Unleash the Zombies!

Let me lead with my most exciting news -- I have graduated from the Couch Potato training program! I realized that it is a sad commentary both on my life and on these strange times that I feature this as my headline, but I have literally never been able to run for more than a few minutes at a time ever in my life since I started telling time. And now I have three times run for 30 minutes and finished without praying for a quick death. Go me!

I downloaded a NEW running app, Zombie, Run! which promises to tell me stories and encourage me to sprint by occasionally claiming that zombies are gaining on me. Sadly the first time I used it I had it on during my warm-up and cool-down walks, which is when the zombies showed up (cunning fiends!) and I refused to run so they got me. Next time I'm only turning on the app during the actual run portions of my excursion.

I also signed on to help some friends with a new venture they are trying. They want me to help organize things. I'm actually terrible at organizing things (I hope they don't read this blog) but I'm quite good at telling people how to organize stuff, so I think I'll be useful. They are going to interview interesting people about AI developments on twitch, so now I have a twitch account and have also managed to speak on Discord. I feel like I'm totally embracing new technology. Maybe I'll start an instagram next.

In food news, I decided that my son should learn to cook egg things. He disagreed, since if all he had to eat were eggs he'd just scramble them, but then was too lazy to edit the weekly menu of Carbonara and Quiche. The carbonara was mostly to use up our bacon, and it went over OK, but the quiche nearly broke him. He was not amused that I forced him to make a secondary small vegetarian quiche for his vegetarian brother, who (as I knew) dislikes eggy dishes and opted for leftover carbonara. Apparently the geometry of the store-bought pastry had caused frustration when it was time to fit them to the pie pans. My mentioning the recipe for homemade pastry did not go over well. But now I have several slices of left-over quiche for my lunches, so I am happy. 

I had my triple book club on Saturday (Romance book, SF book, topical book) and I was behind of my reading due to my Hugo homework and following New Zealand Virtual Vacation. So I signed up for a Dewey 24 Hour Readathon on Friday to justify trying to catch up. I didn't quite finish the long and dark Sword and Laser pick, but I made it through the topical book so I felt OK showing up, and it was a good time. (Still held on Zoom, of course). It did mean I slept through my park walk with a friend (for the second time in a row! It's horribly rude and embarrassing and somehow Saturday is the only day I can sleep past 8:30, which is a cruel joke the universe is playing on me.). 

I got to actually seeing my brother as he drove by to pick up a hammock I had been storing for him. We smiled at each other (well, I'm guessing he was smiling from his eye crinkles) from a socially approved distance. I stood on the porch and chatted with him as he strapped the hammock to his roof. Then we had our usual extended family Zoom call on Sunday, with good attendance, and I also watch a library thing about the Memorial Wall on Bainbridge Island for the people carted off to concentration camps during WWII. Now I want to go visit the park.

My currently reading has inched up to 21, including the three I'm just pretending to read, but also including things like serials that I subscribe to and my Greek picture book which I aim to read 2 pages a day in. Because I don't actually speak Greek despite what Duolingo thinks. 

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called "It's Monday! What Are You Reading" so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. The YA and picture books keep me solidly eligible.

Started

Catfishing on Catnet, Naomi Kritzer. From my Hugo packet. 

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. I like the author, so I bought this, but he has a fairly dim (but experienced) view of people in the armed forces. Remember that quote by Marie Shear? "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people"? Well, the servicemen in this are not feminists, and they are deeply repelled by people who are. It makes the reading a bit slow, and lowers their survival chances (for example, two people are rated "Expert Shots" but one is a women. They figure out how to make bows, but deliberately make them too heavy for the woman to draw, on the off-chance that they'll eventually decide to go after big game when they get tired of all the small game they are having trouble shooting). I'm not worried though because the author likes them.

Minor Mage, T. Kingfisher. I get it because I'm a Patron. But it's also in the Hugo packet.

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway. For a book club that isn't actually meeting during the pandemic.

Amelia Rules! Superheroes, Jimmy Gownley. Early Cybils book.

Heavy, Keise Laymon. For Torches and Pitchforks book club.

