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Aug. 27th, 2017 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljGot to grips with the mop and bucket yesterday and took the kitchen and bathroom floors in hand. *so* much better now! They do get away from you sometimes. Now if I could only persuade myself to clean the oven! *shudder* apparently if you put a small bowl of ammonia in the oven overnight, it's extremely easy to clean the next day. I did buy the ammonia. I just haven't quite got there to do it, I have no ventilation in the kitchen so will have to tie something around my mouth and nose so as not to asphyxiate myself. It is still difficult because I have to get on the floor to reach into the back and there likely will be some scrubbing involved. It hurts my knees even with padding or pillows underneath. It's got to be done though.
We went out for a bite to eat last night and out for lunch today for a Corrie ping. We had borrowed Mom's car because the location of the ping has changed and it's a bit of a distance and a pain in the butt by bus. My friend picked us up before when we went to the old location but the new one is only 5 minutes from where she lives and I wouldn't expect her to drive to get us, take us to the ping and then home again after, way too far out of her way. We did an errand or two and then took the car back and are now home in our nest for the evening.
I was on call this weekend to support the tax bill generation processes over the weekend. I kept checking my work email and had my phone by my side if they needed to call me and for the first time I think in years, there was no big problem. Every year there has been something and it's different each time. I think I might have said that before. The emaiil when I got home said everything seemed to be done and he was starting up a final process which he can always cancel and rerun next weekend if need be. I'm quite pleased. I get paid an hour's wage for each of the two days so that's nice. I'd get more if I actually got called, of course. A minimum 3 hour at time and a half call out. Not complaining, I'll take the on call pay.
Finally, catching up on my book list...
Lost in September - Kathleen Winter
A young man seems to believe he's Captain James Wolfe, the soldier who was responsible for capturing Quebec from the French at the Plains of Abraham in the 18th century. Wolfe apparenly lost 13 days of leave when the UK adopted the same calendar that Europe and the Pope were using and the date jumped that many days overnight. He's trying to get it back with his yearly visits to Montreal and his attempts to visit the original battlefield in Quebec but really, he's a soldier with PTSD trying to deal with his life after war. You start to get little clues through the book and by the end you get his back story Very good book, a bit different.
The Conjoined - Jen Sookfong Lee
Jessica, a social worker, is grieving the recent loss of her mother. While helping her father clear out the house, they discover the bodies of two teenage girls in freezers in the basement. Jessica's parents used to take in foster children and these appear to be the two young girls that ran away on them nearly 20 years ago. Did Jessica's mother kill them? Jessica finds it difficult to accept that she could do something like that and keep it secret all these years. The whole story is told in flashbacks to the lives of the girls and their home, and while they were fostered.
Holding Still for as Long as Possible - Zoe Whittall
A group of twenty somethings in Toronto, most of whom are gay, lesbian or trans, some holding down jobs, some not, some breaking up with partners, some falling in love. A typical story with characters that have the same problems finding their way into adulthood as everyone. It alternates point of view mainly between three characters. I found it hard to relate to most of these characters, partly because of the generational gap between us and partly because I was not a self absorbed, party animal type, not someone so stressed that I had panic attacks, not someone who really didn't know what I wanted out of life when I was in my twenties. But I did like that the characters were mostly all not straight and that it wasn't an issue because the book wasn't about gay/trans issues, it was about people. Zoe Whittall writes some really excellent books and I believe this one won the Lamda Literary award which celebrate LGBTQ+ authors. I've read one other of hers which was shortlisted for the Giller and a host of other prizes last year, The Best Kind of People.
The Town that Drowned - Riel Nason
Ruby, age 14, falls through the ice while skating and has a vision of her town under water, with several people that float by. She is then bulled for being a freak. On top of that she has a younger brother who's "different" and though she looks after him, it only adds to her daily stress. He would be diagnosed with autism today but this takes place in the early-mid 1960s. Soon enough, the town discovers that there will be a large dam built on the Saint John River and their town will be flooded and all the inhabitants will be bought out and rehoused. The book follows what happens over the course of the next year or two as this project moves ahead, with Ruby and her family, and their friends. I really enjoyed this book!
The Chronicles of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
From the author of Anne of Green Gables comes a book of stories about the residents and inhabitants of the area around the village of Avonlea. Anne Shirley makes a few brief appearances but it's mainly not about her. The stories are lovely, not too twee and all have a happy ending.
Binary - John Lange (Michael Crichton)
An early short novella by MIchael Crichton under another name, written in 1972 just as his name was beginning to be known via The Andromeda Strain. Binary is a thriller with detectives on the chase after a man who has got his hands on the makings of a germ warfare weapon, intending on using it in San Diego during a Republican convention. Not bad, lots of action.
First Snow Last Light - Wayne Johnston
Loved this book! He wrote three books about characters in Newfoundland, one mainly about Joe Smallwood who was the first premier. In that book, a secondary character was Sheilagh Fielding, an ungainly alcoholic journalist. She was a great character. She got a book of her own in The Custodian of Paradise which I have not read. In First Snow, Last Light, a teenage Ned Vatcher comes home from school to find his house empty, parents disappeared in their car, never to be heard from again. It colours the rest of his life as he grows up and becomes a media "baron" in Newfoundland. Sheilagh Fielding and his former school coach Father Duggan are the main two friends he has and the book is told from his and Fielding's points of view over the years. I now believe that all three of these books really are about her, not the other charcters. The books are just wonderful all around, with the characters and the story drawing me in.
