious decision recently to tone down expressing my view points on personal freedoms in the group or engage in too much 'political' discourse as some of the response were becoming hurtfully personal.
Taking all things into account though I still think that this is a wonderful group of mainly warm hearted, generous and tolerant people and I have made friends here who have enriched my life tremendously. I won't let the few people who, for whatever reason I don't get along with, spoil my enjoyment of the group and I do hope you can feel the same way. xx

Nice to see you posting.

>30 PaulCranswick: It's nothing going on in this group that is bothering me! There is just stuff going on in the Talk About LibraryThing group that is like a car wreck that people keep driving additional cars into. I am smart enough to know that responding to a person like that will not accomplish anything but that doesn't stop me from having the urge to have a logical argument. What annoys me most is that LibraryThing staff started the whole problem but they, like the problem user herself, don't seem to have any desire to say they made a mistake.

>24 norabelle414: I have to check
Someone is wrong on the internet? I too had no idea what you were referring to but you gave enough clues to track it down and I was curious... I mostly view Talk through Starred Topics and rarely check Your Groups, so I'm ignoring nearly everything by default. >26 _Zoe_: Including new features, so I get what I get when I happen to drop in.

Useful comments about World of Wonders, which I'd had an eye on.

More things I'm watching:

The series finale of Killing Eve - what an absolute nothingburger of an ending. I expected that one or both of them would die, and I'm actually quite fond of tragic endings, but that was just ...... nothing.
Our Flag Means Death - so good!
Season 2 of Sanditon - extremely happy that it's back, way better plot and characters and costumes than Bridgerton!
Inventing Anna - I wasn't sure about this docu-drama but I ended up being really into it. I think it has a really clear point of view, coming from the reporter interviewing people who interacted with Anna.
The Dropout - on the flip side, I found this one kind of disappointing. There were some fantastic episodes in the middle but the beginning and end were really lackluster. It could have used a clearer point of view....the difference between the events that were well documented and the ones that had to be completely made up (e.g. Elizabeth and Sunny's entire relationship) was stark.

Currently playing:
I played through most of Pokemon Legends: Arceus last month. It was fine. I technically have a few more pokemon to catch but it was too boring so I'm done.
I've played through all of The Witcher 3 and its two expansions. I really loved it! This was my first time playing a ~serious~ video game but I enjoyed it as long as the difficulty was set to "very easy". I'm cleaning up a few more side quests I missed earlier on and then I might start it over!
My Wordle streak is currently at 109.

For some unfathomable reason, I have stopped biting my nails, a habit I have had since I stopped sucking my thumb, during the pandemic. Can't explain it! But now I'm into doing my nails, which is nice.

>32 qebo: World of Wonders is good, but not what I was expecting. I don't think it's going to make for a good book club discussion. The format of it is kind of:
- Some facts about an organism (e.g. Axolotls are blind)
- Here's a story about my childhood,
- Vague callback to the organism (e.g. In that story I was blind just like an axolotl)
- Repeat

All the connections to plants and animals are very metaphorical, which makes sense for a poet.

>33 norabelle414: I played through Arceus a few months ago and thought I would want to finish the Pokedex but kind of lost interest once I finished the main storyline. I've been thinking of trying Witcher 3 and I like your idea of setting the difficulty to very easy 😂 I'll just have to bear my husband making fun of me.

Sorry for the site drama stressing you out! I'm another one who doesn't know what you're talking about but loves steaming hot tea, so I dug around and I think I found it.

Yay for another Our Flag Means Death fan! It's just SO good.

Glad to hear your niece is doing well and there's a chance you might get back to the zoo this summer.

My gaming skills are not great and I have yet to attempt serious video games. I've been playing Lego Marvel Superheroes 2 lately and was delighted last weekend when I did an open world mini mission with Squirrel Girl. :)

Hey Nora! I definitely know how it feels, I've been in the exact situation - knowing that reading or participating in a discussion is unhealthy and pointless but feeling compelled to read/participate anyway. It's easy to say "just ignore it," but it's also so easy not to when the discussion is just a couple clicks away.

I'm seriously impressed by your Wordle streak. While I've had an easy time keeping my win percentage over 95%, I've had a few of those days where I had all but 1 letter with several correct answers, and had to guess blindly.

Also, have you tried Quordle? It's more challenging but so much more satisfying when you complete it. :)

>33 norabelle414: I have yet to play anything from The Witcher series, but I have read the first book in the series that inspired the games/show. I've always liked Geralt as a character; He fits that niche of angsty protagonist without being too annoying about it, being just funny enough to be likable with enough faults to keep me engaged. I can't exactly say the same for the Netflix show. I feel like they turned up the Cranky side of his personality a little too high.
And if you liked it, have you ever considered playing Dragon Age: Origins? It's a more immersive RPG with some great story/character writing. I play it on casual mode so I can be a mage blasting spells and not worry about my party members getting hurt, heh. 😅

>35 curioussquared: I caught 237 Pokemon in Arceus and got all the plates so I thought I was done but then it said I needed to catch thundurus, tornatus, etc etc and I couldn't be bothered. Catching legendary pokemon in this game is really boring and there's too many of them. (I have a similar complaint about Sword/Shield)

I definitely recommend The Witcher 3 if you don't mind fantasy gore! (there's lots of, like, cutting someone in half with a big sword.) There's tons of mythology and lots of the quests are based on fairy tales. It's so old now that you can usually get the complete edition with expansions on sale. The second expansion in particular, Blood & Wine, is very fun.

>36 MickyFine: Lego Marvel Superheroes sounds like a serious game to me! At least in gameplay, if not in graphics. I doubt it's that different from The Witcher.

>37 Ape: Hi Stephen!
I don't play Wordle on hard mode so I do sometimes break the pattern so I can eliminate a bunch of possible letters, and that helps a lot.
I have tried Quordle but I've decided that one obligatory game per day is my limit :-)

>38 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela!
The Witcher books sound good, I do want to read them one day! I think characters in TV/movies often seem crankier than in books because you can only see their outward demeanor and don't get to know directly what's going on in their head.
Dragon Age seems like something I would really enjoy! But looks like it's not available on Switch and that's the only console I have :-(

>39 norabelle414: Oh yeah, I definitely put down Sword as soon as I finished the story. I did find Arceus overall to be much more interesting than Sword, and really enjoyed the open world feeling and crafting elements. I think mostly I just wanted it to be Breath of the Wild 2 and it definitely isn't Breath of the Wild 2, lol.

I think we even already have Witcher 3 on Switch! My husband played it on Xbox initially when it first came out (this was about 6 months into dating, before we lived together, and I think he literally disappeared from my life for a week, lol) and then bought it and replayed it on Switch a year or so ago. So really, I have no excuse!

>39 norabelle414: Aww, I didn't realize :(
Well, two of my favorite games are on the Switch, thankfully. I adore Stardew Valley and cannot recommend it enough (best fourteen dollars I ever spent) and also this very silly, somewhat stupid, stick-figure game called West Of Loathing. The latter is a surprise indie gem of absurd humor, cool characters (all western themed), and very easy-to-understand turn-based combat.

Still knitting? I'm still crocheting myself a shawl... and now a basket (my sin is several projects going at once, always).

>40 curioussquared: I have never played Breath of the Wild! I know I should.
You are correct, you have no excuse not to play Witcher 3 ;-)

>41 Ravenwoodwitch: I have played some Stardew Valley, I should get back into it! The internal time makes me so anxious though. I feel like I have to constantly watch the clock and maximize my daily actions.
West of Loathing sounds cool!! I will check it out.

_______________________________________

The yarn arrived over the weekend for me to knit this romper: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/romper-6
Mine will be purple and gray. I just got started so no pics yet.

>42 norabelle414: Good thing I started Witcher 3 last night then! :D BOTW is probably my all-time favorite game. I had never actually beaten a non-Gameboy based Zelda game before playing it, but I've actually played through BOTW completely twice now. I love that you can take it at your own pace -- The first time I played I chose not to fight the final boss until I had completed all the shrines, which is totally unnecessary but is how I wanted to do it, lol. And I love the cooking mechanic!

I also love Stardew, but the internal time can definitely be anxiety-inducing!

>42 norabelle414: Cute pattern! I look forward to seeing your version.

I got a bit done on the romper and then realized that at some point I am going to have to assemble it from pieces...and I have no idea how to do that. I still have two baby sweaters I have knit all the pieces for but I can't figure out how get them assembled right. I hate sewing!

Along with the yarn for the romper I also got some fun self-striping sock yarn. My mom and her husband bought me a lot of yarn when I was in Wisconsin in November and I told them I would knit socks for them but I had a lot of false starts. One-at-a-time sock knitting is not for me, I just don't have the attention span for it. So I got some new yarn and started a whole new pair (new project, new me!) with my trusty two-at-a-time, magic loop circular needle......

And as soon as I got done with the toes, the cable BROKE. So sad! I tried to fix it with fingernail glue (the only glue I had on hand) but that didn't work so I'm picking up some super glue tomorrow and have also ordered another circular needle in the same size.

I neglected to mention last week that for my birthday my mom paid for my step-brother's girlfriend (whom I adore) to send me a few care packages, which included books! She sent me:

Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures by Bill Schutt
The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby
Morning Glories, Vol 1: For a Better Future by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma

Great picks!

My local library has also recently curated their Friends-of-the-Library book sale sections so that the popular and/or appealing books are more equally spread out across the branches, so now my local branch has a much better selection! I bought for myself:

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
There There by Tommy Orange
And a Sandra Boynton board book for the baby

Hi Nora! I'm delurking to say I'd be happy to help with how to seam together your knitted pieces. You can PM me here, on Ravelry (lindsayla18), or send me an email (lindsayla18 at gmail). It's not as difficult as it might appear!

Hey Nora, somehow I missed your thread but I've found you now!

Love the baby knits. Those are such satisfying projects, aren't they?

And re: That Topic, I'd unstarred it at the beginning of the year when everything got quiet and didn't realize it'd picked back up again. Time sink for my horrified fascination, now.

Oh, and I know it's a ways out and things can change, but what are your thoughts on this year's National Book Festival? I'm contemplating going down and maybe taking my niece if her parents are good with it (she'll be 7 by then).

Aw, I'm sorry to hear things got frustrating. I just ran out of yarn on one of my projects - and a basket I was making turned out too big and won't stand up properly :/
Feels like it's always something, right?

Horrorstor is actually on my list; hope it turns out good! :)

>45 norabelle414: I hope you enjoy Horrorstor - I’ve enjoyed every single Hendrix I’ve read!

>46 lauralkeet: Oh my gosh Laura, thank you so much! I'll finish up the pieces of this romper and then send you an email.

>47 bell7: I think I've figured out the trick to That Thread, which is just to block her so that her messages don't show up but I can continue to enjoy the smart people who are also there. I should have thought of that long ago!

Re: the National Book Festival, that sounds great! I would love to go to the festival with you and Mia if everything works out.

>48 Ravenwoodwitch:, >49 drneutron: Thanks! I've had my eye on buying a copy for awhile and I was super excited to find it used for sale from the library.

>50 norabelle414: Okay! That sounds like a plan.

>50 norabelle414: Brilliant strategy, that (I think at least one other person on the thread has done the same). I confess I keep reading with fascination at the complete lack of self awareness and reflection shown. And a lot of the rebuttal has been really informative and interesting.

I'll let you know about the National Book Festival when it gets a little closer and I've made more definite plans one way or the other.

Nothing interesting going on here lately. Still reading World of Wonders for this weekend's book club meeting. The next book will be Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb. I checked The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (the first book in the Witcher series) out of the library because a podcast I listen to is discussing it but I probably won't read much.

A friend loaned me his copy of Breath of the Wild (physical copies of video games...I forgot those existed). I'm not really clicking with it yet; not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing or how to do it makes me panicky and I'm constantly dying. But the Witcher didn't click for me at first either.
I've also picked up Cozy Grove again after about 6 months, because everyone was talking about how fun the spring event is.

Yeah, open-world games are quite overwhelming when you step in for the first time. BOTW, I'm told, is especially since the main quest objectives aren't the most obvious.

Wow, that thread is wild. I skimmed it for a few minutes, although I have the group itself blocked and usually avoid it. I'm sorry that it's caused enough stress that you've been around less.

I already had a number of people participating in that thread blocked. If I'd read too many of the posts, I imagine I would have added several more.

Congrats on the knitting and the niece!

>53 norabelle414: I really struggled to click with BoTW until I got off the plains (that first section). After that I loved it. I just did NOT get the mechanics at first and needed to check into the online guides to get a handle on it.

>53 norabelle414: >56 leahbird: Agreed, I think it took getting to the first village for me to really get what I was doing, and I kept dying on the way there.

>55 libraryperilous: Hi Diana! Thanks!

>56 leahbird:, >57 curioussquared: Ok that makes me feel better :-)

Got a second COVID vaccine booster yesterday (my initial vaccine was J&J so I'm eligible for a second booster right now). Feeling fine. While I was signing up for my appointment the system was like "would you like to also get an HPV vaccine?" and I said "sure, gimme those antibodies" but after getting the shot I found out it's the first in a series of 3. Whoops! I guess now I'm going back in a month.

I'm hoping they authorize a second Moderna/Pfizer booster for all adults before my trip to the UK in the autumn, as I think it would give me greater peace of mind (even if it doesn't actually make a difference...). The Wayne claims our mild case of COVID in early February is like a booster, but I'm not sure about that.

>59 norabelle414: Yay for antibodies!

Happy Friday, Nora!

Happy Friday :)
Hope you're feeling well. All my COVID vaccination stuff left me feeling pretty sick. Not as sick as the point I actually caught COVID but still.

>45 norabelle414: I really liked Dark Banquet when I read it *checks* 11 YEARS AGO!?

>60 katiekrug: You can tell The Wayne I said it definitely is not :-P (Also, even boosters only boost for about 4 months so getting COVID in February means you would need another boost after June which is *checks notes* next month)
I don't think you should have a problem getting a booster if you want one, even now. Eligibility is mostly on the honor system.

>61 MickyFine: Yay!

>62 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Raven! I'm doing fine. Vaccines have never seemed to bother me much (which always makes me worry that they're not working...)

>63 Ape: No, I'm sorry, that's not possible.

Last week was busy, this week is less-so.

Tonight is the finale of American Song Contest, the dumb American version of Eurovision. I do like some of the songs that are still in the running but the professional jury keeps picking the most insipid country nonsense. Currently rooting for AleXa from Oklahoma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4od2QRw8Dlg
I still really hate the video packages for each singer, though they're a little bit better now that they're filmed backstage of the show in between rounds instead of walking around some city they have clearly barely been to.

Tomorrow real Eurovision starts! Last year it was streaming on the free tier of Peacock but this year it has been moved to the paid tier. I do have someone's login I can use but it'll be harder to get other people to watch.

Rory's birthday is on Thursday! He's going to be 10 years old.

>65 norabelle414: I can't believe Rory is 10 already! Happy birthday to the best companion!

I've never watched Eurovision and while I enjoyed Space Opera, it didn't really push me to try it either.

>65 norabelle414: I love Rory's taco truck! Happy birthday to him!

>65 norabelle414: Happy B-Day to a handsome specimen of a cat indeed! He looks well for his age, nicely done!
My guy, Salem, turned 6. He's a fluffy black cat and also likes the kitty tunnels. And cardboard.

>66 MickyFine:, >67 curioussquared:, >68 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks! I've passed along the message ;-)



_______________________________________

I thought it was going to be a quiet weekend, but I unexpectedly need to dogsit for my brother from this afternoon to Sunday morning. Not sure where they're going; I assume they already had plans and their previous dogsitter fell through, not that it's a last-minute trip. I'll bring a few books with me, but also my computer and Switch. It's supposed to rain for the next week.

Currently watching season 6 of Workin' Moms and season 5 of Outlander (Roger sucks)
I'll probably catch up on the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel while I'm dogsitting, since they have Amazon and I do not.

Oh! Ive dogsit a couple times (dogsat?) It kinda is as semi-vacation. Though I always get extra nervous when its someone else's pets I'm carring for. I know what my Boy likes and what his body language is, etc, but not the someone else's pet.

>70 Ravenwoodwitch: I definitely felt that way at first! But this is my brother's dog and I've dogsat for him many times now so we're pretty used to each other. I used to view it as a vacation but for me I've found it easier to go home for meals, showering, etc. since I need to go home to feed Rory anyway

I hope you have fun with the neph-dog!

And I must ask, where are you in season 5 of Outlander that you're mad at Roger? Also how much Mrs. Maisel do you have to catch up on?

>72 MickyFine: I have been mad at Roger since the moment I met him. So far I've watched up to s5e4.
I only had a few episodes left of s4 of Mrs Maisel and I watched them last night so I'm all caught up now.

I also found out that my brother and sister-in-law bought Spider-Man: No Way Home on their Amazon account so I know what I'll be watching tonight!

>73 norabelle414: I like Roger but the books do much better at providing context for him as a character, whereas the show often gives him the short end of the stick.

Looking forward to your thoughts on No Way Home.

>73 norabelle414: We watched Spider-Man this past week and even as someone who is only passingly familiar with the other Spider-Man movies I really enjoyed it!!

I enjoyed Spider-Man: No Way Home a lot! I knew all of the "surprises" already since it's been out for so long, but it was still fun to watch.

I watched both semi-finals and the final of Eurovision, which was thrilling as usual. The hosts were great. My favorite song from each of the semi-finals (Denmark and Georgia) did not make it to the final, but there were a lot of good songs left. I particularly enjoyed France's entry, which was in the French-Celtic language Breton, but they got almost no votes.

Got home from dogsitting today to find water pouring from my bathroom ceiling, so that's what I'll be dealing with today (and probably tomorrow). Really wish I had taken a shower at my brother's house! But I (wrongly) assumed it would be easier to just wait until I got home.

