Happy Birthday to Elisabeth!

In the early 1990s, there was a popular children's show in America called Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (entire episodes available on YouTube - is this legal? who knows?) and the a cappella group Rockapella provided the most amazing soundtrack. I was not really in the age group for Carmen Sandiego in the early 1990s, but even now, I'll sometimes start singing the theme song. 

So, when Elisabeth and her family started doing their gap year traveling across Europe, it shouldn't come to anyone's surprise that I regularly found myself singing that song to myself with alternate lyrics.

Today is Elisabeth's birthday. Where is she? What exciting adventure is she on? WHO KNOWS?

Elisabeth is our fearless Nova Scotian blogger (see her Top Twenty (er - Twenty Four) Favourite Things to See/Do in Nova Scotia post from my 20th Anniversary series if you haven't ever seen some of her gorgeous photos). She's the mother of two and she and her family are on an EPIC ADVENTURE. 

If you have not been to Elisabeth's blog, she's known for posts about her Top/Bottom Fives, Frugality, and inspiring Happy Things Friday posts. She's honest, but keeps it light and upbeat even as THERE'S YET ANOTHER SNOW DAY. 

Everyone head over to her blog and wish her a happy, happy day!

Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History by Lea Ypi

Tobia introduced me to the Read Around the World challenge in which you attempt to read a book from every country in the world. This isn't a priority for me, but I have started a list and every month or two I'll try to read something off it. Free by Lea Ypi is something that wouldn't have landed on my radar had it not been for this challenge. Lea Ypi was born in Albania, so I guess I decided to start at the top. 

 

Lea is a young teen living in Albania in a Soviet-style socialist nation. She takes everything at face value, so finds discussions about politics in her family confusing since everyone is seeming to talk in code. The early 1990s brought democratic elections and Albania attempting to form closer ties to the west. What happened was a rise in pyramid schemes and by 1997 there is a civil war that required international intervention. In Lea's life, she's attempting to finish high school while the sound of Kalashnikovs echoes through the city. Her mother and brother flee to Italy, leaving her with her father. Meanwhile, Lea's just a typical teenage girl, trying to figure out who she is and what she wants her life to look like, although the future looked bleak and hard to imagine.

I think I have been utterly ruined by fiction. I generally find memoir underwhelming. And this was the case in this book. The events Ypi went through are unimaginably harsh and scary, but I was still mostly underwhelmed. This is obviously a me issue. It was neither minute enough about the domestic details (what did their meals look like? how did they do laundry?) nor was her unreliable teenage narrator self detailed enough about the political environs to invest me in the outcome of national events. I mostly just read this book in a sort of trance, trying to figure out what was going on, even though I knew nothing about Albanian history and finally had resort to looking it up in Wikipedia to figure out what was going on. 

If you're into this sort of memoir, you'll like this. If not, you can probably skip it. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

In my family, everyone had a favourite revolution, just as everyone had a favourite summer fruit. My mother's favourite fruit was watermelon, and her favourite revolution was the English one. Mine were figs and Russian. My father emphasized that he was sympathetic to all our revolutions but his favourite was the one that had yet to take place. As to his favourite fruit, it was quince -  but it could choke you when it wasn't fully ripe, so he was often reluctant to indulge. (page 88-89)

There were a number of funny moments in this book and this whole fruit/revolution thing did make me chortle. 

Worrying was the default condition of his existence, a predicament as natural as beathing and sleeping. (page 190)

I felt personally attacked by this sentence. 

One might killed by a car, like my classmate Dritan, who was walking by the beach one evening and got run over by a young man teaching himself to drive his uncle's Audi. Or one might disappear without a trace, like Sokrat, Besa's father, who suffered from a limp and worked with a dinghy. Each night, he helped smuggle people to Italy, then returned to sleep in his bed, except for the night he didn't. And all sorts of small accidents could happen to you, like hitting a broken lamppost on a dark street while walking or falling into a manhole whose cover had just been stolen for its steel. Or one could be harassed all the way home by hungry stray dogs. Or it could be drunken men, or boys placing bets on how girls would respond to catcalling. (page 216)

I always look back fondly at the 1990s. In the US, there was no concern about war, the biggest scandal was Clarence Thomas and the Coke bottle and if Bill Clinton had indeed had sex with that woman. But reading this does make you realize that your position at birth is just an accident. 

