Norabelle414's Trilogy in Two Parts

Rory's usual "I don't want to get out of bed" mood

Hello and welcome! I'm Nora. I live in the Washington DC area. This is my fifteenth year of having my own thread in the 75ers group! Aside from books, I also love:

animals/biology/zoology - I volunteer at the National Zoo
TV - scripted only, mostly science fiction and fantasy, especially anything based on a book
theater - I have season tickets to Arena Stage but I go to shows elsewhere as well
podcasts - especially about books
knitting (I'm on Ravelry), and also occasional cross stitch and embroidery
progressive politics (particularly urbanism)

You can find me on Bluesky @ norabelle (now open to all, no invite needed!)

My reading has been ticking up lately, so I have a few modest goals for 2024:
1) Be more present here, including actually posting on everyone else's thread instead of just lurking
2) Write reviews promptly after finishing a book
3) Read at least two books by the same author DONE!
4) Read another book in a series I've already started DONE!
5) Read at least one book in each of the following categories: romance, science non-fiction, science fiction, picture book, graphic novel, audiobook DONE!
6) Read at least 2 books by the same author that are not in the same series
7) Get caught up on a series of at least 3 books
8) Read at least 3 books published in 2024
9) Post mid-year reading statistics

A selection of books I have finished recently:

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson - 3.5/5 stars
Artificial Condition by Martha Wells - 5/5 stars
Love, Vol 1: The Tiger by Frederic Brremaud and Federico Bertolucci - 3.5/5 stars
Grave Reservations by Cherie Priest - 4.5/5 stars
Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Cherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld
Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni - 4/5 stars

For a full list of books I have read this year, click here: https://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=norabelle414&collection=840181...

I'm going on a 11-day trip to visit my mom in Wisconsin next week, so I need to decide what books to bring with me. I'll be taking a 17-hour train trip, overnight, plus another 45-minute train trip, to get there. Staying 10 days, then a 1.5 hour flight home. This is the first time I've gone out of town since the last time I visited my mom in November 2021. I wasn't really reading much then, so I think I only finished two books the whole trip. But my reading habits are very different now.

I think I'm going to go with these, all off my own shelves (ish):
Babel by R.F. Kuang (loaned to me by my mom's husband so if I finish it while I'm there I can leave it)
Hench by Natalie Zina Malschots
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (I intend to give it to my mom and her husband when I finish so I can leave it)
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean (a gift from my mom and her husband for Christmas)

This seems like maybe not enough? Or maybe too much? All of the books I currently have out from the library are due back well after I return so I could take a library book or two. But also my mom and her husband have tons of books and would be happy to let me borrow some.

Happy new thread, Nora!

I think if your mom and step-dad have books you could borrow, then your list is probably enough. I always htink I'm going to read more than I do when I go out of town, but YMMV. And that long train trip will probably be even longer, if my experience with overnight Amtrak trains is anything to go by ;-)

Happy new thread!

I think your list looks just right. Plus if you put Libby on your phone you could always access library ebooks or audiobooks if you're a supreme speed reader (this is what I always tell myself, anyway).

I've added Artificial Condition by Martha Wells - 5/5 stars to my tbr list. This one seems interesting in light of your five-star mark.

I hope your trip is lovely, and very enjoyable

There was one more! It fell off the stack so I missed it!

The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

That feels better, I think. it's exactly 2500 pages and all of them should be pretty easy to get into (I have a habit of bringing books with me on trips that I want to have read but don't necessarily enjoy reading, which is a mistake (notice I'm not bringing The Iliad with me...))

_________________________________________________________

>5 katiekrug: Thanks Katie! Last time I took this trip the train was right on time, so I'm hopeful. Thankfully there are trains from Chicago to Milwaukee every 2 hours so it doesn't matter too much if I do end up late.

>6 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

>7 MickyFine: I don't read ebooks but I do have a big long audiobook downloaded

>8 Whisper1: Thanks Linda! I was going to let you know that Artificial Condition is a sequel, but I see you've already added the first to your TBR as well! I hope you enjoy them.

Happy weekend!

Thursday night I went to a screening of a documentary about Bella Abzug. It's going to be airing on PBS sometime this summer. It was very good.

Friday was mostly uneventful but my friend and I went out to dinner at the Belgian restaurant below his apartment, which we just found out is closing this weekend. I had mussels.

This morning the weather was nice (58F) so I went and read on the roof for an hour! It was lovely. Then I went out to get bagels, goofed around for most of the rest of the day, and did a ton of laundry. Tomorrow I'm going to try to read on the roof again, and start actually packing.

I'm still in that awkward stage of being sick where I feel mostly fine but every 2 hours or so I have to cough up a lung or blow a ton of snot. Annoying. I hope I can get over this soon.

Currently reading:
Finished book 9 of The Iliad on the roof this morning. I'm 75% through The Trumpet of the Swan, 60% through Delilah Green Doesn't Care. I would really love to finish the latter two and There, There before I leave for my trip on Thursday!
Reviews behind: 2
Library books: 5

Currently crafting:
None

Currently watching:
s1e6 of Taskmaster Australia

Good luck on your trip. I hope you feel better -- traveling when you feel rotten is no fun!

Happy new thread, Nora.

Enjoy your time in Wisconsin. x

>11 norabelle414: Healthy energy so you aren't traveling while under the weather.

I loved Doomsday Book. I'd been thinking of reading the rest of the loosely connected series.

Hope you feel better soon!

>12 Whisper1:, >13 PaulCranswick:, >14 elorin:, >15 The_Hibernator: Thanks Linda, Paul, Robyn, and Rachel!

>15 The_Hibernator: I'm glad to hear you liked it. I've never read Connie Willis before, despite having several of her books on my shelves, so hopefully I will enjoy it too.

Happy new thread, Nora!

Your book stack for the trip sounds great, and second Micky's suggestion that having Libby as a backup. Like you, I tend to think I'll read more on the trip than I end up doing (mostly during the actual travel part I do, but the during-the-trip time isn't as much as I think it's going to be), and having that keeps me from over packing. I like your plan of leaving a couple of books behind, too!

Happy Monday!

Yesterday I did not get any roof reading time. It was very overcast in the morning and by the time the sky cleared up in the early afternoon my vegetation had taken root. Here's a photo from Saturday, though:



I did get some packing done, including taking my big suitcase down from the top of the closet, which is the hardest part of packing, really.

I'm still feeling a little congested, but not terrible. Today I'm at the office, then I'm going over to my brother's house to have dinner with him and my dad. I was too tired to read on the bus this morning, but maybe I can read some on the Metro on the way home.

Tomorrow I'm back in the office. I need to pack some more, maybe do one more load of laundry, and my friend is going to pick up Rory some time Tuesday or Wednesday evening. I logged on to the library website to freeze the rest of my library holds, but I wasn't fast enough and I'll have one to pick up tomorrow. I also need to cancel my newspaper subscription for the duration of my trip.

Currently reading:
So close to being done with The Trumpet of the Swan!
Reviews behind: 2
Library books: 5

Currently crafting:
None

Currently watching:
Caught up on John Oliver, season 2 of Animal Control, The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, The Regime, the series finale of Good Trouble (which I had been putting off for a couple weeks because I'm too sad about it ending), the season finale of Masters of the Air (which I was unprepared for because the season weirdly has 9 episodes. The show often teetered on the edge of being interesting (for example, they introduced the Tuskegee Airmen (one played by Barbie and Doctor Who and Sex Education star Ncuti Gatwa) in episode 8 of 9 and then didn't do much with them) but overall I don't think I can recommend it). I started new shows Apples Never Fall (boring), Manhunt (slightly interesting, I'll probably keep watching), and The Girls on the Bus (much less cringey than I was expecting, I actually enjoyed it)

>16 norabelle414: I will say Doomsday Book is my least favourite of the series and having now lived through a pandemic, I have no desire to re-read a plague book (obviously your mileage may vary). But I do LOVE the rest of the series and have added them to my personal collection (the highest compliment I pay a book as it means I'll re-read them). If Doomsday Book isn't your jam, I highly recommend trying To Say Nothing of the Dog before abandoning the series as it's a very different reading experience.

>19 MickyFine: I find media about pandemics/plagues to be comforting, particularly early in the current pandemic. I felt weird watching/reading anything with a "normal" setting because all my mind could think was "where is your mask, why are you so close to each other, why are there so many people in this poorly-ventilated room, did you test before attending this school dance, etc."
I feel better about normal settings now but the plague setting still doesn't bother me.

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I went straight from my office to my brother's house for dinner and didn't get home until about 10pm. Got a lot of reading done on the Metro on the way home and a bit before bed. I've been using the Bookly app to track my reading time (which I've seen a couple other people mention here, I think Ursula and Kro?) and I'm finding it very motivating. Definitely not going to use it for tracking all of the books I read (e.g. pictures books and comics) but it's good for tracking how long I spend reading every day and the number of pages. It can also track time listening to audiobooks, which I haven't tried out yet.

Today after work I'm going to pick up a hold from the library and then I need to pack up Rory's stuff and my friend is coming to pick him up. Then all that's left for tomorrow will be packing and cleaning.

Currently reading:
Finished The Trumpet of the Swan last night and read a lot of There There on the bus this morning. Only about 15 pages left. I probably need to read Delilah Green Doesn't Care on the bus tomorrow if I want to finish it before I leave, even though I usually don't read spicier romances in public.
Reviews behind: 3
Library books: 5(+1 ready for pickup)

Currently crafting:
None

Currently watching:
None

Hey Nora!
Glad the cold is clearing up and I hope you have fun on the Wisconsin trip!
>20 norabelle414: I don't mind them myself much either; mostly because I'm already seeking media that spooks me anyway. Captain Trips and the Superflu? The more-the-merrier.

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday after work I picked up my library hold and packed up all of Rory's stuff and then my friend came to pick him up. He's a mad little kitty right now but he always has a good time after a few days when he settles down.

Today I'm at the office. After work I'm hoping to catch up on reviewing books, then packing and tidying. I've eaten most of the perishables from the fridge except for the milk so I might have cereal for dinner.

Tomorrow I'll telework in the morning and then leave around 2pm to catch my 4pm train. I'll arrive in Chicago in the morning then transfer and get to Milwaukee around noon. Theoretically there is wifi on the train but it always sucks so I might not be back here to update until Friday evening.

Currently reading:
Finished There There on the bus home yesterday. I have about 80 pages left in Delilah Green Doesn't Care and its a very quick read so I think I'll be able to finish before I leave.
Reviews behind: 4
Library books: 6

Currently crafting:
None

Currently watching:
Caught up on Wild Cards (no cat this week but unfortunately I'm already hooked), Family Law, and John Oliver.

>22 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela!
I used to like pandemic stories because they were kind of spooky but now I find them comforting. Particularly those that are about normal people just trying to get by as opposed to something action-y.

Wishing you smooth and safe travels, Nora.

Have a good trip!

Safe travels!

21. A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long

Learn about lots of different caterpillars, their life cycle, and the butterflies they turn into.

Beautiful drawings in this nice non-fiction book. I learned the names of dozens of species of butterflies!

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

Hope you have a smooth journey and a good visit with your mom and her husband.

22. Frederick written and illustrated by Leo Lionni

Frederick seems like he is not helping his mouse family prepare for winter. But when the cold, dark nights come, Frederick has more to contribute than they realized.

A nice antidote to the fable of the ants and the grasshopper. Frederick does contribute to the society, even if his contribution doesn’t look the same as everyone else’s. Really nice artwork that looks like cut paper.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

23. The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White, illustrated by Edward Frascino

Louis the trumpeter swan is born mute. He goes to a human school and learns to write, and then to play the trumpet. He gets odd jobs to save enough money to pay for his trumpet, from a summer camp bugler to a Boston Commons tour guide to a jazz musician in Philadelphia. Finally, he finds the female swan of his dreams.

Weirder and longer than I remember from when I was a kid, and has way less of the human boy on the cover in it. I enjoyed the beginning, and the views on disability are slightly more progressive than I expected (though the book uses a word for “mute” that we would not now). It’s nice that Louis finds accommodations but does not get “fixed” at the end. Louis’ quest for money is rather boring. The reader already knows that the full insurance cost for the trumpet is $900 so it’s a little annoying to see Louis work so hard for so much more than he needs/wants. But overall it’s pretty charming, there's some very funny bits, and the illustrations are lovely.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

24. There There by Tommy Orange

This book presents an assortment of Native American characters from different backgrounds with one thing in common - they don’t live on a reservation. They are urban, and trying to figure out what exactly that means to them. What does it mean to be Native if you live surrounded by white people and white culture and colonialism? Are you Native because of your blood? How much? How do you know if you feel native enough?

The characters are all heading toward a big event - an urban powwow in Oakland, California. Some of them are helping to organize it, others are dancing or playing instruments or meeting family they barely know or just attending. But life under colonialism takes a toll, and things don’t end well.

I really enjoyed the characters here, and I wish I had gotten to know more about them. Some of the teenage/young adult boys blended together in a way that was hard to follow, but that might have been on purpose. Some of the connections between characters seemed a little far fetched, but connection is a theme of the book so it worked. The writing style is very stream-of-consciousness, which is very much not my thing, but if you like it this is an incredible example. I really did not care for the ending, but it did feel appropriate to the story. Certainly a book I appreciate having read, but I won’t be reading it again.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

>25 MickyFine:, >26 _Zoe_:, >27 elorin:, >29 katiekrug: Thanks Micky, Zoe, Robyn, and Katie!

25. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Delilah Green returns to her hometown after a decade away to photograph her estranged step-sister Astrid’s wedding. She doesn’t particularly want to see stuck-up Astrid or her horrible step-mother again, but it’s a lot of money. She’ll just get in and out and never think about it again. But Astrid’s fiance is unconscionably horrible, and Astrid’s best friend Claire is very beautiful and sweet, and seeing her step-mother again brings up a lot of feelings she had repressed. Maybe Delilah cares more than she thought?

A very fun, spicy, queer romance. I liked that basically all of the obstacles are related to external factors and not actually anything between the couple. There is a Chekov’s bet which was really unnecessary, but other than that it’s all about Delilah’s childhood trauma and Claire’s young single motherhood. The story is just as much about Delilah and Astrid as it is about Delilah and Claire, which made it feel like a really full story. I found ALL of the characters pretty relatable, Delilah and Claire and Astrid and Iris. I don’t usually like to pick up romance sequels but I might here.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

Happy Friday!

Hello from Chicago! The train ride was lovely and we arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I got some coffee and now I'm sitting in the station waiting for my next train which leaves in 40 minutes. It's allegedly snowing outside but there aren't any windows in this waiting room.

Not sure what's coming up this week except that we're going to a show/play/musical of some kind on Sunday.

Currently reading:
105 pages of Babel, or The Necessity of Violence, 50 pages of The Thursday Murder Club

Have a great trip!

Stay warm!

Welcome to Illinois!
(Wish we were in a better state of the state now, but welcome!)
Hope you have a good trip. Recommend the Adler or Shedd if you have some spare time.

Hope the rest of your travels went smoothly and you're having a good time with your mom and her husband!