Oh noooo, I'm sorry about the water!

Ooof. So sorry about the water.

>77 _Zoe_:, >78 drneutron: Thanks! Apparently the apartment above me is vacant and a pipe was leaking and the bathroom up there was full of water. Fun! It's stopped dripping now and I can use the bathroom until next week when the ceiling is dry and they can fix it. My smoke detector also started chirping in the middle of all this but the maintenance guy was already here so now I've got fresh batteries.

>76 norabelle414: One of the bummers about living in an apartment, Nora, and one I am also struggling with at the moment. We have slight leaks in our bathroom from the unit above but the main problem is the poor quality of the hot water piping which tends to leak through its joints and I have spent the weekend and holiday today with no hot water in my bathroom just when I wanted to luxuriate in a hot tub.

Bummer about the leak! I'm hoping since it was a leak in the apartment above they aren't going to need to tear into your walls/ceiling to fix the issue, at least? Water problems are the worst though, I've had a couple leaks recently and I'm always worried about mold because of it.

Sorry to hear about the unexpected waterfall in your apartment. Hopefully the fix requires minimal disturbance in your space.

I have so many feels about No Way Home. Mr. Fine told me the other week that if you watch Marvel films/shows released after No Way Home that Spider-Man/Peter is no longer in the logo scroll because everyone has forgotten him *sob*

>76 norabelle414: Yikes! I'm so sorry :(

Sounds like a day to veg. out and not tax the brain beyond necessity, if you have the time to do so. Wish I could offer more than my sympathies (I have an apartment too; its always a stress-intensive day when something breaks.)

Thanks everyone! Everything seems to have been fixed with minimal (but not zero, of course) disruption. I think it was easier than last time (this same thing happened almost 2 years ago, in the first summer of the pandemic) because the apartment above me is not occupied and so the maintenance crew could be as thorough as possible in the upstairs bathroom. The dripping stopped, my bathroom was dried out with an industrial dehumidifier (which took up almost half the bathroom) for two days, my ceiling was repaired, and some pipes upstairs were fixed.

We're getting record heat this weekend so I'm laying low, except for dinner out tonight. I'm still reading The Last Wish and I've also signed up for Dracula Daily, a newsletter that sends you a chapter of Dracula on the date that it happened, from May 3 to November 5. I've never actually read all of Dracula before and this seems like a fun way to do it, if I can keep up. Since everyone is reading the same chapters at the same time there is a lot of fun discussion on social media.

Recently Watched:
Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty - based on Show Time: Inside the Lakers' Breakthrough Season - I famously do not care about sports or southern California, but I do love period pieces and this is well done
Anything Goes - the London/West End production featuring Sutton Foster filmed on stage aired on PBS last weekend! It's exactly as wonderful as you'd expect
Welcome to Flatch - a weird little mockumentary-style sitcom about people living in a fake small town in Ohio. It's very deadpan and feels much less polished than Parks & Rec, in a good way. The show really hinges on casting actors who can disappear into the roles and they do a great job. One of the main characters is a deadbeat 20yo who acts like he's 14; he's played by the same actor who played Elizabeth Holmes' Duke-bro brother in The Dropout and he is completely unrecognizable.
Ridley Road - A miniseries about a Jewish woman who infiltrates a Nazi group in London in the 1950s. Moving and scary.
Under the Banner of Heaven - I've never read the book, but by now the extremism uncovered in this true-crime case is common knowledge so I think it looses a bit of its punch. Andrew Garfield* is fine as the detective but has he ever gotten to play an actual British character? (no)
The Time Traveler's Wife - The book remains pretty much unfilmable. I watched the first episode of the series and it's okay, except that I really don't like Rose Leslie in general. Theo James is naked all the time, which is nice. Overall, while I liked the book when I read it I saw it much more as a tragedy than a romance. Neither of the main characters has any free will, which is upsetting when you think about it! As this extremely funny review points out, the parallels between at least this first episode and the Moffat/Eleventh Doctor/Amy Pond "the girl who waited" concept from Doctor Who are undeniable. Apparently Moffat has been obsessed with this book forever and based that concept on the book, which is kind of creepy.

____________________

*Side note: I have never seen any of the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies so Spider-Man: No Way Home was my first exposure to him as Peter Parker and he's quite charming

Glad to hear the bathroom issues were resolved! I'm reading Dracula Daily too and really enjoying it. I'm surprised how much the tiny one-sentence summaries add for me -- it's just enough context and humor to make reading a little more fun.

I hope you avoid roasting in your heart wave, Nora! Our spring has been on the cooler side this year, our lilacs have yet to bloom and neither has the Mayday tree.

Have a great weekend!

>85 curioussquared: It's so nice to read along with everyone else, too!

>86 MickyFine: Our spring was cool too ... until now

Glad the bathroom situation got settled; hopefully, things settle down for a while.

I have never read the OG Dracula cover to cover, but I did find a Manga once that did a take on it. Liked it a lot. I concur with Stephen King that he's still horror's favorite villian.

I'm glad your bathroom repairs are finished. That was quite an ordeal. I've never read Dracula but I like the idea of Dracula Daily. It sounds more fun than trying to go it alone.

Hooray for getting the bathroom fixed! Sorry you had to deal with the hassle of it all.

Been feeling very low lately. It seems like everyone I know (mom/stepdad, 4 separate friends, 2 coworkers, brother) is on a wild and free and maskless European vacation right now, as if there aren't 100,000 new cases of COVID in this country alone every day. I've basically stopped talking to anyone more than absolutely necessary because it just makes me think less of them to hear their complaints about how some restaurant they wanted to eat at in Budapest was closed when Google maps said it was open. Gee, I wonder why it could have been closed. Maybe there's some kind of illness going around.
Is there some non-confrontational way to ask someone not to talk about something big in their life because it goes against your morals? I tried with my mom and she got very upset and mean (her default whenever I disagree with something she says). I certainly wouldn't mind if a vegan asked me not to talk about a hamburger I ate, but this feels more complicated than that.

I did see my sister-in-law and the baby on Sunday. They're doing great. The baby started daycare last week and my sister-in-law is back at work.

My friend's cat has been staying with me while his owner is carefree in Europe. The cat likes Rory but is scared of me. He'll run around and play while I am sitting still or sleeping but hides if I am moving around. I don't mind him but having two cats with different food and bathroom habits in a 600sqft apartment when it's 90 degrees outside is a LOT.

Last Thursday was my annual apartment maintenance where they replace the filters in my HVAC and the batteries in my smoke detector (though they did that one already). My apartment is at the very far end of the hallway so it's always the last one the maintenance staff reaches on the designated day. I took the day off of work so I could get some chores done, tidy up the apartment, and move the couch to allow access to the HVAC. I made a whole to-do list and everything. Then, for the first time in the almost 10 years I have lived in this apartment, maintenance decide to START at the end of the hallway. So not only did I not get to tidy my apartment or do anything on my to-do list, but I was WOKEN UP at 8am by a knock on my door. I threw clothes on and shoved everything I meant to tidy up into a corner, but in the process of moving my couch I knocked my knitting onto the floor and accidentally put the couch leg down onto a needle and broke it - the same set of circular needles I just bought to replace the other one that broke. I was so frazzled about being woken up unprepared and upset about my knitting that the whole rest of the day was a wash. I just sat on the couch and watched a whole season of Taskmaster.
I kind of managed to fix the needle with a combination of superglue, a cardboard nail file (basically sandpaper), candle wax, and clear nail polish, but I had trouble getting it smooth enough and then last night it snapped in half again. So I've ordered another one (and a metal one as well....though I really prefer knitting with wood)

I'm very much enjoying the currently airing AppleTV adaptation of The Essex Serpent (which I have never read)
On PBS I watched a filmed stage production of The Merry Wives of Windsor called "Merry Wives". It was enjoyable but I have trouble keeping my attention on non-musical plays when I'm not in a dark theater.
I rewatched all of Stranger Things in preparation for season 4. Season 1 is still great, season 2 is okay, season 3 is still FANTASTIC.
I then watched all of season 4 - the plot is very good but as a TV show it's a mess. They have about 15 episodes-worth of plot but it's crammed into 9 episodes instead (only 7 of which are out now), which are each between 1:15 and 1:45 long. There are several different plots with different groups of people in totally different parts of the world and it would have fit nicely if they had each had their own episode but instead all of the disparate plots are just chopped up and smashed together without any kind of transition or throughline. Also, I somewhat spoiled myself because a familiar actor who is new to this show is very prominent in the opening credits of the first episode but I didn't see him in the episode so I looked it up on IMDB in case I had missed something ... big mistake. That's a lot of complaining so I do want to reiterate that the plot is very good, just the structure is bad.

>91 norabelle414: Ugh, I hate it when a day starts off badly. And I don't know what to tell you about your issue with your family and friends, but you have my sympathy.

>91 norabelle414: In the past month, two separate sets of people I know went to Europe for conferences and returned home with COVID. It's still dangerous out there. Sorry your people are oblivious.
>92 norabelle414: I did read the book, but alas I don't get AppleTV which seems to be the only place for now.

>93 foggidawn: Thanks foggi!

>94 qebo: AppleTV does have a 7-day free trial if the show is of interest to you. Just wait until after the 10th when the finale airs :-) I also really enjoyed their adaptation of Pachinko, and a new Attenborough-narrated dinosaur docuseries, Prehistoric Planet. I watched a bit of their adaptation of The Shining Girls as well but I really did not like it.

I certainly understand how you feel, your recent experiences sound similar to how I've felt about my own family and friends for most of my adult life. Unfortunately I don't have a solution for you. All I can say is, it's simply not worth trying to change people's minds, most people are stubborn fools and arguments are entirely unproductive.

I've become more comfortable with simply stating my opinion and not caring how the other feels about it, it doesn't really increase the odds of the other person understanding my perspective, and it usually makes me seem like the asshole in a conversation, but it has done wonders for my own mental health.

That's probably not the answer you're looking for, and I would discourage your from adopting my nihilistic outlook on socialization. People are probably great, your differences are probably minor, and I'm sure there are ways to communicate better so you can come to an understanding. But I don't feel like dealing with that shit, so fuck 'em. :P

I hope you can find some middle ground soon.

>95 norabelle414: I read Pachinko too and would be very interested in the series. Grrr, I don't want to subscribe to another streaming service, and I can't stuff all that into a week...

>96 Ape: We live in a society, though, and I do want to have friends and friendly colleagues and a relationship with some family members. Obviously there is a line somewhere because I would never just put up with someone saying most overt racism or sexism or homophobia, etc. but most of the people I would normally trust to not behave that way (and have specifically developed relationships with because they do not act that way) are now taking multiple unmasked flights in a week without testing because it's not "required".

>97 qebo: I handle that by subscribing to each service for a month at a time and then canceling :-D AppleTV at least is only $5 per month, though it lacks the extensive back catalog that other services have.

I am so confused by people, especially people who were super cautious before and are suddenly not. The pandemic hasn't really changed in the past year, and in many ways is worse? I certainly had more confidence in the vaccine a year ago.

Last week I went to a mall in a tight-fitting N95, and I thought I was being so bold and risky, and it was more crowded than expected and made me uncomfortable.

>99 _Zoe_: I think that anxiety is understandable and in many ways justified, Zoe. We simply don't yet know what is the new normal or what strains of the virus are still to be visited upon us. We seem to have constant soul searching at work on mask wearing protocol but overwhelmingly they are still being worn here and are mandatory in indoor public spaces still.

>99 _Zoe_: That's the thing that really gets me. People who didn't feel comfortable going to the movies last year when there was a mask mandate and we were all freshly vaccinated and there was no Delta and no Omicron, now on a cruise ship?

I was rereading articles from last summer that this was how the pandemic would end, with the privileged ignoring COVID and going back to their previous life while the less privileged get sick and die, but the line feels less clear than that. Even people I know who have gotten pretty ill are back at a fan convention a month later. If no one is doing anything to help cases go down, is this what it's just going to be like forever? How shitty.

I'm thankful that the majority of people on the bus and Metro are wearing masks so I don't feel quite so trapped as I have earlier in the pandemic. I have no issues going to visit my niece in the park or meeting up with someone for dinner outside, it's just weird to think that the person I'm carefully meeting has just hopped off an airplane without a second thought.

>100 PaulCranswick: I'm glad people are wearing masks where you are, Paul! For awhile we had some piecemeal mask requirements, where certain cities might require them indoors, but now it's pretty much nowhere. The theater that I have a subscription to requires both masks and proof of vaccination but that's the only place I know with a current requirement.

No advice for you, Nora, but I do sympathize with finding that ability to socialize with some folks and dealing with people who are all over the map about situations in which they'd wear a mask (or not) and how much risk they're willing to take. I'm still wearing a mask any time I'm in a large social gathering or places where lots of people go, which includes work, and I'm definitely in the minority in my area.

>103 bell7: Thanks for the sympathy, Mary :-)

I'm trying to catch up on book reviews! Here are a couple from 2021:



2021
4. The Great Godden by Meg Rosoff

The 17-year-old main character’s family of six, plus an aunt and uncle, have spent every summer in a house at the seaside for as long as they can remember. This summer is different, though, when their godmother drops off her two teenage sons. Moody Hugo mopes and hides, but Kit, the charismatic golden child, blows up their lives. The main character’s childhood ends.

It’s impossible not to compare this book to Rosoff’s most famous, How I Live Now. Both protagonists are standing on the precipice of adulthood, in fairly normal lives, when something external happens to shove them over the edge. The impetus in this book is not the ravages of war, it’s just sexual awareness, but it’s somehow more unsettling. The lack of name and even gender for the main character (though I didn’t notice the lack of gender while reading, I assumed they were female) makes the point of view feel even closer and more visceral. Definitely worth reading.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



2021
5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

(Partly listened as an audiobook narrated by the author)
As an ecologist and member of the Potawatomi Nation, Kimmerer balances the native science she has learned from her ancestors’ stories with the science she researches and teaches. This book is full of short stories and essays examining different plants, animals, ecosystems, etc. She focuses on Native knowledge that has been lost or ignored by non-Native people in power, but also includes personal stories about saving salamanders in vernal pools with her daughter, ethically cleaning out a pond in her yard, and taking freshman university students camping. Very philosophical overall.

This book is not a panacea, however. It has lots of big ideas that are worth consideration but provides only individual solutions to what are societal problems (climate change, human/animal conflict, poverty, etc.) I enjoyed it most when I was listening to the audiobook and could just enjoy the stories instead of scrutinizing the larger implications of every idea.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

Dracula Daily sounds fun! I read Dracula a few years ago, and I found it almost two separate books. The first half is more of a creepy adventure story, and then the second half moralizes about the creepy adventure story. I liked Dracula, and I like the way Theodora Goss inverts the story in her Athena Club adventures.

>106 libraryperilous: Isn't it funny how books of the era are like that? War and Peace is two different books about the philosophy of war and rich family drama, Oliver is two different books about the living conditions of the poor and an orphan finding his family, etc.

We're in a bit of a lull right now between letters (a great time to catch up if anyone reading this is considering signing up!) and it's tempting to read ahead but I shan't!

>107 norabelle414: I'm glad they warned us there wouldn't be any updates for a while because I always get worried I missed one when several days pass with no letters :)

>108 curioussquared: Just a small taste of how Jonathan feels, probably ;-)

I like to think of Dracula as one of the original "found footage" stories. I'm not sure if it's the very first one, since a penny dreadful had something similar, but definitely one of the first.

>110 Ravenwoodwitch: An interesting thought! I think it's pretty late for the epistolary novel trend but it might be one of the first to include things besides just letters?

Too hot this week. We've reached the part of summer (lol it's technically not even summer yet) where it "rains" every day but the rain is so hot that it just evaporates and makes everything hotter and more humid.

I know my recent bad mood is exacerbated by not getting enough sleep. I got a better eyemask so that I don't wake up with the sun at 5:40 but the extra hour or so doesn't help anything when I don't turn off the lights until 1am or so. I tried going to bed early last night but my neighbor's tv was very loud until 11 and then I couldn't get comfortable for another hour at least. The only advantage of staying up too late is that when I do I fall asleep almost instantly (which is probably subconsciously why I do it)

Tonight I'm going to a performance at my usual theater. It's the first in awhile because the April/May production had to be canceled for COVID reasons. Saturday I'm going to a They Might Be Giants concert. I don't usually go to two events so close together but I bought these TMBG tickets in November 2019 and the show has been postponed SIX times. Tonight's theater performance requires both vaccination and masks and the concert on Saturday requires masks, and I have been extra careful for the past few weeks. I'm going to home-test this afternoon and again Saturday afternoon and then not do anything else until election day on the 21st. After working as a pollworker for every election for the past 2 years I am looking forward to sleeping in and not worrying all day.

>112 norabelle414: When I lived in an apartment both a sleeping mask and ear plugs were a necessity for me. I know not everyone can sleep with things in their ears but if you haven't tried it yet, maybe give it a go?

>113 MickyFine: I can't put anything in my ears for medical reasons. I can't even wear earbuds when I'm out and about. I also listen to quiet podcasts or audiobooks while falling asleep to help with anxiety and I wouldn't be able to hear them with anything in my ears. I do have a pair of flat "pillow headphones" (basically pieces of felt with flat speakers in them) that I use for traveling so I can listen to audio in bed without anyone else hearing but that only works for whichever ear is on the pillow, which is not the one that needs it.

>114 norabelle414: Ugh, sorry about the sleep problems. I've seen a product that's similar to your pillow headphones where it's like a wide soft headband that you wear over your ears with speakers in it -- I wonder if something like that would help?

But frustrating that neighbors and nature are conspiring to ruin your sleep!

Well I arrived at the concert venue last night, for the concert that was originally supposed to be April 2020, to find that the guitarist was in a car crash the day before and the concert is postponed again to September.

