book list, January 2019

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in January 2019. Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.

The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells
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The Serpent Sea, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

The Siren Depths, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

The Edge of Worlds, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

The Harbors of the Sun, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

Stories of the Raksura, Vol. I, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

Stories of the Raksura, Vol. II, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat, by Bee Wilson
-----( thoughts )

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly
-----( thoughts )

Uprooted, by Naomi Novik
-----( thoughts )

Wheel of the Infinite, by Martha Wells
-----( thoughts )

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And that is that for January. :)

update on the Nick situation, plus thoughts on coffee

He told our parents last night. Dad took it well. Mom is much more ??? about it, but they were both very loving and supportive. :)

I will probably end up talking to Mom about stuff within the next few days. I'm not sure how that conversation will go. A lot of processing, probably.

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Anyway! On to the shitposting segment of this post. Today's random word pulled from the February Shitposting topic list is coffee.

I don't drink coffee. I am, however, pretty good at brewing coffee. I can also grind coffee, talk semi-knowledgeably about coffee varieties, and recommend coffee blends based on people's expressed likes and dislikes. This is because the smoke shop, where I worked for 8.5 years, was also a low-rent coffee shop -- by which I mean we sold coffee (both beans and brewed), but we didn't have tables and chairs for people to sit and drink it. We were strictly a to-go place.

I have also brewed coffee as an unpaid teenage usher at the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey for a couple summers in the 90s, as food service staff at an assisted living home (my college summer job), and at Not the IRS. But I still don't drink it.

When I was a kid I figured I'd have to learn to drink coffee when I grew up, but it turns out that actually tea has become more readily available so I never needed to bother. Nonetheless, coffee is something that I could teach myself to drink... unlike beer. I don't know what it is about some unpleasant flavors that makes me think, "This is nasty but I could get accustomed to it if I wanted to bother," versus, "This is nasty and I will never think otherwise." But there IS a difference, and for me coffee and beer exemplify the two sides of that divide.

So those are my thoughts on coffee.

this, that, and the other

Today I have felt significantly more awake, though the cold continues to ravage my poor rubbed-raw nose and is making speculative forays down into my chest as the gunk slowly drains from my face. Ugh. Bodies.

Anyway, today Miss Goldberry and I swapped out our winter decorations for Valentines decorations. This year I made a rainbow of our previously-made hearts, plus a few new purple ones that Miss Goldberry made because purple is her favorite color. Then we put up red cupid silhouettes in the corners, lavender clouds at the ends of the rainbow, and small lines of heart-shaped "rain" coming down from the clouds. We both think the display needs something in the center to balance it out, but we're not sure what. Possibly teddy-bears holding hearts in their arms? A box of chocolates? A bouquet of roses and/or hearts? I'm sure it will come to one of us eventually.

(I'll try to snap a photo on Monday.)

I walked home tonight, since the temperature has returned to bearable ranges (ie, hovering just below freezing), whereas the past several days I've been carefully arranging my schedule so as to take buses that turn into Route #17 and thus drop me off only a few blocks from my house instead of ones that end near the Commons and thus leave me with a roughly 1-mile walk. Nobody needs to be walking that much in the dark in sub-zero (Fahrenheit) temperatures. Tonight I didn't bother with a bus at all and walked first down East Hill to the lake valley and then the mile north to my house.

I have also made brownies for church coffee hour tomorrow morning. They are cooling on my kitchen table and will be ready to cut and pack in about half an hour.

Now I'm going to finish dinner and then get started on a small database analysis project I am doing for Nick, to save him some time and mental stress. :)