Completed

The Warden, Anthony Trollope. For my Tuesday Minecraft club. We officially concluded our discussion with an agreement that the ending was a bit of a let-down. The Warden loses his income, but seems fine. The daughter marries the naive doctor and is fine; the family even manages to all sit down for dinner. Rich people are willing to let bygones be bygones. The poor guys at the hospital lose their extra income and are sad, and also lonely because there is no one to replace any loses, but again, the story wasn't that interested in them so we weren't either. Reading reviews, this is apparently not the best place to start Trollope, but the writing was good enough I hope to go back for more.

Ordinary Hazards, Nikki Grimes. 2019 Cybils Poetry finalist. And my pick for winner.  I found the language wonderfully evocative and the story beautifully told. The pain of being an abused child was heart wrenchingly portrayed, as well the love and glory of words as a balm and a release. I read the afterward early so I knew the notebooks would be destroyed but it was still a kick in the gut. 

A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway. For a book club that isn't actually meeting during the pandemic. I read this as a kid, and was unimpressed by the language but found the love story tragic. As an adult, I am much more impressed with the language and structure used by Hemingway, much more aware of what is going on in the spaces he left blank, and entirely unimpressed with these idiots who think they are in love but are really seem just very horny and rather immature. Hemingway is primarily interested in Henry and his friends, so Catherine is just sketched, and what we see and what Henry appreciates about her makes them both seem small and cramped. Henry's grief at the end is well depicted, but I can't help thinking that if she lived they would have both made each other deeply unhappy in short order. It's like a romance where you don't want the main characters to get together. Henry should have stuck with Renaldo, his roommate.

Catfishing on Catnet, Naomi Kritzer. From my Hugo packet. This is the winner of the Lodestar Award for Young Adults, which is technically not a Hugo. The difference seems to be that this award has (not a Hugo) as part of its name. But I could have voted on it if I had managed to finish these in time. I enjoyed this one -- it's a fun story of realistic-sounding teens set in a slightly future world with a bit better robots and phones but the kids seem pretty much the same. The social group our heroine finds online have a fun group, and all the kids together manage to support each other in small ways that gives them the skills to support each other once things get exciting.

Heavy, Keise Laymon. For Torches and Pitchforks book club. As the name promises, this is a heavy book, dealing with issues of weight and anorexia and racism and child abuse, in a family that loves each other but also fails each other in small ways and huge. Keise tells a raw story of childhood balanced between success and abuse, of addictions embraced, dodged, and crippling, sometimes all at once. It made for a great discussion.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 8/10 discs. Working my way along. My favorite characters have reunited!

Uncompromising Honor, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. I finally got back to this! There was a battle! I had problems telling which group was which, but at the end they started throwing some adjectives around so I figured it out.

Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton. Romantic complications. And the older siblings put pressure on the youngers ones to give up their inheritance. 

Braiding Sweetgrass (audio), Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is a lovely audiobook. 

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. Reread. This is still a great book. I'm definitely moving straight on to the sequel.

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Almost back to this!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. Well, even with the Readathon I did not finish -- I got about halfway. Then I switched to Heavy since I had a chance of finishing that. But I will finish someday! I have not given up.

Me and White Supremacy, Layla Saad. I joined another reading club! I'm supposed to be reading this slowly, but I managed to forget for a few days so now I have to catch up.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. Back to working out a letter or two.

A Stone Sat Still, Brendan Wenzel. Cybils 2019 Picture book finalist. A quiet, almost haiku like book about the world of a stone, and how it is seen and appreciated and used by everything around it. Definitely a quiet time book.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.

The Educated Child, William Bennett. We will have to agree to disagree about homework and math, and the studies that show homework's uselessness. Onto science!

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. 

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima.  The problem with taking breaks while reading this is I lose my Hawaiian vocabulary. I've bookmarked the glossary in the back to help.

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. 

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. Exercises to help kids navigate nonfiction books.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. None.
2. Cybils 2018. None.
3. Cybils 2019. Finished Ordinary Hazards, the last poetry pick. Also read a picture book.
4. Early Cybils: Started Amelia Rules! Superheroes. 
5. Reading My Library. The library spat in my eye! Sadness. I will ask again in September.
6. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Haven't read it yet, but I've got #10 on my tablet.
7. Where Am I Reading: 16/51 states. Catfishing was in Wisconsin. 22 Countries. Farewell to Arms was in Italy. I found a typo on my states page -- I'm doing much worse than I thought!
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. Two left: 13 (food book about a new to me cuisine), and 24 (Indigenous author). If I count the romance back at the beginning of the year (he was a food truck owner) I'm almost done!