Happenings Around Here

Posted on 06/12/2023 by chick
  • My sense of smell has been unreliable since Covid, so when I first noticed a strange, chemical smell on the air a couple of weeks ago, I convinced myself that it was just my imagination. Later that day, but husband insisted that it smelled smoky outside, and he looked online to see what might be causing it. It was smoke from Canadian wildfires. Since then, the wildfires have become big news, as they shrouded New York city in a toxic, orange haze and destroyed the air quality for much of the East Coast. But today, at least, the air quality wasn’t so bad, and I walked my full eight laps on the driveway, sans mask.
  • The Car Saga is over. We finally have all the car-related items that were promised to us, including the second key, the cargo net, and the title. The old car is sold and the plates canceled. My parents’ car is fixed and back in VT. So now I can relax and enjoy my new car. Except the car doesn’t feel like it belongs to me yet. It feels like a loaner. I hope that’s just a temporary feeling.
  • My husband and I wanted a buy a lake house, so we joined the housing fray for a few weeks. We went to an open house. We got preapproved for another mortgage. Then, after watching house after house sell within days, we began to wonder if there was any chance of us actually being able to both win a bid and afford it. What decided this issue was this one particular lake house in Massachusetts. It was priced within our range, and though it was a bit smaller than we wanted, it was otherwise perfect. I asked a realtor if we could see it. She said, “I can get you in, but offers are due the next day. There’s been a huge amount of interest in this property and there’s so much cash in this market, cash like we’ve never seen in this area before.” All that talk about cash was concerning, and I what I heard was, “Don’t bother.” So we didn’t bother, and then we quietly bowed out of the market. For now, anyway.
  • Stymied in our wishes to buy a lake house, we’ve pivoted to home improvement. This is, apparently, a national trend. Current homeowners are finding themselves unable to trade up, so they’re doubling down on their houses, spending big cashola to make their houses nicer. We had a landscaper out here last week. He recommends tackling the property in sections. First up is the front yard, which needs a new walkway, as well as landscaping along the edges of the yard. When I told the landscaper that I also wanted a walking path along the edge of the yard, he was like, “Wow, that’s weird. I’ve never heard of anything like that.” But I feel confidant that he can handle it. The guy seems like a pro, and I’m looking forward to seeing his plans.
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Reading Report: The Magician King

Posted on 05/27/2023 by chick

The Magician King by Lev Grossman, B+

I read The Magician King for three reasons: 1. I liked the first book in the series enough to want to continue reading about that fictional world, 2. I’ve been grooving on books with “magician” in the title lately (it’s a sort of reading theme for the year), and 3. I recently watched the TV adaptation of the series and enjoyed it.

While I also enjoyed reading The Magician King, I thought it was underdeveloped (spoilers ahead), which is especially noticeable when compared against the television adaptation. The main action of the novel–a quest to find the seven keys that are needed to keep magic from disappearing from the world–is handled better in the TV series. In the book, there’s a legend about the keys that is barely touched upon. The characters sail around randomly until they find the keys, only two of which require much effort to attain. In the TV series, there is a magical book that provides clues to finding the keys, each key requires its own mini quest, and each key has its own particular power. There’s a beautiful episode in which two characters grow old and die in their quest to find one of the keys. Kudos to the writers of the TV show for adding so much great detail.

The other focus of the novel is how one of the characters came into her magical powers and how her experiences, including a brutal rape, affected her. Her story in the TV show follows similar lines, but it too is handled better. In the book, the rape itself literally empowers her (i.e., gives her more magic). In the TV series, she earns the extra magic through her actions in the wake of that terrible experience. Big difference.

So, I expect that readers will find a lot that is interesting in The Magician King and be able to enjoy the book for that reason, while also feeling that it doesn’t quite live up to its potential. I will read the final book of the series (The Magician’s Land), but mostly to see how it differs from the TV show. As for the show, I recommend it to those who enjoy dark humor and don’t mind a little violence, gore, and debauchery.

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Reading Report: Cleary Twofer

Posted on 05/05/2023 by chick

Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Clearly, A: There are three Ramona books on the Top 100 Children’s Books list. This is not one of them, but it is the first book of the series. The main characters are Beatrice “Beezus” Quimby, age 9, and her little sister Ramona, age 4. Ramona’s a little bit of a trouble-maker, and the kind of trouble that she makes is often the kind that interferes with Beezus’s fun. Being younger, Ramona gets more attention, which is also hard on Beezus. I suppose this book must be pretty much required reading for girls with younger sisters, even if its message–“You’ll laugh about this when you’re older”–is unlikely to bring much comfort to youngsters dealing with troublesome siblings. Having never had a younger sibling myself, this book didn’t speak to me, but I thought it was cute. The cover of the books says, “Celebrate 60 years with Beverly Cleary.” The text, copyright 1955, is now approaching 70 years old. A lot about society has changed since its publication, but kids are still kids, and the book feels timeless rather than dated. Recommended.

Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary, A-: Ramona is now a kindergartner, and this story chronicles her age-appropriate misunderstandings and misadventures in a sweet and humorous way. Honestly, I enjoyed Beezus as a main character more (Ramona is very young and more difficult for an older reader such as myself to relate to), but at times I was reminded of my own childhood, both the good parts and the bad. Like Beezus and Ramona, this book has a timeless quality. Also recommended.

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SITY: Development

Posted on 05/04/2023 by chick

I’ve been keeping my eye on the Jack-in-the-pulpit plant. Since I took the previous picture, the plant has unfurled its leaves, and the flower has developed that classic Jack-in-the-pulpit “curl.” Isn’t it beautiful?

