I cannot believe that Christmas is only two weeks away – seriously, how? It sneaks up on me every year and this year is no exception, apparently. I need to get my act together – lots of presents still to buy, magic to make, all that good stuff. Every year I say I have no idea how it will all get done, and every year it somehow does get done. Elves?
Anyway, it was hard to find reading time last week because I was on a business trip – the last one of 2022. But I squeezed it in where I could and look! Not too shabby. On Monday I finished up The Franchise Affair – read in two days because it was a fast read and I was motivated. I had an episode of Shedunnit to listen to on the plane (en route to the aforementioned business trip) that was going to spoil the ending, and I wanted to finish the book before traveling for that reason. I did, and then listened to the podcast episode, and it was all very satisfying. After that, I turned back to God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen, which I had going on Audible. It was a fun and engaging listen, and perfect for this time of year. After finishing that, I started Christmas Days, also via Audible. I’m not far into that one yet, but it’s good.
As for print, since I no longer carry paperbacks – let alone hardcovers – when I travel, I was combing the kindle library for something fun, and hit upon Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, an interesting nonfiction read about the history of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Nancy Drew, and “juvenile” publishing. I blazed through it on my few spare moments over the week, finishing it up on the weekend, and really enjoyed it. Finally, on Sunday evening, I pulled The Swallow: A Biography off my shelf; I was looking for something fast to read, because I have two books to pick up at the library this afternoon and don’t want them idling on my entryway table for too long.
As for what’s next – those two library books are on deck. One is definitely a Christmas book, and one might be? (I’m not sure. I’ll read the doubtful one first.) It’s getting to that time of year and I think I’ve put off the Christmas reading long enough – I’m already deep into it on Audible, as you can see, and I have a stack of print books on holiday themes to get me through the next two weeks. The idea of decorating, shopping, wrapping, sending cards, etc., is exhausting – but festive reading, I can manage.
The Christmas tree is in a new spot this year! With the Peloton occupying its usual space in the living room, we are trying out this corner of the family roomfor the tree. Don’t mind the weird ornament clusters; at some point I’ll find the time and energy to QC the kids’ work.
In diver lingo, a surface interval is basically exactly what it sounds like: an interval of time that you spend at the surface between dives. On multi-dive days, you need a certain amount of time between dives in order to let the nitrogen bubbles dissipate from your blood. Between dive trips, it’s all surface interval – ha.
Our surface intervals on Roatan were mostly spent typing away on our laptops – it was another digital nomad week for us. Mornings were for scuba, afternoons were for lawyering. Not a bad life.
Especially when your afternoon lawyering is done at this beautiful place! We stayed at Barefoot Cay Resort, on the East side of Roatan. It was a beautiful, peaceful spot.
Most of the Barefoot Cay buildings are on a private island. It’s a tiny little island, and in the evenings before dinner Steve and I circled it over and over, getting our steps in (no days off for the Garmin watches!).
We stayed in a little bungalow right on the beach. There was a family of bats that stayed with us – cuddled up together in the eaves of our porch by day. Too cute! Speaking of cute, but in a totally different sense, I was obsessed with the woven pendant lights hanging from the trees near the resort’s restaurant, Silversides.
In the mornings, due to the high winds on the East side of the island, we were loaded into a hotel van and driven to the West side to do our dives. One of the hotel’s dive boats was docked by this gorgeous sandy beach, where our captain, Justin, and our divemasters, Danny and Ron, waited for us every morning.
The street was lined with dive shops. It’s easy to see what Roatan’s favorite activity is!
In between dives, we hung out on our boat – the Marea – chatting with Justin, Danny and Ron, and the other divers (and on one day, snorkelers) while we drove between dive sites or bobbed around waiting for the green light to hop back in the water.
