The fun we had: Winter 2019
March 27, 2019
This winter (December through March) was a lot less reading and lot more doing things but that wasn’t correlated – I don’t have time to read during the day!
It was just a coincidence that I ran short on reading material, needed more sleep, and had resolved to try to do one social thing per month all around the same time.
What I read
Tanja Hester, Work Optional – a fantastic book on the ideas and math behind early retirement, not just how fun it is.
Ilona Andrews, Magic Shifts (Kate Daniels Series, Book 8)
Magic Binds (Kate Daniels Series, Book 9)
Iron and Magic (The Iron Covenant, Book 1)
Magic Triumphs (Kate Daniels Series, Book 10)
Mercedes Lackey, From a High Tower (Elemental Masters Series, Book 11)
Anne McCaffrey, Catalyst, Barque Cats Series, Book 1
Catacombs, Barque Cats Series, Book 2
Seanan McGuire, Chaos Choreography
A lot of free short stories from the Incryptid world. I love the Incryptid series.
John Scalzi, Head On: A Novel of the Near Future. I’ve really enjoyed the Lock In series.
Samantha Shannon, The Bone Season
J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two
I’m unwilling to spend any more money on Rowling’s franchise, she’s become deeply problematic over the years and probably always has been, but a friend lent me their copy of the book and I was curious. NOW I understand why another friend likes Scorpius.
Patricia Briggs. I’m well into this series mostly because of momentum and availability. Our library has a lot of the ebooks and hasn’t gotten a lot of the books I do want. But the social structure in her world is squicky.
Where we went
Into the city! The traffic and/or parking in SF is usually frustrating enough that we tend to avoid it now but we trekked in for an adventure at OneDome’s LMNL installation and it was a lot of fun! It wasn’t cheap but we don’t get out much, so it was both fun to have a bit of an adventure out that wasn’t just errands and the installation of 14 interactive displays were quite clever.
We picked up a Groupon for 4 adults ($80, full price was $132) and paid for JB ($11), for two hours of really neat combinations of audio, visual, video and physical experiences. It was perfect for a hands on kid and intriguing for adults too. We took the BART ($16, we’ve been saving BART money for a while) went to their first time slot, 10 am, on a Sunday which may have been why it was nice and quiet. No huge crowds and we were able to keep our own backpack with essential supplies with us. Hunger and thirst makes JB an insufferable proto-human so we surreptitiously stuffed zir full of snacks and rehydrate zir every hour. Result? Harmony!
We had invited a couple of very local friends to join us since another thing we are terrible at is regularly seeing anyone in our immediate vicinity and keep resolving to do better. We don’t. This was an early win for the year. Lunch was another $29 and I’m still kicking myself for putting it on the wrong credit card because dining points! Our adventure cost a grand total of $136. That is one reason why we don’t do this city-adventure thing much! We should have packed our lunches as well but we weren’t planning to eat there. It was a spur of the moment decision.
To the mall. A few times. Wait what? YEP, but not for shopping. When it’s been raining for 6 days straight and your husband has a totally unreasonable preference for staying relatively dry, we have to find a place where the kid can roam a little more freely and see twinkly lights. It was actually fun! We weren’t shopping, we were just walking and looking at things, and eating snacks we had prepacked, as we do. I have to say that I did exercise some willpower to avoid buying beautiful overpriced cards from Papyrus.
JB did spot Santa and was enamoured, at least enough to wave to him with a fervor I haven’t seen since zir last bid to claim ALL THE COOKIES. We aren’t doing Santa but we couldn’t pretend that the jolly fellow in a red suit sitting right over there didn’t exist in the physical sense, so we just talked about waving to him and ze tried to finagle a conversation with him. We weren’t paying $40 for that little chat so that didn’t happen.
Back to the city! We trekked in on Bart ($16) to pick free tulips but getting there 30 minutes after the event started meant that the line went around the entirety of Union Square. I definitely saw kids and dogs in that line but we were not up for it. Instead we went up to the 5th floor of Macy’s to watch people picking their gorgeous tulips and mutter to myself about not having left an hour before. PiC claims the experience was more about getting out of the house but no, it was about the free tulips. We went downstairs to the food court to feed JB snacks we’d packed. Then eventually both of us needed a Big Fish bowl ($16) when we ran out of snacks and JB still moaned pathetically, I’m hungry. I was hungry too. I’m having some trouble keeping myself fed well away from our fridge and we have to work on this.
Cal Academy! I don’t know what’s going on with us this winter. We’re getting out and doing things, a lot, and it’s unsettling. Fun but weird. This is the polar opposite of what I’d normally do left to my own devices but here we are!
