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Last evening of my summer...
Aug. 18th, 2019 06:54 pmI haven't done a lot. But I am not experiencing the Sunday night blues, because we don't have students tomorrow, just meetings. "Professional Development", which about 95% of the time is godawful worthless stuff you could communicate by email. Then, Tuesday, setting up my room. I will try very hard not to make any copies. I'm generally good all year at getting by without making copies. Mostly.
What have I done?
I made the muesli I first started making after I came back from my junior year abroad, having encountered non-sweetened commercial muesli in Britain, in 1986, and loved it. For a long time, it was a reliable breakfast, but I don't think I've had (or made) it for... at least four years? Maybe a lot more. I fucking swear to god I am going to eat breakfast this year and not a) skip it, or b) buy it at Starbucks.
Muesli: (note; there are no measurements in this 'recipe')
1. A LOT of rolled oat flakes.
2. A lot fewer rolled wheat flakes or rye flakes or something...
3. a lot of roasted sunflower seeds (better if you roast the raw, unsalted ones yourself, in a cast iron skillet... but commercially roasted and even salted works okay)
4. a lesser amount but still a lot of pecan bits
5. golden raisins.
Mix.
I think I occasionally put dried cranberries or date bits in, but I like this mix best. With 4% plain yoghurt (full fat yoghurt, in other words) and some honey, this is delicious and long-lastingly satisfying.
I have not done laundry yet, but I will.
I thought about writing in here on the subject of my Reading Guilty Pleasures. I definitely have them. I am not completely indiscriminate in what I like to read... but I am somewhat indiscriminate. Often these are books I first read when I was in middle school or high school, somewhat randomly accumulated in the many, many bookshelves in our apartment.
So. Books I Have Read (and in Many Cases, Still Read) that are Pretty Much Guilty Pleasures, Especially Politically.
Anne McCaffrey -- her Dragons of Pern series and everything else she wrote. I am pretty sure I have read (and reread, and reread) literally everything she ever wrote. But I have to say, if you ever liked her or think about reading her... avoid the hell out of her son's continuation of the series. Todd McCaffrey is fucking NUTS. Also very into poly, from what seems like a super cis hetmale point of view. I mean, Anne McCaffrey implied and at some points finally even just stated that some dragonriders were definitely gay (the ones who rode green dragons). But Todd has some obsessions about dragonriders and their sex lives.
Of her other series (plural)... I liked the Killashandra Ree books because one thing McCaffrey did well was write women characters who are kind of arrogant and not very nice. It was refreshing.
Jean M. Auel... oh, ludicrous Cro Magnon inventions by one woman of everything ever, from flint fire strikers to domesticated horses and wolves, from the atl-atl, to the travois. But I was hooked on this fictional depiction of the cultural and physical overlap of Cro Magnon (homo sapiens sapiens) and Neanderthals (homo neandertalensis) from the beginning, no matter how self-indulgent it became by the end (... or is it the end? Auel is still alive, and could still wind up a few dangling plot ends in another 900 or so pages...). Possibly most embarrassing part: her whole payoff after all this Mother Goddess stuff is that humans realize that it takes a MAN to impregnate a WOMAN, so children are descended from men, too, who now will suddenly want to control reproduction. I am not sure if this was Engels' line. Maybe it was. I should reread the Origins of the Family.
Dick Francis I am actually rereading my favorites of this extremely prolific author's mysteries right now. He wrote literally a hundred (maybe not quite that many) formulaic books about straight white upper class British men involved either directly or indirectly with horse racing, who encounter chicanery and violence and stiff-upper-lipedly overcome said baddies with their virtue and Old Fashioned Manliness. Yes, I am guilty about liking any of these. My grandmother read them too, though I probably went further into the 2000s than she did with him. Well, partly because she died in 2002, I guess. My favorite titles, in no particular order: Proof, where a wineseller solves a mystery about stolen scotch and forged wine labels (the horse connection is pretty tenuous in this one); Straight, where a jockey inherits his brother's gems business on his death, and hunts missing diamonds; Flying Finish, where a disregarded "failure" scion of a toff-y family (this is a common trope of his) gets involved in a Cold War mystery that involves exporting horses, flying planes, and Italian contraceptives smuggling (published in, I think, 1964?) (ish?); Banker, where an investment banker (you SEE the cause of guilt, here?!) finds skullduggery among horsebreeders... this one is good because there is a lot about brood mares and retired racehorses, and bad because there is a needless death of a sympathetic character; Twice Shy, about a math teacher who accidentally gets involved with a statistics-based betting scheme, and the violence that flows from that, and then how it boomerangs and also affects the math teacher's younger brother, who buys Irish foals for rich people; and Reflex, where a jockey is getting close to being too old for jump racing and gets mixed up in a photos and blackmail scheme -- along with digging into his youth, when his rich but drug addled young single mother abandoned him. You can tell I am rereading these because I have too much to say about them right now. Francis was clearly a Tory; clearly a favorite of the Queen's (seriously); and clearly a sexist, racist, etc., in that starchy upper class way. And I still enjoy reading him!
