Girl Detective

I really, really wanted to like Admission, the new movie with Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and directed by Paul Weitze, who did About a Boy.

But it’s just not very good. I was glad I saw it for free. Even matinee prices would be too much. Trite, uninvolving. A huge waste of huge talents.

A.M. Homes’ May We Be Forgiven May We Be Forgiven was a selection in this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books. Though friends have recommended Home’s books to me over the years, I hadn’t gotten around to reading her. But when I glanced at reviews, they seemed to say, eh, kinda bugged me, not her best. So as March went on, and as time to “catch up” on Tourney books became slight, I wondered if I should even bother with this 480-page tome. But since kind friend Amy lent it to me, a book in hand was better than one I’d have to pay to rent from the library, so I started it anyway. Then, I couldn’t put it down.

It’s told in short spurts with many breaks; this helps make a book more devour-able to me. I have two little boys and often have to put down my book to yell at them to stop fighting. Or, more rarely, compliment them on how well they’re playing together/practicing piano, doing homework, etc. The main character is Harold, whose bully of a younger brother, George (e.g., he insists he’s the older brother) gets in a good amount of legal trouble, is institutionalized, then gets in A GREAT DEAL of legal trouble, and Harold is left to take care of the house, kids, pets, and anything else that comes along. And a great deal comes along.

From the beginning, the excessive nature of George’s actions gave the novel a heightened feeling of reality that read to me as farce, not realism. That’s why I have trouble with the critiques of the novel that say it’s unrealistic. I think the author was pretty clear that it’s supposed to be hyper-real and weird. Beyond that, though, it’s funny while also being touching, and I found it just plain intriguing. Harry is a Nixon scholar who amused by by continuing to insist that “the story keeps unfolding.” I wanted to know what happened to these characters, and I was happy when some of them got their stuff together, including Harry.

However, it is hard to ignore the presence of a magical Negro, the white male savior, and the mythical man that every woman wants to sleep with. Was Homes using these cliches with irony? I did find it interesting that this was what a commenter in the ToB identified as a White Male EFF Up novel (WMFU), but is written by a woman, unlike other WMFU stories I can think of, like This is Where I Leave You, High Fidelity, Harry Revised, and more.

Edited to add: Also, what was with all the scat stuff? Nearly every character had an incident of uncontrollable diarrhea at some point. I wondered if this was a graphic allusion to a Jewish myth that claims the universe is something that God shat out, and our job as people in it is to create beauty in the midst of messy broken-ness.

The book didn’t make it far in the Tourney. It beat Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk but went down to Building Stories (which I’m reading, or rather, squinting at, now). Apparently I’m the only person who sort of loved it, but now I’m excited to go read other books by Homes. And lucky me, there are a lot of them.

Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop is the lovely story of Father Jean Marie Latour in the mid 1800’s going to New Mexico and the western territory. The book is told more in impressionistic standalone stories than in chapters. I had to re-read passages sometimes for them to “stick”.

Father Jean and his right-hand man Father Joseph minister to an ever-increasing territory. One of the surprises to me was how much and often these characters traveled. Back and forth to France and all across the west from Colorado to Mexico?

Joseph was more vibrant to me than Jean, so it seemed odd he was the secondary character. In its mix of Catholicism and Native American culture, I was often reminded of one of my favorite books, Louise Erdrich’s Last Report on the Miracles of Little No Horse. Father Jean was lovely, but he’s no Father Damien. But then, what character possibly could be?

Reading this is part of my auto-didactic, self edu-ma-cating project. I don’t think I’ve ever read Cather before. Now I’ve got My Antonia and O, Pioneers on my radar. Filling in the gaps of my reading education is like spitting in the ocean, but oh, I do love it.

Oh, I am filled with anticipatory geek joy. There is a Kickstarter campaign for a Veronica Mars movie!

I know there are Veronica Mars fans out there. Rob Thomas couldn’t get his project greenlit the traditional way, so he’s doing a kickstarter, with potential prizes. You only pay if the goal is reached and the movie will be made.

My husband and I pledged this morning. Please consider doing so. I’d so love to see this cast reunited!

