Monthly Archives: March 2019

The End (finally)

Reading

Seven months shy of twenty years ago* I complained to some friends that my kids were reading books that I thought were too young for them. One friend suggested I buy a book, the first in a series, place it in a prominent location, and tell Clare and Andrew they should not read it because it was too advanced for them. He went on to explain that the book seems to be written at a grade school level, but is full of higher vocabulary (with embedded definitions by the author/narrator).

Photograph of six Brainstormers at a rare non-virtual meeting.
Possibly the night I first heard about A Series of Unfortunate Events (George is on the far right)

Shortly thereafter I bought The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket and placed it on the living room coffee table. When one of the kids asked about the book, I did as George instructed and told them that I bought it for myself and that I thought they were too young to understand it.

Of course I read the book first, and found it delightfully unusual. The kids, one at a time, stealthily picked up the book and read it too. I continued buying the books as they were published until we had a full set (plus an extra The Hostile Hospital for some reason).

I grew tired of the books after a while, they are very formulaic, but intentionally so. I’d read one, then not read another for a while — and eventually stopped after reading The Carnivorous Carnival.

When Netflix announced it was producing a television series based on A Series of Unfortunate Events I was interested, but when I learned that Neil Patrick Harris was playing Count Olaf, I knew I had to watch it, but I wanted to make sure I’d read books before it aired. I didn’t manage to finish them before the series aired, but did manage to finish each book before I watched the Netflix episodes that featured the events in the books. I started reading them again through our library’s ebooks (our hard copies disappeared with one of the kids once they left for college or life after college — although they both deny taking them). I finished The End at 5:00 this morning, having pretty much stayed up all night to do so.

Then after a few hours’ sleep I watched the last episode in the Netflix series.

It’s taken me nearly twenty years to finish a set of 13 books written for children. The mystery has been solved for me (who is Beatrice?), although I am still confused. I am sure the internet will explain it to me though.

*I might be misremembering this since the books would only have been published the month before the gathering in which I thought this conversation took place, so maybe it was more like eighteen years ago…

Barn building, the Costco way

Musings

This morning while seeing what toilet paper Costco sold, I clicked a link on Costco’s page called “Shop Unexpected Finds” and was taken to a list of odd things you can buy at Costco.

What can this be?

What caught my eye was the barn kit. You can buy a barn kit from Costco. Like a Sears Home, but bigger, and for livestock. Or horses. Or alpacas.

There’s even a video of an alleged barn kit purchaser who loved the barn kit so much he also bought a shop kit (actually it is a garage). From Costco.

I wonder if, decades from now, someone will write books about Costco barns. I kind of doubt it.

Eat your greens

Food

I don’t like vegetables. There. I said it. I know that the two or three of you who occasionally read this will find that horrific, but there it is. I don’t like vegetables.

While I am not a “super taster”, I think I find more things bitter than other people do. Maybe. I mean, I love Brussels sprouts and I don’t hate raw or barely cooked vegetables, but I also don’t crave them and will gladly hand them to someone else (aka Dean) after I have eaten a few for dinner. OH — and I hate hate hate cooked spinach. With a passion.

Therefore, the fact that I subscribed to a service that sends me a weekly “mini-harvest” of vegetables is kind of crazy. Not only do I get a box (picture a box the size to hold several – 8?- reams of printer paper) of vegetables (did I mention that I don’t like vegetables?) each week, most of them are misshapen, have spots, or are mis-sized. Yes, I subscribe to an “ugly produce” service. And I love it.

For some strange reason, “rescuing” produce makes me want to eat produce. I’ve made it a challenge (not a blog challenge — but, hmm, it could be) that whatever comes in my box gets eaten. I do pay a bit more to “edit” my “harvest” but other than that I eat what they send.

Tonight we’ll dine on artichokes and lettuce to compliment our purple potato puff topped wild rice, hotdish. Tomorrow I think we’ll eat shrimp scampi accompanied by spaghetti squash “noodles”. Sunday will likely be steak with mushrooms and fingerling potatoes with Brussels sprouts and perhaps more lettuce salad. Also, because of a blip in the software, we have too many eggs. I’m thinking lots and lots of deviled eggs.