Book completed

False Value, by Ben Aaronovitch. Rivers of London #8. This time, Peter's working in a tech company and trying to figure out whether someone is doing nefarious things with some technology supposedly invented by Babbage and Lovelace. There was a murder, but by the end of the book I'd forgotten who the murderer and victim actually were. They were kind of beside the point, though.

Book completed

Stolen Focus - Why You Can't Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari. Well. When I finally got to the middle of this book, I realized that I really liked it. It's not self-help at all - it's about systemic issues, and I loved that he found some realistic suggestions for how to improve them. However, I had some real issues with the first 30+ pages of the book, and the title, such that I started writing a blog post about the wrong directions I thought he might be heading. Then I had to return the book to the library, because I resisted continuing for so long. After about six months (waiting on the "hold" list) I got the book again, and reread those early pages, and again was tempted to stop, but I concluded it wouldn't be ethical to write a blog post saying negative things when I hadn't even finished the book. So I made myself keep going (and he's a personable and engaging writer, so it wasn't a real hardship). Then it was fine. I may still write that blog post, though...

Book completed

Catherine, Called Birdy, by Karen Cushman. It's a novel for, hm, I'd say grades 6-8. Catherine, a 12-year-old minor noblewoman in 1290, keeps a journal for a year. I wish she could have kept going!

Day 980: Friday, felt like Saturday

Let's see. Today J. took D. to the mall to upgrade his phone from iPhone 7 to iPhone 14, which was very exciting for D! When they got there, they were told it would be a two-hour wait, so they did some other shopping. I'd sent them with my phone, since I'm the "owner" of our account, and I'd charged the battery on J's old phone which now goes to my old landline number, and I carried it around with me, but I never heard it ring when they were being helped almost an hour earlier than expected and needed me to upload an image of my ID, or something - but eventually the Verizon person figured out that she could use the fact that they had my phone to let J have account owner access too. Whew!

Meanwhile, I'd gone to the Holiday Market to see S's booth for her art business - her first day there. I'm told it was going pretty well. I bought a print and a pin, and I photographed her booth so I could make a Facebook post as advertising for her. I then walked all through the Holiday Market, eventually chatting a while with the author Bill Sullivan, who got me interested in his Scandinavian archaeology series, so I bought all three of them (a fourth is in the works) and also a book about Oregon's natural disasters. He's a fun writer.

In the evening, DG came over and did some Magic practicing with J. They ordered dinner for us, too, and I had some yummy fish tacos. DG and D are both going to play in an online tournament tomorrow, and I think next weekend they're going to Portland to see if they can qualify for a big event in San Diego in the spring.