Home of the Secret Keeper

And then a month went by....

2022-02-22T05:12:15Z

Ooops.

So, obviously, my semester is in full swing now (just started Week 6) and free time has been in short supply most weeks. In addition to that, I'm preparing to test for my 2nd degree black belt on this weekend, so there have been some extra prep classes for those students who are participating (testing to 1st, 2nd and/or 3rd deg), which has meant traipsing out to PA on weeknights instead of the weekend, like I usually prefer to do, and that cuts more into my study time because even though the drive time is the same, regardless, those prep classes run longer than typical classes. I also had to research and write a short essay (mine happened to be ~1k words) on the history of TKD (the required topic for 2nd degree), so I had to shoehorn that in with my regular schoolwork, too.

In general, however, life has been pretty routine: subbing, library volunteering, visiting my dad, TKD, school, taking Two to/from work, trying to get him set up with the preliminary stuff for his entrance to JWU in the fall (note to child: I am more than happy to sort through emails and figure out what needs doing. I am happy to help you read anything that's confusing. But YOU will do the work. Not me.) talking to MiniPlu every couple of days, etc etc. Jade has, thankfully, mostly recovered from her ACL injury and we're allowed to start building her up to regular walks again. Oh, and last weekend she turned 7!

For my YA Lit class, the prof is one I had last semester for a totally different class. She's super nice and always willing to help explain something, but her expectations for assignments are REALLY high, and I sometimes struggled to get all the pieces right in her assignments. This semester, I've been going through her rubrics with a fine-tooth comb, REALLY making sure I've covered every detail. I cannot begin to tell you how ecstatic I've been to get, for the first two assignments, a 100% and a 94%. And even though I got "only" a 94% on the second one, I still got a shoutout to the whole class for my project having been a fantastic example for one of the particular elements. Like, no joke, I am ECSTATIC to be finally getting a better grip on what she's after. \o/

Our weather has been all over the place the past couple of weeks, with days where the windchill is far below freezing, and other days when you can go out in a long-sleeve shirt and no sweater or jacket. Our crocuses (croci?) started blooming early and are, no doubt, very confused. We're in the midst of a couple of those warmer days, peaking on Wed with forecast temps of 65F/18C. But on Sat morning, when I have to go for an outdoor pre-dawn run (only about a mile/1.6km, but still) with the group as part of our belt test? Current forecast is for 18F/-7.7C. Here's hoping there's no wind, or it'll be even worse. FML.

And speaking of FML - Will is really hating his work life at the moment. His team of 6 within the IT department dropped to 4 a few months ago, and then, in the past couple of weeks, 2 more left. So, now it's just him and T, and he's just learned that even T is interviewing elsewhere. The department as a whole has been laboring on making this huge switch over to a new IT platform for the college, and they're in the final stages of getting it ready - but if most of Will's team is disappearing [a woman from another team came over to his team to replace one of the guys who left, the one who had been head of the team since we moved here (Will used to be team leader before our move)], then it's going to make this last stage extremely difficult to pull off. Now is not the time to be bringing in newbies who have no idea what's going on. The problem here is the community college has significantly underpaid their employees, and now they're reaping the "benefits" - people are jumping ship. Yes, Will could change jobs, too, but he doesn't WANT to. He has - mostly - liked where he's been (and he's been there since Aug 2003, shortly after we brought MiniPlu home), wants to see this damn project through to completion, and, honestly, had planned to stay where he was until he retired. He doesn't want the stress of being new somewhere else right now, or worrying that some new place will make him go in person again. So, anyway - yeah, he's been really REALLY stressed lately.

Movies: I saw Encanto a couple of weeks ago on Disney+ and, as with so many people, immediately fell in love with the music and the visual details. :D

Broadway: Two and I went to see the musical Six on Broadway at the end of Jan - his generous Christmas present to me. We had a fun day, and the musical itself was a BLAST. Go listen to the soundtrack, it's awesome. We're taking MiniPlu to see it in June.

Books: Obviously, all my reading has been for school lately, except for readalouds with Two, and the audiobook of Autoboyography, which magically showed up when I opened my Audible account. I guess at the time it came free with my Kindle edition? I dunno. Not complaining, though!

Read Aloud: "Playing the Palace" (sweet and hilarious m/m), "If This Gets Out" (boyband romance, m/m) and ... I can't think if there's been anything else. Just recently started "Here's To Us".

For school:

Choose Your Own Adventure: 8th Grade Witch (graphic novel) by Andrew E.C. Gaska: this is apparently a remake of the classic 1980s-ish text-only version, which I never read. I'm not a "creepy story" kind of person, and this is intended to be creepy for the middle-school set. So, the artwork was nice, but the various plot options did nothing for me, and in some cases just seemed pointless.

Meet Cute Diary by Emery Lee: This was a book I had been eyeing for awhile anyway, as it features a trans (ftm) main character. Basically, Noah runs this blog featuring meet-cute stories involving transmale characters - except they're all fictitous, born of Noah's idealistic imagination. A troll figures out the stories are fake and begins to turn his fanbase against him, but a cute (gay) guy Noah had invented a meet-cute about (after bumping into him) offers to fake-date him to make one of the stories, at least, seem true. That guy ends up being kind of self-centered, himself, eventually, and you can clearly tell whom Noah's really going to end up with, even if that relationship takes some time to build. But, wow, I was disappointed by the story overall. Noah is incredibly shallow, whiny, lazy and self-centered for most of the book, and since I didn't really like him, it made it hard to like the general story, which could otherwise have had much more potential. Yes, some personal growth is involved. And I really did love Noah's interactions with the person he ends up with, someone who is still figuring out their pronouns (which don't end up being "they/them" btw, but I don't want to say too much more here) - the way Noah assured them that it was ok to still be figuring things out, and rolling with whatever changes that person was making - that was really sweet. But overall, yeah, I was disappointed with how irritating Noah was most of the time.

White Smoke by Tiffany D Jackson: Aaaand, we're back to the creepy. Marigold and her recently blended family (mom, younger brother, stepdad and his little girl) move to a rundown midwestern town where the mom has been granted an artist's residency as a writer, as part of a program to lure new life to the community and rebuild it. Marigold is black; the stepdad and stepdaughter are white, which adds to the tension, along with the little girl, Piper (I think she's 10) being a bratty Daddy's Girl. The town seems highly unfriendly, and there's all kinds of creepy stuff going on in the house they were given, which seems very likely to be haunted. There are tons of references to Marigold having recently come out of rehab for drug issues, and trying to rebuild her reputation within her family. (Turns out she was injured in track, got hooked on painkillers.) She also has major anxiety related to bedbugs, and the only real coping mechanism she has for dealing with stress is pot, which I didn't like, at ALL. Because of the painkiller addiction history, her mom watches her like a hawk, so Mari can't manage to sneak in any, and she's constantly jonesing for some. I accept that medical marijuana has its place, I do. But given Mari's history, it just seemed like a slippery road to start back down and also, she mostly just seemed like she was being whiny about her need for it.

I "read" this as an audiobook, and I'll just say that having the creepy stuff described out loud was not really my favorite thing. :-P There were some interesting plot twists along the way, as far as the whole "why creepy shit is happening in their house" along with "why Piper is a horrible brat". There's also a "follow the money and see where it goes" mystery to solve, too, and some good social commentary about what gentrification does to minority communities. But, erk. Just not my thing, overall. Also, the story desperately needed an epilogue.

Rolling Warrior by Judith Heumann. This is the YA adaptation to her main memoir. Judith Heumann was born in the late 1940s/early 50s but developed polio as a toddler, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down, and with limited use of her arms. Part of her story was featured in the movie "Crip Camp" from last year (highly recommend!), about how a bunch of disabled activists fought for their civil rights at a time when "civil rights" was only considered to be a race issue. Their work culminated in what would be known as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. But, anyway, in this book, Judith covers what her childhood was like, with parents who fully believed in her right to go to school, and schools who wouldn't let her in because she was disabled and considered to be a) a fire hazard and b) unteachable. Even once she forced her way in to a regular high school, graduated with honors, and went to college, she was constantly having to worry about finding someone to help her in the bathroom. This book also gives more details about the activism work she and others did. A really uplifting story, as well as an eye-opener into the lives of the disabled, especially before the ADA took hold. Recommend!

Wake by Rebecca Hall (graphic novel): This book covers the author's real-life research as an African American lawyer working on her PhD, stumbling into the realization that when there were records of slave revolts in America (or on ships bound for America), they actually seemed to be lead by women, not men. The information she uncovers was interesting, and definitely one that had never been in any textbook or lesson about slavery I had ever heard of before. It also covers a little of her personal life (lesbian partnered with a white woman, and they had a son), and in the difficulty she sometimes had in getting access to records a) from hundreds of years ago and b) from touchy periods in history that some firms (ie those with ties to the slave ships) didn't want being brought to light. Here was a case where the story was reasonably interesting and the information about slave revolts - and Rebecca's obviously intensely personal reaction to reading about her people having been enslaved - was important. But the artwork, which was just black and white, didn't really do anything for me.

A Face for Picasso by Ariel Henley. Ariel and her twin sister Xan (short for Alexandra) were born with Crouzon Syndrome, in which the bones of the skull fuse prematurely. They were diagnosed at just a few months old. While they would both undergo dozens of surgeries to alleviate pressure on their brains and adjust the shapes of their faces, keep their eyes from bulging in their sockets, etc etc, they would also undergo two MAJOR surgeries, at ages 4 and 12. The author read the audiobook aloud herself, in a somewhat flat voice, but when I heard about the almost nonstop trauma (both emotional and physical) she and Xan faced throughout their youth, I could understand why being relatively flat might be a coping mechanism. Basically, they were stared at and shunned by peers and strangers alike, because their faces didn't look "normal". They were demeaned as monsters, treated as idiots, even by some teachers who should have known better. The physical pain they endured after the major surgeries at age 12 sound almost unbearable to cope with. This was an incredibly difficult book to get through, because of all the unhappiness surrounding the two girls their whole lives, despite having incredibly loving, supportive parents who did their best but even then still didn't always know what to say and do. Ariel also developed an eating disorder as a means of coping with the trauma - she says this right up front, and also says she doesn't intend to glamorize it, and she doesn't, only mentioning that she overate and, very briefly, mentioning that she had to be later treated for bulimia without getting into details.

The title comes from the fact that when the girls were still in preschool, a French magazine had written about them, declaring that their faces were Picasso-like. And this theme crops up throughout the entire book - Ariel becomes fascinated with him, particularly because - and I didn't know this before - Picasso was apparently actually a jerk. He cheated on women, had several partners who later went on to commit suicide or have other severe mental health issues because of how he'd treated them, and basically distorted their faces in his Cubism style as a means of exploiting weaknesses. So, yeah, Ariel takes major umbridge at being compared to Picasso's works. But I did learn a lot about art, and Picasso, as well as about Crouzon Syndrome. Still, it was a difficult story to listen to. Although it did prompt me to talk to my mom about my brother, because he didn't have Crouzon syndrome, but he, too, had part of his cranium close too early, and my mom has always felt that the surgery they did to open up the space - which apparently involved cutting a strip of bone out of his skull - is what caused his cerebral palsy. (Doctors denied this, said he was born with it, but my mom disagrees.)

The main message here: DON'T stare at people who look different than you. Don't treat them like children or morons. Include them socially and teach your kids to do the same. Treat them like ordinary humans.

Words In My Hands by Asphyxia (Australian Title: "Future Girl"). Presented as the paper journal of a 16-year-old Melbourne (Australia) girl named Piper (not to be confused with the bratty Piper in White Smoke), set in a near-future time, or perhaps an AU, where a lot of food is bioengineered and "wild food" (aka what we'd call "real food") is considered dangerous. Piper has been deaf since she was 3; she can hear a bit with hearing aids, but the effort to combine the bits she can hear with lip reading leave her with constant headaches. Her mother wanted her to be as "normal" as possible. And then Piper meets Marley, who is a CODA (child of deaf adult) - and he teaches her to sign (Auslan - Australian sign language) for the first time. Marley and his mom live off of "wild food" and since the bioengineered food, fuel shortages, and other crises have made food deliveries difficult, Piper begs to learn how to grow her own food, raise her own chickens for eggs, etc. Her mother - who helped design the bioengineered food - is NOT pleased about any of this. But Piper flourishes, and becomes an accidental activist for the right to grow your own food, refusing to let the government stranglehold censor her. The "journal" presentation means that gorgeous artwork punctuates many pages - Piper wants to be an artist. It's truly a gorgeous book, and a good story overall. Recommend.

A Pho Love Story by Loan Le Modern-day Romeo & Juliet, except in this case, the warring families own competing Vietnamese restaurants across the street from each other in modern-day Southern Calif. But then the son of one family meets the daughter of the other family, and they slowly become friends, and then more than friends, all the while hiding this from their respective families. The son, Bao, has kind of coasted by on mediocrity his whole life, but finally finds something he's passionate about when he gets reluctantly roped into writing and editing for the school newspaper - and discovers he's good at it. The daughter, Linh, wants to be an artist and is very talented, but her parents don't believe art is an acceptable career path, only a hobby, so she has to hide how much it truly means to her. A story about being true to yourself, and long-buried family hurts (turns out the family rivalry is about a lot more than the restaurants), and about being an immigrant family working to live the American Dream. Cute story, easy read, aside from a LOT of Vietnamese being thrown around. You can generally figure out the context of most words, but I have no idea what a lot of the foods were. This book is very much a love letter to Vietnamese food and families, though.

I'm almost done with my current audiobook, a nonfiction story called From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry about a Chinese-American 20-something, Victor Chin, being killed with a baseball bat by a white guy a week before his (Victor's) wedding in 1982. While there's never any doubt about who killed him, the white guy gets off super-light at his trial for manslaughter. An appeal to the judge to reconsider fails, but then Victor's friends and family convene a second trial for civil rights abuse, saying the crime was racially motivated. But was it? Or was it just a drunken brawl that got out of hand? Up until this point, there hadn't ever been a civil rights claim against an Asian American, only against Black people, which is what made this whole case so groundbreaking. The author has done a good job of presenting multiple sides. I actually don't know what I think - whether it was racially motivated or not. If you like legal cases, civil rights, true crime - any of that - I recommend this.

And now that an hour and a half have gone by, I need to crash. But now that it's after midnight, let me wish all of you a very happy Twos-Day! (Tuesday 2/22/22 aka 22/2/22)

College, Spiderman and a couple more books.

2022-01-23T05:25:30Z

Today we took MiniPlu back to college. The only bright spot was that there was pretty much zero traffic all the way down or back (about 210 miles/338km each way), including across the GW Bridge in New York, so that was a downright miracle! Unless the fall, when we knew we'd see her in a month for parent's weekend, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas (plus she came home mid-late Sept, for a weekend), right now we're not sure when we'll next see her. She doesn't have any long weekends, only spring break in mid-March. The problem is, that's exactly when MY spring break (for grad school) is, and we were thinking of going back to OR then so I wouldn't have to juggle school and house at the same time (like I did in October). But then we wouldn't see her at all.

As with many colleges, MHC has made the decision to hold virtual classes for the first two weeks. But, honestly, the decision is kind of dumb because, unlike last Jan when classes were virtual and everything else was closed (or virtual) as well, so students were basically isolated in their rooms all the time (except when they picked up their takeout food from the dining hall), right now the only thing is that classes are virtual and the dining hall is takeout like before - but the gym is open, the library is open, some of the academic buildings are open, students are allowed to visit each other in their dorms - I mean, what's the point of having virtual classes if students can gather everywhere else?? Masks are required indoors, regardless.

Whatever. At least MiniPlu isn't alone this January - she has her roommate and they get along great. And she can go to the gym to burn off steam, too.

My grad school classes started this past Tues, the day after Two's birthday. It looks like I didn't get the HS job (which I'm honestly ok with) - the middle school librarian told me yesterday that they'd readvertised the job - so I don't have to worry about needing to drop one of the classes in order to make it work with a f/t job. And I honestly wasn't sure I was ready to quit subbing yet, so I can keep doing that for a bit longer.

Oh, and speaking of Two's birthday, here's my review of the movie we saw that day: Spiderman: No Way Home. Like I said before, overall, I thought the movie was great. What I did not like: most of the moviegoers failed to wear masks. :P This was the first time we'd gone to the movies in nearly 2 years ... and it feels like it might be another long while before I feel it's safe to go back.

Most of the movie was well done, I thought. The interactions with Dr. Strange were good, and I also liked that Ned had a chance to shine as a baby!magician (and the cloak even adopted him!). Ned's grandma was adorable, too. I loved seeing all the old villains (I hadn't actually seen all of them, having missed McGuire's 3rd movie and Garfield's 2nd) and having the TV version of Matt Murdoch was a nice surprise (although I actually like Ben Affleck's Daredevil better - sorry.) Having all three Spidermen learning to work together, comparing their life stories - that was great. Super happy they brought both prior actors (and their villains) back.

But I did have one big objection with the whole "make everyone forget" premise: if the goal was to make everyone forget Peter Parker was Spiderman, why on earth couldn't they just forget the association? That was the whole point, right? Why did everyone have to forget Peter existed at all?? That made no sense at ALL. Why not simply do the spell, Peter tells Ned and MJ over again, and pretty much leaves it at that? The Avengers appear to be over, so he doesn't need to tell any of them. Why not just have him go back to school, a perfectly ordinary kid as far as everyone else is concerned, he can reapply to MIT as a private citizen, etc etc. Just ... WTF?

I've seen the "invoked amnesia in exchange for something more important" plot twist before but usually only ONE character forgets everything - like, say, Simon in the Shadowhunter series. Surely Dr. Strange could have cast the spell any way he wanted to, so why not in a way that made sense for what Peter's need actually WAS??? At most, Strange could have made everyone forget they KNEW Peter (more than as just "that random kid at school"), so he'd have to rebuild relationships, and that would have served the purpose, too. But - to have him essentially cease to exist?? Why was that the only possible solution? Nope. Not buying it.

So, yeah, there's my rant. Loved most of the movie. Hated the entire premise of the "solution."

My reading has slowed way down since we came home, a fact that I find concerning given the punishing pace required by the YA Lit class (3 books per week, although each week one of them is either a graphic novel or a novel in verse, so it's a quicker read). Although I missed my kids and pets like crazy, I did really like having just ONE sole task to work on - paint - rather than being pulled in a million directions like I am at home. OR made it much easier to get reading done, either at night, or while I was listening/painting.

I have, at least, managed to read "The Witch Owl Parliament" aka "The Clockwork Cuandera Book 1" - a YA graphic novel that didn't do ANYTHING for me at all. I like the idea of a graphic novel that incorporates Hispanic legends, and I have no objection to alternative versions of the US (rather like Flora Segunda) but I found the plot confusing at first, and the black and red illustrations just didn't remotely appeal to me. It made everything and everyone seem kind of villainous (which is partly why it was hard for me to figure out what was going on, plotwise). So, this was a definite "meh" and my least favorite for that week's reading.

