1. Did I mention to you that after our air conditioning died our refrigerator also bit the dust? (The timing is not surprising; our fridge was old and refrigerators do not like being warm.) We were lucky because the freezer kept working, but we’ve been keeping our true perishables in our picnic cooler and also had a bag of ice in the fridge trying to keep from losing absolutely everything in it. Today, a new refrigerator arrived. We ordered (our landlord will pay for it) from a local company because they could get us the size we needed with only a week’s delay, rather than the month that absolutely everyone else quoted us. The delivery team showed up, wearing masks and gloves, within 15 minutes of the start of their delivery window, and had our old fridge out and the new one down the stairs and into our apartment in less than 20 minutes. I had a cold soda tonight to celebrate.
2. Rudi went out for supper last Friday with the political campaign he worked for this spring and I, after chatting with my folks and eking out any last light at the park on a clear evening, picked up a sandwich for supper from the local Greek restaurant. The owner and I chatted while I waited for my order and he said after a bad experience when the city first asked restaurants to do contact tracing, he’d been very pleased with everyone’s willingness to share their info. It was nice to chat with a longtime neighbor for a few minutes.
3. I got to buy period supplies and ibuprofen with my flex-spending card for the first time ever. One of the best things to come out of the COVID-19 situation is that feminine hygiene products and OTC pain meds are now allowable expenses for flexible spending accounts. I’m running out of time for that to be relevant to me, but I am so happy for younger people that Congress finally rectified this stupid, biased policy. Now if we can just get pads and tampons made tax-free nationwide and also provided free in prisons…
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
The unraveling is mostly only in my reading. In Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore, the main character suddenly starts experiencing years of her life in non-chronological fashion. In Livingston Girls by Briana Morgan (thanks, Jenn!), Rose’s new all-girls school turns out to be a little … witchier … than she expected. In Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez, Sal accidentally brings his dead mother back to life for a little while for a festive meal. And in Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed, Jamie and Maya are trying to figure out what their relationship is during the final, frantic days of a crucial local election.
On the sock front, I have turned a heel! Now I just need to pick up the stitches and we can start flying toe-ward! I’m looking forward to taking something off the needles finally!
Head over to As Kat Knits for more of what folks are crafting and reading.
Dad and I have been talking a lot about Harry Chapin recently. If you aren’t familiar with his songs (or just know “Cat’s in the Cradle,” which is the only song of his I remember hearing on the radio), you should check some out. He writes beautiful stories about people down on their luck and people who find love against the odds and people who live at the fringes (for better and for worse).
“Dance Band on the Titanic” is one of the songs of his that you can sing along with, even as we’re all thinking, “Please, God, S.O.S!”
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Most importantly, I slept in both mornings and also took a nap this afternoon after I got back from the farmers market.
The weekend included two evenings of digging in the garden — one to put in potatoes and the other to add beans. The herb section of the garden has gotten a little overrun in the last month, so I’ll need to do a certain amount of yanking in the next week to bring that back under control. But in digging up the potato bed, I did come across two small potatoes and pulled out four onions and the smaller of the two bronze fennels. And I harvested basil to top our capreses tonight.
We chatted with friends here in town, in the other Washington, in Georgia (the state), and London. It was nice to catch up.
We did grocery shopping and farmers market shopping. I have lettuce for salads and dish soap for salad plates.
I returned three items to the library and picked up one more, which I started to read tonight. It didn’t immediately hook me, so I’ll give it another try later in the week.
I ordered fancy Filipino doughnuts from a new bakery that I’ll pick up Friday afternoon as a reward for getting through this next week, which looks to be a challenging one at my couch office (there are two grants to write, 700 pages to test (not just by me) on a relaunched website, and a virtual gala to attend, in addition to my normal crushing amount of work).
Daiquiris and baked goods will have to wait until later in the week, perhaps as a reward for doing my taxes (where did I put those documents?) or perhaps just for continuing to get up each day. (I make my daiquiris without rum, so I could totally have one at 9 in the morning, right?)
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go finish turning my sock heel and then turn in.
When they hear Moon’s mom is struggling to pay her bills, Christine’s parents offer to let the two of them live in their detached in-law apartment. Moon has a reputation of being violent, so Christine is reluctant to get to know her, but once she does, she finds the girl confident, funny, and fun to be around with a with a free spirit mom unlike her own strict Chinese-American parents. And Moon also has a secret — angelic alien beings visit her sometimes to tell her she’s not really from this planet. When the cause of these visits emerge, will Christine have the strength to be the friend Moon needs her to be?
I was having a really hard time concentrating for the first few weeks of being home. I had lots of books out from the library, and would read a chapter and then put it down. Then I’d read a few pages from another book. This sweet graphic novel, inspired by some real events in the author’s childhood, is the first thing that held my attention long enough for me to actually finish it. After reading this and The Prince and the Dressmaker, I feel confident recommending Jen Wang as a graphic novelist at the top of her game.
I picked the fourth book in this series off the library shelf several years back and thought I’d see how it began. It’s definitely a light mystery and you will not be kept up at night by gristly descriptions. Light was what I needed back in the early days of the pandemic, when it was just starting to get nice enough to want to spend time outside, but the parks had closed. So I’d listen to it for half an hour as I walked round and round and round the traffic circle at the end of my street. It wasn’t a compelling enough story to make me want to keep going so I could find out what happened next, but was enough of a distraction to keep me moving, which was exactly enough. I’d probably read the rest of the series, but would likely switch back to paper to move through the story faster.
Pages: 345. Library audiobook copy via Overdrive.
Monthly Stats
Books: 2
Authors: American. One Asian-American.
Pages: 569
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