Finishing up JAMES by Percival Everett and THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRIE, which Tracy talked about last week. Enjoying both.
On TV, started CRACKERS (again). I saw it the first time when we were living in Manchester so it is bringing back a lot of memories from 1994-95. And even '97 when we watched another season in Amsterdam. I wish it was a better copy of the series. We forget how much better TV shows look now. Also watching PRESUMED INNOCENT. Great acting but the plot is all over the place. One left.
A lot of nice weather this last stretch. Mid-eighties mostly, which is summer.
Went down to see the restoration of Michigan Central-which as they said was Michigan's Ellis Island. They did a great job, but it looks like an office building and not a train station (which is what it now it. Ford did a great job on detailing the story for visitors. They decided to keep some of the graffiti that was everywhere for many years. It's part of its history too.
What about you?
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The nice weather you're having is courtesy of the Florida Panhandle, which sent it up to you to make way for the blistering heat, alternating with daily thunderstorms from Gehenna. Undeterred by ominous dark clouds we headed to the beach yesterday, but as we got out of the car thunder roared, lightning blazed up the sky, and the heavy rains came. We opted for lunacy and headed home, driving East toward the blue sky and fluffy clouds, followed closely by the dark clouds of doom that followed us; the storm hit just five minutes after we arrived home.
The rains stopped by noon and we headed for Fannie Lou; it's made from coconut cream. 's ice cream parlor for their Ice Cream Day special -- four scoops of homemade ice cream in a Stanley cup (you supply the cup) for ten bucks. they have the best ice cream I have ever tasted, and it's in all sorts of flavors. I opted for butter pecan, banana pudding, coconut caramel pecan pie, and Bushwacker. Yeah, they had an ice cream they named Bushwacker -- the same name as Amy's kitten; it's made from coconut cream, coffee liqueur creme de cocoa, rum, and vanilla, and it's yummy. Four scoops is a lot and Erin and Christina couldn't get to the bottom of theirs; Jessie and Amy glutted themselves and couldn't eat for the rest of the day; I finished mine and went searching for food around 7 that evening. We had long plastic spoons that were about three inches shorter than the Stanley cups, which added to the challenge. I also had a long and interesting discussion with the staff about the gorgeous crepe myrtle at the side of the building.
A lot of shark sightings at the beach this week. One video shows two sharks trolling about ten feet from shore; others sowed harks further out. Caution is the word here.
Saw the foot doctor and he chopped away at my left foot, now maybe I can dance again! Except I never could dance.
Reading this week included Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden's JOE GOLEM AND THE DROWNING CITY (my FFB), Blake Crouch's THE LAST TOWN (the final book in his WAYWARD PINES trilogy), Chris Grabenstein's WHACK-A-MOLE (a Joe Ceepak mystery), and Yrsa Sigurdardottir's LAST RITUALS (the first Thora Gudmusdottir mystery). I also finished three Murray Leinster Collections (THE THIRD MURRAY LEINSTER MEGAPACK, THE FOURTH MURRAY LEINSTER MEGAPACK, and FINAL CONTACTS: THE ESSENTIAL MURRAY LEINSTER. My graphic novels included Raul Garcia's adaptation of THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, Kami Garcia's CONSTANTINE: DISTORTED ILLUSIONS (which covers John Constantine as a brash teenager), Christopher Hastings adaptation of three stories based on the video game, FIVE NIGHTS AT FREEDY'S: FAZBEAR FRIGHTS: GRAPHIC NOVEL COLLECTION VOL. 1 (based on this I can't see the appeal of the popular franchise), and Eiichiro Oda's ONE PIECE OMNIBUS: EAST BLUE (which covers the first three books in the Manga series-- ROMANCE DAWN, BUGGY THE CLOWN, and DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN). Jack is a big fan of the television show and the animated series so I thought I'd check it out (my verdict: cute but confusing); as of this month, there's 109 volumes in the series. I'm currently alternating stories from a number of sources: four collections by F. Paul Wilson, two science fiction anthologies from Brian Aldiss, and Murray Leinster's adventure collection TRAIL OF BLOOD.
Later this week I'll be house and animal sitting as Christina, Walt, and family head to Virginia for a week to see his parents. I will be praying that the 19-year-old feeble cat does not die on my watch.
