2026: January 18: I hate making phone calls

What a goddamn week. I'm so stressed, I even called my congress person. He's got a weird district that includes both Ithaca and Binghamton, but which also cuts right down to the Hudson River through rural backcountry, and he focuses a lot on farmers. And you know what farmers around here rely on? Migrant labor. Yup So why the heck isn't Josh Riley saying anything about their vulnerability to illegal attack and detention? It's all safe stuff everyone can agree on, like utility bills and tractor safety. God forbid a moderate Democrat should stand up to the violent racists. So I called his office and said a few things very nicely about how I'd like him to do something in the next budget round about the ridiculous and massive DHS budget hike last year, because you have to give your reps something concrete to do. (Ok, to be fair to Riley, he has spoken out about a few of T@#$%'s shenanigans, but damn it, he could be louder).

Ida is judging us all. And that is the head of Ella's 16th birthday "ironic unicorn" pinata that we're not allowed to toss just yet. It is also judging us. 

I was both relieved and disappointed to get an answering machine. Relieved because I hate making phone calls. I had to totally psych myself up and I even wrote myself a little script and everything. Disappointed because it feels like leaving a message is weak. Really, everything seems so weak. But I'll call again next week because I guess it is the very least I can do. 

I started my next class for my writing course this week and as I prepared to join a zoom with people from all over the country, I pondered what to wear. So, yeah, why not this sweatshirt from when Ella was in college in Minneapolis that she gave to me? 

I did my hair better than this for the actual zoom but forgot to get a pic of that. And lopsided is the new normal for my face now, apparently.

2026: January 10: Chaos and Calm

What a weird week it has been. It has ranged from Jane Austen audiobooks on the way to the movies, to a funeral, to watching my favorite city under violent occupation by federal forces. 

One day soon I'll write about movies, because we go a lot, and I'm thinking I might want to start thinking and talking about them the way I do about books. We've been listening to Mansfield Park on our drives back and forth from Cinemapolis in Ithaca, and am here to tell you it isn't her best work. 

An old friend from grad school died. I hadn't seen him in years, he was seventy three and not in great health. I went to the visiting hours, ran into other old grad school friends in the parking lot, stood in front of his open casket with them and gossiped about former professors, then hugged his ex-wife a whole lot. Time! Marches on! etc. 

Minneapolis is under attack. Violent, aggressive, out-of-control occupation by under-trained and over-armed fascists. My friends are telling me stories, and the murder of Renee Good is only a small part of the hell being rained down on the people of the city without regard for constitutionality or consequences. The only bright spot it that they're getting organized and pushing back. I don't know what is going to happen or how dark it is going to get. 

Yet somehow I'm still plodding forward into the year in a moderately productive and moderately healthy way. I almost feel guilty, although I know that won't help. 

Appearances to the contrary, we're actually cutting down on our drinking

2026: January 3: Books I read in the fall.

I woke up this morning all "Woo-Hoo, January 3, It's Saturday, let's go!" then was rudely reminded that I'd actively chosen to become a citizen of a country that always has seemed intent on living up to all the worst elements of its DNA instead of trying to celebrate the best parts. We did what to Venezuela now? How is this life? 

So, obviously, I'm going to retreat back into reading. Here's what I read in the last quarter of 2025 and I'm sad to say that although there were some brilliant moments, much of it was not as good as it should have been. Kind of like the good old US of A. 

Broome County Public Library

Jon Hickey, Big Chief, 2025. The setting (a modern-day Indian reservation in Wisconsin) was great, the characters were okay, the plot wandered around and I think the whole thing could have done with another couple of drafts. 

Odyssey Books, Ithaca (new)

Becky Chambers, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, 2014. This was on a few Best of Sci Fi lists and I'm just wondering if there's some sort of drought on good sci fi because this ... wasn't a favorite of mine. Another wandering plot, a couple of potentially interesting characters lost in the narrative and the whole thing didn't live up to the promise of the first few pages. I just learned that it is the first in a series and that kind of makes sense because this did feel like the first season of a TV show. Actually, it felt like a really long pilot episode.

A gift from Michael's mother, if I remember correctly

Helen DeWitt, The English Understand Wool, 2022. Now this, this was very good. It's a slim vol and after I got it I put it on the shelf and it kind of disappeared in there among the bigger books and I forgot to read it. Then Michael re-found it while sorting through the clutter, and raved about it and said I had to read it. Yes, damn, DeWitt knows how to tell a story. Tonally brilliant.

Maybe I also bought this new at Odyssey Books in Ithaca. I should keep better track of these things.

Khadija Adballa Bajaber,  The House of Rust,  2022.  This actually won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, so good for it, but I wish it had had a bossier editor.  There were many imaginative and cool images and scenes and characters but they didn't tie together strongly enough and there were many places where I literally didn't know what was happening. I don't think it's too much to ask, to know what's happening in a book. 

