Five Frugal Things -- Smokey Skies & My Rachel Rosenthal Box
1) Portland began receiving wildfire smoke yesterday, and although it's not as dramatic as what he had in 2020, it's still an unhealthy breathing environment.
I took the above photo yesterday wondering if the orange cast would show up, and I would have to say that yes, it did!
My husband went down to the basement and grabbed four furnace filters and assembled a Corsi-Rosenthal box. (Although I refer to it as a "Rachel Rosenthal" box, which was my great grandmother's name!) These straightforward air purifiers can be built "using locally sourced components for a fraction of the price of a commercially manufactured air purifier." I call that a non-consumer win!
Of course our windows are closed and we're enjoying an indoorsy day.
2) My husband and I left the house for an appointment yesterday, which happened to be close to a Blue Star Donuts location. I opened my Too Good to Go app to see if if they had any offerings -- Bingo! $6.99 for a mystery bag of donuts, which may not seem like much of a bargain, but their donuts are normally $4.85-$6 apiece!
Our bag contained four donuts, including this "lemon and lime curd" one, which was my first choice. (I'll always choose a powdered donuts, which may be a "Flowers in The Attic" reflex.) It was amazing!
My husband chose a "raspberry rosemary old fashioned."
These last two went home with our kiddo to share with their partner. ("Chocolate Bergamot" and "Matcha Crumble?") Four people all enjoying delicious treats for just $6.99 is not too shabby.
3) Dinner was a light affair and I repeated the rice/spicy Korean tuna/cucumber/pickled onion menu from a few days ago. Nothing could be easier.
Sadly only one of the tins is emblazoned with a dreamy BTS pop star.
4) The kids and their partners are converging for our weekly family dinner and I'm keep it frugal. I'm making two batches of soup, plus grilled cheese sandwiches. I've mixed up the dough for artisan bread and pulled a loaf of gluten-free Franz bread from the freezer.
One of the soups is red lentil, which is always a hit.
I'll add spinach right before it's served. Worry not, it'll thicken.
I'm also making black bean soup, which I've yet to concoct. I want to have everything completed at least a couple hours before everyone arrives, as soup is always a couple degrees better once the flavors have had a chance to commingle.
Every meal needs to accommodate a vegetarian, plus my daughter who can't eat gluten. It's a weekly challenge.
5) I finished reading Homebound and was in the mood to jump into my next book. I needed a "banned or challenged" book, so I grabbed Deenie from my stack of Judy Blumes. Note the 95¢ price, strongly indicating that this is my childhood copy.
Read it cover to cover in under and hour and a half!
Now all I have left are these eight literary categories to "black out" my Powell's Books bingo card:
- Author/main character with a disability.
- Everyone's talking about.
- In translation.
- Your choice.
- Novella or short story collection.
- Nonhuman characters.
- Set in the Pacific Northwest.
- Trans character.
I'd love your suggestions. I'm saving "Everyone's talking about" for Yesteryear, but otherwise am open to ideas.
Now your turn, what frugal things have you been up to?
Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
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Book suggestions:
Set in the pacific northwest: The Cold Millions
In translation: Three Bags Full
Three Bags Full also works for non-human characters
That's a great one!
Mystery series by Jeffrey Deever, with Lincoln Rhymes as quadriplegic crime solver.
Great characters, sometimes gory murders.
In translation --
Yuko Mishima's THE SAILOR WHO FELL FROM GRACE WITH THE SEA
or SPRING SNOW. Weird guy, amazing writer.
Or... A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH by Solzhenitsyn. Also amazing.
Nonhuman characters -- WIND IN THE WILLOWS by Kenneth Grahame. Love that book!
Lincoln Rhymes, quadriplegic crime investigator, series by Jeffery Deever.
That sounds interesting! Looking for it in my library. I came to recommend Tru Biz for the same category (deaf and hard of hearing)
Interesting, although I'm still just reading books by women.
Author/main character with a disability - If you're in the mood for a super light romance - Out on A Limb was sweet (very predictable, but sweet and easy).
I've earned a fun romance after having just read multiple "our planet is dying!" books.
The Pretty One by Keah Brown for disabled author - absolutely fabulous and wonderful collection of essays.
