Category Archives: podcasts

check in part three: entertainment

ann arbor art fair – a summertime staple

I gave up my cable television several months ago because the only thing I tended to watch was the 6:00 news – I haven’t missed it. I’ve had a very lucky summer in terms of great books, podcasts, and original series on Prime & Netflix – so here are some of my favorites!

Books

I’ve read several “just meh” books this summer (One Thousand White Women and I Was Anastasia spring immediately to mind) and yet in strokes of good fortune, these were balanced out with two of the best books I’ve read this year so far – Flat Broke with Two Goats and The Punishment She Deserves.

Going in reverse order, Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers are back together in the most recent Elizabeth George British mystery series installment The Punishment She Deserves and they’re as entertaining as ever. Lynley and Havers never seem to get old to me – their interaction is comfortable and funny and also refreshing and touching, all at the same time. I love stories of men and women who work together, will never have a romantic relationship or sexual tension, but truly love and respect each other nonetheless – I think that’s a hard dynamic to write well. And Elizabeth George always does it. Add in a typically convoluted case, complicated by a colleague dead set on bringing down Havers while struggling with her own secret alcoholism – and you have a beefy, satisfying read that ticked all the boxes.

In a totally different vein, Flat Broke with Two Goats is a mostly-lighthearted true story of a couple who lost it all during the 2008 recession and moved to a ramshackle cabin in North Carolina to try to get their finances and lives back in order. I love homesteading stories and by the time they’d acquired their chickens and the titular goats I was hooked. This has led me on a homesteading book spree and I’m sure at least one in the current stack by my bedside will end up in a future post.

Podcasts

My Favorite Murder, Criminal, and Thinking Sideways are perennial favorites that I’ve mentioned here before, but I also want to recommend Slow Burn, which is a Slate podcast with Season 1 about the Nixon Watergate scandal. It’s amazing to listen to the total fuckery that was Watergate and hear how Nixon’s supporters defended him – much the same way 45’s supporters defend him – by deflecting criticism back to Democratic candidates. During a lunchtime walk, I laughed out loud on the woods trail around my office when a scratchy old recording caught an indignant Nixon supporter screeching, “WHAT ABOUT CHAPPAQUIDDICK?” the same way today’s Trumpster might be heard to screech, “WHAT ABOUT CROOKED HILARY?” Days or weeks before, of course, Nixon was forced to release his tapes and was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a criminal. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This podcast is also equal opportunity! Season 2 will be about Crooked Hillary! (well, okay, don’t get all Putin Passionate on me, my conservative friends, it will be about Bill’s impeachment.)
In the same socio-political vein, The RFK Tapes has been fascinating, too – an in-depth look at Sirhan Sirhan and the response to RFK’s assassination. This one is a bit more steeped in conspiracy theory – why did the actual autopsy not bear out the statements of eye-witnesses? Who was the girl in the polka-dot dress? What role did the Rosicrucians play? Was Sirhan the original Manchurian Candidate? But equally enjoyable and educational.
And Karina Longworth is back with the new season of You Must Remember This – Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon. I love old Hollywood and this season, Longworth deconstructs Kenneth Anger’s book “Hollywood Babylon” to examine the roots of many Hollywood myths. Recently released (and the accompaniment to a couple of my recent short runs) – Fatty Arbuckle and Virgina Rappe.

street art by david zinn at the ann arbor art fair

Series

My brother is famous for a few things – his hatred of crockpots, his affinity for chickens and Oreos, and his teenage confusion over states that start with a letter I, to name a few – and one of them is his propensity to drop into my life after a few weeks of radio silence to recommend a new series on Prime or Netflix that will ruin my life. I say “ruin my life” in a tongue in cheek way, meaning my productivity levels and desire to do anything except sit in front of the TV. He did this first with “Narcos” and I lost hours and hours of my life to Pablo Escobar. Then it was “Bosch”, and I am ignoring everything else from him until I finish season 2 of “Marcella”. Which is good, but she fucks up so much that it’s hard to feel a lot of compassion for her…except when you stop to ask why her ex-husband is such an intolerable douche. And I actually really love her style. Great sweaters, messy-hair-don’t-care-I’m-solving-a-horrific-crime, cropped pants and brogues, great coats…

Honorable mention in this category to The Forest on Netflix, which is originally French, I think, so the subtitles made it hard for me to knit to – but suspenseful and interesting nonetheless, they sold it a bit as a sort of foreign Twin Peaks – a girl disappears in the forest and to find her, all her secrets must be revealed. Not in the Twin Peaks category or even close, but an absorbing diversion.

I hope you are well wherever you are – here in suburban Elysia we received a lot of rain this past weekend, which put a damper on the 5k that B & I ran on Saturday morning (my running shoes are still squelching). It did not, however, spoil our trip to Ann Arbor’s Art Fair on Sunday, as evidenced by the photos above. B is back to Iowa for a couple of weeks, then he will be back with me for a long vacation and to wait for his next assignment.

