Author: Jaclyn

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (April 27, 2020)

(^Amazing meme I texted to several people last week; credit to rightful owner.)

Hey, friends.  How went your weekends?  Same as always?  Here, too.  Saving lives by staying home, but I’m feeling the effects of cabin fever in a big way.  Saturday was our better weather day, so I got out twice – once for a walk with the kiddos and Steve, and once for a 5K run on my own.  The rest of the day was spent doing… I don’t even know what.  Nothing useful.  Oh, except that I cleaned out the freezer.  We’re moving at some point in the next couple of months, and it’s just a local move so we could simply load the contents of the freezer into a cooler and drive them over to the new place, but I still want to eat through as much of our current stock as I can before we go.  Sunday was gloomy, and I stayed in the house all day – blah.  I wasn’t all that productive, but I did manage to bake a loaf of bread on Sunday night, and to cook up some coconut curry dal with red lentils and green peas for Sunday dinner – yum, let’s hear it for homemade Indian food.

Reading.  Although you wouldn’t know it to look at the four images above, reading continues to be slow and hard going.  I think I’m at the point of declaring it a slump – a dreaded reading slump.  At least I know why, and I know I’m in good company; seems like half the bookish world is having a pandemic-induced reading slump right now.  I’m stressed and overwhelmed and my attention is seriously lacking.  That said, I managed to finish three books this week and start a fourth, so I’m struggling on.  (This is at least in part thanks to the fact that we only have one TV in our household and it’s almost always claimed by someone else.  The only time I get to watch whatever I want is Tuesday nights, when Steve has standing plans with friends.)  Anywho, I finished To War with Whitaker early in the week and loved it; I think it’s going to be one of my top ten for the year.  Spent most of the week on Wicked Autumn, which was entertaining but didn’t hold my attention particularly well.  On Sunday I ripped through A Shropshire Lad – didn’t give it the time and attention that poetry really demands, but whatever.  And now I’m taking what feels like a reading break and meandering through the Old Farmer’s Almanc’s Vegetable Gardener’s Handbook.  Not sure it will do me any good this year, because I don’t think I’m going to do much in the way of a garden – since I’m moving houses in the middle of the gardening season – but it felt like what I wanted right now.

Watching.  I’m pleased to report that I have become the last person on the planet to see The Mandalorian, but I’ve finally made the time to sit down and watch.  Steve and Nugget have watched the entire series through four times, which is unfortunate, because Nugget is eager to share the excitement ahead and doesn’t really understand about spoilers.  But it’s a lot of fun.  We’ve watched two episodes together, the three of us, and I’m enjoying it so much.  (BABY YODA!)  Peanut wants nothing to do with any of this and spends the episodes sulking in her room, but you can’t win them all.  (We were trying to choose a family show to watch together and she rejected my suggestion of Be Our Chef, and I think she’s now regretting her choices.  Maybe after we finish The Mandalorian.)

Listening.  Podcasts, just podcasts as usual.  A couple of episodes of The Mom Hour this week, including their take on the “how to stay sane during this crazy time” episode that everyone seems to be doing.  (I discovered that Sarah and I share a joy in using up beauty products and pantry items.)

Moving.  ‘Twas a good week of movement.  I got in all my runs for the AMR “Love the Run You’re With” series, and did the first of my four virtual races – a 5K – on Saturday.  I even had a bib to pin to my shirt, and a few people shouted out “Lookin’ good!” as I ran down Queen Street.  Too fun!  I’m so glad I signed up for this program; it has brought me so much joy in this very weird and anxious season of life.  Also bringing joy: I came home from my 5K to find that the kids had built “fairy gardens” on the back patio, and Nugget’s was vaguely heart-shaped.  Awwww.

Making.  Most exciting of all, I made a cleaned-out and organized freezer.  Don’t you find that it’s so much easier to save money and eat what you have if you actually know what you have?  I didn’t go too crazy, since we’re not going to be living here after June, but I took everything out, wiped the freezer drawers down quickly, and loaded it all back in an organized fashion.  Other than the clean freezer, as noted above, I made homemade Indian food and sourdough bread on Sunday, which is always fun.  Oh!  And I finished compiling and editing our 2018 family yearbook – yes, I’m behind, but the good news is I have plenty of time these days, and not much fun to do other than relive past adventures.  2019 is next on the agenda.

Blogging.  Armchair travel Themed Reads coming atcha on Wednesday (I think we all need this) and April’s book list on Friday.  So it’ll be a bookish week.  What else is new?

Loving.  Would it be a cop-out to say I am loving my organized freezer?  You can probably tell, since I’ve mentioned it twice already in this post.  So here’s something related: in an effort to (1) eat the contents of the pantry and freezer; (2) save money; and (3) inject some excitement back into the dinner hour, I’ve started meal planning again.  Nothing too fancy, just writing a week’s worth of dinner plans at a time on the kids’ school calendar.  (There’s nothing else to put on it.)  I’m taking stock of the pantry and freezer contents, figuring out what needs to be eaten, and then planning a few meals around that and picking up whatever odds and ends I need when I go to the grocery store (which I’m now doing on Tuesday nights).  In addition to the aforementioned coconut curry dal, this past week we’ve had Southwest salad with seared tofu; mustard-crusted tilapia and roasted broccoli; Buffalo field roast and more roasted broccoli (this is a broccoli-loving household); and a pizza night.  On deck this coming week will be veggie-packed enchiladas and a lightened-up tuna casserole with lots of greens, and I haven’t figured out the rest of the week just yet.  But this revived meal-planning habit has been great for adding structure to my day, not to mention the anticipation of some kitchen fun after full days of parenting, homeschooling, and powering through work to-do lists.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Poetry Friday: Then I found/Second-hand bookshops in the Essex Road, by John Betjeman