Thanks Natalie, Robyn, Angela, and Micky

>38 Ravenwoodwitch: I was just passing through Chicago on my way north. One of the times I pass through I should stay for a few hours, though. I haven't spent time in Chicago since I was in high school.

Happy whatever day it is! (I'm still on vacation)

My train getting into Milwaukee on the 22nd was 30 minutes late but no bother. It snowed the whole time so I enjoyed looking out the window. When my mom and her husband picked me up we went to a deli for lunch.
On the 23rd we went to Sheboygan for the day. We went to a bakery to get bread for the week (and a donut), then to a very queer coffee shop for breakfast (I had cornmeal pancakes with fried eggs, avocado, and salsa). We went to a very queer bookstore, WordSmith BookHouse, where I bought:
How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler (new)
A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown Shy by Becky Chambers (both used)
Then we went to a used bookstore, Inkling Books, which was very nice but I didn't get anything. And we went to a chocolate shop, a game store, a sock factory store (they're very nice socks since warm socks are serious business up here), a cheese store (I got my favorite cheese - a very stinky blue with juniper berries in it) where we ate bratwurst from a shack outside in the snow. Then we went to a new art museum that focuses on whole collections from folk artists. Very interesting.

On the 24th we went to Milwaukee to a famous old German restaurant, and then to a secret show that I wasn't allowed to know about until I got there...it turned out to be Brett Goldstein! Very fun. Tuesday night we played trivia and came in 3rd. Thursday morning we went to volunteer with an organization that is rewilding an abandoned golf course. We planted "live stakes" (you can cut off a branch of a tree and stick it in the ground and as long as it stays wet like 75% of them will grow into new trees!), saw some birds, spread seeds, and got to help with a controlled burn fire! After a long nap we played trivia Thursday night and came in 2nd. Friday we went to Racine for the day and went to the Racine Zoo and the Racine Art Museum which had an exhibit of Peeps art. Saturday we cooked and baked to get ready for Easter, yesterday we had Easter lunch. Today we went for a short hike and now it's raining so we'll probably stay home for the rest of the day.

Heading home on a plane tomorrow, then back to work on Wednesday.

Currently reading:
I finished Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution! It was great! I'm still only 50 pages into The Thursday Murder Club so I won't finish before I leave.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently playing:
I *finally* got my mom and her husband to play Wingspan, which I bought them years ago, and they're obsessed. I also showed my mom's husband how to play it online.

Currently crafting:
I'm about 2/3 finished with the baby blanket, which needs to be finished by the baby shower on April 13.

Currently watching:
We've watched a hodgepodge of stuff - Some old episodes of Abbott Elementary, the last two episodes of Saturday Night Live, the season premiere of Call the Midwife, all three episodes of the miniseries Nolly, two episodes of Top Chef (which I do not like but it's set in Milwaukee this season), and the season premiere of Taskmaster (featuring Nick Mohammed from Ted Lasso)

26. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R. F. Kuang

A young boy is taken from his home in China, renamed Robin, and raised by an unfeeling linguistics professor in Victorian England. He learns a variety of languages and eventually matriculates to a real school: Babel, a college in Oxford that creates magic using the slight differences in meaning between words in different languages. Babel students provide all of upperclass Britain and the government with engraved silver bars that make their ships faster, their buildings stronger, and their gardens greener. For awhile Robin is intrigued and proud to be a cog in this glorious machine, but soon the scales begin to fall from his eyes - the college only wants him because he’s “foreign” and therefore has stronger language powers, but he will never belong in Britain because he’s not white. He wakes up to the toll colonialism takes on all of its lower class subjects, and joins an underground revolutionary group trying to fight against the status quo. But can they actually do anything against the goliath British Empire?

I loved the philosophy of language, I loved the magical academia, I loved the examination of colonialism. I felt like the consideration of various subjects was thoughts from my own head that I have never been able to put into words. It’s an incredibly topical book, involving Luddites (skilled artisans who fight against their work being replaced with dangerous machines making shoddy products, but get painted as technophobes) and state violence against nations who won’t allow themselves to be exploited, but really those are just timeless topics under capitalism. This book really scratched an itch for me, and reminded me of a lot of my other favorite books: The Golden Compass, The Magicians, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

Sounds like you've had a nice (and busy!) vacation. We saw Brett Goldstein's show in Newark and enjoyed it a lot.

I admit I am a Top Chef fan (I like that it's not focused on personal dynamics and drama) and I've been enjoying the new season.

Glad to hear it's been a good trip. I hope the flight home goes smoothly!

Speaking of Wingspan, Mr. Fine and I just picked up Wyrmspan (the dragon-themed spin-off game from the same company) and had a grand time playing our first game of it yesterday.

I really need to get to Babel sooner rather than later!

>43 katiekrug: I'm glad Top Chef fans are enjoying it! My mom has been to most of the restaurants they mentioned in the first two episodes. We thought the choice of bar snacks in the second episode was pretty weak, though. My mom thought they should have had to use pickled gizzards.

>44 MickyFine: I've been seeing a lot of posts about Wyrmspan! My local(ish) game store is doing a demo this weekend I think. It looks beautiful.

>45 curioussquared: I think you'll love it!

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday I packed and we went to a famous burger place for lunch and then to the airport. My suitcase was 1 lb overweight so I had to rearrange things which was slightly annoying because I'm specific about what goes in my suitcase and what goes in my backpack. I ended up with one shoe and my PJ pants in my backpack. But I got it to 0.5 lbs under! This suitcase, my largest, is pretty wrecked and I need to get rid of it once I fully unpack. (I've been saying this since, uh, 2019 and it's still limping along (I've only used it 3x since then) but I need to replace it *before* it falls apart, not after.)
My flight was uneventful. There was one other person in my row but the middle seat was empty, which was nice. I got home and unpacked a little bit, but not much. I'm out of milk for my coffee and I left a dirty dish in my sink which is now a little moldy, ick. My Roomba was out of battery (my previous Roomba had physical buttons on it so I could turn it off to prevent it from vacuuming while I'm not home but my new-ish one can only be controlled by a phone app which often doesn't work, so I flip my Roomba over like a turtle when I don't want it to run) so I didn't get to vacuum.

Today I'm in the office. It was hard to get up this morning, having not gotten up before 7 in almost 2 weeks and also coming back from Central Time. But I did it! I didn't bother to grab the souvenirs I got for my coworkers (some candy from the candy shop in Sheboygan) because I figured I have plenty of time to hand them out, but I forgot that today is Wednesday, not Monday, and several of my coworkers are leaving for a work trip on Sunday, so I won't be able to hand out the gifts until April 15 at the earliest. Whoops!

After work I need to buy milk (I had to put vanilla ice cream in my coffee this morning, poor me), pick up a few packages that arrived while I was gone (the package office completely changed while I was gone and I don't even know how it works anymore), drop off a library book (one I've already finished...all the others I have out auto-renewed while I was gone, yay), vacuum my apartment, and unpack. I also need to get caught up with my March Mammal Madness bracket, since I've missed most of the battles and the final is tonight. Whoops! Rory isn't coming back until probably tomorrow.

Nothing going on this week except playing catch-up. Saturday I have a meeting at the zoo.

Currently reading:
Read some of The Thursday Murder Club on the plane and this morning on the bus. I'm on page 150. Started a new bedtime book which is Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn. Only about 20 pages.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently playing:
I will probably be playing quite a bit of Wingspan online with my mom's husband until they leave on an international trip in mid-April.

Currently crafting:
Did not get any work done on the baby blanket on the plane, but I have quite a bit of TV to catch up on so hopefully I can get a lot more done.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Taskmaster Australia s1e9, but very behind on absolutely everything else.

Glad you made it back safely!

Good luck with all the settling back in and I hope Rory is pleased to be reunited with you when he gets home.

I was delighted by your improvisation of using ice cream for your coffee creamer. I'll have to share that with Mr. Fine as an option (he's the coffee drinker at my house).

>48 MickyFine: I *must* have some kind of creamer in my coffee so I almost always have milk in my fridge, but ice cream is nice in an emergency. I've considered freezing some cubes of milk but ice cream is a lot easier and tastier.

Happy Thursday!

Yesterday after work I bought some milk (and discount Easter candy), vacuumed a little, unpacked a very little, and picked up some packages that arrived while I was gone (skirts that I was planning to wear on my trip but they arrived too late, some coffee, and an LTER book: The Wildcat Behind Glass by Alki Zei). I got caught up on March Mammal Madness to find my bracket busted in the final four and followed the finale half-heartedly. Great white shark beat giant squid.

Today I vacuumed quite a lot while working ("vacuuming" means baby-sitting the Roomba while it poorly does the actual work). This morning was sunny so I was planning to read on the roof but now it looks like it might rain. Rory's coming back this evening.

Currently reading:
Read some The Thursday Murder Club on the bus yesterday. Did not read before bed.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently playing:
A game of Wingspan online with my mom's husband.

Currently crafting:
None

Currently watching:
Spent quite a while making a list of what shows I need to catch up on and in what order, but didn't watch anything.

>50 norabelle414: welcome back!
It sounds from your posts like you had a very eventful and active trip. Hope you get some time to rest before heading back to work.
Also, thank you the image of a Roomba spinning with its part in the air. It's going to keep me giggling all day.

It sounds like a good trip. I like what you wrote about Babel and I am considering checking it out with my library.

>51 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela!
Unfortunately the Roomba does not run his wheels if he's upside down, but he does make a sad "beep boop" sound.

>52 elorin: I hope you enjoy it! I was glad I could borrow it from a person instead of the library because it is a big book. It would have taken me a month to finish if I hadn't been on vacation.

Happy Monday!

Rory came home on Thursday, Friday I worked from home. Saturday I went to a zoo meeting. There was one in-person meeting (the first in-person meeting since COVID) for all zoo volunteers last week, but it was while I was gone. The one on Saturday was for just my zone, 1/3 of the zoo, which was still nice. I got to see lots of people and ask lots of questions of the staff. I was offered the opportunity to interview for the working group which will organize a new zoo book club, but I think I'm still too hurt by the dissolution of my old book club and volunteer group to participate at this time. Maybe next year.

Sunday I had dinner with my dad and did my taxes.

Today I'm going straight from work to dinner at my brother's house. I don't expect I'll be home until late.

Currently reading:
Did not do a ton of reading this weekend but I'm about 2/3 through The Thursday Murder Club (I didn't love it at first but it's growing on me) and almost halfway through Yours for the Taking (really enjoying it)
Reviews behind: 0

Currently crafting:
Finished the striped section of the baby blanket and halfway through the first row of bobbles. I need to finish the first row of bobbles, knit the second row, and then just a few end rows and I'm finished knitting. Then I need to weave in approximately one million ends and block. I don't have anything else going on this week so I should be able to get it done.

Currently watching:
On Saturday I caught up on a lot (several of which I'm behind on again): Call the Midwife, John Oliver, season 1 of Taskmaster Australia, The Girls on the Bus, The Regime, Wild Cards, Family Law, Abbott Elementary, and Not Dead Yet. I started new shows A Brief History of the Future (awful PBS docu-series that I heard an ad for on NPR. It's only concerned with new technology for rich people and not with improving the lives of the non-rich) and Sight Unseen (another bad show where a non-blind actor badly pretends to be blind and solve crimes). A lot more to go!

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I looked (with proper eye protection) at the partial eclipse. We had about 87% totality here. There were some clouds but it came out from behind them in the end. I went straight from work to my brother's house for dinner with our dad. I gave my brother the stuff my mom and I got him in Wisconsin - socks and cheese, of course. It was in the 70s so we ate outside at their new outdoor table. Got home a little before 10pm and checked in at the front desk to pick up a package...and got served because while I thought I paid my rent on the 1st it didn't go through and I was on vacation so I didn't wait around for the confirmation email (which can sometimes take a couple hours) like I normally do. The last time I forgot to pay my rent I got an email from the front desk about it and of course paid immediately, but this was my third time forgetting to pay (in almost TWELVE YEARS) so I guess they don't do that anymore. I had no time for any activities yesterday and I didn't sleep well last night.

Today is a new day. I'm in the office and don't have any plans for the rest of the week.

Currently reading:
Putting The Thursday Murder Club on ice for a few days because Yours For the Taking is due back at the library. I read on the bus this morning and the office is quiet so I might try to read some during lunch too.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently crafting:
Did not get any time to knit yesterday.

Currently watching:
None

We couldn't watch the eclipse here. It was cloudy. How did you like Doomsday Book? (Sorry if I missed the review in there. I tried to scan, but I don't read everything on everyone's threads - no time. So I skim.

>56 The_Hibernator: I haven't read it yet! I loved reading Babel so much that I didn't alternate reading it with anything else like I usually do. I'll get to Doomsday Book one day!

>55 norabelle414: A reminder might be nice especially since you've been there 12 years....

No eclipse here. Only a partial covered by clouds. Oh well.

Happy Tuesday!

>58 Berly: You would think! I'm sure it's just their process (I live in a huge complex of 3 high-rises). The worst part is that they served me AND put a note under my door AND sent one through the mail. So even though I paid immediately upon being served, I also had to get the note again when I got to my apartment, and a third should reach me in 2-3 days.

>59 norabelle414: They get points for being thorough?! Ugh! LOL.

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday at work I ended up with my computer in IT for a couple hours so I got quite a lot of reading done! After work I knitted.

No plans this week until Saturday, when I'm going to a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law, and then dinner out with friends on Sunday.

Currently reading:
I read sooo much of Yours For the Taking yesterday! I might finish it on the way home (Don't worry, I have a backup book!). After that I'll finish The Thursday Murder Club then The Wildcat Behind Glass (an Early Reviewers book) and the 3rd Murderbot. I'd also like to fit a few She-Hulks in there.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently crafting:
I finished the first row of bobbles, the interstitial stockinette, and half of the final row of bobbles before my hands got tired. Then, I wove in about 3/4 of the ends! Then, I finished the rest of the bobbles! I should be able to finish today no problem, and maybe even start to block it.

Currently watching:
I watched the first episode of a nature docu-series called Queens, about female animals. I usually find these kinds of series too anthropomorphic (the footage is great but the voice-over is a lot of imagining of human emotions and motivations) but most nature series are just about male animals so this one is worth watching. This first episode was about three lion sisters w/cubs and two hyena sisters w/ daughter/niece. Content warning for animal death, as expected.

Sounds like you're settling back into your routine. Congrats on making so much progress with the blanket. I look forward to seeing it (if you manage to snap a picture before it gets gifted).

Your apartment building's notice system sounds like my dentist who sends ALL THE REMINDERS. For a while I was getting phone call, text, and postcard reminders about upcoming scheduled appointments, although they've mellowed out in the last couple years. It's a good thing I don't have any dental fears because all those reminders would not have been helpful. :P

>62 MickyFine: The multiple notices are required by law since they are informing me that they will evict me in 30 days if I don't pay, and I do appreciate that. A phone call or text would have been nice! It's just traumatizing to get the notice and then get another in a few days whenever the mail comes through.

Happy Friday!

Not doing great, self-care wise, but I've been worse. This time of year is always so bad, when its warm out but the AC isn't turned on yet. It hasn't gotten too hot but I know it's coming.

