Reading post: October

In October I planned to read entirely fun books, spooky books, mysteries, etc. Nothing serious! And I was pretty successful in that attempt. I had hoped to finish one more by tonight, but it's not going to happen, so I'll have to fit it into much-more-serious November. Happy Halloween!

Spooky, fun books

The Family Vault by Charlotte MacLeod (1979). OK, not actually a spooky book, but rather a cozy mystery. MacLeod is a new author for me, and although I don't, in general, like cozy mysteries, I thought this one was fun and I would read more of her. The book introduces the two main characters in a 12-book series: Sarah Kelling, a Boston Brahmin with a huge weird inbred family, and Max Bittersohn, a Jewish art-fraud investigator. They were fun, and I was very worried for Sarah for most of the book, so it wasn't really all that cozy. But it all ended impossibly well, so yeah, cozy.

My Dark Places by James Ellroy (1996). I chose this as my second book of the month because I didn't think it would be too scary. Ha. The book is divided into four sections. Part 1 is a description of the initial investigation into Ellroy's mother's murder in 1958, and that was the most interesting. Part 2 is a memoir of Ellroy's childhood and young adulthood, truly harrowing. Part 3 concerns the detective he ended up working with, Bill Stoner, and his work on horrific murder cases, and it scared me so much I couldn't sleep. Part 4 is a description of Ellroy's and Stoner's re-investigation of Ellroy's mother's murder, and it's mostly frustrating. Overall, a fascinating book.

Eva Moves the Furniture by Margot Livesey (2001). Last October I read Livesey's novel about her great-grandmother, Lizzie; this one is about her mother, Eva, who died when Livesey was only two years old (both Lizzie and Eva were supposedly psychic). Like The Road from Belhaven, this book isn't spooky, even though there are two ghosts who show up quite often and mess with Eva's life (sometimes for good, sometimes perhaps for their own purposes). I suppose the book is about how she learns to live with them but also live her own life. Not your typical novel, nor your typical ghost story. It's slow-moving, thoughtful, very sad at the end. I liked it.

The Devil's Flute Murders by Seishi Yokomizo, translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion (serialized in Japan 1951-53/this translation 2023). Every time I read a Yokomizo mystery, I think that's my last, but then, hmm, I somehow find myself reading another. This is a "locked-room mystery," and I hate those, but the locked-room aspect is just a tiny part of it. Mostly it's a creepy, perverted mystery, which got more and more perverted as it went along. Plus it's set in 1947 Japan, so there's a lot of talk about how the trains don't run on time and there's no food and houses have been destroyed by bombs and fire. So it ended up being pretty interesting. I'm sure I'll go on reading Yokomizo.

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach (2005). Kind of an anti-spooky book, although she swears in the intro that it's not. 

"Skeptics and debunkers provide a needed service in this area, but their work more or less assumes an outcome. I'm trying hard not to make assumptions, not to have an agenda." 

And I would say she more or less succeeds, while being funny. Also, though she spends too much time on already debunked hoaxes, such as ectoplasm, she included some things I hadn't read about before, like nutty attempts to weigh the soul. By the end of the book, I was nervous, always the goal when reading spooky books.

The Searcher by Tana French (2020). I convinced my book group to read this as our October book. I love Tana French, but this isn't much like one of her Dublin Murder Squad books. The main character, Cal, is a retired Chicago cop who has moved to Ireland for peace and quiet, but then a 13-year-old named Trey shows up on his doorstep, wanting him to find someone who's gone missing. I'd say the first 2/3 of the book was pretty slow and then it finally sped up. But it was very easy to read, even during the slow parts. Also, it had a happy-ish ending, which surprised me. The book group liked it a lot, and Sally has already gone on and read the two sequels. I will have to read them too. Maybe next October!

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (2024). Everyone was reading this last year and I couldn't get it from the library. Now there are plenty of copies available, so I checked one out. The 13-year-old daughter of a wealthy family goes missing from a summer camp, 14 years after her brother went missing in the same area. It's not spooky, but it is creepy, and the writing got more and more propulsive, so that by the end I could barely put it down. The theme of people with too much money didn't interest me, but there were a lot of other good characters. I read on another blog that the book was over-hyped, but I don't think so. It's good! Recommended.

The Echo of Crows by Phil Rickman (2025). The last book in the Merrily Watkins series, because Phil Rickman died in October 2024, having submitted this manuscript to his publishers a few weeks earlier. His previous Merrily Watkins book, The Fever of the World, was really bad, mainly because Phil was sick and his wife Carol didn't have time to edit it because she was doing "absolutely everything else," as he said in the Acknowledgements. This one was edited by Carol, so it wasn't a mess, but just like Fever it felt more like an outline than a real book. Phil Rickman was so good at creating atmosphere, pacing a scene just right. This book has none of that. It's just -- this happens and then this happens and then this happens. No atmosphere, no spooky pacing. So strange. On the plus side, he managed to tie up several loose ends, so we know his characters will live happily ever after, and I appreciated that.

The Carrow Haunt by Darcy Coates (2018). I saved this for last because I thought it would be super scary. What a disappointment! I read another book by her, Gallows Hill, in 2023, and that was spooky, so I thought this one would be too. It wasn't. It was about a haunted house, but it was just so over the top that I started laughing at it. Like, oh, come on, give me a break. The Haunting of Hill House it was not. The pacing was off, I think. She crammed so much spookiness into one book that there was no time for a reader to get scared. And here I thought I had a great spooky author to read (she's written a gazillion books). Oh well. 