Jack-in-the-Pulpit
5/1/2023
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SITY: Jack-in-the-Pulpit in Bloom

Posted on 04/30/2023 by chick

A couple of years ago, I found some three-leaved plants that I thought were likely to be Jack-in-the-pulpit. Now I can say that at least one of them definitely is.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit
4/27/2023

This is a very small plant, only a few inches tall. If I hadn’t specifically been looking for it, I’d never have noticed it. I’m interested to see if it will grow taller in the future. I suspect that it will, because sources describe Jack-in-the-pulpit as being one-to-two feet tall. I’ll probably have to wait a few years to see any berries, because Jack-in-the-pulpit always produces a male flower the first few times it blooms. Later, if it’s able to save up enough energy, it will bloom female. At least, that’s the gist of what I read in various sources, but there was some disagreement on the details, so I’ll have to do more research. In the meantime, I’m just really happy to have seen my first real, live Jack-in-the-pulpit flower!

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Recently

Posted on 04/16/2023 by chick
  • On Thursday, unbeknownst to me, two turkey vultures had found a dead animal in my yard and settled down to feast upon it. When I opened the door to go outside for my walk, I startled them. One flapped over to a nearby rock, the other to a tree, and then they watched me, waiting for me to leave so that they could get back to their meal. Creepy.
  • Other animals I’ve noticed recently: chickadees (heard), mourning doves (heard), Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal (seen), toad (seen), mosquitoes (felt, seen, and suffered), carpenter bees (seen and heard), robins (seen and heard), and woodpeckers (seen and heard).
  • On Friday, my husband and I went to our first papermaking class. After a quick intro, we got right down to the hands-on work, dipping deckles and molds into tubs of fiber-filled (and in one case, stinky) water, then couching the paper onto sheets of Pellon. It was fun. Our sheets of paper are mostly dry now, and some of them even came out good. We’re looking forward to our next class.
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4/10/2023

Posted on 04/10/2023 by chick
  • I solved the NYT’s Mini Crossword in 13 seconds, beating my old record of 16 seconds.
  • I found a few dozen violets blooming in the yard. That’s great, because violets are great. But it’s also bad, because I wasn’t watching for their arrival, and I have no idea which one popped first or when. 🙁
  • I looked for my violet vases today and only found two of them. Where’d the rest go? I must find them, because obviously I’m going to need them very soon!
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Reading Report: Early April

Posted on 04/08/2023 by chick

I finished The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DeCamillo. Edward is a china rabbit doll that belongs to a little girl, Abilene. She loves him, but he doesn’t know how to love her back. Then she loses him at sea. He’s rescued, and then lost again, several times. During this “miraculous journey” he learns how to love the various people who find him and care for him. It’s a sweet little book, and a nice palate cleanser after Where the Red Fern Grows. The short chapters and beautiful illustrations would make The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane an excellent read-aloud book. Having finished it, I now have only 14 of the Top 100 Children’s Books left to read!

I also finished Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. Emily Wilde is a fairy scholar who travels to a small town in the far north to gather more material for the encylopedia that she’s writing. Part fantasy, part romance, totally enjoyable.

I had planned to read Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne next. In this ghoulish romance, Angelika Frankenstein worries that she’s not going to find the perfect mate. Being a Frankenstein, she has it within her power to literally create the man of her dreams, so she goes to the morgue and starts looking for the perfect body parts. That’s as far as I got into the story. There were a lot of crude references to the male anatomy in the morgue scene. That wasn’t a deal breaker, but it did suggest that I ought to check the reviews before getting too far into the book. The reviews were not promising. I decided to return the book to the library without finishing it. So I’m not sure what I’m going to read next. I guess it will depend on what seems appealing later today.

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Change of Cars

Posted on 04/07/2023 by chick

After several days of whirlwind car shopping last week, my husband and I bought a car. It’s a 2020 Lexus ES 350 with about 15,000 miles on it. While not technically new, it’s a baby in car years, and we expect to be able to keep it for a long time. We picked it up from the dealership yesterday.

The Maxima is gone. We sold it to CarMax earlier this evening. They were willing to take the car as-is, and they gave us more money than I expected. For once, the overinflated car market worked in our favor.

We still have a few more car-related tasks to finish, including returning my mom’s car, but we’ve made good progress.

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Reader’s Ramblings

Posted on 03/26/2023 by chick
  • It absolutely boggles my mind that I have almost 17 years of my reading history listed on this blog. The blog simply seemed like a fun thing to do back in 2007. Who would have imagined I’d keep it alive for so long? And it’s awesome to have so much reading history. If only I could convince myself to write a review for each book, like I used to . . .
  • Last year, Marshall saw me add a book to my “Books Read in 2022” list, and he asked, “Why are you adding the book to the middle of the list?” I explained to him that the list was in alphabetical order by title. But it occurred to me then that I’d like to try something different, so this year I’ve been keeping my list in chronological order. It’s simpler, and I can always revert to alphabetical order if I want to.
  • I know it seems like I grade books willy-nilly, but I do have my own sort of reasoning behind it, as I remind myself. An A-grade book is one that I really liked, would consider keeping on my shelves, and would probably recommend to others. A B-grade book is one that I don’t want to keep and probably would not recommend, but that I liked enough not to consider it a waste of my time. A C-grade book is borderline unreadable. Anything below C is a fail.
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