There are two wolves inside me. One wants to move the bookcases and the other one says wE ARE NOT DISCUSSING THIS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ASD;DFJFJKDJFLER. For context, these are the bookcases, and I want them to swap places with the linens dresser. No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Will bookcase-moving actually happen? I don’t know that either.
Anyway, it’s been a month since the saga of the flies, and I have an update. When last we spoke I was plotting to set out a vinegar trap, but in the end I didn’t need to do that because all three or four flies completely vanished the day after my post. I later found them dead in my light traps, or at least I found three of them and am unclear on whether the fourth ever existed. I am never ever getting rid of my Zevos, because they’re really not kidding when they say they’re bug-deadly. With those out of the way I can focus on what really matters, which is this trailer for the Thursday Murder Club movie and this other trailer for Jurassic World: Rebirth. I am not too proud to admit that I will march to the theater for a movie about an alien dinosaur. I have an unhealthy attachment to the Thursday Murder Club and the Jurassic Park books, and I will be watching both of these movies.
In more irritating news, I downloaded Oregon Trail in a fit of nostalgia during the Nintendo game sale and on the very first day a man fell out of the sky and my party drowned in the river EVEN THOUGH I SWEAR THIS WRETCHED GAME PROMISED ME IT WAS ONLY TWO FEET DEEP.
Also I have no idea what sky man’s problem was because we left him on the side of the road. I don’t know where he came from or why he happened to fall out of the sky right in front of my wagon, but he sounds like a scam and I’m not buying whatever he’s selling.
June Reading Stats
Books Finished:
- Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell
- The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
- Puccini’s Ghosts – Morag Joss
- Mirrored Heavens – Rebecca Roanhorse
Total Pages Read: 1,308
I actually had cause this month to use my brand-new bookmarks.
I managed to read more this month than I did last month, but my most significant achievement was knocking the Jurassic World trilogy off my TBW.
tbh I probably wouldn’t have bothered if I didn’t have Rebirth looming over me, but now I am fully caught up and ready to go. As always I have a lot of opinions on these movies as well as the original three, so expect them to show up on the blog at some point.
My other main achievement was finally rereading Mirrored Heavens and finally writing a review, which means Between Earth and Sky has been officially crossed off my series challenge list. This is such a relief because I’ve been dragging my feet on this review ever since I first read the book last fall. It’s been so long that it feels more like two years since I read it, though it has in fact been less than a year. I procrastinated so hard that I finally had to reread the book after forgetting everything, which actually turned out to be a good thing because as usual I caught more the second time around, or at least I think I did. It’s hard to tell when I remembered almost nothing from the first read.
In general this was a month of rereads: The Midnight Library was new, but the other three were all known to me. I used to love Island of the Blue Dolphins when I was little, and I don’t know what put it back on my radar but I got a craving one day and ended up borrowing it on Kindle. The other surprise craving was Puccini’s Ghosts, seen here with the 2010 Barnes & Noble receipt I found tucked into it when I pulled it off the shelf. The receipt was a surprise as well: for some reason I thought I bought the book a lot earlier than 2010. As for the book itself, it was exactly as bad as I remembered but somehow I just can’t bring myself to get rid of it.
Currently Reading
Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
No progress this month.
Orbital
Samantha Harvey
Current rating: 4-4.5 stars. I don’t think I’d ever heard of this book, or if I did I didn’t remember. But one day it appeared on Stephen Colbert as his first-ever pick for the new Late Show book club and I am nothing if not a shameless Colbert stan, so of course I had to try it. If this was a trick to get me to follow Stevie on IG, all I can say is that it worked. And the book so far is lovely: I’m not sure I’d be able to summarize it well enough to review it, so it might not actually show up on the blog, but it has been a pleasant, unearthly experience. The only thing giving me pause at the moment is that I am upset about the mice.
James
Percival Everett
Current rating: 4.75-5 stars. It dawned on me that my James review is due at the end of this month as the conclusion to my informal Tom and Huck review series, which is why I’ve finally got cracking on this book. It has not disappointed so far, and I can’t wait to see what Jim thinks of Tom’s Phelps farm shenanigans. I’m sort of glad I read Huck Finn first but also mildly annoyed because I remember so little of it that I can’t claim any real benefit, and anyway it was unnecessary because I’d be able to follow James just as fine without it. In any case I have my copy of Huck on the table beside James just for reference, though this is also unnecessary when Everett has embroidered considerably upon Twain’s original narrative.
Bakery Blues
It seems like every week I have a bakery shift that’s just the worst, but then we got to the week of the heat dome and OF COURSE that was the week building maintenance (not us, the general building people) decided to turn off the AC completely. I don’t know what was wrong with it, but our uniforms are designed to trap heat, and it was the worst time I’ve ever had in that bakery. The only thing that saved us was my coworker’s sister, who very kindly brought us ice packs and Gatorade, and I’m pretty sure I would’ve perished without either of those things.
One good thing: we had an extra smoked salmon sandwich lying around because the customer who ordered it changed her mind and left without paying for it, but the order for some reason still went through to the kitchen, so I ended up splitting it with another associate. It was good. I’d eat it again. Still working on expanding my acquaintance with our kitchen menu.