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child by Laura Cumming (2019). I've wanted to read this ever since I first heard about it, so this seemed like a good month to do it. Laura Cumming's mom was taken from a beach near her home in England when she was three years old and found five days later, safe and sound. The mystery behind this is complicated, and Cumming describes how she and her family gradually unraveled it, plus what her mother's life was like, growing up not knowing anything about her origins. Very unusual, interesting.

Other reading

Cold Kitchen: A Year of Culinary Travels by Caroline Eden (2024). I think I heard about this book when I was reading Spilling the Beans by Sarah Moss last month. Either she mentions it in that book or I read about it when I was reading about that book, I DON'T KNOW, but anyway, I requested it from the library and it popped up in October, when I didn't really want to read it. I read it anyway and it is delightful. It was about eating interesting foods in unusual places, like Uzbekistan, Turkey, Latvia, Georgia, Ukraine. And now I want to go to Uzbekistan and eat winter melons. That's never going to happen. But I enjoyed the book, and I do plan to try a couple of her recipes.

Haunted happenings

The main thing I don't like about October is that it goes too fast! I try to squeeze every bit of enjoyment out of it, and it's just impossible. Here we are, October 25th, less than a week left. I've read a bunch of spooky books, I've watched a spooky show, I've decorated the house, I've bought lots of Halloween candy, I've gone on walks to look at the fall color... and yesterday, Rocket Boy, Teen B, and I went to the haunted house at Boulder High.

And I fell down. Oof. They have signs all over warning you that the floor in the haunted house is uneven, there are stairs going up and down and not enough railings, if you have mobility problems you shouldn't risk it... Probably what's implied is that if you had knee surgery two months ago, you shouldn't risk it. That's what a "mobility problem" is. Duh.

But I risked it -- because how could I miss the "Cirque du Slain" haunted house?!?! And I fell down. Not on my well-padded bottom, but forward, down a little flight of stairs and onto my knees. Of course. I felt as though more of my weight landed on the right knee, but both knees hurt today. And my left shoulder and arm. Oh well. I didn't break anything and I can't even find any bruises. I'll heal. But it was sad. After I fell, I just crouched there, in the dark, and when I tried to get up, I couldn't. Rocket Boy had to drag me up. I don't know what was happening in the haunted house at that moment -- I don't remember any actors near us, nor any other visitors behind us. Both Teen B and Rocket Boy couldn't stop laughing about it -- I think out of nervousness. I laughed too. And we were almost at the end, so I staggered on, and soon we were done. 

Will I go next year? I'll see. In the meantime, I have to focus on my physical therapy exercises, but I couldn't do one of them properly today -- the knee hurts too much. Sigh.

It was a fairly quiet week otherwise, no appointments for me except physical therapy. I was talking to my little sister one day about retirement and volunteer work and all that. She's inches away from retirement, probably just one more day to work, and like me, she is thinking about what she will do with all her time. Volunteer work is an obvious choice, but then you start to think, oh! but that's MY time! I want that time for myself -- to do what, exactly? I'm not sure. But it's hard to commit to volunteer work for that reason. 

And of course, I still have a lot of housework to do because Rocket Boy isn't retired, cooking and cleaning and whatnot, and the boys still need me for various things (for instance, Teen A's car needed an oil change on Friday, and I drove him there and back). Also, I like to spend a chunk of my free time on reading and writing (got through a couple of chapters of my novel this week). And then there's genealogy, which I haven't been doing recently but would like to get back into.

At the same time, I think I would like to do some volunteer work, make myself useful, as it were. It feels good to be out in the world, helping somebody or something. So what's it going to be? Do I want to walk dogs at the Humane Society? Volunteer in the schools? Help out in some way at the hospital? Tutor English-language learners at the library? Offer myself as a free babysitter? I don't know who would want me or what I would want to do.

Cooking did not go well this week. Rocket Boy decided to make his French onion soup last Sunday, so we had that on Monday as well (he got a very good do on it -- it was delicious). On Tuesday, of course I was going to a concert, so he bought some fish at Sprouts on his way home and fixed that for himself and Teen A, with rice and spinach. 

On Wednesday I made the first of my planned meals -- "Roasted Eggplant with Jammy Onions and Ricotta" from the NY Times cooking section. The jammy onions smelled so good, and the ricotta mixed with grated halloumi and garlic was also tasty, as were the toasted walnuts on top. But the roasted eggplant looked like octopus (that is, the strings of seeds looked weirdly like octopus legs). And I remembered that I don't like eggplant. It was just so awful. Teen A ate some and dumped the rest in the compost. Rocket Boy worked away at his with a knife and fork, eating every bite. I tried to eat it, I really did. But then I also made use of the compost bin. 

I think there might still be one serving in the fridge. Horrors. 

On Thursday I made "Walnut Sauce Pasta," also from the NY Times. The recipe said to blanch the walnuts, but I roasted them instead, and that may have been part of the problem. Another part may have been that you were supposed to make it in a food processor, but I don't have one, so I used a hand blender. It wasn't bad, exactly, it was just sort of like eating pasta coated with peanut butter. Bleah. Teen A ate some and then asked me if I'd like the rest of his plate (in lieu of dumping it in the compost again). I said sure, it's my fault, I'll eat it. I chewed away, wishing I hadn't made it.

There's still a ton left. I ate it for lunch on Friday but have otherwise avoided it. Maybe tomorrow I'll toss the rest. 

Teen A said, "Why can't you ever make GOOD pasta?" Rocket Boy said, "In St. Louis I used to make pasta using tomato sauce from a jar. You could make that." Hmmph!

