Winter Wonderland (not!)

What I'm Watching 

New episodes of “Vienna Blood” to be continued next week and the week after.

Watched the first episode. It’s a bit over-the-top in its faithfulness to the book.

Dreaming of Birds in Trinidad

Current Reading

I found my very old paperback edition of this classic by Nobelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It’s a very dense read to say the least. Long & long-winded. I’m not its perfect audience.
I was curious about how it would be made into a Netflick. Now I know.

Sometimes One Hundred Years of Solitude makes me think of Dickens. Each Dickens novel has at least one very eccentric or unusual character that’s not quite natural, but very exaggerated, and these characters provide contrasts with the other characters who are more naturalistic (though not 100%). But in this book ALL the characters are eccentric, unusual, bizarre, and beyond realistic. And sometimes it’s too strange for me. In other words, Dickens had a little slant towards magical realism, before the genre had a nice name.

One strange passage from the strange book—

“He was convinced that his own officers were lying to him. He fought with the Duke of Marlborough. ‘The best friend a person has,’ he would say at that time, ‘is one who has just died.’ He was weary of the uncertainty, of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, wearier, even more in the position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. There was always someone outside of the chalk cirde. Someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whooping cough, or someone who wanted to go of and sleep forever because he could not stand the shit taste of the war in his mouth and who, nevertheless, stood at attention to inform him: ‘Everything normal, colonel.’ And normality was precisely the most fearful part of that infinite war: nothing ever happened. Alone, abandoned by his premonitions, fleeing the chill that was to accompany him until death, he sought a last refuge in Macondo in the warmth of his oldest memories. His indolence was so serious that when they announced the arrival of a commission from his party that was authorized to discuss the stalemate of the war, he rolled over in his hammock without completely waking up.” (p. 161)

Another classic that I’ve been wanting to revisit. This one is fun.

An extremely short and not very satisfying sequel to
Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Rather insipid illustrations.

Eating Out

Coffee at our local Argus Coffee shop.

Downtown: a fun diner. Wish I remembered its name! Can’t find it online.

New fried chicken shop in Maple Village Shopping Center: food pretty good, service lousy.

Carol’s Great Cooking

Carol invited us for dinner: bouillabaisse and fougasse (a special flatbread with olives)

The Back Wall of Zingerman’s Roadhouse

We haven’t eaten here lately. We should do it soon.

Sharing with the weekend people: Eileen’s Critters, Deb’s Sunday Salon, and Sami’s Murals.

Photos © 2025 mae sander for maefood.blogspot.com