I also finished Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo by a combination of Kindle (I had heard good things about this book so had snapped it up as a Kindle DotD about a month ago) and Audible (half price since I already owned the book) so that I could switch back and forth depending on whether I had time to read, vs driving a car. I admit, it's pretty miraculous the way Kindle and Audible track each other, and automatically send you to the most current point, no matter which version you were last using. As for the book itself - I liked it, and I didn't. The book is largely set in San Francisco from Sept 1954-Jan 1955, although there are some flashbacks for a couple of the "adult" characters and also a "one year later" epilogue. Lily Hu, a Chinese-American high school senior, is the main character. She, along with all her Chinatown friends (and pretty much all her friends are Chinese) are American-born, along with some of her family members. Her dad's a doctor and her mom a nurse at the local Chinese hospital, and she has 2 little brothers. Although she attends a mixed-race high school in the North Beach area, her life is otherwise pretty well centered in Chinatown.

At the beginning of the book, Lily sees a newspaper ad for a male impersonator/singer at a local club, and it catches her attention, so she tears out the ad and keeps it with her. It's the first (and immediate) inkling we have that Lily might not be straight. She's interested in the f/f pulp novels at the drugstore, too, but doesn't really understand why she feels a certain pull toward these things. At school, she begins to connect with a white girl in her advanced math class - they're the only two girls still taking math at their level - and when the white girl - Kath - accidentally discovers Lily's interest in the male impersonator - who performs at the Telegraph Club - she mentions that she's been. It's strongly implied that it's a lesbian club/bar, although Kath is careful never to phrase it that way. Eventually, Lily asks to go, so they sneak off one night together. Lily feels very awkward and out of place as the only Asian there, plus she's naturally more shy, and the casual period-appropriate racism - even among people who aren't TRYING to be overtly jackasses - can kind of take your breath away. But she also likes it there. She and Kath go a few more times, and eventually admit their feelings for each other. But one night, the club is raided by the cops (for being "obscene" aka gay) and Lily's world falls apart.

The writing is nice, and you really feel what Lily is thinking and feeling (side note: teen girl "friend drama" was clearly a thing in 1950s Chinatown just as it is today) and you also get a nice glimpse into the 1950s Chinese-American culture (including the aforementioned incidences of casual racism, and McCarthyism threats), as well as the emerging lesbian culture of the same era. However, there were some side plots that never really get resolved or even properly developed. The flashbacks (which are provided for Lily's father, mother and aunt) seem to serve no real purpose to the plot or character development as a whole, really, or at least, not in terms of demonstrating why they act as they do later on. So, while those snippets were interesting for what they were on their own, I didn't really see the point of them, as far as the story overall.

The one thing I really liked was Lily's integrity. Once the club gets raided and a Chinatown boy sees her escape, Lily tells her parents straight out that she was there, before rumor gets to them first. They want her to say she made a mistake - or that the boy made a mistake and she wasn't there at all - but Lily refuses to do either one, even though she knows that's going to cut her parents the deepest. It would be so much easier to lie - but she won't back down from who she knows herself to be - gay - nor will she insult Kath by agreeing to the insinuation that Kath somehow brainwashed Lily into going to the club (which would have made Lily innocent in her family's eyes). She refuses point blank to lie, to pretend, to put herself back in the closet, or to throw anyone under the bus. This is who she is. Like it or not, it's not going to change anything. As emotionally hard as all that was to ~~read~~ listen to, I was super proud of that integrity.

Ugh, I swear it was just 11p a little bit ago. How did it get so late? Again? Argh.

Home again despite nationwide cancellations, and lots of books

2022-01-14T05:06:22Z

Back at home again, at last.

We were really nervous about how the journey back would go. There is exactly ONE commercial flight in and out of North Bend, OR this time of year, via SFO (in summer there's also one in and out via Denver), and the connection to our cross-country flight was about 40 mins if everything was on time. Every day we were checking flightaware.com to see how the daily equivalent of each flight was faring, given the thousands of Omicron-related cancellations going on. The flight out of OR was cancelled a couple of times, and delayed a couple of times (which would have meant missing our cross-country flight, except for the one time THAT flight was ALSO delayed). The cross-country flight was also cancelled once. So, yeah, we were crossing all fingers and toes. Thankfully, our flight left OR on time - actually a smidge early, and although we had to briefly circle before landing at SFO, and our arrival gate moved a little further away from the next departing gate, we had plenty of time to make it. And - belief it or not, our luggage made it, too. The cross-country flight was unbelievably empty - like ... maybe 20% full? Maybe? I haven't seen a flight that empty since, like, 1988, when my dad and I flew to NL to see my Oma. I am astonished they didn't cancel us, but grateful. As Will pointed out, maybe they just really needed the plane to be at Newark the following morning for its next flight. We landed at 12:30a local time last night/this morning, and were walking in the front door before 2a. Yes, it was a late night, but given jetlag, we weren't really even that wiped. So, huzzah, it all went totally smoothly.

Today, the flight out of OR was cancelled again. Dodged a bullet there!

When we left OR, the following rooms were completed: kitchen, hall, master bedroom, master half-bath. This meant, in each case: walls and ceiling wiped, Frog tape applied, 2 coats of Kilz to seal off smoke smell and soot marks, 2 coats of paint on ceiling (which had to be done first) and walls, Frog tape removed. Still needs doing: the two other bedrooms and the hall bathroom, but the bedrooms can be done with just a quick swipe for cleaning and then only ONE coat of Kilz, because they were largely closed off and suffered the least smoke/soot damage. The garage will also need some Kilz and paint to cover up rat urine damage.

Not as much as we would have wanted to get done, but we didn't have the neighbor woman helping us this time, so for just two people on our own, I guess it's ok. Will also set up some security cameras and replaced some light fixtures, we both dealt with the gutters and lopping off some branches overhanging the long driveway, etc.

We fell in love with the little whipsnake in our driveway, which showed up just about every day to hang out on the gravel and ignore us with the fervent hope that we were ignoring it. When one of us would have to move a vehicle, we'd often have the other person stand over Snakey so nobody would drive over it. Is it sad that I miss him/her? S/He was just so cute!

Since arriving back home we've both unpacked, I did laundry, did a TINY bit of putting Christmas decorations away, paid some bills and dealt with some other bureaucracy, took Two to/from work and made dinner.

Books I have finished:

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado (audiobook). Darling "Never been kissed" sort of story. Charlie (the girl) is unapologetic about her size, but at the same time feels weird about pursuing "fat fashion" in front of her gorgeous skinny best friend, and her white mom, who lost a lot of weight recently, keeps fat-shaming her daughter. (Just like Starfish. Interesting to read two books in a row with fat-shaming moms who do things in the guise of "helping" their daughters.) Charlie has never had a boyfriend, been kissed, held hands, or anything, but loves to write romance fiction stories. Another great story about recognizing that you don't have to be skinny to deserve love, and that you don't automatically come in second just because your pan best friend is asked out by everybody. While I loved how the author casually threw in a lot of representation - black pan friend, Korean-American boy with lesbian moms, gay quarterback, etc - I admit I was baffled that this book was considered for a Pura BelPre Award (for Latina/o authors whose work celebrates Latina/o characters and cultures) because while Charlie's late dad was Puerto Rican, he always spoke English with her and now he's dead so Charlie just lives with her white mom and lives a pretty white life, albeit she identifies as brown. Still, aside from one baby shower and a couple of mentions of rice and beans, there's very little mention of Hispanic culture anywhere, so I admit I was a bit disappointed by the book on that front. If I ignore that, though, it was a really sweet story, and really nicely narrated for the audio version.

Goodbye Paradise by Sabrina Bowen (audiobook). This was one of the free Audible books offered in the m/m category, and was narrated by two different people, representing each of the two main characters (and their respective POVs). Two 20-ish boys escape the backwards hyper-conservative cult in Paradise, Wyoming and manage to hitchhike (via a really kind Black truck driver named - I kid you not - "George Washington" which feels it just plays RIGHT into racial stereotypes but ... ok) to MA, where another escapee - a woman - has offered space for anyone else who manages to run away. The two boys have already confessed their feelings by the time they arrive, but are still nervously exploring the idea that they CAN have a relationship now that they've escaped, and are likewise learning how to live in the modern world. A great story about found family. However, I discovered that it's awkward listening to explicit sex read aloud in "aw shucks" voices just as much as posh British voices. :P

A Gentleman's Position by KJ Charles (audiobook). This is actually the third in the triology, but I started listening to the second one (A Seditious Affair) and decided it wasn't for me. The two characters are into Dom/Sub with some bondage and, tbh, it's just not my thing. On the other hand, the first book provided the needed framework for the series, and that meant I didn't have any trouble understanding the references to events that must have taken place in the second book, given what I already knew of those characters. Anyway, in AGP, a lord (Richard) and his valet (David) are in love with each other, which they discover fairly early on, but the lord refuses to participate. As "master" he feels he would unfairly wield all the power in the relationship, and that the valet would feel obliged to go along with anything, whether he wanted to or not. Meanwhile, David is just FINE with staying his valet while enjoying sexytimes on the side, and can speak his own mind just fine, thankyouverymuch. Richard freaks out and fires David on the spot, but then immediately wants him back - not just because he loves David, but also because David possesses a huge range of odd - and sometimes illegal - skills which he has, up until now, used repeatedly to get Richard's friends (from the prior two books) out of tricky situations without anyone else (besides Richard and his friends) knowing anything had happened at all. And there is a very big, very ruinous disaster looming over multiple heads that they desperately need David for, and David knows it. He grudgingly comes back to work his magic, while Richard puts his foot in his mouth a few more times before he and David finally figure out their HEA. Same narrator for the whole series, and by now I was used to hearing sex read aloud in a posh voice. ;-) Anyway, while I wanted to strangle Richard several times, I otherwise really enjoyed this conclusion to the series, and seeing how some of the characters from prior books turned out.

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy by Anne Ursu. Like Starfish and possibly The Last Cuentista, this is more of an upper middle-grade reader, rather than YA. Ironically, years ago I bought another book by this same author (The Real Boy) that I thought Two would like, but he wasn't interested, so we never read it. Anyway, when I read the blurb, I thought this was going to be sort of like the Unwanted series (by Lisa McMann) in which it seems like kids are being dragged away to a "bad" school or destination, only to find it's secretly teaching the students magic. Nope, it's not that kind of school at all. In an extremely misogynistic society, only boys get to be evaluated as potential sorcerers, who have the highest social standing in the land (aside from the King). After a big social blunder, the main character, a 12-year-old girl named Marya, gets shipped off to reform finishing school, essentially, where the girls are given 6 years of lessons in proper eating, enunciating, conversing, walking, etc for a well-behaved young lady. Not only does Marya chafe at the constrictive and ridiculous rules, she senses that she's being gaslit but can't figure out how. Eventually she figures it out, and after a briefly threatening scene that didn't really make a lot of sense, the bad guys are punished and it turns out - shocker! - some girls can do magic as well!

Honestly, I wasn't that gripped by the book. It all felt just so ... cut and dried. And, like, a character that was bitchy and stern suddenly becomes understanding and supportive once shit goes down, as if she'd never been bitchy before. The only thing I really loved was the invented code of symbols that weavers and needlepoint artists put into their work to send hidden messages to others.

I feel like this might have the potential to become an interesting trilogy, to see how the girls progress in learning magic (or not), what becomes of the Dread threat, and what's going on with some of the characters we met back home, but I don't see any signs at this time that the author plans to continue.

The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris (audiobook). This is going to be part of the Coretta Scott King Award week (Black authors celebrating Black culture), and although I initially was going to read Blackout for a lighter topic, I noticed none of the Blackout reviews mentioned Blackness in their raves. Which, you know, seems like it should be part of the point. (I mean, it's clear from the blurb that the characters are Black. But if that's not coming through for the reader....) Anyway, I decided to take a chance on this book, which DID mention Black boy joy/emotions/perspective. Alex and Isaiah are 16 and 12 respectively, living with their rich aunt in a fancy-ass community near Chicago after their parents died in a car accident 4 years ago. Told from Alex's perspective, ever since the accident he's been haunted by the ability to see the immediate future of anything - or anyone - he touches. While he can tell his brain to cancel the vision as soon as it happens, the longer he lets the vision run, the further in time he sees. He has no chance to prevent whatever happens - no matter what he does, it will happen anyway. When a vision shows him that Isaiah will die soon, Alex panics, and decides to do whatever he can to bond with his brother in whatever time they have left. It gets a bit boring to have Alex constantly repeating things like, "I pick up my cell phone, cancel the vision of me unlocking it, and unlock it" but otherwise, it's an interesting premise: if you could see the future, WOULD YOU WANT TO? When Alex works to bond with Isaiah, his little brother finally opens up to reveal he's been suffering through a different "talent" himself. Together the boys try to figure out a way to make their powers/curses stop. Along the way, Alex struggles with his too-needy boss at the ice cream shop where he works, and with his otherwise-amazing girlfriend, who does not understand why he's acting so weird.

Although, as with They Both Die at the End you know how this story is going to end, I admit Isaiah does not die the way I thought he might - so that was an interesting twist. Along the way there's talk of what it means to be a man, especially a black man, the pressure to avoid getting arrested or shot at just for existing as a Black person (especially a male), and the importance of family, of making every moment count. The end of the book is heartbreaking, as you might expect, but cathartic, too. And it's a love letter to the way music can bring people together. I'm glad I read it. Well, listened to it. You know what I mean.

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun. I took a break from school-related YA reading to read this book, which I bought as a Kindle DotD awhile back and have been DYING to read. Inhaled it in 1.5 days, mostly because I slept poorly on Tues night and then spent all day on planes. If you follow my IG you will have seen my review already, which goes like this: You guys. YOU GUYS. The Charm Offensive is sweet and heartfelt and full of two people who GET each other when things are stressful and they're not functioning well. There's asexual/demisexual representation, neurodiversive rep, anxiety, depression and TALKING about mental health, consent, and support from friends and family, even a nonbinary therapist, and so SO much heart. And anyone who has ever seen an episode of The Bachelor/ette will get an extra burst of enjoyment. I'd heard good things about this book and they're totally deserved. Alison Cochrun knocked it out of the park.

This might be my new Red, White and Royal Blue, as far as Giving Me All The Feels goes. I was stupidly snuggly with Will during the last part of our flight, after I'd finished it. I also couldn't wait to get my cell signal back so I could go back and look at Venessa Kelly's gorgeous artwork of one of the scenes, now that I knew where the scene was, who the characters were, and its significance.

So, now it's the 13th of January and I've read 11 books already, thanks to audiobooks and a lot of painting. I'm trying to read as much as I can NOW, because my semester starts on Tues and ... yikes!

Incidentally, the high school library gig was supposed to start this coming Tues, and when I hadn't heard anything yet, I assumed they must have gone with another candidate. Eh, it's fine. But when I texted the outgoing librarian with my assumption, she said, nope, they still haven't picked anyone yet. This is frustrating because I might have to withdraw from one class if I *do* get hired and, honestly, right now I kind of want to say, "It's fine, hire someone else" but I'm afraid if I say that, they never WILL hire me to be a librarian for the elementary school in a few years. Ermph. I don't know what to do.

Ok, I should probably get to bed and try to get back on Eastern time again. (It's 9p PST right now. Am I sleepy? Of course not!) On the other hand, after two weeks on an air mattress - even a nice air mattress - I am so SO glad to be back in my own bed again!

Tomorrow I'm taking my memory-impaired father to the dentist. Fun times for everyone! :-P

Paint Nite #somethingorother +2

2022-01-07T07:52:14Z

I'm pretty sure there's a paint nite I did over fall break that I never found time to post but I'm just going to forget about that at this point.

The main point of this post is: I introduced my mom to Paint Nite, and she loved it!

On Dec 28, our last day in CA, my mom and I did this painting together:

We propped my laptop up on the small dining room table, and sat side by side. I'd bought inexpensive paint-sturdy paper, a set of acrylic paints and some cheap brushes; turned out my mom also had some inexpensive acrylic paints, in sometimes slightly different colors, so we combined kits for this event.

First we painted blue around the edges, darker towards the corners, and white in the middle. (Actually, the white in the middle went first. And then I got some blue paint on it when I didn't fully clean my brush, so I just went with that.)

Then we added the yellowy-orange reflective blobs:

The teacher recommended sketching out the shape of the lantern in chalk if possible (pencil if not) and I remembered seeing these little travel roll-up chalkboard kits my mom used to sew for kids, so I dashed to her craft room and nabbed some chalk. Once we'd sketched out the shape, we painted over those lines in black, and mostly filled in the center with an orange-y glow.

The final steps involved painting the branches, which took some doing, then adding snow to them and the top of the lantern, and the vertical bars on the lantern. Here is my finished painting:

And here is mom's!

She and I were both pleased with how hers had turned out, especially since it was her very first one! More importantly, she discovered it was fun, and do-able. She did another Paint Nite on her own around New Year's, when I did not have time, and managed that one all on her own. It's a bit trickier when she has to do it on her own, as her only mobile device is her phone, and she has the mini iPhone (at her insistence) at that. Pity there isn't an easy way to add a craft table next to the computer table in the spare room (there absolutely is no room) because then she could follow along on a bigger screen.

Then, tonight, we both signed up to do "Cold Starry Night":

So, here's a question: do you view the model picture as depicting a river between cliffs? Or a snow-strewn road? I had seen it as a river, but the teacher said that different people interpret it differently and we should feel free to emphasize one or the other if we wished to, as we worked on it.

First we created two triangles of blues in various hues, from near-black to more of a teal. The upper triangle was supposed to be done in cloudier sorts of nonlinear designs to depict the sky, and the lower triangle was supposed to be done in straighter, converging lines, representing the forced perspective of the river/road.

The teacher used a dry paper towel to lightly blot on the color, but I found this didn't work as well for me. I used a damp paper towel or a brush, and even then I spent a fair amount of time fussing over it, especially as I felt the initial black hadn't blended in very well. We then brushed some white into the edges of both triangles, softening those lines.

After about 5 mins to let the "sky" dry a bit, we reconvened briefly to spatter the "stars" on, with runny wet paint. I had a used toothbrush for once, instead of just a paintbrush - one of the many ancient toothbrushes my dad had collected for cleaning grout or ... something - and was exceptionally pleased with my star-spatter. Then we took another 10 min break to let that dry completely. When we returned, we used a blue-black combination to paint in the mountains on either side, free-handing the silhouette however we pleased, and she encouraged us - without a lot of direction or pointers - to add some contours to the rocks so it wasn't just flat. We also added more teal to the center of the road/river and began the white snow/waves on the edges.