I’m obsessing nerdishly over what books from the Tournament of Books to read and which to skip. Here are the ones I haven’t read but am interested in:

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
May We Be Forgiven
Bring Up the Bodies
Beautiful Ruins

Might read sometime but not now: Dear Life, Building Stories,

Probably (or in the case of the Heti, mos. def.) not: Yellow Birds, Fobbit, How Should a Person Be, Ivyland

So, what should I read next? I was leaning to Beautiful Ruins, but it’s hard to lay hands on, and Bring Up the Bodies just came in for me, but I didn’t really care for Wolf Hall. And Billy Lynn just got eliminated, and doesn’t sound like a zombie contender.

So, what next: Bring Up Bodies, Beautiful Ruins or May We Be Forgiven?

Any on the maybe or no list that I should reconsider?

I was sort of afraid to read Gone Girl. Except for one or two dissenting voices, all the reviews I’d read, and all the things I’d heard from friends were “It’s great!” I wanted to read it, sure, but had not yet got around to it, and the longer it went on, the more the hype filled me with dread. Then when it was chosen as a contender for this year’s Tournament of Books, and when it went on to be the odds-on favorite (now I can’t find the betting site, but it’s out there somewhere), I knew it was time. Of course, by this time, the library list was a gazillion people long. (OK, exaggerating a bit. Only 1000+). Then my kind husband got it for me for my birthday, and it was finally TIME. Yippee, I thought, time for a thumping good read! (with just a whisper of “I hope” after that.)

Then I began to read, and as you may know, it’s structured in alternating points of view between the husband and his missing wife. And their marriage is a train wreck, and as the chapters go on I can’t believe their marriage lasted this long, and reading about it is sort of entertaining, but also painful, and I couldn’t really be said to be enjoying myself.

Stay with it, said friends when I griped on Facebook. Then on page 219, when the book goes into its second section, things changed up. I knew something wacky was going on in those first 200 pages, but not exactly what, and then things shift, and at that point, I may have resented breathing because it interfered with me finding out how this author was going to pull off the end of the book. And she did, which is saying a lot, because this is one whacked-out book.

So to sum up (feeling v. pleased with self at lack of spoilers): first half was like a car wreck–messy, ugly but rather fascinating. Second half was like going downhill on a roller coaster. Psychological characterizations were very good–we knew why these characters behaved in certain ways. Plot was very good, especially in the 2nd half. So it reminded me of the best parts of the Tana French novels (the psyche stuff) combined with the best part of Laura Lippmann’s books (un-put-downable).

That said, I’m not sure I’d recommend it far and wide. Not everyone wants to spend time with a psychopath. Both The Fault in Our Stars and Where’d You Go, Bernadette have a wider appeal, I think. Not sure I’d pick it for the ToB win, either. I continue to hope The Orphan Master’s Son goes all the way. BUT, entertaining as all get out and well executed on many levels, and with intriguing questions about male/female dynamics. So, highly recommended.

Louise Erdrich’s The Round House. She’s a local writer, I’ve admired and enjoyed the other books I’ve read by her (particularly The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse). It won the National Book Award and the Minnesota Book Award. And it’s a contender for the Morning News Tournament of Books. Was there any way I wouldn’t read it? Nope.

As with most of her novels, this one is set on the reservation in North Dakota. It has both new characters and ones from previous books. Unlike most of her other books, it is narrated only from the point of view of one character, 13yo Joe, though told from an adult vantage point. In this way and many others, it reminded me a great deal of the film Stand by Me. It’s a coming of age novel, centering on a group of four boys, one who comes from a happy but injured family, another who is good hearted by bad reputed.

Joe’s world is upended when his mother is attacked, and what follows is something of a conventional mystery–who did it and why?–but also has the added element of Law and Order of how the crime is discovered and prosecuted (or not).

I found Joe and his friends engaging main characters, I was delighted to hear about Father Damien and Nanapush again. I was pulled along by the story, and felt for the surrounding characters of Joe’s parents, his uncle’s girlfriend Sonja, and Linda Wishkob.

What underlies this book, and elevates it in my opinion, is its foundation of social justice, and the way it highlights how powerless women on a reservation are in the face of certain crimes. Erdrich wrote an op-ed on this in the New York Times, and the recently signed Violence Against Women Act, a move in the right direction.

