Weekly Journal 8.11.26

Reading

My "light reading" during last weekend's family vacation was the harrowing story of a woman's disappearance and murder in upstate New York in 1991. The book, Catch the Sparrow, was written by the victim's stepsister, who sadly was never able to meet the victim before she disappeared. I appreciated the author's almost immediate acknowledgment that we have a cultural problem with fixating on crimes against white, attractive women (like the subject of this book) while people of color go missing and are killed at much higher rates. She also doesn't shy away from saying that men are the number one threat to women's safety in the world.

Apart from the social lessons, the book is a very good and very sad true crime tale. Serious content warning for descriptions of violence against women and children.

Watching

While looking for something light and dumb, I watched the documentary series Pepsi, Where's my Jet? from several years ago. My husband disagrees with me that the Pepsi ad offering a military-grade jet in exchange for 7 million Pepsi Points was an obvious joke. Far be it from me to land on the side of a multinational conglomerate, but I think the guy's crusade for the jet was a waste of their time. The documentary was also essentially a waste of time. However, it entertained me while I laid on the couch with a bout of vertigo.

Cooking

I made a serviceable ribeye steak on the scratched, slightly bowed surface of a skillet that came with the kitchen of a small cabin we stayed in over the weekend. I hadn't used a stove with a gas burner in a while and worried that I would overdo the meat, but I think it came out at a near-perfect medium temperature. I sauteed some green beans from our home garden to go with it, plus a bottle of red wine from the resort's general store. We weren't there long enough to finish the bottle, so I'd like to think the housekeeping staff enjoyed a glass or two the night we left.

Doing

Our vacation was in magnificent national forestland near Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States. It was fun to take our son to the lake for the first time. The skies were clear, no wildfire smoke visible nearby. We talked about how a volcanic eruption resulted in the crater and in lava flows that formed many of the rocks observed in the region. I read the informational signs and thought wistfully about when I briefly declared Natural Resources Interpretation as my college major. I could have made a (non-lucrative) career educating the public about our natural environment, creating trailside signs and museum exhibits. I may have then resigned in despair circa 2020, when a vocal segment of the public turned against science.

There were many small, wonderful moments in the woods. My favorite was encountering deer on a trail walk with my son. It was early evening, and a few of them had crossed the trail to drink from the creek. We saw a couple of them leap up from the water's edge and presumably back into the trees, but then we rounded a corner and were surprised to see a doe and her fawn ambling on the trail directly in front of us, an easy stone's throw away. Mama Deer stopped to stare at us. We stared back and tried to convey that we meant no harm. She seemed to decide that we were alright, and turned to keep walking in the same direction we were heading. After a minute, she stopped and turned her head again. We stopped too: a sign of respect that we didn't want to encroach on their space. Mama Deer was still leery of us and decided to lead her fawn back into the woods at that point.

We named them Beauty and Beauty, Jr.

Listening

During a "Car Ride Karaoke" playlist, my son heard the first few measures of "Pink Pony Club" and asked what song it was. He liked it instantly. I love this song, too. How could you not?