During one surface interval, Justin drove us past the dolphins at Anthony’s Key, one of the biggest resorts on the island. Worth noting: this is not a holding pen. The dolphins are free to come and go as they please; those that were swimming around between the docks were there by choice, much to my relief. (Also, please excuse whatever is happening with the color in this picture. I don’t know why it’s all purple.)
Most days, we wrapped up our dives shortly before lunchtime and headed back to eat at Silversides before diving into work for the afternoon. But on our last day, our dive buddies Alex and Emily suggested that the four of us get dropped off at the Roatan Island Brewing Company for lunch – just to do something a little different.
We shared flights of beer, mango slices with dipping spices, crispy breadfruit – a Roatan favorite – and chicken quesadillas. Yum.
Definitely a fun way to celebrate adding twelve dives to our resumes!
Next week: back in the water for the biggest (literally) highlight of the week. Check in with me then!
Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally 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 November, 2022.
Sylvia’s Lovers, by Elizabeth Gaskell – Sylvia Robson is a blooming farmer’s daughter caught between two men, both of whom want to marry her. When one of these lovers – a harpooner on a whaling vessel – is carried off by the press gang to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, Sylvia’s other lover conceals vital knowledge from her and changes all of their lives. This was fine, but it was no Cranford or Wives and Daughters, and the dialect made it hard to follow much of the time. Full review to come for the Classics Club.
Notes from an Island, by Tove Jansson – The writer Tove Jansson and her partner, Tuulikki Pietila, spent much of their lives on an isolated island, which gave Jansson the material for her famous novel The Summer Book. This is her diary of their island days, gorgeously illustrated by Pietila’s paintings. I loved following the gentle rhythms of the two women’s year (and their illegal building projects).
The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern – After The Night Circus it would be hard for any sophomore effort to follow, but I found The Starless Sea a bit disappointing – as my BFF said I would. The concept is great – a hidden subterranean world devoted to stories, and a war between people that would preserve it and people that would bury it forever. But it went on too long, largely due to the extensive detail and random side quests; I almost felt like the author had taken it a personal challenge to jam as much creative detail in as humanly possible.
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe – Okonkwo is a prosperous farmer and a powerful member of his tribe, proudly committed to the traditional ways of the Igbo people. Achebe’s classic novel follows his despair and downfall when white colonizers arrive and disrupt the generational rhythms of Igbo lives. This was a powerful and stunning read. Full review to come for the Classics Club.
A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940, by Iris Origo – Origo was an Anglo-America writer who maried an Italian nobleman in the years preceding World War II. When war broke out, the Origos sheltered and protected refugees, escaped Allied POWs, Jews, and anti-Fascist partisans – all at great personal risk to themselves. Origo recorded the lead-up to war in the first volume of her diaries, A Chill in the Air, which she never intended for publication. In this slim volume, she repeatedly wrestles with the question of how one man – Mussolini – was able to compel a nation to war against its interests, its inclinations, and even its culture. It’s a fascinating primary source document with lessons for today.
Lovely War, by Julie Berry – A World War I love story narrated by Greek gods – do you need more to convince you to pick this up? Caught in Hephaestus’s golden net, Aphrodite pleads her case to her husband by telling him the stories of two of her favorite couples – James and Hazel, and Aubrey and Collette. To spin her narrative, she gets help from Ares, Apollo, and Hades. I really loved the four main characters, and rooted hard for them all to survive the war and end up happy (I won’t tell you the ending). Berry’s meticulous research and sensitive hand really showed in her description of the Black American regiments – to which Aubrey belonged – and the shameful treatment they received at the hands of their countrymen during the war. And the author’s note at the end is absolutely brilliant. And the whole experience was capped off by the audiobook production, which was wonderful. I highly recommend listening to this one, if you can – although at over 12 hours it is a time commitment.
