One Vote and Counting ...

I got my Vote by Mail ballot on Monday and I returned it on Tuesday. 

I thought about taking it to the Board of Elections and handing it directly to a person, but there are twelve of these special drop boxes located throughout our county, so I walked a block to the nearest one and dropped it off there. 

The ballots are collected every day and the drop boxes are under video surveillance so I made sure to wave to whoever might be checking the video. I think the black or white thing on the wall might house the video? I live in NJ so I don't worry too much about my vote not being counted; I'm pretty sure that Harris will get our 14 electoral votes as NJ has voted Democratic since 1992. It's those other swing states (like PA, MI, GA, NC, WI, and AZ) that are my biggest cause for concern. 

I'm on my way to visit my SiL so I'll be back here next week. See you then!

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/25/24

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today with a new hat on the needles and a book or two. After perusing Ravelry, I decided that Justin might like a Rows and Arrows hat (Rav link). He is an avid bowhunter and the cables look enough like arrows that he'll see them and I really like the design (especially the crown). I usually knit hats for Justin with dark green or camouflage yarn so he can wear them in the woods, but I decided that this blue Rios was too beautiful to pass up. He once told me that he wished his truck was bright blue (it's white) so I felt okay with choosing blue. It's a wild life and I'm living it. :-)

It doesn't look like much now, but I think it will look great with the second batch of cables and the crown decreases. I really enjoy knitting this hat, so I might knit a green one with the leftovers from the Washington Beanie but we'll see. I probably shouldn't count my cables before they're crossed.

I wasn't quite sure what The Safekeep was about before I started reading it, and I'm not sure I know now after finishing it. Another reviewer called it "a novel of post-war Holland that isn't quite sure what it wants to be," and I think that is the most accurate description. Isabel, a Dutch woman, feels fiercely protective over her home and is quite disturbed when she's forced to host her brother's girlfriend Eva for a few weeks. Eva has ulterior motives which are even more unnerving to Isabel. I may be a reader who needs a more straightforward type of book rather than one that hides its message with dissemblance. This three-star book just wasn't my cup of tea. 

I believe firmly in reproductive care for all women, and I'm Sorry For My Loss: An Urgent Examination of Reproductive Care in America explores that from all aspects. As the subtitle says, this is an urgent examination and one that I wish everyone passing policy in state and federal governments would read and heed. The authors cover the piecemeal medical rules, insurance policies, and laws governing what choices women can make, and more importantly, what lack of treatment they are subjected to due to their inability to make medical choices that are right for them and their situations. The language we use suffers from inadequacy, implying that all kept pregnancies are wanted, and can also serve to make women feel that they are somehow to blame for miscarriages. Post-Roe America is a scary place for women, and the statistics that Little and Long present are sobering. Twenty-five percent of women have had an abortion and the current US maternal deaths is awful at 32.9 per 100,000. The maternal death rate for Black women in the US is terrifying at 69.9 per 100,000. Reproductive care is not simply an abortion issue, but rather how the United States views women's health. This book is necessary and heartfelt.

Thanks to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on September 24, 2024.

What are you making and reading this week?

Read With Us: The Ministry of Time Followup

Last Tuesday we had the Zoom discussion for our Read With Us Summer Book, The Ministry of Time. It was a full house with 16 people attending, but it was a great group with a lot to contribute. 

Kym opened up the discussion by asking whether we liked the book or not, and why. Most people liked the book, there were several of us who liked it with reservations, and there were at least a couple of people who were not big fans. Things that people liked were the beauty of the author's language, that it was a fun read, and they enjoyed reading about the ex-pats and their adjustments to modern life. Some people questioned the plausibility and wondered about the pairings of the ex-pats and their bridges. Some people wished that the more minor ex-pats had been developed more. 

Carole asked her questions about genre, why we tend to put books in boxes, and how did people feel about the multiple genres in The Ministry of Time. Some people felt that science fiction should be based on actual science and facts. Several people agreed that the mix of genres was part of the fun, but there was a point where too many things had been included and there were too many loose ends that were dropped and not developed. Someone wondered how Kaliane Bradley chose the eras that she picked the ex-pats from, and she also loved how Gore's dialogue was written. 

