Hoping everyone has an excellent long weekend here in the US, but also hoping we‘ll take the time to remember and honor the fallen. 🇺🇸

So according to the neighborhood gossip, another neighbor says that drug dealers are hanging out on the corner by my LFL. Y‘know, sittin‘ on thé bench, doing drug deals.
I‘m a little chagrined that they don‘t seem to be leaving me books.?
Also: every night on our way into the house after walking the dogs, we check the LFL. No drugs, ever! What gives??

This certainly hit home this weekend. ❤️🤍💙

Amusing myself this afternoon paging through this old cookbook that I got for Mother‘s Day. Pearson was the quintessential New Englander - practical, humble, friendly, but not overly so. Reminds me of my grandfather, who was his contemporary. Many somewhat sexist references to men/women in the kitchen, but that‘s the 19050s for you.
Cooking was a different animal then - I will NOT be making anything I have to steam for three hours! 😆

For the IRL book group. Doing the immersive reading thing w/ book AND audio. Dominic Hoffman does the narration, and is just as terrific as he was with Deacon King Kong. I love the cover, reminiscent of Jacob Lawrence‘s work. ❤️

If you have an active DOD ID, you can add the MWR library to Libby! Pretty cool.
I now have 14 library cards in Libby, yet that somehow does not feel like enough. 😋

https://army.dodmwrlibraries.org/add-our-library-libby

A collaborative novel along the lines of The Decameron, though with less rigid framing. The residents of an apt building in NYC escape to the roof to get outside in the first weeks of the pandemic lockdown. The price of admission is a story. The fun part for me is trying to guess which author wrote which stories, which is (apparently) at the end of the book.
Really enjoying this so far.

“Every dubious bit of whatnottery “ made me laugh.

Goes First makes me laugh. Just, you know, she COULD.

Look! Winnie is a Bark Ranger!

I don‘t dress my dogs up, really. My daughter got a new shirt for work and thought Winnifred should try it on. I was amused at how well it fit. 😂
#dogsoflitsy #pibble

Goes First, a young Crow woman, marries a white fur trader in 1872. They make the long journey to Saskatchewan to set up a trading post. They are about to return to Montana when a bunch of drunk whiskey traders attacks and kills 40 Nakota and take five Nakota women back to their fort. Goes First‘s husband will not go to rescue them, so she does.

Elinor Rochdale travels by stagecoach to work as governess for one Mrs Macclesfield. Met by a servant who asks if she is the young lady ‘come down from London in answer to the advertisement‘, Elinor is. packed into the carriage and she is on her way...to the wrong place, where she marries a man she‘s never met, who‘s dead before morning.
That Heyer makes this work is amazing. I loved this gothic comedy of errors, with the best guard dog ever. 🖤

It is entirely possible that I will umami myself to death.
Puréed the preserved lemons I made (from the Meyer lemons that grew on my tiny tree) to make preserved lemon paste.
Paired with Kerrygold Dubliners cheese on a pretzel cracker, it is divine.
Directions for preserved lemons from Alice Waters‘s My Pantry. #mtcookbook

Why it is imperative that I determine whether or not I like Heyer‘s writing RIGHT NOW.
I got them all free from the Buy Nothing group, but I can‘t have them taking up valuable book space if I‘m not going to read them.
They are amusing 1970´s paperbacks, though. The covers! ?

1. Tag a favorite mystery you‘ve read
Louise Penny is fan-freaking-tastic. I still think about this one.

2.What‘s your favorite way to prepare eggs?
Scramble them & add to sautéed scallions in the pan, then don‘t touch them When they‘re halfway cooked throw a buttered tortilla on top, then flip the whole thing over til the eggs are cooked & the tortilla‘s toasted. Roll it up and eat. Mmmmmmmm.

#nationaleggmonthchallenge
@WildAlaskaBibliophile

My first Heyer. Will it be the first of many, or the last? Stay tuned.

Look, the only way I can explain this is that my parents were divorced and my dad loved movies, so that‘s what we did on weekends. The man bought a BETAMAX for goodness sakes!
This also explains why I watch so few movies now. I‘ve seen 2 this year. 😂

#TLT
#threelistthursday
@dabbe

Lemon basil is having none of your nonsense, missy!

I bought a copy of this book when it came out in 1992-in a bookstore! Without computer assistance!- then purged it at some point among our many military moves. This year‘s herbs springing up made me think of it, so obviously I had to buy another copy. 😄

I‘m not Catholic, but I grew up in an area that was VERY Catholic, so I was familiar with the basics of modern day Catholicism. What Agata goes through to avoid being used in the financial plans of her family, and the plotting of the church, is astounding. I enjoyed watching her grow even while cloistered, and learning the many reasons one might become a nun at that time. Well done, though the ending was a bit abrupt for me.
#nunlitquarterly

Tired of being confused w/ Naomi Wolf (90s era feminist, now a conspiracy loving schmoozer of the far right) Klein explores the almost-but-w/-a-dark-side doubling that‘s happening across society now, largely thanks to info overload, mistrust of authority and the rise of"personal branding" which is being exploited by the "far right and the far out" for ?,power,& political gain. Scary stuff but now I understand anti-vaxxers motivations. Kind of.

