I didn’t guess that I’d be stuck with the roads closed until at least noon tomorrow.
Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.
Well, I’m getting paid every hour I’m here, at least.
It’s now been over a month since the Stafford Challenge started (on January 17th) and I’ve continued to write a poem every day. It’s an interesting exercise. I started out thinking in terms of writing poems related to the wreck of the Congressional Limited train in 1943. I did write 7 poems on that subject, but I quickly realized I have a lot more research to do before I can really get deeper into it. Leveraging off that, I wrote six other poems relating to trains (including the Washington metro, the Long Island Railroad, and Amtrak).
I’ve already posted titles of the poems I wrote for weeks 1 and 2. Here are the remaining titles of poems I’ve written so far.
Week 3:
31 January 2026 - Both Sides Now
1 February 2026 - A Eulogy for X. J. Kennedy
2 February 2026 - A Eulogy for X. J. Kennedy (revised)
3 February 2026 - With Reservations
4 February 2026 - Blackberry Jam
5 February 2026 - The Lily Jean
6 February 2026 - Amtrak Acela
Week 4:
7 February 2026 - Amtrak #2
8 February 2026 - Weather Woes
9 February 2026 - The Bicycle
10 February 2026 - Life Is
11 February 2026 - Sleeping in Hotels
12 February 2026 - Household Archaeology
13 February 2026 - Lucky or Not?
Week 5:
14 February 2026 - The Afghan Song (to the tune of The Garden Song)
15 February 2026 - Post Valentine’s Day
16 February 2026 - Presidents Day
17 February 2026 - Spectral Haiku
18 February 2026 - Cuddly
19 February 2026 - Seeking My Muse
20 February 2026 - The Idea Shop
A Brief Sample
I won’t post anything I might want to submit to a magazine/ journal / anthology someday, since most publications count things published on-line as prior publication and won’t accept it. But I’m pretty sure I won’t do anything with this one and it’s a good example of my fondness for turning lists into poems. I got the idea for this poem while walking back to my hotel after going to the cabaret show I saw recently in New York and thinking “life is a cabaret.” I crowd sourced phrases starting with “life is” via the hive mind (i.e. my Facebook friends) and this is what I came up with.
Life Is
Life is too short
Life is too long
Life is hard
Life is easy
Life is like a box of chocolates
Life is just a bowl of cherries
Life is what you make of it
Life is a song worth singing
Life is a highway
Life is a river
Life is strange
Life is funny
Life is a journey, not a destination
Life is a cabaret
Life is life
Community:
One of the main reasons for doing the Stafford Challenge is the community fostered by the cohort. There are roughly 1300 people doing it this year. There’s a private Facebook group. And there are monthly talks by guest poets. There is apparently going to be a conference in the summer, which I think will actually work with my schedule.
The other benefit of being part of the cohort is access to monthly guest poet talks. The January kick-off talk was by Kim Stafford, the son of the late William Stafford whose practice of writing a poem a day is behind the whole thing. I wasn’t able to make it to that one live, but I did listen to the recording and here are three takeaways from it:
The second talk was Thursday night and was by Emmett Wheatfall. Here are my takeaways:
Three is also a mystical number. I don’t think I can find more than three takeaways in most hour-long presentations. I did also write down one snarky note. Namely, he quoted somebody talking about the artist, Edgar Degas. But he pronounced the surname as “DEE-gus” instead of “Day-GAH.” Aargh!
And Now
I need to find a topic for today’s poem.
I’ve already posted titles of the poems I wrote for weeks 1 and 2. Here are the remaining titles of poems I’ve written so far.
Week 3:
31 January 2026 - Both Sides Now
1 February 2026 - A Eulogy for X. J. Kennedy
2 February 2026 - A Eulogy for X. J. Kennedy (revised)
3 February 2026 - With Reservations
4 February 2026 - Blackberry Jam
5 February 2026 - The Lily Jean
6 February 2026 - Amtrak Acela
Week 4:
7 February 2026 - Amtrak #2
8 February 2026 - Weather Woes
9 February 2026 - The Bicycle
10 February 2026 - Life Is
11 February 2026 - Sleeping in Hotels
12 February 2026 - Household Archaeology
13 February 2026 - Lucky or Not?
Week 5:
14 February 2026 - The Afghan Song (to the tune of The Garden Song)
15 February 2026 - Post Valentine’s Day
16 February 2026 - Presidents Day
17 February 2026 - Spectral Haiku
18 February 2026 - Cuddly
19 February 2026 - Seeking My Muse
20 February 2026 - The Idea Shop
A Brief Sample
I won’t post anything I might want to submit to a magazine/ journal / anthology someday, since most publications count things published on-line as prior publication and won’t accept it. But I’m pretty sure I won’t do anything with this one and it’s a good example of my fondness for turning lists into poems. I got the idea for this poem while walking back to my hotel after going to the cabaret show I saw recently in New York and thinking “life is a cabaret.” I crowd sourced phrases starting with “life is” via the hive mind (i.e. my Facebook friends) and this is what I came up with.
Life Is
Life is too short
Life is too long
Life is hard
Life is easy
Life is like a box of chocolates
Life is just a bowl of cherries
Life is what you make of it
Life is a song worth singing
Life is a highway
Life is a river
Life is strange
Life is funny
Life is a journey, not a destination
Life is a cabaret
Life is life
Community:
One of the main reasons for doing the Stafford Challenge is the community fostered by the cohort. There are roughly 1300 people doing it this year. There’s a private Facebook group. And there are monthly talks by guest poets. There is apparently going to be a conference in the summer, which I think will actually work with my schedule.
The other benefit of being part of the cohort is access to monthly guest poet talks. The January kick-off talk was by Kim Stafford, the son of the late William Stafford whose practice of writing a poem a day is behind the whole thing. I wasn’t able to make it to that one live, but I did listen to the recording and here are three takeaways from it:
- ”Poetry is our native language.” We speak in units of breath.
- Betty Sue Flowers wrote that the progress of the artistic process is Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge. I really like this concept. Your ideas can be completely wild, but then you have to make plans and do the work to construct the product from them. Then you can look at what you’ve done and assess whether or not it meets your goal and go through this whole process again to revise it.
- The muse is the inner voice , waiting for an audience.
The second talk was Thursday night and was by Emmett Wheatfall. Here are my takeaways:
- He presented a 7 point challenge, which didn’t particularly resonate with me because most of them seemed fairly obvious, e.g. “listen to the feedback of your readers.”
- I did like his statement that Hemingway wrote down seven rules a day, but I’m not sure if those were the same rules or he came up with new ones every day. At any rate, seven is a number with a lot of mystical significance.
- He said that a quote of poetry is called a “stretch.” I’ve never heard that before.
Three is also a mystical number. I don’t think I can find more than three takeaways in most hour-long presentations. I did also write down one snarky note. Namely, he quoted somebody talking about the artist, Edgar Degas. But he pronounced the surname as “DEE-gus” instead of “Day-GAH.” Aargh!
And Now
I need to find a topic for today’s poem.
There is so much going on in the US, news-wise, that at times it feels hopeless. Then there are snippets of hope. I am focusing on what I personally can do as well as finding comfort in normal things. (Why on earth would we send hospital ships to Greenland?) There are too many imponderables to go there.
