Month: November 2020

Reading Update

November 19, 2020 2 of 8

This probably isn’t going to be terribly long, because I’m not sure how much detail I’m going to go into.

I just realized yesterday that a kidlit trilogy that I’ve always really enjoyed — Atherton by Patrick Carman — was missing from my Goodreads account, so I added them and now I have three new undated read books.

However, the number of undated read books has gone down overall, because I’ve finished the first six of the Avatar: The Last Airbender continuation books. And just discovered that I’m one storyline behind. Dang it.

Alex is finding my old FoxTrot books in his room and I’ve reread and marked read dates for two of them. I’m also caught up with with Ms. Marvel and almost done with The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.

And since I’ve posted the second and fourth Streetlights Like Fireworks books, I figure I’d better get some read dates for the first and third books. It’s fun rediscovering that series.

And somehow I’ve got to fit some foreign language reading in there.

There really needs to be some kind of “you’ve read this; you’d like that” website that crosses forms of media and languages. I’d love to find comics in my languages that are similar to the ones I love in English.

I was kind of hoping that Kindle would do that, or that Goodreads would, but so far, I haven’t had any luck. I wonder if the Amazon sites for other countries would do any good. Time to do some digging.

But first, our Gratuitous Amazon Link. We’re back to Nancy Drew again (I went through a Nancy Drew reread a few years ago, so it’s going to be Nancy Drew on-and-off for quite a while: The Hidden Staircase, by Carolyn Keene.

What’s for Dinner Tonight?

And the night before that . . . and the night before *that* . . . .

November 19, 2020 1 of 8

Okay, so my back is all better (I think) so I’m trying to get back into the swing of posting.

As you would recall if these entries were anything like sequential, my back was out of shape on Tuesday. When I came home from work, I saw that Alex had a friend over to help with Alex’s van. So, trying to be generous (and also in order to get dinner under way and go lie down to relax my back), I pulled up the Subway app on my phone (I don’t have any other restaurant apps on my phone — I guess I should get the Popeye’s app one of these days, since I’m a shareholder and all).

I tried to order from the store closest to me and got a message saying that the location wasn’t found. Then I tried the one second-closest, and all I could see was, like, deals. I couldn’t just order a damn sandwich. When I finally got that to go away, the app said that location couldn’t be found, either.

So I tried the one in the Walmart that’s not terribly far from here, and would be easier for Alex to find than some of the others. I got my sandwich set up and, knowing what Alex’s standard order is, I started on that, and, guess what? It said that that location couldn’t be found.

So I went and told Alex that I would’ve ordered sandwiches for the three of us if the app worked, and he said that he’d be happy to go and order and pick up the sandwiches. So I left my debit card for him and went to lie down.

So I got my standard order, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, provolone cheese, and extra olives. I asked Alex to get it on Italian bread, but he misunderstood and got the Italian herb bread with cheese, which actually was pretty good. The ends of the bread were slightly crunchy with leaves and twigs, but overall, it was edible.

So that’s Tuesday.

Wednesday, I forgot about the food that I ended up eating today (spoiler!), so I ate an HEB frozen dinner of curried lentils. Now, I doubt that the cooking of this recipe is overseen by, like, Muhammad Patel* or anything. It’s probably more Indian-inspired than anything, but it’s still one of my favorite frozen dinners.

Then tonight I had the dinner that I should’ve had last night when my back was already in pretty good shape. For Black Friday, 2019, I got a George Foreman panini maker. I haven’t made any panini on it, yet, but it makes a mean quesadilla.

And so that’s what I had tonight. I took the leftover white-girl taco meat, and tortillas and put cheddar cheese in it and then cooked it until it was *just* starting to get crunchy. I liked that one so much I made another.

I still have meat left. Maybe I’ll have that for a snack later.

And now, for our Gratuitous Amazon Link, we have the middle of a six-book series, and one of my favorite kidlit/ya series ever, Gallagher Girls, book 4, Only the Good Spy Young, by Ally Carter.

*Muhammad is the most common boy’s name in India in 2019 and, yes, I feasibility checked this combination.