My friend who was going to the concert with me and I got some tacos for dinner and people-watched for a bit (the Pride parade was earlier in the day and there were still lots of events going on). I awkwardly tried to talk about how I dropped off the face of the earth for a few weeks without scaring her with how bad things really were. Headed home with a stop for ice cream along the way. I ordered a scoop of apple pie and they gave me a scoop of toffee instead but I didn't notice until I was half a block away. It was fine but annoying.

>116 norabelle414: Oh I'm sorry to hear the concert was postponed again but glad you got some time to hang out with your friend.

Aaaaand I broke another knitting needle. (yes, the one I bought to replace the one that I broke when I was moving the couch which I bought to replace the one that broke after I had it for many years.) I was trying on a half-knit sock to see if it was long enough to start turning the heel and I lost my balance and stepped on the needle. I guess it's metal needles only for me from now on. I think if I switch to metal now right as I start turning the heel, the change won't be too noticeable.

>118 norabelle414: Oh noes! I'm sorry to hear the knitting needles have been having a hard time of it lately. I hope the socks turn out great!

Hey Nora :)
It sounds like things have been going haywire lately, and I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that concert turns out to be the most fantastic thing ever for how often they keep postponing it (Mind you I think I know... two TMBG songs, but both are good.)

Hello,
I think that Jim mentioned that you would help get the word out to the folks in the DC area about the ALA conference that will be in town starting on Friday. It appears that the LT folks will not be attending and therefore, there will not be free passes to the exhibits like there was back in 2019. However, I will be in town and wondered if you would like to meetup? I was thinking that perhaps Poets and Busboys would be a good place to meet as it is close to the convention center. However, I am good for other ideas. I have your thread starred now so will monitor it. I will be leaving for the conference on Friday morning, so will check back here to keep in touch.

Benita

>121 benitastrnad: Hi Benita! I will have family in town and so I will not be able to meet up, unfortunately! I made a thread for you in the "Gatherings and Meetups" group here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342452 and I'm happy to help connect you with anyone else who might be attending.

Anybody here who is in the Washington D. C. area on June 25, 2022 and might like to meet with other LT members. We will be having an LT meetup at Poets and Busboys, 450 K Street NW, Washington D.C. 20001

We will meet about 6 PM. The exhibits close at 5PM so this will give some of us time to get to Poet's and Busboys.

Nothing interesting going on here. My brother/sister-in-law/niece went to a lake house for a few days so our mom came down to dog-sit at their house and then overlap with them when they came home. We had a good time when it was just my mom and me - I took a few days off of work and we went to Ikea (our favorite pastime) and to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which has been off for the last 2 years and which my mom has not been to since probably 1999. When my brother got back most of the time was spent talking about his recent international vacations and my mom's recent international vacations and their respective upcoming international vacations, which made me very anxious.

But my niece continues to be a delight. We fed her her first beets, the 3rd food she's been offered but the first she actually swallowed. She turned 6mo last week, right after the COVID vaccine was authorized for her age group, but her pediatrician did not have any available yet so they are hoping to get her vaccinated this week. I'll be solo-babysitting for the first time next week. I did a TON of babysitting when I was in high school but mostly in the 4-6yo range, and of course that was a long time ago now. I got her a subscription to Babybug, a literary magazine for babies, but her first issue hasn't arrived yet.

My online D&D group that formed in May 2020 has basically disbanded. We hadn't met since April because we always had at least 2 people on vacation, but now people are on vacation AND the DM is moving across the country for a new job. It's possible we could pick up again in October-ish after she gets settled in but I'm not holding my breath. That was basically the only consistent social activity I've had for two years now. I still run the zoo book club every other month but being involved with the zoo, in the very very little capacity we are still allowed to, is so stressful that I'm looking for a way out.

I hope the solo babysitting with your niece goes super smoothly. Is it for a smaller chunk of time or a longer stretch?

>125 MickyFine: It's on Friday, so probably an evening. My mom and I babysat together the last time she was here, in April, and we just helped put the baby down before her parents went out to dinner and then ordered pizza and watched tv for a few hours.

>124 norabelle414: Best of luck solo-babysitting. I love that her first swallowed food was beets. What was she offered prior that she did not eat?

>127 bell7: Bananas and sweet potatoes! She's had more bananas since and liked them so I think it just took three tries for her to figure out what she was supposed to do

Nora!! I just accepted a job in Virginia and will be moving to Roanoke soon. I was excited to see that they have an Amtrak station and that rides into DC are only about $30 roundtrip! Hopefully we can meet in person one day soon and maybe see a play. ;)

>129 leahbird: Congrats!! I went to Roanoke for a wedding a few years ago and it was beautiful. I think the train ride is about 5 hours but that sure beats 5 hours in the car! I bet it's a beautiful ride, and they just (like, last week) added an additional train to that route so you'll have options

Baby-sitting went totally fine. There's a chance that she waved her first wave at me when I came over! (It looked like she might have waved but it could have been a coincidental arm movement). She's at that age where she can easily flip herself over onto her stomach while sleeping but her parents aren't 100% certain that she knows not to faceplant into the mattress, which is stressful. I'm probably babysitting again the weekend after next, and then I'll be dog-sitting for a week and a half in August while they're at my sister-in-law's family house in Maine.

Thursday I'm going to the theater with my dad to see American Prophet, a new musical about Frederick Douglass.

>131 norabelle414: Glad to hear the babysitting went smoothly. I hope your future round goes just as well.

Also yay for the theatre outing!

On an unrelated note, I recently watched the Twilight Zone-esque episode of Felicity and while for J.J. Abrams it wasn't that weird, for an episode of Felicity it was... A Choice.

>132 MickyFine: ...oh just you wait

>131 norabelle414: My co-worker's baby is also at the rolling stage; and then doesn't know what to do once she's on her belly. Bless her :3
Hope the musical is good and you get to relax :)

Y'all are kinda making me want to check out Felicity.

Glad the babysitting went well, and hope the next time is good too.

Catching up on some more old reviews from 2021:



2021
6. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Kolbert examines many different instances of human-caused species extinctions to make the argument that we are currently living in the Anthropocene, a period of mass extinction, the sixth in Earth history, that is definitively caused by the direct and indirect actions of humans.

I really liked the exploration of all the different ways that humans are causing the extinction of animals, from climate change to international travel. However, that’s not all that is here. The early chapters also explain the history of the *concept* of species extinction, which I found even more enjoyable than the individual examples. As the book goes on it moves forward in time to the extinctions that are happening right now, and organisms which will likely go extinct within our lifetimes. The later chapters are weaker, I think, possibly due to lacking any suggestions about what can be done or how to stop the destruction we are causing. At 7 years old, the book already feels a little dated to anyone who keeps up with these kinds of things.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



2021
7. The Night Circus (Audiobook) by Erin Morgenstern, narrated by Jim Dale

Reread
In 1890s London, two magicians with very different styles make a bet. They will each train an apprentice to be a powerful spellcaster and then, when the time is right, pit them against each other to see which style of magic is most potent. The battleground will be a circus that appears out of nowhere, entertains unsuspecting locals with a night of magical acts, and then vanishes again. The magicians have made this bet before, but to Celia and Marco, the apprentices, they only get one shot.

This is a reread for me, my first time listening as an audiobook. Jim Dale is not my favorite narrator, as I can't stand the way he does women's voices. It’s not a story in which a lot happens but it does have a distinctive and enjoyable atmosphere which makes for a good audiobook. I think much more about how the book made me feel than I do about any thing that happened in it.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



2021
8. American Zoo: A Sociological Safari by David Grazian

After decades volunteering at a variety of zoos in the US, and interviews and research, David Grazian presents a very thorough analysis of every aspect of American zoos, from their beginning to staff anecdotes to public perception.

I was expecting this book to be rather fluffy and saccharine but it is anything but. I have never before felt so seen as a zoo volunteer and as someone who believes in the possibilities of zoos. The detail in the text and the endnotes was astounding. Grazian does not shy away from negative stories about zoos but he always emphasizes how hardworking and well-intentioned (and underpaid and unappreciated) the vast majority of zoo staff are. So many books about zoos just shallowly wonder if anyone has ever considered whether zoos should exist, while this book reflects the actual conversations that zoo professionals have about what purpose zoos serve and what they can do to improve and what their place is in the future. I’m so glad I have this book in my collection because I will definitely be coming back to it. Will it appeal to anyone who isn’t very invested in zoos? I’m not sure.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

>134 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! The musical was not bad, the Anna Douglass role was particularly excellent.

>135 bell7: Felicity is great, as many shows of the era are, if you need something to watch that does not require a lot of attention.
Next weekend I'm doing ~daytime~ babysitting, exciting!

>136 norabelle414: I really need to bump up Grazian's book.

More reviews!!



2021
9. The Only Good Indians (Audiobook) by Stephen Graham Jones, narrated by Shaun Taylor-Corbett

Four teenage boys carelessly kill the wrong elk during hunting season on their Blackfeet reservation. They made a stupid mistake, but no one saw them, so they hid it. Ten years later they have scattered to the wind and started their own lives and their own families, but the elk remembers and picks them off, one by one.

Absolutely unique and so imaginative! Really spooky horror. The author does very cool things with perspective, switching between the elk spirit and the individual victims up until their deaths. There doesn’t feel like any good guys or bad guys here. The boys knew they shouldn’t be hunting in that area, but their deaths are gruesome and torturous and affect so many other people. The spirit’s revenge feels both awful and inevitable. Highly recommend this as an audiobook, for the vibes.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



2021
10. The Worst Best Man (Audiobook) by Mia Sosa, narrated by Rebecca Mozo and Wayne Mitchell

Wedding planner Carolina and marketing expert Max have to work together on a project for a huge client that could make or break both of their careers. What’s the catch? He’s the brother and best man of Carolina’s ex-fiance who left her at the altar, and he may have been the one who convinced the groom to leave.

Great for a book set in the DC area! A perfectly fine romance. The characters have an interesting dynamic since Carolina has very good reasons to be mad at Max and Max is not mad at Carolina at all. Overall enjoyable and the audiobook narrators were very good.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



2021
11. A Princess in Theory (Audiobook) by Alyssa Cole, narrated by Karen Chilton

When Naledi Smith gets an email from an African prince who claims they need to get married, obviously she ignores it. But Prince Thabiso is real, and when he stops by Naledi’s job to convince her and is mistaken for a waiter, he goes along with it to get close to her.

Mostly a fine romance, though I have some issues with consent when one party is lying about their identity. The general concept of an African prince scam email being real is very funny, and I do love it when a rich/royal person has to learn how to live in the real world. I did not like this one as much as An Extraordinary Union, but I did like a lot of the side characters, particularly Naledi’s best friend and Thabiso’s bodyguard, so I might pick up some more in this series in the future. Karen Chilton narrated this one and she was great.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



2021
12. One Last Stop (Audiobook) by Casey McQuiston, narrated by Natalie Naudus

23-year-old August has finally left her single mother’s nest and moved to New York City to finish her college degree. She’s determined not to let anyone into her life, not even her quirky and loving hodgepodge of roommates. But every day she sees the same intriguing woman on the same subway train, and soon enough she’s fallen in love. Together they’ll discover the mysterious fate of August’s uncle, and why Jane can’t ever leave the train.

I really did not care for this one. I found the characterization of August very poor and contradictory - she and her mom moved around a lot but she also says she’s never been anywhere, and the longest she ever lived in one place was 9 years but at 23 years old that’s well over ⅓ of her life. I really liked the focus on the subway, and the science fictional elements made as much sense as was necessary for the story. I did not care for the romance, however, since August fell in love with the idea of a person, not a whole person. She basically does not exist when August isn’t looking directly at her, like object impermanence in the shape of a woman. Up until the end I was expecting August to end up with one of her roommates instead, because I couldn’t believe there was any real Jane for her to end up with. It just squicked me out, like a real person falling in love with a fictional character. All of the individual elements just did not click into place for me, and I wanted more time with the roommates and time with the romance, which is not a good sign. The audiobook narrator was good.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

Most of what I know about Zoos has been from that Secrets Of the Zoo show on Nat Geo Wild. Probably not an accurate, full picture, but I can always really feel the adoration for the animals the zoo staff work with, along with the actual job. Far too many people just picture zoos as a place with caged-up animals, and they don't see the sheer wall of work the staff do on behalf of the animals inside (at least for a zoo worth its salt).
I wanna check out this guy's book. I'm an animal lover myself and this feels like it will speak to me in a new light.

>138 libraryperilous: You should! It's short and very well researched.

>140 Ravenwoodwitch: Secrets of the Zoo is good, but it really focuses more on the animals and less on the people working at and visiting the zoo than the Grazian book does

I'm now only 8 reviews behind! Unfortunately that's about 7 months. It's way harder to write reviews when you finished reading the book a long time ago... I know I had way more to say about all of the above books when I read them, but it's all left my brain now.

The last book we read for zoo book club was How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King. I skimmed it, disagreed with the whole premise (I think it's pointless and counterproductive to try to project human emotions onto animals; there's no way to know if they are feeling the same emotions as humans or if they are feeling their own emotions which are entirely incomprehensible to us), didn't like the writing, and decided not to read it. Thankfully it's a lot easier to run a book club where you haven't read the book than it is to participate in one! I just asked everyone else how they felt about the book.
The next book up is Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb, which seems much more up my alley.

The book club meets (online) on the first Saturday of every-other month which unfortunately puts it on the same day as the National Book Festival, which is back in-person this year. I did create a thread for a potential meetup here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342970 but at the moment there is no word on a vaccine and/or mask requirement so I'm unlikely to attend.

Currently reading (aside from the aforementioned beaver book) - I'm literally actually almost done with the Witcher book! It's due back at the library today after many, many renewals and I think I should be able to finish and return it tomorrow (it would be today but there's a big thunderstorm in the forecast). Not sure what I'll check out next but rest assured that I will not finish it for several months.

Currently playing:
I think I'm fully done with Breath of the Wild - I just don't understand what's going on and I'm lost and I have no food and no weapons.
I restarted Witcher 3 and was trying to play a very careful game so I could find and beat every single quest (some of them are only available if you start them the first time you walk past the trigger, or if you start and complete them in a specific order, etc.) but I missed a couple. Bah! Not as into it as I was before but I still pick it up every once in awhile.
I got really into Spiritfarer for awhile, but now I'm almost finished and it's gotten VERY platformer-y and I'm stuck because I'm extremely bad at platformers and I don't like them

Currently watching:
I finished all of Taskmaster, even though the most recent seasons are not legally available in the US, shh! Now I'm watching it all again from the beginning while listening to the official podcast.
I turned off my Netflix for awhile but turned it back on to watch the final two episodes of Stranger Things. Not worth the extra month's wait, imo.
Watched season 3 of Umbrella Academy. It was fine; I should have rewatched seasons 1&2 so I would remember what was going on but I didn't care enough. Elliot Page's transition was very well-handled.
Grantchester season 7 - the first two episodes were really rough as Will decided he was in love for the first time with a random woman who is engaged to someone powerful, just because they danced to jazz together?? That's a Sidney plot, not a Will plot! Also Cathy stayed with Geordie when he cheated on her with his secretary, but now she's left him because he works too much? That's been his whole deal for decades now!! It feels forced. However, I am always happy to see Charlotte Ritchie in literally anything, even if they did give her absolutely awful hair.
Really enjoyed Hotel Portofino, which I originally thought was going to be light and fluffy but duh, it's Italy in the 1920s, it's not going to be light and fluffy.

Also enjoying: Only Murders in the Building season 2, Wellington Paranormal season 3, Roswell New Mexico season 3, Motherland: Fort Salem season 3, Dark Winds (based on The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman), Tuca & Bertie season 3, Good Trouble season 4, Grown-ish season 5, For All Mankind season 3, What We Do in the Shadows season 4, The Orville season 3, Ms. Marvel

Sorry to hear BotW isn't working for you anymore! Happy to give some advice if I can :) I've been intrigued by Spiritfarer but the death angle hasn't appealed to me lately. My latest game is Time on Frog Island; I've only played a little, but it's very cute so far.

I stopped watching Grantchester when Sidney left; it was too weird to me the way they just kind of slotted Will into his life. Have you enjoyed the Will episodes?

Ooh, I will definitely look into Hotel Portofino.

>142 norabelle414: oh, I've been thinking I probably won't make this year's National Book Festival, so I feel a little better knowing I won't be standing you up 😜 And I've also been enjoying Only Murders in the Building. I'm planning on watching the new episode tonight after work.

>142 norabelle414: It's way harder to write reviews when you finished reading the book a long time ago...
I find it easier; I remember so little that I can review with a single sentence and be done with it. :-)

Dark Winds
Oh, that looks interesting. I'm sure I read the book ages ago.

>143 curioussquared: BOTW was never working for me, really. I just couldn't figure out what I could do or how to do it. And if I ever found anything interesting I would immediately get lost and not be able to find it again.
I find stories in video games mostly tedious when they don't impact the gameplay (if I wanted a story I would read a book or watch tv!), so I skipped over a lot of the story in Spiritfarer and just enjoyed playing the game

Re: Grantchester - The transition from Sidney to Will was SO awkward and badly done, but I do really like Will. Theoretically I think Will is supposed to be much more childish than Sidney because he wasn't In The War, but I found Sidney to be childish a lot of the time, particularly when it came to Amanda. Sidney was in love with Amanda and sometimes drunkenly slept around, while Will has never been in love with anyone and sometimes sleeps around, though I think he's less angsty about it. Plus he's trying really hard to break away from his stuck-up rich family, which I think is quite mature of him. It's hard for the show to differentiate two characters who need to fit the same archetype to make the show work (young hot religious single men with Trauma-related angst who have sex sometimes but not too much). But Will is quite likeable once you give him a few episodes and Leonard has some fantastic storylines which are worth watching for him alone.

