Again, I need to hit publish before ai turn off my phone…

It’s been a relaxing day. It’s not what I’d hoped for (may we soon retire the concept of “out of an abundance of caution”), but it was quiet and allowed me to take a pre-supper nap, spend time with my folks, knit, and stuff myself with pizza.

Tomorrow we’re goong to hunt down cider doughnuts. I can’t wait.

Rudi said, what happened to that post you typed in bed last night? Apparently I onlt hit publish in my mind…

We kicked off a long weekend by driving up to Connecticut to celebrate my dad’s birthday, our first in-person family birthday in 20 months.

Tomorrow, I’m goong to sleep in, but I also told my mom that we might need to find some cider doughnuts.

Sunday, Rudi is going for a bike ride, so it will just be my folks and me.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Rudi was finally able to fix my computer, which died a month ago. (It was a bad ribbon cable.) I’m so happy to have it back.

2. Rudi’s friend, Jay, has agreed to cat sit for us both while we’re away in Connecticut and while we’re in Utah.

3. I get to have drinks with my former colleague, who’s gotten her dream job and is moving across the country.

How about you? What’s beautiful in your world lately?

We’re into the final mosaic chart of the shawl. There’s still a final ribbing section before the bind-off row, so that could take a month, because apparently I hate two-color ribbing. But I’d like to think that I’m about a week away from wrapping this thing up, which will still give me weeks before it’s actually cool enough to want to wear woolen neckwear. (Bring on the highs in the 60s!)

It’s been a quiet week reading-wise. I read a chapter of Beth & Amy, which was actually the sample chapter they included at the end of Meg & Jo, but that’s okay. And I have listened to more of Michelle Obama’s Becoming, which has now gotten past the 2008 Iowa Caucus. I suspect Rudi won’t mind listening to some of that on our drive north this weekend, but I also have Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens for us to return to now that it’s been a few months since we watched the show. I’ll probably save finishing off Farah Heron’s Accidentally Engaged for my flight to Salt Lake next week, since that’s also come back to me on audio.

We passed 700,000 dead from COVID over the weekend. And “In America: Remember,” an art installation on the Mall from Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg recorded each one with a white flag.

I visited twice: once while they were setting up and then Saturday night. You can see in the daytime shots the expanse of space that was still needed to be filled.

Each time I was struck by the sheer waste.

It didn’t have to be like this. No, we probably couldn’t have saved everyone. But just this volume. This many people.

Those who’d lost loved ones to COVID were invited to personalize a flag in their memory. Because each one of these flags represents a person who had a life — friends and family, pets, jobs … Holes in the fabric of our country.

If you haven’t been to D.C. recently, it’s hard to impress on you the sheer size of this installation. It takes up at least two square city blocks. It’s enormous.

It’s devastating.

And more than 30,000 dead in just the two weeks the exhibition was open.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday from That Artsy Reader Girl is all about the things that annoy us about books:

1. Bad editing
2. Unhappy endings, particularly ones that sneak up on me (This is often what nets books a single star on Goodreads.)
3. Surprise sequels (I’m looking at you, Miss Peregrine.)
4. A lack of description anywhere on a cover (It’s great that other people love it; I’ll need to know what it’s about first.)
5. Bad descriptions of D.C. (I stopped reading a book once based on its description of the fountain in Dupont Circle.)
6. Mysteries where the bad guy is obvious from the start.
7. Mysteries where the person dies of an accident and the person who witnessed it left town (I stopped reading the Aunt Dimity books after that.)
8. Endings that seem rushed (See #1.)
9. Self-help books (The only ones I’ve tried have focused on creativity, and usually it’s the author’s tone that makes me want to throw the book into traffic.)
10. Traditional gender roles reinforced in sneaky ways (The ones that are overbearing I’ve usually abandoned early on, so it’s usually a stupid remark after a couple has gotten together that makes me resent having spent any time with them at all.)

How about you? What pisses you off about books?