I think this was a library book. 

Samantha Harvey, Dear Thief, 2014. This book grew on me. The more I read it and sat with it, the more I was impressed by the disciplined architecture of the whole thing. She's one of those writers whose characters make off-hand observations about the world that cut right to the heart of everything in a way that doesn't seem strained or pretentious. I don't know how you do that with regularity. 

Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, used

Olga Ravn, The Employees, 2020. Points to Ravn for telling a story in an imaginative and original way. I didn't mind not always knowing what was happening here, because I wasn't supposed to and the whole thing ran on vibes in a way that I think ultimately worked. 

This is the edition we happened to have on our shelves. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925. Because I did not go to school in the United States, I did not read this before I was ready for it. Honestly, I can't believe they give this to children to read and then teach them that it is about the American Dream or whatever. Okay, it's about fraud, and I guess that is at the root of the American Dream. But it is also people drinking and driving and having affairs and shooting each other. How does it get past all those school-library-book-banning types? Anyway, it's Gatsby, and it was great. 

Broome County Public Library

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Elder Race, 2021. Tchaikovsky is prolific and uneven. This is better than others I've read of his, it was clever and well-paced and brought fantasy and sci-fi together in an imaginative way. But it wasn't the best thing I read this year. Like, B+, probably. 

I read more books that I realized this quarter. I don't know how much patience you have to get through all this, so I wouldn't be offended if you took a break and came back later.

Broome County Public Library

Catherynne M. Valente, The Past is Red, 2021. Apparently the first part of this was published as a short story called The Future is Blue, then she extended it. I didn't notice any disconnect between the two parts, the whole thing was well done, well-structured, clever, kind of funny, not genius, but very acceptable. I'd be happy to write a book as solid as this. It's post-apocalyptic climate fiction and is remarkably hopeful considering it's set on a floating island of garbage the size of Texas. 

Autumn Leaves Books, Ithaca, used

Matt Bell, Appleseed, 2021. More unbridled-technocapitalism-and-climate-denial-will-be-the-end-of-us fiction. A really clever idea with some imaginative and beautiful writing but the story didn't quite come together at the end for me. He left a huge question unanswered that should have been answered. Not fair to the reader, that ending. 

Broome County Public Library

John Banville, Venetian Vespers, 2025. I did not finish this. I couldn't. I mean, I'm okay with the unlikeable protagonist, but I just wasn't able to go any further with this one. Banville is respected and has written a lot, I might give him another try, but I won't be going back to Venice with him. 

Autumn Leaves Books, Ithaca, used.

Emily Tesh, Some Desperate Glory, 2023. I think this was YA. Or is everything just YA now? Solid for what it was. Did not blow my mind. 

Chapter 2 Books, Winona MN, used

Sheri S. Tepper, Sideshow, 1992. Turns out I bought the third book in Tepper's Arbai series without even realizing what I'd done. This is what happens when you decide to buy any and all Tepper you find. Also, this is a first edition hardbound with a slipcover in good condition, meaning I now own two such Teppers. Am I a Tepper collector now? Anyway, it was nice to discover I owned it because I went searching the world for a copy after I finished the second book and no libraries within hailing distance had it and then I was looking on our shelves for something else, and voila, there it was! The story was a tiny bit bloated but the characters were great and Tepper tied the Arbai universe together with a bow for her faithful readers, and then, spoiler alert, kind of blew it all up. 

2025: December 27: Christmas

Honestly, this was a great Christmas. We had snow the day before, so it was a white one. In the morning I walked dogs at the shelter first thing, and while I was there church bells were ringing out all over town, up and down and across the river, and it made me happy to think about the good things about Christianity. I'm not a Christian but I do think about Jesus sometimes and how he wasn't here to mess around. Be nice to strangers, share your stuff, don't fight, etc, and actually do it, don't just talk about it.  

Ella was home for a few days, which was lovely. She gave us a tree she'd designed and made from walnut and two kinds of oak, with branches that swivel. She knows we're bad at making decisions and each year we put off getting a tree until it is too late, so now we don't have to think about it and she doesn't have to hear about it. She left yesterday and is spending her break in New York City picking up odd theater jobs because she's impressively hard working.

The lit-up box is the very fancy chocolate advent calendar Michael got for us from Vosges. We first found Vosges at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where they have a tiny store and a sign that says "voted world's best chocolate" and Michael said "I'll be the judge of that" and damn if it wasn't very very good. But not cheap, so we get it on special occasions only. Or if we're in O'Hare, which is the kind of place one needs a little chocolate to get through. 