Then I found
Second-hand bookshops in the Essex Road,
Stacked high with powdery leather flaked and dry,
Gilt letters on red labels–Mason’s Works
(But volume II is missing), Young’s Night Thoughts,
Falconer’s Shipwreck and The Grave by Blair,
A row of Scott, for certain incomplete,
And always somewhere Barber’s Isle of Wight;
The antiquarian works that no one reads–
Church Bells of Nottingham, Baptismal Fonts
(‘Scarce, 2s. 6d., a few plates slightly foxed’).
Once on a stall in Farringdon Road I found
An atlas folio of great lithographs,
Views of Ionian Isles, flyleaf inscribed
By Edward Lear–and bought it for a bob.
Perhaps one day I’ll find a ‘first’ of Keats,
Wedged between Goldsmith and The Law of Torts;
Perhaps–but that was not the reason why
Untidy bookshops gave me such delight.
It was the smell of books, the plates in them,
Tooled leather, marbled paper, gilded edge,
The armorial book-plate of some country squire,
From whose tall library windows spread his park
On which this polished spine may once have looked,
From whose twin candlesticks may once have shone
Soft beans upon the spacious title-page.
Forgotten poets, parsons with a taste
For picturesque descriptions of a hill
Or ruin in the parish, pleased me much;
But steel engravings pleased me most of all–
Volumes of London views or Liverpool,
Or Edinburgh, ‘The Athens of the North’.
I read the prose descriptions, gazed and gazed
Deep in the plates, and heard again the roll
Of market-carts on cobbles, coach-doors slammed
Outside the posting inn; with couples walked
Toward the pillared entrance of the church
‘Lately erected from designs by Smirke’,
And sauntered in some newly planted square.
Outside the bookshop, treasure in my hands,
I scarcely saw the trams or heard the bus
Or noticed modern London: I was back
With George the Fourth, post-horns, street-cries and bells.
“More books,” my mother signed as I returned;
My father, handing to me half-a-crown,
Said, “If you must buy books, then buy the best.”

~John Betjeman

There’s nothing like a used bookshop, is there, friends?  The thrill of the hunt – the sense of possibility – the victorious feeling when you spot a treasure and snatch it off the shelf.  Amirite?  John Betjeman knows.

What’s your favorite used bookshop?  I love The Book Bank in Old Town, Alexandria – treasures heaped upon treasures.

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The Spring List 2020

I am making this list against my better judgment.  As I sit down to draft the post, it’s the second day of spring and the eighth day of social distancing due to COVID-19.  Even just a couple of weeks ago, this was all unthinkable – I don’t need to tell you that, you know that – and now I am seeing posts on Facebook and Instagram about “our new normal” and all I can think is crap, I hope this isn’t the new normal.  For all my introverted tendencies, I am not a homebody, not at all, and this being tied to one place, unable to access most of my usual stomping grounds or to explore new spots… I’m climbing the walls.  And while I would woman up and adjust, I’m also trying to work from home while homeschooling two strong-willed children and keeping them from murdering each other in a small townhouse.  I’m overwhelmed and I hate this and it better not be my new normal.

So – it feels like something of a leap of faith to make this list.  And I am putting some things on here that just might not be possible.  But if I don’t keep hope alive that things will get back to normal, then I’ll fall into gloom and I don’t want to do that.  So here are the things I’m hoping and dreaming and some of them may not happen.

  • Go to New York and see my beautiful cousin, Jocelyn, as a bride – maybe; it’s looking increasingly like the wedding will be postponed but I’m still putting it out there in an abundance of hope.  (Peanut and Nugget will be in the wedding – as a flower girl and ring bearer, respectively – and I can’t wait to see them walk down the aisle, too.  Peanut’s an old pro, since she scattered rose petals for my best friend, and her godmother, back in 2017.  I’m sure she will show her little brother the wedding ropes.)
  • Related: while in New York, spend time with my grandmother (hopefully her skilled nursing facility will be allowing visitors again) and meet my cousin Jaime’s baby boy, who will be born by then.
  • On a different note: hold and cuddle my dear friend Connie’s baby boy.
  • Get in our annual tradition of hiking through the stunning Virginia bluebells.  (Can’t miss this!)
  • Read A Shropshire Lad, by A.E. Housman.
  • Help my sweet neighbor, Zoya, with her project of planting native Virginia species along the roadsides in Old Town.
  • Make actual progress on cleaning the basement.  For real, this time!  It’s zero hour, because…
  • Move to a new house.  (We were planning to move out to Fairfax County in July, but it looks like it will be June, instead.  I’m a little sad about missing summer in Old Town, but we’ll still be here all the time.)
  • Read the Elizabeth trilogy by Elizabeth von Arnim.  I’ve read Elizabeth and Her German Garden before, but it’s time for a re-read and then I need to finally get to The Solitary Summer and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen.
  • Watch Nugget play Little League – maybe.  The season was postponed until May, because of COVID-19.  But I’m still hopeful – I’ve been dreaming of being a baseball mom since the moment I found out he was a boy, when I was eleven weeks pregnant.  It’s been a long time coming.
  • Read some Beverly Nichols.  (Lots of books on this list – at least I know there is nothing to prevent those happening, unless it’s my lack of self-control at the library.)

Well, there it is.  Some things are possible – the books, especially.  Some things are going to happen whether I like the idea or not – the move.  (I like the idea.  It’s time.  But I will be sad to leave my favorite neighborhood and this little townhouse, which I’ve grown to love, even if the schools are terrible and our landlords are antisocial weirdos with no boundaries.)  And some things, I am just crossing my fingers extra hard and hoping against hope for, like the trip to NYS and time with family.  It’s precious.