Opinion on Round House is mixed. Some, like me, loved it. Others think it’s middling, not engaging enough, with an uncompelling protagonist, and a preachy tone. There was a lot of contention after its match in the The Tournament of Books. To each her own. But this book will stay with me for some time, especially the ending, and the questions raised by Joe’s actions and decisions, and whether I agree with them or not.

So I have a head cold, and am resting, and back to blogging about books, movies, food, and family, and what happens? I get slammed by spam. 75+ just this morning. Compliments, insults, randomness, vagaries.

I heard this morning that the unemployment rate was down. Apparently, a lot of people are now working in spam.

I think my B-movie bender is coming to a close. While I still can’t quite motivate myself to go see Lincoln, I think the quality of my movie watching is going to pick up because of TV reruns post-February sweeps (except for FX’s The Americans, which is amazing and you should watch it then email me so we can obsess nerdishly over it.) and because the last movie I watched, A Dangerous Method, was so disappointing.

A Dangerous Method by Cronenberg with Viggo, and my boyfriend Fassbender. And yet, less than the sum of its parts. As with most Cronenberg films, its about violence, desire, and what are acceptable boundaries, to whom. It came across more salacious than his other movies I’ve liked, though, Eastern Promises and A History of Violence, and seemed more of a snapshot of the relationship between Jung and Freud instead of a story with a beginning middle and end. Not for me.

Then there was Soderberg’s Contagion, which was a solid but unremarkable thriller that played nicely by making Gwyneth unsympathetic, unattractive and then outright disgusting. But I got sick right after and have been since, so my appreciation waned quickly. Maybe watching that movie was like the opposite of the panacea effect?

Guppy couldn’t remember having watched My Neighbor Totoro, so I watched it with him and 9yo Drake, who both laughed and smiled throughout. I love that film.

And then my husband G. Grod and I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid last night. Still great, after all these years. I’m not a big fan of remakes, but I do wonder what Pitt and Clooney might do with it if given the change.

I think our quality of movies is on the upswing. We shall see.

I would not have read HHhH, written in French by Laurent Binet and translated by Sam Taylor, except it’s a contender in The Morning News Tournament of Books, and I’m so glad I did. This is a head-tippingly original and thought-provoking book.

It’s billed as a novel, but it’s not, exactly. It’s Binet’s attempt to tell the history of Reinhard Heydrich, a Nazi villain I’d never even heard of but will now never forget. It’s the true story of how two men, one a Czech, another a Slovak, were tasked to assassinate Heydrich, also known as The Butcher of Prague. Taylor pieces together documents, his own reactions, some fictionalizations, which he then identifies as fictional, into a mesmerizing taken on historical fiction. It’s unapologetically subjective, with Binet and his biases appearing regularly. He’ll write something early on, and revise it later. Perhaps my favorite example of this is how, as the story is coming to an end, he notes how difficult it is to write, and includes the dates, so we can see how long it took the author to bring this story to a close.

I could include exemplary bits, but I am tired of typing, and really, you should just go read this book. Especially if you’re a writer. Or you like historical fiction. Or WWII. Oh, just read it.

Can this series really be on its 18th collection with Fables: Cubs in Toyland? I continue to enjoy this comic-book series about a group of fairy tale characters who exist alongside the real world, disguised from it. This tale focuses again on the several “cubs” or children of Snow White and Bigby Wolf, spending most of its time with Therese (the princess-y one) and Darien (her brother the pack leader.) It is spooky, creepy, sad, and involving. As usual, the ending leaves me wanting to tear right into the next volume. Good stuff still.

I read Zone One as part of a choose-your-own-Colson-Whitehead-novel book group–Zone One, John Henry Days, or The Intuitionist. Alas, since I lead the group, I had to read all three, which was not what I would have planned if I’d remembered the Morning News Tournament of Books was coming up. But I enjoyed all 3, found them similar and different and am glad I read them all.

Zone One is Whitehead’s take on the zombie tale. It’s set in a post-apocalyptic NYC. The narrator, nicknamed Mark Spitz, is part of a civilian group of 3 sweeping the city for skels (zombies) or stragglers (people who got bitten, but didn’t turn rabid, but instead returned to a particular point where they stay frozen) missed by the mass killings the Marines did in the first waves after the plague hit.

