Weekend Recap: A sense of completion ... oh ... yeah.

It took me a while to get this out .. I blame blogger mobile app and photos issues ...

I cast-off my Monster Blanket! I can't believe it. By the time, the credits rolled for Game of Thrones episode 6, I was finito. Yay! Naturally I still have a bunch of ends to weave-in, blahbittyblahblahblah. But so what! I've decided I'm going to trim the existing tails and save the actual weave-in for another day, probably when the boys are in Arizona, and I can have a small mound of wool surround me in the living room and/or bedroom and not have to move it, for anyone. Well, at least until I go to bed ;)

*sigh*

Onward! I also accidentally finished Beautiful Ruins. I picked it up on Friday, meaning to read "just another chapter" but realized Saturday at 5pm ... I was going to have to finish it. I was done by 11pm. I didn't mean to. It just happened that way. I thought the story was well written and the author handled going between two different times really well, unlike A Visit From The Goon Squad, which took me a long time to get used to, if I ever did. The author also managed to mesh the supporting characters stories so nicely. I loved the descriptions, the heart break, the letting go. It is a story about What ifs and almosts and love of course. It is about contemporary Hollywood business, the birth of movie star scandals, personal dreams, and stunted ambition.

Friday and Saturday evening with the warm weather we are having the family was attacked by rogue mosquitoes. Possibly one. Possibly one very family blood chubby, rogue mosquito. Friday he feasted on the menfolk. The little one whimpered in his sleep and climbed into bed when his father left for work on Sat. around 6am. This is after an evening of Manfriend jumping up after hearing the buzzing and flipping on the light. Boxers and a flyswatter in flash bright light. By Saturday, I was feeling the effects of this new fangled torture technique. I finished my book. I was exhausted. I was vaguely falling asleep to the t.v. when I heard it  ... buzzing around my head. Then I heard it! Then I was itchy. Then my eye was swollen. Oh and I had to get up at 5 something because my sister was coming for me at 6am because we were doing the Diva 5K.

My sister picks me and my swollen eye up on time. It's a good start, even though I forgot my long sleever, and my mini Purell. Mini Purell's are really important if you happen to use the porta potty.

That's ok, we were just going to walk it. My sister's bum knee is bum. And we don't want to make it worse. The Diva 5K was SO fun.

1. I did it with my sister, who when I am not bossing her around, is really quite a great gal. We're both totally nutter in different ways. Our parents definitely got the variety pack when they had us. 
2.  It was easy. This run actually has 2 events, a 5K and a half marathon, it's in a pretty part of Burlingame along the water. It's really a flat course. The 5K was cake. Again we only jogged for a mile and walked the rest, but it was a good time, which makes any exercise you do better!
3.  Energy. The energy is greatly supportive, festive and female. Teams of women dress in tutus and ribbons and matching running gear. They clap for each other when they are rounding and passing each other. Their menfolk and families gather along the side with signs and carry packs and cameras. (Seriously, who are these dudes, they should hold seminars!) Before you cross the finish line, you pick up a boa and a tiara. When you cross the finish line, you can pick up your medal from shirtless "model" men in fireman pants, and take a picture -- it was backing up the line, and I'm impatient, so this didn't happen, but our mother would've loved a photo. Maybe next year. As you exit the finish area, they offer you bagels, bananas, sparkling wine / gingerale (too early even for me!) Fun times. Only con? The hours when you have to pick up your bib. Friday 4 - 7 (rush hour) or Sat 10 - 6. Saturdays are just hard for me because I don't have a car and co-parent support with the Kid's schedule.

I spent the rest of the Sunday in a rather nice way. I got a pedicure, and then went grocery shopping. The Kid had a friend over for a sleepover (his parents are friends of ours and had Rolling Stones tickets!) so I wanted to make the boys a nice dinner. I managed a beautiful rib-eye that fed the four of us and some nice roasted potatoes, see?

Prep Stage - pre-roast

The Manfriend prepped some beautiful asparagus and spring onion, but alas! He grabbed the wrong tongs to pick up the pie pan out of the oven and WHOOSH! asparagus everywhere, including the cracks of the oven door ... grumble, grumble.

Pre-roast, pre-whoosh!

Cookies were baked for ice cream sandwiches and a Thai Red Curry was started for Monday night supper. Cookies are more photogenic than my curries though ...

After board games, some evening boy chatter. The Kids were ready to start a new week at school. This week was the 4th grade class camp night at The Presidio!

hi-ho! Off to school we go!

Weekend Reading

Friday night, in lieu of knitting I finished Ender's Game. I haven't read a good science fiction book in a while. Harrigan recommended it. And I truly enjoyed it. Science fiction is a human nature study, even if it's set in space or alien wars. It was hard for me to read about a child being broken down by his peers and neglected by adults that were raising him with "tough love". But it made sense and I couldn't wait for each moment I had to pick it up and lose myself in the story. That's what it's about right?

Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield are starring in the movie version set to release at the end of this year. The Trailer will be revealed at the new Star Trek movie. 

And of course because I volunteered at school to organize and level classroom libraries , I had to start a new book. Unusual Uses for Olive Oil.

It was an easy read and funny. The main character is such a dorky professor, completely lacking self-awareness at his social awkwardness. I finished this in about 2.5 days. It was also a very sweet book. Last paragraph, without spoilers, just sentiment:

"It's true," she said, reaching out over the back of the seat to place a comforting hand upon his forearm. She felt the olive oil on the fabric of his sleeve, but did not worry about that, because sympathy -- and friendship -- can rise above, can negate, the  misfortunes that so consistently and so unfairly beset others. Sympathy and friendship can rise above these things -- and almost always do.