The weather was nice for a short time. I got my husband out to therapy and chiropractic adjustment. They have performed miracles. He's moving without pain. Also this week, I chopped up tree branches to start leveling a place for one of the new garden beds. The fresh air and exercise felt good. This week I made blueberry muffins. I wanted to see how the freeze-dried berries worked out. They are fantastic!
I started a new sweater. That alone is a story. I had three half-pound skeins of a yarn that had been dyed in onion skins. The color was weaker and weaker with each skein. I redyed them blue but some turned out more green; there were spots didn't take a lot of color. When I unwound the skeins, there was a lot of breakage. I can't sell skeins like that. I decided to make a sample piece based on the last sweater I made. It's a dead simple pattern. I am currently alternating rows with each of the three different color ways. It's not too bad.
Overall, I am not buying this yarn again. It's possible the breakage is caused by age. Who knows how long the mill had it? I've experienced this before with other indy-dyed superwash yarns. The superwash process involves bleach which is harsh on the yarn. According to "the internet", the manufacturer coats it with a petroleum based coating. I hate to tell them, but in order to machine spin yarn, all yarns have an oil of some sort added. Regardless, I degrease yarn before dyeing it anyway. But, I find superwash yarns break easily. They take color beautifully, which is why so many artisans use them. I just hate yarn breakage.
With so many indie dyers out there, wool isn't my best seller. Alpaca, linen, hemp and organic cotton are. I'll stick with those. Meanwhile, I'll have a large over-sized sweater for next winter (if nothing else - I still have a case of this yarn to sell).
The preparation for this year's garden is coming along. I have a flat of leeks and another of potato onions going. I packaged lettuce seed and planted the chaff. I have a huge amount of lettuce growing from the chaff. The sweet potatoes are starting to give me slips. The goal is 48 slips. Nine is a good start. Sometimes they don't produce until May. All of this is right on schedule.
Tray One, planted on Imbolc, contains seeds for 5 each of Catnip, celery, Parsley, Thyme, Savory, Rosemary, and more lettuce. I'm transplanting the lettuce this week. The rest are slower to grow. Tray Two is on a heat mat. It has Feverfew, snapdragons, Bells of Ireland, Eggplant, Artichokes, Lemon grass, Statice, Delphiniums, and basil. It was planted on the Lunar New Year. A lot of the seed was older. We'll see what actually germinates. It's early enough that if it doesn't, I can find something else to put in the flower bed. All those plants can either grow in pots or are listed as 8 weeks before last frost plants. Next up will be the 6-8 weeks before last frost plants. I pulled two sets of those today. Tray three will be based on more 8-10 week plants. Tray four will be 6-8 week plants. I have a lot of transplanting lettuce to do before I start those. The lettuce is for the indoor garden, not the outdoor one.
I have a few potatoes that I started from eyes again. Those are in plastic cups. I didn't keep track last year if any of those survived. This year I'm marking the grow bags so I know if it's worthwhile. I don't have a lot of space for potatoes inside the house. The bulk of potatoes will be planted by April 1st.
The Wheel Turns toward Spring.
The weather was nice for a short time. I got my husband out to therapy and chiropractic adjustment. They have performed miracles. He's moving without pain. Also this week, I chopped up tree branches to start leveling a place for one of the new garden beds. The fresh air and exercise felt good. This week I made blueberry muffins. I wanted to see how the freeze-dried berries worked out. They are fantastic!
I started a new sweater. That alone is a story. I had three half-pound skeins of a yarn that had been dyed in onion skins. The color was weaker and weaker with each skein. I redyed them blue but some turned out more green; there were spots didn't take a lot of color. When I unwound the skeins, there was a lot of breakage. I can't sell skeins like that. I decided to make a sample piece based on the last sweater I made. It's a dead simple pattern. I am currently alternating rows with each of the three different color ways. It's not too bad.
Overall, I am not buying this yarn again. It's possible the breakage is caused by age. Who knows how long the mill had it? I've experienced this before with other indy-dyed superwash yarns. The superwash process involves bleach which is harsh on the yarn. According to "the internet", the manufacturer coats it with a petroleum based coating. I hate to tell them, but in order to machine spin yarn, all yarns have an oil of some sort added. Regardless, I degrease yarn before dyeing it anyway. But, I find superwash yarns break easily. They take color beautifully, which is why so many artisans use them. I just hate yarn breakage.
With so many indie dyers out there, wool isn't my best seller. Alpaca, linen, hemp and organic cotton are. I'll stick with those. Meanwhile, I'll have a large over-sized sweater for next winter (if nothing else - I still have a case of this yarn to sell).
The preparation for this year's garden is coming along. I have a flat of leeks and another of potato onions going. I packaged lettuce seed and planted the chaff. I have a huge amount of lettuce growing from the chaff. The sweet potatoes are starting to give me slips. The goal is 48 slips. Nine is a good start. Sometimes they don't produce until May. All of this is right on schedule.
Tray One, planted on Imbolc, contains seeds for 5 each of Catnip, celery, Parsley, Thyme, Savory, Rosemary, and more lettuce. I'm transplanting the lettuce this week. The rest are slower to grow. Tray Two is on a heat mat. It has Feverfew, snapdragons, Bells of Ireland, Eggplant, Artichokes, Lemon grass, Statice, Delphiniums, and basil. It was planted on the Lunar New Year. A lot of the seed was older. We'll see what actually germinates. It's early enough that if it doesn't, I can find something else to put in the flower bed. All those plants can either grow in pots or are listed as 8 weeks before last frost plants. Next up will be the 6-8 weeks before last frost plants. I pulled two sets of those today. Tray three will be based on more 8-10 week plants. Tray four will be 6-8 week plants. I have a lot of transplanting lettuce to do before I start those. The lettuce is for the indoor garden, not the outdoor one.
I have a few potatoes that I started from eyes again. Those are in plastic cups. I didn't keep track last year if any of those survived. This year I'm marking the grow bags so I know if it's worthwhile. I don't have a lot of space for potatoes inside the house. The bulk of potatoes will be planted by April 1st.
The Wheel Turns toward Spring.
I was reading this morning's edition of Dan Rather's Substack newsletter, where he was writing about the song "Stand By Me". (Apparently he writes about a song or musician every Sunday.)
Anyway, he mentioned that "Stand By Me" was "numbered among the Recording Industry Association of America’s 25 Songs of the Century." This naturally got me curious: A ranked list of things? That's like catnip to me!
So I went to look for it. Turns out that there's no such things as the RIAA "25 Songs of the Century." What there is is the "Song of the Century" list, produced by the RIAA in conjunction with the NEA and Scholastic Inc. It's a list of 365 songs. So where did Rather get this idea of "25 Songs of the Century"? Because "Stand by Me" is #25 on the list, and the Wikipedia entry for "Songs of the Century" only includes the top 25 songs on the list. Apparently Rather (or, more likely, one of his research assistants) looked at the Wikipedia entry, didn't read the text carefully, and based on the table of songs assumed that it was a list of 25 songs.
If you read the text carefully, not only do you get the correct number of songs. You also start to question the RIAA's methodology for creating the list. According to the entry, "[h]undreds of voters, who included elected officials, people from the music industry and from the media, teachers, and students" were asked to select the songs. These voters were selected by the RIAA (and one is forced to ask "how many students does the RIAA know?"), and of the 1300 voters selected, only 200 responded. Seems kind of sloppy and haphazard.
