What to do in the face of a pandemic

Later to the game than many people would like, the WHO finally admitted that the novel coronavirus that's wreaking havoc on the world is a pandemic. It's official. Is now the time to start panicking?

I'm kidding, of course. It's never the right time to panic. However, if you're not already prepared for this, if you're lucky enough that it hasn't affected you very much yet, this is the time to prepare. This virus is spreading exponentially and that is a big part of why it's so scary. (That and the fact that it's 10 times more lethal than the flu, and roughly 10-20% of all cases require hospitalization which can overwhelm the healthcare system.) Cases will start small in number but quickly ramp up. For reference, it was only about three weeks ago when Italy had merely a handful of cases. Now they're at almost 900 people dead and the entire country is in lockdown.

And yes, the flu kills more people in total each year than this has. However, this virus is brand new. It's only infected somewhat over 100,000 people so far that we know of, though that number is growing rapidly. (By the time I publish this all of my numbers will be way off. That's how exponential growth works.) It hasn't been around for very long and already it's managed to kill over 4600 people. And it's just starting. Life is going to be very different for a while because of this.

For anyone thinking that it's just something that affects the elderly or those who are already sick anyway, have some compassion. Do you not know anyone who falls into an affected group? Or are you really just that selfish?

For the record, it's not just the elderly who are impacted. They are mostly who die from it, but many people at a variety of ages have been hospitalized with severe symptoms. Healthcare workers are also greatly affected in so. many. ways. An event such as this takes both a mental and physical toll, and more than a few healthcare workers have given their lives trying to save others. If we can do anything to make this less atrocious on them, please lets do that.

So, what can each of us do? I know that you've heard of washing your hands, and hand sanitizer is the hot accessory right now. If you don't already do these things, you might as well skip the rest.

But people like to have more concrete actions to take in the face of scary things. It's what we do. I know there are a lot of jokes about toilet paper forts and the fact that bottled water flew off the shelves as fast as hand sanitizer. I think those are symptoms of the fact that in our society being prepared for bad things to happen has been equated with being a Doomsday Prepper, and a nutcase. It's not fair to lump all preparations together that way, and in the face of real disasters people often don't know what they'll really need. It leaves us all unprepared and worse off as a group.

Stock up on Groceries Before it's too Widespread

I managed to get to Costco for our big quarterly stock up precisely one day before the news hit about community transmission in WA and all hell broke loose. This was due to a combination of both having kept tabs on the news and seen what was coming, and blind luck.

I've made two much smaller grocery runs since then to re-stock fresh foods (while I still can, in case we have to quarantine) and I know we have at least a month's worth of food on hand. I made a giant list of all the meals that we can make, some of which we have enough of to make 2-4 times, and it should see us through the worst of this outbreak. Hopefully. If we have to go for more than a month the kids are going to hate everything but we'll all be fed.

I'm not going to tell you precisely what to stock up on because not everyone eats the same way. A gluten free person isn't going to buy 40 lbs of flour like I did. (I've been making my own sourdough bread, yum!) But there are a few generalities that can be made.

Make sure you have easy things to make. Cans of soup, frozen foods. If you get sick you may still need or want to eat but not have the energy to cook. Other people in your house may need or want to eat but not want to cook or be able to. If you have kids, the kids are still going to need to be fed. Make sure that everyone can eat for at least a few days with a reasonable degree of healthfulness without anyone really needing to work at cooking.

Shelf stable items like flour, rice, pasta, canned foods, jarred foods, and beans will last a long, long time. Just make sure you're actually going to eat them. Now is maybe not the time to buy wild ingredients to try new recipes. If you want to experiment, make recipes that will utilize ingredients you'd want on hand anyway.

In that vein, plan for meals that use the same ingredients over and over. We have a ton of carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions. I'm not worried that they'll go bad because we use and eat them so much. I'm actually worried that we'll run out!

Next, make sure there are treats. This situation is tough on everyone. Routines are disrupted, people are stressed. Having a few things to give yourself something you really enjoy and look forward to will make it seem less painful. I include coffee and tea in this category. You'd better believe we stocked up on those. We also have everything we need to do an immoderate amount of baking with the kids. (Scones have been requested.) This will both distract everyone, be an enjoyable way to pass the time, and give us something to look forward to.

I've done a similar thing with comfort foods, ensuring we have enough to make them 1-2 times each week. Lentil soup goes down much easier for the kids when they know we'll make mac and cheese or breakfast for dinner tomorrow.