What’s on your spring agenda?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (April 20, 2020)

Mornin’ friends.  How were your weekends?  Same old, same old?  Here too.  I had kind of a frustrating workweek last week – nothing too bad, but just frustrating, and despite a few glasses of wine and about two hours of ranting on the phone to colleagues, it bled over into my attitude this weekend.  I just felt cooped up and a little raw.  Probably a combination of this annoying work situation and the whole pandemic thing getting me down.  I don’t have the worst of it, by far – we’re all healthy here, and if the worst we’re impacted is having to deal with a few months of quarantine and some plans getting cancelled, that’s okay.  It’s just hard in the trenches.

Anyway, the weather was at least decent, so we got out a couple of times.  I did not go to the supermarket – we ran out of milk towards the end of the week, so I’d run out to the local organic market on Thursday, and picked up a few of the essentials – milk, eggs, yogurt, mac and cheese and cereal for the kiddos, that sort of thing.  Kept the impulse purchasing to just one head of purple cabbage and a pint of blueberries!  (I guess blue/purple foods were looking good to me?)  So we are pretty well set and I didn’t have to brave Wegmans, which I appreciated.  We did walk down to the waterfront and let the kids run out their wiggles at Founders Park on Saturday.  And on Sunday we wanted to get out for a longer stretch of the legs, but were spooked off the Mount Vernon Trail by the mobs of people out walking, running and biking.  So we drove back to Old Town, parked, and walked a stretch along the river (where I found an amazing inspirational rock on the ground), then found a green space for the kids to run around; Nugget invented a new game called “gobble tag” which is pretty fun.  (It’s like regular tag, but when you’re tagged you freeze, and then the tagger gobbles you up.  He’s pretty fast, but I caught him and used it as an opportunity to cover him with kisses.  I’m doing that every chance I get until he’s old enough to be embarrassed by the whole thing.)

Reading.  The longer this quarantine drags on (it’s been over a month now) the more distracted I am and the harder I find it to focus on a book, even a really good book.  Everything I read last week was wonderful.  I started the week off by finishing The Man in the Queue, the first Josephine Tey I’ve checked off my TBR.  And then the rest of the week was devoted to a wonderful surprise – I’d ordered To War with Whitaker, the latest Slightly Foxed Edition, but thought I’d have to wait until the U.K. quarantine ended before getting my package.  It must have been one of the last shipments the Foxes sent off before they departed for their various dens, and I was pleasantly surprised to receive a parcel from Hoxton Square containing not only Whitaker, but The House in Flanders and the 2019 edition of Wonders and Absurdities (the rest of the order I wasn’t expecting for months).  I immediately dove into Whitaker, and it’s absolutely wonderful and a total joy to read.  It’s just that… I can’t concentrate, and I find myself scrolling my phone despite loving every word, which is unfair to Lady Ranfurly.  Well – it just means more time in her company, and I won’t complain about that.

Watching.  It’s been a hodgepodge kind of watching week.  The kids watched Monsters, Inc. twice over the weekend (Saturday night and Sunday afternoon) and I watched with them.  (Steve and I saw it in the movie theater together when it first came out – I was in college! – and we still laugh at all the same jokes.)  And the kids and I watched an episode of the “America’s National Parks” series from the National Geographic Collection on Disney+.  (The episode on Olympic National Park, which featured lots of sea life, including close-ups of orcas and incredible ochre sea stars and pink anemones; Nugget enjoyed the show while eating an incredibly sticky open-faced PB&J prepared for him by his sister.)  I’ll tell you, I really resisted Disney+, but that National Geographic collection makes it all worthwhile.  I am loving the nature documentaries.

Listening.  Not really much of anything, actually.  Part (not all) of an episode of The Crunchy Cocktail Hour while running.  Part (not all) of an episode of The 46 of 46 Podcast: Summit Sessions while kneading bread dough.  And that’s it.

Moving.  Not the best week.  I got a few runs in as part of my “Love the Run You’re With” training plan from Another Mother Runner, but got into a funk later in the week and let a few planned workouts slide.  Shouldn’t have done that, I know.  My funk would have been much less if I’d gotten out and run.  I’ll do better this week.

Making.  A few things!  Sourdough sandwich bread (Steve’s request) on Saturday night.  I did a bunch of things wrong and it still came out well.  Either I’m getting better at this whole bread thing, or the recipe (“basic sourdough” from King Arthur Flour) is just that much of a winner, or both.  And then on Sunday I slow-cooked a big pot of lentil-vegetable stew; true to form, I’m sure I will be the only one who eats it this week.  And a batch of pumpkin spice dinner rolls, just because.  I made 24 knot-style rolls and gave half to the neighbors, as usual.  Not my best, but definitely worth another try.  I overproofed them, which I am learning is a problem.  They also got a little darker than I wanted on the bottom; I’m starting to think that our new sheet pans get too hot.  And I didn’t love the knot style.  The recipe gives an option for doing them as pull-apart rolls and I think I’ll try that next time.  There will definitely be a next time, because I personally don’t think you can have too many dinner roll recipes in your arsenal.

Blogging.  Spring list coming atcha on Wednesday.  We’ll see if I get to do any of it or if I’m stuck in the house until Independence Day (looking increasingly likely).  I was scrolling through some old travel posts recently and remembered that we’ve spent either Memorial Day or the following weekend on Virginia Beach, visiting my BFF Rebecca, for the past few years now.  That wasn’t going to happen this year anyway, since she moved to Florida a few months ago (SOB).  But I was hoping to find something fun to do around water, and it’s not looking good; we have a stay-home order extending into June.  And then on Friday, the last Poetry Friday of 2020 (and I promise it’s not another isolation-themed poem or about the depressing state of the world this time – it’s about BOOKS!).