War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944, by Iris Origo – The second volume of Iris Origo’s war diaries picks up in 1943. Italy is now well into the war, and Origo and her family expect to see fighting in their peaceful valley any day, as the Allies advance across the countryside. They continue to shelter POWs and children even when the farmhouse is taken over by Nazis (and Origo continues to record it all, hiding the pages of her diary in boxes buried around the garden). Finally, the Nazis expel them from their home and Origo leads a group of sixty elderly tenants and little refugee children as young as babies, on foot under heavy fire, to safety in Montepulciano. It’s as exciting as a thriller, and much more inspirational.
Lilibet: The Girl who Would be Queen, by A.N. Wilson – I loved A.N. Wilson’s The King and the Christmas Tree last year, so when I saw this new book published in a coordinating edition to that, I had to have it. Wilson imagines Queen Elizabeth II as a young girl, leading up to the moment when she learned she was Queen of England. A quick and delightful read.
A Poem for Every Autumn Day, ed. Allie Esiri – I always have grand plans of daily poetry reading, and it never works out. (Maybe if I kept my nightstand neater I’d notice the books on it…) As is typical, for me, I blasted through this entire daily poetry selection for fall in one day. But I really enjoyed it – I like the mix of seasonal verses with poetry reflecting on significant dates in history.
The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova – A young girl, set loose in her father’s library, finds a curious book. It’s almost completely blank, with an image of a dragon in the centerfold – and just one word: DRAKULYA. The girl asks her diplomat father about the book and he’s curiously reluctant to tell her anything. This sets off a literary detective chase around Europe. I loved every word of this – I did note some criticism on Goodreads about the detail, but I was here for every last description of a stained glass window or cup of coffee. It took me almost the entire month to get through it (I read it on my kindle, starting it on a flight home from Seattle on business and then setting it aside for several weeks before coming back to it with a goal of finishing it before December). But worth every minute of reading time.
Whew! November was a busy month in books, indeed. It started off a bit on the disappointing side – I didn’t really love anything I read in the first week or so – but I hit my stride around mid-month and ended with almost too many highlights to count. The highest of the highlights were Iris Origo’s diaries – the only downside there was the sadness in closing War in Val d’Orcia for the last time and having to say goodbye to Iris.(I do have her history of medieval Italian merchant life still on my shelf, and her memoir, Images and Shadows, on my Christmas list – so we’ll be reunited.) Aside from Iris, Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece tops the highlights list, and The Historian was absolutely riveting. Looking ahead, I’ve already had some good reading time in December and I have a stack of festive books for the coming weeks, so watch this space.
Oh my gosh, you guys – how is it December already?! I feel like the year just got underway and somehow it’s almost over. I am shook. Time to start Christmas shopping – well, I have already started, but in a haphazard way, so time to get organized, I guess. I’m in and out of Christmas spirit, as is usually the case at the beginning of December. When I’m hitting a Peloton holiday ride, I’m basically Mrs. Claus, but the rest of the time, it all just feels like too much work. Par for the course.
Anyway, I’m rationing holiday reading right now because I still haven’t forgotten the year – it might have been 2020? – when I only read Christmas books all of December and was burnt out in a big way by the time the actual holiday rolled around. This was a big reading week, as you can see. I started the week by finishing The Historian on Monday night. That felt very much like a November book to me, so I wanted to get it done in November, and I did. In print I then moved on to The Professor, and spent most of the week over it. I’ll have more to say in a full review for the Classics Club, but it’s not Charlotte Bronte’s best work, by any stretch. Actually, I think most would agree it’s her worst. Anyway, I finished it – with one short hiatus to finish off The Almanac 2022 (in the dentist’s chair, waiting for Novocaine to kick in so I could get a flossing injury fixed – don’t ask). I always read The Almanac month by month through the year, so all I had left was the December chapter. Finally, after finishing up The Professor at last on Sunday morning, I picked up The Franchise Affair and read half of it on Sunday evening. I’m determined to finish the rest today. I have a flight to Seattle tomorrow for the last business travel of 2022 and I want to list to an episode of Shedunnit on the plane, all about the real-life kidnapping case that inspired the novel. So naturally I’ve got to get the book done before I head to the airport. There’s a method to my madness, really.