My question was about how we interpreted the ending and what the future held for the characters. It seemed that most people thought that the ending felt rushed and chaotic, but Kym pointed out that that is often the norm for thrillers. Many plot points converge, suspense develops, and then there is a resolution. Someone brought up that there were so many plot points, such as feminism, cannibalism, climate change, homosexuality, colonialism, etc., and most of us felt that some of them had been abandoned and many details were left wanting. Carole did like the ending, the way two timelines were brought together for a hopeful ending. 

I have come to rely on our Read With Us discussions to clarify ideas and participants often bring up points that I have not considered. It's a valuable thing for me, and Kym pointed out afterward that this was our 20th book! I think we've come a long way since the beginning when Kym first proposed this online book group and none of us were quite sure what it might look like. I think our group has really come together and I'd like to thank all of you for reading and participating. You've made us what we have come to be and I hope our group continues to grow, read, and discuss in the future. 

We'll be announcing our 21st book on October 8th, so be sure to check back then!

A Gathering of Poetry: September 2024

It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry. After the debate, I had a discussion with my neighbor and said I would be on tenterhooks until after Election Day. He looked at me quizzically, asked what tenterhooks were, and said he thought the word was "tender hooks". He's an educated man, so I thought he might be right and came in to look it up myself. During my search I came across this poem and it was too good not to share. 

On Tender Hooks 
by Brian Bilston 

Let me cut to the cheese:
every time you open your mouth,
I’m on tender hooks.

You charge at the English language
like a bowl in a china shop.
Please nip it in the butt.

On the spurt of the moment,
the phrases tumble out.
It’s time you gave up the goat.

Curve your enthusiasm.  
Don’t give them free range.
The chickens will come home to roast.

Now you are in high dungeon.
You think me a damp squid:
on your phrases I shouldn’t impose.

But they spread like wildflowers
in a doggy-dog world,
and your spear of influence grows.

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Bilston, Brian. “On Tender Hooks a Poem by Brian Bilston.” Pan Macmillan, www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/literary/brian-bilston-friday-poem-on-tender-hooks. Accessed 12 Sept. 2024.

You can read more about the poet here.

(The photo at the top is a bowl in a china shop in case you were wondering.)

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Thank you for reading and joining us for our monthly Gathering of Poetry. You are more than welcome to add your link below if you would like to share one of your favorite poems. The more the merrier!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/18/24

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today for a look at unraveling, a couple of potholders, and a couple of books. I've unraveled what I had knit on the Washington Beanie for Justin and have officially moved on to something else. Once I wind the new yarn I ordered, I'll give you more details about the something else(s) I decided on.

I wove another potholder for Ryan. This is the smaller seven-inch size and the pattern is called Square Spiral. Like some of the other spiral/maze ones I've woven, the back looks different from the front. I can't give you a good, weaving-based explanation why this happens other than some sort of potholder magic. 

I wove a larger 10-inch one for my SiL. It's just a collection of somewhat random colors that I liked with no special pattern. We're going up to visit them next week and when I sent her a photo of the first one I wove, she said it was "a damn fine potholder." Clearly, she deserves one of her own. 

I finished two NetGalley books last week, one fiction and one poetry. I often judge books by their covers, but in the case of Shy Creatures the badger on the cover was a good sign. Clare Chambers has written a book with an interesting plot, and believable characters, complete with lovely prose. It is based on a real event but Chambers has given the main character, William, a slightly nicer life. Set in the mid-1960s, Helen Hansford is an art therapist in a British psychiatric hospital. There she meets William Tapping who has been admitted after an altercation in a nearby crumbling mansion. He is mute, with waist-length hair and beard, and after he shows an interest in art, Helen digs into his past to find out he ended up this way. The author is an acute observer of the human condition, and with this book, she raises questions of love and protection vs. control and wants and needs vs. what is in a person's best interests. This four-star novel was emotional without being overwrought, humorous at times, hopeful, and compassionate, with a moving ending. It will be published on November 12, 2024.

