First Lines: October 2026 edition

Books and socks. 
A good life includes both.

 

My October reading included 3 children’s/YA books, mostly as a cure for one of the adult books I had to read.  The non-children’s books included a great deal of bullying and abuse.  

Book 1

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.  Again.  That’s the thing about things.  They fall apart, always have, always will, it’s in their nature.

 

Book 2

Louisa is a teenager, the best kind of human.  The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don’t think that teenagers are the best humans are adults.  Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.

A visual hint to the resident 
teenagers, from the parent.

 

 

Book 3

Part I: “On the Eve of War” Poland 1939

“Anna!...Anna, wake up!...Wake up!” urged Mrs. Malek, shaking her daughter’s arm.   “We must leave at once.  Hurry!  Get dressed.  Take your heavy coat.  Nothing else.  Hurry!”

 

 

Book 4

Mrs. Bantry was dreaming.  Her sweet peas had just taken a First at the flower show.  The vicar, dressed in cassock and surplice, was giving out the prizes in church.

 

The geranium room at The Phipps,
July 2016.  

Book 5

Part One: The Past

This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself.

I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off, like usual.

 

 

Book 6

It was a September morning, hazy with late summer, and now with all the years between.  Mother was seeing me off at Dearborn Station in Chicago.

 

Book 7

At Nutmouse Hall, the day had begun much like any other.  Nutmeg had leaped out of bed at dawn and raced downstairs to bustle and bake and clean.  And Tumtum had stayed tucked up under the covers until he heard the bell ring for breakfast.

Did Not Finish

Such, Such were the Joys…

Soon after I arrived at Crossgates (not Immediately, but after a week or two, just when I seemed to be settling into the routine of school life) I began wetting my bed.  I was now aged eight, so that this was a reversion to a habit which I must have grown out of at least four years earlier.

 

The titles and authors revealed:

 

 

Book 1

Autumn (Seasonal Quartet #1)

By Ali Smith

264 pages • first pub 2016

fiction contemporary literary

The writing is marvelous but is mostly in a stream of consciousness style, which required a bit more concentration than I have at the moment (as I write this, 31 days until Election Day).  Or maybe it is magical realism.  Or both.  I appreciated the characters and the puns.  There is almost no plot to keep track of, but there are revelations.  This may be the only book I have read that directly mentions Brexit and its consequences.  There is an in depth portrait of a real artist of the time.

I will probably try to read the next one in this series, but not in the next 31 days.

Autumn, as seen while canvassing.
October 29, 2026

 

Book 2

My Friends

By Fredrik Backman with Neil Smith (Translator)

448 pages • first pub 2025

fiction contemporary literary

What if we would strive to set a record for the kindest thing we said to every other person?  

The book is a good story, but it is… a long story.  You have to put up with the author’s penchant to withhold a major detail of a major character.  Because of the humor, the reader is able to gain some emotional distance from the violence described.  The purpose of art is a prominent theme.

Content warning: domestic abuse, alcoholism, bullying, and other violence.  I read it for both book clubs, in Oct and Dec.  While both this book and Book 5 included large amounts of domestic abuse, I enjoyed this one a great deal more than Book 5 (which I also read for book club). 

 

 

Book 3

The Crèche of Krakow

By Harvey Hirsch and Audrey Hirsch

46 pages • first pub 1988

fiction children’s historical religion

A charming and satisfying if improbable story for children.  This is for the Page Turners book club in December.  I managed to find a copy on (gasp) Amazon, but I believe the book is out of print.  

 

 

Book 4

The Body in the Library

By Agatha Christie

BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation

Approx 1 hour.  

In book form: 191 pages • first pub 1942

Miss Marple #2

fiction classics crime mystery

Listening to this dramatisation loosely counts as reading an audio book.  I listened after watching the recent PBS episode.  I was curious if the twist at the end of the PBS episode was in the original book.  Would have preferred to read rather than listen, but the audio was the only version my library had available in the moment.

I remember in my youth trying to read Miss Marple mysteries and being bored, well, to death.  But these days I’m all in on an elderly British lady sleuth.

 

 

Book 5

Yesteryear

By Caro Claire Burke

391 pages • 2026

fiction literary thriller

I will just be honest: I did not enjoy reading this book.  Not at all.  I read it for book club on Nov 17th, and finished it because I will probably have to lead the discussion.