That’s a lot of reading – but there’s more! (Always said in my Marissa Tomei voice – from the courtroom scene in “My Cousin Vinny” – IYKYK.) On audio, I blazed through The Christmas Hirelings, read by Richard Armitage. (It was a pretty predictable, rather silly Victorian novel, but short, and I’ll listen to Richard Armitage read the phone book.) Having finished that, I downloaded God Rest Ye, Royal Gentlemen – not the most recent Lady Georgianna mystery, but I hadn’t read it yet and felt like a festive listen. So apparently audiobooks are the one area where I’m allowing holiday reads so far. (Once I get back from Seattle I’ll dive into festive reading in earnest.) I’m five chapters in and having a glorious time, as I always do when Georgie is involved.
Next up on audio, I have Christmas Days, by Jeannette Winterson, which I downloaded last year and have been saving. Very much looking forward to that one. And in print – no idea. I always take my kindle with me on travel and just see what strikes me in the moment. Look at me, reading spontaneously.
Very calm weekend before the holiday storm – ordinary, that is, maybe not calm. Nugget had a bowling birthday party to attend and it took him a few throws but he got his bowling skills back after they lapsed over pandemic times. Peanut had a Girl Scout meeting and we took a short hike. And that was about it. Errands, laundry, Peloton – the usual. Holiday craziness starts now…
Over the past few years – starting in 2020 – we’ve dispatched Peanut and Nugget off to New York for a couple of weeks of grandparent fun over the summer. In 2020, we just stayed home in Virginia and worked, but in 2021, Steve and I snuck off for a “digital nomad” week in the Adirondacks – hiking and kayaking around our remote work schedules. This past summer, my mom called and asked if we were thinking of doing the same thing this time. We shrugged and said we would be happy to loan out the kids again, and started planning Adirondack paddles. Then one evening, as I was surfing the internet on my phone while sitting with Nugget at bedtime, it occurred to me – we didn’t have to go to the Adirondacks. We love it there, of course, but there’s no law saying that’s where we have to go when the kids stay with my parents in the summer. We’d been talking wistfully about scuba diving, after the fun we had getting certified in Costa Rica, and it hit me: we could go anywhere. We could go diving. I started researching potential locations and immediately narrowed the options down to two: Cayman Brac and Roatan. After some extra research, I decided – Roatan it was.
Roatan is the largest of three Bay Islands – Islas de la Bahia – off the coast of Honduras. It sits in the midst of a section of the vibrant, healthy Mesoamerican Reef. The reef is teeming with life all year long – everything from tiny nudibranchs and seahorses – to large pelagic species like whale sharks and hammerheads. It’s also warm, relatively shallow, and mostly free of currents: perfect for novice divers. Seemed like a no-brainer, so we quickly booked into Barefoot Cay Resort, a five-star PADI dive center, and booked our dive package.
We arrived at Barefoot Cay, checked in at the dive shop, and learned about what to expect for the week. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t looking promising; one of the main points that sold me on this resort was the ability to get to dive sites within a ten minutes’ boat ride from the dock. As it happened, we were there during the windiest month of the year – July – and it wasn’t safe to dive on the side of the island where our resort was located. Instead, we were loaded into a van each morning and driven to the other side of the island (where the wind was much lower and the weather better, thanks to a line of hills breaking the wind along the backbone of the island).
Instead, we dove from a resort-owned boat that was docked off this beautiful sandy beach and charming stretch of shops and dive centers. The island is surrounded by dive sites on all sides, so we had plenty of options for incredible diving. I won’t recap every dive in its own post – each one felt very different to me, but it’s a lot of blue pictures that will probably run together. But there were a few standouts that I just have to show you.