Loving.  I’ve been drinking down the contents of my tea cupboard as part of an effort to use up as many consumables as I can before we move this summer.  And last week I was working my way through the Jasmine Pearls tea from The Spice and Tea Exchange.  Yum.  I forgot how good it is!  I still have three cups’ worth left in my bag, and I’m going to enjoy them.  And speaking of enjoying consumables, on Saturday I ordered delivery from Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Old Town.  (All about supporting our local business folks!)  They were out of my favorite flavor (rainbow buttermilk frozen yogurt – so delicious) on Uber Eats, but I did well.  The pints of salty caramel and milkiest chocolate are already gone, and now I’m just hoping the kids don’t notice the wildberry lavender still in the freezer.  Also, I need to try “frose.”  Sangria sorbet made with rose wine?  Sign.  Me.  Up.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?

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Poetry Friday: Try to Praise the Mutilated World, by Adam Zagajewski

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rose wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees going nowhere,
you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

~by Adam Zagajewski (translated by Claire Cavanagh)

Another week of quarantine.  It’s not getting any easier, is it?  My motivation is flagging in basically everything I have to do – the only thing for which I can summon any enthusiasm is my Another Mother Runner “Love the Run You’re With” training series.  The rest of… well, everything… feels like a long, hard slog, and the whole world is terrifying.  I’m seeing a lot of reassuring posts on social media now, reminding everyone that we are living through a traumatic experience and we should treat ourselves with compassion.  So that’s what I’m trying to do, some days with more success than others.  And then every now and again a bit of good news peeks through the gloom – like the Himalayas being visible again, without pollution – and… yes, this world is mutilated, but we have to try to praise it.  And fix it.

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The Winter List 2020: Recap

Well, it’s been official spring for a few days now, and unofficial spring – flowers blooming, Nugget in shorts – even longer, so I guess it’s time I get around to recapping the season.  It was a bit of a dud – started with a somewhat last-minute business trip and ended with the looming threat of coronavirus, with many, many hours in between devoted to getting ready for a trial that ended up being postponed.  Which means: spoiler alert, I didn’t get through too many items on my list.  But here’s the recap, in all its glory.

  • Go with Steve and the kids to see #AURORAinDC at ARTECHOUSE, an innovative art gallery that fuses art with technology to create interactive sensory experiences.  (This was a Christmas present to Steve, and we went in early January before the installation closed.)  Done – this was a bit of a cheat, because we had already been to the exhibit when I wrote the list.  It was spectacular.
  • Register and train for a spring 5K race.  Didn’t happen.  Work had me so busy I didn’t have time to get out on the trails and build my base back up the way I wanted to (and I know what you’re going to say: it’s important for mental health, yes, I realize that, but there are only so many hours in a day).  And now all the spring races are getting postponed because of COVID-19 anyway.

  • Try a new cookbook recipe once a week!  Done – or calling it done, anyway.  Not all from cookbooks – many from the internet, especially kingarthurflour.com – and I’m not sure if it was really one a week, but I had a lot of fun in the kitchen, and that’s what counts.
  • Get rid of at least ten boxes from the basement.  Not exactly – work got too hectic and I didn’t have time, plus a lot of the boxes that I would be going through are inaccessible because the movers buried them behind or underneath furniture when we moved in (another complaint about our movers, who were generally awful and rude).  I got through one box – that’s it.  Maybe now that we’re stuck at home, I can get through some more.

  • Read another Trollope novel.  You know what?  I’m calling this done, even though I didn’t read any Trollope.  (I had my eye on Framley Parsonage.)  Let’s say this challenge was really read a giant Victorian doorstopper – I did that, when I read George Eliot’s final novel, Daniel Deronda.  If anything, that was a bigger challenge than Framley Parsonage would have been, because Trollope, at least, is funny.  796 pages of George Eliot is a LOT of George Eliot, you guys.
  • Make vegetarian Italian wedding soup.  Didn’t do this.  It does sound good, though, doesn’t it?

  • Send out some baby gifts that are long past due!  HA.  They’re still on my dining room table.  Sorry, ladies!  But I did attend a baby shower (for my work wife Connie) and obviously I brought a gift to that.  Connie wasn’t one of the people I meant to mail gifts to, because I knew I would be giving her gift to her in person, at her shower.  So mostly, I’m giving myself credit for something unrelated to this item, largely so that I can brag again about eating that amazing Baby Shark macaron.
  • Clean out the container garden.  This is done, but not by me – the kids weeded the back patio and yanked out all the dead plants from the container garden.  Peanut, it turns out, is a weeding machine.  I will make good use of this newfound knowledge.

  • Go for a winter walk by the Potomac.  Done, several times over.  Many a stroll down to our own sedate waterfront in Alexandria, and a wonderful, peaceful ramble alongside the more energetic part of the river up in Great Falls.
  • Light candles and snuggle under a blanket.  Calling this done.  I didn’t light candles, although I really should do that.  But there was lots of blanket-snuggling, especially after our COVID-19-prompted stay-at-home time began at the tail end of winter.  Although I’m always a blanket person, so.

Look at that!  I actually got more done than I thought I had, looking back at it.  Of course I gave myself credit for completing some tasks when… well, let’s just say I am giving myself allowances right now and I highly recommend you do the same.  Spring list coming next week, because even in the midst of all this uncertainty I have to look ahead with hope.

