Reading

Entry tags:

on the road

Minneapolis

It's very poignant to be here again. I'm in Minneapolis so rarely that I can still distinguish each visit, but the overall sense is one of extended memory, that is not just of my own, but of anecdotes from my mother and grandmother about their lives here, my grandmother as a (very) young adult, and my mother as a kid.

Not all the memories of mine are good--the week we spent in Bloomington ranged from weird to horrific, the axis we kid spun around was the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom when my bio grandfather started his daily drinking and turned into a monster. We kids at least escaped with his bio kids (our age, his second marriage) but mom couldn't escape--we had the car.

The city that was best to them all (though mom only got to visit, never got to live there) was Red Wing. I adore that place! There's something so peaceful about Red Wing. And extended memory is very complete, as we heard ALL the stories about life on the farm, etc. But it wasn't idyllic--my grandmother and her older sister had to go--that was the conditions my great-grandmother accepted when she remarried in order to save the farm, around 1930, with the Depression really digging in. The man said he could abide the two younger girls but the sixteen year old (my grandmother) and her older sister had to get out and find their way on their own. Which they did, in Minneapolis, waiting tables.

Anyway I'm here for a con. I came a day early, knowing that getting in at one in the morning would leave me a zombie for a day. The weather is perfect--cool and cloudy. I think I'll go out for another walk.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: some

Entry tags:

Painful, preventable, and self-inflicted

Had a productive day yesterday, with lots of small tasks & errands accomplished, culminating with actually making dinner! I seared the little round roast in a frying pan, then opened the preheated oven and grabbed the rack to lower it.

With my bare hand.

We ate dinner (it was yummy), then finished the evening at the nearest 24-hour urgent care, because while the damage wasn't too bad, burns hurt. Surprisingly, they did actually supply effective pain relief. Fortunately the 2nd-degree burn on the pad of the ring finger is small, and the burn on the webbing between finger & thumb is only 1st degree. Still, that was 2 seconds of stupid that's going to cost me 2 weeks of raging inconvenience.

So if I'm slower than usual replying to folks, that's why.

Any remaining typos brought to you by my amazing one-handed touch-typing.

Entry tags:

on the road

Northwards

I was taking to a felow customer when I stopped for sandwiches while strolling around downtown Albany last night, and when I commented on the deepeness of the verdure around me--I can't get enough of it--he said that it's been a very wet season here.

I took a walk along the Hudson, stopping at a little side canal, or whatever they are called, when I saw a bridge and inviting shadows (the sun was overly warm and the hair humid and kind of dirty). I snapped this shot:

If it works right, and you embiggen, look just above the top branch of the fallen tree. I'd spotted a pair of geeze swimming toward it, and thought they'd make a splendid shot framed by the two branches. But they never emerged from behind the top one, some twenty feet below me and upstream. I could see the ripples from them paddling, but no sign of the geese.

When I looked closer, I just spotted a black and white goose head peeking at me from beyond that branch. They were clearly waiting for the monster to lurk somewhere else.

And now I'm on my way northwards toward Montreal, which I should reach this evening.

Entry tags:

books: monthly

Books for May

Swept Away - Beth O'Leary, 2.5/5, Audiobook ~10hrs
I loved the first part. Reading about Zeke and Lexi being stuck on the boat hit all the right notes of the "forced proximity" trope for me. Sure, it was unrealistic as - but it worked for me.

So 4 - almost 5 stars for that part.

But then ... apparently Beth O'Leary didn't think that almost drowning was conflict enough, but added the most ridiculous and unnecessary of all twists, and I came close to giving up on the book right then and there. Completely pointless, and just plain mean.

So 1 star for that part.

Fortunately they managed to resolve things in a decent manner, which is why I decided to round up rather than down on goodreads. But I could have done without the epilogue!

Waking Gods - Sylvain Neuvel*, 3.5/5, 336 pages
I downgraded the rating a bit on this reread (from 4.5 to 3.5) - there were just too many things left unanswered and too many jumps in narration. I realize this was a deliberate choice by the author, but it kept pulling me out of the narrative. Still enjoyed it otherwise though.

Faraday's Flowers - Tony Kendrick*, 2/5, 190 pages
I first discovered this book when I was a young teen. I came across it at a flee market while on vacation in Bornholm, thought the back blurb looked interesting and picked it up. As such it was one of the first "grown-up" books I read, which probably had a lot to do with how much I liked it. I hadn't reread it in ~25 years though, and alas, this book did not stand the test of time, and I had to downgrade the rating from a 4 to a 2! The mere fact that it took me TWO WEEKS to finish this short 190-page book should tell you something by itself.

None of the characters seemed fleshed out, and Wayse seemed to mostly just stumble his way around Shanghai and accidentally discovering the people he needed to talk to without any real rhyme or reason.

Nostalgia demands that I hold on to this book, as I really did love it as a teen! But I don't see myself ever rereading it.

The House Witch - Delemhach, 4/5, Audiobook ~17hrs
Lovely cozy fantasy :-) The first in a series, but while it did have a bit of an abrupt ending, it was very much a fairytale-style ending, so it was still nicely self-contained. But very charming, so I want to continue on with the series.
I want to read more about life in the kitchen - how Fin uses his magic, how the knights and maids work side by side ... basically more cozy fantasy stuff and less political intrigue stuff ;-)

Library of the Dead - Glenn Cooper*, 4/5, 350 pages
I'm in a bit of a reading slump, so decided to try to restart it by rereading an old favourite - time will show if it worked. It's a fascinating read even on this, my fourth reread.

Books Read: 37
Pages Read: 6,775
Hours Listened To: 144
Book of the Month: "The House Witch"
Biggest Disappointment: "Swept Away".