Things I looked up:

"If" by Rudyard Kipling - Here's a link to this poem. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

fat top hat (page 76)

I liked the sun hat. (page )

cardboard hats (page 97)

bags with hats and kites (page 98)

worn a hat (page 126)

the hat was probably still hanging (page 126)

straw hat (page 201)

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Have you read a book by an Albanian author before? 

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Three

Saturday, May 16 - It's too hot for Hannah. We are literally less than a block from our house and she just can't do it anymore. 

Sunday, May 17 - Anne and Birchie came over to visit! They bribed Hannah with chicken and we worked on a jigsaw puzzle. And Hannah and I are not as good at doggy selfies as Birchie is.

She looks so worried!

Monday, May 18 - For exciting reasons, I cannot attend my regular fitness class tomorrow after work. My fitness instructor holds a class at a neighboring town on Mondays, though, so I left work early and attended that one instead. There was a yellow goat at the park where we were throwing ourselves about.

Tuesday, May 19 - I went to an author event with Sarah and her friend Shannon at the Madison Public Library. It was so much fun!

Wednesday, May 20 - Listen, friends. An old dog does not want to go for a walk. An old dog wants to lay down in the sun. 

Photo credit: Dr. BB

Thursday, May 21 - THIS CAT. I can't tell you how much I want to squeeze her because of her cuteness. 

Photo credit: Dr. BB

Friday, May 22 - This area was underwater last month! I love how grumpy Hannah looks in all these photos. She's SO SERIOUS. I frequently wonder what it would be like to have a goofy dog. 

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When's the last time you were at the library? Took a picture of a dog?

Five for Friday #44: The Happy Things Edition

There will not be one unhappy item in this entire list. NOT ONE. You will not bring me down, 2026!

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1) Puzzling - Last weekend, Birchie and Anne came to see Hannah and Zelda hang out with me in my town. The most exciting thing I could offer them on a  rainy Sunday was to do a jigsaw puzzle on my dining room table. We did a bit of it and then my husband took over.

Tuesday morning

Wednesday morning

 Wednesday evening

Bonus puzzle photo: When I put puzzles away, I separate the edge pieces. Do you do that?

Thursday night

2) San photos - There is a lot of construction happening in my town. They're putting in fiber optic cables or something. That means there's a lot of digging and marking of where underground lines and pipes are located on the ground. Meanwhile, I keep spotting spray paint that reads SAN and immediately think of San. You're welcome for this little peek into my daily walks.

 

3) Book event - On Tuesday, I met with Sarah and her friend Shannon to go to an author Q&A with Caro Claire Burke, the author of Yesteryear. Then we went out to eat tacos! I didn't get home until ten, which is insane for a school night! It was so much fun.

4) Snail mail - I have been so remiss in thanking everyone for sending me snail mail! Postcards! Little notes of encouragement! I really appreciate it. And look what Tobia sent me! These little purple bracelets make me so happy. I wear them every single day.

5) Mystery book reveal - Dulcie sent me an email with the reveal of the mystery book from the giveaway I did a few weeks ago!

I've never even heard of that book!

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Anyone read Kitty Karr? Do you like jigsaw puzzles? What do you consider "late" on a worknight? 

Happy long weekend to my American friends. Happy regular weekend to my international peeps!

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

The current It Book of the Interwebs is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.

We're introduced to Natalie, a tradwife influencer who lives with her husband and their children on an immaculate farm in Idaho. We quickly learn that the "flawless Christian mother" image Natalie shows the world is nearly the opposite. She has nannies, farm help, and her perfect marriage is a sham. Natalie knows if The Angry Women who read her blog are just jealous, but if they knew the truth, that jealously would no longer be there. 

But one day Natalie wakes up and it's 1855. She's still married to Caleb, but her children, while familiar, are not her children. Her house has the same bones as the house she's used to, but there's no heating, no running water, and no modern electricity. Is this a hoax (a reality show?)? Is this some sort of paranormal, karmic retribution for Natalie's modern life? How can she get back to where she wants to be?

Spoilers:

Look, the hype machine really let me down here. The premise is so good, but the execution was lacking.

I figured out the "twist" as soon as she kept referring to her husband as Old Caleb and that she wasn't pregnant. I mean, I didn't know how it all went down, but I knew it was actually Future Natalie, not Time Travel Natalie. 

