First bird of the new year - a Carolina Wren singing outside, before I even got up. I'm taking that as a good omen. 🥰 #birds

This whole thread! (Also, I got the exact same kit, also from my spouse, also for Xmas. I didn't wait nearly so long to put it together, tho.)

So I got Moderna's mNEXSPIKE vaccine yesterday. It's not the whole spike protein, just the tippy tail end. Ooo, doggy, my immune system responded. So today will be very low key. I got this version instead of the regular Spikevax because of my history of cancer.

Ug, this whole thread. I really wish the politicians who write laws for schools would work in a school for at least a couple of days. We always need more subs. #EdSky

Lots of snow & wind overnight but luckily we didn't lose power. But I don't know about driving anywhere today. ❄️🌨️💨 I mean, it rained all day yesterday (even some spots of thunder!) so there's likely a layer of ice under everything.

I stayed 'til 3 reading one of my Christmas books. (4 more to go, & probably a hundred more tbr.) Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series is lots of fun but I've been inconsistent on picking them up. So I read The Hanging Tree out of sequence. Still fun!

Finished up Spindle's End by Robin McKinley today. I chose it because Justine Eyre was the narrator, plus the winter adult reading contest has a "retelling of a classic" option. So this is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, complete with fairy godmothers & talking animals. 💙📚 📚🪐

23 December 1904 | Pole Adam Szybowicz was born in Krakow. An engineer. In #Auschwitz from 28 March 1942. No. 27408 He perished in the camp on 15 April 1942. --- 📖 "Poles at KL Auschwitz”: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_2020_06_polacy/

Somehow I missed seeing Gremlins when it came out, so I finally watched it last night. It's a horror movie for kids. & omigosh, the toy marketing potential of Gizmo! So now I'm curious about when Jonathan Rand started writing his horror stories for kids...

If ChatGPT writes it, ChatGPT might as well read it - I'm certainly not the intended audience. 😑

We're short a paraprofessional, the helper that comes with a group of kids. Wow, what a difference between the biology class with the helper & the one without. I am not sufficient by myself. (So fingers all crossed we hire another person soon...) #EduSky

Just finished the audiobook of Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brian Sanderson, read by Michael Kramer. Almost 25 hours! & I don't know how to spell anything. & there's 2 more books, plus another 4 set 300 years later. But now I'm ready for book group. 💙📚 📚🪐

I put this together for my husband. (We met in the book group he was hosting, in the bookstore he co-owned.) It was fun, no tools required - Everything snaps together or is stickers. Mostly wood, too. But it's only been since this summer & some of the stickers are getting loose.

#MedSky #IDSky #PublicHealth There is a widespread outbreak of #norovirus, a GI virus that causes projectile vomiting & profuse diarrhea usually lasting 24-48 hrs. Wastewater levels nationwide in 🇺🇸 are high. It’s miserable & incredibly contagious. So many friends are texting SOS, so here’s a 🧵. /1

We had a snow day so I finished up a long-incomplete book, Mindset by Carol Dweck. It feels like it's a foundational book in education. Rather than relying on other people's interpretations, I read it myself. 💙📚 #EduSky

Finished up another audiobook book yesterday. Bryony & Roses by T Kingfisher, read by Justine Eyre, is great. It's Beauty & the Beast, if Beauty was a gardener & the Beast was somewhat sarcastic. I heart practical heroines, & fairytale retellings. 💙📚 📚🪐 @tkingfisher.com

I work in a school. We have a mandated number of active shooter drills every year. School kids are shot & killed every year. Mostly by other kids or by white men. We just get thoughts & prayers. It's not the shooting they care about, it's the opportunity to advance their political agenda.

The next question: Did he trust the US to protect his family, only for his family to still be trapped there?

I listened to a couple of John Scalzi short stories while running errands last weekend. His books are all on Audible (according to him at some convention) but my library has Hoopla & Libby. Both stories are fun, of course, & snarky. 💙📚 📚🪐

Just finished another audiobook: Pseudoscience & Science Fiction, written by Andrew May & read by Steven Crossley. (The write-up said Dr Andrew May but the picture of the cover didn't.) It wasn't exactly a general audience book? Each chapter has an abstract, for example. 💙📚 📚🪐

I got COVID in September, when school started back up, & I've had a lingering cough ever since. Not a fan.

You can still get a copy of the limited special edition of THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS from Inkstone btw! Signed, numbered, sprayed edges and other fancy touches. Excellent gift for the bookish people in your life (if I do say so so myself) inkstonebooks.com/product/sain...

Want to nerd out about fonts & kerning (done badly)? This is the discussion for you!