Don't forget your pets. They'll need enough food, treats, and litter to see them through this too.

Don't forget to eat things up based on what will go bad. Fresh fruits and veggies first, then move onto the root vegetables, then canned or frozen items.

Social Distancing

One of the best measures most of us can take is social distancing. We're seeing this already here in Seattle, with basically anyone who can working from home. I'm not the only one hoping that this becomes a lasting change. (Think of the time and emissions saved! The gas money! The work travel!) No amount of hand washing, sanitizing, and no mask will help you more than simply staying away from people who might be infected.

However, not everyone has this privilege and it's important to remember them too. Be extra kind. It's unimaginably difficult to go to work every day knowing that it could make you sick, but still needing that paycheck. Hourly workers are also, on average, more likely to have worse health insurance (or no insurance) and to be less able to afford hospitalization. So seriously, be kind.

"I heard someone might get sick
and I'm here for the snuggles.
Snuggles fix everything."

We had kept our daughter in school until today, when they closed all Seattle public schools. I know many people chose to preemptively remove their kids from school and that is also a legitimate choice. For us, having her in school learning what she could was more important. For others, particularly those with immunocompromised family members in the home, the calculation will probably be different.

In case you think that it might be easy for me to suggest social distancing because we've got all this privilege to afford stocking up on food and working from home, please keep in mind that my mother is in an eldercare facility. I've only been intermittently able to visit her as the facility goes in and out of lockdown due to concerns over this illness. It's adding stress to an already stressful time so please believe me when I say that I don't advocate for these measures lightly. They're enforcing social distancing and it's absolutely the right move under the circumstances.

Prepare to Be Sick

The likelihood is that most of us will get sick with this virus at some point. And most of us--around 80-90%--will not need hospitalization. (I refuse to say that we'll get it mildly, since everything from barely showing symptoms to pneumonia has been lumped under "mild to moderate"--as long as you don't need to be hospitalized. I don't think most of us consider pneumonia "mild", however.) So preparing as if you will get sick is not a terrible idea. Get laundry and other essential chores done preemptively. Keep some medicine on hand in case of fevers, and take your vitamins if you have them. Grab a bag of epsom salts if you still need to go to the store, to help with achy muscles.

Since this particular virus isn't hitting children nearly as hard (thank goodness), I'm preparing as if all adults in our house will get sick at the same time but the kids will still mostly be fine. If you're a parent, you know it's just awful when you're sick and the kids are bouncing around. Have activities for them to do and talk with them, beforehand, about what to do if you're sick. Even if you're not in a high risk group, make sure your kids know how to call emergency services if needed and under what circumstances they're allowed to do so. (This is good information for them to have in general.)

Pack a hospital bag. Even if you're not in a high risk group there is a chance that you will need to be hospitalized for this. Or to seek care. If the hospitals and urgent care centers are overwhelmed then you might have a very long wait. Pack snacks and things to do, things to read. An extra charging cable for your electronics. A change of clothes and even a pair of pajamas. A copy of your insurance card, if possible. And anything else you might need for a sudden stay in the hospital or a long wait at urgent care.

Plan for Boredom and Stress

Introverts of the world, unite! This is your moment to shine!

For everyone else, please keep in mind that two weeks, or more, can seem like a very. long. time. to be at home, or mostly at home. Have board games and card games on hand. Books. TV shows and movies you've been wanting to watch. Video games, both old and new. And make sure your kids, if you have them, have all of these things too.

If you're feeling stressed out, one of the best ways to help yourself is to work out. Yoga doesn't require you to go anywhere (here's a favorite one of mine). Going for a solo bike ride or walk or run can be soothing, as can gardening. We made a home gym in our basement mostly to avoid paying gym fees (okay, and because I wouldn't work out as regularly if I had to go somewhere to do it) which has been helping so much in this case. That part of our routine, at least, can stay the same.

Taking this guy for a walk is
still a good idea.

This might also be a good time to tackle some house projects. We've been meaning to clear out and reorganize our basement storage room, which still had paint and tools left by the previous owners, so guess what we'll be doing over the next few weeks? It's not glamorous but it does need to get done and the satisfaction we'll get from it will help stave off any feelings of being 'stuck' at home. Go ahead and Marie Kondo the shit out of your belongings. Hang up the painting that you've been meaning to for six years. Clean out the attic and box up all your grown kids' things to give to them when you get a chance. Do something productive with your time, as long as you're not sick.