Tomorrow I have a baby-shower in the early afternoon. Sunday I plan to bake a cake to take to work on Monday and then go to a new dumpling restaurant with my friends for dinner.

Currently reading:
I finished Yours for the Taking on Wednesday (technically Thursday morning). I've written most of a review but I want to noodle on it a bit more. Almost done with The Thursday Murder Club. I really need to get back into The Iliad, I haven't read any since I left for my trip almost a month ago.
Reviews behind: 1

Currently crafting:
Finished the baby blanket, wove in the ends, and washed it. I should have properly wet-blocked it but I wanted to make sure it would do fine in the washing machine, so I put it in a mesh bag and washed it with some socks and underwear, and now it's laying flat to dry. I have SO MUCH of the yarn left - almost enough for a full second blanket - so I should probably make a hat or something as well, but that can wait until after the baby shower.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Animal Control, Not Dead Yet, and watched two more episodes of Queens. The third episode was about insects and I wanted to know more about how they filmed it. Sticking a GoPro inside an anthill is one thing, but following a flying bee through the rainforest is incredible. I watched the making-of episode from the end, despite the fact that I haven't finished the series, and was so pleased to see they had an all-female film crew, mostly from the areas they were filming in, including several who were the first ever female documentary filmmakers in their country. No info about the insects, though.

>42 norabelle414: Great review, Nora. I must get to that soon.

>64 norabelle414: Take good care of yourself. x

>64 norabelle414: Self-care struggles are always, well, a struggle. Good luck and I hope things improve :)
I'm excited to see the blanket too. I'm still working on one myself (so long) and I'm always impressed when someone else gets it done.

>65 PaulCranswick: Thanks Paul!

>66 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! It's a tiny baby blanket so don't get too impressed. I did take a picture, I'll try to remember to post it later today.

Happy Monday!

This weekend was okay. Saturday I went to the baby shower for my nibling, it was very low-key (since it's a second baby) and nice. Single-gender parties always freak me out, though. It was weird that my brother and my dad weren't there, and several women there were the girlfriends of my sister-in-law's male friends and didn't even know anyone at the party. But it's my sister-in-law's party so she can do what she wants.

Also Saturday I emptied the trash can in my bedroom and found out where all the carpet moths were coming from! They were living in the trash can between the can and the bag/liner. Why? Why would they want to live there?? Thankfully a small plastic trash can is easy to sanitize.

Yesterday I had a No-Specific-Book-Club meeting and then baked a cake to take into work today, cocoa yogurt cake with vanilla bean glaze. Haven't tried it yet but what I licked out of the bowl tasted good. I used up the last bit of TWO containers of cocoa powder so I'm pretty pleased. I went out to a new dumpling place with my friends for dinner. I got there early so I browsed the nearby Barnes & Noble but nothing called my name. This weekend is the big library book sale so I will have plenty of opportunity to get books.

Thursday after work I'm going to a play, other than that it should be a quiet week. I'm hoping to catch up on TV (or at least not get further behind).

Currently reading:
Yesterday I read She-Hulk (2022) #4 and finished The Thursday Murder Club. I'm halfway through The Wildcat Behind Glass (it's middle-grade so a very quick read) and I think I should finish tomorrow. Next up are the 3rd Murderbot and the sequel to Grave Reservations which I read in February. I'd also like to get back into short story collections so I think I'll re-start Exhalation which I started before the pandemic and never finished. And maybe I'll start rereading some books I haven't read in a couple decades? And get caught up on The Iliad? And and and...
Reviews behind: 3

Currently crafting:
Nothing

Currently listening:
Eurovision season is upon us so I have listened to the full playlist a couple times through now. My favorites currently are Doomsday Blue by Bambie Thug (Ireland), Pedestal by Aiko (Czechia), and Fighter by Tali (Luxembourg) but that always changes.

Currently watching:
Catching up chronologically, I watched one episode each of Resident Alien, Shogun, Manhunt, Extraordinary, and The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin (still behind on all of them). I watched the first episode of the new show Palm Royale but it's not for me.

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I brought my cake to the office for my birthday (which was on Sunday) but someone else brought in a cake as well (even though I told everyone I was making a cake) and everyone ate that cake and not my cake. Annoying. But now there's more of my own cake for me, I guess. After work I just fussed around on the internet and caught up on TV. Last night was hot and the AC in my apartment won't turn on for another couple weeks. Very unpleasant but I did manage to sleep okay.

Today I'm going to try to go to the library on my way home from work (though the usual route from my bus stop to the library is under construction so I have to walk right past my apartment building and it's not really "on the way" anymore...)

Currently reading:
Read a lot of The Wildcat Behind Glass on the bus yesterday afternoon but not a lot this morning since the shuttle driver had the right-wing radio station on again (today's rant: John Mellencamp "went woke" by changing from his stage name (Cougar) to his real last name in 1991. Not a rant I've ever heard before, I'll give them that). Last night I decided to pivot from my plan and start Scarlet by Genevieve Cogman, a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel with vampires. I've never read The Scarlet Pimpernel so we'll see how this goes.
Reviews behind: 3

Currently crafting:
Nothing

Currently listening:
More Eurovision favorites: Europapa by Joost (Netherlands), The Code by Nemo (Switzerland), Rim Tim Tagi Dim by Baby Lasagna (Croatia) (the video for this one has a one-eyed orange cat in it)

Currently watching:
Watched the two latest episodes of Call the Midwife (Not a huge fan of this season... first they almost kill off Fred and then they almost kill off May and now they might be taking May away from the Turners because, how horrible, her birth mother wants what's best for her. What's supposed to be wrong about that? The whole May storyline has always been kind of gross and white savior-y. ). I also watched the first two episodes of the miniseries Mr Bates vs the Post Office, the true story of a bunch of postal workers across the UK who were prosecuted for theft but fought back to prove the theft was actually the result of bad computer software. It's really excellent so far and I highly recommend it.

Belated happy birthday!

>70 katiekrug: Thank you Katie!

Reading about your vacation was a nice experience. It sounds like you had a wonderful time, except for having to repack your baggage in the airport.

Congratulations on reading so many good books thus far this year.

>69 norabelle414: Happy birthday!
John Mellencamp
I thought wasn't he around when I was in high school (note: I'm 65)? But it was a somewhat after, sez Wikipedia. Seems a heckling incident made the news recently, and maybe the ranters were seeking fresh material that their audience would recognize.
Mr Bates vs the Post office
I just watched this, would also highly recommend.

>72 Whisper1: Thanks Linda! If having to move 1 lb of stuff from a suitcase to a backpack is the worst thing that happens on my vacation, I'll take it! :-)

>73 qebo: Thanks qebo!
John Mellencamp
Ah, that explains it. I really was not expecting to hear "the guy who sings 'Jack & Diane' is TOO WOKE" first thing in the morning but I Wikipedia'd him as well and he seems like a cool guy.

Belated happy birthday! Interested in seeing what you make of Scarlet... I remember reading & liking The Scarlet Pimpernel in high school but doubt I would think much of it now so I'm not willing to reread it :)

27. Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

It’s 2050 and the world is falling apart. In order to save what humanity they can, the world government devises the Inside Project - a couple dozen billionaire-funded sealed compounds across the globe that will safely house a few million survivors while the world burns. The residents are randomly selected for every Inside except one - the Sheryl Sandberg-esque girlboss author-and-CEO Jacqueline Millender secretly micromanages her Inside to be a perfect utopia. Everyone is young, thin, upper middle-class, female or non-binary, unattached to men, and equal. Everything about their lives is perfect, right down to the perfect amount of drugs pumped through their vents. The only requirement is that they work, with the cushiest job of all being that of mother. But how are the residents going to do as pawns in Jacqueline’s experiments?

Shelby, a trans woman and Jacqueline’s personal assistant, was not picked for Inside but gets to accompany Jacqueline on the billionaires’ space ship with all the other assistants. Olympia, a non-binary doctor, successfully convinces Jacqueline to include people of all races in Inside, and so thinks that she can manage Jacqueline's other quirky requests from the inside (so to speak). And Ava, an insecure lesbian, gets injured Inside and cannot work, so there's only one option left.

I really enjoyed all of the things this book made me think about. It's about the systemic failures of non-intersectional rich white feminism. It’s about how any kind of equality is impossible while any one person or group has more power. You can control for gender and race and age and temperament and culture and personal property, but as long as billionaires still exist a utopia will never. They can’t save us from a world of climate change and social injustice because they cause it. There are some parts of Inside that don’t make sense (Why can’t people change jobs? What is the enforcement of rules? Why is everything so boring?) but the flaws are part of the world. The project wasn’t well thought out! Unlike some similar stories about attempts at utopia, the plot here is not a puzzle to be solved. The reader knows what is happening the whole time, but there is enjoyment in seeing the characters figure it out and decide what to do.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>75 bell7: Thank you!
I've chickened out a little bit on Scarlet... I looked up The Scarlet Pimpernel and it seems like I would absolutely hate it? So I think I'm going to read that first. I own a copy but the audiobook is only 8 hours and I haven't read an audiobook yet this year so that seems like the way to go.

It's Wednesday.

Had an okay morning yesterday but after lunch I got a double-whammy of my new boss making a flippant decision that will make everyone in my office's work much harder for the next several months, and a text message from my dad to the family group chat where he basically said I have obligations to him and my brother does not because he "is busy raising my {dad's} granddaughter and grandson". Annoying.

On my way home from work I went to the library to return a book and check out a hold and I also poked around the shelves and checked out two others. It's like retail therapy, but free and not wasteful and good for society.

I've really been enjoying using the Bookly app to track my reading, so I'm thinking of getting a paid subscription. Does anyone else pay for this app?

Stayed up too late doing nothing so I'm quite tired. Today after work I'd like to go to the grocery store, but I don't have a list ready yet so I doubt it's going to happen.

Currently reading:
Did not read before bed last night. I have about 20 pages left in The Wildcat Behind Glass so I left it at home today. On the bus I started Rogue Protocol.
Reviews behind: 2

Currently crafting:
Nothing

Currently listening:
Nothing

Currently watching:
Catching up chronologically again: one episode of Manhunt (I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would, in a background-y kind of way), one episode of Queens, one episode of Grown-ish, one episode of Extraordinary.

If you didn't send your father back the middle finger emoji, you are a better person than I!

>69 norabelle414: Thanks for reminding me about Eurovision, I have a playlist queued up for today to check the songs out!

>78 norabelle414: I pay for Bookly. I like it, I'm not sure what features aren't available on the free version (aside from more books), but I like to support them. Oh, I just looked - stats and syncing across devices are huge for me. Oh, and I use the photo feature for entering quotes. So I guess I use the pro features quite a bit!

>79 katiekrug: The nice thing about getting rude texts as opposed to in-person conversations is that I can just not answer and archive the text so I don't have to see it anymore :-)

>80 ursula: Looking forward to your thoughts on the Eurovision songs!
I'm mostly just looking for more books, and to support the creators. I got some kind of Google Play coupon for $10 off any purchase over $50 and I figured that was a sign and bought the lifetime membership.

Happy Friday!

Last night I went to see a play, a new musical called Unknown Soldier. I didn't love it but my dad really liked it so that's nice.

Today I went to the twice-annual library book sale. I got:

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan
Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen
Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard
Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski

as well as a couple books for my niece.

This weekend I plan to do NOTHING (except read and catch up on tv and buy bagels and maybe go to the grocery store.)

Currently reading:
Still need to finish those last few pages of The Wildcat Behind Glass. I'm also about 75% done with Rogue Protocol, and I started and am now 25% through The Scarlet Pimpernel on audio. I have the next Murderbot waiting in the wings, then probably one of my many library books (brag).
Reviews behind: 2

Currently listening:
After seeing the musical (the songs were fine but not memorable) I had a real craving to listen to the Ride the Cyclone cast recording, so I did. Then it was back to Eurovision. I haven't listened to the new Taylor Swift yet because I just cannot deal with 30-something Eurovision songs AND 30 something Taylor Swift songs at the same time. That's too many songs.

Currently watching:
One episode of the new show We Were The Lucky Ones (based on the book; good but sad), one episode of the new show Franklin (about Benjamin Franklin in France. It's fine.), one episode of the new show Renegade Nell (very fun!! though pretty dark at the beginning), one episode of the new show Under the Bridge (true crime, based on the book which I have heard is not very good so the show might be better), and one episode of the new show Conan O'Brien Must Go (good for what it is, but not my thing). Also watched an episode of Resident Alien, the season finale of The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin, and caught up on Abbott Elementary and Animal Control.

I hope your do nothing weekend has been restful so far!

28. She-Hulk (2022) #4 by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Luca Maresca

Jen continues her superhero lady fight club. At work she gets a lot of potential law clients, but they’re all superpowered which is not allowed by her boss. She decides to take them on anyway. Later Jen and Jack walk around the city to try to jog Jack’s memory.

Still not a lot happening, but also not particularly funny like the previous issue was. Lots of discussion of gamma radiation levels that I don’t understand. It does seem like something big is going to happen in the next issue, though.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

29. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

The developer of an upscale retirement community is murdered, but luckily this retirement community has a hobby club just for investigating murders. It consists of Ibrahim (a psychiatrist), Ron (a labor union leader), Joyce (a nurse), and Elizabeth (if she told you what her career was she would literally have to kill you). They buddy up to the cops, analyze all the clues, and play senile to uncover whodunnit.

There is a lot here that I liked and some that I didn’t. The writing style is very interesting - very short chapters switch perspective quickly, from main characters to police to victims to minor characters, including first-person diary entries from Joyce. The chapters overlap a lot, showing the same scene from different points of view, which can be annoyingly slow but as the book went on it either happened less or I was less bothered. This is a very expensive retirement community which limits the diversity of the characters, though I did appreciate that several of them are working-class but supported by wealthier children. Ibrahim was noticeably backburnered compared to the other club members; I hope that he will get a bigger role to play in subsequent books.
While it was nice to read about characters who are not the same age one usually reads about, I did not find their elderly antics as cute as it seemed like they were supposed to be, particularly pretending to be senile and the flippant treatment of assisted suicide (I’m in favor of assisted suicide in general, but using it to get out of consequences for a crime is not great, and using it on someone else is just regular murder). The huge quantity of red herrings in the murder investigation was very fun, and I enjoyed the non-murder-related misdirect of the older male cop ending up with the young female cop’s mom instead of the young female cop herself but I really did not like the fatphobic treatment of the older male cop throughout. Overall this genre is still not really for me but I can see the appeal and will probably read at least one more.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

30. The Wildcat Behind Glass by Alki Zei, translated by Karen Emmerich
(LT Early Reviewer)

In 1936 two young sisters, Melia and Myrto, are excited to spend the summer running around the small Greek island they live on and getting to see the older cousin they idolize, Nikos, who makes up great adventure stories about the taxidermied wildcat in their aunt’s living room. However, fascism is a looming threat and starting to put pressure on their family, particularly their academic grandfather and the revolutionary Nikos. Soon some of their friends prove they can’t be trusted, and others desperately need their help. The girls are divided as Myrto joins the youth nationalist club. Nikos is wanted by the new dictator’s police and must hide, but he leaves clues for Melia in the mouth of the wildcat, so she can help him with his fight.