Then, if you read the list, you see that the voters were rather sloppy and haphazard in their definition of a song: #7 on the list is the entire album of West Side Story, which is not "a song." Altogether there are 18 albums on the list: 11 Broadway shows, 6 jazz albums, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Obviously I don't have a copy of the instructions that the RIAA sent to the voters, but I think we can all agree that (with the exception of Thick as a Brick and possibly a few others) an album is not a song.
Also, just as an aside, I think 2001 (when this survey was conducted) was a bit premature to be choosing the most impactful songs of the 20th century.
All that being said, I think any other such list would be just as subject to being haphazard and subjective, and on skimming over the list I do think it would be an enjoyable and/or interesting list to listen to. Plus, unless you were born on February 29, you can figure out what day of the year you were born on and then look at the complete list and see what song your birthday corresponds to. (Mine is "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy.)
Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.
Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?
There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.
This Week's Question: What is your favourite thing to make?
If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.
I now declare this Check-In OPEN!
My foot still hurts but it hurts WAY less and is on the mend. It's always surprising to me, the absence after something has hurt for so long. It's like a little gift. Or a big gift, if you are my foot.
I love a little Hazelnut flavor in my coffee now and again. The other day, at Safeway, I picked up a small box of Hazelnut flavored coffee pods. I brewed one yesterday for elbow coffee. I think I knew this but had forgotten. Those Hazelnut pods are HAZELNUT!!!! I wanted a hint and they are like a tsunami. BUT I drink my coffee black so, honestly, only wash my mug once in a great while so this morning's coffee had the perfect hint of Hazelnut. Win?
This morning I got up and put the comforter and pillow cases into the washing machine and changed the sheet with the help of Biggie which made it, of course, way more of a chore but it is done. And the comforter will be done in another hour. My washer has this lovely heavy bedding function. It probably does nothing special but I love having it.
Then I went to the pool and had a wonderful swim.
I have nothing on the calendar this week at all. There are baseball games every afternoon on the radio. Yesterday, they had a 'new' announcer for a few innings. I thought we had all of the worst baseball announcers already but wait, there's more! This guy was, apparently, a Mariner pitcher for a minute just before the pandemic. He talks way too fast and says absolutely nothing interesting. It hurt my ears. He said that he would be on the TV broadcasts for some games this year. Fine by me since I mute those anyway. Geesh.
I have 20 more bunnies to make before Saturday. Shouldn't be a problem. There are 2.95 done already.
I have my good book to read and tons of stuff on TV. There is a new (to me) Dawn French comedy on Paramount+ called "Can You Keep A Secret". I have two more episodes to watch. It's kind of hilarious in a very Dawn French way. She gets me.
When my brother was here, we got rid of a lot of shit and shifted and organized the rest. I could not have done it without him and it's still reaping such rewards. It's just a joy to be able to find stuff, to easily put stuff away and to have it all look so nice. My utility room went from a claustrophobic mess to a joy and the storage room... perfection. Yesterday, I shifted some stuff around so easily. I do love this apartment. But even more so now.
When the closet got redone, I took down the cat cam since I moved their beds but now Biggie has a new spot so I think I need to put it back. EASY to do since it's just on the shelf in the storage unit with the correct cable and wall wart. Soooooooo organized am I.
I love a little Hazelnut flavor in my coffee now and again. The other day, at Safeway, I picked up a small box of Hazelnut flavored coffee pods. I brewed one yesterday for elbow coffee. I think I knew this but had forgotten. Those Hazelnut pods are HAZELNUT!!!! I wanted a hint and they are like a tsunami. BUT I drink my coffee black so, honestly, only wash my mug once in a great while so this morning's coffee had the perfect hint of Hazelnut. Win?
This morning I got up and put the comforter and pillow cases into the washing machine and changed the sheet with the help of Biggie which made it, of course, way more of a chore but it is done. And the comforter will be done in another hour. My washer has this lovely heavy bedding function. It probably does nothing special but I love having it.
Then I went to the pool and had a wonderful swim.
I have nothing on the calendar this week at all. There are baseball games every afternoon on the radio. Yesterday, they had a 'new' announcer for a few innings. I thought we had all of the worst baseball announcers already but wait, there's more! This guy was, apparently, a Mariner pitcher for a minute just before the pandemic. He talks way too fast and says absolutely nothing interesting. It hurt my ears. He said that he would be on the TV broadcasts for some games this year. Fine by me since I mute those anyway. Geesh.
I have 20 more bunnies to make before Saturday. Shouldn't be a problem. There are 2.95 done already.
I have my good book to read and tons of stuff on TV. There is a new (to me) Dawn French comedy on Paramount+ called "Can You Keep A Secret". I have two more episodes to watch. It's kind of hilarious in a very Dawn French way. She gets me.
When my brother was here, we got rid of a lot of shit and shifted and organized the rest. I could not have done it without him and it's still reaping such rewards. It's just a joy to be able to find stuff, to easily put stuff away and to have it all look so nice. My utility room went from a claustrophobic mess to a joy and the storage room... perfection. Yesterday, I shifted some stuff around so easily. I do love this apartment. But even more so now.
When the closet got redone, I took down the cat cam since I moved their beds but now Biggie has a new spot so I think I need to put it back. EASY to do since it's just on the shelf in the storage unit with the correct cable and wall wart. Soooooooo organized am I.
So, you got my opinion on Heated Rivalry, but I gotta say, I will never not read fanfics structured like ongoing internet sagas.
Also, gotta love the one dude, BostonSportsBro69, who posts in both /r/relationship_advice and /r/hockey going around in /r/hockey saying "Uh, no, it's just normal sportsbro rival stuff, you're all reading way too much into this"when because he absolutely knows better. (I don't think he's supposed to be one of Ilya's teammates, just a fan.)
***************
( Links )
Also, gotta love the one dude, BostonSportsBro69, who posts in both /r/relationship_advice and /r/hockey going around in /r/hockey saying "Uh, no, it's just normal sportsbro rival stuff, you're all reading way too much into this"
( Links )
How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?
Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.
Congratulations to everyone who has found and/or disposed on any clutter in the last week!
ps. I'm going to be a bit sporadic for at least the next month; please cheer along others in the comments!
I want to talk about the education privilege meme that's been doing the rounds. On the one hand I love old-school memes that encourage lots of cool people on my d-roll to talk about their experiences growing up. But at the same time, I'm kind of frowning at this particular iteration.
( thinky thoughts )
Anyway, hopefully this is an adequate substitute for the meme and you don't need me to tell you in detail how absurdly precocious I was in reading and maths.
( thinky thoughts )
Anyway, hopefully this is an adequate substitute for the meme and you don't need me to tell you in detail how absurdly precocious I was in reading and maths.
50% off release bags in BookCrossing Store (EU ONLY)
Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tozka posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
bookcrossingThe BookCrossing supplies store has a flash sale going on this weekend (February 21-22) for the little plastic bags you can use when releasing books in the wild. They currently have English, German and Norwegian bags available.
Link: https://www.bookcrossing.com/store#!/Release-Bags/c/554707
Use code BAGS50 to save 50% on your order; unavailable for US shipping as they're coming from the European store, just fyi.
