1. Still not covid. I'll test one more time tomorrow, but I think if it's not showing anything after four days I can safely say it's a cold. Still feeling pretty good overall.

2. The farmers market had spicy watermelon fruit leather! Just one package and it was smaller than usual, but they had it. I thought it was totally gone for the season but I guess they had a little bit of watermelon left.

3. It's feeling properly like fall today. Very overcast and chilly all day. This can continue!

4. I love how pensive Molly looks. Contemplating life while enjoying the sun.

Recently Finished
Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants: The Art of the Paperback
Found this in a neighborhood Little Library. Not much text, so it's a fast read. Mostly just pictures of old paperback book covers. It was fun to look at as something I got for free. Wouldn't buy it, though.

We Live Here Now
A woman and her husband move to an isolated old house after she's released from the hospital following a nearly fatal accident. From the beginning, there are strange goings on, but while the MC thinks the house might be haunted, her husband is convinced she's just hallucinating as a symptom of her post-sepsis syndrome. Spoiler alert: it's haunted. I think this was one of the most interesting haunted house stories I've read and I really liked the twists.

The Killings at Badger's Drift
First novel in the series the Midsomer Murders show is based on. I don't usually go for mysteries with male protags, especially policemen, but this was on a two-for-one Audible sale and I've heard go things about the show, so I decided to check it out. I like the MC all right and the mystery was interesting. Did not like that the stereotypes regarding the lone gay character, though this was published in the late 80s, so somewhat to be expected. The narrator was enjoyable. I am interested in checking out more in the series, but neither my library nor Hoopla has further audiobooks, so I'll just get book books, as I wasn't into it enough to want to spend money on it.

Chef's Secret
Most recent book in the Front Desk series of middle grade novels about a tween (now teen) Chinese-American girl who works at her family's motel. I really liked the earlier books but this one was such a disappointment. There had been little bits of romance between the MC and her male best friend in the previous couple books, but this one was not only entirely romance focused, but was from the POV of said boy, rather than the previous MC. I do not like him as a narrator and just found the romance plot of thirteen-year-olds dreadfully boring. It seems like this might be the last book in the series, but if it's not, I'll probably check out the summary/reviews before reading any further books rather than just automatically checking it out. I prefer MG over YA precisely because of the lack of romance focus (I don't mind books where the main plot is a romance, though it's not my favorite genre, but so much YA theoretically has another plot but it's actually all about choosing between two cute boys or whatever), so having it be the main plot here was a disappointment.

Yellow Stringer
This was a Hoopla bonus read or whatever they call it. Previously my library allowed you to check out six things a month with Hoopla, but recently it was cut down to four, so I assume Hoopla increased their prices or something and the library had to go down to a lower tier. Disappointing, but since I'd reached my max, I checked out the list of things you can borrow without having it count towards your total, and this was one of them. Not sure I would have checked it out otherwise. It's an English language comic done in manga style (specifically it very much reminds me of Detective Conan). A reporter for a tabloid is one of the few people who knows the articles she writes are about real supernatural events, rather than just sensational stories. Her new partner is a former cop who is sceptical until mummies start attacking them. The first several chapters are part of one longer story, and then there's a few more stand-alones. They're all just fine. It says volume one, but it's been several years and no sign of any further volumes, so it's probably abandoned. It was fine, but not something I'll bother checking up on to see if any more are ever released.

My Home Hero vol. 5-6

1. I had a dentist appointment today (just a cleaning) and didn't want to go to work afterwards, so I just worked from home. Today is the hottest day of our heatwave, but it wasn't too hot in the house and I even took a walk in the afternoon, which I definitely wouldn't have been able to do at work because it's hotter down there plus there's hardly any shade in the neighborhood whereas the streets right around our house have a lot of tree coverage even midday.

2. Carla made pot roast for dinner. It was in the slow cooker, so it didn't heat up the house too much. It turned out really tasty! Haven't had pot roast in ages. It would have been nicer if the weather was still cool, but it still tasted good.

3. When Carla was moving stuff around to put books in her new bookcase, she moved some stuff out of this other bookcase and as soon as her back was turned, Chloe came to settle on the middle shelf lol.

1. Back to work today was fine. Morning was mainly catching up on email/messages and I had a meeting in the afternoon, but otherwise just had time to myself to get stuff done.

