A quick one as it took us five hours to do a three hour drive from Canada to home. We never quite figures out why the last three miles took 90 minutes to do.
So it is eleven and I am weary. Really loved SOMETHING IS ROTTEN-and liked LA CAGES AUX FOLLES. Both theaters were bursting with play-goers and these are large venues. Very nice to be with some of my family.
Reading ANGEL by Denis Johnson.
THE BEAR is disappointing as everyone has said. Sad to have finished FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER, which was consistently good for six seasons.
What about you?
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We're off for Connecticut today, with my cousins. Will be home Saturday. Today will be hot again, but the rest of the week looks cooler and rainy, so we;ll see. The worst weather we had with them was the year we went to Boston (2022). It was 97 one day, 100 the next, and we had torrential rain storms. Last year in Maine it was beautiful.
It's been pretty warm and humid, so we've stayed in a number of days. Feel like I'm becoming more and more of a home body, which is OK.
I read Roddy Doyle's first collection of stories, THE DEPORTEES, and liked it. Immigrants to Ireland from Nigeria started a paper by and for immigrants, and Doyle asked if he could write for it. He started doing 800 words a monthly (it now comes out weekly, I think), and these stories are the result. A couple are really excellent.
Still watching the same shows. Not enjoying the fourth PROFESSOR T series much. Jackie really liked SIGNORA VOLPE (Acorn), with Emilia Fox and Tara Fitzgerald. Both are from distinguished acting families. Fox is a former British spy who quits and goes to Italy for her niece's wedding, and decides to stay and buy a house. It's in Umbria, near Perugia, where we've been. There are three 90 minute episodes in the first series. Fox is the daughter of Edward Fox & Joanna David, by the way. The new GRACE has started on Britbox. The first in series 4 reunites star John Simm with his co-star from LIFE ON MARS, Philip Glenister. The plots do tend to be dark, but it's a good show.
The traffic on the International Bridges has been way above Normal. The wait times to get from the USA to Canada and Canada to the USA can run into hours. There are plenty of Canadian license plates on vehicles at our local Malls and Factory Outlets. Apparently, many of the products Canadians want are either not available in Canada or the USA prices are much lower.
Diane is hosting her Book Club meeting tomorrow. They read THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah. Diane was reluctant to read THE WOMEN since it's about the Vietnam War and the terrible treatment of female nurses during that conflict. But, Diane finished the book and was glad she read it--but there were a lot of tears.
Stay safe!
Welcome back, weary traveler!
Mixed weather this week, with heavy rain alternating with a heat index nearing spontaneous combustion levels. We did make it to the beach early on July 4th and found the place pretty crowded; a number of families evidently came at 0=dark-hundred to claim a cookout spot. The kids saw four dolphins cavorting in the distance; I didn't, because my nifty new glasses work about as poorly as my old ones. (The fault must be with the glasses and not my piercingly-brown-and-one-look-will-make-most-women-melt eyes.) Erin and Trey were walking on the Navarre Beach pier yesterday and spotted three sharks and a turtle.
Cayley moved into her new digs Wednesday. One of the roommates (unclear which) was supposed to have rented a U-Haul but forgot to do so, so things had to be move in the back seats of cars in the rain. Adulting may prove to be hard for this group.
A new addition to the extended family arrived this week. Bushwacker (a.k.a. Wacky Smacky) is a four-day-old kitten that Amy is fostering. He was found, still with the umbilical cord attached, abandoned on the beach; possibly his mother and siblings had been picked up by animal control and he was overlooked. Wacky is a hefty responsibility. He needs to be monitored closely if he is to survive. He has to be fed every two hours and weighed each time, both before and after -- which means that Amy has gained a new level of appreciation for solid sleeping. He has a tightly distended belly which is a cause of concern; it needs to massaged to help enable him to poop. Pooping is big deal when you are leas than a week old; each evacuation when it does come is faithfully recorded and given requisite cheers. Amy found a stuffed toy with a small heating element and a tiny heartbeat to place in Wacky's cage as a substitute mother. Wacky finds it comforting and is very vocal when Amy removes it for any reason; Wacky loves "Mama" and is not that fond of of Amy. As of yesterday, Wacky is crawling all over and is beginning to open his eyes. After days of bouncing back and forth on the scale, he is gaining a little bit of weight. Soon, Amy will be able to feed him every three hours instead of every four. Things are looking up for both Wacky and Amy.
I finally managed to get streaming services back after AT&T's new fiber-optic network failed a couple of weeks ago. Finished streaming A TOUCH OF FROST and have begun my binge of Robbie Colson's CRACKER. Colson's character is one of the most self-destructive heroes on television ever. No wonder it only lasted four seasons.
I read a lot this past week. Three more books about Miss Pickerell (TO THE EARTHQUAKE RESCUE, AND THE SUPERTANKER, and TACKLES THE ENERGY CRISIS). Samuel R. Delany's early Sf novel THE BALLAD OF BETA-2 (my FFB). A plethora of books by Max Allan Collins -- three novels about 60's spyguy John Sand: COME SPY WITH ME, LIVE FAST, SPY HARD, and TO LIVE AND SPY IN BERLIN, all co-authored with Matthew v. Clemens; three short story collections: MURDERLIZED (with Clemens), and MURDER -- HIS AND HERS and SUSPENSE -- HIS AND HERS (both with his wife Barbara Collins). I also read collection TOO MANY TOM CATS by Barbara Collins and the latest release by Collins and his wife, CUTOUT. I also finished up several collections by Murray Leinster (having previously read some of the stories earlier): THE BEST OF MURRAY LEINSTER (UK edition, which differs from the American edition which was published two years later), THE MURRAY LEINSTER MEGA PACK, and THE SECOND MURRAY LEINSTER MEGAPACK (the 2012 edition, whose content varies from the 2015 edition). I also read Leinster's PLANET OF THE SMALL MEN, a 1950 magazine novel which finally made it into book form two years ago. Still working on Lawrence Block's memoir STEP BY STEP, the reading of which was interrupted by my OCD encounter with the Max Alan Collins books.