>144 bell7: I figured you wouldn't be back down so soon! No worries, maybe by the time we feel comfortable going in-person again we'll be able to take Mia AND Matthew :-)

>145 qebo: ok fine, it's harder to write good/helpful reviews ;-)

>146 norabelle414: That's fair! I definitely had a learning curve and stopped playing for a while before getting fully into it. It's such a complex open world that I'm still finding things I didn't know existed after playing it twice through, which makes it daunting to start. I'm with you on stories in video games -- I've only played one entirely story-based game, Oxenfree, which I thought was interesting but at the end just felt like a book or movie that wasn't fleshed out all the way.

Good to know about Grantchester! I might get back into it soon. And I do love Leonard :)

On the gaming front, have you watched the trailer for Stray? I think it's just on Steam right now (not sure if you do much PC gaming) and I believe it's supposed to get a Playstation release in a couple months. I'm thinking it might end up at our house eventually. :)

>148 curioussquared: I tried playing Oxenfree and it was definitely too much story for me.

>149 MickyFine: I have watched the trailer for Stray, and watched some people play it! I don't usually buy new games because I'm so picky, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Someone else's thread reminded me that I should probably start keeping track of the books I read with my niece! Maybe I'll add them or review them but for now I'll just list them:

1) Rainbow Rob by Roger Priddy - very funny because my brother's name is Rob
2) The Whales on the Bus by Katrina Charman - a song to the tune of "wheels on the bus". My brother and sister-in-law insist this is her favorite but I think it's *their* favorite ;-)

Incoming books! I've acquired a concerning number of books lately for someone who doesn't read:

My step-brother's girlfriend sent me some more used books for my birthday (see >45 norabelle414: for the previous batch):
Fables, Vol 1: Legends in Exile by Bill Willingham and Lan Medina - I've read this before and used to own it but my copy was lost so I'm glad to have another
Where the Crawdad Sing by Delia Owens
The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr
Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver
When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe
Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples - I already own this one but am sure I can find it a good home

I went to Politics & Prose with Zoe and Mark and used one of my many gift cards:
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 edited by Ed Yong and Jaime Greenring
Gender Queer {Deluxe Edition} by Maia Kobabe

Then bookshop.org was having a sale and Gail Carriger had a new paper book out (she self-publishes now so all her books come out in ebook first and then paper later) so I went ahead and bought ALL of her paper books that I didn't already have:
Reticence
Romancing the Werewolf
How to Marry a Werewolf
Romancing the Inventor
Defy or Defend
Ambush or Adore

I've also subscribed to some actual comics??? Most of the comic book shops around here require a minimum number of subscriptions and also require you to pick them up about once a month which is not very manageable for me since they are not nearby. But Midtown Comics in New York has mail subscriptions with no minimum! So now I have:
Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #1
Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #2
Spider-Gwen: Gwenverse #3 by Tim Seely and Jodi Nishijima
She-Hulk #2
She-Hulk #3 by Rainbow Rowell and Rogê Antônio
(I started this subscription after She-Hulk #1 had already come out so I guess now I have to figure out how to get it separately? I don't really know how comics work)

Oooh Spider-Gwen and She-Hulk! Excellent choices. I haven't read the new Spider-Gwens yet and I'm a bit jealous. Also, thanks for the news that Gail Carriger is exclusively self-publishing now. I hadn't heard about that before now.

>153 MickyFine: I highly recommend signing up for her email newsletter, The Chirrup (https://gailcarriger.com/contact/). It's only about once a month and she shares interesting behind-the-scenes info about how she self-publishes, and also pictures of cats, tea, etc.

>154 norabelle414: Awesome. Thanks!

Ah, comics; I have ventured there too. Though, I admit, I am a very strong Batman fan.

Just looking at what you picked up, I suggest the Black Canary series run by Brendon Fletcher. She was turned into a rock band frontwoman and it was pretty cool. And, with that same character in mind, I highly recommend Gail Simone's Birds of Prey series.

Good news, too; You won't get lost in these series if you're not up to date on continuity.

>156 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks for the recommendations! I have a lot of, I guess they're called trade paperbacks? where they collect 3-5 issues in one book, and I get a lot of them out from the library. This is my first time getting individual issues, though since it seems like most of the comics I get really into are cancelled before I find out about them (Mockingbird, Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!, Josie & the Pussycats, etc.)
They always say that the comics (the ones by women, of course) get canceled because no one buys the individual comics, but they make it so confusing and difficult to do so! Annoyingly, if I want to subscribe to any DC Comics I have to make a separate account with separate subscriptions even though they're all coming through the same shop. So weird.

Dog-sitting this week and it's a lot. My brother and sister-in-law worked very hard to soothe my dognephew's separation anxiety when they got him in 2018-ish but 2.5 years of them working from home has pretty much negated that and when he thinks he's being left he's a mess. I thought I could leave him for about 5 hours yesterday while I worked from my own apartment but I came back to a destroyed kitchen trash can and anxiety poops on the living room rug. I'll try to work from my brother's house on Thursday and Friday but I need to be in the office today and Wednesday so just keeping my fingers crossed.

I have some books out from the library, overly-optimistically:
The Sword of Destiny (the second Witcher book)
Armistice by Lara Elena Donnelly, the sequel to Amberlough which I read a few years ago and really loved

Too stressed to read, though, or even watch much TV. I'm making my way through Taskmaster a second time, at a one-episode-per-day pace, watching along with a friend who hasn't seen it before and also listening to the official companion podcast. But mostly just anxiety-scrolling through Twitter, advice columns (my comfort food), and Discord servers

Between video games at the moment, though Two Point Campus, the sequel to Two Point Hospital, comes out today but I'm not sure I'll have time for it until I'm done dog-sitting.

Good afternoon, Nora. Sorry things are a little hectic this time around :/ I hope you can find a working solution with the dog.

I'll warn you I ended up pausing The Sword of Destiny because I found it much slower than the first Witcher book, but it still should be the same caliber of writing. Hope you like it :)

Separation anxiety can be devastating. It's very common in ex-racing greyhounds since most of them grow up in kennels surrounded by other dogs and have never been alone in their lives. The most common cure suggested among greyhound owners is just to get another greyhound, lol, but of course that's not feasible for everyone. I hope the dog does OK while you're at work today and tomorrow and your stress decreases soon!

>159 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks for the heads up! I read so slowly now (if at all) that I don't think I would notice if I were reading it particularly slowly ;-)
However, it does have another hold on it so it's going back to the library completely untouched, as most of my checkouts these days do.

>160 curioussquared: Everything went fine for the rest of the dog-sitting, I think it was just the first day I left him that he thought I wasn't coming back. On subsequent days I shut him on the first floor (they live in a townhouse where the guest bedroom/office is on the first floor and the kitchen is on the second floor) and gave him my stinky pajamas to cuddle with and he seemed much happier and there were no more incidents.

Not a whole lot going on but things are moving slowly. As mentioned above, the rest of the dog-sitting went fine. I also baby-sat this past Friday, also fine.

My office is probably moving in the next few weeks (we were previously in a small satellite office but will be moving into the big headquarters). However, everyone is still teleworking so I'm not sure how this is going to work, or how often I will be going into the office, etc. Currently I'm still going in once a week but that's because the office is fairly convenient (one 20-minute bus ride that goes through a neighborhood I like and right past my brother's house, and the bus leaves every 20 minutes) and the headquarters is much further out in the suburbs. There is still a shuttle but the stop is further away from my house and it leaves less frequently and the vehicle is small and the driver is very annoying, and the drive is just on the beltway, nowhere interesting. The big headquarters is so isolated, you actually cannot get off of the campus for lunch or anything without a car or shuttle. But it would be nice to work around people again.

It is also looking quite likely that volunteers will be coming back to the zoo in October. The volunteer groups have been reorganized, since the zoo has gone from 7 volunteer coordinators to 1, so I won't just be talking to visitors about the animals on Asia Trail (sloth bear, clouded leopard, fishing cat, river otter, red panda, giant panda) but also Cheetah Conservation Station (cheetah, zebra, ostrich, hornbill, red river hog, sitatunga, kudu, vulture), American bison, and elephants, as well as the new Bird House which is opening in approx. January.

Currently reading Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, which is nice to read but I'm still not doing much reading. I need to finish it by the 3rd but I checked out the audiobook as a backup just in case.

Currently watching: Still obsessively rewatching Taskmaster. Started The Sandman. Finished The Bear (which I liked) and The Rehearsal (which I didn't). Up-to-date on Harley Quinn, Resident Alien, Motherland: Fort Salem, Only Murders in the Building, Reservation Dogs, and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Glad the dog was happy for the rest of your stay! Ooh, I almost forgot the Only Murders finale is today. So excited.

Yay for volunteering on the horizon. That's exciting news!

Ooh, the zoo volunteer gig sounds like so much fun!

Sorry to hear about the office relo to beltway hell. One of my Brooklyn-based daughters is being "encouraged" to work in the office 3 days per week beginning in September. They just moved into nice new digs in Soho so she's not complaining, but it does seem like employers are trying to get back to some sense of the old normal.

>163 curioussquared: Yay! I'm working in the office today so I can't watch it until later and am having to dodge spoilers online already

>164 MickyFine: I'm of two minds about it, considering how badly the volunteers have been treated for the past two years. But I'll stick it out for a little bit and maybe they'll start treating us better once they realize how many volunteers have quit.

>165 lauralkeet: Thanks Laura! If you & Chris ever want to come up to the zoo I'd be happy to show you around. The zoo used to occasionally offer horticulture tours, but I'm not sure if/when they'll be doing that again.
I very much prefer working in the office, since separating my work time and my personal time is very important to me, but I really don't want to have a miserable commute to the middle of nowhere, in the opposite direction of everything I want to do in my free time. The big headquarters' telework policy is really a mess. The office never fully closed since technically we work in healthcare operations, deploying and managing people and supplies for COVID response and other things. The military staff (roughly 1/3) are no longer allowed to telework as of last week, except that most of them teleworked plenty before COVID so no one is exactly sure what they're supposed to do now. And due to the normal rotation of military staff, the majority of them have never actually set foot in the office and some of them don't have a desk assigned to them at all. So messy.

Sorry the dog's been such a challenge, Nora. I'm sitting, too, and just spent the morning cleaning up pee either from one of the cats being a pain or one of the dogs marking his territory (or possibly both) *eyeroll* Hope you don't return to destruction today.

And yay for Only Murders in the Building! I'm not quite caught up, so I'm looking forward to two episodes, probably tonight after work.

>166 norabelle414: Yeah, a friend came over last night and we opted to watch more What We Do in the Shadows because she's not up to date on Only Murders, so I think I might just avoid Twitter today... Hopefully Tim and I can get to it tonight. Ugh, I hate when companies can't work out the telework policy -- so ridiculous that they're saying the military staff can't work remote at all when they clearly used to do it just fine. Sorry your commute will be messed up :(

>162 norabelle414: Oh, I'd be super stressed if the office was moving. I hope the transition is smooth :)

I was supposed to go into the office today to continue packing up for the move but I've come down with something. Apparently it's not COVID since the tests I took Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and this morning were all negative, but I'm absolutely oozing snot and took the day off of work today.

Unfortunately I did have a ticket to go see Six tonight, which I was really looking forward to, and now my friends are going without me.

Oh I'm sorry that you're both sick AND missing a show. That really sucks! *hugs*

Aw, I'm sorry you're sick!

>170 norabelle414: I'm so sorry D:
Sounds like a cold, which really sucks. I hope you feel better!

Thanks for the sympathy!

I felt absolutely dreadful, in a lot of throat pain in the mornings from post-nasal drip and then dizzy and snotty later in the day, until Monday morning when I woke up feeling mostly fine. Annoying! I missed a whole weekend! Do I spend every single weekend doing exactly what I do when I'm sick in bed? Yes. but it would have been nice to not feel terrible while doing it.

My friends found someone to take my ticket to Six and they had a great time.

Still no update on the office move. I keep being told that the moving bins will show up any day now but they never do. When I came into the office on Tuesday I was told the bins were arriving on Wednesday so I showed up at work today (Friday) and still no bins. Allegedly they are coming later today so I'll stick around for a few more hours. We do have new cubicles assigned at the Big Headquarters but still no date on when we are moving or how.

This weekend the National Book Festival is back, but I won't be attending (my first missed festival since 2010 at least) due to their shamefully inadequate COVID precautions.

About 75% done with Eager, it's short so I should have no trouble finishing it before the book club meeting at noon on Saturday. Next up for the book club will be The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, which I'm not even going to bother getting in paper. Straight to audiobook.

Currently watching: Almost done with The Sandman and Wellington Paranormal, season 4. Finished Never Have I Ever season 3. Just started Leonardo (a UK/Italian import) and Bump (an Australian import), neither of which are very good. My daily Taskmaster rewatch is almost done with series 7. I think I should be all caught up by the time series 14 is finished airing. And then I guess I start over again?

Everything is fine here.

The office move is finished. Although we don't know where our communal files ended up, they must be around here somewhere. Cubicles for myself and my coworkers were assigned somewhat randomly and I ended up with a very tiny cubicle with a pole in the middle of it. But there was good reason to move some other people around so I moved myself around too and now I have a bigger cubicle and the pole cubicle is unassigned. These are likely not our permanent assignments, and I'm the only one of us who goes into the office regularly so I think that's reason enough.

My commute has been fine so far. It takes me 15 minutes to get to the bus stop (down 7 flights of stairs, out the door, across the street, across a parking lot, through a pedestrian tunnel, across another parking lot, and all the way to the other side of a big bus depot) as opposed to my previous 4 minutes (down the stairs, out the door, across the street). But the shuttle from the depot leaves every 20 minutes if it's before 8 (every 40 minutes after 8). Not too bad. It is disappointing that unlike my previous bus the shuttle does not stop anywhere else so I can't, for example, stop and meet someone for a drink somewhere or pick up some groceries on my way home.

I'm currently taking all my zoo training in preparation to return as a volunteer in late October. I've taken online training on Asia Trail animals and I'm almost done with elephants. (That's all the training available to me right now, even though there should be 3 more courses, because the zoo now only has 1 person to write curriculum instead of 7). This Saturday I have in-person training and will get my new shirt and new badge (I still have the old one of course but it's expired). Then I can start signing up for shifts!

I'm babysitting a lot in early October because my sister-in-law works for the Air and Space Museum, which is reopening to visitors in a few weeks and she has lots of after-hours events to go to. I also babysat yesterday because my brother is in Europe (again). She's eating real food now, and loves everything. She's crawling a lot and really trying to stand but can't quite get there. She does what I call "angry baby yoga" where she straightens her legs while crawling so her butt is in the air and tries really hard to push her torso up so she's standing, but can't and gets mad about it.

My mom was supposed to come help babysit for the Air and Space reopening too, but she can't because she's also in Europe (again). She's still getting on my case about coming to visit her, claiming that if she and everyone else she knows can travel all they want to, I can too. Trying to come up with a nice way to say I'm not willing to be as cavalier with other people's health as she is. My brother was also giving me a hard time last month, telling me that "COVID is endemic now, which is not as bad as pandemic" (FALSE) and "at least COVID is better than monkeypox" (extremely FALSE). It seems like every day I hear a story about someone getting on a plane or something while knowing they have tested positive. They always have an excuse as to why their situation is special and they need to do it. Everyone I work with has COVID right now, from my work lunch buddy (thankfully we haven't crossed paths in a few weeks), to the facilities person who is helping us move, to my boss (who was visiting family last week but presumably caught it on the plane home). I'm currently sitting in my cubicle listening to someone I don't know down the hall call his close contacts on speakerphone to tell them he had close contact with a COVID-positive person on Friday and half of the people he's called also have COVID.

Relatedly, after many many years of trying I finally have had a few appointments with a therapist that I can afford. It's not going perfectly but she does seem to take COVID seriously so it's nice to have someone to talk to about how angry and alone I feel.

Currently playing: Two Point Campus, the sequel to Two Point Hospital, came out a few weeks ago. I have played it quite a bit but it's really confusing (even the other players in the forum don't understand how some aspects work, it's not as straightforward as TPH) and noticeably buggy. I'm also playing an early access version of My Time at Sandrock, a sequel to My Time at Portia which I played earlier in the pandemic and loved. That one is buggy as well but that's to be expected since it's not released yet.

Currently watching:
Frayed, a dramedy about a fancy Londoner who has to move back to her estranged family in Australia with her kids when her husband dies. Series 1 was very funny but series 2 is much more serious and I'm not sure I like it.
Maggie, an extremely twee romantic comedy about the dating life of a psychic (with real psychic powers). It's so sweet it seems like it should be on the Hallmark channel, but it's sex-positive and funny and has a gay character so maybe it's just Canadian. Cheyenne from Superstore plays Maggie's best friend and she is hilarious. It's been cancelled already, of course.
Watched all of Mo, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin (good! scary!), Bloods, and Five Days at Memorial (traumatic). Up-to-date on Resident Alien, Stargirl, She-Hulk, Big Sky, Harley Quinn, Atlanta season 4, Abbott Elementary season 2, and Reservation Dogs season 2. Started and really enjoying Welcome to Wrexham, Bad Sisters, and Reboot. Started and abandoned Monarch and Quantum Leap (the reboot).

Currently crafting: Finished a piece with a bee on it and my friend liked it a lot so I gave it to him. I like crafting things but then I never know what to do with them so it feels like a relief when someone wants to have something I've made.
Bought a bunch of embroidery kits to make things to give as Christmas presents. The biggest one is a floral throw pillowcase for my mom. It's by far the biggest piece I've ever embroidered but I started early and am making great progress so I think it should be fine. I do hope I get my knitting mojo back soon so that I can finish the socks I started for my mom and maybe make a couple more pairs too. And finish the romper I started way back in April.

Currently reading: The Tiger's Wife, and Dracula Daily.