This was our divemaster, Danny. We were paired with another couple – who were on their honeymoon, just like our dive buddies from Costa Rica; we seem to attract honeymooners – and the four of us dove with Danny all week. Our Roatan dive buddies, Alex and Emily, turned out to be just as fun, funny, interesting and kind as our Costa Rica dive buddies, Garry and Donna. The four of us hit it off immediately and I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d rather spend the week diving with – or dissecting the dives over cocktails with every evening.
The first couple of dives were nice and shallow – a good way to get our fins wet.
Ain’t no party like a garden eel dance party, ’cause a garden eel dance party is underwater! Mandy’s Eel Garden was a highlight in a week of highlights. And the garden eels swaying in the gentle current – well, I never thought I’d use the word “adorable” to describe eels, but they really were.
The Mesoamerican Reef was incredible – gloriously healthy and colorful. Our new dive buddies, Alex and Emily, described the bleached coral in the Caymans, and assured us that we were lucky to be exploring such a vibrant reef in Roatan. (Don’t mind the blue/green tint of the pictures here – I am still getting the hang of underwater photography. The reef was a rainbow.)
Of course, the biggest highlight of any dive is getting to swim alongside the best dive buddy. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather dive with.
Trying to use my fins to white balance. It didn’t work.
Brain coral! So spooky.
Speaking of spooky, Danny took us on one dive to the El Aguila shipwreck. Let me tell you, swimming along through endless blue gloom and then a mast looms up in front of you is a vibe. I felt a little bit like The Little Mermaid.
The couple that wreck dives together stays together, right Steve? I love this picture. Look how hardcore we look!
The opposite of hardcore: this seahorse. He was actually very large for a seahorse – several inches, with a big pregnant belly – and bright yellow. Our dive buddy, Emily, described him as a Giant Cartoon Seahorse.
Also not hardcore: this parrotfish. We saw them all over the place, and every single one looked like a child’s squeaky bath toy.
We did not see any whale sharks (wrong season – they do turn up anytime during the year, but July is not their big migration time so they’re a rare sight) or hammerheads, much to Steve’s dismay. (We’ll just have to go back to Roatan – twist my arm.) But we did see a massive nurse shark sleeping on the seafloor. See the dorsal fin and long tail tucked away? Look closely.
One pelagic species we did see: spotted eagle rays, which flew past us as casually as you please. They were gone in a flash, but what a flash it was.
On one of our first dives, Emily spotted a conch. After she mentioned seeing one, I started seeing them everywhere.
A river of “goggle eyes” on our last dive. I started diving to face and overcome a fear of fish, so to rest peacefully in the water and take in this site – and find it impressive and moving instead of terrifying – was a huge victory for me.
We also made a game out of spotting as many Caribbean spiny lobsters as we could.
Tunnels, swim-throughs and tight squeezes. Steve didn’t really enjoy these, but our divemaster added them into a few dives because Alex and Emily did. (Important for everyone to get to do what they like!) I viewed them as a personal challenge: could I make it through a swim-through without freaking out? I was really proud of myself for tackling this more intermediate level diving.
These are just a few of the highlights Roatan had to offer! Next week, I’ll show you where we spent our surface intervals. Check in with me then!
As the mercury drops, I’m remembering more and more how perfectly winter hats hold earbuds in ears – a nice little side benefit to knitwear. Here’s a selection of some of my fall listening highlights:
Lovely War, by Julie Berry. Still really enjoying my routine of switching between listening to an audiobook, then catching up on my podcatcher – I listened to Lovely War on long neighborhood walks and commutes between October and November. It’s a bit of a tome and the audiobook was nearly 12 hours, even on 1.1 speed (over 13 if you listened on regular speed, but I’ve found 1.1 sounds more conversational to me and keeps my listening pace where I like it). I really enjoyed it, but did bog down occasionally and have to take breaks for more bite-sized content via Apple Podcasts.