What was on your to-do list this winter?  Did you get it done?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (April 13, 2020)

Morning, Peeps.  Happy new week, happy Easter Monday, and happy Passover to those celebrating.  How were your weekends?  Ours was pretty much as usual in these weird times.  Saturday was a big day – are you ready for this?  I left the house three times.  Can you even believe it?  I went (1) to the grocery store; (2) for a family hike at a nearby nature preserve; and (3) for an afternoon run.  Look at me go!  The rest of the day was spent bumming around, not doing much of anything – par for the course, these days.  Sunday was Easter and we started it in our usual fashion – the kids went tearing downstairs and spent approximately 30 seconds ripping apart the baskets that I painstakingly assembled on Saturday night.  What was different?  We didn’t dress up, go to church, or do the Easter egg hunt in the churchyard.  (Of course, I missed the egg hunt last year too, because a certain child – name withheld to protect the guilty – had a tantrum in church and had to be dragged home screaming, good times.)  The rest of the day was more of the same stuff as usual – we got out for a family walk to the waterfront, where Peanut parked in the grass and read to us out of her new unicorn book (courtesy of the Easter Bunny, a.k.a. ME) and Nugget ran around like a maniac to work off his excess energy.  They both crashed early, and so did I.

Reading.  I am having a hard time focusing, still, although the books were good this week.  I spent nearly the whole week with Elizabeth von Arnim – first enjoying The Solitary Summer in Elizabeth’s German garden, and then traveling by her side through The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen.  (Pretend there’s an umlaut over the “u.”)  Loved both, and the Rugen hijinks were hilarious, but it was in The Solitary Summer that I ended up marking passage after passage with book darts.  Anyway – all good things must come to an end, and I finished the Elizabeth trilogy on Saturday afternoon and pulled The Man in the Queue off my dwindling library stack.  I’m enjoying it, but am still having a hard time settling down to any book.  I blame the COVID Scaries.

Watching.  We’ve watched a couple more episodes of The Crown and I’m definitely liking it (and glad to report that Philip seems more tolerable this season, hurrah) but I’ve been in the mood for something lighter recently, so we’re also working our way through some of the Rock the Park episodes that we’ve not yet seen.  And now I’m planning a trip to Alaska, just as soon as… well, sometime.

Listening.  Podcasts, mostly while running.  I’ve polished off the Crunchy Cocktail Hour backlog I had piled up, and now I’m bouncing from here to there.  The highlight was an old episode of Those Park Guys Podcast, in which Jack, Colton and Tommy discussed their memories from the first five seasons of Rock the Park.  Currently in the earbuds is the “stuck in a rut” episode of Those Park Guys, which seems appropriate right now.

Making.  Mmmmm, not too much this week, actually.  There was no baking this weekend and we are mainly working our way through leftovers and pre-prepped vegetables, so very little cooking.  But I did put together a vegetarian shepherd’s pie for Easter dinner, alongside a pile of steamed broccoli – hit the spot.

Moving.  Lots this week!  I’m working my way through the “Love the Run You’re With” sixteen-week program from Another Mother Runner, and last week was week #1 in the virtual series.  I switched the days around a little, because I had such a busy workday on Tuesday that I wasn’t able to get out for the prescribed run – but since Wednesday was entered as a rest day, I just swapped them around and made Tuesday my rest day instead.  So the week looked like this:

  • Monday: Run.
  • Tuesday: Rest.
  • Wednesday: Run.
  • Thursday: Run.
  • Friday: Cross-training (I did barre3, which I love).
  • Saturday: Run (and I hiked, too).
  • Sunday: Rest (went for a family walk).

So that was quite the active week!  The program includes four virtual races; I haven’t decided on the specific combination of distances yet, but they all start with a 5K the weekend of April 25-26, so that’s something to look forward to.  I’m really enjoying having something to train for again; it’s been a long time since I (1) had a race on my calendar, and (2) actually made an effort to train for it.  It feels good.

Blogging.  Winter list recap coming up on Wednesday (spoiler alert: work was busy and I didn’t do much of my list) and another poem on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  I’ve been waiting five years for Nugget to really bond with one of his stuffed animals (he calls them “lovies” – awwww).  When Peanut was very small, she got into a committed relationship with a stuffed Peter Rabbit, and he’s still number one for her, but Nugget has never been a cuddly toy kind of guy.  When he was a baby, I was his comfort item, which was fun and wonderful but also exhausting after eighteen months of being summoned to his room multiple times a night.  Then there was a phase where he really loved his hard toys, and fell asleep every night for months with his arm draped around a recycled plastic fire truck.  But I’m pleased to report that finally, at five, Nugget has a best (stuffed) friend.  Meet Bear.  (Creative naming is not Nugget’s thing; for that, you want Peanut.)  The important thing to know about Bear is he is Nugget’s best friend and also his sibling, and he has to go everywhere with us.  We had a small crisis on Saturday when Bear fell into the couch and was missing for about 20 minutes.  But you should also know Bear’s history – by which I mean: how Bear came to be part of our family.  You see, you’ve heard of brown bears, black bears, grizzly bears, sloth bears – but have you heard of Squeak Bears?  Squeak Bears are very rare and they come from a beautiful land called Squeakalia, which is a mile off the coast of Antarctica.  (And now you know).  Nugget swam from Antarctica to Squeakalia; the experience was a prize he won after being the first student in his dive class to scuba explore every exhibit in the Baltimore Aquarium.  (Real news.)  And that is where he met Bear, and how Bear came to leave his home on Squeakalia and join our family.  Guys, I literally cannot get enough of Bear’s personal history.  I will sit on the couch for hours listening to tales of Squeakalia.

Asking.  Have you ever been to Squeakalia?  And what are you reading this week?

