Friday, May 29, 2020

Quarantine Quotidians, May 29, 2020


I persuaded my library to buy this for me to read after hearing glowing reviews about it from Romancelandia and then I bought a copy for myself and then 2 more for friends. It was my favorite book of 2016. If it's not the perfect contemporary romance, it's close. Maybe I should read it again.

Media Matters

I've been trying to clean up my Currently Reading section on Goodreads because earlier in the week it was like 15 books. Now it's 11. I was trying to listen to the audio book of Good Omens but I gave up after realizing the television series was (gasp!) better than the book. I skimmed through The Tale of Despereaux last night to be done with it. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because it introduced new vocabulary well. Really not my thing. I finally finished Rock Addiction by Nalini Singh, who is my current favorite author, but I was not in love with the book. When I asked for comments about it on one of my Romancelandia FB groups, I was assured the rest of the series was up to her usual standard of excellence. And Rock star romances aren't a trope I go out of my way to read. What I really need to finish next is Ethan of Athos, the next Vorkosiverse book, even though I'm not loving the set up. But I also recently started The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and it's gorgeous. I enjoyed The Iliad when I read it in college, but this is a whole new world. And the prose is so beautiful. I have also started craving hockey themed romances, which is not a world I really follow, in life or romantic tropes. Maybe because it's so hot outside, my mind thinks the books will cool me off. Whatever. I read all of Pippa Grant last year, including her hockey romances, and she writes excellent books. I'm looking at Sarina Bowen and Avery Flynn's series presently.

Last week, we watched Star Trek: Picard and agreed it was the best television we've seen in a long time. We haven't agreed on what to watch next because I needed something fluffier than Expanse series 3 and Marshall doesn't want to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, (now on Netflix) which neither of us have ever seen. We watched the first 2 episodes and he fell asleep. I guess I'll be watching that alone, along with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Maybe we'll go back to The Witcher. He highly recommends Tales From the Loop (also on Netflix) which I only watched half of because of how much it made me cry. It's very good, though.

Family Dynamics

Yesterday, Marshall and I Zoomed with someone who may be a new family counselor for us. Miranda continues to be singular and stymies most people who try to help her, including us. We've decided to do daily checklists for everyone in the house (took a shower, put on clean clothes) and start posting the weekly calendar again (even though it's mostly empty) on the fridge for everyone to see just so we all know what day it is. There isn't a lot of structure to our lives and we need to add an artificial one to help our brains from permanently turning into laptop screens.

Alex has also started talking with a psychiatrist from The Autism Center at the Nemours Hospital in Wilmington, DE, (which is only an hour away by car) about his eating issues and after meeting with her 10 days ago via Nemours' proprietary teledoc system, we were going to start reintroducing foods he used to like. A few days ago, I had despaired because nothing I said convinced him to eat pancakes again. And then a few days ago, he wanted a new book and I said he had to earn it by trying pancakes 4 days in a row. 2 down, 2 to go.

I have to go cook that pancake now.

Palate cleanser



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