I agree with you about the COVID problem. My mother (86 years old) was doing so well and had recovered after getting COVID in December 2020. She was vaccinated, and back to her old self, and then she got COVID again in August (2022) from a relative. It caused flu like systems but she got weak and dehydrated and fainted. Fell and broke her nose and a couple of teeth. She was back in the hospital for a week. We have had her in a rehab facility for the last two weeks, and all because somebody who knew they tested positive thought it was OK to go out in public.

>175 norabelle414: Glad you were able to shift around in to a better cubicle, and sorry about the COVID stress :( We are trying to strike a balance between getting back to normal and still being extremely cautious with exposures. I feel really lucky that my family is all similarly careful, mostly because of my immunocompromised grandma. I don't understand the people who think this is over -- there's so much we don't know about long COVID and it's scary! We just got our bivalent boosters and are still KN95 masking in most public areas. When I take on COVID risk, I try to make sure it's for myself and my partner alone, and we communicate a lot about what we're OK with the other one doing.

Also, re: your niece, I read "angry baby yoga" as "angry baby yoda" at first and smiled at that image, lol.

It feels like we're getting close to the climax of Dracula! I've really enjoyed reading the story in little chunks this way, and appreciate that it will go through spooky season.

>176 benitastrnad: So sorry to hear that, Benita. I hope she's recovering okay now.

>177 curioussquared: I listen to a podcast that jokingly calls Baby Yoda "baby yoga" so I did have to triple-check my spelling on that one! :-)

I forgot to mention that while babysitting we read Elephants Can't Fly by Charlotte Christie. It's about a young elephant who is tired of hearing that elephants can't do things like sing or jump or fly, so she decides to do them anyway. I kind of hated this one - of course elephants can "sing" (by many definitions of the word), of course elephants flying is fantasy, but it's the jumping one that really gets me. The book even explains why elephants can't jump - their bones and leg muscles are configured the wrong way and they weigh 12,000lbs - but the book is just like "but the baby elephant tried and did it anyway" as if that's what it takes to defy the laws of space and time? That's like telling a kid they can lick the back of their own head if they just try it. All of the goodreads reviews (there are none here on LT) talk about the "positive message" but is this really a positive message? I think it would have been better if the elephant had found a pogo stick or a trampoline or something else to help them jump.

I went back to the zoo! It was great! I have a new shirt and a new nametag and I bought some new khaki skirts and pants which should arrive any day now. I haven't signed up for any shifts yet, but I am planning to volunteer at the halloween event at the end of the month. So many volunteers have dropped out that I'm now one of the most senior, and I'll be in a leadership position for the event. I get to carry a walkie talkie.

I helped out my sister-in-law with the baby on Wednesday. We read Good Night Maine and Rainbow Rob, her current favorite. She's got several issues of Babybug now, which she (and her parents) also like. I'm solo babysitting this weekend on Friday and Saturday.

Thursday I got my latest COVID booster and my seasonal flu shot. It's a little earlier than I would have liked for either, to maximize the amount of time I'm protected, but I can just get another flu shot in Feb/Mar if I need to. No side effects, as usual, which is still a bit disappointing (is it working?? who knows).

Being in the office is pretty good. The ratio of background activity to actual distractions (i.e. other things I could do instead of work) is close to perfect for me (as evidenced by the fact that I can actually concentrate enough to update my LT thread on days I'm in the office!).

Currently Reading: I'm a few days behind on Dracula Daily, I find it much harder to keep up when the emails are so long. I returned a couple books to the library and checked another one out but I never even opened any of them so I don't think it matters what they were.

Currently Watching:
Reboot - a new show on Hulu with Rachel Bloom and Judy Greer and Paul Reiser about a young writer working to reboot a 20-year-old sitcom with the same actors. There's not a lot of plot but it's funny and queer and enjoyable.
Los Espookys - a very weird, very funny show about 4 friends in Mexico City who work as kind of spooky event performers ... for example they are hired to fake a sea monster attack so that a small town can attract tourists. All of their work is very practical but their personal lives sometimes do include fantastical elements which mostly just get in the way. It's so hard to describe but I enjoy its humor so so much.
I started the new Interview with a Vampire adaptation, which has a very high production value but I've never read the book so I'm not sure what to expect from the plot.

>181 norabelle414: Yay for a good update! I am glad you're having a positive experience with going back to the zoo and the office.

Glad your return to the zoo went well! Ugh, agreed on the Dracula Daily emails. Today's entry is staring at me, unread...

I LOVE Los Espookys and really need to get back to it now that season 2 is out. Definitely a very specific kind of humor but if it works for you, it's so good.

Oh yay, I'm glad your return to volunteering at the zoo is going well so far. I'm very impressed by your walkie-talkie. :)

Also glad the new office location is treating you well so far.

Great! Glad you’re back to the zoo!

Los Espookys sounds fab! I'm glad you're enjoying the zoo volunteer work again.

>181 norabelle414: I remain jealous of your time spent with some of the world's coolest animals ever. I hope it continues to be bright spot for you :)
I have read Interview With a Vampire myself and seen the Tom Cruise/Brad Pit film from back in the day. I haven't seen the new show, yet, but I am curious myself. It's a complicated story to make visually interesting sue to the framing device but, who knows?
(Also, "reboot" made me instantly think of the show from the 90s instead, lol.)

Hi Nora! Hope you've been really good. :)

Glad you're back at the zoo, Nora! I haven't been watching much, I've had the first season of Psych out from the library twice now, and I have - hm, only four episodes to go to finish it, so maybe I'll keep it an extra day or two 'til I've finished it. Abbott Elementary has looked good, though. I'll put it on hold to watch after I get back from dogsitting, maybe.

Your description of your niece trying to stand/walk made me laugh. I remember my niece doing the same thing. A couple of times, she got up on her feet and hands with her bum in the air, overbalanced, and bumped her head. More commonly, she'd sit on the floor and grab her pants and pull and start crying in anger that she couldn't just get up and walk.

>182 foggidawn: Thanks foggi!

>183 curioussquared: Re: Los Espookys, Tati in particular kind of bothered me at first but now she's totally my favorite. The part toward the end of season 1 when she implies that she is unstuck from time kind of makes her whole character make more sense. I'm especially loving a minor plot she has in season 2 where she is transcribing an audiobook of Don Quixote so that people can read it....perfect

>184 MickyFine:, >185 drneutron:, >186 libraryperilous: Thanks Micky, Jim, and Diana!

>187 Ravenwoodwitch: The framing of the new Interview with the Vampire show is pretty good, there is just a small bit of mystery to keep you interested so you're not like "oh no not these guys again" whenever there's a scene in the present day.

>188 The_Hibernator: Thanks Rachel! I hope you've been good too!

>189 bell7: I think you would really like Abbott Elementary, Mary!
I can't believe Mia is 7 already, that time we went to the zoo in the rain feels like just yesterday

Happy Tuesday! One day I'll be together enough to update on a day that I am not in the office, but not yet. I promise I am reading all of your threads as well I just don't have anything interesting to say.

I solo baby-sat Friday night so that my brother and sister-in-law could go to an event for the Air and Space Museum. Saturday I watched the baby while my brother cooked brunch for me and my dad. We read Everywhere Babies and Chika-Chicka-Boom-Boom.

It was a holiday weekend but I didn't do anything of interest. Played a lot of My Time at Sandrock. Got some embroidery done but not as much as I would have liked. I've tweeted some pictures and I'll try to remember to post them here later today.

I have therapy on Thursday and my homework for the last 2 weeks has been to find opportunities to socialize. I did a decent amount of socializing at the zoo the weekend before last but I'm not sure if that will count enough so I have also signed up for an online meet-up of a political and community group I joined earlier this year but have not participated with much.

Still a bit behind on Dracula Daily but not as much as I was before! I've given up on the emails and am just reading my paper copy. I might switch back to the emails once I catch up to today, since there's a gap from 6-10 October.

Currently Watching:
I rewatched season 1 of Miss Scarlet and the Duke in preparation for season 2 starting on the 16th and rewatched seasons 1 & 2 of Derry Girls and started season 3 (which is great).
Two perfectly adequate shows where a fuck-up in their late-30s loses their job and has to work at their cold-hearted parent's law firm: Family Law, in which Jewel Staite is the fuck-up and Victor Garber is the cold parent, and So Help Me Todd, in which Skyler Astin (from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist) is the fuck-up and Marcia Gay Harden is the cold parent.
I finished Frayed, starring Taskmaster alum Sarah Kendall. I liked season 1 but though the twist at the end was jarring, and then that plot became the main plot of season 2 and I didn't care for it. The end of season 2 also has a big jarring twist but apparently that one did happen in real life, which makes me like it more.
Reginald the Vampire, based on the book Fat Vampire, about a 20-year-old with low self-esteem (played by Spider-Man's Jacob Batalon) who gets turned into a vampire and has to come to terms with the fact that he will live eternally just as he was when he died, and also possibly fight off some other vampires who think he makes the vampire community look bad by not being skinny. Seems promising, and Batalon is very charming.
Taskmaster series 14!! I'm watching episodes on the day they air (through nefarious means) and it's thrilling! My rewatch of previous seasons is almost done with series 11.

Ooh, I hadn't heard about the new season of Miss Scarlet and the Duke. Of course, being cable-less I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD and then borrow it from the library. But exciting that there's more episodes on the horizon.

>192 MickyFine: It's out on DVD already! Season 2 aired in the UK quite awhile ago. But then season 3 is coming in January!

Embroidery pics, as promised:


A colorful sampler. I didn't like this one, but I did learn some new stitches.


A bee pattern from a kit. My friend really liked this one when I showed it to him, so I gave it to him. All my other pieces are sitting in a drawer because I don't know what I'm supposed to do with them.


A small kit that will eventually become a coin purse, though I hate assembling things.


The big throw pillow case for my mom

>194 norabelle414: I love the bee and the throw pillow case especially! I know what you mean about finished projects. I have the best intention of hanging all my cross-stitch projects on my office wall, but they're all sitting in a box instead.

>193 norabelle414: Oh awesome! Placed a hold on it at my local library system where it's currently on order. :)

Love your embroidery work! All gorgeous. I've hung a few cross-stitch pieces in my cubicle space at work and have a future project plotted that will be destined for the guest room. Otherwise, my cross-stitch has been things to use (stockings, Christmas tree skirt).

The embroidery's coming out so good! I like the pillow case a lot.

I noticed you'd been watching Derry Girls and as a result I see your Netflix is reactivated so I may join you in that, as well as catching up on GBBO/S. That'll be perfect for my next few weeks of dogsitting ;)

Love all the babysitting stories and books you are reading to your niece! And yes, re: >190 norabelle414: that time in the zoo doesn't feel like all that long ago. I still remember the cute socks you brought Mia from your trip (Japan?). Every time I see the kids now, they appear taller to me. And I don't know if you've had a chance to swing by my thread lately, so I'll tell you Matthew really wanted me to knit him a pair of socks, so I'm making a pair for each of them this fall and sending them down with their Christmas gifts.

>195 curioussquared:, >196 MickyFine: I'm really excited about these Christmas projects (I'm working on 4 in total, the pillow case, the coin purse, a handkerchief, and a compact mirror) which are actual objects to use instead of just nice-looking pieces of fabric. Thrilling!

>197 bell7: Yes! Netflix is reactivated, probably through the winter because my mom and her husband do most of their TV watching in the winter. I love watching spooky stuff in the fall so up next is probably The Midnight Club, based on the Christopher Pike novel.
I am keeping up with your thread! It's so exciting that Matthew is interested in your crafting. One of my brother's nieces on his wife's side is 7 and she's into crafting and I find that way more thrilling than my brother or his wife do.

>194 norabelle414: Lovely! I like the bee one best; I can see why your friend admired it.

In a bad mood today because I bought new tights that were extra expensive because they supposedly would not run and they got a run in them as I was putting them on this morning.

Just the same old going on here. My therapist wants me to take time out of my day to reflect on my day (counter-productive imo because my problem is that I can't concentrate on anything (I am not enjoying therapy)) so maybe I will remember more things to say here at some point.

Saturday there was a SE Asian-style market in the plaza across the street from my apartment so I went to that and it was very fun. Various restaurants were selling food from booths and there was a DJ playing all the best songs from the late-90s/early-00s. I got there around 7 and when I went home around 8:30 all of the booths were packing up, though the event was scheduled until 11. Not sure what there would have been to do after the food was gone.
Sunday I had brunch with my dad and his friend at the prestigious merit-based social club my dad joined recently. I don't like a lot of my dad's friends but this guy was very interesting, he was a retired higher-up at the National Archives and archivists are my kind of people.

My mom got back from a long European vacation and it was nice to hear about her trip but she immediately started badgering me about when I will be ready to go on vacation again. It had been nice to have a break from that. She's coming down to see the baby the week after next.

Tomorrow I am very booked with (virtual) meetings, I have a quarterly review meeting for work with my boss, an afternoon zoo training, and an evening community group meeting. Thursday is the first show of my theater subscription, Holiday, a romantic comedy. Saturday I'm babysitting and then Sunday I have my first real full shift of zoo volunteering since February 2020!

I have not been stitching much this week. Still working on the big pillow case.
I'm fully caught up on Dracula Daily and am now having the opposite problem - I want to read ahead! We're so close to finished!
I finished the most recent update to My Time at Sandrock so not much to play until the new Pokemon games come out next month.

Currently watching:
Miss Scarlet and the Duke season 2, Magpie Murders, and Annika, all great. I finished Bad Sisters (incredible) and Welcome to Wrexham, who would have thought I would enjoy a documentary about soccer? I started The Winchesters despite not liking Supernatural, we'll see how it goes.

>200 norabelle414: Which brand of tights? I have a few pairs of Sheertex that have served me well so far and I think they'll refund you if you do get a run.

I feel the same about Dracula Daily. The long entries were looong but now it feels weird to not be reading much at all. I'm also loving Welcome to Wrexham -- I thought I would like it since I went through a soccer phase in high school and college, but I didn't realize I would like it quite this much! I'm going to give Magpie Murders a try even though I didn't love the book.

>200 norabelle414: I would def. seek a refund on those tights were I you; but I also understand if you'd rather not go through the hassle.
It's funny; I've read through Dracula as a comic, twice, but never read the whole thing in book form. But I do remember the end is where things definitely start to get frantic.

>201 curioussquared: They were from Snag. I usually get tights from We Love Colors but they are all plain and very opaque and I wanted to try something patterned. I have several pairs of chub-rub shorts from Snag and they're fantastic, but not so much these patterned ones. I've gotten a lot of facebook ads for sheertex but I'm always skeptical of anything i see in a facebook ad. Since you've confirmed they're not just a scam I'll give them a try!
I haven't read any Horowitz but he was on the Masterpiece podcast and he said he thought the show was much better than his book, so I say give it a try!

>202 Ravenwoodwitch: Their website says they only do refunds on unworn items, and they only do exchanges on items that were damaged when you got them. I've sent them an email to see what can be done but I think I would have to pay shipping either to or from England which is probably the same cost as the tights.
It's so odd reading something in real-time from so long ago, because there was a big frantic section earlier this month with multiple entries per-person per-day, but now everyone is in transit to central Europe, which takes weeks, so it's quiet.

>203 norabelle414: I have a couple pairs from Snag which are super comfy but definitely not as durable as Sheertex. I'd say you pay a little in comfort for the no-running with Sheertex. I think they're actually running a really good sale right now, though, so if you're interested it's a good time to try a pair! Lol, I love that Horowitz comment. I'll see if my friend who's also into British shows wants to watch with me :)

This tights conversation is very apropos. I just had my first pair of Sheertex tights arrive yesterday as my mom had good experience with them. However, I wanted some skin tone coloured tights too so I ordered a few pairs from Snag. We'll see how they do - otherwise back to buying skin tone tights from Winners, I guess.

>194 norabelle414: I love Dropcloth Samplers! Can you share the bee kit? It's lovely!

>200 norabelle414: Thanks for the heads up about Miss Scarlet. I had no idea! Also, Bad Sisters was AMAZING and I too really enjoyed Welcome to Wrexham despite not caring for sports in the least.

>204 curioussquared:, >205 MickyFine: Ok, ok! Sheertex tights ordered. I'm back to my usual We Love Colors today, in sky blue to go with a black dress with light blue jellyfish on it.

>206 leahbird: The bee kit is local!! Rikrack from Richmond, on Etsy or rikrack.com. I highly recommend it, great quality kit. You can see in the photo that the edges of the fabric are pinked and the design is very well centered; such great attention to detail.

Last week I had online zoo training for a special event happening this Friday, which looks like it's going to be very intense. I was supposed to have an online introductory meeting to the community activism group I've joined, but the host never showed up.

Thursday I went to the theater to see Holiday, which was okay but not great. The sets and acting and costumes were fantastic but the story is a bit blah. The theater I have a subscription to is no longer requiring proof of vaccination, which is disappointing, but is still requiring masks.

Saturday I was supposed to baby-sit but it was canceled. Sunday I had my first real non-training shift back at the zoo. I worked mainly with the Asian animals that I am used to, but I did stay late to attend a keeper talk about ostriches so I can learn the kind of questions visitors ask about them.

Today I'm in the office again. Thursday I have therapy. Friday is the big zoo event. The big library book sale is this weekend, which I haven't been to since before COVID, and I might check it out. No plans for Halloween. My mom was supposed to come visit next week but might postpone because she's come down with the awful cold/sinus infection that's going around. I'm not working as an election worker anymore, because last fall was so stressful.

Currently crafting:
Only a little stitching done this week. I've been trying to be easy on myself because I have plenty of time before Christmas, but I really do need to get this done so I can work on other things.

Currently reading:
I need to listen to The Tiger's Wife before Nov 5th but it's only 11 hours so it should be no problem. Nothing is happening in Dracula Daily, because 19th century travel is sooo slowwww.