My Back Feels Better

November 18, 2020 1 of 8

I know that this blog isn’t sequential in any way, but I’m going to go ahead and post a sequel to yesterday’s post. Yesterday, my back hurt not-quite-badly-enough-to-hurt-when-I-breathed. Today, it’s still a little twingy, but it’s way better than yesterday.

I did really well until just before 6 pm, when I finally had to sit down in a chair with a back. Fortunately, we have just such a chair in the vaccination booth. So, I put on a glove, grabbed an anti-viral wipe, and sat down for a few minutes, letting my back really relax and tilting my head back in a way I hadn’t done since I got up this morning. Then, after a couple of minutes, I stood up, wiped the chair down, and got back to work.

I wonder if there’s some kind of scuttlebutt that they might be closing the city down again. At one point the line at our pharmacy went oh, maybe a quarter of the way to the back of the store. And our store is pretty big. We had to stay a few minutes late to take care of everyone in line and then I did some shopping on my way out.

I basically bought some Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (love Apple Cinnamon Cheerios!) and soup for dinner some night (which will get a short “What’s For Dinner Tonight post, probably). The cereal, soup, and pasta aisles were all pretty picked-over. Not like they were by April this year, but kind of where they were in maybe late February or early March.

I’m trying to do a Gratuitous Amazon Link and my computer’s being a total butt. I think I need to reboot tonight. I keep clicking on the link I want, or at least think I’m clicking on the link I want. But my computer is dragging. And after all that, the next book up should have been easy to remember, because I remembered noticing that this was coming up before. We’re finally to the beginning of the Nancy Drew series, The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene. And this time the Kindle link works (and may be a special edition. I’m not real clear on what “a limited number of copies” means in the context of an Amazon link.

I Hurt My Back Today

November 17, 2020 1 of (hah!) 8

I don’t know what I did to my back. I was walking from the parking lot to the store and suddenly — ow! I kept my upper body as steady as possible while walking to the pharmacy.

I explained that my back was hurting not quite so badly as to hurt when I breathed, but pretty close to that badly. After about an hour of me being very, very careful with my back, a coworker suggested I take something for it.

I’d taken a naproxen that morning to ward off my tendonitis, so I wasn’t really sure about taking anything else. But then I remembered that I had a bottle of acetaminophen (paracetamol to people outside the US), so I took a quick break to take two of them.

That helped a lot, but in a way, that made me more nervous, because I was worried that I would injure my back worse because I wouldn’t be able to feel it.

I found that if I stand really close to whatever I’m reaching for and reach more sideways than in front, it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as if I reach forward for it.

So I spent the rest of the day being very careful. Six and a half hours after taking the first acetaminophen, my back started hurting again, so I spoke to my pharmacist, who said that ideally you should wait eight hours between doses, but you can push it to six, just as long as you don’t take more than three doses per day.

So I took two more and then decided to tough it out for six and a half more hours, at which point, it’d be bedtime.

I’ve still got two hours until that third dose. Wish me luck. (not that it’ll help right now, since this whole back problem will hopefully be over by the time this posts.

Time for another Nancy Drew Gratuitous Amazon Link! Today we have The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene. The Kindle version kept going to a Page Not Found error, so this is the hardback copy.

You’ve Gotta Crawl Before You Can Run

Also: I’ve gotta learn how to apply makeup quickly

November 16, 2020 4 of 8

So I went in to get my fingers printed for my pharmacy technician license renewal and they needed to take a new photo. I basically only wear makeup for photos. I don’t object to makeup on any kind of philosophical ground or anything. It’s just that makeup has always made me break out and I’d rather have bare clean skin than cover up pimples with makeup.

So I recently bought some foundation and eye shadow in tubes, so that I can squeeze out just what I need, apply it with my clean hands, then wash my hands and never have to worry about contaminating the container or the application tools with germs from my face.

So that’s what I did today, and it took, oh, a good five minutes that I hadn’t planned for. I mean, that’s not much, but my usual skin care routine is wash face, apply sunscreen, and go. So, yeah.

If I’m going to start working on my makeup application skills, I wonder how long it’d take to do a full face? Would I have to start getting up two hours before I have to be somewhere, rather than an hour and a half? It’s a pity I can’t do it the night before and just stick it on my face in the morning or something.