Summer sweeps past. xo

spring break part 1

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It rained all week. On Thursday, I went through the drive-thru of one of my fave local coffee shops for a dozen donuts for a colleague’s birthday, and I watched the “regulars” through the rain-splattered glass and felt that it must be a nice way to start the morning. It’s one of those places where you walk out smelling of coffee and baking. Alas, there was no time for me to linger, the rain-soggy box was thrown into the passenger seat and I was off, although I did extricate the blueberry cake donut at a stoplight as a consolation (blueberry cake donuts 4-ever).

We have no spring trips planned. This coming week’s Spring Break for Miss L will be an exercise in “staycation”. She won’t be thrilled about this, but we’ve done fun vacations for the past few years (Chicago, Disney, and North Carolina beach trip) so it’s time for mama’s bank account to recover a bit.

Yesterday the sun came out long enough for me to start raking and begin some basic yard cleanup, but after filling five lawn and leaf bags I feel as though I am making the situation worse. There appears to be no grass whatsoever in my backyard.

Note the clear and humiliating line of demarcation between my yard and the dentist’s. His is sod!!! It’s not fair.

Today I will spread some grass seed and attend to a couple of other tasks, including the somewhat nasty one of trying to figure out what to do about my infestation of horrible house sparrows in all my nesting boxes. I don’t want to stoop to killing them but I think I need to block the entrance holes with something.

It was a big week at Miss L’s elementary school, with Book Fair and conferences. Miss L had a great conference and one of the funnier moments was finding out from her third grade teacher that one of Miss L’s self-stated goals is “to get into a good college”. I think we actually LOL’ed at this.

I volunteered for two nights at the Book Fair and realized that I probably should have been a cashier in real life. It’s incredibly satisfying for me to have short, well-defined tasks with a beginning, middle, and end. Greet the customer. Scan the books. Take their money. Give them change. Hand them their books and receipt with a huge smile because that task is over, they will walk away, and everyone will be happy. I ended up working way past my shift end on both nights because they weren’t fully stocked with volunteers. The first night was fine, but the second night I was actually bleary-eyed by the time we started closing the registers and counting money. Still, I really love being at the school and I always wish I had more free time during the day to do more things there. However, Widget Central (and my mortgage, car payment, our health insurance, and bills) has me inexorably in a firm grasp.

Still, it’s now the weekend, with a couple of days off next week with Miss L, and I plan on baking, sleeping, and watching another 30 episodes of Forensic Files. I leave you with a screenshot of the My Favorite Murder podcast’s Instagram account, which after their recent live show in Portland managed to combine three highly topical themes – donuts, cats, and murder, with their personalized Elvis the Siamese donut (fellow listeners will recognize Elvis as the show’s mascot). I wish someone would make me an Emmett donut.
Happy Spring Break for those of you celebrating! xo

what’s saving my life right now

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A couple of the blogs I read (Modern Mrs. Darcy and Carrie Willard) do the “what’s saving my life right now” post right around this time of year – earlier this week we celebrated Imbolc for the pagans, St. Brigid’s day, Candlemas, and for the rest of us, the halfway point from the winter solstice to the Equinox. The darkness hasn’t bothered me so much this year, but it’s undeniably nice to know that every day we are turning back to the light, and on days like yesterday, when the sun is out and bright, I just want to sit in a sunbeam and soak up some vitamin D.

So what’s saving MY life right now?

Reading – I am bouncing back and forth between an “airport novel” – which is what I call the bestsellers that always seem to be on the racks at airport bookstores – fast paced, adventurous, usually with a spy or a team or agents of some kind. They’re an indulgence – this one is a James Rollins “Sigma Force” book called “The Seventh Plague” and somehow I am already halfway though it. Anyway, I’m bouncing between that and “The Happiness Equation” because one of my goals this year is to read more nonfiction and although self-help isn’t really what I had in mind, absorbing more suggestions on how to be even 5 or 10% happier is just fine.
Being off Facebook right now. Yup. I took my own advice and took a sabbatical from Facebook and Twitter – I stayed on Instagram because it is a much more beautiful and soothing brand of social media for me. My feed is full of beautiful pictures of Norway, of Japan, Europe, cats and birds, my alma mater, handmade things and my happy places and beautiful rooms. I need these things to stay alive and right now I don’t need to steep myself in the live feed of the unrelenting negativity of Donald Trump’s administration and the divisiveness that is causing in our country.
Podcasts. In particular I just love My Favorite Murder (stay sexy, don’t get murdered) and Thinking Sideways. I’m also immersed in the archives of You Must Remember This and just worked my way through her series on Charles Manson’s Hollywood.

