* Apparently the show is streaming-only (I've never seen it) but a show called "America's Best Restaurants" is going to feature one of my favorite places in Sherman, Cackle and Oink. I'm glad they're getting the honor but I suspect this means that at busy times it'll be even harder to get a table. (It's not super near an interstate, but it is off of 82, which you can get to from an interstate, so maybe they will get some more folks who are traveling)
* I'm slowly sewing down the binding to a quilt, but I always forget how long it takes.
* Though I also want to start something new, either make some of those looper potholders (which are simple and are kind of instant gratification) or start a garter stitch shawlette with some KnitPicks yarn (where I am afraid I didn't buy quite enough, I used a different yarn than the pattern called for)
* And so much for "summoning fall" - it's supposed to be in the 90s all the rest of this week. I am very tired of it. And I hope it's not TOO hot this weekend, I think that the heat is what made me over-react to the covid booster in July of 2022, because...
* I went ahead and scheduled an appointment at the CVS after calling the pharmacy I normally use and being told it wasn't in and they weren't sure when they'd get it. I hope the CVS is okay - I don't normally go there because a couple times in the past I was in they LITERALLY had no one behind the counter, and you were, I guess, expected to pay on the honor system with the self-check-out (at least, I did). And I'm leery of big chains after the Walgreens pooped out on being able to give me my tetanus booster after I scheduled one. But at any rate, the appointment is Friday right after class. I do have to serve at the table at church Sunday, though I suspect if I felt TOO terrible I could text another elder and have them do it, but I'm hoping if I have a reaction it'll be over enough by then. (One person I know who had the booster said his reaction was less bad than to the previous ones, so I don't know. I hope so. But I also need to plan to have enough food on hand - maybe shop Thursday after class - so if I feel lousy I don't have to go out)
* It does make me sad and annoyed that we will have to do this every year or six months now and yet there are still breakthrough infections (the spouse of a colleague has it YET AGAIN). This feels like a curse and a judgment but I'm telling myself that this may actually have been how a lot of what we think of as "little" viruses actually started, thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, and we just don't have, like, written accounts of The Great Dying from the first rhinovirus exposure ever, and we're all just the descendants of people who survived those ancient plagues. But still, it sucks to be living through it and I get really down about everything some days. I mean, I won't be around to see the time when people have evolved immunity or something. And I don't have kids so they won't get to enjoy that future.
AT LEAST the guidance on masks (currently, and it'll probably change in a few months again) is "it protects you to wear one more than your wearing one protects other people" so I don't feel like a horrible monster walking into a store unmasked on one of our 72-degree-dewpoint days. (But I remember how early on the guidance was "you wear it to protect others, it won't protect you that much' and that really curdled me on other people because mask resistance here was high). But yes, this has really soured me on other people and on a lot of things in general.
* I guess I am getting overtime pay again because I'm teaching four classes rather than the more-usual three. It's $155 more a month after taxes which, I guess, okay,, but I'd really rather have that time back instead.. Then again, four more months of that and I can buy a new dishwasher on the proceeds.
* I'm almost done (well, almost up to the point where the story breaks off because the author died) with Wives and Daughters. I can kind of see where it's going to go with the wrap-up - Cynthia has FINALLY picked a man to marry, and it clears the path for Molly to marry the man who really is right for her, and while a couple sympathetic characters died (and I don't know that we're going to see a clear resolution as to what happens to the wife and child of one).
But yes. Stories like this make me glad that I live now, even with all its many problems, than in the 1800s, because:
- minor illnesses seem to be treated as major, I presume because bacterial infections as sequelae to viruses could be deadly - Molly develops a cold and is made to stay home and indoors and basically do nothing but rest for days and days and days, and that seems typical of the time from other books set then I've read. And yes, with a bad cold now, it is nice to take a day and just lie on the sofa and watch old movies, having to do that for an extended period would get very old very fast.
- women are pretty much required to either marry, live in poverty all their lives, or else be born to sufficient wealth (and then they're expected to marry). When Cynthia had spurned one suitor and refused another, her plan was to go to Russia and work as a governess - because she spoke French and there was a demand for governesses who could teach the children of the aristocracy French (I seem to remember in pre-Revolutionary Russia, French was a fashionable language for the well off to know and be able to converse in)
- Travel was hard. Riding in a coach was probably uncomfortable, railroads were in their infancy. In areas like Hollingsford, it seems like most people just walked if it was a short enough distance. Mr. Gibson, who was a doctor, kept a horse - and apparently one for his daughter, Molly, as well, but of course horses were an expense and required care.
- Food is not discussed much in the book but I suspect it was more monotonous than the food we have now, especially in the winter.
That said: novels were available and unlike some areas of American culture, it seems young women were encouraged to read novels and poetry (in some American subcultures it seems the sense was it would make them dissatisfied with their actual lives, or that too much reading was bad for the brains - or perhaps her womb, and of course production of the next generation was seen as the main role of women then), and there was a lot of visiting for entertainment (and also card games and small dances and the like) and I admit I'm not entirely convinced that giving that up in favor of tv in the evenings was a good thing; people seemed closer. (But then again: if you disliked your neighbors of a comparable social station to you , that could be very isolating)
* But I'm nearly done, and time to think about a Next Book! I've decided on "Legends and Lattes," which I bought in 2022 shortly after it came out, after I saw a recommendation for it online. It's supposed to be light and comic (it's a fantasy/romance thing between two female creatures who run a coffee shop after they stop being warriors) and hoo boy do I need something light and funny and short. Not that "Wives and Daughters" was so very *heavy,* but there were sad things that happened (a couple deaths) and there was the tension of "is Cynthia going to be an outcast because of Mr. Preston's claims about her breaking a promise to him to marry him" and all of that, and also just all the petty gossip of a small rural town.
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