Besides that, looks like some other supplies are on sale:
- Sticky notes (International Yellow) are 49% off
- Bookmarks are 25% off
- Re-use labels are 50% off
- 2025 BC Convention Bookplates are 19% off
Link: https://www.bookcrossing.com/store#!/Release-Bags/c/554707
Use code BAGS50 to save 50% on your order; unavailable for US shipping as they're coming from the European store, just fyi.
Besides that, looks like some other supplies are on sale:
- Sticky notes (International Yellow) are 49% off
- Bookmarks are 25% off
- Re-use labels are 50% off
- 2025 BC Convention Bookplates are 19% off
Title: Our Share of Night
Author: Mariana Enriquez
Translator: Megan McDowell
Genre: Fantasy horror, fiction, family drama
If Mexican Gothic left you craving more South American fantasy horror, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez of Argentina (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell) has you covered. This is a family epic intertwined with the dark machinations of a macabre cult and its impact. It's also a splendid allegory for the evils of colonialism and generational trauma. This book was #15 from the "Women in Translation" rec list.
The book begins with Juan, a powerful but ill man who acts as a "medium" for the cult to commune with its dark god. Juan, struggling with the health of his defective heart, the wear-and-tear of years as the medium, and the grief and rage of his wife's recent death (he suspects, at the orders of the cult he serves) is desperate to keep his son Gaspar from stepping into his shoes, as the cult wants. Juan's opening segment of the book is about his efforts to protect Gaspar.
From there, the book branches off into other perspectives which give background to both the cult and the family. This is a great way of giving us a holistic and generational view of the cult, but it does drag occasionally. Gaspar's sections--in his childhood and then later in his teens/young adulthood--together make up the majority of the book, and while enjoyable, do amble off into great detail about his and his friends' day-to-day lives, such that I did wonder sometimes when we were getting back to the plot. I don't like to cite pacing issues, because I think that gets thrown around a lot whenever someone didn't vibe with a book, but the drawn-out length of these quotidian sections doesn't fit well with how quickly the climax of the book passes and is wrapped up. I would have liked to have spent less time with Gaspar at soccer games and more on his plans for addressing the cult.
However, on the whole, the book is a fun, if very dark read. It also serves well as a critique of Argentina's moneyed class and of colonialism in general, and how money sticks with money even across borders. Here, Argentina's wealthy have more in common with English money than with the Argentine lower classes (and that's how they want it). The cult, populated at its upper echelons by the privileged, is an almost literal blight on the land, willing to sacrifice an endless amount of blood, local and otherwise, to beg power off a hungry and unknown supernatural entity.
It brutalizes its mediums, which it often plucks from poverty to wring for power and then discard. Juan was adopted away from his own poor family at six, under the insistence his parents would not be able to pay for the medical care he needed, and he is the least-abused of the cult's line of mediums. As soon as the cult sets their eye on his son, Juan must begin scheming how to keep Gaspar away from them.
Although he acts out of love of his son, Juan is also a deeply flawed person. He is secretive, moody, lies constantly (there is actual gaslighting here) and doesn't hesitate to knock Gaspar around to make him obey. The more he deteriorates--a common problem with all cult mediums--the less human he becomes. Part of this is his work, but much of it is also attributable to years of being used by the cult for its ends and the accumulated emotional trauma. This, of course, is then inflicted on Gaspar through his father's tempers and secrets.
Similarly flawed are the other members of the immediate family. Juan's wife Rosario, despite a better nature than her parents, still supports this cult and is eager for Gaspar to follow in his father's footsteps as a cult medium, in part for the prestige it will bring her as his mother. Gaspar, although far more empathetic and gentle than either of his parents, eventually grows up with his father's temper. Watching him grow from a sweet-natured little boy into the troubled young adult he becomes after years of his father's abuse and neglect is painful, but realistic.
The book is also unexpectedly queer. It's not often a book surprises me with its queerness, because that's usually what landed it on my radar in the first place, but this one did. Juan and Rosario are both bisexual and later in the book we spend some active time in Argentina's queer scene, including during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
The translation was great! It read very naturally, even the dialogue, and it never felt stilted or awkward in its phrasing.
An ambitious novel that for the most part, pulls off what it's trying to do. As mentioned, I wish the ending had gotten more room to breathe, and I would not have minded this coming at the cost of some of the middle bits of navel-gazing, but I still felt the story was satisfying.
Author: Mariana Enriquez
Translator: Megan McDowell
Genre: Fantasy horror, fiction, family drama
If Mexican Gothic left you craving more South American fantasy horror, Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez of Argentina (translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell) has you covered. This is a family epic intertwined with the dark machinations of a macabre cult and its impact. It's also a splendid allegory for the evils of colonialism and generational trauma. This book was #15 from the "Women in Translation" rec list.
The book begins with Juan, a powerful but ill man who acts as a "medium" for the cult to commune with its dark god. Juan, struggling with the health of his defective heart, the wear-and-tear of years as the medium, and the grief and rage of his wife's recent death (he suspects, at the orders of the cult he serves) is desperate to keep his son Gaspar from stepping into his shoes, as the cult wants. Juan's opening segment of the book is about his efforts to protect Gaspar.
From there, the book branches off into other perspectives which give background to both the cult and the family. This is a great way of giving us a holistic and generational view of the cult, but it does drag occasionally. Gaspar's sections--in his childhood and then later in his teens/young adulthood--together make up the majority of the book, and while enjoyable, do amble off into great detail about his and his friends' day-to-day lives, such that I did wonder sometimes when we were getting back to the plot. I don't like to cite pacing issues, because I think that gets thrown around a lot whenever someone didn't vibe with a book, but the drawn-out length of these quotidian sections doesn't fit well with how quickly the climax of the book passes and is wrapped up. I would have liked to have spent less time with Gaspar at soccer games and more on his plans for addressing the cult.
However, on the whole, the book is a fun, if very dark read. It also serves well as a critique of Argentina's moneyed class and of colonialism in general, and how money sticks with money even across borders. Here, Argentina's wealthy have more in common with English money than with the Argentine lower classes (and that's how they want it). The cult, populated at its upper echelons by the privileged, is an almost literal blight on the land, willing to sacrifice an endless amount of blood, local and otherwise, to beg power off a hungry and unknown supernatural entity.
It brutalizes its mediums, which it often plucks from poverty to wring for power and then discard. Juan was adopted away from his own poor family at six, under the insistence his parents would not be able to pay for the medical care he needed, and he is the least-abused of the cult's line of mediums. As soon as the cult sets their eye on his son, Juan must begin scheming how to keep Gaspar away from them.
Although he acts out of love of his son, Juan is also a deeply flawed person. He is secretive, moody, lies constantly (there is actual gaslighting here) and doesn't hesitate to knock Gaspar around to make him obey. The more he deteriorates--a common problem with all cult mediums--the less human he becomes. Part of this is his work, but much of it is also attributable to years of being used by the cult for its ends and the accumulated emotional trauma. This, of course, is then inflicted on Gaspar through his father's tempers and secrets.
Similarly flawed are the other members of the immediate family. Juan's wife Rosario, despite a better nature than her parents, still supports this cult and is eager for Gaspar to follow in his father's footsteps as a cult medium, in part for the prestige it will bring her as his mother. Gaspar, although far more empathetic and gentle than either of his parents, eventually grows up with his father's temper. Watching him grow from a sweet-natured little boy into the troubled young adult he becomes after years of his father's abuse and neglect is painful, but realistic.