Currently playing:
I downloaded Cult of the Lamb for Switch but I haven't started yet. Did I mention that my mom got my brother a Nintendo Switch for his birthday? After years of hating on my Switch and decades of hating on video games, I took my Switch to her house last Thanksgiving and made her play Untitled Goose Game and Katamari Damacy and she loved it so bought one for my brother. He's being holier-than-thou about it and says that it's only for multiplayer party games but my sister-in-law says he plays a lot of Fallout by himself. Maybe he'll be tempted by Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.

Currently watching:
The Taskmaster rewatch is about to start series 13! Almost finished! I've also been keeping up with series 14 through methods, what a wild ride. While I'm "traveling to the UK" I've also been watching series 4 of BBC's Ghosts. It's perfect as usual but too short. And the twist in episode 4 was so unexpected!
Sunday I watched the latest Doctor Who special. I've loved Jodie as The Doctor but thought some of the writing during her seasons has been lacking. I'm sorry to see her go. Also kind of annoyed to see David Tennant, words I never thought I would say. Of course he's popular but can't we just let new actors have their time in the spotlight?
I'm a week or so behind on most shows at the moment but am enjoying Atlanta (I honestly really loved season 3 but it's nice that the final season is going back to wrap up the storylines started at the very beginning), Welcome to Flatch (Jaime Pressly is a fine addition to the cast but I think she's stealing focus from the other characters), and Abbott Elementary. I watched the first episode of The Watcher and hated it. Also watching season 2 of Big Shot, a perfectly adequate Disney+ show where John Stamos coaches a high school girls' basketball team. The second season was unceremoniously dumped all at once without any publicity, probably because it has lesbians in it.

>208 norabelle414: I am SO BEHIND on Doctor Who. I haven't watched any of Jodie's episodes (because I cut cable and keeping up with Who got trickier) but am trying to catch up before next year's 60th anniversary. Disney+ just announced they're getting Doctor Who next spring, although I'm not sure if it's classic or new Who (or everything).

I was scrolling through CBC Gem yesterday and was delighted at the number of BBC productions that are available in the app, including Ghosts. So you could "travel to Canada" as an alternative.

>209 MickyFine: As far as I can tell, Disney+ is only getting new episodes going forward, not the back catalog. Seasons 1-13 are on HBO Max here (for how long? who knows)(maybe I need to do a full rewatch)(oh no)

>210 norabelle414: Ah well, that'll be nice for watching the new stuff as it's released. I own seasons 1-10 on disc so I'm covered for rewatching there. Stuff on HBOMax in the US is typically on Crave up here (and DW is on there, I just checked). Mr. Fine and I keep toying with adding Crave to our repertoire but I'll probably just purchase the Jodie seasons on disc as well.

Looks like you have an eventful week ahead! Good luck!

>207 norabelle414: Your outfit sounds cute! That's honestly one of the only things I miss about working in an office :) Whenever I try to wear a dress at home it is invariably covered in dog hair and some dog slobber for good measure by the end of the day.

I'm around just very busy this week! Hopefully I can write an update on Sunday.

Glad to hear you're kicking around here somewhere. :)

Happy weekend Norai!

PS, I just asked Micky how your thing at the zoo went, I'm not sure why. I know perfectly well that it's you who works at the zoo.

>217 The_Hibernator: I didn't see anything :-)

The zoo event on the 28th went very smoothly. I walked almost 8 miles in 5 hours. Because I was new to this supervisor role I was paired with an experienced supervisor who ended up being a volunteer I knew well before the pandemic who had moved away and come back just for this event. It was so nice to see him again! I think I would have been bored walking around all day with no one to talk to.

On the 29th a friend and I went to a new seafood restaurant that carries only sustainably-caught and invasive fish. We had heard we could get Snakehead, which is highly invasive in the DC area, and which has a new exhibit at the zoo. They didn't have any snakehead the night we were there but we will be back because it was great.
Last Monday I was told by my therapist of 2 and a half months that she did not think she could help me. She said she would help me find someone better suited but that was a week ago and I haven't heard anything, so I'm back at square one.

I went to the theater to see Sanctuary City, a play about two teenage immigrants, one of whom is in the country illegally, in New York in 2001-2006. It was fine but not really clear why its relevant now (and why it's called "sanctuary city" since that is a term that has only recently been common knowledge and isn't particularly relevant to the plot).

My mom came to visit over the weekend to see the baby and she and I went to see The Banshees of Inisherin. Not my thing.

I finished reading The Tiger's Wife (fine but not great) for zoo book club and had a good discussion though there were only 3 of us. I keep hearing second-hand information that people really love the book club selections, and 15 people voted for next year's books, but they don't come to the meetings. Not sure what I can do about it. Here's the book club picks for next year:
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
Bird Brother: A Falconer's Journey and the Healing Power of Wildlife by Rodney Stotts and Kate Pipkin
Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms by Eugenia Bone
The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal by Vicki Constantine Croke
I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Today I voted! I still have a lot of feelings about not working as a pollworker anymore but then I remember how stressed out I already am and imagine also having to leave the house at 4:15am....no thanks.

Tomorrow Verizon is coming to uninstall my cable tv which is going to save me a lot of money (which I will then spend on streaming services). Thursday I'm babysitting. Friday is a holiday so I'm working at the zoo, then Saturday is more babysitting.

Currently crafting:
I put my embroidery away while my mom was in town, since it was a gift for her, but knit a couple toddler hats at the request of my sister-in-law since the baby has a big head.

Currently reading:
Technically Dracula Daily ended yesterday, but I've still got about 12 pages left.

Currently playing:
Nothing. I'd like to go back to some pokemon games for a bit before Violet/Scarlet comes out next week.

Currently watching:
The same stuff! I'm a little bit behind on everything.

I wrote a few more reviews of books I read in late 2021/early 2022. I'm going to catch up, dammit!!



2021
13. Grimspace (Audiobook) by Ann Aguirre, narrated by Suzanna Duff

Sirantha Jax has a genetic mutation which makes her one of the few people who can navigate through deep space, called grimspace, which means she’s an in-demand spaceship navigator. Her spaceship crashes and she loses her memory, which means she has to meet all of her crewmates again, and is blamed for the crash but can’t defend herself. Then there’s some conspiracy stuff.

Not a good space opera; not a good romance. Too complicated but not interesting enough to keep my attention, even in audio. It’s dated down to the minute - space of the future has marriage for straight couples but state-recognized civil unions for gay couples - slutshame-y, and includes a few instances of the ableist r-slur. The romance was not particularly compelling and felt shoehorned in. The most enjoyable parts were when Jax was re-meeting her crewmates that she already loved, but I can read Becky Chambers for that. The audiobook narrator was fine.

Rating: ❤ ❤ (2/5)



2021
14. The Overstory by Richard Powers

(read partly as an audiobook narrated by Suzanne Toren)

A series of backstories about trees, and the people who care about them and are affected by them, that gradually get larger and then come together like roots into a trunk. The characters are drawn together to save some trees marked for destruction, take shocking action, and then go their separate ways.

The first chapter of this book is absolutely spectacular. The imagery of the giant American chestnut trees all up and down the east coast and then watching their devastating demise is something I still think of frequently. The characters are very interesting at the start, I loved all of their backstories, particularly the single-minded tree botanist, based on real-life Dr. Suzanne Simard. However, once the stories start to merge together, they get more tropey and it seems the author doesn’t know what to do with them. There’s a bit of ableism and more than a bit of I-dont-know-how-to-write-women. The eventual climax of individuals-vs-evil-corporation is so very 90s - there’s little mention in the book of any role government could play in protecting trees or preventing environmental destruction. The language is very philosophical but lack of connection to the narrative makes it forgettable. Seems the book was too ambitious. But then, I still think about the chestnut trees.

Opinion

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



2021
15. Pumpkinheads written by Rainbow Rowell and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks

Josiah and Deja are best work-friends every year at the pumpkin patch and fall festival. They’re graduating next year so this might be their last season together! Deja comes up with a plan to spend their last night tracking down the cute girl Josiah has had his eye on all season. Hijinks!

Extremely cute! A fun seasonal read! I loved the art!

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



2022
1. All Creatures Great and Small (Audiobook) by James Herriot

(partly read as an audiobook narrated by Christopher Timothy)

Vignettes in the life of a veterinarian in the 1940s English countryside.

A reread for me, and as lovely as ever. Sweet and easy writing, funny stories, and interesting characters. Should I reread further in the series? Maybe.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

The zoo event sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm glad you were able to catch up with an old friend! I think about volunteering at the polls and then I hear from folks how long and stressful it is and think... maybe not yet. One of my co-workers does it every year, and she always takes the Tuesday and Wednesday off to recover from the long day.

Re: The Overstory, I agree with a lot of your thoughts. It was a mixed bag for me, for all that parts were very memorable. My book club voted to read it in 2023 so I'm gonna have to find a way to reread it (or skim it... or maybe listen to it while I'm knitting, though that would be l-o-n-g).

Sorry your zoo book club isn't getting more involvement! I often get a few more votes than regulars, but it's more like 6 to 4. Fifteen to 3 is tough.

I have the same problem with my book discussion group. There are the lurkers (the majority of the people on the e-mail list) who tell me to keep them on the list, but don't come to the meetings. We meet on Zoom since it started out as a group made up of my sisters, a cousins, and one friend. We all live in different states, so Zoom was the way to go. During the lockdown, and the aftermath, we had as many as 10 people in, but attendance has gradually dropped off. Last month there were only 3 of us. I think part of our problem was the last couple of book titles haven't been that catchy. We meet on Sunday and are reading "The Library Book," which has been quite popular. I hope we have more people because the discussion is better with more people in it.

Glad to hear the zoo event was good.

Your review reminds me that I really need to get around to watching the new All Creatures. I grew up watching the series from the 70s on VHS and DVD from the library with my mom and I want to see how the new version holds up.

Glad your zoo event went well!

>223 MickyFine: I never watched the original series so don't have a comparison, but I can highly recommend the new All Creatures.

>221 bell7: Working at the polls is technically not volunteering! I got paid $175 per election (about $11.50 per hour). How stressful it is can really vary, I found it stressful partly because my precinct was very small and so there was a lot of time standing around watching one or two people vote while not actually having anything to do. The days are so early and so long, though. I can get up at 3:45am to be somewhere before 5 every once in awhile if I need to, but its hard to do that AND stay awake and friendly for the rest of the day.
I did listen to part of The Overstory as audio, I would recommend that for a re-read. You can turn it up to 1.5x speed!

>222 benitastrnad: I do worry that some people aren't showing up because they haven't finished the book so I do try to mention in my emails that you don't have to finish the book to attend or participate in the meetings. For The Tiger's Wife I was actually the only person out of the 3 of us who had finished the whole thing! These days I often don't finish the books in time if I'm not listening to the audio, but I still have a good discussion.

>223 MickyFine: The new All Creatures Great and Small is SO CUTE. Very soothing and cozy. You should definitely watch! Series 3 starts in the US in January but it's probably already out on DVD.

>224 curioussquared: Thanks!

Not much going on here. I baby-sat on Thursday. Friday was a holiday so I volunteered at the zoo. I found a volunteer who was experienced with interpreting the elephants and I asked if I could shadow her, so now I feel much more comfortable interpreting elephants. And I was able to give her a little tour around Asia Trail as well.

I talked to a volunteer who has confirmed that she would attend the zoo book club meetings if they were held on a different day, so next year I'm going to start having 2 meetings per book, one on Saturday and one on Wednesday.

Saturday was more baby-sitting. Sunday was all crafting and catching up on TV! Yesterday I finished my poster which I'll be presenting at my annual work conference this year. I'm pretty proud of it. Today I'm in the office as usual but the in-person meeting I was supposed to have got moved to Thursday and will now be online.

Friday I'm going to see Chicago! I've seen the movie many times but never a stage production. No plans for this weekend but I might go to the holiday market downtown.

Currently crafting (I'll post some pictures when I'm home):
I finished embroidering the big throw pillow case I've been working on for my mom! I washed it and it looks great. I think it needs to be ironed before I give it to her, but plenty of time for that (I hate getting the iron out).
Now I'm working on a little coin purse for my dad's girlfriend. I finished the small amount of embroidery quickly and now it's all SEWING to assemble which I hate. I got most of it done but was really struggling to attach the metal mouth(?) part of the purse. I did some googling and found out that I needed to BASTE it, which, duh, of course. This is what happens when you hate sewing and so refuse to learn about it properly.
I had previously bought for my mom's husband a kit to make your own bookshelf insert, which you put on your bookshelf between your books and it looks like a little hidden alleyway or interior of a library or whatever with little LED lights. But then I talked to my mom about it and she said he doesn't really like doing crafts or kits so I decided I would assemble it myself and give it to him fully assembled. So I did that most of the day on Sunday and I had THE BEST TIME. It was so much fun! It came out really well! I want to do a million more!!!!

Currently reading:
I finished Dracula! For the first time in my life! I've had my copy since ... I'm not sure when because it was before I got on LibraryThing! Stay tuned for 6-8 months from now when I finally get around to writing a review (it was fine but not great)
Not sure what I'm going to read now...hmmm.....

Currently playing:
Nothing this week but only 3 more days until the new pokemon comes out!

Currently watching:
As I have kissed goodbye to my cable TV service I also have to say goodbye to a few TV shows I had been watching but now can't watch without an additional streaming service subscription, from CBS (So Help Me Todd, the US version of Ghosts), AMC/BBC America (Interview with the Vampire, Mood) and Syfy (Reginald the Vampire...I don't think there's even a streaming service for Syfy?).
Otherwise I have been watching the usual plus the new seasons of The White Lotus, Young Rock, and The Crown (I'm watching slowly along with the podcast). While babysitting I watch stuff on my brother's Amazon account including the whole season of A League of Their Own, which I enjoyed but found repetitive toward the end. I watched the series finale of Atlanta, which was just fine, but overall what a great show that was.

Currently listening to:
I realized most of my critical thinking these days is directed at podcasts, so I should mention that I love listening to Maintenance Phase, Ologies, Witch Please, The War on Cars, The Worst Bestsellers, You're Wrong About, 99% Invisible, Overdue, Extra Hot Great, If Books Could Kill, and of course Taskmaster: The Podcast.

Aww! Chicago was my first ever Broadway Across Canada show that I saw. I hope you have a great time!

What was the bookshelf insert you built? Tiny library?

Crafting pictures, as promised:


The completed (sewed!!) coin purse, for my dad's girlfriend.


Inside of the coin purse. One side of the lining ended up inside-out but don't think it's that noticeable.


Part of the way through assembling the bookshelf insert. That's a lot of wires and I had to join them together and stuff but I did not electrocute myself!


Completed bookshelf insert.

Well, the poster I was so proud of got completely revised by my boss, and now I'm not so proud of it. It's fine but it just doesn't feel like mine anymore. Ah well, I still have my draft version and maybe I can re-work it for next year's conference.

Chicago was great! Though this was not at my usual theater and this theater did not require masks, which I was not expecting. It was very full and probably less than 10% of the audience were wearing masks. Overall it was fine but I was glad I didn't have any indoor plans for several days afterward. I was thinking of getting more tickets to this theater as they have a great season this year, but now I probably won't.

I haven't done anything else - no books, no tv, no crafting - because I have just been playing Pokemon Violet non-stop. What is it about these games that scratches my itch?? I don't know. This particular entry has some graphics problems but that doesn't bother me too much because my standards are very low. I'm having a great time, and the pokemon are SO CUTE.

>228 norabelle414: Those both look great!

Sorry to hear about the poster revisions. Do/did you have to travel for the conference or is it local?

Glad you had a good time at Chicago. It was first ever Broadway Across Canada show I saw (up in the nosebleed section with my Mom). Even up there it was a good time.

>230 MickyFine: Thanks! I need to add some pics of the throw pillow case too, when I get home. I realized I forgot to answer your question last week - I made the "Magic House" kit which I bought here (but I think is available elsewhere too): https://www.uncommongoods.com/product/storybook-diy-kit#571380000002

The conference was originally going to be hybrid, and I would have been attending virtually, but was planned to be held in a state which enacted VERY strict anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation over the summer that went against the ethical policies of the organization and so the conference was moved fully online. Not sure where they'll be having it next year, I'd bet the most likely candidate is Boston since that's where their headquarters is.

>229 norabelle414: Oooh I would use that purse with pride; well done!

I'm still waiting before I make a move on Violet or Scarlet; wanna see if there's any patches to the game. That said, the starters looked pretty fantastic!

>229 norabelle414: >232 Ravenwoodwitch: I was also waiting to see if they deployed any patches for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, but you're making me want to get it sooner rather than later!

>231 norabelle414: Super cute!

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Nora.

Happy post-Thanksgiving! I'm now solidly in panic mode, buying everything in sight to try to find the perfect gift for each family member. Made a huge jetpens.com (my favorite pen store) order yesterday and today I'm ordering books from Politics & Prose. My mom and her husband are coming down to have "Christmas" on December 10, which is great for traffic and planning reasons but means I have to have their presents ready way earlier. After they're gone then I can panic about presents for my dad, and then gift exchange with my friends will be in mid-January.

Thanksgiving Day I volunteered at the zoo and it was lovely. I talked to lots of visitors, especially a lot of foreign tourists. I successfully interpreted the elephants without embarrassing myself too badly. I was mostly worried about being able to tell which elephant is which and I did do that but I need to work on my general elephant facts a little more.
Friday I had Thanksgiving dinner at my brother's house with our dad and our cousins and their kids. It was a nice time but watching an 11-month-old, a 3-year-old, and a 6-year-old all at the same time in a tiny living room was A Lot. We went to the playground for a bit (3 kids and 5 adults) until the 3yo walked too close to the swings and got hit. Kids are hard!
Saturday I went to the downtown Christmas market and then had dinner with some friends.

This coming Saturday my uncle and aunt are in town and we're going to the Air and Space Museum.

Currently crafting:
I have a few things going, many of which need to be finished before my mom gets here! But I can't decide what I want to work on next.