I was going to say that Water, Water is Billy Collins' best poetry collection to date, but I don't know if I've actually read any of his other books. I've certainly read other poems of his, and these rank right up there with the best of them. In this book of 60 new poems, I found only four or so that didn't speak to me. The author can write about Elsie the Cow, wondering who wove the daisy garland around her neck, figuring it was probably a little girl, and where she is now. One that I liked the most was about spying a cardinal and its mate and vowing not to tell his wife about them. "Indeed, I would take the two cardinals to my grave." I'll let you read this book of accessible poetry yourself to find out all that Collins told his wife (or not), in addition to the many other relatable poems in this collection full of beauty, humor, and satisfaction. It will be published on November 19, 2024.

What are you making and reading this week?

Read With Us: The Ministry of Time Discussion

STOP HERE!

That's kind of an odd way to begin a blog post, but you might recall that last week Kym mentioned a "new and more coordinated question-posing strategy". We had a Zoom pre-discussion discussion about The Ministry of Time last week and while we were puzzling about what questions to ask, it dawned on us that the questions under consideration flowed logically from one to another and might make a bit more sense if we asked them in order. This is less complicated than I'm making it sound so if you haven't visited Kym's blog already, head there first to answer her question. Next, go to Carole's blog, and then back here for the final question. 

FIRST: Kym's blog

SECOND: Carole's blog

THIRD: My blog for the last question

Nothing awful will happen if you answer the questions out of order; we just wanted to inject as much logic into our questions about a book that seems to defy logic. 

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So if you're reading this, I'm going to assume you've visited Kym and Carole and are back here for the final question about our current Read With Us book, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. 

I found this book intriguing and interesting reading but for me, the ending felt rushed, confused, and confusing, with things happening all over. I've reread some of the ending and looked up many different interpretations of what exactly was going on, but my question to you is this: How do you interpret the ending of the novel, and what does the future hold for the characters? How did you feel about the ending and would you have preferred that the book end differently? 

I have some thoughts about this question myself, but this space is for you to share your ideas. There are no wrong opinions and I look forward to reading your thoughts.

The in-person Zoom discussion will be at 7:00 pm Eastern this evening. If you haven't RSVP'd already you can send me an email (the email address is in the upper right) and I will make sure you get an invitation with the Zoom link. I hope to see you there! Books are often better if they are discussed, and I think that is definitely the case for The Ministry of Time!

Good News!

I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Strout and most of her books. I didn't love Amy and Isabelle, and I think Abide With Me and The Burgess Boys only earned 3.5 stars, but for me, the rest of her books are easily four and five stars. 

Tell Me Everything was published on September 10, and it was probably my most anticipated book this year. I got excited when the cover design was revealed, and even more excited when I requested and was approved for an ARC. Once I had the book in my hands I wanted to read it in one sitting but somehow still savor it to make it last.

Strout tells us more of Bob Burgess' story; remember him from The Burgess Boys? But the book is about so much more and so many more people, including Bob's wife, Margaret, and his first wife, Pam. It's also the story of how Bob comes to defend a local man accused of murdering his mother. There is a small mystery about who committed the crime, but it's more about the changes that Bob helps the accused man make in his life. Bob's brother Jim also appears in this novel with some important revelations for Bob.

Bob meets Lucy Barton frequently so they can take walks together. Their relationship is one of good friends who share a special emotional intimacy until possibly, they don't. This part was a bit worrisome for me, but it all came together wonderfully at the end. In one of my favorite developments, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge get together to tell each other stories about "unrecorded lives". I will be thinking about these stories and their meanings for a long time.

I greatly enjoyed revisiting many of Strout's past characters, especially Olive, Lucy, and Bob, and their interactions with each other now that many of them live in Crosby, Maine. Because Strout has caught the reader up on many favorite characters, this book feels as if it could be an ending to the Lucy Barton series. There were parts of the book that felt as if they might be moving too slowly, but Elizabeth Strout's novels have never been page-turners or plot-driven. They are stories of humanity, love, loss, empathy, and true human connections, and in these respects, this is one of Strout's best. 