A lovely classic middle-grade story. Melia starts out very free and trusting of everyone, but sees the fascism creeping in the same way that the reader does. She keeps the sense of justice that she had from the beginning, but fine-tunes it as she learns more about the world. The role of the stuffed wildcat is perfect, starting out as a metaphor and fantasy but evolving into a literal hideaway and facilitator of resistance.
I knew nothing of modern Greek history and was not aware that they had a fascist dictatorship in the 1930s along with all their neighbors, so I appreciate this for filling a gap in my knowledge in addition to just being a good book.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

31. Rogue Protocol (Murderbot, book 3) by Martha Wells

Murderbot is headed to an abandoned planet, a failed terraform project by the same corporation that tried to kill it in book one, to collect data on what the corporation is really up to. It thinks it’s stowed on an unmanned cargo shuttle, but unfortunately there are soft humans on board, as well as a companion robot that is too cute for Murderbot’s taste. Sneaking around behind the humans’ backs shouldn’t be too hard…as long as nothing on the planet is trying to harm them…

Extremely enjoyable while I was reading it, as usual, but did feel a bit same-y. All of the nice human characters start to blend together, while the bots are unique and complicated, which is a fun reversal. This book is particularly introspective since Murderbot is trying to hide from the humans, but it doesn’t have a lot of time to process its emotions at the end so I’m looking forward to the next book.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

Happy Earth Day!

I indeed did nothing this weekend. I read, watched TV, vacuumed, went to the grocery store, wrote some reviews, and updated my reading spreadsheet.

Today I'm in the office. The weather was nice this weekend and will continue to be for a few days. It was in the high 40s when I left for work this morning so I'm wearing tights, but they have a big hole on the butt seam so I might try to figure out if I can mend them myself. That will be a good activity to do while listening to an audiobook.

Nothing going on this week until the weekend, when I might go to a play (haven't bought tickets yet), watching a podcast livestream on Saturday, then volunteering at the zoo on Sunday.

Currently reading:
Finished The Wildcat Behind Glass and Rogue Protocol. Read book 10 of The Iliad. I got caught up before I left for my trip but now I'm 4 books behind schedule again. Started Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4) before bed. It might be a little while before I can get #5 because one of the two copies in my library system is marked as "lost". After I'm done with that I have a Cat Sebastian romance out from the library for my at-home book. Started Flight Risk (the sequel to Grave Reservations) on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently listening:
33% though The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Currently watching:
The season finales of The Regime and Resident Alien, two episodes of Last Week Tonight, one episode of Saturday Night Live, a few episodes of We Were the Lucky Ones, one episode of Shogun, two episodes of Extraordinary, caught up on Under the Bridge, Grown-ish, Not Dead Yet, and Abbott Elementary.

>83 MickyFine: Thanks Micky! It was.

Happy Tuesday!

I wanted to to read on the roof after work yesterday but I was too tired. I still have not been going to bed early enough. I found a video on how to repair tights and I put the holey tights on an embroidery hoop and picked some embroidery floss for them, but I didn't get started on the mending yet. If this does work out it's going to be pretty big for me because I have a lot of tights with minor holes in them (mostly in the big toe).

Nice out today so I ate lunch outside.

I did end up buying theater tickets so I'm going to see Little Shop of Horrors on Friday.

Currently reading:
Half of book 11 of The Iliad, a bit of Exit Strategy, and Flight Risk on the bus (very much enjoying it but in the first couple chapters the characters try to get an untrained pet dog to locate a dead body but they give him McDonalds first, and that's just silly. If you want a dog to find something don't give him the treat first!)
Reviews behind: 0

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
One episode of The Girls on the Bus, caught up on Call the Midwife, Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, and Last Week Tonight.

Oooh, good luck with the tights repair! Nice to see you're still enjoying your read through the Murderbot series. They are kinda same-y but short and interconnected enough that it's one of the only series I can pretty much read back-to-back.

>91 bell7: Yes, the same-y-ness is affecting my review-writing, not my enjoyment of reading them. I am really looking forward to the novel-length next book, though, if I can ever get my hands on it (I've been on the holds list for 4 whole days).

Happy Wednesday!

Not much going on here. I did mend my tights yesterday, a large hole on the butt seam and a small hole on the toe, but it's hot today so I'm not wearing them so I don't know how the mend is going to hold up. The video I found had me use a whip stitch, which would not have been my instinct (I would have used a ladder stitch) but the video was from the actual company that make my tights so I figure they would know best. And it's not like anyone can see my butt or toes anyway so as long as it stays closed that's fine.

I turned out the lights at a better time last night (7h45m before I needed to get up instead of my usual 6h45m) but it was at the expense of my reading time.

Currently reading:
Almost halfway through Flight Risk.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
Three episodes of the new (to me) show Dinosaur, a very cute comedy about a woman with autism and her codependent sister, and three episodes of Renegade Nell, which I am loving. It's like Gentleman Jack with magic.

>93 norabelle414: I’ve been meaning to give Renegade Nell a look—your strong appreciation for it is the deciding factor!

Louisa Harland (Nell) was great in Derry Girls.

Happy Wednesday!

Karen O

Howdy Nora! Happy belated Birthday :)

>69 norabelle414: Sorry about the cake; Homemade trumps store bought any day and I would have gone straight for yours (biased home baker, don't mind me).
And you had me at Historical Vampires. Added to the list...
>78 norabelle414: I'm gonna try that app and see what it does/doesn't do for me.
>88 norabelle414: Mend tights? I didn't know that was even a thing. How?

>94 klobrien2: It's weird to hear Louisa Harland without an Irish accent!

>95 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I wore the tights yesterday and the mend seems to have worked well so I will share the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBpwvd2MByg
basically I just put the tights on an embroidery hoop to keep them taut (but not stretched) and then used a whip stitch and embroidery floss (in the video they used the full 6-strands but I went with 3-strands) to sew up a line. It's not an invisible mend but it looks like a kind of cool Frankenstein-y scar. For the toe I couldn't fit it on the embroidery hoop, of course (though in hindsight I think I do have a very small hoop around somewhere) so I stuck a water bottle in the toe to keep it taut.

Happy Arbor Day!

Quiet day Wednesday and yesterday. Today I'm covering for a coworker who is out of the office so I have a couple more meetings than a usual Friday. Hopefully I'll get a chance to go to the grocery store.

Tonight I'm going to see Little Shop of Horrors at Ford's Theater. Last time I went to Ford's Theater I found it super uncomfortable but I hated the play I saw so we'll see how it goes with a musical I love.

Tomorrow I have a podcast livestream to watch in the evening. Sunday morning I'm volunteering at the zoo. At some point this weekend I'll have no-specific-book club. Next weekend I'm going to an out-of-town bachelorette party so I might get a haircut this weekend.

Currently reading:
Finished book 11 of The Iliad. Halfway through Flight Risk and Exit Strategy and The Scarlet Pimpernel. The latter is driving me insane....I'm expected to find this hero swoony and romantic because he's saving rich people from poor people? Every line of this book is so on-the-nose that I keep expecting it to turn into a satire at any moment.
Anyway, I'm on track to finish all 3 of those books, and I'd like to read another She-Hulk, and then that'll be it for the month.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently listening:
More Eurovision

Currently watching:
Three episodes of the new show Sugar (a standard noir-y private investigator show, but according to critics there will be a huge reveal toward the end of the season. My guess is aliens), two episodes of Franklin (annoying to have a whole episode where everyone is crying over Lafayette when the viewers all know he survives), the latest episode of Taskmaster, and the finale of Queens (the anthropomorphism continued to bother me throughout, but it was nice to watch an animal documentary from a perspective we never get to see).

Happy Sunday!

Friday after work I went to see Little Shop of Horrors at Ford's Theater. It was a lovely production but I remembered what I hate about that theater, which is that there's not enough knee-room for me! I had to sit slightly sideways the whole time. Yesterday I got bagels and watched a podcast livestream.

Today I volunteered at the zoo, in the bird house, in the morning and then had No-Specific-Book Club this afternoon. I decided against getting a haircut this weekend because I am very lazy. It's getting very hot out but the air conditioning should be on in my apartment by Tuesday.

Tomorrow it's back to work. Tuesday and Wednesday after work I am feeding my friend's cat. Then Friday I'm going out of town for a bachelorette party.

Currently reading:
About 3/4 done with Exit Strategy, Flight Risk, and The Scarlet Pimpernel (audiobook)
Reviews behind: 0

Currently listening:
Some Eurovision but mostly audiobook

Currently watching:
Finished the seasons of Extraordinary, Not Dead Yet, Shogun, and Manhunt. Caught up on Under the Bridge, Grown-ish, Animal Control, We Were the Lucky Ones, and one episode of Dinosaur.

It's Monday.

Very hot weather this week. I missed the bus this morning (for the first time in quite awhile!) and had to sit outside and wait for the next one but at least I got a little extra reading time.

After work I need to get my smallest suitcase down from the closet so I can pack for this weekend. I'm hoping to decide today what I want to wear and then do laundry on Thursday. Departure time on Friday is still up in the air. The original plan was for Friends A to drive and I could ride with them, Friend B to drive herself, and Group C(5) who are arriving by plane to rent a car and drive. Then Group C decided they didn't want to rent a car (?) so they were going to split themselves between Friends A and Friend B's cars. A tight squeeze but fine. But now Friend B's car is on the fritz so I'm not even sure what's happening. This is why I don't drive (among a million other reasons). I've pointed out that there is an inter-city bus all 9 of us could take, but been shot down.

Currently reading:
Bookly says I have about 30 minutes left of both Flight Risk and Exit Strategy so I'll finish both of those today. I have a romance for my next at-home book but I'm not sure what my next purse book will be. I'm having a very strong reaction (negative) to The Scarlet Pimpernel so I'm going to return Scarlet to the library and give myself some breathing room.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently playing:
The Pokemon podcast I listen to, EXP. Share has started covering Pokemon Violet/Scarlet so I've started a new game on my alt account, but I haven't finished the expansions on my main account so I'll switch back in a few weeks.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Franklin and Call the Midwife. I finished Mr Bates vs. The Post Office but there is a documentary special episode that goes with it that I plan to watch. I started the new season of The Big Door Prize and the new show The Sympathizer

>99 norabelle414: Sorry to hear you're dealing with hot days already. We've got a chance of snow in the forecast here, le sigh.

Happy Tuesday!

Not much going on yesterday except the heat. However, the air conditioning in my apartment turned on for the season! Hooray! I finished Flight Risk on the bus home but stayed up too late to read before bed. Thankfully I don't have much in my backpack on Tuesdays so it was no problem to stick two books in there and I finished Exit Strategy on the bus this morning.

Today and tomorrow I'm feeding my friend's cat after work. I'll probably pick up take-out for dinner on my way home. Friday around noon-ish I'm leaving for Annapolis for this bachelorette party, returning on Sunday.

Currently reading:
Started Sunshield on the bus. I have about an hour left in The Scarlet Pimpernel so I should finish that today, and I'd like to also read She-Hulk (2022) #5. And start a Romance.
Reviews behind: 2

Currently playing:
I'm getting back into Two Point Campus, the sequel to Two Point Hospital, which I played a little bit when it first came out but abandoned in favor of replaying Hospital over and over again. I still don't love Campus as much as Hospital but they seem to have worked out some of the initial bugs.

Currently listening:
More Eurovision

Currently watching:
Caught up on Saturday Night Live and The Girls on the Bus. (I'm only about a week behind on non-new shows now, woohoo! Just in time to go out of town for a whole weekend and then watch Eurovision all next week.)

>100 MickyFine: Ooh I'm extremely jealous

Hooray for air conditioning!

>99 norabelle414: Transportation really is the scourge of a trip, huh?
Hope you can get that sorted soon.

Happy Wednesday!

I was feeling extremely tired yesterday so I ended up leaving work an hour early. Went to feed my friend's cat and picked up pizza for dinner. I had a whole plan for how I was going to go to bed early and started getting ready for bed an hour earlier than usual, but ended up in bed at the same time and then slept horribly.

Today I'm feeding my friend's cat after work. Going to eat some leftovers/perishables for dinner since I'll be away this weekend, and will probably skip going to the grocery store (though I'll definitely regret that decision on Monday). I have two holds to pick up from the library (neither of them Murderbot, unfortunately) and 4 books to return but the library closes at 6 today so it will probably have to wait until tomorrow.

Currently reading:
Finished The Scarlet Pimpernel yesterday and read She-Hulk (2022) #5. Didn't start anything new. I'm on the fence about Sunshield because it turns out its a continuation of a previous trilogy, of which I haven't read the 3rd book. I'm already on page 60, though, so I might just keep going.
Reviews behind: 4

Currently playing:
Two Point Campus

Currently listening:
The official Eurovision podcast went from putting out one episode every 2 weeks to one episode per day and I'm struggling to keep up!

Currently watching:
Caught up The Sympathizer. I know cross-casting Robert Downey, Jr. as every rich, older, white male character is a commentary on all rich, old, white men being essentially the same, and on the way white people lump all Asian peoples together without caring about their differences, but I do find it distracting.

>103 curioussquared: Thank you!!

>104 Ravenwoodwitch: It's a perfect storm, in this case, since the area here is very urban-corridor-y so it doesn't feel like anyone should have to rent a car, but the city we're going to is an hour from any airport so there's really no way around it (except this one inter-city bus which only runs once a day)

32. Flight Risk by Cherie Priest

Leda is hired to use her psychic powers to find a missing woman, while her occasional partner Detective Grady finds a man's leg in a national park. Surely the two cases can't be connected, right? JK, they are. The leg belongs to the philandering professor husband of the ostensibly kind missing woman. Everyone insists that she finally left him, good for her, but her brother and son aren't so sure. Did he kill his wife? Did she Gone Girl her husband? What songs will Leda sing at clairvoyant karaoke?

The solution to this murder mystery is not particularly surprising, but it's just as enjoyable to read as the first one. Leda and Grady and all of the minor characters are nice to spend time with, and Priest's writing is hilarious as always. I would happily read a few more of these but I don't think more are expected.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Happy Thursday!

Yesterday I fed my friend's cat after work. I slept okay last night, possibly because I turned the air conditioning way down. I always want to be one of those people who doesn't use the air conditioning constantly, since that's how I was raised, but it just makes me so miserable.

Today I returned some library books and picked up some holds, did laundry and half of my packing. Tomorrow I'll work in the morning, finish packing and do the dishes. I'm leaving around noon for the bachelorette party. We're getting crabs for lunch, doing a sunset cruise tomorrow night, then a winery tour and tasting on Saturday, and karaoke in the evening.

Currently reading:
Started We Could Be So Good and loving it.
Reviews behind: 3

Currently playing:
Nothing, but bringing a couple card games on the trip

Currently listening:
Carpooling tomorrow with some friends who love Eurovision so that will definitely be on in the car. I still haven't really narrowed down my favorites, though Europapa by Joost (Netherlands) sure is stuck in my head.

Currently watching:
Started some new shows: Hapless (not for me), Dinner with the Parents (not for me), The Spiderwick Chronicles (surprisingly decent)

I hope the bachelorette party is a fun time for all!