I was not feeling like cooking a giant feast, or even a small one. I grew up with lamb as a Christmas tradition and I love it, but I've felt less and less like cooking industrial meat over the years, and ever since seeing the movie Killer of Sheep, lamb has been harder for me to face. (It is an excellent movie, but spoiler alert, some sheep get killed). So I made a leek and goat cheese quiche and damn, it was one of the best things I've ever made. Then I made pecan pie, so it was essentially two pies for dinner and it doesn't get much better than that. 

The next morning I went for a walk and look at this beautiful sunrise in the park, warning me of the storm to come (and the storm did come - last night we got several inches of snow and sleet and freezing rain). 

In New Zealand they say "red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning," but here in the US, the warning goes out to sailors. Or is it the other way around? Whatever, it is one of those things that's different. Like ladybirds vs ladybugs. 

2025: December 21: Winter Has Begun

It's the first day of winter here in the northern hemisphere. Sunset today will be at 4.35pm and sunrise tomorrow is 7.29 am. I thought holiday lights were tacky until I came north and realized just how bleak and gray and dull and cold the shortest days are up here. The various festivals of light suddenly made so much sense. Now I welcome holiday decorations as the bright colorful bringers of joy and hope that they are. We've had a bitterly cold December, temperatures rarely above freezing for weeks, so the promised return of the sun will be most welcome, even though it won't be warm for months. I understand how various cultures thought they needed to do a deal with the gods to make sure the sun did come back. Yet I'm not at all a daylight-savings-all-year-round person. That, honestly, is a position that can generally only be enjoyed by people who don't have to be at work until 9am, plus the history of daylight savings involves a big con played by the Chamber of Commerce in order to get Americans to spend more money after work. (If you don't believe me you can read Michael Downing's book, or maybe just this interview with him on PBS.) But, as I do so often, I digress. 

You want to know what else brings joy and color? The arrival of the high school music department citrus fundraiser. I used to be able to buy them from Ella every year, then she went off to college and the dark age of citrus began. But this year, a friend's child entered high school. They're in a different district, but apparently it is a tradition that transcends borders, so I ordered a Small Citrus Sampler. 

Each one a little glowing sun.

It reminds me of the boxes of grapefruit my Grandma Figg used to send from the sunny North Island every year down to us in frost-prone southern Dunedin. We'd eat them for breakfast and make marmalade, which I love. I'll probably just eat these straight, though. There's too much sugar in marmalade. 

Ooh, speaking of sugar, here's a sign I saw a few weeks ago in a local middle-school. Once you've sat in the back of a bunch of seventh-grade social studies lessons, this ban makes total sense. There's spillage, for one thing, plus do you have any idea how much energy thirteen-year-olds have when they're NOT amped up on caffeine and sugar? Lord knows they don't need more. 

God bless all middle-school teachers, now and forever.

2025: December 14: Red Tailed Hawk

Every day awfully shitty things happen and so do wonderful things. I'm currently sitting here trying not to look at any more news about the Bondi shooting. Racism, radicalized masculinity, guns, the internet, or whatever else causes people to do dreadful things, it's all exhausting.  Thank goodness for all the beautiful birds. Which also kill, sure, but only because they're hungry, 

Here is four seconds of a red tailed hawk I saw on my walk the other day. (At least, I think I'm showing you a video. I can't tell from the preview if it is working or not.) This is the time of year when you see the hawks out everywhere. 

This post was going to be all about the car turning over one hundred thousand miles. The first and only new car I've ever bought, we've had it nine years and nine months. But then I started feeling weird about celebrating a car and my ownership of it. Because cars, while awfully convenient, are killing us in many ways, both slow and fast. They turn us into isolated rage machines, we hit each other with them, we're spewing exhaust into the air, we're not walking or talking to each other, and we're paving over the world to make room for all of this. It's so hard not to be complicit. Birds don't have to think about this shit. 

I was driving during The Moment, and took this photo when I stopped, because numbers are cool. 

2025: December 6: Cat beds

Our house is full of too much stuff and much of it is a cat bed. 

Now, the cats have perfectly good purpose-made spots that they will use: 

This tower was some of the best money I have ever spent.

We call these "Nesty." Alfie used to love his and would suckle it, until the day he barfed in it and now he won't go near either one of them. Ida still enjoys hers.

But the cats also have the ability to turn anything into a bed. Ida is especially good at it: 

Pizza Box Bed

Pizza Stone Pillow

Top of the Bookshelf Bed

The Fancy Herman Miller Chair From the Mid-Century Modern Store That Now Has A Beach Towel On It.

The Couch, Obviously

Yoga Mat Bed

The Side of My Head (But Never My Lap).

Alfie has just a few favorites: 

The Heat Register and How Can You Blame Him? Warmest Spot in the House. 

Weirdo Crouching Cat Bookshelf Spot

As we continue through our slow but determined Get Rid Of The Clutter project, anything that is or ever was a cat bed will be among the last things to go.