And because of that, I don't think the twist was earned. How did she forget that it was her idea to take all modern elements of the farmhouse, let alone all the effort that had to be done to change it? 

Okay, forget that. Maybe her being drugged is the answer. Let's discuss the bigger picture. 

I wanted this book to be a criticism of this whole tradwife/women shouldn't vote/men should be in charge of the household/societal move towards a version of religiosity that puts women in charge only in a domestic sphere/yay for patriarchy! movement. And maybe that's my fault. Based on the premise, that's what I assumed was going to happen.

Instead what I got was a suggestion that women are mentally ill? 

Natalie is a caricature of a type of woman - she's selfish, mean, and judgmental. I wanted her to be nuanced. I wanted her to be someone I could understand.  I mean, I wouldn't necessarily agree with her, but I wanted to understand. Instead, she was so nasty that I struggled really hard to get through the first third of the book. It's not that she's unlikeable that's the problem - it's that it's not clear why or how she got this way. She's a smart(ish) woman who gets into Harvard and meets a dude from a wealthy family and somehow this is how she turns out? 

And when it turns out that she's an addict (?) or mentally ill (?), it became clear that the author didn't want to actually engage with people who are part of this movement towards making The Handmaid's Tale a reality, but simply to excoriate them. Those people are sick. They belong in jail. 

There's no real acknowledgement that Natalie was a young woman suffering from postpartum depression/anxiety, whose husband was cheating on her, and who experienced domestic violence. There's no acknowledgement that the social anxiety might be a sign of other issues. There's no acknowledgement that Natalie herself was a victim of patriarchy, just more and more pointing out of how mean she was. And since the book is told from Natalie's perspective, maybe that's okay. The people around her wouldn't have acknowledged it. But people comment on how bad she looks - why don't they ever try to get her help?

That's not what I wanted. I don't want to be told women are sick or addicted. I don't want to be told that women are villainous and cruel. I want an examination of the true villain here. Who's the true villain? I don't know. Patriarchy? Technology? Religious institutions? The two party system in the United States? Innate human nature that means appearance is all that matters? I would have liked more than just "woman is drugged" and "woman is bad." I wanted some sort of thematic examination of larger cultural elements at play than handwaving "Natalie ignores politics and what is happening in front of her own eyes." 

It goes right to the end. The woman is punished and who the hell knows what happens to the husband who was equally culpable? Men don't deserve consequences, clearly. 

I did go to a Q&A event with the author on Tuesday and it seems like the author is just not interested in these larger structural conversations, or at least, she was okay letting it go when her editors suggested that long explanatory passages were not necessary in fiction. Burke is mostly interested in power and power hierarchies and how Natalie grapples with her own identity as an ambitious woman in a world that expects women to be beautiful mothers and homemakers who don't think particularly hard. And if you view the book from that lens, it sort of meets the mark. But if you're going to delve into hard topics, I think it does a disservice to do them superficially. 

Excellent premise, but this one was a miss for me. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

That’s the thing about being a mother and a wife and an influencer, all at the same time: it’s basically like breastfeeding three babies simultaneously. Like seducing three lovers at once. (location 155)

Gross.

This is a completely obvious notion, when you take a moment to really think about it, but most people don’t take a moment to really think about anything. Most people are morons. (location 223)

See how mean she is?

There comes a point in every marriage when a woman realizes that the man she married is a freak. This is inevitable. It cannot be avoided. (location 2018)

NONONONO. This is not true. 

Hat mentions (why hats?)

cowboy hat(s) (location 322, 3274, 5351)

 tipped his hat (location 336)

throws his hat to the ground (location 663)

she crocheted baby sweaters, socks, and hats (location 711)

 tips off his cowboy hat (location 1349)

 wide-brimmed hat (location 3016, 3027)

grabs his hat to keep it from flying away (location 3243)

sewing little hats (location 3420)

work on these hats (location 3452)

“And you’ve been sewing hats for chickens,” she spits back. (location 3458)

setting his hat onto the hook (location 3476)

custom hats (location 4705)

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For those of you who read this book, do you think I'm off base here? I'm pretty sure lots of you do, based on the rave reviews I've been reading. 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is a modern classic. I recently referred to The Road as a modern classic and everyone asked me in the comments what I meant by that. After some pondering, I think of a modern classic that was written since 1950 (or so)  that has had long-reaching impacts. It could have been a bestseller, but not all bestsellers are classics.  Girl, Wash Your Face was a bestseller, but it didn't change the world, you know? Think The Color Purple, The Kite Runner, or The Joy Luck Club. 