 

 

Book 6

A Year Down Yonder (A Long Way from Chicago #2)

By Richard Peck

160 pages • first pub 2000 

fiction historical middle-grade

I needed an antidote to Yesteryear, and fortunately this book was available.  I enjoyed it.  Grandma is a hoot!  Outhouses feature prominently. There is not much depth to the characters but this book was exactly what I needed in the moment.  I haven’t read the first one.  

Outhouse on the Airline Road, Maine, 2015.

 

Book 7

Tumtum and Nutmeg: The Great Escape (#2 in the series)

By Emily Bearn

221 pages • 2008  

fiction middle-grade

It was okay, not great.  This was meant to be another antidote to Book #5.  I was annoyed by the fact that the wife mouse did all the labor while the husband mouse mostly sat around.  I would have preferred to read the first one in the series (had a slightly better rating on Storygraph) but it was not available immediately.   

 

DNF

A Collection of Essays

George Orwell

336 pages • first pub 1941  

nonfiction classics essays politics

In the middle of the first essay, I had to pause reading, because I couldn’t read about the cruel life of a British boarding school.  (My father attended a British boarding school in India.  He did have tales of headmasters beating students, but none of student-on-student violence.)  I resumed and managed to finish the first essay before the library snatched it off my kindle.

Quote:

There never was, I suppose, in the history of the world a time when the sheer vulgar fatness of wealth, without any kind of aristocratic elegance to redeem it, was so obtrusive as in those years before 1914.  It was the age when crazy millionaires in curly top hats and lavender waistcoats gave champagne parties in rococo houseboats on the Thames, the age of diabolo and hobble skirts, the age of the “knut” in his grey bowler and cutaway coat, the age of The Merry Widow, Saki’s novels, Peter Pan and Where the Rainbow Ends, the age when people talked about chocs and cigs and ripping and topping and heavenly, when they went for divvy weekends at Brighton and had scrumptious teas and the Troc.

- page 33

 

Now it’s your turn.  What have you been reading lately?

Another clear fall day in 2026

That'll Do, Pig

 It is satisfying to report that several Common Household tasks have been completed.

Apple pie 2026

The second pie for Thanksgiving is safely stored in the Pie Vault, a.k.a. The Common Household Son’s freezer.  Pie count: one apple, one peach.  Younger Daughter has promised to provide one blueberry pie.  And the required pumpkin pie will be produced a few days before Thanksgiving.  I have not decided yet whether to make an apple-raisin pie.

I have closed the account for my aunt’s estate, 2½ years after her death.  I had procrastinated on this because the feeling lurked that closing the account would be the true end of everything.  Now that it’s closed I don’t feel that at all.  Just relief.

Election Day, May 2026
We need to show up at 6 AM
on Nov 3 to set up the polling place.

Election Day preparation: I volunteered to be Judge of Election in my precinct, a step up in responsibility from my elected position of Inspector of Election.  I have done the training, and obtained the keys to open the precinct on Election Day. I have contacted all the members of the team assigned to my precinct and thankfully they are all planning to show up.  I contacted the JoE of the other precinct that votes in the same building.  It turns out it is a friend I made several elections ago.  All this is very good.  I still have to pick up the JoE materials this weekend.

I managed to finish a terrible book for book club which I felt responsible for finishing because nobody else has volunteered to lead the discussion so I will probably have to lead it.  More on that another time.

We have had gorgeous weather
for canvassing in these final weeks.

Saturday will be my final canvass for this election. From mid-August to now, with a canvassing partner, I’ve walked 20+ hours to knock on 350 doors on behalf of candidates.  Action is the antidote to anxiety. 

The Halloween candy has been procured.  Still to come is the spousal argument over whether we have enough candy, and the trip, which always follows that argument, to the grocery store to get more candy.

I was going to list the tasks that are still pending, but for my own sanity, I won’t do that.

To quote my favorite movie:  That’ll do, Pig.

Garden update: autumn has arrived

I am able to write this because we cancelled door knocking for today – flood warnings everywhere in the area – and because the only other task I might possibly have for today is cleaning up my office.  

And then it turned out I had to partially clean my desk because otherwise I could not connect the camera to upload the photos.  I am incorrigibly messy.

The successes

Mailbox garden: snapdragons, mums,
no-longer-blooming balloon flowers, and
owl art.  Am I partial to owl imagery?  Yes, I am.