On Friday I was supposed to make "Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Figs, Bacon and Blue Cheese," again from the NY Times, and I just couldn't. I didn't have any bacon, and nobody but me likes blue cheese, and I just didn't know about those figs. So Rocket Boy and Teen A went to the Himalayan restaurant and I stayed home and had a yogurt.

I could still make that pizza this week. I'll think about it. On Monday, my book group is coming, so Rocket Boy and Teen A will probably eat out, and then after that I don't know.  

The Tuesday night concert was disappointing this week. It was a classical guitar professor playing, naturally, classical guitar pieces, and I really didn't like any of them. I was under the impression I liked classical guitar, so I don't know what went wrong. At least I didn't fall asleep. This coming week the concert is called "The Art of Collaboration," and it features a cello-piano duo, with various additional people playing chamber music. I'll probably go to it. We'll see.

Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, the kids and I were scheduled to participate in the ABCD (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development) study at CU, our TENTH year. It was very different this year. For one thing, the kids didn't want to do it. They each earned $145, and Teen A earned a bit more because he agreed to give blood, etc. (Teen B never wants to do any of the extra things). But that wasn't enough of an incentive, because now that they've experienced real money (their social security money), this didn't seem worth it to them (even though Teen A has already blown through all of his SS money and really could use more). The study is probably going to be extended another five years, and I don't know if the kids are going to be willing to be part of it.

I earned $100, $50 per kid. But my part was so small. I had to fill out a few surveys, but they were NOTHING like in years past. It took me maybe an hour to do them all, while Teen B took maybe two and a half hours and Teen A took the full three hours. After this year, I won't be involved, because the kids are adults now and the study designers figure my answers will be less and less useful. For instance, they asked me about the kids' use of marijuana, alcohol, and nicotine. How could I really know?

While Teen B and I were waiting for Teen A to finish up, I took some pictures of the room where I sit to fill out forms (see above). It's not interesting, but I realized it was probably the last time I would ever be in that room, and I've been in it so many times through the last ten years.

When we got home, it was almost 5 pm, so we decided to have an early dinner before going to the haunted house. We first tried BJ's, but there was absolutely no parking within half a mile (probably because the CU game at Oklahoma State had just started), so we went to Murphy's in Louisville, which was quiet and peaceful (even though they too were showing the CU game on big screens). 

On the way there, for some reason Rocket Boy started reminiscing about the time we held the twins' birthday party at our rental house (which wasn't being rented at the time -- we were still trying to dry out the floors after the 2013 flood). My guess was that it was in 2015, and I looked at my blog and sure enough, that was right. They were seven years old that March. So I started reading the blog post about the party. At the end of the post I wrote this:

It frightens me to look ahead -- how will we be coping seven years from now, ten years from now, fourteen years from now, etc. When I'm in a worried mood I think about how old I'll be then, how fat. How confused Rocket Boy will be. How little money we'll have. Stuff like that. But what I try to remind myself is that people survive all kinds of awful things and we will probably survive the twins' adolescence too.

Reading that made me laugh! Yes, I am old, but I am less fat, not more, due to Mounjaro -- didn't see that one coming, back in 2015. Rocket Boy is no more confused than he was 11 and a half years ago (when I apparently thought he was developing Alzheimer's). He's still really smart, and now, at age 72, he has a good job. And thus we have far more money than we had in 2015 when we were living off my part-time teaching. When he eventually retires, we will probably still be OK, because he didn't take social security until he turned 70 and I'm expecting to wait until at least 67 (full retirement age for me) and we haven't even touched our TSP funds yet. And the twins? We have so far survived their adolescence (supposedly it ends at age 19, lol), they are both adults, they both have driver's licenses, they are both registered to vote, and they are both in college.

Of course, things don't always turn out for the best. But worrying about stuff is pointless, because You Just Don't Know how things will turn out. You have to wait for time to pass and deal with whatever happens then. I know I was worried about the kids back in 2015 because they didn't seem quite "normal," but neither of them had a diagnosis yet. Kid B, for example, spent most of the birthday party wrapped in a sleeping bag. I knew that wasn't "normal." And maybe my concerns helped push us to get their diagnoses. But still. I think there's a difference between noticing a problem and doing something about it -- and just worrying worrying worrying about things like how fat am I going to be in ten years.

I do know that as time goes on we're going to get older and more frail (falling down in haunted houses, hmm?) and sicker and eventually we'll die. But yeah, it happens to everyone and I don't think it's worth worrying about, seriously. You can make plans for it, or try to, but worry? What's the point?

Just some thoughts on mortality, as we approach All Hallows' Eve. 

And now for the last week of October! My book group comes tomorrow, I'll probably go to the concert on Tuesday plus physical therapy, I'll help Teen A take his car back to the shop on Friday to have the brakes fixed, and there's a Zoom call with my old Michigan friends on Saturday morning. Teen B told us we probably won't see him next weekend because he wants to be in Fort Collins for Halloween! I thought that was lovely. Teen A will probably be out with friends, so Rocket Boy and I will stay home and watch a movie or something, while waiting for trick-or-treaters to knock on our door. Should be fun. See you in November.

October is a busy month

Yes, October is SUCH a busy month, especially when you take advantage of all the fun things to do. We had some cold, rainy days this week, and I appreciated the chance to sit around reading and just chilling out. Wednesday night it got very cold, so we put our comforter on the bed, and oh, I slept so well that night, cold air and warm blankets. But on Thursday night (so cold that we covered my flowers and brought the basil inside), Rocket Boy turned on the furnace. We haven't gotten a new filter or anything, and I woke up on Friday with terrible sinus issues, plus very sweaty. So I turned the furnace off. Later, Rocket Boy turned it back on. Last night, I turned it DOWN (but not off).

