Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Monday, Monday

Monday, February 24, 2025

Monday, Monday

15 comments:

Jerry House said...: Most of the week was bitter cold, with one day of raining like stink. It warmed up-ish for the weekend, so there's that.

Ben, the bearded dragon is off his feed, and has been for several weeks, eating very little. He's somewhat active in the mornings but lethargic later in the day. We've had him for less than a year, so we're not too sure what to expect, but Christina has not had the best of luck with bearded dragons in the past. I strongly suspect it's just a seasonal thing, but who knows? Meanwhile Walt also says that Mango, the South American tegu also appears to be eating less, but tegus can go for months without eating. Sebastian, the Russian tortoise, has been eating up a storm, son o worries there.

Erin and Trey have begun scouting out apartments and houses in the area to rent. they will wait until Erin hears from the veterinary school in California she applied to before signing a lease. the competition to the school is fierce and Erin doesn't think she'll be accepted, but just in case... When Erin does move she'll take Duncan, Newcat, and both hedgehogs with her, leaving just six animals in the house -- the lowest amount in nearly twenty years. Christina has no plans on adding any more animals, but if you happen to know of an available Maine Coon Cat she will quickly change her mind.

Jessie is in the midst of redoing her living room; walls are being stripped down, dust and debris everywhere, and the front door will probably be reframed. Christina and Jack were over Saturday to help and Jack was a determined maniac when it came to demolition. Wall patching and painting is scheduled for this coming weekend.

I planned to do my taxes last week but went down a rabbit hole on the internet instead, emerging fourteen hours later with blurry eyes, sore typing fingers, a hungry stomach, and undone tax returns. I am determined this year to get my taxes done before April 15th -- the date I finally got to them for the past fifteen years. So I rescheduled and decided to do them this weekend, to no avail, because...

The library had its BIG winter book sale this weekend. a bag of books for only $7. Christina, Erin, Jessie, Kaylee, and Ivory all went; Amy had planned to go but her friends took her to a hockey game instead.. I was very good and bought only two bags of books -- thirty-seven books I did not know I needed, plus one book that I had actually been looking for. More rabbit holes for me to fall into.

The new season of DEATH IN PARADISE started and new episodes of FATHER BROWN and HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU aired. FATHER BROWN moved up a notch in quality with the guest appearance of John Light as Flambeau but it moved down several notches in terms of believability. DEATH IN PARADISE is setting up the season and I'm looking forward to seeing what is to come. HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU had a Republican congressman as a guest and the other panelists were somewhat merciless toward him but he took it in good stead. Kimmel, Meyers. and THE DAILY SHOW were off this week. I'll catch John Oliver later on today.

Just a tad more to come,; 6:37 AM
Jerry House said...: Here's the last bit:

A lot of reading this week. Brian De Palma & Susan Lehman's ARE SNAKES NECESSARY? (my FFB this week), Alison Gaylin's ROBERT B. PARKER'S BUZZ KILL (probably the best of the Sunny Randall novels), ANITQUES SLAY BELLES by "Barbara Allan" (Max Allen Collins and Barbara Collins -- always enjoyable), Joyce Carol Oates's THE TRIUMPH OF THE SPIDER MONKEY (a surrealist look at the dissolving reality in the mind of a psychopath; well written, but the experimental nature put me off), John Farris's BABY MOLL (an early crime novel published as by "Steve Brackeen"), and Ellen MacGregor & Dora Pantell's MISS PICKERELL GOES ON A DIG (the only book in the series I had not read; it's somewhat to realize that there are no more new adventures of that fussy lady with her love for animals and fearless sense of justice are available for me to read). Also, four graphic novels: Budjette Tan's TRESE 3: MASS MURDERS and TRESE 4: LAST SEEN AFTER MIDNIGHT (two more volumes of the Filipino "komik" about Alexandra Trese, nightclub manager, police consultant, and paranormal investigator charged with protecting Manila from the country's all too real myths and legends; excellent), Torunn Gronbekk's (with others) CARNAGE, VOL. 1: BORN AGAIN (the Marvel comic book universe is getting very confusing with its alternate realities and worlds and its attempts to squeeze in vast casts of characters and their various other-world counterparts as they try to make a coherent story, in this case about the race of alien symbiotes that include Carnage, Venom, and Anti-Venom; my head was spinning; I think I'm too old for this s***), and Gerard Way's THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, VOLUME 1: APOCALYPSE SUITE (an introduction to the series which needed more background detail, which is most likely coming in later volumes). Coming up: James Patterson's nonfiction book about Booksellers and librarians and early 1950s novel by Robert B. (not THAT one) Parker.

Enjoy your time off, Patti. Stay warm and safe.; 6:58 AM
Todd Mason said...: No new SNL after all the new content last weekend unsurprisingly, but I did enjoy the HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU (US) (the GOP congressmember seemed to be on the show in part to stand apart from MAGAts to some degree) and LAST WEEK TONIGHT, while I caught up with episodes of THE PITT (HBO/Max) and DOC (Fox), which strike me as better new correspondents to ER and CHICAGO HOPE. The neighbor dogs are having an argument at fullest volume at just before 7am, which might upset me more if I had not awakened at 6:40 to feed our duo of cats (would Christina consider a diminutive calico who decided to take an instant dislike requiring segregation from our elder but bigger, stronger and smarter tabby almost immediately?)(Calico had been living in a chaotic environment with a semi-feral female and apparently had understandable difficulty Letting Go of the former reality...the tabby is actually quite friendly when not immediately attacked.)
So, Jerry, what were the Necessary $7-worth?; 7:06 AM
Todd Mason said...: I have not read a PICKERELL "chapterbook" since MISS PICKERELL AND THE GEIGER COUNTER, which might've been the fourth one extant at that point, at least as reprinted by Scholastic in the pre-Harry Potter decades. One might get an interesting television series out of Miss P. Wonder if she'd prefer Ms. P these decades.; 7:13 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: I hope you're having a good time now that you finally got out of the frigid north to warm and (sometimes) sunny Florida, though on our side of the state we're supposed to get a lot of rain today.