Finished listening to Una trenza de hierba Sagrada (Braiding Sweetgrass) - written by Robin Wall Kimmerer, narrated by Marco Lubian. (The translator isn't listed. 😠) I read it for a book study a few years ago so this was to help with my Spanish learning. 💙📚

Finished up my next "30 minutes each week, if I'm lucky" book. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is fantastic. It's a book about growing up during apartheid - so it's terrible - but it's written by Trevor Noah - so it's hilarious. & it's full of good life lessons. & his mom is a force of nature. 💙📚

So at the new book signing last weekend, I picked up an *old* @jimchines.com book, a neat two-part fairy tale retelling. Christopher Kastensmidt wrote the "base" story & Jim wrote the interweaving story. What is *actually* up with Little Red Riding Hood & the Wolf? 💙📚 📚🪐

This will be a long thread on yesterday police massacre in Rio. In nothern Rio de Janeiro city, there is a couple of hills called Complexo da Penha. It's Comando Vermelho("Red Command", a drug gang), or CV, territory. CV is the greatest gang in Rio, second in the whole Brazil. +

I don't care so much about the celebrities but the crabs are stunning.

Our next book group selection is The Cat Who Saved Books, written by Sosuke Natsukawa, translated from Japanese to English by Louise Heal Kawai, & narrated by Kevin Shen. A reclusive high school kid lives with his bookstore-owning grandfather. Then his grampa dies & a talking cat shows up.

I know it's a small problem, but my key fob is dying. It's not the battery, it's the key fob itself. 😑

@jimchines.com When you come for the book party, could you also bring a couple goblin names? I gave Amelia Sands to a couple of girls when they were done with a quiz ... & maybe that was a bad idea. 😆

I had to pause my actual book, to listen to my book group book. Ann Leckie has written a fantasy novel, The Raven Tower, narrated by Adjoa Andoh. Think Hamlet - scheming uncle steals the throne - but with gods involved. 💙📚 📚🪐 @annleckie.com

For my book group, I listened to The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki & Gabrielle De Cuir. It's labeled as an ecothriller, based on the premise that mammoths can be "de-extincted" & returned to the Russian steppe. So, near future. 💙📚 📚🪐

Here's my 3rd errand today. They had homemade soups!

You will not be disappointed in this thread. (Unless you didn't like the movies. These might be better, then.)

Another long drive, another audiobook done! Nine Goblins by T Kingfisher was great! Funny, a little tragic, & on-the-nose about the joys of wildlife rehab. Basically, a ragtag team of goblins ends up *way* behind enemy lines & discover a horrible mystery. 💙📚 📚🪐 @tkingfisher.com

Had a long drive today so I listened to a whole book! (It was a short one.) Caitlin Doughty narrated her book Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death. It was lots of fun! As the name implied, it was a Q&A book, with the questions supplied by kids. 💙📚

Yesterday I finished up my commuting audiobook, The Secret Life of Words: English Words & Their Origins by Anne Curzan. It's actually a series of 36 lectures, put out by The Great Courses (she's a professor at University of Michigan). It was fantastic! So interesting! 💙📚

We interviewed a dog last night, then got fast food on the way home. It's been years since I've been in a McDonald's, I guess, because we had to order at a kiosk. We'd have gotten more human interaction going thru the drive-thru. Not a fan.

"No foul play", my ass. O look, I tripped & fell on this knife ... 97 times.

Well, fuck. Granted, it's "annoying cold"-level covid - but there's too many pop-up side effects & after effects. You can't trust this virus to stay innocuous. & so many kids at school are sick, & I bet they're not testing, & I bet their families don't know about sequelae.

Just finished the book group book: Rose/ House by Arkady Martine. It's good & creepy! & it's creepy in the right kind of ways that I'm also counting it as the Gothic novel for my library's fall reading challenge. The main character is arguably Rose House itself.

Ooo, an advance reader's copy of Slayers of Old by Jim C Hines! The cover kind of gives it all away - A trio of retired paranormal heroes have to save the world (again) from an eyeball-y & tentacle-y threat. This was my Labor Day weekend - Who needs to prepare for school? 😆 @jimchines.com 💙📚 📚🪐

OK, now I gotta see this. Frankenstein is my favorite monster movie & I'm excited to see a version that's closer to the book. Will it beat Young Frankenstein? It can try. 🥰

Another anatomically incorrect skeleton joins my collection. (There was also a cockroach but the fly won, because of its wings.)

I got The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (& narrated by Pete Cross, but the translator isn't listed) for the trip back from Chicago, since it was short. Ooo, very trippy, very surreal. I can see why it's still famous. (I do wonder what sort of bug he was.) 💙📚 📚🪐

Went to Chicago to visit family yesterday & finished From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty (& read by the author). She writes about visiting 8 different places with very different death rituals, looking at how communities support grieving families. 💙📚

Ug. I make a point of learning my students' names, especially how to pronounce them. I preface the first roll call with how nobody can spell my first name or pronounce my last name, so names are important to me. (Cuz there's always that kid who already says "no, it's fine". No, it's not.)

Hey friends, I have a former student who's beaten leukemia, but his meds just went up $600/month. Crowdfunding is underway; if you can donate and are so inclined, it would help enormously. I've done so and can personally vouch that it is legit. If you can, please use this Cashapp: $SHOWUP4LOU

Barred Owls have bracketed this day - before my alarm went off this morning & while I was walking just now. 🥰 (The sounds, not the birds themselves.)