It's that time of year: furnace on, furnace off, comforter on, comforter off. When it gets truly cold I'll appreciate having both the furnace and the comforter, but until then, we argue.

This week I cooked recipes from Moosewood Restaurant's Simple Suppers: Fresh Ideas for the Weeknight Table, which I got at the Bookworm some years back. It's not my favorite cookbook, but the recipes tend to be easy, so I find myself going back to it from time to time. On Monday I made Curried Cauliflower and Chickpea Soup with Cranberry Chutney, both of which I thought were very good, especially the next day. On Wednesday I made Two Potato Gratin (with white and sweet potatoes), plus broccoli, and on Thursday I fixed brussels sprouts to go with the leftover gratin. I love brussels sprouts -- Rocket Boy doesn't, really, but these were so tender, and I made a sauce out of butter and Dijon mustard that was so delicious, that we ate all 34 of them (except for six that RB set aside to take to work for his lunch the next day). And then on Friday I made Tortilla Melts, which involved portabella mushrooms, red onion, cream cheese, pesto, tomato slices, and provolone cheese -- they sound complicated, but they really weren't. 

And I made brownies. I think on Thursday.

A few times this week I caught myself thinking that I'm actually enjoying cooking dinner these days. I think it's because I'm only doing it three times a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays (and Saturdays and Sundays) I do not have to think about dinner. That really helps.

This week I'm going back to the NY Times cooking section, and I am going to make recipes that involve walnuts and figs. That sounded fall-like. We'll see how it goes.

I went to the Faculty Concert again on Tuesday, but this time I didn't get as much out of it. I think part of the problem was that I had physical therapy that day and I was sore and tired from it. PT is a workout! Also, I guess I hadn't slept well the night before. Anyway, I actually FELL ASLEEP during the concert. It was called "A Trio of Trios," three piano trios played by a violinist, a cellist, and a pianist. The first two were good, but the third one, after the intermission, was the Brahms Trio No. 2 in C Major, Opus 87, and although the cellist really talked it up, what a wonderful piece it was, I found it boring and fell asleep. I'm not sure I have ever done that. Of course, I woke up quickly, but how embarrassing. Channeling my poor mother, who fell asleep in everything.

This coming week, the concert is guitar music, so I think I have a better chance of staying awake. We shall see.

I managed to write, I think three days this week, which is not as many as I had hoped for, but it's not bad. I'm trying to work the new mystery I came up with into the old draft, and that's harder than it sounds, but I'm trying. I've made it through the first seven chapters so far, and I will try to work on Chapter 8 tomorrow. There are still some chapters that aren't even drafted -- maybe I'll get to some of those this week. 

Yesterday, Saturday, there was another No Kings protest downtown, the first since I think March? It's been a long time. And I wasn't really into it, but at the same time, how could I not go? I didn't have any good ideas for a sign, so I just used my old one ("Cats Against Trump") and it got a few laughs. Rocket Boy was much more ambitious and made two signs having to do with voting. That's what I should have done. It was really a pro-voting event, and lots of people's signs referenced voting. (By the way, I did manage to get Teen A to vote this week, so we're all done.)

Teen B arrived from Fort Collins about an hour before the protest was supposed to start at 12, and we tried to get him to go with us, but nuh uh, he wasn't having any of that. He pointed out that Teen A (and his girlfriend) were still sound asleep in the twins' bedroom. We dropped the subject. He wanted me to take him to Starbucks, but there wasn't really time. I did, however, treat and wash his hoodie -- he'd had a nosebleed on the bus and bled all over it. "And I just washed it!" he complained. It did look very clean, except for the blood. I showed him how to treat stains, and offered him an extra bottle of stain remover, but he said no, that was too complicated. Baby steps. 

It was a beautiful warm day, in the 70s, and we stood near the bus stop near Broadway & Canyon and waved our signs. Lots of people honked. It wasn't a huge crowd -- actually, I have no idea how big the crowd was. We got there late and just found a place to stand and stayed there. Later, I guess a portion of the crowd marched over to a polling place, but we didn't notice them leaving, so we stayed. 

At 2 pm we were hot and tired, so we packed it in and walked back to our car. We'd parked at Boulder High -- they charge on Saturdays because of the Farmer's Market across the street, and I gave them $10 instead of the required $5, because it supports something at the school, sports or music or whatever. But as we were walking back afterwards, I noticed a mentally ill woman screaming. We tried to avoid her, but she kept coming closer. RB stopped to buy some pretzels at the Farmer's Market, and I saw the woman kicking a sign. If she comes after us, I'll hit her with my sign, I planned. It seemed so ridiculous to be dealing with someone like that on a beautiful sunny day with normal people all over doing normal things. Where are the police when you need them? But maybe they wouldn't have done anything. 

Anyway, we managed to get back to our car without directly engaging with her -- at one point she just seemed to vanish -- so I didn't have to hit anybody with my sign.

I took Teen B to Starbucks when we got home, and then we just hung out for a few hours, not doing anything, just being together. 

At six, we decided to have dinner at Red Robin, so we dragged Teen A away from his video game and he drove us there. Teen B had to catch his bus back to Fort Collins at 8:10, so we were in a bit of a hurry. Red Robin was crowded and slow, but once our meals came, we all ate quickly, except Rocket Boy, who is the slowest eater I know, but he obligingly scooped up half his meal into one of our take-out containers (we always bring our own and reuse them), and we made it home by 7:40. 

