November and December were a bit of a blur with three trips, the busiest time of year at work and a I had a strong desire to knit more than I’ve had in the last few months, so my reading slumped and my blog posting definitely slumped.
This post is a pretty light recap of the past two months with A LOT of photos. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve seen most of them, but I’ve included a few panoramic views from our trip to Death Valley National Park and a few others that didn’t make the Instagram cut. And if you want a good laugh go check out these photos I took at Badwater Basin in Death Valley since they’re not on here.
Books and Bookish Things
As I said it was a light reading couple of months. Instead of reading on the numerous flights I ended up knitting and watching various TV shows and movies. It was a good change of pace because at work we sent out something like 150,000 emails and letters and my brain just couldn’t handle the written word. I finished four books three of which were library books and one which was a galley (Farazmand’s).
- Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower #6) – Stephen King
- Poorlier Drawn Lines – Reza Farazmand
- The Masked City (The Invisible Library #2) – Genevieve Cogman
- The Burning Page (The Invisible Library #3) – Genevieve Cogman
I received a few books for the holidays and my birthday and accepted a couple more galleys to end the year behind as usual. I think I have four or five to catch up on early next year. I also bought my first text book in over a decade as I’ll be starting a refresher marketing course in January—so that’s exciting.
- Find Me – Andre Acimán
- The Testaments (The Handmaid’s Tale #2) – Margaret Atwood
- Marketing Management – Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller (TEXTBOOK)
- Blowout – Rachel Maddow*
- Red, White & Royal Blue – Casey McQuiston
- Sense of Wonder – Bill Schelly*
- Fleabag: The Scriptures – Phoebe Waller-Bridge
On social media I found yet another post from Colossal with an incredibly gorgeous library and stumbled across James Trevino’s Instagram who I guess is a major bookstagrammer. Who knows? I’m late to the party as he already has 230k followers, and I usually don’t like these types of accounts but 1) he’s smokin’ hot, 2) the first post I saw was Harry Potter related, and 3) they’re actually very creative and because I found him through there and not blogging first there are no abandonment issues I guess?
Not just for bookworms: Helsinki’s Oodi Central Library connects residents through multi-faceted cultural resources
https://t.co/aQPFuLiWcK pic.twitter.com/kiCGsOSFjI— Colossal (@Colossal) November 8, 2019
Culture Corner
Now for the pictures. I traveled A LOT these last two months of 2019 and had my bff from growing up come visit as well. The photos are the takeaways with a small paragraph after each set for reference. Needless to say I’m looking forward to a quite January
Alie visited in early November and we went to Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Harpoon Brewery (the pretzels are the real reason to go :-D) and took the ferry to the new Encore Casino in Boston Harbor—it was big and prepared me for the immensity of Las Vegas in December.
At the end of November Tim and I flew down to NC to spend Thanksgiving with my family. We made bread at for Thanksgiving day with my mom’s family and then on Friday we attended my hometown’s Dickens festival where my grandpa, stepmom and dad dressed in our family’s kilts (formal left, hunting right – no clue what my step mom is wearing) and did a Victorian parade reenactment.
Two weeks after Thanksgiving I flew down to Virginia for a quick trip to see my sister and Alie again (and deal with some crazy HOA shit) and Alie took me to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. It had an incredibly glass collection (one of the largest in North America) and overall was a pleasant surprise at how large it and it’s collection was. Prior to leaving Virginia, we drove through Richmond to see the newly installed (seriously like only two days before) “Rumors of War” statue by Kehinde Wiley recently moved from Time Square to in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (Chrysler also had a big painting of his). Color me impressed.
We flew to Las Vegas on my birthday in December and the first couple of days we adjusted to the time change and spent time outside the city at Lake Meade, Valley of Fire and Hoover Dam. I would definitely go back to the Valley of Fire as we only had a few minutes to view the petroglyphs before sunset. The sheer immensity of the west coast didn’t really hit me until we visited Death Valley National Park toward the end of our trip.
Of course while we were in Las Vegas we were going to gamble. We spent most of our time at the Gold Coast off strip (for some reason I loved it and it payed better – plus it just felt more authentic with less glitz and glamour), but we did go in almost every casino on the strip and Freemont Street including: Ballys, Paris, New York New York, Excalibur, Bellagio, Mirage, Luxor, 4 Queens, the Flamingo, the Winn and Encore and I’m sure there were others.
By far, the coolest part of our trip was our final full day in the area when we visited the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada and then continued on to Death Valley National Park, CA. We ended up spending more time wandering around Rhyolite than either of us expected to so had to rush through Death Valley. We couldn’t get over all the tin cans left at Rhyolite and I thought the graveyard (not pictured) was pretty cool. Death Valley was STUNNING. Seriously, we could spend multiple days there going to see everything. The Ubehebe Crater and the Badwater Basin salt flats were incredible and both were other-worldly. The sheer difference between the super-low valley and the snow-capped peaks surrounding it made everything that much more dramatic.
And if we didn’t travel enough in November December we managed to cram in a couple of movies and live performances. The photo to the left is of the stage at Huntington Theater Company’s production of Quixote Nuevo, a modern adaptation of Cervantes seminal work full of scathing political critique and commentary. We also attended a performance of the complete Brandenburg Concertos by the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston and watched National Theater Live: Fleabag, Last Christmas, Frozen II, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in the theaters. Needless to say we’re EXHAUSTED.
What’s Next?
With 2019 wrapping up I’m working on my full recap post for the year including stats. I’m reading a publisher provided book I’ve had since June (The Cost-Benefit Revolution by Cass R. Sunstein). I’m starting to get nervous about class starting up, but thankfully, we’re not travelling for a bit and I have most of the readings already so I’m hoping to get ahead for class at least.
I’m looking forward to everyone’s 2019 recaps and 2020 projections and can’t wait to see what this new year brings!
Three cheers for the Dark Tower series! Also, James Trevino IS smoking hot. Hee!
Oh – I’m glad you’re back in time for the final Dark Tower book! I just got notification that it’s ready for me at the library, but I’ll probably have to skip this one and put it on hold again.
I am, too! I was just going back through your blog to read your reviews of the other books. O Discordia…