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Poetry Friday: Rain Light, by W. S. Merwin

Rain Light

All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning

~by W. S. Merwin

Even though the whole world is burning – it feels that way, doesn’t it?  We are all struggling in our own ways right now.  And while some certainly have it worse – I’m thinking of my elderly grandmother, who is probably lonely and doesn’t understand why her family has stopped coming to see her (she’s on lockdown; no one can visit); and my cousin, who is an R.N. and putting her personal safety on the line day in and day out; and all my family and friends in New York – it’s not easy for any of us.  I’m trying to be kind to myself in this season of being (mostly, except for runs and the occasional hike) trapped in my house, trying to do three full-time jobs at once (parenting, teaching, and lawyering).  But, as this poem wisely reminds us – when you are alone you will be all right / whether or not you know you will know – and the flowers wake without a question.

How are you doing?

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Reading Round-Up: March 2020

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for March, 2020…

Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot – Eliot’s final novel is often regarded as her masterpiece, although I will confess myself still partial to Middlemarch.  I did love this novel, though.  In Daniel Deronda, Eliot leaves behind her usual village territory (from epics like Middlemarch as well as shorter fiction such as Silas Marner and Scenes of Clerical Life) for London.  Most, although not all, of the action in Daniel Deronda takes place in the capital.  The novel follows the loves and very different fortunes of two main characters, the titular Deronda and the striking local beauty Gwendolen Harleth.  Gwendolen is fiercely independent but agrees to marry a rich man to provide for her newly-impoverished family; her loveless marriage proves devastating to her mental health and sense of worth, and she leans on Deronda as a moral savior – but Deronda may be too preoccupied with questions about his own history and culture to intervene for Gwendolen before it is too late.  Fully reviewed here.

Olive, Again (Olive Kitteridge #2), by Elizabeth Strout – While I’m not trying to keep up with all the buzzy new releases these days, I did want to stay up-to-date with Elizabeth Strout, since I think she’s one of the most talented American writers working today.  Olive, Again is – clearly – a return to Crosby, Maine and the world of grouchy but fundamentally good-hearted Olive Kitteridge, retired math teacher and truth-talker.  As with Olive Kitteridge, Olive, Again is a series of linked short stories, in all of which Olive appears to varying degrees.  As with Olive Kitteridge, I preferred the stories in which Olive is a focal point to those in which she only appears briefly.  Strout was at her best when portraying Olive settling into her second marriage, and facing the indignities of aging – but there were a few stories which seemed to mostly be included for shock value (and in which Olive was not a main character), which I didn’t like.  Overall, recommended, but some skimming is possible.

Summoned by Bells, by John Betjeman – Betjeman was a Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and one of the most recognizable English voices of the twentieth century, and this is his memoir in verse, covering his boyhood through his university years.  Betjeman used to get a bad rap for being a bit too Oxbridge, C of E, cricket, tea-and-crumpets – but I think he’s enjoying a moment these days (I came across him first on #bookstagram) and in uncertain, stressful times there’s nothing like a little comfort and nostalgia.  I enjoy a good memoir in verse, and this one certainly didn’t disappoint, with evocative descriptions of the churches Betjeman wandered into over the course of his youth (he does enjoy a church), the natural Hampstead landscape of his childhood, his joy in books, and more.  It’s a fast read and well worth devoting an hour to.

Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman – I adore books about books – it might be my favorite non-fiction genre? – and Anne Fadiman’s classic Ex Libris has been on my TBR since I read an excerpt (Fadiman’s essay “Marrying Libraries”) in the very first issue of Slightly Foxed.  I had such a lovely time over this delightful collection – Fadiman muses over everything from compulsive editing (oh, I know about this so well) to the joys of long words and reading a book in the place where it is set, to a childhood growing up surrounded by books (Fadiman used her father’s complete set of Trollope as building blocks, which she lovingly describes in “My Ancestral Castles.”).  I loved every word of Fadiman’s slim collection and am already looking forward to re-reading it one evening.

Prince Caspian (The Chronicles of Narnia, #2 in publication order), by C.S. Lewis – We’ve been trying to establish a family tradition of reading a chapter a night from a childhood classic; we get on good stretches in which we remember to do this consistently and then we fall off the wagon for weeks at a time.  Because of this falling-off-the-wagon problem, it took us ages to get through Prince Caspian, but we finally finished it.  (Steve and I both have fond memories of reading the Chronicles of Narnia as kids, which is why we decided to read the series for family story hour.  I think Peanut and Nugget are enjoying the books.)  I love Prince Caspian – the scene in which Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy explore the ruins of Cair Paravel and finally realize where they are is one of my favorite parts of the entire series.  (And the D.L.F.!)

The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple – As with Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope, I am rationing Dorothy Whipple books because I don’t want to live in a world in which I have read everything Whipple will ever write.  (This is why I have not read The Watsons, and why I am slowly making my way through Barchester.)  Once I do eventually read all of Whipple’s novels, I suspect The Priory might be my favorite.  I cannot resist an English country house story, nor a story about unconventional aristocrats or sisterhood.  The Priory is all of these.  (Christine and Penelope Marwood, blissfully trotting along through life in their nursery until Christine falls in love and gets married, would find a lot in common with Cassandra and Rose Mortmain, although the Marwood sisters’ stepmother, Anthea, is very different from Topaz.)  I adored all of the characters (except Bertha and the Major), but Christine was my favorite – after almost 600 pages, I was sad to say goodbye to her.