The book is also unexpectedly queer. It's not often a book surprises me with its queerness, because that's usually what landed it on my radar in the first place, but this one did. Juan and Rosario are both bisexual and later in the book we spend some active time in Argentina's queer scene, including during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
The translation was great! It read very naturally, even the dialogue, and it never felt stilted or awkward in its phrasing.
An ambitious novel that for the most part, pulls off what it's trying to do. As mentioned, I wish the ending had gotten more room to breathe, and I would not have minded this coming at the cost of some of the middle bits of navel-gazing, but I still felt the story was satisfying.
I've had a busy morning making some new blog footers for when I do book posts. I like to have a separate one for each book I have, so I needed one for the new Household Hints one, and of course, I like to have one for a full set of all my books. I've also decided to do another one for just the medieval quote books since there are another 2 in the set, and likely another after that, so I made that too.
Now to go back and insert a few into the last few books posts. Anyway, these are them:
I may still change the colour of the website bar to blue on that last one, as most of my website is blue themed banners and two of my books are using brown or autumn themes. And I'm wearing blue. I should do blue, shouldn't I?
There. That's better!
Now to go back and insert a few into the last few books posts. Anyway, these are them:
I may still change the colour of the website bar to blue on that last one, as most of my website is blue themed banners and two of my books are using brown or autumn themes. And I'm wearing blue. I should do blue, shouldn't I?
There. That's better!
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Saturday to midnight on Sunday (8pm Eastern Time).
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
Poll #34250 Daily poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 20
How are you doing?
I am okay
13 (65.0%)
I am not okay, but don't need help right now
7 (35.0%)
I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans are you living with?
I am living single
7 (35.0%)
One other person
8 (40.0%)
More than one other person
5 (25.0%)
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
The evening darkens over
After a day so bright
The windcapt waves discover
That wild will be the night.
There’s sound of distant thunder.
The latest sea-birds hover
Along the cliff’s sheer height;
As in the memory wander
Last flutterings of delight,
White wings lost on the white.
There’s not a ship in sight;
And as the sun goes under
Thick clouds conspire to cover
The moon that should rise yonder.
Thou art alone, fond lover.
***************
Link
After a day so bright
The windcapt waves discover
That wild will be the night.
There’s sound of distant thunder.
The latest sea-birds hover
Along the cliff’s sheer height;
As in the memory wander
Last flutterings of delight,
White wings lost on the white.
There’s not a ship in sight;
And as the sun goes under
Thick clouds conspire to cover
The moon that should rise yonder.
Thou art alone, fond lover.
Link
Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.
Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?
There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.
This Week's Question: What is your favourite thing to make?
If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.
I now declare this Check-In OPEN!
I went up to New York a couple of weeks ago for a long weekend. (That was after several days of not going outside at all, due to what they called “snowcrete,” i.e. icy sleet on top of snow, which created a disgusting substance with the texture of concrete.) I had originally scheduled an evening Acela, which would have arrived about 9:30 p.m. but I was notified a couple of days in advance that it was canceled, so I took a train that was scheduled to get in about 5 p.m. I usually just take a northeast regional since the time difference from the Acela is minimal, but this was one of those rare times when the cost differences was minimal. In the end, my train was delayed about an hour, which was annoying mostly because they kept changing the time it was going to leave. And, several times, the text they sent claimed that the new time was the original time, despite what was being announced. It didn’t matter much to me, since I was still getting in quite a bit earlier than my original plans. And Amtrak did send me compensation, which will be helpful since I have 2 or 3 more Amtrak trips in the next couple of months.
I had enough time to grab takeout pizza before going to my hotel. I’d gotten a reasonable price at the Fairfield Inn & Suites right across the street from Moynihan Train Hall. I ate my pizza and watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, which annoyed me because of NBC’s overemphasis on Team USA. I wanted to know more about things like the sole competitor from Guinea Bissau. I was also following the Israeli bobsleigh team because their captain, A.J. Edelman is an MIT alumnus (and even course 2, like me and Senator Alex Pedilla!) He was the first Orthodox Jew to compete in the Winter Olympics (in Skeleton in 2018) and his brother is the comedian Alex Edelman, whose show Just For Us has to do with his experiences with a white supremacist group. And, by the way, one of the members of that Israeli bobsleigh team is Druze.
It was particularly windy and frigid out, which limited the amount of random walking around that I did. My plans were for a theatre day, so that wasn’t a huge issue. The first show I saw was the matinee performance of Buena Vista Social Club. This was an easy choice for me to make since I like Cuban music and have loved both the movie and CD for years. And it was, indeed, very enjoyable. The performances were heartfelt and I really appreciated the booklet about the songs that was included inside the Playbill. And the band was incredible, well deserving of the special Tony award they got. By the way, the real Omara Portuondo is still alive (in her mid 90’s) and has recorded an album as recently as 2023. Highly recommended.
Saturday night’s selection was Death Becomes Her. I didn’t know a lot about this musical going in and had chosen it largely because the reviews were good. The basic premise is that Viola Van Horn (played by Michelle Williams, who had started her career in Destiny’s Child) has access to a potion that promises eternal youth - and life. The actual story has to do with the rivalry between an actress named Madeline Ashton, and the friend (named Helen Sharp) who she abuses all her life, down to stealing her plastic surgeon fiance. And that’s exactly the problem I had with this show. The songs have amusing lyrics and there is plenty of funny material and the special effects are impressive. But do we really need a show that is based on two women attempting to sabotage one another?
By the way, how cold was it out? They were claiming the wind chill made it feel like -17 Fahrenheit. In more practical terms, I walked 4 blocks (to 43rd street) and got on the subway for the remaining 10 blocks because I just couldn’t handle the temperature any more. And I was wearing 3 layers of clothes, as well as my warmest jacket.
Sunday wasn’t much better, though I had the sense to add yet another layer to my clothes. I headed cross-town to meet up with a group of folks from FlyerTalk at the 2nd Avenue Deli. Josh organizes Deli Do a couple of times a year and there were about 20 attendees. I’ve been once or twice before and I’ve eaten at that deli lots of times, going all the way back to when it was actually on 2nd Avenue. I noticed that the menu no longer has hot open faced sandwiches, which used to be one of my go-to orders in my childhood. A tongue sandwich and a kasha knish is my most common deli order these days. But, given the cold weather, I thought that the soup and half sandwich option was a good idea. I got the mushroom barley soup and half a chopped liver sandwich. Both were quite good. And, of course, a Dr. Brown’s diet cream soda, since I never acquired the taste for cel-ray. Jewish soul food and talk about flying / travel - what better way to spend a long lunch? Several of us walked over to Blue Haven East afterwards for adult beverages and more conversation. I have a long standing quest for the best hot buttered rum in NYC and theirs was pretty good. And it was nice to be able to mingle and chat with people who had been sitting at the far end of the deli from the table I ended up at.
I took advantage of proximity to walk over to the Morgan Library, which had been on my list of places in New York that I had not been to before. I was particularly eager to get there since they have a Caravaggio painting temporarily on loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome. In addition to Boy with a Basket of Fruit, there were other naturalist works, mostly by contemporaries of Caravaggio and other painters influenced by his style. I’m mostly a modern art aficionado, but I was awestruck by Caravaggio’s use of color and light when I saw two of his paintings at Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valetta, Malta some 25 years ago and consider him the greatest painter of the late 16th / early 17th centuries.
