Book completed

The Familiar, by Leigh Bardugo. I had procrastinated reading this because I thought it was going to be stressful, but once I had properly started it, I found it captivating and relaxing, and I finished it in two days. It’s the 1590s in Madrid – after the failure of the Armada but Philip II is still alive. Luzia, a scullery maid, is caught doing little magical tricks. (Are they Christian miracles or works of the devil? Neither, they’re small magics from her hidden Jewish heritage). Her unhappy employer, Valentina, decides to use these talents to improve her own social life. Soon Luzia is in a competition to become the king’s new miracle worker, although the person best qualified to help her is… unusual. I enjoyed the book very much; it had a satisfying ending. I especially liked Valentina’s story arc.

After I finished, I looked online and found that people either loved the story or found it off-putting. The reasons for the latter were two-fold. Fans of her previous work didn’t think this was much like it (not an issue for me, since this is the first I’ve read by her, but I guess she’s new to historical fiction). The other issue was the language she used for her spells. I was delighted to realize that it was probably Ladino, and she explained that it was in the notes at the end, but I recognize that I’m unusual in that regard; most Americans have heard of Yiddish but have no idea about Ladino. Latino/a readers were especially annoyed with what looked to them like funky, misspelled Spanish. Maybe she could have explained better in the text that the Jews of Spain had their own language.

Wednesday catch-up

I now have an appointment for an HVAC repair technician to visit on Monday and assess the situation with my heat pump. The repair company is very busy lately – when they came to work on Monday, there were 200 voicemails awaiting them. Today I cleaned the path from my driveway to the garage and probably cut down enough additional blackberry vines; there’s still more to do in the garage. My house is definitely warmer than I’d like, but it’s probably tolerable.

I got up early to call them and even then had to wait nearly two hours to get through; as a consequence I was rather sleepy today and not ambitious. I did walk down to the park to meet J on his return from an after-work bike ride all the way to Dorris Ranch in Springfield, about 15 miles. Last week I learned that arching my back in the way one does for the bridge pose in yoga can help with the sciatica, so now I’m doing that a lot, and I think it’s helping.

I bought my car four years ago yesterday, and as of yesterday I had driven 3985 miles, which I think is cute. The dealership keeps sending me emails and text messages about getting a 30,000 mile checkup, and I’m like, nope, I drive a thousand miles a year.