1. Our friends John and Nicole and their daughter, Juliet, are back in town to visit Nicole’s parents after moving to the west coast a couple years ago, and we’ve been spending our evenings together. Today Juliet and I colored while waiting for our supper to arrive and the adults caught up on each other’s lives.
2. While we were waiting for John and Nicole to get back to their hotel this evening, Rudi and I hung out in a nearby park. An adorable black lab puppy was playing fetch with its owner and a squeaky ball.
3. I brought my happy lights into work this week and then added a bouquet of sunflowers from the farmers market to my desk, which means that everyone comments how bright and cheerful my cubicle is now. (This doesn’t seem like the sort of office culture where they’re going to be excited about themed light strands and desk toys, so I’m trying to build up slowly within the limits of where I think they’re going to have a hard time explaining why I can’t do something.)
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?
A musical interlude following the Nationals’ come-from-behind victory in tonight’s wildcard playoff game. This one is for the game’s MVP, our 20-year-old centerfielder Juan Soto.
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to consider numerical books, or, rather, book titles that contain numbers.
With an assist from my lists at Goodreads, here are ten I’ve enjoyed:
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia: Historical middle-grade fiction dealing with the Black Panthers in Oakland in 1968.
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff: A short epistolary memoir set in the years right after World War II chronicling the friendship of an American author and a British bookseller. If you liked The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and haven’t yet read this, give it a shot. (Also, a charming movie.)
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Shenkein: This book made me so mad! After a horrific dockside accident while loading ammunition (due to neglect and prejudice) that killed 300 soldiers during World War II, nearly 250 Black Naval sailors went on strike for safer working conditions. Instead of improvements, 50 men found themselves accused of treason.
Crazy ’08: How a Cast of Cranks, Rogues, Boneheads, and Magnates Created the Greatest Year in Baseball History by Cait Murphy: This history will give you ammunition for every person who wants to discount modern sports because of doping. Plus, it’s a really enjoyable look at the early days of major league baseball.
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander: A kidlit classic detailing the exploits of Taran, the Assistant Pigkeeper; Hen Wen, the pig who can predict the future; the kick-ass Eilonwy; and their ragtag bunch of fantasy meme characters. Sound familiar? The Black Cauldron is based on this book and others in the series.
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser: Five Harlem siblings and their parents face eviction when their landlord suddenly decides not to renew their lease. The kids unite to find a way to stay in their home.
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber: “There are only a few reasons why everybody has always wanted to read this kind of story: if you have always wanted to love a Princess; if you always wanted to be a Prince; if you always wanted the wicked Duke to be punished; or if you always wanted to live happily ever after.”
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: With one of the best opening lines of all literature and one of the best plot twists at the end, this classic history of the French Revolution was the first Dickens I truly loved. If you only read it in high school and hated it as assigned reading, I’d urge you to consider a re-read.
Just One Day by Gayle Foreman: In this y.a. travel novel, a young woman meets a boy while on a pre-college European tour, ditches her tour group to spend the evening with him, and then finds herself abandoned. Her quest to fill in the gaps in the story will take a year.
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott: While Little Women may have edged out this story of a shy girl adopted by her bachelor uncle and ensconced at “The Aunt-Hill” to be raised amidst her titular male cousins, this was still a formative read growing up. Sadly, its sequel, Rose in Bloom, veers too far into moralism to live up to this charming tale, which has a similar sensibility to Pollyanna and some of L.M. Montgomery’s novels.
Honorable mentions (because this turned out to be a way harder topic than I expected) go to 13 Little Blue Envelopes; One of Our Thursdays Is Missing; 101 Two-Letter Words; The Two Towers; Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed History; Five, Six, Seven, Nate!; The Thirteenth Tale; The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy; and Two Boys Kissing.
How about you? Any numerical titles you’d recommend?
As the sun sets on another weekend and — soon — on another month, I wish you peace, relaxation, and a lack of mosquitoes every time you leave the house.
I bookended the week with baseball games on both Monday and Friday, which the Nationals were kind enough to win both of. In between, the Nationals clinched a wild card spot, and today they locked down home field advantage for that one-game playoff to see who’ll proceed to the NLDS.
This shot is from Monday’s game against the Phillies. You can tell both by the uniforms (we’re playing Cleveland this weekend) and by the sparse crowds. Friday night games are always better attended than those during the week, but last night’s crowd was particularly into the game, with most of the attendees remaining at the game until the end, which happens surprisingly infrequently when there’s not something after the game to keep them at the ballpark.
Tomorrow is the final game of the regular season. I will be sad to see baseball end for the year, so I’m glad the Nationals have given me another reason to remain interested during the playoffs.
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