The final steps involved adding the waves/snow to the center of the river/road, adding the trees (and snow on those trees) to the mountains, some halo-effect glows to some of the stars, etc. I didn't entirely like how my waves were turning out and eventually chose to put down my paintbrush and stop fussing over it. :P For this painting, my sky is by far my favorite part.

Mom took a pic of hers and sent it to me afterwards:

I think she took the "road" approach (in contrast to my "river" approach). Her blues turned out really gorgeous, and she told me, "The splatter painting was fun!" Even though we weren't really together this time, it was still nice to do together in our own way, and I'm really glad she's having fun. :)

As a final note, Will discovered a little snake - I think a whipsnake? - in our driveway this afternoon. When he had to move the truck around, I had to stand right over the wee thing so he wouldn't run over it! For those who aren't squeamish, you can see pics of the snake here and here (with my hand - yes, that's paint all over my fingers - for size comparison).

The first few days of 2022

2022-01-06T07:52:30Z

We've been in OR a week now, and while it doesn't SEEM like we've done a lot, I suppose we have? I've washed the walls in the living room, kitchen (except behind appliances that will need to be moved), the hall, both bathrooms, and my dad's bedroom, and the ceilings of the hall and both bathrooms (Will has done or is in the process of doing the other ceilings). After painstakingly putting on Frog Tape around every bit of window trim, door trim, and bottom trim, I've cut in the Kilz (the pre-paint "paint" that we're using to seal in any lingering smoke stains and odors) for two coats in the living room, hallway and my dad's bathroom, and am working on his bedroom now. Will has rolled 2 coats of Kilz on the living room and hall walls and ceilings.

We've also cleaned the gutters of probably at least five years of leaf and apple sludge (in some cases I was literally digging it out with a trowel), found and fixed the roof leak - a vent cap came off - trimmed a bunch of overgrowth that was crowding the long driveway, and dismantled the decaying homemade greenhouse lean-to off the front porch.

So ... progress?

It has rained quite a lot - we've had to make good use of rare opportunities to get outdoors things done. We had a wind/rainstorm a few nights ago, resulting in our being without either internet (which went down first) or power for most of Monday. Thankfully, both were restored in time for me to cook dinner (and to get back online to video-chat with the family). Also, since we're already only using the woodstove for heat, not having any electric heat made absolutely no difference whatsoever, and we were perfectly content with the wood fire. The only real bummer was a lack of hot water, but thankfully that was back by the time we took our nightly shower.

Meanwhile, through the magic of borrowed e-books (Libby app) and audiobooks (I joined Audible for this purpose, so I could listen while I cleaned and painted the walls), I've already finished FIVE books this year, including the three I had listed "in progress" on my year-end book meme. Granted, two were pretty quick reads, but still!

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley: A recent HS graduate in Sault St Marie, Michigan, Daunis (her name literally means "daughter" in Ojibwe) has grown up feeling split by her white (French) mother's side of the family, and her (now deceased) Ojibwe father's side. There's a lot of family turmoil going on, part of which has prompted Daunis to defer her attendance at U Michigan in order to stay at home and go to a local college instead, with her best friend. But when she witnesses a drug-related murder-suicide within the tribal community, she gets coaxed into serving as an undercover citizen "agent" by local (also undercover) FBI officers to help them figure out where the root of the drug problems are. Daunis struggles with her feelings for the younger officer (only a little older than she is), with lying to her friends and family about what she's doing, and with some of the things she discovers - all while trying to stay true to the Ojibwe values that are part of her lifeblood.

Although I had seen multiple rave reviews for this book (which I need to read for my YA lit class), I wasn't sure I was personally that interested. But having been forced to read it, I can say that it's well worth it. I learned a lot about some Ojibwe traditions (and language), and it was also refreshing to see someone struggle with sometimes competing familial cultures other than Black and white (or, in the case of a book I read for Children's lit last summer, Indian and American). I loved that Daunis wasn't a tiny stick, but she was still very athletic and considered attractive. I admit some of the twists caught me by surprise. TRIGGER WARNING: There is mention of sexual assault about 3/4 of the way through the book.

Spoiler alert: I really didn't understand why the FBI didn't need to know that mushrooms weren't part of the problem. Why should they continue to chase after that unnecessarily? I understood there was concern the FBI might look askance at traditional Ojibwe medicines instead, but I don't remember them entering the conversation at all. So ... what was that about? /Spoiler

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera: The opening scenes are set in 2061, when Halley's Comet is next scheduled to come around. In this story, the energy from a massive solar flare throws off Halley's normal orbit, and sends it straight into Earth's path. While there had been tentative plans to begin exploring a planet ("Sagan" - heh) across the galaxy, those were suddenly rushed into play in the sudden planetary emergency. Only those of certain ages and certain skills were granted passage. The protagonist is a 13-year-old girl of Hispanic descent; her parents are both important scientists (botanist and geologist), so she, her little brother and parents all get to go - but must leave the grandmother - the family storyteller - behind. Petra (the girl) wants to be a storyteller (cuentista) someday, like her abuelita but, of course, her parents want her to be a scientist, like them. They board the ship and are put into stasis for the 380-year journey to Sagan, to be watched over by "monitors" - generations of people who give their lives into keeping tabs on the sleepers. When Petra is finally awoken, she discovers that the ship was taken over by monitors who wanted to eliminate all war and hunger by a) erasing everyone's memories of Earth b) reprogramming them to serve the "Collective" and c) making everyone exactly the same. You know, your basic dystopian, totalitarian situation. And Petra's parents (along with many other adults) are gone, purged when their brains failed to accept the reprogramming. The little brother is gone, too. But there's been a glitch with Petra - she still remembers everything, including her grandmother's stories, which are skillfully used throughout the book as Petra figures out a way for her - and some of her new friends - to escape.

As with Firekeeper's Daughter, I'm not sure I would have picked up this book on my own, as I don't often read sci-fi (occasionally, but not often) and I'm not really keen on post-apocalyptic dystopian stories. But this was, again, a required book for me - and also really really well done. I listened to this with my new Audible account, and the narrator really sold it for me, including the way she voiced the Spanish bits. I can see this really appealing to a lot of teens (or YA fans who like these tropes), given the subject matter and Hispanic perspective. The stories were really cool, too - again, a nice window into a culture I'm not as familiar with.

Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy: This graphic novel is written and illustrated by a proudly hijabi-wearing Muslim artist, known on Instagram as @yesimhotinthis. Her semi-autobiographical book covers the difficulties she had figuring out who she was as a high school freshman, when her family moved to a community with a higher Muslim population. Instead of being known as the sole hijabi-wearing kid at school, now Huda was just one of many, and having lost that "special" identity, she struggles to figure out what else honestly makes her interesting or special. She also has to figure out how important her faith really is to her. Thankfully, her friends - some Muslim, some not - help her reflect on her mistakes (and, as with many teens trying out various identities, there are many mistakes) and to find her true path. It was fun and funny to read, but also poignant, and heartfelt. I learned more things about living true to Islam, and some of the many outright racist or smaller but irritating microaggressions Huda faced even though - by the author's own point - the book obviously does not reflect ALL Muslim experiences. Although this, too, was a required book, I was already looking forward to reading it, since I follow @yesimhotinthis on Insta, and was delighted to snap up the lone copy at my mother's closest B&N after Christmas, using the gift card I'd received from my elementary librarian. Did not disappoint!

Starfish by Lisa Fipps: Although assigned for my YA Lit class, this could just as easily be considered a middle-grade book, as the main character is in 6th grade, and I think the author wanted it to be seen by the somewhat younger set. The main character, Ellie, has always been an overweight child, and is constantly facing bullying at school - and at home. Her own mother is constantly trying to "fix" Ellie, which hurts Ellie a LOT, and her older brother bullies her as badly as any kid at school. The dad is a lovely loving person, and it was interesting to read a book where the poor parental treatment comes from the mom, not the dad. Wow, did the mom's words and actions hurt - she meant well but she went about things so badly, you could just feel Ellie's pain. The title comes from the way Ellie likes to spread out her arms and legs in the pool, free to take up space and not feel bad for doing so - like she has to force herself to be smaller, like she's not allowed to exist or take up any room for "more deserving" skinny people. The author states at the end that although the book is fictional, she, herself, heard pretty much EVERY hateful, thoughtless thing that Ellie does, when she was growing up, which is why she wanted to make sure younger kids learn, early on - as Ellie eventually does - that she has value no matter what size she is.

This book is written in verse, which makes it a quick read. Ellie wants to be a poet someday, and she does, indeed, have a really good way with words. I highlighted a lot of powerful passages as I was reading the ebook.

The other book I finished was another audiobook. I'm out of Audible credits right now (you only get one a month) and audiobooks are INSANELY expensive - and also, alas - my public library does not subscribe to m(any) so I can't borrow any. So, in the meantime, I'm listening to books from the "free" section. I might eventually crack and buy another one from the YA class list, but not yet.

A Fashionable Indulgence by KJ Charles: Harry's father was from the Ton, but threw it all over by marrying a woman beneath his station and joining her in seditionist actions, calling for political reform (basically, they were Democrats, looking out for the downtrodden, not a popular view at the time). Their son Harry was, reluctantly, forced to participate, especially after his parents died and one of their revolutionary friends took Harry in. He lives a fairly poor life - he's fed and clothed, but not well; when his rich grandfather (father's father) sends for him, Harry must learn how to be a "proper" gentleman. His cousin's friend, Julius, is asked to teach Harry how to act, speak and dress and, of course, Harry and Julius fall in lust, and eventually love, along the way. But this book is somewhat different in that the "I love you" moment is really only midway through the story. Harry struggles to listen to his fellow noblemen complain about the seditionists, feeling loyalty to his old friends, even though he doesn't WANT to really get involved in politics and, of course, also doesn't want his previous association known or he might get thrown in jail. (Also, his stodgy grandfather doesn't want even a whisper of Harry's "old life" to reach him because he's absolutely disgusted with how Harry's father turned out.) He must learn how to balance wanting a comfortable life, and a life with Julius, with NOT wanting to turn his back on his old friends who might be in trouble. Meanwhile, we finally learn why Julius has been holding the world at arm's length for so many years. There is a fair amount of political talk, for the time period (1819ish), but it's important to the story. I liked that this wasn't JUST about the relationship and the sex, but there were more important issues driving the characters. (Although Harry did seem to get himself into trouble an awful lot. :P)

My only real quibble is that it was absolutely bizarre to hear sex scenes read out by a posh British narrator. :P

And ... now it's past time for bed. I'm doing a Paint Nite (yes, from here) tomorrow evening so I want to make sure I have a productive day before that point. But I've been averaging at least 8 hours of sleep a night on this trip so far (including the CA part) and it's SO NICE.

End of Year Meme

2022-01-01T06:40:04Z

I've already watched the ball drop in Times Square at midnight (Eastern Time) - we FaceTimed the family so we could celebrate with them. But it's still 2021 here on the West Coast, so I'm squeezing this in just in time:

1. What did you do in 2021 that you'd never done before?
Handed in assignments mere minutes before the deadlines. :P. Driven the length of the Road to Hana, and also to the top of Haleakala. Worn masks (two masks) on a plane.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I am required to make New Year’s resolutions for TKD. No, I did not keep them. Yes, I’m going to make more (see “required”). I’ll give it my best shot, anyway.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My eldest niece had her second son in June. I’m not “close” to her, but that’s about as close as it’s getting.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Does Betty White count? (Aside from that, thankfully no.)

5. What countries did you visit?
None (aside from our own), but we did at least get to go on vacation this year!

6. What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?
For the pandemic to GO AWAY (or at least reach tolerable risk levels akin to flu). However, that’s going to require a lot of people to stop being Capital-I Idiots.

7. What date from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 6, for obvious reasons. January 20 for much better ones. July 10, the day I put my father into memory care.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I didn’t fail my classes. :P Prior to that, I earned a modest scholarship which was pretty cool, too.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Keeping up with the workload. This impacted my ability to be more present to my son, as I was always doing schoolwork. :(

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Aside from the (now-standard) Covid-related stress and despair, thankfully, no. The dog injured her ACL, however.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A trip to Hawaii.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Two, for getting into college! MiniPlu for learning to adapt to college life. Both kids, for stepping up and helping out more at home when Will and I had to be in OR (THREE separate times this year).

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Anyone associated in any way, shape or form with MAGA-nation, including anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers (who, I suspect, are mostly Trumpians, although I realize I am generalizing here).

14. Where did most of your money go?
Electronics, airfare, new roof, new dry well.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Getting vaccinated. Being in Hawaii.

16. What song will always remind you of 2020?
Several songs from the musical Six.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder?
Sadder.

ii. thinner or fatter?
Slightly fatter.

iii. richer or poorer?
Eh.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Read, paint-nite, travel, sleep.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending time in Oregon. (FOUR FREAKIN’ TRIPS, totaling about 5 weeks.)

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
MiniPlu and I ventured to 7:30a mass, which was nice – CA has mandatory indoor masking and people are generally really compliant in the Bay Area, so it felt relatively low-risk. Later we opened presents with my mom, and the kids also opened their stockings. I’d made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast, too, yum. We had a quiet, relaxing day, then a nice dinner at home.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020?
Stayed in love.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Hardly watched any. Bridgerton S1, Love Victor S2. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The 4 eps of Hawkeye that I’ve seen so far.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Adding anti-vaxxers to last year’s anti-maskers.

26. What was the best book you read?
His Royal Secret; Escape From Mr. Lemoncello’s Library; When Stars are Scattered; Red, White and Whole; She Drives Me Crazy

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Six. Also Thoroughly Modern Milly (I’ve been listening to showtunes on my drives to/from PA.)

28. What did you want and get?
Returning to in-person instruction for TKD once a week! The trip to HI. And a scholarship. I also got a new laptop when mine finally died (it came with free regular AirPods, which means I have finally joined the realm of blutooth earbuds and I love them).

29.What did you want and not get?
An end to the pandemic. :P Black belt class. Continued straight-As. More books for Christmas (I literally got only ONE!)

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Jungle Cruise.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 50. My family got up at 5a to decorate the house like CRAZY since I couldn’t really have any other real celebration. We did go out to eat in a restaurant for the first time in 16 months, eating at a quiet breakfast place on a weekday morning, which was quite enough risk for us.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Same as last year: an end to the pandemic.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
Same as usual: comfortable. Jeans (shorts in summer), t-shirts, sweaters. I dress up a bit when I substitute-teach, but comfort is still the dominant theme.

34. What kept you sane?
Snuggling husband.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t do much with celebrity crushes these days.

I hope we all have a safe, happy, healthy 2022. I mean, we all wished that last year after the hellhole that was 2020 and I'm pretty sure 2021 continued to suck for most people. Ending the year with the death of Betty White did not help at all. But hope springs eternal, right? RIGHT?
♥

2021 Books

2022-01-01T04:51:17Z

Apparently when I posted my 2020 Book List to DW, it didn't cross-post to LJ and I didn't realize it, so I never posted here at LJ.

2018 books
2017 books
2016 books
2015 books
2014 books
2013 books
2012 books
2011 books
2010 books
2009 books
2008 books
2007 books
2006 books
2005 books

1. The Burning Issue of the Day (Lady Hardcastle #5) by T.E. Kinsey
2. A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher
3-4 His Royal Secret by Lilah Pace* (read twice)
5-6 His Royal Favorite by Lilah Pace* (read twice)
7. Finding Home by lanai
8. Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (short)
9. The Captive Kingdom by Jennifer Nielsen
10. The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen*
11. Cemetery Boys by Aidan Thomas
12. The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper
13. Dodger by PTerry
14. Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales
15. Death Beside the Seaside (Lady Hardcastle #6) by T.E. Kinsey
16. Chain of Iron by Cassie Clare
17. Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian
18. Guardian Spirits by Jordan L. Hawk
19. How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters*
20. The Fatal Flying Affair (Lady Hardcastle #7) by T.E. Kinsey
21. Him by Sarina Bowen & Elle Kennedy
22. Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa
23. Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan
24. Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston* (plus partial re-reads)

Middle Grade books read for myself OR for children’s lit class:
25. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake
26. Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston
27. Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
28. The Curious Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger*
29. ~~George~~ Melissa's Story by Alex Gino*
30. Rick by Alex Gino
31. The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
31.5 Princess in Black by Shannon Hale (super short book)

Graphic Novels for children’s lit class:
32. All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson
33. When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
34. Class Act by Jerry Craft
35. Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett Krosoczka
37. Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burrwood Forest by John Lechner (super short book) (half from 31.5 and half here = one whole book)

Books in Verse (and therefore quicker reads) read for myself OR for children’s lit class
38. The Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
39. Red, White and Whole by Rajai LaRocca
40. Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
41. The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park

Read aloud: (many of which I would have read anyway)
42. The Symptoms of Being Human
43. Chainbreaker by Tara Sim*
44. Firestarter by Tara Sim
45. If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
46. Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
47. One Little Word by F.N. Manning
48. Running With Lions by Julian Winters
49. Spy School: Revolution by Stuart Gibbs
50. Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli
51. One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
52. Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
53. She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen
54. Dear Evan Hansen (Novel version)
55. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld*

In progress:
Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan (began before I knew YA reading list)
Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy (graphic novel, assigned but I wanted to read it anyway)
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera (audiobook, listening while washing and painting walls)

Four months

2021-12-28T04:38:20Z

So, I realize that after posting the drama of getting my meds replaced while I was in Hawaii in AUGUST I never really posted a proper update since. And for that - man, I am so sorry. The fall semester just about killed me. So, now that we're at the end of 2021, I'm going to try to give a brief bullet list update.

August

In Maui we drove up Haleakala (~10k feet), drove the Road to Hana, snorkled, had a great condo rental.

Stayed at Disney's Aulani resort on Oahu, just enjoying pool, lagoon, and relaxing.

Got home, slept 1 night, took MiniPlu to college the next day.

Her double dorm room was more the size of a single, and on outer edge of campus, but her roommate, S, from Nepal, has proven to be a great match.

MiniPlu broke up with her bf of nearly 1.5 years that one evening we were at home - mutual but still painful.

Two had done bare training for his 1st job before HI, began working in earnest once we got back.

September

MiniPlu struggled to adapt to college, despite more normal campus life. Grieving her ex-bf didn't help.

I started fall semester, two reading- and assignment-heavy classes. Never was able to get ahead, was frequently handing in assignments mere minutes before deadlines.

Continued to sub 2x/week, and volunteer in elem library one morning/month.
Two started senior year, his 1st time back on campus since pandemic began.

He deliberately got all requirements out of the way early, so he could cruise senior year.

R&K celebrated 30th anniversary in early Sept.

We celebrated our 24th anniversary in late Sept.

MiniPlu, homesick, came home for a weekend just before our anniversary. Took the train down, but we drove her back. Traffic awful. :P

October

Will and I spent 2 weeks in OR, going through my dad's stuff. Threw out 45cu yards of trash and non-salvagable stuff. Donated truckbed-full of items to homeless shelter.