“Merricat, said Connie, would you like a cup of tea? Oh no, said Merricat, you’ll poison me. Merricat, said Connie, would you like to go to sleep? Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”

Anyway, Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood lives with her sister Constance and her Uncle Julian in their estate outside of town. When Merricat has to go in to town to purchase food and other goods, she is ostracized. We learn that, outside of the three surviving family members, all of the others died under mysterious circumstances. Constance was tried for their murder, but was acquitted. But their cousin Charles appears and tries to change things. What's going to happen to the Blackwoods?

Look, it's creepy. Shirley Jackson can write a gothic novel like no other, complete with a black cat named Jonas. You don't really know what happened to that family and if one of the survivors did murder the others, why would they do that? The sentences are crafted so well - I was listening to the audiobook and for the first chapter, I was tempted to just mark every sentence to come back to later. Here's an online version if you just want to read the first five pages. 

First paragraph:

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita Phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead. 

Okay, this paragraph is amazing and the foreshadowing is amazing. 

But here's the thing. It's a really chilly story. I feel as if I don't really understand Constance or Merricat or Charles. Because it's all gothic-y and mysterious and they don't really talk about their feelings and what happened in the past, we don't truly understand motivations. I assume, based on the way Julian and Charles are, that the women in the Blackwood family were treated poorly. On they day the rest of the family was killed, Merricat was sent to bed without dinner. It's not too far a leap to assume Constance and Merrikat were neglected/abused/treated poorly. But? Does that explain what happened? Why did the town turn on the family so suddenly? 

Maybe it's fine for what it is. It's 150 pages and every sentence glitters. But I sort of wanted it to be more? 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

The last time I glanced at the library books on the kitchen shelf, they were more than five months overdue and I wondered whether I would have chosen differently if I had known that these were the last books, the ones which would stand forever, on our kitchen shelf.  (Chapter 1)

I honestly feel that way about the books I had from the library when it closed during the pandemic. If I had known they were the ONLY books I'd have for an extended period of time, would I have chosen differently?

I disliked eating anything while people were looking at me, so I had my tea afterwards in the kitchen. (Chapter 2)

There are SO MANY people in my life who don't like people to eat while other people watch. 

Hat mentions (why hats?):

put a hat or a handkerchief or a glove on the dresser (Chapter 5)

wore a hat proclaiming him "CHIEF" (Chapter 8)

anonymous men in hats and raincoats (Chapter 8)

his hat saying "CHIEF" (Chapter 8)

set his hat down on the front seat (Chapter 8)

top coat and a hat (Chapter 10)

a hat made of bird feathers (Chapter 10)

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Have you read Shirley Jackson? Do you like a good gothic story?

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Two

Saturday, May 9 - The only photo I took all day long! Sheesh. I let Hannah loose in the football field behind the middle school. She stayed when I told her to, but refused to actually look at me to acknowledge it. 

Sunday, May 10 - Is Hannah spoiled well cared for? Well, the coffee table usually sits where Hannah is laying, but Hannah wanted to be in the sunny spot, so my husband moved the table for her. If your dog doesn't get this level of care, I don't know how your dog survives. 

Monday, May 11 - Look at my baby. She's a sloppy, sloppy eater and drinker. Did you know that? She makes ten times the mess Hannah does. We must clean her mat and bowls about ten times a day. BUT LOOK AT HER FACE. I think she's the cutest thing on the entire planet. 

Tuesday, May 12 - I was scouting out the riverwalk on my morning walk with Hannah because we were having our fitness class later on the day and I wanted to let the instructor know if it was safe to use. It's dry from the start to the end! Silty and sandy, but dry. 

Wednesday, May 13 - Look, friend, Hannah is having a time of it and I'm exhausted. This is what you get today - "notes" I took in our team meeting.

Thursday, May 14 - Hannah! Look at me! Hannah look at me! Hannah: No.

Friday, May 15 - Just a photo of my cat perfectly placed in the sunniest place she could be. She's basically perfect. 

All but one of these photos is of my pets. Maybe I'm obsessed with them? Should I join a support group? 

Do you doodle in meetings? What's your preferred doodle?