The stars of this year’s Common Household Gardens were the snapdragons, the coreopsis, the sedum, and the coleus.  I wish I had photos of them from August.  Curses on you, sciatica and mal de débarquement syndrome and the ensuing therapies!  Curses on you, dental work and election work!  Those are my excuses and I’m sticking to ‘em.

Snapdragons

Back in June I thought the snapdragons were done, but they just kept bursting forth in their crimson glory all summer.  They did well right next to the street, below the mailbox.

The sedum has spread!

The yellow and orange coreopsis reflected the sun’s brilliance for months (no photo), but stopped blooming maybe in mid-September.  The sedum looks flatter than it did in June, but it kept spreading as I was told it would.

Two varieties of coleus,
making friends with the bush,
and trying to shake
your hand, too.

The coleus suffered from wealth inequality.  I had doubts it would do well as a potted plant under my care, so I planted all of the coleus (two different varieties) in one pot. They deserved a better distribution of resources.  Partway through the summer they looked like they would be eaten to death by some bug, but both kinds rallied and bloomed and skyrocketed.  Currently it looks like it is reaching out to knock on voters’ doors.  Go, coleus!

The bee balm was lovely in its time, and I hope it comes back next year.  I don’t know if I should cut back the stems or not.  The yarrow did its duty, but it was not as stunning.  I like it because I have a vague idea it hails from medieval times and is medicinal.

Hanging on

The marigolds and the balloon flowers (Platycodon grandiflorus) did okay.  Halfway through the summer the deerabbits ate a lot of the balloon flowers.  After that there were some blooms but they were a shadow of their former selves.  

Pot with black-eyed susan vine and forget-me-nots.

I started “black-eyed susan vines” in two pots, and then also forget-me-nots with the b-e.s.v. in one, and English thyme in the other.  The thyme never showed its face. The vines grew and started to tangle themselves in the nearby bushes but there was nary a bloom until September, one solitary flower that didn’t look exactly like a black-eyed susan.  And yesterday I saw one b-e.s.v. bloom in the other pot, and a few forget-me-nots.  

This is the black-eyed susan vine bloom.   (Blogger is not cooperating on the photo captions right now.)

A truly terrible photo of the forget-me-nots,
in the same pot with the b-e.s.v.

The geranium, a gift from the church music director, kept on plugging away.  It was almost never without a bloom, and there is a hopeful bud on it today.  

Geranium - the gift that keeps on giving

The lamb’s ear, lantana, and verbena still have foliage, but the lantana and verbena flowers were dessert for the local herbivores.  And now that spot is a hellish mess. I am not sticking my hands in there. 

A stew of lamb's ear, verbena, and lantana

The two bleeding heart plants faded slowly, as they should, and there is no indication of them except the marker I put there.  I really must hope they return in the spring, as they should, because they were the last things I planted before sciatica doom.  They will be my rebuttal to aging.

Shall I attempt to bring the potted plants inside before the first frost? The question will be where to put them.  And will they have bugs?

The disappointments

The biggest disappointment were the black-eyed susans.  I planted one from the garden store, and several more that were gifts from the neighbor.  I have a great fondness for these flowers.  And so did the deer. Eaten and re-eaten.  I finally got some rudimentary fencing and bird netting.  The plants managed to survive and eke out a few flowers.  There was still one bloom yesterday.  Meanwhile, in our area I saw numerous successful b-e susans. 

The astilbe was dead before mid-summer.  Sigh. This was supposed to be a great plant for growing in the shade.  Not our shade.

The salmon-colored impatiens did much better
than the white ones.

Almost all the white impatiens disappeared early in July.  Why?

The snow-in-summer looks like it just heard all the news this week and now can’t get out of bed anymore.  Why?  

Snow-in-summer, not looking so good.

Also disappointing are my photos.  It was too dark last night at 5:30 PM but I took the photos anyway.  I was too lazy to retake them this afternoon.

Soldiering on

We bought two mums for cheer and hope. The yellow one, which I put out by the mailbox (where it will catch the rain) is doing splendidly.  The purple one, which I put close to the house, is not.  Today I moved it.

HAVE YOU MADE YOUR PLAN TO VOTE?

Life on board: six days of Alaska

Is there a more pampered way of travel than a cruise?  Not in my experience.

This was our first time on a cruise ship.  We thank our friends who gave us numerous tips.  We were not quite ready for the unique culture that is cruise travel.