Happy Sunday!

This weekend's bachelorette party was great, very low-key but a ton of nice people. I was worried about sleeping well in the AirBnB but I slept great. Saturday I stopped by a comic book store and got some free comics for Free Comic Book Day, and bought a few as well.

Tomorrow it's back to the office. I'm going to start baby-sitting my niece every Wednesday after work, which is going to make for a very long day but it's only for a couple months.

Currently reading:
I read a little bit of Sunshield every day while I was gone, but not much. Only on page 100.
Reviews behind: 3

Currently playing:
No time for card games on the trip

Currently listening:
Eurovision, mostly, and also some 90s karaoke

Currently watching:
Caught up on Taskmaster, Welcome to Wrexham, and The Big Door Prize.

Glad the bachelorette party went well, and good luck with back-to-the-office today.

>111 bell7: Thanks Mary!

Happy Monday!

Very few updates since last night, obviously. It's not too hot today but EXTREMELY humid. I'd rather it were hot. Supposedly it's going to actually rain tonight but I won't hold my breath.

It's Eurovision this week. Yesterday was the "turquoise carpet", a kind of opening ceremony, which I missed but will probably watch the replay of tonight (it's good background while doing something else). Tomorrow the first semi-final starts at 3pm my time, so I will miss it due to being at the office (boo!) but the "rest of the world" vote is open for 24 hours beforehand so I might vote for a few favorites tonight.

Currently reading:
Read We Could Be So Good before bed and Sunshield on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 3

Good Morning and Happy Monday!

Amazingly, I've added five of your reads to my TBR list, they are:

A Butterfly is Patient
Babel: or the Necessity of Violence
Yours for the Taking
Wildcat Under Glass
and
Flight Risk

It's incredible that I've added so many from one thread!
You read some great books.

>114 Whisper1: Glad to help, Linda! Flight Risk is the sequel to Grave Reservations so I'd recommend reading that one first, but they have separate mysteries so you could read the second one first if you really want to

Happy Tuesday!

Uneventful day yesterday. I called my mom to chat, she and her husband and some of his family went on a trip to Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Copenhagen and caught COVID on their way home. They're doing okay.

Currently reading:
Still reading We Could Be So Good before bed (it's a very slow burn which makes it hard to put down!) and Sunshield on the bus. I really need to get back into The Iliad because I'm now 5 books behind.
Reviews behind: 3

Currently playing:
Still replaying the beginning of Pokemon Violet but it's hard to play quickly because I always want to catch all the pokemon!

Currently listening:
Lots of Eurovision

Currently watching:
I watched the Eurovision turquoise carpet event and then watched a recap of the rehearsals so I could vote in today's semi-final. I voted for Croatia, Luxembourg, Australia, and Iceland.

>57 norabelle414: You really need to get to Doomsday book! I liked Babel, but felt it was a bit over-hyped.

Glad to hear the bachelorette was a good time.

Hoping your humidity has dropped a little. It's been pouring here since last night and curl levels are high.

>117 The_Hibernator: Someday it will happen!

>118 MickyFine: Unfortunately not. It's 85% humidity currently. It actually gets a little less humid here when it pours, because the water is in raindrops instead of saturating the air. It might dry out around, uh, October.

Happy Wednesday!

Another uneventful day yesterday.

Today I'm going straight from work to my brother's house to help with my niece.

Tomorrow I desperately need to go to the grocery store, and Eurovision will be on at 3pm ET.

Currently reading:
I'm used to reading short books lately so it feels like they're taking forever, but I'm > 200 pages through both We Could Be So Good (the dummies have finally kissed!) and Sunshield. That's more than a whole murderbot!
Reviews behind: 3 (I'm almost done writing my review of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which is going to be very long and snarky. Watch out!)

Currently playing:
Still replaying Pokemon Violet. I beat the second titan and the second gym. I might beat one star base and another titan and then switch back to my main account.

Currently listening:
No time for anything but Eurovision

Currently watching:
After I got home I watched the replay of Eurovision Semi-Final 1. My top 2, Luxembourg and Croatia, went through. Iceland and Poland, which I liked a lot, had pretty weak performances so I was disappointed but not surprised they didn't make it. Really sad about Australia not making it, though, since they had a very cool performance involving a didgeridoo.
I need to make my top 10 list for the second semi-final. I know my first 4 are Netherlands, Switzerland, Czechia, and San Marino, but not sure after that.

I hope babysitting the niece is a good time and bedtime goes smoothly.

Looking forward to your snarky review of Scarlet Pimpernel. I tried to read Genevieve Cogman's Scarlet and bounced off it.

33. Exit Strategy (Murderbot, book 4) by Martha Wells

Murderbot realizes that its investigations of the past two books have not gone unnoticed, and Dr Mensah has been blamed for controlling it to do her bidding. Gross. She’s being held captive as collateral so that various evil corporations can keep Murderbot’s findings from going public. What choice does Murderbot have but to rescue her?

A very enjoyable conclusion to this first arc. Most of the loose ends are tied up but there's plenty of room for more. I'm looking forward to reading more and finding out how Murderbot’s feelings toward nice humans are going to evolve.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

34. The Scarlet Pimpernel {audiobook} by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, narrated by Ralph Cosham

Marguerite St. Just was a beautiful, anti-Monarchist, French actress who fell in love with and married Sir Percy Blakeney, a handsome, rich, stupid, English aristocrat. Her brother, Armand, fell in love with a French Marquis’ daughter and was beaten almost to death for daring to love above his class. In revenge, Marguerite exposed the Marquis’ plot with Austria to overthrow the French government, resulting in the execution of the Marquis and his family. Now, Marguerite feels terrible guilt and is lightly resented by her husband and her wealthy peers over it. (But she mostly doesn't care because she's busy telling anyone who will listen how stupid her husband is, and also because no one actually shuns her because that would be common.)

Meanwhile, a League of wealthy English aristocrats are secretly working together to rescue wealthy French aristocrats from the common people of Paris, led by a mysterious man who signs his correspondence with a red flower (scarlet pimpernel). A French envoy to England, Chauvelin, discovers that Armand is helping the Scarlet Pimpernel (why would he do that? no reason given) and blackmails Marguerite into giving him information about the Pimpernel’s identity. Marguerite discovers that her husband is the Scarlet Pimpernel and is only pretending to be stupid and so now she loves him again, but it's almost too late. She races to France to warn Percy before Chauvelin captures him, but only finds an incredibly racist stereotype of a Jewish man. After hours of hiding in the back of an inn and then in the back of a wagon waiting for her husband, Marguerite is surprised to learn that the Jewish man was the Pimpernel all along! No one recognized him because Percy is super hot and the incredibly racist Jewish stereotype was so ugly. He has already tricked Chauvelin and rescued Armand, and Marguerite was so brave to hide in the back of that wagon so he forgives her for, uh, calling out a traitor.

It's really hard to put into words how much I hated this. The entire premise of the story relies on the “truth” that aristocrats are unquestionably superior to everyone else. The one non-aristocratic character whose thoughts we are privy to, an innkeeper, sincerely believes that he is privileged to be allowed to serve the members of the League who visit his business. The evidence that the commoners of France are bad people is that a similar French innkeeper only provides room and board in exchange for money without being deferential enough to the “well-born” customers. Quelle horreur! The only interesting dynamic here is that the English hate the French so much that it's almost subversive to care about even their most privileged elite. Nothing brings sworn enemies together like class war, I guess.

The age of the book is no excuse. 1905 is fifty years after Dickens was writing about social justice and over a century is plenty of hindsight to write about the French Revolution. Even Shakespeare managed to tell stories about aristocrats while writing their servants as fleshed-out human beings with their own thoughts and opinions. The book is only a “product of its time” in that the author was desperately clinging to the empire that gave her barony its power as it was about to decline and fall.

There is no doubt that the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror far overreached its original objective and executed many clergy and commoners accused of crimes without evidence or trial. However, the Scarlet Pimpernel does not care about them. There is no discussion among the members of the League about stopping the Reign of Terror, rescuing anyone else, or even destroying a guillotine or two. He only rescues wealthy and powerful aristocrats (whom the book repeatedly calls “innocents”).

The alleged cultural value of this story is as the prototype of a swashbuckling hero with a secret identity and a love triangle where two of the sides are the same person in disguise. However, I wouldn't consider rescuing aristocrats to be particularly heroic, and the only swashbuckling actions we see the Pimpernel take are disguising himself as an old woman and a gross stereotype. The doltish Percy is admittedly a great ruse, but Marguerite never has strong feelings about the Pimpernel one way or the other until after she discovers he's really her husband. I did enjoy that the book was so close on Marguerite's point of view throughout, so we always know her thoughts and the story is revealed to the audience at the same time as her, but that becomes a detriment in the second half of the book when she spends hours hiding in small spaces so she can watch the real action happen.

There could be some purpose in teaching this book in school literature class to show how the values and beliefs of an artist are reflected in their art, but there doesn't seem to be much critical analysis to that end around the internet. The story is culturally beloved but I didn't find anything to appreciate here aside from the audiobook narrator's hilarious foppish accent.

Rating: ❤ ♥ (1.5/5)

I'm glad to see Martha Wells is keeping up her good writing. I don't read sci-fi as much as I should.

So how do you feel about the Eurovision winner, Nora? I don't keep up with it but I love hearing all your opinions. 😊

>124 The_Hibernator: I'm really enjoying the Murderbot books, and looking forward to reading more of Wells' other work once I'm caught up. You should try them out! They are very short.

>125 MickyFine: I feel extremely good about the Eurovision winner and extremely bad about Eurovision itself. More on that soon, though I will probably keep most of my (many many) thoughts to myself for political reasons.

>123 norabelle414: Ooooh I love a good rant on bad writing. I bet this felt good, bravo.
Classic snob though I am, I have always looked down my nose at this one. Now I see I made the right call to skip it.

It's Monday.

Last week went downhill quite a lot.
Wednesday I went to my brother's house to help my sister-in-law with my niece. I didn't feel like I was particularly helpful but I did help my brother carry a shelf down to the basement after he got home, so I guess that's not nothing. I was very mentally tired when I got home around 9:30pm and I didn't do my chores (on Wednesdays I take out the trash and run the dishwasher (which usually involves emptying and then filling it first)). I stayed up too late doing nothing.
Thursday was a work-from-home day. I overslept (through my morning routine, not through work time). I watched Eurovision semi-final 2. My two favorites (Netherlands and Switzerland) went through but my other favorites did not. (Spoilering for anyone who doesn't want to read about nitty-gritty Eurovision stuff or political current events.) During the semi-final reports started coming out that one of the delegations was openly harassing several others (as in, posting videos to social media of the performers asking not to be filmed, and putting rude/mean/discriminatory captions on them). These continued into Friday, as well as reports that the EBU was removing fans' non-approved flags like the non-binary flag and trans flag, and that the EBU was adding additional applause/cheering to the broadcast when they thought it was needed (in some cases to cover up booing). Right before the Friday rehearsal (which is broadcast to the national juries for their voting) the frontrunner, Netherlands, was removed from the schedule pending an investigation, with no comment from the EBU for 12 hours. They were disqualified from the final, though their national broadcaster is contesting it (usually when a performer breaks a rule, they are fined, not disqualified). Netherlands was one of the main targets of the harassing delegation (only the frontrunners were being actively harassed), but according to all parties the investigation and disqualification was due to the performer threatening an EBU cameraperson who was filming him backstage without permission. The backstage and online harassment only got worse at this point. More reports came out that the harassing country's embassies were contacting their citizens in other countries to tell them to vote for the harassing country, which is a thing that has gotten other countries disqualified, but not in this case. Several presenters dropped out of presenting their country's jury votes, citing the harassment and unequal enforcement of rules. I felt too gross about it all to vote, but I did end up watching the final because I knew if I didn't I would just spend all day frantically refreshing social media to see what was happening.

Switzerland won, with the song The Code by Nemo, which kept growing on me the more I heard it. It's a really joyful, upbeat song about being non-binary, and Nemo is the first openly non-binary performer to win. It's also Switzerland's first win since Celine Dion in 1988 (the year I was born!) so that's nice. I also really enjoyed the runner-up, Croatia, a more metal-y song about moving away from home, featuring dancing cats in neon lights.

Since then, things have only gotten worse for Eurovision. Other performers not originally involved in the harassment have spoken out as witnesses, and almost dropped out because the atmosphere backstage was so stressful. The targets of the harassment have stated that they made many reports to the EBU which were ignored until the night before the final, at which point they were in an "emergency meeting" until the wee hours of the morning. Media representatives from those targeted countries are now coming forward to say they were also harassed in the press area by the same country's media.

I felt pretty anxious about it, and generally, and also tired, which of course led to staying up too late, which led to more tired. Saturday morning I went to get my weekly bagel sandwich to find the store closed - with no fanfare they stopped selling bagels & sandwiches weekend mornings after 4 years. So now I have to find something else to eat for breakfast 4 days a week. Saturday I forgot to read and broke my 41-day streak.

Yesterday I slept in, finally went to the grocery store (now fully out of milk, cheese, bread, and frozen breakfast sandwiches - all the things I go to if I don't have enough energy to prepare real food. As it turns out, mid-day on Mother's Day is a great time to go to the grocery store), did the dishes, and called my mom.

Today I'm going to my brother's house for dinner with my dad, possibly our last one before my new nibling is born.

Tomorrow after work I'm going to bake a cake for my coworker's birthday on Wednesday. Wednesday I'll be helping out with my niece after work, then I'll be baby-sitting from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. Yikes!

Currently reading:
Not a lot of reading done, but I did read book 12 of The Iliad.
Reviews behind: 1

Currently playing:
Went back to my original game of Pokemon Violet and (mostly) finished the first half of the DLC and started the second half. It takes place in a school called "Blueberry Academy" which is under the ocean?? and has a huge dome with multiple biomes in it where students catch pokemon and battle each other?? There are secret clubs that are feuding and they're going to let me battle them even though I'm an exchange student. Big YA dystopia vibes.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Taskmaster , Call the Midwife, Sugar (we're past the twist and I love it, though it seems most others do not) and Doctor Who. Watched some Renegade Nell, The Spiderwick Chronicles , and new shows MaryLand (not about the US state) and The Veil.

35. She-Hulk (2022) #5 by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Luca Maresca

Jack is attacked on the street by a large stranger named Mark, but Jen hulks out and defends him (physically, not lawyerly). They get dinner at a kind of romantic-y restaurant, though Jack is still wearing Jen’s old clothes. (How many days has it been? Jen has gone to work and come home at least once. You’d think they could get him some clothes that fit him.) Jen breaks a heel and trips and is helped up by an old woman - another reminder that Jack is (or was?) too powerful to even touch another person. Later, Jen goes to the park and spies on Mark and his wife April.

Kind of blah, but nice that the action picked up right from last episode’s cliffhanger. Classic comic book stuff! I think if I had read this as a 5-issue volume 1 I would have ended up just as frustrated as I was with most of the individual issues. Not a lot happened and I, a person with very limited prior knowledge, still don’t know who Jack of Hearts is or what happened to him.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I went straight from work to my brother's house for dinner with my dad. Got home around 10:15. After checking email/social media, getting ready for bed, etc. it was almost midnight.

