sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

June 24, 2020


midweek music: ‘sunrays and saturdays’
posted by soe 1:25 am

“Sunrays and Saturdays” is an early Vertical Horizons song off their second album, Running on Ice (1995). While it’s technically about a couple breaking up, the song reverberates down through the ages (read: in the decades since college) for me because of good things the singer wishes for his ex because he “still feel[s] love for you.”

After all, who doesn’t wish all these things for the people that we love:

Sunrays and Saturdays
Perfect starry nights
Sweet dreams and moonbeams
And a love that’s warm and bright …
Friendship strong and true
Oceans of blue and a room with a view
To live the life you … choose.

I wish all those things — and more — for us all.

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June 23, 2020


top ten series i want to start
posted by soe 12:51 am

Today is the tenth anniversary of the bookish meme, Top Ten Tuesday, hosted first by The Broke and the Bookish and now by That Artsy Reader Girl.

To celebrate, Jana has invited us to consider two options, including a past TTT topic you wish you’d done, but didn’t get a chance to do.

I’ve chosen week #134 (more than seven years ago), which allows me to focus on my favorite in genre fiction, mysteries and fantasy:

Top Ten Series I Want to Start, but Haven’t Yet:

  1. Earthly Delights (Corinna Chapman) by Kerry Greenwood (by the same author who writes the Miss Fisher storise)
  2. Delicious (The Marsdens) by Sherry Thomas
  3. A Winter’s Promise (The Mirror Visitor) by Christelle Dabos
  4. Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava Quartet) by Roshani Chokshi
  5. Brilliant (Kick Keswick) by Marne Davis Kellogg
  6. The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
  7. Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl
  8. Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
  9. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
  10. His Majesty’s Dragons (Temeraire) by Naomi Novik

Do you recommend any of these series? (Or, conversely, do you recommend against any of them?)

How about you? Are there series you’ve always meant to read, but that you just haven’t gotten around to yet?

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June 22, 2020


solstice weekending
posted by soe 1:05 am

Echinacea

The weekend was too short, as always, but it included a number of good things, including strawberry daiquiris, singing along to music, and an afternoon nap while it was raining. We did a video chat with my family, spent time in the reading in the park and planting in the garden, and bought a flat of strawberries at the farmers market (as well as the season’s first raspberries and blueberries).

How was your weekend?

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June 21, 2020


two weeks in the life of a cucumber
posted by soe 1:00 am

Two weeks ago, I had cucumber flowers:

Cucumber Flower

A week ago, those flowers had developed fruit:

Cucumber

Four days later, the cucumber was several inches long (Yes, I should have thought to show it in comparison to something. Hindsight.):

Cucumber

Today, it’s longer than my hand:

Cucumber

Spoiler: Cucumber is possibly my least favorite vegetable. I will not be eating these when we harvest them, unless I decide I’m going to try making refrigerator pickles out of one of them. But Rudi loves cucumbers and is happy just to munch on one like a apple, which is why I planted it. And watching it grow has been sufficiently fascinating to make it a success for me.

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June 20, 2020


happy last night of spring!
posted by soe 1:19 am

Summer arrives on Saturday evening. Ways I’m hoping to celebrate this weekend:

  • Chatting with my dad on Sunday.
  • Planting some seedlings Rudi picked up from a friend.
  • Finishing a book or two.
  • Sending some mail.
  • Buying fruit. (It looks like peaches, blueberries, and raspberries (and maybe tart cherries) will all arrive at the market this weekend.)
  • Baking.
  • Turning the heel of my sock.
  • Hanging new fairy lights.
  • Sorting through our cookbooks.
  • Enjoying the new cds Dad sent me.

How about you? What’s your weekend looking like?

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June 19, 2020


blink, curbside pickup, and long-lingering project
posted by soe 12:32 am

Chalk Flower

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. I keep forgetting them come Thursday nights, but the fireflies are back in D.C. We started seeing them two weeks ago, and I encountered at least three between the park and home this evening.

2. I got to pick up a book — A.S. King’s Dig — and two dvds — season six of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Emilio Estevez’s The Public — at the library this evening.

3. Our team organizes our work projects by due date, and the oldest project on our list was one I was project managing. Its completion had been pushed off for two months because of a repeated series of slapstick situations that is both good for our audience and painful for those of us working on the project. (We literally had to ask the printer to stop the presses TWICE. It is not as cool as one is led to believe in movies.) But today all hindrances were pushed past, the print order has been given, and this project — overdue by more than a year and a half — was checked off.

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