I hope you have a fantastic week, Patti. Stay safe.
That is quite a lot of ice cream and quite a lot of reading, Jerry. I have a toe I am worrying about. It's never been the same since I dropped a pot on it a decade ago.
I'm glad Biden Did The Right Thing and now Kamala Harris's campaign for the next 107 days. I'm not sure there's enough time for the Democrats to recover. I wish Biden had made his decision six months ago.
Western NY faces a week of hot and humid weather with rain arriving on Thursday.
I'm making slow improvement with my recovery from Covid-19. It's been a month of exhaustion and illness.
Patrick is In San Francisco for a GOOGLE conference and a wedding. Katie and a friend saw STEREOPHONIC on Broadway this weekend. Diane and I have our tickets for DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE. Stay safe!
Covid is such a funny disease. Two friends just had it and barely were sick. I was sick for six weeks when I had it in 2020. Yes, Biden saved his reputation at the last possible minute.
Yikes, folks, footwise...I have a toe that is probably suffering a bit from my sugars...hope yours pull through without too much cropping.
Slowly reading/rereading (a number of the stories in) Bill Pronzini's CREAM OF THE CROP, his best-of CF collection from Stark House (I think naming it for "Strangers in the Fog" or one of the other stories might be a better title), and looking at more stuff I find again after unboxing and rearranging (carried the first box spring from Alice's old king-size bed down for trash collection last week, will do the same for the other box Weds (so as not to burden the collectors too much)...had to hire pros (GOT JUNK) to haul the giant pudding of micro-springs (at least a couple of hundred pounds of almost amorphous bulk, as opposed to the rigid 60+ lbs of the box springs each, and fairly typical folding steel bed frame--this last the only part of a used bed legal to sell or donate in NJ, but probably not too sexy to anyone without the rest of a bed. (Anti-bedbug/similar contagion laws.)
George, we'll see how Harris Gets Along...I have to wonder if Manchin (too easy a name to mock) is hoping to run for Veep, actually, or mulling a No Labels ticket if he gets nowhere rejoining the Dems...if the latter, I suspect he, like RFK, will pull at least as much from Drumpf as from (presumably) Harris. I also suspect we will see more of Drumpf's senescence as his stumbles along. Whoever gets the D VP slot shouldn't have too hard a time chewing through Vance, who is about as much nitwit as his new boss, and a neophyte still at actual politics (which, of course, didn't stop Donald from finding his fellow ducks). You stay safe as well, as should everyone...
Found some clumps of our late female cat Niki's fur under the bed, when I moved the box springs out of the middle of the room that will become Alice's office...sigh. Presumably had clumped up from her lying on one of the blankets on the long-mostly-used-by the cats bed, because that mattress was Way too soft for any humans to enjoy sleeping on it for any length of time, though several of us did (including my parents when they visited us on the way back from Mohegan Sun, ca. 2012 or '13).
I'd say the case of C19 that led to my three days of hospitalization last year was all told about two weeks, but the recurrent periods of weariness since might be Long Covid. Hope it doesn't hang around too much longer for you, George, and glad that you might not be feeling too many after-effects, Patti.
Just home after overnight on Long Island. We went to Jones Beach to see Santana, with opening act Counting Crows. As a certified Boomer, I must admit that though I've certainly heard of the latter, I was completely unaware of their music, other than the cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," which was nothing special. If you like Santana's music, you can't go wrong seeing them in concert. Great show. He just turned 77 and must be having some physical issues, as he sat for 95% of the two hour concert, but it didn't affect his playing.
I'm typing this on the phone in the doctor's office, so hope it comes through.
Back later.
Jerry, that ice cream sounds good to me, but Jackie would automatically delete anything with "banana" in the name. Give her chocolate, chocolate or vanilla chip, coconut, mint, or nuts and you're safe. We had lots of good ice cream in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Patti, yes, we noticed how fuzzy CRACKER was on the recent viewing.
Phil hated bananas too. Also my sister-in-law. But I eat one every day for the potassium.
I think my kids listened to Counting Crows.
Manchin is already talking about running for something. What a jerk.
I may have to give up on Crackers. Although possibly the later seasons are filmed better. DI BANKS is much better from 2011.
