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Here are some more mini reviews of books. I’m going in order of when I read them.

First up: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

This was recommended to me by someone who said it was one of his favorite books, or one of the best books he’d ever read, or something like that. Highly recommended. I dont know where I’d place it on my rankings, but it did not disappoint.

I have not seen the movie Forrest Gump, but I have seen Mr. Holland’s Opus which I think is the same style of story. And I would put this book in that category. There is the style of story that is a “slice of life” but this is not just a slice, we follow the main character through the majority of his life. There is not really a plot, until later in the book. I’ve seen Napoleon Dynamite, so I know how sometimes a thing without a plot might be annoying or useless, but in this case it is not missed.

Next up: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

I had read one of Mr. Beagle’s later books last year, and I quite enjoyed it. I was browsing the library and found this book by him, which happens to be one of his earlier works.

This was a bit different in the writing style, but it is the only book I can think of where I kept reading it for the writing and not the story. The story was fine, but it was secondary to the writing. Two bits stood out to me, then one more caught my attention.

The first one was the phrase “wind that tasted like nails”. I thought it was a good way to describe things. Made me stop and think about it, what the air was like. I have inadvertantly tasted nails, via the standard method of holding a nail in one’s mouth whilst arranging the nailee in place.

The second phrase was about a lady who was no longer in the flower of her youth, and Mr. Beagle described her as having “gone to seed”. That one also made me stop and think about what flowers do after their blooms are spent.

And then one more that caught my attention, not because of how it made me stop and think – because it didn’t – but rather because it had been used (albeit slightly modified) as the title of a recent movie.

“Everything,” he answered her, “everything, all at once.”

And I searched the internet for “everything everything all at once” to see this book is credited as the origin of that phrase, and the internet seemed intent on showing me only results for the movie. And then I put quotes around the phrase so it would search only for that phrase, and it said there were no results. So I’m putting the phrase “everything, everything all at once” here in this blog post so that the internet will be able to report that the phrase originated in the book The Last Unicorn.

And the Red Bull is a character in this book, years before there was a company by that name. But I’m not going to try to take on the internet for that one.

Next up: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Given the hype around the movie, I knew approximately what the book was about. But having seen only the trailers and not the whole movie, I didn’t know much about what actually happens in the story. It was generally fine, but it was more adult-oriented than I expected, and also darker in some parts. Certainly not recommended for kids.

Next up: The Icebound Land by John Flanagan

I was a big fan of the original Ranger’s Apprentice book, and would recommend that to just about anyone. The sequel was similar. In this third book, however, I noticed some worse language creeping in, in the form of mild oaths and epithets. And some other things made me peg this as a PG-13 rating, compared to just PG for the previous two.

And just like book 2, this book also ends with a non-ending, so that you’ll have to read book 4.

Last up: The Unwanteds by Lisa M. Mann

I don’t remember how I found this book, but I liked it. It was almost the perfect middle-grade fiction book, as it had only a hint of romance and cartoon-type violence. The “almost” comes into play near the end of the book when the violence changes from cartoon to actual.

slight spoiler alert
There are two deaths on screen
and two off screen
end spoiler alert

It is a series, but I am not starting book 2 because book 1 ended well enough that I can leave it there.

That’s it for this review. More book reviews coming up later this year.

Some Wife has a variety of kitchen tools, some more practical than others, and some more useful than I thought, especially when I didn’t know such a tool existed (e.g. lettuce knife).

But the topic of today’s is not such a tool.

It is a tool that is impractical.

It looks like this – side and front views.

It is a cucumber scorer.

I don’t know what exactly it is called, and Some Wife doesn’t know either. The only thing I’ve seen her use it for is to score (i.e. fancily peel) cucmbers.

But it is oddly shaped, and the shape reminded me of something.

And the cucmber tool is vaguely shaped like Wallace, but only in the protruding cheeks. The top of the head doesn’t match. So I thought about it and came up with a match for the top of the tool.

That was better, but Dilbert doesn’t have protruding cheeks so to me the main feature was lacking and this was not the answer.

But inspiration hit me, and I realized the tool was upside-down. So the bumps are not the top of the head but the bottom. If we flip it, it aligns much better with Wallace.

I propose that we call it “the Wallace”. So far it hasn’t caught on, mainly because no one ever asks for the tool.

I have been spoiled by yellow kiwi. I think the label calls it gold kiwi, but we all call it yellow kiwi here.

I used to like normal green kiwi. It was good stuff. Then we tried the yellow kiwi. It was better, so we got it again. And again. The last several times we bought kiwi, it was the yellow variety. So we got used to that.

This last time, they didn’t have yellow kiwi, so we bought the green kiwi. It wasn’t the best batch of kiwi, and that highlighted another difference with the yellow kiwi – they are never bad. Ripe, they are yummy. Not ripe, still yummy. Too ripe, yep, still yummy.

So after all that, we are spoiled. The kids don’t trust green kiwi anymore.

Also, don’t bother with the red kiwi. It’s also not as good as the yellow stuff.

I thought about maybe having it say “Fourwarned is fourarmed”. Alternately, I could have done something with someone’s forearms and left it as “Forewarned is forearmed”. But I liked this version of “Forewarned is fourarmed” the best.

This is a guide for how to play the game Flip 7.

1. How do I win?
By having the most points at the end of all the rounds. Once someone reaches 200 points, the game ends.

2. How do I get points?
By accumulating cards. Each card has a point value, just add them up each round.

3. How do I get cards?
At the start of each round, the dealer gives each person one card. All cards are dealt face up. And then whoever wants another card, the dealer deals another card. You can keep taking cards if you want, or you can stop with what you have and take those points. If you bust, you don’t get any points. If you make a set of 7, then you end the round.

4. How do you bust?
If you get two cards of the same point value, you bust. The higher the point value of the card, the more of them there are in the deck, so the more likely you are to bust. When you bust, you are done for the round and get no points for that round.

5. How do you make a set of 7 cards?
You get a bonus 15 points if you collect 7 cards of different point values. There are regular number cards and special cards, the special cards do not count toward the set of 7, but they can give you points.

It’s a fairly quick game, not much to it. It leans towards the luck side of things, more than skill, but it’s fun nonetheless.

There, now go play Flip 7.

The prices in our local grocery store usually reasonable, like this:

Three dollars and 99 cents per package. Not too bad.

But sometimes they try to trick you into paying way too much, like this:

Four hundred and ninety nine dollars? Nice try.

I am happy to report though, that the sign printer and the pricing system were not in sync.

This is the third of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to OBX here.

Day 6:
Mostly driving. Made it from OBX to Pittsburgh.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 7:
We spent the day touring Pittsburgh. I heard that Pittsburgh is very pedestrian friendly and one does not need a car to get around, so I picked a hotel downtown and left the car in the parking lot during our stay.

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we walked out the front door and headed toward the river, and then walked over the bridge to get to Station Square. It was a few blocks of walking, it felt to me like a good way to start the day and get a feel for Pittsburgh.

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