Currently reading:
Our first book club book for 2023 is Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach, so I've checked a copy out from the library and it is, as expected from a Roach book, hilarious and delightful.

Currently playing:
I let myself really lean into Pokemon Violet for the last week and a half, instead of trying to moderate and force myself to do other things as well, in hopes that I would burn out a bit and it seems to have worked. I completed the three sets of goals comprising the main storyline and started two of the post-game quests, and now I feel like I can be more moderate and do other activities.

Currently watching:
Despite not watching tv for a whole week and a half, I am mostly caught up now because everything was off for the Thanksgiving holiday (except Taskmaster, of course). I finished Miss Scarlet and the Duke season 2 (which was just renewed for season 4!), Annika, and Magpie Murders, all great. Caught up on Welcome to Flatch, Young Rock, The White Lotus, Abbott Elementary, Big Sky, Stargirl, and Kung Fu. Still behind on The Crown, Mythic Quest, Fleishman Is in Trouble, Wednesday, Dead to Me, and Welcome to Chippendale's but I should be caught up in no time during the holiday TV lull.

>232 Ravenwoodwitch:, >234 MickyFine: Thanks!!

>232 Ravenwoodwitch:, >233 curioussquared: There is a patch that got pushed before the game officially came out, so you'll need to download it if you have a hardcopy of the game but not if you have a digital copy. However, I really think the thing that is really going to matter is how high your standards are. The game is very playable but sometimes it just looks a little janky.

If either of you decide you want to play I'm happy to share pokemon! I picked Fuecoco (the fire alligator) as my starter and am trying to bank up a bunch of eggs for sharing even though the egg/breeding mechanism in this game is so weird and annoying.

>235 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

Good luck with all the prep for your various celebrations this month. I'm 95% done Christmas shopping so now it's just the prepping of our house as we're hosting the family gathering this year. Mr. Fine does the majority of the cooking (and our family divides up all the dishes so it's not a heavy load on any one person) so I don't have to worry about that stress. It's just getting everything tidy-ish and also kiddo friendly for the niblings.

Well, my brother and my niece tested positive for COVID on Tuesday and my sister-in-law tested positive for COVID on Friday so we did not end up going to the Air & Space Museum this weekend. Then, my mom's husband's father passed away yesterday. He had not been doing well for awhile, but there are still a lot of arrangements to be made so my mom and her husband will not be coming down to visit us next weekend. Hopefully they can make it in a few more weeks, maybe after Christmas.

Feel a lot less stressed out, since I no longer have to have half of my Christmas presents finished/acquired and wrapped by next weekend, but very unmoored.

>239 norabelle414: Sorry to hear about all the changes to your plans and hoping your brother and his family all have very mild cases of COVID. Also condolences to your mom's husband.

>239 norabelle414: Ooof, sorry to hear all that, Nora, and like Micky, I hope your brother and the rest of the family get it only mildly.

Sorry to hear the bad news, Nora.

More crafting pics:


Completed throw pillow case for my mom (before washing)


A small embroidery piece


Small embroidery piece inserted into a compact mirror for my sister-in-law. I made a mess with the glue in the lower corner but I don't think it's too noticeable?


My niece wearing the blanket I knit her, a matching hat I knit her, and pink mittens I knit her

>240 MickyFine:, >241 bell7:, >242 curioussquared: Thanks Micky, Mary, and Natalie! Everyone is doing ok.

Your embroidery work is beautiful! I'm always so intimidated by embroidery because it's so much more free form than cross-stitch but I do love the results.

And the knitted things for your niece are gorgeous too.

Nothing going on here now since all my plans have been cancelled. I'm babysitting my niece this coming Saturday since my mom was supposed to be here to do it but now is not. Next week is my (virtual) conference. I just found out that next year's conference (December 2023) is going to be in ..... DC. Hopefully its in DC proper or somewhere metro-accessible and not at the casino in Maryland like it was in 2011. That's still so boring, though.
On the 17th I'm supposed to see They Might Be Giants in concert, for which I bought tickets in November 2019. I'm not getting my hopes up, though, since this concert has already been postponed SIX TIMES.

Currently crafting:
Embroidering a handkerchief for my dad. This is another kit from the same brand as the throw pillow case, coin purse, and compact mirror, but this one for some reason did not include any directions. So after I'm done embroidering the flowers onto it (thankfully its only got a few kinds of stitches, nothing new to me) I have to figure out how to finish the edges. Also working on a new bigger hat for my niece (she's outgrowing them very fast!!) and somewhere around here I have a half-finished pair of socks for my mom that I need to work on.

Currently reading:
I have been reading Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law from the library but now I've bought my own copy so I'll return the library's. I was going to go today but it's raining and I'm very lazy.

Currently playing:
I've gotten very into a browser text-based adventure game called Fallen London (https://www.fallenlondon.com). I don't think it's anything new but I just heard about it and am enjoying myself. I don't really know what is going on because I'm too impatient to comprehend what I'm reading, but the aesthetic is fun.

Currently watching:
I'm all caught up on every TV show I've already started! Finished series 14 of Taskmaster (what am I going to do with no Taskmaster to watch until the New Year Treat??), The Crown, and Big Shot. Caught up on Mythic Quest, Fleishman is in Trouble, Family Law, and The White Lotus. Started Welcome to Chippendale's, Willow, Slow Horses season 2, and The Horne Section (a scripted comedy written by and starring Alex Horne from Taskmaster). Next up are Wednesday, Dead to Me season 3, 1899, Barbarians season 2, and a bunch of other things.

Thoughts on The Crown season 5: I thought this season was rather boring and I couldn't put my finger on why for awhile. I think that because the events are so recent the show assumes that the viewer already knows them and doesn't bother dramatizing or explaining. I already knew some of the things that happened in earlier seasons but I still enjoyed watching them be reenacted or seeing them from a different angle, that's the whole reason I watch the show. Episode 4 in particular, Annus Horribilis, seemed to be mostly about the Queen deciding if she should discuss the bad things that happened that year in her speech, but I don't really know what happened that year except the fire at Windsor castle? Also some people have been complaining that Dominic West is too attractive to play Prince Charles but the real problem is that he's too confident.

>245 MickyFine: Thank you! It was a hard transition but I started with just lines on a few pieces I didn't care about. A lot of practice has made me much more comfortable, but everything I do is pre-printed. I don't think I could ever manage anything totally free-hand! I shudder at the thought.

Ey, now, Delicious Friend, did someone say Fallen London? I may have to revive my thief in that one; we could make acquaintances in game and help each other :)

I am sorry about all the bad news; It's even harder when it seems to hit all at once. My best wishes to you and your family while you grieve.

If you do like the writing in Fallen London (and have an itch for horror) they do a horror-fiction podcast called The Magnus Archives. I can tell you more if you need it/are curious. Have a great day all the same!

>246 norabelle414: Crossing my fingers that your concert actually happens. And I hope you enjoy all the baby snuggles with your niece this weekend!

>248 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! Fallen London kept me entertained for a few days but less so now. I have heard of The Magnus Archives but I didn't know they were related!

>249 MickyFine: Thanks Micky! It's good news all around!

Sorry for the lack of posts here! I'm just so out of practice posting while at home, and the crazy set-up I have to make room for my work stuff on my desk puts my personal computer in a position that is really uncomfortable to type more than a sentence or two.

On the 8th I was supposed to attend a virtual meeting of a local community activism group, but the start of the meeting was to break out into smaller groups and get to know each other and that really freaked me out so I left. I was hoping I could just observe for the first few meetings until I felt more comfortable, but they are really into participation. Which is the whole point of the group! But my anxiety got the better of me. On a related note, I have not gotten my shit together to find a new therapist yet.

I baby-sat my niece on the 10th, it went fine. She was a little fussy (by the standards of a very not-fussy baby) but the best way to get her to not be fussy is .... to read her books. What a sacrifice I have to make! We read How the Grinch Stole Christmas, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas (my favorite Christmas song), B is for Badger: A Wisconsin Alphabet, Goodnight Moon, The Little Puffling (my mom got her this one from Iceland but I think it's going to go out of rotation as soon as she's more self-aware because there is a lot of weird casual death talk in it), Madeline, and Nerdy Babies Space. She doesn't try to rip the pages or chew on anything anymore so I can really read her anything with pictures that I want. (Though she likes books that rhyme best.)

Monday to Thursday last week was my conference, it went fine. Uneventful. No one had any questions about my poster. On Friday we had an in-person work luncheon, which was nice.

Saturday afternoon was my niece's birthday party. The earlier part of the event was supposed to be all family - me, my dad and his girlfriend, my sister-in-law's mom, dad, brother, sister, their spouses, and 3 niblings. However, absolutely everyone on the other side of the family has COVID and my dad's girlfriend is having back problems, so it ended up being just me and my dad. It was nice! I got her some bottles of bubbles, and D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. Maybe too old for her at the moment, but when she's ready it will be there for her. All of my brother's friends arrived later in the day and I left to FINALLY GO TO MY CONCERT! It actually happened! It was great. Very fun. Masks were not required but the band requested them and the vast majority of people were wearing them and it made me feel so safe and comfortable. I had such a good time. I'm not usually one to buy merch but they had a tour t-shirt that said "2020" crossed out, then "2021" crossed out, then "2022-2023?" and it was too cute to resist.

This week is low-key. I still don't know when my mom is coming to visit, and I'm not sure if I'm having Christmas dinner with my dad and brother on the 25th or the 26th.

Currently crafting:
Very behind on my dad's handkerchief. I've finished the decoration but still haven't figured out how to stitch the edges. Most instructions online seem to be for a sewing machine. The hand-sewing directions I can find say to iron the edges first to ensure a straight seam but my fabric has seam lines printed on it and 1) I'm worried the lines will disappear if I iron them and 2) the lines will ensure the seam is straight. So I think I can just pin and sew and then iron when I'm done? I don't have any pins (I'm not a sewist! sewer?) but I can baste.

Currently reading:
Still reading Fuzz. I don't need to finish before January 4 but I'd like to put it on this year's list.

Currently playing:
Have not let myself play video games much since I really need to be finishing embroidery and wrapping presents.

Currently watching:
I'm up to date on everything that airs weekly, obviously, since everything is on hiatus now. Caught up on SNL, Slow Horses, His Dark Materials season 3, Welcome to Chippendales, Willow, Fleishman is in Trouble, Abbott Elementary, Big Sky, Welcome to Flatch, Mythic Quest, Young Rock, and South Side. Finished The White Lotus season 2, Family Law, The Horne Section, and the series finale of Stargirl, RIP. Watched all of Wednesday, 1899 (I did not understand it though), and Dead to Me season 3 (series finale). I needed a new Amazon show to watch while babysitting (my brother has Amazon but I do not) so I started Carnival Row. Not sure what I'll watch next. I have a lot of Halloween stuff on my list but I might skip it and watch Christmas stuff in actual December!? I've been wanting to rewatch previous Christmas faves Home for Christmas (Norway) and Over Christmas (Germany), and Netflix has a new similar looking show A Storm for Christmas, about a bunch of strangers who get snowed in at Oslo airport on Christmas, and an Italian remake of Home for Christmas called I Hate Christmas.

Thoughts on The White Lotus season 2: I ended up liking this season more than the first, I think. The first season was about money, privilege, and colonialism, I think, and how even well-meaning rich people are still terrible, because they will do anything to preserve their privilege. This season didn't pretend that any rich person is potentially not terrible, but I really liked the ambiguity of it all. We don't know what really happened between Harper and Cameron or Ethan and Daphne, or whether Lucia actually liked Albie at all. I also loved that we had real protagonists to root for this season in Lucia and Mia. I did not like the whole "Greg and Quentin are friends from long ago and are conspiring together" plot (though there's a little ambiguity there too) but Tanya's death was so spectacular that I don't care. What a chaotic, clumsy icon.

I'm sorry about what happened at the meeting. I get anxious with stuff like that myself; when introducing myself to a group, in person, I get the worst cotton mouth and just wanna dart out of the room.

Glad the concert finally happened, too. I think a lot of people are feeling the same sting from stuff like that and it's good these guys have a good sense of humor about it.

>251 norabelle414: I had that happen at the end of a conference once -- I went into the meeting and they were putting up papers on the wall with questions/issues, and I knew that the first thing we were going to have to do was split into small groups and solve the world's problems, and I just could not. So I left!

Yay for the concert finally happening and I love that t-shirt idea!

Much like other commenters, I also have avoided situations that required splitting into small discussion groups at conferences. Even things like networking events often find me turning back around again. I find it's a bit better if I have a buddy who I know so it's not as intimidating to face a group of strangers.

Yay for finally getting to see your concert!

Whatever your holiday celebrations look like, I hope they're lovely.

How was Carnival Row? I started watching that, but decided that it was a little too much for the kids, and I'm watching Supernatural and then Game of Thrones with Aaron, so I'm booked there for a while. I rarely watch alone.

>252 Ravenwoodwitch: I think they do have a good sense of humor about it, and I'm glad they're getting back into the swing of things. I feel pretty bad for the venue, too, who have had to cancel the show so many times. And they've changed ticketing systems twice since I bought the tickets so they wouldn't even work with their scanner.

>253 foggidawn: Thanks for the solidarity, Foggi! It's both good and bad that leaving a virtual meeting is so easy. I'll try again next month.

>254 curioussquared: Me too!!

>255 MickyFine: I'm usually fine if I am either in a new situation with a few people I already know, or a familiar situation with new people.

>256 The_Hibernator: Carnival Row is fine, it is very graphic so I would not recommend watching it with kids. I'm not sure I would recommend it amongst all of the streaming offerings there are, but I needed something I could watch an episode of every few weeks while babysitting and not worry about missing it when I'm not babysitting. Just something average. If you're looking for some fantasy to watch with the kids I would recommend Wednesday (which I just finished watching and was very good, spooky but not too graphic), Once Upon a Time, Legacies (technically a spin-off of The Vampire Diaries but it stands on its own), or His Dark Materials

Happy Tuesday!

Last week I did some last-minute babysitting on Wednesday. My niece was fussy (ish) again, I'm not sure if it's because she wants her parents, or I'm not providing the right kind of stimulation, or she's always that fussy right before bed. Its so hard when they don't know themselves what they want. I started reading a few books but she was not in the mood for anything that didn't rhyme. So we read/sang I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, 8 Little Planets, and Horns to Toes and In Between.

All of my brother's other Christmas plans fell through, and he was really invested in our usual tradition of having whole lobsters on Christmas Eve, and who am I to argue with that?? So we moved our dinner with our dad from the 26th to the 24th. In the morning on the 24th I made cookies (gluten-free almond flour shortbread with dried cranberries), roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash with bacon and cranberries, and sugared cranberries (my favorite holiday treat, just fresh cranberries covered in sugar syrup and granulated sugar - so easy and they taste like candy). Dinner went pretty smoothly, aside from some drama with my dad and his girlfriend. It's a lot to get into here, although I probably will at some point because I will need advice. Here's the gist, behind spoiler tags, feel free to skip over it! During the pandemic my dad started dating a woman he was acquainted with. At the time she was living in a friend's spare room. My dad's neighbor needed a long-term house-sitter and so she was living there for about 10 months, but the homeowners came back and so she moved into my dad's spare room. She is, technically, homeless. She doesn't have any money or any way to make money. She and my dad have been fighting, mostly over home stuff, and it does not really seem like they want to be together anymore, nor does it seem like my dad wants her living there, but she does not have anywhere to go and he does not want to put her out on the street. She has been reporting some concerning issues, like dad missing many meetings because he is late or goes to the wrong place, but she tries to talk to us at the most awkward times, like when our dad is in the bathroom, which makes sense if she does not have any space away from him. Complicating things is the fact that she very badly needs back surgery in the next month or so (she technically was supposed to have the surgery last month but moved it for some reason or another) which will involve a long recovery of bed rest. Some of this is on me, because the first thing that slips when my mental health goes downhill is checking up on other people to make sure they're okay. I'm coming up with a plan to do better.

For Christmas my sister-in-law got me a beautiful handmade ramen bowl with matching chopsticks, and a journal with a rag-rug cover. My brother got me very cute purple clay flower earrings, a framed picture of my niece, and a very cool wooden puzzlebox. My dog nephew got his "cousin" Rory some plaid cat toys with ribbons on them, and he went nuts for them. My dad got me an IOU for a copy of our family crest which is currently at the frame shop, and his girlfriend got me glass earrings with real flowers in them, from the Botanic Garden. I got everyone a selection of small notebooks, sticky notes, and pens from jetpens.com, my stationary obsession. There was also a box of bed rest activities (coloring books, playing cards, etc.) and the coin purse from >228 norabelle414: for my dad's girlfriend, two pounds of real Carolina stone-ground grits for my sister-in-law, a fancy-looking book of NYT crossword puzzles for my brother (who is trying to spend less time on his phone), and a bottle of local apple liqueur and a hand-embroidered handkerchief for my dad (pics coming soon). I got my niece the book Lift, Pull, Slide, Find ABC, and a bucket of plastic cows with colors and numbers on them that are the perfect size for her to pick up. I saved a few presents for my brother, sister-in-law, and niece for January when my mom is here.

The rest of the weekend was hard, I had a real mental health crash. I ended up deleting a bunch of games from my phone (sometimes I'm the kind of person who can play a phone game for half an hour and then do something else, but not always) and went to bed at a decent hour last night so hopefully I can pull out of it.

Tomorrow I'm getting my 3rd HPV vaccine shot, then nothing going on for the rest of the week.

Currently crafting:
Finished my dad's handkerchief right on time. Hand-sewing the hems was not as bad as I thought it would be, though the side closest to the embroidery was fraying pretty badly. Now working on a pair of socks for my mom which I started long ago. I might finish them before she comes to visit! I hope so.