So glad you are back home and hope you had a great visit and that you surived the tiring trip home. Stay safe, Patti.
Have a great time, Jeff. Mostly I have driven through Connecticut although I did have cousins who lived in Darien when I was a kid. Went to Marblehead once too. I am ready to try a new series so I will try Grace. I loved him on LIFE ON MARS.
Yeah, the bridge was strange. Took hours to go three miles in Sarnia to get to the bridge and then we sailed over the bridge and through customs. Our one dinner out, we arrived at five--at seven we still had no entry so I paid for our drinks (mostly soft drinks) and two appetizers and left very hungry and angry. They should have compted our bill.
It must be very nice to have all those family beach days. What a good move MD to FL turned out to be.
Jeff mentions the Fox acting family and I may have never realized that James and Edward are separate people. Both of them are skilled at playing upper class twits and scuzzballs.
I've still been enjoying the seasons of RESIDENT ALIEN on Netflix. A well-done show. I like how the alien worries about becoming too human and the show avoids any opportunity for schmaltz. Instead, the character is a jerk and does not care for humans.
Still listening to AMERICAN DIRT and I need to finish reading the Gischler western. AMERICAN DIRT is a tough read because of the many dangers faced by the protagonists travelling across Mexico, and they've not even reached the border yet.
The full family will be visiting relatives in KS. There is an ill relative with a bad prognosis and I expect the trip will be difficult at times. And, of course, I have an important grant application due during the time I am gone. The work is mostly complete but I won't receive some suggested revisions and edits until tomorrow which is also a full day of travel by plane and auto.
Sounds like Jerry's family has their hands full with the newborn kitten. The cats who live in my house are older and require much less care. Although, one of them can be very needy at times and is not against head butting me.
Freaking cats.
Patti, hope you are rested by now from the trip. It is good to hear that the trip was mostly good and you enjoyed the plays and being with family.
New shows we tried last week are RABBIT HOLE with Kiefer Sutherland and WILD BILL with Rob Lowe. Both have only a few episodes and we liked both of them so we will continue watching. We watch a 1.5 hour documentary: THESE AMAZING SHADOWS: THE MOVIES THAT MAKE AMERICA, about the films in the The National Film Registry and the history of why it was set up, etc. Very interesting. I could easily rewatch it.
I read A CLOSED AND COMMON ORBIT by Becky Chambers, the second book in her Wayfarers series. It is science fiction and features not just one but two Artificial Intelligence characters. I have enjoyed both books in the series and will read more. I am now reading a book in the Birder Murder Mystery series: A CAST OF FALCONS by Steve Burrows. Rick Robinson recommended Burrows' series to me, and this is the third one I have read. I am liking this one the best so far.
Glen has finished reading THE FALL OF BERLIN 1945 by Antony Beevor; he read it very quickly and enjoyed it. He has just started reading REINVENTING HOLLYWOOD: HOW 1940S FILMMAKERS CHANGED MOVIE STORYTELLING by David Bordwell.
I liked WILD BILL a few years back. I will check for THOSE AMAZING SHADOWS online. And the Bordwell book looks good.
I have never been to KS. Or Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, SD, ND.
Glad things are mostly good if a bit harrowing at times, whether in traffic or nursing along a kitten...managed to soundly cut my finger while chopping celery for salad last night, which interferes with Everything Else including typing and general disposition, which the Various Standing Tasks, including cat care (younger cat is apparently having some sort of emotional meltdown over the last couple of days, and we might need to adjust her meds).
Rather happy that the Left did, indeed, pull Macron's bacon out of his self-immolation yesterday, and with the example of both the UK and France perhaps we can mostly rescue ourselves at the polls in November. Any blows against the creeping fascism around the world, including in Israel (and Palestine) and India of late, are good ones, even if not altogether good enough to make one less jittery.
By cracky, Jerry, I recall when there were essentially three MISS PICKERELL books easily available (GOES TO MARS, GOES UNDERSEA, AND THE GEIGER COUNTER) and a little digging would turn up copies of GOES TO THE ARCTIC and TO THE MOON, which Scholastic was less good at keeping in print, at least in the early '70s...glad to have just learned MacGregor and her eventual co-author/ghost eventually managed 17 of them over the years. Gernsbackian sf at its most charming.
Haven't added anything new to my viewing plate of late, aside from belatedly-cited THE PORTER, a Canadian-American historical drama, the other week. One of the occasional dramatic offers from American Public Television, the documentary and arts/crafts heavy syndicator to US public broadcasting. It had run on US cable and Canadian broadcast previously.
The various Recurrent Tasks do not improve thus, I meant to type.
There are some lovely aspects of those central and western states. Visiting my ex in Seattle some years back led to us traipsing down to Portland while there, and finding some lovely bookstores among other welcome activity...the only time I've been to Oregon thus far.
It was too hot in Connecticut today, hotter than Brooklyn. It was 93 in the Hartford area. Tomorrow we're off to the coast - Mystic Seaport is supposed to be around 80 the rest of the week.
Haven't been to much of the Midwest, but we did visit my brother in Portland, Oregon once. It was nice, but they were having a heat wave that year too.
I guess we have had a reasonable summer compared to most of the country (world).
To those of you with access, I highly recommend Taffy Brodesser Akner's article in the NYT Magazine on Sunday-two harrowing stories. Eager to read LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE too.
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