We went out for a bite to eat last night and out for lunch today for a Corrie ping. We had borrowed Mom's car because the location of the ping has changed and it's a bit of a distance and a pain in the butt by bus. My friend picked us up before when we went to the old location but the new one is only 5 minutes from where she lives and I wouldn't expect her to drive to get us, take us to the ping and then home again after, way too far out of her way. We did an errand or two and then took the car back and are now home in our nest for the evening.
I was on call this weekend to support the tax bill generation processes over the weekend. I kept checking my work email and had my phone by my side if they needed to call me and for the first time I think in years, there was no big problem. Every year there has been something and it's different each time. I think I might have said that before. The emaiil when I got home said everything seemed to be done and he was starting up a final process which he can always cancel and rerun next weekend if need be. I'm quite pleased. I get paid an hour's wage for each of the two days so that's nice. I'd get more if I actually got called, of course. A minimum 3 hour at time and a half call out. Not complaining, I'll take the on call pay.
Finally, catching up on my book list...
Lost in September - Kathleen Winter
A young man seems to believe he's Captain James Wolfe, the soldier who was responsible for capturing Quebec from the French at the Plains of Abraham in the 18th century. Wolfe apparenly lost 13 days of leave when the UK adopted the same calendar that Europe and the Pope were using and the date jumped that many days overnight. He's trying to get it back with his yearly visits to Montreal and his attempts to visit the original battlefield in Quebec but really, he's a soldier with PTSD trying to deal with his life after war. You start to get little clues through the book and by the end you get his back story Very good book, a bit different.
The Conjoined - Jen Sookfong Lee
Jessica, a social worker, is grieving the recent loss of her mother. While helping her father clear out the house, they discover the bodies of two teenage girls in freezers in the basement. Jessica's parents used to take in foster children and these appear to be the two young girls that ran away on them nearly 20 years ago. Did Jessica's mother kill them? Jessica finds it difficult to accept that she could do something like that and keep it secret all these years. The whole story is told in flashbacks to the lives of the girls and their home, and while they were fostered.
Holding Still for as Long as Possible - Zoe Whittall
A group of twenty somethings in Toronto, most of whom are gay, lesbian or trans, some holding down jobs, some not, some breaking up with partners, some falling in love. A typical story with characters that have the same problems finding their way into adulthood as everyone. It alternates point of view mainly between three characters. I found it hard to relate to most of these characters, partly because of the generational gap between us and partly because I was not a self absorbed, party animal type, not someone so stressed that I had panic attacks, not someone who really didn't know what I wanted out of life when I was in my twenties. But I did like that the characters were mostly all not straight and that it wasn't an issue because the book wasn't about gay/trans issues, it was about people. Zoe Whittall writes some really excellent books and I believe this one won the Lamda Literary award which celebrate LGBTQ+ authors. I've read one other of hers which was shortlisted for the Giller and a host of other prizes last year, The Best Kind of People.
The Town that Drowned - Riel Nason
Ruby, age 14, falls through the ice while skating and has a vision of her town under water, with several people that float by. She is then bulled for being a freak. On top of that she has a younger brother who's "different" and though she looks after him, it only adds to her daily stress. He would be diagnosed with autism today but this takes place in the early-mid 1960s. Soon enough, the town discovers that there will be a large dam built on the Saint John River and their town will be flooded and all the inhabitants will be bought out and rehoused. The book follows what happens over the course of the next year or two as this project moves ahead, with Ruby and her family, and their friends. I really enjoyed this book!
The Chronicles of Avonlea - L.M. Montgomery
From the author of Anne of Green Gables comes a book of stories about the residents and inhabitants of the area around the village of Avonlea. Anne Shirley makes a few brief appearances but it's mainly not about her. The stories are lovely, not too twee and all have a happy ending.
Binary - John Lange (Michael Crichton)
An early short novella by MIchael Crichton under another name, written in 1972 just as his name was beginning to be known via The Andromeda Strain. Binary is a thriller with detectives on the chase after a man who has got his hands on the makings of a germ warfare weapon, intending on using it in San Diego during a Republican convention. Not bad, lots of action.
First Snow Last Light - Wayne Johnston
Loved this book! He wrote three books about characters in Newfoundland, one mainly about Joe Smallwood who was the first premier. In that book, a secondary character was Sheilagh Fielding, an ungainly alcoholic journalist. She was a great character. She got a book of her own in The Custodian of Paradise which I have not read. In First Snow, Last Light, a teenage Ned Vatcher comes home from school to find his house empty, parents disappeared in their car, never to be heard from again. It colours the rest of his life as he grows up and becomes a media "baron" in Newfoundland. Sheilagh Fielding and his former school coach Father Duggan are the main two friends he has and the book is told from his and Fielding's points of view over the years. I now believe that all three of these books really are about her, not the other charcters. The books are just wonderful all around, with the characters and the story drawing me in.