May I please recommend Feral Creatures by Kira Jane Buxton for "Nonhuman characters" or "Set in the Pacific Northwest" (it would qualify for either). And it's currently available at the Multnomah Library! It was one of my favorite reads last year!
I have some sun tea brewing outside while I'm chilling out--yes, CHILLING out -- in my bedroom. Outside temp: 102. Inside, 77. With the ceiling fan, it's quite pleasant. I'm also running a floor fan by the floor vent, one that tips upward, in order to fling the air conditioned air up and out into the room. Usually at this time of day, 3 pm, it would be stifling hot in this room. Three cheers for the window insulation!
My friend's daughter is getting a place of her own, so I was asked if I had any dishes to spare. Oh boy, do I! I cleaned out some kitchen cabinets and culled a lot of clutter and much mismatched miscellaneous that has needed to go. A whole box full! What she can't use/don't want, she can donate; her new apartment is close to a Goodwill donation station. They will give her a 20% off coupon for her donation(s) and then she can use it to buy something better.
Meanwhile I am using the opportunity to clean out some cabinets and storage drawers. Using clean but old/unused/outdated large desk calendar pages as drawer liners. Turned upside down, blank side facing up. No one will ever know it's not shelf paper.
For the non-human character, may I suggest the Shady Hollow series by Juneau Black? This is the cozy series for anyone who ever wished there were grown up books with animal characters running bakeries and living in trees. Just leave all knowledge of animal husbandry behind when you read this as the MC is a fox who crushes on a bear.
For a short story collection, I would recommend Hap & Leonard by Joe R Lansdale. Full of morally charcoal characters and violence, but only has needed, I thoroughly enjoy them. There is a tv series that you can watch for free - maybe on Tubi? Or Roku.
Trans character--Anita Kelly is the author--you'll need to read the blurbs to know which book it is. Character with a disability--I love The Ha-Ha by Dave King. Non-human characters--Thorn by Intisar Khanani.
Love and Other Disasters is the Anita Kelly book.
Thanks!
Surely Tales of the City (or any of the series) for a trans character. Absolutely adored the whole series.
Thank you to all who had kind words for me as I set out to give blood yesterday! Unfortunately, it did not go well for me. I had a pretty bad vasovagal response -- which I've had before, but not from a blood draw. I am taking it easy today and wondering if I should do this again. It was pretty scary. And I may be getting too old for this.
Books --
I recommend Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck), The Body (King), Remarkably Bright Creatures, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, We'll Prescribe You a Cat, This is How it Always Is (Frankel).
Disability, novella, non-human, Pacific Northwest, translation, trans.
Would Pet Sematary by Stephen King fill the bill for non-human characters? That book creeped me out & gave me a few nightmares.
My recommendation for a book is by Eileen Garvin: The Music of Bees. It’s set in Hood River and has a main character with a disability. Absolutely loved this book!
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night is a great book and the main character is a boy with autism. It’s layered and very well written.
The Cape Doctor by E.J. Levy is a historical fiction about an Irish girl who assumes a male persona in order to become a doctor. They end up serving in the military and South Africa and were only discovered to be female at death. Fascinating and very well written.
I enjoy reading books about people who are differently abled. I am excited to see what others recommend. Here are three I recommend:
"Hidden Valley Road" by Robert Kolker about a real family with several members who developed schizophrenia. Researchers were able to learn a lot about the condition due to the shared genetics and exploration of nature/nurture.
"The Country of the Blind" by Andrew Leland is part memoir, part history of blindness.
I enjoyed "Cassandra in Reverse" a fictional story featuring Cassie, a neurodivergent character. I am not sure if she would be considered to have a disability.
Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult has a trans character.
I really loved Annabel by Kathleen Winter for a trans character book.
Translation: A Man Called Ove, then you can watch the movie and compare!
I recently re-read Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Lathe of Heaven," which is set in Portland.
Not sure if the characters are "main enough," but one character (the brother of the protagonist) in "The Pull of the Stars" by Emma Donoghue is permanently mute from shell-shock in World War I, and the protagonist's assistant has a badly scarred arm from a kitchen burn in childhood. The book is set in an Irish maternity ward during three days in the outbreak of the Spanish flu. It is riveting.
Calamity Club!