If you're sick then just hole up and sleep or watch TV. It's okay to rest too and get zero things accomplished if that's what you need. You do you.

Help Your Community

In my area, Bloodworks Northwest has put an urgent call out for people to donate blood if at all possible. Just because there's a virus going on doesn't mean that there aren't still other emergencies happening, and having people self-isolating means fewer people are donating. (Although hopefully it also means fewer car crashes too.) If you don't live in the PNW, you can get ahead of things by donating locally before it becomes urgent.

Doctors Without Borders is also working on the front lines in the hardest hit areas. Please consider donating to support them.

Food banks and homeless shelters are going to urgently need funds to help care for the neediest in our communities. The homeless population is likely to be very hard hit by this, and people who are already on the edge of not being able to meet their expenses will be severely impacted by any time off work. Even if there is some sort of bailout that miraculously helps the poorest rather than the richest, it will almost certainly take a while and be far less than is needed. Please consider making a donation to them as well.

Check in with elderly neighbors. Our next door neighbor is an elderly lady living alone. We have a good, friendly relationship with her so I let her know that if she needs anything we're here to help. She's not helpless and she does have a daughter nearby, but having more people to check on her won't hurt anything. If she does get sick I'll be much more comfortable knowing that she knows she can call on us.

There have also been distressing reports--a lot of them, too many--of racist attacks. Asian restaurants have been avoided because people think they'll get coronavirus, and at least one man has been attacked for being Asian.  Please be extra mindful of your Asian neighbors (particularly in a place like Seattle, with a large Asian population) and, obviously, step in if you see racism happening. Shut down comments by friends and family who might try to blame the Chinese for this happening. It's unhelpful and not okay. No one person or group is to blame for this and we are all in it together.

Economic Impacts

In addition to everything else going on, this is going to be a really rough time financially for many people. If you do need to shop or go out, please go to small businesses. If you want them to still be around when this is over they will need your support all the way through.

I don't know what's going to happen when all is said and done (oh, for a magic crystal ball!) but it does seem likely that this is going to cause a recession. I've heard any number of variations on the "stocks are on sale!" theme, but that blithely ignores the pain that a recession is going to inflict on many, many people. The stock market is not the same as the economy, and while it might be "on sale" that really only matters if you have enough money to invest in it. Retirees will be hurt, especially the recently retired, and people who are already hurting are just going to be hurt more.

If you are in a relatively good position, now is the time to either build or plump up your emergency fund. Really, the time to do that was a couple of years ago, but doing it now is better than nothing. Ideally you want to have 3-6 months of living expenses available. But there's ideal and then there's reality. Truthfully, any amount saved up for emergencies is wonderful. Do it please.

Here's the toughest part of the economic side for me: I want to help the hourly workers who are inevitably going to be struggling after this. I want to help the small businesses that we enjoy. But social distancing means that I will not be patronizing them for a while. Getting the people who work there and myself sick doesn't help anyone in the long run. However, I sincerely hope that those businesses are back at it as soon as they can so I can be their customer again as soon as I'm able. In the meantime I'm going to poke and prod the politicians of this country to do more to support people and small businesses. Please do the same.

What Else?

This is, if nothing else, an interesting start to the new decade. This is already big enough that it will have ripple effects at least a few years into the future. How will it change the political landscape in this election year? How will the stock market crashing change things? Will this virus have any long-term health impacts on the people who contract it? No one knows! It's interesting in part because this moment has the potential for rapid change. The future we expected and thought we could rely on at the start of the year, just two and a half months ago, is not what we can expect now. There are many possibilities, many moments for the shape of the world to change.

There have been many moments just in the last two weeks when my life has changed quite rapidly. Not in flashy ways, but still major shifts. I had a fifteen minute time period today in which the course of this week, this month, were suddenly different. So many small and big things changed. School cancelled. New rules at my mom's facility that allow me to visit her once more for short periods. People to contact, plans to be made or changed. It's hard for me to take life as it comes because I like to plan, but since so much is out of my control now I can only roll with the punches and try to take moments where I can to process it all. Que sera sera. I've done what I can, the rest is out of my hands.

My favorite books from the last...whenever

It's been a long time, too long, since I wrote a post about what I've been reading. I love giving book recommendations, and sharing books with others. In fact, there are few delights better than recommending or loaning a book to someone and having them tell me that they, too, loved it. I gave a small stack of books to a friend who needed something light, because life was overwhelming, and when she gave them back she said they were just what she needed. Honestly, that made my whole week better.