Lucy stood up and pulled on her coat. "Those are my stories," she said, and then bent down to put her boots back on. "But you're right. They are stories of loneliness and love." Then she picked up her bag and said, "And the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky." And then to Olive's amazement, Lucy said, smiling at her with a gentleness on her face, "And I feel that way about you. A connection. Love. So thank you."
Olive said, "Wait." As Lucy turned, Olive said, "Well, phooey. I feel connected to you too. So there. " She stuck out her tongue.

 

Much of my enjoyment of this book was tied to the fact that Strout brings Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge together for some great conversations. Despite the fact that she can be a curmudgeon, Olive is one of my very favorite fictional characters. We get to know her in Olive Kitteridge and see her struggles to become “oh, just a tiny—tiny—bit better as a person" in Olive, Again. So what's the good news I was referring to?

I read this interview with Strout in The Guardian last weekend and then I got to the good news:

Any chance you’ll be revisiting Lucy, Bob and Olive?
I don’t know; but I do know that no matter what happens, Olive Kitteridge will never die on my watch.

I was half afraid that Olive was going to die at the end of Tell Me Everything, but she does not. Now I can keep hoping that maybe I'll get to visit with Olive again, especially because I now know that Elizabeth Strout will keep her alive. That's the best news I've heard in a long time! 

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/11/24

I'm joining Kat and the Unravelers today for a look at knitting and books. I've been waiting for an order of potholder loops for a week and a half and they just shipped yesterday, so no new potholders this week. I have been working steadily on my Sparkly Hitchhiker, so this is what it looks like. 

There are three groups of (yarnover, k2tog) every twelfth row (they're hard to see) and I'll probably continue this to at least row 48. I was sure I wanted to knit something with sparkly yarn, but to be honest, every time I pick it up, I'm less attached to the sparkles. I'm far enough along that I'll finish it and maybe it will be a gift for someone who wants or needs sparkles more than I do. 

The designer of the Washington Beanie that I was knitting for Justin released the third revision of the chart for the hat last week but I haven't worked on it since she released the second revision. I will probably rip out all the colorwork that I've done and maybe re-think the hat completely. I like how it looked when I first saw it on instagram, but the chart is something of a nightmare and I'm not sure I can produce that hat from the chart. The revisions were made so there would be fewer duplicate stitches but I think I'll have to completely rework the chart. So I may just spend some time perusing Ravelry for a better hat for Justin and see what I can find. 

I've been dragging my feet on finishing up an ARC from Netgalley and I'm also slowly reading The Pocket. So I would have an audiobook to listen to while I was knitting, I chose Up to No Gouda. I haven't been able to settle into a new book for quite a while and then saw this series at the library. The title pun was slightly amusing so I gave it a try. Up to No Gouda was worthy of 2.5 stars rounded up but that's about as far as I can go. Carly Hale is a young widow who has dreamed of opening up a grilled cheese restaurant and she returns to her hometown in Vermont to do just that. Lyle Bagley, the town bully, gets killed behind the dumpster of Carly's restaurant so, of course, she needs to solve the mystery of who murdered him. The grilled cheese varieties that Carly served were some of the best things about this book, but even they were not exceptional. This is the first book in the Grilled Cheese Mystery Series (stop laughing; it's a thing!) but I don't think I'll read the others in the series. 

What are you making and reading this week?

Zooming Out

I had something weird happen last week, and I want to show you what it was in a series of three photos. Each one is zoomed out a bit, and the third one clearly shows what happened. 

The d*&% squirrels chewed on my battery, while it was in the engine compartment!

I went out to start my car and go to the grocery store, but it just made a clicking sound and wouldn't turn over. Cars are John's area of expertise, so he used his voltmeter on the battery and only got a reading of 7.9 volts. The voltage should be close to 12, so I clearly needed a battery. When John took it out of the engine compartment, it was clear why I needed a battery. 