The Mitford Murders (The Mitford Murders #1), by Jessica Fellowes – If the last name Fellowes is ringing a bell, that is because Jessica is the niece of Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, Gosford Park, and Belgravia (all of which I love).  If anyone was going to write a murder mystery series starring Nancy Mitford, it would be Julian Fellowes’ niece!  As expected, The Mitford Murders was fun and frothy – not destined to become a crime classic, but an enjoyable romp.  Main character Louisa accepts a job as nursery maid to the Mitford children, and quickly bonds with sixteen-year-old Nancy.  When a woman is murdered on a train, Nancy and Louisa team up to solve the crime, of course.  I enjoyed this, and will definitely continue on with the series.

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo – The 2019 Booker Prize winner (because I agree with the criticism that The Testaments, enjoyable as it was and much as I like Margaret Atwood’s work, is not in the same league and shouldn’t have shared in the award) was really unusual and an incredible achievement.  This collection of sixteen linked stories about black women (some LGBTQ+, some not) was unlike anything I have read before.  I was a little worried, picking it up, because I’d heard that “the punctuation was unusual” and I often find that detracts from the reading experience – but in this case, it just made the stories more like poetry than anything else.  While it was not exactly a low-stress thing to be reading at the beginning of a pandemic, it was wonderful and I’m so glad that I did read it.

Sanditon, by Jane Austen – I am chipping away at the Jane Austen-penned words I have left to read, sadly.  (I’m down to The Watsons and her letters now.)  Sanditon was on my classics club list and it was the clear choice for reading as the world turned inside out.  (Because while Austen says there is nothing like staying home for real comfort, I say there is nothing like Austen for real comfort when you’ve got to stay home because of a global health crisis.)  Austen never finished Sanditon, her portrayal of characters living in and visiting a small seaside town – but even the unfinished novel showcases her wit, her powers of characterization, and her sense of place.  I chose not to read one of the versions that were “finished by Another Lady,” because I wanted to set the book down where Austen did, and let the characters live on in my imagination and not someone else’s.  Full review (for the Classics Club) to come.

Lucia in London (Mapp & Lucia #3), by E. F. Benson – Still looking for comforting classics to read (because: pandemic) I decided there was no time like the present to dive back into Lucia’s world.  Lucia in London opens with Lucia and Peppino bereaved (sort of): Peppino’s elderly aunt has died.  Even though Aunt Amy lived in a nursing home (she was gaga, dear) and they never saw her, Lucia and Peppino put on a good show of grief for awhile, then get on with the business of enjoying their inheritance – a doubling of their income, a house in London, and some pearls (but don’t talk about the pearls).  Off to London they go, for Peppino OF COURSE, and Lucia promptly takes the town by storm, as only Lucia can do.  (The listening-in device!  The morsel of Stravinsky!  The duchesses – too many duchesses!)  Lucia is a hopeless snob, but you can’t help rooting for her.  Full review (for the Classics Club) to come.

Slightly Foxed No. 65: Asking the Right Questions, ed. Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood – There’s nothing like a new issue of Slightly Foxed.  Or, more specifically, there’s nothing like a new issue of Slightly Foxed and a cup of tea – or some good chocolate – for the greatest bookish delight.  This latest issue, like all the others, was a joy to read.  Turning the heavy cream-colored pages is always a source of comfort, and even if the book being profiled in any given essay isn’t destined to immediately jump to the top of my list, I enjoy reading about what others enjoy reading.  On this occasion, I wouldn’t say my TBR grew exponentially, but I loved reading about To War with Whitaker – the latest Slightly Foxed Edition, which I’ve ordered and which I look forward to receiving once the pandemic stabilizes and the Foxes are back at Hoxton Square – and about The Outermost House, one of my favorite pieces of nature writing.

Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living, by Elizabeth Willard Thames – I know the Frugalwoods have a dedicated online following, but I just recently started reading their blog and I was curious to learn more about their story.  It was a quick read, and enjoyable.  It was not a guide to personal finance or a collection of money tips (which many Goodreads reviewers seemed to have been expecting) so a reader who is looking for that sort of thing would be well advised to look elsewhere.  This is a memoir of two people who figured out how to save a huge percentage of their incomes at a young age, and put those savings toward the big (and unusual) goal of buying a homestead in rural Vermont.  Not for everyone, but I like reading about people who are living all sorts of lives and the Frugalwoods’ story was interesting to me.

Mapp and Lucia (Mapp & Lucia #4), by E. F. Benson – Finally, finally, the long-awaited cataclysmic encounter of Elizabeth Mapp and Emmeline “Lucia” Lucas!  I’ve been waiting four books for these two forces of nature to meet one another, and it was worth the wait.  Recently widowed (Nooooo!  Peppino!  Say it isn’t so!), Lucia is in deep hibernation at The Hurst when the book opens – but not for long.  It’s been almost a year, and Lucia’s faithful (most of the time) deputy, Georgie Pillson, takes it upon himself to bring her back into the life of the village.  The next major social event is an Elizabethan fete that Daisy Quantock has been planning, and having not been cast as Queen Elizabeth I, Lucia clearly can’t be in the vicinity of Riseholme when it happens.  Luckily she has seen a newspaper advertisement for a house to rent in Tilling – and it’s Mallards, Miss Mapp’s strategically situated abode (which was based on E. F. Benson’s house in Rye).  And so Mapp and Lucia finally come into contact – like two flints, and there are instant sparks.  I think this was my favorite of the series so far; I won’t say any more, because: full review (for the Classics Club) to come.