I read most everything, depending on how I'm feeling. Unfortunately I haven't really been into crime, true crime, thrillers, or horror in the past couple of years. Life has just been too heavy to read about those things. I've read a couple of true crime books but they're not on my best of list because, while good, I'm still just not feeling it. There's already too much death and mayhem in real life. I'm living with death every day as I care for my mother, who has been in hospice since early fall. Instead, I've got a few book recommendations for books about grieving, grief, and the elderly.

When that gets to be too much, however, and when I need life, I turn to gardening books. And YA. And fantasy. Not nearly enough fantasy. (But hey, I've read the whole Wheel of Time series so give a girl a break.)

Without further ado, here are my favorite books that I've read in the past few years.

Grief, grieving, and dying

Everything Happens for a Reason, and other lies I've loved, by Kate Bowler.

The author for this book is a professor of Divinity at Duke University. She penned a book about the prosperity gospel and opens candidly with the fact that, though she herself was not really part of any prosperity gospel churches, in many ways it's so infectious that she found herself buying into some of the ideas. Everything happens for a reason. If you just pray hard enough, God will make everything better! God only does bad things to bad people, so repent and you'll be healed! She explains that for the sick and the downtrodden, this message is so seductive that it can block out all others.

And then she got cancer. In her mid-thirties, after months of debilitating stomach pain that was passed off by doctors as either reflux or psychosomatic she finally convinced someone to give her a CT scan that revealed stage IV colon cancer--"the second least-sexy cancer." And she was left wondering, questioning everything. Was there a reason? Was there a loving God out there who'd taken her in the prime and, as she thought, killed her? What about her toddler son, her husband? What did they do to deserve this?

I don't, as a general rule, like books about religion or that talk overtly about religion. They tend to get not just boring but prosy and self-righteous. Look at me, how much faith I have! Ugh. This one, I promise you, was not like that. She is a person of faith who manages to appreciate many flavors of Christian in her beliefs but also to poke fun at the parts which, really, should be made fun of. And if you've ever known grief you will be familiar with the questions she asked herself, the constant why? that you are left with, without any answers, which she handles it in a particularly sarcastic way that also resonated with me. The platitudes that people repeat endlessly when you or a loved one has died, or is dying and slowly going through painful hell. Even the non-religious will fall back on them. Everything happens for a reason, right? "Sometimes I want every know-it-all to send me a note when they face the grisly specter of death, and I'll send them a cat poster that says HANG IN THERE!" Having grown up Episcopalian, I genuinely laughed into an empty room at the furious, emphatic words, "Everyone is trying to Easter the crap out of my Lent!" You can't Good News! away pain and suffering, but everyone tries to help you plaster over them as if they don't exist. Sometimes, there is a season to lean into them, to accept that they are part of life. We get so caught up in the idea of being optimistic that we forget bad things still happen.

But sometimes there are moment of peace, even joy, and she focuses on that just as much. "I think the same thoughts over and over again: Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard." Yes.


The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4, by Hendrik Groen

"I hate old people," is how this book about living in an eldercare facility begins. He mocks the habits of the elderly, needing soft foods and complaining about everything and playing Bingo. All things that he does himself, to one degree or another. This book made me laugh out loud and managed to never lose its sweetness as he discusses real issues, such as problems the elderly face due to cuts in their benefits. (It's set in the Netherlands.) Or problems having to do with the fact that it's hard to get anywhere when you're old, even if your mobility is all right, simply because it takes forever. Or, worst of all, the fact that your friends keep getting sicker and dying. It was laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, sad, sweet, and an absolute gem of a book. I'm certain that I enjoyed it even more since I take near-daily trips to an eldercare facility and get to see much of this stuff happening in real time (little old lady fights are real) but I'm certain that this book would be fun to read for just about everyone.


Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande

This was one of those books that was the right book to read at the right time. I'd had several people recommend it to me because of my mother. It gives an overview of the care of the sick and the elderly, and what matters most to people when they know they're dying. It goes over palliative and hospice care, which was incredibly helpful as I was beginning the process of having my mother enter hospice. I knew what to expect. And, really, the biggest thing it gave me was peace of mind. I'm doing the right things. I'm helping my mother in the best ways possible. She may never know what I'm doing for her but I will, and I want to do my best. It also helped me think about what I would like at the end of my life in a calm and rational way. We are all mortal. We will all die. With any luck, each of us will have loved ones around to help us at the end, doing their best to comfort and show their love.


