Update May 10, 2026

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Saturday

Saturday, Aaron and I went to buy a new dishwasher, as ours had broken. Then IL7, D16, and I went to swim at my sister’s hotel room. Meanwhile, Aaron was at board gaming with some friends. In the evening, Aaron went to D16’s high school play.

Sunday

Sunday, I made some chickpea curry for Aaron’s lunches – I had to run for groceries twice for it. M13 got a haircut. IL7 DM’d a Dungeons and Dragons session for Aaron and myself. It was a battle, but he introduced too many baddies, so we’ll probably die. He built a creature out of LEGO and ChatGPT made a stat block for it. It was so cute. D16 had the final show of Hadestown. They finally used the trapdoor, so she got to help run that. I enjoyed the show. It was very well-done.

Monday

Monday IL7 had an appointment, then I followed Dad around the gym, dragging his oxygen. I had a video visit appointment afterwards. Later in the evening, my friend Liz came over and we watched Doctor Who with D16 and Aaron.

Tuesday

Tuesday, M13 had an appointment, and then Dad had physical therapy followed by a CT scan. I got a bit of reading done after cooking dinner.

Wednesday

Wednesday I took Dad to the gym, ran some errands, and went to an appointment alone.

Thursday

Thursday, Aaron took the day off and we celebrated our anniversary. We went to our favorite Mongolian Grill and relaxed a bit. When IL7 got home, we took him to the park.

Friday

Friday I took IL7 to an appointment and then Dad to the gym. I cooked dinner, and IL7 actually cooperated while eating. I got some reading to myself done, as well as some reading to IL7 till midnight.

Week’s Photos

Reading to myself

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Ink and Bone by Rachel Cain
Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett
Gulag Archipelago Part 3 by Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn
Curse of Strahd by Dungeons and Dragons
Higgs Boson and Beyond by Sean Carroll
The Essays of Montaigne
The Stand, by Stephen King
Mr Ballen Podcast

Reading to IL7

School Daze by Zack Zombie
Super Rabbit Boy’s Team-up Trouble by Thomas Flintham

IL7 reading

Super Rabbit Boy’s Super Time Jump by Thomas Flintham

Media Completed

In this very educational set of lectures, Sean Carroll does a fantastic job of clearly explaining a difficult subject.

Like the first two volumes, this book describes the Russian gulags before the fall of the Soviet Union. Informative, if not exciting.

This is the third book in Discworld’s Night Watch series. Very funny and engaging.

Against the Tide, by Tui T. Sutherland

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Summary: Against the Tide is the fifth book in Spirit Animals, a middle-grade fantasy series imagined by Brandon Mull. The first one is called Wild Born, by Brandon Mull. The story picks up where book four left off. The team is looking for the amulets from other Great Beasts while trying to figure out if they have a mole in their midst.

My Thoughts: Spirit Animals is such an adorable series appropriate for middle-school-age kids. I plan on giving the first in the series to my 8-year-old step-daughter. It may be slightly above her reading level, but it’s the right level to challenge a second or third grader.

I love that Spirit Animals is written by different authors for each book – it introduces new authors to me. Against the Tide did not disappoint. I had some good laughs and was engaged the entire time. The story-line is not predictable, despite being appropriate for younger children. I am excited to get the next in the series, and will certainly look at what other books Sutherland has written.

The Shadow Land, by Elizabeth Kostova

510cvzpkoll-_sl500_ Synopsis: Alexandria leaves her home in America to travel Bulgaria and teach. But on her first day there, she runs into a mysterious family, whose bag she accidentally “steals.” When she discovers how valuable the contents are, she feels she has to find the family and return the bag personally. However, the family is difficult to find and she is led on a wild goose chase looking for them. All the while, strange people are following and threatening her.

My Thoughts: This is Kostova’s attempt to do for Bulgaria what she did for Istanbul in The Historian. I was hoping this book would turn out as good as The Historian, but it fell flat for me. What was the point of the plot again? It was a bit silly. And so wordy. I was hoping there’d be a fascinating big reveal at the end that would make this 18.5 hour audiobook worthwhile, but the ending was about as mediocre as the middle. Despite this total meh-ness, I give the book 3.5 snowflakes instead of only three because the book was interesting at times, and the writing flowed well.

3 and half snowflakes

Don Quixote Prologue – Chapter 7

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This is not a review, it is notes and an analysis of Don Quixote. Therefore, it will contain spoilers.

So far, there are two issues that make me cringe about Don Quixote. They are: the book burning *shudder, and the way the characters treat a mentally ill man. We’ll start with a discussion of the book burning.

The prologue makes fun of writers of the day – how they are pedantic and (Cervantes claims) list off references in their works of fiction in alphabetical order from Aristotle to Xenophon. It would also appear from the prologue that the purpose of Don Quixote was to make the readers laugh by satirizing chivalric works of the time.

After Don Quixote’s first sally forth, his friends (who in the past encouraged the old man’s interest in works of chivalry) decided to burn his books and wall off the library, so that even the room where his madness overtook him could no longer be accessed by the erstwhile knight errant. I was a little confused by this book burning at first. Surely Cervantes felt the pain of destroying something so valuable as that library? So what was his point? Then I realized that he was making fun of the completely arbitrary way Don Quixote’s friends chose which books would be burned and which saved. They would look at a book, rattle off some preposterous monologue about whether the story were worth saving, and then decide whether to burn it. Then, they got really lazy, and just burned the rest. This is not the act of a caring friend, but someone who wants to solve a problem quickly, despite what damage he may incur.

Then, they walled off the library, and told the madman that an evil wizard had whisked it away to spite Don Quixote. Really? They’re encouraging the madness? These are his friends. At this point it seems like they care more about appearances (keeping Don Quixote from indulging in his madness) than about the actual health of their friend/uncle. But this is not the only terrible way he had been treated in the story. It seems that everyone he runs into, except for Sancho, is cruel. They mock him and encourage the madness. At the moment, I wonder whether Cervantes was also making a social statement about having compassion for the mentally ill, but that may be a bit forward thinking in the early 1600s. I will make a more educated guess as I proceed with the book.