Jeffrey Archer Speaking of Tories. I don't actually reread Jeffrey Archer... except once in a while, As the Crow Flies about a self-made barrow boy. And incest. But it's... it's popcorn reading. And I've read a lot of his.
Colleen McCullough... not The Thornbirds or some other similar one. Just her historical novels. She's super gross -- was super gross -- on defending Pitcairn rapists. But, oh, her First Man in Rome series... I learned a lot reading all of those. And I fucking love Morgan's Run, her partly family history novel about transportation and the founding of Australia. I really wanted a sequel to that. I hope you don't hate me now, ironed-orchid!
Judith Krantz. Scruples was my generation's Forever, in that we all passed it around to read the sex scenes, in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I read that one, and also Princess Daisy -- ESPECIALLY guilty, because it's not only chick lit about wealthy, wealthy people, but one of them is a fucking White Russian! But that is one of those books whose plot I know so well (also true of Jean Auel, Anne McCaffrey, and obvs. Dick Francis) that I can retell the stories at great, great length... much as Bobby Sands did in the Maze when he retold, from memory, Leon Uris' Trinity, which probably really belongs on this list of mine.
And, I think last but worst: Tom Clancy... yeah, I know. I hate all of his books except The Hunt for Red October (it's about submarines... I am absolutely a sucker for submarines... and Cold War stories, like the movie Red Dawn) (TV movie? Was it? I don't remember. Wolverines!) and Red Storm Rising which imagined a survivable World War III with no nukes. That was kind of reassuring to read in the mid 80s. All his other sickening novels, faugh.
So there you have it. I bet there are more, actually, but enough for now...
What have I done?
I made the muesli I first started making after I came back from my junior year abroad, having encountered non-sweetened commercial muesli in Britain, in 1986, and loved it. For a long time, it was a reliable breakfast, but I don't think I've had (or made) it for... at least four years? Maybe a lot more. I fucking swear to god I am going to eat breakfast this year and not a) skip it, or b) buy it at Starbucks.
Muesli: (note; there are no measurements in this 'recipe')
1. A LOT of rolled oat flakes.
2. A lot fewer rolled wheat flakes or rye flakes or something...
3. a lot of roasted sunflower seeds (better if you roast the raw, unsalted ones yourself, in a cast iron skillet... but commercially roasted and even salted works okay)
4. a lesser amount but still a lot of pecan bits
5. golden raisins.
Mix.
I think I occasionally put dried cranberries or date bits in, but I like this mix best. With 4% plain yoghurt (full fat yoghurt, in other words) and some honey, this is delicious and long-lastingly satisfying.
I have not done laundry yet, but I will.
I thought about writing in here on the subject of my Reading Guilty Pleasures. I definitely have them. I am not completely indiscriminate in what I like to read... but I am somewhat indiscriminate. Often these are books I first read when I was in middle school or high school, somewhat randomly accumulated in the many, many bookshelves in our apartment.
So. Books I Have Read (and in Many Cases, Still Read) that are Pretty Much Guilty Pleasures, Especially Politically.
Anne McCaffrey -- her Dragons of Pern series and everything else she wrote. I am pretty sure I have read (and reread, and reread) literally everything she ever wrote. But I have to say, if you ever liked her or think about reading her... avoid the hell out of her son's continuation of the series. Todd McCaffrey is fucking NUTS. Also very into poly, from what seems like a super cis hetmale point of view. I mean, Anne McCaffrey implied and at some points finally even just stated that some dragonriders were definitely gay (the ones who rode green dragons). But Todd has some obsessions about dragonriders and their sex lives.