Dealt with leavings of rat infestation in garage, and soot *everywhere* in house.

Professors were kind enough to give me a little flexibility with deadlines while I was gone. I mostly didn't need them, but I was grateful when I did.

Saw my mom for ~12 hours on our way home.

MiniPlu spent her long-weekend fall break at home (NJ) while we were in OR, taking train both directions.

The weekend after we returned was Parent's Weekend at MHC, so off we went for another trip. Mostly spent our time with MiniPlu doing completely "unofficial" things. Did get to do homework in gorgeous library, though!

Two submitted his early-action application to Johnson & Wales (JWU) associate's degree baking program.

November

Everyone but Two got booster shots.

Family friend H came to visit in mid-November.

Continued to flail through schoolwork.

Two got accepted early-action to his first, last and only choice of college program!

My dad's facility had Covid run through it (he was fine), meaning no visits for a bit, and didn't feel safe bringing him home for Thanksgiving dinner.

MiniPlu came home for Thanksgiving weekend, taking train both directions.

Thanksgiving at home, just us (plus H), nothing special.

Was declared likely to test to 2nd-degree black belt in early 2022!

December

Final projects due for school, was absolutely convinced I was going to fail one of them.

For that final week, I didn't do anything but work on it. Will handled transporting Two to/from work, extra dishes, etc.

In the midst of that, the HS librarian contacted me to say she was leaving and invited me to apply for her job, so I was squeezing that in.

Miraculously, I did not fail. I mean, I got a C on my one final project solely because of ONE THING I didn't understand, but that could have been much worse.

R&K and houseguest spent a week at DisneyWorld, so we took care of their cats.

Picked up MiniPlu for winter break on Dec 11.

Our dog, Jade, damaged her right rear ACL (yes, really) and is on meds and rest for several weeks, requiring even taking her out to do her business extra carefully.</lj>
Struggled to get gifts wrapped & shipped, cards mailed, in time, because I was working so solidly on school for so long.

Will still has not done his Christmas cards.

Interviewed for HS librarian job with panel consisting of principal, both vice principals, head of English dept, another English teacher and a social studies teacher.

Two got his booster shot once age lowered to 16+

For Xmas, Two bought me tickets for the two of us to see Six on Broadway on 30 Jan. (He's feeling rich now that he has a regular job.) Fingers crossed the show will reopen by then.
Flew to CA on 12/23 to visit my mom for 1st real visit in 3 years.

Also visited hamsterwoman and family yesterday for 1st time in 3 years.

On 29th, kids fly home without us, and we return to OR to begin painting over all the soot on every wall. We've learned they got a couple inches of snow recently and my dad lives up a 2-mile windy hill road. Not sure how we're going to get up there!

We've been doing our best to be safe during Omicron, going back to double-masking or N95/KN95s during our trip, and will likely continue when we get home again (I was already double-masking again when subbing), and meeting people outside when possible. CA requires masks indoors and proof of vaccination for dining (had to show it for our free breakfast buffet in the hotel) and most people we've seen have been compliant. We are DYING to see Spiderman: No Way Home and (Two and I) want to see the new West Side Story, but we're not ready for movie theaters yet.

Really struggling not to feel completely fatalistic and like giving up and curling up in a ball because of Omicron. I feel like that scene from Princess Bride:
"We'll never survive!"
"Nonsense. You're just saying that because no one ever has."

I'd like to promise I'll do better with posting in the new year, but I'm not hopeful. :P My apologies to all the friends who have not had the attention they deserve.

One-word meme

2021-11-22T03:59:36Z

Because piperki told me to:

1. Where is your cell phone? Near
2. Describe your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/lover Supportive
3. Your hair? Graying
4. Your mother? Frustrating
5. Your father? Oblivious
6. Your favorite item? Kindle
7. Your dream last night? Forgotten
8. Your favorite drink? Water
9. Your dream car? Reliable
10. The room you are in? Crowded
11. Your ex? Gay
12. Your fear? Longcovid
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Librarian
14. Who did you hang out with last night? Macbook
15. What you're not? Rested
19. The last thing you did? Fold
20. What are you wearing? Jammies
21. Your favorite book? Multiple
22. The last thing you ate? Cornbread
23. Your life? Busy
24. Your mood? Stressed
25. Your friends? Far
26. What are you thinking about right now? Bed
27. Your car? Toothless
28. What are you doing at the moment?Meme-ing
29. Your summer? Past
30. Your relationship status? Mawwiage
31. What is on your tv? Dust
32. When is the last time you laughed? Today
33. Last time you cried? Uh....
34. School? AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Tag: brumeier. *g*

It's all fun and games until someone's meds get ruined

2021-08-26T07:21:02Z

So, we've been here in Hawaii for just over a week, and have 1.5 days left in our vacation. Now, as you would rightly assume, we've had a pretty good time here - nice weather, gorgeous scenery, too much food. Rough life. Yes, a few wrinkles here and there, but overall - not too shabby. ;-)

Except for one thing.

tl;dr - I have spent WAY too much time on hold on the phone during this trip.

The medication I currently take for my Crohn's disease, Stelara, is a self-administered injection I do every 8 weeks. The medication gets overnighted to me a week or two before I need to take it because it doesn't have a long shelf life, so I can't receive it any earlier than that. It also must be refrigerated (hence the overnighting - ice packs are involved). However, I recently learned that you CAN take the medication out of the fridge and keep it at room temp for up to a week, as long as you don't re-refrigerate it once it's been removed. This was handy because we left on a Tues, and I wasn't due to take my shot until 2 days later. But I took it out of the fridge, toted it along with us to Hawaii, and planned to take it Thurs. On Wed night, I took it out of my bag and set it on the kitchen counter (we had rented a condo) so I would see it in the morning, as a reminder.

Thurs morning comes, and we're getting ready to leave on our day's adventure, when I remember - ah, meds! MiniPlu pulls it out of the fridge for me and ... hey wait. "Mom, wasn't this supposed to stay out of the fridge?" Turns out, Two saw it on the counter on Wed night, thought I'd made a mistake, and without checking, dutifully put it back in the fridge for me.

I spent some time on the phone with both my mail-order pharmacy (Walgreens Prime) and the manufacturer (Jansen - they make Stelara and a couple other similar meds) trying to verify that the meds were, in fact, spoiled. Even the science department at Jansen couldn't tell me what happened to the meds that were re-refrigerated. Did they become ineffective? Cause actual harm? What? No one seemed to have that on record anywhere. But we did have to conclude I shouldn't take the meds. After some further back-and-forth, it sounded like Jansen would send their approval over to Walgreens Prime in the next day or so, so I should check back the next day. Finally, a good 90 mins after we intended to leave, we were finally on our way up Mt. Haleakala, where I didn't have signal for several hours. Because all these companies are on the East Coast (US), that's a 6 hour time difference, which meant each day I really could only talk to people during my morning. So by the time we were done on Haleakala, definitely nothing further could be done until Fri. But I was hopeful they could ship the meds to me and I could get them by Mon, maybe Tues. I left a message for my doctor telling him what had happened and he said 4 days late was ok.

I was really upset about what had happened to my meds, especially as Two is not a generally apologetic person. Will made him come apologize to me and give me a quick hug, but I could tell he didn't really grasp the impact his mistake had made, and wasn't at all remotely sorry for his well-intentioned but SERIOUSLY awful mistake.

Fri I was back on the phone with Walgreens Prime. Alas, they did not yet have the approval from Jansen to send over the replacement. We drove to Hana that day, which meant, again, I had little to no signal for hours. I probably should have tried over the weekend, but I assumed that nobody would answer. (As it turned out, Walgreens Prime, at least, is open for part of Sat.)

Monday I went for a long walk with Will in the early morning and spent half of that on hold with Walgreens Prime because they STILL did not have the approval from Jansen. Things seemed like they were getting promising, and I was told a person from Jansen would be calling me later that day. Nothing happened.

Tuesday I spent more time on hold with Walgreens Prime. Eventually the man I was speaking to came back on the line and said that Jansen apparently had ONE (!!!) person in the entire f'ing company who did approvals for replacements like this, and they were going to be out of the office until Thurs. Which is just ... what? She said when I called back to ask for the Logistics Dept - which is basically their "I'd like to speak to the manager" team, only much bitchier - they'd keep lighting a fire under Jansen until we got results.

Today (Wed) I missed a call because my volume was turned off for the night. In it, a rep from Walgreens Prime said they'd finally heard back from Jansen ... and that Jansen had denied the claim and said it wasn't their job and that I had to talk to insurance. Which was a big ol' WTF from me. I spent some time on the phone with a woman from Jansen who tried to tell me my file had been closed the previous day (??) because "you've used up your replacement requests". (Nope, try again. I have never asked for a replacement before, ever.) Because you waited too long to call it in. (Also nope.) Plus there was the whole "Nobody will be in to approve this until Thurs" which clearly wasn't true if someone was around to DENY it sooner than that. You get the idea. Finally I asked for a supervisor, because maybe the information was above this person's pay grade, which is fine, but I was GOING to get answers from someone. Unfortunately, as the supervisor put it, the replacement is a "courtesy" - and not guaranteed. Which nobody had ever said. And similarly, nobody - either Jansen or Walgreens Prime - had suggested I get in touch with my insurance company for an emergency override on the refills, just in case the courtesy was denied. Nobody had told me that approvals sometimes take 7-10 business days, given that both sides clearly seemed to be acting like this could be handled in a day or two. And when I expressed disbelief that something as crucial as medication could be delayed in red tape THAT LONG, I was told that pharmacies sometimes will just hand out the new meds immediately, and trust that it will get replaced by the manufacturer (or insurance) after the fact, which clearly Walgreens Prime did not do. (Which ... fine, whatever, if that's not their thing, but don't you think all of this should have been explained by someone during the MANY MANY phone conversations going on between me, Walgreens Prime and Jansen? The person was apologetic, but I was absolutely devastated to have been waiting for SIX DAYS only to have a complete switcheroo pulled on me like this. I said that I hoped this call would be used as a training lesson for others so that nobody else had to be given such crappy information (or lack thereof) in future. And that was that.

I threw myself on the bed in tears (I almost NEVER cry, but this was all just too fucking much), and asked Will to take Two down to the beach/pool (MiniPlu had gone down at the beginning of this whole debacle) because I couldn't even stand to look at him in that moment. I mean, this entire time, all six days, he remained totally blase about the whole thing, and even while he was there in the room, listening to me duke it out with Jansen, he couldn't have cared less. Will took him down to his sister and came back up. By then I had been on the phone with insurance, and they had thankfully put in the override right away without question. And then they patched me back through to Walgreens Prime so I could place the order.

Unfortunately, I entered the Walgreens Prime phone system at a different point than what I get when I call them directly, and I almost immediately got caught in a phone tree loop, and had to hang up and start over again. I got someone and explained the whole situation. It took a few tries before she grasped that I ALREADY had the override and not that I still had to get it. I was put in hold for ages while she went to check on the status of that ... and then the call was disconnected.

Called AGAIN. Got a different person. She, too, put me on hold to look into the override, at which point the first person called me back. Put Person B on hold while I answered Person A. She assured me she had found everything to be in order, then got off the phone so I could return to my call with Person B - who by then was finally back on the line - and confirmed that everything was in order. Which meant, at last, I could reorder my medication. At this point it's being sent to my house, not my hotel, because the soonest it could arrive was Friday, and we arrive home Sat morning. So: NINE days later, I should finally have my meds. The woman was a bit on the slow side filling out the necessary forms for shipment, but I didn't care because she was nice and the job was finally getting DONE.

By the time I got off the phone, I'd been at it for TWO HOURS. And I was still on the verge of tears, furious at my son for not giving a shit that I'd had to deal with this when I could have been having fun in Hawaii, terrified that this disruption will result in a relapse and just ... ugh.

So, yes, there have been beaches and a luau and gorgeous scenery and, yes, some grumpy travel issues here and there. But also this huge thing that has dominated almost our entire trip. Not fun. At all.

Paint Nite catchup

2021-08-19T07:49:29Z

I'm actually on Maui right now, and will do a post about that at some point, but first I want to do a Paint Nite catchup, because I didn't have time before we left.

First up was this painting, which I did back in mid-June as a birthday gift for my mom:

I confess, I forgot to take pics along the way at first, so I got pretty far before I remembered. Oops.

First, we did a super-pale blue for the sky, and a deeper blue for the water. We added a tan strip at a slight angle across the bottom for the sand, some white streaks in the water for wave caps, and began adding some of the tall grasses in the foreground:

We then used a darker brown to add in the fence posts, and some darker green grasses.

Whoops - the fence posts weren't tall enough! We made them taller, added more grasses of different shades, and then the little sandpiper bird on top. We also added little seagulls flapping in the sky.

Then came the crazy month of July - three birthdays (mine, MiniPlu's and my SIL's), and the trip to OR, plus getting my dad settled into his memory care place. And I was still taking my summer course (Children's Lit) until the middle of the month, as well. Oh, and I drove Two out to RI to visit JWU. All this meant I didn't really have time for Paint Nite again until August.

On Aug 9 I did this painting, to put me in the mood for my upcoming trip to HI (although the painting itself claimed to be Florida):

The teacher was from Toronto, not someone I'd had before, but I liked her. She was calm and helpful. It was a bit of a weird class, though. There were only 4 participants (not including the teacher) - and that's with the fact that I'd only signed up about 20 mins before it began. (My life can get crazy enough that I no longer sign up much in advance anymore - I wait to see if I'm ACTUALLY going to have time to do the painting that day!). Anyway, apparently one lady knew in advance that she'd only get to do about half the class, so midway through, she apologized for having to leave, showed the teacher what she'd done so far, and then left. The three of us continued the class. A little bit later, the teacher said she had to step away to use the bathroom for a moment, so she did that, and I amused myself on my phone while she was gone. When she came back, I got ready to paint again ... and then noticed that I was the only student left. Where had the other two gone? They had never turned on their cameras, but they had definitely still been there! There were no comments in chat, they hadn't spoken up, nothing. So for the last 30-45 mins or so, I had a private lesson!

We started by putting a deeper blue in the corner, and then brushing it down and to the left, adding more white, so it started fading, then adding a pale pink section for the rest of the sky.

And then I forgot to take pics for quite awhile - argh! But, anyway, we drew in the horizon line, and did first the orange-yellow section of water on the right, then the pink section in the middle and finally the blue section of water on the left. It was hard because we were not supposed to blend it really, but to have these sections that went in and out of each other's section, for overlap, if that makes sense, like puzzle pieces. We did the uneven "clouds" above the water line in light blue, and then a darker blue section under that, leaving the lighter section peeking out on top. We also added a few wispy yellow clouds in the sky.

Next we did the big multi-colored cloud in the middle of the sky, with first yellow, then orange, and red, and a deep pink, trying not to make each section too regular. It was towards the end of this period where I became the only remaining student.

After adding some purple to the top of the multi-colored cloud, we painted the black palm tree in the foreground. Done!

Overall I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.

Two days later I did another Paint Nite: a pretty stone castle tower in a thicket of trees, bushes and flowers:

The teacher for this one was only about an hour north of me, very VERY Jerseyan in the way she talked, which was pretty amusing. She was generally fine as a teacher but she didn't always seem to understand what we were asking about, sometimes answering the wrong issue. Like - I don't know if it was her screen or what, but her model painting, and the painting she was re-doing during class, looked more muted, like the greens were more like gray-green, and I think she thought we were asking if we should make them GRAY, rather than asking about a shade, whether the colors were MEANT to be gray-green. Stuff like that.

This is what her model pic looked like (it's a little bit blurry because I was in a rush) but you see what I mean about the gray-green?

Also, I wasn't really impressed with her blobby foliage, which didn't look anything like the original. However, this ended up not really being an issue for me, which I'll explain later.

Once again, I didn't immediately remember to take pics, and we'd finished the entire background before I'd remembered. We started off with a super-pale-blue sky, with deliberate white streaks in it, and then did a green for the lower half, curving it up a bit at the sides. Then we added a tiny bit of black to green, and painted that on top, especially along the lower section and the corners.

We next used a light-ish gray to paint the tower column, making it slightly narrower at the top to indicate it was further away, height-wise. We used small brush strokes of a deeper gray and a white to give it the look of variegated stones. Then we added the wider ramparts or ... whatever you call that bit at the top, and did the same for that section. What I wasn't too sure about was that we were supposed to use slightly curving strokes for the tower, in a mild smiley bent, to show roundness. But the rampart was done with the reverse, a slightly curving frowney stroke. Shouldn't they have gone the same direction? Or am I thinking about this wrong? Additional details: we used black to create the window mid-tower, and the small arrow slits in the ramparts. We also had (when we initially painted the tower column) used a slightly deeper gray at an angle along the top, and down both vertical edges to create shadows, and did some similar shading on the ramparts.

We painted the stepping stones by having the dark gray on the brush and a dab of white at the tip, so when you painted the stroke, it naturally had white reflection along the top edge and darker gray below. And then the only thing left was the foliage, which is where I had been anticipating a long, complicated process. But it wasn't!

We painted the first couple of tree trunks, and began adding leaves and bush foliage, and here's where I was able to make mine look better than the teacher's. The trick to creating a dappled foliage is to have a really old, stiff paintbrush that no longer smoothes out well, probably because it has dried paint in it. You dip this otherwise useless brush into the green - but only a little bit, not too much (this is where I felt the teacher went wrong) and then use it as a stamp to tap out greenery. Because the brush sucks, the paint goes on in little dots, which is perfect for this sort of thing. But you have to be careful not to have too much paint on the brush or you end up with blobs. For variegated leaf colors, you were encouraged to dip part of the brush into light green, dark green/moss green and a bit of yellow before stamping it all over your paper.

We added more small tree trunks to the right, more stamped foliage all over the green base, around the rocks, etc, then switched to white paint to tap on some white flowers here and there, with the same old brush.

And finally, we used pinks of different hues for additional flowers, plus more greenery as needed.

I was REALLY pleased with this one, especially the foliage (although I do feel like my tree trunks/branches could have been a bit better).

When we get back, my life will be nuts again and I'll be starting my fall classes almost immediately after, so God only knows when I'll get to paint again, but I'm glad I at least got in a few over the summer. Wish it had been more!

Where has summer gone?

2021-08-05T20:58:47Z

Ok, I realize at this point I owe an update so massive, it's ridiculous.

School: Got out on 22 June, super late. Two took his senior pictures that same day. We got his proofs in early July and sucked it up to order a couple, despite the ridiculous price tag for senior pics, so we could complete the set of school photos we have in one of those all-in-one frames.

