The other day I happened to glance up during my break and I saw this, and I’ve never related to anything harder.
I can never just exist. Somehow I always seem to end up in a neverending cycle of hell. The last three weeks it’s been work anxiety, Circe health problems, and now rent payment problems. I am waiting on a resolution for the rent payment problem, and I really hope like hell that I won’t have to start looking into legal options. It’s hard to tell at the moment. (Also, Circe is currently okay. Or I am choosing to believe that she is.)
September Reading Stats
Books Finished:
- Impossible Creatures – Katherine Rundell
- The Hallowed Hunt – Lois McMaster Bujold
Books Abandoned:
- Her Lost Words – Stephanie Marie Thornton
- Sansei and Sensibility – Karen Tei Yamashita
Total Pages Read: 999
It’s been a month of DNFs. I had such high hopes for Sansei and Sensibility, but it just wasn’t for me. After the first couple of stories it started reading more like a memoir rolled up with a Who’s Who of Japanese settlers in the Americas, and I couldn’t honestly tell if Yamashita was writing as herself or as fictional characters who all happened to speak in the first person. After a while I just had no idea what she was talking about and I didn’t care, and even a brief mention of the heavily Americanized, child-friendly “stroganoff” I grew up eating wasn’t enough to keep me hooked. I also had to DNF Her Lost Words just for sheer lack of interest, which is really a pity because I had high hopes for that one too. idk, it was okay but the chapters were on the long side and I got bored.
I was so hoping I would finish more than two books this month; however, I am pleased with the books I did finish. I am looking forward to cracking open The Poisoned King, which I swear I will do any day now. As for The Hallowed Hunt, it went a lot better than I was expecting: my memories of this book were not positive and I maintain that it is the least memorable of its trilogy, but I did enjoy it and would read it again, mostly because I’m still confused as hell. Now, granted, I was also confused as hell the first time I came out of The Curse of Chalion and it took a couple of rereads before I had it memorized, so it’s entirely possible future rereads will fix this problem.
Currently Reading
Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
No progress this month.
Hamnet
Maggie O’Farrell
I might’ve been slightly premature in handing “Favorite Book-to-Movie Adaptation This Year” to The Thursday Murder Club, because I just found out that Hamnet the movie is coming out at Thanksgiving and HOLY SHIT I HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE IT LOOKS SO GOOD. I had already started rereading the book anyway because I got a massive craving out of nowhere (lol not really nowhere, I made my mom read it and then she made me want to reread it), and the movie was just the icing on the cake. I hear Jessie Buckley is excellent as Agnes. This is going to be good.
Comment on the trailer: “They can’t even spell Hamlet right.” I sincerely hope this is a joke. I can never tell with the internet.
Visiting Shady Hollow: Part II
After I attended the Summers End launch party/murder mystery last year, also in September, it seems only fitting that I spent an absolutely lovely Saturday in Ellicott City with Michaella, where we had some amazing food and did some book-shopping and got to attend a talk given by Jocelyn Cole of the Juneau Black writing duo EEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Leaving aside the fact that Shady Hollow has become one of my favorite series of all time and I am currently fighting a vicious urge to reread the entire series from start to finish, Jocelyn is so funny and so relatable, and I love listening to her talk. I am now following her on goodreads because she mentioned a story concept she was developing, inspired by D&D, and I need to read that book. I am so glad I saw her tour announcement on IG. Not only did I finally get to visit Backwater Books, which I have been meaning to do for at least a year (their website used to be one of my can’t-close phone browser tabs), Jocelyn read us an excerpt from Mockingbird Court and there was a soup competition involved in some fashion and I need to know more. October 7 cannot get here fast enough.
I also brought along Mirror Lake for the signing – I’m too embarrassed to do the Heidegger thing and show up with a little wagon full of books to be signed, even though Jocelyn has told me it would be fine if I did – and I have a signed bookplate for when my copy of Mockingbird Court gets here, and I am a happy bean. This is the one time procrastination pays. I had last year’s bookplate tucked into Mirror Lake and I completely forgot to stick it on, so in the end I was able to get it directly signed. That first bookplate will be going into my planner to mark the date of the talk.
The rest of Ellicott City was intensely nostalgic. I haven’t visited in years; in fact, the last time might’ve been before the giant flood that wiped out Main Street. We visited a gift shop I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen before, then the chocolate shop (my turtle broke 🙁 I still ate him anyway), which I do remember. I was thinking of it as Honeydukes, which seems fitting when we arrived during some kind of Harry Potter event week. Since I insisted on arriving to the talk three hours early, Ellicott City parking being what it is, we had enough time to try the chicken shawarma pizza and Syrian fries at Syriana Cafe, which were life-changing. Their stairs were terrifying, but I will be back. Then after our adventures we had dinner at the seafood place down the street from me, and all was well. I ended the day with a modest but decent haul, though the raspberry candies might’ve been interfered with during Jocelyn’s talk. I’m currently sucking on my second one of the day. >_>
September Eats
Speaking of stroganoff. :’D I got the craving even before Sansei and Sensibility came along, and that craving also demanded mashed potatoes. The recipe in the Shuck Beans cookbook I low-key stole from my parents has just now become my go-to.
Other food happenings this month: I indulged in a new brand of ramen during an Ebisu run (it’s fine); knife-cut noodles are not a good substitute for buldak noodles if one happens to have a couple of half-packets of buldak seasoning; Spam pasta is always a hit, but the leftovers don’t last; my local PA Dutch market makes a wicked pulled pork sandwich; and I tried Inga Lam’s egg curry again, but found once again that I prefer my eggs fried.
Circe’s Corner
The second half of the month has not been kind to my little girl. First I came home to find blood in her stool; then we hoofed it to the ER, and 2/3 of my checking account later we left with some antibiotics and anti-nausea meds. I’ve filed my first-ever insurance claim on her, and I sure as shit hope it goes through. The blood in the stool thing seems to have cleared up but her appetite has been low lately, which is worrying in a cat who normally gobbles like a hog, so we ended up at our regular vet on Thursday. It’s strange because she still acts hungry at mealtimes, but this might be an ingrained habit. I honestly don’t know if something is actually wrong or if it’s the taste of the medicine, which apparently is extraordinarily bitter, or if she’s just tired of eating the same damn food every day. I don’t blame her if it’s the last one, but her food allergies are so bad that she can’t have anything else. 🙁 With that being said, she did get an illegal churu at the vet by mistake, so I guess she at least had one bright spot in her day.
Other than that, she seems fairly normal? She’s using her litter box okay and she still purrs and snuggles and hops around after her feather toy when she’s in the mood, and she will generally eat most of her food if it doesn’t have antibiotics in it. Luckily the vet said we could discontinue those. I was having difficulty getting them into her anyway, and she wasn’t getting the proper dosage because her intake was so spread out over the day that I didn’t want to give her two daily doses and potentially end up overdosing her. On Thursday night she was so hungry she had her head down in the bowl and she ate every bite of her dinner, and I was so happy. In general she seems to be eating more since we got back from the vet. We’re waiting on the results of her blood work, but I really am so hoping that this period of reduced appetite has just been one of the phases she occasionally goes through.
The one good thing about the ER visit: the ER is right next door to the PA Dutch Market, and, having visited it (finally, the day after the ER) after living in the area for the last four years, I cannot believe I didn’t visit it sooner. The dollar table in their produce department is particularly appreciated. I will be visiting lots.
Not me looking through every picture as if they haven’t been texted to me directly throughout the month. Give Circe a little head scratch from me! 🥺