Time to read: 9 minutes
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 26 of 52: “Adam’s Rib”
Book of the Week: “The West Passage”
French Study
We Can Have Nice Things
Whew, July was a month and a half. First, thank you so much to everyone who chipped in to my little birthday fundraiser at the end of June. I wasn’t well enough to do anything socially to celebrate my 40th—the highlight of my day was eating a popsicle while lying down—so it meant a lot to simply be materially supported in my illness. After the first three donation notifications, I was so touched that I teared up and internally declared my silly little birthday idea a success. All told, 18 people took the time to help me prepare for what I’m considering my treatment “boss level” this autumn. It was as close to feeling surrounded by friends as I’m able to get right now, and it was incredibly meaningful. Thank you so, so much.
July was a terribly rough month thanks to it starting off with two solid weeks of fireworks. Every single night, sometimes for hours, starting June 29 and really only starting to taper off around July 12. And of course July 4th was particularly bad, but really that whole weekend was awful. The thing is: my health is riding on such a knife’s edge all the time, that one night of poor sleep can cause me to deteriorate pretty quickly. But a straight fortnight of bad nights of sleep—that’s getting truly physically dangerous for me at that point. So the entire month of July has pretty much been one long, disastrous crash, and painfully slow recovery.
I’m starting to feel somewhat back to baseline, and the good news is that the oral amphotericin B we started me on a couple weeks ago is possibly already beginning to show some benefit. I’m feeling small-but-noticeable improvements in my muscles that make me suspicious of something good underfoot. Time will tell. I don’t want to get my hopes up yet. I’m just going to stick to the plan, and keep observing data. I’ll be getting some gut test results back this week, and that’ll help determine anything else we may want to start me on prior to beginning, at last, antibiotics for Lyme. More on that medical inside baseball next time.
July was so rough that I’m even running behind on my Katharine Hepburn movie watching! So there may be some upcoming weeks where I review double headers. I’ve just got one for you this week, though, since the one after this is “The African Queen” and I suspect I’ll want to give that one enough room for a review on its own, since I know it’s one of her more well-known movies. But I do have a book review for you this week!, in addition to the usual little life bits. C’est parti!
The Timbit Times
I’ve been the excited owner of a Bird Buddy for a while now, but have only just recently gotten around to hiring someone to actually install it outside for me. It’s a smart bird feeder: it has a video camera and will send push notifications to your phone when a bird is visiting! You can then take video or a photo, and the app will help you identify your chirpy friend. Recently they released new functionality that will attempt to distinguish among different individuals of the same species and let you name them in the app!, which made my heart want to explode from cuteness so much that I finally got around to getting it installed. The bad news is: I think I chose a bad spot in the yard, because it’s been a few days and no birds have visited it yet. 😦 I’ve got some suet balls coming in the mail, though. I’m going to try putting one of those on the feeder before I declare defeat and ask the handyman to come back to try installing it somewhere else.
Kate Film Club, 26 of 52:
“Adam’s Rib” (1949)
He’s a prosecutor, she’s a defense attorney, and they’re trying opposite sides of the same case! This is another Hepburn and Tracy film, and I think their off-screen romance lends particularly great chemistry here. The characters in the movie clearly have deeply affection for each other, and that affection is profoundly tested during a murder trial for a woman who shot her husband upon finding him with his mistress.
In terms of genre, I think this movie lives somewhere in-between dramedy and romantic comedy. They’re already a couple, but their relationship is strained to the breaking point, so it’s not obvious how it’s going to end. I also really liked a lot of the directoral choices, which seems to be a running thing with me and George Cukor movies. It’s both funny and more than a little depressing that many of the issues of sexism the movie deals with, we’re still dealing with 75 years later. But the overall tone of the movie is humorous, even in its tougher moments, and the brief drag moments near the end of the trial were particularly great given this was the 1940s. The ending was a little cheesy, but it didn’t overshadow what was on the whole an enjoyable watch.
(This movie marks my halfway point in watching every Katharine Hepburn movie! Heck yeah!)
Rating: 3/5 – A perfectly fine film.
Where to watch: Available for streaming rental on Apple or Amazon.
Quote: “I don’t make the rules.” “Sure you do. We all do.”
Book of the Week: “The West Passage” by Jared Pechaček
Hey! I read a book! Earlier in July I was struggling to try to finish “La Princesse des Clèves” for a French book club, but between not enjoying that book, and the aforementioned fireworks obsession of my neighborhood, I set it aside unfinished. I had seen some folks excited for the release of “The West Passage” on Bluesky, so I decided why not hop on the bandwagon and read a book in English for a relaxing change of pace.
Oh, ho. Did I say relaxing? Ok, well, this book is not that. I also still found myself reaching for the dictionary at least once a chapter despite this book being written in my first language. But other than that–this is a truly great read. It’s not going to be for everyone. It’s grim. But also whimsical. It’s…grimsical? Yeah! And charming in its grimsy.
Here’s the gist: there’s a giant, world-spanning palace with five main Towers, each governed by a deity-ruler (or disputed among a few) known as the Ladies. A point that is repeatedly driven home is that the palace has been in decline for many, many years by the time this story begins. But rather than feeling heavy-handed, that emphasis on how things are falling into ruin parallels my own real-life feelings about what it means to be living in a society and planet that’s likely in decline. If not permanently so, then at least as part of a cycle. But who can know, while inside of it, whether a decline is permanent or will be saved from the brink at some point? This uncertainty is also echoed in the book. It gave me a lot to think about.
My perpetually tinkering-with-ideas brain also appreciated the system of names being assigned per roles in society, the delightfully-mundane fluidity of pronouns, and the sense of duty that the two main characters grapple with. Would I want to live in this world? No. Is it a world that’s going to stick in my thoughts for a while, for the better? Yes.
Overall, I would enthusiastically recommend this book. I will warn you it’s not for everyone though. You’ll be able to tell after the first chapter if you’re signed on for the ride or not. But multi-faceted, thought-provoking treasures await you if you decide to go on the journey.
French Study
As I mentioned above, I abandoned “La Princesse des Clèves” halfway through. I’m a little bummed I didn’t like it enough to finish, because it appears to be a book that all high schoolers in France are expected to read, so there’s probably some important cultural references to pick up there. But I just don’t have enough energy these days to even do all of the enjoyable intellectual activities I want to do, so why spend energy budget on something I’m not enjoying!
The silver lining though, is I discovered a neat language-learning hack. The version of the book I bought happened to be an edition geared towards high schoolers studying for “le bac”, a sort of high school exit exam that’s administered nationally in France. There were some margin notes to explain archaic language, finer points of grammar, or to clue us in to historical figures we may not know about; as well as entire separate sections between chapters and at the end to aid analysis and interpretation of the story and its important elements. Even if I don’t return to this book anytime soon, I’m glad I stumbled upon this type of helpful format, and I’ll probably keep my eye out for other classics in this format in the future!
We Can Have Nice Things
Whew, I’m not going to sugar-coat it. July was a rough month for trying to find beauty in life. I was so incapacitated for much of the month that even watching tv was difficult or off-limits entirely. I did decide to sign back up with a personal chef service (this is different than a private chef, and more affordable) that I’ve used in the past, to take the meal planning pressure off myself. It’s been a nice change to get to work with someone that’s excited for the challenge of working within my dietary restrictions. I’ve really been struggling with the severity of my restrictions recently, and having someone with fresh energy to bring to the topic has been a kindness.
That’s all I got for this time, but it’s something.
Kate Violette 