Grad school: Summer classes started June 1 and ended mid-July for me. I only took one class this summer, Children's Lit. Class was light on lectures (I honestly would have liked more in this department) but had some interesting and thoughtful discussions, along with some books I never would have thought to read without this class. Enjoyable term.

Blood donation: MiniPlu and I went to donate blood a couple of weeks ago. I'm super proud of MiniPlu for doing this as she's terrified of needles. Only her second donation. Unfortunately, they wouldn't take me - I have a naturally high resting heart rate that was slightly elevated that day but meant that it went just a little over their limit. Grump. Am trying again in 9 days, so here's hoping that one is successful.

Dad: Will and I flew to OR on 5 July and spent 5 days getting my dad TB- and Covid-tested, got several loads of his clothing washed thanks to his neighbor, scrubbed off several months of soot, packed him up, and dealt with some other legal and financial logistics, then flew with him back to NJ on 9 July. It was exhausting having the "You're moving to NJ so you can be closer to me, to an assisted living facility" (it's memory care but I didn't say that to him) multiple times during the week because of course he didn't remember each previous conversation. Thankfully, he got more cooperative the longer it went on and came back with us without issue. He did balk once we actually arrived at the facility, after having lunch with the residents as part of his arrival, because we'd woken him up, cognitively, so to speak, and he didn't want to be with people who were not all there upstairs. But aside from that traumatic first day, he's been fine - totally compliant, no complaints, has no idea he's only been there a few weeks. It's emotionally hard on ME to see him in there, a quiet little sheep, instead of the vibrant man he used to be, but he's safe, well-looked-after, and CLEAN.

Weather: We had a tornado scare a week ago, when a nasty storm spawned at least three twisters, two of which crossed by close enough to us that we spent over an hour in the basement - all 7 humans and 5 pets - Thurs night (29 Jul). Thankfully, the tornadoes missed us.

Pets: And speaking of pets, my SIL adopted a fifth cat two days ago, a 3.5-month-old kitten named Rachel (part of a Friends-themed litter). She's not too sure about the other animals on the limited exposure she's had to them (we're still keeping her mostly sequestered in MiniPlu's bedroom or R&K's bathroom so she can get used to us in less chaotic circumstances) and the other cats aren't too thrilled by her, either. (Jade thinks she's interesting, but tiny kitten is not delighted to have giant dog nose thrust in her direction.)

Two: applied for a job with our local grocery store chain in early summer but nobody told us we'd have to follow up with a direct call to the individual store's HR, so several weeks got wasted without hearing anything. He interviewed for the store closest to us, which was clearly a "I have no intention of hiring you but I'm being polite" 5 min affair, and a more serious interview with the next-closest store, which resulted in his being offered the position of cart-retrieval dude. He starts on Sat. The chain is union, which sucks in that Two's hours are severely dictated: He can only work 4-4.5 hour shifts and must work 20 hours a week, which means going to work 4-5 days a week even during the school year. However, as he pointed out, he deliberately planned for an easy senior year so hopefully this will work out. We bought his uniform pieces last weekend (black pants/jeans although, as cart dude, he's also allowed to wear black shorts in hot weather; white collared shirts - polo shirts for now, and Two hates polos, poor boo :P; black shoes - black sneakers are fine). He'll also be given a store vest or apron, probably a high-viz vest given his job. This is his first-ever paying job. Hopefully it'll turn out to be decent. It's been a struggle for him, as it involved talking to people, and he tends to seize up in a stammer when faced with people he doesn't know. But he's managed, with support.

Two, Part II: We also visited JWU (Johnson & Wales Univ) in Rhode Island last Fri; Two is interested in their associates' degree baking/pastry program. We both liked what we saw. Now to see if he can get in. I admit I'm not super confident about that, but I can hope for the best. The part that really sucked was all the driving. It's 4 hours each way under ideal circumstances, about the same as MiniPlu's school, but in reality it took 4:35 up and 5:15 back, and that's not counting the 30 min dinner break we took on the way home. We were gone 14 hours, ergh. The one thing that WAS awesome about the trip was that I finally got to meet purpleink in person for the very first time, after 19 years of friendship. ♥ Had a delicious lunch with her at a pub-cafe in downtown Providence before our tour of JWU's culinary campus 10 mins away.

MiniPlu: She had two choices for housing this coming year: a) join the regular lottery to pick a room, and either have a roommate in mind already or allow the school to pair her with literally anybody. Or b) allow the school to pick her room, but be matched with someone compatible, like they do for freshmen. In the end, she chose the latter, but MHC royally screwed her over, putting her and her roommate (who, admittedly seems nice - she's from Nepal, which I think is beyond cool) in a dorm that's the square footage of the average single (aka much smaller than the usual double), on the third floor of a dorm with slanted roof so they'll have an angled ceiling, making it feel even smaller, and it's also the dorm usually given to the "nontraditional" students, so it's across the street from the main campus, set back from the road, so it's much more isolated. She is NOT amused.

Movies: Have not yet been in a cinema, but we've seen some movies on Disney+: Black Widow and Jungle Cruise, both of which we liked. Black Widow fills in some canon gaps and Florence Pugh was amazing, while Jungle Cruise was just a fun romp.

TV: Been slowly working our way through Love Victor S2 with Two as time permits (just finished), and am halfway through Young Royals, which I'm watching in Swedish with English subtitles (it also comes dubbed in English, but ick). Apparently I have a thing for cute Hispanic boys falling in love with white boys? (See also: Red, White & Royal Blue. :-P)

Olympics: I have seen absolutely NONE of the TV coverage, and only seen video clips of certain things I've hunted down, like Tom Daley's Gold-medal-winning dive, a few artistic swimming things, a couple of US women's gymnastics routines. The last time I watched so little of the Olympics, it was 1992 and I was staying with Steve in an apartment without a working TV.

Books: SO MANY BOOKS. Many for school, some read aloud to Two, some on planes, or at 1am, or when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales
Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell - in progress
Death Beside the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey Lady Hardcastle #6
Chain of Iron by Cassie Clare
Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian
How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters
Beyond by Mercedes Lackey - in progress

Books in Verse for class:
Red, White and Whole by Rajai LaRocca
Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson
The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park

Chapter books for class:
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
The Curious Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger*
~~George~~ Melissa's Story by Alex Gino
Rick by Alex Gino
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
Princess in Black by Shannon Hale

Graphic Novels for class:
All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson
When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
Class Act by Jerry Craft
Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett Krosoczka
Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burrwood Forest by John Lechner

Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli: Read aloud to Two, but I would have read it anyway. Straight white girl and gay black best friend fall for same boy. Oh, and everyone - the boy in question included - are all in the same school musical together. There's a lot about setting your own feelings aside for the sake of someone else's happiness, and also recognizing love when it's right in front of you. I wish I knew the musical Once Upon a Mattress more, because I would have gotten a lot more of the references, but it was a fun story, nonetheless.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston: Read aloud to Two, but I would have read it anyway. I *adored* Red, White and Royal Blue. I never quick clicked as much with this book, although it's a good story. Honestly, what grabbed me the most wasn't the romance between Jane and August - although that was nice. What I really loved was August's emotional and social growth, going from someone trying to figure out what she's doing with her life, and not having any friends, any roots or any possessions, to someone who is gathered into the most amazing "found family" and uses their friendship and love to grow in all sorts of ways.

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell - in progress. Reading it aloud to Two, but I would have read it anyway. Third in the "Carry On/Wayward Son" series of Simon Snow books. I'm liking this one better than the previous book, mostly because Simon is coming out of his depression and is learning to function better. Hopefully I'll like the ending - am about 80% of the way through at this point.

Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales: It starts off sort of like the movie Grease: Two teens spend a magical summer together and part, thinking they live in completely different parts of the world and will thus never see each other again. When circumstances involve one teen unexpectedly moving so now both kids go to the same school, one of the kids pretends not to know the other because it doesn't fit with his image. In this case, the teens are both boys, one being very out, and the other being Not At All Out - in North Carolina. There's a lot of heartbreak, including a family member struggling with cancer, but also some really nice lessons about respecting yourself and what you will and won't put up with. And yes, there's a happy ending.

Death Beside the Seaside by T.E. Kinsey Lady Hardcastle #6 Another in the fun Edwardian-England cozy mystery series. Lady Hardcastle and her maid/confidant/co-conspirator Flo go on holiday to the seaside, only to get caught up in a series of disappearances and murders. More death and danger than usual, but well-done.

Chain of Iron by Cassie Clare: Second in the Edwardian-era Shadowhunters trilogy. Liked this one better than the first one, although it absolutely BROKE MY HEART at the cliffhanger ending. May have to throttle Cassie.

Two Rogues Make a Right by Cat Sebastian: Third in a trilogy about a series of brothers, all of whom seem to be gay or bisexual (except the two youngest, whom we never meet). A redemption story for the guy who seemed to be the villain in the first book. I liked this book better than the second one, but still not as much as the first one. Much is made of this brother's former opiod addiction, but it never really becomes an issue.

How to Be Remy Cameron by Julian Winters: I loved the first book I read by this author, Running With Lions so I thought I'd give another book a try. Remy is a black (or mixed-race? father is unknown, but given Remy's description of his hair and coloring, I'm thinking ... maybe?) teen who was adopted by loving white parents. He's out and gay, but ends up connecting with a Korean-American boy at school who has just moved back to town after several years in another state. Meanwhile, he's trying to figure out who he is, given his adoption. Who is he beyond his labels? Black, gay, adopted. Is that all he is? This book really spoke to me, as the parent of two kids adopted from another race. Loved it.

Books in Verse for class:
Red, White and Whole by Rajai LaRocca: Of the three I read that week, this was hands-down my favorite. Really lovely book about being torn between two worlds when your parents are immigrants but you just want to be American. Warning: character death, which I was NOT anticipating, and which broke my heart.

Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson: This one explores CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy as it was only JUST being explored (around 2000) as an explanation for what happened to (American) football players who got knocked in the head too many times. Told from the viewpoint of a former NFL player's son. You really get the sense of how bewildering and frightening it must have been to watch happen to your loved one, without any understanding of what was going on.

The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park: This was pretty short, and I had trouble recognizing the text as actual verse. But it was a fascinating look to how a classroom full of kids might answer, "If your house were on fire and you could only grab ONE thing" - with the assumption that all living things were automatically going to be safe, so no claiming parents, pets, etc - "what would you take, and why?"

Chapter books for class:
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein: My absolute favorite of the bunch. Twelve 12-year-olds are permitted first visit to the fantastical new library in town. Part of the event is that they get locked in and must solve puzzles and clues to get back out. It was not only fun to solve the puzzles and clues, but there were also TONS AND TONS of literary references, enough to keep any adult reader amused as well. First in a series.

The Curious Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angelberger*: I read this to Two when he was much younger. Dorky middle school kid dispenses advice via an origami Yoda finger puppet. The book presents itself as a "casebook" to decide whether origami Yoda is the real deal, who can really know what advice to give, or a big hoax being pulled by the dorky kid. First in a series.

~~George~~ Melissa's Story by Alex Gino*: Told from the POV of a 4th-grade transgender girl, who is still being identified as a boy named George by her family, peers, teachers, etc. She finally comes out to her best friend (a girl) and at the end gets the chance to visit the zoo with the friend's relative, who has never met Melissa (as she wants to be called), which means Melissa gets to dress up as a girl and be identified correctly for the first time. I read this three years ago after a parent brought a box of these books to family camp at Camp Aranu'tiq and took advantage of the re-read in order to save time because it was the end of the semester, I was just dealing with my dad and two final projects. Please note: The author has since regretted titling the book by the girl's dead name, and has since said she wants the book to be known as Melissa's Story.

Rick by Alex Gino: Actually, I didn't have to read this for class, but I have been wanting to read it, so, after re-reading Melissa's Story, once the semester was over. Rick used to be Melissa's best friend back when they were in 2nd grade, but then had gotten caught up with the class bully. Now it's 6th grade, Melissa is finally out to everyone, and meanwhile Rick is feeling bewildered that everyone expects him to find girls (or boys) hot, and he ... doesn't. After some exploration, he thinks he might be ace, and finds new friends with the school's GSA club.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate: I've heard a LOT about this book but never had read it. Based on a true story, it's told from the POV of a gorilla who was held captive for decades in a little strip mall. It's sad but also funny and full of hope.

Princess in Black by Shannon Hale: Aimed at younger children, maybe 2nd grade? Cute fluffy little story (first in a series) about a pink frothy princess who has a secret ID as a badass ninja.

Graphic Novels for class:
All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson: 11-year-old Imogene has been home-schooled all her life, as her parents work in a state RenFaire. But now she's got 2 big changes: she's old enough to start working in the Faire herself, and she's starting public middle school for the first time. She really struggles with learning the social ropes of dealing with her peers, and class exams, etc, but there's a happy ending. Fun story, especially for RenFaire fans.

When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed: Based on Omar Mohamed's true experience as a Somali refugee in a Kenyan refugee camp, where he spent almost all his childhood, watching out for his nonverbal little brother. Wow, will you recognize how fortunate you were in comparison to Omar. Thankfully, he got a second chance to move to the US, go to college, and have a family in safety.

Class Act by Jerry Craft: The follow-up to the only graphic novel to win the Newbery Award. Follows a couple of nonwhite boys in 8th grade at a posh school, as well as their rich white friend who nontheless has his own issues to deal with.

Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute by Jarrett Krosoczka: Sure, she seems like a mild-mannered Lunch Lady and her assistant, but she really has a pile of fancy spy gadgets to put James Bond to shame. For this first book, a substitute teacher is more than he seems.

Sticky Burr: Adventures in Burrwood Forest by John Lechner: Aimed at younger students, this follows those little sticky balls - anthropomorphic, of course - and overcoming challenges, etc. Typically kid-friendy fare.

So, uh, yeah. I'm a shitty friend and updater and I want to do better but Life keeps getting in the way. Here's trying.

L

2021-07-03T04:25:55Z

Today (well, July 2) was my 50th birthday.

Earlier in the week I was feeling particularly sorry for myself - not at turning 50, but at not having a way to really celebrate it, aside from spending it with the same people I see every single day. I mean, I love those people, but with Covid still an issue, plus the whole "Well, your friends live all over the world" thing, there wasn't any way to have any sort of party.

I got over it, though, and in the end, I really had nothing to complain about at all. My family got up stupidly early (5a) to decorate the whole house in a mix of tropical and birthday decor (I'm pretty sure they bought out Party City. Twice.). People gave me really thoughtful gifts: books, of course, but also a new Kindle to replace the one my dad hid in May, an underwater camera so MiniPlu and I can take snorkeling pics in Hawaii, some awesomely creative stuff from Two (hand-drawn bookmarks for Cemetery Boys, Carry On/Wayward Son, Red White & Royal Blue and One Last Stop), fan art to go with some fanfic he'd written by hand (in a sign of the times, the fan art was rolled into a tube shape and tied together with ... the elastic on a medical mask), the promise of a nice dinner - just Will and I - in Hawaii, paid for by MiniPlu, and money toward my new laptop (mine started seizing up and shutting down without warning - repeatedly - a week or two ago. I've been using Will's ever since).

I'd decided to go out to brunch rather than dinner. It was our first time eating out (rather than getting takeout) since the pandemic started. We had hoped to eat outside, but tables were limited, since we had 7 people in our group. In the end, we were brave and ate indoors but, thankfully, the large table we got was in an alcove separate from other diners so we felt marginally safer there. Brunch was delicious - I got a gf Belgian waffle with fresh blueberries.

In the afternoon, after talking to my mom, the kids and I went shopping. Some of that was errand-related, but some was also using the free gifts or other offers I'd gotten for my birthday, and doing some browsing, so that was nice. Alas, I didn't really find something I wanted to buy - I didn't need some of the freebies, so I got items I could give to other people - but it was a nice time anyway. We had dinner at home, and my chocolate cake afterwards, of course. And we watched the latest Loki episode before people started going to bed.

All in all, it was truly a wonderful day, and I'm very thankful for it.

Life has continued to be nuts. I'm behind on weeding, school, getting ready to travel to OR on Monday to fetch my dad and bring him to NJ (flying back with him on Fri). It's why I'm doing this post so late (or is that "early"?) because I wouldn't have time otherwise!!

Again, if I've missed important news or posts, please let me know, and I'll come look straightaway. For now, though, I'm off to bed.

Catch me up

2021-07-03T04:12:14Z

I have been a terrible friend. I have not had time to read my flist in a MONTH. Please PLEASE, leave a comment if you have news I should catch up on, and I will specifically seek out your journal to see what I missed. I'm so so sorry.

Paint Nite 30: Conch shell on the beach

2021-06-13T03:20:14Z

I saw this once before, but when it cropped up again, I decided to take the plunge. Getting me in the mood for Hawaii. :D

Here's the model:

I only signed up for this class about 3 hours before it happened - I've taken to registering kind of last minute because my life is so nuts, I don't always know if I will, for sure, have time to paint. Anyway, given my last-minute signup, it was a surprisingly small class - only two other people, besides me (well, three others - one Zoom connection was for two people painting together in the same house).

First we made light brown (or in my case, I had light brown already) and added a tiny bit of red to give it a slightly peachy tone (which doesn't really show up well in this pic). We added some streaks of white as we were going along, using diagonal strokes. We then took a dark brown, made it watery, and added spatter texture on the sand (including also some white spatter). I got a little brown spatter into the water, oops.

Next we mixed up a teal-ish color (although, again, I already had some), and added some regular blue in the corner. We learned Bob Ross-style X strokes to create the loose texture of the waves.

We added some white swoops to the water to create movement, then a narrow brown shadow under the edge of the waves. Next we outlined the shell in white, drawing a triangle shape for the base of the shell, then the segmented end that goes out to the left. Then the sort of elephant ear shape on top, and colored it in in white, to block out the space over the sand.

Coloring in the shell was a lengthy process, involving creating a dark pink for the "elephant ear" and then blending it to lighter colors as you went up, then adding a little yellow to the lighter pink (on the palette) to make a peach, which lined the top of the "triangle" part, and then mixing in a lot of yellow to the darker pink (on the palette) to create the main shell color, and using the lighter peach on the segments. We also used the brown from the wave shadows to make more shadows under the shell.

When we went to outline around the edge of the shell in a deep purple, I realized my right edge was WAY too straight, so I outlined a more varigated shape, and had to re-color some of that, including some of the sand area around it. There were a lot of finishing details, including some orange accents, purple shadows, white highlights, "sparkle" marks, adding a bit of dark purple to the brown shadow under the shell and, using a technique I saw spiffikins use to simulate foam at the edge of the water, a dabbed scrunched paper towel with white paint on it. I feel, in retrospect, that I should have had a bit more texture in the deep pink part of the shell (as per the model) but otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with this. I thought the teacher was decent, too.