The squirrels have chewed through the wood of our roof cornice three times and nested in our attic. They have demolished my outdoor hanging Christmas cactus, pulled leaves and buds off of my potted hibiscus plants, and broken branches on my mandevilla. I have never liked the varmints and now that they've reached this strange level of destruction, I like them even less. I'm not a violent person but I may have to rethink that policy when squirrels are involved!

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/4/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today for the first Unraveled Wednesday in September. I've been working on my Sparkly Hitchhiker but it looks pretty much the same as last week except it has a few more teeth and some more rows of yarnovers. You've seen it plenty of times before so I'm sharing a potholder that has taken me way too much time this week. This pattern is a labyrinth so the top/bottom and side/side are not mirror images of each other. That makes it a little harder to weave (at least for me) because each row is different, with varying configurations of over and under. 

I'm leaving it on the loom until I have plenty of time to check my weaving. This one will be for Ryan, and he's detail-oriented enough to find any mistakes I've made. I think I've corrected all my mistakes and dead ends but I want to be sure when I bind off. It was a fun one to do!

I only read two books this week. I've loved Frindle ever since my kids read it in elementary school. Andrew Clements wrote a draft for a sequel before he passed away in 2019. His family worked with his Random House to publish The Frindle Files posthumously. I didn't write a review for Frindle on Goodreads; it seemed unnecessary for a middle-grade book published 28 years ago. But Frindle has a special place in my heart, so I was anxious to read The Frindle Files. In this sequel, Nick Allen has grown up and become an English teacher himself. While the original story taught readers about the power of words, The Frindle Files continues that lesson with the added question of whether technology can add or detract from the potential of language and how it's used. I didn't find this book quite as charming as the original, but I am grateful for Andrew Clements' draft and for his family and publisher making Mr. Clements' last story available to readers. Three and a half stars rounded up.

What are you making and reading this week? 

Tomatoes Are Tasty

Rutgers' Research Farm is only a few miles from where we live, and last week we went to their annual Open House and Tomato Tasting. I've been to the farm before, but I hadn't attended the tomato tasting, so I didn't fully appreciate what a wonderful place it is. (There was a lot to see so this is a picture-heavy post.)

We walked through several fields of sunflowers to find more than 50 varieties of tomatoes ready for our tasting pleasure. 

There were tents with small, medium, large, and cherry tomatoes. Some were more acidic than others, and a few bordered on bitterness. To be honest, after tasting more than 50 varieties, all I could really say was they tasted like tomatoes. There weren't any that really stood out for me that I thought we had to grow next year, but it was incredibly interesting that there are so many varieties with such great names. 

But it wasn't all tomatoes; the farm also grows fruit trees. There were peaches, apples, and even beach plums to taste. 

Pristine is a wonderful apple that tastes almost like a cross between an apple and a pear. I would plant a few of these trees if I could find them. 

There was a monarch lady there that we talked to for quite a while. She had caterpillars busily munching away on their milkweed leaves and also chrysalises. She was very enthusiastic and offered some hope for the future of monarch butterflies. 

It was 97 degrees and everyone was sweating profusely, so it was a bit of relief to hop in a wagon and go for a tractor ride around the 390 acres. I had a better idea of all the volunteers, employees, and students that it takes to manage the farm. 

There were pollinator gardens and I also learned that what I had thought was some sort of sedum was actually Joe Pye weed. 

Joe Pye weed , not sedum

And in case all this wasn't enough, there was also basil tasting. Rutgers has developed a regular basil variety that is downy mildew resistant (DMR), and they are working on breeding lemon and Thai basils that are also resistant. They had prepared giant pans of orzo with three lemon varieties and three Thai varieties. They asked all of the attendees to evaluate the taste and aroma of the six different test varieties so they could better evaluate the plants and their commercial viability. It doesn't do much good to have a basil that is resistant to downy mildew if it doesn't also taste good! We each got to bring home a regular Prospera DMR basil plant that is already available commercially.

I'll think of the great time I had at the tomato tasting when I'm using my basil in spaghetti sauce this winter!