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From a contemporary writer, KJ Charles. For some reason I was able to leapfrog over two holds when I looked up Subtle Blood yesterday, and from there it was off to Proper English (Think of England being truly on hold) and then to a good helping of fic at AO3 -- and it feels a bit like old times, when I was active in Elizabeth Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers fandom, what with certain turns of phrase, and some very good stories in the mix (including some fun crossovers, with Wooster/Jeeves and Miss Fisher and their like). From Subtle Blood itself:

Will Darling spoilers behind the cut ) This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/177716.html.
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https://jackielaubooks.com/ The Ultimate Pi Day Party is currently free, and the Nashville Public Library has some of her titles.

1. The settings include small-town and urban Canada, and coping with a wide variety of parents, siblings, and friends . . .
2. . . . some of them refreshingly and hilariously down-to-earth, and others exasperatingly "why can't you be more like _____," which is a dynamic I totally feel from multiple angles. I have cried with relief when people step up for protagonists who disappoint their parents by not having a "real" job.
3. That said, there are a quite a few scientists and CEOs in the mix. They're often driven and/or grumpy. I can relate to that too. (One geologist wears a has a "Schist Happens" shirt mug.)
4. Abortion is discussed as the right choice for characters who had them. More on that by Emmalita. #RomanceForRoe
5. There's a lot of good food. Including mooncake ice cream.
6. There are brutally honest little girls (often nieces) who know what they want. One five-year-old is a food snob who "has a better chance of enjoying blue cheese and Kalamata olives than pepperoni pizza" and delightedly samples (and critiques) "the green tea-strawberry, the passionfruit, the black sesame, [and] the matcha cheesecake" flavors at the shop her anti-ice cream uncle takes her to (observing that the place looks like a unicorn threw up in it) but also names a unicorn "Havarti Sparkles." Another corrects her uncle on the pronunciation of dinosaur names. Another really digs venomous spiders, which her uncle can't stand . . .
7. Several protagonists don't speak Mandarin/Cantonese well, if at all. I feel seen, both in terms of the awkward situations they find themselves in and the recurring frustration of being expected to be good at / comfortable with something one has zero natural facility for. (Not incidentally, I tested out of a half-dozen levels of Spanish Duolingo last night, but my next super-basic, hint-heavy Mandarin lesson may require a full glass of verdejo for me to chill out enough to get on with it.)
8. Love doesn't magically cure clinical depression or other chronic/recurring conditions, and it was horrible-great when one of the heroines starts yelling about how infuriating is when people insist or imply you haven't tried hard enough or spent enough on finding a solution while knowing fuck-all about every last exhausting potential treatment you've already tried or considered.
9. There's plenty of humor and sass, from friends and siblings (and sometimes parents) who take the heroine or hero's goals seriously but not their taste in clothing or pizza or beer.

[My previous mention of Jackie Lau's books.]

In addition to reading Lau's two most recent books, I also binged on some picture and chapter books this week, including:

  • Most of the Princess in Black series by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, and LeUyen Pham

  • Real Cowboys by Kate Hoefler, which will be featured trilingually (English, Spanish, ASL) later this year as a storytime video produced by my colleagues.

  • Jules vs. the Ocean by Jesse Sima
  • This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/171655.html.
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    grindin' on

    After dedicating 60+ hours to the museum this week, compounded by 3 days of missed workouts, I did not try to persuade brain or body into executing any should-dos today, other than a few maintenance rounds of Duolingo (Day 169) and dealing with food on the edge of going bad. So, for breakfast, a bruised and nicked Envy apple got paired with Kunik cheese (from a box received last month). Lunch included the last of the chocolate pudding I made ten days ago.

    Late in the afternoon, I split the package of ten chicken drumsticks from last week's K&S run into two batches: one is marinating in the spice paste from Jody Adams's recipe for Roasted Rock Cornish Game Hens with North African Flavors (in In the Hands of a Chef), and the other I cooked tonight in a variation of Adams's Ginger-Turmeric Chicken with Lime Yogurt and Coconut Rice. We have only green onions on hand, so I used the white bits for tonight's dinner and put the green bits into my jar of shrimp stock. I did not bother with chicken stock or cilantro, but a limp crown of broccoli had reproached me all week from its shelf, so it got added to the roasting pan. The result looked and tasted fine (though I gather from the BYM that the coconut rice is the real keeper):

    ginger turmeric chicken

    Discovering that Jody and Ken had revived their blog (their last pre-pandemic post had been in 2015) was a pleasant surprise. I've also been vegging with a slew of Grub Street Diet entries, which I came across while looking up discussions of Jody's Soupe de Poisson. I really like Margalit Cutler's illustrations, and the people interviewed say relatable things like "I am always doing something, it’s just rarely the thing I most need to be doing" (Julia Turshen) and "cut fruit is Asian parents’ love language" (Priya Krishna). [The day/week-in-the-life genre is a species of Pegnip, I guess, even when I think the metrics are nonsensical (cf. Philly's Sweat Diaries, where the accounting of money spend rarely factors in food already on hand).]

    Also from the "Back after a long break" Department: David Handler took like 20 years off between Book 8 and Book 9 of his Stewart Hoag series, and has since produced 3 novels and a short story I didn't know about until recently. So those are part of the escapism party pack, along with dance videos, such as this performance by the Still River Sword troupe.