Today after work I'm going to make a honey spice cake for my coworker's birthday tomorrow. After work tomorrow I'll go to my brother's house to help with my niece.

Currently reading:
I only have 25 pages left in We Could Be So Good so I'll definitely finish it tonight. There's about 120 pages left in Sunshield so depending on how much I finish this afternoon I might bring a different book to work tomorrow. I usually read about 20-30 pages each way on the bus.

Not sure what I'm going to read next. I'm a little annoyed with my local library system because I'm #1 on the holds list for FOUR books that came out on May 7th but my library takes an inconsistent amount of time, sometimes over a week, to in-process anything so I don't know when they're going to come in. The only time I could possibly pick something up is this afternoon or Thursday, if they're not available by then they'll have to wait until Monday after work.
Reviews behind: 0

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently listening:
Nothing

Currently watching:
Nothing

Happy Wednesday!

Yesterday after work I baked a cake for my coworker's birthday.

Today after work I'm going to my brother's house to help out with my niece. Tomorrow I'll pack, and then this weekend I'm solo baby-sitting my niece Fri-Sun. Next week things should start to be a bit quieter.

I realized that, in the mess of all the things I was upset about over the weekend, I forgot to mention that I also completely missed No-Specific-Book Club on Sunday because I was too distracted. Bummed about it.

Currently reading:
I read 52 pages of Sunshield on the bus yesterday, so I decided not to bring it with me today. I didn't have room in my bag for 2 books. I finished We Could Be So Good last night, it was great. This morning on the bus I started Nettle & Bone.
Reviews behind: 1

Currently playing:
Two Point Campus

Currently listening:
Catching up on the podcast backlog

Currently watching:
I watched last week's episode of Welcome to Wrexham and two episodes of The Veil, which is a mess of a show. It does not know what it's trying to do.

>128 norabelle414: Eurovision was a big mess, not only because my country got disqualified for unknown reasons.
I am glad that Nemo won, it was a good song and great performance!

>132 FAMeulstee: Don't get me started, Anita!! I'm so annoyed about the disqualification. Europapa is a great song.

It's Thursday.

I am .... in the office today :-(
I got home from my brother's house at 9:30pm last night and decided to be proactive and set up my workstation for teleworking today and realized I had left my computer charger at the office. So I had to get up an hour earlier than I usually do on Thursdays to come into the office. I'm heading home in a few minutes to telework from home.

Still no library holds ready for pick up so all I have to do this afternoon is pack (and I don't even have to do laundry since I can use my brother's washer/dryer for FREE.)

Tomorrow I'm headed to my brother's house at about noon and I'll be baby-sitting until 3pm or so on Sunday. I don't think I'll bring my computer so I should get some reading done.

Currently reading:
Read some Sunshield before bed, but not finished yet. At this point I can tell there will be a cliffhanger so I'm not racing toward the end. Read more of Nettle & Bone on the bus.
Reviews behind: 1

Currently playing:
None

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
None

It sounds like this week has also been rough for you Nora; I'm sorry :(
I hope things improve soon.

It's Sunday!

This weekend I baby-sat my niece, solo, from noon on Friday to 5pm today. It was exhausting, but everything went fine. No potty-training accidents, and every bedtime was on time. She's so cute and we had a great time. We read (as far as I can remember...I think there were others):
The Bug Girl (A True Story)
Oh Say Can You Say Di-No-Saur? All About Dinosaurs
Hot Dog
The Midnight Library

This week should be quiet, except for baby-sitting on Wednesday. Next weekend I'll probably volunteer at the zoo on Saturday and Monday.

Currently reading:
I finished Sunshield on the way to my brother's house and Nettle & Bone on the way home. Not sure what's next, since STILL none of my holds have come in.
Reviews behind: 7 (3 adult, 4 picture books)

Currently playing:
Uhh, blocks and pretend kitchen and spinning in circles and coloring

Currently listening:
Brush Your Teeth by Raffi

Currently watching:
Caught up on Abbott Elementary, Animal Control, Taskmaster, Grown-ish, Welcome to Wrexham and Under the Bridge. Started the new show Shardlake. It's fine.

>135 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! I got to step out of my routine this weekend, which is always a nice distraction. We'll see how things go now that I'm back in my regular life.

All the games with the niece sound like a grand time. ❤️

Happy Monday!

Not much new since last night, of course. I'm a bit annoyed with myself because I have a household goods/grocery delivery today and I forgot to put out my empties for pickup. I won't be penalized for missing one week (I don't think?) but I hate forgetting to do something I do every week even with multiple reminders.

Currently reading:
I started Her Majesty's Royal Coven last night before bed and How Far the Light Reaches on the bus this morning. Still no holds ready for pickup.
Reviews behind: 7 (3 adult, 4 picture books)

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently listening:
I had to listen to Europapa on repeat to get that dang Brush Your Teeth song out of my head

Currently watching:
Nothing since last night. I'm extremely behind (more than 2 weeks, in some cases) but the summer slow-down is starting so I'm hoping to catch up soon.

Sounds like babysitting weekend was a success!

Her Majesty's Royal Coven is on my list to get to soon so I'm interested to see your thoughts!

It's Tuesday.

Got home from the office yesterday to realize that I had put makeup on half of my face but not the other half, and had been walking around like that all day. Great.

Out of milk again, so I put ice cream in my coffee but I only had earl gray tea ice cream so I'm extra wired this morning. I really need to figure out a better grocery store schedule (and dishwasher schedule) because whatever I'm doing now clearly is not working.

Currently reading:
More of How Far the Light Reaches on the bus. The print in this paperback is fairly large so I'm at about 25% already. Went to bed too late to read. Still no holds ready for pickup.
Reviews behind: 7 (3 adult, 4 picture books)

Currently playing:
Two Point Campus

Currently listening:
Brush Your Teeth is back again

Currently watching:
Finished The Girls on the Bus; I was expecting a show based on a non-fiction book about being a journalist covering Hillary Clinton (Chasing Hillary) to be really cringy but the plot was changed just enough that no character maps onto any particular real person and it was really fun. I really enjoyed it and I hope it gets another season.
I also finished We Were the Lucky Ones and watched the first episode of season 3 of Hacks.

>138 MickyFine: It was, but I won't be sad when she can play with one thing for more than a couple minutes!

>140 curioussquared: Enjoying it so far, a whole 20 pages in

Hey Nora!
Glad the babysitting went okay. And, if it makes you feel any better, I once went to the office wearing two different earrings and didn't notice until I clocked out.

I, too, detest forgetting something I've set reminders for. Mega-frustrating.

>143 Ravenwoodwitch: Hi Angela! That does make me feel better, thanks :-)

It's Wednesday.

Went to the grocery store on my way home from work yesterday just to get milk and a couple other things. That's not going to work as a regular schedule, because I can't fit more than one reusable bag in my backpack, and I can't carry nearly as much as when I have my rolling cart, but it works in a pinch.

Today I'm at the office and supposed to go to my brother's to baby-sit after work, but I think I feel a daycare disease coming on so I might go home instead.

Currently reading:
Almost halfway through How Far the Light Reaches and really enjoying it. Read a little bit of Her Majesty's Royal Coven last night but only a few pages.
Reviews behind: 7 (3 adult, 4 picture books)

Currently playing:
None

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
Caught up on Hacks

36. We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian

Nick knows exactly who he is, but it’s 1959 and so not safe for him to be out as a gay man, even in New York City. He doesn’t even tell his coworker and best friend, Andy. When Andy breaks up with his fiancée, he moves in with Nick just so he doesn’t have to be alone. But it turns out Andy’s feelings about Nick are not just platonic. Andy needs to figure out what he wants, and Nick needs to figure out how to be vulnerable.

Loved the setting of this one, and the characters! Their friends were interesting, their jobs were interesting, their families were interesting, the history was interesting. An enjoyable read all around.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

37. The Bug Girl (A True Story) by Sophia Spencer and Margaret McNamara, illustrated by Kerascoet

When Sophia was little, she loved bugs. Once she got to school, the other kids made fun of her and hurt the grasshopper she brought to class. To cheer her up, her mom suggests she write to some bug scientists, and she gets lots and lots of responses from all kinds of bug scientists telling her not to give up on bugs.

This true story was fine but kind of lost the plot in a kid-telling-a-story way. Seems to be more about the adults than the kid. Having a bunch of strange adults telling her on social media (a thing she is legally not allowed to use) that bugs are cool does not actually help her with her peer problem. What does help, in the end, is developing some other interests in addition to bugs, but the book presents that as a thing that just happened, not a conscious decision or a sign of maturity.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

38. Sunshield by Emily B. Martin

Ambassador Veran of Alcoro has traveled a long way to continue in-person his correspondence with Prince Iano of Moquoia in hopes of officially ending the local slave trade. However, he finds Iano to be sullen and standoffish, nothing like the politician of his letters. It turns out that Iano’s anti-slavery chief advisor (and secret lover) Tamsin has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. Iano suspects the Sunshield Bandit, scourge of the local desert, but Veran knows that they only hold up slavers’ caravans. Could Veran possibly team up with a notorious bandit to find and rescue the Moquoian advisor and end slavery in the region? And who is this bandit anyway?

A kind of political-fantasy-western. This book is technically a sequel series to the Creatures of Light series which starts with Woodwalker. It can be read on its own but the worldbuilding is complex and is easier to follow with the background from the prior series. I really enjoyed it. Martin (who I knew in college, before she wrote any books) is clearly growing as an author and this book felt much more unique and a little more political, but has the same intricate twists and turns. It does end abruptly, so I’m planning to read the sequel right away.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

>146 norabelle414: - My library has that one, and I've put it on my wish list!

It's Saturday.

Wednesday afternoon my sore throat cleared up so I thought had averted any kind of daycare disease (this is foreshadowing). Had a nice time baby-sitting my niece after work.
Thursday and Friday I worked from home. Picked up some holds from the library including, finally, the 5th Murderbot book. After work on Friday I went out to a local happy hour that had alpacas and I got to pet them.

Last night I had a lot of trouble sleeping because I was too hot. The air conditioning was on so I thought it was just me. By the time I gave up trying to go back to sleep at 6:45am it was 80F in my apartment and I realized the A/C was on but not blowing cold. I had gotten a few good hours of sleep so I went to my zoo shift anyway. About halfway through my shift a visitor started having a medical issue. It was very hot and she was wearing dark clothes so I thought it might be heat exhaustion or a panic attack. It turned out she had a bad reaction to an edible. If you're going to take an edible for the first time don't do it in a public place on a hot day! She'll be fine but waiting for the zoo medic and then the EMTs took all of the rest of my shift.

On the way home from the zoo my eyes started oozing (?!) and by the time I got home I had full-blown gross conjunctivitis. Great! Thankfully the A/C had been fixed during the day. I spent the rest of the afternoon washing my pillowcase and towels and sleep masks. Took a nap in the evening and now I'm up doing my chores before going back to bed.

No plans for tomorrow, but excited to see what else can go wrong. I'm scheduled to work at the zoo again on Monday but I will cancel unless my eyes are significantly better by tomorrow afternoon.

Currently reading:
Almost done with How Far the Light Reaches. A few chapters into Her Majesty's Royal Coven.
Reviews behind: 4 (1 adult, 3 picture books)

Currently playing:
None

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
Finished Dinosaur (very sweet), Franklin (expensive but mediocre), MaryLand (should have been either longer or shorter). Caught up on Taskmaster, Last Week Tonight, Welcome to Wrexham, and The Big Door Prize. Watched two episodes of Saturday Night Live.

Ooof, sorry to hear about the difficulties yesterday and the conjunctivitis. No fun! Hope today is better.

I'm so sorry about the conjunctivitis. Hopefully, it moves on quickly.

Still pretty sick. Staying home from work tomorrow.

Feel better!

I hope you got to rest and you recover soon.

It's uhhh some day of the week?

Thank you for the well-wishes Mary, Micky, Rachel, and Robyn!

I was really out of commission for the past several days. I got progressively worse and ended up talking to a doctor on Tuesday who diagnosed me with a viral upper respiratory infection and said that basically (spoiler for gross body stuff) my sinuses were so infected and clogged that the mucous was coming out of my eyes instead of my nose. Ew. After several snafus with the pharmacy that I was too tired to properly deal with (thankfully my eyes were already bright red and weepy so no one could tell I was crying in the middle of the grocery store) I have a routine of cough suppressant - expectorant - steroid nasal spray - eyedrops - salt water gargle - Tylenol - cold compress every few hours that seems to be working. I woke up this morning and my eyes were not glued shut for the first time since Friday, and they're a light pink instead of dark red. I also had coffee this morning for the first time since Saturday so that's certainly helping as well. I'm going to try to do some laundry today (lots of gross towels and pillowcases to wash) and I might even go out to dinner with my dad and brother, since we were already planning to eat someplace that is outdoors and walking distance from my apartment.

I'm looking forward to being able to wear a sleep mask again, since I don't sleep well in the summer without one. Assuming I don't feel worse tomorrow I'm going to work from home. I don't have any plans for this weekend and I don't want to over-exert myself but since I've barely left my bed for several days I'd like to walk at least 2 miles each on Fri, Sat, Sun.

Currently reading:
Not being able to use my eyeballs for several days really put a roadblock in my reading plans! I only have about 30 pages left in How Far the Light Reaches so I should be able to finish it this month. I'm also in the middle of reading the short story A Slip Under the Microscope by H. G. Wells, and I'd like to read She-Hulk (2022) #6. I still have 300 pages left in Her Majesty's Royal Coven so that won't be finished this month.
Next up must be the 5th Murderbot as I've waited so long for it and there's a long holds list since my library only has one non-lost copy. I also have the sequel to Sunshield and a Cat Sebastian Romance out from the library. And of course all of the holds I've been bitching about for a month are going to come in.
Reviews behind: 4 (1 adult, 3 picture books)

Currently playing:
None

Currently listening:
None

Currently watching:
Spent most of the last few days dozing in front of the tv, but I couldn't follow anything complicated so I didn't actually catch up much. I watched the series finales of Grown-ish and Under the Bridge, the season finales of Abbott Elementary and Renegade Nell (I might rewatch because I think I slept through most of it). I rewatched all of season 1 of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin and the first 4 episodes of season 2, and now I'm rewatching season 1 of Evil to catch up to the currently-airing season 4.

Sorry you've been under the weather with such a nasty illness!! Hope you continue to mend now 🤞

>157 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie! Me too!

It's Friday again.

I felt sooo much better yesterday. I could almost talk normally and my eyes looked almost normal and had normal discharge instead of literal snot. I did a bunch of laundry (clean sheets and towels!!) and grocery shopped and walked in gorgeous weather to have real food for dinner with my dad and brother and then walked home. I overdid it, apparently, because I felt terrible again last night and today. I got about 4 hours of sleep. Thankfully it's the weekend now, though maybe my plans to walk 2 miles every day are too ambitious.

