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Photos, usually taken by me. May be mirrored or imported from other services.

📚 Escape Route by Cassandra Rose Clarke

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61/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The last of the three Prodigy middle-grade novels. Where the first two were set roughly during the break between the first and second half of the first season, this one is set during the gang’s shuttle trip to Earth. In need of a spare part for the shuttle, they find a mysterious moon that may have the part they need…if they’re all allowed to leave.

As with the rest, it’s another fun, quick adventure. To my (50-year-old) eyes, when reading all three back-to-back, it suffered a bit from having so many similarities to the first book, also by the same author: a search for a missing part leads the crew to a mysterious location where they get captured and have to figure out how to escape with the part they need. But for the age range these books are actually aimed at, the similarities might not be as noticeable.

Me holding Escape Route

Year 50 Day 179

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Me sitting in front of a black metal free-standing fireplace in the corner of our living room; logs are burning in the fireplace.

Day 179: With this cold snap hitting the Seattle area, it was the perfect morning to build our first fire of the season and relax with books while listening to the crackle and pop of the logs as the living room warms up.

📚 House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

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58/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I first read this just a few years after it came out, when it was very much a “thing”. A few years ago I picked up another copy and it’s been waiting for the right time for a re-read; apparently this October was the right time. I really enjoyed diving back into this. It’s definitely not something everyone will enjoy, with its multiple narrators, footnotes-within-footnotes, pseudo-academic tone for one through line, and experimental layout. But it has an incredibly effective sense of eerie, creeping dread, and the unusual structure brings the labyrinthine nature of the house into the experience of reading the story. Fascinating and perfect for the Halloween season.

Me holding House of Leaves

Year 50 Day 178

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Me in my work office, wearing a black short-sleeve button-up shirt with orange jack-o-lanterns printed on it.

Day 178: My final week-before-Halloween work shirt has Jack-o-lanterns, some wearing witch’s hats. The skeletons and skulls from earlier in the week are shirts that I wear year-round, this one is one that I’ll likely only wear close to Halloween.

Year 50 Day 177

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Me in a hospital examination room, masked, and wearing a black button-up short-sleeve shirt with large cute cartoon skulls on it.

Day 177: Back at the hospital again, but for entirely mundane reasons: time for my annual physical. I continue to be medically unremarkable. Everything looks good, all tests in normal range, nothing to report, you’re healthy, go home, come back in a year. Sounds good to me! Also, today’s pre-Halloween week work shirt: big cute (and sometimes beribboned or beflowered) skulls.

Year 50 Day 175

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Me in my office at work, wearing a black short-sleeve button-up shirt with cartoonish dancing skeletons.

Day 175: Work shirt number one (not counting yesterday, since I worked from home and wore a t-shirt) for pre-Halloween week – dancing skeletons.

Year 50 Day 174

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Me with a pile of expired COVID-19 home tests.

Day 174: Throughout the unpleasant adventures of the past few years, we’ve been very good about ordering our free COVID-19 home tests. We’ve also been good about avoiding risky situations, and so have so rarely felt ill that we’ve not used very many of them. So today, even after double-checking against the FDA’s list of updated expiration dates, I pulled out a pile of test kits that have expired. Glad we had them, glad we didn’t need (many of) them, and glad that we still have some that are good just in case we do need to test.