    Speaking of performing, I appeared in a balcony scene Thursday night (it starts at around 59:30, with at least two cats and some verrrrry Southern accents in the mix). This week's mayhem also included pitcherfuls of wintermelon-rum-campari slushies and sober-yet-daft conversations about chive reproduction (occasioned by the below salad). Dull doesn't stand a chance around here.

    salad

    This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/163890.html.
    pondhop: white jointed mannequin in glass door (Default)
    Love and Other Perils - two Regency novellas, "Lieutenant Mayhew's Catastrophes" by Emily Larkin and "Kisses and Catnip" by Grace Burrowes. The heroine of "Kisses and Catnip" appeared as a supporting character in an earlier story by Burrowes, and I was happy to see her find her happy-ever-after with a scientist (a recurring trope in Burrowes's books -- I reread "Duchess in the Wild" and parts of The Jaded Gentlemen [Axel being a rose-obsessed botanist] during the same escapism binge). There are three significant kittens in the Larkin, and assorted moggies in "Kisses and Catnip," including two fellas named Lucifer and Beelzebub.

    What's the Time, Mr. Wolf? by Debi Gliori

    from WHAT'S THE TIME, MR. WOLF?

    Agatha's Feather Bed by Carmen Agra Deedy and Laura L. Seeley. The story centers on Agatha's interactions with a flock of geese, but there's at least one cat in practically every frame, and the occasional badass sheep looking in...

    illo from AGATHA'S FEATHER BED

    This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/158313.html.
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    Since last night, I've been living with the urge to howl holy hell at North Carolina.

    What has helped: cranking up the volume on my car stereo and singing along as it plays "Stand" over and over. (That chorus!)

    The Nashville Public Library is ordering copies of Good Trouble for its collection.

    Team Tug of Warhol (War-HAUL!) was not victorious, but we were valiant, and apparently provided a good deal of entertainment for our colleagues back at the ranch via Facebook Live (as well as those who joined us at the park, where it was 91 freaking F at noon).

    It's been an intense day. I dreamt at length about my late honorary mama and her family last night. I was up at 6:30 a.m. for an early meeting. A training session for our upcoming Native Women Artists exhibition included a viewing of The Indian Problem, which -- god _____, Tennessee. Gdi, North Carolina. I followed church class with ten minutes on the erg at the Y. I'm looking at the Road Scholar catalogue that just arrived -- Honorary Mama had suggested doing one of their trips together, and while that never happened, there's at least one that another honorary relative might be up for.

    But first, bath and bed. And reinforcing that figurative breastplate.

    This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/157603.html.
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    I was put in the right front of the dragon boat during practice tonight, and the coach emphasized that those of us in the first two rows needed to stay zen no matter what was being shouted at us, and that what might feel slow to us in the front would be impossible to keep up with in the back if we went too fast, because of how water works.

    Oh, the metaphors to be expanded from that.

    Last night, in a dream, I saw myself effortlessly doing splits in front of two co-workers. I've never successfully executed a split in my life. One doesn't need a psychology degree to unpack that one.

    Work is providing solid entertainment on top of the crushing load. (I was at the office past 9 p.m. yesterday to meet today's deadlines.) During today's lunch break, a colleague plaintively asked what "Mercury in retrograde" meant, and twenty minutes later everyone at the table was discussing Chinese zodiac breakdowns (precipitated by me mentioning the anticolonial heft to a presentation about Eastern vs. Western zodiacs at a Philadelphia Museum of Art party last year, and then noting that I'm a metal dog).

    More important, I am filled with glee at how our tug-of-war team for this Wednesday's tournament is coming together.

    Last night, I could not settle down or focus after getting home, so I dove into Jackie Lau's Ultimate Pi Day Party and Ice Cream Lover. Props to whomever on Twitter recommended them to me, and props to my library for stocking them. Asian heroes! Bisexual and biracial heroine! Six-year-old foodies! Snark from sisters! Grandmas digging durian! (Can't stand the stuff myself, but the commentary is fab.)

    Surprise gift from a friend. Notes from other friends. Scandalizing the BYM because I went grocery-shopping in a bikini. (I could not be arsed to put my work dress back on after practice, so to speak.) Doing laundry after midnight because of the leggings I want to wear tomorrow (keeping my right hip glued to the side of the boat = chafing). Getting one inbox below 500 unread. Plotting pies . . .

    This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/156989.html.

    inventory

    Sep. 3rd, 2018 08:30 pm
    pondhop: white jointed mannequin in glass door (Default)
    1 heirloom tomato bigger than my phone



    1 rose stem tied to a stake

    some of the rosebushes pruned

    countless falls into the pool (Glidefit bootcamp. Just in case I thought I knew how to stay on a board...)

    1 hour on a kayak

    around 4 hours on a paddleboard

    2 premature attempts to leave the shore (third time = charm. aka hand-pumping to 15 psi. gonna have Popeye arms by next summer.)

    1 party attended. And the BYM remembered to warn me to wear pants ("parking sucks" = getting there by motorcycle) hours in advance. The hosts got married in Italy a few weeks ago, so there were an array of spritzers (amaretto, aperol, strawberry limoncello, and negroni) and tasty bites. Oh, and moonshine.

    3 temporary tattoos applied

    4 actual tattoos discussed

    2 mosquito bites

    1 unexpected farewell message

    1 new person to ping when I next get to New York

    2 library books skimmed (one, a trilingual survey on Julius Shulman's oeuvre; the other, Jerrelle Guy's Black Girl Baking)

    1/4 blackberry-cherry pie left

    1 tanka published

    This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/149669.html.

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