Briefly | I missed checking in the last two Sundays because I was at my parents house — first for Thanksgiving, then for a volunteering event and my mom’s annual Christmas party. I thought about blogging from the road, but figured I could just catch up when I get back. Consider this three weeks of updates mashed into one!
Time and Place | 11 a.m. at my desk, writing on my failing laptop — I got a hard drive error last week that bumped up my search for a new one. Everything is backed up, so I’m just hoping it’ll hang on until after the holidays.
Eating and Drinking | Raspberries (not very good… out of season) and water. We had friends over for a game night last night and I ended up staying up way too late and drinking a little too much wine… lots of water today.
Reading | I’ve had some really good and some rather disappointing reading in the last few weeks. I finished The Book of Strange New Things by Michael Faber over Thanksgiving and thought it was really lovely. I want to re-read the end because I flew through it in one of those late-night reading binges. I also finished Descent by Tim Johnson (Jan. 6 from Algonquin), but didn’t love it. I thought the writing was overdone and the ending was unsatisfying. But other people with great taste in books have raved about it… so I’ll be in the minority on that.
On the nonfiction side, I finally finished 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam. The book looks at how to maximize time over the course of a week (168 hours) and thinking about ways to make sure your time is invested in the things that truly matter. She encourages people to keep a time log for a week. The results from mine have been surprising to me. I’m still thinking about what the information means for my goals for 2015 — more to come on that!
Watching | Now that most of my favorite shows are on a holiday hiatus (oh my gosh, The Flash and Arrow were incredibly good this week) I decided to re-watch season six of Parks and Recreation. This Parks and Rec clip war between two of my favorite tv/culture critics Linda Holmes and Alan Sepinwall made my week.
Listening | I finally finished Yes, Please by Amy Poehler. I really loved it in a way that isn’t quite coherent yet.
Making | While I was out of the office for Thanksgiving, my coworkers did some decorating in my office. I think that tree is pretty awesome.
Cooking | I’m going to try this recipe for Crock Pot Ranchero Chicken today. Iowa Girl Eats is one of my favorite food blogs because her recipes are relatively easy and always turn out delicious.
Blogging | Over the last couple weeks, I shared mini-reviews of The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters and Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and linked out to a freelance review of What Stays in Vegas by Adam Tanner. I also wrote about some of the backlist television shows that I binged on this year.
Promoting | I’ve really been enjoying the posts connected with A Month of Favorites is a December-long celebration hosted by Andi (Estella’s Revenge), Tanya (Girl XOXO) and T (Traveling with T). I’m going to look through the topics this afternoon and see if any spark my creative juices.
Hating | Work was a little stressful this week. We are switching layout software at the paper, and the transition has been… not entirely smooth. We survived, but getting there frayed my patience a bit.
Loving | My sister and I took my mom to see Irving Berlin’s White Christmas for her Christmas present. It was such a fun thing to do together — White Christmas is one of her favorite movies that we watch together almost every year.
Avoiding | I have all my Christmas shopping done (yay!), but I need to wrap all of the presents (boo!). I’m thinking about doing that while the Vikings play later this afternoon.
Anticipating | I put up our small collection of Christmas decorations this week. I am certain that Hannah is going to take down the Christmas tree soon. But there’s nothing of value hanging on it, so we’ll just deal with it when the time comes.
Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?
My sister and I became obsessed with Merlin, a retelling of the story of King Arthur told from the perspective of the young Merlin, a few years ago. The show wrapped up on the BBC in 2012, but we were both so sad about the idea of it ending that we waited until this summer to re-watch the series and finally get through season five. We watched the two-part finale together this summer and it was basically perfect. The show is a lot of fun, especially because of the focus on the friendship between Merlin and Arthur and the themes of sacrifice and loyalty and honor. I just adore this one.
Miss Fisher is my newest television obsession. Set in Melbourne in the 1920s, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is the story of Phryne Fisher, a glamorous, feminist, lady detective. This one is fun for the cast of characters, lush period costumes, and charming flirtation between Miss Fisher and the dashing Detective Inspector Jack Robinson. It’s utterly delightful, and I am so excited that there will be a third season coming, eventually. And bonus, this show is based on a series of novels by writer Kerry Greenwood — I’m curious to check them out.
Despite being a journalist and despite being a fan of Aaron Sorkin (loved The West Wing), I just cannot bring myself to watch The Newsroom. As I was pining for something in that vein, I discovered The Hour, a short British series about a news program in the 1950s that I’ve seen compared to The Newsroom. It’s more of a thriller than a show about journalism, but it’s a ton of fun anyway. It has a rather abrupt conclusion, but I just compensated by making up endings for all the characters in my head!
This is another short, period show from the BBC. The Bletchley Circle is the story of four women who worked as codebreakers at Bletchley Park during World War II. The series is set several years after, and focuses on how the women use their skills as codebreakers to try and solve crimes in London. There are only two seasons, with just a few episodes each, but man, did I dig this series. It’s smart and challenging and tense has a lot to say about the challenges women continue to face as working people.
The reason I had to put “backlist” in quotes above is because of The Good Wife — this is a show that is still on the air, but one I didn’t really get caught up with until this year. The show is about the disgraced wife of a philandering politician who pulls her life together and gets a job at a top law firm in Chicago. Julianna Margulies, starring as the “good wife” Alicia Florrick is really brilliant, as is the rest of the supporting cast. The end of the fourth season into the beginning of the fifth season is some of the best television I’ve watched in a long time.
While much of our contemporary anxiety over the way personal data are collected and distributed is directed at the government, the more pervasive — and perhaps most insidious — users of personal data are corporations and other private businesses.
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