We have a membership so that we don’t feel compelled to go and knock ourselves out to get our money’s worth, we can go for just a couple or few hours at a time and come back another day. PiC and JB often escape to the museum when I’m stuck working on weekends, so I’ve been missing out on the fun until now. We enjoyed the aquarium and the dive session, the earthquake simulator (twice), the fog room, and the cafe.
Honestly I was just curious about the quake simulation the first time, and it was pretty good, but the second time was unexpectedly JB’s idea. I coached zir through the first one, describing what it was and explaining it was a good way to get some practice in how we ride out a real quake. Ze begged for a second go later because “I don’t like the earthquake but I want to do the earthquake.” Perfectly good 4 year old logic there. The second time was just as alarming but ze cracked up when I pointed out the house was dancing. Ha ha ha stuff of my nightmares!
What I watched
Kim’s Convenience. This show is delightful. I’m not Korean but some aspects of the immigrant experience are universal. PiC and I have been enjoying this show as our lazy and poor version of a date night. We’re watching a couple of episodes every couple of weeks, trying to stretch it out because only two seasons are available right now.
One Day at a Time. Whew. This is a comedy, it’s a little rough around the edges in the first season and occasionally through the rest of the seasons with the usual over the top stretch for humor. The laugh track annoys me but ultimately it also hits home on a lot of sensitive immigrant and sibling and family dynamic issues for me.
Cuban culture isn’t similar to my own (barefoot all the time inside!) but yet I teared up at the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2, I felt like Schneider when the family was on vacation, I wanted to yell at Tito for his excuses, and rolled my eyes at Abuelita’s perpetuation of the patriarchal norms. Also, overprotectiveness? Check. I wasn’t allowed to sleep over anywhere, ever. Gotta say with my own kid, that’s one I’m keeping.
Galavant. Two seasons of musical – only a few years late. Pretty great.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Awww what a callback to my childhood. I honestly barely remember the original, just my love of it, and the new show is delightful. Bonus: Noelle Stevenson, author of Lumberjanes and Nimona, was a favorite before this show, she’s now an extra favorite as the showrunner. Also bonus: The show’s title song is delightful.
What I did
With my own two hands … I whipped up a new pillowcase for JB!
Created new holiday traditions. This Frugalwoods post made me laugh and reminded me that we’re slowly creating some neat holiday traditions that I’m really in love with.
The first one, with respect to gifts: We mostly store other people’s gifts under the tree. That’s because JB only gets 3 books from us for Christmas. Oh and a stable loving family, a roof over zir head, food to eat, clothes to wear, savings for zir future. Big picture, kiddo!
The second one, also with respect to gifts: We don’t save all the gifts for a Christmas Day blowout. I hate that idea, honestly, being surrounded by stacks of discarded toys and gifts as one piles an irrational amount of wrapping paper on either side, digging into the next gift so that you can hardly remember who got you that other thing. As we visit family and friends, or as they mail them to us, we allow JB to open one set of gifts per day so ze can process the awesome gift and write a thank you card. We didn’t get the cards done quickly, or according to plan, but they did happen.
The third one, with respect to people. We start our holiday by spending two days with dear friends who are like family before we travel to see the rest of the family and friends. It’s quiet, low-key, there are a few gifts for JB but mostly there’s food, friends, and love. We walk the dogs, we try new food and we RELAX. It’s the absolute best way to holiday in my opinion, and in my heart it’s my own little-family Christmas before we do all the obligatory visits and other people’s traditions.
Cooking (sort of): we made a version of these fruit tarts in mini size.
:: What are you enjoying right now?
We loved Galavant! And I’ve been wondering for a long time about sleepovers. I hosted and went to plenty as a kid, and Baguette definitely isn’t ready for them. Some of her friends have been asking for years (who has sleepovers at age 3???), and I’d been wondering when we might try that. But you’re right, we don’t have to. We certainly don’t have to any time soon.
Age 3 is WAY too young IMO but then I’m Team Never Sleepover so what do I know š
I’m not worrying about it right now but I know what my gut says at the moment. Maybe it’ll change on a limited basis. We’ll see.
We just went to the Academy of Sciences earlier in March. The earthquake simulator was a pretty good and gave BwC a taste of what an earthquake feels like. That was pretty neat of them to replicate the 1906 and 1989 quakes.
BwC really like that fog room, we went through there like five times. We knew he liked it because he went to the fog bridge at Exploratorium and did the same thing.
I have Tanja’s book on hold at the library. Reading some other books right now but her book is on the top of my list to read soon.
I think it’s funny they’re so into the fog room when we LIVE IN FOG š
You’ll enjoy Tanja’s book when you get to it!