Other People

1. Nice farmers market haul this morning, including a big bag of dried persimmons. I had some this afternoon for a snack and they are excellent. The only problem is the same problem I have with all dried fruit: being careful not to eat too much at once!

2. I finally put the Billy bookshelf together today. We got one in blue, so it matches the other blue Ikea cabinet and bedside table in Carla's room (I don't remember the name of that series, something not as easy to remember as Billy, that's for sure). I was dreading putting the doors on because I hate hinges, but the hinges on this are the easiest Ikea hinges I've done. (Rather than having to hold up the doors to screw them on, these hook on first so they can kind of help hold themselves up.)

3. Speaking of furniture, we've been wanting to get a coffee table for the garage and just not gotten around to it, but I have some Lego Christmas sets that I want to display on a coffee table, so now is the time. I poked around online a bit this evening looking for something and we settled on this one from Target, which lifts up like the one we have in the house, to make it easier to work on stuff while sitting on the sofa.

4. We had another baked potato with a Trader Joe's frozen topping tonight, this time it was chicken mole. WOW. This was even better than the birria. Would definitely get this again for baked potatoes.

5. Ollie's soaking in the sun.

1. Not only is it the weekend, it's a three day weekend! We're going to Oogie Boogie Bash on Sunday night so I decided to take Monday off since we'll be out late (ish).

2. I love this picture of Jasper so much. Those big eyes! The little glimpse of pink tongue!

Recently Finished
Murder in Matrimony
The ending of this felt like it was wrapping up the series, which is fine because I'd already decided not to read any more. ( antisemitism )

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
Finally finished this! It was actually really interesting, I just kept not reading it in favor of other things. In school Prohibition was passed over as basically like "it happened and then they repealed it", with the main focus of the early 20th century going towards the World Wars and Great Depression. I had no idea that Prohibition was so tied to the revival of the KKK, for example.

Artistic Buildings and Homes of Los Angeles
A very short book that is mainly pictures of buildings and houses in LA in the late 1800s, built by architect Joseph Newsom. The book has a forward and introduction written in 1988, and then the rest is a direct replica of a book put out by the architect to showcase his work, complete with ads that ran alongside the photos. It's very neat. Found it in a Little Free Library in the neighborhood.

Don't Hang Up
An Audible Original by the author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. He's done quite a few Audible Originals (the one below being another) and they're all short and free with my subscription, so I gave them a try, but none of them have been great. This one was interesting enough, but the MC was an asshole. He's a radio DJ who's been recently demoted to the midnight shift and one night gets a caller who tells him to stay on the line or a woman gets killed. Had some good twists, but it was just fine, not amazing.

Find Us
I really wish he would stick to writing stories set in Australia. This is the second one of his set in the US and there are always nitpicky things that bug me lol. Also if I'm reading an author from another country, it's because I want to read stories set in that country or at least with characters from that country (especially with an audiobook). But that's just minor stuff. This one felt like it really should have been longer (it's four hours, so about novella length). The MC is a former police detective, now working secretly for the FBI, trying to find school killers before they act by approaching kids who show red flags on social media and forums. One day her own kids go missing and she doesn't wait for the police, convinced she can find them herself. This had some interesting twists but I felt like the aftermath could have used more focus.

( spoilers )

My Home Hero vol. 4

1. I took a walk after lunch today and while the sun did peek out a few times, it was mostly overcast and made for very pleasant walking. Right now I've been trying to do a midday walk at least twice during the work week, but once we get into cooler weather I'll definitely be upping that, maybe even to daily. I do so much more sitting in one place in this current position than I did as area manager, and it's nice to get out and move around a bit.

2. I finished up another puzzle today. This is our third Disney villains puzzle, but it seems to be a very popular theme, going by the fact that when I was looking at puzzles at Target the other day, there were two other villains ones that were not the same as the ones we have. This one is a 750 piece one (only the second puzzle I've done this large) so it has room for more villains. Of course there's overlap in all the puzzles, but it's always interesting to see which ones they pick. This one has the main baddies on the V and their henchmen/women on the border, which was a fun design.



3. Look at that fluffy fur!