Of her other series (plural)... I liked the Killashandra Ree books because one thing McCaffrey did well was write women characters who are kind of arrogant and not very nice. It was refreshing.
Jean M. Auel... oh, ludicrous Cro Magnon inventions by one woman of everything ever, from flint fire strikers to domesticated horses and wolves, from the atl-atl, to the travois. But I was hooked on this fictional depiction of the cultural and physical overlap of Cro Magnon (homo sapiens sapiens) and Neanderthals (homo neandertalensis) from the beginning, no matter how self-indulgent it became by the end (... or is it the end? Auel is still alive, and could still wind up a few dangling plot ends in another 900 or so pages...). Possibly most embarrassing part: her whole payoff after all this Mother Goddess stuff is that humans realize that it takes a MAN to impregnate a WOMAN, so children are descended from men, too, who now will suddenly want to control reproduction. I am not sure if this was Engels' line. Maybe it was. I should reread the Origins of the Family.
Dick Francis I am actually rereading my favorites of this extremely prolific author's mysteries right now. He wrote literally a hundred (maybe not quite that many) formulaic books about straight white upper class British men involved either directly or indirectly with horse racing, who encounter chicanery and violence and stiff-upper-lipedly overcome said baddies with their virtue and Old Fashioned Manliness. Yes, I am guilty about liking any of these. My grandmother read them too, though I probably went further into the 2000s than she did with him. Well, partly because she died in 2002, I guess. My favorite titles, in no particular order: Proof, where a wineseller solves a mystery about stolen scotch and forged wine labels (the horse connection is pretty tenuous in this one); Straight, where a jockey inherits his brother's gems business on his death, and hunts missing diamonds; Flying Finish, where a disregarded "failure" scion of a toff-y family (this is a common trope of his) gets involved in a Cold War mystery that involves exporting horses, flying planes, and Italian contraceptives smuggling (published in, I think, 1964?) (ish?); Banker, where an investment banker (you SEE the cause of guilt, here?!) finds skullduggery among horsebreeders... this one is good because there is a lot about brood mares and retired racehorses, and bad because there is a needless death of a sympathetic character; Twice Shy, about a math teacher who accidentally gets involved with a statistics-based betting scheme, and the violence that flows from that, and then how it boomerangs and also affects the math teacher's younger brother, who buys Irish foals for rich people; and Reflex, where a jockey is getting close to being too old for jump racing and gets mixed up in a photos and blackmail scheme -- along with digging into his youth, when his rich but drug addled young single mother abandoned him. You can tell I am rereading these because I have too much to say about them right now. Francis was clearly a Tory; clearly a favorite of the Queen's (seriously); and clearly a sexist, racist, etc., in that starchy upper class way. And I still enjoy reading him!
Jeffrey Archer Speaking of Tories. I don't actually reread Jeffrey Archer... except once in a while, As the Crow Flies about a self-made barrow boy. And incest. But it's... it's popcorn reading. And I've read a lot of his.
Colleen McCullough... not The Thornbirds or some other similar one. Just her historical novels. She's super gross -- was super gross -- on defending Pitcairn rapists. But, oh, her First Man in Rome series... I learned a lot reading all of those. And I fucking love Morgan's Run, her partly family history novel about transportation and the founding of Australia. I really wanted a sequel to that. I hope you don't hate me now, ironed-orchid!
Judith Krantz. Scruples was my generation's Forever, in that we all passed it around to read the sex scenes, in the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I read that one, and also Princess Daisy -- ESPECIALLY guilty, because it's not only chick lit about wealthy, wealthy people, but one of them is a fucking White Russian! But that is one of those books whose plot I know so well (also true of Jean Auel, Anne McCaffrey, and obvs. Dick Francis) that I can retell the stories at great, great length... much as Bobby Sands did in the Maze when he retold, from memory, Leon Uris' Trinity, which probably really belongs on this list of mine.
And, I think last but worst: Tom Clancy... yeah, I know. I hate all of his books except The Hunt for Red October (it's about submarines... I am absolutely a sucker for submarines... and Cold War stories, like the movie Red Dawn) (TV movie? Was it? I don't remember. Wolverines!) and Red Storm Rising which imagined a survivable World War III with no nukes. That was kind of reassuring to read in the mid 80s. All his other sickening novels, faugh.
So there you have it. I bet there are more, actually, but enough for now...