But also a Paris Baguette just opened up a couple streets over from us and I immediately betrayed my bakery by visiting them on their grand opening (right after work; the treachery was strong that day) and buying three pastries, a sandwich, and a drink. I don’t care. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. We don’t have curry croquettes. I owe us NOTHING. I don’t have a strong urge to buy the sandwich again, but I will go back again and again for those curry croquettes. I fucking love Paris Baguette.
And some random sidewalk art, spotted on my way in:
Parking Ticket: A Cautionary Story
The moral of this story is to make sure you always have your parking ticket with you, and I’m telling you that up front because I didn’t. The annoying thing about Paris Baguette is the lack of convenient free parking because it’s right next to the paid Whole Foods garage, but you can get your parking validated if you buy something at Whole Foods. So I went to Paris Baguette and then dropped by Whole Foods on the way back to the garage, only I’m pretty sure I accidentally knocked my ticket out of my bag (?!?!?!?!) while I was at the self-checkout, and then obviously I couldn’t find it when I was trying to gtfo the garage. I went back into Whole Foods to look for it, but some other woman had already walked off with it because she thought it was hers. The daily maximum is $30 on that garage and I want to know who tf they think they are when we’re only Towson and not downtown Baltimore, but anyway fucked if I was paying that.
Then I tried pressing the help button at the garage exit, but it didn’t seem to press at all. Naturally there was a line building up behind me because FUCK people, and I couldn’t get the car behind me to understand that I wanted to back up to let them take my place at the front. I eventually did manage to get out of line while the entire line of idiots honked at me because I guess it was hard to understand that I was trying to let them pass??? So then I went upstairs to the other exit to try their help button, only to learn that the help button wished to be held down instead of pressed once, and it sure would’ve been nice if the downstairs machine had had the same note as the upstairs machine. And after all that the parking attendant couldn’t let me out at the top and I had to go back down and leave through the underground level.
Long story short, that was the parking ticket from hell, but I didn’t pay $30 and I clearly was able to leave the garage to type up this blog post, so I guess all’s well that ends well. I hate that garage.
Nommy Noms
A rare outing: I got to visit with my friend Lauren, who went through the same bullshit I did, and she got me a box of chicken fingers. My friends have been taking such good care of me. :’D
Per usual, I did cook most of the time, or rather I cooked enough to ensure a steady supply of leftovers. I’m still working on my freezer contents. That curry was supposed to use up the last of the stale pork butt but I just found another couple of baggies stashed in the freezer and I’m losing my fucking mind. Also I cannot believe it took me this long to start eating kimchi with my curry. I fully blame Michelle Choi for this. In full transparency, I have sporadically thought about trying kimchi with curry over the years since I first watched this vlog, but this is the first time I’ve (1) had kimchi in the fridge and (2) remembered to try it with the curry. What with my current supply of leftover curry and my parallel discovery that kimchi goes great with spicy ramen (blaming KOREAN FRIEND for that one), I’ve been eating a lot of kimchi recently and I have zero regrets.
In order from left to right as always:
- Chinese tomato egg stir-fry from The Woks of Life, who never disappoint. This can be blamed on my parents and The Brothers Sun. I want to try this again with fresh tomatoes whenever they start showing up at the farm stands.
- I’ve been craving my mom’s stroganoff which is not authentic in any sense of the word but I grew up with it okay. It’s good with egg noodles too, but I love it the most with rice.
- Scallion and Spam pasta, made with my last can of KBBQ Spam. I didn’t love that Spam as much as I was hoping I would, but this was a good use for it.
- Pork curry with rice and udon, and of course kimchi.
- Kimchi fried rice from Ian Kyo, made with what I sincerely hope is my last baggie of pork belly.
- IF YOU THINK YOU CAN GET ME TO BUY YOUR CHICKEN NUGGETS BY MAKING THEM LOOK LIKE SEA CREATURES you are absolutely right even though I like Tyson better than Perdue. u_u I’ve already eaten probably about half of these. They did not disappoint.
Circe Update
My sweet girl had a few episodes of vomiting and diarrhea in April and May, and it wasn’t clear what was triggering them when she has been on a prescription diet for the last couple of years. I was finally able to take her in for blood work (and a nail trim, haha try clawing me with those blunt little nails now) at the end of May, and she has now been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I don’t know if this is the cause of the vomiting and diarrhea because she hasn’t had that for a while, and I’m starting to wonder if it was the alternate prescription food brand I was feeding her at the time. She seems okay now, possibly because I currently have a small supply of her preferred food and haven’t had to resort to the other brand. Unfortunately the thyroid is still a problem, so I’m starting her on thyroid meds tonight and crossing my fingers that it helps.
Anyway, I tried to console myself by going to Home Goods last night and buying a little mortar and pestle (and a couple of other things) to crush the pills into her food. It’s embarrassing how well Home Goods works as a consolation. >_> They actually had a couple of options, one of which was even smaller than the one that I got and a dollar cheaper, but I figured the bigger one was better in case I ever wanted to use it for its intended purpose.
Spotted while shopping, 10/10 design, no notes:
And the Cava I picked up after Home Goods because it’s been such a shitty weekend that I figured I deserved takeout instead of coming straight home and eating leftovers. Look, we’re all human, and this weekend was so horrific that I have consistently managed to forget it was technically supposed to be a holiday. (Can’t say it was a holiday on my end, I was working all three days because fuck my life.) It turns out Cava is prohibitively expensive anyway, but a once-in-a-while treat is fine and that spicy chicken avocado pita was delicious.
Conclusion: I hate my life, but at least I have good food.