Podcasts – always. Speaking of which, that long audiobook gave me plenty of time to stack up a whole library’s worth of recent episodes in my podcatcher. Since wrapping up Lovely War I’ve been gradually working my way through these, and also sprinkling in some back holiday content from The Mom Hour, my favorite parenting podcast (actually the only parenting podcast I can bear to listen to).
Music – especially ’90s jams. The kids – especially Nugget – prefer to listen to music in the car and will complain if I put on a podcast or audiobook, so we’re always scrolling through my iTunes library. Recently, Nugget got the beginnings of his R.E.M. education. But more than anything else, lately, I’ve been listening to ’90s music – I think it’s the Peloton causing this blast from the past. I did a few “90s rock rides” and found myself shouting “I love this song!” and singing along to the Red Hot Chili Peppers way more than I would have expected. Especially when Robin Arzon is choosing the playlist, I just can’t get enough. It’s like having the best part of high school back, without all the drama.
The sounds of nature. A few weeks ago, the kids were miraculously quiet for a couple of moments on a hike and we got to actually hear the forest around us – the whistling of wind in the trees, the soft rushing of the Potomac river on its banks just a few feet away, the scurrying of a small animal in the underbrush. It was such an unexpected joy – like our own little Autumnwatch mindful moment – that Nugget was inspired to play a game of “I hear with my little ear” all the way back to the car and we walked along listening to the sounds of the woods and whispering our observations to each other. It was, unsurprisingly, lovely.
Morning, friends! Happy Thanksgiving – one more time – to all who were celebrating this weekend. I hope you had a delicious feast, some time with family, plenty of fresh air, and a chance to curl up with a book. I got all of those things this weekend and it was wonderful. Of course, now I am staring down a pile of emails to start the week off – c’est la vie.
The reading was good indeed. On Monday, I finished up War in Val d’Orcia, which was an incredible read and certainly in line for one of the top ten books of my reading year. Next up, I wanted something short and quick, so I picked up A.N. Wilson’s new bite-sized book about Queen Elizabeth II, Lilibet: The Girl Who Would Be Queen. I loved The King and the Christmas Tree, which Wilson published last year, and this new edition was just as delightful. It took me longer to read than it ordinarily would because in the intervening time I had a day of trial (that went until after 8:00pm my time) and my Thanksgiving houseguests arrived. But Lilibet provided a nice distraction. The rest of the week, when not cooking or entertaining, I churned through A Poem for Every Autumn Day – I was way behind, having fallen off the daily poetry reading wagon back in September. So instead of catching up and finishing out November with daily poetry, I figured – I’m already reading this in a couple of big bites; might as well just finish it. So I did. Finally, I turned back to The Historian on my kindle. I’d started it on the plane to Seattle earlier in the month and was planning to save it for my next flight (I have one more business trip coming up in 2022) but it feels like such a November read and I really wanted to finish it this month. I still have a few hours of reading left – it’s getting very spooky – and haven’t really given any thought at all to what I’ll read next. We’ll all be surprised.
Thanksgiving tradition – turkey trotting! I went for the Turkey Day 5K this year because it was near my house and had a one mile run for Nugget. He was actually fighting a cold, but still banged out a sub-eight minute mile. Unbelievable! I was much slower in the 5K.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and aren’t too behind to start the week! What are you reading?
Our last morning in Costa Rica was spent kayaking the Rio Penas Blancas with a “float safari” group – I’m not doing a full post because it actually was the only experience we had in Costa Rica that wasn’t great. We did see some cool animals, including long-nosed bats, squirrel monkeys, several kinds of kingfishers, an American crocodile, and a juvenile sloth way up in a tree.
I was also a little on edge because when we got back to our hotel, we had our COVID test scheduled – this was the days when a negative COVID test was required to get back into the United States, and while I felt fine (and had barely been inside for the last week and a half) I was terrified of the idea of a positive test stranding me in Costa Rica. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the test was over – and negative, so we were cleared to go home the next day, whew – and we decided to celebrate with one more adventure. Our guide from Monteverde, Felix, had recommended a trail called the Bogarin Trail, which starts from practically the middle of downtown La Fortuna.