As with John Henry Days, the main character is lacking in emotional maturity. Also similar is the commentary on our culture of shallow consumption. It ticks along at a good pace, with the beautiful sentences that Whitehead is so good at crafting. He does a good job at crafting a believable and chilling near future.

The book is structured into three days in Mark Spitz’s life (always both names are used). We get stories of his past and survival plus those of others he encounters as we go along, most of which are well spun. Two that rankled, though, was the withholding of how he got his nickname, and how the anecdote was related in Saturday’s narrative though it took place on Sunday.

One particular character’s Last Night story (about a birthday party) was chillingly all too easy for me to imagine and may well haunt me forever.

Technically, these are Espresso Chocolate Chip Toasted Walnut Whole Wheat Banana Muffins.

A$$load of Adjectives Banana Muffins? Bada$$ Banana Muffins?

I still have this brain-eating virus, so I’m cursing a lot. Not sure I’m very far off from Flowers for Algernon, here. Sorry if the cursing offends.

Call them what you will. They turned out good. I’m sure I’ve shared something like them before, but this was today’s iteration.

Banana Muffins With a Bunch of Stuff in Them, a mashup of recipes from Baked, Super Natural Cooking and an index card recipe ca. 1998 that came either from the Philadelphia Inquirer or The Star Tribune.

makes 12

1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted then cooled (or unsalted butter and add 1 tsp. salt to dry ingredients. I was out of unsalted butter)
3 mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup creme fraiche (see recipe from yesterday, or use sour cream, milk, yogurt, whatever)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour (you can also just use 1 1/2 cup AP flour)
1 Tablespoon instant espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup toasted, cooled then chopped walnuts

1. Oven 350. Spray 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Stir together butter, bananas, sugars, dairy item and egg in a medium-small bowl.
3. Whisk together flour, espresso, soda in a medium-big bowl.
4. Put wet ingredients into dry. Stir till just mixed, then fold in chips/nuts.
5. Using ice-cream scoop fill muffin cups 3/4 or so full. Bake 20 minutes till tester comes clean.
6. Cool pan on rack 15 minutes. Remove muffins, cool rest of the way on rack.

Muffins can be stored in an airtight container for a few days. Like they’ll last that long.

The recipe calls for one eggs, but I took pictures of three because I thought they were pretty:

Mmmm. There it goes down, down in my belly.

Fear not, friends who know I’m a teetotaller. I’m not talking about Ron Burgundy’s scotch. Or Ron Swanson’s, for that matter. I’m talking butterscotch.

It started with the strawberry cake that about-to-be 7yo Guppy requested for his birthday. After making the cake, I had eight egg yolks. What to do?

Butterscotch pudding with whipped cream

Make pudding! Jennifer Reese of Tipsy Baker’s recipe for Butterscotch Pudding from her book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter calls for 4 egg yolks. Four is exactly half of eight. (Who said fractions aren’t important?) It was a sign from the Kitchen Goddess (who I’ve tentatively identified as Hestia; what do you think?) I could make a double batch!

And so I did; the recipe is below. Butterscotch pudding has become a comfort-food dessert at many restaurants around the Twin Cities. Now I can satisfy my craving for it on a whim. I’m not sure if this is a good or bad thing. But perhaps that’s because I made a double batch, which seemed excessive after a while, even for me. I suggest that you make a single batch. Unless you have 8 egg yolks. Then, what else are you supposed to do?

Reese advises 1. adding a teaspoon of Scotch or bourbon with the butter and vanilla, 2. straining the pudding before putting it in containers, and 3. using small ramekins or teacups for individual servings. But I was impatient for pudding and serving it to small children, so I skipped the Scotch, straining and separate cups. The pudding was still delicious.

Alas, what I couldn’t skip was my conviction that the pudding should be topped by whipped cream.

Reese’s recipe for whipped cream is simple; it’s below. Now, the dead-simplest is to get some cold heavy cream and whip it, which can be arduous if you do it by hand, but goes fast with a hand-held mixer. But adding a little sugar and vanilla does make it even better.