Our cruise ship, the MSC Poesia (of the MSC Cruise line) housed about 3,000 passengers and also 1,040 crew members.  As our Seattle friends said, it’s a floating hotel.  

My first impression: the ship is huge and full of mirrors everywhere.  Loads of staff of many ethnicities welcoming us and helping us find our way.  Almost never-ending availability of food.

It’s now been eight weeks since we returned, but for posterity’s sake I record here my impressions of The Cruise Life.

The room

Our luggage was delivered to us seamlessly. Our room was small but not claustrophobic.  The closet space was a pleasant surprise.

We had paid for an upgrade to a balcony room, which I think was key to our enjoyment of the whole trip. We were on Deck 11: I thought my acrophobia would kick in, but I simply looked out instead of down.  It was marvelous to wake up and open the curtains to a view of either never-ending ocean, or snow-capped mountains, or endless forests, or teal-blue fjord.  

Blue arrow pointing to our room
on Deck 11

The CHH on the balcony.

The neighbors

Before leaving port, we spent some time on the balcony and met the people next door.  Throughout the cruise we could occasionally hear them through the wall, but mostly it was quiet.  We heard from our assigned dinner mates that noisy folks in a next-door cabin can greatly mar the cruise experience.

Yes, we had assigned dinner mates.  That could have been a disaster, especially when our new acquaintance said, “We’re from Texas.”  But we avoided outright political talk, and moderately enjoyed their company when we were dining with them.

The pool

Like any hotel, this one has a pool.  On the top-most deck, exposed to the air. 

Once we settled in, the Common Household Husband wanted to take a dip in the pool which is on deck 13, at the very top of the ship. Open to the sky.  Unpleasant gusts of wind.  I did not go swimming, and did not enjoy my time there.  The CHH bopped around in the pool and enjoyed it.  In the hot tub he met people from Chicago and Vancouver.  When he went back to the hot tub another day he said it was full of teenagers.  Who are, in fact, entitled to use the hot tub, too, but less inclined to be contemplative while in it.

the CHH enjoys the pool

Behavior and dress

The cruise culture included this quirk: some people place magnets outside their cabin door for decoration or to distinguish their door from all the other doors in the narrow corridor of this Hilbert Hotel-like atmosphere.  This makes sense, especially if there are children involved. 

Casual dress is the norm.  Except for the special night on which 30 percent were dressed to the nines, another 30 percent moderately dressed up (like us) and the rest not at all.

The entertainment

There was no shortage of entertainment possibilities.  We attended an opening presentation in the theater (800+ seats?).  The theater was sparkly but the seats were uncomfortable for me.  The presentation informed us that there were dancers, singers, pianists, big band, and a comedian on board.  During our 7 days on board, we only went to a few musical performances.  We did not go to the napkin folding workshop.  The big band on board was quite good, I thought.  I had not yet developed my MdDS; the Common Household Husband is a very good dancer; I am not but nevertheless we enjoyed dancing to the big band music.

The Zebra Bar.
Probably not good for the vestibular-ocular reflex

Lights and sparkles everywhere

The big band in the Pigalle Lounge

There was a small casino on board.  I have no objection, except that smoking was allowed in that room, a room we often had to pass through to go somewhere else.

The naturalist

I was pleased that there was a naturalist on board.  We went to two of the naturalist’s presentations.  Although her background was in teaching, I found the presentations rushed and a bit disjointed.  

Periodically the ship’s PA system would sound “Bong Bing Bing!” and then the naturalist would tell all of us that there was an orca on the port side, or a humpback whale on the port side.  I think only once was there wildlife on our side, the starboard side. But we saw plenty of wildlife on our excursions.

Naturalist presentation in the sparkly theater.

Dining

We wished we had discovered sooner in the week that we could have breakfast and lunch at the restaurant, rather than the buffet.  The buffet had a plethora of offerings, but it was often crowded and noisy.  There were SO many opportunities to eat; the food was of varying quality.  The restaurant food was mostly good to very good.   The Butcher's Cut, the super fancy restaurant, was excellent.

If you wanted to, you could eat some form of salmon at every meal.  Maybe that just applies to Pacific Northwest cruises.

One of the restaurants.

We tried room service breakfast
the first morning, but it was suboptimal.

Breakfast in the buffet,
with Dawes Glacier in the background.

Dinner on the first night, in The Butcher's Cut
Excellent food and service and unparalleled view of the
wake of the ship.