And With Your Spirit (Or How to Spot a Lapsed Catholic)

OK, so I'm trying this weekly blog thing again. Only since this is just the first few days of May I'm giving myself an easy slide in. We'll see if I have my head in the game.

Life is settling back into normal after all the crises of February and March and all the grief of March and April. I miss my mom a lot. I feel we were really starting to be close adult friends; we had a connection all our lives but it was different having her close enough to see several times a week. And now she's gone and I'm still going through some denial, anger, bargaining and depression, although the times of acceptance are there as well. 

Zombies Run The weather is getting nice again so I'm trying to up my running game. I even pulled up my Zombies Run app to try. When I first got it the constant devouring by zombies was a bit of a bummer, but this time I managed to outrun them a few times. It was very stressful and I think I won't be doing that every time. Yikes. But the story is nice.

Meals are fun around here. Susan and Andy do good work, and I've been picking out some new things for Paulos to try. I'm also trying to plan a bit further ahead, which means I get a cheerful email describing the plans for the week, making me feel all organized and competent. So far we (chef and consumers) approved of the loaded mac'n'cheese dish but the chef observed that the lasagna rolls were just like lasagna, only more work. So next time I'll just make him do lasagna. 

The Paulos's birthday was last month; I got him bupkis, which he had requested. But I also made him a cake just the way he liked it and took him and a bunch of people he likes out for sushi, so I think it was a good day. A bunch of those people were in town because my movie friend, who hasn't been well enough to go out to movies for a while, passed away. So it was a hard two months for the family, but also a time to see loved ones we haven't seen in too long. It was also a time for a lot of birthdays, so we had cake to comfort us.

Alexander and I still have our movie cards; we'll see if there are enough movies to see to make it worthwhile to keep them funded. So far we've enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons, Super Mario Bros, Renfield and probably some others that I've forgotten. Looking forward to seeing Guardians of the Galaxy soon.

My annual convention is going to try an in-person event this year! Foolscap will have a one-day convention in August. More details to follow!

I'm still claiming a ridiculous number of books on my Goodreads Currently Reading list, but I have intentions to lower this. Of course, the "started" pile of books this week is longer than the "completed," but I'm sure that's a temporary anomaly. I'm off to check out the other books at The Bookdate's It's Monday, What Are You Reading headquarters. And since I read a lot of kidlit, I'll also sign up at the Children's Book central version, held at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashed Readers. 

Started

 

The Activist (Theodore Boone #4), John Grisham. For Torches and Pitchforks, which asked us to read a book about a courtroom or a judge. This is one of Grisham's books about a kid who wants to be a lawyer. 

Visitor, C.J. Cherryh. Trying to catch up with this series.

The Weird Sisters: A Goat, a Note, and a Casserole, Mark David Smith. 2022 Cybils Early Chapter book finalist. 

Cannery Row, John Steinbeck. For River Runs Under It library book club. This is our "classics" month. 

Swim Team, Johnnie Christmas. 2022 Cybils Graphic Novel finalist. 

Too Small Tola Gets Tough, Atinuke. Tola is great. 

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Manga, Part 2 Vol 2, Miya Kazuki. I am insisting on reading all the manga versions in order. I think I read most of them already, but not IN ORDER.

Undercover Duke, Sabrina Jeffries. My Romance Reading club at the library is doing a dive on Sabrina Jeffries this month.

Completed

The Activist (Theodore Boone #4), John Grisham. Theo gets to talk a lot about legal stuff (eminent domain! client confidentiality! ethics!) and there's also a banging court scene down in the Animal Court basement with perjury and opposing witnesses and dramatic confrontations. Perfect for my purposes. 

Threadbare, Elle E. Ire. Book club pick from a few months back. I mostly finished it out of stubborness; it didn't really work for me either as a romance or as science fiction. 

Too Small Tola Gets Tough, Atinuke. Tola is great. This is a kids-eye view of how the pandemic affected people in Lagos -- the food insecurity, the separation of family, the economic fears. Tola has to go out to work both for the money and for food; she is young but mighty. Also very smart. 