So today I'm back to yogurt and oatmeal and ramen and sitting in bed. I did work from home today; it took me longer than usual to get things done and I had to take frequent eye breaks but nothing urgent was going on so it was fine. I picked up a package that arrived while I was out cold, which was a book from my mom and her husband. They found a bookstore they really like in Sheboygan that frequently has displays of new non-fiction nature/biology books and keep sending me a book every couple months. They sent me Kingdom of Play: What Ball-Bouncing Octopuses, Belly-Flopping Monkeys, and Mud-Slinging Elephants Reveal About Life Itself by David Toomey

I have a hold ready at the library. I might pick it up tomorrow or I might wait for Monday.

Currently reading:
My eyes hurt too much to read anything yesterday but I'm still hopeful to finish something tonight.
Reviews behind: 4 (1 adult, 3 picture books)

Currently watching:
Finished series 17 of Taskmaster (John's win was inevitable but I was still hoping there was some way Joanne would pull it off) and the reveal of the series 18 cast (very interested to see what they do with Rosie Jones, a comedian with cerebral palsy. Will there be fewer tasks featuring things she's known to struggle with, like running or talking quickly? Or will they let her go wild and see what happens? (after all, very athletic comedians lose taskmaster terribly most seasons)).
I also watched today's episode of Welcome to Wrexham.

39. Oh Say Can You Say Di-No-Saur? by Bonnie Worth, illustrated by Steve Haefele

In rhyme, the Cat in the Hat discusses a few different species of dinosaur and how to pronounce their names correctly, followed by the fictional Cat-in-the-Hat-saurus.

I find the non-Seuss Cat in the Hat series books to be pretty eyeroll-worthy, but I did appreciate the rhymes here being used to teach pronunciation of dinosaur names. Definitely helps me with pronouncing them when I read other dinosaur books out loud.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

40. Hot Dog written and illustrated by Doug Salati

Summer in the big city is hot, and little long-haired dachshund Hot Dog has had enough! His owner takes him to the beach so they can have a little break.

A lovely picture book with minimal words. There are so many children’s books idolizing suburbia that I’m cautious about those that discuss the negatives of living in a city, but at the end of the book Hot Dog is happy to be back at home after his nice day at the beach. Plus, they take the train to the beach! What a treat.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

41. The Midnight Library written and illustrated by Kazuno Kohara

A little girl librarian runs a library that is only open at night, with her owl helpers. She gives all the animals what they need - a place to practice musical instruments, a story with a happy ending, or books to take home.

Really gorgeous yellow and blue woodblock illustrations. And such a cute, simple story! I’m not sure why the library is open at night, except that then she can have owls as helpers.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (4.5/5)

I somehow missed the jump to this thread, so I've just gotten caught up. If you ever get the chance to see the Frank Wildhorn musical of The Scarlet Pimpernel, it has delightful music and bears only a passing resemblance to the book. Glad your eyes are starting to feel better!

>156 norabelle414: >150 norabelle414: Ohhh, oozzing :(
I'm so sorry Nora, that sounds miserable. Glad you're on the mend.

I remember working from home while I had COVID. I sounded like a wheezy trumpet and couldn't speak for longer than ten minutes before I'd hack up a lung. It sounds like you're having a similar "fun time" and I hope you keep improving.

>160 norabelle414: I didn't know there were other than Seuss Cat in the Hat books, but this I would read if I saw it.
Glad the sinus infection was diagnosed so it can be treated and the eyes can mend, too! Take it easy if you can.

>163 foggidawn: Welcome to the party, foggi! I need some distance from The Scarlet Pimpernel for now but I'll come back to its better derivatives later.

>164 Ravenwoodwitch: Thanks Angela! When I had COVID the symptoms at least felt familiar, if quite serious. But this infection has been bizarre - I've had no coughing or sneezing, just oozing eyes and a sore throat so bad I can barely swallow.

>165 elorin: It's not so much a Cat in the Hat book as one of the many many kids' books published in various "Cat in the Hat" learning to read series. This one does actually have the Cat in the Hat in it as a narrator, but many of them just have the Cat in the Hat logo on them.
I am happy to have a diagnosis but as it's a viral infection I can only treat the symptoms and wait it out.

Sunday night, scary.

Felt bad all day Friday and had a lot of trouble sleeping. Felt bad again on Saturday but I took a nap on Saturday and slept okay last night. Didn't really do anything either day except sleep and watch tv

I was feeling pretty good today until about 7pm and now I feel bad again, ugh! I am going to try to go to work tomorrow.

I didn't pick up my library hold this weekend so I will try to do it tomorrow. I also have a Target order to pick up which has been languishing since Friday. It's nothing urgent I'm just replacing all of the eye makeup and lotions etc. that I threw out due to my eye infection.

Currently reading:
Read Her Majesty's Royal Coven for 45 minutes last night. Hoping to read more tonight. The 5th Murderbot book is in my backpack to read on the bus tomorrow.
Reviews behind: 4 (4 adult)

Currently watching:
Caught up on a lot! The series finale of The Sympathizer (I liked it less than I thought I would), the season finale of Sugar (loved the mid-season twist but the mystery reveal at the end was kind of meh), Saturday Night Live, and Hacks (incredible). Caught up on The Big Door Prize, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, and Doctor Who (I am *loving* this season). Started new shows Dark Matter (I don't think I like the show but I might still read the book) and In Limbo (too sad for now but I might continue later).

>167 norabelle414: Oh, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well! I hope a good night’s sleep will get you back on track again.

I just watched the fifth episode of Doctor Who and it was excellent! Ncuti Gatwa is a great Doctor. I agree with you about Hacks—very good! I’ve got Dark Matter on my list but haven’t watched any yet. I’ve started watching Bodkin and am liking it more and more.

Feel better!

Karen O

>167 norabelle414: I hope you are continuing to feel better, it sounds like it has been a really rough patch.

We watched Sugar - I don't know how I felt about the twist really, but I agree that the last episode sort of set up a boring premise for season 2 in my opinion.

We are also watching Dark Matter. Morgan and I both loved the book. I feel like the series is okay, but find the main actor insufficiently engaging.

It's Monday.

Slept terribly last night, again. My only remaining symptoms are weird eyes (there's no longer discharge of any kind but they're still painful) and an extremely painful sore throat. I feel a bit better after taking my meds (mostly the eyedrops and pain reliever, I expect) so I'm in the office today (with a mask on), but I can go home if I need to.

I have a library book and a Target order to pick up on my way home today, if I'm feeling up to it. I'd also like to pick up a little something for my sister-in-law's birthday (which is today but I'll give it to her on Wednesday).

Currently reading:
Read Her Majesty's Royal Coven for 20 minutes last night. Even aside from the good plot about modern witches, I'm really enjoying the Britishness of it. Not even the spellings are changed for a US audience. Started Network Effect on the bus this morning.
Reviews behind: 4 (4 adult)

Currently listening:
Because I haven't been able to use my eyes much I've been catching up on my backlog of podcasts, but nothing really notable.

Currently playing:
I played a little more of Pokemon Violet (expansion pack) while I was sick but I'm stuck at the place where I always am... my team is not quite powerful enough to beat the post-game bosses but the idea of leveling everyone up from 80 to 85 or whatever I need sounds too tedious and I give up.

Currently watching:
Nothing since last night, obviously.

>168 klobrien2: Hi Karen! It's been over a week now so the chance of a quick recovery has passed. But I'm not getting any worse, so that's good. (fingers crossed)

>169 ursula: find the main actor insufficiently engaging.
Interesting, that might be my issue as well. Plus the only two female characters are so underbaked.

>70 katiekrug: Not even the spellings are changed for a US audience.
Oooh, I love it when that's the decision.

Hope you're feeling better soon and the day goes by quickly.

>173 bell7: I read a lot of books (and watch a lot of tv) written and set in the UK so it does take something for me to notice a difference.

It's Tuesday.

Yesterday I felt mostly fine (though I could definitely feel when my meds started to wear off). After work I walked to the library to pick up a hold (didn't check out anything else because I have 7 books out now). Then I went to Target to pick up my order as well as a birthday gift for my sister-in-law (I didn't see anything big that I liked so I got her a "care package" of snacks, nail polish, lip balm, etc.). Went to bed later than I should have.

I slept pretty well last night. My throat didn't hurt too much to get comfortable, but I did cough a lot in the night and my eyes were a little crusty. Today I'm feeling pretty good, so I don't think I overdid it yesterday. Hopefully I'm almost better.

No real plans for today but I need to wrap my sister-in-law's present and would like to paint my nails and figure out where I can get a passport photo taken, since I need to renew.

Currently reading:
20 minutes of Her Majesty's Royal Coven before bed last night. 15 minutes each of Network Effect on the bus yesterday afternoon and this morning.
Reviews behind: 4 (4 adult)(I have written 2 of them but am putting finishing touches on)

Currently watching:
Some friends and I tried to watch the first episode of Ren Faire, a documentary about the weird guy who owns the Texas Renaissance Festival, at the same time but from our respective living rooms, but we were all on the same Max account and Max did not like that so it kicked us off. Boo!

It's Wednesday!

I goofed off yesterday after work. I did wrap my sister-in-law's gift and paint my nails but I did not figure out where to get a passport photo.

Today after work I'm going to my brother's house to baby-sit. I brought my sister-in-law's present and I will not forget it at work (fingers crossed). I'll probably pick up something for us to eat for dinner on my way.

Tomorrow I'm going out to dinner with some friends, then no plans until Saturday night when I'm baby-sitting again.

Currently reading:
I stayed up too late and did not get to read before bed last night. Then I missed the bus this morning which meant I had 20 extra minutes of reading Network Effect this morning while I was waiting for the next one. Bookly says I'll need to read 35 minutes per day to finish before it's due back at the library.
Reviews behind: 4 (4 adult)(I have written 2 of them but am putting finishing touches on)

Currently playing:
I started a new game on the computer called Coral Island which is basically just a Stardew Valley clone but it was really laggy and didn't work well with my controller (the equipped tool kept changing any time I turned left or right, which resulted in me hoeing my planted seeds several times!!). I thought there was something wrong with the controller but then I started playing Moonstone Island, a different Stardew Valley clone, and the controller worked perfectly fine so I'm playing that game instead.

Currently watching:
Caught up on Last Week Tonight and watched a few episodes of season 2 of Evil.

Happy Thursday!!

Yesterday I got several things done at work and helped out with my niece after work and I did not forget my sister-in-law's present at the office! A good day. I brought a postcard designed to be colored on and had my niece color it and I'm going to mail it to my mom. Before bed we read Bunny Loves to Read by Peter Bently. (We read it 3 times but I'm only going to count it once...)

I'm still feeling pretty good but not 100%. Slept well last night. Today I'm working from home. I have a few meetings and then this evening I'm going out for conveyor belt sushi with some friends.

Currently reading:
Still enjoying Her Majesty's Royal Coven and almost halfway through Network Effect. The podcast Overdue is going to cover A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man which I already own so I started flipping through it and UGH MODERNISM. It's only 250 pages but each one feels like 50 pages. I'm going to try to read it but I might not make it.
Reviews behind: 5 (4 adult, 1 picture book)(I have written 2 of them but am putting finishing touches on)

Currently playing:
Nothing

Currently watching:
2 episodes of Daniel Tiger

I always just went to a CVS or Walgreens for a passport photo. They have a little flip-down white background and whatever. Easy and cheap.

>178 ursula: Yeah there's a Walgreens across the street from me but last time I checked they don't do passport photos. Last time I went to a CVS a few blocks away but they did a huge major remodel during COVID and turned most of the store into a clinic so I'm not sure if they still do the passport photos. I'm going to have to pick up the phone and call, ugh.

I think if the CVS has a photo center, they do passport photos (https://www.cvs.com/photo/passport-photos). You can look up specific locations and see if they have photo centers under "Store Details."

42. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Marra is a princess, the youngest of three. Her oldest sister marries a nearby prince and dies, so the prince moves on to the middle sister, who ends up frequently pregnant with bruises on her arms. Naturally Marra, who has been confined to a nunnery in case he requires a third wife, decides to kill the prince. To help her she gathers a motley crew of a graveyard witch, a chicken with a demon in her, a dog made of bones, a freed slave of the elves, and a half-assed fairy godmother.

This is my first T. Kingfisher and my expectations were very high, but I didn’t love it. The overall plot was fine, and spending time with the characters was nice, but the message was a little muddled. I really enjoyed the use of bits and pieces of various fairy tales, without a straight retelling. I thought the logic and plan of killing the prince didn’t really make sense. The only way it could have worked out without making the whole situation worse was the way that it did end up going, which was not according to plan and a little too convenient. I’ll definitely pick up more Kingfisher but I was not blown away.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

43. A Slip Under the Microscope {short story} by H. G. Wells

William Hill is a biology student at the College of Science in 1896. Despite being the low-class son of a cobbler he is doing quite well for himself - good grades, the romantic attention of a smart and well-off classmate, and rousing discussions of the benefits of socialism with his fellow students. He is a very, very hard worker and is attending the school on scholarship. He has a friendly rivalry with another student named Wedderburn (son of a famous doctor), but when Hill’s crush and Wedderburn meet up at a rich people party that Hill is not invited to, he gets jealous. The rivalry starts to get unfriendly, on both sides, culminating in Hill accidentally seeing the answer to an exam question and not confessing in order to maintain his lead over Wedderburn in the class rankings. Hill was raised to be a good, honest person and his guilt eats away at him. He confesses, which results in the teacher failing him for the whole exam per school policy. The failed exam causes Hill's scholarship to be revoked, and he drops out of college.

I really loved this short story. Even the title has such an elegant double meaning. The slip (what we would now call a “slide”) under the microscope is what Hill sees that he’s not supposed to, but also Hill makes a slip, a mistake, while he is under the microscope of being a working-class student on scholarship at an upper-class institution. He is held to a standard of perfection, while Wedderburn who also cheats, but doesn’t confess and still doesn’t beat Hill’s ranking is not. Including Hill’s keen interest in socialism is also a nice touch. A reminder that no matter how perfect one member of the working class is, they will not be allowed equality by the elite.
What impressed me most of all was the timelessness of the story. A little bit of hay is made out of the inclusion of female students in this class, but other than that there’s nothing about it that couldn’t have been written in the 1920s or 1970s or yesterday or tomorrow. What an impressive reminder of what is so amazing about H. G. Wells as a writer.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

44. How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

Sabrina Imbler is a queer, mixed-race science writer who does not come from a traditional science background. In this memoir, they compare their life experiences - being queer, realizing they’re trans, being part Asian, moving from California to New York City, etc. - with the weird lives of sea creatures from feral goldfish to maternal octopuses to communal salps.

I think I would call this more “essays” than a memoir, because there isn’t really a throughline or chronology. It’s just their feelings about bits and pieces of their life. Which is fine! I have read other books that try to make the same connections between other living creatures and the author's life, and this is far better than most. Imbler does extensive research and the connections are made on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, not just chapter-by-chapter. I am a big fan of Imbler’s science writing on the internet and this is more of the same. My only quibble is that I wish there had been more of it…both more memoir and more about the animals.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

Happy Saturday!!