Nothing unusual going on here. The fire nearby is not gone but it is under control. It may be still affecting air quality, because Glen continues to have headaches all day for the last three days.
Watching... We have watched the first two episodes of TULSA KING with Stallone and are enjoying it. Dana Delany is listed in the cast but hasn't shown up yet. We watched a Miss Marple episode, A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY starring Joan Hickson, mainly because I had read it recently. Donald Pleasance was in it, and he was very good. Also some of our standard shows: CSI, now into the seasons with Ted Danson; MURDER SHE WROTE, we are close to finishing season 4; and NORTHERN EXPOSURE, also nearing the end of Season 4.
Last night I finished reading WAR GAME by Anthony Price. WAR GAME is the 7th book in the David Audley series and there are a total of 19, so I have a ways to go to read them all. He is one of my top three espionage authors; the other two are Charles McCarry and Len Deighton.
I have also been reading a book about a woman doing a canoe trip through Labrador, with one Innu guide. LOST LANDS FORGOTTEN STORIES: A WOMAN'S JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF LABRADOR by Alexandra Pratt, published in 2002. She made the trip to follow the route of the woman who completed it in 1905. It is a fascinating story and I am learning a lot about Labrador, but I could have used maps to help me visualize the trip.
Glen is very close to finishing REINVENTING HOLLYWOOD: HOW 1940S FILMMAKERS CHANGED MOVIE STORYTELLING by David Bordwell.
Tracy--I liked TULSA KING well enough on Paramount Network, the cable channel, a couple of years ago, but didn't stick with it long enough to see Delany, as I recall.
The Labrador retracing does sound interesting.
OK, home for good now. Got some reading done this week and watched a bunch of stuff. On Saturdays we watched FAT FRIENDS, GRACE and SPOOKS/MI5 on our Brit Night. We've added the Belgian/Dutch firefighters' show, ON FIRE - set in Ostend - on MHz. Finished TEMPLE. If you ever get the chance to see it, I urge you to quit after the outrageous series one. Series two went way off the rails and got more and more stupid as it went along, to the ridiculous end.
I really don't like D.I. RAY at all, as she is one of the least likable lead characters since James Nesbitt's murderous cop in BLOODLANDS.
I have that book on Hollywood on hold at the library, Tracy. I don't have the brain for MI5, I think. I can do SLOW HORSES but not that one. Don't know why.
Had a busy week but a sad weekend. My mother-in-law in KS entered hospice last week and she passed faster than expected upon her death Saturday afternoon. I had been encouraging my wife to fly out there again - we had just visited the week before - because we expected her to last another couple weeks. We'll be driving out to KS this week rather than spending extra on the short-notice flights.
After JD Vance's VP selection I read a recommendation on WHITE TRASH: THE 400-YEAR UNTOLD HISTORY OF CLASS IN AMERICA by Nancy Isenberg. I checked out a library copy and am 40% through the audio. Isenberg argues that class separation is important and overlooked in history. If nothing else, her book reinforces that some founding fathers were real jerks.
Still slowly reading through a Garry Disher paperback set in a rural, tourist area outside Melbourne, AUS. KITTYHAWK DOWN is a 2003 entry in his PENINSULA SERIES that has run from 1999 to the last one in 2016. Within the past few years I chanced upon one of his WYATT books and really enjoyed it. Have a Joe Ide paperback up next. I've greatly enjoyed his work.
Tracy's book about LABRADOR sounds very interesting and would be a very neat place to visit. I was chatting with a guy earlier today about the need to get out camping and should try and plan something in September. He recommended that just because their should be less bugs out.
I'll stay out of the political conversation except to say that I think Biden's withdrawal feels more energizing than anything else.
So sorry about your MIL, Gerard. So hard to be there often from a distance.
Very sorry to hear about your mother-in-law, Gerard. I will be thinking of you and your wife and family this week. Take care of yourselves.
Further condolences to you and your wife, Gerard.
As someone whose parents got themselves out of relative poverty in Northern and Southern Appalachia (West Virginia and Vermont) in some part through working for the US government, my lack of respect for future indicted co-conspirator J. D. Vance comes to me, I'd say, naturally.
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