It was a nice, quiet, cooler week here. The usual round of restaurants, books and streaming. Most days I'm up at 6 and spend a couple of hours online (besides getting breakfast ready). Jackie gets up at 8. After breakfast it is back online, plus games (Wordle, Connections, etc.) and reading. Generally, we go out for lunch at 1, then Jackie's round of some or all of these (in order of likelihood) - Publix, Costco, Trader Joe's, Target, Walmart, Fresh Market, plus occasionally the library. We try and get our walking in. Back here at between 3 and 4. Reading in the afternoon, television from 7 to 11. So, not all that different from our schedule at home.

We finished the fourth series (with one more to come, probably next year) of BABYLOPN BERLIN (MHz Choice), the Swedish FALLEN (also MHz), ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL (series 5, PBS), and will probably finish THE NIGHT AGENT series 2 (Netflix) tonight. Started REACHER (series 3) and ZERO HOUR (so far, I'm skeptical) as well as continuing our usual viewing.

Current reading James Byrne's CHAIN REACTION, the third Dez Limerick thriller, possibly more entertaining than the first two.; 7:35 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: Hmm, no new DEATH IN PARADISE here yet.; 7:38 AM
Todd Mason said...: Ah. A decent rundown of PICKERELL and MacGregor's busy, foreshortened career (she died at age 47 in 1954) here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_MacGregor
Scholastic, as was their wont, only picked up several (the first four) of her books when they could get them Cheap, and left the others for more dogged fans than I to dig out...such as you, Jerry. Pocket did at least some of those paperbacks.Dora Pantell had a good secondary career writing the Pickerell books EM had planned to do, and finally two more of her own. I see here that ON A DIG was Pantell's second sequel: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?7830
ISFDB also gives us a better guide than my memories would.; 7:41 AM
Todd Mason said...: As primary cook and nearly solitary grocery-gatherer, I try to keep it down to weekly cart-pushing through Wegman's, Trader Joe's, Acme, Shop-Rite, Sprouts, Target (mostly since my CVS is in-store, but some sales on food are good) and PetCo, but one can definitely get steps in thus, often in stalking through up to four or more in one afternoon, as most are in clumps in abutting strip malls. Mother's and Whole Foods are further out and usually will be consulted on the way back from certain MD appointments.; 7:58 AM
Diane Kelley said...: Western NY gets a brief reprieve from the Arctic temps with a predicted 46 degrees today. Diane decided this is the day to run errands despite the high winds.

Patrick ran a Half-Marathon in Las Vegas yesterday. Katie is working on getting tickets for us for our planned trip to NYC on Mothers' Day weekend.

With a week of mild weather, I'm going to try to box up a few hundred books and take them to local used bookstores. I'm also watching REACHER, SEASON 3 on AMAZON Prime Video. It follows Lee Child's novel, PERSUADER, fairly closely. New episodes drop every Thursday. Stay safe!; 8:24 AM
Anonymous said...: Place is very nice.
J&K&J made emergency landing in Dublin (coming from NE), had to stay over and then a drunken passenger delayed their flight for three hours yesterday.
Trying not read political news. Rain today.; 11:21 AM
Jeff Meyerson said...: George, Jackie always got tickets for the new GYPSY - we will add Audra McDonald's Mama Rose to those we've seen of Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone. Now she is going to get Sondheim's OLD FRIENDS.; 1:12 PM
Todd Mason said...: A little of it is so foolish it's actually funny, Patti...even given it's meant to distract. Glad you've gotten into a nice vacation place, sorry for those delayed by Irish stereotypes and the like...; 2:19 PM
TracyK said...: No rain here, unfortunately, and not too cold either. We mostly stayed at home last week, went out for groceries and breakfast this morning.

Last week, Glen finished UNDER ALIEN SKIES: A SIGHTSEER'S GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE by Philip Plait and THIS PLACE OF SILENCE: OHIO'S CEMETERIES AND BURIAL GROUNDS. Now he is reading a mystery, COZY by Parnell Hall, the 14th book in the Stanley Hastings series. As usual, he is enjoying it.

I am reading SCENE OF THE CRIME by Margot Kinberg. It is the 5th book in the Joel William series, and I have read the first four books. Joel Williams is an ex-cop, currently a professor at Tilton University, who sometimes gets involved with investigating crimes. Right now I have only read two chapters.

On Sunday nights we watch some of the network shows. Last night it was ELSBETH, WATSON, and THE IRRATIONAL. The ELSBETH was the best one so far this season, with Michael Emerson as a guest star. We saw BROKENWOOD MYSTERIES last week, and we have started watching THE CLEANER on Prime / Britbox. Except for the Christmas Special, we have not watched any of the new season of DEATH IN PARADISE, but it looks like the 2nd episode is available now.

Patti, have fun in Florida.; 3:55 PM
Jeff Meyerson said...: OK, got the Death in Paradise.; 8:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Thanks, Tracy. I love Micael Emerson. So good at being quirky. I also liked The Cleaner.
Trying to read The Cold Dish but the reading lamps have 40 watt bulbs!; 11:59 PM

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