Read along with the 2003 production with Paul Neuman (because I loved him and he and Joanne Woodward used to stay at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires when my brother was a manager there) as the Stage Manager. The intro to this edition listed the other popular Broadway shows running at the same time - none endured as this one has.
I‘d never seen it, but wanted to before I dove in to Tom Lake. Lotta deep thoughts now.

Epilogue C3

When they began to fill in the grave, he suddenly began to point worriedly at the falling earth…and he suddenly fell quiet. At that point they reminded him that he must crumble the crust of bread, and he grew terribly agitated, whipped out the crust and began to break it in his fingers, throwing the morsels about the little grave: ‘Now come flying, little birds, now come flying, little sparrows!‘ he muttered, worriedly.

Eclipse with collander and dog nose

Epilogue, C2

‘Well, so this is what I have decided, Alyosha, listen!‘ he began again, having suppressed his excitement. ‘Grusha and I will go there – and at once we shall till the land, work, with the wild bears, in solitude, somewhere as far away as possible. After all, there too there will be a place that is far away!"

#MatryoshkaBros

Epilogue, 1

On the fifth day after Mitya‘s trial, very early in the morning, Alyosha arrived at Katerina Ivanovna‘s house in order to come to a final arrangement concerning a certain important matter and, in addition, with an errand to discuss with her. She sat and talked with him in that same room where once she had received Grushenka; near by, in the next room, Ivan Fyodorovich lay in acute fever and unconscious.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C14

Up aloft, in the gallery, in the very furthest corner there resounded a piercing woman‘s wail: it was Grushenka. She had earlier gone to someone with entreaties, and had been readmitted to the chamber before the onset of the judicial pleadings. Mitya was led away.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C13

Here the orator was interrupted by clapping that was uncontainable and almost frenzied. Of course, not all the chamber applauded, but all the same a half of the chamber applauded. The fathers and mothers applauded. From above, where the ladies sat, came shrieks and cries. Handkerchiefs were waved. The chairman began with all his might to ring the bell.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C12

"But above all, above all I am troubled, driven out of myself by the thought that of all the mass of facts that the prosecution has heaped on the defendant, there is not a single one that is in any way precise or irrefutable, and that the unhappy man is going to perish solely on account of the combined weight of those facts."

#MatryoshkaBros

I now have the first cold I‘ve had since before Covid. Ugh. All I want to do is drink tea and read this new Margaret Atwood story, but *someone* is of the opinion that my presence is required outside to play ball. Double ugh, pup!

B12C11

By a computation of time it was proven that the defendant, having run out of the kitchen…was in the constant company of others, and so could not have divided the three thousand and hidden it somewhere in the town. It was this that that formed the grounds for the prosecutor‘s assumption that the money was hidden in some cleft or crevice in Mokroye. Why, might it not indeed be in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho?

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C10

But psychology,though it is a deep thing, resembles a stick with two ends‘…But here is an example.The defendant, running away at night, climbs the fence and casts down by a blow from a brass pestle the lackey who has seized him by the leg. Thereupon he immediately leaps back into the garden and spends an entire five minutes troubling himself over the man whom he has cast down, to find out whether he has killed him or not.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C9

Much frenzy, wild Karamazovian unrestraint and emotionality– & also something more, something that clamours in the heart; that something is conscience, its terrible gnawings! But the pistol is the only way out – I do not know whether Karamazov thought about “what will be there”, and is Karamazov capable of thinking, in Hamletian style, about what will be there? No,other lands have Hamlets, but ours has only Karamazovs!‘
#MatryoshkaBros

B12C8

‘but others, too, have testified to the same thing: the defendant himself, his brother and even the manservant Grigory, all those who might be expected to have known him most intimately. In addition to his being dispirited by the falling sickness, Smerdyakov was “cowardly as a hen”. “He fell at my feet and kissed them,” the defendant informed us, “he is a hen with the falling sickness”

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C7

And indeed, behind this letter there lies a programme and premeditation. It is known to us that two whole days before the execution of his terrible design, the defendant declared that if he did not obtain the money he would kill his father & take the money from under his pillow “if only Ivan has gone away”. Here it was all considered – and what do we see: the whole thing was subsequently executed as if out of a book!