There was a CU football game starting at 8:15, so I took Teen B to a different bus stop, not the one on campus. The stop was close to Target, so after letting Teen B off (and driving around the block a few times to be sure he got on the bus), I decided to go there and look for Halloween things (that I had meant to look for a few weeks ago). They didn't have anything I wanted, but I got a card and some candy, and wandered the store happily, completely forgetting that Rocket Boy at home would be worrying. 

He is often very late coming home from things, and I feel as though I have spent half our marriage worrying about him because he's late, so it seemed fair. But he really was worried. He thought Teen B had missed his bus and I was driving him to Fort Collins. No, just wandering the aisles of Target.

After I finally got home, we watched the last episode of "Widow's Bay," which we've been working our way through for a couple of weeks now. We both found the last episode a bit underwhelming. My verdict on the show: the second episode, in the haunted inn, was REALLY scary, but the rest of them, maybe not so much. There were good bits here and there, but I think the problem with the show, for me, is that it's in the "horror" genre, and I prefer the "ghost story" genre. Sometimes I think most people don't even understand the difference, and that includes writers and filmmakers.

Well, so, that was our week, or whatever I can remember of it. This coming week, as I said, there is a guitar concert and I will try to cook recipes with walnuts and figs. Rocket Boy is kind of messing up my plans by deciding to make onion soup tonight, but I must not fuss about that, because it is NICE to have him cook. He hardly ever cooks anymore, too tired. I will work out the rest of the meals. It will be fine.

The main thing I need to do this week is clean the house, because the book group is coming a week from tomorrow. So that will be my project. I got the Halloween cards mailed today (the few that I still send -- I remember the days when I'd send out at least 20), and the house is pretty well decorated. I can't say I'm looking forward to cleaning the house, but it will be OK. And now I must go for my walk. Happy second half of October! 

Spookiness continues

I am having fun with October, although some days are easier/harder than others. I'm still having some trouble going for walks, with a lot of pain by the end and even somewhat at the beginning of the walk. But, fortunately, I had my first physical therapy appointment this week. I got the referral on Tuesday, called the recommended PT place on Wednesday, and they had a cancellation for Thursday afternoon, so I said what the heck, and took the spot. 

They are in the same building as my old orthodontist, very close to where we live, so very convenient. (I could walk there if it didn't hurt so much.) After working with me for a while, the therapist decided that I should come once a week for 8 weeks, and we made all the future appointments right then. I will see her some of the time and another therapist the rest of the time.

She gave me exercises to do at home and I've done them three times (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). And my hips ache terribly. But it's for a good cause. I was remembering my Uncle Bob's memoir, "Now We Ex-er-CIZE," about how he needed to do exercises after back surgery but didn't want to because they were so painful, and how a woman he helped with her English got him to do the exercises and thus he learned to walk again. I'm not in such bad shape, and my exercises aren't so painful -- but they aren't fun, either! "Now we ex-er-CIZE," I say to myself, lifting my legs and balancing on one leg and all that. It's coming along.

Cooking went reasonably well this week. On Monday I made black bean veggie enchiladas, a new recipe that included a new recipe for the sauce. I usually buy a can of pre-made enchilada sauce, and it's horrible. Making my own was a revelation. It was very easy and I will absolutely do that from now on. On Wednesday I made another new recipe, a sort of macaroni & cheese, only the sauce had a can of pumpkin in it, and the macaroni was cooked with a bag of chopped up kale. Healthy-ish, in other words. I didn't like it very much, and the refrigerator is still full of the leftovers. On Friday we had pizza grilled cheese sandwiches and those are always good.

For baking this week, on Tuesday I made Trader Joe's pumpkin bread, which is always good, and on Thursday I made oatmeal raisin cookies. We still have plenty, so I don't know if I will bake this week (or we could just eat candy). We'll see.

The election is taking up a lot of our mental energy, of course. Rocket Boy is heavily involved in getting people to walk the streets and get out the vote. The first step is to leave little flyers on people's front porches that just urge them to vote. Later on, the volunteers will actually knock on the doors of people who haven't voted yet, nagging them. Our house is full of voting stuff. 

Yesterday I pulled myself together and actually filled out my ballot, all four pages of it. It's just crazy this year. Some of it was easy -- Senate, House, governor -- just fill in the oval by the name that says "Democratic." All the Boulder County races didn't even have a Republican candidate. 

Then there were the 13 judges. In Colorado you have to vote on whether judges should be reappointed. I went to the website where you can look up how the judges were evaluated this year. All 13 of them were given high recommendations (this is not always the case), so I voted to reappoint all of them.

But then came City Council, and the Mayor. Those elections used to be in odd years, but a while back we voted to combine them with the main elections in even years. Big mistake, in my opinion. There are six people running for mayor. Two are clearly insane (based on the autobiographical statements they submitted), and one is a CU student. So, really there are three candidates. I voted for two of them (it's ranked choice voting). There are 13 people running for five seats on City Council. In a lot of ways it was eeny meeny miney mo, but I filled in five ovals. 

Around the time I finished (and let's not even get into all the proposed constitutional amendments and the ballot propositions for state, county, city, and region), Teen B showed up. We went to Starbucks, of course, and then we sat down to work on his ballot. First he asked me if I could fill it out for him (No). Then he asked if he could just copy my ballot (No). I made him sit there while I presented all the pros and cons of everything (as I understand them). It took a long time.

I still have to get Teen A to fill out his. 