It was also the last day of an exhibit of Renoir drawings. I’m not particularly keen on Renoir (or, frankly, the impressionists, in general). But a quick look through that exhibit left me impressed with Renoir’s skill as a draftsman.
But, of course, the real highlight of the Morgan Library is the actual library, which is spectacular.
Don’t forget to look up at the ceilings, too!
I wandered over to Grand Central Terminal for a bit, then headed back to the west side to go to a cabaret show. I had heard of Don’t Tell Mama from a couple of puzzle people, but had never been there before. I was impressed with the number of people who went there alone, which is a bit unusual in my past experience at cabaret venues. I had a lively and interesting conversation with the woman sitting at the table next to mine, who I found out at the end of the evening was a somewhat well-known actress, Neva Small. As for the actual show, it was called Jewish Caroling: The Music of Carole King, Carole Bayer-Sager and Carolyn Leigh. The performer, Deborah Zecher,is a singer, storyteller, and rabbi and she put together an interesting mix of songs by those three Jewish women. I hadn’t known this going in, but the proceeds from the show are being donated to Beth Israel, the synagogue in Mississippi that was burned down.
For women of my generation, Carole King’s Tapestry was a truly iconic album. I remember listening to it with my best friend in the bedroom of an older girl who lived on our block, who would go on to tell us that an orgasm is like a sneeze between the legs! And, yes, I do still have my own copy of it. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable show and I’ll check out the offerings at Don’t Tell Mama for future New York trips. By the way, the wind had died down and walking back to the hotel was tolerable.
I went down to the Lower East Side on Monday. Walking through Penn Station to get to the F train, I passed this interesting glass mosaic mural. It is called Garden of Circus Delights and was done by Eric Fischl. There is actually quite a lot of interesting art in the New York City subway system and it would be fun to spend most of a day exploring it.
My goal was seeing a temporary art exhibit, sponsored by Manischewitz in honor of a new line of bottled soups.
They also had some cute merchandise, e.g. aprons, baseball caps, and patches with various Yiddish slogans. But none of that is anything that I’d ever use. And neither my brother nor the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling ever wear any type of hat. They were also selling soup from a food truck nearby, but I had other intentions.
Specifically, I had lunch at Russ & Daughters. The “Super Heebster” consists of whitefish and baked salmon salad with horseradish-dill aream cheese and wasabi roe. I got it on a bialy, and it was very tasty. It also came with half sour pickles and, while I normally favor full sours, they worked well with the mild spiciness.
And I couldn’t resist their halvah ice cream. While I enjoyed it, I would have actually liked a smaller portion and I didn’t think the salted caramel topping added much to it.
The food was pricy, but worth it.
I spent a lazy afternoon catching up on some reading and puzzles, before heading uptown towards Lincoln Center, where the subway station had another attractive set of glass mosaics (but I didn’t photograph those). From there, it was a short walk to the Marjorie S. Dean Little Theatre to see Going Bacharach. This was (obviously) a tribute to Burt Bacharach, performed by three singers with a small band. All three singers were excellent. I was not thrilled by the musical arrangements, which lacked brass. The music director, Adrian Galante, was impressive on the clarinet, but the flamboyance of his piano playing annoyed me. I’d also have liked to actually learn something about Burt Bacharach as a person. One of the singers did talk a bit about his use of mixed meter, which I thought was interesting. But, overall, I found the show disappointing.
Speaking of disappointing, I ‘d stayed at that Fairfield several times before. While the rooms are comfortable, the breakfast offerings have deteriorated. The breakfast on the weekend was better, but on weekdays, they didn’t have salsa for the scrambled eggs (though they did have bottles of a few types of hot sauce) and they didn’t have pancakes or waffles. More egregiously, the only fresh fruit they had were bananas (yuk). On the weekend, they had salad, but not on weekdays. This is a minor annoyance as there are plenty of places to get a decent breakfast within easy walking distance. But there used to be more variety. Another issues is that one of the three elevators wouldn’t recognize my room key, nor those of several other people, and this did not get repaired during my stay. My biggest complaint is that the rate for Monday night was considerably higher than for the previous three nights and this was not clearly displayed when making the reservation on line. I’ll have to rethink whether or not to stay there in the future.
I didn’t have any issues with Amtrak going home on Tuesday morning. The metro also cooperated and I was able to get in a lovely afternoon nap, before catching up on some household chores.
I had enough time to grab takeout pizza before going to my hotel. I’d gotten a reasonable price at the Fairfield Inn & Suites right across the street from Moynihan Train Hall. I ate my pizza and watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, which annoyed me because of NBC’s overemphasis on Team USA. I wanted to know more about things like the sole competitor from Guinea Bissau. I was also following the Israeli bobsleigh team because their captain, A.J. Edelman is an MIT alumnus (and even course 2, like me and Senator Alex Pedilla!) He was the first Orthodox Jew to compete in the Winter Olympics (in Skeleton in 2018) and his brother is the comedian Alex Edelman, whose show Just For Us has to do with his experiences with a white supremacist group. And, by the way, one of the members of that Israeli bobsleigh team is Druze.
It was particularly windy and frigid out, which limited the amount of random walking around that I did. My plans were for a theatre day, so that wasn’t a huge issue. The first show I saw was the matinee performance of Buena Vista Social Club. This was an easy choice for me to make since I like Cuban music and have loved both the movie and CD for years. And it was, indeed, very enjoyable. The performances were heartfelt and I really appreciated the booklet about the songs that was included inside the Playbill. And the band was incredible, well deserving of the special Tony award they got. By the way, the real Omara Portuondo is still alive (in her mid 90’s) and has recorded an album as recently as 2023. Highly recommended.
Saturday night’s selection was Death Becomes Her. I didn’t know a lot about this musical going in and had chosen it largely because the reviews were good. The basic premise is that Viola Van Horn (played by Michelle Williams, who had started her career in Destiny’s Child) has access to a potion that promises eternal youth - and life. The actual story has to do with the rivalry between an actress named Madeline Ashton, and the friend (named Helen Sharp) who she abuses all her life, down to stealing her plastic surgeon fiance. And that’s exactly the problem I had with this show. The songs have amusing lyrics and there is plenty of funny material and the special effects are impressive. But do we really need a show that is based on two women attempting to sabotage one another?
By the way, how cold was it out? They were claiming the wind chill made it feel like -17 Fahrenheit. In more practical terms, I walked 4 blocks (to 43rd street) and got on the subway for the remaining 10 blocks because I just couldn’t handle the temperature any more. And I was wearing 3 layers of clothes, as well as my warmest jacket.
Sunday wasn’t much better, though I had the sense to add yet another layer to my clothes. I headed cross-town to meet up with a group of folks from FlyerTalk at the 2nd Avenue Deli. Josh organizes Deli Do a couple of times a year and there were about 20 attendees. I’ve been once or twice before and I’ve eaten at that deli lots of times, going all the way back to when it was actually on 2nd Avenue. I noticed that the menu no longer has hot open faced sandwiches, which used to be one of my go-to orders in my childhood. A tongue sandwich and a kasha knish is my most common deli order these days. But, given the cold weather, I thought that the soup and half sandwich option was a good idea. I got the mushroom barley soup and half a chopped liver sandwich. Both were quite good. And, of course, a Dr. Brown’s diet cream soda, since I never acquired the taste for cel-ray. Jewish soul food and talk about flying / travel - what better way to spend a long lunch? Several of us walked over to Blue Haven East afterwards for adult beverages and more conversation. I have a long standing quest for the best hot buttered rum in NYC and theirs was pretty good. And it was nice to be able to mingle and chat with people who had been sitting at the far end of the deli from the table I ended up at.
