We have the blu-rays, too, so we’ll be fine, but we also have digital copies via Prime that were accidentally purchased by one of our children. What happens to those?

There’s really so much hope and beauty in that book, despite the circumstances.

Piranesi was amazing, and I can’t stop recommending it to everyone. Right now I’m reading ghost stories — Ellen Datlow’s Echoes collection and the stories of M.R. James. Because, you know, October.

We’ve been a one-car family since the beginning. What makes it possible is that we both take public transportation to work (or at least we did in the Before Times, in the Long Long Ago), and the kids walk or take a bus to school. Every few years a situation arises where we both need the car at the same time, and my…

VERY crispy is the only way to go!

Excuse me, but Christmas already got the Groundhog treatment with the genuinely delightful “12 Dates of Christmas,” starring Amy Smart and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (whose name I had to look up because I tend to get him confused with Ryan Reynolds).

It’s funny, I know a lot of people who despise the Lorelai character because she skates by so much on her charm and beauty, but I think she is the far more interesting character. How many privileged 17-year-olds would willingly give up wealth and comfort to take a job as a chambermaid while raising a child? She worked…

15 minutes to perfect tater tots? Crap. I’m going to have to buy another appliance, aren’t I?

Yup. I have to stay by my teenager with special needs from 8:40 to 1:30 to help him click on links, mute and unmute, etc. which makes it difficult to monitor my other teenager with milder needs, or my youngest, let alone work or cook or clean.

If I recall correctly, the ingredients and the actual steps are not copyrightable, but the specific wording of the steps is. As long as you rewrite the recipe in your own words, you are fine. Which is what a lot of bloggers do.

Mexican Gothic is on my to-read list. What other novels of hers do you recommend?

I’m doing my part by making popcorn almost every day.

Oh man, I feel you. I opted for hybrid, too, because the mental health of my oldest (significant special needs) got dramatically worse during remote learning in the spring. As in, engaging in self-harm constantly because he does not have the tools to deal with anxiety and depression. I flinch whenever I hear “I would…

My friend’s husband is a Star Wars purist (along with a lot of other fandoms) and frankly, it’s exhausting. I just want a fun show to watch!

I saw that episode only once, when it aired, and it has stayed with me all this time.

That voice is going to keep me from watching this movie, even if it gets stellar reviews.

This is what happened to my friend a few weeks ago. He had been fighting cancer successfully for years, then learned it was suddenly much worse than they thought, and just three days later he got an infection he couldn’t fight off and was dead within a day. It was fast and awful.

I’m super excited for Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.

The one positive thing I will say about Goodreads is that their star system takes into account how people tend to rate -- so 2 stars is “it was ok,” 3 “I liked it” and 4 “I loved it.” The prevalence of books rated 3.5-4 stars makes more sense then, because there’s no pretense of rating a book’s objective excellence,…

In general I find most hot apple ciders for sale too sweet. Everyone adds sugar in addition to the spices, which I think is a mistake; the cider should be plenty sweet enough on its own.