But, the trouble with home-made whipped cream is that it doesn’t keep, it weeps. One way to combat this is to store it in a metal sieve over a bowl, but this tends to dry out the cream. I found another idea in the Genius Recipes archive at Food 52. Nancy Silverton adds creme fraiche to the whipping cream to stabilize it; recipe below. So back I went to Reese’s book, as she has a ridiculously simple recipe for Creme Fraiche though it takes 24 hours; recipe also below.

Ah, so then, was I satisfied? Oh, no. I’d gotten a taste for butterscotch, so my mind turned to my favorite cookie from childhood, the oatmeal scotchie. I tweaked the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, which was in turn a tweak of the back-of-the-box recipe I’d made going up. I upped the amount of salt a titch, and can testify that it only makes these more crave-able.

Oatmeal Scotchie cookies

But, perhaps you are not a butterscotch person. My friend Becca has a theory, which is that people either like it or not, they’re not indifferent, and those who do like butterscotch tend to also like coconut, and not liking butterscotch usually means not liking coconut, too. (What math property is this? Transitive? Commutative?) Feel free to add evidence either way in the comments. So if you don’t like butterscotch, use chocolate chips. Do not use raisins. I have coined a term: RAISIN-TMENT, which is the bitterness I feel and taste when I bite into a cookie expecting chocolate chips, and get raisins instead. Then I give the cookie away, appearing generous, but really being self serving. Or not, as the case may be.

Guppy verifies that the pudding is delicious with the 11th Doctor's sonic screwdriver

Also, remember, pudding can be deadly. Be careful out there.

***

All the recipes from this post:

Butterscotch Pudding, adapted from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (also, buy the book)

2 1/4 cups milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Remove from the heat.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the cream, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until well blended.
3. Pour a splash of hot milk into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk in the remainder of the milk.
4. Pour the mixture back into the pot and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it begins to thicken, 3 or 4 minutes. Do not let it boil.
5. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla.
6. Transfer to glass container, cover and chill for at least 4 hours until firm and cold.

Makes 3 1/2 cups, to serve 7

***

Whipped Cream, from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

1 cup very cold heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

Pour the cream and sugar into a large bowl* and beat until soft peaks form. If you want to use vanilla, add it after peaks have formed. Serve immediately. Makes 1 3/4 cups.

*Cold bowl and beaters = faster whipped cream. I keep my beaters in the freezer, and chill the metal bowl by filling it with ice water for one minute, draining and drying it, then adding the cold cream and beating with the chilled beaters. Probably a toss up of time chilling bowl vs. time saved on whipping, now that I write it out here. –GD

***

Creme Fraiche, from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter (see what a useful book it is?)

1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon buttermilk (real, not powdered or soured milk)

Pour the cream and buttermilk into a jar, cap, and shake. Leave in a warmish place–like beside the stove–for 24 hours, until thick. Refrigerate. It will keep for up to a week. Makes 1 cup.

***

Nancy Silverton’s Whipped Cream from Food 52

Makes 2 cups

1 cup whipping cream
4 tablespoons crème fraîche (or sour cream), to taste

To whip by hand, you need a very large bowl and a large, balloon-style whisk. The large bowl is necessary to be able to whip the cream vigorously without making a mess, and the style of whisk is very important: If you whisk is too small or has too few wires, it will take much more effort to whip the cream. Whisking vigorously, it should take about 3 to 5 minutes to bring the liquid cream to the proper consistency.

By machine, start on low speed until the cream thickens enough not to spatter. Increase the speed to medium high and continue to whip, stopping the machine before the cream will hold soft peaks. Remove the bowl from the electric mixer and finish whipping the cream by hand with a whisk. Fold or gently whisk in creme fraiche.

Note: Salvaging extremely overwhipped cream can be done. You must add up to 1/4 cup of cold whipping cream and work it in, stirring with a rubber spatula to restore the proper consistency.

***

Oatmeal Scotchies, adapted from America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated.

Makes 16 to 20 large cookies

Do not overbake these cookies. The edges should be brown but the rest of the cookie should still be very light in color. Parchment makes for easy cookie removal and cleanup, but it’s not a necessity. If you don’t use parchment, let the cookies cool directly on the baking sheet for two minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (or 1 cup AP flour and 1/2 cup whole-wheat pastry flour)
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks unsalted butter (1/2 pound), softened but still firm
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup butterscotch or chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Adjust oven racks to low and middle positions; heat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl of electric mixer or by hand, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time.

