Books Read in May 2026

Bolded means favorite

Young Adult Fiction

Six Truths and a Lie by Ream Shukairy

Fiction

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 6 by Beth Brower
Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty

Not the one about household chores and mental load (I recommend that one, if you haven’t read it and have some chores/mental load things happening at your house) but instead both a friends/grief story and a murder mystery story.

The Goodreads average is quite low. I’m wondering if others also felt they were kind of dumb while reading this, as I did. I’m a golden retriever of reading though, I just amble along, despite not entirely getting it.

Nonfiction

DIY Thrift Flip: Sewing Techniques for Transforming Old Clothes into Fun, Wearable Fashions by April Yang, Coolirpa

The Handsewn Wardrobe: A Complete Guide to Making Your Own Clothes from Patternmaking to the Finishing Stitches by Louisa Owen Sonstroem

I don’t think hand sewing my wardrobe is in the cards for me right now, but if it ever is, I’m coming right back to this book. There is also pattern drafting info, and a healthy disclaimer that one need not either pattern draft or hand sew.

Spam Texts to “Patty”

For some reason, the spam texts have figured out that I went by Patty for the first 20 years of my life. Other than various internet reasons, I can’t figure out how they got that information, because even when I was Patty, I was registered to vote under my full name: Patricia.

But the Patty texts have been coming.

View from OHSU

My aunt and I had time to chill out in the cardiologist’s office at the OHSU building that isn’t on the hill, and after a bit of general staring out the window, I realized I was looking at the Fortress of Solitude, the place Matt and I lived before we bought our house.

That red-roofed house was on the street that peeled off from Barbur Boulevard, creating the triangle where our building was (and still is, though the lawyers aren’t there anymore.) The blue and orange building on the left are on the slope above our building; when there was a threat of ice, the people living there used to drive their cars down and park them in our building’s empty parking lot.

Not Oliver

I’ve seen an orange cat come through the yard of late, and there are signs up for a missing orange cat, Oliver. The cat never tarries though, so it’s been hard to get a picture.

Today though, I was out early delivering the Kenton newsletter, and here was the orange cat sitting on an enclosure for the apartments on the other side of Winchell, and I was able to get a picture.

Alas, it was not Oliver.

Dead Relatives Tour 2026 Part II

Matt and I visited the Rose City Cemetery to take care of the Greeks’s graves.

I didn’t have as many origami flowers this year, but enough for a nice sprig on Basil and Basiliky’s gravestone.

Unfortunately, the wind kicked up in the afternoon, and I suspect that another grave might now have the flowers.

Matt put Uncle Tom’s flowers up. We did not go as early as I did last year, so the building was open.

A good showing here for Timothy B. Anastas.

One exciting development: Mabel Collins still has her flowers from last year!

They are faded, due to being outside, but didn’t blow away!