March – what a strange month it was.  We all feel like different people now than we were on March 1, don’t we?  This month was heavy on classics, because I’ve been stressed in different ways all month long.  When March 1 roared in, I was preparing for a federal jury trial and was anxious and overwhelmed with work.  By the end of the month I, like everyone else, was reeling from this crazy, scary, uncertain world situation.  It’s clear from my reading over the course of the month – starting with George Eliot and concluding with E. F. Benson – I was looking for solid, comforting reads, for books that I could sink into and forget the world for awhile, and that’s always classics for me.  In a month that was full of worry, reading was a highlight, and everything I picked up was good.  The highlights, though, have to be E. F. Benson and Jane Austen – naturally.  Looking to April, the world situation is getting more frightening by the day, so I predict my book lists will look like more of the same: as familiar and comforting as a well-loved quilt.

How are you holding up?  And what books got you through March?

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (April 6, 2020)

Good morning, friends – how are you holding up?  Everyone still healthy?  I hope so.  We’re hanging in there over here, doing our best.  The kids don’t really understand that they can’t just go running into the next-door neighbors’ house like they’ve been accustomed to doing.  And it’s not just them – it feels like half the neighborhood has recently discovered the bike path.  Anyway – another weekend in isolation here; I know you get it.  On Saturday we decided to have a big cleaning day – look at us go!  The house was starting to show the effects of several weeks of everyone being home 24/7.  I cleaned the downstairs bathroom and folded laundry, but my big project was the kitchen.  It got a full-on deep clean, and it is staying this way, dammit.  (A clean kitchen is essential to my well-being, and I almost never have one.)  In the afternoon, we escaped for a walk on the bike path.  Steve and I spent the walk dodging people who were not following social distancing guidelines; Peanut danced and skipped down the path, blissfully unaware of anyone else, belting out a song about nature and her “windblown and wild” hair; and Nugget followed in her footsteps, touching every stair railing and helpfully shouting out polite words like “POOP!” and “FART!”

Sunday was my big adventure day – are you ready for this?  I went to the grocery store.  And I wore a bandana face mask that I made with the help of YouTube videos.  (Still not convinced that does anything, but the CDC is now recommending that everyone wear “cloth face coverings” so I dutifully put it on.  More useful, I think: I also wore a pair of Steve’s disposable dishwashing gloves.)  Came home to find that the kids had strategically dismantled all of my hard work from Saturday.  The couch had been torn apart to make a “fort” and the kitchen was trashed… again.  So I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned it… again.  And as soon as it was sparkling, Peanut asked if we could bake a Victoria sponge.  And that’s our afternoon sorted.  As usual, the kids “helped” for a few minutes and then disappeared, leaving me to finish the baking project on my own; Steve was trying to work, and getting frustrated by the interruptions, so we ended up on the back patio, the kids digging in the sandbox and me sipping tea and attempting to read while listening to my stand mixer attempt to make whipped cream out of whole milk and yogurt (fail) and we ultimately ended up with something resembling a Victoria sponge.  I cut slices for the kids, waited until they weren’t looking, and passed half the cake over the back fence to our neighbor Robert (who deserves all the cake, because he is the person responsible for bringing our beloved Zoya into our lives).  Ended the weekend in our favorite way – FaceTiming with loved ones (first Grandma, and then Uncle Dan and Aunt Danielle immediately after).  And that, my friends, is a long writeup of a weekend in which we really did very little, so please accept my apologies.

Reading.  Pretty busy reading week around here.  I continue to surprise myself, because I’ve lost my commute reading time and am terribly distracted in the evenings, but still seem to knock out several books per week.  Not sure how that’s happening, but I’m not mad about it.  Over the early part of the week I blitzed through Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont – my first Elizabeth Taylor (the Important British Writer one, not the Hollywood Starlet one) then picked up Heidi, a childhood favorite I’d never revisited as an adult.  It was as cozy as I remembered, and as fresh as the Alpine air.  I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Switzerland after finishing Heidi, so I stayed there a bit longer through the Switzerland issue of Lodestars Anthology.  (The travel cravings are strong.)  Finally, I spent the weekend in Elizabeth von Arnim’s German garden – re-reading Elizabeth and Her German Garden on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, then turning to The Solitary Summer on Sunday night.  Whew!

Watching.  A bit of this, a bit of that!  A little Star Wars here and there – Nugget was watching the original trilogy over the weekend and I tuned in for some of my favorite, Return of the Jedi.  On Saturday evening, Steve and I were craving nature, so we fired up the Rock the Park episode about the San Juan Islands – ugh, I miss the Salish Sea so much!  And we finished off the weekend on Sunday night with the first episode of season three of The Crown.

Listening.  Podcasts, just podcasts.  Some good escapist listening with The 46 of 46 Podcast – an hour and a half of geeking out about hiking gear.  (I want snowshoes!)  And for company on my runs, an episode of The Vegetarian Zen Podcast about healthy coping strategies in uncertain times (so needed) and The Crunchy Cocktail Hour about greening your bathroom products.

Moving.  Bringing back this category, because one of those healthy coping strategies I’ve been putting into place – and one that I hope to stick with after things go back to “normal” is making sure that I get my time for movement.  I made it out for three runs and several walks last week, and hit up two online barre3 classes.  Felt good to take that time for myself.

Making.  Lots of home cooking again this week.  In addition to regular food prep tasks, I served up an elaborate dinner of vegan sausages, sauteed cabbage, and mashed potatoes.  Yum.  And of course there was the Victoria sponge on Sunday, which came out pretty well if not perfect.  (In place of the whipped cream, I used clotted cream and it worked out fairly well.)

Blogging.  Bookish week coming for you – my March reading round-up on Wednesday (buckle in, it’s a long one) and then another Poetry Friday post on Friday.  Check in with me then!

Loving.  Another baby is in the world!  My friend Connie welcomed her little guy over the weekend.  He’s adorable and I am hating this pandemic even more, because I so want to go over to her house and cuddle him.  I’m settling for pictures for now.

Asking.  What are you reading this week?