Tuttle in the Balance, Jax Wexler. Eh. I just did a peek into the world of the supreme court justice with Buckley's book last month, and the man having a mid-life crisis part was really dull for me; I just wasn't sympathetic with Tuttle's rather selfish flailing. He never seems to understand that anything he does might affect other people; since he's a supreme court justice that's a rather big character failing that he seems to share with most of the other justices.

Downright Dangerous, Ellen Potter. It was funny and appealing -- great character work by Potter and the illustrations were kid friendly but not repulsive to adult me. I loved the Lego hovercraft and found the carrot problem amusing. This would definitely be a hit for third graders. 

Picture Books

Knight Owl, Denise Christopher. 2022 Cybils Picture Book finalist. Adorable! I liked how the owl family was completely anthropomorphized, but they were the only non-humans. So Owl joins the knights, and he's not just short, he's REALLY short, but no one blinks an eye. I loved the WHOOOO bits. And how pizza is the bridge to safety. It was a great combination of pictures and words, fun to read and fun to share.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Miya Kazuki. I'm endlessly rereading this while waiting for the next version. The bookworm's universe is my happy place. Currently I'm on Part III. But it's on pause as I slowly savor the new release over in part V. 

Ascendance of a Bookworm, Part 5 Vol 3, Miya Kazuki. I love this series. I will stretch out this read as much as possible. I only allow myself a few pages a day.

H Is For Hawk, Helen MacDonald. I hope to finish this week, and then we'll go onto something not death-related.

Cobra, Timothy Zahn. Wait -- is it almost over? It's a serial, so I can't tell. 

Children of the Stone City, Beverley Naidoo. On the 2nd disc. This is pretty clearly a story about Palestinians in Israel (is Jerusalem a stone city?), and the kids are Palestinian Christians.  

Busman's Honeymoon, Dorothy L Sayers. For fun this time I'm stopping and using Google translate to understand all the French. 

Flood Circle, Harry Connolly. The bad guys are a step ahead and Ray is tired of it. He's also worried that he's not bouncing back from his "coma."

Your Perfect Year, Charlotte Lucas. Yeah, I'm glad I didn't keep reading this back when I started it, during my mom's last illness. 

Death of Mrs Westaway, Ruth Ware. I like reading bits that were spoiled. I knew she was going to tell them THAT but I didn't know how it would go.

The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brian. A Tuesday book club pick from months ago that I'm gonna finish someday.

Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman. I am enjoying the scientific evidence that people are good.

Milk in My Coffee, Eric Jerome Dickey. It is interesting, but these young people make me feel old. 

Rocking the Babies, Linda Raymond. Good characters, although I'm worried about just about all of them. I mean, well-drawn characters, which mostly makes them sympathetic. 

Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon. I think we can expect to see this here for a while.

Ship Without Sails, Sherwood Smith. Someone I am keeping all the characters in my head. Well done, Smith. 

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them as bribes to get me to deal with the mail. I've been ignoring my mail.

 

50 Great Poets, ed. Milton Crane (no picture). Hey, I'm up to Shakespeare! Hit me with those sonnets.

Stinger, Nancy Kress.  I like this.

Dragon's Breath, E.D. Baker. I like the recurring sneeze into frogs bit.

The Writer's Stance: Reading and Writing in the Disciplines, Dorothy U. Seyler.  (no picture) I'm enjoying the essays. I also enjoy ignoring the assignments (this is really a textbook).

You Can Write Children's Books, Tracey E. Dils. How not to embarrass yourself when submitting to a publisher, so what a query, sample, etc are. I find the advice to put your social security number on every page of your manuscript a bit sus.

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Into May.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2022: Started. 
2. Early Cybils:  Not done.
3. Reading My Library. Working on audio from backup library. 
4. Where Am I Reading 2022. Never finished updating this. Not sure I'll do it in 2023.
5. Libraries: Started the 10 to Try for 2023. 

Future Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Beawolf
• Library Book: Forge of God
• Ebook I own: Flood Circle
• Library Ebook: Undercity
• Book Club Book: The Undercover Duke, Sabrina Jeffries
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Nancy Drew: The Haunted Bridge, Carolyn Keene (wink)
• Review Book: Back Home 
• Rereading: Busman's Honeymoon
• Audio: H Is For Hawk