Gardening and Nature

Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway

This book helped me sooo much when I was planning out our garden last year. I actually read most of it over the summer in fits and starts because it was dense and made me want to do things right now. So I'd read a bit, then go out in my garden and play for a bit.

Not all of it is applicable to urban gardeners. There are chapters that talk about putting in ponds and caring for wetlands and creating your own forest. Um, yeah. Beautiful concepts to read about, but they don't really help me. But they're not meant to. This is a generalist's overview of permaculture to get you started. And if you're thinking that you don't want to grow vegetables, stop right there. Very little of this was about how to grow vegetables and fruits. Most of the book was about developing an ecosystem, planting things in such ways that they will help and sustain each other with minimal or no outside inputs. It's about creating systems, not gardens, and doing them in both efficient (in terms of space, water, other resources including time) and in life-building ways. I'm pretty sure I'll be using this book as a reference for the rest of my life.


Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon

This book...I actually hated it in many ways. Seriously. This guy is the Grumpy Grandpa of PNW gardening. One review on Goodreads complained, "He takes all the fun out of gardening!" and I couldn't agree more. The author is entirely certain that there is one right way to garden and it is his way. He references what other people and other schools of thought might say in only the most dismissive ways. I kept rolling my eyes. He's very certain that he can't possibly learn something from anyone else about how to garden. He knows it all, and we should all only be listening to him the end. Oh, and don't forget to fertilize but only if you use my special blend that I talk about nonstop!

So, why am I still recommending this book? Because I actually did get a lot of good ideas out of it. For instance, he talks about the fact that starting seeds indoors has become a big business but it can, actually, hurt your plants and set you back. By moving and disturbing the root systems the plants won't grow as effectively for quite a while after you transplant them, thus losing all or most of the head start you thought you were getting. So I tried it. Last year, because we finished the new garden so late in the spring, I direct seeded almost all of my plants. And he was right, they did so much better and were so much healthier than when I've started things indoors in the past. Especially my winter squashes. So I'm going to continue this practice, only starting indoors the things that need too long of a growing season (tomatoes) to wait until the weather turns.

There was other great advice in there, but I'll leave that for you to read about.


Nature's Best Hope by Douglas Tallamy

This book was, I will admit, a bit prosy. It can be forgiven, however, because the author is so earnest and so determined to change the way people think about nature. "The message I have tried to convey in this book is that, whether we like nature or not, none of us will be able to live for long in a world without it." We are not, he reminds us all, separate from our ecosystem. We need nature for literally everything including our own lives. We've parceled it out and sold it and told ourselves that we own it. But we need to be better stewards of our home, because it is our home. It's the one we share with all known life in the universe. We've taken the fun parts of ownership, now it's time for us to be responsible.

This is probably the manifesto for ripping up at least part of your lawn and planting it instead with native plants. And yes, he wants us all to plant native plants anywhere and everywhere. Vegetables and ornamentals are fine (as long as they're not invasive, which many ornamentals are) but to really give our ecosystems a boost we need to return some of the plants that have defined each of our ecosystems for thousands of years. Those are the plants that insects depend upon, and they are the base of our food web. Without insects we don't have birds and most rodents. The entire food chain falls apart. Which is what we're seeing. There are fewer insects, fewer birds. Fewer of basically every living thing except humans and our food.  It's time for us to change that. I know it's helping me to think much harder about what I'm going to plant on my property.

If you want a resource to get started right away, rather than reading this whole book, here is a website dedicated to finding native plants for your zip code which will also tell you how many species of butterflies and moths it supports. This is crucial because caterpillars are what most birds need for their young. Supporting butterflies is one of the best ways to also support birds.


The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells

This book was not actually as depressing as basically every news article about it declared it to be. Was it sad? Yep. Reading about the changing world that we're all creating, which my kids and all the other kids out there will inherit, made me really sad. Did it still leave room for hope? Emphatically yes. We can still change things. We are not fated to destroy ourselves. There is so much beauty still in the world. We don't have to sacrifice that, and we can add to it. We just need to put in the hard work to do these things collectively. We need to work together on a problem that affects all of us already. He lays out the predictions and models because we need to know what's really at stake or we will ignore it, as we have since it was first brought up. We can't do that anymore. There's no time left. We need to act in big ways and we need to act now. But we can still act.