Oh, well. I put makeup on today and maybe I’ll do it again someday. Or maybe not. We’ll see when we get there.

And for our Gratuitous Amazon Link, we have The Heroes of Olympus Book 5: The Blood of Olympus. I really do need to reread Riordan’s complete mythology series. They are so good. Also travel-y, which is huge as far as I’m concerned.

What’s For Dinner Tonight?

November 16, 2020 2 of 8

Is this my second post for today? It seems like there should be more, but yeah. I think it is.

Dinner tonight was white-girl tacos. This is not as sexy as it sounds. It’s just that the cheese is wrong and the seasonings came from a packet. The tortillas were also flour, and not corn, but a lot of Latin@ people buy the flour tortillas, so I’ll pretend like they’re authentic.

I browned the ground beef (neither Alex nor I like fatty food, so I get the ultra-lean ground beef) then added just a tablespoon of the seasoning (Alex doesn’t like spicy food). I warmed up the tortillas in a warm (not hot!) oven, then put meat, shredded cheddar cheese and chopped tomatoes on, in that order. Putting the cheese right on top of the meat makes the cheese melty and good.

No, we don’t put lettuce on our tacos. It’s pretty much the only thing we’d use iceberg lettuce for, so I leave it in the store and save it for someone who’d appreciate it.

It’s not authentic, but it tastes good, it has all four old-school food groups in it, and a pound of extra lean ground beef will leave enough left over for me to make a couple of white-girl quesadillas later in the week.

Wow. Even though I haven’t done much writing today (I’ve gotten a pretty good deal of reading done and also went out and got my fingerprints done for my pharmacy technician license renewal), I’m still pretty punchy. Instead of searching for “Calamity, Sanderson,” like I usually do when searching for my Gratuitous Amazon Link, I typed “Calamity in:inbox” like I usually do when trying to eliminate some of the crap in my email.

Reading Update

November 16, 2020 3 of 8

So I’ve spent about half of my blogging time this weekend* reading in order to catch up my Goodreads account. After all, if I don’t read enough to keep up with my blogging, then there go my Gratuitous Amazon Links.

I’m only reading graphic novels, comics compilations, and comic strip compilations this weekend in order to get the most undated read items from my Goodreads account knocked off. And so far, I’ve reduced my undated books from 9 of the 14 pages to 8 of the 14 pages. If I keep this up, by the end of the week,** maybe half of my Goodreads pages will have dates! Yay!

Gratuitous Amazon Link time! Though since I’m talking about reading, maybe less gratuitous than usual. This post, we have Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, Book 2 The Hammer of Thor, by Rick Riordan. I guess the first book, The Sword of Summer, is buried somewhere in the wilds of the undated books in my Read category. There’s a surprise.

I only have one Unbeatable Squirrel Girl compilation to go. I’m starting on FoxTrot compilations and Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels.

*I had a three-day weekend, then worked a short (7.5-hour) day, then had another day off. It all feels like one weekend to me.

**Tuesday November 17 through Friday November 20.

What’s For Dinner Tonight?

November 14, 2020 2 of 8

This isn’t a recipe as such, but I’m hard up for words today, so . . .

Most of my meals are pretty basic. When Thomas and I split up, I pared down most of my meals to the bare basics because neither Alex nor I wanted the extra stuff.

I mostly said that for the wordcount, because I’m pretty sure this meal is the same now as it was back then. If I remember differently, I’ll edit this post later.

When I was little, the only fish my mom made was perch. She’d get these blocks of frozen perch at the store and we’d thaw them, pry them apart into individual fillets, brush them with lemon butter, and broil them. I believe we served this with French fries.

When I started getting older, my mom decided to start trying new kinds of fish. We tried halibut, turbot, orange roughy, salmon, sole, and other kinds of fish. Just fresh from the seafood counter at the store. And we’d cook it pretty much like we had the perch — lemon butter and broil The halibut, orange roughy, and salmon were the ones that did the best with that approach.

When I started dating Thomas, he swore that the only kind of fish he liked was frozen, breaded fish sticks. After several months, I got him to have fish with my folks and me on fish night (which was usually Friday, though we aren’t Catholic. If I could explain my mom . . . .) and he really liked the fish.