I took advantage of proximity to walk over to the Morgan Library, which had been on my list of places in New York that I had not been to before. I was particularly eager to get there since they have a Caravaggio painting temporarily on loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome. In addition to Boy with a Basket of Fruit, there were other naturalist works, mostly by contemporaries of Caravaggio and other painters influenced by his style. I’m mostly a modern art aficionado, but I was awestruck by Caravaggio’s use of color and light when I saw two of his paintings at Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valetta, Malta some 25 years ago and consider him the greatest painter of the late 16th / early 17th centuries.
It was also the last day of an exhibit of Renoir drawings. I’m not particularly keen on Renoir (or, frankly, the impressionists, in general). But a quick look through that exhibit left me impressed with Renoir’s skill as a draftsman.
But, of course, the real highlight of the Morgan Library is the actual library, which is spectacular.
Don’t forget to look up at the ceilings, too!
I wandered over to Grand Central Terminal for a bit, then headed back to the west side to go to a cabaret show. I had heard of Don’t Tell Mama from a couple of puzzle people, but had never been there before. I was impressed with the number of people who went there alone, which is a bit unusual in my past experience at cabaret venues. I had a lively and interesting conversation with the woman sitting at the table next to mine, who I found out at the end of the evening was a somewhat well-known actress, Neva Small. As for the actual show, it was called Jewish Caroling: The Music of Carole King, Carole Bayer-Sager and Carolyn Leigh. The performer, Deborah Zecher,is a singer, storyteller, and rabbi and she put together an interesting mix of songs by those three Jewish women. I hadn’t known this going in, but the proceeds from the show are being donated to Beth Israel, the synagogue in Mississippi that was burned down.
For women of my generation, Carole King’s Tapestry was a truly iconic album. I remember listening to it with my best friend in the bedroom of an older girl who lived on our block, who would go on to tell us that an orgasm is like a sneeze between the legs! And, yes, I do still have my own copy of it. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable show and I’ll check out the offerings at Don’t Tell Mama for future New York trips. By the way, the wind had died down and walking back to the hotel was tolerable.
I went down to the Lower East Side on Monday. Walking through Penn Station to get to the F train, I passed this interesting glass mosaic mural. It is called Garden of Circus Delights and was done by Eric Fischl. There is actually quite a lot of interesting art in the New York City subway system and it would be fun to spend most of a day exploring it.
My goal was seeing a temporary art exhibit, sponsored by Manischewitz in honor of a new line of bottled soups.
They also had some cute merchandise, e.g. aprons, baseball caps, and patches with various Yiddish slogans. But none of that is anything that I’d ever use. And neither my brother nor the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling ever wear any type of hat. They were also selling soup from a food truck nearby, but I had other intentions.
Specifically, I had lunch at Russ & Daughters. The “Super Heebster” consists of whitefish and baked salmon salad with horseradish-dill aream cheese and wasabi roe. I got it on a bialy, and it was very tasty. It also came with half sour pickles and, while I normally favor full sours, they worked well with the mild spiciness.
And I couldn’t resist their halvah ice cream. While I enjoyed it, I would have actually liked a smaller portion and I didn’t think the salted caramel topping added much to it.
The food was pricy, but worth it.
I spent a lazy afternoon catching up on some reading and puzzles, before heading uptown towards Lincoln Center, where the subway station had another attractive set of glass mosaics (but I didn’t photograph those). From there, it was a short walk to the Marjorie S. Dean Little Theatre to see Going Bacharach. This was (obviously) a tribute to Burt Bacharach, performed by three singers with a small band. All three singers were excellent. I was not thrilled by the musical arrangements, which lacked brass. The music director, Adrian Galante, was impressive on the clarinet, but the flamboyance of his piano playing annoyed me. I’d also have liked to actually learn something about Burt Bacharach as a person. One of the singers did talk a bit about his use of mixed meter, which I thought was interesting. But, overall, I found the show disappointing.
Speaking of disappointing, I ‘d stayed at that Fairfield several times before. While the rooms are comfortable, the breakfast offerings have deteriorated. The breakfast on the weekend was better, but on weekdays, they didn’t have salsa for the scrambled eggs (though they did have bottles of a few types of hot sauce) and they didn’t have pancakes or waffles. More egregiously, the only fresh fruit they had were bananas (yuk). On the weekend, they had salad, but not on weekdays. This is a minor annoyance as there are plenty of places to get a decent breakfast within easy walking distance. But there used to be more variety. Another issues is that one of the three elevators wouldn’t recognize my room key, nor those of several other people, and this did not get repaired during my stay. My biggest complaint is that the rate for Monday night was considerably higher than for the previous three nights and this was not clearly displayed when making the reservation on line. I’ll have to rethink whether or not to stay there in the future.
I didn’t have any issues with Amtrak going home on Tuesday morning. The metro also cooperated and I was able to get in a lovely afternoon nap, before catching up on some household chores.
My friend, Martha, has always been a staunch supporter of my dolls and creatures. She has a bunch and has given away 5 times a bunch or more. When she saw this year's bunnies, she said they needed cotton tails and bows. I said fine, if she wanted to add them, that would be great. I made 40 and she picked them up yesterday. Turns out adding the butts and bows was far easier than she expected. She texted me the results. She has about 25 butts left so I'll make more this week and then put them out til they are gone.
The butts:
The bows:
The pool blinds are well and truly fixed. They go up and down 'like butta', it's such a relief.
I got brave this morning and tried that extra creamy oat milk with cherrios. FAIL. It does not taste like milk and it does not look like milk. Guess it's an oatmeal only situation which is fine. Better than nothing.
I have now fallen into another very odd for me book that is really turning into a great read. In this case, it may be the reader who 'sells' it but the story is compelling. Dark Ride by Lou Berney. Read by Johnathan McClain. His spot on portrayal of all of the characters is amazing. I don't understand how one person can read in such a way that you actually believe he's a 20 something male stoner, a 40 something black female temptress and a 20 something goth girl plus dozens of other bit players. He is now my new favorite reader ever but also, this book is fun.
About a decade ago the Mariners helped create and then took over Root Sports NW which was a regional sports network. It was available on cable, and then later, on various streaming services. It pretty much sucked but was the only game in town. They killed it dead at the end of last season. The Mariners this year have a full season deal with MLB.TV which I don't love BUT after one game, I can absolutely say is about 20 times better than Root ever tried to be. Whew. Even for a spring training game, it all worked. Closed captions - easy to snap on and off - nothing out of sync - no lags. No mess. Just baseball. Of course the announcers still suck, but, hey...
There's another game on today (they only televise a little less than half the spring training games, which is fine... viewers need to ease into the season like players.
Yesterday, I cleaned out some cupboards in the kitchen. I moved the dishes I use rarely or never into storage so now I can get to the shit I want more easily and emptying the dishwasher is way easier. So I think I'll go do that before I get dressed for elbow coffee.