General Fiction

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I'll be honest, this book has one of the most brutal openings I've ever read. Not because it's particularly violent or bloody. It isn't. But it's begins with a Lithuanian family being taken by Stalin's secret police in 1941. They have 20 minutes to pack before being carted off to Siberia. Their crime? Well, the teenage daughter (from whose perspective the book is written) doesn't know. There were signs that something was up but she was too focused on herself to really notice anything else. And now here they are, being packed up and shipped off in a cattle car full of people.

The author wrote this in such a way that you can't not feel for the family, for the people that these sorts of events actually happened to. And thankfully, she manages to write about some of the atrocities in a way where you feel for them, but you haven't gotten particularly attached to the characters. Some things might be just too horrific to imagine them closely, and she manages to write about them without giving details that would only make you feel wretched. And she ends the book with hope, despite the topic.

I'm anxious now to read the rest of her books.


The Three Dark Crowns quadrilogy, by Kendare Blake

There is an island shrouded in mist. The mist protects the island and its inhabitants from the outside world, because most eyes will bounce off and never notice it's there. Only a few privileged Mainlanders are allowed to come and trade with the island's inhabitants.

Sorry, I really am not a professional photographer. Or even
good at it in an amateur way.

This island is ruled by a Queen and her council. When the Queen's reign is ending she bears triplets, always daughters, and when they are weaned she sails off to the Mainland never to be seen again. Her daughters are raised by three different factions on the island depending on their talent: Naturalist, Elemental, or Poisoner. They are raised to hate each other. When they're sixteen, they will meet for the first time since they will children, and it will be each Queen's duty to try to kill her sisters to become the next Queen Crowned.

I loved all four books.


The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow

I loved this book so much that I made my book club read it too. Good news, it was universally enjoyed! It perfectly meets that intersection of happy but not sickeningly so. Beautifully written but not slow. Humorous but not ridiculous. Fun but with a lot of depth.

If you don't like magical realism, first of all what's wrong with you? But second, skip this one. For the rest of us, this book is about a young woman whose father, an archaeologist, is constantly away. She lives with her father's wealthy patron instead, under a series of governesses. She's an in-between girl, not really this or that. And she's temerarious, according to her guardian, often escaping and running away. One of those times she runs away, she finds a door. Something about the door calls to her, and she walks through into another world.

After finding the first door, she becomes obsessed with finding more. And more. And more. Along the way she discovers some very hard truths, but she also finds out what has happened to her family, why her father is always away. She hopes that the doors will lead them back to each other.

I only have one spoiler: the dog lives.


Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens

There is a little girl who watches her mother leave. She clings to the hope that her mother will come back someday, even as she watches her older brothers and sisters take off one by one. Then she's left alone with her broken, abusive father. She learns how to stay out of his way while also figuring out how to feed them, how to effectively fill her mother's role. Then her father disappears one day and she's left alone, still a young girl. She knows how to feed herself from the swamp she lives in, but she still needs money now that her father's disability check won't be coming anymore. So she figures that out too.

The other side of the story is about the murder of a young man in the town. A handsome young man, a rich young man with everything going for him. He was murdered and, since they have a history, fingers start pointing at the Swamp Girl. Could she have murdered him? If so, how? Why? And if it wasn't her, who did do it?

The two halves of this story were intertwined so beautifully. There are definitely parts I won't forget, wry remarks about animal (including human) nature that have stuck with me.


A Corner of White trilogy, by Jaclyn Moriarty

This is a young adult fantasy series set on Earth--specifically Cambridge, England--and in the Kingdom of Cello, a different world where colors can and do attack, the Butterfly child is desperately needed to save their crops, and a boy is convinced that his father could not have murdered someone and run away with the physics teacher.

One day he discovers a crack through to England and slips a note in there, not really expecting anything. A girl in England discovers the note in a broken parking meter, however, and thinking it's a joke she still writes back. The two correspond and they help unravel mysteries on both sides of this crack.

These were fun page-turners. Not particularly deep, but I really wanted to read what happened next and find out what was going on. They were good right on through the last page.


Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn

I put this in fiction but, honestly, I'm not sure where it should go. It's set as a conversation between a gorilla and a man, but it talks about humanity. The stories we tell ourselves, the lies. What we're doing wrong and why we're unable to stop. There was so much to think about with this one. It made sense of a lot of things that really never made sense, but we don't think about them too hard. They're so ingrained in society and culture that we don't even think about them. This book forced me to, and I can't help but see the world a little differently now. It was good, I enjoy the shift in perspective. I just don't want to give away any more.