In a hopefully-soon upcoming post: I found a place for my dad on Wednesday, but getting my ducks in a row so he can come out is proving more complicated. Mask mandates were removed at school this past week for reasons that involved very vague pronouncements from the governor. Am not happy about this. Neighborhood car break-in attempts. Won a scholarship. Tomorrow I'm getting Two his first professional (and not mom-fessional) haircut in about two years, in anticipation of his senior portraits being done in 10 days. New grand-nephew. Rollercoaster day at school a week ago. Weeds are trying to take over my veggies, especially seeing as a lot of my veggies didn't sprout and thus have left a lot more room for the weeds. Finished reading Only Mostly Devastated and will soon finish the next in my Lady Hardcastle mystery series. Also just finished the read-aloud of Becky Albertelli's Kate In Waiting with Two. Oh, and we've started watching Love, Victor (S2) and MCU's Loki.

Right. So - details will be forthcoming. Eventually. Someday.

Paint Nite 29: Autumn Lighthouse and a final glimpse of baby birds

2021-05-29T22:24:38Z

Three weeks ago, I did a Paint Nite - my semester was just about over, and it was Mother's Day weekend, so I was treating myself. And then Life happened and I never got around to posting the photos. Oops.

This was the model:

My MIL loved lighthouses, so whenever I see one (or a Paint Nite about lighthouses - of which there are many), I think of her.

First, we swirled white and a medium blue paint together on the paper. I'd added a tiny bit of teal to my blue. This represented not only the clouds but the water below, too.

We did a light line to indicate the division between land and water, and then painted the first coat of white for the tower. (First coat because it took more than one to cover the blue behind it.)

The autumnal grasses (and their reflections) were done in multiple steps, first with a dark red:

The brownish-orange was next, including creating the landmass in the lower right corner, and the tall grasses in the foreground. We also put in the dark red bands around the lighthouse and on the roof:

Then we added deep yellow highlights to the grasses, and then wiped some of them out with black shadows, lol. We also added fine black detailing to the railing around the lighthouse balcony, and windows below.

I was reasonably pleased with the result. :-)

Paint Nite is starting to bring back in-person events again, sigh, which means some of my favorite teachers no longer seem to be offering online events anymore. Maybe they might if I asked for something specific? I don't know. Right now I hesitate to commit too far in advance, without knowing when I might be flying off to fetch my dad.

And as long as I'm posting photos - the baby birds in our front door wreath-nest finally flew away on Wed, 19 May. Here's the last photo I took of them, the day before they left. As you can see, they're fully fledged and clearly ready to depart:

Still need to clean all the bird poop off our door. :-P Meanwhile, it looks like some other birds have come and pilfered some of the abandoned nest materials - a large portion of the rear of the nest seems to be missing these days. We were worried new residents would move in (or the original parents would deposit a new clutch) but right now it seems more like the nest is serving as a convenient one-stop shop for other birds to find building materials for their own nests!

Meme, catch-up, and some books

2021-05-29T16:14:27Z

Belated Friday Five, gacked from thesmallhobbit and spiffikins:

1) What are you doing this spring that you weren't doing 1 year ago?
Substitute teaching/library work. Grad school. TKD in person. (TKD at all!)

2) What pandemic precautions are you still taking?
Masking indoors when shopping or at school, using hand sanitizer when I get back to my car, washing my hands for 20+ seconds when I get home.

3) What's a safety rule that's very important to you?
Seat belts. Sunscreen if you're going to be outside for awhile.

4) What plants are blooming where you live?
A lot of blooms are over, but I think hydrangea and azaleas are blooming? (Well, and my tomatoes are starting to produce flowers!)

5) What was your most memorable summer job?
Probably the summer I worked at our local city hall, the summer I turned 20 (between junior and senior years of college). It was my first full-time, regular M-F, 9-5 job, and it was interesting to learn how city-level government worked. The job itself wasn't super-thrilling - I mostly did word processing/photocopying/filing for the city manager (the highest non-elected person) and the city council/mayor - but I still learned a bit about other workings.

Very little progress on getting my dad out here. With the help of A Place For Mom, I visited three memory care centers the week of May 17-21. However, then my APFM coordinator suddenly had to leave and I was handed over to someone else who has not been as good about setting me up with appointments, so I didn't see anything last week and I'm v frustrated. I mean, if I had to pick a place from the first week, I could, but none of them felt quite right. I really wanted to place him within a month and now half of that time is gone already. Will started looking for an Elder Law attorney in OR this week since I hadn't had time, and found some potential candidates but we haven't had a chance to talk to anyone yet. Sigh.

Meanwhile, my mother has come down with shingles - on her face. Although it's not IN her eye, it's affected the tissue *around* her eye, making it swollen. Poor lady. It's been about a week, though, so hopefully it will start healing soon.

As for me: I've substituted a lot, dealt with the newly-planted veggie garden (weeds are doing well, thanks for asking - will be spending time this weekend weeding), handled the usual chores and errands, hosted a house guest for the first time in 18 months (college friend of Will and Rob's) last week, and gone to TKD in person twice (last Sat and last night) - SUPER SUPER happy about that.

(I came home from TKD last night and was greeted at the door by Two, who handed me a bowl with a brownie ice cream sundae in it. Everyone should get this sort of homecoming!)

It's a long weekend here - Memorial Day on Mon, which is normally the unofficial start of summer. We've had quite a few summery days already, though! Ironically, this weekend is chilly and wet - although I'm not complaining, honestly, because we desperately need the rain. It's been a very dry year so far.

My summer term (one class: Children's Lit) begins on Tues. We had the first two weeks' readings in advance, since it involved a huge pile of picture books - that way we had plenty of time to track them down at our local libraries. I'm looking forward to this class overall - look up "John Schumacher" or "Mr. Schu" (his usual nickname - even as a professor) in conjunction with children's lit or school libraries, and you'll see he's actually kind of a famous guy. He only teaches in summer (someone else teaches during the academic year) and I specifically waited for summer for this course, as I've heard he's the absolute best to learn from.

I've recently read:

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake, which I borrowed from the library (e-book) and read on my flight home from OR. It's about a middle-school girl who loses her home in a tornado and struggles to find her footing as her family deals with the aftermath. On top of that, she's coming to grips with the realization that she likes girls. This was an emotionally challenging book, given the various stresses in Ivy's life, but it was well done. I liked that it didn't necessarily have a happy ending, but it did have a hopeful, positive ending, if that makes sense.

Dodger by PTerry, also borrowed from the library (e-book). It's not a Discworld book, but rather is set in 19th-century England, with fictional inclusion of Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli and other historical figures, plus Sweeney Todd. Dodger is a 17-year-old orphan who (barely) makes a living finding things that have been swept/dropped into the sewers under the city. When he helps rescue a woman who is fleeing some captors - and the woman turns out to be rather important to some people on the Continent - his life is turned upside down in a matter of days. It's not the laugh-a-minute that Discworld books are, but it was still a fun story, and I did chuckle here and there.

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston. I'd heard a lot of positive buzz about it, so when it was a Kindle DotD, I snapped it up. It features a 12-year-old Black girl from the projects, and is similar to Harry Potter/The Iron Trial/The Unwanted series etc in that she discovers she has magical powers when she is unexpectedly introduced to a supernatural world and related "schooling." However, Amari's particular powers are normally associated with evil within this world, and so she faces significant shunning, on top of the fact that she's not a "legacy" as many of the other children are - where their parents/grandparents/etc are also members of this supernatural society. Amari's main focus isn't just on passing all the trials so she can become a Junior Agent - her main focus is on finding her brother Quintin (10 years older) who disappeared 6 months ago while also working for this society. She makes some friends who help her in her search; one of those friends - his sister was Quintin's (non-romantic) partner, and she's missing, too. This was a fun, imaginative story with some interesting twists, and I'll definitely keep my eye out for the next book in the series (due next year).

I also finished reading aloud Spy School: Revolution by Stuart Gibbs, to Two. It's the latest in the series about a middle school boy training to be a CIA agent at spy school. Like Rick Riordan, Gibbs' writing is infused with a lot of humor, making these fun reads. Now we're reading Becky Albertalli's latest, Kate In Waiting, another fun read so far.

Time to go find lunch. And maybe do something other than sitting on my ass all day. :P

So, about my dad...

2021-05-15T19:37:54Z

This week, I went to visit my dad. I left the house at 5a Wed morning (EDT) to get to the Philly airport, took two flights (connecting through Denver) to Eugene, then drove 2:40 to get to his house, arriving shortly before 5p PDT. (Basically, 12 hours door to door.)

I'm glad I went, but ... oh boy. TL;DR He need to go to memory care, as soon as we can manage it.

So, people with dementia can get fixated on things. My friend's dad, who is still fairly high functioning, gets stuck worrying about certain things, even once the rest of the family has resolved the issue, and he will insist the issue still needs dealing with. My friend calls this his "sticky bits."

Well, my dad's sticky bit is ... burning paper in his woodstove. Anything made of paper or cardboard. He's kneeling in front of the woodstove in his living room, methodically ripping old books, phone books, cardboard, junk mail, etc, into strips, then burning them. (He used to have a cigarette lighter by his woodstove. Now he takes a twist of paper, goes to his electric stove, turns a burner on high, holds the paper to the burner until it catches fire, then turns the burner off and carries his little torch to the woodstove.) But while he's feeding the woodstove, it's obviously open, so he's sitting there, feeding it paper, while smoke goes *everywhere*. He has the whole coal-miner look down - his hands are now so covered in soot, it doesn't wash off. His once-white (well, off-white - it's old) labcoat, which he wears as a layer over his other stuff, is now dark gray. And there is a layer of black soot over EVERYTHING. Every cobweb is now black. The floors are dark gray. Every counter surface is dark gray. The inside of the microwave - which he has always left ajar so that it doesn't get musty - is black. I went out on Thurs morning and bought some scrub sponges and a bottle of 409 so I at least had a couple of surfaces where I felt it was safe to set something down, to make the sink clean, the toilet seat safe to sit on, etc. Scrubbed the microwave as best as I could. I washed everything I took out of the dish drainer before using it. I borrowed a broom (no idea where my dad's went) and shop vac from the next-door neighbors to get rid of (most of) the black cobwebs and make the floors slightly less bad (the hard floors really need proper scrubbing - the dirt's been ground in too long). You should have seen the soles of my shoes. (I didn't go ANYWHERE in the house without shoes.) I'd wash my hands and then touch a doorknob - which I had wiped off, btw - and my fingers would still end up gray. Opening cabinets - gray fingers. Touching anything? Gray fingers. I still have dirt under my nails. You can see how my dad ended up with permanently gray hands.

As I had been warned by the next door neighbors, his ability to/interest in/awareness of changing his clothes and doing other personal care is gone. He's wearing the same clothes day in and out - to sleep in, as well. He hasn't shaved.

I managed to get him an appointment with his doctor for an outside opinion as to whether he needed to be moved. My father is fiercely independent and his has always been strongly against the idea of nursing care. He's currently not hurting anyone (just himself, with the smoke and soot), he's not (yet) wandering away, and he can still - barely - prepare simple foods like soup, tuna, etc. But I really can't let him live in squalor like that.

My dad didn't want to change clothes or shower before the appointment - I don't know if he remembers how to; he didn't remember that he ALWAYS used to shower under the hose outside - when I took him to the doctor, so I took him as-is. At least he went - he initially tried to refuse but I told him "Too bad - you're going." On the other hand, it meant he made a fantastic "Exhibit A" for the doctor, who has known him for years, so he could see exactly what my father's current state and mode of operation is. The doctor firmly believes in letting people age in place and die at home whenever possible, which my dad and I both loved when we saw him 2 years ago, but even he had to admit that the time had probably come to put him in memory care.)

(It's ironic, because my dad has always been violently anti-smoking. I honestly think it's the one thing he might have disowned me for - if I'd smoked. And now he's breathing in smoke all day long.)

I came home last night/this morning at 1:40a and took a shower despite the late hour, and my hair still smells a bit smokey. I threw everything into the laundry this morning, even stuff I hadn't worn, to get the smoke smell out. I took my knitting on the trip - which I ended up not doing - and I can't wash that, so I have it hanging outside in hopes of airing it out.

My dad has two very nice wooden shelf/cabinet things that he's had all my life - which apparently he made (as I learned a couple of years ago) - shelves on top, cabinets with doors on the bottom. Anyway, they have always been full of books. Old books - some Dutch, some English, almost all probably from before I was born or when I was young. (I think the most recent was "A Brief History of Time" by Hawking.) The shelves around 3/4 empty now - he's been methodically taking a book, ripping it to pieces, and burning it. On the one hand, he doesn't need them anymore and most are so old I'm sure nobody would have wanted them. On the other hand, it shows how "stuck" he is.

A binder full of letters from his 90th birthday, which I had compiled from friends and family - it's missing. I'm assuming he burned it.

The tax documents I had planned to search for and collect? All ashes. He's burned all the mail he's accumulated since I've seen him. So now I have to figure out how to get the various missing pieces reissued. To my house.

But here's the kicker.

I took my power of attorney and medical power of attorney with me to the doctor's appointment in case I needed either one for any reason. We came home, I swear I set them down on my bed, but maybe I didn't. After lunch and a nap, I went drove back down the hill into town (no cell service at my dad's house) so I could talk to Will and my mom (and the phone company - that's another story). When I came back - they were missing. And I can only assume they've been burned. Gone. I did check the woodstove and didn't see it, but it doesn't mean it wasn't buried under the strips of phone book remnants.

Before you ask me to consult my lawyer for the copies, you have to know that I did this through an online thing. I was in OR 2 years ago, figured the time was coming that I would need this, and I needed it in the short window I had for my visit. I went to the public library, got the documents, printed them there, he and I filled them out, and - conveniently enough - the librarian was also a notary public, so she notarized it all for us. I'm pretty sure I gave a copy to his doctor's office right away. And there was an investment dude who wouldn't change the mailing address last year without the power of attorney so I photocopied it and sent it to him. I'm hoping they can at least send me copies back. It won't be notarized anymore, but ... it's something. I'm so distraught over this, you have no idea.

[I lost my Kindle, too. I had left it on the coffee table when I went to take a shower at the neighbor's house on Thurs evening (no hot water at my dad's, and did I mention the soot?). When I came back, it was gone. I'm sure he didn't burn it because a) it's not paper and b) there was no weird smell or strange lumpy object in the woodstove. But he probably saw this strange object, didn't know what it was, only knew it didn't belong there and put it ... somewhere. He does this a lot - and we've never found where he's putting stuff. The hat and scarf set I gave him 2 years ago? Haven't found it. Becca (the woman who does his grocery shopping) gave him a new (manual) can opener. No idea where it is. (He is LITERALLY opening cans with a meat cleaver-type thing from his garage. He's just going tap-tap-tap-tap around the rim with the corner of the blade. I mean, it *works* but....) Anyway - I went through the house, the garage, cabinets, drawers, closets - no idea. I've currently got my old Kindle charging. The battery sucks, but it'll have to do for now.]

Plus, there's the whole idea of going through his house, getting it ready to sell. Even as a handyman's special, it's going to need some work. Will pointed out that it essentially has smoke damage, as from a fire, because of how my dad has been living the past couple of months. Which means every wall and ceiling will need, at minimum, to be painted with Kilz, and every carpet replaced. The yard is a literal jungle, having not been dealt with for a couple of years (it was always a semi-jungle, but now it's an actual jungle of trees and wildflowers and bushes and...). It's up on a hill outside of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. Who is going to buy it??

And we have to get my dad out, first before we can touch anything because he is very territorial. Even now, in his diminished state, he stated clearly that he did NOT want outside help - I offered it after he said, for the nth time, that he could barely take care of himself and that his brain didn't function well anymore - because this was HIS territory. If we bring him back to NJ (and live in memory care nearby), that means flying back and forth at least twice. (It would be much MUCH easier to place him in OR, but then I still can't visit, and it means flying out AGAIN if something happens to him, and ... I really don't know what the best course of action is.)

Complication with flying him out here: both his driver's license and passport are expired. I could haul him out to the DMV to get a State ID card, but ... oy. Oh, hey, did I mention the missing Power of Attorney docs?

And I'm also putting Becca out of her side hustle - at a time when she's already unemployed (she lost her job last month due to Covid recession). I mean, not immediately, and I think I might set her up with a "pension" of some sort because she's been SO awesome, and that deserves to be rewarded. But still. I have no idea how much memory care costs, and that's going to eat into my dad's savings, too.

I'm so overwhelmed. Will isn't coping well either - and it's not even his dad. He had to take his Xanax last night before he could sleep. We were both up and talking in the dark until 3a because we were too wound up despite our exhaustion.

My dad clearly appreciated having me there, even though we didn't talk much. (What is there to say? He's not going to remember any conversation longer than 15 seconds. Literally. His memory used to last about 1-2 minutes. Not anymore.) And he was clearly sad when it was time for me to go. But I also know that as soon as he walked back into the house, he forgot I had ever been there. That's always kind of hard to live with.

At least he's vaccinated. When I took him to the doctor, they mentioned the hospital (tiny hospital next door) was doing a clinic, so off we went. We were actually offered both Moderna and J&J. I was all set to take whatever they had, and if he didn't get his 2nd shot at the right time, then oh well. But when they offered me the choice, I jumped at the chance to get him one-and-done J&J. No noticeable side effects yesterday morning. And, of course, he had no idea he'd been vaccinated, when I reached under his shirt collar to pull the bandaid off his shoulder. (Otherwise, it would have stayed there forever, irritating his skin.)

I had planned to stay until Sat (today), but on Thurs, I rearranged my trip to come home a day early, yesterday, meaning I was in town less than 48 hours. But aside from temporarily cleaning off surfaces and having him evaluated (and vaccinated), there wasn't really anything else I COULD do in the immediate timeframe. I came home to regroup, and have regular internet access that wasn't on my phone while huddled in my car on the side of the road. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and stressed out of my mind. If anyone has any experience with dealing with any of this, and has advice, please please let me know.

(As for flying: I was definitely ready to put people back at a 6' distance after being stuck on planes all day. One of my flights on the way home had an empty middle seat - the lady on the aisle and I rejoiced at the bonus space between us. I saw a lot of useless neck gaiters, and some masks worn under noses, but at least most people tried to spread out at the gate, especially if they were eating. And United handed out alcohol wipes for your personal seat/area as soon as you got on board, which was a nice touch.)

