I read this book because *waves hands* look around. It was pretty illuminating. Not light reading, but it’s worth the effort to understand how we got to this point.
the king of shadows
I am a few years behind on Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series. I recently found out that the series is complete, so it’s time for me to wrap things up.
This book was quite good. McCammon’s books are usually pretty engrossing, and this was no exception. Matthew continues to find himself in trouble and extricate himself from said trouble. This book brought in some characters from the past, the details of which I’m kind of hazy on at this point, but that did not detract from the story.
My rating: 4/5
pour
My friend and I had planned on going to Pour on Center for pizza one Wednesday (which was pizza night), but it turns out they aren’t doing that anymore, so that was disappointing. But our server said they are going to bring it back once the weather is nice, so we’re planning on going then. Instead of pizza, I had shrimp tacos, which were quite good, and a sidecar cocktail, which was excellent. Surprisingly (for a Wednesday), we had to wait for a table. While we were waiting, my former mother-in-law and niece and her boyfriend walked through the door. That was a nice surprise! I rarely see them anymore.
martha
I watched the Netflix documentary on Martha Stewart last night and it was pretty good. As a long-time subscriber of her former magazine, it was interesting to learn more about her background.
It was also interesting to learn more about her stock trading case, which landed her in prison. I always assumed it was for insider trading, but she was not charged with that. She was basically charged with lying to the FBI about selling the stock. The way it was presented in the documentary (she received a phone call from her broker recommending that she sell the stock) didn’t seem unseemly, but who knows how things really went down? But the fact that James Comey was the prosecutor makes me think that they wanted to make an example out of her. His track record does not impress me. In my opinion, prison was overkill (she was also fined, which I think was appropriate).
But, I digress. It was heartening to witness her comeback after getting out of prison. Martha has been the authority on decorating, cooking, and gardening for as long as I can remember.
My rating: 4/5
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“If you want to be happy for a year—get married. If you want to be happy for a decade—get a dog. If you want to be happy for the rest of your life—make a garden.”
― Martha Stewart
productive weekend
Due to Thursday’s concert, I took Friday off. It probably wasn’t necessary, but I haven’t had a day off since January 1, so I figured, why not? Friday was pretty nice, so that worked out. I got to do some stuff outside, and it put me in a really good mood. But first, I had to make a trip to Home Depot to pick up supplies to replenish the dog area. I also bought new edging. The 1.5″ edging that I installed last year wasn’t cutting it (the gravel always ends up in the mulch), so I bought 2.5″. I installed that and put down the mulch and gravel. Hopefully, that will work.
I also trimmed my twig dogwood, which was getting out of hand. One of the branches had propagated itself, so I dug that up and relocated it to a different area. I also cleaned the smoker, which I haven’t been able to use for a couple of months, so it’s ready to go.
These days, weekends are for cooking, and I made a couple of recipes (some old, some new):
I’ve been working on the fake beam for the laundry room and made good progress with that this weekend. It’s now assembled and ready to be finished.
I also did the usual, such as cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, walking dogs, naps, etc.