Friday 5ive- July 17, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a weekly blog post where I share five things that caught my attention during the week. Is it just me, or does every day seem like Groundhog Day (the movie with BIll Murray, not the furry creature)?

1)  First up is an update. My two sons and I signed up for Summer Around the Finger Lakes, a virtual bike ride around all eleven Finger Lakes. We had to ride 408.2 miles between June 1st and September 30th, the distance around all of the lakes combined. My sons finished a few weeks ago, and they came in 1st and 3rd place, out of 1400 riders. I finished this week in 11th place. I'm pretty proud of myself, as I have never done anything like this. We are lucky that we have our Peleton bikes so we can ride inside rain or shine. Thanks to my good friend Kelly, who suggested the ride to us. We had a blast!


2)  Another update: since it looks like indoor dining in NYC is on hold, restaurants have really spruced up their outdoor areas. I passed by two restaurants on First Ave., the tent and the lights are a nice touch at Sefton, but I am concerned about the servers who will have to cross the bike path to wait on customers. Necessity is the mother of invention they say.

3)  I watched author and bookstore owner Judy Blume interviewed on A Might Blaze's Facebook page this week. She is so delightful, and her enthusiasm for books and the bookstore she and her husband George Cooper founded in Key West is wonderful. They are such a lovely couple, and if you are a Judy Blume fan (who isn't?), take the time to watch this interview. It will brighten your day.


4) We finished season three of Netflix's Ozark,, and it is everything that people said it was. Tom Pelphry's role as Ben, Wendy's bipolar brother, is the star of the season and sure to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at this year's Emmy Awards. He is phenomenal, and the second to last episode is one of the best hours on television that I have ever seen. If you liked Breaking Bad, you must watch Ozark.

5) It was another big week for reading. It began with Amy Poeppel's Musical Chairs, a comedic novel about Bridget, a woman looking forward to spending the summer with her boyfriend in her summer home in Litchfield. When he breaks up with her, her two adult children move in, and her best friend and musical partner Will falls in love with a woman in town, her summer is looking a lot different than she imagined. Musical Chairs is the book we need right now; it's funny and sweet and filled with characters you want to know. I felt like I was living in this delightfully witty book. Do yourself a favor and preorder it now so you can have it on July 21st, the day it publishes. You can thank me later.

I followed that up with a serious novel, Megha Majumdar's brilliant debut A Burning, about a young woman who lives in the slums of India. When she writes a Facebook post about a train attack, she is accused of being a terrorist and locked up. Her former teacher and a young person she has been tutoring both have to decide if they should support her or help themselves. It's a quick but profound read, and it's a Read With Jenna pick. I highly recommend it.

Robin Wasserman's Mother Daughter Widow Wife is another serious read. When a young woman is found bruised on a bus to Philadelphis, she has no memory of who she is. She ends up at an institute where a doctor and his young female associate try to help her. It's about the things we remember and why we remember some things but forget others. It's the kind of book you want to ponder.

Podcasts are all the rage, and Gretchen Anthony's novel, The Kids Are Gonna Ask, is about teenage twins, Thomas and Savannah, who start a podcast to discover who their father is. Their mother died in a car accident and they live with their grandmother Maggie, who doesn't know who their father is, but supports their quest to find him. As per usual with social media, things can go wrong, and they do. My full review will post on Tuesday.

Have a great week- stay safe and socially distant, wear a mask, and wash your hands.

Friday 5ive- June 5, 2020

Welcome to the Friday 5ive, a blog post about five things that caught my attention this week. This week seems like a year, doesn't it? New York City has dealt with COVID, and we seem to be on the back side of it thank goodness. This week has seen daily peaceful protests over the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, and looting and mayhem at night by people taking advantage of a horrible situation. Now NYC is under a nightly curfew. Things seem to be calmer as the week moves on.

1) Every week I purchase a book online from an independent bookstore- I've bought books from Books Are Magic and The BookMark Shoppe in Brooklyn, Astoria Book Shop in Queens, Book Revue on Long Island, The Rivers' End Bookstore in Oswego, and Oblong Books and Music in Rhinebeck. This week I bought a book from The Lit.Bar, a black-owned bookstore in the Bronx. If you want to do something constructive, make a purchase from a black-owned bookstore, restaurant or business. It's a simple way to show your support. BuzzFeed put together a list here.


2)  My husband and I stopped at this little deli in Port Ewen to get some sandwiches for lunch. It's such a cute shop, like something you'd see in Mayberry. They have delicious sandwiches, and one entire wall is covered with a list of their specialty sandwiches, like The Dugout, The Texan, and High 5. They have a comic book rack and a baseball card display. I haven't seen one of those in years. I also saw a two hams sitting in the back, fresh out of the oven and ready to be sliced. If you ever find yourself in Port Ewen in the Hudson Valley, stop in.

Sandwich Wall

Comic Book Rack

Baseball Card Display

3)  Now that the weather has turned warm, restaurants in our neighborhood are setting up tables just inside their doors and selling adult beverages to go. Oda House, a Georgian (Russia, not US) restaurant up the street from us just set up a table to sell drinks and dumplings to go. It's sort of like a street fair atmosphere.

4)  My friend Kelly told me about a virtual bike race, Summer Around the Finger Lakes. You can virtually ride, walk or paddle your way around the 11 Finger Lakes in or around your home, and eventually you will build up enough miles to go around all the lakes. You submit your results from June 1- September 30, and you get a medal for each lake you traverse. My two sons and I signed up, and we now when we ride our Peletons, we get credit for the rides. So far it's been a blast, and I've recruited my nieces too. 

5) I finished two books this week- Molly Fader's The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season (my review is here) and Kimberly Belle's Stranger in the Lake (my review here. The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season is about a young woman who brings her daughter to her aunt's cherry orchard in Michigan, on the run from someone. Aunt Peg has a secret too, and it's a wonderful book about family, and a balm to escape these troubled weeks. 

Anyone who liked The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl will want to put Stranger in the Lake on their summer reading list. A young woman discovers a dead body drowned under the dock near her and her husband's home, in the same spot where his first wife drowned four years ago. Is her husband a killer? 

I just started Britt Bennett's The Vanishing Half, about two light-skinned black twin sisters who leave their small town home in Louisiana in 1954. One sister leaves her sister behind to start her own life living as a white woman, and the other returns home with a daughter. I am tearing through this book, it is so fantastic and beautifully written. I can't wait to finish it. 

I hope you all stay safe and healthy.