Nothing like a little panic to get the blood pumping

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It’s been cold here lately (single digits overnight), and we don’t have a garage. Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the car wouldn’t start this morning.

Backup plan – I call a friend who drives her kids to school, too, and who hopefully hasn’t left yet.

Does she have room in the car for one more? She does!

Jack looks at me like I’m throwing him to the wolves.

Does she have room for me, too? She does! But she wouldn’t be able to bring me straight home, and I have to work.

She’ll be over here soon to get Jack. Jack and I talk about how he’s nervous, but it’ll be okay, he knows her, and he knows one of her kids (same class, same preschool).

John asks if she can give us a jump. Great idea!

I call her back – of course she can! She’s heading our way right now.

She calls me back – do we have jumper cables? Of course we do! And John will have everything set up when she gets here.

Jack and I talk about how he’ll go with her if the car won’t start, but if the car DOES start, he can go to school with Dad just like normal.

He’s nervous while we wait for her. Extra hugs.

She arrives in her van, with her husband in his truck, as extra backup.

He and John get the cars hooked up, and ours starts right away. Success!

Lots of thanks to our friends, who head off to school.

Jack gets in the car and tells me he’s a little disappointed. He’d worked himself up to be okay with going to school with them, without us, and now it wasn’t happening. Totally understandable.

He asks if we can fake the car not starting tomorrow and ask them again.

I tell him we can just arrange them to pick him up one morning, if he wants.

John and Jack head off to school. Crisis averted.

Mark this day: we’ve passed a major milestone

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We’re in the car, telling jokes.

Me: “Knock knock.”

Jack: “Who’s there?”

“Interrupting cow.”

“Interrup-“

“MOOOO!”

“Mom, you’re interrupting me!”

“That’s what Interrupting Cow does!”

“Oh!” We both laugh hysterically, and I tell myself to remember this so I can write it down when I’m not driving. (Success!)

Jack: “Knock knock!”

Me: “Who’s there?”

Jack: “Interrupting chicken!”

“Interrupti-“

“CHICKEN!”

He laughs because he’s 5, and I laugh because “CHICKEN!”

When he told the interrupting chicken joke at bathtime later, the chicken made appropriate chicken noises when interrupting. Little baby is growing up!

Is this thing on?

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Hi. I’m still here. We’re all fine. I’m still reading. I still think about this site periodically, and I would like it to keep existing. It needs a LOT of updates, so it’ll likely be down for a while, not that anyone would notice (myself included).

I’m not sure when that’s going to happen. I need to collaborate with my live-in IT guy, and we’re both pretty busy and VERY protective of our free time.

We will figure it out, though. Probably.

Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

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Started: 1/30/23
Finished: 3/31/24

I read the first book in this series in 2021 and liked it okay. I switched to the audiobooks for the rest of the series, and either they got MUCH much better or I just love the narrator THAT much. He really is incredible, and now I do love the series, but I am strictly on audiobook forever for these.

Yay magic, yay police procedurals, yay interesting characters and completely wacky side quests. I’ve read all 14 books and novellas. There’s more coming, and I’m waiting very impatiently.

Fourth Wing and Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros

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Started: 8/28/23
Finished: 1/10/24

Yay dragons and fighting and conspiracies and sure, some romance while we’re at it! I had a little bit of a hard time right at the beginning, but then it started moving and it was BRUTAL. I didn’t expect the deaths (it seems like a pretty terrible way to train your military – can’t they be moved into the infantry or something?), but I suppose it helped set the tone. And we have dragons with personalities! That makes me so happy.

The second book continued the story in a satisfying way, and while I wasn’t quite as devastated by the end of it as it seems the internet was (don’t they know how second books in trilogies go?), I’m very much looking forward to the third book. More stuff about the dragons, please!

Furyborn, Kingsbane, and Lightbringer by Claire Legrand

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Started: 10/22/23
Finished: 12/15/23

YA trilogy with interesting (although often very confusing) magic, high-strung heroes, a completely insane and evil villain, and an occasionally baffling time-travel plot. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Started: 10/30/23
Finished: 11/2/23

As with other Grady Hendrix books, there’s at least one scene I can never un-see, but overall I enjoyed the book. I can’t decide if his books are good enough that I can overlook the horrible mental images I’ll carry around forever, or if I should put him on my don’t-put-myself-through-this-again list. It IS horror, it’s always horror, and maybe that’s reason enough to stop.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield

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Started: 10/17/23
Finished: 10/22/23

Yay for main characters who are actually adults (and over 30!), but otherwise this was just okay. Enjoyable enough, not great, sometimes annoying. Writer for an SNL-like show tries not to fall in love with the hot musical guest man because he’s too famous, he’s too attractive – she’s too insecure. Whatever, they work it out, and if they make a movie out of it, I’ll see it.

I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

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Started: 10/11/23
Finished: 10/19/23

A professor visits her old boarding school, runs a class about podcasting, and starts a podcast where she accuses just about everyone she knows of murdering her roommate 20 years before. It started out good and then got pretty tiresome.

From Blood and Ash, A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire, and The Crown of Gilded Bones by Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Started: 9/15/23
Finished: 10/17/23

We don’t all have the same taste in books. Obviously. Sometimes I need the reminder. And it’s okay to quit even if a friend says you should read it.

Premise: pretty interesting. Plot: not terrible. Writing: acceptable EXCEPT that for reasons unknown to me (but I can’t imagine they would be convincing), she uses “vamprys” for vampires and “wolven” for werewolves. They are the SAME. THIS IS UNNECESSARY AND ANNOYING. And yet I stuck with it through three books. No more! The stakes are high, and that’s okay. The evil-doers are evil (pretty damn evil), and that’s okay. The main character has leveled up SO much and SO quickly and her upbringing was SO sheltered that this would be more interesting if she just had a total breakdown instead of rising to the occasion.

Also, I’m hesitant to take recommendations from the people who would recommend these. (I do not recommend these.) Not terrible, but not good.

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

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Started: 9/29/23
Finished: 10/10/23

Pretty good story, pretty good narrator (for the audiobook, I mean), and the main character pretty much acted her age, which was a nice change. I mean, she still outsmarted lots of people and saved the day, but in a tolerable way. Magic and dangerous grimoires! And libraries!

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

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Started: 9/24/23
Finished: 10/1/23

I like plenty of fantasy and SF where the heroes save the world, but sometimes it’s nice to read something cozy, with a smaller problem to solve. The full title is “Legends & Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes”. The main character is an orc who has retired from standard D&D adventuring to open a coffee shop in a small town. Friends are made, enemies are conquered, coffee is served. It’s a really nice satisfying small story.

Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne

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Started: 9/23/23
Gave up: 9/24/23

Sometimes quirky takes on classic literature work for me, and sometimes they really don’t. This could have been cute – Victor Frankenstein has a scientist sister who can do everything he can do, but they’re a WEIRD family, so when she realizes she can’t find love the usual way, she decides to make her perfect man. Except she reanimates a real person, and then she gaslights him every time he starts to remember his actual family. So not cool. Maybe she realizes what she’s doing is wrong, tells him the truth, and he falls in love with her anyway? Or she lets him go (because what she’s doing is wrong) and her real love turns out to be someone she already knew? I’ll never know.