Sunday Check-in: A Lazy Last Weekend of Summer

Sunday Check-in: A Lazy Last Weekend of Summer

Labor Day notwithstanding, this is the real last weekend of summer. Today’s forecast high is 98 degrees. It would be really nice if it was the last time we had to see that till next summer. I took care of all the errands yesterday and have no real agenda today, other than this: Oh, and we may go get some ice cream later on. Since I’m feeling more like reading than writing lately, it’ll probably […]

A September 11 story: On a day like any other, all things become imaginable

A September 11 story: On a day like any other, all things become imaginable

There are moments that the words don’t reach There is suffering too terrible to name You hold your child as tight as you can And push away the unimaginable —“IIt’s Quiet Uptown,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton; An American Musical On September 11, 2001, some things became less unimaginable. And even when we can push them away, we can’t keep them away for long. A day like any other…a day like no other September 11, 2001 started out […]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick [September 4, 2016]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick [September 4, 2016]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick It’s a quiet three-day weekend around here, and there’s not much to tell. It’s also delightfully and unusually cool for early September in Southern California, I’m hoping to spend some time reading out on the patio today and tomorrow. I’ll get back to my audiobook on Tuesday, Reading: Writing/Blogging: If I have the energy and ambition during what remains of this weekend, I’ll write up my thoughts on concluding the […]

Six Things on Sunday [Show and Tell]

Six Things on Sunday [Show and Tell]

Six things on Sunday… …because I couldn’t pull together 10 things at random this week I’ve reluctantly accepted that only way to grok some apps is to just start using them. I’ve been  wading into Litsy during the last few weeks and am finally getting the appeal of “Goodreads and Instagram’s perfect baby.” These are a few of the things I’m doing with it: Cross-posting #bookstagram photos Posting snippets of reviews from the blog (Litsy limits posts to […]

LibraryThings Have Changed: I Still Love You, LT, But It’s Not The Same

LibraryThings Have Changed: I Still Love You, LT, But It’s Not The Same

My love for LibraryThing has been well-documented here in the past. While the flame still burns, things have changed between us. I still appreciate all that LT has done for me, don’t get me wrong. I got a paid, lifetime LibraryThing membership in 2008 to keep track of all the books I owned, whether I’d read them or not. Having my LibraryThing collection on my phone has saved me more than once from buying a book […]

10 Things At Random [Show and Tell Sunday)

10 Things At Random [Show and Tell Sunday)

10 Things at Random… If you are hearing the title of this post sung to you along the melody line of “Ten Duel Commandments,” welcome to my brain. I was elected to the board of directors of my condo association a couple of months ago. There’s a lot of emailing involved. I was very tempted to sign off on an exchange yesterday with “I have the honor to be your obedient servant.” I resisted because […]

Show and Tell and Stop and Think [Show and Tell Sunday]

Show and Tell and Stop and Think [Show and Tell Sunday]

Show… It’s been quite a week out there, so I thought I’d start by injecting a little serenity. …and Tell But the horrible happenings of the last several days have led to some really smart, thoughtful and emotional writing, and I wanted to highlight just a little of that today. There’s some overlap in the specifics addressed in these two pieces: Concrete Ways to Be an Actual Ally to Black People | Maximum Middle Age How […]

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, Books 1 and 2…Or, “My Brilliant Friend’s New Name” [A Reader’s Journal]

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, Books 1 and 2…Or, “My Brilliant Friend’s New Name” [A Reader’s Journal]

My Brilliant Friend Series: The Neapolitan Novels #1 Written by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein Audiobook read by Hillary Huber Published by Europa Editions on September 25th 2012 ISBN: 9781609458638 Genres: Fiction, General, Literary Format: audiobook Pages: 336 Source: public library via Overdrive A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to […]

Show & Tell & Link & Read…and Catch Up!

Show & Tell & Link & Read…and Catch Up!

I’ve noticed that one thing that’s changed for me after more than nine years of blogging is that I seem to have stopped stressing about periodic absences. For a long time, I devoted big chunks of my weekends and stolen hours at the office to preparing content and scheduling it out at least a week in advance, and when I knew I’d have to be away, I’d make plans for coverage with guest bloggers and/or […]

Judge Not: Keeping Up Appearances Past a Certain Age

Judge Not: Keeping Up Appearances Past a Certain Age

During our younger-adult years, who hasn’t judged–or outright mocked, or at least surreptitiously questioned–the style choices or leisure activities of our elders for being “age-inappropriate”? My supervisor at my first job after college was a middle-aged woman–probably about as old then as I am now–who rode motorcycles with her husband on weekends, and I could not make sense out of doing such as thing at her age. But at least she kept her hair short […]

Bloggiesta Bust…and a Bit of a Blog Break

Bloggiesta Bust…and a Bit of a Blog Break

My only Bloggiesta accomplishments were connecting with my Bookish Masterminds group and participating in last Monday’s Twitter chat, which was scheduled during my lunch hour–I did not get to anything else on my Bloggiesta to-do list. But I’m not actually all that surprised by the #fail, to be honest–I knew the event coincided with a busy week of work and non-blog life. I also knew I’d have a couple of days off right after to […]

4 Things to Start Spring [Show and Tell Sunday]

4 Things to Start Spring [Show and Tell Sunday]

Happy First Day of Spring, Northern Hemisphere! The last sunset of winter, through a car window I had mistakenly thought today was also the first day of Spring Bloggiesta and had planned my starting-line post as this week’s Sunday programming. Then I actually read the calendar and realized that one’s for tomorrow, so this Show-and-Tell Sunday is spur-of-the-moment and short.   My husband Paul has been a fan of musician Loreena McKennitt for two decades, […]