2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg together, then stir them into butter-sugar mixture with wooden spoon or large rubber spatula. Stir in oats and chips. Reminder: do not use raisins. No one wants them.

3. With ice-cream scoop, make sixteen to twenty 2-inch balls, placing each dough round onto one of two parchment paper—covered, large cookie sheets. Bake until cookie edges turn golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. (Halfway during baking, turn cookie sheets from front to back and also switch them from top to bottom.) Slide cookies on parchment onto cooling rack. Let cool at least 30 minutes before serving.

From “The tyranny of cultural choice is making my brain gasp” by Dorian Lynskey at The Guardian, which I got to via this article (which I didn’t like as well as the one it linked to) at Arts and Letters Daily

It reminds me how much I hate those litanies of things to read, see, hear or experience before you die, and the way they turn entertainment into an impossibly epic assignment to be completed before the ultimate, non-negotiable deadline, as if you will be on your deathbed guiltily confessing to your grandchildren that you never got around to watching the Three Colours trilogy even though you somehow found time for all six seasons of Lost. I find the beat-the-reaper concept irrational and self-defeating, not because I feel above it all but because it highlights how irrational and self-defeating my own attitude to cultural consumption has become.

I’m in three book groups, one of which I moderate. I’m enmeshed in the geekery of this months Tournament of Books. I’m in a Dickens readalong. So when my husband hands me a book and says, I think you’d enjoy this,” I feel guilty. I love books. Reading books. Talking about books. But there’s some tipping point where it turns into obligation. When was the last time I picked up a book just ’cause I wanted to? Let me see…

November 26. Victor LaValle’s Devil in Silver. Just because I wanted to. And I enjoyed the heck out of it. But since then, it’s been all book groups and ToB books, except for graphic novels.

And that’s one reason I love graphic novels–they don’t take as long to read. The pleasure to time factor is bigger than with a “regular” book. So I got to read Finder Library 2, Fairest, Wonder Woman: Blood, Fables: Cubs in Toyland, Drama, and Revival in the same amount of time. I enjoyed most of them.

I know I’ve written about the Tyranny of the TBR pile more than once. But how to buck it? Still haven’t figured that one out. Bet you guys haven’t either.

I don’t think I’ve ever embedded a video, so this is a great one to start with. Cloud Cult has a new album, Love, that officially goes on sale tomorrow. It’s the CD of the week at my radio station The Current, so if you join this week you get it.

And this new song “Good Friend”, is a terrific example of the kind of their exuberant, anthemic sound. I love it. Hope you do too. The creature in it reminds me of big Totoro from Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, which I watched this weekend with my kids, who I’m glad to say are not too old for it. Neither am I.

Good news: my swollen finger joint is better.

Bad news: After over a week, my on-again/off-again cold has dug in to stay. I have a small colony of frogs living at the base of my throat and they get really active at night. I am determined to kick this thing to the curb. I’m going to throw so much $h1t at it that it will have to bow down.

I am still in pajamas and convinced my 9yo to make his own lunch (his dad helped) and my husband worked from home today, and took the kids to the bus stop so I didn’t have to. I don’t plan on leaving the house for the foreseeable future. Laundry and cleaning can damn well wait till I’m solidly better. Like, next week, maybe. Also the Tournament of Books started today, so I better get reading.

I used to chew a raw clove of garlic, but the last time I tried it I vomited it right back up (it’s that gross), so, lesson learned, no more of that. I may make myself grape Jello water instead.

I have finished all my Cold Calm, which is really just homeopathic sugar pills and makes my husband G. Grod crazy that I buy them, but aren’t placebos supposed to be effective, too? I’m taking a packet of EmergenC, 1000 iu of Vitamin D, a multivitamin, fish oil, some herbal sinus pill (Sinus Take Care; what a terrible name), Yogi’s Cold Care tea, honey, Sambucol, and a new twist on my favorite cold tonic:

Moxie’s Cold Cure-all, from Bon Appetit January 2013
A warming drink with echinacea, plus a kick of ginger and cayenne to clear the sinuses? We’re in.