“My Favorite Murder” has some pretty funny merch, too – I think I need one of these mugs for our staff meetings.

Finding a brief moment of hilarity at work. One of our coworkers recently returned from a long illness and he was greeted by this actually very creepy Elmo balloon, which has arms and legs and is probably four feet tall. (Why do people buy Mylar balloons still? This balloon will be clogging up some whale’s intestines long after I am ashes and dust. This stuff doesn’t biodegrade.) Over the course of a few days, Elmo began to drift aimlessly down the aisles, bouyed by rogue air currents, and I would frequently turn around to find it staring in my office window. When the GC was out one day, we decided he could be her temporary replacement.

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The snug life with this little guy – with a hot water bottle under the blanket and a movie from the Lucky Day section of the library on TV – and below that, a throwback to my favorite little human’s early years, provided at random one day by my brother, who found this snap on his phone and shared it with me. ❤

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A gift that I gave myself, for my evening tea, a reminder of a childhood best friend.

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And lastly – the bonds of trust, respect, and affection that I share with other people in my community. This was demonstrated eloquently during the Multicultural Night that was hosted by Miss L’s elementary school. On a purely voluntary basis, families and organizations came together for a night to celebrate the beautiful diversity in our community. Children from all grades (including Miss L and several of her besties) volunteered to perform, to sing songs and show what they’ve learned on different musical instruments – maracas and recorders and Indian and African drums. Some children dressed in costumes representing their ethnic backgrounds and families brought all sorts of food to share. The halls, gym, library, cafeteria, and art room were packed – the turnout was amazing. Miss L and her friends ran all over the school making memories together, doing crafts like Chinese lanterns and Roman mosaics, having their wrists henna painted by the mothers and grandmothers of some of our Indian students, and watching Irish dancing from a local dance school. There wasn’t a single political comment made, but the entire evening, which is an annual tradition at the school, spoke volumes and made me so incredibly proud of our community and our public school. We are truly blessed.

Happy weekend, all. xoxo

entertainment round up + nanowrimo update

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Currently reading: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.
I’m not a huge BRUUUCCCCE fan but I heard him on Fresh Air and he was pretty articulate and thoughtful, so when I saw his autobiography in my library’s Lucky Day section, I picked it up. Goodreads tells me that based on my page count, I’m about 20% through it, and so far, I’m fairly ambivalent about the subject matter. It’s not making me feel much different about the music, but his writing is undeniably beautiful and lyrical. In fact, he’s an excellent writer – his chapters are well-organized, his thoughts are expressed clearly, and his descriptions are vivid and tinged with emotional awareness and a sense of passing time. I’m enjoying it but am casting some longing glances at the next book in my “To Be Read” pile, Six of Crows.

Currently listening to: Podcasts.
I don’t know how I missed the podcast bandwagon for so long, but I have become aware of two that I’m currently devouring voraciously – My Favorite Murder and Thinking Sideways. Truth be told, I like Thinking Sideways better. I was the kid who read all about serial murders at an inappropriately young age – I still remember the look the lady at the bookstore gave me when I bought a biography of Ed Gein with my allowance – but the giggly, jokey tone of the My Favorite Murder hosts can get a little cringeworthy. I like the Thinking Sideways hosts better and am more interested in the wide range of topics they discuss – from the disappearance of Amelia Earhart to a mysterious website that went up in 2011 to ‘min min’ lights in Australia. It’s made my commutes and workouts fly by.

Currently watching: An Idiot Abroad. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a show that makes me laugh out loud as much as this one does. Karl Pilkington is the perfect foil for Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and his escapades going on twisted world adventures that they dream up for him – priceless. One of my favorites was his experience on a desert island, and his consternation over being asked to wear a grass skirt that’s customary garb for the local tribe.

Currently eating: The original, world famous Tokyo Banana Cake – special giraffe edition. I have a long history of being tricked by Japanese desserts. They are the most beautiful little works of art, all immaculately packaged in artistic wrappings, they look delectable, you take a bite and find out it’s filled with bean curd, or cold potato. However, on a recent trip to the US, the head of our global legal team brought us a box of Banana Cakes and I was pleasantly surprised. They tasted like light, banana-flavored Twinkies filled with caramel custard. I may have finally found a Japanese dessert that I can eat! (I really only ate one although if I hadn’t been forced to share the box, I could have gladly had more.)

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Currently thinking about: NaNoWriMo.
I’m solidly out of the gate during this first week, writing every day. I’m not meeting the recommended daily word count of 1,600-something, but I’m over 1,000 words each day and averaging about 1,200. Respectable, I think. I have a full outline with all of my chapters laid out and am ready for the hard work.

Six Ten

of this be sure: you do not find a happy life, you make it.