Second semester in the bag

2021-05-07T00:17:13Z

As far as I can tell, I am DONE. But, man, it's been a grueling few weeks, which is why I basically fell off the face of the earth for, you know, a month. It was all I could do to keep up with weekly obligations, particularly as I was having a hard time focusing for a couple of weeks, and then I had end-of-term projects due, two Sundays in a row. On those weeks, I not only worked all week, but all weekend. I even built a blanket fort (yes, really) so I could better shut out distractions on days when I wasn't in the mood to work at a table. But the last big project was due this past Sun, and I've just finished my final week of wrap-up activities, whee! I still don't know the grade I got for the most recently-handed-in project, but I got an A on the other one (which I was really in doubt over) so I was happy about that. ETA: I just got my grade for the second project: A! :D

This summer I'm only taking 1 class - I decided to take it a little easier, especially since summer term is shorter and thus they cram more in each week. I'm taking Children's Lit, which I'm really looking forward to. I've already borrowed a mound of Caldecott Medal/Honor (illustration awards) winners from the school library, as the teacher gave us the first two weeks' booklists in advance so we could get started. Once I catch up on a little more sleep - I am exhausted - I'll tackle that.

Yes, I decided to go visit my dad next week - thank you to everyone who offered supportive input. No, he's not vaccinated - I haven't been able to find a way to get him to a clinic. I'm not sure if I'll try to get him vaccinated while I'm there. On the one hand, he never goes anywhere, and hardly sees anyone other than the woman who brings him his groceries and, very very rarely, his next-door neighbors. On the other hand, couldn't hurt. But it would be easier to get him J&J so I don't have to worry about how to get him to Jab #2, and that's proving more difficult.

In other health news, I donated blood today, and that always makes me happy.

Been doing more driving practice with Two , who complains when I try to coax him into driving more than once a week (which isn't that often, anyway, since it's not like we go a lot of places!). He's still working on staying centered in the lane, and on multi-tasking (ie turning his head to check blind spots while also keeping a steady speed and putting his turn indicator on). He's getting his second vaccination on Monday, making him the last person to be done in our house (April was an AMAZING month: every single person in our house got their first and/or second vaccine in April), and once he's past his 2-week mark, I'm dropping a new bombshell on him: it's time for him to get a job. He needs the additional lessons in responsibility, and also doing what people tell you to do even if you don't like it. Also, it will provide more driving opportunities, as long as his shifts don't coincide with MiniPlu's. (And here's where I start regretting that we only have one automatic transmission vehicle in our entire fleet, not counting my FIL's large pickup truck.) I was all set for Two to get a job last year ... and then the pandemic hit. But it's time. (I'm not telling him beforehand, because I don't want him to complain about getting vaccinated!)

Speaking of Two ... well, two things. One is that our district finally went back to a full-day schedule today for the first time since March 13, 2020; we've been on early dismissal since then. But the weather is now generally nice enough that the in-person kids can spread out more - including outside - for lunch, which was one of the main sticking points, since that involves a large chunk of the population taking their masks off all at once. (We've elected to keep Two virtual for the rest of the year - it's actually working surprisingly well, as it's allowing our socially-awkward child who hates to talk to people some physical space, and he's actually communicated - voluntarily - with some of his teachers in this format.) Meanwhile, I'm subbing both Fri (tomorrow) and Mon - we'll see how tired I am after teaching a full day for the first time in forever!

The other thing regarding Two is that, after continuing to amass books (some from us and most from spending his own money), this week he finally sent off four boxes, containing 60 almost-entirely LGBTQ-themed books, to Camp Aranu'tiq to start a library for campers. Thank you again to spiffikins and loupnoir for donating some books to the cause. ♥ We hope this mini library brings future campers (and maybe even the counselors) a lot of pleasure.

In the realm of books, I recently read
The Captive Kingdom by Jennifer Nielsen - this being the surprise 4th installment in The False Prince universe. I received this book for Christmas, and finally got around to reading it. And then I had to go back and re-read the original The False Prince to re-immerse myself in how it all got started. (I forgot how young Jaron was - just shy of 15 in the first book, which means he's only about 17 in Book 4; I had thought he was 16 & 18.) As for The Captive Kingdom, I really loved it. It had a lot of the twists that had made the first book so good, and which I felt had been somewhat lacking in books 2 and 3. There's going to be a (presumably final) 5th book coming within a year, I believe, and am looking forward to that.

I also re-read His Royal Secret and most of His Royal Favorite (skipping some of the emotionally fraught stuff). I've been clinging to some of my old books that involve intense romantic connections - apparently that's my comfort read right now.

Apparently I never reported on the fact that I read Cemetery Boys by Aidan Thomas (which happened to be one of the books Two is donating, but I bought my own Kindle copy when it was a KDotD). I'd heard good things about this book, and I can tell you that they are largely well-deserved. A trans teen boy named Yadriel comes from a large, loving Latinx family, which has been blessed by the goddess of death. The women can heal any injury. The men can cut spirits of the dead loose so they can "move on" - and they can also summon spirits. Yadriel's family loves him, but they don't really get him and his gender identity, and have refused to allow him to perform the traditional ceremony that is done in place of a standard quincenera - wherein the boys and girls get their respective powers - because they don't think he's a boy, and Yadriel refuses to do the ceremony for girls. Determined to show them that he IS a "real boy" so to speak, Yadriel does the ceremony behind their back, summoning a ghost who then demands Yadriel help him solve his murder (while Yadriel really wants to solve the unexplained murder of his cousin). Yadriel and Julian (the ghost) end up falling in love, which of course comes with a host of potential complications. The world-building - modern Los Angeles, but with this twist - is done really well, and the characters felt nicely built-up. I do have some questions about plotty loose ends, which I found mildly irritating, but aside from that, this was a great read and highly recommended.

I recently also read The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper, another camp-library book that I bought for myself. This was a very sweet, gentle story about two boys thrown together when their parents (one mom, one dad) are in astronaut training for a future expedition to Mars. Quite a few nice lessons on a) growing into your future at your own pace and b) learning to see other people's perspectives - and not just for the main two boys. Plus a nice eff-you to the manipulations of reality tv. I didn't love the book but I didn't hate it, either. It was sweet and nice, but not earth-shattering (or even Mars-shattering ;-) ).

And, finally, I just finished The Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, borrowed from the public library. It's written in verse, so it's a quick read. Boy from the 'hood - there are three rules to live by: no crying, no snitching, and get revenge. So, when his older brother is shot and killed, Will is convinced he knows who did it. He takes his brother's gun, gets in the elevator of his apartment building, and descends the 7 floors to the lobby. But on the way down, at every floor, a dead person from his past gets in, and talks to him, and he has to stop and reconsider what he thought he knew, and what he believes. The whole book takes place in just one minute. I'm not normally a fan of things written in verse, but I thought I'd give it a try since it was so highly recommended and, yeah, wow - this book delivers a punch. Really glad I read it.

And yes, for the record, a) sometimes I snuck in reading when I was supposed to be working and b) sometimes I sacrificed sleep. :P

For my read-alouds with Two, we read If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo - Two read this on his own a couple of years ago and liked it, but didn't remember much, probably because of reading comprehension issues. Good book about a trans girl in the south, opening herself up for love for the first time, and trying to decide whom to trust about her identity. Warning for suicide attempt, which takes place before the story begins, but there are references to it, and some flashbacks.

Before that was Felix Ever After (out of his camp pile), about a gay Black trans boy/demi boy attending art school in Brooklyn, and an interesting love triangle with his best friend (cis but gay) and a third boy who used to date the best friend before becoming a jerk to both of them ... and then accidentally falling for Felix over social media. I could have done without the normalization of pot (sorry, it's not my thing, especially for teenagers) but otherwise, good story. A good lesson on how money doesn't buy happiness, people aren't always what they seem, moms are sometimes the ones who reject their families (and not dads), and, as with Cemetery Boys a really nice book with intersectionality of gender, sexuality and race.

Also read One Little Word about a kid who isn't intentionally homophobic but IS really clueless, and jokingly calls his friend a "fag" - which gets caught by the zero-tolerance police at school. To get out of punishment, he claims to be gay himself, and dating the only Out gay boy at school, and then has to coax said boy into fake-dating him just long enough to be convincing. Which of course leads to real feelings. Another book that I neither loved nor hated - the main character was an ass sometimes, just out of sheer cluelessness. But they figure it out in the end.

Right now we're almost done reading Running With Lions by Julian Winters (yet another camp book - you can tell where we've been getting all our reading material lately, lol), a summer-soccer-camp-centric story about a 17-year-old boy (Sebastian) reconnecting with his former best friend (Emir), who had moved away for a couple of years when the boys were about 10, and by the time Emir came back, Sebastian had found new friends and his bond with Emir seemed irretrievably broken. Sebastian already knows he's bi, although he's never dated a boy before, and realizes his crush on Emir pretty quickly. Emir, who has some social anxiety issues, isn't well liked by the team, and, also being Muslim, has had his fair share of social rejection to deal with over the years. It's made him pretty prickly. But eventually the boys find their way to each other. I don't know yet how it turns out, but I've really enjoyed this book so far. There's a lot of really great group camaraderie, including boys giving each other good-natured shit. The coach has made a point of saying that differences don't matter and everyone is welcomed regardless of race, religion, sexuality, etc, which means several characters are openly gay or bi, and nobody blinks, which is nice. But what I really liked is that Sebastian has body image issues. He's pretty ordinary now, but he used to be heavy as a kid, and people called him names. He's still getting over the trauma, and finding peace with his body. And he also doesn't feel like he really has his shit together, in terms of knowing what he might want to do with his life, other than soccer. It's a lot of things I often see in books with female protagonists, so it was nice to see this with a male protagonist. This books has felt really real without being depressing.

Hopefully I haven't somehow forgotten any books! Gah, this is what I get for going so long between updates. :P

Also starting to gear up for this year's veggie garden. I've gotten a number of seedlings, and seeds, and also some flowers for my front porch planters.

And speaking of the front porch - a little over two weeks ago, as we were bringing the groceries in, we noticed that birdies had built a nest in the new wreath I'd recently hung on our front door. (In fact, in the week preceding, we'd noticed birds stealing from it.) But, yes, a nest, with three eggs - two that matched, and one that didn't.

Nest in wreath:

Close-up of nest:

Ever since we spotted the nest, we've been doing our best to avoid using our front door - we're going in and out the back door, and around the side of the house, or out through the garage. However, sometimes packages are delivered, or people come to our door, and on those occasions, since Mama Bird has been scared away already, we'll get a quick peek. Twelve days after we first saw the nest (so, last Sat), we saw the babies! Well, two of them: the matching set.

Feed me! (Or, as I joked to my friend Steve: "The room service around here is terrible!")

And today we got another peek. The second birdie is still there, in the back, but it doesn't have its head up so all you see is the fuzzy body.

There is no sign of either the mismatched egg or any resulting chick, and no shells or chick remains on our porch so ... we don't know what happened there.

We had moved one of our security cameras so it pointed at the door, but unfortunately it doesn't have a zoom feature, so we can't get any regular close-up glimpses. However, we've noticed a bird with a reddish tinge to the back of its head coming to visit Mama periodically, which has helped us make some guesses as to the type of bird. Right now, our guess is house finch. And in verifying that, I came across this discussion board where - lo and behold - a number of other people mentioned that the birds had built nests in their door wreaths - AND that cowbirds had laid stealth eggs in their nests. So, apparently this is not an uncommon modus operandi for house finches - or cowbirds, for that matter.

Uh. I think that's everything? For now, anyway? Hopefully I can be a better updater (and commenter - I'm SO behind, I'm so sorry) over the summer!

To go or not to go?

2021-04-27T03:22:22Z

I've been dithering for weeks about trying to visit my dad for a couple of days in mid-May, between the end of my spring semester and beginning of my summer term. I need to find a few outstanding tax documents (from both 2019 and 2020 tax years) I'm sure he has in his house (I have the rest) and get those finally filed. I want to see for myself how much his functionality is eroding, rather than just hearing about it from neighbors.

But this involves planes (here to OR, with one stop in the middle). I'm fully vaccinated (Pfizer) and am 3.5 weeks past my second shot, so I'm as immune as I'm going to get, until the fall booster. Everyone in my household will have had their 2nd shot by the time I would go, although Two (the last one) would only have JUST gotten his 2nd one a few days before my tentative departure. But still. Planes. And it's been my impression that people are not great with proper mask wearing in his tiny hick town, for when I need to get a few things at the grocery store. (I can wear MY masks, of course, but I probably will encounter a lot of people who won't.)

I am DESPERATE to go for the above reasons, but I can't decide if this is a reasonable risk to take, or if I'm just being foolish. Thoughts?

(And yes, I realize I haven't done a proper update in over 3 weeks. I have ONE more big project due on Sun, and then hopefully I can breathe.)

The One Year Meme (and other stuff)

2021-04-03T03:29:53Z

Gacked from spiffikins:

1. Did you catch COVID-19? If yes, when, and was it bad?
To the best of my knowledge, I did not have it. I know I’ve been really careful, but still – I also was fully aware that masks and handwashing and 6’ distances aren’t 100% foolproof.

2. Did anybody close to you catch the virus, or even die from it?
Nobody close to me, thankfully. A couple of distant cousins got it (not badly). Some of my SIL’s coworkers got it, and one was pretty sick, although not sick enough for the hospital. Still – she was out of work for awhile. I think one of my SIL’s coworkers’ elderly mother died from Covid? That’s about as close as I got to a death, thank goodness.

3. Did you lose your job due to the pandemic or did your work situation change considerably? Home office?
I was essentially furloughed. I didn’t lose my job in that I was fired, but there’s no need for substitutes when people work from home. My last day subbing was March 13 (the last day of everything) and I didn’t get back to it until the second week of school in the next school year (mid-September).

4. Have you already been vaccinated? If yes, with which vaccine and how did it go?
As of yesterday, I am fully vaccinated! Just waiting the two weeks for it to finish kicking in. I still need to be careful until the rest of my household gets vaccinated (right now, three others have had their 1st shot), but it’s such a relief to have had both jabs now.

5. Has your mental health suffered due to and during the pandemic?
Some? Watching the world shut down last March was scary. Watching Trump both the pandemic response was horrible. Watching the death toll rise, comparing that to city populations (we’ve now completely wiped out the equivalent of Tucson, Arizona) is depressing. But I’ve done better than I think those who have been fully isolated.

6. How do you judge the performance of your local and national government during the past year?
When Trump was “in charge” – ugh. Yeah, we were the laughingstock of the world, and we deserved it. Honestly, I feel like we still deserve it, given the number of people who think that wearing a small piece of cloth over their face and socially distancing is like the worst oppression ever.

Our NJ government has done a fairly reasonable job as far as I can tell. Yes, we’ve had some bad cases but a lot of those were up by NYC where there’s a much higher population density and also (incidentally) higher density of minorities with poor access to medical care and information. We were the first to issue the mask mandate, which was a good thing. I sometimes wondered why, when cases were soaring over the winter, we didn’t do another partial lockdown but I guess the governor was trying to spare businesses.

7. What is the worst memory you will conserve from the past year? What made you angry?
The memory of watching everything shut down across the country. The Capitol riots (although that’s not really Covid-specific). Trump’s behavior always made me angry. Seeing people wear their masks wrong makes me angry.

8. And, if there is one, the best memory? What made you happy?
Online paint nites, online taekwondo classes and online church service with my favorite pastor (who was transferred to a parish 45 mins away a couple of years ago). The lack of job last spring meant I was able to remake (for the third time) a detailed patchwork quilt for my SIL/BIL’s bed, as theirs keeps getting worn out. So, sewing on that made me happy. The “Yay, you’re starting grad school!” bedroom décor blowout that my daughter did for me last August made me happy.

9. Do you think we are over the worst period of this pandemic by now?
I sure hope so. But I also know how fragile any improvement is, and how quickly it could be blown by idiots.

10. Is there anything you would have done differently a year ago if you knew what you know now? Did you, knowingly or not, incur big risks to catch the virus?
It took me a couple of weeks to start wearing a mask (not that I resisted, but the initial information was confusing as to whether they were useful, so at first I didn’t bother. And then it turned out they WERE useful, so I made some right away).

11. What about your body? Lost or gained weight? Illnesses of other kinds? Fitness? Injuries?
I’m probably a couple of pounds (literally just a couple) heavier but I’ll live. I’ve kept up with my usual exercise (although I’ve fallen off the wagon with weights a few times), and I initially struggled to do TKD on my own until the online classes started in July.

12. Did you lose or gain friends? Keep in contact with those you already had?
I reconnected with some old friends/acquaintances by joining social media at last.

13. How did you spend your free time? Did you get creative? Learn new stuff? Read a lot? Write a book?
As I said, I initially spent a lot of my free time making a quilt. And then I applied to, and got accepted to, grad school. So, since late August, I really haven’t had much in the way of free time. Like most people, I had visions of doing all kinds of things when I was stuck at home, but I didn’t. :-P. I did do a bunch of Paint Nites, though!

14. Do you have children? If yes, how did you manage everything, from homeschooling to having to keep them at home and deal with their desire to meet other kids? Did you have to seek professional help of some kind? How was the school situation in general where you live?
I am UNBELIEVABLY grateful that my children were high school students when schools went virtual. They found their own nooks to do online classes, and didn’t need me to stand there and monitor them. I have no idea how parents of young kids managed.

We are also really lucky to live in a privileged area. Our district already had a 1:1 Chromebook program for grades 6-12. With the closure looming, they somehow pulled another pile of Chromebooks out of their asses and hooked up 3rd, 4th and 5th-graders, too. This meant that the last day of in-person school was March 13th (Fri) and the first day of virtual school was March 16th (Mon) – we never missed a day. Yes, I’m sure the teachers were flailing a little at first, as everyone got used to the new way of doing things, but they were all superheroes, and they did it. SO SO LUCKY.

MiniPlu was the most frustrated at being isolated from her friends. Once small outdoor gatherings were allowed, in early May, MiniPlu and her friends started hanging out on each other’s porches. She is anxious for everyone to get vaccinated so that when they all come home from college (almost everyone is on campus this spring), they can hang out INDOORS.

15. What will be the first thing you will do when it is possible again?
TRAVEL. I want to visit my dad and maybe my mom. I want to go on a family vacation.

I also want to go back to TKD classes. I’m hoping they’ll keep up the streaming so I can still go twice a week – once virtual, once in-person. (Before the pandemic, I could only go once a week.)

I got my second vaccination shot (Pfizer) yesterday, so in a couple of weeks, I'll be at full, supersonic power. :D. I had anticipated feeling cruddy today - that seems to be the general trend for the two-shots, but I really didn't. My arm hurts some but not enough for painkiller. I'm tired but it's also Friday and I'm chronically short on sleep so it's hard to pin that on the vaccine. I still functioned as usual - schoolwork, walked the dog, made dinner, etc. My mom got hers (J&J - what her doctor wanted her to have) on Wed. My BIL got his first shot last Fri, my FIL got his first one last Sat, and my SIL got hers last Mon. Will qualifies this coming Mon, so I'll start looking for appointments for him soon. The kids qualify on May 1, if not sooner. I got MiniPlu's boyfriend (he has a heart condition) an appointment for today, right near his house (which was a total coup, as up until now all the appointments I've found have been 35-50 mins to the south). We're getting there!