The Me Before You series, by Jojo Moyes

You may or may not have seen the movie, which was a good representation of the first book. But the book itself obviously has far more detail and was even more entertaining. The subsequent books are about how to move on from such an event, and how to find yourself again. They were just really good without being too heavy.


Biography

Cycling Home from Siberia, by Rob Lilwall

This was like reading my brother's cycling adventures from a different perspective. Rob's friend asked him to go on an extended bicycling tour with him and, despite never having done a bike camping trip in his life, he decided to do it. What started off as a decent adventure with a friend turned into an epic tour around most of Asia, Australia, and Europe. What was supposed to be a months-long trip turned into nearly three years before setting foot on home soil in England. He talks about the fascinating things, the terrors, the downright bizarre. But also what he missed at home, the loneliness at times. He didn't idealize life on the road or the people he met, but fully admits that the adventure was worth having.


Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

This is in a similar vein as above. Cheryl made bad decisions in her life. She married the right man, but she cheated on him until he left her. Then she hooked up with a series of increasingly sketchy men, believing that she didn't deserve better. At rock bottom, she had an abortion and spent most of her days high on heroin. So she decided to change her life. How? By hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

This is one of the most grueling hikes in North America. She didn't have any backpacking or hiking experience. When she started, her pack was so heavy that she couldn't even lift it up. But she made it, thanks very much to the kind hikers she met along the way who helped her out.


Becoming, by Michelle Obama

This book is super dense, because there's so much to it. About her childhood in Chicago. About the legacy of the Great Migration and the effects of white flight from neighborhoods like hers. But then politics too, the emotional toll it took on all of them. Her reluctance to every political step her husband took, but knowing that it was something he needed to do and supporting him anyway. Trying to raise kids in the White House with some semblance of normal, while also acknowledging that the Secret Service had to do a background check every time her kids wanted a playdate or spend at least an hour making arrangements for an "impromptu" trip to get ice cream. What she tried to accomplish as First Lady and why. What it was like to be the first black First Family, and to have everything she did not only under a microscope but also criticized with harsh vitriol. In the introduction she says that she wanted to ask people what offended them most, "angry", "black", or "woman"? Why is that particular combination something that people are so afraid of?

Seriously, there's just so much. Go read it.


Parenting

I've become convinced that most parenting experts have a child like my second one. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks (I know, a unicorn child). She got herself on a schedule that worked for the whole family, not taking naps at inconvenient times for school pickup. She's strong-willed and likes things just so, but she's also pretty quick to get out of any ill temper and she can be reasoned with or we can do some small compromises. She happily plays by herself.

Then there's my older child. Two of my brothers are fonts of virtually limitless patience, and she has pushed them both to the point of anger. My aunt, also the soul of patience with children, once told me, "That child is a demon!" which I still think about and laugh. So I came across the book Raising Your Spirited Child and fell in love. It is for anyone who's got a kid that's just a bit harder. A bit more. More rambunctions, more sensitive, more inquisitive, more tenacious and determined. I cried several times while reading it because I finally found a parenting book that talks about my older child. It confirms I'm not crazy! When I think that other parents just don't have it as hard, I'm not wrong! Most people don't have a kid who checks so many of these boxes. I need to buy this book for myself and keep it on my bedside table. Because it's not about how to mold or change your child, it's about how to change your thinking and to work with your child's specific needs. It reframes your thinking so that you see the positives of all their traits, when it can be so easy to get bogged down in the negatives. Instead of saying that my child is f***ing stubborn and driving me crazy! I can instead think that she's very, very determined, so how do I help us to both get what we need?

Another Leigh Bardugo book.
Read this one too.

Parenting is a work in progress, always. One of my brothers said that he wasn't sure if my older child was sent to be my early death or to teach me patience. I'm working on the latter of those two, for both our sakes.




My current read is Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Since I've loved all of her previous books I'm going to go ahead and pre-recommend this, especially if you love fantasy.

There have been so many books that I've read over the last three years. Nearly 200, according to my reading list. Most of them have been really good, these just happen to be my favorites. I'm sure some of the others are great but maybe I didn't read them at the right time, so they weren't my favorites. My reading list might not be for you, or the books I loved might not be right for you. It is what it is. I hope you can find at least one that you fall in love with.