#MayryoshkaBros

B12C6

Ippolit Kirillovich began his speech for the prosecution feeling chill and fever by turns in all his body. He later described it thus. He considered this speech the chef d‘oeuvre of his entire life, his swansong. To be sure, nine months later he died of an acute consumption, and had he had an early premonition of his end, he really would with justification have been able to compare himself to a swan singing its final song.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C5

She betrayed Mitya, but also betrayed herself! And, it goes without saying, no sooner had she succeeded in speaking her mind than the tension snapped and she was crushed by shame. Again her hysterics began, and she fell down, sobbing and screaming. She was carried out. At the moment she was carried out, with a howl Grushenka rushed towards Mitya from her place before anyone could manage to restrain her.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C4

The questioning of Katerina Ivanovna began. As soon as she made her appearance there was an unusual stir in the chamber. The ladies seized their lorgnettes and opera-glasses, the men began to show some signs of life, and several stood up in order to see better. Everyone subsequently asserted that Mitya had gone ‘as white as a sheet‘ as soon as she came in.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C3
I felt sorry for the boy, and I asked myself: why do I not buy him one pound … Now let me see, yes, a pound of what? I have forgotten what they are called,‘ the doctor said. ‘They grow on trees, and then are picked and given as presents …‘ ‘Apples?‘ ‘Oh, n-n-o-o! No, there are many of them, and they are all small,one puts them in the mouth and Kr-r-rach! …‘ ‘Nuts?‘ ‘Yes, nuts, that is what I am saying,‘ the doctor confirmed

#MatryoshkaBros

Having read Doyle‘s original recently, this feminist take on Sherlock is a delight. The social conditions necessitating the ruse are not.

B12C2

In his questioning of Rakitin, the defence counsel deployed his resources with the same considerable skill. Rakitin was a most important witness, and one whom the public procurator valued greatly. It turned out that Rakitin knew everything, an extraordinary amount, had been to visit everyone, seen everything, spoken to everyone, and possessed a most detailed knowledge of Fyodor Pavlovich and all the Karamazovs.

#MatryoshkaBros

B12C1
In the centre of the chamber stood a table of ‘material evidence‘. On it lay the bloodied white silk dressing-gown of Fyodor Pavlovich, the fateful brass pestle, Mitya‘s shirt with its blood-bespattered sleeve, the handkerchief, now quite stiff with blood, the envelope with the inscription in which Grushenka‘s 3000 had been kept, the slender ribbon in which it had been tied, and other various objects I do not recall.

#MatryoshkaBros

Reading for a long standing (since Shelfari days!!!) virtual book group. Really, really enjoying this one. Dean Atta narrates and does a fantastic job.

B11C10

Ivan allowed himself to be led over to the bed, Alyosha somehow managed to get his clothes off and make him lie down. He remained sitting over him for another hour or two. The sick man slept deeply, without movement, his breath coming quietly and evenly. Alyosha picked up a pillow and lay down on the sofa without undressing. As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and for Ivan.

##MatryoshkaBros

B11 C9

Someone, God knew how he had entered, for he had not been in the room when Ivan Fyodorovich had entered it, had suddenly turned out to be sitting there. He was some kind of Russian ‘gentleman‘…no longer young in years, and looked as though he belonged to the class of former lily-fingered landowners who flourished in the days of serfdom; but gradually having turned, as it were, into a kind of sponge…

#MatryoshkaBros

B11C8

Ivan stepped into the room. It was heated just as fiercely, but several changes were noticeable:there had appeared a large, old, leather-covered sofa. On it a bed had been made up with white pillows. On the bedding sat Smerdyakov, still wearing his dressing-gown. The table had been drawn up to the sofa…On the table lay a fat book in a yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it; he seemed to be sitting doing nothing.

#MatryoshkaBros

B11C7

The walls were resplendent with blue wallpaper, all of it torn,and in the cracks there swarmed cockroaches which made an incessant rustling…There were two chairs beside a table…On the table stood a samovar and a tray on which there were two cups. He was sitting at the table on one of the benches and, looking at an exercise book,was scrawling something with a pen. A bottle of ink stood alongside,together with a candlestick.

#MatryoshkaBros

B11C6

Ivan Fyodorovich was unquestionably convinced that Smerdyakov was in a state of complete & extreme morbidity: he was very weak & spoke slowly, as though it were difficult for him to move his tongue; he had lost a great deal of weight and his skin had a yellow appearance…he kept complaining of headache & pain in all his limbs. His dried-up face seemed to have become much smaller, his sidewhiskers were matted…

#MatryoshkaBros

B11C5

‘Well, in any case, that will do,‘ Ivan cut in. ‘I am going now. I shall return tomorrow.‘ And he walked out of the room and without further ado descended the stairs. Katerina Ivanovna suddenly seized Alyosha by both hands. ‘Please go after him! Do not leave him alone for a single moment,‘ she whispered rapidly. ‘He is mad. Do you not know that he has gone mad? He has a fever, a nerve fever! The doctor told me, now go …‘

#MatryoshkaBros

As others have said, this is an incredible novel, & Berest has captured what it must have been like to live through the Holocaust in Europe, surviving from day to day, the heart pounding terror of near escapes and the numbing sameness of hiding/not drawing attention, of not knowing what has happened to family & friends, but holding out hope that they‘re still out there, somewhere. Terrifying and devastating in equal measure.
#EuropaCollective