Might read something delightful

Might wear a lot of hats

Weekend greetings! What have you been up to this week? Trying to avoid the nonstop grievously bad news? I don’t have any platitudes to offer on that front. I have ranted in medicalese to my senators’ office aides. What I do have is fun recs! Distraction! Beauty! Joy! Personally, I’m tired of the phrase ‘glimmer,’ but, sure, here are some glimmers:

The other day I walked into my mom’s house and she looked up and said “I just finished one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.” It was a reissue of Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott. I downloaded it on my Libby app and read it as fast as one can read a book. Here’s an excerpt:

I went to look at the other McNally reissues, and discovered that Ex-Wife has a gift bundle where you can order the book and a hat. Below are the US and UK versions. I’m not planning to order the hat—my husband might find it confusing!—but this does bring me to another favorite topic. Literary hats.

Or, more specifically, how many literary hats is it reasonable to have?

clockwise: books are magic hat, 831 stories hat, jcrew new yorker hat, 831 stories

Anyway, hard to know how many would be unreasonable. But stop what you are doing and read Ex-Wife. It’s really uplifting and full of hope, and reminds me of a combination of The Great Gatsby, Awakening, The Bell Jar and Heartburn.

Second rec, very apropos of all things RFK, is the Netflix show Apple Cider Vinegar. I thought the storytelling in this show was excellent, and the handling of the medical profession quite fair. My sister had to abandon it because she thought it was too sad, but my husband and I really enjoyed it.

One last fun thing is all of the very interesting terms my kids have taught me. Besides the ubiquitous “bro-mom” as in “Bro-mom, I need to find the pump for the soccer ball,” here are some other terms I have enjoyed learning:

And here are some recent comics for Cup of Jo:

Which hot drink are you?

Have a nice weekend!