Makes 1. Recipe by Moxie Rx in Portland, OR.

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons honey or light agave syrup (nectar)*
1 teaspoon finely grated peeled ginger**
1/4 teaspoon super echinacea extract***
Pinch of cayenne pepper

*Screw agave. It’s a fad. Sugar is sugar, except when it’s local honey, which is better for you. Use local honey.
**Use your Microplane grater. If you do not have one, fix that.
***Super echinacea extract can be found at natural foods stores.

Combine all ingredients in a mug with 1 cup boiling water, stirring until honey is dissolved. Let sit for 1 minute before serving.

(Patience. I will eventually get to the stuff about the John Green book. But first, a long story about why I haven’t, yet.)

Have not managed to kick virus from last week. Rested. Got better. Expended burst of energy. Got worse. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then, the morning after my birthday, which I spent congratulating myself on how not old I felt, I woke feeling woozy and congested again (see above; also, I do not drink, so it wasn’t that) and with a swollen, painful middle finger knuckle and no memory of having injured it (again, I do not drink, so the obvious conclusion did not apply.)

Oh, no! I thought. I have my dad’s arthritis. I emailed him. He told me I didn’t. (He’s a retired doctor, not just an internet diagnostic genius, as I am, so I mostly trust him. Kinda like a Medical Magic 8 Ball. FYI, best site for diagnosing yourself and not freaking out is The Mayo Clinic’s excellent site.) I left it alone. It got worse. It hurt so much I couldn’t sleep, then got up and had to eat rice cakes and drink almond milk so I could take the TWO ibuprofen I could find in the house at 1am. I missed the GIANT BOTTLE my husband had gotten earlier that day. Shoulda known he wouldn’t allow us to run out of what a former brother in law called Vitamin M.

Anyhoo, slept on couch so wouldn’t disturb husband who was looking forward to geeky sci-fi con today, then told him when he got up that he had to drive me to urgent care because my hand was so effed up I couldn’t be trusted with the car. Two hours later I was told it wasn’t broken, it wasn’t arthritis, but a swollen joint capsule. Doc asked if I did repetitive motions. Typing, I asked? No, he said, wouldn’t be just that finger.

I professed ignorance and innocence while wondering if perhaps my flipping off of my family behind their back when they annoyed me had perhaps gotten a little two vigorous. And yet, I usually give the double salute, so even though I’m (sort of) joking about this, it is just the one hand. Upon consideration, it may have been from opening a jar. I got some pain meds, and am doing much better now, thanks. Which you can probably infer, since I’m typing this. But if you could see how many times I have to edit a line, you might see I’m still impaired (handwise, I mean. Again, don’t drink anymore.) And now I have to see a rheumatologist. Maybe I’ll just stop opening jars. (And flipping off people. Maybe.)

SO, the reason I started this is to say why I haven’t blogged lately, and why, now that the story has been told, I may give short shrift to reviews as I catch up here.

I’d heard from a bajillion people I trusted that The Fault in Our Stars by John Green was A. Really good and B. Really sad. I knew I was going to read it sometime, so when it was picked for this year’s Morning News Tournament of Books, AND it finally came in at the library, it was time.

And as for a review, I like what Janet Potter had to say at The Millions, because I think we do it a disservice by focusing on the crying part, as I did in my Good Reads review that said not to read the last 50 pages in public:

It’s a sad book, to be sure, about two teenagers who meet in a support group for kids with cancer, but it’s also joyful, hopeful, wise, funny, romantic, and genuinely inspirational. So why, in my efforts to share this joy and hope with other people, did I keep saying, go be unspeakably sad for as long as it takes you to read a 300-page book?

I think that when we talk about The Fault in Our Stars, we go straight to the unspeakable sadness, out of all the emotions evoked, because we want to convey the incredible emotional resonance of the book. What we’re trying to say is: this book mattered deeply to me, I think it could matter deeply to you too.

I didn’t love this book because it was sad, I loved it because the main characters were funny and smart. I delighted in the time I spent with them. Highly recommended.

But, don’t read the last 50 pages in public.