The butts:
The bows:
The pool blinds are well and truly fixed. They go up and down 'like butta', it's such a relief.
I got brave this morning and tried that extra creamy oat milk with cherrios. FAIL. It does not taste like milk and it does not look like milk. Guess it's an oatmeal only situation which is fine. Better than nothing.
I have now fallen into another very odd for me book that is really turning into a great read. In this case, it may be the reader who 'sells' it but the story is compelling. Dark Ride by Lou Berney. Read by Johnathan McClain. His spot on portrayal of all of the characters is amazing. I don't understand how one person can read in such a way that you actually believe he's a 20 something male stoner, a 40 something black female temptress and a 20 something goth girl plus dozens of other bit players. He is now my new favorite reader ever but also, this book is fun.
About a decade ago the Mariners helped create and then took over Root Sports NW which was a regional sports network. It was available on cable, and then later, on various streaming services. It pretty much sucked but was the only game in town. They killed it dead at the end of last season. The Mariners this year have a full season deal with MLB.TV which I don't love BUT after one game, I can absolutely say is about 20 times better than Root ever tried to be. Whew. Even for a spring training game, it all worked. Closed captions - easy to snap on and off - nothing out of sync - no lags. No mess. Just baseball. Of course the announcers still suck, but, hey...
There's another game on today (they only televise a little less than half the spring training games, which is fine... viewers need to ease into the season like players.
Yesterday, I cleaned out some cupboards in the kitchen. I moved the dishes I use rarely or never into storage so now I can get to the shit I want more easily and emptying the dishwasher is way easier. So I think I'll go do that before I get dressed for elbow coffee.
And lemme tell you, my team picking was solely on the basis of "Are people in this team active" and "Do they have an open slot for me", because active team members send you more lives and you're more likely to win prizes in the team competitions, but most teams are 100% people who joined and never play.
But you can talk to each other, great, except that there's this one person who is very active and posts every single day about how they've changed the game so she can't win, she sucks, she is always stuck, she doesn't like it anymore, she's gonna quit - this all prompts a flood of "Oh, don't go, please stay" responses, and I can't help but wonder if that's the sole reason she posts like this.
One day I'm going to tell her that if she really feels that way she ought to quit, or at least shut up about it, because her posts bring my enjoyment of the game way down. Don't know what sort of response I'll get from everybody else who isn't her, but I can't be the only one who's itching to say it.
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But you can talk to each other, great, except that there's this one person who is very active and posts every single day about how they've changed the game so she can't win, she sucks, she is always stuck, she doesn't like it anymore, she's gonna quit - this all prompts a flood of "Oh, don't go, please stay" responses, and I can't help but wonder if that's the sole reason she posts like this.
One day I'm going to tell her that if she really feels that way she ought to quit, or at least shut up about it, because her posts bring my enjoyment of the game way down. Don't know what sort of response I'll get from everybody else who isn't her, but I can't be the only one who's itching to say it.
( Read more... )
Oh boy....
On the positive side, it all got fixed within a few hours.
I've been commenting lately that I felt like my home repair budget was fairly safe because I'd replaced every significant appliance in the house at some point since I acquired the house. (Fifteen years ago. 15! Can you believe it?)
Well, I forgot about the garage door opener. But it didn't forget about me.
I'd just gotten my bike out this morning, then when I went to close the garage door behind me, it made a lot of sad noises and declined to close. Examination showed that several of the side-rollers had jumped out of their tracks. (I'd known that one was out of the track for some time, but I couldn't man-handle it back in and it didn't seem to be causing problems.)
So. This calls for professional help. But first it called for securing the critical garage contents because the door was stuck open and I live on a well-traveled street. That having been done, I went on Yelp, located a relatively local garage door repair company, and got scheduled for a window within a couple hours. OK, good sign.
I solved my anxiety about the lack of door closure by doing yard work in the front yard until the repair guy arrived.
In addition to the roller misalignment (which is now happening on both sides of the door, thanks to my efforts to get it to fail closed) the cables (which evidently get winched up by a heavy-duty spring) are tangled on the spindle rather than being neatly wound on their designated place. So the immediate problem could be solved with brute force: prying the roller track open enough to force the roller back in; disconnecting the cables and rewinding in the correct place. That was going to be about $500 labor. Ok.
But, he says, look: these cables are corroded, and one of the heavy-duty springs is rusty. Furthermore, you really should use rollers with longer shanks, because these have a risk of popping off their sockets on the door. (I'm sure my description is not helping anyone visualize this.) So, he says, I'm going to recommend you replace pretty much all the door-lifting hardware. That's going to be a couple thousand.
I wince, but I can see the truth of everything he's saying. So he goes to work on all that and gets it all back in working order. And then he says, "So, you don't have to do this, and I don't get any commission or anything if you do, but the motor on your door opener is 20 years old, it isn't really as powerful as it should be for how much you use it, and it's probably going to fail within the next couple years.
So that was a couple more thousand. But now I have a fancy garage door opener that talks to my iPhone and includes a security camera. And maybe--just maybe--now I really have replaced the last appliance that came with the house when I bought it. Unless I've forgotten something else.
I've been commenting lately that I felt like my home repair budget was fairly safe because I'd replaced every significant appliance in the house at some point since I acquired the house. (Fifteen years ago. 15! Can you believe it?)
Well, I forgot about the garage door opener. But it didn't forget about me.
I'd just gotten my bike out this morning, then when I went to close the garage door behind me, it made a lot of sad noises and declined to close. Examination showed that several of the side-rollers had jumped out of their tracks. (I'd known that one was out of the track for some time, but I couldn't man-handle it back in and it didn't seem to be causing problems.)
So. This calls for professional help. But first it called for securing the critical garage contents because the door was stuck open and I live on a well-traveled street. That having been done, I went on Yelp, located a relatively local garage door repair company, and got scheduled for a window within a couple hours. OK, good sign.
I solved my anxiety about the lack of door closure by doing yard work in the front yard until the repair guy arrived.
In addition to the roller misalignment (which is now happening on both sides of the door, thanks to my efforts to get it to fail closed) the cables (which evidently get winched up by a heavy-duty spring) are tangled on the spindle rather than being neatly wound on their designated place. So the immediate problem could be solved with brute force: prying the roller track open enough to force the roller back in; disconnecting the cables and rewinding in the correct place. That was going to be about $500 labor. Ok.
But, he says, look: these cables are corroded, and one of the heavy-duty springs is rusty. Furthermore, you really should use rollers with longer shanks, because these have a risk of popping off their sockets on the door. (I'm sure my description is not helping anyone visualize this.) So, he says, I'm going to recommend you replace pretty much all the door-lifting hardware. That's going to be a couple thousand.
I wince, but I can see the truth of everything he's saying. So he goes to work on all that and gets it all back in working order. And then he says, "So, you don't have to do this, and I don't get any commission or anything if you do, but the motor on your door opener is 20 years old, it isn't really as powerful as it should be for how much you use it, and it's probably going to fail within the next couple years.
So that was a couple more thousand. But now I have a fancy garage door opener that talks to my iPhone and includes a security camera. And maybe--just maybe--now I really have replaced the last appliance that came with the house when I bought it. Unless I've forgotten something else.