Reading and Eating
Hello and welcome to Kim and Zenaida’s Tuesday Topics! Or, to be more precise, where I link with these ladies, take their Tuesday topic and go off on my own strange tangents. Thanks to Kim and Zenaida for putting up with me! I’ve read some great books lately. In a recent post, I shared that four library holds came in at the same time. I loved two of these books. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was so good! I also read Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, and liked that one- but I liked this one even more. I loved the world of video game creation, and the relationships between the characters. There is a very upsetting event in this book (if you’ve read it, you know exactly what I’m talking about) which unfortunately seems relevant to our times. I thought the writing was beautiful. If you love Jane Austen, then you’ll probably love The Murder of Mr. Wickham. I thought the idea behind it was brilliant. The main characters from Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility arrive at Emma’s for a house party (the daughter of Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey is also included.). The diabolical Mr. Wickham shows up uninvited and is satisfactorily murdered, but we don’t know who did it. It was a combination of a fun murder mystery, plus a reunion of favorite characters. I found myself thinking, “Oh, so that’s how Emma’s marriage turned out!” or “So Marianne is happy after all.” Then I would have to remind myself that this was all from the imagination of Claudia Gray, so it wasn’t “really” happening. THEN I had to remind myself that none of the original stories really happened either- they were from the imagination of Jane Austen. So I just let myself enjoy the characters all over again. I thought Gray did a good job of keeping things true to Austen’s style and time period. The Cartographers was interesting, but I can’t say I loved it. And tragically, The Alice Network was due at the library before I could read it. I couldn’t renew it because there were other holds on it, so I reluctantly returned it, but it remains on my TBR. Up next: Remember how I loved Time Management for Mortals so much that I wrote an entire blog post on the first chapter? Strangely, after that I kind of forgot about it. I just picked it back up and am continuing to love it. I’ve been reading a chapter a night before moving on to The Help. I love a book where you easily get engrossed in the lives of each character, but life in the deep south in 1962- YUCK. Let’s move on to eating. Living with 19-year-old boy who is constantly trying to GAIN weight is interesting. During the month he spent in Tennessee at his summer music institute, my son Paul lost thirteen pounds, which he blames on the fact that he was “only” able to eat three meals a day. Now he’s trying to gain the weight back. Strangely, the rest of the people in the family are NOT trying to gain thirteen pounds, so we can only observe this incredible weight-gain journey from afar. The other night Paul decided to make a smoothie before bed. I watched in astonishment as he mixed oatmilk, blueberries, protein powder, peanut butter, chia seeds, and OLIVE OIL in the blender. His smoothie was gigantic, and he offered some to me- NO! Get away from me with that gut-bomb! I really draw the line at the olive oil. Anyway, as you can imagine, mealtimes are interesting. The other night, in honor of my recent trip to see my sister, we ate “Chicago Style” hot dogs. Other than the fact that we were of course eating veggie dogs, I tried to make it as authentic as possible: yellow mustard, relish, tomatoes, onion, peppers, a pickle spear ,and even a sprinkling of celery salt. The only thing I didn’t have was a poppyseed bun. Where in the world are you supposed to get a poppyseed hot dog bun??? The frosty beverage pictured was a Hop Tea. I really like them, but when I let my son try mine he said it tasted like a little bit of beer with a lot of fizzy water and “a tiny spritz of mosquito repellant.” WHAT??? When I protested, he said “Just try it again with that in mind.” Thanks a lot. Two weeks from today he’ll be on his way back to school, which should prevent us from taking out a second mortgage for the grocery bills. I think the reason Baylor had to raise their tuition this year is that my son eats in their dining halls. So that’s it! Have you read any of the books I mentioned? Are you reading anything great right now? Have you ever had a “Chicago Style” hot dog?