Currently reading:
Half way through Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. I'm also going to put all of the books I've read to my niece onto this year's list. You can't stop me!

Currently playing:
I played a little Timberborn, which is like SimCity except you're a beaver. Cute!

Currently watching:
Not much. Up-to-date on Willow, Fleishman Is in Trouble (is anyone watching this or read the book? I'd be interested to talk about it), Welcome to Chippendales, His Dark Materials, Slow Horses, Mythic Quest, and South Side. Watched the Call the Midwife Christmas special. I watched the first episode of season 2 of Little America, but found it too sappy for the mood I was in. Watched the first episode of Shantaram and didn't care for it much, but the book is highly acclaimed so maybe I'll keep going. I watched all of A Storm for Christmas, for which my expectations were sky-high, and found it good but a little shallow. Six half-hour episodes is fine for a show about one person but too short for an ensemble. Still recommended, though. Next up is Emily in Paris, season 3, The Witcher: Blood Origin, and BBC Ghosts' Christmas Special.

I joined a new Patreon for a new podcast and was added to the Discord server for patrons and .... Naomi Alderman is in there. Just talking with me about podcasts and books. The internet is a wild place.

The situation with your dad and his girlfriend sounds stressful. I hope it gets better!

>259 norabelle414: That is so cool!

A few more reviews! Trying not to start next year TOO far behind.



2022
2. The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson

In 2009 an unassuming 20-year-old flute player broke into the British Museum of Natural History and stole hundreds of bird specimens. It took the museum months to notice anything was wrong, due to lax inventory practices and ignorance that a bunch of 150-year-old birds would be of interest to anyone outside of their field. Edwin Rist was eventually tracked down, but by that point he only had a few birds left. Why did he do it, and what happened to the rest of the birds?

This is a standard true crime story about a theft but it’s also about the early modern internet. Edwin Rist and the other feather dealers technically conducted all of their business fully out in the open … if you knew where to look. But the museum didn’t know much about forums or ebay, and didn’t know that they needed to know, and so were unaware of the barely-underground market for fishing lure feathers. It’s also about the entitlement of young white men, who think that their “appreciation” of the feathers is more important than public display and preservation. It’s an unsatisfying story, with few real answers and very little justice, but I enjoyed thinking about it nonetheless. I did think the author inserted himself into the narrative a bit too much, though.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



2022
3. Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman

Blair Braverman has always felt drawn to the north and the cold and the snow. As a teenager she lived in Norway and had some bad experiences but she went back, even further north, and made the life that she was looking for.

Content warning for abuse and sexual assault.
I enjoyed Blair’s outlook on life. She sees bad things that happen to her (cold weather survival, getting buried in snow, abuse from an authority figure, sexual assault) as just, things that happened, rather than signs that she is or is not on the right path. They’re not holding her back but they’re not particularly driving her either. I also really enjoy winter/cold, though not as much as she does, and in a world where I feel it’s always expected to love summer and heat Blair is, pun intended, a breath of fresh air.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



2022
4. The Waste Land {poem} (Audiobook) by T. S. Eliot, narrated by Paul Scofield

What the fuck was that. Genuinely do not know what was happening here. It’s a poem I guess. Can’t say I recommend the audiobook.

Needed more cats. I'm only giving it three stars because I assume I would like it more if I cared to look up the references. I didn’t, though.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)

Crafting question: Does anyone have experience putting puff paint (3D paint, dimensional fabric paint, etc.) on the soles of hand-knit socks to make them less slippery? Will it work if the knit is tight enough or not really?

The thing about adding a bunch of kids books to your total at the end of the year is that then you have to review them??? But I did it anyway!!!



5. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, illustrated by Fumi Mini Nakamura

The author is a poet and the book is a prose memoir, which is fine but I find its connection to the animals and plants it talks about tenuous, at best. Gorgeous illustrations though.

Good, but not what I was expecting.
The format of it is kind of:
- Some facts about an organism (e.g. Axolotls are blind),
- Here's a story about my childhood,
- Vague callback to the organism (e.g. In that story I was blind just like an axolotl),
- Repeat

All the connections to plants and animals are very metaphorical, which makes sense for a poet.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



6. Rainbow Rob {board book} by Roger Priddy, illustrated by ??

A penguin named Rob thinks maybe he wants to be a different color, but after meeting animals of all other colors he decides he’s happy just being himself.

Fun to read to my niece because my brother’s name is Rob. A cute story and very vibrant illustrations.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



7. The Whales on the Bus {board book} by Katrina Charman, illustrated by Nick Sharratt

A variety of animals in a variety of assonant vehicles, sung to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”

Not to be “that person” about a kids book but, this is anti-bus propaganda. The cool thing about The Wheels on the Bus is that it’s about the normal, everyday occurrences of riding the bus! There’s no need to change the lyrics unless you find riding the bus completely unrelatable, which my niece won’t if I can help it! (I do actually enjoy this book.)

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



8. The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated by Danusia Stok

Geralt is a Witcher, tortured and experimented on from childhood to bring out magical abilities, and works as a mercenary, disposing of monsters and rescuing kidnapped baby princesses. Shunned by society for doing their dirty work, but also not allowed to make a living any other way, he lives by his own moral code which often causes him to butt heads with the powerful. This is a frame narrative with a collection of vignettes, stories about jobs he has had and adventures he has gone on, many of which will feel familiar to readers of fairy tales. My favorite was the one based on Beauty and the Beast, which is also my favorite episode of the TV show.

You’d expect the book an extremely popular video game is based on would be a little lame but this book absolutely rules. I don’t know why it’s not more popular! The world-building is exquisite and the integration of folklore is so well done. Absolutely read it if you enjoy the video games or the TV show, or if you just like good fantasy.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



9. Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb

(listened partly as audiobook narrated by Will Damron)

A well-researched exploration of the history of human interactions with beavers, from their almost-eradication in the 1700s to current and future efforts to reestablish them in both North America and Europe and the benefits of doing so.

This book is much more about what beavers can do for humans and the environment than about the life or biology of beavers themselves. Which is fine! It takes all kinds of perspectives. I particularly appreciated that the book got into really specific details about current scientists and companies that are working on reintroducing beavers and reducing the negative impacts on humans. It’s great reporting.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



10. Elephants Can’t Fly {board book} by Charlotte Christie, illustrated by Cee Biscoe

A young elephant is tired of hearing that elephants can't do things like sing or jump or fly, so she decides to do them anyway.

I kind of hated this one - of course elephants can "sing" (by many definitions of the word), of course elephants flying is fantasy, but it's the jumping one that really gets me. The book even explains why elephants can't jump - their bones and leg muscles are configured the wrong way and they weigh 12,000lbs - but the book is just like "but the baby elephant tried and did it anyway" as if that's what it takes to defy the laws of space and time? That's like telling a kid they can lick the back of their own head if they just try it. Reviews elsewhere talk about the "positive message" but is this really a positive message? I think it would have been better if the elephant had found a pogo stick or a trampoline or something else to help them jump.

Rating: ❤ ❤ (2/5)



11. Good Night Maine {board book} by Adam Gamble, illustrated by Suwin Chan

It’s like Good Night Moon, but about Maine.

A novelty, but not great. There’s no rhythm and it starts with saying *good morning* to a bunch of things first and then saying good night, which defeats the purpose.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)



12. Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers, illustrated by Marla Frazee

Babies do stuff.

Good drawings! Good rhythm.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



13. Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom {board book} by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault, illustrated by Lois Ehlert

All of the lowercase letters of the alphabet try to climb up a tree but they get stuck and/or fall out so their capital letter parents have to rescue them.

Somehow I missed this one when I was a kid? It’s fun to read. I read the board book version, I’m not sure if it’s different text than the full-size picture book.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



14. The Tiger’s Wife (Audiobook) by Tea Obreht, narrated by Susan Duerden and Robin Sachs

A young doctor in an unnamed Balkan country travels across still-evolving borders to treat patients, while reeling from the recent death of her grandfather and remembering some outlandish stories that he, an otherwise rational man, had told her.

Nothing particularly wrong with this book but it was not my cup of tea. The literary merit and themes are fairly obvious - Natalia’s grandfather wanted to live forever and he does live on through stories - but I didn’t find it compelling. I also found the lack of specificity about where Natalia was from and where she was traveling to distracting, rather than universal. The stories about friendly “bears” and man-eating tigers are clearly related to The Jungle Book, which the grandfather carried around for his whole life, but no reason is given as to why a Balkan man was so attached to The Jungle Book in particular.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



15. Dracula by Bram Stoker

Told through letters and journal entries, young lawyer Jonathan Harker goes to visit a new client in very remote eastern Europe and things get weird. When he finally returns home to England, things get weird there, too. 19th century travel takes a long time.

I did it! I read Dracula! I’m glad I’ve read it, but I didn’t love it. I enjoyed Mina a lot but the rest of the characters were just okay. I read the sections in chronological order, instead of in the order they appear in the book, which makes a big difference in the first part but no difference for the rest.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



16. How the Grinch Stole Christmas written and illustrated by Dr. Seuss

A mean green man lives in the mountains and does not like the Christmas cheer in the nearby village so he decides to do something about it.

I have some real problems with over-exposure of The Grinch. I don’t like the cartoon, or the many Jim Carrey movies, or the stage production, or having to look at his face everywhere. But you know what? This book undeniably slaps. It’s such a simple, good story.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



17. I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas by John Rox, illustrated by Bruce Whatley

The Christmas song (my favorite Christmas song), illustrated.

My confession is that I do, absolutely, want a hippopotamus for Christmas. The illustrations fit the song perfectly, which is joking but also not joking. I particularly like a page with an enormous close-up of the girl’s delighted face with the hippo reflected in her eyes, followed by an enormous close-up of the hippo’s delighted face with the girl reflected in its eyes. The hippo wants a girl just as much as the girl wants a hippo! I love it.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)



18. B Is for Badger: A Wisconsin Alphabet by Kathy-jo Wargin, illustrated by Renee Graef

It’s the alphabet! It’s Wisconsin! The illustrations are good.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



19. The Little Puffling by Hilmir Högnason, illustrated by Gunnar Júlísson, translated by Sarah Hamilton

A baby puffin in Iceland tells the story of how he grew up, got separated from his family, and was rescued by some humans.

Parts of this story are good but others are lost in translation. There is some inappropriate casual death/suicide talk, and the story makes it seem like any random children can rescue puffins, which they should not.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ (3/5)



20. Madeline written and illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans

At an orphanage in Paris, a little redheaded girl gets appendicitis.

I thought I remembered this having more of a backstory for Madeline, but no. She just gets her appendix out and that’s it. Still lovely illustrations though.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)



21. Nerdy Babies Space {board book} written and illustrated by Emmy Kastner

A nice intro about space. Fact-based but imaginative and not too complicated.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4/5)



22. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed illustrated by Eileen Christelow

Monkeys keep jumping on the bed and hitting their heads.

Repetitive. At the end (in the illustrations, not the text) the mom herself jumps on the bed! Not a great cautionary tale.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)



23. 8 Little Planets {board book} by Chris Ferrie, illustrated by Lizzy Doyle

Extremely cute introductions to the planets in our solar system. Includes what Pluto is and why it’s not considered a planet anymore without being a jerk about it. (Science evolves! That’s how it works!) I love the illustrations.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)



24. Horns to Toes and In Between written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton

Some monsters point out all their body parts.

Cute and fun to read but not groundbreaking.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Christmas photos, as promised earlier!


Gluten-free shortbread cookies with dried cranberries


Roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash with fresh cranberries


Sugared cranberries


Lobster


Completed handkerchief for my dad

I love Sandra Boynton's board books! Have bought so many for my niblings as well as friend's kids.

Also way to power through ALL THE REVIEWS!!!

The Last Wish surprised me too. It's a lot more harsh/blunt than most of the fantasy I've read. But I just found it far too intriguing to put down.
Happy New Year, Nora! :)

25. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Mary Roach investigates human-animal interactions of all kinds, from bears breaking into houses in Aspen, Colorado to Macaques stealing food in Delhi to gulls destroying the Pope’s flowers to the attempted eradication of invasive species in New Zealand.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a Mary Roach book. Her writing is just as funny as ever, and her footnotes just as long. I love the way she leaves no question unanswered, even if it’s completely irrelevant to what she was just investigating. She’s a much more human-focused writer than many authors who write about animals, so she brought a bit of a new perspective, but also might leave a little to be desired for readers who are really into animals. I enjoyed how she pushes back against the usual western ideas that we should control all of nature (for example, many people believe that farmers should keep birds away from their plants because the birds will eat all of the crops, but investigations have shown that birds eat so many insects and rodents that they actually save more crops than they eat). I would say it’s a quick enjoyable read (boy does she know how to lead from one chapter to another) but not groundbreaking.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>265 MickyFine: Thanks!! In hindsight I probably should have broken it down into a few different messages but I just wanted to get them all posted! And now I feel free!

>266 Ravenwoodwitch: The tone of the Witcher feels very distinctly eastern European. I'm obsessed with the morals of it in a way that I can't explain.... the closest thing I can think of is it reminds me of that scene in Men in Black when Will Smith is in training and he refuses to shoot the snotty alien because it clearly just has a cold, but shoots the little girl who is carrying calculus books on a non-residential street in the middle of the night.

Oh, gang. It's been awhile since we've done some stats! Here's 2021 first, 2022 will be a separate post.

2021 Statistics

In 2021, a bad year, I read 15 books.
2,414 pages, plus 3 days, 5 hours, and 58 minutes of audiobooks.
I averaged 30 days per book, 7 pages per day, 2 books per month.
Average book length was 161 pages.

The longest paper book was The Overstory at 502 pages; the longest audiobook was The Night Circus at 13 hours and 40 minutes. The shortest paper book was Poems to See By at 159 pages; the shortest audiobook was The Only Good Indians at 8 hours and 38 minutes.

I acquired 21 books.
I bought 8 books.
I deaccessioned 13 books.

8 (53%) of the books I read had female authors/artists. 2 (13%) were by nonbinary authors/artists.
13 (87%) were marketed for adults, 2 (13%) for young adults, and 0 for children.
4 (27%%) had authors/artists of color, and 5 (33%) had a main character of color.
2 (13%) had LGBTQ authors/artists, and 2 (13%) had an LGBTQ main character.
None were translated from another language.

5 books (33%) were purchased by me. 8 (53%) were checked out from the library. 0 were free. 0 books were borrowed from another person, 0 were gifts, and 2 (13%) were early review copies.
8 books (53%) were physical books, 0 were digital, and 7 (47%) were audiobooks.

13 (87%) were prose books. 0 were plays. 1 (7%) was comics. 1 (7%) was poetry.
11 books (73%) were fiction, and 4 (27%) were non-fiction.

1 book (7%) was a reread. 1 book (7%) was published in 2021. 14 books (93%) were published before 2021, and 1 of those (7%) was published before 2011. The oldest book I read was Grimspace, written in 2008.

My best reading month was January, in which I finished 4 books. My worst reading months were February, April, and December, in which I finished 0 books.

My most-read genre was romance, of which I read 4 books (27%), 3 books each (20%) were general fiction, speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy/horror, and science nonfiction. 1 book each (7%) were historical fiction & fantasy and history nonfiction.

My Top Five Books of 2021 in no particular order:
American Zoo: A Sociological Safari by David Grazian
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Erin Faith Hicks
Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Dishonorable Mention:
Grimspace by Ann Aguirre

2022 Statistics

In 2022, I read 25 books.
3,104 pages, plus 11 hours and 48 minutes of audiobooks.
I averaged 31 days per book, 9 pages per day, 3 books per month.
Average book length was 124 pages (obviously skewed by baby books).

The longest paper book was Dracula at 496 pages; the longest audiobook was The Tiger's Wife at 11 hours and 22 minutes. The shortest paper book was Horns to Toes and in Between at 16 pages; the shortest audiobook was The Wasteland at 26 minutes.

I acquired 28 books (many of these were individual issues of comics).
I bought 18 books (same as above).
I deaccessioned 4 books.

12 (48%) of the books I read had female authors/artists.
10 (40%) were marketed for adults, 0 for young adults, and 15 (60%) for children.
1 (4%) had authors/artists of color, and 1 (4%) had a main character of color.*
0 had LGBTQ authors/artists, and 0 had an LGBTQ main character.*
2 (8%) were translated from another language (Polish, Icelandic).

(*These are to the best of my knowledge. It is very hard to find biographic information about a lot of baby book authors!)

6 books (24%) were purchased by me. 4 (16%) were checked out from the library. 0 were free. 15 were my niece's books, 0 were gifts, and 0 were early review copies.
23 books (92%) were physical books, 0 were digital, and 2 (8%) were audiobooks.

24 (96%) were prose books. 0 were plays. 0 were comics. 1 (4%) was poetry.*
16 books (64%) were fiction, and 9 (36%) were non-fiction.

(*Where is the line between poetry and a baby book? Once someone comes up with a coherent definition of poetry, I can figure that out.)

6 books (24%) were rereads. 0 books were published in 2022. 25 books (100%) were published before 2022, and 15 of those (60%) were published before 2012. The oldest book I read was Dracula, written in 1897.

My best reading month was December, in which I finished 10 books. My worst reading months were February, June, and August, in which I finished 0 books.

My most-read genre was general fiction, of which I read 10 books (40%). 5 books (20%) were speculative fiction/science fiction/fantasy/horror. 4 books (16%) were science nonfiction. 3 books (12%) were biography/memoir. 2 books (8%) were general nonfiction. 1 book (4%) was historical fiction & fantasy.

My Top Five Books of 2022 in no particular order:
Eager: The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter by Ben Goldfarb
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North by Blair Braverman
The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

Dishonorable Mention:
Elephants Can't Fly by Charlotte Christie
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

That wraps up 2022!! I'll be back to review my last book in >267 norabelle414: but I'll also cross-post it to my new thread so come join me over in 2023!