Thursday night I went out for conveyor belt sushi, which was delightful. Yesterday I laid very low except for a trip to the grocery store. I finished off one of my prescriptions from my sinus infection so I decided to go cold-turkey to see how I felt. I could definitely tell the difference but didn't feel too bad. My throat hurt enough to bother me when I was trying to sleep so I did take a painkiller for that.

Today I'll be baby-sitting my niece from about 4 to 10.

Tomorrow I have No-Specific-Book Club. I might return some books to the library but it's closed on Sundays so I won't pick anything up. Next week I'm feeding my friend's cat after work on Monday and Tuesday, then baby-sitting on Wednesday.

Currently reading:
Finished Network Effect! Haven't read anything else.
Reviews behind: 3 (2 adult, 1 picture book)

Currently watching:
The first episode of Ren Faire, which was not great but it's only 3 episodes so I'll probably watch the whole thing. Almost done with season 2 of Evil, watched s3e1 of Taskmaster New Zealand, and started new show Clipped (not nearly as good as Winning Time but it's fine for a summer streaming show).

I set some very modest goals for myself this year (see >1 norabelle414:), and I've completed all of the ones that are about books to read:

3) Read at least two books by the same author DONE!
4) Read another book in a series I've already started DONE!
5) Read at least one book in each of the following categories: romance, science non-fiction, science fiction, picture book, graphic novel, audiobook DONE!

So I'm setting myself a few more:
6) Read at least 2 books by the same author that are not in the same series
7) Get caught up on a series of at least 3 books
8) Read at least 3 books published in 2024
9) Post mid-year reading statistics

I might think of a few more later. Taking suggestions!

Congrats on completing all your bookish goals thus far and on setting more! I don't have any suggestions, but I like the ones you've chosen.

It's Monday.

Saturday I baby-sat from 4 to 11. Yesterday I caught up on TV and attended my online No-Specific-Book Club. It was just me and two new attendees so I had to kind of guide the discussion. The guy who usually does it is much better at it than me but I think I did okay.

Today has been stressful, as I found out an annual deadline that is usually September 1 has been moved to July 1 with no notice. I'm scrambling, but I got my first step of the process done today and now it's in someone else's hands. I'm headed downtown straight from work to feed my friend's cat. Might pick up takeout on the way home.

Currently reading:
Read a big chunk of Her Majesty's Royal Coven while baby-sitting, and a little bit of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which is now my purse/backpack book.
Reviews behind: 3 (2 adult, 1 picture book)
Consecutive reading days: 13

Currently watching:
Caught up on Doctor Who (controversially, I didn't love this one, only because I don't think The Doctor should know what Bridgerton is and there were WAY too many direct mentions of it), Pretty Little Liars, The Big Door Prize, and Welcome to Wrexham. I finished The Spiderwick Chronicles (the credits made it seem like it would have more magical creatures than it ended up having, but overall it's a fine kids show). I started new shows The Killing Kind (not for me) and The Big Cigar (fine but seems like it should have been a movie instead).

Hello Nora, attempting to do a little catching up.
>78 norabelle414: & >81 norabelle414: Hope you are happy with your Bookly purchase, I have been using the app since I started LT and paid for the lifetime subscription. The app is a little glitchy sometimes, but overall I really like using it.
>98 norabelle414: I recently saw Little Shop of Horrors for the first time with my cousin, it was very good, but the the pain of theaters can be annoying sometimes. Knee space is important, lol. My poor cousin was stuck leaning into my seat the second half of our show because the people in front of us switched seats at the end of intermission and they were quite tall for the small stage production.
>181 norabelle414: Sorry this wasn't an absolute win for you. I love Kingfisher and really enjoyed this book. Hope some of her other books end up being a better hit for you.
>183 norabelle414: I've heard good things about this book and kind of got the essays vibe from it, it's on my shelf to read, hopefully soon, we'll see.
That was a lot, sorry. Hope you have a good week!

>186 curioussquared: Thanks Natalie!

>188 WhiteRaven.17: Hi Kro! I am still enjoying Bookly. I find it very motivating to see the actual amount of time it takes me to read a book. I am looking forward to reading more T. Kingfisher...do you have a favorite?

Happy Tuesday!

Yesterday I fed my friend's cat after work and picked up South American takeout for dinner. Took out a bunch of trash and recycling that was piling up.

Today I'm feeding my friend's cat again, and hopefully going to the grocery store. I also have several books to take back to the library and a hold to pick up, but I haven't yet written a review of the book that is actually due.

Currently reading:
I forgot to mention the books I read to my niece while baby-sitting this weekend: Mae Jemison (Little People, Big Dreams) and The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds.
Did not read any of Her Majesty's Royal Coven last night, despite being 80% finished. Read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man on the bus both ways but it's slow going because I hate it.
Reviews behind: 5 (2 adult, 3 picture book)
Consecutive reading days: 14

Currently watching:
Caught up on Last Week Tonight and finished s2 and started s3 of Evil.

It's Wednesday.

Yesterday I fed my friend's cat after work. I was too tired to stop by the library on my way home or go to the grocery store. I did pick up a hawaiian rice bowl for dinner.

I was out like a light last night and got more than 7 hours of sleep, but feeling very tired and cranky today. I might have another coffee, since it's mini-Friday (coffee after noon can sometimes really mess up my sleep but sometimes it needs to happen anyway.) After work I'm going to swing by the grocery store to pick up a few things for my sister-in-law and then help out with my niece. The rest of the week should be lower-key. No real plans for this weekend; it's father's day but my dad is out of town.

Currently reading:
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is my purse book but it takes me twice as long to read as other books because modernism sucks. I am 40% through and am determined to finish it, then as a reward I am going to get rid of my copy of Ulysses as well. Good riddance.
Reviews behind: 5 (2 adult, 3 picture book)
Consecutive reading days: 15

Currently watching:
I finished Shardlake (fine but definitely did not benefit from my 3-week hiatus between watching episodes 2 and 3) and watched a few more episodes of In Limbo (still devastatingly sad but I was in the mood for it).

45. She-Hulk (2022) #6 by Rainbow Rowell,illustrated by Luca Maresca

Jen and Patsy celebrate Eat Cake in Fancy Dresses Wednesday, where Jen gets information about Jack’s past but is still keeping his existence a secret.. Mallory finds out about Jen’s secret superhero clients but the case is so lucrative she can’t be mad. Jack finds out no one reported him dead so he still has access to all his assets. Jack can now touch Jen without hurting her, which they find out the easy way…by making out.

Funny how these superheroes always find a way to have unlimited money. It was nice to break the sexual tension, since the cover art has been teasing it since issue #3. I guess we’re just dropping the Mark and April storyline?

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

46. Bunny Loves to Read by Peter Bently, illustrated by Deborah Melmon

A bunny named Bunny loves to read. His friends make fun of him for reading when he could be playing. However, one day it is raining and the animals can’t play outside, so Bunny gives them books he knows they’ll love to read. When the rain stops and they can go outside again, they’re still thinking about the fun stories they read in books.

The art is nice and big, and there aren’t too many words per page so it’s nice for younger kids. The story is nicely pro-reading (and pro-imagination) but not particularly deep. I did really enjoy that each animal has a book that’s specifically for them, it’s not one-book-fits-all.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

47. Network Effect (Murderbot, book 5) by Martha Wells

Murderbot has (somewhat, reluctantly) settled in to life with Dr. Mensah and her family on Preservation, a very peaceful society. But it's hard for Murderbot to unlearn their programmed hypervigilance, and hard for Mensah to forget everything she's been through. Dr. Mensah agrees to go to therapy if Murderbot accompanies her teenage daughter on a research mission. Nothing should go wrong….until Murderbot and Mensah’s daughter are kidnapped by gray aliens in a ship that looks just like Murderbot's friend ART….but definitely does not act like ART. Whoever these beings are, they are going to regret messing with Murderbot and their best friend acquaintance.

Really loved it. Wells takes advantage of the full-novel length to tell a story which maybe could have been broken into two, but is more resonant as one. Due to some AI shenanigans there are real stakes, including the risk of main character death which is so thrilling and devastating. It presents the reader with real philosophical questions - if a copy of Murderbot’s consciousness was put into a new SecUnit body…would that be Murderbot? Would we love them the same?
The reveal of what ART and its crew actually do adds a lot of nuance to the world-building beyond the usual “corporations bad” and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (5/5)

48. Mae Jemison (Little People, Big Dreams) by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, illustrated by Janna Morton

Tells the story of astronaut Mae Jemison’s life. She grew up in Chicago, dreamed of being an astronaut, and found inspiration in Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek. She graduated high school at 16 years old, danced ballet, went to Stanford, got a medical degree, and worked for the Peace Corps. Eventually she became the first woman of color in space, as a US astronaut.

Perfectly fine. I like this series much better than the similar “I Am…” series, because the stories are shorter, more straightforward, and don’t have a weird adult narrator. The focus of the subject’s accomplishments is on the dreams they had as kids, not on them being particularly special people, which is nice. The art is lovely, and each book has a different artist, usually from the same background as the biography subject, so they each have a different style.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ (4/5)

49. The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds by Pat Relf, illustrated by John Speirs

The kids in Ms. Frizzle’s class are getting their beautiful garden photographed for a magazine, but one plant is missing - Phoebe’s favorite flower from her old school. Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into an insect and the class learns all about how flowers get fertilized and create seeds.

The Magic School Bus is great, but this is one of the weaker installments. It is really just about flower parts and fertilization, not about plants growing, but that’s probably an awkward thing to put in a book title.

Rating: ❤ ❤ ❤ ♥ (3.5/5)

Happy weekend!

I baby-sat my niece after work on Wednesday. Laid low on Thursday and Friday, though I did take a walk and read outside for awhile. It's a little bit hot here (mid-80s and humid) but it's going to get into the 100s next week so I'm trying to enjoy it. I picked up the 6th Murderbot book from the library and a couple other things from the shelves. I'm getting more into browsing the shelves, though I don't usually pick anything up unless I've heard of it before. My library branch is so tiny it would probably only take me 15 minutes to thoroughly scour the shelves, so I'm probably still going to get most of my checkouts from holds.

Today I volunteered at the zoo in the morning. It's breeding season in the bird house so all of the birds are on their worst behavior.

Tomorrow I think I'm having dinner at my brother's house? Then next week I have election day on Tuesday and a holiday on Wednesday.

Currently reading:
Making some progress in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, more than halfway done, but if anything it sucks more as I go along. I finished Her Majesty's Royal Coven and loved it; I put the next book on hold right away. I started It Takes Two to Tumble by Cat Sebastian for my at-home book, but I haven't gotten far yet.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 18

Currently watching:
I watched the first episode of the new show Fantasmas. It's very weird but it's written by and starring Julio Torres, who wrote and starred in Los Espookys, which I absolutely love, so I trust him.

It's Monday.

I'm mourning the loss this weekend of our friend Anita (@FAMeulstee). She was such a welcoming presence here and I will really miss her.

Yesterday I emailed my dad for Father's Day but did not end up having dinner at my brother's house (my sister-in-law was going to have a Father's Day dinner for both of them but my dad is on vacation so it was canceled).

Today I'm in the office, and my weekly staff meeting is canceled so it should be a quiet day. I'll take some time today to research tomorrow's primary election. Tomorrow I'll vote in the morning before work. Wednesday is a holiday and I'll be baby-sitting in the morning.

Currently reading:
I have less than 50 pages left in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but at my rate of reading for this book that's an hour and 15 minutes so I don't think I'll finish until Wednesday. I also brought Floodpath, the sequel to Sunshield, for the bus in case I get too tired of James Joyce. I'm about 120 pages into It Takes Two to Tumble and enjoying it fine, though not as much as her more recent books.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 20

Currently playing:
I played quite a lot of My Time at Sandrock this week, but I have to finally admit that it is my controller that is the problem, so I've ordered a new one. When it arrives I'll go back and try Coral Island again.

Currently watching:
I watched the season finales of Welcome to Wrexham (good but this season was too short!!) and The Big Door Prize (overall the season was good but there is absolutely no resolution in the finale. It could have been any episode.). Caught up on Doctor Who (still loving this season). I also finished season 3 of Evil and got caught up on season 4.

ETA: I also watched the first half of the Tonys, but I didn't have the right streaming service to watch the second half live. I'll watch it this week probably.

Happy Tuesday! It's Election Day!

For some reason I thought there was more on the ballot than just the Democratic primary for county board so I set aside half an hour for research but it only took me about 20 seconds. I knew who my first and second choice were going to be (we have ranked-choice voting) and I knew I definitely would not vote for 2 of the other 3 candidates (one of them put a sign outside my high-rise apartment building that said "keep {county} suburban"....sir, know your audience! (also this county has never been suburban and parts of it have the same population density as Manhattan)). The third candidate is Julie Farnam, which means that part of my research was reading @richardderus's review of her book, how fun! She seems fine but her platform is anti-housing and anti-immigrant so I did not vote for her.

I considered going to a meet-up for bar trivia last night but chickened out, as usual, when I saw how many other people had signed up.

This morning I voted. My polling place is in the basement of my building so it only takes a couple minutes more than my normal commute. I got my sticker and picked up a "future voter" sticker for my niece as well. I'm in the office and things should be quiet today.

Tomorrow is a holiday and I'm babysitting in the morning. Thursday I'm having dinner with my dad and brother at my dad's social club.

Currently reading:
I have EIGHT pages left in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man so I will definitely finish on the bus this afternoon (or possibly at my desk if things continue to be slow here...) Good riddance! It's a much less satisfying book to dislike than The Scarlet Pimpernel was.
Halfway through It Takes Two to Tumble. Up next are Floodpath and the 6th Murderbot.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 21

Currently listening:
I got caught up on a LOT of podcasts over the weekend: Decoder Ring, Articles of Interest, The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show, 5-4, and almost caught up on Material Girls (formerly known as Witch Please). This weeks episode of Overdue is about A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (hence I'm reading it) but I won't listen until I've finished the book and at least drafted my review.

Currently watching:
s3e2 of Taskmaster New Zealand and I finished In Limbo which was incredibly sad (but good). I'm not sure if there's going to be another season.

Happy Juneteenth!

I grew up in DC where we celebrate Emancipation Day on April 16th, the day that all slaves in DC were freed. It seemed a little silly to me to celebrate the day that slaves were freed in some other state! But Juneteenth is a reminder that no one is free until everyone is free.

This morning I got up at my usual time but instead of going to work I went to my brother's house to baby-sit. We had a nice time playing outside with the hose in the morning, but lunch and the afternoon were rough, with multiple potty accidents and not wanting to take a nap. It's very hot today so on my way home I stopped after my mile-long walk in the sun and got some ice cream before getting on the Metro.

Tomorrow I'm having dinner with my dad and brother at my dad's social club. No plans for the weekend until Sunday afternoon, when I'm going to a community theater production of Assassins, which I have never seen before.

Currently reading:
Yesterday I finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Good riddance! I wrote a review of it but I don't want to post it out of order. I'm about 2/3 through It Takes Two to Tumble. I started Floodpath on the Metro today and read about 60 pages.
Reviews behind: 1
Consecutive reading days: 22

Currently watching:
I started We Are Lady Parts and I'm very mad I haven't watched it earlier because it's so good!

New thread over here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/361590 !!!