So when we got married, we made halibut and salmon. Then when we moved to Texas, something happened to the halibut. It was no longer firm and flaky but kind of mealy. So, so much for halibut. Now we were just down to salmon.

We decided that the salmon needed a side dish and somehow decided on the Pasta Roni Angel Hair with Herbs.

This is now Alex’s favorite dinner, and so I pick up salmon pretty regularly. And that’s what we had for dinner tonight.

A couple of posts ago, I started on the The Madman’s Daughter trilogy. Well, tonight is the second book, Her Dark Curiosity, which is an adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

So I’ve Hit Four Years of Language Study

November 16, 2020

I missed my 30-day streak on NaNoWriMo. I was pooped when I came home last night, so I went to take a nap for a couple of hours and woke up right at midnight.

I passed the four year mark on my language study yesterday and I have $2,700 in principal saved up. Assuming that life will have me bopping back and forth between the lowest amount I’ve averaged ($0.48) and the highest ($2.04) for the next 20 years, Then I’ll have $13,500, which is good enough to be going on with.

Though, currently, as I go I’m getting more studying and work done every day. When I first started, my average deposit was only $0.48. Now it’s $2.04. If the average keeps going up, maybe I’ll even finish early.

Of course, this is all in aid of paying for me to get a master’s degree in modern languages so that if I ever become too ill to have a physical job, I can still work to keep the money coming in (and for fun, and also maybe as a side hustle while working my day job).

And there are other ways to pay for schooling besides handing the school cash and saying “Here you go.” If I don’t start this until past 65, then I might be able to get some of my classes tuition-free. Then there are fellowships, which are like scholarships, except that it seems that there’s some kind of work component. My impression is that it’s like if scholarships and work-study programs had a baby and that baby went to grad school.

So I guess I need to start researching how to get a fellowship and figure out how to prove my dedication to an as-yet-undecided-upon language.

Also, I don’t know if I’ve come right out and said this, but I definitely need to go to a public college or university for this. $16,000 is the adjusted-for-inflation cost of my MSIS from when I got it in 2009 until 2016 when I started this program. I figured that most of the increase in tuition and fees from then until 2031/2036 will be taken care of by interest on investing that money. I hope.

Our Gratuitous Amazon Link this time is Steelheart, Book One of the Reckoners trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. I really enjoyed this, though I do disagree with how readily Chicagoans would agree to refer to the city as “Newcago.” I grew up there. If you search for “Marshall Field’s,” the site FieldsFansChicago, which advocates changing the name of the State Street store back from Macy’s to Fields, shows up on the first page of results. There’s a meme that shows 233 S. Wacker with text saying “Spelled W-I-L-L-I-S. Pronounced ‘Sears.'”
So, yeah. I don’t see “Newcago” happening.

More Musings on My Future Reading

Pray for My Goodreads Account

November 14, 2020 3 of 8

So I’m going through my next Goodreads account for future Gratuitous Amazon Links and, oh, my God. Like, I’ve got read dates for the first and third of Brandon Sanderson’s Reckoners series but not the second. And one of the books on my bed right now is Sanderson’s The Rithmatist , which I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least twice, and it doesn’t have a read date, either.

And none of my Foxtrot compilations (two of which are on my bed right now) are my Goodreads account at all. I’m marking all of those books as “currently reading” just so I don’t have to go dig them out of the morass of 300-some read, currently reading, want to read things on my Goodreads account.

I’ve been pretty good about actually keeping up with the Dark Horse Comics Avatar: The Last Airbender books, but they aren’t on my Goodreads page either.

I think the easiest way to tackle this would be to lie and make up read datesdo all of the cartoon/graphic novel things first and then maybe pick the other books by how thick they are?

So. Flagging all of the cartoon books that I can think of as “currently reading” has caused that topic to balloon to 35 books. Fortunately I should be able to knock them out pretty quickly.

I hope.

Gratuitous Amazon Link time! We’re going to finish off the Madman’s Daughter trilogy here. I remember liking the first two, but can’t remember anything about this one, so read at your own risk. A Cold Legacy, by Megan Shepherd.