But three of us have our ballots finished, and we can drop off Teen B's and Rocket Boy's this week (I'll keep mine until I get Teen A to do his, so I can refer to it). And once we finished Teen B's ballot, we put up a lot of Halloween decorations, so that was fun. Teen B rummaged through the Halloween boxes, looking for things that might enliven his dorm room. "Take anything you like," I urged him, but in the end he only took a little stuffed pumpkin (not the ones in the picture). What he wanted was a string of Halloween lights. I'm going to see if I can't buy one for him this week and mail it to him.

Now I need to finish this up, because Rocket Boy and I are going to Longmont to a concert at 4 pm. Our next-door neighbor/tenant offered us free tickets, so we thought that would be fun. I also went to the CU Faculty Tuesday concert this week. It was billed as "French Chamber Music," so I was expecting a lot of tiresome violins, but there weren't any. Piano (including one piece for two pianos), clarinet, French horn, and a vocalist who ended the show with a gorgeous rendition of "La vie en rose." I enjoyed it all, but especially the clarinet & piano, let's see, "Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano" by Pierre Gabaye, kind of a modern piece. The clarinet was wonderful.

This coming week, all I have on the agenda is another Tuesday concert and my physical therapy appointment, also on Tuesday. But we have lots of things planned for the coming weekends. Next Saturday there is finally another "No Kings" protest downtown, so we will go to that. The following Saturday, the 24th, Teen B and I (and maybe Teen A) will participate in the ABCD study for the 9th or 10th time, something like that, and in the evening Teen B and I plan to go to the Haunted House at Boulder High. And the following Saturday of course is Halloween. Should continue to be a fun month. 

October begins!

Yes! It is October and the spooky season is here. The leaves are changing color like mad, and thank goodness my knee has heeled enough that I can start taking walks again so I can see the beautiful trees in our neighborhood. The color is subdued, compared to previous years -- some trees are just going from green to brown -- but some trees and bushes are still pretty. I also can't take very long walks yet, but I worked on it this week and managed to take one walk that was .85 mile. It will be a big deal when I can get to one full mile again, and then 1.5 miles and so on. I see the orthopedics person again on Tuesday.

I took last week's list seriously this week, and started in on several of my planned activities (including, of course, taking walks). For fall cooking, I made sweet potato black bean chili on Wednesday (there's still some in the fridge) and that was quite delicious. On Friday I made caramelized onion, apple, and goat cheese melts, and those were less successful. But I tried -- sweet potato and apple dishes, yum. I also made an apple cake with raisins and nuts (see photo) and molasses sugar cookies (I overbaked them and they're too crisp, but still delicious). 

This coming week, after we finish the apple cake, I think I will make Trader Joe's pumpkin bread (I got a box of the mix). And Rocket Boy requested the pesto pizza grilled cheese sandwiches for Friday, no more goat cheese. But I have to think of something for Monday and Wednesday. I'm getting into the rhythm of making two sizable meals each week, which provide leftovers the next day, and then something simple (like melts) on Fridays. Can I say it -- cooking is getting a little less onerous.

Last week I didn't cook on Monday because it was book group night (Rocket Boy fixed salmon for himself and Teen A). We read Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado and Lecia made some Brazilian treats to go with it. On Tuesday I went to the Faculty Tuesday concert at CU and it was very interesting -- percussion pieces by the new CU percussion specialist. You can't see it very well in the picture, but the stage was covered with marimbas, plus some drums. My favorite piece was the first one, "Itsuki Fantasy for Six Mallets" by Keiko Abe, which was played on a marimba that looked different from the others (over on the right, he explained it but I forget what was special about it). Watching someone hold six mallets in two hands and play beautiful music was kind of amazing. The next piece was "Prim" by Askell Masson and it was played entirely on the snare drum. Just this one guy, playing the snare drum. I find percussion instruments and music fascinating.

Next week it's going to be French chamber music, which definitely doesn't sound that interesting, but I will be there!

Of course, I also started my spooky reading this week. I have 16 books set aside for this purpose. Some are just mysteries, some are thrillers, some are actual ghost stories. Some are library books, some are from the Bookworm, some I've been collecting from here and there, and I had to order a few from Amazon. I've already read one and am deep into a second. I keep reminding myself that this month's reading is supposed to be FUN, I must not hurry along and try to read 16 books as fast as I can, I must take my time and ENJOY what I'm reading. 

I'm trying to start out with less scary books, but right now I'm reading James Ellroy's My Dark Places, which is kind of a memoir, and reading part 3 before bed last night meant that I couldn't fall asleep. That's the trouble with spooky books, although it's also what makes them fun.

I also signed us up for a month of Apple+ TV, so that I can watch the spooky new show, "Widow's Bay." We watched the first episode last night and hmm. It was OK. I don't think Rocket Boy was impressed. I didn't watch it tonight, but I might watch another episode tomorrow. I have four weeks to watch 10 episodes, so it's fine. 

I did buy a new vacuum cleaner, a Tineco Pet vacuum (there was more to the name than that, but I forget). I didn't take a picture of it. I bought it on Thursday, at Walmart, and on Friday I took it out of the box and turned it on, thinking it wouldn't come on because I'd need to charge it first, but it came on, so I did a little vacuuming. And it's so lightweight and easy to use, that I went on vacuuming for quite a while. This is definitely not a top of the line vacuum, but I think all vacuums are better than they used to be. I just vacuumed and vacuumed, picking up cat hair and kitty litter and spider webs and general dirt, and it was so wonderful. So I'm going to try to do a little vacuuming every weekday until I get the house back into better shape.

And I did some writing, but not very much, because I was spending so much time launching my other plans. So this week I hope to delve into the November novel more seriously. I think I've got the mystery figured out, at least enough to go on working, and I've got the organization straightened out, at least somewhat. We shall see how this week goes.