2. I brought home sushi from work for dinner and it was very tasty. There's a seared salmon sushi that all our stores carry and Carla often gets from the location nearest us, but that location doesn't have an in-store kitchen and gets all their packaged food delivered. But the Gardena location makes it in-house and theirs tastes so much better (at least in my opinion; Carla didn't notice that much of a difference). They go heavy with the blowtorch to sear them and you can really taste the grill flavor.

3. So far this week's heatwave has not been as bad as predicted. Hopefully that holds true for the rest of the week! (It's supposed to be back to cool weather this weekend.)

4. Gemma has perfected the disapproving look.

1. We went to Knott's Berry Farm for lunch today! This is actually only the second time we've gone this year. ^_^;; It just feels like there's never a good time to go, since there's not much we're interested in doing there other than checking out the food. We plan to go again a time or two during the Christmas season (especially during the last ten days of the year when we're blocked out from Disneyland), but I don't think we'll renew our pass next year.

The food is so good and if we lived closer, it would make sense to just pop in whenever, but the park hours suck, so we can't do early mornings or later in the evening like we do with Disneyland to avoid the crowds, the parking situation is often bad, and there is nowhere in the park to escape the constant noise of rollercoasters. Plus the park is so small that you don't really get that satisfying a walk out of it. I will miss the food, though! Next year we're thinking of maybe getting a Universal Studios pass and seeing how we like that (we'll go once to try it out first as neither of us have ever been).

2. It was nice to have an extra day off. Not super looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but on the bright side, now it's just a four day week!

3. Tuxie tried to hide behind the charcoal when I went out to garage lol.

1. We had a good time at Oogie Boogie Bash tonight. I'm feeling very tired, so I'm glad I've got another day off work tomorrow.

2. Carla has started moving some of her books into the new bookshelf, freeing up space on the shelves in my room. Between books and legos and other knick knacks the shelves in my room were verrrrrrry overcrowded, so I'm looking forward to being able to space things out a bit more. (I was also able to dust the parts of the shelves where she took books from, which I usually don't do because too many knick knacks.)

3. Molly!

Recently Finished
Murder in Matrimony
The ending of this felt like it was wrapping up the series, which is fine because I'd already decided not to read any more. ( antisemitism )

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
Finally finished this! It was actually really interesting, I just kept not reading it in favor of other things. In school Prohibition was passed over as basically like "it happened and then they repealed it", with the main focus of the early 20th century going towards the World Wars and Great Depression. I had no idea that Prohibition was so tied to the revival of the KKK, for example.

Artistic Buildings and Homes of Los Angeles
A very short book that is mainly pictures of buildings and houses in LA in the late 1800s, built by architect Joseph Newsom. The book has a forward and introduction written in 1988, and then the rest is a direct replica of a book put out by the architect to showcase his work, complete with ads that ran alongside the photos. It's very neat. Found it in a Little Free Library in the neighborhood.

Don't Hang Up
An Audible Original by the author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. He's done quite a few Audible Originals (the one below being another) and they're all short and free with my subscription, so I gave them a try, but none of them have been great. This one was interesting enough, but the MC was an asshole. He's a radio DJ who's been recently demoted to the midnight shift and one night gets a caller who tells him to stay on the line or a woman gets killed. Had some good twists, but it was just fine, not amazing.

Find Us
I really wish he would stick to writing stories set in Australia. This is the second one of his set in the US and there are always nitpicky things that bug me lol. Also if I'm reading an author from another country, it's because I want to read stories set in that country or at least with characters from that country (especially with an audiobook). But that's just minor stuff. This one felt like it really should have been longer (it's four hours, so about novella length). The MC is a former police detective, now working secretly for the FBI, trying to find school killers before they act by approaching kids who show red flags on social media and forums. One day her own kids go missing and she doesn't wait for the police, convinced she can find them herself. This had some interesting twists but I felt like the aftermath could have used more focus.

( spoilers )

My Home Hero vol. 4

1. I had meetings that were supposed to go till five today but we got done by around 3:30!

2. Carla bought some baking potatoes the other day and I realized it was the perfect way to use the package of Trader Joe's frozen birria that we've had taking up space for like a year and a half at least, if the expiration date is anything to go by lol. It was a good amount for two servings (half a potato each, piled high with beef and cheese and plenty of broth). Not quite as good as the birria baked potatoes we had at Disneyland, though I feel like some cilantro would have helped on that front (forgot to buy any when we bought the cheese). Still, very tasty and very happy to use up something from the freezer.

3. Molly loves sitting on my lap, but she has not figured out how not to be completely awkward about it.