We ate a quick lunch, then drove over to the trail and decided our mission was going to be to spot a sloth.
This looks promising.
We’d seen a sloth about a hundred feet up in a tree in Corcovado National Park, and a young one nestled – and well camouflaged – in a tree on the Rio Penas Blancas that morning, but we wanted a really good view before we went home. The first clue came when we saw a cluster of people gathered around a guide with a scope, peering up into a tree.
Well, there you are!
This was an adult female, very slowly and meditatively chewing her way through a lunch of green leaves.
We walked a bit further along the trail and were stopped by another group, who pointed out a small spur trail and promised an extra special treat just on the other side of a line of trees – a mother sloth and baby! We thanked them, hurried over the spur trail, and found several guided groups gathered around and taking in this sight:
It does not get cuter than this.
Eventually, the mother sloth decided to move up the tree, and we watched as she cautiously picked her way along the branches.
I seriously could not get over those fuzzy little arms and legs clinging to Mom. Reminded me of Nugget, but you know – fuzzier.
Eventually, Mom and baby made their way up into the higher branches, and we decided to move on and see if we could find “our own” sloth – i.e. without the clue of a big group of tourists clustered around a guide. We picked our way along the trail at sloth pace – it was definitely the slowest we’ve ever hiked – craning our necks up into the treetops. Eventually, we were rewarded when Steve pointed and called out that he’d spotted something:
That’s another mom and baby pair!
Such an amazing sight and a total treat – definitely the best way to say goodbye (for now, because we’ll definitely be back) to Costa Rica. We watched this pair for a long time, then – grinning broadly – made our way back to the trailhead. There was one more treat in store for us, though: the park staff had a suite of birdfeeders and tropical fruits that they kept constantly replenished, and a rainbow of colorful birds were hopping around enjoying the feast.
What a way to bid Costa Rica farewell! We were ready to go home – missing the kids, that is; I think we could have stayed for years if they were with us. But we were bringing home a store of memories of adventures and surprises, and definitely planning to return. For now, though, it was time to get back to real life.
This is the end of our time in Costa Rica – for now, anyway, because as noted above we’ll definitely be back. But it’s not the end of Friday travel posts! I’m still way behind and have plenty of adventures to share. Next week, it’s back to Central America: over the summer, Steve and I spent a week being “digital nomads” in Roatan, Honduras – scuba diving in the mornings and working in the afternoons. I won’t go day by day, but I do have some underwater highlights to share with you. Check in with me then!
Still liking my streamlined and pared-down Monday posts, so still looking at a quarterly catch-up to show you what other media I’ve been into lately. It’s hard to believe that it’s already the end of November – Thanksgiving tomorrow! – because I feel like summer just fizzled out yesterday. But here we are, staring down another holiday season. As life gets busier, television and movies tend to be the first thing to go – I’ll prioritize reading when time is limited – but I did manage to watch some good stuff despite an especially hectic fall.
Hamilton at the Kennedy Center. Highlight no. 1 of fall viewing was Hamilton, performed live by the Philip Tour company at the Kennedy Center in D.C. This was the third time I’ve seen the show live – once on Broadway, and another time at the Kennedy Center – and it was as wonderful as ever. Something I really enjoyed this time around: seeing the actors put their own spin on lines I know so well from the soundtrack, the original Broadway cast on Disney+, and other performances. For instance, in the song “Non-Stop,” when Hamilton sings the line “Burr, you’re a better lawyer than me,” Leslie Odom Jr. has sung his response “Okay…” in a manner suggesting that he’s skeptical of where Hamilton is going with this. This time, the actor playing Aaron Burr sang the line “Okay!” as if to say “Finally, you acknowledge that I’m better!” It was a little thing, but fun to look out for those little differences in tone and to spot the different actors bringing their own interpretations to these much-loved characters. In case you can’t tell, I had a great time.