I realized that I totally forgot what October ALSO means -- the run-up to Election Day. So Rocket Boy is busy calling people to get them to help with "get out the vote" and we all got emails saying our ballots had been mailed. They should arrive sometime this week. Teen B got the message on Saturday, asked if his ballot had arrived yet, I said no, it was just mailed yesterday, and then he asked me if I could vote for him. NO, I said, that's illegal. I'm sure you'll be down here sometime between now and Election Day, probably multiple times, and we can fill it out then. 

Our ballots will be terribly complicated this year -- the election information guide that they send out has been described as similar to a phonebook in size. It's because Republicans can't win state offices in Colorado anymore, so instead they get propositions on the ballot to make our constitution more conservative. There are supposedly 11 propositions (out of 14) on the ballot from conservative organizations. Our dear next-door neighbor put a sign in her yard encouraging people to vote for the three anti-trans ones.

Sigh. We considered getting a counter-sign that would tell people NOT to vote for those propositions, but instead I just hung up our Pride flag again (it had fallen down) and put up our generic "Vote" sign. I don't think she realizes that our new tenants to the west of us are both trans.

Probably the goofiest thing that happened this week had to do with Teen A. I had been bugging Rocket Boy to look at his bank account for months (he has access to it, I don't, but I have access to Teen B's). We finally did, when he was out somewhere, and oh my. He has spent almost all of his $14,000 or whatever it was, his social security money, his graduation money, his recent refund from Metro, everything. Actually, it's not quite as bad as we first thought -- we thought he only had about $150 left, but he actually has about $600. So he'll be OK for another month or two. But what then? 

We realized that we really hadn't thought through whether we should give him any sort of an allowance in college. He needs gas money, because he's driving back and forth to Denver four times a week. That's a round trip of at least 54 miles, depending on the route he takes. Gas is now about $4.50/gallon. I'm not sure what kind of mileage the Prius V gets. I should probably calculate a reasonable amount to give him for gas (this could even come out of the college funds). 

But what about just running around money? He likes to go out to eat, in fact, he gets himself some kind of meal or snack almost every day. Is that something I should be paying for? Teen B, up in Fort Collins, is on a meal plan where he gets two "swipes" a day, two meals or snacks (we started out at three a day, but he said we should go down to two because he'll never eat three meals a day). He also has "ram cash" for extras, but I don't think he typically spends any of it. Teen A, of course, is living at home, so he could just eat at home, but he often disapproves of what I cook. It's very difficult to compare the two kids and very difficult to figure out what would be the right thing to do. I have been puzzling over this ever since we found out about Teen A's money.

Rocket Boy and I went to Denver to the Colorado History Museum (aka History Colorado) this afternoon, to see an exhibit of American history called "Moments That Made Us." It consisted of 50 artifacts of American history and explanatory pictures and text. It was very interesting, but also incredibly depressing, made even more so by the sad music that was playing in the background. Rocket Boy and I both kept thinking about how much DJT would hate the exhibit, because for every great thing described, it would also explain about how that great thing was damaging (or at least not helpful) to Black people, or Indians, or whoever. I didn't learn anything new, really -- maybe a little -- but our history is just so sad, in so many ways. We need to do better (not brush everything bad under the rug, as DJT would prefer to do).

The cats are still driving us crazy, with Baby Kitty's asthma getting worse (he sees the vet this week) and Sillers peeing on everything. Every morning I sniff the bedding (because she likes to climb up and sleep between us, after we fall asleep, and sometimes she pees). If it smells bad, I strip the bed as far down as I need to, and wash everything. If not, I just make the bed. Then I cover it with pee pads, and when I sit down on the bed to read, the cats join me, cuddled up together on a disposable pee bad (which is on top of a reusable pee pad. It's so annoying, and at the same time so stinking cute. I keep taking pictures of them. So darling. And so impossible. 

OK, here comes the first full week of October. Hope it's a good one!

Reading post: September

In September the plan was to read more nonfiction from my list. But first I had to finish my second book about JFK, which I got about 3/5ths of the way through in August. Then I continued with a lot of other serious books -- too serious, really. Last night when I was complaining about The Noonday Demon, Rocket Boy said, "It doesn't seem like you really enjoy all this reading." Hmmph. I stopped complaining. But the month is finally ending, and in October I get to read 100% fun books.

Books I said I'd like to read

JFK: Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton (1992). My second biography of JFK (797 pages of text plus notes). It was very interesting to read this after reading The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, because in that book, JFK's parents are treated pretty well. I mean, Joseph P. Kennedy was obviously a schemer and a racketeer, and Rose Kennedy was unhappy about many aspects of her life, but in this book they're monsters. Which book is more accurate? Who knows? This book only goes up to 1946, when JFK was first elected to Congress, so it doesn't include his diagnosis of Addison's disease. It does, however, include an exhaustive description of his sex life, leading to gonorrhea. I'm already tired of JFK, but since neither book I've read so far covered his presidency, I must persevere and read one more. Maybe in November.

Campo Santo by W. G. Sebald, translated from the German by Anthea Bell (2003/2005). Continuing my attempt to read everything W. G. Sebald ever wrote, I perused this compilation: bits about Corsica that might have formed his next book (if he hadn't died at age 57), reviews, and miscellany. His two pieces on Kafka made me want to read more Kafka; his piece on Bruce Chatwin made me want to reread Chatwin. I had just been to a concert when I read his piece on music ("Moments musicaux"), and while I disagree with his agreement with Freud that "the deepest secret of music is that it is a gesture warding off paranoia, and we make music to defend ourselves against being overwhelmed by the terrors of reality" -- I think it's almost the opposite -- still, I appreciated having another chance to tap into Sebald's brain. 