So far, everyone in the house (and MiniPlu's bf) has gotten Pfizer, except for my FIL, who got Moderna.

Speaking of the bf - he and MiniPlu celebrated their one-year anniversary yesterday. <3 Pretty good for a teen romance, especially since this is MiniPlu's first relationship (although not his).

Anyone else here watching The Winter Soldier and the Falcon? We're really liking it here. I just want to hug both Sam and Bucky. Their antagonistic bro-ness is also hilarious.

This past week was spring break for the district, so no subbing for me (nor next week - they'll be 100% virtual as a precaution for those who traveled over break). This means a bit more time to get my homework done, so that's good. But I have final projects looming, so I really need to start cracking down on that.

Two got in his mandatory 6 hours of driving school practice this week! He'd been dragging his feet on learning to drive, but it turns out he's kind of excited about it now that he's gotten to actually DO it. We have to wait until the driving school has filed the paperwork with the DMV for us, and then ... eek! ... I'll be taking him out on driving practice, as long as MiniPlu doesn't need the car (we have precisely ONE automatic-transmission vehicle, so the kids have to share it). This (going out on the road with a new driver) feels much scarier than it did with MiniPlu, lol.

The news makes me feel sick to my stomach these days. The attacks on Asians, the laws blocking transgender youth from health services (as well as sports), the voting restrictions in Georgia ... it's horrible. I really should do a post about my feelings on Asian hate one of these days, because I have Thoughts. I just don't have a lot of TIME. :-P

And on that note, I'm off to bed. I have a cheesecake to bake tomorrow. :D

I hope that those of you who celebrate Pesach/Passover had a happy (and safe) celebration.
For those who celebrate Easter: Happy Easter!

Paint Nites 26-28: Angel, Rose and Celtic tree

2021-03-19T00:57:20Z

I did two Paint Nites in January that I never posted about, plus a third one last weekend. I'm doing another one this coming weekend, but before this gets even more ridiculously photo-heavy, let me at least do these first three.

I had seen this beautiful angel twice, but hadn't been able to do it either time. I asked one of my favorite Paint Nite instructors if she would offer it, and she was happy to oblige. We did this painting on 15 Jan.

This particular teacher always strongly encourages us to make a painting "our own" by adding our own personal tweaks to it, so I decided early on that I wanted to change the overall color theme, using light and dark blues/periwinkles in place of the pinks. We painted on various swaths of color to create the background; I tried to keep the location of the different intensities the same as the original, at least. It was hard trying to blend without losing the distinctive areas. Also, since it had been about a month since my previous Paint Nite, I totally forgot to take photos. So here's the one with the background:

And here's the one of it finished. *sheepish*

Overall I'm pleased with how it turned out, even if my angel isn't quite as ethereal as the original.

Then, a week later, I did this rose art, which I'd been considering for awhile.

This one just happened to be with another teacher I had really liked previously, an African-American woman who had led my class with the Polynesian dancer. This was her model painting:

However, this time, I felt like she didn't give as clear direction for how to proceed, more like, "Oh, just put in the petals, and then..." rather than - say, for the class with the toilet paper bouquet, of really laying out exactly where to put what sorts of marks.

Anyway, first we sketched the outline of the rose so we could then paint the white and yellow background around it.

Then we put in the inner petals and started painting that in.

Coloring in more of the rose and starting to add deep red outlining and medium-dark shading in places:

Finished piece, with some highlights and the leaves added in:

I admit I was disappointed with the final product - didn't look anything like the original. Oh well. There's a black-and-white rose painting I've thought about doing, too, but after the failures of this piece, I'm not feeling too confident about that, so I've held off for now.

And, finally, this past Sunday I painted this tree with Celtic knot roots:

I was super excited about this one - I've only seen it offered the once, so I snatched it up as something to look forward to during my spring break (this week).

This was the teacher's model:

Which wasn't too bad, although I felt her "ground" line started a little high up, making the tree part look squarer.

I admit I wasn't super-impressed with this teacher. She was very nice and very sweet, but first she went too fast, not really explaining how she was doing steps, and when someone asked her to slow down, then she slowed down TOO much and went way over the time limit. I ended up working ahead on some steps, just because I knew we were going to eat dinner after 7p and I didn't want to be super late.

First, we sketched out the Celtic knot in pencil, painted the green "halo" that goes behind the tree, then started filling in the rest of the background with blue.

The teacher painted fully over the Celtic knot, but I had sketched mine in pretty lightly and felt I wouldn't be able to see it then, so I painted around it as best as I could. The paint *inside* the Celtic knot is a slightly more teal shade of blue. I had left the "grass" area blank, thinking it would be easier to see the green that way, but hadn't anticipated a side effect of that choice (which you'll see in the next photo).

We painted the knot in brown, then added the green swath for the grass, and light green, yellow and white grass blades. Now you see the problem with my not having painted the blue in behind where the grass was - you could see exactly where I had and hadn't painted underneath. I ended up having to add in multiple coats over the course of the evening.

About halfway through the class, we had someone join us, clearly confused as to why we'd started already. As best as I (and the teacher) could tell, she'd forgotten to change her clocks. Either that, or she got confused about timezones, I don't know. But we waited a moment while the teacher briefly tried to get her caught up, and then had us move on to the tree roots. This was an area where I felt like she could have given more direction. I just used the model photo as my guide. I also drew the base of the tree trunk just so I could see better how the roots were going to flow out from that. You'll notice my grass did not quite fill in the space left and right, whoops.

While the others were still struggling with their roots, I went ahead and painted my trunk and branches, again using the model photo as my guide.

In fact, I went ahead with all the branch highlights and the green highlights on the Celtic knot, while they were just starting on the trunk and branches. The only thing I wasn't sure how to proceed on, on my own, was the leaves, in green, white, yellow and dark blue (I also threw in some light green), so I saved that for when she finally addressed this step directly.

So, I was done, and nobody else had done any highlights anywhere. I'm not sure if she addressed that or not. At this point we were a good 20 mins over time as it was, and I was out of there. I felt like she wanted to declare people done but was torn because she knew there were still those finishing touches to do. Anyway, I thanked her, got her Instagram info so I could tag her in my post, and skedaddled. Not sure I'd take class from her again.

This coming Saturday I have a Paint Nite class I have literally waited almost a year for, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime - in addition to all the "Wow, we've been doing this a whole year now!" anniversaries from the past week, I also passed my Paint-Nite-aversary. I did my first event (in person) on March 11th, 2020. All the others have been virtual - and, honestly, I've liked them much better this way! I can see the teacher better, I don't have to drive anywhere, and I have hundreds of more choices because the location doesn't matter. And they're much cheaper, too - there's no way I would have done so many if I'd had to pay in-person prices for each one. Buying my own stuff costs much less, and I prefer my finished product to be on paper, rather than on 16x20" canvas. So - one silver lining to this whole pandemic!

Who knew we'd all be so excited to get stabbed?

2021-03-14T02:40:23Z

The big news here is: I got my first vaccination on Thursday! I'm the first one in our household to get it. The state list doesn't open to teachers until this coming week, but two of the local pharmacy chains began including teachers a bit earlier. It took me four days of repeatedly searching the options and then, on Wed afternoon, I got incredibly lucky. It was for a location 50 mins away, and I was going to need to leave work 10 mins early to get there in time, but I got it! (And school didn't give me any trouble at all - leaving work to get to a vaccination appointment was a perfectly legit reason, it turns out.) Anyway, I did have to wait about 15-20 mins to check in, but otherwise it went completely smoothly and I was in and out in 45 mins, and that included the 15 min wait time afterward. Given that I've heard of people who had to wait several hours, I really couldn't complain at ALL. Anyway, aside from being pretty tired that night (although that could have just been that it had been a long week) and minor arm pain I felt fine. I've heard a litany of more significant symptoms after the second shot (which I'm due to get April 1) so I'm going to have to budget ahead to be out of commission on Good Friday, just in case. But I'm ok with that - I just feel incredibly lucky.

I'm still trawling vaccine availability, though, now trying to get my FIL in. He's not going to be able to manage it on his own.

It's hard to believe we've been living like this for a full year. For me, as for many people in the US, the last day was today, one year ago. And we all thought it might just be a short time. I know those of you in Europe had started lockdown much earlier. But for me, it was my last day teaching (music sub), last day in the public library, last time at TKD. I still haven't gone back to TKD (except for one private lesson in Oct), but I'm hoping that maybe soon I can go back. And visit my dad - his ability to function is dropping, but that's another story and I don't feel like getting into it right now.

The second bit of news is, as of tonight (having worked my ass off all day), I am officially on Spring Break!!! I mean, I'm not going anywhere, duh, but it means a week of less schoolwork. ("Less" because I should probably work ahead on a few things here and there. MiniPlu has spring break at the same time, although she only gets three days (Mon-Wed).

It was delightfully springlike here for a few days this past week. Alas, it's back to being March - chilly (although thankfully not frigid). I'm thankful we're not getting the blizzard the midwest is getting, that's for sure! And our crocuses are blooming. :-)

We watched Raya and the Last Dragon tonight (my BIL refused to wait for it to be free). Wow, it's really spectacular, in that it's really unlike any other Disney movie that I can think of. Gorgeous, too.

And now it's time to move all the clocks forward. Whee. Just what we all need: less sleep.

A little news and a lot of books

2021-03-06T04:12:04Z

For those of you who are on LJ, I apologize for the long silence, but I was locked out of my account and support was taking their time finding a workable solution. I finally was able to get back in and change my password a week ago, so here I am again. Feel free to wander over to my DW account (same username) if you want to see the handful of posts I've made since Christmas.

Chocolate Box reveals went up a few weeks ago. I wrote It's All Right, an HP fic which focuses on the relationship between Aberforth, Arianna and Albus over the years. Mostly Arianna and Aberforth.

Nothing that interesting going on at the moment, just subbing, school, etc. My spring break starts in a week and I am very much looking forward to that - and also slightly panicked that we're almost halfway through the semester already, given that I am really stressed over the two final projects I'll have to do. I suspect I may end up doing SOME work over spring break, but hopefully not too much. I've already signed up for two Paint Nites for Spring Break.

We fetched MiniPlu back from college two weeks ago - it wasn't just the isolation, though. Turned out that a lot of the students who happened to be on campus were left wing militants who were very negative about a LOT of stuff, and MiniPlu found it actually toxic to deal with them so much. So when she explained that, and said she'd had enough (it was a Wed night), we retrieved her that Saturday. She's definitely been much happier to be back with us. She hasn't seen any of her friends - almost all of whom are away at college and, besides, she's been voluntarily quarantining at home (minus walks in our quiet neighborhood) for her first two weeks. But she did get to see her boyfriend, who happened to be in town the weekend she came home; I arranged in secret for him to be here when we arrived and she was super happy about that. She was able to get back her job at Levi's - they even rehired her at her former salary (she'd earned several pay raises in the 2 years she'd been there), and she'll start next weekend. Her spring break is the same as mine, so she's looking forward to that, too.

After two months, we finally found the tracking number for the Christmas package we'd sent my mom - she hadn't ever received it. I fully expected to find out it was declared lost, but that's not what happened. It was declared ... delivered. On Jan 2. My mother's postal carrier usually rings her bell so she knows there's a package and that didn't happen so a) she had a different carrier that day b) the postal service lied or c) it got stolen (which still wouldn't explain why nobody rang the bell). Anyway, it, unfortunately, seems irrevocably gone. We feel terrible that my mother basically didn't get anything for Christmas this year, aside from my uncle (her brother)'s annual photo calendar. I've told her to think of something really nice for Mother's Day and/or her birthday.

Will asked me what I wanted for my 50th this summer. Normally it would have been a nice trip to some other country (as we did for my 40th - it's when we took the kids to Europe for the first time), but who knows when other countries will re-open their borders? On the other hand, Hawaii is allowing people in NOW, so I thought - why don't we try for Hawaii again? Last time we did the Big Island, this time we'll try Maui. There's a very narrow window in mid-late August between the end of my summer term and the beginning of MiniPlu's and my fall term, so we have to squeeze it in there. We figure we'll all be vaccinated by then (even Two is old enough for Moderna) and, no, this isn't a guarantee but ... we're cautiously hopeful we might get to do this. I really really hope so, anyway.

I donated blood this week, postponing it from the day we fetched MiniPlu from MA. It went fine, except for this weird thing, For those of you who haven't donated before, one of the things they do before they pull the needle out is take several additional vials of blood - this is what they use to test your blood for any pathogens and such. Anyway, when the tech went to do that, my blood apparently spurted out everywhere, getting all over my arm and on the table, too. (Thankfully only a small bit got on the pushed-up cuff of my sweater.) Definitely haven't had that happen before! I didn't know what had happened at first, because I don't watch what they're doing. I just knew that my arm suddenly was wet. But, yeah, that's what happened. Took the tech a few mins to finish the vials, then wipe down the table, and then wipe down my arm. :-P Anyway, the whole thing turned out ok, but it was so weird!

According to local pharmacies, I'm allowed to schedule my vaccine now. If only I could find an appointment. Granted, I only started looking yesterday, so we'll see how long it takes. According to the state list, I have to wait until the 15th - no idea if it will get any easier when I can look at state-based locations or not.

I recently inhaled several romance novels, at the expense of sleep. But I needed the fluff. The first two were a duology: His Royal Secret and His Royal Favorite by Lilah Pace (which is apparently the pen name of an author who normally publishes as someone else, no idea who). Anyway, this story is sort of Red, White and Royal Blue as full-fledged adults (which is why I chose to read it), except the secretly-gay prince is next in line for the throne, rather than being the "spare". Anyway, Ben is a global reporter who focuses on economic stories; he's a bit of a rover, never putting down roots for too long. He and the prince meet at an event in Kenya, and have An Encounter (and yes, the smut is extremely hot in this series). Shortly after, Ben is transferred to his paper's London office, and eventually he manages to meet up with Prince James again. Neither of them wants a real relationship - Ben never wants to be "leashed" and James can't get caught, so they decide on no-strings sex and nothing else. Except, of course, they eventually fall in love anyway. They both come with baggage - Ben's first-ever relationship was manipulative, and James had a former lover blackmail him before he (the lover) died in an accident. Also, James knows he can't ever abdicate the throne (if he were to want to live as openly gay) because his younger sister lives with crippling anxiety that leads her to self-harm herself (cutting), and she absolutely is in no position to be queen.

However, by the end of the first book, James decides he's going to come out, Ben confesses his love and decides he's all in. The second book was more emotionally difficult to read at first, as it focuses a lot on how much Ben loses with the relentless publicity he faces as James' partner - his apartment, his job, his freedom. James, meanwhile, faces a surprising amount of acceptance, so things seem much better for him while they get much worse for Ben. But they both hang in there. James' sister eventually gets help, and everyone lives Happily Ever After in the end. Short version: I found myself reading while brushing my teeth or cooking dinner, sneaking in moments wherever I could because I was so wrapped up in their story. If you want contemporary fake-British-royalty m/m romance (with smut), then I recommend it. And yes, I realize that's a very particular niche. :P

The third book was lanai's newest book Finding Home, also part of a duology. The two books follow a pair of fraternal twins as they each find their One True Love. This second book had a Hatfield-McCoy plotline, as the guy was from one family and the girl was from a family which had been feuding with the guy's family for generations. The girl had absolutely nothing against the guy or his family - but her father did. So, another secret-relationship story, just het this time. It was very sweetly written, there were cameos from the couple in the first book, and I definitely felt like I could picture the town and people very clearly. :)

Oh, and then I read the short novel (160 pages) Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (finished it today), which ... heh ... I just realized is ALSO part of a duology. hamsterwoman gave this to me for Christmas, and I LOVED it. Absolutely gorgeous writing, and I loved the people who had connections to the wood, first Tobias and then Henry. Will definitely look for the sequel at some point.

Before I read the Royal Secret/Favorite pair, I read A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T Kingfisher. Another winner by this author (I previously read Swordheart). Funny and heartfelt both, and a good lesson on making the most of what you have. Mona is a teen baking apprentice with a minor magical talent - she can ensure all baked goods turn out well. They never burn, they don't get stale immediately, etc. But then she's falsely accused of murder - and then realizes that someone is trying to get rid of all the magic-users. She ends up learning to use her minor talent to save her ~~kingdom~~ duchy. Anyway, this was a really fun story and a good message. Highly recommend. And, hey, look! Not a duology! lol

Non-Christmas post

2020-12-26T04:22:21Z

So, in sum:

Celebrated my husband/twin's birthday on the 7th.

Finished up my first semester of grad school, with a 96 in both classes. I was ecstatic to get a 97 on my term paper.

Anticipated having SO MUCH free time now that my semester is over, but have stayed incredibly busy getting ready for Christmas, doing online shopping (including creating a photo book for MiniPlu), wrapping presents (mine and my SIL's - she's been insanely busy at work and didn't have time - and my BIL's as he's still recovering from surgery), and doing a crazy amount of baking. In the last week I've made:

Several dozen gf peanut butter blossoms, which I made about a week ago, testing the recipes.
About 4-ish dozen gf oatmeal raisin cookies - twice - as I was testing the recipe last week and then making a second round this week when the first batch proved a success.
10 dozen chocolate chip cookies
6 dozen peanut butter blossoms (not gf - I didn't really like either of the two recipes I tried)
2 dozen snickerdoodles
1 small chocolate cake
Pull-apart garlic bread to go with last night's lasagna
A batch of cinnamon rolls for this morning ... except I've been so gogogogogo hectic in the kitchen lately, that I forgot to put the yeast in the rolls, and they were therefore sweet and cinnamony spiral lumps. :-P Oops.

(Starting with the 2nd round of gf oatmeal raisin cookies, the rest of that list have all been since Wednesday.)

Of course, this means I've been doing a lot of dishes, too. :P (Including helping out more than I normally would with regular dishes because, as I said, my SIL was totally swamped at work.)

Finished reading Chasten Buttigieg's memoir I have Something to Tell You, which I enjoyed very much. Currently reading lanai's contemporary romance, Coming Home, her 4th book.

Two had his IEP re-eval this year. His needs are pretty much the same as before, functioning at an average level for some things, and at a low level for others. He'll continue to get in-class support. He's been doing pretty well (for him) at school lately - surprisingly - although I feel like his classes have been dumbed down a little. Not sure if this is because he's in with students who struggle, or if because of the pandemic, teachers have had to simplify some things. Still, it's better than he'd been doing in previous years, so we're pleased. I really need to sit down with him over break and go over possible pastry schools he might like to apply to.

I also need to do both Nina's and my FAFSA, ugh.

I feel like I should have more to show for the past 3+ weeks, but it all seems to boil down to: finished semester, prepared for Christmas, tried to keep to my exercise routines as much as possible (not always succeeding), barely had time to be online.

And with that, I'm off to bed.