A Month In The Life: September 2017

September is supposed to be sweater weather, right? Crispy leaves and a bite in the wind. But in Reno, our September started with a 100-degree weekend and took its sweet time about cooling down. Thankfully, we got a nice little cold front through and the first day of autumn was a chilly 60 degrees (with snow in the mountains). This ended up being a fairly mellow month, which was great because October promises to be rather busy indeed! In a good way, but it still was nice to have some chill time.

In Books...

• The Year of Magical Thinking: I'd never read Joan Didion's work before, but this memoir about living through the simultaneous loss of her husband and serious illness of her daughter was really powerful. I can't even imagine being so eloquent about such devastating experiences.
• Boys And Girls Together: This book was by the same author that wrote The Princess Bride, which I enjoyed, but I did not at all enjoy this one. While Goldman has a gift for characterization and dialogue, none of the five main characters, young dreamers who find themselves drawn to New York City, are good enough people to root for or compelling enough in their self-created dramas to get invested in. 
• The Sisters Chase: This was our book club pick for the month and I did not like it. It indulged in one of my least favorite writing "tricks": hiding information known by the characters from the reader to drive its narrative. It was just deeply not my kind of book and I found reading it to be incredibly frustrating. 
• Valley of the Dolls: This is the source material for a notoriously campy movie, and as such it should be no surprise that it's quite campy itself. There is an actual wig-snatching, y'all. At the same time, though, there's a real story here about the ways that the world preys on women. It's a good, entertaining read.
• Duel With The Devil: This book tells the story of the trial of Levi Weeks, who was accused of murder and defended by no less a legal team than Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Together, on the same side! It does a good job of setting the scene and providing the context for what was a sensational murder trial, but there's not really a lot of there there. 
• Stay With Me: This debut got a lot of hype, and I think that does it a disservice. It's a good book (the writing is lovely and Adebayo does some great characterization) but not a great one (some of the plot turns border on ludicrous). It's worth the read, though, if you're interested in it and I'll definitely be following Adeyabo's career and looking out for her next work.

In Life...

• Spent a weekend at Lake Tahoe: Just a couple weeks after going up to the lake with my mom, Drew's annual work convention was up there. So I took Friday off from work and joined him! I got to take my first-ever ride on the Heavenly Gondolas, which was really fun, and we made some new Australian friends! 
• Started working out again: This summer was so beastly hot that I stopped running outside, but now that it's reasonable out there again, I've gotten back to it. I'd managed to drop some necessary weight during session but gained it back over the past few months so I'm pushing myself to be physically active (and conscious of my consumption). 

One Thing:

My office manager first introduced me to this, but now I can't get enough of kombucha! Ever since I had my gallbladder out a few years back, I've had some lingering digestive issues, but this has really helped with those because of the probiotic content. There are definitely people who tout health benefits beyond that, so while I do generally feel pretty good since I've started drinking it daily, I also am usually pretty healthy so that might not mean much. I've tried a bunch of different kinds, and have to say that KeVita's Master Brew Grapefruit is my favorite...it tastes like a slightly sourer version of Squirt, one of my favorite sodas.

Gratuitous Pug Picture:

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A Month In The Life: September 2017