Spilling the Beans: Eating, Cooking, Reading, and Writing in British Women's Fiction, 1770-1830 by Sarah Moss (2009). Having read several of Moss's novels, I was curious to sample her scholarly work. The British women writers she considers here are Fanny Burney, Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Edgeworth, and Susan Ferrier, none of whom I'm very familiar with. No Jane Austen. Still, it's an interesting book, even though I have limited patience for English department writing. Moss is looking at how these writers talk about food, cooking, eating, and breastfeeding (literally and metaphorically), and how it's tied together with money and power and virtue. Even back in that period, women who ate a lot, especially sweets, were considered "bad" in various ways, and of course, nothing has changed. 

A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy & Failure Across the Pacific by Hua Hsu (2016). I've been meaning to read this for a long time, but it isn't that great, to be honest, despite the fact that Hsu's next book, Stay True, is so wonderful. I think this must be Hsu's dissertation turned into a book, and there's a lot of repetition between the chapters, as though they had been written as separate articles. All that said, I enjoyed his portrayal of H. T. Tsiang, a Chinese immigrant writer in the 1930s who no one's ever heard of (he self-published his books and sold them on street corners in New York City). Hsu keeps asking: who was allowed to speak for China, explain China to America, back in the 1920s, 30s, 40s? Mostly it was Pearl Buck and other white Americans. Not Tsiang, or practically any other native Chinese person. I wonder who gets to speak for China now?

Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It by Geoff Dyer (2003). Is that the greatest title ever, or what? So silly, as Geoff Dyer often is. This is a collection of travel essays, sort of, but also about how Geoff Dyer took a lot of drugs, had a nervous breakdown, and then got better. But I didn't find the descriptions of his drug-taking and casual sex to be very interesting. My favorite essay (of 11) was the 9th, "Leptis Magna," about his trip to an ancient Roman site in Libya. In that essay he doesn't take any drugs or drink any alcohol (because it's forbidden), nor does he have sex. He just wanders around Tripoli and the ruins and experiences them. The last essay, about his trip to Burning Man, seemed really stupid by comparison. I'll probably go on reading Dyer, looking for those times when he's brilliant, trying to ignore those times when he isn't.

Silent Catastrophes by W. G. Sebald, translated from the German by Jo Catling (1985/1991/2025). Yep, more Sebald. This one really took work, because it's 412 pages of essays on Austrian (or sort of) writers, most of whom I've never heard of. A few I have -- Thomas Bernhard, Kafka. But most not. Reading Sebald when you know what he's talking about is fascinating, but when you don't have any idea, it's a challenge. I think I have one more book of his essays to read, plus there are works of criticism, and a collection of interviews. And then I can read writers who people claim are similar to him, plus books by writers that he liked...

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression by Andrew Solomon (2001/2015). I was very impressed by Solomon's book about atypical kids (Far from the Tree) and I had read that his book on depression was a classic, so, as a person who has dealt with depression most of her life, I decided to read it. And it was depressing, plus it was 510 pages (including a chapter added in 2015 to kind of bring things up to date). Solomon covers a lot of ground but never really pins down what depression is, plus I felt as though his own experiences were really coloring his interpretations of the current research. It's supposed to be the definitive book on depression, but I don't think it is. The longest, maybe. Oh well, I finished it.

 

Books from the New Yorker's "Briefly Noted" reviews

Life as No one Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence by Sara Imari Walker (2024). So, in August I read a book called The Moral Circle about how we ought to include everything alive (even fruit flies) in our "moral circle," our collection of beings that matter for their own sake. Now, in this book, physicist Sara Imari Walker describes a new way to define life (which apparently is hard to define -- who knew?): Assembly Theory, which argues that for all things, you can calculate an "assembly index," which is "the smallest number of physically possible steps necessary to produce an object." All the examples of living things that have been tested have an assembly index of at least 15, suggesting that it takes at least 15 steps to create life. Assembly Theory also says that we are all "lineages," assembled out of pieces (amino acids and whatnot) that have been developing over the past 3.7 billion years or whatever. It's a fascinating book, and her take on AI, that it is the next step in our lineage, was mind-blowing. I keep thinking about that, and also I keep looking at fruit flies, trying to bond with them...

Other reading 

Dona Flor and her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado, translated from the Portuguese by Harriet de Onis (1966/1969). The book group book. 550 pages. OMG. I thought this book would never end. Honestly, I felt as though it could have been a short story, or at most a novella. Not 550 pages. I read a Goodreads review from a Portuguese native speaker who said the book is entirely different in the original language, full of information and commentary on Brazilian society. Apparently that was too hard to translate, or it was felt it wouldn't be interesting to non-Brazilians. Why hasn't the book been re-translated, after 57 years? I got the 1976 movie from the library and thought it was much better than the book, with all the boring extraneous stuff cut out. The book group liked it a little better than I did, plus Lecia made interesting Brazilian food.

All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum by Kathy Hoopmann (2020) (previously published as All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome in 2006 and updated to reflect current terminology)
All Birds Have Anxiety by Kathy Hoopmann (2017)
All Dogs Have ADHD by Kathy Hoopmann (2008)
I ordered these three children's books from Amazon, when I couldn't find them in any stores. They're so cute, and since Teen A has ADHD and Teen B has autism and anxiety, it seemed appropriate. I thought Rocket Boy would like them too, but he immediately got confused by the cat book, thinking it was actually about cats. Oh well. I enjoyed them -- and the cat book is the 9th book I've read this year about autism.