The other parent I partnered with in the classroom and I skipped down memory lane, looking at the 5th grade library. We talked childhood books as well as current reads. I told her I had just finished Ender's Game which she really liked, and she recommended this book, outside of the Ender's Series. Reading again has been awesome.

Next up: Continuing to learn perspective with Raising Cain, a few chapters at a time and then I return to the nightstand stack. I think either Death Comes to  Pemberley which Peppermint Mocha Mama seems to be endorsing! Or perhaps, I'll delve into Beautiful Ruins which many knitting bloggers seem to have enjoyed.

Ida Elisabeth: My rambling review and experience

I believe I read about this book ... on a blog, or it was recommended to me in my Amazon shopping cart. Somehow I purchased it on Amazon et voila! I read it.

It is a book about a woman who doesn't always make the best choices in life, but toils ahead with the life she has. She does her best. She wavers between instinct and principle but she is not confrontational. There is love and there is loss and there is an appreciation for simple things and individual spirit in her story. It is very much a character study.

This book was a strange emotional read for me. I started out, not liking this book, the character, or any of the other supporting characters very much or at all.

I stuck with it. Why? Because there would be little quotes (I'm sorry I don't have examples. I didn't mark the pages) of narration or dialogue that would just jump out at me and I would think, "Yes, I understand!" or "Yes, that is how I feel." or "I bet a lot of people feel that way on the inside." *very child like thoughts, I know, but this is a true account of my brain.

In the beginning this didn't matter for me and Ida. It didn't sway me from how I felt about the character. Though I admit I began to like the book.

Then slowly I realized, a lot of the things I disliked about the character were things either I saw in myself, or my pet peeves about other people  (not the one and the same. I mean either, or). For example: Afraid to aspire to anything more than what is (me). Passive Aggressive Martyring (pet peeve in others).

See, this is another great thing about reading outside your comfort zone. You think you know ... but you don't. It's not that simple, these things, such as life, and love. No doubt we love our partners and our families, yet how we love them, how we support them, how we define what each needs and how we are capable of answering that need is different.

Before the last few chapters, Ida and I ... our relationship had evolved. I was looking at this book with different eyes. I was still kind of cursing at it under my breath and shaking my head a lot but I felt like it was my journey now too, and I couldn't judge with the same harshness I had before.

I paused before the last two chapters or so.

And then, I finished it. And I felt deflated. It wasn't a bad ending per se. I realize that I had hoped for more. It was most definitely a character study.

It don't mean knit ...

Or what rhymes with knit. ha! Get it? Yeah, thanks for the grampa moment.

Reading has often meant no knitting. The Game of Thrones period really affected my knitting productivity ...

I admit I finished rereading an old mystery on my shelf and picked up a new one. Initially I had a hard time getting into this one Burial at Sea. I'm not sure if it's because of the flashback / chronological order of the narration, or if I missed the main character's cozy aristocratic home and routine. Eventually I came to really appreciate the author's break from his usual set up. Not that I find him particularly formulaic but he's set me up for some expectations nonetheless. Also who doesn't love a murder mystery set up in confined spaces?
 
The day I finished A Burial at Sea, Hotel Bemelmans arrived in the mail. Such timing. It has kept me reading in those not enough time to cast on a project moments.

This book is really fun. Ludwig Bemelmans is the author of the wonderful Madeline children's series. This is an exaggerated memoir/or autobiographical essays of his life growing up in the Food & Service Industry. If you've ever been a coffee jockey or a hostess or a server or worked some kind of retail, I think you'll appreciate it. Especially if you have a love for the food industry.

I like it because each chapter is a vignette in itself. I can put it down and pick up the needles, and not be too obsessed with what happens next (like I was with A Burial at Sea where I read in bed, before going to work on Monday... oops.) 

I've really enjoyed this latest return to reading.  I think it's been gentle stuff to ease me back in. I have a stack of books that have the potential to be EMOtionally draining for a fluff reader like me. But the emo reading is really good too, when you miss a well turned phrase and non "try-hard" prose. So this is the first "stack" of new books for 2013.

Judge me: I love to read the thriller trash.

It's happened again. I am neglecting my knitting, my family for a book. For an absolutely gloriously smutty vacation paced read.

It's got everything! The sex trade, detection, Buddhism, murder by ... snakes, drugs, cultural divides, cultural stereotypes.

Kapps lent it to me. I started reading this Sunday or Monday this week. I meant to call her Monday and tell her "You were right! It's so fun, so escapist!" However I didn't call her because ... I was reading the flippin' book.

I have managed to exercise. But then I can come home and read my book over dinner. The Manfriend has tucked the boy in bed 3 nights in a row ... because I'm reading smut.

Thanks Kapps ... I owe you big. Um do you have the next one in the series?

Knitting Book Reviews

So I am progressively finding ways and places to channel my knitting obsession, teaching other people, working it into dinner parties etc. So naturally, I like to peruse patterns, books and websites.

And I have to tell you hands down -- Knitting Book Reviews are the best no? Can you feel the knitters when you read them? Sheesh.

From the Vogue Knitting Shawls & Wraps book:

My wife is German and doesn't use the computer. She is also expert at knitting and crocheting. I buy a lot of books for her via Amazon. This one, she says, "stinks to high heaven" She had other words for it but I will not put them here. She thought the patterns
showed were not worth using; that the finished product would be fully out of style with what is being worn today by women.

C'est Magnifique!
I had this in my library queue for awhile, till it timed out. I'm keeping it on my personal wish list. I will not be deterred by this very supportive husband.