Nugget, sports-ing. Highlight no. 2 of fall viewing – this is a highlight in any season, really – was Nugget, tearing it up on sports fields and race courses and swimming pools. He’s gotten into sports in a big way lately and he’s a shockingly good athlete (no idea where he gets that from). This fall, he played pre-travel soccer, leveled up twice in his swim lessons (and is on the final class level before he graduates from Goldfish Swim School and has to decide whether he wants to join their swim team or bid goodbye to his Saturdays in the pool) and ran his first in-person running race (the Marine Corps Marathon Kids’ Run). We don’t push him to do any of these things – he is genuinely enjoying himself. It’s so cool to see him come into his own and experience the excitement and joy of reaching his goals. I’m a proud sports mom.
Andor. Family viewing lately has been the most recent Star Wars series to drop on Disney+ – Andor. I really liked the character of Cassian Andor in Rogue One, so it’s been fun to watch his backstory. We’ve been watching the series as a family (or at least, Steve and Nugget and I have been watching; Peanut drifts in and out and often reads during family TV time, which is fine with me) and just finished it up recently. I liked it much better than The Book of Boba Fett, but not nearly as much as The Mandalorian, which is still the gold standard of TV in my house.
The Pale Horse. After listening to Agatha Christie’s weird and chilling tale of murder by supernatural… or maybe ordinary… means, I wanted to watch the recent television adaptation with Steve. Turns out it was nothing like the book.
The Great British Baking Show. Whew! That’s a lot of intense television viewing – more so than usual, and as someone who gets stressed out during cake decorating shows, it’s been a lot of heart-pounding. We’ve been sprinkling in the latest season of The Great British Baking Show – every weekend when a new episode drops – to calm down and get some restful viewing in too. We all just love this show and can’t get enough of it.
Well! First of all, happy Thanksgiving week to my friends in the U.S. I hope your plans include some time to sit and sink into a book – that’s something I am always thankful for.
Bit of an up-and-down week in terms of reading. As far as the reading quality went, it was all up – everything I read over the last week was wonderful. On Monday, I finished up Things Fall Apart, for my Classics Club challenge. Full review to come but it was a really magnificent, compelling read. Then I turned to Iris Origo’s World War II diaries, which I’d been saving. (I always like to read diaries, but for some reason I’m especially drawn to them when the nights draw in and the weather gets colder.) Origo was an Anglo-American writer married to an Italian nobleman. A Chill in the Air covers 1939-40, when Italy’s entry into the war was not a foregone conclusion, and tracks the slow slide to combat. War in Val d’Orcia, covering 1943-44, is the more famous of the two diaries and is an incredible read – matter-of-factly recording Iris and her husband Antonio’s efforts to shelter and protect streams of refugees, bombed-out children, Jews, escaped Allied POWs, and Italian partisans fighting against the Fascists – often at great personal risk to themselves. It’s an amazing read; I thought I’d finish it yesterday but a headache kept me from turning pages (BOOOOOO) so I expect I’ll wrap it up tonight. I’ll be sad to say goodbye to Iris, Antonio, and the rest of their little band – but I do have The Merchant of Prato, Origo’s book about daily life in Italy during the Middle Ages, still on my shelf.
Separately, via Audible, I finally finished up Lovely War. This was trending toward a solid three stars for me – I liked the story but was starting to bog down – but the author’s note at the end, which was absolutely marvelous, bumped it up to four. I did really enjoy this, even if it was an absolute tome, and I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook version, if you can get it. The cast of narrators do a wonderful job. I especially loved Aphrodite – she’s never been my favorite Greek goddess, but she was an absolute delight. While I’ll always love Artemis the most, I might have a new second favorite Olympian.
Next up, I just got A.N. Wilson’s new YA book, Lilibet: The Girl Who Would Be Queen, and it’s calling to me.
covered in flour 