Just January

It occurred to me belatedly (as it always does when I start something that would benefit from having some kind of plan from the outset; the files I kept during my comps year in grad school were an embarrassment of poor labeling) that if I aim to keep up this website indefinitely, I need some way to distinguish between months from one year to the next. Obviously, my first impulse is alliteration, but none of the J-words that came to mind– jumpin'! jazzing! jousting?– really fit the vibe.

2026 got off to a fairly quiet start, but not necessarily in the "recovering from the holidays way." It felt more like holding our breaths in the hopes that nothing too major happened. I think in part we were reacting to the news, which offers new horrors every day, and in part we were remembering last January, which was when Carol's health took a turn. Normally, January weather would sort of match this mood, but the year got off to a pretty warm start before finally dropping a big snow on us in the second week. Then it warmed up again, snowed again, and warmed up again, all before the end of the month.

We took a couple of weekend trips, which helped lift our moods and get the year off to a good start in terms of skiing and food. First, we spent a weekend in Winter Park, where the boys got in two pretty good days of skiing despite the fact that many of the runs were still shut down because of the general lack of snow. Then Jeremy and I took a quick trip to Boulder to celebrate my birthday at Santo, the restaurant of Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg. Everything we had– including queso, sweet potato enchiladas, and an incredible Mexican hot chocolate bread pudding– was delicious. We stopped in Denver on the way home to have brunch at Carrie Baird's (season 15) Fox and the Hen, but the wait was too long, so we ended up at a place just up the road that luckily had both seats and good pancakes.

My birthday celebration continued with the Hairball concert that night, which was a very loud reminder that we are getting very, very old. Hairball is basically a cover band for a variety of hair and metal bands from the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. They have three vocalists who take turns performing in some impressive costumes as, to name just a few, Gene Simmons, Steve Perry, Freddie Mercury, and Axl Rose. The show was extremely fun, but our ears were ringing and my knee was killing me by the time it was over.

In other news, I Remember Mama rehearsals went into full swing. My theater kid days are coming back to me in full force now, as I try to figure out how to hold a long cigarette holder in one hand (my character is fancy) and a script in the other while pretending to sip champagne. And I made my annual fancy cake for Oscar's school's fundraising gala– orange with chocolate orange buttercream this year.

Books

• Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten: An unchallenging little memoir from a person who clearly knows her brand. That's not to say it isn't enjoyable, because she is generally an enjoyable person. And there are some good recipes tucked in among the chapters, which is a nice touch.
• Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld: I'm trying to remember if this is the first rom-com-ish book I've read that involves the pandemic. It uses COVID to good effect, as the main character and her famous musician love interest get to know each other via email in the early days of quarantine.
• Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange: I wish I had read There There first, since it turns out this is a companion to that novel, but I still found this one extremely effective– the opening chapters move at an intentionally destabilizing pace, and the relationships between past and present are examined in challenging and moving ways.

TV Shows

• The Beast in Me: I was warned that this show opens with Claire Danes's ugly cry face, and it doesn't stop there– LOTS of ugly crying and lower-lip quivering on display here. But there's also a stellar performance by Matthew Rhys, who is deeply charming and deeply chilling, and a surprisingly good turn from Brittany Snow, who I did not know had dramatic chops. Unfortunately, there are also at least three subplots that could have been shorter or cut altogether.
• Agatha Christie's The Seven Dials: This is a fun, largely lighthearted (despite all the murders) little mystery miniseries that doesn't quite justify being three episodes long. That said, I would definitely watch more episodes of Bundle and Battle.
• Fallout: I've never played the games, so I didn't really know what to expect, but this show does some excellent, efficient world-building while still allowing plenty of suspense to develop around the questions of what happened before and how we got here. (We're a whole season behind on this one.)

Movies

• The Threesome: This came out last year, but after waffling a bit, I decided it could wait for streaming, and that was a good call. It's got a charming cast and a reasonably interesting premise, but it doesn't always do much with them.
• Frankenstein: We have been meaning to watch this since November, and part of me regrets not catching it in theaters like we'd hoped to– Del Toro's visuals really do demand big screens. At the same time, his treatment of the source material is a little disappointing, both in the weird ways the Elizabeth narrative is reworked and in terms of how neatly the film boils down the themes to "who's really the monster?," which frankly could be said about roughly half of Del Toro's movies, if not more.

I haven't had a ton of time for stitching lately, between a very heavy work month and evening rehearsals, but I did finish another month in the temperature stitch (I'm all the way up to the beginning of September now!). I also did the backstitch for the Harry Potter stamped piece I was finishing for my aunt, which turned out a lot better than I expected it to when I started.